Star Woman in Love (32 page)

That day Matt and I were in Paris for a devastating occurrence. We were attending the funeral of Vanessa, the Harkers’ six-year-old daughter who had died of heart failure. I hated funerals. Far too many seemed to have taken place in my childhood. On a normal occasion, I wouldn’t have gone. But this time it was different. The death of this little girl had affected me deeply, beyond the unspeakable tragedy of a terrible loss at such an innocent age.

I had only met Vanessa once. She had shocked me with her intelligence. She reminded me of myself as a child. She could read and write already, although she was only five at the time we had met. She had taken a shine to me at once, and it was reciprocal. We talked in French about
les étoiles
, the stars. Just like me at her age, she was fascinated by them. She had sat in my lap all evening, which had brought Matt to remark on how sweet a mother I would make. Of course, it was a joke. It also meant that I had totally recovered from the psychological blow dealt on me by the miscarriage of our child, and by your subsequent fathering another woman’s offspring.

At the cemetery, people whose eyes were sunken from crying incessantly were comforting the grieving parents. Bob was calm and composed, as he had been throughout the ceremony. Marion, however, sobbed uncontrollably. When the final shovelful of cold dark earth fell on the tiny white coffin, I felt sick and fainted. A part of me had been buried that day, literally.

______________

Dublin, August 2001

“If you scratch the surface, you’ll find what you’re trying to run away from.”

Oscar turned to look at the tall American Indian man who was talking to him. They were walking along the coastal road to Sandycove, South Dublin. The medicine man and the Irish artist were friends of old. Takota was also Oscar’s mentor. He had taken him under his wing when they met at a conference on American Indian rights in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ten years previously. Oscar let him guide him only too willingly. He always responded well to father figures. His feelings towards his dead father were still in need of great mending. Oscar had never really forgiven his dad for sending him to St. Anthony’s Institute, and for what happened there.

Not that anyone knew that it had. The sense of shame was still stronger than his courage to confess it to anyone. Cassandra was the only one he had almost trusted with his secret. But even with her, he only hinted that something monstrous had happened to him, without going into detail. She had stared at him knowingly when he revealed that he had spent long periods of time in hospital when he was a child. He was sure that the girl who used to visit him in his dreams was Cassandra. One night when his demons were eating up his soul, she had sung the very song he used to hear from his invisible friend. Perhaps Cassandra knew the violence he had suffered, the outrage and violation which had marked him into eternal self-hatred. One day he will find closure, he kept hoping. But that day seemed so far away.

Takota could see through Oscar’s shield into his soul. The barriers that the young man had put up didn’t fool him. Oscar lived more in his head than in his heart these days. He had stopped letting people in for good the day had he resolved to tackle the shame he felt for who he was, and for what he accepted without a fight. Things had become easier of recent. He had resolved not to use his heart anymore when he had chosen to humiliate Cassandra. From then on, he said to himself, he would keep his heart locked and no one would enter. No feelings, just a rational reading of life. He wanted choices that couldn’t kindle the spark of passion. The shield was stronger now than ever. The facade he put on was splendid. He was cool, aloof, detached. He had it all and didn’t want to search any more. His young family served the purpose of healing the wounds of his childhood. He was happy now. Well, perhaps happy was too big a word: he was content. His wife was loyal and kind. Morwana was the light of his life. She was so much like Cassandra: perhaps because Cassandra was very child-like, or perhaps because Oscar’s daughter had big green eyes that always gazed at him with love and wonder.

Takota’s words interrupted his train of thoughts.

“You’re still running away from yourself, Oscar. You gotta snake-dream more. Listen to your pain. Follow it like a reptile hunts for prey, silently, cold-bloodedly waiting in the grass, sleeping with its eyes open. Don’t run away from your ego. Remember what I told you all those years ago: it’s there for a purpose. Its purpose is first to bring awareness to the pain, and eventually forgiveness.”

Oscar didn’t have anything to offer in return. He stared out at the sea. The expanse of Dublin Bay invited him on. He wanted to be embraced by the water, lulled by it, protected.

“I’m going for a swim, Takota. I need it.”

He looked grave and concerned. The two men continued along the road. A little sandy beach lay below them. They were heading along it and past the Martello tower to the Forty Foot, one of Oscar’s favourite bathing spots. He stopped and stared. She was there.

“Cassandra...”

A group of girls on the beach were stretching their limbs on the shore in a series of yoga positions. Cassandra was leading them with grace and cheer. She looked happy. Oscar sighed and turned to Takota, puzzled at the sight. He’d not seen her in over two years and the second he did, his heart roared in his chest. That was the very same heart he had wanted to keep quiet and inconspicuous, apart from when Morwana was around. He put his hand on his chest as if to shush it.

“Go speak to her”, Takota said. “I told you. You must have been listening to me, you must have scratched the surface...”

“I’m not ready, Takota, not yet. I’ll talk to her in Leap next week. She’s coming to the spiritual gathering. I’ve seen the email she sent to Conor. She has a role to play. And so have I. We’ll put our past behind us for one week. Not yet though. I need time to get my mind around the idea.”

Oscar didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of comparing his past with the passionless life he was now living. He cared for his family, no doubt. But caring came with a sense of duty and constraint. Passion was something else. It was the fire in his heart. It was the immensity of potential that invited him on, like the sea when it called him to dive in and swim in its peace. Cassandra had given him the gift of passion. Together they explored unmapped territory. She had trusted that if they would tend to the fire together, it could burn brightly, even in his darkest night. Now everything had taken on the dull shade of routine and mediocrity. He was secure. Charlotte supported him without really understanding anything that made him tick. She was an enthusiastic nest-maker. He was born to explore and expand. He had tried to comply with her definition of a happy family life. He was losing the compass now. He kept staring at Cassandra’s beautiful body dressed in white leggings and a vest. Her long brown hair, kissed by the sun, flew gracefully in the air. He turned quiet as he listened to his thoughts.

“She has a suntan... She loves the great outdoors. She must have been to so many other sacred sites since we have parted. Did she ever make love there, to her new lover, under the same stars that had witnessed our Union? Is she my compass, my direction then? Do I still love her?”

He had to stop this kind of thoughts, they were useless. He brought his mind back to Morwana. Thinking of her always lifted his soul up. Yet he wanted to keep his eyes on Cassandra, on the loveliness of her form and ways. The spell she had cast on him hadn’t lost any of its power. Maybe Takota was right. He could walk down the steps and say hi. But what if she didn’t want to see him? He wouldn’t be surprised. He had behaved towards her like a bastard. Like a coward. Why would she want to speak to a coward now? She looked happy and he’d be better off leaving her in such an uplifted mood. The truth was that he had no courage to speak to her. He felt shy in her presence, just like the first time he had seen her. She had the disarming gift of innocence. From now onwards, meeting her again would be like meeting her for the first time.

Takota could see that his friend was torn. He was chuffed: something was finally starting to shift inside Oscar. He had taken the wrong turn of the road a couple of years before and believed his mistake was irreparable. However, that Star Woman had still a strong hold on him and could perhaps lead him back to the journey he was born to complete.

“Let’s go, Tak, I’m going for that swim. Now I really need it.”

The two men continued along the road past the Martello Tower and down the stairs to the Forty Foot. Oscar stretched his arms out and inhaled a deep breath. He always did that before a swim, to expand his consciousness and become one with the sea. Fish-dreaming. He took his clothes off. He skinny-dipped anytime he could. Much more powerful, much more honest. He realised that he was naked and not far away from the most beautiful woman he had ever held. Fire ran down to his groins. Lest bystanders realise he was about to get an erection, he dived into the water and swam as fast as he could away from the shore, away from that feeling she had brought back into his life. 

* * * *

I felt a bout of joy welling up in my heart as I was breathing rhythmically and holding the downward-facing-dog position. The sensation continued throughout the triangle, and the bridge, and then the warrior. I didn’t realise your physical eyes were actually on me. But I was sure that you were in the vicinity. When that registered, I noticed I wasn’t angry. It felt very normal. What was I supposed to do? Run? Ignore? Search? After the final relaxation, I said goodbye to my friends, packed my gear and decided to follow my heart’s impulse. I wanted to see if I could bump into you. For some reason, I wasn’t afraid of you this time.

I walked along the Martello Tower and thought about James Joyce. His stay there was short and yet the place inspired him to write the first chapter of his masterpiece, Ulysses. I was always intrigued by Joyce’s interest in the occult. I guess he was one of us too. In that very moment I realised that place was also an important junction in Dreamtime Ireland. It was a good power spot to start on a journey, pretty much like both James Joyce and his character, Stephen Dedalus, did. So I said to myself, ‘let’s go, girl’ and headed down to the Forty Foot. The divide was being bridged. The tear in the Plan had been mended. We believed in each other again. The Twins were ready to reunite.

As I approached the bulwark over the sea, I became certain I was going to find you there, in the water. Your feelings had been magnified by that emotional element to the extent even I, the one you had rejected, could finally detect them. You were swimming about one hundred yards from the shore. I could tell you among the other dozen swimmers in the sea. I saw a light around you. It was white and blue. You were wearing your true colours: of purity and intellect. We still stood a fleeting chance, I realised. I lingered on a couple of minutes, watching your powerful strokes against the waves. And finally I put my mind to it. Yes, it had taken us a long time. But weren’t we meant to be familiar with infinity after all? No wonder we could get lost in it from time to time, and it took us a while to emerge back into reality.

I thanked the years we had spent together as offerings on the altar of love, worshipping the presence of beauty and knowingness. We had been blessed by bliss for so long. We were pledged to the commandments of enlightened souls. When we had emerged from all that bathing into infinity we had felt a bit lost. Now we were starting to remember. Once again, I was reconnecting all the different parts of my Identity. How could I not also remember that I loved you and that I knew you so well. Staring at you that afternoon, I didn’t feel any sense of separation between our two hearts. They truly were beating as one: they were keeping pace with the Earth. I knew it and you didn’t yet, that was the only difference between us. But you were starting to remember. The intensity of our relationship, the dance of our hearts when they were making love. The scent of my body, the taste of my emotions. My delightful love. I was sweetness in your memory, and you were sweetness in mine.

I stared on and on, until you came back to the shore. You walked up the sea steps and let your body dry in the sunshine and the wind. The loveliness of your sight squeezed my heart into action. I was coming alive. Perhaps subconsciously, I was attracting you back with the art of an enchantress. You knew the way back and you had the key. The Universe would provide you with signs now. You would have to interpret them correctly. Takota was sitting next to you. You had guidance and support. I decided to send you a telepathic message, a mantra that I would hear in my head from time to time over the past two years, though I did my best to ignore it. Until that moment.

“My heart,

My holy heart,

My angel heart whence Spirit shines,

My brave and gentle, joyful heart,

Married to Oscar’s heart,

Please shine a ray on his dark night

And take me from this fog of lies

Return me to the path of Light

That leads me to his heart,

Happy and healed,

Transformed into his radiant

Holy Bride.”

I didn’t believe in time. I didn’t believe in early or late. I only believed in the magic of wholeness. And the power of self-love and intention. I wanted to be with you. There and then. I desired the very core of you. I wanted you to know. I hoped this would give me the energy to take the leap of faith I needed in order to wait for you to come up to the road. I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t even know what I would tell you. I hoped the Universe would respond to my call. Instant karma. I was ready. My focus was on my target. Time to send the arrow flying. Mind games, consciousness, could my prayers finally cut across the layers of our mistakes and reach that part of your heart where my name was inscribed, crowned by memories of nights of passion and days of longing?