Inishbream

by Theresa Kishkan

  THE BRAND

  – SAINT BRIGID OF THE MIRACLES, I ask to be forgiven.

  – But it is not to me that you should come with your confessions . . .

  – My Lady, the priest comes over the sea in a miraculous way with wafers and a flask of bitter wine. He arrives in his mysterious robes, and his neck is thick with beads and a cross. He talks of obedience, of fear and trembling. He threatens. He does not come to listen to me.

  – And what is your sin?

  – I have wanted more than I was given. I have sat on stone I came seven thousand miles to find, and I have cursed its coldness. I have been sad at the sea’s edge, looking west to another land. I have cursed any acceptance of the fourteen images of the doe-eyed Christ. I have found all devotion difficult.

  – Your sin is the common sin of an exile. The brand of the traveller is impressed upon your breast.

  – My Lady, it is because I have lain with him.

  There is no one to blame. That day began simply as a journey to the town. I was alone, having rowed myself over the waves to Eyrephort Strand, anchored down the currach with stones, planted my oars in the sand. I wanted to walk. A brilliant day in Connemara under the sun, and the seven miles of hilly road unravelled before me through a glory of fuchsia and marsh marigold. The camp of the travelling people bloomed under one hill like an exotic hybrid. Two caravans, orange canvas, bright clothing planted in the gorse, a sorrel mare haltered to a stunted tree, a wisp of smoke.

  – Good morning to ye. It’s a fine day and that’s His truth. Will ye take a cup of tea?

  – I will.

  A cup of potent tea, paled with cow’s milk. I could see not a cow in the tinkers’ proximity but knew Paddy Bourke’s herd grazed nearby. A cup of tea, offered in the enamelled cup of the gypsies.

  – Ye’d not be Irish, I’m thinking.

  – I’m not. But I’m living on Inishbream.

  – Ah, the one ye can see from Eyrephort.

  Children swarming in the gorse, dogs, a few men smoking, indolent, against one caravan. I drank my tea.

  – I’ll be leaving now. Thank you, the tea was nice.

  One man struggled himself free of the group. I’ll go along with ye.

  A hero of a man, dark, and blue-eyed as the devil. We walked quickly, matching stride, not talking until we reached the last hill. I could see the town’s spires, Catholic in the centre, Protestant (and lower) on the edge, sticking into the sky. And far below, the currachs of Inishbream preyed upon the lobsters of Carrickarona; the coral strands of Ballyconneely startled my eyes.

  – Yer no man’s woman, I’d say. (out of the blue, and sharp as a knife).

  – Why would you say that?

  – Ye’ve the look of a mare no man could ride, all impatient with ropes and angry. Ye’ve a sad look in yer eyes. His own eyes pierced me like the fangs of a serpent, the banished serpent of Patrick’s wrath.

  Below the rise, he led me through the broken hedge, through the tangled remains of a castle garden. By a little stream, we lay down together. There were no eyes of a dead mother to watch nor the eyes of a priest to condemn. I heard the tide breaking below, heard the far-off barking of the seals.

  I went back alone through the vines, parted the hedge, stepped onto the narrow road.

  Christopher, Christy, saint of the wayfarer, saint of the traveller.

  When I returned along the road from the errands, the tinker camp was deserted. The halter of the sorrel mare was hanging empty on the tree.

  (The brand of the traveller there on my breast.)

  – Had ye a good day?

  I was putting away the parcels, filling the kettle.

  – I did. It was a nice day for walking the Sky Road.

  – Peter says there’s the tinkers up by Paddy Bourke’s.

  – I saw them. They gave me tea.

  – Ye’d be best off not taking from the tinkers. Tis a strange life they live, always moving, never settling.

  – And you, Sean? Do you never think of leaving? There are so many parts of the world to see, so many things to do . . .

  He was silent. Then: It is only when the great flights of geese go over us when we are out in the boats, so many of them that ye could not count, and they have no thought of alighting, only of flying forever across the sea, it is only then that I want to go off. They would not know things the way we know them, it would be the wild places they’d be wanting, and would ye just think of the trees, the fishes, the openness they’d be knowing that we’ll be dead and never see.

  Those were more words than I had ever heard from him, forced from the soul of him, flung from the tongue of him into the room like wild misplaced animals, scattering, hiding, first in the inglenook, then in the eaves.

  – And you? Are ye unhappy here?

  – Seaneen, I love Inishbream. You know that.

  – Aye.

  And then I put aside my wool, the ribs and imperfect cabling of my residence, and I went out walking. There was a new, new moon, thin as a thought, and only the nightjars calling. I walked to the crone’s house, the farthest house, and she had made a brew of comfrey leaves (for the arthritis, ye know), and offered me a mug, my own ache as physical, though not located in the joints or sockets and easily treated.

  – It is a wonder the faeries don’t take ye, walking as ye do under new moons, hair unbound and not even that ould dog to protect ye.

  – He won’t stir after the six o’clock news, I’m afraid. But are there faeries on Inishbream?

  – There are strange things that happen, as is the way in any place of their seeing. The sorrows. Aye, and there is a ring of stones of the south commonage, and do not take it upon yerself to step inside. That is where the cows go to spill out the dead calves. They are helped by the faeries, like.

  – What about the stones themselves?

  – Ah, the stones are a quare lot. The one that is the colour of heaven, lapis, it will cure the melancholy. The stone of the East, the sapphire, it will make the mind pure, it will make peace.

  I saw the traveller again, on the second Thursday of the month, the cattle fair day. He was driving some skinny heifers along the Sky Road, and I was cycling, my shopping basket hanging from the handles of the borrowed bicycle.

  – Ye look like ye’ve ridden over the waves.

  – No, it’s Seamus McGrath’s, the man who has the holding above Eyrephort.

  – Tis a fine day for the riding.

  – Yes, isn’t it? Will you sell all the heifers?

  – I will try. But tis the same in every town, no one wanting to buy fair from a travelling man because they think tis stolen or diseased cattle they will be getting. Sure and these are the local cattle I have bought fair and square. But they’ll argue and complain that it’s cheating them I am up to.

  Those eyes. And the hands of unusual ways and knowledge.

  – Christy, I’ll be riding on now. Perhaps I’ll see you in the town.

  And I did, I saw him in the square of deals and bartering. Eamon Kelly was assessing one of Christy’s heifers, running a hand over the bony hock, examining the nostrils, fixing a suspicious eye on the rectum (no worms that I can see, but these tinkers are a crafty lot).

  Not many islanders had come for the sale. I’d a list of shopping and errands (Would ye ever pick me up a box of tea? the mail? see yer man in the post office about me pension cheque?) which I proceeded to do in my own sweet time, pausing to talk to the postmaster, pausing to take the sun with some of the town lads by the statue of some hero of the Troubles. Then: Will ye have a drink? and Christy was there, and then we were walking to the little pub at the bottom of the market street.

  – Did you sell all the heifers?

  – I did. And I took less than their worth, which is a right joke for a tinker. But I am not one to wait around a town to feed the beasts up to look swell and fat. I bought them thin local and I meant to sell them that way, too. I am thinking a beast is more than the flesh on its bones so. And we are re
ady to move on.

  The Guinness was good. Thick, warm, black as the devil’s heart. The pub we took our pint in was an alchemist’s workshop of bottles, fruit, sweets and the alchemist himself, Mossy O’Malley, divided in half by a white apron and a man to mind his own business. A few drunk farmers. A smell of dung and the sweat of man.

  – What of yerself? Will ye stay on so?

  I did not know how to answer, how to say I am as happy here as I’d ever be, which is not particularly happy, but a part of the sea and land if not the people and content enough. O that.

  – Ye seem a traveller, too (when I did not answer).

  – I am. I mean I was, have always been, but I’m not now. Or, at least, I can’t be.

  – Ye’ve a man then? Ye seem not to be a woman with a man in her heart.

  – He’s not in my heart. But he doesn’t mind. We get along well enough.

  – I am thinking yer fooling yerself there. A man wants always to know where he is with a woman. But, now. Have ye the children? Ye seem not much more than a child yerself.

  – I’m old enough all right. But no, I haven’t a child, and perhaps I never shall. It just doesn’t seem to happen. The islandwomen mind about that, of course. They mind terribly. People marry to have children, they think, and there is something spiritually wrong, morally wrong, with the woman who does not have a child within the year of her marriage. Or, God knows, perhaps she is barren and not blessed by Saint Jude. And maybe they’re right in my case. But I love fishing, and if I had children I wouldn’t be able to go for lobsters. I’d hate having to be in the house all day, it would drive me mad. Fishing is good work, Christy, even on the roughest days.

  – Ye do not love him.

  A statement. A fact of life, and death as well, because I think I shall enter the grave having loved no man on earth. I did not say this to Christy.

  – Let’s have another drink and then I must go.

  We did that. And then we were walking past the church spires and over the hills, pausing to embrace by a thorn tree but not lingering, and finally we were at the camp of the tinkers. I walked my bike and Christy walked beside me, his hand resting on the empty saddle. It touched my back, entered my hair and held the back of my head gently.

  – If ye liked, ye could come with us. There’s room in the caravans, no one minds another.

  – Where are you going?

  – We will be going north, to Sligo, where some of the others have preceded us. There are the ceilis all summer, and my father is a fiddler. We shall be going around to them, to make a few quid, like. There’s good crack all around and a chance to see other country. We’ll maybe be going to Donegal after that. Now that’s fine, with the wind and the wild sea and a chance to turn the horses out on the moor where there aren’t so many farmers to complain.

  – No, I guess I’ve chosen Inishbream and I’d better stay.

  Then we were at the border of the camp, and he was looking at me with those eyes and asking with them Will ye come? and All I could give you, and I was mounting the bike like a difficult horse, and I was riding away, away, and I was gone.

  – Seamus, here is your bike and thank you for lending it.

  – Ah, it’s there in the byre whenever ye need it, and yer welcome to it.

  I dragged the currach down to the sea and loaded in the parcels, took up the thole-pins and the oars. The ride across was rougher than I was accustomed to meeting, the currents difficult and a wind rising. The currach lugged in the tempest of sorts, and my shoulders ached, the sweat of my brow stung my eyes. At the quay Sean met me and we made the boat fast.

  – Ye were a long time. Ye must be tired.

  – A little. The crossing over was difficult.

  – It is not good for ye to cross alone. I have said that. Ye never listen. The next time, I’ll row over with ye and we can arrange a time for yer return, or I’ll watch out for ye so ye will not face the rough passage alone.

  – We’ll see. Many lobsters?

  – Nineteen.

  – A good lot?

  – Aye, and there’s some big ray and a black sole from the bottom net.

  – Good. Let’s have our tea.

  We walked up the boreen, over the hard earth and the stone wall. As we passed the cottages, I delivered letters, tea and the pension cheques. Twilight, and the turf fires were catching nicely, the sweet smoke blooming out of chimneys. Miceal and his tin whistle mourned the death of the day.

  – Someone saw ye with the tinker.

  That, as we came near our house.

  – Who?

  – It does not matter.

  – What does not matter? Who saw me, or the fact that I drank with a tinker?

  – I do not know.

  And his eyes looked confused, his shoulders hunched to guard himself.

  – Sean, why does everyone dislike the tinkers? They’ve made me tea, have treated me with civility, and today Christy King bought me a drink. These are things any of the islanders would do for a stranger.

  – Aye, but ye cannot trust a tinker.

  – What have they ever done to you?

  – It is not what they have done to meself, it is what ye hear: that they steal cattle, milk the cows of honest men on the sly, make friendly with the wives of others, camp where they are not wanted. They are always moving on so they do not take the blame for their sins.

  – Don’t you think God punishes the wicked, whether they have a cottage or a caravan? You always talk about His justice. Do you not think the tinkers are under His eyes?

  He did not know how to reply. Then: Ye always take the side of the others, the fish or the tinkers. Ye are always wanting to leave the sharks alone when they come to tear our nets, and where would we get the money for another? And ye will defend a tinker who is known in these parts for his crafty ways. Have ye not allegiance with the honest folk?

  – What do you think?

  – I do not know any more.

  – Well, until I came to Inishbream, I was very like the tinkers, wasn’t I?

  – Brigid of the miracles, I cannot compete with the wind in a wild man’s heart, and I ask to be forgiven, to be allowed to cast my lot to the stone soul of this island.

  – Child, I will teach you the sign of the blessing, the sign of all devotion.

  Sean visited the crone, telling of a distance. She said, Take the stone which the English call lodestone. You will know it by its sad blue colour. Lay this stone under the head of thy wife, and if she be chaste, she will embrace her husband.

  I did not see the tinkers leave, uprooting the bright blossoming of their residence and leaving the hills barren as before their coming.

  Sometimes I dream of a garden behind a broken hedge, I dream of caravans, all the beauty of the long road before them.

  And I did embrace.

  A GALE FROM THE WEST

  DEATH COMES ON A GALE from the west, sly at first, then pummelling down on the house of the ailing. Or, unloosed at sea, turns currachs mouthdown in the water, and the fishermen sink with their emptied lungs.

  – Can you swim?

  – We cannot. If the sea wants ye, she will have ye, and it is better to go easy so.

  The cemetery is locked against casual entry, walled in stone and gated with a rusted bed frame, four great boulders preventing its fall to an interested cow or God knows what. Crosses, watermarked and sprouting an assortment of lichens, indicate the ancestors, the mounds themselves indistinguishable under cowslips or sea thrift.

  – When was the last burial?

  – Wasn’t it only last year when the child of Mairtin died of the fever. That’ll be the little cross ye may see there (pointing). And the drowned three of four years back, and I think meself that the fourth one who never washed up ought to be given a cross, too. Didn’t we keen for him, same as the other lads, and didn’t we board up his house? Ah, tis a shame and that’s the truth that he was never given a deal box and put to earth.

  – And no one ever found anyt
hing of him?

  – Not even his jumper or least one Wellington, and didn’t yer man on the Arans write a play that said, as we say, that you can tell who a drowned man is by the pattern of his woman on the gansey, and wouldn’t we know if he ever washed up? There are the telephones now. Ye cannot keep things quiet in this ould county. And there are suicides of which ye must not talk. They are buried where the two boreens cross; tis the place of no arrival.

  Death comes on a gale from the west, leaving a carnage of birds, seals, the trapped fish in the loosened nets.

  – What do you suppose that mound is (pointing out the door to a swelling of earth behind the house)?

  – Tis the midden from the other days.

  – The midden?

  – Aye, where they tossed the leavings of the kitchen, the broken crocks and whatever else.

  – Do you mean your parents?

  – I do not. They burned and buried their refuse, same as we do. I mean the original islanders, the oldest ones, older even than the crone or Miceal the elder, the ones Cromwell drove to Connacht so many years ago.

  I don’t think the midden looks any different than the grave mounds. They have their bleak, composed stones; the midden has an empty whiskey bottle; but the length and bulk are nearly identical. I say nothing and wait for a good moon.

  Candles. A small trowel. The dog and my man bedded down for the sleeping. A nightjar calls from Inishturk, is answered. I begin to scrape away soil from the side of the midden. The trowel clangs softly on the edge of a discovery. Bones, I think — the sound very like enamel. I dig down. I imagine the earth enriched by marrow and flesh; I imagine the beauty of ribs against dark loam. And I unearth a piece of pottery, in no way vertebral but chunky and solid, wonderfully soft, the glaze dulled and shattered by the years and smelling of earthworms.