Blasket Spirit (10 page)

‘Tomás is the man you want as your husband.’ Eileen looked at her mother puzzled. She was not sure if this was a statement or a question.

‘Of course,’ she answered finally.

‘But you want a child?’

‘More than anything in the world, Mam. We both want a child.’

It was then that Norah took Eileen up to see the old healer, Nell, who explained about the cure on the mainland. Nell told her that it was the only way to conceive a child, and keep her husband.

Word was quick to spread from the well.

‘Isn’t it great for Nell, going across for to see her sister on the mainland?’

‘It is, and she the great age that she is. Sure, it is only that Eileen and Norah agreed for to take the old woman that she can go at all.’

‘And what do an old woman like her want to make that trip for? ’Tis at home saying her prayers she should be.’

There was always one with the bitter word.

‘Isn’t her old widowed sister sick and maybe dying. Would you be begrudging her a last visit?’

There were nods all round, and that was an end to it. The women sent their prayers with Nell for her sick sister, and they praised Eileen and Norah for giving up their time to look after a cranky old woman on such a trip.

Meanwhile, Nell explained to Tomás the importance of the plants growing on the mainland. In on the island, there wasn’t the variety. The island herbs that she had tried had not worked for Eileen. It was vital that certain plants on the mainland were picked and prepared during the full moon. As Tomás knew, it was then that the sap was at its richest and most potent. The herbs had to be picked and consumed within the same moonlight. Eileen and Norah would stay with Nell in her sister’s house. He need have no worries about his wife. Tomás was grateful to the old woman; he firmly believed her story of the herbal cure on the mainland for Eileen.

The three women set off in the
naomhóg
with Tomás and Páid. The tide was high because of the full moon. Eileen sat breathless in the bow of the boat, her body glowing with anticipation and anxiety. Tomás noted his wife’s flushed face, and prayed to God to find her a cure this time and end his shame. Eileen gripped her bag nervously, avoiding his gaze. She watched the cliffs of Dún Chaoin rising before her, as she had done on the morning of her wedding five years before.

As the two older women made slow progress up the slipway at Dún Chaoin, Eileen turned to wave at the small black
naomhóg
. Páid’s voice carried over the water. ‘Don’t you be drinking too much porter with your sister, Nell. We don’t want you falling into the waves on the way back.’ Eileen sat down on the coffin step halfway up the slipway.

‘Tomás thinks I’ve come out here for a cure,’ she sobbed, covering her face in shame.

‘It is a cure of a kind you’ve come out for, alanna,’ Nell gasped as she reached the coffin step.

‘Don’t you want to keep your husband and have a baby?’ her mother asked her.

‘You know I do, Mam.’

‘Well then, let’s go, for it’s a long walk to the church.’

The three women linked arms and set off slowly, leaving the sea and Nell’s sister’s house far behind.

Three days later, as they stood on the clifftop, looking across into the island for the first sign of the boat, Nell quickly gathered a bunch of herbs and pressed them into Eileen’s hand. ‘Make sure he sees you boiling these tonight. Give him half the tea to drink and you drink the other half. And don’t forget you must lie with him within the week. You’ll both be very happy. God works in mysterious ways.’ With that she set off, hobbling down the slipway. Norah gave her daughter’s hand a reassuring squeeze and they followed.

The following month Eileen knew she was with child. Her breasts ached, and she felt a warm glow throughout her body. She sang from morning till night, treasuring her happiness privately until the time was right to tell her husband. Tomás came into the house to take a burning ember from the fire to patch the
naomhóg
. ‘Put that back,’ she scolded happily. ‘No ember can leave this house until the things that are inside are out.’ Tomás knew the significance of the superstition better than anyone. He dropped the tongs in shock. He kissed her, holding her as if she were a fragile china cup. Before the first woman had reached the well that Sunday morning, he had spread the news to every house on the island. As he set off to mass on the mainland, he was the proudest man on the Great Blasket Island.

When he returned from mass, he bounded up the cliff from the pier like a new lamb. He presented Eileen with a holy medal of the Virgin and Child, wrapped in soft white paper. ‘Father Muiris blessed this for you and the baby, when he heard our good news. He asked me to be sure to give it to you.’

Eileen felt the flush surge from the base of her neck. She took the medal and stared at Our Lady and the Infant Jesus in her arms. She could not speak. It was Tomás, not she, who added, ‘He’s a grand man. Sure if it’s a boy, can’t we call the baby Muiris after him?’

Eight months later, Eileen had a fine healthy son. He was baptised by and named after Father Muiris, the priest in the church in Ballyferriter. The womenfolk said that the baby would be twice blessed for it.

R
outine began to restore the security and predictability that had been stolen from my life for so long. I regained control and felt free. During the month of August, I found and followed my own daily schedule. I swam first thing in the morning under the watchful eye of the Beverley Sisters, then had breakfast, filled my water bottle, collected a scone and jam from Laura at the cafe, and set off on my adventure to the back of the island.

That day, I followed the cliffs over past the beach and continued to the Gravel Strand. Sitting on the clifftop, I watched the familiar grey seals hauled out on two small islands of rock, Carraig Fhada and Oileán Buí. Daydreams and stories were far from my mind. My thoughts were in the cold darkness beneath the waves. I had heard the news of the
Kursk
, a Russian nuclear submarine lost miles beneath the freezing Barents Sea in the Arctic, with the trapped crew believed to be still alive. As one of the seals slid in off the rocks and submerged, I wondered what it saw in the deep waters off the Great Blasket Island. The
Quebra
, a First World War munitions ship, was down there somewhere. Perhaps the seal would swim over the cargo of wire and artillery shells scattered in the gullies, 15 to 27 metres below, her shadow gliding between the huge boilers that still stand upright on the wreck. An army diver had told me that the wreck was intact, the hull was very sound and a recoil spring from one of the ship’s guns was still visible, owing to the protection of the cliffs. I imagined that the seal would ignore that, being more interested in the shoals of fish feeding around the wreck. My thoughts returned to the
Kursk
crew and I shivered in the sunshine, as I thought of the freezing temperatures and silent darkness that the lost men would be experiencing. Closing my eyes, I willed through every atom of my being for them to be rescued and hauled back up to the sunshine.

After some time, I stirred myself and continued on my way, following the jagged cut in the cliff towards the Seal Cove. As I drew closer, my pace quickened in anticipation. Each morning, I loved to check in on the island’s only baby seal, and see how he was getting on. I lay down on my stomach with my head peering over the steep cliff. Sixty or seventy metres below me, the inlet was strewn with what looked like large rounded boulders. I watched intently, waiting for one to move and clap its fins together. As I waited, kittiwakes rose before my eyes on updrafts of air, filling the sky with their cries. Suddenly, what I had thought to be a round white boulder caught my eye as it rolled over and stretched its neck towards a stem of oarweed. Through the binoculars, I could see his antics clearly. As he tugged at the air, missing his target every time, one of his flippers swam frantically like a clockwork toy, in a vain attempt to propel himself forward. He had moved a good ten metres down the beach since the previous morning. I wondered how he had done it. Each time, his mother came in to nurse him, she nudged and pushed him back up to the cliff. It was a laborious exercise, but vital for his survival, as this little ball of pure white fur could not swim yet. It would take a full three weeks of suckling his mother before he would have enough blubber to survive in the sea, and he was not even two weeks old. Junior was oblivious to the incoming tide, and with every stretch for the weed, he inched farther down the beach.

‘Get back up there where your mother left you,’ I roared, not thinking that he would hear my voice over the thundering of the waves, but he did. He stopped his quest suddenly, lifting his head towards me. Through the binoculars, I could see his two huge black eyes staring in my direction. The incoming tide was only a metre or so from him. I scanned the rollers beyond the bay entrance, but there was no sign of his mother. I knew he would not survive if he were swept out to sea. I barked at him as loudly as I could. He responded by barking and rolling onto his back where he clapped his flippers together, as I had seen him do every time he was enjoying himself playing or suckling. As we continued this banter, I wondered if my babysitting game would distract him from his progress towards the water until his mother returned or the tide turned. So far it was working. Gradually, instead of making towards the sea, he was stretching parallel to the tide in my direction. I stood up slowly, keeping my head in view over the clifftop as I walked away from the sea. Every few metres I stopped and we re-established contact. After an hour and a half, I was hoarse and exhausted, but the seal pup was at least three metres back up from the sea.

I had just resolved to sacrifice my walk for the day in order to keep an eye on Junior, when I was relieved of my babysitting duties. The huge cow hauled herself out onto the beach, trailing a dark, glistening path in her wake as she slid over the hot stones. The pup was yelping and shaking in anticipation as she came close to him. He began pucking her belly excitedly, searching out her teats, but she was having none of it. Unceremoniously, she rolled and jostled the pup in front of her, until he was well up beyond the high-tide line. Below me, under the shelter of the cliff, she began to nurse the pup. Beyond the surf, the distinctive big head of a bull seal kept watch over the mother and wayward child. On the beach, the earlier playground of the pup was now submerged, and the single stem of seaweed had been swept away. Relieved to hand the responsibility back to Mother, I set off up to the fort.

That afternoon, while returning along the south road, I heard the distinctive blow of a whale east of An Gob. I sat back against a dagger-like rock that pierced the side of the cliff and scanned the undulating waters that sparkled over 150 metres below. It was the time of year for whales to migrate along the 100-metre contour west of Inis Tuaisceart, travelling to and from warmer breeding waters. I had seen one close to Inis Mhic Uibhleain the previous week but never this close. I knew that they could stay submerged for over an hour but if it was a large school of whales, the chances of seeing something as these colossal creatures cruised majestically by was much greater, so I waited.

Suddenly I heard a great explosion as a waterspout sprayed high into the air. The huge rounded black back arched through the surface as the whale submerged. The tail flukes flicked and slapped the water as it disappeared. I jumped up in excitement. Close by, another spout exploded, followed closely by two more. A school of whales
was
cruising by! At the height I stood above them, it was impossible to gauge their size. They frolicked and displayed, as if they knew they were in protected Irish waters.

Suddenly, a whale rose vertically into the blue sky. For a second, it seemed to be suspended in the air, before it slapped onto its back with a spectacular, explosive crash. Then another broke out into the sunshine and returned in a white blossom of spray. In turn, each great water creature threw itself against the sun, fusing sky and sea in a flash of sparks. The electricity pulsated through my body. As each broke the surface and blew, a shout leaped from my chest. Each launch melted the heavens and the ocean into one. Thousands of birds wheeled around the dancing sea creatures. The sea opened and closed to the sky, as the surface bubbled with life. Breathless, I watched and watched, hardly daring to blink, until their trail faded from view in the sea to the south.

When they had disappeared, I flopped back down against the rock, light-headed and laughing, my body vibrating with the energy of sun and sea. I watched the veil of sea birds that had shadowed the whales turn in unison and return to the island. Their noise rose to a deafening pitch, as the keening of thousands of birds suddenly echoed against the cliffs. The island tolled with the sound, and I became aware in their cries of the requiem song for 118 young Russian men.

The whales had now disappeared without trace. The defining lines of sea and sky returned as if nothing had happened, but I knew that it had. I stood for a long time, the sole witness of their passing, with a cold emptiness in my stomach. It was after sunset before I turned away from the silent sea and returned home to the village.

T
he climb down to the Gravel Strand was unnerving. I made cautious progress, weighing the pros and cons of each step and handhold as I descended. Sigrid swam in the cove frequently and so clambered down surefooted as a goat. Since this German woman kept to herself as much as I did, it had been quite some time before we had made one another’s acquaintance on the Great Blasket Island. When she met me for the first time, I was in the middle of one of my daily conversations with the seal pup. That seemed to break the ice between us easily. Neither she nor I was the focus of the attention, as we doted over the cuddly ball of fur and mischief, and so a relaxed friendship developed.

Each summer, when the German kindergarten where Sigrid worked closed for the holidays, she escaped from the city and flew to Ireland. She camped on the Great Blasket Island for her six-week break, returning to Germany only two days before the school reopened.