Last Summer in Ireland, page 36
The women and children of Emain had survived unscathed, the long-learnt hiding places in the woodland had served them well and because of the gratitude of all the encampments who had been spared, Emain had been rebuilt with remarkable speed. Craftsmen and labourers were sent from every one of them to work over a long summer, and the gold and other treasures stacked in the raider’s boats had paid for the rebuilding of the school and for bringing the best teachers that could be found from both Albi and Gaul.
The raider’s gold had gone a long way to restore what could be restored, she said, but only the work towards a treaty of mutual support and protection could offer any solace to those who had lost their loved ones and give any real hope for the future.
From all Deara said, it was clear that Ferghal had taken the lead. The once smooth-tongued courtier who had fallen in love with her at first sight had become a leader and a statesman spurred on by a commitment that would not let him rest. There was sadness in her voice when she said that at times she found him remote, so withdrawn into the affairs of state that she wondered if some part of him had been left to die on the battlefield of his greatest triumph.
The years since our meeting at Brolla had not been easy for Deara. The work of negotiation had been full of sudden, heartbreaking setbacks, which made it look as if nothing could ever be done with a people so volatile and so untrusting of those they did not count as kinsmen. Of herself, her own joys and fears, Deara told me little, but the change in her looks and the whole way she now carried herself spoke eloquently of a tenacity of purpose, a courage and an enduring patience I could only envy. As the story unwound and I remembered how I had seen her stand alone at Tara, I was convinced that she had played a major part in holding together the hope that had to be sustained.
I was near to tears when she spoke of the spreading of rumours and lies to undermine what was being attempted. There had been ambushes of ambassadors and plots to kill both Ferghal and Laoghaire. Good men had lost their lives and she herself had often come close to despair.
As I listened, I remembered how I too had hoped and prayed and been disappointed, time after time, when men and women in my own time attempted the same task of reconciling warring factions who would not forgive old hurts and old wrongs.
‘And so the time came, at last, for the journey to Tara,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought of you so often and wished so much to see you. But you waited till the precise moment I needed you most.’
She smiled and went back a little way in her story to tell me how oppressed she was by foreboding, how even Ferghal had not taken the threat of Conor seriously, for indeed she assured me, my ‘magician’ was Conor himself, by then the trusted ally of Cathal Rhu of Oriel.
I was listening hard, waiting for her to tell me about the kind of plot I could well imagine between those two, when she stopped suddenly, near to tears: ‘Deirdre, my foreboding was right. All would have been lost, everything we had worked for, if you had not come to my aid and acted as you did.’
‘Me?’ I was so amazed my voice came out as a squeak. I took a deep breath and tried again.
‘But, Deara, how could what I did . . . ?’
She put her hand over mine and squeezed it gently, to reassure me. Then she reminded me of the time when she had come to me, anxious about a slave who had presented himself before Morrough.
‘You told me, my friend, that I was to be myself and then what I had to do would be given to me, even though I might have no idea what I had actually done, till long after.’
I couldn’t remember saying anything half as wise as that.
‘But that is precisely what you did yourself,’ she began. ‘You did what seemed right to you. Now listen and I will tell you what you did.’
She smiled and shook her head slightly as if something were amusing her.
‘Firstly, my friend, you appeared in the heart of Tara when Tara was so well guarded that I doubt if a bird or a mouse could have found a way in.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a finger and went on. ‘And then you did what no woman has ever done and lived. You lifted up the Great Cup of Tara and gave it to me. That cup is the most storied cup in all the land. There are those that would say it is magical, others that it is holy. But every child in the land knows that he who drinks from the Cup of Tara will either die or rule the land. You gave me no choice but to drink from it. Did you not hear the gasp of horror as they waited for me to be struck down?’
I nodded silently. I had heard a noise, but I had been far too concerned for Deara to think about it.
‘Not only was I not struck down as a result of what you had done,’ she went on, ‘but you then turned and destroyed my attacker with a few strong words. Oh yes, he created his own death, such men who feed themselves on hate and rich food often die as he did, but you were the agent of that death. It was fear that destroyed him. But it was your courage in facing him that called up his fear. By the time you disappeared, no one in that whole gathering doubted but that they had witnessed good triumph over evil.’
I spread my hands in amazement and stammered something incoherent. Then I asked what had happened after I’d gone.
Deara became very thoughtful. There was a long pause before she said: ‘Several things happened at once and even I cannot be sure which came first. Laoghaire asked for a stretcher to be brought, so that the body of the Druid could be carried away. While this was happening, Niall saw the body and started to cry. He said something pitiable like, “I want Mummy to put me to bed”, but only those who were close to him heard the actual words. Laoghaire sent for Maeve and her women and when they came, he took the crown and gave it to a herald close by, to carry it before the King, as is the custom. Then, from somewhere in the hall there was a great cry: “Put on the crown, Laoghaire, it is time, for it is now we need a King.”
‘From every corner of the hall,’ she continued, ‘the cry was taken up. “Laoghaire. Laoghaire to be King.” Not a voice was silent whether of Tara or Ulster, but Laoghaire left the crown where it was. He saw that Niall was comfortable and then he called Father Patrick to him.’
‘Did he?’ I broke in quite sharply, for I really was surprised.
‘Yes, he did,’ she said. ‘I too was surprised, knowing the hurt in his heart from the loss he had suffered. But he summoned him to come forward and come down from the platform where we had been waiting upon Niall. And then he summoned me too, with Ferghal, and we went down to stand beside him. And then he spoke.’
She took my hands, and looked steadily into my eyes. ‘Deirdre, I have known Laoghaire as long as I have known Ferghal, and he is dear to me. He has told me what has passed between you. I understand what has to be and so does he, but it is only right you should know the part you played in what happened next.’
She paused and composed herself and then she recounted the speech that Laoghaire made to the assembled company. I was so absorbed by her retelling I felt as if I was back there, sitting in the Great Hall, listening to this good man make the speech that changed the destiny of the whole land.
In one way, he was issuing a challenge. He was saying: ‘Look, what is it you want? Do you want hatred and bitterness to flow on, unchecked, or do you want to leave your mark on history by showing that there is another way? Do you want to destroy yourselves and all your kin with your quarrels and your feuds, so that your real enemies are free to overrun the land, whether those enemies are raiders and killers, or famine and disease?’
At the same time, he was telling them what he stood for. Tender-hearted Laoghaire most certainly was, but what he was offering now was a steely resolution, a toughness of heart and mind, that measured up to the demands of the Kingship. If you do want me to wear that crown, he was saying, be sure you know the temper of the man you are committing yourselves to.
As my friend recreated the speech for me, I began to see the part she believed I had played in all this, for here was a man who had been healed. A man who had come to some new understanding of himself during that brief time I was there in the hall myself. I knew Deara was sure the healing had come with his love for me, and yet the more she spoke, the harder it was to accept all I appeared to have done simply by being me and doing what I felt I was called to do.
As soon as Laoghaire finished speaking, a tumultuous noise broke out, clapping and shouting and stamping, amid continuous cries of ‘Laoghaire, our King.’ Gradually the noise died down, as he stood waiting, and when he had complete silence, he beckoned to Father Patrick to step forward.
‘One thing more, my friends,’ he said. ‘This crown weighs heavy and I shall need strength to bear it greater even than the love of my friends, or the loyalty of my people. Tonight, for the first time, I have understood whence comes such a strength, now I shall seek it, as wiser friends have sought it before me. Will you, too, follow me and seek the help of God and open your hearts thereby to a future you cannot know?’
‘Aye, Laoghaire, aye,’ rustled through the whole company, a heartfelt sigh of relief at the end of a long and bitter struggle. Thus everyone present gave their assent, and watched in silence as Laoghaire knelt before Father Patrick, accepted his blessing, and rose a King and a Christian committed to peace throughout the land.
The tears were running down my face and it seemed pointless to dab at them. Deara could not know that all my books agreed, the reign of Laoghaire of Tara brought in a golden age which continued for several centuries, centuries that won for Ireland the true epithet, ‘the land of saints and scholars’.
Books contain only the facts that survive, but those bare facts took on a wholly new life as I matched them to the words of Deara’s story. They became a reality that would affect me far into the future.
‘There is one thing more you must know, my friend,’ she said slowly.
I nodded and tried to steady myself, for Deara’s tone told me what she was about to say was something I should not ever wish to forget.
‘The actual making of the Treaty took only two days. The third day was declared a holiday. It was, however, Easter Day. On that day, Father Patrick lit the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane, the sacred place near Tara where once the Druids performed their rites.’
She paused and looked at me steadily: ‘Deirdre, do you remember what Aillech said?’
And as she spoke, I heard the familiar words repeat themselves, before I spoke them myself: ‘That together we might light a fire at the heart of Tara?’
‘It seems we have done that, my friend,’ she said quietly. ‘We could not see our part when we read the words, nor had we any idea which acts were important and which were not. We puzzled over it, like a riddle, but we could find no answer. And now much of the prophecy has been fulfilled. We have played our part for the Ireland of my time, you and I. Now the question moves to the Ireland of your time.’
‘I can’t remember the rest of the prophecy, Deara,’ I confessed. ‘Really, I’m no use at remembering things, unless I write them down.’
She smiled and got up from the bed. There was a clipboard on my table with a list of things for me to remember in the morning. She picked it up and handed it to me.
‘Come, then. Write, my friend, for it is almost time for us to part.’
She dictated the second half of the prophecy, the bit about her holding out her hands to a woman from another time, and healing that woman so that she would be able to heal in her own time. I scribbled away and thought how strange the words of the prophecy looked alongside things like ‘Give keys to Bill’ and ‘Empty pedal bin and dustbin’.
I finished writing and looked up, suddenly aware of a familiar weariness which had begun to steal over me. I too sensed the time of parting was near.
‘Deirdre, listen to me, before I go,’ Deara said. ‘You spoke once of a story that you wanted to write. And I know that stories have healing power. It is so in my time. It may be so in yours. I have thought and prayed for guidance, for this journey you go upon will be long and often it will be hard for you. What comes to me is this. You must write this story you want to write and then you must come back to Emain.
‘However long it takes, and it may take a long time, come back to Emain and I shall find the way to come to you. Above all, however hard the way and however long it takes, do not despair, remember all we have shared, all the good that has come to us, and come about through us, the love we have for each other and the love we have from those who love us. Nothing can ever take that away.
‘Go, my friend, go in peace. Do what you can, do it in love, and be sure that it will be more than you ever imagined. In some future time, I shall greet you again at Emain.’
I felt the touch of her kiss on my cheek and heard the soft rustle from her dress as she stood up. And then she was gone.
27
LONDON, AUGUST 1994
If someone had told me in 1986 that seven years would pass and my story would still not be written, I wouldn’t have believed them. But that is what happened. And to me, it was all the more surprising because seldom a day passed that I didn’t think of Deara and wonder if there was indeed some task I had to do in my own time, or whether I was simply letting my imagination run away with me.
And yet already by the time Matthew arrived back in London, I had planned the layout of my story. I still remember those late July weeks as one of the happiest times in my life. Even before I told Matthew about Deara and what I was hoping to write, he said he had never seen me so happy or so very much myself.
For a week or more after he came back, we turned every evening into a celebration. We lingered over our supper, drank a little more wine than usual and talked into the small hours about all the possibilities the summer had opened for us both.
We considered the possibility of finding a tiny cottage well away from London where we could hide at weekends and write and walk together and we looked at how I might reorganise my work so that I could create the time I needed for my story. I was planning to start as soon as I caught up with my regular commitments and dispatched the big special commission I’d agreed to nearly a year earlier.
And then Matthew’s father rang to tell him that John had had a heart attack. Diana was with him and the boys had been sent for. John died a week later, leaving Diana and the boys the task of moving out of their large, cluttered Norfolk rectory and making a new life. We did what we could to help, for there was no one else within range except Matthew’s parents, who had both been unwell for some time. Within a year of John’s death, first his mother died, then his father, after a series of illnesses and operations.
The joy of my return and the possibility of writing my story did not entirely disappear, but the year of bereavements cast such a shadow over Matthew that I had no heart to go forward with my own project while he was so depressed. When the chance came for us both to go to India to begin work for a book on village health care and medicine, planned before Mother died, I jumped at it. I knew it would be a wonderful experience and something to help heal Matthew’s loss.
And Deara went with me. There was little I observed or experienced in the world that I did not put to her, wondering what she would say or how she would react. Sometimes, as in those remote Indian villages where women were being taught hygiene, first aid and nursing, I knew exactly what she would say. At others, as I moved down crowded escalators, watched news broadcasts, pressed the keys on my computer, I had no idea at all how she would react.
I had completely underestimated the time and energy the production of our book would take. True, it restored Matthew’s spirits and brought us both great satisfaction, but as the years passed I felt I had let Deara down, guilty that I was failing in my part of the pact we had made. When I felt really bad I would comfort myself with her parting words to me. Carefully copied onto a plain postcard, I carried them with me wherever I went:
You must write this story you want to write, and then you must come back to Emain. However long it takes, and it may take a long time, come back to Emain and I shall find a way to come to you. Above all, however hard the way and however long it takes, do not despair, remember all we have shared, all the good that has come to us and come about through us, the love we have for each other and the love we have from those who love us. Nothing can ever take that away.
What would have happened in the end if Uncle Hector hadn’t had a fall in the summer of 1993,1 really don’t know, but when I heard Aunt Mary’s voice on the phone I knew I had to go to her. I was with her when Hector died, just after midnight on Midsummer’s Day, so peacefully that neither of us was quite sure he’d really gone.
In the week that followed, I did the things a daughter might do to help her. Dear brave lady, she shed tears often without any apology and then smiled at me.
‘Hector and I made a pact,’ she said. ‘If we got our fifty years we wouldn’t complain. And look, we’ve had sixty, even though I was so very ill ten years ago. I mustn’t weep, Deirdre. I’ve had so much love and Hector’s gone so gently. If you’ve been loved as I have been loved you must give thanks in whatever way you can. Now who shall we invite to Hector’s party?’
Driving round Armagh in Mary’s blue Metro, exactly like the one my mother used to have, it was hard not to relive the events of 1986. I made time to go to the museum, I shopped in the familiar places, I thought of going to Emain. Every day, I thought of going to Emain.
When eventually I stood watching the light dapple the mounds of flowers and the smooth oak of Hector’s coffin, I was so aware how close I was. For the jackdaws who carried on their noisy chatter in the trees above the open grave, Emain was but a moment’s flight. I need only turn left from the ring road on the way back into the city and I would be there.
