A Mad and Wonderful Thing

by Mark Mulholland

  ‘I understand, Mister Hanratty,’ I replied, surprising him.

  Bob Hanratty paused and placed a hand on my arm. ‘Those brutes have me tormented, son. But that’s all they are — brutes, empty vessels. Grimes and McArdle haven’t a brain between them. Give them no heed; it isn’t worth it.’

  I patted the old man on the shoulder and turned to go.

  ‘And, son,’ he added, ‘thank you.’

  The next day I approached him as he greased the tracks of a machine near the rear wall of the workshop.

  ‘Excuse me, Mister Hanratty?’

  ‘Yes, son,’ he answered, turning and wiping his hands with the red rag.

  ‘Why do you do this job here, amongst all this? You seem to be, you know, better than this?’

  ‘Better than this does not exist, young man. I’m here because I’m here, and it’s a fool’s game for me now to think different.’ He let his words stall for a moment and then continued. ‘Maybe once, but that was long ago,’ he said, as he slowly wiped each finger with the red rag. ‘That’s just the luck of the draw.’

  ‘But you seem content here. What’s the secret?’

  ‘There’s no secret, son. Look around. Most here spend all their time ducking and diving, and it only increases their misery. Whatever you do in life, even the simplest task, do it to the best of your ability. In that, there is a kind of happiness.’

  I nodded to the old man.

  ‘And, son, no more Mister Hanratty. It’s Bob.’

  The next day I took to the oil-store bench for my meal breaks, and Bob sacrificed his reading for our daily conversations — the two of us finding a common enjoyment in the transfer of what once was and what could yet be.

  Cora returns and enters the kitchen, and is followed by a man I guess must be her father.

  ‘Well, well. What have we here?’ he asks. ‘Cora Flannery, what have I told you about bringing home stray animals. Where on Earth did you find this thing?’

  ‘Found him at the disco, Daddy. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you must be mad.’

  ‘I am mad.’ Cora laughs. ‘We’re all mad in this house.’

  I agree, but I say nothing.

  ‘Gerry Flannery,’ her father says to me, introducing himself and taking my hand. ‘I hope we don’t get the weather you’re expecting.’ I get this a lot from people — it comes with the coat. Usually I tell them to piss off, but not this time.

  ‘You know something, Johnny,’ he says, holding my arm as he points to a wall-mounted photograph of Cora, Aisling, and their mother. ‘I have the three most beautiful girls on God’s Earth. What do you make of that?’

  ‘I’d say you’re a lucky man, Mister Flannery.’

  He nods his head solemnly, as if the comment was some sort of revelation to him. ‘Some boy, isn’t he?’ he says to Cora after a time. ‘He’s some boy.’

  Cúchulainn’s castle

  ‘OKAY, LET’S GO,’ CORA SAYS, CLOSING THE DOOR AND SKIPPING TOWARDS the front gate. ‘Come on, Donnelly.’

  I run after her. I’m relieved to have the introductions over without mishap. ‘Hey, hold them horses, Flannery,’ I call, catching up and taking her hand. We stand on the pavement, momentarily lost for direction.

  ‘I know where we’ll go,’ Cora says.

  ‘Let me guess?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I think I know where you want to go.’

  ‘You think you know where I want to go. What kind of a weirdo are you at all?’ She gives me a questioning look. ‘Well, then, lead the way, Johnny-boy,’ she relents, teasing me as we take the footpath west to the edge of town.

  ‘Cúchulainn’s Castle.’

  ‘Cúchulainn’s Castle,’ she replies, holding to the vertical struts of the wrought-iron gate and looking through to a shaded lane. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Just a guess.’

  ‘Just a guess, Johnny?’

  ‘Yes, Cora. Just a guess.’

  ‘My boyfriend is a genius. All right to call you my boyfriend, Mister Donnelly?’

  I mean, sometimes life is just so good you have to let out a big laugh. I don’t.

  ‘All right?’ I answer. ‘Can I have that in writing?’

  We are standing at the gateway to Castletown Mount, a hilltop ruin on the northwest edge of Dundalk. This mound is the location of the legendary fort of Dealga and the birthplace of Cúchulainn. Later the Normans settled here and built a motte-and-bailey stronghold, but local heads still call it Cúchulainn’s Castle. Across the entrance, two high metal gates hang between round stone-pillars, and a padlocked chain secures them together. To one side of the gates, a stile is cut into the stone wall, and I hold Cora with both hands as she climbs it.

  ‘That’s a very fine arse you have there, Miss Flannery.’

  She laughs as she turns, and offers her hand to steady me as I jump down from the wall. I take two thin broken branches from the ditch and I clean them of twig and growth. I give her one of the branches, and with my own I swipe in front of us as we walk, attacking the low weeds and grasses on the dark path.

  ‘It’s not the jungle,’ she suggests.

  I raise the thin branch forward, parallel to the ground, and hold it out chest high.

  ‘En garde. A fair lady approaches.’ I call. ‘My lady.’ I bow and swoop and beckon her forward.

  ‘My knight,’ she replies.

  ‘On-ye on-ye,’ I tease when I get her in front of me, tapping her very fine arse with the stick.

  We climb the mound clockwise on the stone path. Below us, a wide fosse is dark under beech; sycamore, ash, and hawthorn are scattered in the outer ditch.

  ‘You know, Cora, that ruin at the top?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, Cúchulainn was a Gael, and Gaels didn’t have castles. Castles came with the invaders.’

  ‘I know that, Johnny-smarty-pants. But this hill was Cúchulainn’s home. This place is older than the English or the Normans, or the Vikings, or any of them. This is ancient Irish ground, a special place, a place before our history, a place before the Celts, a place before the modern Irish. This is a place of the Tuatha Dé Danann. And it’s a place of magic.’ She stops. ‘If you listen very carefully you can hear their song. I believe that here, on this hill, is the gateway to Tír na nÓg.’

  I, too, stop and listen, but I can’t hear anything. There is only silence. ‘You can’t know those things,’ I say.

  ‘No, but I believe it. Can you imagine what’s here, Johnny? Under our feet? This was the home of the king of Dundalk — a great chieftain, a chief among chieftains.’

  ‘He wasn’t called Bulla-Wolla, was he?’

  ‘Shut up, Donnelly.’

  We reach the top, and walk to the ruin of a square tower. There are remains of walls through the grass. A lone raven watches from high on the tower. As we near the tower, the dark bird shuffles on his stone perch. It lifts its head high to show a ruffled neck. Slowly, spreading its broad wings, it launches into the air. I salute the bird with a raised hand as we walk to the rim of the round plateau. We stand and look east over the town and the wide bay. To the north, the long, stretched arm of the Cooley Mountains cradles the bay until the eastern hills fall to the dark sea at Greenore. From the south, a beam of sunshine finds a gap in the scattered clouds and lights a patch of mountainside. The spotlight moves west to east, highlighting the dark greens of Ravensdale and onto the purples, blues, and browns of the middle mountains. Beyond the near mountains the higher Mourne peaks can be seen peeping through.

  ‘Isn’t it great, Johnny?’

  ‘Yes, Cora.’

  ‘This is where he was born, Setanta.’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘In these fields here, he played. He was a born war
rior. And when he was still only a child, he left and ran over those mountains to Emain Macha, all alone, all the way to his uncle, the King of Ulster, running all the way to join the great army of Ulster — the Red Branch Knights. And near there he killed and replaced the great dog, and so Setanta became Cúchulainn, the hound of Chulainn. And he was just a boy.’

  ‘Yes, Cora.’

  ‘And in that gap there,’ she says, pointing north, ‘he fought alone and defended Ulster against the attacking armies of Queen Medb. One boy against a whole invading army.’

  I stand behind her, putting my two arms around her, holding her lightly. She rests on me, letting me support her.

  ‘And over there,’ she points to the south-west, ‘that’s where he held his ground and challenged the invaders, and one by one the greatest warriors of the attacking army took him on, and one by one he killed them. And then Medb sent Fer Diad — his foster-brother — down to fight him. Cúchulainn begged him not to fight, but Fer Diad had too much pride; he refused to retreat. Cúchulainn had to kill him, too.’

  ‘Brother against brother. It’s the curse of the Irish,’ I interrupt, still holding her.

  ‘And in this place here he loved Emer,’ Cora continues. ‘They say she was the most beautiful woman in all Ireland. I wonder was it here, on this hill? You know? I’ve imagined it so.’

  I kiss her on the top of her head and she raises a hand to touch my face.

  ‘All around here, he lived and fought. The greatest of them all, the greatest of all Irishmen.’

  We look out from the mound, out across the land where young Cúchulainn played. We see streams, rivers, marshes, fields, farms, hills, mountains, and bay.

  ‘Wasn’t it a fine place for a warrior to be born?’ she says.

  ‘A fine place indeed, Flannery. A natural academy. And you know something? The first-ever academy was associated with a great hero.’

  She looks to me and it’s a chance to impress, so I tell her about Plato and Athens and the hero Acadamus. I go on a bit.

  ‘Aren’t you a great fella, knowing all that,’ she says when I finish, and we both laugh.

  ‘So Johnny-know-it-all and still a little bit weird, what was that academy for?’

  ‘It was to examine the world, Cora. And man’s place in it.’

  ‘Our place in the world,’ she says into the May air, and she walks away to sit on a low wall on the northern edge of the plateau. A single oak grows from the north crest of the mound, and the green of its leaves frames her from above. Cora’s fingers grip the sleeves of her white pullover, and her golden hair falls in waves over one shoulder. Above us, the gathered clouds break and drift apart, and behind Cora the stone tower cuts high into the brightening sky. I look to the girl on the low wall under the single oak. I was so sure of the war. Sure of what I needed to do. Sure of what I couldn’t do — let anyone get too close. Now, looking at Cora, I’m not sure of anything.

  I walk to her and take her hand, and we cross the rise to the ridge overlooking the town. I take the Dunn & Co and lay it wide on the grass. We sit down, and for a short time we are silent. I look to the sea. Below us the town of Dundalk stretches east to the grey waters of the wide bay.

  ‘I was born down there,’ I say, pointing to the dark roofs of a local-authority housing estate at the foot of the mount. ‘It was our first house. We moved out when I was nine.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No. Not really.’ I do remember the red bicycle, but I don’t want to tell her about that. I don’t want to tell her what I did to Jimmy McCusker. ‘Except the songs — I remember the songs. Mam was fierce fond of the record player and the radio. She still is. I remember the record player sitting on the sideboard. It was a Reynolds. Mam told me they made it just for her, and I believed her. In a way, when I think of it, I still do. Isn’t it odd the way the mind works? And I remember the records: Mario Lanza, The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, good old Danny Doyle, and the man himself, Jim Reeves. And then there was Leapy Lee, firing his little arrows out of the radio.’ I face her and sing:

  Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,

  While we all sup sorrow with the poor;

  There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

  Oh hard times come again no more.

  ‘Do you know that song, Cora?’

  ‘I do not.’

  I go again:

  Now when we’re out a-sailing and you are far behind;

  Fine letters I will write to you with the secrets of my mind.

  ‘What about that one?’

  ‘No. Are you making these up?’

  I keep going, on a roll now:

  The secrets of my mind, my girl, you’re the girl that I adore.

  And still I live in hope to see the Holy Ground once more.

  ‘Have you gone mad, Johnny?’

  ‘Here, you’ll know this one. “O’Donnell Abú”,’ I call, and punch a fist into the air.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about “Lizzy Lindsay”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Unbelievable. “Mary of Dungloe”, surely?’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘How about “The Dutchman”?’

  ‘I don’t know any of them, Johnny. Are these songs or relations?’

  ‘Songs. Do you know nothing? What about Liam Clancy? A singer, not a relation.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Holy God, she doesn’t know of Liam Clancy. If I could but speak a few words with the voice of Liam Clancy, Cora, I’d die happy. When Liam Clancy speaks, the world seems to find balance. And when he sings, Cora, I’m sure that from a distance you’d see the planet waltz.’ I pause and blow a long, slow breath out into the air as if halted by the need to reflect on the weighty significance my own words. Cora gives me a look of disbelief and turns away and laughs. ‘What about “The Rising of the Moon”?’ I ask.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Ahh, you’re only kidding. The whole country knows “The Rising of the Moon”. Good old Danny Doyle does a great version. A top man.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of good old Danny Doyle.’

  ‘Mad,’ I say, and we sit with two heads shaking in incredulity at each other. ‘Will we sing a song together?

  ‘Okay. What will we sing?’

  ‘How about “Dear Dundalk”?’

  ‘Never heard of it. Is it any good?’

  ‘Nah. Load of old shite. You know, Cora, when I lived down there as a child I was afraid of everything.’ I don’t know why I tell her things like this — they just come out when I’m with her.

  ‘Afraid of what, Johnny?’

  ‘School, the street, strangers, God, the Devil, Jesus, everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know why. No reason why.’

  ‘Did it stop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘No idea. It left in little pieces.’

  ‘Why Jesus?’ she asks, surprised.

  ‘It was one of those Sacred Heart pictures with the little red lamp and the big-heart thing. That worked every time.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It scared the hell out of me.’

  She laughs. ‘Are you afraid of things now, Johnny?’

  ‘No. I never think about being afraid. It seems ridiculous now.’

  ‘Well, children see the world differently.’

  ‘I think we all see the world differently.’

  She takes the two broken branches we used as sticks, and places them side by side in the grass. We lie together on the overcoat. I am lying on my back, legs bent, knees raised. Cora is lying on her front, legs stretched, two red
boots in the grass.

  ‘I still can’t believe I met you,’ I say, looking up to the clouds. ‘It’s a small world.’

  ‘Well, it’s only Dundalk, Johnny. It’s not that big.’

  Fair enough. I pull a face, still looking to the sky.

  ‘I remember the first time I saw you,’ Cora says. She lies across me playing with the neck of my pullover. ‘But you didn’t notice me then.’

  I wonder how it could be possible that I would not notice Cora Flannery, but our whole happening is still a mystery to me, so I let it pass.

  ‘So why a carpenter, Johnny? Do you like it?’ Cora asks.

  ‘All my life, Cora, I was told to get a trade. My dad has a thing about trades. He has it up there with the rosary, the confession, and the annual weekend of starvation on Lough Derg. He sees it as a kind of salvation. Get a trade under your belt, son, he says. Then the world is your oyster. Whatever that means. And you won’t be counting piecework and be one week away from the poorhouse, my mother chips in. They consider anything else to be “highfalutin talk”. Just for a laugh, I suggested quitting the job and moving out to the Aran Islands to grow my own food and study philosophy. A load of codswallop, Mam called it. And she is probably right. Dad said it would be a waste of time — that you couldn’t grow anything out there, that it was all rock.’

  ‘What is philosophy anyway, Johnny?’

  ‘It’s the study of how we know what we know.’

  ‘How we know what we know about what?’

  ‘How we know what we know about who we are, about why we’re here, about what is here, about what it means to be human. Like those early guns in Plato’s Academy. Philosophical perplexity is the first step to knowledge … That’s what Plato said. Problem is he forgot to mention that it can also be the first step to a kind of folly, a world of baloney. Philosophers go on and on and on, adding ever-increasing layers of nonsense, thinking they’re great thinkers; quoting on and on, in a way that would make a healthy man sick, the works of Descartes or Berkeley or Hume until it all becomes a thick soup of labels, mathematics, models, laws, rules, geometric extensions, astral planes, disembodied souls, and all the usual stuff men can’t help adding. That’s what academia can do. That’s what men do. Like everything else, Cora, they tear the arse out of it. It’s a search for enlightenment, but most wouldn’t see light if you stuck a rocket up their arse and shot them off up into the Sun. They are blinded by the study of the very thing they are looking for.’