Last Summer in Ireland

6

It was two o’clock in the morning when I put down my pen, pulled off my clothes and crawled back under the crumpled duvet, but when I woke next morning and saw what I had written I was so excited by it I ran downstairs full of a bubbling sense of joy. It was so strong that even the dreary list of jobs I jotted down while I drank my second cup of coffee could not extinguish it.

‘A touch of the Monday shit,’ my friend Sheila would say. She has three children under ten and a husband passionate about all kinds of do-it-yourself. She dreads Monday morning. Left to face the wreckage of the weekend, she steels herself for that moment, back from school, when she pushes open the front door, walks through the empty house and sizes up the full enormity of the task that faces her.

Today I would be keeping her company. The estate agent was coming on Wednesday, so the debris generated by the funeral and our attempts at a preliminary sort would have to be dealt with and the whole house made clean and tidy. And then, there was the woodwork.

I sighed. Beautifully painted only two years ago, the white woodwork throughout the house had suffered a year of Mother’s cigarette smoke and a year of neglect. Sandy and I had tried wiping a damp cloth over one of the worst bits. We’d produced a dirty streak and confirmed the source of the nasty smell we noticed the moment we stepped into the closed up rooms. There was masses of it; doors, skirtings, picture rails, banisters, windows, built-in shelves and assorted ledges.

I put on the immersion, heated up enough water for a home confinement and got stuck in. I really did surprise myself. Whether I was so far away inside my head that I didn’t notice what I was doing, or whether I had a sudden burst of energy, I don’t know, but by lunch time I’d done so well I reckoned I could allow myself to go out into the garden.

I’d already made a beginning, but the flowerbeds were still a sorry sight. Encouraged by the sudden warmth, weeds were growing even more vigorously than the carefully chosen perennials, tall plants leant at drunken angles or squashed less lofty specimens, while winter’s damage had left behind empty spaces and dead foliage. My fingers itched to put things right, to restore the shape and form my father had created, a shape and form my mother had never troubled herself to modify. Somehow I felt I owed it to my father to restore what he had so lovingly created.

Morning and evening I did whatever needed doing indoors, but through most of the long hours of daylight I worked in the garden, following the shadows on the flowerbeds so I could move plants that were overcrowded and fill up the empty spaces that spoilt the overall effect. And from the moment I picked up a trowel everything I had learnt from my father came back to me.

‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ he would say, when I read out the instructions on the back of a packet of seeds. ‘Not all plants have read the book, you know.’

That’s what he used always to say when some job needed doing at the wrong time of day, or in the wrong season, or to the wrong plant.

‘If you move a plant when it’s in flower, it will die,’ he would say cheerfully, as he dug it up and carried it carefully across the garden. ‘Seedlings should be potted up when they are two inches high,’ he would intone as he gently separated the roots from a flourishing boxful three times that height. ‘A plant is more interested in growth than in obeying the rules,’ he would say dryly. ‘Plants can’t read books, they just get on with what they need to do.’

He would have been proud of me those first few days when I pruned and moved and planted out with a gay abandon quite at odds with my normal caution. And not a single seedling wilted. Things grew as if they were grateful for being given the space they needed, the light and air they craved.

Everything I touched flourished as if by magic. And then the day the spirea bloomed, its branches weighed down with clusters of delicate white flowers, I suddenly remembered my old childhood fantasy.

‘One day,’ I said to myself, ‘I shall have a magic ring, a huge ring set with masses of small white stones.’

I had picked a single blossom from the small spirea bush and held it between my fingers. Pretending the cluster of tiny flowers was the boss of my magic ring, I walked solemnly round the garden.

‘Everything I point this ring at will grow especially well.’ I picked up a broken twig and continued on my way. ‘Everything I touch with this wand of willow will turn into whatever I want it to turn into and any one who’s ill whom I touch with my hands will immediately get better.’

I looked up at the magnificent spirea towering above me and laughed to myself. Would a child in the 1980s entertain such imaginings? Or was it only that their fantasy moved in different directions, into space or time travelling?

I had no answer, but all through the day as I tucked self-sown seedlings into spaces I made for them and stroked their leaves as I firmed in the soil around them – the way my father always did – I was acutely aware of what an imaginative child I must have been and how rudely my fantasy world was shattered when I lost my father’s sheltering presence.

For my mother had no time at all for imagination. Indeed, she was actively hostile to even the mildest flights of fancy. I could even remember her objecting to an essay I’d been given for homework: ‘A Day in the Life of a Penny.’ I hadn’t been much enamoured of it myself, but she had been quite virulent. Wasting time on such nonsense. That wasn’t what she’d sent us to the High School for.

So what on earth would she make of the experience I’d had yesterday, when this girl called Deara came and healed my migraine, and then by some means I still couldn’t even guess at, had begun to share her life with me through the images that came to me unbidden, asleep and awake?

As I worked my way round the garden, once more my mind filled with the images I’d had both sitting under the hawthorns and later while I slept. I found I could call them back so easily and as I went over them again and again I found I was asking questions of them, trying to fit together the fragments that had come to me. Who was this woman, Merdaine, for instance, of whom Deara seemed to be so fond? Clearly not her mother. So what had happened to her mother? And what about brothers and sisters? She seemed a solitary person and yet someone who could be very loving.

It was on my third afternoon in the garden that I started dropping things. I knocked the bloom off a plant I was tying carefully to a stake and was furious with myself. The more I tried to calm down, the more anxious and restless I became. Increasingly, I felt as if there was something terribly important I hadn’t done. Something awful would happen if I didn’t pay attention and do it right away.

I told myself to stop being silly. Things had been going well; the estate agent had come, spent two hours measuring and taking photographs and made a special note about the well-stocked garden. He’d even complimented me on how well the rockeries were looking. The house was immaculately tidy, the woodwork pristine and the only smell was a hint of lavender polish and the varied perfumes of jugs and vases of blossom and flowers.

In the end I put down my tools and walked straight across the lawn to the hawthorns. The moment I sat down on my stone under their shade, the agitation ceased. ‘It’s Deara,’ I said to myself. ‘She needs me. She’s in some kind of trouble and I must try to help her.’

Without giving any thought to what I was doing, I propped myself against the trunk of the largest hawthorn, shut my eyes and tried to bring her to mind.

Immediately, there she was, leaving the hut where I had first seen her with the old woman, Merdaine. She walked slowly uphill towards a much larger building near the top of the great mound. I could tell by the way she walked that she was uneasy, reluctant and fearful. At the same time it was clear to me she was determined to do whatever it was she had to do.

I leaned back and concentrated all my attention on the slim figure walking slowly away from me.

It was three days after Merdaine’s burial before the King held Council again. Although it was the custom to observe such a period of mourning on the death of a close relative, it was also Morrough’s custom to disregard any observance which was not to his liking. So although Merdaine had been mother’s sister to him, many were surprised that he made no attempt to go to the Hall of Council.

It was not only Morrough who acknowledged Merdaine’s passing. An unfamiliar hush lay over the whole encampment. Deara noticed it as she took up her usual tasks again, waiting as best she might to see what her future would be. There was turbulence, foreboding almost, which made her think of those days when the thunderclouds mass and the Gods vent their wrath upon human kind.

Yet on the surface there was no visible change in the pattern of daily life. The weather continued warm and fine, the cattle grew fat on the lush pastures and the cooking pots were full every day. Women span in the sunshine and ground barley out of doors, their shifts or tunics drawn high in their kirtles to benefit from the sun. But their chatter seemed less noisy, their glances less direct. Many of them feared Merdaine, for she had a sharp tongue and tolerated little foolishness; nevertheless, she was part of their life, stable and secure. Her going left a space which few of them had the slightest idea how to fill.

For Deara, the days passed with incredible slowness. From first light till sundown seemed an eternity of time. She found it hard to sleep in the empty hut and lay wide-eyed in the darkness, seeing again the days of her childhood, her meeting with Merdaine, and all the hours she had spent by her side learning the herblore, making infusions, grinding willow bark, blending spices, repeating and repeating all the recipes, mixtures, prescriptions and laws which Merdaine herself knew. Often her head had ached and the words tangled till she thought she would never understand anything. But it had come. Like the welcome to Nodons, the words had finally stood still. They were hers for ever. As were the parting words Merdaine had spoken to her. She had repeated them to herself as often as any poem or prayer.

The words would stay with her. She would have need of them and of all Merdaine’s wisdom, for on the third day after the burial fires she must go to the Hall of Council bearing Merdaine’s brooch to Morrough, the King.

Deara had never before entered the Hall of Council for it was not a place where women might go, unless, of course, they had a petition to make, or were party to a dispute. Today, as she joined the groups of people making their way between the King’s Hall and the storehouses, she felt full of dread. However much she had tried to master her feelings, she knew she was afraid. Lying awake in the short summer night, part of her wanted to run away, to slip out of the well-gate which was never guarded these days, and disappear into the Long Wood. Another part of her argued that it would be no use. There was nowhere to run to, no neighbouring encampment to shelter her. And besides, although she bore no slave mark, for Merdaine had refused to permit it, her situation would be obvious. A slave was a slave and the law tracts were quite specific as to how they were to be treated. No, there was no escape that way.

‘Cumail, where do you think you are going?’

Deara stopped short by the doorway of the hall and turned to face the man who had spoken. It was Conor. Only he would call her ‘slave’ instead of using the name the woman who had nursed her had given her, or even the commonly used word, ‘handmaiden’.

She looked him full in the face. ‘I go to petition the King.’

‘Oh ho, and by what right does a female cumail enter the Hall of Council?’

‘By the right of pledge and token given. I act as the Lady Merdaine instructed me.’

‘Pledge? Token?’

Conor’s face grew red and he spluttered in fury. These days everyone was challenging his authority. The King rarely consulted him and then ignored his advice, the brehon looked through him, the bard had taken to making jokes at his expense, and now this slip of a girl was quoting the law tracts at him, looking at him quite directly, not even shading her eyes as a woman should when addressing a King’s Druid.

‘Show me the pledge. Here, let me see it,’ he demanded angrily.

Deara regarded him steadily, her grey eyes taking in the deep flush which suffused his face, the pulsating veins at the side of his neck. This man was ill, wounded in spirit by his own weakness. But the illness could not be cured by medicine or healing. Only those disorders of spirit recognised by the sufferer could be treated. Conor would admit no weakness. So, like a wounded animal, he would defend himself by attacking anyone who crossed him.

‘I am bidden to show the pledge only to the King. It is not for a cumail to disobey even for Conor, son of Art, chief of the Druids of the Ullaid.’

She cast her eyes to the ground and hoped the gesture might appease him. But the heavy body did not move aside. Not till a quiet, world-weary voice intervened.

‘Let the girl go, Conor. The Council will deal with her.’

She looked up and saw a thin hand wave her past. Sennach, the brehon, a tall, emaciated man, pale like a plant grown in deep shade, an unsmiling man, meticulous, moderate in all things. She wondered how a man could live with so little joy.

The Hall was full as she took her place on the lowest bench, nearest the door. The heat was intense already and the smell of men and hounds made her long for the woods and fields. Almost immediately her thin linen tunic began to stick to her back where it touched the wall behind her. She fingered the brooch in the woven purse tied to her kirtle and settled to wait.

Because of the heat, the door of the Hall stood open and a broad shaft of sunlight fell amongst the gathering. It picked out the gold ornaments of the warriors, the worn clothes of the freedmen and the brindled fur of the hunting hounds who lay at the King’s feet. As the morning moved on, so the beam of light moved from left to right. Deara thought of Merdaine’s finger pointing at the patterns she had drawn in the ash with a piece of stick.

‘Come now, child, the brehon sits on the King’s right hand, the Druid on his left. Now who is this? And this? And this?’

Deara had learned their names, their ranks and titles, the position which each must occupy. She knew who might address the King, what decisions he would be asked to make, how agreements were made, sureties given, how the law was to be enforced. When other children played at seven stones or touch-and-run, Deara had moved stones in battles and raids fought long ago, had drawn in the dust the heroes and kings of every part of Ireland. She had sailed in willow bark ships to Albi and Gaul, Dalriada and the land of the Bretons, and always Merdaine was there asking her questions, punishing her if she forgot the genealogy of Niall, or Cui Roy, or Maeve of Connaught, the names of the tribes of Albi, or the rank order at a King’s Council.

At noon, a woman left a pitcher of water by the door and a warrior took a drinking horn to the King. The heat grew steadily stronger as the Hall became less crowded. Throughout the morning clients had stated their cases. As time passed, the King had grown steadily more irritable. A big, heavy man, he sat with his head half-turned from his petitioners, as if his mind was somewhere else. From time to time he would interrupt, ask a question, pretend he had not understood what was said. Then he would shout and abuse both plaintiff and defendant, threatening what he would have done to such troublesome clients. The punishments he described were brutal, but they did not in themselves alarm Deara. Not only was it part of Morrough’s usual way of behaving, it was a tradition, a reminder of bloodier times past and a restatement of the King’s enormous power. But it did remind Deara, if reminder she needed, that there was little in either law tract or tradition to protect a female slave.

It was late afternoon by the time her turn came. The water from the pitcher had long gone and her left arm was burning from where the sun had caught it as it moved across the open door. But she was grateful as she rose to her feet and crossed the now empty Hall to kneel before the King.

‘The handmaiden of the Lady Merdaine begs by pledge and token to petition her Lord and King, Morrough, son of Ferdagh, ruler . . .’

‘Enough girl, enough. The day has been long. What do you want of me?’

Deara bent to take the brooch from its place at her waist, and saw that Conor, who had dozed most of the afternoon, had stirred himself. He was now looking at her intently.

‘Sire, the Lady Merdaine bade me give you this as token of the pledge made between you and her last Samain.’

‘Pledge, what pledge?’

Morrough turned to look at her, as she held the inlaid brooch towards him.

‘What’s your name, girl?’

‘Deara, my Lord.’

‘No, my Lord it is not, the girl lies, as cumail always lie, her name is Deirdre.’

It was Conor who had spoken. Deara saw the familiar flush suffuse his face.

‘Deirdre? What of it, Druid?’

‘If my Lord would but give me leave to speak, then it would be clear to him. Was it not Art, my father, that warned Carrig Dhu, my Lord’s brother, of the doom that awaited him in the wood of Carore? And was it not I that prophesied my Lord’s taking of Emain and all the lands of the Ullaid?’

Deara watched the King’s face, the brooch in her hand still proffered towards him.

‘Speak then, Druid. Tell me what enchantment this Deirdre is to bring upon us.’

Morrough snatched the brooch from her and turned it over in his fingers, his body turned towards the Druid, his eyes still upon her.

‘Lord, at your command I tended the Lady in her sickness that I might perform those rites which would restore her to health. But, Lord, I was defeated in my purposes. I, Conor, who have served at all the shrines and brought peace and prosperity to Emain these many years, I was defeated by this Deirdre who has lied in the Hall of Council. This girl bewitched the Lady Merdaine with hand passes and with potions so that she was spirit lost. Then she tied back the hanging and called the God. I could not stop her for I was powerless to resist, held immobile as was the Lady by her wicked powers. And since the Lady’s untimely death my Lord has had news, dark news I think, for my powers are not fully restored to me. Lord, this girl bears the name of sorrow. Sorrow she has brought and yet more will she bring. Evil she has done to the Lady Merdaine, evil she will bring to this place and to my Lord if she be not cast out. The Lady, sister to your good mother, nourished in her bosom a snake. Out of goodness, she took this outcast, a child spawned on a hillside, by a woman whose wickedness brought sorrow to Tara, death to our warriors and the breaking of a treaty, joined again only with the greatest of toil by the King and his loyal servants.