A Mad and Wonderful Thing (23 page)

Orange and red and blue will fly, the bunting of an allegiance to an entity that no longer exists. But no monarch or statesman salutes their lonely parades. Who would want that? Who would want them? The only cheer and applause is their own. And each step they take is a step on the road to extinction.

I cannot be seen. From any distance, the old stone wall carries nothing but an ancient mark. The wall is long broken, the fallen boulders scattered, and here and there the twisted wood of gorse, haw, and hazel bursts through the stone. Across the fields, where once gates stood, are empty spaces; cattle move freely on the hillside. Where stone has fallen and cattle will not graze, the wild weed of Ireland has taken refuge: nettle, thistle, foxglove, and fern embrace me. It cannot be told where ground ends and where I and gun begin.

I watch the soldiers spill from the field. In three groups of four, they move toward the village; overhead, an army of rooks gathers in growing numbers in the falling air. I know every distance and journey: from the cottage it is a four-minute hike to the sanctuary of the barrack's high steel-gate. The soldiers move quickly, quietly, and, in the silence, anxiety hangs about them like a putrid air. The final effort of a patrol is a concoction of elation and vulnerability. This, too, I know.

‘Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, erwirb es, um es zu besitzen
,' I have read from Goethe. ‘What you have inherited from your forefathers you must first win for yourselves if you are to possess it.' I know this; they don't. So they can march all they want, and carry all the colours they want, for the ground beneath their feet is green. Always was; always will be.

I am patient. Success is a dependant of the time taken, so I have devoted time to it. From time and observation, I have forged knowledge; one by one, I have learned the things of the earth. I try not to daydream. It is the most difficult of all the disciplines, but Delaney has taught me, has insisted, not to let the mind wander. So when thoughts of the unreal invade the real, I take to studying that which surrounds me in the fields of South Armagh.

The first soldier of the last group of four reaches the cottage, seeks the defence of the cottage gable-end at his back, signals to his comrades, and takes the corner low with his gun raised. Soldier two follows. I ease the safety on my Barrett to off. I steady my breathing as soldier three takes the corner wide, crossing from the near ditch, turning, twisting, covering front and back as soldier four bolts to follow. I know that the last soldier must cover the patrol from a rear attack. I know that the soldier will pause before taking the corner. I breathe in. Soldier four runs along the cottage wall. I breathe out. Nearing the turn, he stalls, rolls on his heels, pushes his back against the stone, and twists with raised gun to the rear fields as the air explodes and a loud fracture tears across the valley as if the land itself has been whiplashed by an unseen giant.

The soldiers plunge to the ground, and fight to bury themselves into the very earth, before a pause, before they rise again in jabbed increments to cover the western hills in wide, frantic sweeps with their rifles. They call to each other, their voices choked and rushed, as fear grapples their windpipes. Twelve names ripple through the air in the village street. Twelve names: eleven voices. They find him — his torn body on the ground, his flak jacket punctured and useless against a projectile that smashed blood, sinew, and bone deep into the stone of the cottage gable wall.

The alarm is raised. Reinforcements will pour from the barracks, roadblocks will cover all exits, and helicopters will sweep the countryside. But it is too late: I am gone.

Oisín and Niamh

IT IS SEPTEMBER, AND SHE IS LEAVING ME. I STAND BEHIND THE HIGH
airport fence and watch her as she walks across the tarmac and boards the airplane.

‘It can't be worked,' Mila said, the evening she arrived back in Ireland, just two days ago. ‘You can't be worked. You will never love me like you do her.'

I pleaded with her to stay, to give it another go. I said that I would try harder, that I would build around her. But it was over. We both knew that she was right. Yesterday we drove to the Burren, parked the Renault under the rocky layers of Mullaghmore, and walked to the lake. We threw bread to the swans, put the blanket on the ground, and drank coffee poured from a Thermos.

‘I'm sorry,' I said.

She didn't say anything. What was there to say?

We lay together last night and I held her close, and kissed her hands, and kissed her head. I awoke in the morning to her scream — we'd overslept, and we were late. And so we grabbed her bags and ran, and I drove to the airport door, and she ran for her flight. There was no time for goodbyes, no futile gestures, no final words.

I drove out around the airport, and I watch her now through the perimeter fence as she enters the airplane and disappears from me. I hold the wire with my fingers stretched, and I see her, the German girl, almost as tall as I am, young, her face with all the fullness of innocence, her long, brown hair swept back where some of it has caught and hangs on her shoulder, her mouth slightly pouted with full, pink lips. And between her high cheeks and her high forehead, her brown eyes look right at me.

It is three years today since she died. I drive to Dundalk, and allow the dark evening to invade on the east wind before I walk to the mount. I gather broken wood to add to the kindling that I have brought with me. I wonder where she is? Could someone as great and beautiful as Cora Flannery be just gone? Or does she exist in a somewhere else? It's what we do, isn't it? We create make-believes to give ourselves hope against the misery of the obvious. They provide a false hope; we know that, but we believe it anyway, like Cora believed in Tír na nÓg. Or is that different? I don't know. I think about that for a while, and as I do I remember the first time I heard the story.

‘What is Tír na nÓg, Granny?'

‘Tír na nÓg, Johnny, is our Irish otherworld. It is the land of eternal youth. They say it is an island somewhere off the west coast. They say it is home to the Tuatha Dé Danann, the first people of Ireland. In Tír na nÓg, there is no sickness and no death, no sorrow and no pain. There is only youth, beauty, music, and happiness. But Tír na nÓg can only be reached by invitation, and whoever goes there can never return. Will I tell you the story of Oisín and Niamh in Tír na nÓg?'

‘Yes, please, Granny,' I asked her, my two feet swinging.

‘And so it begins. Are you listening?'

‘I'm listening, Granny.'

‘The leader of the army of the Fianna was the great Fionn Mac Cumhaill,' she said, embarking on the tale. ‘With Sadbh, the daughter of Bódearg, the King of Munster, he had a son. The name of this boy was Oisín. The boy grew to be handsome and to be a great warrior. He was also a fine poet and spent many quiet days writing. One day, Fionn and Oisín were hunting by the lakes in Killarney when a mysterious cloud approached over the water. From the cloud a magnificent white stallion appeared, and on this stallion was a beautiful, golden-haired young woman. The girl was Niamh Cinn Óir, daughter of the sea-god Manannán Mac Lir, and she wore a striking cloak of green silk. She told Oisín who she was, and added that her father was the King of Tír na nÓg.
Away with me
, she said,
to the land foretold, of peace and plenty, where none grow old. Away with me to the land of song, of beautiful things, where none do wrong
. No one could refuse an invitation to Tír na nÓg, and so Oisín joined Niamh on the white stallion.
Fear not, Father
, he said,
I shall return and bring you news of this adventure
. Fionn watched as Niamh and Oisín disappeared into the cloud which moved away and dropped below the horizon.

‘Tír na nÓg was everything Oisín could ever have dreamed of. It was a magical place; there was music everywhere, people laughed and sang, and strange, plentiful crops filled rich fields. Niamh and Oisín were very happy together and they had three children.

‘One night, Oisín dreamed of Ireland and the Fianna, and the next day, thinking of his dream and remembering his promise to his father, he asked Niamh if he could go back to visit his homeland. Because she loved him so, Niamh agreed; but she had a great fear of his journey. So Oisín returned on the white stallion with a warning from Niamh not to dismount onto the earth of Ireland.

‘Oisín was delighted to see the green hills of Ireland once more. But he was concerned when he noticed that the great forests were missing and that the people were much smaller than the men of the Fianna. He returned to familiar places; but these, too, he found strangely different, and no one that he had known could be found. Only when he questioned someone did he realise that during his decade away in Tír na nÓg, three hundred years had passed in Ireland. ‘Oisín was greatly saddened. In his sorrow, he continued his tour of his old lands. One day, he came across some men struggling to move a large rock with iron bars, and knew this work would have been easy for the men of the Fianna. He approached the men, leaned down, and moved the rock with one hand. But as he did this, the saddle-strap broke, and Oisín fell to the ground. As soon as he touched the ground, the handsome young warrior became an old, dying man. Quickly he told his story to the men, and later they took it to a scribe to have it written down.

And that is how we know of Tír na nÓg,' Granny said, kissing my forehead, easing the embrace, and rising to attend her pots on the scullery stove.

I light a fire under the single oak. In the fire, I see a girl with eyes the lightened green of an August meadow. I see a girl with pale skin and golden hair. I see a girl with red boots tied with green laces.

‘Is the fire to please the gods?' Aisling says, walking across the mound. ‘Or to damn them to hell?'

‘Gods? I thought one God made us,' I say to her, as she sits on the low wall. ‘Don't you believe anymore?'

‘I believe still. I believe for her. Cora had great faith.'

‘She believed in Tír na nÓg, not God.'

‘Isn't that the same thing?'

‘Maybe. I haven't thought of it like that before, although that makes sense if you think in that kind of direction. But isn't Tír na nÓg the land of eternal youth? The land where nobody grows old and nobody does wrong, a kind of heavenly paradise invented by the early Irish, like other early peoples who came up with similar ideas of another life beyond this, an afterlife, a better life? And do you know something, Aisling? I think it might exist. I think Tír na nÓg is where we all go in the end, in the very end, as death takes us and the body stops and the mind closes. In that very last moment, we all retreat to our own Tír na nÓg. We all fall to a construction of our memories and dreams, a mixture of all the love and beauty experienced in life, imprinted with our greatest hopes. We are only there for a fraction of a second, if measured from this world, but as that fraction of a second is the last fraction of a second of our life, we are there forever. It's not real, of course; not really real, if you know what I mean. And it won't matter, and we will never know whose version is right: yours, or Cora's, or mine, or my Granny's. But, I think, in the end, we all go to Tír na nÓg.'

‘And where is God in all that, Johnny-boy?'

‘God? What god? Your god, the Christian God? That kind of a god doesn't exist, couldn't exist. Don't you think, Aisling, that this whole religion thing comes from some innocent prehistory, when nobody knew anything, so they made up some consolation thing and believed it? And now we — who do know something, and because what we do now know isn't good, isn't what we want — fool ourselves into the same damn consolation, believing that those guys from prehistory, through some power or magic or intuition that we have now lost, knew something, and that they were right all along.'

I look out into the dark evening.

‘Isn't it all too simplistic? Isn't it all too un-fucking-believable? The only way a god makes sense is if you believe too many answers and don't ask too many questions. And I can't be with all that praying and stuff, all those rules and sins. I can't take that shite.'

‘The church and God are two different things, Johnny. Don't confuse them. Are you near conversion yourself yet? Has there been an incident on the road to Damascus you want to tell me about?'

‘No, nor on the road to Ennis, neither. I'm still an atheist. I don't believe in any of it — it's all a load of crap. The whole thing is nothing but a fantasy, a kind of madness. It is nothing but simple need. No, I don't believe in any of it — thanks be to God.'

She laughs. ‘That's my Johnny. But I won't give up on you just yet.'

‘What is the church anyway, Aisling, but a hierarchy to the vanities of men? The higher you go, the finer the robes, the taller the hats. You couldn't make it up. The whole charade is incredible.'

She laughs. ‘There are many churches, many faiths, and the faults of any church are the faults of man, not God.'

‘If there is a God,' I resume, ‘why is
He
obsessive about devotion, about praise, about worship, about belief? Why does
He
place the highest value on belief? Why must people believe? Why would God be jealous?'

‘Those assumptions are the delusions of man. It is our tribal instinct — we organise ourselves around an us and a them. We've taken God down to our level.'