by Robert Power
On our third morning on Inishmaan, Ann-Maree knocked on our door and asked if Jo wanted to come for a walk with her and Dot, the Dalmation.
‘Will you be okay on your own?’ Jo asked me, in that concerned way of his.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll explore.’
So the two children and a dog headed to the south of the island and the sand dunes, while I made my way along the pathways at the back of the house and up the incline to the cliffs. Once I hit the peak of the hill the weather turned wild. The strong onshore winds whipped up the waves and sent a bank of chilly air to greet me. All along the way the cliffs were strewn with slabs and shards of rock of various sizes. Far down below the sea heaped huge wave upon wave, mirroring the jagged, layered limestone formation of the cliffs.
I walked along, leaning into the strength of the wind, almost defying it to suddenly cease and send me toppling over the edge. The rawness and power of it all, the rain and seaspray whipping my face, was wildly exhilarating. Then, as I stepped over a heap of stones that had tumbled perilously close to the cliff’s edge, Synge’s chair came into view. Set back from the path and up a slope it was a large throne made from granite. Majestic. Strangely foreboding. I’d read about it in the little pamphlet Christina had left on the table by my bed. Many came to the island just to pay homage to the great playwright; to sit in the chair he’d built on the clifftops. For the traveller it was one of Inishmaan’s main attractions, along with the ancient forts, the beehive, and the chance to be in a place where time had stood still and the Gaelic language and all things Irish were still alive.
I’d seen Synge’s plays over the years. He was up there with the greats. Capturing an essence, a mood, an enduring sense of place. Dotted around his chair were small piles of stones, little monuments erected by fans, but maybe also by passersby who liked what they saw and added their own statue.
I found a couple of flat stones and made a pile, adding smaller ones until I’d constructed a knee-high pyramid. I sat back in the chair and admired my handiwork, thinking how I was copying the wall-builders: rugged men who had for centuries parcelled up the island with rough stone walls, no cement, just carefully positioning each stone in place to withstand the wild winds and stormy weather.
That night Christina cooked a pot of stew, which we all ate with great enthusiasm. Jo and Ann-Maree’s appetite stemmed from their adventures on the island; mine from the headiness and oxygen of it all.
‘You go along to the pub,’ said Christina, as she was clearing the plates from the table. ‘The children will be good with me.’
Jo was sitting on a rug by the fire with Ann-Maree. They were playing a game of cards.
‘You’ll be okay, Jo?’
He looked up and nodded his head, then lay down a card with a flourish. Ann-Maree pushed him backwards and Dot jumped on his head and licked his face.
‘He’ll be just fine,’ said Christina, opening the door, a cold draught rushing in to challenge the warmth of the house.
Outside it was pitch black. The clouds were low, with no moon or stars to lighten anyone’s way. The pub was up the hill, just around the first bend in the road. Walking towards it, carefully easing my way along the path, a square of lemony light appeared from the small window of the single storey building. As I approached, stones and flint shifting under my feet, the ever-present sound of the heave and suck of the sea, the light grew larger, brighter. Pushing open the heavy door, weighty against winter storms, the lounge room was a shock of colour and brightness. The half dozen drinkers at the bar, all men, turned to look at me, gave me that ‘so it’s the stranger’ look and then went back to their business. Glancing around, drawn to the crackle and flame of the fire in the corner of the room, I noticed an old man sitting alone at a low table. He looked my way and beckoned me to sit at the empty seat beside him. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for me, anticipating my arrival.
‘You’re the man with the boy,’ he said, drawing on his cigarette. He had a strong Irish face: long nose, overhanging top lip, small bluish eyes, blotchy reddened skin. The thinning white hair and deeply lined face indicated a man late in life.
‘Yes, I am. With my son. Jo’s his name. We’re on a bit of a break.’
‘Guinness?’ he asked, pointing to his glass.
‘Yes, please, thank you,’ I said.
‘Pat,’ he shouted to the barman, ‘two glasses of stout, when you’re ready, sir.’
‘I saw you walking up the hill this morning,’ he said, draining the dregs from his glass, the creamy froth sliding into his mouth.
‘That was me.’
‘To the cliffs, I’d fancy.’
‘Yes, that was the way.’
‘And sitting in the chair?’
‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘is that not what visitors do?’
‘Not everyone, but some do. And you’ve seen the forts?’
I nodded.
‘And the old Mac Donnchadha house?’
‘The Mac Donnchadha house,’ I said, struggling to repeat the Irish, ‘I’m not sure.’
‘The house where Synge lived those summers he was here. It’s all but falling down. But if anyone offers the family five thousand pounds then it’ll be their own.’
He looked at me to gauge my response, as if he knew I’m the one to be interested. Just then two glasses of black stout were placed on the table before us. The old man nodded a thank you to Pat, the barman, then took a long draught from his drink. I did the same.
‘So you know about Synge?’ he said, looking away from me, staring into the fire, the turf of peat hissing and smoking, the twigs flickering flames.
‘As much as most, I imagine. I’ve read his plays. Seen them in Dublin.’
‘He caused some unhappiness here,’ said the old man, looking at me to see if I knew what he meant.
Indeed, I’d read about the controversy. How his plays of the island caused riots when they were first shown at the Abbey Theatre. Some said he showed women as wanton harlots and the islanders as anti-God, anti-Catholic.
‘That’s what I’d read,’ I said, ‘but I’ve always liked his work. It has a universality, don’t you think.’
‘Easily said by those from outside. But it’s left a stain. Generations of our women. The island itself trapped in some pagan past.’
‘I remember,’ I said, ‘that Synge was brokenhearted, never recovered. A young woman he loved, but she felt him too worldly for her, not Catholic enough. Maybe that’s why he wrote the way he did about women.’
The old man stared at me as if to acknowledge I’d touched on a truth.
We sat silently, drinking our beer, gazing into the fire. I got to thinking about Synge’s plays, the cripple, the playboy, the women, the talk of spirits. And then an image came to my mind, unbidden, from somewhere deep. It’s wasn’t from the plays, or reading, or my conversation with the old man. Maybe from the fire. Then, like the flame drifting upwards, it emerged as a question, a figure silhouetted against the grey of the chimney wall.
That night I fell asleep with the sounds of wind and wave echoing through my mind. I dreamt I was up on the cliffs. A storm was raging all around as I piled huge stones one atop the other. The horizontal sleet was all but blinding me, but through the blizzard I could see Synge’s chair: enormous, imposing. It took over the entire skyline. Struggling to lift one last huge stone I became aware of someone close by. Very close by. When I turned there she was: the Green Lady. She was tall and thin and dressed in an olive-coloured frock that reached to the ground. Her skin was turquoise, her eyes shone as sparkling emeralds, and her long tousled hair was matted with seaweed. She opened wide her mouth, but what words she said were lost in the storm. The heavy stone was slipping from my hands and I stumbled to keep my grip. The stone fell forward and rolled end to end until it tipped over the cliff’s edge. After falling through the void, in what seemed an interminable time, the large slab slapped into the waves way below, causing a momentary flash of white, then disappeare
d. When I looked back the figure was gone, leaving behind a howl on the wind and the question from the fire, the one I never asked of the old man: ‘Who is the Green Lady?’
Up on the hill, sitting in Synge’s chair was Siobhan. She was holding a huge quill pen in her left hand. ‘Since love’s argument was first on foot,’ she said and then frantically scribbled some lines in a huge ledger book spread on her lap.
It was the next day that my world stopped dead. Jo and Ann-Maree and Dot had headed off after breakfast. It was an exceptionally beautiful morning. The clouds had peeled off in the night and the sky was a blue that captures your gaze. I’d taken a cheese sandwich and an apple and headed up the hill. By the time I made it to the cliffs the air was warm and the sea was calm. After a long leisurely walk I arrived at my favourite spot and sat in the big stone chair, content and at ease with the world. I ate my lunch and turned my face to the welcome warmth of the sun. I must have dozed off for the next thing I knew Christina was standing beside me gently shaking my arm. Rubbing my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming I looked up to see the worried expression on her face.
‘You must come back to the house. Now,’ she said, pleading, beckoning me to follow.
Ann-Maree was in the parlour. She’d been crying. Dot was lying on the floor asleep.
‘We were playing,’ she said, ‘by the caves. Jo said he heard her calling him. The Green Lady. He’d said it before. But before, we always laughed. Like we weren’t scared. But this time he didn’t laugh. Just said she was calling him to come. Then I slipped on the rocks. When I looked up again he was gone. I went into the cave, but it was so dark. I tried. I promise. I did,’ she sobbed. ‘I did try and I called for him, and called for him, but it was dark and the water was getting deeper.’
Each day I sit in the chair, often for hour upon hour. I’ll sit and stare at the sea or else I’ll read the books I love, mostly about the sea. Moby Dick, The Waves, The Old Man and the Sea: that kind of thing. I bought the house. The one Synge used to stay in. It was a bit run down and lacked amenity. The young Mac Donnchadha was cook-a-hoop that someone was foolish enough to take it over. The few thousand pounds I paid was plenty enough to get him to New York and to give him a head start in the life of his dreams. I patched the house up, but not so much. I like the idea of it being much the same as back then, and it’s sturdy enough to keep out most of the weather. Siobhan came over as soon as she heard the news. They sent in divers, deep into the caves. But they found nothing. There were so many currents, they said, a body would soon be swept far out to sea. We grew closer, as only grieving parents can. She’d had her first break, a one-act play in an edgy theatre in Greenwich Village that was getting her noticed. She stayed on the island for two months, first with Christina and then, after the inquest was over and done, with its open verdict (‘most likely drowned at sea’), she spent three days with me at Synge’s house.
On the night before she left for the mainland and her flight back across the Atlantic we lay together in my four-poster that I’d found in the cellar. The wind whistled around us as we talked of the past and the future. I told her of my plans to stay on the island, to make some kind of a living out of it. I think she liked the bohemian I was becoming, what with my long hair and beard and ramshackle house and daytimes sitting in a chair on a cliff reading Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf. She joked that I would become the oddity that tourists talked of and wrote home about. Maybe that’s why we ended up making love that night. And maybe that’s why not once did she stop mid-kiss and tell me she had to jot down an idea or a note.
We send each other postcards and I know we’ll always keep in touch. That’s Jo’s gift to us. The gift of this island. I’ve thought about taking up writing myself. I even have a title. Something Jo said the last night I ever saw him, the last night I put him to bed. We were talking about our day. He told me how Ann-Maree had taken him to the Clochán na Carraige, a beehive hut that was circular on the outside, but rectangular inside.
When it was my turn I described my usual routine of making stone structures and then sitting in the big chair to gaze out over the Atlantic. That very last night, just before he asked me when would mum be coming home (his usual night-time question), and just as he was dropping off to sleep, he turned to me, and in a whispered voice said, ‘Do you think the Green Lady ever sat in Synge’s chair?’
ZORRO THE CHESS MASTER
Most people only remember one thing about Zachariah Zawadzki. But for me there are three. First, he had the craziest name of all us kids and I was the first to call him Zorro on account of all the zeds. Second, he taught me to play chess, just like his mad Uncle Pawel from Krakow had taught him. Third, and this is what most people know, his father tried to kill his mother.
The papers said Mr Z hit his wife with a hammer and stabbed her with a pruning knife. Many times; many wounds. I can’t recall quite how many, but it seemed to have been more than enough. He was a gardener in a dark place called Highgate Woods. The picture in the newspaper showed him standing in front of some trees. Anyone could see from the photo that he was a quiet man. He had thick, round glasses and an expression on his face of mild confusion and slight surprise.
Before all this happened I used to visit Zorro’s house on Saturday afternoons. I’d watch his dad eat fish and chips, though he never paid any attention to me. He never said much, not to anyone. But Zorro’s mother was different, I sensed that, even though I was only about six or seven years old. She slept on a bed in the parlour, especially built so that her feet were raised above her head. Zorro said it had something to do with her back. People did that sort of thing in those days. Keeping their feet above their heads for their back. Just like taking to bed to help with their nerves. When she was up she’d walk around in a silky slip, with her long dark hair tousled and wild, her eyes caked in jet black mascara. She’d slam doors, complain about the house and the heat and how useless her husband was. Like ‘tits on a bull’ I remember her saying once. I’d wanted to laugh, but sensed it might be unwise.
It was a hot day when her husband, still quiet and without answering her back, or shouting, or anything like that, went to the cupboard under the stairs, took out the knife and the hammer and proceeded to try to kill her up and down the passageway. She tumbled and stumbled out into the street, to be met by the postman on his rounds as she rolled down the steps from the front door, all bloodied and screeching.
In court, Mr Josef Zawadzki’s defence was that he had no recollection of the events. He sat head bowed, saying little, even when asked questions where silence might imply guilt. His lawyer did all the talking, telling the jury that his wife had goaded him for years for his impotence and his lowly status in life. She had flaunted a number of affairs with men in the area: the insurance collector, the station-master, the pet-shop owner, to name but three. He got two years in prison for attempted manslaughter with diminished responsibility and I never saw him in the street again.
Mrs Z wore bandages around her head like a cancer patient and sometime later took off with Zorro to somewhere else. I reckon she must have told him to say nothing about their plans, or maybe she just upped and whisked him away. He would have turned up in a new place with his mother, to start all over again, with a different past to tell. Zorro must have had to keep a lot of secrets.
So the boy who showed me how to play chess disappeared never to return. I was only a young kid and didn’t yet understand that people come and go in life. He left his mark though, by engraving a huge Z on the lamppost down by the alleyway. It stayed there for decades after, the deep imprint covered over by layer after layer of corporation paint.
I loved chess from the very first minute and for that I have Zorro to thank. The feel of the pieces: classical Staunton, always Staunton, just like in world championships. Tal. Fischer. Kasparov. Carlsen. A ‘wood pusher’ I would become, as an old Texan said to me when, many years later, I entered a simultaneous match against an international master.
Zorro taught me chess
in his garden shed. I can still smell the oil and the remnants of grass on the lawn mower. Maybe that’s why I love the scent of cut grass so. Zorro was about five years older than me and I remember my parents worrying that I was spending time with a bigger boy. Once he got me to take off all my clothes in his bedroom. He had his Zorro mask on, which made him look a bit scary, something to do with his eyes being highlighted so. Then he showed me how to tie a towel between my legs and around my waist like a sumo wrestler. The first to pull the towel off the other was the winner. Nowadays they’d make a fuss and call social services, but back then it was just mucking about, like the scout leader playing with the elastic on your shorts, or us boys stealing soldiers from the toy shop and knocking on strangers’ doors. Zorro was so patient with me, showing me the way the chess pieces move, all the possibilities. And then the finer points: the en passant rule; a knight fork on the queen and rook; the value of castling later in the game. Zorro had straight black hair and his mouth made a really nice smile when he saw I was understanding what he said.
Standing on the outside of the prison gates, plastic bag in hand, Mr Josef Zawadzki cleans his glasses, looks up and down the street, wondering what to do next. It is early and the traffic is light. Across the road is a café, just opening up for business. A woman is setting up the tables and chairs on the pavement. To Mr Z the sounds from the street are overwhelming: the car tyres on the damp tarmac, the whoosh of the wheels of a bicycle. A child’s cry. The bark of a dog at a cat. Standing on the curb he feels the drops of rain on his face.
Brenda has seen a thousand men like Josef. The ones who have no one. Nowhere to go. No idea what to do next after months and years of being told. He is a little man. His huge black-rimmed glasses are hopelessly out of fashion. His sharp pencil moustache shows his age. He is looking at her as if she is the first woman in the world. She smiles at him the way she has done many times before and then goes inside the café to turn on the urn for hot water. He crosses the road tentatively and pushes open the door to the café.