by Noel Scanlon
I am a bad sailor and I was mostly occupied with the lurching movement of the boat. Manju and Maya had both put on long Aran cardigans against the cold. They sat in the stern of the tossing boat with complete imperturbability as if they were sitting at their own fireside. Their eyes had a blank look. I recalled waking up to find them in my room watching me. Could I trust them anymore? The thought flashed through my mind that if I left them on the mainland it would remove one possible source of danger.
Dominic’s dog crouched on its belly, whining. Dominic himself sat balanced on the transom, one hand on the tiller, the other hanging loose. Seals followed us all the way in their scores, their whiskered faces raised watching us.
Augustus John swayed to the movement of the boat with the nonchalance of an expert. He wore his usual torn sweater, dirty woollen cap and turned-down rubber boots. He was being helpful and deferential.
“Don’t forget now, sur, that I’m your friend. And if you take my advice you’ll pay no attention at all to those buggers on the mainland. They’re full of nothing only greed and envy. You bother them, sur, because you keep yourself to yourself and don’t want strangers spying on what you’re doing. Whatever it is. It’s a grand little island you have there and you don’t have to give a tinker’s curse about what anyone says ...”
I cannot believe that the solicitude for our welfare which Augustus John displayed at times like this was entirely false. This may seem a strange thing to say, considering what happened later but, in his own way, I think that Augustus John liked me. And I must admit that I was easily influenced by him. His assurances, and indeed his presence, gave me a strong sense of security. However much the facts might point to the contrary, he made me feel that I was being protected. I was sure there was a ring of genuine emotion in his voice. Surely such emotion could not be entirely insincere?
Of course events proved these sentiments to be quite wrong. And yet I cannot help wondering.
As we pulled alongside the pier, Augustus John said, “That solicitor fellow is waiting for you above in Carmody’s.” He must have noticed my worried expression for he added, “There’s nothing at all for you to be getting yourself worked up and worried about. There’s no one there, only your man Benedict Ryan.”
The dog had flattened itself on the bottom of the boat gripping the cross boards with its claws so that it had to be dragged out whimpering. It was obviously sensitive to psychic atmospheres. I myself felt apprehensive as if I was stepping not on to solid land but on to that mushy bogland that sinks beneath one.
Leaving Augustus John to see to the boat, I beckoned to the girls and walked on towards the village.
The whole scene on the mainland that day was particularly desolate. It was more than desolate - it was ominous. The few houses dotted across the bog looked more precarious than ever, an uncertain foothold in a barren landscape. The dry stone walls around the homesteads were falling down. Rows of rotting wooden stakes festooned with twisted, rusted barbed wire gave the impression of an abandoned battlefield. But abandoned to whom? Something had moved in, something malevolent. Under the shifting half light coming through the grey clouds it was there, silent and waiting.
The dog scampered on ahead of us, his tail between his legs. He ran up to the first human being he saw, sniffing a human presence for reassurance. This was an old woman pulling aside an iron bed-end and driving a small black cow through a gap in the stone wall and down towards a cottage where the end of last year’s clamp of turf was piled against the gable end.
I felt exposed and vulnerable. I walked faster with a view to getting things over with as quickly as possible. I wanted to get back to the island.
Manju and Maya walked erect and silent. They were like walking waxworks exquisitely made and beautifully finished.
I jumped at a thundering noise and a clattering of stones. Had the stones over here become animated like the stones on the hill? But this sound had been made by a few wild ponies trotting down a laneway, their manes long and matted, their uncut blond tails sweeping the ground.
Passing the post office, I saw the postmistress at the centre of a small knot of people who were gaping out the window at us. Of course people in remote parts will gape at most things but I was sure that these people felt they were looking at something exceptional and probably dangerous. This was not helped by that fact that I was still wearing my cloak which it had certainly been my intention to leave behind on the island.
I have never, as I have said, been good in dealing with the externals. I am, I think I can say, at my best here in this ashram following a strict and disciplined regime and devoting all my energies to my real purpose in life which is exploring the vast uncharted territory of the mind, an area which most people avoid by attaching themselves to physical things.
We were nearly at Carmody’s when a deluge of people, or what seemed to me like a deluge, issued from the Annexe.
I stopped in my tracks, startled, horrified, benumbed.
CHAPTER 23
There was no doubt that the crowd confronting us were aggressive. Some were carrying banners with captions.
PUT AN END TO DEVIL WORSHIP
GET OFF INISHWRACK
GO BACK TO INDIA.
I had not been expecting friendliness, but I was quite unprepared for this.
I was to learn later that the reason why the local people’s anger and aggression towards us had increased exponentially was because the strange happenings which had, up till now, been confined to the island had spread to Blackshell and begun to affect the people there.
There had been a number of unusual and inexplicable happenings which had caused great fear and concern. Two fishermen had been drowned on a perfectly calm sea for no apparent reason and the sole survivor from the boat had lost his mind, driven insane by what he had seen. His mind was temporarily deranged and he was in the psychiatric hospital for treatment. Other fishermen had got into difficulties and barely survived freak storms. Unidentified lights were seen glowing on the island at night.
All these happenings and many more were blamed on our community. We were accused of having aroused the evil powers which had lain dormant since the last residents had run off the island.
The people kept their distance, apparently afraid of me, ridiculous as that may seem. I suppose we must in any event have been an odd spectacle, I in my cloak, the Indian girls in their saris and Aran cardigans, as foreign to those Celtic wilds as one could reasonably imagine. I looked about for Augustus John but there was no sign of him.
A camera began to whirl and I realised with shock that the TV people were waiting for us. A man came up to me with a microphone.
“Let’s get on with this interview,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to Dublin tonight.”
“I’ve no intention of giving an interview,” I said.
“Just a few simple questions,” he went on unabashed. “Think of the publicity.”
“I don’t want publicity.”
“Is it true that you’re the head of the devil cult on Inishwrack island?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you aware that the local people claim that a series of recent misfortunes are attributable to your cult’s pagan practices?”
“No,” I said.
The children who had followed me when I was last on the mainland were jumping up and down in front of the camera
“Is it true that you celebrate black masses?”
“No.”
“Do you normally wear a cloak and go barefoot?”
I had left my boots behind in the currach and the Indian girls seldom wore shoes.
“Get a close-up of that,” the reporter bawled at his assistant. “I didn’t drive into these wilds for nothing. I’m going to get something in the can if it’s the fucking last thing I do.”
The interviewer then addressed himself to Manju and Maya. They didn’t reply. I don’t think they heard him. They still had a cold composure which bothered me.
Pulling th
e girls with me, I made for the door of the Annexe. “Cut!” I could hear the reporter roar. “Fuck it. The fucker is running off and making a complete balls-up of my interview.”
The little boys danced around us in unholy glee. “Here’s the man from the island, here’s the man from the island. Show us your tail, show us your tail ...”
Inside the Annexe was another crowd who were behaving like thirsty camels at a water-hole in the desert. There was not enough room for them all in the bar so they were standing everywhere grasping their pints.
They made way for us as if we had some highly contagious disease.
I stepped over scattered hay rakes making for the safety of the snug. Even at the best of times the Annexe was kept in perpetual dimness with little or no light filtering in through one small murky window. Now the swirl of cigarette smoke and peat smoke was so dense that everyone appeared like figures in a thick fog.
Mr O’Reilly, the reporter from the Western Herald appeared out of this fog, a huge pint grasped in his two hands.
“This was to be my big break,” he whined. “This should have been my scoop. I started the ball rolling. But as soon as things begin to move, as soon as there’s something interesting like apparitions and fishermen being attacked by monsters or whatever it was attacked them and people going berserk and being put into Saint ]ude’s, what happens? What happens only these smart alecs from the city come down stomping all over the place and take the story off me.” He wiped the froth of the stout mournfully from his mouth. “You might have told me you were a devil-worshipper, sir.”
I looked at him in astonishment. It was just coming home to me how dangerous it might be in an area prone to violence to be held responsible for events which were all too real whatever their cause.
“I got you all this publicity,” Mr O’Reilly was saying self-pityingly. “Free, gratis and for nothing. I made you a celebrity, a national figure.” He put his hand gingerly on my arm. “You’re famous, sir, famous. And the least you can do, sir, is give me an exclusive.”
I turned away. I could hear Mr O’Reilly say, “That’s the thanks you get for doing someone a good turn. And to think that I had to sleep out there in my car in the cold in this God-forsaken place with ghouls coming out of the bog and spirits creeping out from the cracks in the road ...”
I didn’t hear any more because Mr Benedict Ryan, solicitor, had found us and led us to a table at the farthest and dimmest end of the snug. He lowered himself into a chair with the exaggerated care of the very drunk.
“It is you, isn’t it?” he said peering at me. “Mr and Mrs Brown are unable to be here today for our little meeting. Mr Brown is the president of an important corporation and had to fly to the States for a meeting. They decided to leave the matter in my hands. So we can get down to our little bit of business. That is after we’ve had drinks all round.”
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Manju and Maya and beckoned to Manju to come and sit beside me. She obeyed and sat there poised as ever in her Aran cardigan over her bright sari.
Drinks arrived and when I declined for all of us the solicitor poured them all into his own glass. He was apparently accustomed to putting away enormous amounts of alcohol.
“Couldn’t sleep last night,” he said as if to himself. “There’s something odd going on in this place. I’ve never heard such creaking and slapping of windows and the like. Of course the people here will never come clean. They’re a superstitious lot. They’re half pagan, if you ask me. There’ve been odd things going on here from time immemorial. You don’t know the half of it…..” He caught himself on and addressed himself to me.
“This, I take it,” he said looking bleary-eyed at Manju, “is Miss Brown.”
Perhaps he had drunk even more than showed or perhaps the light was even worse than it seemed.
At that moment there was a commotion among the crowd at the bar. One of the kegs of beer had burst making the area awash in stout.
“Yes, yes,” I said quickly to the solicitor. “This is Miss Brown.”
I had not planned it this way. And it can only have been out of general weakness and cowardice that I so ardently seized the easy way out.
“Do you mind, miss,” he said, “if I ask you some questions?” He paused to gather his wits. “Can you tell us,” he went on, trying to see around me, “how you are being treated and why you haven’t come to the mainland before, causing your parents such trouble and anxiety?”
I turned to see a line of glasses along the back bar explode. There was a shout as people jumped back. Some were cut by flying pieces of glass.
The solicitor took out a pencil and notebook. Manju spoke in one of the Hindi dialects with which I wasn’t familiar. But I knew enough to know that she was praying to one of the many Hindi deities.
The television man came shouldering his way into the snug. He had evidently given up the idea of an interview and was doing a commentary “I’m standing here in Carmody’s pub in the Blackshell village which is nearest to the infamous haunted Inishwrack island. Two recent deaths in Blackshell and numerous heart attacks have followed on the victims seeing apparitions said to be of an indescribably frightening and depraved nature.
“And the person responsible for all this is the man you see on your picture dressed in that odd cloak and barefoot on this chilly day. He is the head of a weird oriental cult who are said to practice black magic and perform black masses out there on Inishwrack. You’ve seen the reaction of the local people in the form of placards. Are these stories true? The deaths of the fishermen and others are undeniable. At the moment no fishing boat is prepared to put to sea along this coastline ...”
Manju was still praying in a trance-like way.
The solicitor turned to me. “I can’t catch what she’s saying. I’ve never been good at the Gaelic.”
I said, “It’s an ancient form of Gaelic Miss Brown speaks. She says to tell her parents that she’s in excellent health and very happy. At the moment she’s in the middle of an important course of meditation.”
The solicitor scrawled some alcoholic notes in his notebook.
There was increased commotion at the bar. Mr Carmody was tapping another barrel while Mrs Carmody was trying to deal with the sea of outstretched arms and empty glasses held out towards her. There was a strong smell of porter from the burst barrel, the contents of which lapped blackly around the men’s boots. The men, their faces ruddy and glowing, were calling for more.
The solicitor had his back to all this and didn’t seem to have noticed anything remarkable about the commotion behind him. He leaned across the table and said confidentially, “The auctioneer has asked me to tell you that he has a foreign client prepared to take the island off you, lock, stock and barrel. He’s very keen and has plenty of money in his pockets. I strongly recommend, sir, is that you accept his offer and get shot of that island altogether. It doesn’t suit you, sir. It’s too primitive. You and your young people are accustomed to warmer climes. And what is Inishwrack anyway only a bit of mountain and bogland hammered by the Atlantic and far from civilization or any amenities of any nature whatever ...”
An image of the island came into my mind. It was in a state of movement and disturbance. And it was impelling me back.
The television man had managed to rig up more lights and homed in on our table.
“What is the explanation of the strange happenings here in Blackshell?” the TV man asked rhetorically. “Is it the result of the present sect whose strange rites and life-style has shocked so many people?
“This wild and beautiful coast is no stranger to unexplained events. There is a clear record going right back through the centuries. Local folklore goes back to the mythological past. It was here in Blackshell that the Firbolgs landed and the Druids cast a spell to wreck their boats. Could the recent happenings have some connection with the ancient past?
“In any event, nothing stranger has ever come to Blackshell than the present oriental cult who have stirre
d up such strong opposition among the local people ...”
He didn’t get any further. His microphone shattered and the light bulbs which his assistant had rigged up exploded.
“What sort of an electricity supply have you got in this crappy joint?” he shouted. And then, on a higher note, “What the fucking hell is going on here? My fucking camera is wrecked.”
All the lights in our part of the snug had gone out. Over in the bar area two men had begun a fight. They had taken at one another and were punching viciously and furiously.
Was I responsible for all this? Could I be blamed for what was happening all around me, all this mayhem?
I wanted to get away. I had to get away. But I was transfixed. I couldn’t move.
Something was trying to get in the window. It was clawing at the window and tearing at the roof.
The scene at the bar had become a melee of flaying limbs. The fighting had changed from a drunken brawl to murderous assault. One mountainy man was knocking a younger man’s skull against the sagging counter. A tangle of bodies was down on the floor lashing about in the spilled porter. Behind us a down draught whistled down the chimney. It fanned the peat in the grate and then, as it increased in velocity, it began to push sparks and small glowing turf embers out into the room.
The television reporter backed away waving his hands to keep the sparks off his clothes. He stumbled across our table. He was screaming and lashing out. His clothes had begun to smoulder and glow. He beat at them with his fists.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I was dragged to my feet and spun around. Facing me was Dominic. He was grinning inanely, his mouth hanging open revealing his yellow broken teeth. His left arm hanging at his side looked far too long for his hunched body. He looked more idiot-like than I had ever seen him.