Blasket Spirit Read online

  ‘I’m sure you milked it for as long as you could.’

  ‘I did: my fifteen minutes of fame. We heard that the ferryman left Dún Chaoin shortly afterwards and went to England. On the day of our trip, his ferry was in Wales for maintenance work, so he decided to take us across in inflatable dinghies – those were the days when none of us had heard of Health and Safety Statements. So that’s it – my school trip to the Great Blasket Island. I’ve often thought about it since, and wanted to see the place again… so here I am.’

  ‘Have you still got the kettle?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I have. It’s at home by the fire in my study.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring it back here?’

  ‘I suppose if I left it here now, some little vandal like I was would take it, or the yellow digger over there would bury it in the foundations of the new restaurant.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’re allowed to go ahead with that. It will destroy the island. Surely people are opposed to it?’

  ‘They are, but the problem is that many of the dwellings on the island were sold to an American about thirty years ago. Taylor Collings was a pilot from Alabama, with some idea for a holiday island. Ireland was a lot shorter of cash then, and most people sold him their holdings for a song. Subsequently, a local property developer bought up the houses from Collings and that’s how all this came about.’

  ‘It’s the spirit of the island as it is that people come to experience. Development won’t be long about ruining that,’ Michael said.

  ‘So will you never bring the kettle back then?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I might. If it becomes a National Park, or maybe even a World Heritage Site, then the kettle comes back.’

  ‘I think that’s called blackmail,’ Michael smiled.

  ‘If that’s what it takes. Kearney’s kettle will only return to the island as it is.’

  Happy Moonday

  The next morning was the first time for weeks that Owen’s boat had appeared on the sea. Owen, a brother of the twin ferrymen, advertised boat trips around the outer Blasket Islands, but his vessel had been in Dingle with engine trouble since my arrival. At last I would have a chance to visit An Téaracht, with its lighthouse and hundreds of puffins. I would see Inis na Bró, with its spectacular sea arch and cathedral rocks. And then Inis Mhic Uibhleain, with its magical fairy music and C. J. Haughey’s herd of red deer. Maybe I would even persuade Owen to drop me off.

  I raced down the path, sliding on the morning dew, to ask Sue to radio Owen to make sure that he would call into the island to pick me up. Next, I hurried back up to the hut, throwing binoculars, camera, bread, banana and water bottle into my bag. I slung it over my shoulder and pulled the door to, just as Michael hailed me from the lower path.

  ‘Hello, Anita. By any chance has Sarah been with you this morning?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen her.’

  He looked down over the island, at a loss, flattening his hair, over and over again. ‘I don’t know what’s got into her. We’re supposed to be getting the first ferry off the island today. She hasn’t even packed, and she never came back for her breakfast. I can’t find her anywhere.’

  ‘Did you have a falling out?’

  ‘No, not at all. She was upset last night, I suppose, at the idea of the end of the holiday. I won’t see her until the Halloween break. She was off form and then just refused to talk to me, which is most unlike her. Now, she’s disappeared. I’ve tried Seán and Laura, but they haven’t seen her either. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘It sounds as if she wants to be on her own for a while. Maybe you need to give her time, and she’ll come back when she’s ready. I’m sure nothing has happened.’

  Michael did not look so sure. He paced, scanning the clifftops. Then he flopped down onto the grassy bank, holding his forehead in his hands.

  ‘Just give me a few minutes,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Sue to be on the lookout.’ I ran down the path at high speed for the second time that morning, bursting in Sue’s door. ‘Cancel Owen. I can’t go, sorry.’ After a few words in Irish over the radio, we watched the little boat change course, and disappear around the headland. Sue headed to check the slipway for Sarah as I climbed back up the hill to Michael.

  ‘Michael, Sarah came for a short walk with me yesterday and the morning before. She may have gone to either place. I can’t imagine that she would have walked to the back of the island on her own, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, let’s start with those two places. You take one, and I’ll take the other. Head up the south path, behind the weaver’s to the point, up there. That’s An Gob, where I took her whale-watching the other day. As you round the first turn, you’ll see the Skelligs, two pyramid-shaped islands on the horizon. Once you spot them, you’ll see huge white rocks immediately to your left. You’ll have to climb down to them. She may be sitting in under one of them, in the sunshine. If not, just continue around to the crossroads and up to the fort. I’m sure she won’t have gone any farther than that.’

  ‘OK, I’ll head off this minute. Where will you go?’

  ‘The Gravel Strand and Seal Cove, and then I’ll go to the fort by the north path. It will take me longer to get there, so if I don’t appear, just head back by the north path and we’ll meet up.’

  ‘Right. Thank you. I’m sure she’s fine, but I can’t help being worried.’

  ‘I know. Go on! See you later.’

  I cut across the banks and through the ruins to the cliff overlooking the beach. There was no sign of Sarah. Just then Sigrid came by on the cliff path. She agreed to search the beach and the village. As I walked the cliffs, around to the Gravel Strand, the Beverley Sisters kept pace with me offshore. Three business-like cormorants flapped a dead straight line over the waves between us, in their usual hell-bent fashion. A skylark rose on spirals of song, piercing the morning air.

  The dark north-facing cliffs of the Gravel Strand were blind to the early morning sunshine. They cast wedges of black shadow across the narrow inlet, varnishing the toes of their radiant south-facing sisters in oily damp shade. At one tiny place, the sunny cliff wall had managed to pull in her skirts far enough to reveal a bright bight of warm sunshine on the pebbles. In that white triangle of light huddled Sarah’s small figure. I was halfway down the steep climb before I called out to her. She buried her face in her knees and did not respond. As I dropped noisily onto crunching pebbles, she still ignored me.

  ‘Hi Sarah. Been for a swim yet?’

  Without looking up, she shook her head, obviously crying.

  ‘Mind if I squeeze into your sunshine?’

  She moved to the side, making room for the two of us in the sunny patch.

  ‘I think you’re right. It’s probably too chilly down here for a swim.’ We sat for a while without speaking. I watched the black water swell and sink against sequinned rock walls. Sarah wept quietly. ‘If you tell me, maybe I can help.’ She shook her head and suddenly erupted into loud, helpless sobbing.

  ‘You can’t,’ she cried. ‘It won’t… stop. It won’t… go away and I… I can’t tell Dad. I don’t… know what… to do.’

  ‘Can you tell me what won’t stop, Sarah?’ Through gasps and tears, Sarah told me what had happened.

  ‘It came last night, but… it didn’t go. I thought… you got… it for only a few hours, but it was still here… this morning. What will I do? It won’t go away.’ She was shocked, afraid and utterly confused. When I hugged her, congratulating her on being the luckiest twelve-year-old girl that I knew, she stopped crying and looked at me in indignation.

  ‘I’m not lucky. It’s horrible.’

  ‘May I tell you why I think it’s wonderful? Today, you have become a woman. It is a more important day than your twenty-first birthday. We should be having a party.’

  She was not convinced. I rummaged in my backpack, taking out everything she would need for the next two or three days.

  ‘Three days!’ she sighed, defeate
d. After clarifying the practicalities of her new situation, she decided to go for a swim by herself.

  ‘OK, while you’re having a dip and dressing, I’ll make our breakfast and then we’ll find your dad.’

  Ten minutes later, her footsteps trudged back through the gravel and she flopped down onto the warm pebbles, refreshed. ‘Happy Moonday, Sarah,’ I announced, presenting her with a banana sandwich.

  ‘Thank you.’ She looked at me curiously. She was halfway through the sandwich before she asked. ‘Why did you say Happy Moonday?’

  ‘Well, because with your first period, you have begun to live by the rhythm of the moon. You are now what is called a we-moon, a woman.’

  ‘What’s my period got to do with the moon?’

  ‘Do you know how long it takes the moon to revolve around the earth?’ I asked her.

  ‘Twenty-eight days. We did that in Geography.’

  ‘That’s right, and how long does it take from one period to the next?’

  ‘A month? Twenty-eight days?’

  ‘Exactly, and what makes the tides go in and go out?

  ‘The moon.’

  ‘Yes. The moon is like a great big magnet, and its pull has a huge effect on every fluid on earth. It’s the moon that makes the sap rise and fall in plants, so that there’s a best time in the month to plant a seed and a best time to pick a fruit. Now, your body is made up of about seventy per cent water, so as well as affecting the tides and the sap, the moon has a huge effect on us women and our periods.’

  ‘Nobody’s ever told me that before.’

  ‘Well, today people don’t understand the importance of the moon as well as they did in ancient times. Long ago, people measured time according to the movement of the moon. Every month had twenty-eight days, and that was divided into four weeks of seven days, with every week beginning with Moonday.’

  ‘Like Monday?’

  ‘That’s where it comes from. Today is the first Moonday of the month, and it’s your very own Moonday. Congratulations. Here, have a scone’.

  For the first time that morning, Sarah was smiling. She was either happier with her period or else she thought that I was a nutcase.

  ‘Come on, let’s draw your Moonday and then we really must find your father.’

  We crunched up through the pebbles to the smooth, sandy entrance of the cave. I used a dried stem of oarweed as my chalk.

  ‘Imagine that this big stone is the earth. It’s like the centre of a giant wheel.’ I drew twenty-eight spokes in the sand, radiating out from the rock. ‘The moon is at the tip of the spokes, wheeling around the earth. Now, you sit on the earth and watch me. I’m the moon and I’ve got twenty-eight nights to get around you.’

  She sat on the stone, laughing and drawing her feet in under her, to avoid tripping the moon.

  ‘Every night when you look up at me, I’ll be in a different place, so I’ll look a different shape to you. Tonight I’m a new moon, at the beginning of my cycle. When you look for me, you won’t see me, because the sun is on the same side, making me invisible for the first three nights.’ I threw a towel over my face and stood in turn at the tip of the first three spokes. ‘Night one invisible, night two invisible, night three invisible. This new moon time is when women traditionally got their period, like you have. It’s also the time when sap is low in plants. Here I am, on night four, and you can just about see a narrow sliver of my beautiful moon face, and it gets bigger with each night, five and six, until it is a half-moon, on day seven. I’m called the waxing moon. Sap begins to rise in plants again and it’s the best time for planting seeds. My moon face keeps getting bigger and bigger as I step from night to night, until, here, on night fourteen, I am a big bright full moon in the sky. Because of this full moon, energy is bursting in everything.’

  As I leap around, whooping and waving my towel, with as much lunatic energy as I can muster, Sarah is laughing at last. ‘The tides at this time are called spring tides, and they are huge. The sap is full in plants, so it’s the time to pick the juiciest fruits and it’s the time when the woman releases a ripe egg into her womb. Let’s put a little white pebble at the full moon nights of fourteen, fifteen and sixteen. That represents the egg. These three days are the most fertile time for a woman to conceive a baby. Now if we have the egg fertilised… excuse me… while I demonstrate. Option one. Place a towel under my top… and hey presto… we’ll have a bump and a baby in nine months. Option two, we do not have the egg fertilised, so we have no bump, and the woman and the moon continue on their journey together, to the next phase. After that busy, bursting, bright full moon, things are dying down again.’

  I replaced the towel, on the side of my head, ready to inch it across my face. ‘I’m called the waning moon now, where I’m darkening and shrinking smaller and smaller for the next seven nights, until you can see only half my moon face on day twenty-one. The sap is falling in plants. The tides are getting lazier, as they were back over there on day seven. They’re not bothered to go in very far, or to go out very far. Energy is falling downwards, as the moon continues to wane.’ I dropped to my knees, the towel hiding over half of my face as I as struggled from spoke to spoke like a dying soldier. Sarah continued to giggle on her earth rock. ‘In women, the womb is no longer enriched. Its lining is shrinking and home, here at day one again, my moon face has disappeared and the woman bleeds with the new moon.’ Demonstration completed, the dying soldier finally collapsed onto the sand, as Sarah continued to survey the twenty-eight nights around her.

  ‘That’s really cool. Is it true?’

  ‘Of course, it is.’ I said, pulling the towel off my face. ‘Look at the high spring tide today. You’ve got your period. I’ve actually got mine too, and it can’t be just a coincidence that every civilisation since ancient times, in different parts of the world, all came up with the same idea. Even in Gaelic, the words for menstruation, period, calendar and month are similar.’

  ‘But why don’t we have twenty-eight days in every month now. It’s all mixed up.’

  ‘I know. The Romans changed it to the calendar months that we use today, so the new moon and full moon now fall on different dates every month.’

  Sarah stood on her stone, turning slowly as she counted out the phases of the moon.

  ‘So in fourteen more days when the moon is full, I will release an egg.’

  ‘That’s what happens and that’s why it’s such a celebration.’

  She jumped off the stone and counted her fourteen steps from new to full moon aloud.

  ‘In other countries, you would be having a big party to celebrate. All of the women in the family – mother, grandmother, sisters and aunties – get together and you would have a cake and presents. It is the day you become a woman, so the whole family celebrates the potential for a new generation.’

  ‘That’s not fair. Why don’t we have a party in Scotland?’

  ‘Well, nobody’s stopping you. In my school, when a girl in my class has her Moonday, I bring a big cake in to class and all the girls give her a tiny gift.’

  ‘What? Are they not embarrassed?’

  ‘Well, early in September, they are. They can’t even say the word “period”. It’s called thingies, yokies, monthlies, jilly-jollies, the curse, and a hundred and one other names. But once the first girl has her party and they understand what I’ve shown you here, everyone is excited about it and no girl has ever wanted to miss out on her cake and presents.’

  ‘My cousin always says she can’t go swimming ’cos she has her friend,’ Sarah said, drawing a full moon in the sand around the white pebble. ‘What kind of presents do they get?’

  ‘Well, my rule is that it has to fit in a matchbox, so they put in hairbands, flowers, coins, sweets, things like that, but I always tell them that their parents’ gift need not fit into a matchbox.’

  ‘Do you think that Dad knows I’m supposed to get a present when I become a woman?’ she asked wistfully.

  ‘Well, you’re a mercenary lit
tle we-moon!’

  She squealed as the towel landed on her head.

  ‘I suppose you might have to explain it to him.’

  ‘There’s one thing that I don’t understand.’ She stopped her orbiting for a few seconds, trying to put it into words. ‘If you’re supposed to have your period with the new moon, and release an egg with the full moon, why is it that everybody doesn’t have their period at the same time?’

  ‘Because today, we’re surrounded by artificial magnets and artificial light which interfere with the moon’s effect on us. Your television, microwave, computer, radio and mobile phone – all those things have magnetic fields which affect you. Then women take medicines and the pill. There are lots of different reasons. Then if you’re ill, your body might delay releasing an egg because it doesn’t have any extra energy. If you live in a city, it’s very difficult to be in harmony with the moon. You’re walking over huge power cables, you’re walking under them. You’re surrounded.’

  ‘We’re leaving the island today. I’m going to ring Mum and tell her. Will I tell her we’re supposed to have a party?’

  ‘If you want a party, you tell her you only become a “we-moon” once. Now what about finding your poor Dad and telling him first? He should be on his way back from the fort at this stage.’ Sarah stepped from moon to moon, one last time, counting out the days to her day fourteen, and then on to her next period.

  ‘It’s really cool, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. Now come on. Your dad will be worried sick.’

  As we climbed over the top of the cliff, we could see Michael striding back along the north path.

  ‘There’s Dad! I have to tell him he owes me a present.’ This time she jumped out of the way, anticipating the flying towel.

  ‘Go on. I’ll see you later… and Happy Moonday.’

  ‘Byee.’ She scampered off, calling to Michael, who waved back vigorously, like an air traffic controller on the brow of the hill.

  I abandoned the idea of any walk that day. I didn’t want to miss Sarah and Michael leaving. I sat out with a book, chatting to Aisling and the curious tourists who passed by. It was four o’clock before Michael and Sarah appeared, on their way to the ferry. I made tea, and we sat on the grassy bank talking, as two ferries came and went. Eventually, the red ferry moored in under the cliff for its last trip.