Meatloaf in Manhattan (10 page)

‘And back here?'

‘Ah, Paul always planned to come home. To work the land, such as it is. So he saved his money and came back and bought a tractor. He's the one who hauls the seaweed up from the beach. All the others pay him to bring it to the fields. He's doing some business on the mainland just now. Should be back in a week or so. So you might meet, if you're still here, that is. Anyhow, I keep myself busy by taking in visitors,' she said with a welcoming smile and the offer of another scone.

At that moment there was the sound of a door opening at the back of the house and the bark of a dog.

‘That'll be Ann-Maree,' said Christina.

Jo, who had been sitting quietly all the time we adults were talking, sat up in anticipation. ‘This is young Jo,' said Christina, as Ann-Maree entered the room with a large Dalmation dog following close behind. The two children looked at each other, sizing each other up. The girl, tall and lithe, thick wavy chestnut hair, about twelve years old. The boy eager for a friend, all the better to be one with a dog. The dog sniffed the air, perhaps already aware that the two children would soon become inseparable.

Thinking back, as I so often do now that Jo's gone, there were two incidents that stand out, incidents that unsettled me. The first was on our second day on the island. It was before Ann-Maree had adopted Jo and taken him along with her Dalmation dog to explore the island. Jo and I were walking to Dún Chonchúir, an ancient oval stone fort up on the hill. Two young men were in the lane below, leaning on a wall. Jo was running along the remains of the ramparts when I happened to catch the eye of one of the men. He raised his hands as if holding an imaginary rifle, took aim and pretended to shoot at both Jo and I. Then he laughed, by no means a friendly laugh, and then went on talking to his friend. Jo didn't see, which was good, but it suddenly made the whole place feel a bit strange, a bit sinister. The second incident was a few days later. Jo had been off with Ann-Maree and the dog all day long. I asked Christina if they were okay to be on their own and roaming. She said it was just fine. That everyone knew there was a man and his boy over from the mainland and all the islanders looked out for each other
.

‘We've never had a policeman here,' she said, ‘never needed one.' She pointed down the hill and there they were. A boy and
girl and a polka-dot dog, running across the island. ‘Standing here,' she said, ‘you can see everything.'

And so you could. Looking around I could see from cliff to beach, north to south, east to west. That night Jo couldn't sleep
.

‘What's the problem, matey?' I asked, as we settled down in our bedroom. ‘Ann-Maree took me to a cave and told me the Green Lady had told her to bring me to her. I was scared. Who's the Green Lady, Dad?' I told him I was sure it was just a game. Make-believe. That there was no Green Lady
.

‘But she might be like a leprechaun', he said
.

‘Ah, leprechauns are different', I said, trying to reassure him, but not quite sure how my logic would hold up. So I changed the subject by telling him a story about a boy who could fly and be invisible at the same time
.

Soon the fresh air and all the exercise got the better of Jo and he began to doze. He turned on the pillow and just as I leant over to kiss him he asked, ‘When will Mum come home?'

‘When she's finished writing her play', I said. ‘Then we'll all go together to the theatre and see it on the stage. The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Now won't that just be grand?'

Siobhan had always wanted to be a great writer. I first met her at a poetry reading at the Clarence Hotel, down by the Liffey in Dublin. From day one she made it clear her writing was the most important thing to her. It was that single determination, that unbridled passion, that most attracted me to her. The fact she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever set eyes on was a bonus I couldn't deny, what with her flame-red hair and Monroe body. If she wasn't writing, she'd be talking about writing. If we were making love and an idea came to her she'd stop whatever we were up to, lean over the bed and scribble something in her small notebook with one of the pencils she kept all over the house. Her ‘now where were we?' was our secret joke.

While I was out at work trying to teach school truants basic literacy she'd stay at home writing poems and short stories. She was in training for the great Irish novel. Her aim was to mingle the gravitas and oddness of Joyce and Beckett with the wit and lightness of JP Donleavy and Edna O'Brien. When she fell pregnant with Jo she became deeply depressed. She wouldn't countenance abortion (one time she actually said ‘once a Catholic'), but couldn't see how a child would be anything other than a barrier and encumbrance to her writing. So when he was born she'd express milk and I'd feed him. It was I who took him to the swing park, the kindergarten, the school open days. I went part-time at work and we moved to Bray, on the coast south of Dublin, to cut costs.

Three years ago Siobhan came second in a short-story competition. The judges praised the dialogue. One said it had a rare theatrical quality. So Siobhan decided the great novel could wait and she would become a playwright. Every morning, long before I'd get Jo up for his breakfast and dressed for school, she'd be striding off to Bray Head, along the path by the railway line, past Sugar Loaf Mountain and then down to Greystones. Along the way she'd be talking to herself and scribbling snippets of dialogue in her notebook. The play came to obsess her. Sometimes I thought she'd go mad with the intensity of it. The hold it had over her (and our lives) was frightening. Then one day she told me she was going to New York, that our domestic life was stifling her and she needed to be some place where she could ‘really' write. Siobhan had a journalist friend who'd offered to put her up. She said she'd wait tables to pay for her food. Anything it'd take.

‘Can't you do that here?' I pleaded. And ‘what about Jo, our son?'

But she'd made up her mind. Her bag was already packed and the taxi ordered. She was gone before Jo came home from school and it was left to me to explain. He cried and asked if he could sleep in my bed. About three weeks later a card came addressed to Jo. The picture was of the Statue of Liberty and his mother said she was fine and happy in her new home. That's all we got. He kept it under his pillow and fell asleep with it next to his cheek.

On our third morning on Inishmaan, Ann-Maree knocked on our door and asked if Jo wanted to come for a walk with her and Dot, the Dalmation.

‘Will you be okay on your own?' Jo asked me, in that concerned way of his.

‘Sure,' I said. ‘I'll explore.'

So the two children and a dog headed to the south of the island and the sand dunes, while I made my way along the pathways at the back of the house and up the incline to the cliffs. Once I hit the peak of the hill the weather turned wild. The strong onshore winds whipped up the waves and sent a bank of chilly air to greet me. All along the way the cliffs were strewn with slabs and shards of rock of various sizes. Far down below the sea heaped huge wave upon wave, mirroring the jagged, layered limestone formation of the cliffs.

I walked along, leaning into the strength of the wind, almost defying it to suddenly cease and send me toppling over the edge. The rawness and power of it all, the rain and seaspray whipping my face, was wildly exhilarating. Then, as I stepped over a heap of stones that had tumbled perilously close to the cliff's edge, Synge's chair came into view. Set back from the path and up a slope it was a large throne made from granite. Majestic. Strangely foreboding. I'd read about it in the little pamphlet Christina had left on the table by my bed. Many came to the island just to pay homage to the great playwright; to sit in the chair he'd built on the clifftops. For the traveller it was one of Inishmaan's main attractions, along with the ancient forts, the beehive, and the chance to be in a place where time had stood still and the Gaelic language and all things Irish were still alive.

I'd seen Synge's plays over the years. He was up there with the greats. Capturing an essence, a mood, an enduring sense of place. Dotted around his chair were small piles of stones, little monuments erected by fans, but maybe also by passersby who liked what they saw and added their own statue.

I found a couple of flat stones and made a pile, adding smaller ones until I'd constructed a knee-high pyramid. I sat back in the chair and admired my handiwork, thinking how I was copying the wall-builders: rugged men who had for centuries parcelled up the island with rough stone walls, no cement, just carefully positioning each stone in place to withstand the wild winds and stormy weather.

That night Christina cooked a pot of stew, which we all ate with great enthusiasm. Jo and Ann-Maree's appetite stemmed from their adventures on the island; mine from the headiness and oxygen of it all.

‘You go along to the pub,' said Christina, as she was clearing the plates from the table. ‘The children will be good with me.'

Jo was sitting on a rug by the fire with Ann-Maree. They were playing a game of cards.

‘You'll be okay, Jo?'

He looked up and nodded his head, then lay down a card with a flourish. Ann-Maree pushed him backwards and Dot jumped on his head and licked his face.

‘He'll be just fine,' said Christina, opening the door, a cold draught rushing in to challenge the warmth of the house.

Outside it was pitch black. The clouds were low, with no moon or stars to lighten anyone's way. The pub was up the hill, just around the first bend in the road. Walking towards it, carefully easing my way along the path, a square of lemony light appeared from the small window of the single storey building. As I approached, stones and flint shifting under my feet, the ever-present sound of the heave and suck of the sea, the light grew larger, brighter. Pushing open the heavy door, weighty against winter storms, the lounge room was a shock of colour and brightness. The half dozen drinkers at the bar, all men, turned to look at me, gave me that ‘so it's the stranger' look and then went back to their business. Glancing around, drawn to the crackle and flame of the fire in the corner of the room, I noticed an old man sitting alone at a low table. He looked my way and beckoned me to sit at the empty seat beside him. It was almost as if he'd been waiting for me, anticipating my arrival.

‘You're the man with the boy,' he said, drawing on his cigarette. He had a strong Irish face: long nose, overhanging top lip, small bluish eyes, blotchy reddened skin. The thinning white hair and deeply lined face indicated a man late in life.

‘Yes, I am. With my son. Jo's his name. We're on a bit of a break.'

‘Guinness?' he asked, pointing to his glass.

‘Yes, please, thank you,' I said.

‘Pat,' he shouted to the barman, ‘two glasses of stout, when you're ready, sir.'

‘I saw you walking up the hill this morning,' he said, draining the dregs from his glass, the creamy froth sliding into his mouth.

‘That was me.'

‘To the cliffs, I'd fancy.'

‘Yes, that was the way.'

‘And sitting in the chair?'

‘Indeed,' I replied, ‘is that not what visitors do?'

‘Not everyone, but some do. And you've seen the forts?'

I nodded.

‘And the old Mac Donnchadha house?'

‘The Mac Donnchadha house,' I said, struggling to repeat the Irish, ‘I'm not sure.'

‘The house where Synge lived those summers he was here. It's all but falling down. But if anyone offers the family five thousand pounds then it'll be their own.'

He looked at me to gauge my response, as if he knew I'm the one to be interested. Just then two glasses of black stout were placed on the table before us. The old man nodded a thank you to Pat, the barman, then took a long draught from his drink. I did the same.

‘So you know about Synge?' he said, looking away from me, staring into the fire, the turf of peat hissing and smoking, the twigs flickering flames.

‘As much as most, I imagine. I've read his plays. Seen them in Dublin.'

‘He caused some unhappiness here,' said the old man, looking at me to see if I knew what he meant.

Indeed, I'd read about the controversy. How his plays of the island caused riots when they were first shown at the Abbey Theatre. Some said he showed women as wanton harlots and the islanders as anti-God, anti-Catholic.

‘That's what I'd read,' I said, ‘but I've always liked his work. It has a universality, don't you think.'

‘Easily said by those from outside. But it's left a stain. Generations of our women. The island itself trapped in some pagan past.'

‘I remember,' I said, ‘that Synge was brokenhearted, never recovered. A young woman he loved, but she felt him too worldly for her, not Catholic enough. Maybe that's why he wrote the way he did about women.'

The old man stared at me as if to acknowledge I'd touched on a truth.

We sat silently, drinking our beer, gazing into the fire. I got to thinking about Synge's plays, the cripple, the playboy, the women, the talk of spirits. And then an image came to my mind, unbidden, from somewhere deep. It's wasn't from the plays, or reading, or my conversation with the old man. Maybe from the fire. Then, like the flame drifting upwards, it emerged as a question, a figure silhouetted against the grey of the chimney wall.

That night I fell asleep with the sounds of wind and wave echoing through my mind. I dreamt I was up on the cliffs. A storm was raging all around as I piled huge stones one atop the other. The horizontal sleet was all but blinding me, but through the blizzard I could see Synge's chair: enormous, imposing. It took over the entire skyline. Struggling to lift one last huge stone I became aware of someone close by. Very close by. When I turned there she was: the Green Lady. She was tall and thin and dressed in an olive-coloured frock that reached to the ground. Her skin was turquoise, her eyes shone as sparkling emeralds, and her long tousled hair was matted with seaweed. She opened wide her mouth, but what words she said were lost in the storm. The heavy stone was slipping from my hands and I stumbled to keep my grip. The stone fell forward and rolled end to end until it tipped over the cliff's edge. After falling through the void, in what seemed an interminable time, the large slab slapped into the waves way below, causing a momentary flash of white, then disappeared. When I looked back the figure was gone, leaving behind a howl on the wind and the question from the fire, the one I never asked of the old man: ‘Who is the Green Lady?'