Blasket Spirit (16 page)

‘Why do you always swim in the morning instead of the evening?’ Sarah waded in towards me, hugging her arms, bouncing and wincing over every rising wave.

‘Well, the reason is this. Long hair takes an age to dry, so if I bathe at night, it is soaking wet in bed, but if I bathe in the morning, it has a chance to dry.’

‘My hair takes forever to dry after the sea. Much longer than after the shower. Why’s that?’ Like most twelve-year-old girls, Sarah had proved to be full of questions since her arrival three days before.

‘Get down first; then I’ll tell you.’ After several attempts, she was still springing over every wave. ‘Come on. One, two, three,’ I urged. Eventually she was down, whooping and squealing. She dog-paddled over to me, her hair flattened, and gleaming wet down her face, like a baby otter.

‘When you have seawater in your hair, it is harder to dry because it’s full of salt. Salt wants to draw water to it, not let it go.’

Sarah listened as she pedalled furiously, trying to stay beside me. ‘So that’s why… Dad puts salt… on wine that spills,’ she panted. Suddenly, spotting Donie the dolphin, she pointed excitedly, and promptly sank like a stone. As I hauled her back up, she continued to chatter. Later, up under the shelter of the cliffs, she followed my Tai Chi movements exactly, managing not to talk for a whole ten minutes.

As I said goodbye to her at the hostel, Michael popped his head out over the half-door. ‘Fry-up is ready. Take a seat in the sunshine, ladies.’ We sat at a weathered picnic table, towelling our hair, while the morning sun warmed our backs. Far below, Donie continued to play around the black barrels in the water. From the clifftop, outside Páidí Dunleavy’s, the two donkeys made a beeline towards us, sensing there was food up for grabs.

‘She’s so fat, her stomach is nearly touching the ground. Look, Dad.’

‘She’s in foal,’ I explained, pushing two pairs of velvety nostrils away from my pockets. ‘We’ll have three donkeys on the island any day now.’ As I savoured my crispy bacon, runny eggs and toast, I was continually head-butted on the arm.

‘I think that “Buzz off” needs a bit more conviction,’ said Michael. He was right. These two recognised a pushover from a mile off. No wonder they arrived at my hut at seven o’clock every evening. It had nothing to do with their grazing plan. They simply knew that it was
my
dinnertime. For the second time in as many days, Michael came to my rescue. With a few sharp flicks of a tea towel and a couple of Scottish oaths, he sent the donkeys packing. They took off at a trot: a Zeppelin swaying over four matchsticks, followed by her commander, his long truncheon waving beneath him. In the fields to the north of the island, they began grazing amongst dozens of nibbling rabbits.

‘Now, more tea?’

I accepted, wrapping my cold hands around the steaming mug. It was the best breakfast of my Blasket Island stay. We sat gazing out over the sparkling sea. After a while Michael broke the silence. ‘You really leave everything behind when you come over here, don’t you?’

‘You do. You leave the drama script on the pier in Dún Chaoin.’

He nodded and smiled, his gaze fixed in the blueness.

‘Do you come out here every summer?’ Sarah wondered.

‘No, this is only my fourth time here, but my first time staying over. The island made a huge impression on me when I was your age. I’ve thought about it so much over the years, it seemed to be a natural place to return to.’

‘Who were you here with when you were my age?’

‘My dad – like you – and my mum, my two sisters, my little brother and our dog. Then, my second time here was on a school trip when I was seventeen. Our school came here every year because we had to study the book
Peig
for our exams. Anyway, the trip that I was on was the last outing that the school ever took to the Great Blasket Island. It was a disaster.’

‘Why? What did you do?’ Sarah asked.

‘What do you mean “what did I do”? I was a model student. I wouldn’t have said “boo” to a goose.’

‘To a donkey, you mean!’ Michael muttered, through a mouthful of toast and honey.

‘What happened? Dad, be quiet.’

‘Well, about eighty of us, girls, were staying in holiday cottages in Dún an Óir. We were all fifth-year students from a school in Waterford called the Ursuline Convent. I can’t remember anything about being on the mainland, except for a visit to Gallarus Oratory; that’s an ancient, little stone church. You might visit it sometime. Anyway, the guide told us that we had to pass through the eye of the needle three times, in order to marry the man of our dreams.’

‘What’s the eye of the needle?’ Sarah asked, chin cupped in her hands.

‘It’s a tiny window in the gable wall of the church. Well, it’s tiny when you’re wrapped up in a duffle coat.’

‘What’s a duffle coat?’ After Michael had described the 1970s’ standard attire, she continued, ‘Did you climb through it?’

‘Well I tried. As everyone was piling onto the bus, I decided to secure my future happiness. I got my head, shoulders and tummy through and that was it. My hips were wedged solid. My friend Aileen Murphy had to run for the bus driver to help her pull me back out.’

‘So did you get through?’

‘No. Alas, I never passed through the eye of the needle even once.’

‘So did you never get married then?’

‘Never. My lonely fate was sealed from that very day.’

‘But why don’t you try again? You’re skinny. Just don’t wear your coat this time.’

‘Good idea. Next time, maybe. Anyway, I do remember us setting out to Peig’s famous island. We were ferried across in dinghies, twelve of us to a boat. It was Easter time and the weather was fairly good, so it never occurred to us that we didn’t even have one life jacket between us. It took hours to get eighty of us across. Those of us on the island were having a ball and were oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong.

‘I remember finding an old black kettle, half-buried, in the ruins of one of the cottages. I was ecstatic, convinced it was Peig’s. Unfortunately, the teacher pointed out Peig’s house, the hostel here, which was a good distance from my find. I’ve tried to remember what house I’d found it in, but I can’t. I’ve an idea that it could have been in Kearney’s over there. That’s the one directly below the schoolhouse, but I’m not sure. The teacher told me to leave it where I’d found it, but I carried it with me for the day.

‘That teacher was Mr Cahillane, and he is the one I remember most on the island. Back at school he wore a black gown, and a page-boy hairstyle, and taught Commerce. My image of him is of his hair bouncing and his cloak billowing behind him as he strode through the corridors. He was like Batman.

‘There were two female teachers with us too – Miss MacRoberts and Miss MacDonagh. Miss MacRoberts, like Batman, never taught me, but she struck me because she was very pretty and always immaculately dressed. She had fabulous curly auburn hair and always wore nail varnish. Miss MacDonagh taught us Biology. She was as excitable as a child before every single blob that we saw under the microscope. I adored her classes. We used to feel like we had found treasure with every weed that she gushed over on nature walks.

‘Anyway, in the afternoon, we were all aware that there was a problem. By the time the last boatload had been dropped off on the island, it was late, and we should have been back on the mainland. The first return trip set off but halfway across the Blasket Sound the dinghy stopped, drifted, and shot off a distress flare. For some reason, this wasn’t seen from the mainland, and nothing happened. We all gathered at the slipway, watching the boat drifting helplessly in the waves, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it.’

‘Why didn’t you use your mobile to get help?’ Sarah wondered.

‘Nobody had mobiles in those days. We heard later that the boat had run out of fuel. By the time a fisherman made his way out to them, and returned with fuel, over two hours had been lost. The wind blew up, the sea turned choppy and by late afternoon we were freezing cold on the island. Batman brought a big group of us walking over to the north of the island. I can still picture him tumbling head over heels down the slope in that field where the donkeys are now. I was no good at gym and painfully shy, so the sight of Mr Cahillane turning somersaults down the field with his hair flying is etched on my memory. He succeeded in distracting most of us, but there were a few girls weeping by then. I found a brilliant rabbit’s foot, which upset a few more girls, but like the kettle, I was not going to part with such an amazing find.

‘While all the girls were Bay City Roller fans and listened to Radio Luxembourg, under the bedcovers, I used to read James Herriot by torchlight. During holidays, I used to play my Grandad Reynolds’ old seventy-eight records in the dining room, over his butcher’s shop. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Nelson Eddie, Mario Lanza and Doris Day were my favourites.’ Sarah had heard of none of them. ‘Nor had my classmates. I remember being jeered at for asking who David Essex was when I saw his poster over another girl’s bed. After hearing that, my grandad tried to update me a bit, by buying me my first record,
Elvis Presley’s Greatest Hits
. In one of the songs, Elvis mentions a rabbit’s paw for luck. That’s why I was so excited with my discovery.

‘I set off to show it to Miss MacDonagh, who was back on the slipway, keeping the girls in orderly groups. She investigated the paw from every angle, concluding that the rabbit had probably died of myxomatosis. Miss MacRoberts started squealing, and told me throw the filthy thing away.’

‘Did you?’ Sarah asked.

‘No, but my mother threw it out of my bedroom window, about three years later, when she found it.

‘It began to take longer and longer between boat trips. The sea got much rougher. Then it got dark. We had to wait, huddled, in the turn of the path, halfway up from the slipway, with the teachers and the fisherman. He roared at us if we moved. It was too dark, windy and wet to go back up onto the cliffs. They were full of holes and we could be killed. Each time the dinghy returned, the night was blacker and wilder and, instead of twelve girls, eight was the most they could take. It took their best efforts to prevent the rubber dinghy from being ripped on the rocks, as they approached the slipway. Then it became too dangerous for the dinghy to even attempt to come into the landing cove, so each girl was led out over the rocks. As the wave surged in against the blackness, the ferryman struggled to manoeuvre the boat before roaring “Jump!” On the command, the fisherman literally threw the next girl into the darkness and the spray.

‘After some hours, there were ten of us students, three teachers and the fisherman remaining. He roared into the wind, asking if anybody had a light. We knew that one of the girls smoked, and that she had a lighter with her, but she didn’t own up and we certainly weren’t going to say anything. He said that he didn’t think there would be another boat, so we would have to stay on the island. The plan was to make a human chain, and to go on our hands and knees up the cliff, but he had to have a light to lead us. Still, nobody said anything.

‘For the hundredth time, Mr Cahillane asked him if the girls were safe on the mainland, and for the hundredth time the man assured the teachers that everyone was back safely in Dún an Óir. Mr Cahillane then promised us that no one would be punished for smoking if they produced a light. Miraculously, a lighter was handed up. We were linked together and ready to go up the cliff when we heard shouting and the roar of the outboard engine through the crashing of waves. Scared stiff, we had to make our way out along the slippery rocks again. The ferryman said that it was the last run, so some of us would have to stay. Like the captain of a stricken ship, Mr Cahillane said that the students should take the last boat home and the teachers would stay on the island. The ferryman shouted that four students would have to stay too. The volunteers were organised, me being one, while the teachers and the men continued their heated discussion. Then the plan was changed and he agreed to take all the students. When my turn came to jump, the fisherman tried to grab my kettle. I held on for dear life, despite being called every expletive under the sun. There was a bit of a tug of war, where he accused me of trying to drown everyone.

‘All that I can recall of the trip back was being roared at to squash up together into the bow to keep the boat from flipping over. Waves slapped and soaked us from all angles and my hand bled from holding on. I think we were so scared, we didn’t register the cold.

‘Next thing we saw was the black outline of the cliffs above us. We could hear the surf thudding and crashing on the rocks, but couldn’t see a thing. We weren’t back at the pier at Dún Chaoin at all. We hadn’t a clue where we were; all we knew was that we’d been dumped somewhere along the base of the cliffs at Dunmore Head. The reverse procedure happened. As the wave surged up the cliff face, we were hoisted up, one at a time, into the darkness, where invisible hands gripped and dragged us up the rock face, cutting and scratching us in the process. When I scrambled to my feet, I will never forget my shock at seeing eighty girls, clinging together on a shelf of rock, far below the cliffs, in the pitch darkness. I remember being utterly incredulous, not so much that we were being abandoned there, but by the fact that the ferrymen had told the teachers that everyone was in Dún an Óir. I knew that our teachers had agreed for us to be taken back only because of the assurance that we were being delivered safely to the bus driver and Sister Charles at Dún Chaoin. I was so angry. One of the ferrymen reassured us that we would be found soon. I wondered what he meant by “found.” It obviously meant that nobody had a clue where we were.

‘There was one diabetic girl who was ill at this stage. In the dark, I couldn’t see how far below us the water was, but we were being drenched. I was afraid we’d be swept out to sea.

‘I don’t know how long it was we spent there, but it seemed like hours. Aileen and I were the farthest out from the base of the cliff, so we saw the lights first. A chain of about six lights jolted and swayed along the clifftop, like Christmas lights. We screamed and shouted, but they obviously didn’t hear a thing over the roar of the waves and the wind. It was another age before the lights returned. This time they heard us, thank God, and we were hauled up the cliff, one by one, by men with ropes. Sister Carmel was crying when we met her. Two girls had stayed in the cottages with her because they were scared of boats. They said that they had ended up saying the Rosary all day and all night for us. They weren’t convinced that it was we who had got the raw deal. Sister Charles had raised the alarm when we hadn’t returned, and it was the fishermen and farmers drinking in Kruger’s Pub who searched for us and found us.