Turning the Stones (33 page)

The rain lifts as we approach the far shore, although not for long, I fear. I can see a flotilla of clouds streaming towards the mountains that loom in the distance. My young pilot puts me out on a muddy landing in front of a sparse belt of stunted little trees. They seem to stagger backwards against the onslaught of the prevailing wind as though their feet were slipping out from under them. Behind the trees there is a string of battered dwellings. The pilot and a barefoot band of wretchedly clad urchins hanging around the shore are entertained by my intermittent utterances of the word Cashel. I sound like a demented bird, I will admit. Eventually, when they have had their fun, the girl points to a smooth conical hill, which is not as far as the mountains, and then at a track, which runs westwards out of the settlement on the shore. She sends me off with a friendly wave.

Proceeding as directed, I pass a hill-sized lump of crumpled granite. It wears a lacy cape of yellow lichen above a skirt of grass. Where its slopes come to soil men are digging out sods with their spades and women are loading them into wicker baskets, which are strapped to their backs. I join the stream of women on the rutted trail that serves for a road. One or two of them call a greeting to which I reply with a nod. Gradually they peel off into poor little fields, among a network of low walls, where the stones have been cleared. I suppose the fields must be made by hand with transported sods and the seaweed for fertiliser.

On this imperfect bridle path studded with primroses I sense you everywhere and these heathery meadows of marsh and
stones tug at me. I am prepared to admit that I have an inclination to the place.

*

Dense black rushes now and the pitiful calls of waterfowl. The sheen of water up ahead – which turns out to be a broad, desolate lake scattered with islets. The sky is trying to get the lake’s attention, throwing all sorts of reflections on to the still, dark surface, but the lake keeps its inscrutable beauty to itself. It is hard going here on my tender feet. Leaving the lake behind, I enter a confusing tract where the water and the land are all mixed up. What a contrary place this is – stern granite on one hand; on the other, a wallowing softness that might sink you to your armpits. I fear I have lost my way among this down-flowing, dropping terrain, and I cannot help but think of the great dread rivers that are said to lie between the worlds of the living and the dead.

*

I have edged towards the coast under darkening clouds in the hope of coming on to a more certain footing. A long slope brings me to a crescent strand, where big boulders have been flung by the tides above the fawn sands. A few spots of rain have begun to fall. There are women on the upper shore bending to the rocks. A frisky black-and-white dog draws my eye to a young woman, who is frying an egg in a seashell over embers in the sand, but it is the tent that she has fashioned from her scarlet petticoat – a sheltering child peeks out from it – that causes my breath to catch in my throat. The sight of it affects me terribly. I cannot rid myself of the heart-rending feeling that something dreadful is about to happen to the child. I do not know what it could be. There must be something
peculiar about my expression because the egg-fryer has risen to her feet with a look of concern. She passes the egg to the child and turns to me, her forehead buckled up in a frown.

‘Cashel?’ I point towards the hill.

The rain has faltered and the women on the rocks have interrupted their work to watch me. The young woman says something with a dip of her head in the direction of the interior. She has a long upper lip, which gives her an air of vulnerability, I think. She plucks the cover from the child, now eggy of face, steps into the petticoat, ties it fast, settles the child on her hip and beckons me to follow her. The child, I notice now, clutches a doll that has been manufactured out of seaweed and shells and dressed in a scrap of scarlet frieze for its petticoat. I am fascinated by the doll, I have the feeling that it holds some meaning for me, but the child does not want to let me look closely at it.

The woman is indicating that I should follow her and so I walk on in her wake. We stride up the slope above the strand, the dog bouncing around us, my feet smarting on the stones. Under a light rain we reach a trail, which I might have missed altogether in its obscurity. It gradually becomes apparent that the trail is marked by a series of cairns, but I am not sure they would be obvious to an outsider. The woman lowers the child to the ground and bends to impress in the mud at her callused feet four dots in a vertical line – they are bodies of water, I believe – and she sketches the way for me. She swoops to pick up the child, and leaves me behind to face the moor, which stretches before me like a lumpy, green sea and gives off a bleak, creeping dampness.

*

I am seated now at rest on a cold boulder that time has scribbled all over with several colours of lichen. It sits at the corner of a dismal allotment, rye pushing up among its stones. The toes at the end of my bare legs are digging into the few inches of soil that lie like a threadbare cover on the stone bed of this country. I cannot see how the farmers here have anything much to work with. I have lost the piece of twine Mrs Folan gave me to secure my hair and the wind keeps blowing it into my face. In the background there is the occasional boom of a big wave striking rocks. I am not certain of the way, but Cashel Hill has grown larger in my field of sight. In one of those rapid changes that I associate with the weather here, the light makes off and an unearthly whine begins to rise and fall. It is the wind blowing through countless holes in countless stone walls.

A horse whinnies in the distance.

The wind croons.

And then the muffled clip-clop of hoof-beats. And the swell of voices. I come to my feet, alert, straining to hear. Habitual caution leads me to crouch behind the wall where I may watch through one of its chinks without being seen.

A cavalcade is approaching.

My stomach contracts at the thought of my pursuer, that devil I last saw in plain sight at the George Inn in Reading. But then the man leading the string of ponies and mules comes into clearer view. He is a tall, hatless figure in the dark blue garb worn by the men of these parts. A big man, he sits light in the saddle. He rides straight as a candle, controlling his mount on the rough terrain with deliberate, rather graceful movements that seem familiar to me.

God almighty, is this a vision?

I stare with amazement.

He ought by all reason to be a ghost, and yet he could not look more alive. My heart leaps like a hare – the man passing not ten feet away is unmistakably Captain McDonagh! He is not drowned! But my delight is quickly doused by the recollection of his treachery and rage breaks through in its place. Damn your eyes, you perfidious man.

This unexpected and jaunty manifestation of his, ambling along with a train of ill-gotten goods, is it not a doubling of betrayal? First he gave me over to the
Vindicator
and then he wrenched sympathy from my heart for his supposed demise.

I abhor you, deceiver!

It takes an effort of will not to spring from my hiding place and confront the rogue. Instead I manage to quiet my fury, although it continues to smoulder as I watch the ponies plod by. There are perhaps a dozen of them connected by halters and they are laden with kegs and ankers and oilskin-wrapped bales. Mr Guttery and Mr Robinson are among the convoy. At the tail of the caravan a crowd of ragtag children is following. I slip in among them with the expectation that they will bring me to a village where I may find directions to Mrs Conneely. I comfort myself with the thought that Captain McDonagh has been brought back to life so that I may have the use of him, just as he sought to get an advantage from me.

As I scuff along at the back of the procession, I ponder what I may get from the captain as a recompense for the way he deceived me. I am furious with him for making me furious. I detest the way he triggers a tumult of emotions in me. I
ought to demand that he allows me aboard his ship – evidently he has found another. Surely he is bound, this time, to go to France with goods he will have got here in exchange for his brandy and tea and silk. But even if I could bear to ask, and even if he should agree, is that any kind of reprieve? I may as well hide in this storm-tossed corner of the world as well as anywhere else, although French is more penetrable than the language that is spoken here. In any case, a rope is probably intended for the captain’s neck as well as for mine, therefore it would not be clever to hook my fate to his.

I wish that someone could tell me why it is that life has so many goings-out and so few comings-in.

The Stormy Peninsula, Connemara
May, 1766

The cavalcade has reached a settlement of a couple of dozen cabins with peeling walls and moulting thatch. It is not difficult to keep out of the captain’s sight, since there is a huge jam of humanity in this little place. The arrival of the convoy is greeted with a great cheer by the wild-haired crowd in their homespun clothes. Some of them are unloading what look like woolpacks from battered mule-drawn carts and others are stacking the packs in front of the largest dwelling in the place, which for all its prominence is hardly three chambers wide. Women press around a weighing table, watching as their casks, containing I know not what – butter? meat? – are marked by a man in an archaic frock coat, and there are a good many children and hounds running about in a state of enthusiasm.

The people fall back as two of Captain McDonagh’s smugglers carry between them a chest reinforced with iron into the principal dwelling. They are followed by the captain himself. Then the two smugglers come out and stand on either side of the doorway with their pistols to hand. Evidently this village is a transfer station for smuggled wares and a point of payment for those who have brought their goods for export. I am hazy about the reason for this. Perhaps there are restrictions on trade in Irish wool. I imagine the growers are only permitted
to make legal export of their fleeces to England. As a consequence they have taken matters into their own hands.

The English language is spoken in this place, I hear, which makes me feel less conspicuous approaching likely candidates, women mostly, who may be able to set me on the path to Kitty Conneely. But none of my enquiries yields a helpful result. I go about in the background, my antic cries of ‘Cashel? Conneely?’ ignored. The people are convivial, but their clustering with one another increases my sense of aloneness.

A queue has formed outside the house of business – the exporters are to receive their payments, I assume. When Captain McDonagh appears at the door of the house, I will him to look my way. Why do this? I cannot say. Perhaps I fantasise that he will catch sight of me and offer the abject apology that I deserve. Perhaps I simply want his attention, as he remarked to me on the deck of the
Seal
. But of course he does not look my way. It would be quite out of character for him to be so obliging.

He sets out at a stroll, hat in hand, in the direction of his pony. I find myself striding towards him with a recriminatory flashing eye. At first he does not recognise the tattered peasant in his path, but then he slows his step with a knitted brow and rubs the stubble on his chin.

As I reach him, he says casually, ‘By God, Miss Smith, you are quite the one for coming in my way.’

‘How dare you?’ I cry, and push him hard in the chest with my accusing finger. ‘How can you look me in the face after what you have done? You betrayed me and I would be dead now if it were not for the grace of God.’

He must be startled, but he will not show it. He steps around
me to arrive at his pony. He stands there with his weight on one leg, one hand on his saddle to steady his mount, and regards me with an inscrutable stare. My first flush of anger has ebbed somewhat, but it irks me that he refuses to admit the least amazement at our encounter. He does begin to say something, but I cut him off. ‘Nothing that you can say will overcome my distrust of you.’

He says infuriatingly, ‘What is wrong with you that you are surprised, madam? Did you think I would let a revenue man take me?’ He lets a pause occur, then he adds, ‘I told you I was a villain.’

‘And you have the devil’s luck, it seems. I thought you were shot.’

‘I feigned the injury and got away.’

‘The revenue cutter was wrecked on a reef, do you know that?’

‘So I heard. Naturally I am glad that you survived.’ His face seems more than ever like a stern cliff. He says, ‘I will find someone to take you to Galway. You do not want to wander around in this backwater.’

‘Yes, I do, Captain. In fact I have business here. Perhaps you can assist me.’

The bow he offers me has an ironical tinge, as usual. I suppose it is the captain’s savage opinion of the world that compromises his sincerity.

‘I see you are well acquainted with these people. I am in search of a Mrs Conneely, who dwells, I am told, near Cashel Hill.’ There might have been a glint of interest in his face at that. Or perhaps it is only his habitually watchful air and the impression he gives of staying his hand against the right
opportunity. ‘Will you find someone to lead me to her? I believe that is not too great a favour to ask.’ He gives no sign of having registered the latent grievance in that last sentence.

He says, ‘Who is Kitty Conneely to you?’

‘She is the sister of the woman who took me in when I came ashore. The people tried to put me back in the water, you know.’

‘I would not doubt it. They fear those who escape from the sea. They think they are in cahoots with the crowd on the other side and that the only reason they have been spared is to snatch some fine person and take him away.’

‘So I have gathered.’

‘Kathleen Conneely keeps her own company and she has been made strange by it. The people do not like to meddle with her and nor should you.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Two or three fellows here that you may trust on my honour are returning to Galway imminently. I will furnish you with funds and with apparel, so that you may make your way there with them.’ He adds, shortly, ‘My father was a man of this place. I was born to boats.’