by Noel Scanlon
“Yes,” I said, but didn’t add anything further.
“I thought you might have noticed something about them seeing as you’re living there.” He paused. “You remember that article I mentioned that we published twenty years ago at the time of the exodus. I read it again this week. I’ll get you a copy if you like. But there’s not much there. I thought that strange — normally we’d get the last drop out of a story like that — so I went back over the files. And do you know what I found? Nothing. Not a bloody thing. The people refused to give any details to our reporter at the time — they must have been as cute and closed then as they are now.” He leaned forward. “We know that the islanders took off as if all hell was after them. And they must have had a reason. I mean they didn’t leave their homes and all their possessions for nothing.
“Now I have a proposition. I’d like to solve that little puzzle and you might be able to help. You tell me about anything odd you see out there, anything at all, and we’ll pay you well. And, on top of that, we’ll give your community a good write-up. How’s that?”
“The interview is over,” I said.
“What was that?”
I repeated what I had said several times.
Mr O’Reilly didn’t want to go, but I was quite adamant and, in the end, he left. The one thing I didn’t want was for the community and the island to be featured in the local rag.
After he had gone, I gazed into the fire where a couple of sods of turf glowed sulkily in the grate. I didn’t like anything I had seen or heard since coming to the mainland. I have always been sensitive since early childhood to the presence of other worlds and the spirits that inhabit them. Since Mr Carmody had eaten the mushrooms and behaved so oddly I had had this feeling of some unseen presence in the room. And I had a premonition that it was about to manifest itself.
A gust of wind blew smoke down the chimney into my face. There was a pervading atmosphere of darkness and of something else. Despair? Evil? It mingled with the lowering cloud. It swept from the sky, seeped in under the door, blew down the chimney with the smoke.
I was startled by the crackled voice of an old man coming from a corner. At first I thought it must be a disembodied voice but then saw that it came from a bundle of old rags on a shrivelled body.
“I was listening to that reporter fellow,” he croaked.
Had he been there all the time? If he had, I would surely have noticed him. But I had looked in that corner and could swear it had been empty. Besides would not the reporter have noticed him?
“I know who you are but you don’t know who I am mister. I’m the last man that lived on that island and I could tell you stories about it, mister, that’d make your hair stand on end, stand right up there on its own. There are things on that island that go back a thousand years before Christ and a thousand before that again. There are things living there on the edge of the world that are living nowhere else.”
I could just make out the rheumy eyes of a very old man with a puckered face raised towards me. He didn’t seem quite real, quite fully corporeal.
“You beware of what’s out there, mister. There are places on that island that not a solitary one of us would go near and never did.” He blessed himself. “We knew where these places were and it’d be as well for yourself if you knew them too. There’s things living there that you’d be better not to disturb. That’s the mistake I made, mister. I went into one of them forbidden places after a strayed animal, a place that had been forbidden to everyone of us for centuries.”
He wheezed. “And that was the mistake I made. For they came after me. Followed me down the hill they did. And when I hid in the graveyard where all my ancestors are buried and in holy ground blessed by the church, they came in after me there too.”
He spat in the fire. “When they done that, I knew it was the end. When they done that, I ran off the island. I launched my currach and left. I disturbed what shouldn’t have been disturbed and my advice to you, mister, is that you make sure and double sure that you don’t do the same. Or you’ll unleash things that ought never be unleashed, but kept apart in their own place. Pagan places we called them, and if ever you disturb one of them, mister, you’ll live to regret it.”
I got up wanting to question the old man but, on approaching the corner, he was no longer there. Where could he have gone? How could he have disappeared like that?
I looked through the connecting door into the bar.
Dominic was crouched down playing a tin whistle, a distant dreamy look in his eyes. The table tops were littered with empty bottles and, in between taking slugs from the pint glass of stout in front of him, Augustus John was muttering to himself in what I took to be Gaelic.
With a quick sweep of his arm, Augustus John flung his glass against the side of the fireplace so that the black stout formed a little pool on the hearth, then swivelling towards me, aware of exactly where I was though he had had his back to me standing at the bar, he glared straight at me.
I find it hard to describe the strength and eeriness of that look coming from his now protuberant eyes. My first impression was of darkness, violence and strangeness. I had always sensed that violence and self-destruction were part of Augustus John’s nature, that there was another side to him which he was careful to hide from me. For a moment I thought that alcohol might have released that side of his nature. But it was not that. It was not drunken violence. It was something different, something in a way disassociated from him. There was something dark and evil inside Augustus John looking out and in particular looking out at me.
He took a step towards me. Some dark alien spirit stared out of his bloodshot eyes with wild savage hatred.
I shut my eyes and concentrated my mind for a moment. When I opened them I confronted the beam of hatred coming from Augustus John and struggled to overcome it. He slowed down but he was still coming at me with what I felt sure was murderous intent.
Seeing what was happening, Dominic dropped his tin whistle. He threw himself on his brother and wrestled him to the ground. They rolled about struggling. Everything grew even darker than it had been. Smoke puffed into the room. The old John Jameson signs rattled on the walls and one of them fell to the ground.
I felt the presence of something dark and cold. I had the strongest impression yet of treading over a thin crust of reality that barely covered some black psychic horror that lay just beneath the surface.
When they got up both brothers were bloodied. But Augustus John was himself again.
It was quite apparent that he didn’t remember anything that had happened. He was seeing me as if for the first time.
“Ah, there you are, sur,” he said jovially. “I was looking all over for you and wondering where you’d got to. I had a few pints just to fill in the time. I hope that reporter fellow wasn’t telling you any stories. You can’t believe the daylight outa them fellows.”
He listened to the wind that was howling outside. “Bejaysus, that wind has come on. It’s high time we got back to the island before the sea starts rearing up.”
CHAPTER 7
I had to break this story off because the guru sent me out on the roads for a while. It is part of the discipline here. The idea, I suppose, is to prevent people becoming too self-centred. Initially it was something of a shock. I had not wandered around penniless like that since before I had first come to the ashram. But, after a time, I enjoyed it. The people are very generous. Even the poorest villagers are hospitable and respectful. Indians seem to have a natural veneration for anyone following the spiritual life.
I started off following the route of the Ganges itself, wide and brown and slow-moving with water-melons growing on the mud flats. I joined the stream of people who are always on the move in India. Bullock carts and bicycles and villagers walking like myself, the women carrying platters on their heads.
Walking in this way one is overwhelmed by the vastness of India. And it really is vast. The road seems to run on as if it would never end, carrying its hord
es of people in a constant stream across the arteries of the great plain. It is hot and tiring. On the Grand Trunk Road there are always the mango trees to rest under, trees planted in the days of the British Raj to provide shelter for the sepoys. When you stop like that, people always come up to you but are not really a bother. They are perfectly accustomed to wandering religious.
The Ganges itself is always interesting with riverboats and kingfishers blue flashes against the brown of the river. Every so often you pass a burning ghat. You usually know by the rather unpleasant, not fully cremated, body parts floating down the river. It is not just a holy river; it is a dirty one.
The land I walked through was very flat, the red of the earth, the brown of the river and the bright yellow of the mustard fields merging into distant horizons. Perhaps I was a little overwhelmed by it all after being confined for so long in the ashram.
I was back in the ashram for several days before I could get on with this story. I have to write it surreptitiously as I know the guru would not approve.
The morning after my return from the mainland I stood in my cottage among the supplies which Augustus John and Dominic had carried up from the boat. I was worried about my trip to the mainland and the possible implications for us. I was apprehensive about the Rosemary Brown case. And as well as apprehension I had strong guilt feelings. I always have strong guilt feelings. This is merely a state of mind, a type of temperament, and does not indicate wrong-doing. I feel guilty even when there is nothing whatever for me to feel guilty about.
There was a tap at the door and Chris came in. She was dressed for morning ritual in a white sari and was wearing her silver bangles and other paraphernalia.
“The others are waiting,” she said. She looked at the stores lying around. “Can I help you clear things up..”
Chris and I began carrying the supplies into the storeroom. “Thanks for getting the cat,” she said conversationally.
“Did it kill any mice yet?”
“Did I say they were mice? They’re not mice — they’re rats. And the cat seems nervous of them. I suppose it hasn’t settled in yet.” She frowned. “A lot of these items are wrong,” she went on, consulting her list. “This white sugar for instance. We certainly never ordered that!”
“It must be a mistake,” I said.
“I wonder who makes up our order.”
“Mrs Carmody, I think.”
“Well I guess she knows when she has a soft touch. She just seems to put in anything she feels like.”
“Yes,” I said. “I expect so.”
Chris went on about the supplies but I was not listening to her. For I had noticed growing in a corner of the store-room a clump of fungi similar to those which Augustus John had given to Mr Carmody but a different shape and colour.
“What are you staring at?” Chris asked following my gaze. “Oh those,” she said. “They’ve begun to grow in our cottage too. I wonder if they’re edible.”
I ran forward, plucked the mushrooms from the corner and threw them out of the window.
“No, they’re not edible,” I said. “They’re poisonous. Do you hear me, poisonous. Deadly poisonous. Whatever you do, don’t eat them or let anyone else eat them.”
It flashed through my mind that this could be what had happened to Rosemary.
I worried about all the fungi that had recently begun to appear all over the island but this was the first sign of them I had seen indoors. I had immediately recognised them as Deadly Webcap. They were light tan in colour and looked harmless enough but I knew that they can kill a person slowly and painfully. I must get everyone together and warm them about the hazard.
When Chris had gone, I locked the store-room and, getting down on my hands and knees hid the mailbag under the bed in the kitchen. Then I put on my cloak and walked down the laneway into the square.
The ruined church looked particularly drab that morning, drab grey under the drab sky. I noticed that some of the boarding was coming loose on the windows. It had the appearance of a very temporary shelter. There seemed to be more weeds around than usual or perhaps I just had not properly noticed them before. Some enormous ragworts were growing along the wall and brambles had begun to climb the gable end. I had never seen brambles there before. Gulls, attracted I suppose by our approach, glided down out of the sky and landed on the roof.
I went inside and immediately felt better. I always felt better just by going into the church.
The girls who had been sitting around cross-legged chattering in low tones fell silent. They all wore white or moderately white saris. Their long hair was plaited. They were all slim, not as emaciated as Rosemary had been, but slim. I thought that they looked pretty and, more than that, they looked spiritual, not quite of this world. The boys wore their robes.
The area of life which we kept most rigidly formal was the early-morning ritual. I insisted on this since I knew well that the situation could easily deteriorate into squabbling domesticity.
I walked quickly up the aisle and namasteed in front of the guru’s room. A plain candle had been lit in the entrance giving a flickering light. I looked in expectantly. I was relieved to see that the guru was there. He was less clearly defined than he usually was at morning ritual, but he was there. His long hair was matted, just as it is now, and his light brown skin was grey. Under his high Brahmin brow his eyes were remote. They were eyes in which you could see anything or nothing. His image flickered there in the guttering candle light.
I went to the small improvised lectern and began to read from the translation of the Sanskrit scriptures just as we do now every morning in the ashram. The passage dealt with the manifesting word Om, the repetition of Om and meditating on its meaning.
“Why we have repetition,” I read, “is that the sum total of impressions live in the mind. They become more and more latent but remain there and as soon as they receive the right stimulus they emerge. Molecular vibrations never cease. When this universe is destroyed, all the massive vibrations will remain. The sun, moon, stars and earth will melt down, but the vibrations will remain in the atoms. From this we can understand the meaning of repetition.
“Repetition is a force and thought is a force. Thought is a force just as real as gravity. The present is formed by past thoughts and the future by the present ...”
The passage was one of my favourites. My mind is never happier than when engaged in metaphysical thoughts. That day, however, I was unable properly to grasp the profundities which I was reading. There were other vibrations in the church. There was the movement of the wind outside and one of the imperfectly shuttered windows began to flap, causing a breeze that made the candles gutter.
I read out the most basic, the most revolutionary, guru concept, “Every idea of God and accordingly every religion is true. If one is false then they are all false. If one is true then they are all true.” Simple but mind-shattering. If this eastern concept had infiltrated to Europe how completely it would have changed that continent’s history!
The loose board flapped again and something moaned eerily outside.
After the reading, we had a period of meditation when we all tuned in to the guru’s thoughts. Usually we derived great benefit from this. The guru is a great spiritual sun-lamp and his effect on people need not be inhibited by distance.
Accordingly, I was distressed to find that, instead of meditating, I was recalling something which had happened as we had approached the island on the previous night.
For some time, perhaps a minute, perhaps longer, the hill had glowed with a sort of purple light that seemed to rise above it for a distance of twenty feet or so. It was far too widespread to be explainable by the small flickers of light that one can occasionally see on certain peat bogs. This light was accompanied by a rumbling sound as of huge stones moving or being moved. I was not greatly surprised that Augustus John professed to have neither seen nor heard anything. Dominic, of course, said nothing but a certain tautness about the way he held himself told me tha
t he was aware that something was going on.
The purple light which I saw from the boat and the rumbling of the stones were among a number of things which made it clear that something very odd was happening on the island. For some time it had been apparent that the island was a centre of considerable psychic activity. A number of things began to fall into place. All the little things which had seemed only slightly odd when taken by themselves were beginning began to add up. What exactly had driven the original inhabitants off the island? The old man had made it clear that the local people had always believed in “forbidden” spots. These were presumably areas of high psychic activity.
I wonder if human presence on the island and specifically our presence could be reactivating this activity. I knew, even then, that there are extraordinary psychic powers concentrated in certain areas. I knew also that these should be tapped only by the initiated. History is strewn with individuals who have stumbled on such power sources and misused them to degenerate not only themselves but whole races.
In a vivid flash, and quite unaccountably, I saw the megalithic tomb, cold and ominous, and the pagan altar with blood running from it as if some long-past event was being re-enacted. At the same time, I felt a dark malignant shadow enter my mind.
I was frightened.
I tried to contact the guru, to block these images from my mind but could not. For the first time since I had walked into the guru’s ashram years before I was unable at a time of ritual to make contact with him and be beneficially affected by his emanations.
I had the feeling of hostile forces pressing down on the little church.
I began to shiver. Something was trying to get in, to enter the church. I felt a strong current of air, stronger and colder than would be explainable by a breeze coming in through the loose window shutter. This was a deeper cold, of the breath-taking type you feel when you walk into a large chill room. Whatever was trying to get in had agitated the gulls. They had left the roof and were shrieking. Then they did something very odd. They began to attack our shutters. I could hear the soft thump of their bodies against them. With all the spiritual resources I could summon, I concentrated on the guru. But his room was empty. He had gone.