A Mad and Wonderful Thing (13 page)

Sloane's sidekick is Bobby Boyd. Boyd is a year older than Sloane, but was a year behind at school. He is tall — he is a clear head above Sloane — but is too thin, and his arms hang loose and uneasy, as though unable to find purpose. Boyd has orange hair, and orange hair is a particular thing: it looks great on a girl, but it never suits a boy. Boyd is not blessed with good looks, either — he is heavily freckled, with a prominent brow and a thick mouth. I have thought that Boyd carries an early-evolutionary look about him. It's unfair, I know, but true. The whole town knows that Bobby Boyd had a rough upbringing, that he was raised in a violent home. We all have heard the stories of beatings and abuse. Boyd follows Sloane around like a roped mule, and Sloane continues on where Boyd's father has not left off. It is a case of from the hot plate into the fire, and I have no doubt that, for Bobby Boyd, it will be from the fire straight into hell. Boyd is a born victim; he appeals to everyone's sense of cruelty. I nicknamed him Pitiful, and regret it, because the name has stuck. Boyd doesn't have much to hold onto in life. But I know he is sure of two things. One: he is sticking with Sloane, come shine or flood. Two: he is staying out of the way of Johnny Donnelly.

In the Roma, we agree on chips and fried eggs each, and three large glasses of milk. Éamon is still going, still telling Cora the full history of my encounters with Sloane, and she is loving it.

‘Happy birthday, you mad fool,' I toast Éamon when the milk arrives.

‘Don't be jealous, Sunshine,' he counters, and then continues on to the next story.

The rise of Ochaíne

IT IS THE LAST WEEKEND OF OCTOBER, AND I SIT AND DAYDREAM AS
Declan drives the red Fiat eastwards on the Carlingford Road. Dundalk falls behind to the west, the Cooley Mountains rise to the north, and, to the south, soft marsh and muddy inlets open to the bay. At Ballymascanlon, a narrow stone bridge crosses the Flurry River where the mountain river levels off to lower ground. With sharp bends, the road encounters the bridge like it might a discarded lover: a treacherous greeting at one end and a dangerous parting at the other. Passing a row of yellow terraced cottages facing the roadside and then crossing the bridge, Declan pulls the car off the main route and onto a minor country road. He drives north up through a narrow, wooded glen. To one side of the climb, the mountain river runs down the hillside while the road, bordered on both sides by a ridge of fallen leaves, turns and twists as it cuts against the fall. The rusted, molten colours of autumn line the way. We drive through greens, reds, auburns, and yellows. All the colours have a used look about them. Halfway up the mountain, the road ends where the climb crests to a broad crease. Another road offering passage east and west runs across the junction. Declan stops the car, and with a tumble of his head tosses a wordless question into the back seat.

‘Ravensdale,' I say. ‘Fire a right here, Declan, and plough on ahead for a couple of miles. All right there, Miss Flannery?' I ask, taking Cora's hand.

‘It's nice here, isn't it?' Cora answers, finding the lock of my fingers. ‘Be nice to live here.'

‘Need a small fortune to buy here,' Declan cuts in from the front, steering the car east through the junction. ‘Shauna has it all checked out. She prefers Blackrock, though. She has us on a five-year plan. She says in five years — seven, max — we'll be moving on out to the “Rock”.'

‘You're not in Bay Estate a wet week,' I say, and laugh.

‘Just a stepping stone, she calls it. Shauna's got big plans, Johnny. Big plans.'

‘I've never liked Blackrock,' Cora says. ‘There is always a cold breeze blowing.'

‘Yes, you're right there, Flannery,' I say, looking out across the stone-walled fields and farmsteads. ‘Just our luck in Dundalk to have the only unappealing strip of seaside in western Europe — excluding England, of course. Blackrock deflates the soul. It's depressing. A move out there would sit somewhere between a mistake and a bad idea.'

‘Shauna's not alone,' Declan defends from the front seat. ‘Half of Dundalk would move there, if they could only afford to. It's a nice place and very popular. You just don't see it.'

I keep my gaze on the green hills. ‘That's very true, brother — there's many who view Blackrock as a desirable address. God help them, but in that act alone they contribute to a portrait on the fickleness of human nature. People need protecting from their own wants.' I turn again into the car and throw a suggestion forward. ‘So it's going to be a long way from the ghetto of Cox's for Miss Clifford?'

‘Ard Easmuinn, Johnny, if you don't mind,' Declan laughs. ‘Ard Easmuinn.'

‘Yeah, well, whatever. I'll say one thing for her. At least she has you moving in the right direction in Bay Estate.
'

He doesn't reply as I look at the road ahead of us.

‘Just over this little bridge, Declan, and pull in there on your left by The Lumpers.' We stand in the midday air and watch as Declan turns the Fiat in the gravel yard of the small country pub. On the other side of the road there is a wooded rise.

‘Trumpet Hill,' I say, looking across. ‘That's the famous rise of Ochaíne in the tale of the Táin. From that hill, Cúchulainn bombarded Medb's armies with his slingshot.'

The car stops.

‘Are you sure you're all right for a lift home?' Declan asks from the open driver's window. ‘I don't mind a spin out to Carlingford for you.'

‘Thanks, but my daddy's picking us up,' Cora answers.

‘Okay,' Declan shouts, driving off. ‘I'll be in the snooker hall if you need me.'

We wave him off as the car returns to the road and re-crosses the humpback bridge, with Declan's arm raised in farewell through the open window.

‘I'd say we've time for a cup of tea, Cora dearest.'

She takes my arm as we walk towards the door of the pub. ‘Haven't we all the time in world, Johnny.'

‘Are you coming or going?' the heavy-set barman asks as he places the pot of tea on the table before us.

‘Sorry?' I ask, arranging the order on the table.

‘On the walk. Are you coming or going?'

‘Going. We're walking over to Carlingford.'

The barman nods and returns to his post behind the bar.

‘Fair dues to you, son,' the only other customer in the pub calls across to us. ‘There's very few who ever know if they are coming or going.'

I look to an elderly man sat at the bar; he is stooped over the horse-racing pages of an opened newspaper. He has paused his reading, anticipating a response, but we remain unprovoked and ignore him. When we finish, Cora carries the pot and cups to the bar.

‘A fine day you picked, too,' the horse-racing reader tries again. ‘God is good. There are days up there when the east wind can cut you in half.'

‘Good luck, now,' I say into the pub, tidying my scarf in the Dunn & Co, and opening the door for Cora. ‘If we are not back by Christmas, call for help.'

High hopes

WE TAKE THE RUTTED ROAD THAT RUNS ALONGSIDE THE GRAVEL YARD,
and walk up into the mountains. A few houses are strewn along the road, and a few more are scattered on the lower hills. There is no one about, all is quiet, and the mountains above are empty. It is a fine day. The weather in the previous weeks has been everything — one hour couldn't be trusted to predict the next. That's the way it is in Ireland: the seasons only loosely perform to pattern and definition. It seems the island exists in some kind of fixed meteorological arrangement with the North Atlantic, a kind of permanent grey winter. But sometimes there are breaks in that grey arrangement; and when they come, the land lifts with deep, rich colours, and the wait is rewarded. Today it seems that the mountains and sky have conspired, have gathered and saved a few hours of sunshine, and spill it now on the hillside as an offering, a welcome, just for us.

It was Cora's idea to take the walk. It is the twenty-eighth day of the month, a Sunday, and it's six months today since the first night I walked her home. Cora insists that we need to celebrate, and so she has us out here on the mountain. We leave the road where it meets a river at a cluster of homes near Ballymakellett, and where a path veers off into the conifers of Round Mountain Forest. We climb a wooden gate to enter the forest, and as we go over I point north to the next rise.

‘Doolargy Mountain,' I say. ‘And behind Doolargy is the secret high valley of Dubchoire — The Black Cauldron. And it was there, Cora, that the Brown Bull of Cooley was hidden as the desperate Queen Medb rampaged around the country in search of it. And as she searched for the bull, one by one the boy on the hill slaughtered her soldiers with his slingshot.'

‘Isn't it totally mad, Johnny, that we are on the same path that Cúchulainn and Queen Medb's armies used?'

‘Yes, Cora, total and all-out madness,' I answer, putting my arm about her and kissing her head.

We climb the forest trail beneath the conifers for two miles, and on the hilltop we exit into heathland. Behind us is the rise of Castle Mountain, and before us is the heather-covered hillside of Moneycrockroe. A half-mile below, a small road runs north to south through a broad upper-mountain valley. A narrow scrape of a path leads down through the heather. Almost immediately, as we step into the scrape, a hare breaks from its hidden form, rushes across us, and disappears down the hillside. Cora follows the hare and walks before me. I watch her move through the scrape: the stepping of her red boots, the hop of her arse in the blue jeans, the dance of her golden hair above the heather. Below us is a valley of patchwork greens, and beyond the valley the bare, livid rock of Ireland rises.

At the bottom, we cross a wire-mesh fence on a wooden-stepped stile, and we continue south on the road. The tarmac of the road is comforting and solid beneath our feet after the unpredictability of the forest floor and the uncertainty of the heather slope. Quickly, we come to a junction above the boggy glen at Spellickanee. Dundalk is signposted south-east through the valley of Aghameen; our path is way-marked south-west to north-east. For two miles we walk on the mountain road. To the south and east, the mountain rock of Slievenaglogh rises and shields us from Dundalk Bay. To the north and west, the high gabbro peaks of The Foxes Rock, The Ravens Rock, The Eagles Rock, and Slieve Foye cut us off from the deep water of Carlingford Lough. Below us and between the mountain ridges is the broad, green valley of Glenmore. Wide-open grasslands fill the valley with scattered pockets of bracken, and stone walls meander to no definite pattern. A small river runs north-west to south-east along the valley floor, and a farmhouse beside a copse of woodland stands alone on the lower ground. A Táin Way
trail-marker pointing at Slieve Foye pushes us off the road and onto a narrow lane.

We rest where the lane crosses the river, and sit facing the autumn sun with our backs against the metal side-rails on the flat bridge. As we rest, Cora asks that I tell her again the story of Cúchulainn and the Táin. And I do. I know it well; I must have read that story a hundred times.

‘Hey, sleepy head,' I rouse her, gently, as she rests on me and the tale is finished. ‘We have a mountain still to climb.'

For one mile, we cross the green valley. We cross a second valley road and continue west by climbing broad, high grasslands. Mountain sheep ignore us as we climb high along the Golyin Pass and under the rough rock of Slieve Foye. The mountain of Barnavave stands to our south. Climbing north, we mount the crest of the pass, and the deep, dark waters of Carlingford Lough now lie below us. Across the lough, the higher Mourne Mountains rise from below the water to punch tall into the clear sky. Beneath us, in the shade of the mountain, the village of Carlingford grips the rock. At the edge of the village, two elbowed grey arms embrace a piece of lough water, and spots of blue and red can be seen within the arms. From hilltop to village, a grassy trail zigzags down the mountain through scattered gorse. A grey gunboat sits in the dark water of the fjord, at midpoint from the northern and southern shores.

‘The empire patrols the stolen lands,' I say, with a gesture in the direction of the gunboat. ‘It claims and claims again the lands of Ireland, as if time and repetition justify the theft. But it knows nothing and it never learns.' I don't know why I do this, but sometimes I can go on a bit with that kind of talk.

‘What would Cúchulainn do if he were alive today, Johnny?'

I look to her, and words and intent fly around inside me. I want to tell her. But I cannot.

‘What could he do but fight?' I answer her. ‘Though the people of Ireland would lock him up or have him shot. And once he was dead, we would think him a great lad. It is the Irish way. Those who challenge the ordinary and familiar are viewed as a greater threat than any oppressor. Right and wrong are unfixed: they are conditional on time and place.' I sweep one foot across the short grass of the path, as if I might etch the argument into the mountain. I take a few steps forward and gesture across the water towards Northern Ireland.

‘Over there is hell on Earth.'

She looks to me; surprise is held in her green eyes, but she doesn't interrupt.