Blasket Spirit Read online

  STORIES FROM THE ISLANDS

  BLASKET Spirit

  ANITA FENNELLY

  The Collins

  Press

  ‘…it is an ever-fixèd mark

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

  It is the star to every wandering bark…’

  William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116.

  First Days

  In June, I settled into my tiny stone dwelling on the Great Blasket Island. The bad weather moved in with me. The clouds rolled in from the Atlantic, shrouding Slea Head, Dún Chaoin and the Three Sisters in a blanket of mist. Below the mist, white spray exploded on the dark cliffs of the Kerry coastline.

  On the island, the ruined village was just visible under the cloud topping. The ferries stopped that day, leaving four Canadian tourists and me as the only overnight visitors. The Canadians disappeared over to the hostel, which used to be the home of the writer Peig Sayers in years gone by. I settled into my cowshed home, catching the leaks from the roof in a bucket and saucepan. My great plan to explore the island would have to be put on hold for a few days at least, the weather forecast being terrible. I resigned myself to reading and inventing endless menu variations of tinned fish and rice.

  After two days and two nights, the relentless roar of the surf breaking on the White Strand was as familiar as my heartbeat. I insulated my cowshed by squashing wet moss and peaty soil into the holes where daylight gaped through the stone walls. I hung an old blanket over the door in a vain effort to keep the wind from whistling through the cracks. At times, the blanket billowed horizontally into the room, making nonsense of my endeavours. During the brief respites from the rainfall, I walked along the White Strand and wept. The roaring of the waves drowned my cries.

  Three seals monitored my daily progress, ducking and bobbing in the rollers close to the shore. When I shouted, they came closer, eyeballing me curiously. They came so close, I could see their long white lashes and huge dark eyes. Looking into those eyes, I could believe that seals truly are the souls of drowned fishermen. At times, they lifted their heads and as one, turned their snouts away from the next wave. Occasionally, I could catch the sound of their barks over the waves. Early on, I christened them the Beverley Sisters.

  Apart from the Beverley Sisters, my interaction with other living things was non-existent. Since I had waved goodbye to the ferryman and collected the key from the weaver, I had not spoken to another human being. I had noticed four colourful sets of Day-Glo rainwear bowed into the wind on the northern cliffs, beyond the strand. They had to belong to the Canadians. A man and woman moved frequently between the hostel and the cafe. Presumably they were the owners. I had not seen my ferryman since he disappeared into the white house on the southern end of the island the day the ferries stopped running. There seemed to be some other people in the white house too. From time to time, strains of fiddle music drifted on the wind over the island. An ache of loneliness cut through me every time I heard it. I wanted to go closer to the house to listen, but I never could. I could not handle the prospect of being invited in and having to make small talk. Back home, during the school term, I managed an Oscar-winning performance as teacher, comedienne and counsellor. After work, in the evenings, alone, I was consumed by the black comedy that had become my life. For several years I had felt as if I was observing my life from outside a window. I turned away from the ferryman’s window and retreated into the sanctuary of my hut. It was easier that way.

  From the one tiny window I could see the nearby island of Beiginis laced with a collar of billowing surf. Between it and the Great Blasket Island the red and blue ferries dipped and rocked helplessly. The Atlantic roared in the pit of my stomach. I sat on the sheepskin on the chair. Thirty minutes must have passed before I realised that I was staring again. My eyes had been fixed on the ferns and the pennywort plants growing from the walls around the bunk. For that half hour I had seen nothing, as my mind was dragged through the past few years yet again. Without my usual frantic distractions, the horror gripped me. Sickened with shock, I stood up and pulled on my saturated walking boots and raincoat. The rain drenched my face as I opened the door. I had to tire myself physically before I could sleep.

  I headed up and around the south end of the island, the headland they call An Gob, leaving the ferryman’s house far below. The fiddle was quiet. I imagined the two ferryman brothers having dinner with parents, wives and children. Once more, I could hardly see anything through the blur of tears. Salty water was what made the seals cry but I could blame the wind and driving rain. I leaned into the southwesterly wind and concentrated my mind on every laboured footstep as I climbed. The critical timing of breath and step obliterated the swirling grey world around me. Breath and step. In and out, on and up. Survival depended on clinging to the beat of breath and step. How long could I dull every cell in my body with the rhythm before a jolt of realisation, a lurch in my stomach winded me?

  Suddenly I was forced to stop. A black-headed ewe blocked my path. She eyed me curiously, her soaked head cocked. I stared back at her helplessly. I wondered what she saw. Was I physically there at all? She did not move. The cloud had come right down on the cliff path before me. In the sea mist loomed the silhouettes of Inis Mhic Uibhleain and Inis na Bró. Darkness was falling quickly. The ewe held her ground.

  She waited until I had stepped aside, defeated, before she trotted off the path into the mist and disappeared.

  The cloud swirled around me, shrouding me in a cocoon of greyness. All definition and depth disappeared. One foot sank deep into a rabbit hole. The other foot struck an invisible rock, jolting my back. I had no sense of where I was. I stood silently as the sky floated by me. Through the veils of mist filtered the muffled thud of surf on the rocks far below. It became the one reality in my dark world. I stumbled in shadows. The rhythmic boom of the waves became the only thing to focus on. The sound was my salvation. I staggered blindly to the cliff edge.

  Suddenly, the rhythm of the surf was broken, as voices pierced the cloud from close by. Giggles and chatter filled the air. As the mist drifted, I became aware of two small shadows above me on the path. They must have spotted me, for they were standing, facing my direction. I turned away from the cliff edge and struggled back up in the direction of the path, cutting in a safe distance ahead of the voices.

  By the time I had rounded the headland, out of the mist and into the view of the deserted village, it was dark. The last of the grey light to the west of Inis Tuaisceart revealed the shapes of rocks, shoreline and the ruined village. As I came to the bottom of the path, and turned right past the well, I could see the yellow candlelit square of the weaver’s door. I stopped and stared at the wonder of it for a while. Suddenly, the weaver’s figure stood in the light and drew the darkness across it. I felt desperately alone.

  As I fumbled with the bolt, I heard giggling behind me. The pair from the path had caught up on me. I couldn’t open the door fast enough. I would have to turn and acknowledge them. In the rain and the darkness two figures came strolling down the path from the direction of the cafe. At the ruined cottage called the Dáil, just above my hut, they stopped. Were they looking at me? I couldn’t tell if they could make out my form standing motionless in the dark shadow of the hut. On the other hand, I had the advantage of the western sky acting as their backdrop. They were young children. The taller of the two silhouettes had long skinny arms and matchstick legs under a knee-length dress. The smaller girl was the giddier one. They seemed to gaze in my direction for some time before the skinny one, squealing with delight, pulled her friend off down the hill. I heard one call the other ‘Lish’. After they disappeared into the darkness, I went inside, lit a candle and put a pot of water on the gas stove. I felt shaken and strangely relieve
d.

  The few words I had heard them speaking were in Irish. Maybe ‘Lish’ was short for ‘Eilish’. The ferryman and his brother talked and joked in Irish. When they spoke on the VHF radio on the ferry, it was in Irish. Just like the young children on the pier in Dún Chaoin on the day I had crossed over to the island, these little girls spoke Irish effortlessly. When the little boy on the pier fell and cut his finger that day, wails and sobs punctuated his tragic account of the accident in Irish. When I tried to console him in English, he looked at me, confused, and ran off crying.

  Next morning I was woken by a gentle scratching sound. I did not move, convinced that I had a mouse nosing around the shelf above my head. Only when I heard a chirp did I dare to look. A cock robin had come in under the eaves, and was investigating my bag of Flahavan’s porridge. Having satisfied himself with that, he fluttered down onto my walking boots and pecked busily at the wet clay on the toecap. Then, for no particular reason, he flew back up onto the shelf, ducked his head under the eaves and was gone.

  View of the Dáil from inside Ray Stagle’s cowshed.

  It was 6 a.m. It had been my first uninterrupted night’s sleep in over four years. I lay for some time in the warmth of the sleeping bag, aware of the unfamiliar feeling of rest and peace of mind. When I rose, I pulled on my raincoat and went out to the well to fill the saucepan. The air was cold and damp and the mist was still drenching. The living houses of the weaver and the ferryman and the hostel still slept. Their doors were closed. The dead houses of the village slumped against the hillside, their crumpled shells gaping stark and open. A rabbit nibbled furiously in the empty doorway of the old Dáil where the little girls had been the previous evening. I smiled now when I thought of them. I tried to convince myself that they could not have seen me at the cliff edge.

  I read for most of that day and took the odd walk along the White Strand, accompanied as usual by the Beverley Sisters. Back in the hut I wore out a path between the chair and the door, keeping an eye out for the two little girls. Yet if I were to meet them again, I did not know if I would be able to bring myself to talk to them. I had my chocolate bar, the highlight of my rations, waiting for them on the shelf. By nine that night I had not seen them. The only people I had spotted all day were the four Canadians kicking a ball in the drizzle on the beach and the weaver emptying a basin of water out of the back of her cottage in the afternoon. It was dark now. I closed the door and wept. The radio usually distracted me, so I turned it on but, to my dismay, the exhausted batteries failed almost immediately.

  It was then that I had my second encounter with the children. As I turned off the radio, I heard them giggling outside. I opened the door, casting a square of candlelight onto the two little girls who stood there, hand in hand. They both smiled and the smaller girl waved shyly at me. In the light I got a much clearer look at them. The smaller girl had thick black hair cut dead straight just below her ears, and an equally severe style of fringe. Her broad smile revealed a big gap in the front where her baby teeth had been. She must have been six or seven years old. First Holy Communion photographs are synonymous with toothless smiles. ‘Hello’, I said. They just giggled. I tried my best ‘Dia dhuit’. That elicited no response either. I should have said ‘Dia dhaoibh’. Perhaps my feeble attempt at Irish was nothing they could understand. We continued to smile at each other. The little girl stood with her feet turned in, each set of toes taking turns to cover the other. The weaver always walked around barefoot too: it seemed the most practical thing to do on the island, but not the warmest on such a wet night. I asked the children if they would like some chocolate. True to form, they continued to prattle in Irish, and ignored what I’d said. In anticipation of the robin’s dawn visit, I had put the chocolate in my robin-and mouse-proof jar. When I came back to the door, the children had gone; I just glimpsed them disappearing into the ruins below my path. By the time I had my coat on, and had found the torch, there was no sign of them. I wondered at their parents allowing them to wander around in the dark. Then I wondered at my own judgmental attitude. This was surely the way to bring up children: laughing and carefree. Two grubby faces with two equally grubby dresses, playing with rabbits, donkeys and lambs, in sand, sea and heather.

  I ended up below the ferryman’s house. Inside, the fiddle started up and shadows passed across the butter-yellow of the candlelit squares. I guessed the girls were running between the cafe and the ferryman’s house. I considered knocking on the door and leaving in the chocolate for them, but lost the courage before I had barely formed the idea.

  When the robin woke me on his dawn expedition the next morning, I realised that, once again, I had had a full night’s sleep. I turned over and watched him pecking at the crumbs I had left on the floor beside my boots, which stood dark, heavy, cold and sodden with water. I decided that I would not bother with them that day. (In fact, I never bothered with them again for the rest of my stay on the island.)

  The thrill of walking on wet grass, peat, heather, sand and sea in bare feet never diminished. My feet felt alive. I felt alive! I walked around the northwest of the island in the rain. My feet slid into puddles of brown peaty water, then gripped on dead heather roots at the path’s edge. I reached the place known as the crossroads, the belt buckle of the island where the north and south roads join. From here, the paths merged and disappeared up along the spine of the island and into the mist. I opted to return on the southern path that I had walked the previous evening in the dark. One false step and I would tumble almost 300 metres to my death. It would be like falling off a roof, the steepest and highest roof in the world. I shuddered when I realised how close I had been to that fall.

  Later, back in the hut, I was absorbed and busy. I swept out the sand and the grass with a bunch of dead heather branches that I had tied together with a hair band. I washed out some clothes in a basin by the well. I searched the beach for hollow stones, which would act as safe holders for my candles and tea lights. Finally, I made a little pot of vegetable stew, adding wild thyme and nettle leaves picked on my walk. In the glow of my new candlelight arrangement, I sat down to enjoy my dinner. Just then, I heard the two little girls approach the door. I was ready with the chocolate this time as I opened the door. They stood there, hand in hand yet again, beaming at me. Before I could say a thing, they waved at me and took off down the hill and into the ruin.

  I called out and followed them. There was no sign of them in the ruin, but I knew they were watching me. ‘Well, if you don’t want your chocolate, I’ll just have to leave it for the rabbits.’ With that, I held up the chocolate bar and pretended to place it on the crumbling windowsill. ‘Enjoy it, rabbits. Slán.’ I sauntered back to the hut, watching out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t spot them but I knew they had me under observation. I giggled to myself back inside. How long would it be before they ran past again, looking for their chocolate on their way home? By the time an hour had passed, I had heard nothing, so I sneaked down to the ruin. There was no sign of them.

  Next morning, the robin woke me and the sound of thundering waves surged through me. I lay there feeling quite pleased with myself. I thought of the two funny little girls, and laughed aloud. The bird stopped pecking and looked up, startled by the unexpected sound. We looked at each other momentarily; then he resumed his breakfast. I quietly opened my book, The Blasket Islands by Joan and Ray Stagles, and picked up reading from where I had left off the previous night. A seagull feather marked the chapter on the village and its houses; a small map on the next page showed each dwelling-house on the island, and gave its owner’s name. I searched for the little cowshed in which I was sleeping. It was Joan and Ray Stagles who had put the roof on the cowshed, which was clearly marked on the map below the well called Tobar na Croise. With the seagull feather I traced down to house number 3, the building that my two little friends always played in. It was marked as the old National School. I fell asleep again.

  I woke some time later to the sound of water sloshing outside at t
he well, where my ferryman stood, toothbrush in hand and a blue towel draped around his shoulders. ‘I’m taking the Canadians off the island this morning. There’s another huge depression coming in, and the long-range forecast is bad, so if you want to get off the island, you’d better be ready at the slipway in ten minutes.’

  I was stunned. The urgency of what he was suggesting was out of sync with my pace of life over the previous few days. Realising he needed to clarify himself, he added, ‘Seán is closing the cafe and going out to the mainland too. We’ll be taking the ferries into shelter in Dingle, so you’ll have no way off unless you come now.’

  I didn’t know what to do. Why would I go back to the mainland? ‘When will you be coming back to the island again?’ I asked.

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m telling you? I don’t know. The long-range forecast isn’t good. It will only be yourself and the weaver on the island if you stay.’

  ‘So you’re all going off. You’re taking your family off too?’

  ‘Lorcan’s taking his own boat across.’

  From his look, I knew he was losing patience. ‘And the children – you’ll be taking them across too?’

  ‘I don’t have children.’ He looked at me impatiently. ‘Now are you coming or what?’

  ‘Sorry. They must belong to someone in the hostel then.’

  ‘There are no children in on the island. There’s Seán in the cafe and Laura, four Canadian walkers, me, my brother and three other fellas, the weaver and yourself. Now, are you coming?’

  All I wanted to do was run inside. The heat of confusion burned through me. There were children on the island. I had met them three times. I could not understand why he would deny their existence.

  He started off down the path, calling ‘You’ve got ten minutes. The weather won’t wait.’ I went back into the hut and sat on the chair. I could not get motivated to roll up my sleeping bag and pack my stove and the few things. After ten minutes, it was evident that some part of me had made a decision. I was going to remain in on the Great Blasket Island.