My favourite is the Clonycavan Man, who, the caption says, was found in a bog between the ancient kingdoms of Brega and Mide. It’s that space between kingdoms where transformation occurs, that thin place that I am trying to find. I walk into the cubby to look at Clony. Only his head and torso remain, covered in mottled leathery skin, like cured animal hide. He has an upcombed Mohawk of gelled red hair, a bashed-up nose as if he was involved in some pre-Christian fisticuffs, and a tuft of hair under the chin, a smigín, my great-aunt would have called it. There is a single white tooth in his open mouth and a hole between the eyes. I sit facing him, cut off from the rest of the museum in the cubby, and listen hard, but I can’t hear a syllable from two thousand years ago. I whisper, “Bye, Clony,” blow him a small dry kiss and walk out of the room—I don’t visit the other bog bodies in case he gets jealous. A small wooden door is almost hidden between two pillars at the bottom of a spiral staircase. The door is arched at the top and has a brass knob in the middle and requires a secret knock and a password to enter; I presume that’s where the dragon guards the hoard of gold so precious it cannot be displayed.
I climb the staircase that leads to Ancient Egypt, closing my eyes and making a wish as I pass through the golden gate at the top, just in case. In the Ancient Egypt room, the mummies look placid and unquestioning, one of them looks surprised to be dead. I wonder if they get on well with the bog bodies or if there’s too much of an age gap. I examine display cases of jewels and scarab beetles in Sinai turquoise—a turquoise the hiss of a boiling sea, a turquoise so smug it could be the only colour on earth—and go back downstairs to the main hall. A porter is putting chat on two American girls who look at each other and giggle. When the girls leave, I edge closer. He looks in my direction but he doesn’t seem to see me. No matter, he will hear my voice.
“Hard to believe how old those bog bodies are, huh?”
I have learnt “huh” from American television programmes; I like to vary it with my “wha’s.”
“Yeah, they’re old alright,” he mutters, and barely makes eye contact before moving off. I’m pleased that I’ve said my sentence, but it could have gone better. Clonycavan Man would have been nicer to talk to. I walk around the gold pieces and write their names in my notebook, in case my next friend is a tycoon with a taste for old treasures: “Gold Dress Fastener, Torc, Gorget, Ring-Money, Bulla, Lunula, Lock-Ring, Ear Spool, Sun Disc, Basket Earrings, Folded Rod, Armlet, Beads, Bracelet, Sunflower-Pin, Collar, Neck Ring, Sleeve Fastener, Nine Hollow Gold Balls.”
When my eyeballs are brimming with gold and I’m beginning to lose sight of whether gold is a good or a bad thing, I make for the carved stone head from Corleck, County Cavan, which sounds like an archaeological tongue twister. It’s a whole other heap of “C”s in Irish: ceann cloiche snoite. I would like snoite to be a word in the English language. It would be pronounced “snuteh,” and it would mean a snooty person in a snit. The head has three faces: one face looks placid, one looks gormless, one is planning cruel mischief. There’s something frightening about three noses on one face. One of the mouths has a pencil-top-shaped hole in it, which must be where the magic spills out. I walk around the stone head seven times, making a wish on the seventh turn, but nothing happens. If I made the wrong wish, I could grow a beard instead of wings, or if it was raining when I made the wish, I might turn into a mermaid.
I leave the museum and head to College Green. I cross the street to the island with the disused public toilets, which might be as enchanted a water source on May Day as a holy well. There are two entrances with steps leading underground. The steps are covered with dead leaves, empty crisp packets, cigarette butts and half a bottle of cola. The toilets are surrounded by iron railings and padlocked iron gates. An electrical box stands on the western end, with a picture of a ballerina crossing her legs in a pirouette. It looks like she needs to go to the toilet. There’s a strong smell of piss; I’m not sure if it’s recent or if it’s the ghostly smell of pisses past or if the ballerina hasn’t succeeded in holding it in. I walk sun-wise around the toilets three times and toss some coins down the steps, but I don’t shut my eyes because I’m on the edge of a traffic island in the middle of a busy street, and being flattened by a bus is a miserable way of getting to the otherworld. I cross the road, passing the hotel that used to be a bank, and stop to look in the window of the Irish Yeast Company. There are silver cake trays and cake decorations and three-tiered polystyrene wedding cakes with sun-faded figurine couples on top. Miss Havisham must haunt this shop by night. I walk north, and cross O’Connell Bridge. I look around O’Connell Street for a makeshift maypole, but the bus-stop poles are too yellow, and the road-sign poles are too grey. I head down Dorset Street, and pass a barber shop with a red-and-white pole: it’s short and stumpy but it’s the right colours. The pole hangs above my head, so I jump and wave my arms in a horseshoe shape around the pole. The barber and the man under the scissors stare out the window at me. I do three more jumps, giddy jumps, and shout “Happy May-Day!” before walking home. I have one last tradition to try.
I bring a bundle of cardboard packaging and old newspapers out to the back garden, pile them in a heap and set it alight. I’m supposed to lead a cow through the flames but I have no cow, so I take some beef burgers out of the freezer—dead minced cow will have to do. When the first flames appear I stand back, hold a burger in each hand and take a running leap over the fire. Nothing happens. I jump over the fire three times, then seven times, then I’m wondering whether to do another three jumps and whether the unluckiness of thirteen is cancelled out by May Day, when Mary’s head appears over the wall.
“What are you doing, Vivian?”
I fling the burgers into the fire.
“I’m having a small barbecue.”
“Why are you jumping over the fire?”
“I’m training to be a firefighter,” I say. “I’m going to practice carrying a hose next.”
She narrows her eyes.
“Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s alright,” I say.
Mary looks at me again and shakes her head slowly before moving off. The flames of my bonfire have almost died so I go inside and take off my shoes and socks. My feet are white and soggy, they look bare and uncooked. I sniff one of my socks: it is hard and crisp and smells of processed cheese, which makes me think of how cheese provokes dreams, possibly the kind of dreams that reveal a singular truth. It’s nowhere near bedtime, but I make for the fridge and hack into the block of cheese. I eat as I cut and soon I have eaten it all. I need to sleep immediately after the cheese but it’s barely evening, so I resort to chemical means. I go to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and put three of my great-aunt’s sleeping pills into my mouth. They taste bitter and nasty. Then I cup my hand and scoop some water from the tap and swallow them. I blink three times, but my eyes stay open. I go downstairs and put on the television. I can’t decide which chair to sit in—they’re all facing me with their hands up, hissing, “Teacher teacher pick me,” but it’s too hard to choose, so I stand in front of the television and watch a nature programme about a shark. The screen shows an ocean scene, with fish darting every which way to escape the shark. When the fish start to slow down and the shark stops swimming, I know this isn’t right; if sharks stop swimming, they will die. I turn away from the television and now the floor is up and the ceiling is down and my head is awhirl like the ocean. I shuffle to the stairs and start to climb. There are sacks of potatoes tied to my ankles dragging them down and my head is in bogland sludge. My hand tries to connect with the banister, but the banister moves and, oh look, somebody else’s hand has been attached to my body. I lean forward and put my head on a step because I just need to rest awhile…
I WAKE UP, but it feels more like waking down. I was on top of a steep mountain in my dream, looking down and knowing in my stomach that I would fall. I feel tired, so, so tired, as if I spent the night climbing the mountain but my head doesn’t remember the
climb, only my body does. I look around. I’m sprawled the length of six steps on the stairs. I need to do something; I can’t figure out exactly what that something is, but it needs to be done right now. When I stand up, the walls wash over me and the chairs on the landing swirl around to greet me. I try to wave at them, but my arm is numb. I feel a pressure in my lower belly and realise that I need to go to the toilet. I walk heavy-legged to the bathroom, and go to the toilet. The mirror is covered in a white sheet, so I run my hands over my face and find puffy eyes with more lid than ball, and a carpet dent on my right cheek. My mind is afug. I need some kind of clarity elixir, so I go downstairs and take a bottle of cola from the drinks cupboard. I pour it into a glass, take some frozen peas from the freezer and plip the peas into the cola.
I sit on the brown swivel chair in the living room and drink, looking at the bookshelves; there might be a book in there that could tell me the world. The colours of the spines are faded into muddy reds and greens and browns, like autumn on a shelf. I take down the copy of Irish Mythology. The cover is moss green, a few shades darker than the spine. I start to read the book, but it’s tough going. The print is small and tightly packed, as if paragraphs hadn’t been invented when the book was written. I sift through the pages until I come to “The Children of Lir.” I like this story because it’s short and simple, and there are chocolates named after them.
King Lir had four young children called Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra, and Conn. Their new stepmother, Aoife, grew jealous of the love their father bore them and ordered her servant to kill them, but the servant refused. Aoife did not have the courage to kill them herself, so she used her magic to turn the children into swans. As swans, the children were condemned to spend 300 years on Lough Derravaragh, 300 years in the Sea of Moyle, and 300 years on the waters of Erris near Inishglora. Until Saint Patrick came to Ireland, and until they heard the Christian bell, they would not be changed back into human form.
I close my eyes and swivel in the chair. If I find four adult swans and bring them to a church bell, they could be returned to human form and I could be returned to fairy form. I stand up. I don’t have to get dressed because I slept in my clothes, and there’s a warm soft feeling of day-old cloth against my skin. I look in the kitchen cupboards and find half a chocolate Swiss roll with my toothmarks on one end—I like to pick up a Swiss roll and eat it like a hot dog so that I don’t have to wash a plate or knife. Swans like bread, and if they like bread, they’ll love cake. I put the cake in a brown paper bag, pack it into my handbag with my notebook and pen and leave the house. I pull the door softly behind me to get away unheeded and take the road at a run, but my head is eight steps behind, banging slow and thuddish.
I walk through Phibsborough to Crossguns Bridge and turn left onto the canal bank. I watch the gush of the water in the locks until my bladder starts to complain, then I walk west along the canal. The children of Lir heard St. Patrick’s bell and were transformed, but the only St. Patrick’s bell I know of is the one at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in town. I don’t know how to get my swans to follow me into town, across the Liffey and up the hill to St. Patrick’s, and I fear these Royal Canal swans will be mocked by the Liffey swans if their accents or feather-styles are different. A shopping trolley half-sunk in the canal looks like a huge silver weed with water flowing through the holes. Empty cans of beer and cider bob about the surface. Along the banks, there are patches of burnt grass scattered with coloured strips of wire. A black plastic bag tied to a tree puffs up like a sailboat in mourning, and a rat scuttles along the bank and drops (plop) into the water. There are patches of white ahead, like chunks of cloud on the surface of the canal, and I make for them. The swans are parked near a bridge—maybe they too like edges and corners and chair cushions over their heads. I break off a piece of cake and throw it to them.
“Hello!” I say, “Hello, Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra and Conn.”
There are only three swans, but I say all their names because I don’t know which one is missing. One of the swans gazes at me so I address it.
“Fionnuala, if you come with me and eat cake, you’ll change back into humans.”
Fionnuala swims off to join her brothers. I throw more cake, and one of them beaks at it. This must be Fionnuala because any friend of mine is also a friend of cake. I throw more pieces in a trail leading to the canal bank, but the swans ignore me and float off in the other direction. I sit on the damp bank and eat the rest of it myself. The water is so still it makes me think of the lines from that poem I studied in school:
O commemorate me where there is water;
Canal water, preferably, so stilly
Greeny
I would also like to be commemorated where there is water, but I’d prefer seawater that’s roughy bluey, with fewer shopping trolleys and rude swans.
I walk back down the canal towards Drumcondra, and sit beside the statue of the poet on the bench. The statue is mottled with shapes the size and colour of flattened slugs, which, it seems when I try to rub them off, the sculptor did on purpose. The poet is staring at the statue of a pigeon over my shoulder, but he sets me on edge because he seems to be staring straight at me.
“What?” I ask him. “What do you want?”
I get up and walk towards the bus stop on Dorset Street, my head still soupy from the sleeping pills, my legs in glue. When the bus comes, I sit near the back and listen to two teenage girls behind me.
“Did you hear Amy Credden’s pregnant?”
“No?”
“Yeah, and she’s depressed.”
“Why’s she depressed?”
“She thinks she’s too old to have a baby.”
“What age is she?”
“Nineteen.”
“Oh.”
They drop into silence after the “oh,” as if nineteen is so far in the future, it’s beyond contemplation. I try to remember being a teenager but all that comes to mind is hand-me-down school uniforms with my name already sewn on them, faded from so many washings. I get off the bus on Dame Street, and turn into Dublin Castle at Palace Street. I pass the Sick & Indigent Roomkeepers Society, and wonder if “indigent” means a native or annoyed, or a native who’s annoyed. I like this street; there are only two buildings facing it, I can take it all in in an eyeful. I cut through the castle, and come out the Ship Street Gate. An arch on my right leads to the Castle Steps, which look like they should be taken in leaps and bounds. A plaque states that: “…about 100 feet NW of this spot it is reputed that…” Jonathan Swift was born. I want to change the “about” to an “exactly,” and the “reputed” to a “known.” I can’t add such uncertainties to a notebook of certainties.
I head towards Bride Street, and read a plaque on a building about a ragman who used to give goldfish to children in exchange for their parents’ clothes, which the children took on the sly. I would have given away my parents’ clothes for a goldfish in a jam jar; I would have given away my parents. I turn onto Bull Alley Street and into St. Patrick’s Park. To the left of the entrance is a crescent-shaped stone outline containing clumps of blue and white flowers, non-committal kind of flowers that look like they were planted with indifference and a shrug. A small plaque amongst the stones reads: “Near here is the reputed site of the well where St. Patrick baptised many local inhabitants in the 5th century AD.” The “near” is as vague as the “about” in the Jonathan Swift plaque, and the scourge of “reputed” strikes again: more uncertainty that can’t be noted. A large sign states that: “Tradition has it that Saint Patrick baptised the first Irish Christians in a well, situated here in St. Patrick’s Park, with water from the River Poddle, which still flows underground.” All these “tradition has its” and “reputeds” and “near heres” are unsettling my sense of certainty. The clock on the cathedral clock tower tells the right time in gold numerals, which goes some ways towards settling me, and I walk through the park, looking at the stone heads carved into St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A head in a curled ruff like an unbro
ken pencil paring makes stony eye contact with me. He looks like a George; George has very high standards and no sense of humour, but at least he’s fair in judgement. Against one wall of the cathedral there’s a concrete pouch of a house, about knee-high to a tall man, with a pointed roof and a black padlocked door. I wait for something or someone to come out of this little house, but nothing happens, so I follow the path of the park to the far side, and read the old plaques stating park rules.
“A person shall not consume intoxicating liquor or inhale, inject or absorb controlled drugs or solvents.”
I’m impressed by the glut of verbs, and try to imagine how someone would absorb a drug, but all I can picture is a woman reading the word “DRUG” written in large letters on the page of a book, or a man bathing in drugged water, which seeps through his pores. I move on to the next sign: “Where a dog fouls a public place, the person in charge of the dog must remove the faeces immediately.” I like the certainty of these words, there is no dithering behind vague words for the sake of politeness. I take out my notebook and write out the words from the sign. A herd of tourists gathers around me. One of them reads aloud the sign in accented English, stops reading, and looks at me and my notebook. The tourists’ feet waver, and they drift away from my sign to find the plaques of famous writers along the park’s edges. I return to the buried well. It’s so near to a busy street with traffic vibrations that I haven’t a hope of feeling the pull of the Poddle beneath. I leave the park and walk back into town, sniffing the air. There is a fierce bang of hops from the Guinness factory, a smell somewhere between meat and toffee that gives me a hunger but I don’t know what for. I cross Dame Street and head down Cow’s Lane into Temple Bar, stopping in a souvenir shop to buy a box of Lir chocolates. I stand outside the shop, peel off the wrapping and stuff the chocolates in threes into my mouth. There are eight chocolates in the box, but eating the last two would cancel out the magic of the six I just ate. I walk down the cobbles and turn into Merchant’s Arch. A man is sitting under the arch, with a blanket on his knees and a paper cup of coins at his feet.
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