Country Days (10 page)

After tea there was mass at 6 o’clock, and here you became aware of strange sleeping companions. All during mass, heads dropped forward, overcome by sleep, and the sleepers were not very fussy about what shoulder they slept on. These were the unfortunates who had not been to bed at all the night before and were now exhausted from hunger and lack of sleep. After that mass we had a short rest; we donned another layer of clothes for the night and returned to the basilica looking like walking pillows. At 9.30 we had night prayers, after which the crowd dwindled to half as the people who had difficulty in staying awake went smilingly to bed.

It was than that our vigil began, and that’s the boy that tests your grit. During that long night we made four beds, but instead of outside, it was inside around the basilica, which was far more monotonous. The beginning of the night was not too bad, but as it got older so did we. It was a long, bitterly cold night, and as it wore on the hunger weakened us, the lack of sleep blinded us, the damp, freezing air penetrated our layers of clothes and my ankle and knee joints felt wooden. But I was not alone in my misery. As the night dragged on, surrounding faces paled and footsteps dragged. I had never realised that you could walk around sound asleep until I went to Lough Derg. Before that I had thought that only horses slept standing up. Between each bed we came outside for fresh air to wake us up and some brave souls washed their faces in cold water. If Lough Derg had not been an island, wandering souls would have been found making their ways homewards, but there was no escape. The cold black water lapped ominously against the shore and the mainland was a long way away.

I was gradually curling up into a hard knot of cold misery. At 4 a.m. I hit rock bottom and thought of a friend who had said, “Only the mentally ill go to Lough Derg.”

At that point I agreed completely with him. Oh God, I thought; what brought me to this grey forsaken hole? But then the dawn broke, and as the grey light crept across the silent waters, I knew that
the crisis point had passed.

For 6 a.m. mass the pilgrims after their night’s sleep poured into the basilica and we who had been up all night mingled with them and tried to keep our eyes open. It was easy to tell us apart, for they were fresh-faced and smiling while we were grey-faced and bleary-eyed. During mass I hovered on the brink of unconsciousness and at one point thought that the priest was dancing along the altar rails. But instead of doing a slow-moving dance of the seven veils, he was jumping high off the rails in some high-flying jig and every time my dimmed vision connected with him he had gone higher, until in the end I thought that he was hanging off the ceiling. The man sitting next to me gave me a gentle nudge, which brought the high-stepping priest back down to earth. Sleep was the common enemy and people helped each other to stay awake. Finally the mass ended and we came out into the cold grey morning. Then we had two choices: to sit outside and freeze or sit inside and try to keep awake. We compromised by doing both at regular intervals. A long, long day stretched ahead. Oh, for breakfast in bed and a warm bath!

Confessions were next on the agenda and at least they broke the monotony. It was open-plan confession. Well distanced from each other inside the rails, a row of priests sat on chairs. We had a choice of a dozen priests, and I chose the one who had given the holy hour the night before because I liked his style. Some of the priests were young and good looking and
they had a continuous stream of teenagers because they, too, shared the same wavelength. The pace was very leisurely. A restless lady next to me complained, “Some people are so slow, we’ll be here all day.”

I was tempted to ask her where was she planning to go. Instead I whispered back that maybe what people wanted as part of their pilgrimage here was to chat to one of the priests. She sniffed in annoyance and that conversation ground to a halt. When my turn came I had not intended to delay very long. But the priest was interesting and we got to talking about different things and time did not seem to matter. After me came the woman in a hurry and I hoped that the sunny-faced priest could slow her down. There was, after all, no point in rushing, for there was nowhere to go.

Just one bed had to be done that morning, and the aim for the rest of the day was simply to keep awake. We were lucky that the day had become warmer and we were able to sit outside where it was easier to keep awake. The obsession with personal misery was broken by the Stations of the Cross at 3 p.m.; it can only be on Lough Derg that one would look forward to the Stations of the Cross. As the sun rose higher in the sky and bore down on the exposed little island, the sun-tan lotion came into action; in the late evening the midges came out to play and had to be suitably repulsed. The midges on the island were a giant, blood-thirsty breed and, like the Mounties, they always got their man.

Lough Derg possesses a deep quietness. The only sounds to be heard are the lapping of lake water against rocks, the murmur of voices and occasional birdsong. No footsteps disturb the stillness. Transistors, televisions, phones and cameras are not allowed to intrude here. You are without shoes, without food, without sleep, and in the monotonous repetition of prayers, your mind is cleansed of all thoughts. Here your outer layers are stripped off. Your mind is cleared of clutter and you set aside all the things that were so important on the mainland. You have stepped off the world for two days and Lough Derg removes the dead layers of mental debris. It happens almost without your awareness, and as the second day draws to a close, you find an inner peace seeping into your being. If you so desire, you can chat to different people. Many come back again and again, finding here something that defies analysis. Maybe it is time out of life.

On the island that day there were over a thousand people. The accents of every county in Ireland mingled together and indeed some not Irish. In the basilica on that last night, I looked at all the different faces and wondered what kind of person came here, but there was no answer. The very old stun you with their tenacity; men and women with faces like hewn rocks; country people who have worked hard and prayed well all their lives. Others with golden, even tans acquired in warmer climates grip the rocks with well-manicured, multi-ringed fingers. Students
imploring God for merciful examiners struggle with their first experience of exposure to cold and hunger. The young, the old, the middle-aged, from all walks of life, come to Lough Derg.

Going to bed that night was like going to heaven. Cold, sleepy and absolutely drained of stamina, we stretched out under the warm blankets. It was sheer, blissful ecstasy, and when the bell rang the following morning, I thought that I had only been in bed for a few minutes. After mass we made the final bed, but I had wings on my feet. As I stood at the water’s edge on that sunny, sparkling morning saying the last prayers, a bird sang on a branch above me and it was as if my heart was singing with him.

Then we made our real beds in preparation for the people arriving on that day. We washed our feet, put on our shoes and normal clothes and went down to the pier to catch the boat to the mainland. Nothing was to be eaten that day except water biscuits and minerals. But we did not mind because it was all over and we were going home with quiet pools of peace in our hearts, a peace formed in the long hours away from the normal world.

T
WO WOMEN STANDING
outside my window were giving it their full attention. One, large and buxom with a headscarf knotted tightly under a row of double chins, stood with her arms resting on her hips, where they had ample accommodation.

“Would you take one look at that window,” she demanded of her companion. “Isn't it a pure disgrace?”

“It is indeed, Biddy,” her friend agreed. The companion was a direct contrast to Biddy. She was small, pale and wispy, with a look of perpetual agreement on her face.

“Wouldn't you think now that they would do something about it and they living on the side of the street where everyone can see them and all?” Biddy declared. “That house is a disgrace to the village and it right on the corner in the centre of everything. She can't be much of a housekeeper to have a window like that,” she concluded.

They say that eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves, and Biddy had just proved the truth of that maxim, giving me an earful of something that
I did not want to hear. The fact that she was right made it all the more indigestible. The window in question, as well as the others along the front of our house, was in a sad condition. They had been installed at a time when architects had been going through a period of all window and no wall. The fact that Irish weather conditions were not exactly favourable to such wide-open thinking had not daunted their quest for glass menageries. Gradually the years had battered the window frames and loosened the louvres, and even though Biddy was no town planner, she had hit the nail on the head. We had been talking about doing something about those two front rooms for years, but the thought of turning the whole house upside down made us put it off and off. It was not the windows alone that were the problem. We had badly fitting doors and rising damp, and to spend a night in our front rooms you needed leg warmers and thermal underwear. One of my sisters refused to come and stay after November 1 for fear that she might be frozen to death. She told me that our house was a health hazard and she was not referring to our lack of hygiene.

Now that Biddy had put her finger on the start button, we knew we had to make a move. The first step was to get the Protim man, who proved to be smart, efficient and to the point.

“These two rooms and the hallway will have to be stripped down to the stone. Then send for us and we will come and inject it. That will cure your rising
damp,” he said matter-of-factly, waving his hand in all directions. By the time all that would be done, I thought, I would be in need of an injection myself.

I mentioned my proposed renovations to the members of the family who were still in the nest and met with a mixed response.

“What's wrong with it the way it is?” remarked one unenthusiastic, unobservant student son.

Another smiled with delight. “Thank God,” he said; “this place is like Siberia.”

A third son pleaded, “Don't make it posh. I don't like posh houses that look as if nobody lives in them.”

And my husband asked plaintively, “Do we have to turn the whole house upside-down again?”

This he said despite the fact that we had actually done nothing to it for the past twenty years.

Biddy had placed the bit between my teeth and now there was no holding me. First to be tackled was the furniture, which we had accumulated over the years when old relatives had died; it was battered and damaged and some of it had long been the home of geriatric woodworms. Storing it was going to be a problem. But over the years I had had several dilapidated chairs upholstered by Deaf Enterprises and they had given an excellent service, so in the morning I rang them and they said that they would come to collect. But first I had to empty the collection of years out of drawers and presses. The next week was spent on my hands and knees,
surrounded by little boxes into which I sorted the kind of collection of useless debris that can only be accumulated in a family home occupied by a hording husband and a collection of like-minded children. If I threw anything away, it was bound to be needed the following day and to be of irreplaceable value.

By the time this job was done, I had developed a hump that almost brought my head parallel to my kneecaps. But it had an amusing side as well. I had unearthed dog-eared, blotched photographs of grinning toothless babies, which I waved under the noses of arrogant teenagers who thought that they had always been towering pillars of knowledge. Old newspaper cuttings of the local team were discovered and had to be brought to the kitchen table where the various players were identified. We were all surprised at how boyish the players looked in the old photographs and how they had changed. We almost expected to have fifteen Dorian Greys. The sorting out took longer than anticipated due to all the long-lost treasures I unearthed. Old newspapers that had lined the bottoms of drawers and lain there undisturbed for years could, I discovered, be very interesting.

Finally the last box was full and labelled. I had firmly donned my efficiency hat. My only hope of seeing this whole thing through was to hold on to it despite whatever gale-force wind of familial controversy might hit me over the following weeks.

The van arrived and the move started. First out
was a bureau which had not functioned properly for years, its missing parts having spent a term buried under the stairs. It deserved the respect due to survival if nothing else. We had bought it on the way home from our honeymoon and I felt protective towards it because one of my sisters, on first sighting, had criticised its shape. She had christened it Bill Brennan, after an overweight friend of ours who had enormous lower regions and a narrow head and shoulders. Both our bureau and Bill Brennan, she had declared, were prime examples of bad design. Now we laid poor old Bill on the flat of his back in the van with his defunct parts across his front.

Next in was an old oak sideboard that Aunty Peg had bought when nobody was giving such things house room because the country was deep in the throes of bungalow bliss. Aunty Peg had no time for “new falderals”, as she called them, and everything that she had was old. Over the years our children had spilled lemonade on top of it and the hinges had fallen off the doors; it was a picture of decayed elegance and an example of how children should not be reared. I entered the van with it to make sure that it was well placed and comfortable, so that its old joints would not be rattled.

Last in was an old couch that had suffered greatly beneath horse-playing teenagers. It had also been the temporary day-time bed for babies whom their optimistic mother had believed no longer needed nappies. Over the years my aching back
had discovered its most comfortable sags and it had eased itself lovingly around tired muscles; sitting on it at the end of a long day had been like a reunion with an old friend. But now its bone structure was beginning to emerge and it was in need of internal uplift and some facial surgery.

Finally the van moved away and I stood and watched it out of sight. The contents of that van had shared my life, and I was flooded with guilt to be parting with them, even if it was for their own good. I felt almost as if I were sending my grandmother to the canning factory, and my mood was not improved when a neighbour called across to enquire, “Are you going into voluntary liquidation?”

Soon the sound of a sledge and kango hammer filled the house; grey dust rose like a fog and sneaked its way over everything, even into the cups in the kitchen. Eventually our old walls were bared to the stone and the Protim man returned to bore holes along the base and pump in green gunge. I pitied the mice and spiders who for years had roamed free between these stones.

We were filling in spaces around the windows and doors. Concrete blocks and sand and water moved in around us and large window spaces became normal window spaces. The usual wrangling with builders' suppliers took place and doors that were meant to have four panels arrived with six, but at this stage in my renovating career, I took details like that as part of the normal procedure.

While the building was going on, I was busy working on colour combinations and driving the rest of the family crazy. My one-track mind was obsessively intent on restoring one small room into a tranquil corner free from television, radio or background music; a quiet room for sitting by the fire, reading and talking. I wanted to christen it the parlour, but was shot down by a smart son who told me that in today's world there were only milking parlours and funeral parlours and he doubted that I had either of those in mind.

Where the fireplace was concerned, however, I held my ground. Years earlier when we had demolished parts of the old house, I had rescued a cast-iron fireplace from Aunty Peg's bedroom upstairs and had stored it away in the attic, hoping that some day I would sit beside it and toast my toes. Now my hour had come. I coaxed one six-foot son to drag it out from under the attic dust and to bring it downstairs.

“What are you gong to do with that heap of rubbish?” he demanded scornfully. Admittedly it did not look great, but I had high hopes for it.

Eventually all the dirty construction work was behind us and we rang Deaf Enterprises to bring back the furniture. When they arrived home, I hardly recognised them. Bill Brennan was dark and glossy with all his spare parts attached and, no matter what my sister had thought, he certainly looked stunning. He looked better than he had when we
brought him home from the honeymoon, and I was only sorry that they could not have carried out the same restoration job on me. The night we installed the restored fireplace I smiled with satisfaction when I saw the look of amazement on my son's face. I sat down beside it and looked around at all my old friends in their new coats and sighed with delight that everything had turned out according to plan.

I will always be grateful to Biddy for standing in judgment on my window, because she fanned a flickering flame into a blaze of action.