Blasket Spirit (9 page)

‘Nothing is private on this island. It’s owned by the state.’

How the state could claim ownership of my diary was a mystery to me. I took the journal from her. ‘Actually, the island is privately owned. The state lost its claim on the island in the courts,’ I said as I stood by the door, holding it open, ‘Do you mind?’

She brushed past me without as much as a sideways glance in my direction.

‘There’s not much to see in there anyway. Follow me,’ she barked. The young boys marched after her on the double.

‘I can’t believe her rudeness.’ Aisling was standing below my door ready to lend moral support.

I spent the remainder of the evening in the anonymity of the crowd of tourists on the beach. Gradually, the crowd thinned out and after the last ferry departed, I ventured back up through the deserted village to the cowshed. Peace had been restored once more.

In the distance, Sue waved to me from where she stood beside her clothes line. Two rabbits were nibbling an apple core beside the well. Aisling’s box leaned against the gable of
Teach an Rí
. I wondered if she had got the same ferry as Colm back across to the mainland. I would just have to wait until the following day to find out how the romance was progressing. At my door, I found she had left a book of folklore for me on the step. I noticed Seán climb the hill up to An Gob. He stopped occasionally to gaze out to sea. On the beach, Laura stood in the shallow waves watching the Beverley Sisters. Then two ewes wandered past me, reclaiming their ground. I looked at them chomping on the short grass and occasional nettle. I sat on the bank, in the sunshine with Aisling’s book and felt thoroughly at home. It was then that I began to feel part of the tiny island community.

The Blasket village in sunshine
.

O
f all the Blasket folklore, the romance of Eileen and Tomás is certainly worth telling. It was said to be the perfect match. Eileen was lively and fun-loving, with a singing voice to make a skylark blush. Tomás was strong and hardworking, blessed with the skill of a master fiddler. Both families were delighted with the arrangement.

Each evening, for several months, Eileen and her mother, Norah, sewed her wedding dress. This, with its fine lace bodice created from her grandmother’s beautiful shawl, would rival any made in Dingle. Her godmother, Céit, in Springfield, Massachusetts, sent a new gleaming white veil with hundreds of tiny white rose blossoms interlacing the threads. Eileen packed and repacked her trousseau every day.

‘Asthore, you’d be thinking it was off to America you were going instead of down into the Lower Village. Can’t you come back up if something do be forgotten?’ her father teased.

Laughing, Eileen would continue with her checking and packing. After all, she was heading off to her own New World, where she would have her house, husband and children, with all the responsibilities and possibilities that entailed.

Tomás was kept busy too. He went fishing with his father and his brother, Páid, making the most of the good weather. In bad weather, Páid laboured with him, hauling stones to build a two-room dwelling for Tomás and Eileen.

The weeks raced by. The June sun brought the sea birds into the islands where the boys of the village braved the steepness of the cliffs in search of prized eggs. Tomás joined expeditions across to An Téaracht to hunt puffins. The seals moved off the Blasket Island, leaving the strand smooth and sparkling. Men talked over banks and walls, unfurling their backs after a winter of bracing winds and violent storms. Women stood and chatted at the well, marvelling at the speed with which Tomás was finishing off the roof of his house and delighting in the growing belly of Páid’s wife, Máire, who was expecting their first child at the end of the lobster season. They debated whether or not her bump was lying to the back; if it was, the older women decreed that it would be a boy. And everyone talked of the wedding of Tomás and Eileen, planned for the end of the month.

The third Saturday in June dawned a warm cloudless day. The waters of the Blasket Sound were a sparkling turquoise. Beiginis glistened under a veil of summer dew. The islanders were up early, donning their Sunday best. At eight o’clock, it was time to depart for the wedding ceremony on the mainland. Tomás had left earlier with his family. As Eileen strode down the path to the harbour, the older women and young children followed, chattering and fussing. Norah stowed her daughter’s trousseau carefully in a wooden trunk for the crossing. Eileen would dress in her cousin’s house on the mainland, where a bouquet of yellow roses from her aunt’s prized bush awaited her. As the last of the sleek black
naomhógs
glided effortlessly out into the blue water of the Blasket Sound, the cheers of the old and very young remaining in on the island faded in their wake.

It was said that Eileen and Tomás were the handsomest couple ever to walk down the aisle of the church in Ballyferriter. They received presents from friends and family on the Blasket, the mainland and even some from America. The island celebrations lasted for two days and after that Tomás and Eileen lit a fire in their new hearth on the Blasket Island, and their married life began.

Eileen’s first year was spent in a flurry of excitement, settling into her own home. In all weathers, she worked in the North Field, side by side with her husband. While Tomás and Páid went fishing, Eileen and her sister-in-law, Máire, became very close friends. Many happy days Eileen spent looking after Máire’s baby while Máire and their mother-in-law worked in the field or gathered seaweed at low tide. Eileen sang and took a secret delight in the baby, who nuzzled into her breast for comfort and often sucked her blouse hungrily. When the women returned to the house, they always said the same thing: ‘Sure it won’t be long at all before you’re suckling one of your own.’ Each time Eileen heard this, her heart jumped in anticipation, wondering when she and Tomás would be blessed with a child, but God did not choose to bless them in the first two years of married life.

As the seals returned, and the wheatears’ song disappeared for a third winter, Máire became pregnant with her second child. Eileen nearly burst with excitement for her sister-in-law as the news was whispered to her over the garden wall one bright November morning. She smiled and hugged Máire, but some part of her soul sank with the yearning and emptiness in her own heart. Yet, for the next six months, Eileen was an enthusiastic support and help to her friend. Little baby Niamh was born the following June, on the fourth wedding anniversary of Eileen and Tomás. They were chosen as godparents to the child. As Eileen cuddled and breathed the scented softness of her godchild’s skin, the impatience and ache cried within her. Her own mother’s constant reassurance – ‘All in God’s good time’ – failed to deliver the soothing balm of earlier years.

After five years, the empty cradle, a wedding present from her aunt, stood neglected behind some lobster pots in the shed. Although banished from the house they heard it cry through every sigh within their walls. A silence settled like a cloud over their home as Tomás and Eileen stopped singing and playing music together. For a time they rode the waves of normality despite the ominous undercurrent. Neither ever mentioned their grief, as if it was some secret to be shielded from the other. Then Tomás began to spend more time fishing, hunting and visiting other houses at night. Eileen found herself alone working in the house, labouring in the field and waiting at night. She began to dread the loneliness of the dark winter evenings. Soon she began to fear the arrival of Tomás at night. Her husband’s anger intensified towards her. She kept the best table and the best house in the village, yet he would find fault: she oversalted the fish; she talked too much; she never salted the fish; she never talked to him. The hope that had lured her from month to month had long since been quenched. Her mother said she must be patient and all would be well ‘in God’s good time’.

One evening as she waited for Tomás, she wondered if God had forgotten about her. Her husband’s supper lay cold and untouched on the table. The candles had burned out hours before. She sat by the hearth staring at the embers. Tears didn’t come any more. Maybe she had cried them all. The ticking of the clock became a rhythm from another world. The roaring of the waves on the White Strand lulled her into a comforting stillness. She slipped deeper into its soft darkness and silence.

The fire died and the room grew cold as Eileen slept. Just before 3 a.m. the latch lifted and the door swung violently open, crashing against the side of the dresser. The crockery rattled and a jug smashed on the floor. Eileen gasped with fright, struggling between worlds. Tomás stumbled towards the hearth. ‘You can’t even keep the fire lighting,’ he snarled at her. Her heart thundered as she opened her eyes, disorientated. Vaguely, she was aware of Tomás’ silhouette swaying before the hearth. Suddenly, everything turned red, as a blow struck the side of her face. ‘You can’t even do that right, can you?’ Her brain jolted against the side of her skull, sending a fantail of lightning flashes swirling across her vision. She held her head in an effort to stop it spinning. She felt tingling as her jaw began to swell. She thought that she had spoken, begging to know what she had done wrong. Then she realised that no words had come out. She felt her mouth in the darkness. It throbbed and felt sticky and wet.

Tomás steadied himself against the settle and spat into the hearth. ‘You can do nothing right, can you? You can’t even give me a child.’ Her heart lunged so violently against her throat, she could not breathe. ‘Can’t even give me a child.’ The words echoed through the room. They grew louder and louder, until they seemed to echo through the whole village. The waves took up the mantra and beat it onto the rocks, over and over. The caves breathed it into the darkness until it resounded faster. She saw
An Fear Marbh
heave his bulk from the sea and roar to the sky. ‘Can’t even give me a child.’ Then Eileen saw no more as the noise drowned her consciousness.

The next day the word spread from woman to woman at the well. ‘Isn’t she a terror, the way she do let the fire out, and then can’t see in the darkness?’

‘Lord save us, but didn’t she give herself a terrible fall entirely?’

‘Didn’t she strike her head on the corner of the table as she went down?’

‘Tomás hasn’t left her bedside at all. Sure he’s worried to death about her.’

‘Did you know it was three days before she did come back to herself?’

‘Isn’t she blessed with the kind, patient man she do have?’

Norah kept house for her daughter through her illness. She never pried, but her presence eased Eileen back from her fright, until the dam burst and her tears flooded forth. Finally, through sobs, the words came: ‘Tomás says I can’t give him a child. I can’t even do that.’

‘And how is Tomás so sure that he has the child to give, alanna?’

Eileen stared in amazement at her mother. Never did it occur to her that anyone but she could be at fault. For a long time, she had begun to believe her husband: that she could do nothing right. She could neither cook nor sew. She could neither tend a fire nor conceive a child.

‘What did your grandmother tell you about putting blame on other people?’ Eileen pointed her finger and looked down at it. She remembered the words so well.

‘Every time you do point an accusing finger at someone, you do be pointing three at yourself,’ she answered, as she looked at the three fingers pointing back at herself. ‘So maybe Tomás is afraid that it is
he
who can’t father a child for me.’

‘Maybe he is, Eileen, and maybe he’s afraid and angry with himself, and not with you. Sometimes, it’s harder for men to accept these things. Whatever it is, with the help of God, we’ll find a way.’

From that day out, Eileen and Norah set to work. Eileen told Tomás that she knew it was time that she found a cure for their sorrow. They had never given it words before, except for the night that Tomás had struck her. Men and women did not talk about these things; they just happened. Tomás looked at her, confused. Her new composure and confidence took him by surprise. As he spoke, he reverted his gaze to his mug of tea.

‘Well, you women do know more about these things. I’ll leave it to you to solve your problem.’ He never looked up, just continued with his food. For the three days of each of the next five full moons, Eileen and Norah collected green herbs and roots. Eileen boiled them for three hours. At sunset, she cooled the infusion. She strained a full bowl of the brown liquid, added three drops of holy water and drank the full amount before she lay with her husband.

Tomás seemed to have faith in the knowledge of the women. He relaxed and resembled the Tomás of old in many ways. After five months of herbal infusions, Eileen felt ill but not from pregnancy. It was time to visit Nell, the island healer. Norah visited her alone first, saying, ‘It wouldn’t do to have the whole village discussing your sorrow.’

The following morning, after Tomás set off fishing with Páid, Norah came through the door. ‘Nell tells me that Tomás was very sick as a teenager, with mumps.’ Eileen stood by the door with Norah, watching the
naomhóg
slice through the rolling sea. Eileen did not understand the significance of what she was being told, until her mother explained that mumps could lead to impotence in a young man. Now she understood that it probably was not her fault.