The Island Child

by Molly Aitken

  ‘I’d say it was more yours after last night. I think the sea got the better of you.’

  He laughed again. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘I’d hate for you to get notions about us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Are you leaving with the other men from the boat?’

  ‘I was told there’s a festival that can’t be missed.’

  ‘Saint John’s Eve,’ I said. ‘Yes. It’s on the other island, Éag.’

  ‘Will you be going?’

  ‘I’ve never gone before.’

  ‘But it sounds like it’s the biggest event of the year.’

  ‘It is, but my Mam never liked me to go when I was growing up.’

  ‘Well, it can be our first time together.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  He was a giant, the wind catching at his leather coat. It had dried since I’d carried him back.

  ‘Aren’t you getting cold in the sea there?’ he asked.

  ‘We always do the washing this way.’ The sea was well up to my knees, the tide coming in. I pulled the dress out, squeezed it and walked through the shallows towards him.

  ‘Are you a yank?’ I asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I never spoke to one before. You’re free in yourself. Not like us at all.’

  ‘You are the freest people I ever met.’

  ‘You don’t know us well.’

  ‘But you don’t know yanks well either.’

  ‘No.’ My neck was warm. ‘But I will. As soon as I can, I’m going to America.’

  ‘Why?’ His eyes were sad but his lips smiling. ‘It’s a long way. So far, you’d probably never see your family again.’

  ‘No. I never would.’

  A group of men passed and called him over. He was gone with a smile and a wave but he was staying on the island longer and he would come to Éag.

  * * *

  When I saw Michael again it was evening and the sky had turned the colour of heather. Our cottage was bursting with people. All the children were there, collected in their various heights. The oldest villagers were perched on stools carried from hearthsides by their daughters. The men had brought bottles of new-made potato poitín and whiskey. The doors were thrown open to leak out the heat and clatter of voices.

  I felt the hum of excitement as I wove through them, trying not to watch him where he stood at the centre, willing him to glance at me with all the force of my eyes looking anywhere but at him. Instead I drank in the room the way he might, seeing the lit turf and pipes coughing blue smoke, hearing the hum of conversation in Irish, smelling the burn of cow dung and scrubbed flesh and tobacco.

  While I stumbled around in my dirty red, Mam floated about in her blue dress, a sparkle to her, as if it was a wash day, as if it’d been her who’d carried him home instead of me.

  ‘He’s in your dad’s chair now,’ Bridget said to me. ‘Not moved yet.’

  I allowed myself to peek up from her sun-creased face. His butter hair stood out among the tartan hats and white heads. Above his rough beard his cheeks were warmed by the heat of the fire and his eyes took in everything about us.

  I hopped over sprawling legs, away from Bridget, and hovered by the table to listen to Old Daithi speaking to Michael.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Daithi asked.

  A real quiet had fallen, as if the wind had dropped, and Michael seemed to sense it too because he blushed a little.

  ‘My mother’s family were from Ireland,’ he said.

  Daithi nodded. ‘There are a lot of us over there. Is that why you came? To see where you’re from?’

  ‘I guess it was. I needed time to myself and I wanted to get away for a while. See new faces, you know?’

  ‘Oh, I can understand that feeling,’ Daithi said.

  People laughed and Michael grinned.

  ‘Tell us in your own words what happened on the boat. That’s what we’re all dying to hear.’

  As he described his journey over the ocean he moved his hands like the waves and cupped them into the ferry. Somehow, I was so close to him but he didn’t turn his head to see me.

  ‘When the storm lit on yous,’ Daithi said. ‘Were you not afraid you’d drown?’

  ‘My father threw me in a lake when I was five years old, so I learned to swim just after I hit the water. That’s how we do it where I’m from. Do you throw your kids in the sea?’

  The room was wintry.

  ‘We don’t learn to swim here.’ Dad’s voice cut cold across the kitchen.

  ‘Aye,’ Daithi said, breaking in before Dad could go on. ‘It’d be tempting fate to learn swimming. Sure I never learned and look at me. Still alive.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Michael said. ‘But I suppose I prefer to tempt fate. I’d like to trick death, if I can.’

  There was a light in Michael and I wanted it.

  ‘Why don’t you sing us a tune, girleen?’ Daithi said.

  Everyone was staring at me.

  ‘It’s time we had a bit of music,’ Daithi said.

  A few lamps had been lit, filling the room with the smell of burning oil.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ I asked Daithi.

  ‘A ballad or a love tune,’ the old man said. ‘I’ve a wish to cry.’

  Mam stepped in front of me, leaned down and poured Michael a drink. Her dress brushed his knees and he glanced up, smiled and thanked her. Anger gritted my mouth. She was claiming him as hers.

  I made the room vanish, as if it was only Michael’s eyes on me.

  A hundred farewells to last night,

  and my sorrows begin anew

  With this handsome young fellow

  who beguiles me awhile on his knee

  You placed your claim on me,

  O my fair love, but I’m not meant for you

  For, a hundred sharp sorrows,

  the ocean lies between you and me.

  As the last note rang out, the room held quiet until Daithi banged his fist on his leg and wiped a bit of water from his eye and everyone broke out with murmurs and smiles.

  Someone gave me a whiskey and water. It was rare for me to get a drink so I swallowed it quick. Tight-jawed, Mam beckoned for me to help her hand out biscuits Kate had sent over the week before. I retreated with the warmth of Michael’s eyes on me.

  Maebh, near a hundred years old, or so she said, grabbed my skirt and yanked me down so I could hear her. ‘It’s a joy to be seeing something so fine as that new man. God did himself proud.’ She laughed, shaking her entire wispy frame. ‘Ah, sure look at you, girl. You’re smitten. Keep your skirts on and don’t be getting ahead of yourself. Sure he could have a wife at home.’

  I walked away with my head high and stumbled over someone’s foot.

  ‘We like a nickname here,’ Dad said, his words thickened by poitín. ‘I’m Ardàn, meaning tall man in English.’ Swaying, he motioned for Michael to stand and when he did he towered over Dad, who threw up his arms in defeat and laughed.

  Mam delivered Michael a bowl of stew, bending close to his body again. I licked my salty lips and watched him eat. His hands moved slow and careful, wiping his beard and the small crease at his eyelid and along his bottom lip. Those hands were the only scarred thing about him. The cuts lit up, white, but his face was unmarked. No man could live without ageing. Even beautiful Enda had furrows in his seventeen-year-old brow, and Michael had to have seen at least twenty summers.

  I looked about, wanting to share this thought with Enda but I couldn’t find him. The priest hadn’t appeared either, although he would never have approved of the drink being passed about so freely, especially among the women.

  I stepped outside and the cuckoo, traitor in the nest, called out a lonely cry.

  The stars and endless black blinded me.

  ‘You’re sick,’ Felim’s voice said.

  He was just a solid shadow pressed against the cottage. How long had he been there, watching and listening to us? His
lips were bleeding and his cheek was purple.

  ‘Who hit you?’

  ‘Enda.’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘In the field, touching yourself, and I know you were thinking about him, that yank.’

  ‘You watched me.’ The skin on my neck felt like it was tightening, choking me, but I stepped towards him. ‘You’re sick, watching me like that.’

  He moaned. ‘God will punish you, Oona.’

  ‘God has never punished me for a thing,’ I said. ‘And he never will.

  I am happy with myself.’ I knew the words were true. I was grown and soon I could leave and none of them, especially not him, would matter.

  ‘You know, Felim,’ I said, ‘I pitied you when your mam died. I felt bad for the way everyone was treating you, but your Mam killed herself because of what you did to Liam. I spoke to her before she went and, whatever it is you think about her, she loved Liam and she tried her hardest to love you. I don’t want to be anywhere near you now. And Enda doesn’t either. No one wants you. Why don’t you just go back to Éag?’

  He pushed himself away from the wall and I saw tears on his bruised cheek before he disappeared into the dark.

  The smoky warmth and dim light inside was a relief. I slept deep that night with the memory of Michael’s eyes dancing on me, in me.

  I forgot Felim.

  The Fires

  My body woke early, traced with dreams of the stranger’s imagined touch as gentle as grass against my leg. A lightness, a floatiness, lurked in me for this day. Every June I ached to go to Éag but this time the ache was sorer. Soon Michael would leave us. Every day would be the same women’s work with Mam, every night empty. I begged Mam for my brief freedom and she nodded. Yes, yes, she was saying. You can leave. And I wanted to weep with joy, but I held it in.

  I was light.

  Not a cloud dirtied the sky and gannets rode up gusts from the water. All the currachs were loaded with turf. Everyone, big or small, had to bring a lump for burning on the great fire.

  Each time I breathed in, a sense of possibility filled me. There Michael was, on the road just ahead. I ran towards him, just a few more steps.

  ‘Oona!’ Mam yelled. ‘Come here to me.’

  I dragged my feet back to her. She pressed a hand to a pink cheek.

  In the sun she was older. Flints of grey in her hair and under her eyes, which were on me but I looked out to sea and thought of America.

  ‘Where’d you get that dress?’ she asked.

  It was my escape dress.

  ‘Kate gave it to me,’ I lied.

  ‘You’ll catch your death in it.’ She handed me her woollen jacket.

  As I got into the currach, she called after me, ‘Be a good girl.’

  I was sixteen, no longer a girl, but no one had remembered it was my birthday or perhaps just Mam, who’d let me go as a gift.

  Michael was sat at the top of the currach with Enda. Neither of them looked back.

  ‘How’re you, Oona?’ Jonjoe was perched opposite me, oars in hand. ‘You look . . . nice.’

  I didn’t answer but looked away at the sky and towards Éag.

  Excitement rippled from boat to boat. There would be races through the day and evening would have tales of the dead and ever-young, and the fire.

  They rowed far out in an arc to avoid the sound between the islands, where most men were taken. As we got closer the dark stack of Éag sprang out of the green water. Waves danced through the stone arch where, Bridget had told me, once early islanders left coffins to be taken back by the sea.

  We landed on the only beach, a narrow grey stretch of stones, and from there the island climbed up towards the cliffs on the other side. Everyone rushed off the boats like calves hurtling towards a fresh meadow. I jumped into the shallows and the bitter water tongued up to my knees. This was the dead land. This was where we left the drowned who washed up, the people who fell, those lucky enough to reach old age.

  Everyone was crowded together, moving as one along a steep little road that cut up the fields and past roofless empty cottages long abandoned. Enda’s voice floated down to me. His head was bent close to the priest’s. I searched the back of the group for the head above the rest and found Michael. As if sensing my stare he turned, and I waved. He nodded and bent his head to talk to Dad. My hand dropped and my fist clenched open and shut but he looked at me again and he was grinning under his beard.

  ‘We’ll be stopping halfway,’ Daithi said, making me jump. ‘It’s flat and right for racing.’

  ‘Who is it you think will win the race?’ Jonjoe asked me.

  ‘Enda.’

  Jonjoe laughed. ‘You’re very confident in your brother but he’s not as strong as many of us.’

  ‘What? You think you will win?’ I asked.

  ‘You see up the top?’ Daithi said, pointing towards the lip of the island, high above us. ‘That’s where Éag falls away into the sea. There’s the fairy houses up there.’

  Small round stone structures protruded into the sky. Michael looked up at them too and smiled back at me.

  * * *

  The day stretched and I ran and sang and danced with the rest of them, free to be wild for once. My legs won the girls’ race because I tucked my skirts up and the fresh damp air bit at my skin. Most were younger than me, at fourteen or twelve even, but one or two were older so I whooped.

  I left the small crowd with a thought that he’d follow and took a narrow path through taller walls where the branches of brambles bent down to scrape the earth and cut my legs before giving way again to a field of long grass with a small cottage crumbling against a wall and Enda stood in its doorway. I was about to shout to him but stopped myself. He was talking to someone inside. His voice rose high with anger and sadness. I couldn’t hear what he said but it was clear he was falling apart. I turned and fought my way back through the thorns. Michael hadn’t followed me and I was sure it was Felim who’d made my brother angry. Later I saw Enda out on the water, rowing like mad, face gleaming with sweat. His boat won the race and the men ran into the water to carry him and the other winners away for celebrations. Felim wasn’t among them.

  After the races we all walked to a ruined church, where we prayed to the dead. I thought of my sister, of Liam, but mostly of Aislinn. Death was always so close. Life should be lived. My eyes played on Michael where he was propped in the doorway, watching all of us like he’d never seen people praying before. He was smiling and it came to me he didn’t understand why we were in the church. The women began sean-nós, and the lilting sad songs entered all of us, and only then did I see him catch the meaning of it. He straightened; his eyes roved the faces but his body was still, listening. I rose my voice up too. It was the only way to stop from weeping.

  When it was over he sucked on an old man’s pipe and told stories with the best of them, as if the music had released him like it had the rest of us. I was given a long drag of whiskey by Jonjoe. A few groups away, Michael laughed. Our eyes met and he didn’t look away.

  The evening closed in and the great fire was lit and the men started drinking. The children had been put to sleep in the old church, and Dad was already singing, arm around Daithi, laughing between each song. I tossed turf sods into the flames, even though girls weren’t meant to tend the fire. Jonjoe gave me his poitín bottle. It burnt my mouth on the way down. The hot eyes of men were on me, and the whisper tongues a-gagging. The wet of wind rode up my skirts and made the whispers all the louder. Whiskey hissed in my ears and I spun and spun and spun away with giggles and sure hands on my waist, leading me out of the crowds and away to the woven dark and the moaning sky.

  I let the night carry me on and on, up the hill, and when I tripped hands I knew caught me.

  It was him. I knew his smile was murmur-smooth across his lips. He was too tall for me to reach his mouth but my body tugged me upwards anyway.

  ‘Oona?’

  The moon revealed herself from behi
nd a cloud and brushed white across the bulging backs of the stone fairy huts.

  ‘That boy was making you drink too much. Thought you could do with a walk.’

  His face was turned away. My mind begged for what he was thinking, so I asked him.

  ‘I’m too old for all this,’ he said.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m twenty-seven.’

  ‘That is old.’

  He laughed. ‘You should go back to your family now.’

  ‘No. I’ll stay with you.’ Keep him talking. Keep him here.

  ‘I’m not staying on the island and I can’t stay with you now. God, I wish I could. You’re . . . you are you and . . . you need someone like you.’

  ‘I hate them all. I hate it here.’

  ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘You don’t understand us.’

  ‘No.’

  White light danced on him. My mouth hummed with the taste of whiskey and longing.

  ‘You took me out here,’ I told him.

  ‘I know, but I wasn’t thinking. You’re just a child, aren’t you? This place is so strange.’

  ‘I’m not a child.’ Not any more. ‘Can I come to America with you? I wouldn’t be a bother.’

  ‘No. No, you wouldn’t.’ His voice had softened and he was closer to me.

  ‘I love you,’ I said.

  He was quiet and behind him the sky was all big and black.

  ‘You don’t,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve just had . . . too much to drink. You don’t know enough men; if you did you’d never choose me. Tomorrow you will say somethin’ different. If you’re lucky, tomorrow you won’t remember anything.’

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, and his body was hard and cool and perfect. I felt his head dip to the crown of mine, his beard tickled my forehead, and I moved my face upwards but he pulled away.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  He walked away from me, a tall man with hunched shoulders who only looked back once.

  I sat on the rocky ground and wept in anger and frustration. I pulled out a small bottle of whiskey I’d lifted from Kieran’s sack and drank.