The House of Mary Folan, Connemara
May, 1766
Still half-asleep, I listen to the sound of the sea as it surges and falls away, surges and falls away, just as it does in my dreams: sea-surge and bird-scream and a disappearing boat. Is it Captain McDonagh’s boat? Ah, Captain, I mourn your death still. I press my ear to my mattress and listen to the faint whispers of its mossy stuffing. My blanket smells faintly of kelp. Presently my eyes open fully without heaviness and I realise that my ague has dispersed. I sit up with a feeling of clarity. I am in Mrs Folan’s cottage. As my gaze travels around an interior of flaking, limed walls, I remark my feeling of contentment. In some way that I cannot absolutely comprehend, I am soothed by the earthy smells of moss and peat which pervade everything, including the shift I am wearing. It is my French cambric shift that was a gift from Captain McDonagh. Mrs Folan must have laundered it and dried it in front of her turf fire. Its particular smoky smell seems intensely familiar to me. I sense recollection rising and shaking its feathers at the edge of my understanding, but then it retreats into the shadows.
I get myself up, stretch, yawn, a little light-headed. I peep through the gap of the window covering. In the arm of the sea beneath Mrs Folan’s cottage there are people cutting
seaweed and bearing it ashore. Old women raking the weed to dry on the blond sand, their white hair in turmoil, and men standing in the swell up to their waists and sometimes up to their necks in order to gather the kelp. It looks like an arduous business.
My gaze comes to rest on a small figure by the shoreline. I contemplate her for some time, quite fascinated, although it is only a girl stamping her feet in the shallows. Watching her, I have a strong sense of having been here before. I remember asking Abby once if she ever had the experience of having lived through a thing more than once and she told me that she had. Sometimes she would see a commonplace phenomenon like an ear of corn waving in the field or a sack of shrimps falling from a cart and she would know that in another time she had stood in that spot and witnessed that event, outwardly unremarkable though it was. She explained it then as a memory of the other world where we live before our births and after our deaths as spirits.
‘You are on your two feet at last.’ It is Mrs Folan in the doorway. ‘No one saw you at the window, I hope.’ She peers through the chink of the flap, then turns to me with an accusing look and says, ‘A great fright it was that your crowd gave me once. I was coming home one night when I saw lights galore on those rocks down there and a terrible chattering going on. It was a band of the good people – I saw them with my own eyes – with their tiny lanterns, and they were kicking up their heels and having the time of their lives.’
Good heavens, does she think that I am some sort of supernatural creature?
She says, ‘It has been a devil of a business to keep you hidden all this time. A fortnight you have lain here.’
‘A fortnight! How is that?’
‘You were in a fever, just like any human soul. I fed you with mash and water, I did, and kept you going.’
‘I was not aware that so much time had passed. I am awfully grateful to you.’
‘What choice did I have?’ She says anxiously, ‘Will you be going now, Nora?’
My heart sinks. Each time I attain a respite from my relentless flight, I cannot make it last. I say with a sigh, ‘May I trouble you for a bite to eat, if you don’t mind, to put me on the road.’
Mrs Folan is mightily relieved to know that my departure is imminent, because she says with something approaching a smile, ‘It is a wonder that you can eat our food at all. You are not used to it, so. After all, you live on air by the look of you.’
She scoops a fillet of preserved fish from a barrel in the corner and puts it on a wooden platter, then takes up a seat on her stool near the doorway, while I repose on the mattress with my breakfast. My stomach has shrunk so that I have almost got out of the way of eating solid food and I must go tentatively with the fish on my plate. Mrs Folan begins to plait straw with nimble fingers, while glancing at me from under a mistrustful brow from time to time. I think I have come to understand the source of her fear. She has mistaken me for a woman from these parts who died – did she recently drown? I wonder. I suppose I must resemble her. I dare say these people are as superstitious as any of our country folk at home,
who are more than willing to believe in spirits returned from the dead. That would explain why they raised such a temper at the sight of me and tried to throw me into the sea. No doubt they fear I have an evil eye that will cause the milk of their cows to sour or the fish to flee their nets – and it is unlikely that I could convince them otherwise. There is no refuge for me here, alas. I ask Mrs Folan if we are near Galway.
She narrows her eyes as though it were a trick question, and says, ‘Not so near, but not too far either.’
‘What is the name of this place? I wonder.’
Again a puzzled look. ‘Are you trying to trick me?’ she says.
A few fat raindrops spatter through the smoke hole in the roof and hiss on the stone of the hearth. The fair skies have fled already. How changeable is this weather. I wish I were not obliged to go out into it, but what can I do but ask for my gown and my stays.
Mrs Folan suspends her plaiting. She says, ‘I have burned them.’
‘Burned them?’
‘Was I to hang your fancy silk out to dry like a signal to the parish that a faerie-woman was biding her time in the house of Folan?’ She climbs to her feet, her bones creaking, upends the tea-chest table and brings out a bundle that was concealed beneath. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘these belonged to my mother. A small woman she was such as yourself. You may put them on and take them to the other side with you, and if you see her there, she will be glad to have them back.’
The rusty black shirt and the faded crimson petticoat are made of a homespun stuff. There is a thin woven girdle to
wind around the waist of the petticoat, and a dark knitted mantle. I understand that poor though she is, Mrs Folan would give up these few possessions if that is what it would take to see the back of me.
It is a simple matter to put on the clothes. There is none of the complication of tying stays or pinning a stomacher. Humble though this costume is, I appreciate its usefulness. It will be convenient to play the part of a peasant woman as I haunt the countryside. Given the lack of a looking glass in which to inspect my appearance, I must rake my fingers through my curls as best I can. Apparently exasperated by the slowness of my toilette, Mrs Folan comes forward and ties back my hair with a piece of twine. I settle the mantle upon my head and turn to face her. Will I pass muster as an Irish woman?
‘Holy God!’ Mrs Folan exclaims, her eyes staring. A hand flies to her mouth.
The atmosphere in the cottage seems to grow more dense as she gapes at me. I am sure that rest and sustenance have transfigured me and banished the barely human creature that came out of the sea. I suppose that Mrs Folan realises at last that she has made a mistake. I am not the frightful Nora at all. Certainly she is powerfully affected by the restoration of my vigour. Her head shakes as though she cannot believe her eyes, she presses her palms on either side of her face. I lower my head to shake out the wrinkles in the petticoat as a distraction from the intensity of her gaze. As I do so, a shivery sensation passes through me and I have one of those happenedonce-before experiences: it is a momentary sense of smoothing a similar petticoat in a similar manner in a similar place.
‘Argh!’ Mrs Folan cries with a crack in her voice. ‘Why did I not see it at once?’ She holds out her hands to me. ‘You are the child, faith!’
Her words puzzle me. ‘As you can see, I am not a child and I am not Nora either. I have no idea who she is.’
Mrs Folan cries, ‘Now that is a very strange thing to say.’
I raise my hands in bewilderment. What does she mean?
Mrs Folan says, ‘I do not know what name she goes by where you live now, but in this place, Nora Mulkerrin was your mother!’
My heart stops.
Nora Mulkerrin was my mother.
Then a bad temper rises in me. What an absurd thing for this woman to say. It is cruel, too, even if she does not know that I am motherless. She has jabbed a wound that never seems to heal.
And yet, I must wonder if her words could possibly be true – that is, I
want
them to be true. Haven’t I remarked on my strong feelings of familiarity about this place? Does that signify an actual connection? Have I been brought here by fate? Oh, stop it. It’s all nonsense.
I release a great sigh, as of effort. I feel as though I have had thrust into my hands an immense object of great import. I have no idea what to do with it, but now I find I cannot put it down and must walk on with the burden of it.
Gathering my composure, I say, ‘Tell me about Nora. What happened to her?’
Mrs Folan shakes her head. ‘I will not speak any more of this, nor do I need to. It will cause me bad luck, you know it will. I have done what you asked and you must go to Kitty
now. She it was who called you. Who else would do so but Kitty Conneely?’
‘I do not understand who Kitty is.’
Mrs Folan is losing patience with me. ‘She is my sister and the heart-friend of Nora Mulkerrin. Sure, you know that very well. And if there was a child that Kitty loved more than you, I do not know it.’
‘But how did she call me? What do you mean by that?’
‘She turned the stones, no doubt, and that is a very bad business.’ Mrs Folan makes the sign of the cross on herself. Then she looks at me with a peculiar sort of deference. ‘I know you can fly to her without any help from me.’
I say slowly, ‘Who am I? I wonder.’
There comes a bewildered knitting of Mrs Folan’s brow. She says, ‘Have you forgotten your own name?’
My knees feel weak at the prospect of another shock.
She says, ‘Don’t you know that you are Molly O’Halloran?’
I turn this name over in my mind with a sense of wonder. Molly O’Halloran. I find I must burst out laughing. I do not know how else to express the new dimension of amazement that has come upon me – although perhaps I ought not to be so surprised by Mrs Folan’s make-believe. Are not people of this land known for their knotted fancies and their compulsive inventions? In her view I am a returned spirit whom no one wants anything to do with save for a woman called Kitty Conneely with peculiar and possibly unwelcome powers.
Pull yourself together, Em. None of this accords with reality.
Mrs Folan sighs deeply and her shoulders sag. She says, ‘I do not say anything against you for being what you are, but
for pity’s sake, will you leave me alone now?’ She presses her lips tight and everything about her indicates that she is closed and nothing else shall be forthcoming.
Perhaps she is right and I
am
the dead daughter of a dead mother – because that is how I feel: as though the self I once was has vaporised.
*
Dressed in the clothes of Mrs Folan’s deceased mother, I set off in the rain. I take the only path that I can see and I trust that it will bring me eventually to the place called Cashel where Mrs Folan’s sister lives. My prevailing mood is one of bafflement tinged with scepticism, but I am eager to question Kitty Conneely. Though my understanding is frustrated, I believe I have stumbled across something momentous. I feel like an adventuresome excavator, who has unearthed an ancient structure only to discover that the glyphs are unreadable, the gods and goddesses unknown. I need to find out more. Mrs Folan will not say another word, but she seems to think her sister will. I hope that Mrs Conneely can tell me the fate of Nora Mulkerrin and her daughter, Molly O’Halloran. And if, as Mrs Folan says, I am loved by Kitty, might I find with her an ultimate refuge from my woes?
Is this what you intended all along?
I have stopped once or twice on the path and anyone who saw me might think I was unhinged, because my ear is cocked as if listening to the air. I am listening out for you. Is there a vibration of your spirit in this place? You see, you are still alive to me. But no one looks up from his labours in the bumpy fields or detains me as I trudge inland. Occasionally I pass women bent nearly double under the waterlogged ribbons of
laminaria that they carry on their backs and others heaping seaweed at the foot of a huge stack, as though offering votives to a giant vegetable deity, but they are too burdened to pay me any heed.
It occurs to me as I walk along that I am on an island. Presently, my arrival at a narrow strait of water confirms this impression. There is a scattering of people on a strand a little distance away, but I hang back from them and edge behind a line of glossy, black rocks. I am startled to catch sight of myself in a pool of water. I do not recognise my likeness shrouded in the mantle. My face seems to have little to do with the person I think I am. There is something wedged in a cleft next to the pool and I pull it free. It looks like one of those egg cases called a mermaid’s purse that dogfish or skate leave behind. I turn the gritty thing over in my hands, again with a sensation of having done this before. But there is nothing strange about that. There are mermaid’s purses at Parkgate, too.
Someone is watching me. A thin-limbed child in ancient breeches and a short, darned cape of sacking eyes me frankly from a perch on the rocks further upshore. The child – I think it is a girl, despite the breeches – jumps down from the rock and begins to drag a kind of coracle composed of hides towards the shallows. I run after her with a cry and she looks up and shouts something that sounds friendly to my ear.
The obliging girl is ferrying me across the low waters. I look back at the island. It is rather prostrate in appearance. I cannot take in Mrs Folan’s inference that this might have been my home. The thought of it is too huge, like a colossus of such astounding dimensions that even when you tip your
head so far back that the sky reels, you still cannot see where it ends. My mind is not expansive enough to contain it.