Last Summer in Ireland

She looked up into the darkness. Through the smoke hole a single star shone in the deep midnight sky. Outside there were myriads of stars, so still and perfect the night, but from her bed she could see but one, solitary, in all that great gathering.

That was exactly how she felt. She was surrounded by people, she was close enough to touch them, speak to them, to share food with them, but all the time she remained separate. Isolated. She wondered if anyone in all Emain felt as she did, lying wide-eyed on her narrow wooden couch.

She turned onto her side, curling the woollen rug around her, seeking comfort more than warmth. She closed her eyes. Immediately she stood again in the Hall of Council. She heard Conor’s voice.

‘You lie. Your name is not Deara. It is Deirdre.’

She shivered, the memory as fearful as the moment itself had been. Yes, she was Deirdre. She bore a name given to no girl-child in all the tribes of the land. Deirdre. Deirdre of the Sorrows. Any child old enough to sit by a campfire could tell you the tale by heart. It was not the name itself but the manner of her name-giving that called up anxiety and despair within her, an aching pain, which Merdaine herself had not been able to heal, the hurt of memories which Conor would never allow to rest.

Her mind began to fill with images. Now they had begun she had no power to stop them. She felt her body stiffen, her fingernails bite the softness of her palms, her chest tighten as if to restrain her racing heart.

The horses’ hooves were drumming in her ears. Faster and faster they came, clods of earth thrown back as they galloped towards Emain and the safety of the stockades. But it was too far. With weapons flashing in the moonlight the warriors turned aside to the grove on the far hillside to make what defence they could against the assailants who had lain in wait for them almost at the entrance to their own encampment. They gathered close around a woman in their midst. Half-crazed by fear and noise the white mare crashed between the trees and stopped abruptly in the small clearing which surrounded the stone altar to the God. The woman, white as the mare she rode, half slid, half fell to the ground. She lay there writhing in pain as the warriors made what brief defence they could against the encircling host.

Tears streamed down Deara’s face, her body began to shake uncontrollably. Let it come, said Merdaine. To heal the pain you must let yourself feel it. You must accept it. Do not fight it, do not deny it. Deny it and you give it power. Accept it and it becomes part of you, subject to your own power.

She had not understood. Nor did she understand now. And now there was no Merdaine to comfort her, to wipe away her tears and assure her that one day the images would go, that remembrance would no longer be like a knife in her heart.

She could see the woman now. She lay exhausted against the God’s altar beyond the fallen lords of Emain. Across the valley horns rang out, the alarm was raised, but above the noise of warriors riding out in pursuit of the raiders came a far more menacing sound.

‘There she is, there is the evil of which I warned you. The one for whom our best warriors have given their lives so worthlessly, their honour ensnared by her evil spells. Kill her, my friends. Avenge your dead comrades.’

Conor, his staff raised in his hands, his eyes glittering, burst into the clearing, a group of young warriors at his elbow. Swords drawn, ready to do battle with the whole host of Tara, they faltered as they saw in the moonlight the dark, still shapes which lay before them and the deadly-white face of a woman in a blood-soaked gown. In that moment of stillness they heard, as Deara now did, the tiny mewing cry of a newborn child.

‘Why do you pause? Think you this is a woman? Nay, no woman this, but evil itself in woman’s garb. See she spawns evil as she has spawned death on this hillside. Come despatch her and her cub. Let us make them a sacrifice to Lug that he will give us vengeance for Tagganath and all our brave kin. What use this Nodons, this mealy-mouthed God who cures warts for hags and protects not our bravest and best? Away with them.’

The warriors surged forward. The woman raised her head. Her voice was but a whisper, but there was no fear in it. All there heard her speak.

‘Kill me if you will – gladly I go – but not this child. Here do I name her Deirdre. Sorrow is her birthright and sorrow she shall know, but the greatest sorrow of all comes to him that shall wish her harm.’

With enormous effort the woman gathered herself, so that she sat upright, her back against the stone altar in front of the well, the child cradled in her lap.

‘Send me a woman of your tribe.’

‘Woman? To be your slave? A slave’s slave?’

Conor roared in fury. He stepped from the darkness of the encircling trees into the moonlight, his dark shadow enlarged by the flicker of torches which had now been brought.

‘Stand aside, Conor.’

It was Merdaine who spoke. It was she who wrapped the child in her cloak and waved the warriors away.

‘This woman’s blood is spilt already. Go home and comfort your wives and mothers. There are dead enough to carry to the fires.’

Deara wept.

She wept for her mother who died in Merdaine’s arms. And she wept for Merdaine. She wept for the women who knelt by the bodies of husband, or son. She wept for the sorrow in the face of the brehon, the fear in the eyes of the King. She wept till her arms were damp with tears and the star had faded from the smoke hole. Then she fell asleep.

Long after dawn had broken she woke, her dream still alive in her memory. She had been walking in sunshine, across fields of kingcups. Green and gold. The colours beloved of the God. It was a sign. She knew now what she must do. Merdaine’s parting gift, the kingcups, refreshed now in the cool shadows of the hut, must be offered for Sennach, for the healing of his spirit. She must make haste with her morning duties.

The God’s well was not far from Emain. Beyond the outer rampart it lay just across the valley in a small hawthorn grove, the surviving trees of a wood which once covered the whole hillside.

At one time, individuals as well as those who served the God would visit the well. They would leave an offering, tie a scrap of fabric to the branches and ask for healing for the person from whose tunic the fragment had been cut. Merdaine could remember a time when the thorns had blossomed with tokens all the year round. Now, few people went there except herself.

Deara went often, either to fetch water for infusions, for the water from the God’s well was pure and clear and had never failed, or to pray for the sick. It was many years now since Merdaine had come with her. As soon as Deara was strong enough to bear the water pitcher by herself she had sent her alone, saying that she would worship in her own place. So Deara had come to know hours of quiet, the only times in the crowded life of the encampment when she was alone. Alone, and yet never troubled by the loneliness which was her companion in the midst of the crowded encampment. Her visits to the God’s well were always welcome. Today was no exception.

As she set off down the dusty path, Deara was aware of a sense of excitement. Some flicker of happiness had rekindled within her. Drawing warmth from the brilliant sunshine and power from the upturned faces of buttercups and daisies strewn amid the grass of the wayside, it grew stronger as she crossed the valley and made her way up the slope beyond.

It was five days since she had brought back the full pitcher to wash Merdaine’s body. Now the hawthorns carried the first touch of blossom. The familiar heavy scent drifted towards her on heat-shimmered air as she followed the thread of a path through the encircling trees. The place was deserted and full of deep stillness. Before her lay the stone altar on which she would offer Merdaine’s parting gift.

She bowed her head, closed her eyes and repeated the prayer of greeting. Its words were so very familiar. She had learnt them when she was seven years old, when Brega, wife of Dairmid, her foster-mother, had brought her to Merdaine to begin her service. On that very first day, she had stood at this spot and repeated them line by line after Merdaine. Today, it seemed as if she heard them for the first time. She asked the God for help, knowing without doubt that in some way her request would be granted.

She opened her eyes, then blinked them again in amazement. The altar had gone. The encircling thorn trees had gone. Everything known and familiar had disappeared. Where the wall had been there stood three old thorns. Beneath them, stretched out across a piece of stone lay a woman in strange clothes, her dark hair tangled about her. She was crying in sore distress, the fierceness of her sobs shaking her narrow shoulders.

Deara’s first thought was of her mother.

But how could her mother wear such strange clothing? Besides, this woman was not with child. Her body was slim, her long, dark hair had not been braided as it would be were she betrothed or married. She wore the frayed and sun-bleached breeches that slaves usually wear, but her feet, which were bare like a slave’s, were neither brown from the sun, nor broken from toil. Above the waist she wore a tunic, so short she had to put it inside the breeches, and of so fine a stuff that she could see the fine tracery of some undergarment that enfolded the woman’s breasts.

Deara took a step forward. As she watched, the woman rolled over, sat up and wiped her eyes. Her face was red and blotched with crying. On her left wrist the woman wore a gold band set with a colourless gem. There were two rings on a finger of the same hand: one plain, one set with small blue gems. She couldn’t possibly be a slave, for it was forbidden by law for a slave to wear gold. Indeed, it was even forbidden for them to carry gold for their master or mistress.

The woman’s tears caught at Deara’s heart. What could she do to heal such distress?

‘Ask your heart what to do.’

Merdaine’s words came to Deara just as they had come in the Hall of Council. She stepped forward. ‘Have you come to be healed?’ she asked softly.

The woman looked up, startled, her grey eyes full of amazement. She was much older than Deara had imagined from the shape of her body. The body was that of a maiden, but the lines in her face suggested that she was in her fourth decade.

Deara looked around the unfamiliar place as if it might somehow explain the presence of the woman. But there was not a single thing she recognised. Apart from the warmth of the sun and the blossom on the trees, everything seemed strange. Near the crest of the hill beyond the thorns was a building unlike any she had ever seen. The walls were of square red stones, all the same size, and they were pierced by dark shapes in which she could see not only reflections of trees which were behind her, but also objects which lay beyond the walls. Between her and this place was a shorn meadow. It had stripes upon it as when the wind blows, but they ran in contrary directions. Not a single wildflower grew on this space, which was the size of two cattle pens.

Beyond, there were flowers. Great, brilliant splashes of purple and white and gold. But all the flowers grew among boulders. How could there be nourishment for such profusion?

She looked down again at the woman. She had taken her hands from her face and had stopped crying. It was clear now what was wrong. The half-closed eyes were always a sign. She knew now what she must do.

She laid down the pitcher and the offering she was carrying and showed the woman her empty hands. Then she moved gently towards her, careful not to startle her. The woman did not move. The grey eyes regarded her steadily but without fear. Deara smiled and put her hand on the woman’s forehead. No wonder she had cried. Beneath her hand, she felt the pain oscillate, pulsing and contracting. She put her other hand at the back of the woman’s neck, closed her eyes, and began to pray to the God.

As she prayed she followed the lines of pain from temple, to neck and to shoulders. The lines were red and deep. Her fingers traced them, pressing gently, always keeping the body steady, the balance even, like a cup of wine that one carries over unraked rushes. The lines went all the way to the woman’s waist. It was some time before they responded to her touch and she felt the patterns change. The hard, sore places began to dissolve, she felt them disperse as the darkness that had invaded the body dissolved and its own light grew again.

An image flickered into Deara’s mind as it always did when she healed. However often it happened, it could still take her by surprise. The skill of release Merdaine had taught her and made her practice till she was able to read a back like a plan of a country, tracing out which paths led to which centres, which paths were near the surface, which buried deep, which revealed the pain and which concealed it. Reading the images that came as the pain went, however, was a very different matter. Reading these could not be taught, Merdaine had said, because they were the gift of the God. They could only be used with the guidance that came from her own heart.

She had tried to be open to what was given. Already she knew that what she saw was always related to the source of pain. If she spoke of her seeing to the one in pain, at first the pain would grow stronger, but then, if they could bear the distress and speak of what was revealed to them when the pain increased, the pain would fade away. Often it did not return.

Deara opened her eyes and looked down at the woman whose body she touched. She sat quite still, head slightly bowed, eyes closed. There were traces of blue eyepaint on her lids and dark smudges below her eyes. But the red swelling had gone, the skin was soft and smooth – not young, but not hardened as many women’s faces were by hardship or bitterness.

She closed her eyes once again and let the images come.

A child. Running across the shorn meadow, in its hands a piece of blue parchment. The child kneels by the boulders, tears the parchment. From it drops seeds. One by one, with great care, the child makes holes with its finger, drops one seed into each hole, for there is after all soil between the boulders. Now a woman comes. Speaks words in anger. Sends the child away, scratches in the earth, finds the seeds and takes away the blue parchment.

The image fades. Another shapes. It is the same child grown taller. She is sitting by herself beneath trees talking to someone. But there is no playmate to be seen. The woman appears again. She moves silently behind the trees and listens to what the child is saying. Then she steps out. The child jumps in fright and the woman laughs, becomes angry, speaks quickly, and sends her away.

Deara lifted her right hand from the woman’s shoulder and opened her eyes. The images she could not understand. Clearly the child was she who was in pain. The woman had harmed her in some way. But in what way she could not tell, for she could not share the image. She had no words this woman would understand, for she was of another tribe.

The pain, however, would go now. She could do no more. She addressed the God, spoke the prayer of thanksgiving, made the sign of the coiled snake for the woman’s protection and took her left hand away.

The woman looked up, smiled and spoke.

They were words of thanks. Deara was quite clear about that. But the words themselves were quite unfamiliar. She thought of traders and travellers she had met, but not even they had spoken in this manner. She felt sad. Sad that this woman was not her mother, that she could not speak to her, or give her a draught from the God’s well to speed her recovery.

She made a sign of lying down to sleep.

The woman nodded, but did not go on her way to her sleeping place. She had stretched out a hand towards her. It came to Deara that perhaps the woman needed a token from the God. She picked up the flowers of her offering, chose a bloom that had both a flower and a bud, and handed it to her.

For a moment she was intensely aware of this woman on whom she had laid her hands. She saw her as if from a very long way away, sensing a great space between them. But at the same time, she was also intensely aware that she knew this woman. She felt a familiarity, an intimacy, that she had never before known with any other person. It was as if her hands had touched some secret part of the woman’s being, known to few, perhaps not even to the woman herself.

Deara watched the woman’s hand reach out for the token she offered. She was aware of the grey eyes smiling, the touch of the woman’s fingertips. In the same moment she experienced a strange, shimmering weariness and then knew herself to be alone.

She sighed and looked around her. Gone. Yes, she had gone. And everything else as well. The old trees, the stone on which she had sat, the shorn meadow and the strange dwelling place. In front of her stood the familiar worn stone coping of the God’s well. The fading flowers of her last offering dropped their petals around the base of the small earthenware jug which held them. Driven by the warm breeze they fluttered into the lush grass which grew where the water always splashed down from newly drawn pitchers.

For a few moments Deara stood, poised between joy and sorrow, elated by hope and possibility, yet saddened by the brevity of this strange meeting.

Then, into the stillness of the deserted grove, where only birdsong broke the heavy somnolence of the afternoon, came words of comfort. Merdaine’s words, spoken in this place, when she had talked to Deara about joy.

‘Joy, true joy, comes but rarely, but when it does, cherish it. Cherish the moments you have without longing for others.’

Deara took the flowers of her offering and looked at them. It was the moments she had just been given that she must cherish. For them she would give thanks.

8

Two days after the estate agent’s visit to Anacarrig, a lengthy communication dropped through the letterbox. He thanked me for my kind instructions, repeated all he’d said about the state of the market, the possibility of finding the right kind of buyer and the likelihood of achieving a satisfactory sale. He named a selling price which amazed me. But it was his final paragraph that left me feeling agitated and upset for the rest of the morning.

He regretted he’d been unable to advertise in this week’s local papers because the photographs of the property were not available until Thursday afternoon. However, he’d gone ahead with putting the house in the Belfast Telegraph, as we’d agreed. Their weekend property guide had a wide circulation, he assured me, and as his firm’s offices remained open all day on Saturdays he would no doubt be in touch with me to arrange viewing for this coming weekend.

Working so hard all week to get the house ready for viewing, it just hadn’t struck me I could end up having to show people round so soon. The thought appalled me. I realised with a shock that I wanted to see no one here at Anacarrig.

For a whole week I’d hardly spoken to a soul. Apart from the estate agent, the only other person was the mechanic who was working on Mother’s car. He’d called in on his way home from work to let me know why it was taking so long. A matter of a part that hadn’t been sent when it was ordered. Mr Neill had rung to ask if I needed anything from the shops in Armagh, but I’d reassured him that Sandy had filled the freezer so full I’d have a job eating it all up before it was time to leave.

I would have phoned my dear friend, Helen, but she was still in Oxford on her course. Joan had gone to visit a cousin in Rye, Sandy was somewhere in France buying old farmhouses and my beloved Matthew was visiting hill villages north of Maharajpur a dozen miles at least from the nearest telephone.

I hadn’t been aware of my solitariness at all. In fact, I had actually enjoyed being on my own. Tears of disappointment and frustration sprang to my eyes as I read the letter a second time and imagined what would happen when the phone started to ring.

And, of course, I had a rotten morning as a consequence, the kind where nothing you begin to do can be carried through. Some tool, or code number, or critical piece of information just isn’t available and you can’t get on without it. It got so bad at one point and I felt so irritable that I just couldn’t keep going. I took myself off across the lawn and down to the hawthorns. I hoped if I sat down and composed myself something might come to comfort or inspire me. But nothing happened. All I was aware of was the scratch of the worn stone against the seat of my jeans, the buzz of an insect swooping around behind me, the clacking racket of some new piece of machinery in the farmyard across the road and a dull throb in my lower back. Of my friend, Deara, there was no trace. I simply couldn’t reach her.

I gave up eventually, tramped back to the kitchen feeling thoroughly upset, climbed awkwardly up onto the work surface, took down the curtains and put them in the washing machine. After the morning’s record of disasters, I could hardly believe my luck when I pulled the switch and it actually worked. I watched the curtains swoop and fall, swoop and fall, and was strangely comforted by the rhythmic swish of the rotating drum.

‘All things pass, however ghastly.’ The words took shape of their own accord. Yes, it was true. There was no doubt I’d feel better in an hour, or a day, or a couple of days. What I did while they did their passing was the problem.

Not surprisingly, I ended up in the garden and although I worked much more slowly than usual I made some progress. I trimmed my way along the sandstone path at the foot of the rockery, taking out the dead leaves from the flourishing succulents that spread over the warm flagstones. I touched their bright rosettes, each fat point tipped with red. I began to feel it was far better to get on like this and do what I could manage than to strain after something way beyond my present capacity.

After a time, I leaned back on my kneelers, stretched my aching neck and turned it towards the sun, so its warmth would be like a gentle hand on the tight muscles. The thought of Deara and the brooch she had carried from the Hall of Council came into my mind. I’d caught only a glimpse of it: dark, gleaming metal inset with bright points of colour.

I spread some loosened soil on the path in front of me and traced its circular outline with my finger, hoping I might recall the pattern of its subtle, intertwining spirals. But what happened was very different. My finger bit deeper into the soil, but it was not the soil of the Anacarrig garden.

Startled, I looked around me. The path had gone. There was no garden around me, no house perched on the terrace above me. I was kneeling on the soft, dusty edge of a small, sloping vineyard through which a stony path led upwards to the hilltop. A low colonnaded villa with a tiled roof stood silent in the warm sun. There was no sign of anyone about.

I stood up and ran my eyes around the countryside spread out below me, hoping to find some familiar landmark. But there were none. Apart from the pink and gold touch of autumn on a cluster of chestnut trees nearby, there was nothing remotely familiar in the whole landscape to tell me where I might be.

The valley below was densely wooded. Only in the distance where I saw the gleam of water did the woodland give way to lush green meadows. Cattle were grazing there – angular, bony creatures, shaggy and hollow-chested, a far cry from the plump Frisians and the well-fed Shorthorns on the farms close to Anacarrig.

Apart from the villa, there were no other signs of human habitation, though there were trackways, criss-crossing the water-meadows and disappearing into the woodland. From where I stood, the path ran downhill and joined a more substantial causeway at the bottom. This stony track skirted the hill, cut through the woodland to the water-meadows and then disappeared again into more woodland away to my left.