Ahoy for Joy (20 page)

Bernie let the edge of the curtain fall once more and looked back across the room at her visitor, “does it really matter?”

Cees opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and looked back over at Anna.

As she read the poem, despite the different handwriting, Anna recognised at once the style of his poetry that had so warmed her teenage years and she was now carted back to then in her mind. The words, from a mind not taught nor compromised by the experiences of the life she had lived since then or the life he might have lived, were as crisp and clean as they had ever been, only sadly, this was not just another poem, this was his last poem and he knew it.

As she read, Anna could see Bernie's handwriting become more and more inconsistent and scrawled in appearance as the poem progressed and this too accentuated the emotion of the words she was reading. Perhaps he might have been sorry for his fate, resentful of those who had taken everything he had, then come back for even his own life, but instead he had forgiven, just as she had asked him to. Perhaps he might have been sad for his loss, the years he would miss, the chance of a career, a family and a future, but instead he was grateful for just one thing. He was grateful for a chance meeting, a tiny moment that was now so very long ago but one that Anna too remembered as if it were yesterday. An encounter, a liaison and a relationship, now separated by time and mortality as well as distance that no one else knew about, nor understood, except as was now apparent to Anna herself. As the poem drew to a close and she read the final few lines, he expressed something he had never expressed before, but she now knew profoundly that it had always been so from the first and only time they had met. Despite the outscoring of letters and words and the several attempts Bernie had made to write down what he said. Despite them being misspelt and unclear and a mystery to everyone, they were as bold and clear to Anna and as welcome in their message as any she had ever heard uttered. The little nonsense line the publishers had thought they resembled, that had intrigued the Irish people for years and even given the poem its name, were in fact the declaration in her own language she had longed to hear so many years earlier.

At this the tear that had been swelling in her eye and remained under her usually calm control, defeated by the laws of surface tension burst forth and dropped to the page as a message sent twenty-seven years earlier finally found its recipient. The tears turned into a flood and she was left in Bernie's front room sobbing uncontrollably, clutching Michael's final poem in her hand.

Eventually, as perhaps dehydration settled in, she finally calmed and just sat staring at the pages.

“Are you OK?” asked Cees. She nodded.

It was Bernie who went over and stood by the sobbing woman, still clutching the papers in her hand. She slowly leaned over and pushing the damp hair from her face, kissed her softly on the forehead just as she had done with Michael, many years before. Bernie had worked in healthcare her entire life and seen many sorrows and tragedies over the years. She had comforted the bereaved and hugged the dying many times, but Michael and Anna would remain the only two she had ever kissed in this way.

Presently she left Anna with her thoughts and Cees with his and left the room. Moments later, she returned with a silver tray with a porcelain teapot and three cups and saucers decorated with gold rims and wild flower motifs. She laid out the cups and poured a little milk in each before filling them with fresh tea from the pot. Then she spooned a little sugar in one which she handed to Anna. Her little hand clasped the saucer and the cup shook as she sipped, seemingly not noticing the milk or sugar.

She handed another cup to Cees and took the last herself and sat once more, carefully watching Michael's muse, whom she had always known existed but had long since given up hope of ever meeting.

“It is a lovely poem,” said Bernie finally. “Many people are struck by it emotionally.”

Then she paused as Anna lifted her chin slowly, her bloodshot eyes focusing on Bernie's once more, “but I think it means perhaps more to you than it does to anyone else.”

There were more noises and sounds from outside as a larger group of youths milled by, shouting, swearing and chanting some sort of slogan or rhyme, but Anna didn't notice.

“Maybe you know what that line there means, she said pointing to the untidy letters scrawled towards the bottom of the page. I had trouble knowing what he meant. I wrote it as best I could. He tried to spell it but he was really quite weak by then and I could hardly hear him, let alone understand what he was saying. Maybe you know?”

Anna felt the wave of emotion hit her once more, but there were no more tears and she quickly recovered her composure.

“I figured perhaps it wasn't English, but I didn't know what language. No one seemed to know. There was speculation that it might seem to be from many languages or even perhaps no language at all. Then a teacher at one of the schools suggested that its origin and meaning could only be identified if we discovered to whom it was written.”

Anna nodded.

As her composure returned, Anna began to feel rather embarrassed by her actions. At once she stood up and forcing a smile, thanked Bernie for her hospitality and indeed for filling in the answers to questions that she had been asking herself for so very long.
Poor Michael
she thought once more, thinking of him now, again more rationally. She folded the pages and replaced them into the envelope before handing it to Bernie, but Bernie knew it was no longer hers to keep.

“You are now the rightful owner,” she said. “This poem was written to you and for you. The people here have shared in it. They have known Michael through it and like you, today hold him close to their hearts, but it belongs to you. I know it to be so. You keep it.”

Bernie thought briefly, then a little grin emerged, “Indeed, you are now the custodian of an important piece of Irish literary heritage!”

Anna looked at Cees who nodded. She slowly placed the envelope in her handbag.

“I think we'll be going now. Thank you so much for everything.”

“Do you need to go upstairs before you go?” asked Bernie.

Bemused, Anna raised her eyebrows as her mind searched for the answer to the question that seemed so simple but whose meaning she couldn't identify.

“Do you need to go to the little girls' room? It's upstairs on the left.”

The penny dropped and Anna laughed spontaneously as she realised the euphemistic term that was so confusing to the foreigner from a land where a single bathroom in the home is always situated on the ground floor. However, she accepted the offer and left Cees with her new friend alone in the room.

When Anna returned, she was looking much more like the wife Cees knew, with her face returned to her natural pale complexion and her hair brushed to her usual mop of curly locks. She looked at Bernie directly in the eyes, then leaned forward and paused briefly before kissing her first on the right cheek, then on the left as she would with family and close friends at home, but Bernie put her arms around her. She pulled the Dutch woman close to her as she confronted her own emotion which had been delayed due to her medical training and sensitivity to the challenges faced by others. Both women now realised that they were each for the other the only living connection they had with the seventeen year old boy who had so touched their lives. When the embrace broke, and their gazes met once more, it was Bernie whose eyes, glazed with emotion, betrayed her feelings. Each looked at the other, wanting to say something of meaning and sense, but neither finding the words. Instead, they each laughed once more at the teary eyes and swollen cheeks. A friendship was born that day.

“So, do you have a car? How did you get here?”

“By taxi. We came by taxi.”

“What, a black taxi?”

“Well, yes. It was very nice. We talked to a lady during the trip, she was very friendly. Is there a taxi rank on the main road?”

“Oh dear. You won't get a regular taxi to come up here this afternoon. I don't know a number to call in any case. It's getting a little agitated out there. I don't want you getting caught up in anything.”

She opened the front door and the three of them walked out on to the street. Outside, the sky was overcast and a cool wind was blowing. A light drizzle filled the air, but the little baskets hung patiently from their hooks, their bright blooms waving slowly in the wind, as they waited for the sun to shine, like holidaymakers at a washed out beach resort.

“Do you see that wall?”

Bernie pointed. Down at the bottom of the street was the highest wall Cees and Anna had ever seen. The lower section was solid concrete and decorated with graffiti, like the Berlin wall they had watched come down years earlier as the two great ideologies of East and West found common ground. Above the concrete were huge green corrugated panels that rose even above the houses nearby. Above these was a wire fence, so sheer that even the most ambitious climber could hardly scale its height. The whole structure rose over eight metres into the sky. In the distance they could hear the faint sounds of drums, marching songs and stamping feet amid sporadic shouts and chants. For the first time since their arrival, the two visitors felt an uneasy tension in the air.

“Find yourselves on one side of that wall and you're a Catholic, on the other you're a Protestant,” said Bernie. “That's how it is here.”

The old woman looked longingly at the couple, like she expected them to say something that would make it OK, but neither spoke. She looked at them as if asking them to judge her and her people, like they had some right to do so, or like they could explain something she could not explain herself, but neither could. She looked at them, old as she was and with little time in front, like she was recording her wish and asking them to
do
something. The two just stared at the elderly woman, her face now a little greyer, her skin a little rougher, her stance a little shorter and her eyes a little sadder. They looked back at the wall, then to Bernie once more.

“I'll get you a taxi,” she said at last. “Wait here.”

She took off on foot towards the direction of the main road from where they had come, leaving Cees and Anna waiting by her open front door. Some more youths walked by, but took little notice of the two visitors now in their midst.

It wasn't long before she returned, still on foot, hurrying along the pavement, with a black cab driving beside her just at the pace of a fast walk, turning periodically to talk to the driver through the window of the car. When it reached her house, she stopped and slightly out of breath, gave directions to the driver.

“These people are not from here. They are visitors, friends of ours, friends of my family. They are from Holland.”

The driver nodded.

“Please take them safely into town. Please don't pick up other passengers, just take them directly to their hotel.”

The driver nodded once more. Anna and Bernie said their final goodbyes and the couple hopped into the back of the vehicle.

They sat in silence for the short trip to the hotel. Towards the city centre, some people milled in the streets, waving flags and emblems in the air, but they passed by without incident. In the city centre, the Saturday afternoon shoppers thronged, as they do in any affluent modern city, meeting the ever present needs of hungry consumers with money to spend.

Cees put his arm softly around his wife's shoulder as she sat beside him deep in thought. They had almost arrived at the hotel when he squeezed her arm gently to attract her attention. She looked up at him.

“You know, that tea was a lot better than I thought. I might try it again at breakfast.”

Anna slept well and the next morning when she awoke, Cees was nowhere to be seen.

Although the memory of sad events is always emotional and because tears are usually shed in sorrow, there is a temptation to assume that the tears of memory are a wretched reliving of that sadness. But it is not always so. It would have been easy for the couple to leave that morning. Easy to leave the sad end to Anna's first love behind and hurry to the airport, board a plane and never return. Easy to fly across the Irish Sea, gaze upon the Lancashire coast beneath, then across England and the winds of the North Sea to their home and the lives they knew. It would have been easy to return once again to that tranquillity, to a culture they understood and leave Michael Coglan, the city of Belfast, the Island of Ireland and its people behind forever.

But already a bond had developed. Anna had felt it from long ago but though she didn't know it, Cees now felt it too. Somehow their visit could not be considered as just another city break to see the sights or a short getaway to recharge the batteries. As she lay in bed, she realised entirely that a faint glow was emerging in her heart. She had felt it, even as she sat deep in thought in the taxi, on the way back to the hotel the previous evening. At first she resisted this uplifting sense, rejecting it like an imposter seeking to interfere with her melancholy state. But, as she lay in bed, it was not sadness that filled her heart but a joyous buzz, a zest for life. She had never before felt so alive. But where was Cees?

She got up and washed, cleaning her teeth and caught herself looking back in the mirror at her own image. Suddenly she found it amusing to see her with white foam bubbling from her mouth as the shape of her cheek expanded and contracted with each stroke of the brush. She washed a little and returned to the bedroom.

Then she noticed it. She had noticed it when she got up although it hadn't registered, but there was definitely something different about the room. It was the light. She went to the window and drew back the curtains. Her eyes widened in astonishment for the overcast drizzle that had been the weather since they arrived had withdrawn like the curtain of a theatre and the summer sun beamed like a spotlight on the city. She felt her heart flutter with excitement, like she was on the edge of a great discovery, as she looked outside at the buildings lit like sculptures in a gallery, casting shadows on the streets below.

She was still engrossed in the sight when she heard the lock buzz as an electronic key opened the door. Cees entered. She turned and beamed a smile at him, but it was no more than the smile he returned.

“Look Anna. I've been thinking. Why don't we stay here another day, hire a car, maybe drive around the countryside and visit some of the places that inspired Michael's poems.”

She was at least a little surprised by his generous suggestion and showed the same hesitation she habitually did when offered something she truly wanted, but Cees, knew her well. He had already been down to the concierge to book a car. Indeed, even as he proposed the idea, it stood outside the foyer, tanked up and ready to go.

The winds blow from west to east and evaporating water condenses into clouds that retain much of their moisture until land disrupts their motion. To the west of Ireland there lie several thousand miles of sea over which such clouds can develop. These drift eastwards and constantly drench the island with rain. In terms of total volume of rainfall, it is not especially high, but it is very constant throughout the seasons. On average some rain falls on two hundred of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year and many more days will be overcast. The result is that grassland grows with astonishing vigour and the dry earth of a European or even an English summer, seldom appears. Such a landscape is rather part of Irish heritage and the mixture of greens such weather encourages exists in the song, dance, folklore and romance of the Emerald Isle.

For the people, whether they are visitors or the local population, a day of glorious sunshine is therefore a little less common and a little more appreciated than it is elsewhere. For those with the time to venture into the countryside, the sunlit greens of meadows and distant hills of purples and greys contrasted against sky which somehow seems just a shade of blue, deeper than elsewhere, is almost psychedelic in nature. It was into this world that Anna and her husband ventured that day.

It took a while for Cees to master driving on the left side of the road and changing gear with his opposite hand, but besides a shaky start the pair quickly found their way through the city streets and headed north onto a large motorway. The vast road promised much but quickly diminished one lane at a time into a coastal road that wound around the bays and headlands of County Antrim.

As they motored on, they drank in the sights around them. On the left, the land rose steeply with cattle grazing in luscious fields separated by stone walls with stiles that led to pathways up towards the hills beyond. The road ran by rocky faces that swept right down to the sea with occasional tunnels hewn roughly through the stone. Beyond, the sea crashed upon a varied coast where black granite mounds emerged between stretches of unbroken sand and little dunes speckled with tufts of hardy grass.

Before long, they arrived at a small bay where the water stood still and tranquil like it was a lake. They parked up and walked to the shore. A pair of colourfully painted wooden clinker boats sat slanted on their keels their hulls resting on one side on the sand. Tarpaulins had been tied loosely over and the last of the rain sat in little slowly evaporating puddles. Anna stopped by, leaning over to see her own reflection momentarily in the pool before Cees disturbed the puddle with a playful splash.

Along the beach, little waves washed slowly to shore, each emitting sustained whooshing sounds as timeless in their ebbs and flows as the sands beneath or the sky above. The two visitors held hands as they walked in silence taking care to maintain enough distance from the occasional errant wave that managed to avoid the counter flow of the previous one and run quickly and silently up the shallow beach. The sun shone hot, warming their faces and twinkling on the surface of the water. There was not a cloud in the sky.

At the end of the beach, little granite rocks peaked out from the sand, first one or two, but then joined together in raven clumps that extended out to sea like little natural piers. Cees climbed up atop one, then turned and held his hands out to his wife. Anna nervously grasped his wrists, then he pulled her firmly up, briefly hugging her as she balanced on the jagged points. Between the rocks, little pools of sea water had collected, leaving strings of black and brown seaweed with bubble flowers amid green sea moss, which was quickly drying in the sun emitting a salty, pungent odour. Limpets sucked hard on the smoothed surfaces sustaining themselves in wait for the next high tide that would once again link them with the vastness of the sea beyond.

They walked out upon the rocks, balancing carefully and taking care not to slip on the wet surfaces until water gathered around them on three sides. Anna jumped as a little crab with its eerie sideways movement lit across the rock causing her to lose balance and once again seek stability in the arms of her husband. Involuntarily, she giggled and their eyes met, her pupils dilating rapidly as her lashes flashed her message and her lips smiled as she spoke to him in silent language. He pulled her closer and she felt the warmth of his body against hers as he angled his mouth slowly towards her. Anna urgently flicked her eyes to either side in a futile effort to check no one was looking and might have even looked behind, but Cees gave her no more time. Their lips met.

It wasn't a long kiss or a slow kiss, but it was a lovers' kiss. In their busy lives it was rare for them to find the time to offer such a simple offering of love, each to the other. But this kiss was a little more special than most, for in the confusion of the last few days, there had been so much that each wanted to say to the other. Cees so wanted her to know that he too felt the loss of her friend, that he too felt her grief. He wanted her to know that those she loved, he loved too. He wanted her to know that Michael's memory was as welcome in their lives as any other memory they shared, but he had found few words that could properly convey his feelings.

And Anna too wanted her husband to know that she loved him more than ever, that no one could ever replace him in her heart. She wanted him to know that he was everything to her, that it was he who had been her strength as her past knocked urgently on her door, paying the present a visit. But the kiss spoke. In those few seconds outside in nature's wonderland, alone and at peace, in warm embrace as the sea rushed its rhythm against aged rocks and sandy shore they said everything they needed to each other without either uttering a word.

When they broke from embrace, the two skipped as children across the rocky outcrop, taking care to dodge the puddles making their way right to the end where the waves now broke with passionate vigour upon the rocks. Together they peered at the foaming sea beneath them washing in and out, the white foam on top, then out towards the horizon where the sunlight sparkled its diamond dance.

Once again, they set off in the car, singing a chorus of
drive on the left, drive on the left!
The road wound around bends towards grassy headlands, then eventually turned inland as they crossed over a little hump-backed bridge of stone under which a flood of water from the recent wet weather streamed in torrents towards the sea. For no other reason than the adventure that a day with no agenda can offer, they turned off the main road onto a narrow lane that ran quite straight up towards the hills. The car bounced up and down on the thin surface of a road that still registered every tiny undulation of the land as it rose higher and higher towards the sky. Cattle grazed lazily in the fields as if they too had turned out in number to catch the warmth of the summer sun. Gradually the salty smells of the coast gave way to the spicy odours of livestock farms, silage stocks and dampened meadows. They passed through tiny hamlets with little whitewashed cottages that looked like they hadn't changed in centuries amid modern homes with panoramic views across the wooded glens.

They drove higher and higher into the hills where the land became more barren with sheep restlessly grazing the shiny grass between white rocks that littered the landscape like a giant had hurled a huge pile of stones across the country. It seemed like they might be reaching a pass when Cees pulled the car over to a car park strategically placed with views over the hills beyond and out towards the sea, now in the distance. The sun was now high in the sky and beaming its warmth generously on the day trippers who willingly inhaled the clean, fresh air in the silence, only occasionally broken by a bleating sheep picking its grassy dinner.

They got out of the car once more and gazed across the land of God's own country. It seemed strange to think of the conflicts that had raged before amid such panoramic peace, where Anna could hardly think but to rejoice. Behind the car park on the other side of the road was a stile of silvered wood that bridged a hedgerow to the open lands of the plateau. They climbed over, jumping the small height onto the windblown grass that was normally used to living in a state of survival, but today drank the sunlight like a nomad at a desert oasis. A little track ran higher still beside a dry wall of grey white stones dappled with moss and lichen. Some of the rocks had fallen beside, perhaps dislodged by winter storms or impatient animals seeking greener grass on the others side.

Cees stopped to lift one or two, carefully fitting them in place on top, before standing back to survey his work, then placing a few more. As they walked on, the path left the wall behind and the grassland steepened into screed slopes of loose stones that rolled like marbles below their feet causing slips and trips. Anna ventured gingerly on helped by Cees who himself jigged and danced before her as the unpredictable surface slipped and tripped his feet beneath him.

The top was not a craggy peak, but an even mound that rose slowly and in the end imperceptibly to its summit which was only identifiable by an angled flat rock. Anna stood atop twirling around, her arms splayed catching the air while her mind recorded the three hundred and sixty degree view she would take home with her that day.

They spent some time on the hill, enjoying the peace of the day, lazing in the sun and watching the life around them. Hills extended in every direction like there was not a truly horizontal surface to be seen. It was mid-afternoon when they decided to return to the little car, parked far below. They drove around for the rest of the afternoon, never bored with the views that changed rapidly but also remained within a defined theme of colour and landscape that was reassuringly constant. They drove by handsome folk on ponies with rising trots to the sound of hooves clipping joyfully on the pavements. They passed farms where dirty dogs ran out to bark at the car in hostile welcome. They sat patiently as shepherds herded bleating sheep along narrow lanes flanked with varied hedgerows. As the afternoon faded and the expectation of summer evening rose to take its place, gentle pangs of hunger were sending messages to the travellers' brains and thoughts of hearty fare quickly became the subject of conversation.

“Do you want to find somewhere to eat here or head back and get something at the hotel?”

Anna didn't answer but shrugged, rather paining Cees who had to turn his eyes briefly from the road to see her response.

“I'm easy,” she said at last. “We have passed a few places advertising food. Let's head back, but keeping to the country roads. If we see somewhere, then great, if not, then we can always eat at the hotel.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

It wasn't long before they entered a village. It was like many they had seen that day with a main road that ran from one end of the village to the other with a few shops and a post office providing life to the little hamlet. On one side of the road was a large whitewashed building dirtied by the passing traffic as it fronted the main street, set back only the width of the footpath. A white sign hung from a frame on the wall that advertised;
Parking first on left. Food served all day. Music now and again.