We pulled over beside the blaze that signified the Dingle Way. Beyond the sign, the land gave way to blue-gray rock and sheer cliffs. Gulls and pippins and shearwaters flew in the up-breezes, swirling and diving out to the green waves. I knew about the birds and how the islanders often ate their eggs in season. The view could not have been cleaner or more vivid. A single trawler plied the waters and left behind great white angel wings of wake. Wind pushed my hair back and I stood with my arms crossed and watched as Ozzie bent to let Gottfried off leash.
“It’s beautiful here, Ozzie,” I said, and the wind crushed my voice and rolled it into a tiny ball. “Is that Tralee Bay?”
“Brandon Bay, I think, but they run together. It’s the Atlantic, when all is said and done.”
He bent and whispered something into Gottfried’s ear, then let him go. Gottfried darted ahead then looked back, uncertain, his heavy paws resembling a pile of leaves on each foot. Ozzie nodded and reassured him that it was okay to run ahead. We followed after Gottfried. He clumsily moved along the dirt path, apparently having a difficult time believing he was free to run and roam as he liked. His body dangled between postures; he attempted to determine whether to zoom forward or stop and smell every odor that pushed toward him. In between impulses, he gazed back at Ozzie. He loved Ozzie, and it touched my heart to see their mutual devotion.
“You can see the Blaskets from here,” he said, walking beside me. “From up on this point, anyway. You can see how they sit in the sea. I thought you’d like to view it. Beyond them it’s all open ocean. Rough seas a good portion of the time. They think they’re named the Blaskets from the Norse word, brasker, meaning dangerous place. But I suppose you know that already.”
“I do.”
“The government resettled many of the islanders to Dunquin. The government built cottages for them in Dunquin and they gave them a couple acres of land, but the islanders didn’t like being away from the sea. That’s what people say, anyway. There is quite a romance about the Blaskets. Paradise lost, and all that. But I guess I’m telling you things you know already.”
“But it’s good to hear them beside the cliffs like this. That’s why I’m here. To see it with my own eyes.”
“The seas are rough, I can attest to that. I was out one day for mackerel and a wave came from my stern and chucked me against my own wheel. I thought I’d broken my nose.”
“And they went out in canoes. It’s hard to believe.”
“And they died regularly enough. It was a hard life.”
“I can’t imagine living next to the sea, then having it taken away. Even the voice inside your head would sound different. I’m not sure how you would form a thought without it afterward.”
We talked, but it didn’t mean anything. I might have recited lines from “Jabberwocky,” for all it mattered. We had reached that strange point where men and women meet in their bodies and blood, reached that place in which words don’t signify any longer, where whatever biology wanted from us had to happen. He couldn’t have looked better: hair blowing in the wind, slightly mussed and dirty, frequently bending to whisper some new instruction to Gottfried, his jeans dirty and baggy. He sat on a flat stone that served as a bench and in front of us the sea ran all the way to Boston. I sat beside him. And then that inevitable moment arrived, that moment that is both thrilling and terrifying, when I expected him to kiss me, to lean over again as he did in the truck, but he didn’t. He kept talking about the Blaskets. I couldn’t take it. I stood and stepped between his legs and then he tucked me closer, his hand on my waist, and pulled me into him. We kissed. And now it was no longer cautious and tentative; I pushed my body into his and he slid his hand down to the back of my thighs and lifted me slightly. We kissed again and again, and there was no reason to stop, no reason to ever stop, and a wild flurry of thoughts pushed through my head. Research, job, Paddington Bear, my mother’s sailboat, Dartmouth, Milly, the Blaskets, my father, and then I flatlined on all of that. I abandoned myself to him, I fell into him, into his body and his mouth and his hands, and a hunger I hadn’t known I possessed a minute before began to pulse through me in great, boiling shudders. I may have made a small, desperate sound in the back of my throat. I may have grabbed his face and held it in front of me. I may have run my hands over his broad back and, simultaneously, let his hands run where they liked. And they did run over my body, touching everywhere and passing on, making my body move almost to capture the next place his hand would land. He whispered in my ear, something soft and sweet, and then darker, something about bodies, but the wind kept me from hearing it clearly. Then finally, unable to breathe exactly, he put his forehead against mine and held me solidly, his lovely eyes inches from mine.
* * *
“Nora said you’d be by. Come this way. We’ve just closed shop for the day, but I can run you through quickly enough. How is she?”
“Gran’s fine, thanks, Bertie,” Ozzie answered.
“Oh, that’s good to hear. You’re very welcome, my dear. It’s Kate, is it? Please call me Bertie. Everyone does. Glad to have a scholar visiting. So many people traipse through the museum without understanding a thing about it. Without understanding what it might mean to live in such a manner as the islanders did. So much, so much, so much to consider,” Bertie said, backing up and waving his hand to suggest I let my eyes roam. “And this museum is merely a snapshot. Sometimes I think it’s wrong to have a museum of anything, because it lets one believe that lives can be encapsulated in tiny displays. I mean, does one pyramid tell you anything about the Egyptian kings? I think not.”
Bertie was a treasure. He was short, perhaps five-four, and as round about the waist as a bowling pin. His gray hair ran in a ring around his scalp, tail chasing head. He had a busy manner, like a cartoon mouse late for dinner. He wore a bright, red-checkered vest and dark trousers; a gold watch chain drooped in a shiny moustache across his potbelly. He glowed red; he had the fairest skin of any human I had ever encountered. He looked newborn, actually, as if he had reached the age of sixty or seventy without passing through the mandatory cracks and creaks of aging. He was fascinating to see and indisputably Irish. If he felt any displeasure at having to show around a nosy American tourist after hours, he did not reveal it.
Unfortunately, Ozzie and I could not keep our hands off each other.
But we had to. We had talked briefly about canceling the appointment, but Ozzie had insisted we keep it. Bertie Janes was not to be missed, he said, and it had been set up by Nora herself, and so with difficulty we had stopped kissing on the flat rock—I wanted him as much as he wanted me—and pulled ourselves together. We loaded Gottfried into the truck and drove the short descent into Dunquin, where the museum waited.
As I stood looking around the museum, dazed, I tried to shake myself. I had thought books and movies about people burning for one another was merely a Hollywood confection. Yes, a little passion, a little heat, but nothing that felt overpowering. But this did. This felt like wires edging toward a water-filled sink. I had never experienced anything like it.
Poor Bertie stood in the center of it. Perhaps he sensed it, perhaps he didn’t, but Ozzie and I were aware of his sobriety while we felt drunk with each other.
He pointed to the sign at the entrance. It was in Irish.
Is ionad oidhreachta agus cultúir/músaem ar leith é Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir a chomórann an pobal eisceachtúil a mhair ar na hoileáin iargúlta seo go dtí gur tréigeadh an Blascaod Mór sa deireadh in 1953. Anseo, leathslí timpeall Bhealach Cheann Sléibhe, tá radharcanna iontacha de chósta fiáin an Atlantaigh agus d’oileáin iomráiteacha an cheantair le feiceáil ar gach aon taobh.
“Do you read Irish?” he asked. “I won’t judge you if you don’t. You can be a Roman scholar without reading Latin. But I wanted to know.”
I read the sign aloud to him. Not perfectly. Not without hesitation. And not without feeling Ozzie’s boiling presence beside me. But I didn’t do it badly.
With stunni
ng views of the wild Atlantic coast and islands at the halfway point of the Slea Head Drive, the Blasket Centre is a fascinating heritage and cultural centre/ museum, honouring the unique community who lived on the remote Blasket Islands until their evacuation in 1953.
“Very good, very good indeed, Kate. Did Nora tell me your father lived on An Blascaod Mór?”
“Only as a little boy. My last name is Moreton. Do you know it?”
“I do, of course. Like wheat thrown into the wind, we were,” he said, now leading us more fully into the hall that formed the center of the museum. “Now come along. I’ll give you the Cook’s tour. You’ll have to return in full daylight some other day, so I can spend a few hours with you.”
“I’d love that.”
“You’re mostly interested in the female narratives? Peig Sayers, of course, is from right here. She wrote a lovely book, as you know. But there are many others. We’ve been collecting oral histories right here at the center, as a matter of fact.”
“I’m aware of your collection. I’m here to study them.”
He smiled. And maybe he did sense how Ozzie and I felt for each other. We were like two teenagers rousted off a basement make-out couch by a sleepy parent. I blushed when he studied me. Ozzie moved away and pretended interest in a display I was certain he had seen many times before.
“You have Irish coloring, Kate,” Bertie said.
Which made me blush even more.
We did the tour. Ozzie kept his distance. He knew a good bit about the history of the islands, but no one could match Bertie’s comprehensive knowledge. I felt halved by having such a rich source standing in front of me, and the weak twitter I felt anytime Ozzie stepped near. Several times I had to rededicate myself to listening. At some point Bertie understood what was going on, and he smiled a kind, gentle smile and closed off the session.
“You’re young,” he said when we concluded the brief circuit of displays, “and this will keep for another day. Are you running up to Limerick or going to Ozzie’s land?”
Neither one of us answered. We didn’t know ourselves.
“I guess we haven’t decided,” I said. “This was our first stop.”
“Promise me you’ll come back when we will have more time together,” Bertie said. “Now, run along, both of you. It’s a beautiful Irish night and you don’t want to spend it listening to me yabbering on.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It was wonderful.”
We put down a few dates on my phone and I took his contact information. He smiled and held the door open for us.
“Best to herself,” Bertie said to Ozzie, meaning to give his compliments to Nora. “And remember me to Seamus.”
“I will.”
We stepped out into the quiet evening light. Ozzie looked at me as we walked to the truck.
“Limerick, or my land?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
15
Is it simple pheromones that attracts people to one another so violently? A blood chemistry, perhaps mixed with some unidentifiable trick of posture and body language? Whatever science has to tell us about attraction, it could not have overstated its case inside the truck with Ozzie. Our hands touched over and over and whenever we had to stop, I fairly climbed on top of him and kissed him. When we pulled off to take in an overlook, we held hands. It was absurd, and we knew it. We joked about it. We tried to push it away. But a wash of chemicals moved through my stomach and into my lower body and I could not resist finding him again, kissing him, wanting his skin against mine. Call it butterflies. Call it lust. Whatever you call it, it was real and unquenchable.
We drove toward his land, toward his dwelling, toward his bed.
Gottfried saved us over and over. His sweet, goofy head swiveled back and forth to see what we were doing, what we planned, who would be the one to lurch against his back and kiss the other. He made a good dog chaperone. Ozzie also tried to point out landmarks and things he thought I should note, but it was hard for us both to concentrate. Smerwick Harbor, Slea Head, he said in a voice that was not in keeping with what was going on between us, then we rounded the tip of the Dingle Peninsula and headed toward his land.
“When did you buy this land?” I asked, trying to clear my head, trying to be reasonable.
“About three years ago. Gran knew when it came on the market and she urged me to buy it. She said there will never be another chance to own such a thing. Not in our lifetime.”
“Gran is your guardian angel.”
“More than I can say. She has a bit of magic, you know? Good things follow her.”
Then, for a little while, the passion I felt for him gave way to an appreciation of what he called his land. We bounced down an unpaved path and drove toward the sea. For a moment, I thought we actually might go into the sea; the road led us to a drop-off and I grabbed the dashboard before I realized Ozzie had it under control. It was simply a fold in the path, a bump that obscured the magnificent wash of land and water in front of us. As soon as the front wheels of the truck cleared it, the land opened, and I saw his place. He lived in a yurt, a round, circular tent that I had seen many times in Vermont and New Hampshire. A yurt was more than a tent, I knew, and Ozzie’s yurt could not have been more perfectly placed. He had built a wide, level platform that extended slightly over the slope of the hill, as if the entire structure wanted to make sure it gained the best view of the waves below. From the deck, I saw, one could sit and watch the sunrise. The sea was, as Mrs. Fox of the Dingle B&B had said, a tablecloth for him. It pressed and moved everywhere around the site, and I could not swivel my head fast enough to take everything in. It was surpassingly beautiful, and I was glad when Ozzie did not try to discount its perfection or pass it off as unimportant.
“I’m a lucky man,” he said simply.
“It’s incredible, Ozzie. I had no idea.”
“The yurt is temporary. Or at least, it’s only what I live in now. I have the foundation in for a cottage. I’m building a traditional Irish cottage. At least, that’s my plan. It’s tough funding it and finding the time to work on it, but it’s what I do right now. That’s what I was working on and why I was late. I’m still sorry about that. I was in the middle of something and I couldn’t put it down.”
“Does it have a name? The land?”
“No, not really. Seamus said it was once called Sheepshead, but I don’t know how reliable that is. Another old-timer said it was called Galleyhead when he was a boy. A family lived here for years, but they had a fire and they couldn’t recover. The land sat empty for a long time over legal matters, a family dispute. If Nora hadn’t known about it, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. I’ve been calling it Crow Point.”
“And where did you get the yurt?”
“Purchased it. I built the platform. I’m a fair carpenter. I won’t pretend I am better than I am, but I can drive a nail. The yurt can be a studio or a guesthouse when the cottage is completed. I’ll be a hundred years old by then.”
“Oh, but look what you have, Ozzie. Look at what it is. The sea is everywhere!”
I looked at him. Who was this man? And how had I fallen into his life? He drove slowly up the last dozen feet until he parked and turned off the engine. As soon as the engine quieted, the land began to speak its own language. He smiled softly. His smile did not convey covetousness or pride at what he owned. He knew full well that he was merely a custodian. The sea felt humbling. Whatever you built, however you lived beside it, the sea had the last and final word.
I pushed open the door and climbed out. Gottfried scrambled out after me.
“You are a lucky man,” I said, my eyes filled with the sea and the grass and long slope to the water. “To have this.”
“I’m lucky if I can keep it and meet the payments.”
He came and stood beside me. I put my hand through his arm. It felt natural. He pressed my hand against his ribs.
“I’d give blood if I had to,” I said. “I’d do anything
to keep it.”
“Do you own your house?”
“No, but I have plans for a cabin. I bought some land I was looking at before the fellowship came through. My dad left me a little bit of money for it. It’s pretty land in New Hampshire, but it doesn’t compare to this. Six point seven acres. It was forested about three years ago, so it’s mostly bald. But things grow fast in New England. It has a small brook running through it.”
“It’s good to have water near you. It keeps the fairies from wandering away.”
“It’s lovely land, Ozzie. Seriously. I’m glad I saw it.”
“You make it sound like you’re dying or going away.”
“Not dying, I hope. But going away someday.”
He turned and kissed me. The kiss grew and burned and I leaned back against the car to have a little of his weight on me. My mind explored the edges of everything that had happened and I had to force it back. I refused to think of Ozzie here with any other woman, or the possibility that he had played this exact hand before. Whatever was happening between us, I was glad to follow it.
“Come on, I’ll show you inside,” he said finally when we broke apart.
“The sun is going down.”
“It does every day.”
“Here, though. It sets behind us, but look at the light running across the sea. And the Blaskets are to the south and west. Do I have it right?”
Seven Letters Page 11