Читать книгу The Whitest Flower - Brendan Graham - Страница 16

When Michael awoke a few hours later, his first act, as always, was to reach for Ellen. He was unconcerned at finding an empty space beside him, for Ellen was often the first one to be up and about. But when he heard Mary call, ‘A Mhamaí, a Mhamaí, what’s wrong?’ he leapt up from where he lay immediately.

Ellen was in a crumpled heap beneath the window, her shawl partly covering her. She was deathly pale. He shook her by the shoulders as the children gathered round, sensing that something was amiss.

‘Ellen, a stór, wake up,’ he said, fear in his heart for her and the child she was carrying.

Ellen opened her eyes dazedly, struggling to focus on Michael’s face.

‘What is it, what ails you?’ he asked. ‘Why are you here with the shawl over you?’

Ellen made a great effort to see the faces crowding around her – trying to pick them out one by one. When she saw they were all there, she smiled faintly at them.

‘See, she’s all right!’ said Katie.

Now Ellen could see Michael’s face. It was strained with worry and the confusion of not knowing what was wrong with his wife. Weakly she reached out one hand to him. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. A drink of water from the rock, and I’ll be fine,’ she said wanly.

Patrick was first up to fetch his mother a cup of spring water. As she sipped it, Ellen felt the cold strength of the water bring her round and fortify her. She put her hand to her stomach, afraid the fall might have done damage, but to her relief everything seemed to be all right.

‘The baby is grand – thank God – and so am I,’ she said, more strongly now. ‘Now, don’t be worrying all of you, and making an old woman of me before my time.’

‘Did you see something last night, a Mhamaí?’ It was Mary, perceptive as ever. ‘Did the wandering soul come into the house?’

‘No, of course not, Mary. I just got up a while and I must have dozed off,’ Ellen replied, smiling at her child.

Mary was far from satisfied with this response. She looked over at the table settings. Nothing had been moved since last night. Nothing had moved, yet something had come into the house, or tried to come in. It must have been a bad thing. Mary knew her mother didn’t frighten easily.

As the day went on, Ellen tried to gather herself back together. Gradually, her physical strength returned. Michael and the children were very attentive, but every time one of them approached or touched her she couldn’t help but think: Is this the one marked out by last night’s visitor? She studied them anxiously, looking for any sign – a weakness, a dizziness, the start of a fever. But nothing could she discover, no tell-tale sign, no flaw or failing that might prove fatal.

At last, unable to bear it any longer, she went to the lake, declining the children’s company when they offered to walk with her.

The late afternoon was crisp and bright, and the Mask calm and peaceful in the sunlight. Ellen wondered whether the Banshee’s visit had been nothing more than a dream. Perhaps she had dozed off by the fire and had dreamed the whole thing, and while in her sleep had been drawn to the window. But surely a dream that terrible would have awoken her, as the earlier nightmare had done?

And what was the connection between the nightmare and the apparition of the keening death messenger? Ellen set about unravelling the dream: Pakenham, she had recognized, and Sheela-na-Sheeoga. The road could be any road, but it must be leading to the sea because of the tall ship at the end of it. But why was getting to the ship so important? She and the children had been fleeing from something, but their escape had been blocked … all those ghouls trying to stop them – why weren’t they, too, trying to get away to the ship? And where was Michael?

She had been carrying the baby – a baby too small to walk. Her baby was not due until May, so the dream must be set after May, but sometime within the year …

Ellen looked around at the mountain-valley world she lived in. Nothing in this wild and beautiful place was remotely connected to the world she had inhabited in her dream. Yet it was over these waters that the death messenger had floated …

She shuddered, recalling her terrifying ordeal. She needed Michael’s comforting arms, but how could she tell him what troubled her?

Slowly it dawned on her where her thoughts were leading: the visit of the Banshee; Michael’s absence … It was Michael the night visitor was crying for, Michael’s death she was keening. Michael – her love, her dark-haired boy – was to be taken, and taken before this baby could walk. Oh, God, no – not Michael!

Ellen buried her face in her hands, her grief and tears spilling out into the silent Mask.

Michael could be taken at any time – today, tonight, tomorrow, next week, Christmas … It took all the willpower she had to resist the urge to run back to the cabin and throw herself upon Michael and weep into his strong shoulder.

‘Heaven guide me,’ she prayed. ‘I, who should be not seeking consolation but giving it. I should be his shield from whatever dark forces lie in wait. And he such a good man, not deserving of being taken so early, so soon deprived of the love of his children.’

Ellen threw back her head, facing the heavens, storming them with her prayers and grief: ‘Oh, God, who sent your only Beloved Son to die on the Cross for us, I implore You, take this cross from us now.’ Even as she said the words, she knew in her heart it was wrong to challenge the will of God. Still she could not stop herself.

‘Lord, it’s little I have in this place, but what little I have is enough if I have him. I ask not that You spare us the time to grow old together, but that even You grant us a few summers more – to walk the valley, to see the dawn rise, to taste the morning dew …

‘Oh, Blessed Mother, intercede with your Son, I beg you. Protect Michael, just till the children grow. Let him wait a while here with us, and he not yet the age your beloved Son was!’

Yet deep within her she knew there was no hope. God gives life. God takes it away again. She heard again her father’s words as he tried to reconcile himself to Cáit’s early death: ‘Whom the Gods love, die young. They take them back to another place where they are more needed than here.’

But no one could possibly need Michael more than she did.

‘Death is ever a moment too soon for those who love.’ The Máistir’s voice continued to speak to her until at last she was calmed. She asked the Lord to forgive her her sin and give her the strength to do what she must do.

But how was she going to look at Michael? How could she be with him in the night, joined as one with him, concealing her awful secret, knowing that each time they loved could be their last? Somehow she must. She must make these days, however few, the fullest days of their lives. There would be times, she knew, when it would break her very heart; times when she would watch him fall asleep, then lie there warding over him in the dark, fearing lest he be stolen from her in the night. There would be times, too, when he would go with the men to the mountain, leaving her to wait and worry until his safe return.

And she must bear this burden alone. She could not tell the children – their little hearts set on doing things with him at Christmas – that they might never again see their father. She would have to be strong, to bear silently the dashed dreams and bitter tears that soon would be theirs.

She turned from the lake and walked back up to the cabin, and Michael – her darling, lost Michael – keeping all these things in her heart.

As the days shortened into Advent and Christmas, Ellen learned to put the events of All Souls behind her.

Their store of potatoes held fast, as did those of their neighbours. The valley seemed removed from the general fears that stalked the land. Ellen remembered the previous crop failures within her own lifetime. It seemed as if some failing of the harvest was inevitable – a fixed part of living here in the West.

She felt the child within her grow. Untroubled by sickness, or even tiredness, soon she began to feel the kick inside.

The Lessons continued, but now more and more Ellen taught the children in English. If they were going to leave here, then they would be badly served knowing only Irish and a smattering of English. She would see to it that her children were prepared for as many eventualities as she could foresee.

She had managed, somehow, to keep her dark secret from Michael, though it had been difficult. The first nights after All Souls, she could not bear to make love with him; could not bear to have those searching dark eyes so close to hers. So she had him turn to her, burying his head in her breasts. That way he could not see the tears well up in her eyes. Then she would pray over him as he slept – his guardian angel – until sleep claimed her as well.

After those first nights, however, despite the edicts of the Church regarding continence during pregnancy, they made deep and satisfying love that seared her soul and released the great burden of sorrow she was carrying within her.

To wake of a morning and see him there beside her, still alive, was a gift from God. Thankful for this blessing, she embraced life with a spirit and energy that brought joy to all their lives. The month leading up to Christmas, though outwardly not much different from that of previous Advents, had this year developed a spiritual intensity she had never before experienced. Day after day, Ellen lived out every moment for Michael and her small family. Mother; wife; teacher; lover; spiritual well; guardian angel.

She loved the long dark wintry nights. Michael was around the house more, the children were out less. To her the short winter days were days of rest and prayer, days of gathering spirit-strength for the miracle of Christmas; days of gathering body-strength for the work of the year ahead.

Often in the dark she would slip away to her place by the lake shore, setting her face to the frothy wind rising off the face of the Mask. She loved how its waters could be. Whipped hither and thither by the wind which came whirling and swirling in from Tourmakeady and Glenbeg before sweeping on down to the unsuspecting Lough Nafooey – the Lake of Hate.

The Mask, too, could be a lake of hate. As it was tonight, seething and spitting at her, trying to beat her away from its shore. The spray stung her face, the winter wind flailing her long mane. Ellen, swept up in the moment, let it take her. She stood, first swaying with the wind then turning and turning like a frenzied dervish spinning between two worlds, the earth elements holding her, the air elements trying to suck her into a whirlwind which would carry her over the land beyond the mountain. If her body did not soar, then her spirit did, deliriously free of mortal toils and worries.

Now she was earth mother, sky dancer, fertile ever-lover – Danu, Mother Goddess of the Celts.

Her hair, sodden with lake-spray, streaked down her face. Slowly she drew both hands through the tangled curls, first combing it with her fingers, then pressing it to her, matting the soaked hair to her neck, shoulders and breasts, feeling its chill sensuality reach for her.

Calmer now, but still breathless, she felt regenerated, at one with the source of wind and rain, mountain and lake, sky and earth. World and otherworld.

Her hands continued their downward journey – seeking assurance that her body was still there, still with her – passing over the swell of her belly to her thighs. Yes, her baby was there, safe within her. And, in this moment, she, Ellen Rua O’Malley was the source of all things. Even life itself.

The wind lifted. The Mask quelled its fury and stillness came on her. Then the shock of her abandonment to the elements struck Ellen Rua. Now filled with remorse at giving way to her sin, she fell to her knees, her hand diving to her pocket, frantically searching out her rosary beads – and forgiveness.

From where he watched behind the hawthorn bush, Roberteen Bawn was terrified at the transformation he saw in his neighbour, Ellen Rua.

Hurriedly he crossed himself and muttered a frantic prayer: ‘God between us and all harm, Holy Mother of God between us and all harm.’

Then he tore away into the safety of the deep winter’s night.