Dragonholder

by Todd McCaffrey

  I was very worried about going to Ireland. It was a tremendous jolt, moving from the States after the divorce. On top of that, all I had were the Hollywood images of Ireland. I was convinced that I would have to explain electricity, and that we’d ride in carts all over the place. I was also terribly worried that they wouldn’t have peanut butter, jelly, popcorn, or hot dogs.

  Once I realized that a ‘Mars’ bar was exactly like the American ‘Milky Way’ bar, only better, and that I was paying two shillings — twenty-four cents — for what would cost thirty-five cents in the States, I became quite enamored of Ireland.

  I soon also discovered that there was an ‘okay’ peanut butter, that ‘Bramble Jelly’ was an acceptable substitute for Concord Grape Jelly, and that they did have popcorn — although the Irish would sugar rather than salt it. Good hot dogs were hard to come by. But when I discovered ‘Jelly Tots’, I was quite willing to forgive Ireland that minor inconvenience.

  While our stay at the Royal Marine was marvelous, it was costly. Anne undertook to get the family into cheaper accommodations before the school year began. So, armed with maps of Dublin city, Anne rented a car and took the kids house hunting.

  The Irish and English drive on the right side of the road — opposite from Europe and the States. The reason for this is historical: Napoleon Bonaparte decided that his soldiers should march on the right — and as he conquered most of Europe, Europe was forced to follow suit. Because all this took place in the early 1800’s, the Americans followed the French — because they were still mad at the English.

  What it meant for Anne was that every time she went to shift gears she’d bang her right hand against the door until she remembered that the gear shift was on the left. It also meant that driving required intense concentration. As the eldest child present, I took on the role of map-reader and navigator, which took that strain from her — and she was very gracious about the times I got us lost.

  As we looked at houses for rent, we discovered another culture shock. Houses and the lands surrounding them were much smaller in Dublin than back on Long Island. While the rents were incredibly cheap by American standards, the rooms were pretty small; the kitchens were like closets.

  We ended up settling on a semi-detached house in upscale Mount Merrion on 14 North Avenue. Settling in, Anne finished Dragonquest and sent it off to Ballantine to be published in 1971. She also finished two gothics — The Mark of Merlin, reusing a plot she’d set up in her Freshman college year, and Ring of Fear.

  Anne’s mother arrived when the family had set up in 14 North Avenue. She had wanted to retire from her real estate job, and Anne’s re-settling in Ireland had given her an added impetus. She was in her seventies, and found the weather a bit colder than she would have liked. But “Bami” — as we kids called her — was a welcome addition to the household.

  14 North Avenue

  Another welcome addition was our orange marmalade cat — the first family pet in Ireland. We named him Isaac Asimov — and then realized that he had to be neutered, allowing Anne to later joke in the family that she had had Isaac Asimov fixed. The real Isaac was informed of the cat’s name and approved — but we never informed him of the “snippery” (of which he probably wouldn’t have approved).

  Isaac Cat

  Back at the Royal Marine Hotel in the evenings Anne would venture out to the local pubs, leaving the kids asleep or under the friendly eyes of the hotel staff. At the Eagle House just up the street from the Hotel, Anne met Michael ‘Mick’ O’Shea. “You sound like a Yank,” Mick said when she had gone up to the bar to order. “What part do you hail from?”

  Mick introduced Anne to a wild group — some Irish, some English. There was Dominic and his girlfriend, Mick’s girlfriend Ann, and Bernard Shattuck, a soft-spoken Englishman who was a first mate on a trawler working for his captaincy. Mick himself — a six foot red-haired, red-bearded giant — particularly in Ireland — claimed to have been in the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force, both. Mick ran a car repair shop and helped Anne find an old black Morris four door sedan.

  Equipped with a car, Anne and the kids would go roving on the weekends. She found a local stables, Dudgeon’s, and found that she could indulge herself and the children in riding lessons. Anne’s first instructor was a young American, ‘Mare’ Laben. Mare had come over to study horsemanship at Dudgeon’s. They became good friends and, much later, when Mare needed a place to stay, Anne invited her to stay with us.

  Anne had given David Gerrold an open invitation to come stay with them if he ever decided to investigate Ireland. David gladly accepted and arrived before Christmas. Unexpectedly, Anne’s mother took a dislike to David. Her dislike was vicious, juvenile, and utterly unnatural. However, there was no way to overcome it. To spare Anne any distress, David decided to move out and rent an apartment.

  Mick O’shea came to the rescue — he knew an apartment that was open two houses down from his.

  The next day David phoned Anne, “Lessa is my landlord.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lessa is my landlord,” David repeated. “You have to meet her.”

  At five foot nothing, and ninety pounds sopping wet, the brown-eyed, black-haired Jan Regan had all the feistiness, self-determination, and strength of Lessa of Pern. There being no dragons available, Jan had contented herself with exercising race horses. More than twenty years later, Jan is still a close friend of the family.

  Anne had not quite recovered from the shock of her mother’s behavior towards David when she got another shock: the announcement from Wright that he was exercising his option to visit the children. He would come in the Spring and bring his new wife.

  The children were stunned by the announcement. They had known nothing about Wright’s romantic involvement, and were unprepared to see their father with a new wife.

  Anne was amused to note that Wright’s new wife was only eleven days younger than herself — and her name was Annett! Annett Francis was an editor with House and Gardens.

  The visit was a disaster. Wright’s attitude towards his ex-wife irritated his children, and his insistence that the children unequivocally accept his new wife turned the visit into a nightmare for everyone. Annett and Anne both desperately tried to smooth out the visit — they got along together very well — but their efforts could not counteract Wright’s actions.

  Annett Francis, whom Wright married in 1970

  The visit left a pall that hung over the household. To break it, and to make her entrance into British fandom, Anne planned to bring the kids with her to the annual British Easter convention. That year it was held in Worcester, which is pronounced “wooster,” and the convention was called Woostercon.

  They took the car and crossed the Irish Sea by ferry to Liverpool. Dave Gerrold came, too. It was a magical trip. The British fans and writers were magnificent and made Anne and the kids feel very welcome. Anne had a marvelous time on panels with Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, and James White. I was introduced simultaneously to The Hobbit and Dungeons and Dragons®.

  Many new lifelong friends were made at that first British convention. Dr. Jack Cohen was one of the most memorable. Jack holds a Doctor of Science in reproductive biology and had just started working on a male contraceptive pill. He also gave the most hilarious lectures — with slides — on reproductive biology. When Anne met him, he was on the verge of getting married. Anne invited him and his intended, Judy, to come to Ireland whenever they wanted.

  Dr. Jack Cohen

  With the convention over, Anne planned an itinerary winding through Wales to the southern ferry port of Fishguard. The first stop was Stonehenge — the most famous and one of the oldest rings of standing stones in the British Isles. In those days Stonehenge was just coming to be respected as a significant historical artifact. Visitors were allowed to wander freely on the site and through the stones. It was awe-inspiring.

  About seventeen miles outside of Fishguard, on the narrow winding hill road, they heard a noise from t
he front wheel on the passenger’s side. The winding roads through Wales had taken more time to cover than Anne had planned and there was a very real danger of missing the ferry, so Anne braved onwards — in spite of my pleas to pull over.

  We made the ferry with only minutes to spare, but I made my mother promise to have the wheel checked at the first garage — service station — we found back in Ireland. When the mechanic took off the hubcap and we could see all the tire nuts firmly in place I felt rather foolish — until he pointed to the hub nut sitting in the hubcap! The whole front wheel, hub and all, had been held on only by the caliper brakes — the entire way through the winding hills of Wales!

  Not long after, the Morris died completely. While Anne was searching for a replacement, Mick loaned her any number of oddball cars. One of the oddest was a three-speed car which always had to be push-started, but most memorable was the two-seater MG Sprite. It made a decent two-seater, but was used as a family car — with the spare children lying behind the passengers on the spare tire. It was a ‘gas’ — a lot of fun.

  Anne wanted a horse. Anne had always wanted a horse, but finally she was in a country where she might actually be able to afford one. And she wanted to hunt. She found that the place to look for horses was in the Irish Field. And in early spring, she saw an ad for someone to ride a hunter for the rest of the season — a 16.2 hand-high dapple-grey heavyweight hunter.

  After a trial ride, Anne got in touch with the owner, Hilda Whitton — a sprightly horse-trainer with silver hair. Hilda had bought “Mr. Ed” as a yearling and brought him on to be a heavyweight hunter. She wanted to find Mr. Ed a proper home — she’d hurt her leg when she’d fallen after he’d been spooked by a JCB dumper and at her age would never survive another bad fall.

  Somehow a deal was struck and Mr. Ed went home with Anne. She stabled him at a private stable in Stepaside but she really wanted him just outside her door. Then, as Fall approached and she had to find a new rental, Anne got her wish in the most spectacular fashion: a two hundred and thirty year-old Georgian mansion on two acres. It even had an old barn where a stable could be fitted.

  Ed with Todd

  Meadowbrook House was an amazingly good piece of luck. So good that, almost in recompense, Anne’s luck dried up right after she signed the lease. Worse, so did her writing. She spent days staring at blank pieces of paper. Her gothic novel, Year of the Lucy, was not accepted by her editor at Dell and the expected money was not forthcoming. Money got very tight.

  Anne became very good at cooking leftovers and leftover leftovers. Of course, Anne’s leftovers would make a gourmet cook jealous. It was during this dry spell in writing that Anne completed Cooking Out of This World — including her excellent recipe for lamb stew and another for potato pancakes. At dinner one night, Gigi asked wistfully, “Gee Mom, wouldn’t it be nice to have pancakes because we wanted them for a change?”

  Relief came in the form of Anne’s eldest son, Alec. Alec had done poorly at Stonybrook and had not been invited back, so he joined us in Ireland. Bernard Shattuck introduced Alec to several trawler skippers and one was sufficiently impressed to give him a try. When Alec didn’t toss his cookies in the fiercest gales Ireland had seen in twenty years, the skipper decided that maybe he’d do. The money and the odd fish kept the wolf from the door.

  Virginia was aware of the tight finances and did what she could. When she heard that Roger Elwood was looking for young adult stories, she told Anne. Anne spent hours wracking her head for inspiration. Finally she started a story about a young girl named Menolly … and it wouldn’t go anywhere.

  Meadowbrook House

  Anne gave up — another avenue blocked. Then she remembered her brother Kevin and how he had withstood all the pain and terror of his osteomyelitis, and the memory inspired her. In a few days she had finished and sent off The Smallest Dragonboy, little realizing at the time that it would end up being the most reprinted story she had ever written.

  The money from the sale was only $154 — not enough to pay rent or tuition or to buy food. Certainly not enough to pay for the cost of storing all the family’s furniture and belongings left behind on Long Island. Anne talked it over with the kids, and tearfully wrote the warehouse telling them to sell off their goods.

  The move to Meadowbrook House had not been without incident. Mick O’shea and the whole crew had pitched in and helped with the move, but one of the cars they used had a faulty trunk — as they found out when its contents spilled out over the road. Our cat, Isaac Asimov, was another casualty. He got to Meadowbrook House but didn’t stay long.

  We quickly got a replacement cat. Alec had the honor of naming him “Zeke the Cork, Rabble-rowser from the Mountains” from Bob Dylan’s book Tarantula. Zeke quickly grew to be a tall, lean, black and white cat with an unmatched sense of humor. Zeke’s humor was pure cat — his favorite trick was jumping from the floor onto the top of an open door — a jump of over eight feet — and then quietly waiting until a suitably inattentive person passed underneath him. At which point he’d negligently comb that person’s hair with his claws and greet their upturned faces with a “Why, whatever did I do?” smirk.

  A stall was made in the barn in the backyard, and hay and straw were laid in for Mr. Ed. Zeke, living up to his name, had absolutely no fear of Ed. In fact, I remember being terrified the first night we were bedding Ed down — we’d put down a really nice thick layer of straw for Ed to sleep on — and into this walked Zeke. With a bound, he dove under the straw and was quickly lost from sight.

  Ed was a marvelous horse with a keen sense of humor himself. This night he displayed it with what has to be one of horsekind’s favorite practical jokes: He stepped on my foot and then — looking back at me with a “is there something wrong?” look — he put his whole weight on that one foot! Frantically I pushed him off of me — over sixteen hundred pounds of horse and only a hundred pounds of me.

  So you can understand that with Ed in this mood, I was very worried for the safety of one very small and completely invisible young cat.

  I need not have worried. Shortly after I got Ed off of my foot, he put his head down to the straw and blew gently over one spot — and out popped Zeke, trying very hard to pretend that he had meant for Ed to find him.

  Anne shooed us all out and back to the house, leaving Ed and Zeke to get acquainted. When I came back the next morning, Ed was curled up on the ground. Horses are very nervous when they’re lying on the ground — you rarely catch them there — so it was very odd. I was a bit worried until Ed turned his head, looking at his chest.

  There, between his legs, slept Zeke. Long after Anne had written the scene in Dragonquest, Ed and Zeke recreated the same sleeping arrangements that F’nor’s brown Canth had with golden Grall.

  The relationship between Ed and Zeke blossomed into something phenomenal. When the weather turned nice, Anne would let Ed out to graze on the front lawn. Meadowbrook House was surrounded by a high stone wall but Ballinteer Road was a bus route. People on the upper deck of a double-decker bus could see into the front yard.

  Mr. Ed and Zeke at Meadowbrook House

  It being Ireland, few would look askance at a horse grazing in the front yard. But we soon noticed that the bus riders were getting quite excited whenever Ed was out on a warm day. What they saw was that Ed had a very special helper warding off flies — Zeke the Cork, fly swatter from the hindquarters. Zeke would lie, paws up, on his back and swat the horse-flies away. Every now and then Ed would tease him by swishing his tail or making an unexpected move. Once in a while, Ed would trick him — and there would be this very wide-eyed cat sliding down on his backside off Ed’s rump. Even though it cost him his dignity, Zeke never once used his claws.

  It is the nature of publishing that a book is finished at least a year before it gets published. While nearly a year had gone by since Anne had written Dragonquest, it was just now nearing publication. Betty Ballantine sent Anne a copy of the cover art as a courtesy. It happened on a day when
the plumbing had gone bad again. Bernard Shattuck and I were outside in the back yard running a plumbing snake — in this case a long line of bamboo poles which screwed together — in hopes of convincing the sewage to move into the septic tank rather than back to the house.

  “Here look at this,” Anne said to Bernard with a smile. Bernard, a well-muscled young man with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes, looked at the cover and saw a well-muscled young man with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes perched on a dragon’s tail.

  “That’s nice,” he said. I looked at it over his shoulder, and at him, and back again. “That’s you!” I said.

  Bernard Shattuck

  First we find Lessa in Jan Regan and then unbeknownst to us, an artist draws a F’nor that looks like Bernard Shattuck.

  Ed — “Horseface” as Anne called him — was just a short walk from our kitchen door and always ready for a ride. While Anne did much of the mucking out of his stable and general grooming, we all took turns riding Ed.

  I liked riding for enjoyment. Gigi was a more serious rider and often took Ed out for long rides. Poor Gigi came back in tears one afternoon, leading Ed. “He’s hurt! He’s hurt! He’s bleeding! Help!” she shouted as soon as she got close.

  Ed had cut a vein just above the ankle on a shard of glass. Gigi had done an excellent job of getting him back home as fast as she could without scaring him. The wound was spurting blood every time his heart beat.