Herself

by Leslie Carroll

  There is something eternal about it up here. Take away the passing cars and the blue jeans and we could be deep in the past—in almost any century.

  Jamie presses his body against my back, and I try to turn my head to read his eyes. “Just protecting you from the wind. Here among the ancients, chivalry is still very much alive.” I can hear the smile in his voice, imagine the twinkle in his eye.

  “All right, why do they call it Sally Gap?”

  Jamie presses his face close to my ear. “Once upon a time, there was a man they called Patrick. Famous for chasing the snakes out of Ireland and all, right? And when Patrick died—right where we’re standing—the story has it that Oisín, another figure from Irish legend, came riding by on his white horse and scooped up Patrick and took him off to paradise. And the gap in the saddle between Oisín and Patrick was shortened over time to ‘Sally Gap.’ And there you have a bit of local etymology. Chilly?”

  “It is windy up here,” I admit, leaning my body into Jamie’s. For warmth, of course. “But I like listening to your fairy tales.”

  “You’ve come to the right place, then.” We get back in the car and continue toward Glendalough. “For we’ve got stories about the fairy folk who dwell up here—so if you don’t take off your jacket and torn it wrong way out, they’ll lead you down the wrong road even if you’ve followed the right signs. I could tell you tales about the Wicklow Mountains being filled with gold, a monster with the head of a horse and the body of a snake living large in Loch Tay, and of course the romantic entanglements of St. Kevin, who lived in these parts in early Christian times.”

  “Early Christians,” I muse. “Wouldn’t some people call them the first Reform Jews?”

  “Very funny.” His hand feels warm when he places it on my leg, so I decide to let it rest there. “It was in the seventh century, and St. Kevin was of course a celibate, which didn’t preclude him from being a hottie, as you ladies say. In fact the name Kevin means ‘handsome and beautiful.’ He had his first hermitage in Wicklow—right around where we’re drivin’ now. Now, there was a young woman named Kathleen, gorgeous to behold and amorous of inclination, who took a fancy to our St. Kevin. And she chased him about and about the hills, hoping to lead him astray. But St. Kevin, though a man of religious convictions, wasn’t much of a gentleman, for he thrashed poor pretty Kathleen with a bunch of nettles, and to be sure he would further avoid her sight, journeyed a bit further south. Following the instructions of a vision he received from on high, he relocated his hermitage and founded a monastery…guess where?”

  “The vale of Glendalough!”

  “Wait! How did you know that?!” Jamie appears genuinely gobsmacked.

  “I’m right? Cool! I was just reading the road sign. I must let you know, though, that I am no longer inclined to be a fan of your St. Kevin, since you’ve told me he was, quite literally, a violent misogynist.”

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  “Because we got here all right, without turning our clothes inside out.”

  “Tsk-tsk. I’ll find one of the wee folk for you yet, Tessa Goldsmith Craig.”

  But there is something mystical about Glendalough, the “valley of two lakes.” The centuries-old stone buildings, even in their various states of decay, built by generations of early medieval monks, commemorate the immortal power of Faith. And though I don’t share their religion, I do indeed take comfort in the concept of Faith. I’m not even religious, but I have always found spiritual solace and renewal in Nature; and here in this ancient valley, as a summer breeze darts among the ruins, rustling the pines until they bathe me with their pungent scent, I understand why Jamie wanted to bring me here.

  And I walk among the dead, stepping with gingerly respect over and around the gravestones of those who lived here hundreds of years ago, the monks and the laic, whose devotion, patronage, wealth, or influence earned them the perk of burial here, eternal sanctuary in this legendary soil. What did they wear? Eat? Die of?

  Jamie and I walk along one of the hiking paths beside the lake until we can no longer see the round tower, a pointy capped hundred-foot-high stone edifice that served as the monks’ storehouse and safe haven. The hard brown earth, strewn with a carpet of dry, amber-colored pine needles, reminds me of the day camp I attended as a girl, catapulting my memories, in Proustian fashion, to simpler times, when my biggest worry was the outbreak of a pimple or getting picked last for volleyball, and my biggest fears were that a moth might fly down my shirt or a daddy long-legs would creep up the side of the toilet while I was in the camp’s out-house.

  Meandering alongside the Upper Lake and then the Lower, we walk in silence, human silence, I mean, because all around us Nature is singing her song, borne on the soft breeze that ruffles Jamie’s light brown hair and ripples the surface of the loch. Just a few feet away the rush of a waterfall captures my attention, and I stand before it for several minutes, as if the clear rushing water replenishes my arid, aching soul. I don’t feel like talking and Jamie surely senses that, in his Deanna Troi-like way.

  I don’t even know if we’re walking to something, a destination, but it really doesn’t matter. Although I am fascinated by the old stone buildings, the still-living remnants of history, I’m not here on a pilgrimage to honor them, or to see the stone that some call St. Kevin’s bed. But there is magic in this place, in Glendalough, and I’m here for something; that much I recognize, even if it’s that I journeyed all the way to a rural corner of Ireland and found a place that looks like upstate New York. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why, even with my new friend beside me, I think I’m now ready to go home.

  Fifteen

  We cross back to the ruins via a little bridge. A circle in a square called the Deer Stone carries its own mythic symbolism, as does a nearby tree to which, legend has it, a visitor must tie something of value to ensure that he will one day return to Glendalough. Who knows if I’ll even want to return, but the alternative feels like a kind of jinx, so with an ouch I yank out a couple of strands of hair. Well, at least it’s organic. Rhetorically, I ask Jamie if he notes the irony in such pagan superstitions abiding in comfortable harmony with this holy seat of early Christianity.

  “That’s Ireland, gorl!”

  “Oh, look! I wonder who he belongs to.”

  “Make a wish,” Jamie counsels me, as we watch the white horse blithely grazing just a few yards from the Round Tower. “Always make a wish whenever you see a white horse.”

  I tch-tch and the horse looks up. He looks so clean and cared for; no flies buzz around his face, and he doesn’t smell. “I wish I had a carrot or an apple or something to feed him.”

  “Leprechauns are the only ones who can grant wishes,” Jamie teases, handing me an apple from his backpack.

  Tentatively, I hold out my hand, tch-tch again, and the horse ambles over; he’s got all the time in the world. “Do I get two more wishes now?” Jamie slips his arm about my waist while our new equine friend enjoys his serendipitous snack. Tilting my head away from Jamie, the better to regard his face, I tell him, “I wish I knew where I was going from now on. Had a clearer idea. I know where I’m not going, but it’s not the same thing. And I wish that, when I find it, I’m a huge success at it!”

  “You want road signs posted on the rainbow and a guarantee there’s a pot of gold waiting for you at its end.”

  I laugh. “Something like that. I suppose that’s why they call it ‘wishful thinking.’”

  As we toodle back through the Wicklow Mountains through boggy glens and past balding hillsides, once again Jamie stops the car at the side of the road and convinces me to get out and walk across a precarious (or so it seems, once I’m on it) footbridge made of old railroad ties. Suspended far above the valley, I feel like I’m floating, while below me a narrow river snakes through it as far as the eye can see. The buffeting wind is fierce, but I could swear I hear it speaking to me. Challenging, if not daring, me to stand up straight and tall against its might, to be stron
g as an oak yet resilient as a willow, even as it tries to knock me off balance. It’s a long, long way down, should I fall. My task isn’t merely not to buckle; it’s to fight back. To…well, to stand up for myself.

  “I get your point, Jamie!” I shout into the wind. “Can I get back in the car now?”

  He nods and beckons me, and I now traverse the bridge with far less trepidation.

  Pulling up alongside my hotel Jamie says, “I’d invite you to dinner to night, but I’m taking over for Niall behind the bar. He’s got his first hot date in decades. But if you don’t stop by Blackpools I’ll be disappointed. But…say…would you come with me to dinner tomorrow night at my parents’ home?” He fixes his gaze on the steering wheel, delivering his question to the inanimate object incapable of rejecting him.

  “You want me to meet your parents? Tomorrow’s my last night in Dublin, you know.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” Jamie glances anxiously at me.

  I lean over and gently kiss his cheek. “It’s a yes. Sure, I’ll go with you tomorrow night.”

  He breaks into a smile, the dark cloud scudding past, revealing his usual sunny countenance. “Thanks.” And suddenly he adds, “You’re not nervous about it, are you?”

  “Do I have a reason to be?”

  August 14, 8:00 A.M.—my last full day in Dublin

  I’m glad I went to Blackpools last night, to see Jamie in action behind the bar. The place was absolutely jumping. “It’s so crowded in here, you can’t even find the jacks!” remarked the man on the next stool. I can see why Jamie loves this. Playing the convivial host comes to him naturally, and the live traditional music feeds his energy and the vibe of the pub in general. I admire the way he kept things humming, kept everyone’s spirits up and spirits poured, and handled those who got out of hand with the psychological skill of a diplomat and the physical prowess of a professional wrestler. I confess I found it sexy. I told him that now I wanted to watch him fish, but he denied me. Said I’d be bored, possibly seasick, and might be put off fish forever when it came time for him to gut and filet their carcasses. Okay, point taken, but I like being on the water. Maybe more than Jamie does. At least he did promise to pick me up later and show me where he goes to fish, as well as where he lives. So that’s how I’ll spend my last day.

  And without the what-to-do-about-whether-to-keep-working-for-David decision hanging over my head anymore I’ll arrive in New York prepared to update my résumé and set off afresh, with a conscience clear and clean, scrubbed with the salt sea air from the cliffs at Howth and infused with Glendalough’s pine-scented spirituality.

  Coffee. I need coffee. Lots of it. Off to breakfast…

  Clontarf is a suburb of Dublin boasting green spaces, a castle (okay, so it’s now a hotel), and an enviable coastline. A bit like a small town in Connecticut, actually, but for the number of pubs and a greater amount of lace-curtained windows. It’s here that Jamie spends the wee small hours of the day, spreading his nets from his thirty-foot trawler, the weather-beaten Annabel Lee. She’s not a particularly comfortable vessel, and Jamie was right that though a “she” herself, Annabel Lee’s not terribly chick-friendly. For one thing, she smells of fish.

  “I used to live out here,” Jamie tells me, driving along a nondescript residential road. “Bein’ close to the water and all made sense, but there’s no nightlife to speak of, except for a trip down to yer local. I call it ‘Yawn-tarf.’ Not for me a town where they roll up the sidewalks at ten P.M. Oh aye, it’s lovely for families and OAPs, but I haven’t got me a family and I’ve got a couple of decades to go before I become a pensioner. Pretty enough though, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t mind living by the sea.”

  “Well, Tess, if I’d met you twenty years or so ago, you might have made me change my mind. I’m more of a city mouse. Oh, I don’t like the noise and the fumes, and Dublin costs an arm and a leg to live in these days—we members of the working middle classes have been sorely clawed by the Celtic Tiger—but give me the hustle and bustle. I love meeting people from different countries, different walks of life; that’s what Dublin’s like these days. A bit of a melting pot. The only place you’ll find emerald green clothing and shamrocks all over everything is in the souvenir shops.”

  “And I came to Ireland for the four-leaf clovers and the leprechauns,” I sigh.

  “And ya didn’t find ’em in Dublin.” Jamie looks regretful. “But tell me what ya did find, Tessa Goldsmith Craig.”

  “Stop using my full name,” I plea lightheartedly. “I found you. And something I’d mislaid for a lot of years: a little piece of me as well.”

  We grab lunch from a tiny takeaway chips place by the seafront promenade and clamber over the rocks on the Bull Wall to enjoy it. Scenic, but hard on the tush, and the wind whisks away the paper napkins and the empty vinegar packets. And after a mid afternoon cocktail at Clontarf Castle, we drive back to Dublin. I want to revisit the Long Room at Trinity College Library, and maybe potter about their bookstore for a bit. Flopping down on the manicured Green, I fall asleep with my head on Jamie’s thigh.

  Having insisted on some time alone before the family dinner, I enjoy a luxurious bath and then a cappuccino from room ser vice at the little table by my window as I scribble a line or two in my journal: I think I spy Liam Doyle’s hansom cab clop-clopping under my window and wonder if he’ll be joining us this evening. Children’s laughter wafts over from St. Stephen’s Green and penetrates the edges of my gauzy curtains. A breeze rustles through hundreds of tree branches and riffles the viridian leaves. A nanny scolds. A car honks. For the first time in years—maybe ever—I’m not living up to someone’s expectations of who I am, what I should be, or how I should behave in any given situation. I find myself smiling. I’m happy.

  “Now don’t expect much from Crumlin,” Jamie cautions me when he picks me up at Boynton’s. He admires my tunic and fitted black slacks. “You’re looking quite fetching, by the way. Buckle up.”

  “Thanks. What’s a Crumlin?”

  “A boring little suburb a bit south of here. But me parents are happy there; Ma can walk from the house to her volunteering job at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, her old hair-dresser just relocated to the neighborhood, and her garden is blooming, so she’s happy as a pig in shite. And Da has the spanking new track at the local high school to keep him happy—they open it to residents in the off hours and he’s an amateur marathoner. Does the Bloomsday run every year, and some other long distance events I never can remember the names of.”

  Residential Crumlin seems to consist of street after street of semi-detached homes with postage-stamp front yards, only slightly quainter than its counterparts in Queens, lower Westchester, or a middle-income development on Long Island. Jamie brakes his mini in front of the last building on a strip of terraced row houses. A setter roots around a hedge, as if it’s looking for something that got away. I regard the pebbled façade of royal blue stucco. “Is this it?”

  “Home sweet home. This is where I grew up.” And as if he’s reading my mind, Jamie adds, “Bleak, isn’t it? The inside isn’t much better, I’m afraid.”

  He raps the brass door knocker and a taut face peeps through the tiny window above it before flinging open the door. My nostrils are immediately assailed by kitchen aromas: corned beef, roast chicken, cabbage, baked goods. All the staples I expected somehow. “Jamie boy!” A gray-haired skinny man about Jamie’s height throws his ropy arms about his son and clasps him to his bosom as though they hadn’t met in decades. “And this,” the man says, stepping back to appraise my appearance, “must be your new lady friend.”

  New lady friend? Well, that’s a bit…extreme.

  “Tessa Goldsmith Craig, I’d like you to meet my da, Eamon Doyle. Used to be the best taxi driver in New York—”

  “They shoulda made the movie about me,” Eamon jokes. I suppose he doesn’t remember the plot too well.

  “And the best—until he retired—hack man in Dubli
n as well. Hardest working man on four wheels.”

  Eamon greets me with a remarkably strong grip. “Woodworking,” he says, noticing me noticing the firmness of his handshake. “Mo! Company! Maureen!” He looks back to the kitchen, but Maureen fails to appear on cue. “Herself has been in the kitchen all day.” He leans toward us, adding conspiratorially, “So I’ll advise yiz to compliment her cooking at every torn. Come, come inside! What’re yiz doing standin’ on the step like a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

  Eamon leads us along a rather dark hallway; much of the faded floral wallpaper is covered with family photos, mostly semi-candids that appear to chronologize the lengthy history of Doyle family seaside vacations. The dog has followed us indoors, and working its way between our moving legs, begins to sniff at my crotch before I can even begin to pet it.

  “Down, Molly! Down gorl!”

  “Da, I think Molly Bloom’s a lesbian.”

  “What’re ya talkin’, Jamie? Dogs can’t be lesbians.”

  We have entered the living room, small, also rather dark, except for the pristine lace curtains, and stuffed to the gills with furniture and bric-a-brac. Maureen must spend a lifetime dusting all the figurines because there’s not a speck of dust to be seen. I get the feeling that the tiniest mote would suffer instant excommunication. Everything is immaculate in this human nest, from the Beleek heirloom tea set in the mahogany china cabinet to the portrait-style photos on the walls of family members and the snapshots on the mantelpiece to the dried floral arrangements displayed on the antique doilies resting along the top of the spinet. Exploding my preconception, there is not a portrait of JFK or the Pope anywhere in sight. The only sign of anything remotely approaching disorder is a half-finished jigsaw puzzle of Bangkok, cordoned off on a bridge table tucked into a corner of the room.