The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

  They decided not to go on to Castlebar. No matter how bad things had been in other years, they had always managed to buy the Christmas. But now, with a rent increase looming over them, they were forced for the first time to break years of tradition.

  So they turned and headed back along the road that skirted the western boundary of Lough Mask. It was a December day to the core: bright and frosty and fresh. Along the way they stopped here and there to exchange news and greetings with any they chanced upon. Otherwise, they walked briskly, eager to be back with the children before nightfall, but their hearts heavy that it was disappointment only they brought home with them this year and not the Christmas.

  9

  They came at first light, Beecham and a trio of the constabulary. Mountain and marshland alike they combed, Beecham writing it all down in his book and drawing lines on some map he had. Roberteen followed them and saw it all.

  As they rode off again through the village, Beecham shouted, ‘Tell O’Malley that Sir Richard thanks him.’

  That evening, after dark, three men called to speak to Michael.

  Ellen recognized Johnny Jack Johnny’s son from Glenbeg, but the Shanafaraghaun man, as he was referred to, was a stranger to her. She was surprised that Roberteen made up the three.

  She put the children to bed, although Patrick wanted to sit up with the men. ‘Are they Young Irelanders?’ he whispered. She wondered that herself.

  They sat with Michael at the hearth for a while, then all four went outside. She noticed that the unnamed Shanafaraghaun man did most of the talking. ‘He was in Dublin with O’Connell,’ Roberteen had said when he introduced the man to Michael, ‘but he broke from O’Connell again.’

  An hour or so later, Michael came back alone.

  ‘O’Connell is for repealing the Union with Britain without violence – “Not a single drop of blood,” he says – but the Young Irelanders are for the sword, and the Shanafaraghaun man is for the Young Irelanders. He says the sword is a sacred weapon,’ Michael told her, his face animated in the firelight, ‘and that moral force should be backed by musket force!’

  Then he handed her a piece of paper which the Shanafaraghaun man had given him.

  When Grattan rose, none dared oppose;

  The claim he made for freedom;

  They knew our swords to back his words;

  Were ready, did he need them.

  ‘What do you think, Michael?’

  ‘This is not the moment for hasty decisions. We should think – work out a plan. Without a plan, Pakenham will split us, then pick us off, one by one, with the backing of the Crown. The Shanafaraghaun man’s headed back for Dublin again. He said the priests and bishops were against any rebellion, but I think Father O’Brien’s a good man – he’ll stand behind us against Pakenham. I’ll go to Clonbur tomorrow and let him know what’s happening.’

  She read the four lines of the poem again. Swords to back words – it would have to come to that, she knew.

  10

  The next morning Michael set off to see the priest. It was a good eight-mile walk to Clonbur, but with luck he’d meet a horse or cart travelling his way. When he reached Beal a tSnámha he would have no choice but to wait for a horse to ford the swirling waters of the Mask. There the lake formed a narrow channel, dividing the road before it opened out again towards America Beag on the Cloughbrack side.

  It made him conscious of how cut off by water, how isolated Maamtrasna was from the rest of the Galway-Mayo townlands. Still he wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. Surrounded by mountain and water – sure wasn’t that the beauty of it?

  Somehow he would get across the Mask, make it to Clonbur, and put it to the priest that something must be done about Pakenham.

  He would be home to Ellen and the children by dusk.

  Ellen, having seen Michael on his way, sat down with the children for the Lessons. Katie managed to contain herself as they said the customary learning prayer, but leapt in at ‘Amen’ with that day’s burning topic.

  ‘Amenarealllandlordsbad, a Mhamaí …?’ she blurted.

  Even Ellen had to draw breath after that. How like Katie it was to get straight to the crux of the matter. She couldn’t help but laugh.

  Katie sat poised, ready to strike again if Ellen’s answer was not to her liking. But before Ellen had time to reply, Patrick cut in: ‘Of course they are. Every last single one of them is bad. They say “’tis harder to find a good landlord than it is to find a white blackbird.”’

  Ellen was taken aback by Patrick’s fervour. She wondered who it was her son had been listening to of late. Deciding to let it pass – for now – she got the lesson under way.

  ‘All right, bad landlords it is to be this morning. Now, what do we know about good and bad?’

  Katie’s hand shot up. ‘Well, there’s good people and there’s bad people, and we’re the good people … And that’s what I asked you: Are the landlords all bad people?’ Katie sighed with exasperation. Why couldn’t mothers give you a straight answer?

  Ellen ignored Katie’s impatience. ‘And what do you have to say about this, Mary?’ she asked her third child.

  ‘Well, I think that nobody is good all the time and nobody is bad all the time …’

  Ellen nodded at her to go on.

  ‘It’s like when Katie does a bold thing …’

  Katie was up on her knees, ready to defend herself.

  ‘Sit down, Katie!’ Ellen paused until she did. ‘Continue, Mary.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t mean Katie’s a bad person – she’s only a little bit bad, and the other times she’s good,’ Mary explained in her quiet, unerring way.

  Katie grimaced and then relaxed. She wasn’t sure how to take this, but, on balance, she thought she came out of it all right, so she stayed quiet.

  ‘That’s a good answer, Mary,’ affirmed Ellen. ‘You remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?’

  They nodded.

  ‘When they committed the original sin – the first sin, against God – what did God do?’

  ‘He punished them.’ Katie liked this idea. ‘And will he punish the landlords too?’ she persisted.

  ‘We’ll get to that in a minute, Katie. Just be patient,’ Ellen admonished. ‘The way that God punished Adam and Eve was very wise. He said to them, “Adam and Eve, in spite of all I have given you, you have disappointed Me. You have done the first bad thing, but I will give you another chance. From now on, you will have to choose between good and evil, between right and wrong. When you die, I will judge you. I will add up all the good things and all the bad things you have done. If you have done a lot of good things, you can come back into heaven with Me. If you have done a lot of bad things, then I will send you away from here to hell.”’

  She paused for a moment to let this sink in. Katie and Mary were agog at the image of God sorting out good and bad sins the way they sorted out good and bad potatoes – the good ones going in the basket, the bad ones thrown away. Even Patrick’s attention was caught.

  ‘So, what that tells us is that people themselves are not good or bad, but we can do good or bad things. Now, Katie, to go back to your question, “Are all landlords bad?” The answer is no, but’, Ellen moved on quickly, sensing that both Katie and Patrick were itching to put more questions to her, ‘some of them do a lot of bad things.’

  ‘Mr Pakenham is one of those, isn’t he?’ Mary surprised them all by getting the jump on the other two. ‘And Lord Leitrim for burning the church?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true enough,’ said Ellen. ‘And they say Lord Lucan beyond in Castlebar is most cruel to his tenants as well. Then again, the landlord at Moore Hall, over beyond Partry, is said to be a very good landlord, what they call an “improving landlord”. Instead of wasting money on fancy gardens and going to London parties, he improves the land and the conditions of his tenants.’

  ‘Pakenham isn’t like that – he’s a bad man, isn’t he?’ Patrick cut in, wanting her to say it.

&n
bsp; ‘True, Patrick. But one day he’ll have to answer to God for the bad things he does.’

  ‘He’ll be lucky if the Young Irelanders don’t get him first!’

  Ellen was alarmed at this kind of talk from Patrick. He must have heard the men talking last night, or maybe young Roberteen had been saying things to impress the boy.

  ‘Now, Patrick, hold your tongue with talk like that,’ she remonstrated.

  The boy fell silent.

  ‘What about our new baby – will we have to pay extra to the landlord for him too?’ Katie was back on target again.

  ‘Well, we don’t know if it’s a him or a her, yet – do we?’ Mary echoed aloud Ellen’s thought.

  ‘And it doesn’t matter,’ Ellen emphasized, ‘as long as the baby is healthy and well. Sure, whatever rent Pakenham puts on the baby – the gift of life itself is beyond all price. Somehow your father, with God’s help, will manage to provide for the new baby, and the rest of us.’

  Ellen, glad that the children’s worries and concerns had been given a good airing, wanted to wrap up the lesson on this positive note. But it was not to be.

  ‘When God does the adding up for Mr Pakenham – will He send him to hell?’

  As always, Katie had the last word.

  Towards dusk Ellen went out of her door many times and looked up towards the Crucán to see if there was any sign of Michael.

  With Beecham and his men going about the valleys on the bad business they were on, who knows what might happen if Michael fell amongst them. They would bait and jibe him until he struck one of them.

  Or, if the water at Beal a tSnámha was wild and Michael had no horse to take him over, then he could be swept away to drown in the cold and the blackness of the Mask, alone. Without a sinner to say a prayer over him.

  It could be at just such a time as this that the Banshee’s warning would be fulfilled.

  With all these thoughts pressing in on her, Ellen Rua threw her shawl round her shoulders, bade the children to stay indoors until she returned, and set off up the village. She would follow the high road until she came to the crest of the mountain. From there she would be able to look down on the Finny road, watching for a familiar figure winding his way homeward between lake shore and mountain.

  The evening was cold, but no matter. Wasn’t she better off out here than sitting at home, not being able to settle her mind for thinking about Michael and what might befall him? Anyways, she liked being out under the sky, feeling the cut of the air, having the freedom to go between mountain and valley and lake. Sure, a thousand walled gardens of roses, built by an army of ten thousand gardeners, could never match what was here around her. Unbuilt since time began.

  As she passed the Crucán and turned left to ascend the high, mountain path, she remembered her father bringing her to this high place under the stars. Once there, he would say to her, ‘Now, find me the North Star.’ And she would look up with her little-girl eyes at the vastness of the sky twinkling above her.

  ‘Wonder is a gift,’ he’d whisper into her ear. ‘Wonder is not lack of knowledge, wonder is not ignorance. No, wonder is a gift – the gift of knowing there are things we cannot know.’

  Then the sound of his voice would swirl around inside her head, and she would understand without knowing she understood.

  ‘Never lose wonder,’ he used to say, before she even knew she had found it.

  ‘What is it – where does it come from?’ she would ask, looking into his wise Máistir’s eyes, seeing something there that she now knew was the answer – wonder. A smile would come over his face and he would say, ‘Wonder is here now, a stóirín. Wonder is here now.’ And then he would say nothing for a while, just letting the wonder flow between them, dance in the air around them, binding them forever.

  She never realized – until it was too late, until he was gone – that she was his wonder. Just as Katie, with her wild, generous impetuosity was to her; and Mary, with her quiet ways; and Patrick – dear, concerned, Patrick – struggling to find his feet, caught between boyhood and manhood. They were her three wonders. They wouldn’t realize it yet; maybe not until she herself was gone. And the kick inside, slowing her down – that too was her wonder. And Michael, her great love, who she watched for.

  She followed the faint line of the Plough to the place where the Plough-maker made a giant leap across the heavens. There, where he landed, high above the mountains of ice, he had cut and chiselled the highest point, shaping it on his star-anvil. Then he blew it aloft, with a puff of his cold breath, to be the brightest, highest star of all – the North Star.

  Underneath the North Star sat the North Pole. There, at the far edge of the world, the Máistir had told her, the stars sizzled and flashed, whizzing across the sky, caught in eternal conflict between night and day. The ‘Aurora Borealis’ was what he called this storm-tossed day-star. The very name rang with wonder: ‘Aurora, Aurora Borealis.’

  From under that far place, he told her, ‘the Northmen came down in their long boats. Fierce warriors they were, coming out of the mists to raid our cattle and our women.’

  Nothing much had changed, she thought. Now the invaders came from nearer home, in their fine clothes, speaking the narrow language of the Sasanach, still plundering and raiding our lands, and – she thought of Bridget Lynch – our women. Only now they moved not under stealth of mist, but by stealth of laws made in an English Parliament.

  And now the language, too, was being stolen. Language that set the Irish apart, that was the expression of their spirit. English, the tongue of the invader, was now the official language, a barrier to keep out the poor, the peasant, the uneducated. English was the language of politics, of the Established Church; the language of opportunity, and emigration. It was the language of those who held the land. The language of power.

  The old language was now a badge of ignorance and backwardness, the language of the potato people and the landless. It was the voice of the dispossessed.

  Now, she too must contribute to the extinction of the language she loved. She must teach her children English. For them English represented escape to a better world somewhere out there under the stars. English was a chance of survival. Without it, they would remain forever impoverished in a landlord-ridden Ireland.

  She and Michael still spoke the old language to each other, but to the children they had begun to speak in English. Michael did not like this, she knew. He saw it as a denial of their Irishness. But he accepted that they had no choice. If things got worse they would have to leave – if they could.

  When the people left, the language would go with them, and with the language would go the songs, the stories, the sean-fhocails – the ‘old sayings’ – the prayers. Maybe on the far-off shores of North America and Australia, the exiles would, for a while, speak the old language amongst themselves. But Ellen knew it would be only a matter of time before Gaelic was cast aside as the language of paupers, the language of failure. In time, too, the culture and the spirituality of the people which lived through the old language would be weakened, dispersed to the four corners of the world. Those who stayed behind would also have to adapt to the language and ways of the ruling class – else perish.

  The Irish would become English.

  A great sadness came on her, and she raised her head to the heavens and prayed.

  “Ellen! Ellen, a stór!’

  Michael’s voice cut through her prayer. She jumped up, all vestiges of sorrow lifted from her; no thought save that he was here. He was safe.

  And there he was, his silhouetted figure hurrying up the hill towards her.

  How could she be so foolish as not to be watching – and that the very reason she was there in the first place! She climbed down from the rock and made her way towards him, not knowing whether the tightness in her stomach was the baby or the love-knot, ever-present when she and Michael were reunited after a separation, however brief.

  In a moment she was in his embrace.

  ‘Ellen! Ellen!
’ he kept saying, as if, having lost her, he had now found her again. ‘Ellen, you shouldn’t be out here.’

  ‘I came for you,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Ellen, my bright love of the dark night, it is not a time for you to be on the mountain, and you as you are,’ he whispered into her hair.

  Overflowing with relief at seeing him, she buried her face in his neck. The taste of the sweet salt of his sweat put all else out of her mind. She gathered some on her tongue and swallowed. Then she found his mouth.

  ‘You’re home,’ she breathed. ‘Buíochas le Dia.’

  With Michael’s arm still round her, they turned for home, leaving the night and its thousand wonders above and behind them.

  The children hung on every word as Michael recounted the details of his journey to Clonbur.

  ‘Things are bad,’ he said. ‘The people are all fearful of the grave times ahead, thinking that God has sent a great calamity to punish them for their sinfulness.’

  Ellen had heard such talk before. Some of it from certain of the Catholic bishops claimed the blight was God’s warning to the lazy, ever-breeding, Irish to observe the laws of the Church and not engage in the old pagan practices, as they did at Halloween, and at wakes and Pattern Days. London too was quick to see the Hand of Providence at work, as if this absolved the Government’s failure to act. Ellen wondered whether the Government would have stood idly by if the blight had struck with the same severity in England.

  Nothing had changed since Ireland had become one with England in the Union of 1800. England, that great all-conquering country, master of the seas, master of distant lands, had left its nearest colony to wither away like a diseased stalk. There had been no reform of land ownership; no schemes to develop an alternative source of food; no laws to hold in check greedy landlords.

  Ultimately, Pakenham and his kind would blame the poor, as if they had willingly brought Famine down on themselves. Tenants who could not pay their rents would be evicted to die on the ditches and roadsides.