Notes from a Spinning Planet—Ireland

by Melody Carlson

  “Sorry,” he says when he comes back. “I didn’t know you were getting so tired.”

  “I guess I’m not in very good shape.” I wipe the back of my hand across my wet forehead. “I need to get some water.”

  “We don’t have to be in such a hurry.” He checks his watch. “Take your time and cool off. I’ll stay with the bikes.”

  I attempt some long, deep breaths as I go into the tiny store. My legs are throbbing, and I feel pretty sure I won’t ever be able to get back on that bike again. Maybe I should tell Ryan to go on without me.

  “Cycling, are you?” asks an old man who’s sitting on a stool behind an ancient cash register. “Good day for it too.”

  I see my blotchy red face in the mirror behind him and realize that I look like I’m about to have a heart attack or heatstroke. “Yes.” I glance around the crowded shelves of the store. “Do you have any water?”

  “Water?” He stands up and looks over his shoulder toward a door that I’m guessing must lead to the house behind the store. “You wish a drink o’ water, do ya? Why, certainly. I’ll be right back—”

  “I mean bottled water,” I say as I realize he’s probably about to fetch me a glass of water from his house. “I want to buy a bottle of water.”

  “A bottle of water?” With a slightly befuddled expression, he scratches his head. “I canna understand why you Americans buy water in bottles when we have perfectly good drinking water coming right out of the spout. The wife tells me I should order this special water in the bottles for my shop, but I don’t believe anyone in his right mind would really want to buy water.” He nods to a tall cooler against the back wall. “Now, I do have what they call sports drinks, though. I’ve noticed that the one by the name of Lucozade is quite popular with sports enthusiasts.”

  I find the brand he’s talking about. It resembles Gatorade, and I decide to buy a couple of bottles.

  “You’re a bit flushed,” he says as he counts out my change. “Perhaps you should have a wee bit of a rest before you travel on.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “Feel free to make yourself at home out there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Taking him at his word, I hand Ryan one of the drinks and flop down on the grass in front of the store and let out a loud groan.

  “You okay?” Ryan leans over from where he’s sitting on the bench and peers down at me with what appears to be bona fide concern.

  “Maybe you should go on without me,” I tell him as I slowly sit up and take a long swig of the red drink. “I didn’t realize that I’m in such bad shape.”

  “I was probably riding too fast,” he says apologetically. “We can slow it down. I think it’s only about five more miles to the ferry, and we have plenty of time.”

  I really want to tell him to forget it, that I’m finished with biking and will be calling a cab to come pick me up, but his face looks so hopeful that I just nod and take another long drink. After a few minutes, I actually start to feel human again, and I force my tired body back onto the bike.

  “You gonna be okay?”

  I nod without speaking.

  And so he takes off, but I notice that he goes a lot slower. Before long, I feel like I might be able to make it after all. He glances back at me from time to time, probably expecting to see me lying on the side of the road like a beached whale. But somehow I manage to keep up, and finally what looks like a seaport comes into sight.

  We park and lock our bikes outside of the ferry ticket office and go inside to get our tickets, where the man informs us that it’ll be an hour or so. “She’s arunning late today,” he says. “Maybe you’d like to get yourselves a pint at the pub next door. They’ve got a snooker table.”

  “Snooker table?” I quietly repeat to Ryan as we leave and head toward the pub. I can’t imagine what that must be, but I’m thinking it’s probably fairly disrespectful, and, consequently, I’m not even sure I want to go inside.

  “Pool,” he says as he opens the door.

  “Pool?” I’m still not clear. Does he want to go swimming?

  “Billiards,” he says as if I’m mentally impaired.

  “Oh, yeah.” I nod as if I really did know this. Duh.

  “Do you play?” he asks as he goes over to the pool table.

  “As a matter of fact, not very well.” I pick up a cue and pretend to study it for straightness.

  “Want a drink?” he asks as he heads for the bar.

  “Sure. Something lemony.”

  When he returns, he has a lemon drink for me and what appears to be a Guinness for himself. I frown at him.

  “Does it bother you that I’m having a beer?”

  I just shrug.

  “I won’t drink it if it really bugs you, Maddie. I just thought it sounded good after that ride.”

  I shrug again. “Do as you like.”

  He racks up the balls, and we begin to play pool, but I have to admit it does bug me that he’s having a beer. I mean, its barely noon. What’s up with that?

  We’re about midway through the game, and fairly evenly matched, when Ryan asks me why I’m so quiet.

  “I don’t know.” I lean over and take my shot at the nine ball, blowing it by several inches, probably due to the distraction of his question.

  “It really does bug you that I’m having a beer, doesn’t it?” he says, holding up his half-full glass.

  “Maybe.”

  He walks over to the bar, sets the beer down, then orders the same lemon drink I’m having, and comes back. “Better?”

  I kind of smile. “Maybe.”

  We continue playing pool, or snooker as the Irish call it, and just as Ryan is about to put in the eight ball, we hear a loud toot that we figure must be the ferry’s horn. He misses his shot, but I concede the game to him since I still have two balls left on the table.

  “I’m curious why you’re so bugged about the beer thing,” he says as we pick up our bikes. Our plan is to take them on the ferry and use them to tour the island. “Someone in your family have a drinking problem?”

  I shake my head. “Just the opposite,” I say. “My family is pretty conservative about alcohol.” I consider the next statement I’m about to make and figure why not just get it out into the open. “And I’m a Christian.” Even as I make this announcement, I feel kind of hypocritical.

  He shrugs. “So?”

  “Well, I just don’t think Christians should drink.”

  “All Christians? You’re making that decision for all Christians?”

  Okay, I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.

  “I’m curious as to how you reached this conclusion,” he says as we wheel our bikes onto the pier. “I mean, that Christians aren’t allowed to drink.”

  “It just seems pretty obvious.”

  “And how do you explain the fact that people in the Bible drank wine and that Jesus and his disciples drank wine? In fact, Jesus’s first miracle was actually changing water to wine. How do you account for that?”

  I’m surprised he knows anything about the Bible, having assumed he is not a Christian. “I don’t think it was real wine,” I say. “I’ve heard it was more like grape juice.”

  He kind of laughs but not in a mean way. “Right.” Even so, it does make me feel uncomfortable, and I’m relieved I can focus my attention on wheeling the bike up the ramp that leads to the boat. Hopefully we can talk about something else. We park our bikes in the bike rack, and I start walking toward a door that looks like it leads to an inside seating area.

  “Want to go up to the bow with me?” Ryan asks.

  “Is it okay?”

  “I don’t know why not.”

  So I follow him along a walkway and down some stairs, then onto an open deck. Soon we are at the very front of the boat, standing in this little triangle where the bow leans out like a platform, extending right over the ocean. “Cool view,” I say as I look down at the dark blue water below us.

&n
bsp; “Yeah. I think this is the best seat in the boat. Except you have to stand.”

  Soon we are moving, and I have to agree with Ryan—this is the best seat in the boat! It feels kind of like flying as the bow moves up and down with the waves. “This is so cool,” I say as I hold on to the railing and peer out.

  “Look!” He’s pointing at the water directly below us now and off to our right. “There’s a dolphin!”

  Sure enough, I see the dark gray shadow of a large fish swimming right along with the boat, keeping a perfect pace. And then I spot another just behind him. “Look, there are two!” Before long we have sighted about six of them, all racing alongside the boat as if this is a fun game they’re used to playing.

  “This is so awesome!” I say as I watch these graceful creatures moving along, occasionally jumping out of the water as if they’re having a blast.

  He nods with a huge smile. “I wish we could swim with them.”

  “It’d probably be cold down there.”

  “Maybe with a wetsuit.”

  The dolphins stick with us until we get closer to the island, and then they just sort of slip away. I’m disappointed to see them go. “That was so cool,” I tell Ryan. “I’ve never seen a real dolphin before.”

  “Not even at Sea World?”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  He looks at me like I have a cucumber for a nose. “Man, I guess Sid wasn’t kidding.”

  “Kidding?”

  “You really don’t get off the farm much!”

  As much as I want to punch him, I realize he’s right. But, hey, I am here in western Ireland now, and we’re about to see one of the most remote places in Connemara! And I actually managed to ride a bike all the way from Clifden. This is a really, really good day!

  Six

  As the boat draws closer to land, Ryan pulls out the brochure about Inishbofin and points toward what looks like a small castle. It almost appears to be part of a rock that’s not too far away from the actual island.

  “According to this,” he reads, “that’s a Cromwellian fort, which was used as a prison camp for Catholic priests.”

  “Why did they lock up the priests?” I ask as I stare at the dark rock fortress standing all by itself on a small stone island.

  “Why?” Ryan repeats as if he’s considering the answer himself. “I’m not sure anyone really knows why, Maddie. It’s just the way they did things. The hatred between Catholics and Protestants pretty much defies common sense, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. I know I don’t get it.”

  Then he tells me how this island was picked by a dude named Coleman for the location of a monastery in 665. “Talk about a secluded place,” he says. “It must’ve been totally uninhabited by anyone back then.”

  “What does Inishbofin mean?” I ask him since he’s the one with the brochure and therefore the expert.

  “It says here that inish is Irish for ‘island’ and that Inishbofin is the ‘island of the white cows.’”

  “I wonder how the cows got here,” I muse as the boat pulls into the dock.

  Soon we are wheeling our bikes down the ramp, and I can smell something cooking. It’s well past noon, and I’m feeling pretty hungry. “Do you think there’s any place to eat around here?”

  “I don’t know. The brochure says the population on the island is only about two hundred. That doesn’t exactly sound like a bustling metropolis.”

  I remember the sweet little bakery across from our inn back in Clifden. They had a sign in the front window advertising sack lunches. I wonder if we should’ve bought a couple to bring with us.

  But as it turns out, there are a couple of places to eat. They look pretty small and unimpressive. I suspect they’re simply homes that double as pubs, but we place our orders from the very limited menus and are pleasantly surprised that, even out here in the sticks, the food’s still good.

  “I’ve heard that the Irish take their food very seriously,” Ryan tells me as we finish our lunch of hearty sandwiches and chips. “It has to do with the potato famine and being starved out by the British. Maybe they’re extra motivated to make sure they never get stuck with crummy food again.”

  “Works for me,” I tell him.

  Then we bike on the small roads that wind around the island, passing delightful little rock houses, small farms, lots of happy-looking white cows, and finally end up at the most amazing tide pools. We park our bikes and just walk and walk, examining the incredible sea life contained within these pockets of seawater while the tide is low.

  “This is awesome,” I say as I try to snap a picture of a purple crab and a bright orange sea anemone.

  We take turns snapping photos of each other, I think to prove we were actually here. “This must be one of the most remote spots in Ireland,” I say as we get onto our bikes and prepare to pedal back across the island.

  “And isolated,” says Ryan. “I read in the brochure that sometimes they are completely cut off from civilization during the winter, at times when it’s too rough for the ferry to come out.”

  “Can you imagine?” I say as I gaze across the beautiful but rugged landscape along the edge of the sea. I continue thinking about how it would feel to live in a place like this as we ride down the narrow dirt road that twists and turns between the farms. I look at a small stone farmhouse, so vastly different from the two-story modern home I grew up in, and I try to imagine what it would really feel like to live in a place so far removed from the modern world. I’m not sure I could handle it.

  We stop at a pub for drinks, and I’m relieved when Ryan gets a soda. Maybe he’s gotten the whole Guinness thing out of his system now. I know I wouldn’t complain about it if he has. We hear the sound of the ferry’s horn and quickly finish our drinks and then hurry back to the boat.

  “I’m so tired,” I admit after we load our bikes and get our spot in the bow. “I hope I can make it back to town before dark.”

  “We could always call for a ride from the port,” he says. “Maybe Sid could pick up you and the bike, and I could go ahead and just ride—”

  “No,” I say quickly, “I’ll be fine. I guess I’ll just be sleeping really, really well tonight.”

  To my relief, the return trip doesn’t seem quite as long as the one this morning. That might be due to the cooler air or to the fact that I recognize the landmarks now, plus I keep telling myself it won’t be long till we’re back in town. We take a quick break at the little store, and this time a short, chubby woman (I suspect the wife) is working there, but I can tell she’s ready to close up shop. I don’t even bother to ask her about bottled water as I hurry to get our sports drinks. But after we’re back outside, I call Sid to tell her we’re running late.

  “Don’t worry,” she says quickly. “I’m not done here yet. I can’t believe the stuff I’m finding out. In fact, you guys might as well get yourselves some dinner if I’m not in Clifden by the time you’re back.”

  I share this news with Ryan, and he frowns. “Man, I hope everything’s going okay for her.”

  I kind of shrug. “Why shouldn’t it be?”

  His brow creases as he chucks his empty bottle into the trash can. “Ireland’s kind of a weird place, Maddie. I mean, it’s beautiful and amazing and mysterious and all that. But trust me, there’s a lot of pain and heartache lying just beneath the surface. Seriously, I’ve grown up hearing these stories. It’s not all as pretty as it appears.”

  I’m about to ask him what he means by this, but he’s already getting back on his bike. So I take one last swig of my drink, toss my bottle into the trash, and despite the dull but growing ache in my hindquarters, I get back onto my bike as well. It takes my full concentration to just keep pedaling—left, right, left, right—but after a while I realize we’re almost back to town. Just one more hill. I actually gasp out a desperate prayer as I’m creeping like a lethargic tortoise toward the top of the hill, begging God to strengthen my legs, which are actually shaking from fatigue rig
ht now. And when I reach the top, I beg him to help me make it down the decline without a serious crash and burn. Those rock walls bordering the road suddenly look formidable—not to mention I’m not wearing a helmet! Dear God, just get me to the inn in one piece!

  And with some seriously sore muscles, I do make it. I feel a mixture of relief and exhaustion as we walk our bikes down the sidewalk toward the inn. And Ryan, very generously, offers to return the bikes for us. I don’t even protest, nor do I experience a single pang of guilt as I watch him wheeling my detestable vehicle away. We agree to meet in the lobby downstairs around seven for dinner. Ryan has picked out the restaurant, and I am too ravenous to argue. It takes every last bit of my strength to make it up the three flights of stairs to my room. Haven’t they heard of elevators in Ireland?

  I strip off my stinky clothes, and to my surprise, the slow, drippy shower feels pretty fabulous. I let the hot water dribble down my worn-out body for nearly half an hour before I finally emerge and slowly get dressed again. I can’t believe it’s nearly seven already. And as hungry as I am, I’m a little worried about going back down all those stairs again—and then to think I have to come back up! Ireland is not for the faint of heart…or maybe that’s the weary of body. At any rate, I should be in pretty good shape by the time I’m done with this vacation.

  “No sign of Sid yet?” Ryan asks when I meet him in the lobby.

  I shake my head. “I tried her cell phone, but it must be turned off. Anyway, I left her a message about where we’d be eating in case she gets here in time to meet us.”

  Okay, I haven’t missed that this guy cleans up pretty well. You’d hardly know that he had been on an exhausting bike ride today. Whereas my cheeks are still flushed, and my legs feel like limp noodles. But, looking cool and rather attractive, Ryan has on a blue cotton sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. And it actually brings out the color of his eyes. Who knew they were so blue? I do feel a bit of relief that his khakis are wrinkled. I’m sure it’s only from his suitcase, but I’m glad he doesn’t look too perfect.