Anne Doughty - Last Summer in Ireland

‘Such as?’

‘Who we are. That we are friends.’

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. I was terribly taken aback. Until I met my sister-in-law, Diana, I’d never been kissed by a woman. She’s one of those Anglican clergy wives who kisses everyone, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, particularly as I happen to like her. But it was. Every time Matthew and I went to visit I d get worried I might react in spite of myself. Eventually we managed to work out what lay behind it. Mother, of course. As if we couldn’t have guessed. She’d never held or kissed either Sandy or me, even when we were very little, and her comments were always quite vicious if she ever saw two women kiss each other.

‘Please, tell me your name,’ she said earnestly.

‘Deirdre.’

‘Oh . . . so . . .’

Her eyes grew round with amazement.

‘What’s so strange about that?’ I asked, as I saw her begin to smile.

‘I too am Deirdre, but only a few people know that, a Druid who bears me ill will and my foster-mother, who gave me the name Deara.’

‘But why did she do that?’

‘Because Deirdre was a name too hard to bear.’

She said it so softly that I wasn’t sure I had heard her properly, and yet I felt it was the most important thing she could have said. Yes, it was too hard to bear, being Deirdre. Often enough, just existing could be too hard to bear.

I thought of the strange scenes and images I’d experienced when Deara had laid her hands upon me and all that had come to me in the days that had followed. Her life had been as full of anxious thoughts as mine seemed to be. I wanted to understand how and why this had happened to her. I asked her about the woman who had died by the God’s well, about the Druid who had tried to have her executed. And she answered all my questions, quite easily and steadily, explaining both what had happened on the night of her birth and how Conor had behaved towards her as she was growing up.

‘But, Deirdre, how is it you know these things about my life when we have not spoken of them until now?’

I was about to explain, when suddenly the warm stillness of the afternoon was broken by the most appalling noise, a kind of high-pitched scream, followed by shouts and a fierce metallic banging like the dustbin lid protests up the Falls Road in the early days of The Troubles.

I jumped and went rigid. Her hand tightened around mine and she said softly: ‘It’s all right, Deirdre. The King has arrived back at Emain with the ambassadors from Tara. That was the guard shout and the warrior greeting. I hate it too. When I’m up there and it happens, I hide in my workplace till the speeches begin. They go on a long time, but they’re quiet. Did you see the King’s party pass by?’

I nodded, not yet trusting my voice, for my heart had leapt into my mouth at the sudden jarring noise.

‘Just a glimpse, before I saw you,’ I managed to reply, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘Was that the King at the front?’

‘Yes, it would have been. He is always so happy to ride home. He’s not overfond of Tara and he hates negotiations, but that is the only way to keep the peace. Without going to Tara, it would be easy for enemies to make trouble between Emain and Tara. Then many suffer, not just warriors. Do you live in a time of peace, Deirdre?’

I shook my head wearily. I could not bear to tell her of the killings, the car bombs, the ambushes and the thousands of innocent people the last years of bitterness and hatred had claimed.

Again, a violent clamour erupted from the west. I felt it like a physical blow, but before I could react she took my other hand. I saw the look of concern on her face as she explained gently and patiently, as one does to a frightened child, that the guest cup is offered to the ambassadors, and it is the children who make the noise with blunt swords and broken shields, a tradition which would not go on for more than a few minutes.

I seem always to have hated loud noises. Long before The Troubles began, with their real threat from bombs and bullets, I had jumped out of my skin at fireworks, or cars backfiring, or even some child bursting its paper bag at lunchtime. The racket had now died away. I took a deep breath and tried to forget it.

‘Is it impolite if I ask what age you are, Deara?’ I asked, knowing that I sounded formal again because I couldn’t find a word for ‘rude’, only one for ‘vulgar’ and another for ‘obscene’.

‘Surely not. I was twenty-one in the fifth month of this year. And you, my friend?’

‘I shall be thirty-five in a few months’ time.’

‘By then we shall have known each other a long time.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t exactly know what I mean, but that is how it seems to me. We shall be good friends, shall we not?’

She looked at me with the warm smile which I found so utterly appealing. I was about to speak of the hope that was beginning to grow in me, born out of the strange situation in which we found ourselves. But I didn’t manage it. Without any warning, a huge noise away to my right broke in on me, a noise that filled up all the space inside my head.

‘That noise, Deara, that awful noise. Whatever is it? Make it stop. Oh, please make it stop. I can’t bear it. It feels as if it will make my head burst.’

I covered my ears with my hands and felt tears spring to my eyes. She couldn’t hear it. I knew she couldn’t hear it. And she wouldn’t believe me if she couldn’t hear it. Nothing I could say would make her believe me. I wanted to scream and scream, but no sound would come. Everything was blotted out by pulsing waves of pressure. I couldn’t even see her any more. Then I felt her hands on my wrists.

‘Deirdre, my dear friend, I am here. Give me your hands. Do not shut out the noise. Listen to it. Let it speak to you. I will not let it harm you.’

There was a strength in her voice I had not heard before. It was firmer than reassurance, much firmer, it was the strength of one who speaks to command. She drew my hands away from my ears and held them firmly in her own.

‘Listen, listen to it,’ she insisted quietly. ‘It cannot harm you now.’

As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. I could see her face again. She was watching me with enormous concentration. She released my hand as I moved to get my hanky out of my pocket. I blew my nose and mopped up my tears.

‘Are you all right now? Has the noise gone?’

‘Yes, it’s gone. I’m so sorry, I can’t think what happened to me. It’s so silly. Please forgive me.’

‘Forgive you? What is there to forgive between us? It is you who must forgive the woman who harmed you in this way.’

‘Woman? What woman?’

‘A woman with glass in front of her eyes who crept up behind you when you were sitting on the stones by the God’s well and talking to yourself. The same woman in a long bedgown who found you walking in your sleep and scolded you, and when you spoke of hearing a noise she said you were telling lies. A woman who did not comfort you when you wept.’

‘That’s my mother. She died the week before last.’

‘Such women leave great burdens on the spirit. You must rest and pray to your God.’

‘I have no God.’

‘Then I shall pray to mine. It makes no difference,’ she said, as she touched my cheek with her hand. ‘You are very pale. Will you drink a cup of wine? It would help you.’

Suddenly I became so aware of the blue threads in my jeans, the fallen petals of the rose and the soft, brown hand still holding mine.

‘Thank you,’ I said, nodding and looking up at her.

But she was gone. I was sitting on my stone under the hawthorns. Indoors, the phone was ringing. I didn’t move. I let it ring until it stopped.