A Mad and Wonderful Thing

by Mark Mulholland

  ‘We will get married, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Cora, we sure will. On Cúchulainn’s Castle.’

  ‘Yes, on Cúchulainn’s Castle, and we’ll make our babies there.’

  ‘We’ll make our babies there, Cora Flannery, and we will be together forever.’

  On the grassy trail high above the lough, we hold each other hard in the jubilation of our promise: togetherness forged in the power of our embrace, and relief, commitment, and happiness released into the sweet fragrance of the mountain gorse.

  We walk on with lighter feet, and halfway down the mountain we stop and sit, both of us determined to slow the day and prolong the mood. I take the Dunn & Co and spread it on the grass. I push Cora down on her back as soon as she sits, and move across her, kissing her cheek, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows, her chin, her throat. ‘You are beautiful, Cora Flannery,’ I whisper to her.

  ‘Am I still a mad and wonderful thing?’ she teases.

  ‘Still unbelievably wonderful,’ I tell her. ‘And, yes, totally mad.’

  ‘I love you,’ she says, opening her body beneath me. ‘How many children will we have?’

  ‘Eh, maybe four?’ I say, thinking this not a time for talking but for other things.

  ‘Four? Are you mad?’ It was a foolish hope. She insists on ploughing this new turf.

  ‘Why? How many then?’ I have to play along.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Eight? Are you mad?’ I give up.

  ‘Eight. Four boys and four girls. A boy and a girl for each of the provinces of Ireland.’

  ‘You really are some lunatic, Cora Flannery.’ I push her down again and draw myself across her. ‘Now, if I can keep you quiet for just a moment?’ I pull her jacket from her and lift the woollen pullover up and over her head, pulling it high to release her slender arms. She settles again beneath me, her face content and easy, her bright green eyes beckoning, encouraging, her golden hair scattered on the ground, her fragile neck exposed, that arc of perfection which runs from jaw to neck to shoulder, her white body beneath me against the green of the mountain, her innocent bra, white with a tiny pink rose in the middle of the two gentle drumlins, her blue jeans buttoned to her slender hips, the lip of the blue jeans loose against the taut white body, a row of silver buttons, inviting, and two red boots stretched out on the mountain. I kiss her jaw, her neck, her throat. I kiss her shoulder and down across her small breasts. I kiss the little pink rose, and down from the pink rose I kiss her, undoing slowly, one by one, the silver buttons of her blue jeans. Lower I move, and kiss her as her body arches towards me and her breathing changes. I open the fold of the fork of the blue jeans and kiss her abdomen, and move lower, a thin ridge atop soft white material, a little pink rose in the middle. I push the jeans across her hips as I kiss the pink rose.

  There is movement in the nearby gorse. Something is there. We rise in a bolt, Cora quickly reaching back into the woollen pullover. I spring to the rear of the bush, and a dark shadow bursts free, a low shape running away, moving quickly across the mountain and diving into some heavy scrub. But before it disappears it turns, and I see the eyes and the grinning face.

  ‘Jesus, what was that?’

  ‘A fox.’

  ‘A black fox, Johnny?’

  ‘A black fox.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a black fox,’ Cora says, recovered now from the fright. ‘I’m not sure that black foxes exist, Donnelly.’

  ‘Well, they do now, lover girl,’ I joke. But I am uneasy. Something about this is very wrong. And that grinning face?

  We dress and continue the walk down the mountain. Cora is oblivious to my anxiety.

  ‘Isn’t love the most wonderful thing?’ she says.

  ‘Yes, and all love is friendship,’ I say. ‘The ancient Irish believed friendship to be an act of recognition, an eternal belonging. So when people meet and a sudden great union is formed, the old Irish believed that this is not the creation of something new, but a subconscious recognition of something old — a finding of something pre-existing. And they were right. They called that kind of friendship an Anam Cara.’

  ‘That’s us exactly, isn’t it, Johnny? We are each other’s Anam Cara.’

  ‘Yes, Cora. That’s us exactly.’

  ‘We won’t hide things from each other, will we, Johnny? We will always be honest.’

  ‘Yes, we will be honest,’ I say. But as the words leave me, a heavy air enters, and I am slowed as I carry that new weight down the mountain.

  It is evening, and the light is fading when we reach Carlingford. We watch as a funeral procession gathers in the village churchyard. A long black hearse and an attendant black limousine are parked before the church. Six men remove the casket from the hearse and carry it shoulder-high up the stone steps and into the dark church. Two men in dark suits walk before them. The gathering files in behind.

  ‘An old person. A full life.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ she asks.

  ‘Grey and frail heads stepped from the limousine. A young mother with a baby, too. Middle-aged men carried the coffin. Young adults and teenagers followed the hearse. All sad, but none broken. Four generations, and all with the shape of acceptance.’

  ‘The last night above the ground,’ Cora says. ‘When you die, where do you want to be buried?’

  ‘I don’t want to be buried. I want to be cremated, and my ashes scattered on these mountains. Not on this side, though — on the other side, overlooking Dundalk Bay. It’s funny, isn’t it, Cora, but this side of the mountain doesn’t feel like home. What about you? No, let me guess — Cúchulainn’s Castle, I bet. Isn’t there any part of your life you don’t want to do there?’

  ‘Nothing significant, no.’

  The village is quiet, and we walk in the centre of the small road.

  ‘Well, Cora, may we die in Ireland,’ I say, taking her hand and raising the joined arms high, punching the air.

  ‘May we die in Ireland,’ we shout together, laughing.

  We find a pub at the corner of the main street and enter. A grocery counter and bar are maintained in the first room. Three men stand talking, and an elderly barman with shirtsleeves rolled high on his forearms is listening from behind the counter. A push-through door and narrow corridor leads to a lounge at the rear. The place is half full: couples and mixed groups are around tables, and two men are sitting at the bar. A turf fire is burning below a wooden mantelpiece on the far wall, and a plastic bucket with coal, wooden sticks, and pieces of brown turf sits nearby. A middle-aged man, sitting on a high stool in the far corner, is playing a guitar and singing into a microphone on a stand. I recognise the tune from among Mam’s favourites.

  We take two low stools around an empty table against the side wall, and the barman brings the drinks I ordered at the bar. ‘A gentleman,’ he says as I pay. The singer begins another tune that I recognise. ‘Mam would love this fella,’ I comment. We have two more drinks before Cora gets up and joins the guitar player. She sings two songs. There is applause and cheering at the end of each song. ‘Show-off,’ I tell her, as she rejoins me. But before we go I also get up and join the guitar player for a song. Well, I couldn’t let her have all the glory. ‘Have you ever heard of Liam Clancy out here in Carlingford?’ I ask. ‘Well, if you have or have not,’ I add, ‘here we go. This is for Cora Flannery …’

  Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows.

  Fair is the lily of the valley.

  Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne.

  But my love is fairer than any.

  I speak the words with the confident and persuasive voice that comes with having a few drinks in the belly, and then I sing, and with a wave of my arms I pull the whole room into the singing. Cora laughs.

  We sit by the harbour on a low wall and wait for Cora’s dad to co
llect us. Before us, a haloed moon rises above the dark, funnelled lough.

  Lifting her gaze from the water to the night air, Cora launches a recital:

  And missing thee, I walk unseen,

  On the dry smooth-shaven green,

  To behold the wandering Moon

  Riding near her highest noon,

  Like one that had been led astray

  Through the heav’n’s wide pathless way:

  And oft as if her head she bowed,

  Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

  I let the fleecy cloud drift a while before I comment. ‘The pensive man. Our old friend gets a mention in that.’

  ‘We could have stayed longer, in the pub, if you’d wanted,’ Cora says, re-engaging with planet Earth and turning to me.

  ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ I answer.

  ‘Is that a Johnny Donnelly?’

  ‘No. One of the true masters.’

  ‘Plato or Poppins?’

  ‘Have a guess?’

  Her face tightens as she looks out on the water. ‘Poppins,’ she says, and the face releases to a smile.

  ‘Good woman, Flannery,’ I tell her, pulling her into me. ‘Now you have it.’

  Cora looks to me.

  ‘I think it’s time, Johnny-boy.’

  ‘Time for what, gorgeous?’ I was flying a bit with the drinks and the singing, and my head wasn’t in the mood for thinking things out much.

  ‘You know — what the black fox interrupted.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘the little fecker. Are you sure, Cora? You know we’ve all the time in the world for that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cora answers, resting her head against my shoulder. ‘I’m ready. And don’t ask me where. You know.’

  I laugh, but ask again, ‘Only if you’re sure?’

  ‘Call for me Wednesday evening, on Samhain evening, and we’ll go … we’ll go for a walk. I wrote a poem for you, Johnny; I’ll give it to you then.’

  I kiss her, touching the side of her face with my hand. ‘I love you,’ I say, ‘my Anam Cara.’

  The end of the harvest

  IT IS THE THIRTY-FIRST OF OCTOBER AND IT IS THE FESTIVAL OF SAMHAIN, the night that marks the end of the harvest, the night that marks the beginning of the dark months, the night when — so they say — the veil across the otherworld is thinned. Darkness has already fallen, and I cycle under streetlight. A full moon appears and disappears beyond moving cloud, but I barely notice it. I barely notice anything. My mind is on Cora, and I have thought of Cora all day.

  ‘You couldn’t bate snow off a rope today,’ Jack Quigley said, and laughed. ‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’ Twice that day I’d left tools behind. ‘Only for they’re in a bag, you’d lose them,’ Jack said, and laughed again.

  My thoughts jump from our walk on the mountain — and all that was said there — to the anticipation of the evening ahead and all that awaits us on the hill. I cycle the Ramparts Road, Distillery Lane, Jocelyn Street, Roden Place, along the pavement at the Town Hall and alongside the courthouse, through the Market Square, Clanbrassil Street, Church Street, and Bridge Street, and I am still lost to my dreams as I pedal west on the Castletown Road. I don’t notice the commotion on the road ahead until I near Níth River Terrace.

  Two blue lights circle halfway down the terrace, the beam of the lights running along the row of grey pebble-dashed houses. I stop and get off the bicycle. Passing traffic has slowed to a crawl and is being managed around a blockage outside the chip shop. A garda stands in the middle of the road and waves each car through in turn. Drivers and passengers strain to get a look at the disturbance. Thirty yards before the chip shop, a police car is pulled over on the wrong side of the road, facing away from me. Its doors on the pavement side are open, and a second garda stands by the rear door. He is writing in a notebook that he carries in one hand. In front of that policeman, a woman sits in the open rear door of the car, a blanket pulled across her shoulders. The garda says something, and with his pen points to the front, but the woman does not turn, and looks only to the ground. I look to where the pen points. A driverless car stands in the road before the chip shop. There is a smash in the centre of the windscreen, as if a ball had been pushed into the glass. A number of potato chips have fallen on the glass, and have slid and gathered on the rubber blade of a wiper. Some yards in front of the car, torn paper lies on the road, and chips are scattered on the ground. I look to the second blue light. An ambulance is parked on the near pavement beyond the chip shop. Passing houses five, six, and seven, I notice people standing at their doors. At number nine, a woman sees me approach, and I see her raise her hand to her mouth as she turns away.

  I drop the bicycle and run to the gate of number sixteen. I glance to a house with the door open. I run to the back of the ambulance, where a crowd is grouped on the pavement. Distress pours from the gathering. I step into the crowd and move towards the vehicle: voices, light, fear, and dreadful certainty meet me as I push through. I step up to the open door. Confusion is packed into the space, and for a moment I remain unseen. Before me, in the ambulance, is a steel trolley, a gurney. And on that gurney a white sheet is pulled long. And below that sheet, what? A body? The white sheet covers the head, but I know that shape. I look beyond the gurney and see Gerry Flannery, who now notices me and moves towards me with his mouth open and calling. But I don’t hear him. I no longer hear anything. For on that gurney there is a body — the white sheet pulled high, the face hidden, and at the end of the sheet, two legs showing, two feet, and on those feet, are Dr Martens boots. They are red, and they are tied in extravagant bows with green laces.

  Station Road

  MORNING LIGHT CREEPS AROUND THE CLOSED CURTAINS OF THE EAST window. It is Saturday, and I have no plans for the day. I look over her sleeping body to the small clock perched on top of a stack of books on the far bedside locker. It is early, and I decide to read. She doesn’t move; the duvet that covers her is pulled tight, the edge tucked beneath her. From below the duvet, the curves of her small frame show. She has a good body. She is a good-looking girl. Her pretty head is buried deep into the pillow, with her fair hair — strawberry blonde, she calls it — scattered about her. She faces away from me, her pretty face pointing towards the clock above the stack of books. I sit up and adjust my pillows behind me, and I play with her hair as she sleeps.

  This was her room when I came here. It is a big room: two large windows (one east, one south), a heavy oak wardrobe, a fireplace, a mirror over a grey-marble mantelpiece, a double bed at one end of the room, a chair and a long table that I use as a desk at the other. She who sleeps moved to another room when I joined the household. She moved so that I would have the table. That’s just typical of her, my little Bella — there’s a big heart in that small, curvy body. It was she who’d answered when I first called. ROOM FOR RENT: MIGHT SUIT A PROFESSIONAL, the classified read. ‘Will a poor student do?’ I’d asked as she made tea. ‘A poor student will do lovely’, she’d answered. The house was a lucky find; perfect, really. It sits at the station end of Station Road, the other end of which joins the main street of the small town of Ennis. The house is big: there are four of us here, and we all have a large room.

  It was the beginning of 1991 when I left Dundalk. I just couldn’t stay there. It was January and black and cold, and Cora was gone. Now I study in college in Limerick — I am studying to be a teacher — and to help pay the bills, I work some weekends at home in the engineering works, and weekday evenings I teach carpentry here in County Clare. It was Delaney who came good with the job here. He pulled a few strings — fair dues to him. To live in County Clare and study the nineteen miles away in Limerick, I needed a car, so the folks have gone halfers in a Renault 4. I’d always wanted one. I like the shape, that innocent functionality. It’s so uncool, it’s cool. ‘It’s a GTL,’ I said to Dad, and he laughed — he wanted me to buy a
Volkswagen or an Opel, and I nearly did, but that Big Robbie rummaged this beauty for me in the North. ‘And what colour is it?’ Mam asked. ‘It’s a seductive cream,’ I told her, ‘the colour of milk coffee that’s been dipped into by one digestive too many,’ and she too laughed.

  They have been down for a visit, and I took them for a drive around the Burren and West Clare. Mam loves a spin, loves looking out at all the houses. Anna visits, too, and I take her to Galway, where we buy clothes and books and visit cafés. She is a fine-looking woman, all grown up and sensible. Has a boyfriend, too — Tiernan something-or-other. He’s a solicitor. Mam will be delighted if that goes all the way to the altar. Anna’s a good girl; what you see is what you get. Éamon and the boys come down, too; they are all fond of Bella’s parties. I let the drink get the better of me at one party, and thought I was Liam Clancy again and sang a few songs. ‘Have youse no homes to go to?’ I roared when I finished, and Bella cheered and chuckled. It was after that party that she first arrived in my room. ‘Are you lost, girl?’ I asked. She didn’t answer — not with words. She makes a return visit now and again. She’s engaged to be married, my little Bella. Nice fella, too. Well, what he doesn’t know …

  I reach to the locker on the near side of the bed, and take a book from the pile. As I read, I rub the ridge of skin by my left eye. It has become a habit, the touching of the scar. I read for two hours. She moves slightly, and her hand searches behind her in the bed for me.

  She finds me. ‘Hey,’ she says sleepily. ‘I thought you’d abandoned me.’

  She leaves her hand on the inside of my left thigh, tugging and teasing the hair on my upper leg. I return the book to the pile and go under the cover to her.

  ‘Hello, girl,’ I say, kissing her head.

  She caresses my leg, her fingers spreading and closing. She is still facing away from me. I lift the duvet to lie close to her. She is naked. I kiss her back and her shoulders. She has lightly freckled skin — smooth, fleshy-white, Irish skin. I kiss the undulations of her spine. I caress her legs, her thighs, her hips. I touch her abdomen, lightly, with fingers spread across her little pouch belly, that little womanly rise. I pull my fingers up her skin and touch her breasts. I softly pinch her nipples, carefully, massaging the hardening points between my fingers. She works her hand up to take me, and strokes me easily with thumb and fingers. I move my right hand down, touching her lightly, gently opening the folds, finding her. I concentrate on the touch, and she pushes against me, stretches her body long, and goes silent, her breath suspended, before release. I raise my left hand to the centre of her back, and push and fold her again. She still faces away from me. She pulls me towards her. She touches herself with me, stroking her opening. She breathes heavy at the touch. I push into her. I am not in properly. I come out and I lower myself in the bed behind her. She takes me in her right hand and guides me in with the fingers of her left. It is good to be inside her. I push deep as I keep one hand on her back and the other on that little abdominal rise. She tries to keep me inside when I finish, but I fall away as the blood leaves. I kiss her back, her shoulders, her hair, and she settles under the cover, burying her head deep in the pillow.