Demons (20 page)

Reading
The Bacchae
together up
on the hills I’d been struck, despite Chris’s later comments, just
how greatly religion had influenced the Ancient Greeks. The scenes
involving the devotees of the god Dionysus, a group of women called
the Maenads, had really hit home. Here they were, entranced and
enchanted by the god, dancing through the forests above the city of
Thebes, this female priesthood worshipping him as he intended and,
in doing so, freed from a kind of slavery to their dour and
unbelieving husbands. Unless they had been high-class prostitutes,
most ancient Greek women had virtually been slaves in their own
homes, Ms Shapiro had told us.

In Dad’s book on early Ireland, in the
chapter on Celtic Christianity, it said that St Brigid had been

ordained a priest.

I’d tell Chris what had happened, what I’d
done on Saturday, who I’d been to see, and what I’d talked to him
about.

Mum and Dad were at church when Chris
arrived.

‘
Hi,’ I said.

‘
Hi,’ he said.

We kissed. It felt the same but
different.

‘
We don’t have to leave
straightaway,’ I said. ‘We could stay here for a while longer. Play
being Daphnis and Chloe again. Go just before Mum and Dad get
back.’

Chris shook his head. ‘It’s tempting,’ he
said. ‘But maybe it’s tempting the fates.’

‘
Maybe,’ I said. ‘Mass
sometimes finishes early.’

‘
I meant . . .’ he began.
‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

I wished I could read his mind. I suppose I
could, in a way. Maybe he had also read mine, just as he seemed to
have done the other night.

We drove. We left the city, hit the
motorway, veering west towards St Brigid’s. The countryside changed
from flat plain to low hills, then rolling country as the road
climbed, turned and twisted. A bunch of willows by a stream were
leafing already.

‘
Spring’s really close
now,’ I said.

‘
Exams too,’ said Chris,
his eyes fixed on the road.

‘
There’s an open day at uni
next month as well,’ I said.

‘
I saw that.’

‘
You don’t need to go I
suppose but I thought I would.’

‘
That’s good,’ said
Chris.

‘
I’ll check out the
Classics Department again,’ I said. ‘Remember what you said about
us doing the same papers.’

‘
Andy . . .?’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Is this where we turn off
to the church? I thought I saw a sign back there but I wasn’t
sure.’

I hadn’t been paying attention. I recognised
the turnoff though. ‘Yeah, turn right,’ I said.

We went past the orchards and the dairy
farms. Saw the same fences, houses and hedges of three years
ago.

Gran, you’ve been here all this time and
I’ve never been to see you. I raged against the dying of your light
and that means I raged against you too. Not fair, eh? If it wasn’t
for you, I wouldn’t be who I am.

Doesn’t matter, she said. I’ve been with
you.

Not
everywhere
, Gran, I hope.

Chris pulled up at the church gate.

‘
Want me to come in with
you?’

‘
Come and say hello to
Gran,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll sit with her by myself for a little
while.’

The headstone was clean and there were silk
flowers in a container set into the concrete base. Even though I
hadn’t been here since the funeral I knew Dad, and sometimes Mum
and Dad both, had visited.

‘
It’s a
nice quiet spot,’ said Chris. ‘
“The
grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there
embrace.”
’

‘
Chris,’ I said, ‘I’ve
never asked you directly, have I? What do you think happens when a
person dies?’

He shrugged but his reply was certain.
‘That’s it. The end. Finito.’

‘
No hope of
anything?’

‘
No. Just breaking down
into atoms and becoming part of the universe, returning to the
stars. Isn’t that what you’ve come to think too?’

‘
Maybe it is,’ I
said.

‘
Are you having second
thoughts?’ he asked.

‘
You’re very perceptive,’ I
said.

‘
No I’m not,’ he muttered.
‘Just very selfish. Look, I’ll go back to the car. Leave you with
your Gran.’

I took out the rosary beads Gran had given
me all those years ago and said a few Hail Marys. Not a whole
rosary. Not even a complete decade. Just a few beads. A few turning
points.

‘
Gran,’ I said, when I’d
finished. ‘If you’ve been tagging along with me like I think you
have, you’ll know by now that not only have I abandoned you at St
Brigid’s but that right now I’m a small-c catholic. And you’ll know
that it’s partly your fault. You were a rebel before I was. I’ve
just taken a few more steps on the rebel path. Forwards I hope, not
backwards. But who knows, maybe one day I’ll get back to the big-C
by a different route. Depends. Trouble is there aren’t many
signposts. So I wanted you to look after these beads for me in case
I lose them, if you didn’t mind. I’ll know where to find them if I
need them again. OK?’

Gran stayed silent.
Perhaps she was angry with me. Perhaps she was still praying along
with me and hadn’t realised I’d already stopped. I picked up a
piece of broken masonry from the old grave next door - it could
just as easily have come from the Tower of the Winds - and tore
away a small strip of the grass

blanketing Gran. I dug away a hollow of
earth,

wishing I’d brought our tramping shovel, and
put the rosary beads back into their container and buried the box
and the beads in the earth with Gran. I almost added my bone
pendant to the burial but changed my mind at the last second. I had
decided on another place for that.

‘
See you next time,’ I said
and went back to the car to join Chris.

The mysteries of Dionysus

We drove on until we came to another
turnoff. Chris liked the look of the road. We arrived at a fenced
off section of native bush. A kissing gate led into the reserve and
a track wound through a stand of birch trees.

‘
Shall we?’ Chris
suggested.

‘
Let’s.’

We didn’t need to say much else to each
other. We both knew what was going to happen.

The wind had turned
north-westerly and it had gotten warm. Not hot but pleasantly mild.
We walked until we were out of sight of the road, the car and the
hills below the reserve.

It was like being in a dream from which we
would soon awake.

We pressed our ears against the tree trunks
as though we could hear the sap rising.

Lying together on the leaves and earth mould
we imagined we heard the rush of underground streams.

Looking back up at the paint strokes of blue
sky through the branches and leaves we could feel the world rushing
beneath our backs, charting its everlasting course through the
immense universe, through stars and galaxies, right through the
whole

enormous exploding reaches of distant
space.

Expanding, collapsing, breathing in and out,
the life force, the home of the deity. Christian, ancient Greek,
both, all.

In the dream which was not a dream I said to
Chris, ‘Let’s take off our clothes,’ and so we did and we danced
trance-like, naked, over the forest floor, behind and between the
trees, Daphnis and Chloe again for the last time, worshipers and
priests of Dionysus on Mount Kithairon, and we were free, free,
free.

Every tree has its snake, Gran once told
me.

In the dream-not-a-dream Chris said,
‘Andrea. My father’s said that if I can pass the entrance exams
he’ll pay the fees for me to go and study in England next year. In
that case, if I’m successful, I won’t be going to uni here. We
won’t be together again properly until I get back.’

In the dream that was real I said, ‘I know,
I know. I’m a woman of vision.’

And in the dream that wasn’t, we both shed
tears of loss, betrayal, anger, grief, relief, sadness and of joy:
the last because our time together had been full of colour and
turning points and those are things that stay with you forever and
never change.

Mascot

Ms Shapiro handed out information about the
Classics Competition.

‘
The questions will cover
the whole year’s syllabus,’ she said, ‘so if we enter a team we’ll
have to be thorough in our preparation. Those not in the team will
have to be prepared to support those who are.’

‘
Let’s give it a whirl,’
said Becs. ‘I’ll volunteer.’

Becs, to her surprise, had enjoyed the class
and done better in it than even she’d expected. Gradually she had
come to be on better terms with Ms Shapiro. I’d seen them, once or
twice towards the end of the school year, chatting in the school
library. What about, I could only guess. Whatever it was, Becs was
changing and, when I say that, I really mean that she was slowly
turning into her true self. As I was. As we all were doing, or
would do, one day. Taking off our masks, one at a time, but
clutching them to ourselves nonetheless, in case we ever needed
them again, which we undoubtedly would.

‘
Me too,’ said
Ro.

Chris put his hand up. ‘I’m in.’ He looked
at me. I shook my head.

‘
Go
on
,’
said Becs.

‘
One more would be good,’
said Ms Shapiro.

No one else was offering.

‘
Andrea could be our
mascot,’ said Ro.

I’d forgotten that each team could bring a
mascot. Someone who was willing to dress up as a classical
character and be judged alongside the other mascots for an extra
prize. Why not I thought. I’ve played the parts of Andronikos and
Chloe. Why not actually dress up for once as well.

‘
OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll do
it.’

‘
Good for you,’ said Ms
Shapiro. ‘We’ve got our team. Now the work begins.’

‘
And the fun,’ said
Becs.

‘
Of course,’ Ms Shapiro
agreed.

‘
We’ll decide first who the
mascot’s going to be,’ Becs said.

‘
No we
won’t,’ I said firmly. ‘
I’ll
decide who I’ll be.’

Home of the winds

Another turning point or, to use Gran’s
metaphor, a bead on the rosary of life.

The scene.

An intersection near uni,
a typically over-busy crossroads with all the usual buzz of
traffic. Cars, pushbikes and pedestrians compete with each other
and the changing lights, right-turning arrows and running
men.

Why was it always men who did the running? I
had wondered about even that from an early age.

But in one corner there was a green reserve,
small and neat and sheltered, a calm eye in the traffic storm.
Sadly, people never seemed to notice it. No one ever sat there,
quietly contemplating. Praying.

Not that the reserve was actually the
important bit, not as far as I was concerned. It was what stood in
the reserve that counted.

A single-piece of limestone carving, showing
four faces, facing in four directions.

The compass points of north, south, east and
west.

The faces showed four winds of Maori
mythology.

A proverb was inscribed into the soft
stone.

Kei te pupuhi mai te hau I
tehea aronga?

Kei te pupuhi mai I te
arongo o te raki; te tonga; te hauauru; te
rawhiti
.

The translation beneath read:

From which direction is the wind
blowing?

From the north, the south,
the east, the west
.

Four directions. So many choices.

The ancient Greeks had their own names for
the four main winds.

They were Boreas, the North Wind.

Notus, the South Wind.

Eurus, the East Wind.

Zephyrus, the West Wind.

According to Chris, all the winds were gods.
Male, of course. Apparently, at least one of them in human form was
a complete bastard.

Ah, some things never change.

The reserve was roughly halfway between
school and the university. Although the sculpture had been there
for ages I was one of those many people who had never really
noticed it, not until the day I hiked over to the uni for a
look-see, that first real day of

summer when you could see and smell green
and yellow everywhere. I was on my way home, about to obey the
running man and cross the intersection . . .

. . . another interesting question, why do
we take notice of him instead of just using our common sense?. .
.

. . . when there it was, the home of the
winds.

Pale, yellowing stone against green grass,
halfway between my past and my future, the four faces of the winds
looking in four different directions.

And there was me, at a crossroads of my
own.

I stayed in the reserve for a while to read
the inscription and think about all the things that had happened
that year. I wondered about my future, in which direction I would
go and who I would ultimately become.

A turning point, what else?

Pray about it, Gran would have said. So
would Father Mike.

I’d left my rosary beads with Gran and St
Brigid but I prayed anyway and received an answer, of sorts,