by Noel Scanlon
I gasped. An enormous sense of relief began to spread through my chilled body. I was saved. At least temporarily. If he had expected me to bring Rosemary, then he didn’t know she was dead!
“I was hoping you’d bring her across and we could wrap this whole thing up. Mr and Mrs Brown, as you know, are Yanks. They have money and money talks. I’m going to have to give them a report on the condition of the girl.”
The garda by the fire nodded.
“So you can see,” he went on, “that I just have to arrange a meeting with her. Now none of us wants any trouble. We’re all sensible men. All is needed is for you to co-operate and produce the girl. Am I right, Constable?”
The garda nodded again.
My brain had been working feverishly. The fact that they didn’t know of Rosemary’s death had given me an idea.
“The girl is of age,” I said, “and as such is entitled to take her own decisions. She has chosen to leave her parents and live her own life. That is, a spiritual life in the community. At the moment she is engaged in an important course of meditation which cannot be broken.”
The garda and the solicitor exchanged glances.
The solicitor sighed. “You’re a hard man,” he said. “You’re backing me into a corner. You’re making a balls of the whole case,if I might say so. If you don’t produce her, you’ll just make these good people suspicious.”
I remembered the sweet scent of burning gorse coming from the funeral pyre.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll bring her across.”
What had I said? How could I bring her across when she was in the urn? And I couldn’t very well bring the urn!
Why was I taking up this ridiculous position which could get me into endless trouble? I should, of course, have told them quite simply that Rosemary was dead. After all, I was quite innocent in the matter. There was absolutely no need for this guilt and evasion. But it was too late to draw back now.
The solicitor slapped me on the knee. “Good man yourself. I knew you’d come up trumps. Let’s arrange a date then.”
When this was done he visibly relaxed and glowed alcoholically.
“I was looking out at that island of yours earlier today,” he said expansively, “and I thought what a grand place it must be in summer. A life of freedom and nature and all that lark.”
He waited for me to comment but I didn’t. He winked in the direction of the garda. “It must be great living out there with all those girls and all that freedom. If I was a bit younger myself it’s join you I would. But I suppose I’m too inhibited for you lot. You get that way from an education by the Christian Brothers and having the bejaysus beaten out of you at regular intervals.” He turned suddenly serious. “But there’s something I wanted to tell you. That island of yours has an awful peculiar history. The last inhabitants were run off it by fear, pure fear.
That’s why you got it so cheap. Tell me, have you seen anything peculiar out there yourself?”
I thought the garda leaned forward expectantly.
“No,” I lied, and there was a dryness in my throat. “I haven’t.”
“You haven’t! Isn’t that a funny thing now. Because everyone else who has ever lived there has. Of course maybe they were only telling lies. Like I said they’re an awful close lot with powerful imaginations in these parts. Did you know that on a number of occasions life was lost on your island in what my friend in the force here would call peculiar circumstances? Though how peculiar there’s no way of knowing. No body to examine you see. Mostly it happened in winter when the island is cut off for weeks at a time and by then the bodies had always disappeared in the Black Bog or wherever. No post-mortem. No investigation. But an awful lot of stories. And you say you’ve noticed nothing peculiar at all?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said shortly. I had been to the funeral pyre and once again Rosemary had appeared, this time a little more of her, down to the waist, as her subtle body was being formed. “I’ve never seen anything peculiar.”
“I believe you,” the solicitor said, “I believe you. Those people were probably drunk on poteen when they ran off the island and left their homes and everything they possessed behind them.
“Still and all, there’s an awful lot of rumour about Inishwrack. And all of it’s on the dark side. A lot of people feel there must be something in it.” He fixed his eyes on me. I recalled the children chanting, “Hey mister, show us your horns, show us your horns.”
“Well maybe there is and maybe there isn’t,” he went on. “But there’s hardly a soul in Blackshell would go near your island.”
“But Augustus John,” I said. “He comes across.”
The solicitor looked at me oddly. “Of course he does,” he said, “of course he does. Him and his brother have been involved in everything that’s gone on there for a long time now....”
I didn’t want to hear anymore. I got up abruptly and walked blindly out of the Annexe bumping into things as I went.
CHAPTER 17
Back in the church on the island, I tried desperately to concentrate. I had to stop thinking about what was happening on the island. I read aloud.
“The pain bearing obstructions are ignorance, egotism, attachment, aversion and clinging to life. These are the five pains, the five fold tie that binds us down, of which ignorance is the cause and the other four its effects. It is the only cause of all our misery. What else can make us miserable?”
I was finding it harder than ever to get into the truth of the guru, to get my mind on a higher plane. The community too were less attentive than usual. I knew that these readings, and the guru’s teachings in general, were important to them. That was what made them different. That was what made sense of their living out on this deserted island in this haunted landscape. But as they sat there in their white saris or robes I fancied that they had the same difficulties in concentrating as I had.
“The nature of the soul is eternal bliss. What can make it sorrowful except ignorance, hallucination, and delusion? All pain of the soul is simply delusion. Ignorance is taking the non - ethereal the impure, the painful and the non-self for the eternal, the pure, the happy, the self...”
Up till now, my feeling of safety, my feeling of being protected by the guru, had been very strong. But now it was weakening. I had managed to see the old church in the Deserted Village as a holy place. That was becoming increasingly difficult. I was aware all the time now of an outside menace. I was aware of the moan of the wind the shrieking of the gulls. They seemed to be gathering in ever greater flocks in the area of the Deserted Village.
I was also aware of the urn. It was not really an urn but a clay gardening pot that contained the calcified remains of Rosemary Brown.
After everyone had left, I stood alone in the centre of the church. The readings had done nothing for me. I felt that I was being watched. I didn’t know who or what was watching. But it was something maleficent. Once or twice on the way back in the boat I had caught Augustus John looking at me and had experienced much the same sensation. It was not so much Augustus John watching me as something inside Augustus John looking out through his eyes.
I had the same feeling now only more diffuse. The wind had risen in strength and the cries of the gulls became frenzied. They began thudding against the shutters as if trying to get in. Whatever our coming to the island had disturbed was focusing just now on the church. It was trying to get in, might already be in. I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a shadow move but when I turned my head around it was not there. At the same time I felt something new, something even more frightening. A dark spot began to form in my own mind. Something dark was struggling to come up through my subconscious. It was a black hole which, if it grew, would suck in all my control and sanity.
I ran to the guru’s room.
Thank God he was there. Faintly outlined and insubstantial but still there. He sat like a carved image. His left leg was doubled back so that his foot was under the base of his body and his right
leg was swung across his left thigh. His back, neck and head formed a straight erect line. His hair, which was never cut, fell in long white locks to his waist. His expression was the expression of a man who has triumphed over life, conquered the human frailties.
As I sank down in the room I immediately began to feel better. The coldness went, the dark spot disappeared from my mind. Since coming to the island, I knew that I had been slipping backwards into the abyss of ignorance and self-delusion. I had become increasingly affected by the outside world. I was no longer properly observing the physical disciplines the guru recommended or the spiritual disciplines of meditation. I was a long way away from the sublimity of mind which I should have felt at least at times. As a result I was open to the attacks which the entities on the island were making.
These entities were able to affect the natural behaviour of the seagulls and turn them into aggressive birds. They were able to affect the natural growth cycle and behaviour of the vegetation. And, as I had come to realize, they were beginning to enter and take over people through the vegetation they controlled.
I knew that I could not begin to deal with the situation, or even attempt to, without help from the guru. Down on my knees I watched him expectantly. He never blinked or changed the steadfastness of his gaze. A long time passed. And as the waves of my mind stilled I grew receptive to the vibrations and effulgence that emanated from him.
As I threw my mind open now to the inspirations, to the mind waves of the guru in his superconscious state, my nerve currents, recently displaced, began intermittently to run again in the channels I had so laboriously forged.
But only intermittently. I can see now all too clearly from the vantage-point of this ashram how muddled my thinking at that time was and how flawed my spiritual development. Here, under the close-up guidance of the guru, and with the strict disciplines imposed, anything seems possible for anyone to do. Here in the quietude of India it is easy to understand that inspiration is in every man’s nature if it is allowed expression.
Here demonstrations of the power of mind over matter are commonplace. It is nothing extraordinary. It is just a force which is not generally tapped. As I write this I have by concentration moved a bowl of curds from one side of my cell to the other. I would not, of course, mention such a gross demonstration to the guru, who would undoubtedly reprove me.
The science of yoga is the observation of the internal world, of the mind of man. In order to observe this world you have to train your mind. To do this, to throw the power of the mind on to the mind itself, the power of attention has to be developed and concentrated. When that is achieved miracles become commonplace.
For some reason, this type of spiritual progress seems easier in India. Sitting under a banyan tree or even wandering through villages where women look out from doorways and children play in the dust, the direction of one’s spiritual force is more readily achieved than in the west. People’s attitudes, even the climate here, seems to aid spiritual development.
I can plainly see now that my general weakness and lack of concentration during my period on Inishwrack resulted from an over involvement with physical externals. No real progress can be made while one is so involved. It was this weakness which enabled the island entities to affect me as strongly as they did and, at certain times even to enter my mind.
Of course I understood something of this at the time. But I was not able to do anything about it. I was too weak. I was backsliding. I had become over-involved with the girls and with the island itself. If the mind is concentrated there is no limit to its power. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear at one point. But my mind had become dissipated. Even as I sat in the guru’s cell where I should have been impervious to externals, my whole concentration defocused and shattered.
I felt nervous and cold and apprehensive. Something that had been nagging at my mind jumped to the forefront. Ursula! She had not been at the service. With a premonition of disaster I jumped to my feet and ran out.
CHAPTER 18
I immediately ran towards Ursula’s cottage. This was the first time someone had been missing from a service. I felt that my premonition of disaster had been confirmed when I saw the door ajar.
Ursula’s cottage was empty.
Like all the cottages, it boasted very little in the way of household furniture or possessions but such as there were had been flung about anyhow. There was an air of a sudden get-away, of abandonment. Obviously Ursula had moved out. But where could she have gone?
I noticed a newspaper on the bed. It was the Western Herald. How had Ursula got her hands on it? She must have stolen it from my cottage. It was open at an article headed.
FULL EXPOSE OF ORIENTAL CULT ON WESTERN ISLAND
In an exclusive interview with our star reporter, the cult’s spokesmen Mr S, a defrocked priest, revealed for the first time some of the secrets of the oriental cult which has come to settle off our shore.
Mr S was once a priest in holy orders but during a long stay in the east became converted to some pagan class of religion which claims to have hundreds of thousands of adherents throughout the world. The head of the religion is an Indian guru who lives in India and to whom the cult ascribe supernatural powers.
Mr S stated to our reporter, ‘The guru, who stands on his head for several hours daily, can levitate at will. He can also live for long periods without food. He can live on air.’
There is considerable interest locally in the young women living on the island. Mr S states that ‘they’re like nuns in holy orders’. But the postmistress expressed the opinion that ‘judging by some of the things in their mail it’s nothing short of a sacrilege for those hussies out there to call themselves nuns in holy orders’.
Mrs Carmody, secretary of the Children of Mary, expressed her concern for local morals. ‘People are frightened and appalled by this pagan invasion. This country, famous for its Christian saints and missionaries to such an extent that it was known as the island of saints and scholars, cannot tolerate the presence of heathenism. How are we supposed to raise our children in sound Catholic principles when there is the bad example of such flagrant licentiousness on an island off our shore?’
Mr Carmody, a man prominent in the social, religious and cultural life of the area, expressed a similar concern. There is however a darker and more serious side to this matter. Before this sect bought the island of Inishwrack for what the auctioneer said was a very small sum, the last of the islanders had already left sometime before. On being interviewed by our reporter, one of the survivors claimed that the island is haunted by the devil.
This claim of haunting is supported both by stories in the Gaelic tale ‘Tir na Sidhe’ believed to have been Inishwrack and also by many tales well known in the folklore of Blackshell and handed down from generation to generation by the shanicee. The local people claim that unearthly lights have recently been seen on the island at night. Fishermen refuse to go near it.
The Blackshell Tourist Development Association claims that if any of this gets out it’ll have a bad effect on tourism. They passed a resolution in favour of having the island vacated and then exorcised by the priest or preferably the bishop.
There is a growing opposition locally to the occupancy of the island by the present pagan community and there is a growing fear that it may bring retribution down on the heads of the people of Blackshell.
Our reporter plans to revisit the area and to back up this scoop with further revealing articles.
I threw the paper back on the bed and ran out of the cottage.
I stood outside wondering where Ursula had got to. Recalling the emotional violence of our last encounter, I felt uneasy. Where had she gone? What was she doing? I knew I should search for her but I felt indecisive. Something was clouding and confusing my mind.
I was being watched. I felt this strongly. I felt it boring into my back. I resisted a strong compulsion to turn around and see who or what was watching me.
Just then
I spotted Ursula. She was in the community currach just a little way out in the bay.
My relief was immediately replaced by the fear of what she might do or say were she to reach the mainland. The article in the Western Herald had been, to my mind, farcical. But it did reflect a very real antagonism to our community and to myself in particular. There was already more than enough uninvited interference. Given a real live girl disciple of the guru’s, and especially a disenchanted one, there was no knowing what the local people would do or where they would stop.
I began to run towards the beach. I had difficulty in doing this, in forcing my limbs to do what I wanted them to. As I ran I heard a low rumbling noise as of stones shifting and a buzzing that seemed to be all around me. A seagull planing overhead was watching me with its beady eyes. It planed, lower and lower and I had to gesticulate with my hands to keep it off.
I got to the beach and began to run across it. The beach was alive and heaving slightly. It was watching me through the eyes of the millions of shellfish that lay there.
I plunged into the sea fully clothed. The coldness of the water stunned me, driving the breath from my body in one long gasp. But it helped to concentrate my mind. I dived into an oncoming wave and began to swim after Ursula. Why on earth had I not taken my clothes off? My sweater had soaked up water and seemed to weigh a ton.
I was helped by Ursula’s inexperience with boats. She was already in difficulties. Deft as the currach may appear in the hands of someone like Dominic, it is in fact extremely fragile and unstable and maintains course only by being driven forward with a steady, controlled thrust of the oars. Ursula’s thrusts were neither steady nor controlled. They were frantic. The boat veered wildly until it was caught broadside on by a wave when it immediately overturned.
When I reached the currach it had been swept inshore to water that was little more than waist-high. I grabbed it. But as I began to drag it ashore I found that my legs were getting caught in seaweed. At the same time Ursula had taken hold of the other end and was trying to pull the boat back out. It was obviously her intention to get back into the waterlogged boat and try again.