The Boneyard

The old man jerked his gnarled wooden walking stick at the tall, plush hedge that ran through his unkempt jungle of a garden.
“Over there is the boneyard,” he said half mischievously, half reverently. Out of privacy I won’t reveal to you his name but I will tell you this story. Tell you it reluctantly. ‘Boneyard’ was one of the many words and phrases he used, all created by his own modest ingenuity. A watch was a ‘timer’, a kettle a ‘whistler’, the radio (he had no television set) was called the talk box. Then there was his rusting Volvo, more an assortment of compressed tin cans painted tepid brown. It was christened ‘Air Force One’. A friendly if wizened cat shared his home who he called “TC,” an abbreviation for “the cat.” I need not tell you what he called the toilet but then again that was a word even he didn’t make up! And boneyard? Well, that is what he called the cemetery next door.

It was an old, old cemetery long disused. Even on the brightest, hottest day of high summer I couldn’t pass those tall, gothic gates without a cold shudder. Beyond them was a crooked expanse of wild overgrown greenery mingled with decayed shards of stone and concrete; the broken gravestones and crosses that marked where the dead lay. Out there, in the country, the nights were pitch. No street lights existed for miles and no house except the old man’s bungalow to shed any light thereabouts. I remember passing those gates and the huge iron fence that streaked the cemetery’s periphery one Halloween at midnight after visiting the old man and I can tell you that no amount of money could have tempted me to cross its threshold even for a second.

How did I know the old man? He was a family friend long ago but I got to know him after meeting him out on a country walk and we fell into an interesting conversation. From then on I made a habit of calling round to visit him at least once a fortnight for it seemed as if he didn’t get any other visitors.

I genuinely enjoyed his company. He was kind, charming and very witty with countless funny stories about his life and the people he once knew.
“They're all next door now,” he said.
I made a habit of going round to his house after midnight mass every Christmas Eve and we had a nice little party of savoury finger foods and mulled wine although he himself never went to church. A fanatical reader, he had two whole rooms teeming with books, fiction and non-fiction, old and new alike. He was also delightfully eccentric with many unique and odd hobbies. Nearly every time I visited he would unfurl something that demonstrated his creative genius. He carved little figures and objects out of wood and painted them with tender detail and they could be anything! Anything at all! He carved little men and women from countries around the world; a little German in Lederhosen or perhaps a Japanese Samurai, little animals; a parrot, a dog, an elephant, houses, churches, world famous monuments were scattered or craftily hidden throughout his garden. Over time I had free rein of the house and grounds and could come and go as I pleased. One summer’s evening I was walking through it when I came across a (relatively) miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex, six foot high with wooden jaws grimacing, as it stood half concealed between the bushes. I was mildly shocked before I realised it was a just a life-like carving and I looked back at the bungalow to see the old man laughing at my reaction. I couldn’t help but laugh too. Then there were his scrap books; dozens upon dozens of them spread randomly around every room in the house! Over the years the old man had filled them with newspaper or magazine articles and photographs with the earliest extracts dating from the early 60’s. Strangely they were of nearly every topic under the sun; politics, sport, geography, wildlife, engineering, Swiss army knives, the moons of Jupiter, taxidermy, the Chaco War, Don Quixote, executions; you name it and I bet you I could have found something relating to it in one of those battered scrapbooks in less than an hour! I never found out why the old man collected them all and I suppose he had so many interests it was a way of recording information in his own special way but what I recall most pertinently was the amount of obituaries and death notices he had pasted in them. What else did he do? Oh yes, he could cook very well for a man of his generation and I never refused his frequent dinner invitations for as well as having a great meal we always had a bit of a laugh! At first I had harboured a sneaking suspicion that perhaps the old man was gay and that he had some perverted designs on me but nothing could be further from the truth. He was lonely. Pure and simple. He didn’t mention any family but I inferred, from the gold ring he wore, that he was married at one point long ago. His ring was inscribed with a plain lower case ‘r’ but I am unaware what this alluded to and he never once spoke of a wife or children or relatives of any description. Instead he was absorbed with his pastimes and interests and could alternate between telling me a torrid tale from Norse mythology, the best way to attract wild birds or the internal politics of Russia. As you can see he was good company and an altogether intelligent yet humble man. Now here comes the ‘but’. He had another hobby.

When I found out about it I had known the old man for ten years. One afternoon in the month of March I called to visit and we were having tea by the fire when I noticed something above the mantle piece that hadn’t been there before. I stood up to get a better look. It was a bone, in fact part of a jaw bone with a few teeth studded along it.
“What’s this from?” I asked the old man.
“Guess,” he answered.
“Sheep?”
“No.”
“Horse?”
“Not a horse.”
“Cow?”
“Not a cow.”
“Donkey, fox, badger, bear?”
“No, no, no, no.”
I shrugged.
“Well, what then?”
“A woman.”
“Woman? You’re joking!”
He wasn’t. I asked him where he got it.
“Next door,” he said grinning. He explained that he had gone into the graveyard and found it; the cemetery was so old it was coughing up bones. I didn’t say so but I was unhappy with the old man’s revelation and suggested that maybe he should return it.
“No one’s any use for it now,” he said dismissing my idea. I disagreed, believing his attitude to be disrespectful, but I decided to say no more about it as I didn’t want to spoil our friendship. ‘Just humour the old man’, I thought as I sat down. ‘It’s only one little bone!’
“Just be careful,” I said settling back into the chair, “she might want it back!”

The old man smiled.
“We shouldn’t forget the dead,” he said. “After all they are the world’s largest minority.”

It was an unwise concession to make to the old man. On my next visit, one grey Saturday, we were having a lunch of fried chicken and salad. My eyes strayed out the patio doors and rested on a potted plant on the rear porch. Protruding up from the damp soil, and fastened to the plant in order to lend it support, instead of a bamboo pole was the unmistakable shape of a human thighbone. My appetite diminished immediately. The old man ate steadily and smiled knowingly. I did not mention having seen the bone as any discussion of it would likely cause me to be physically sick so I pushed the remainder of my lunch around the plate and went home earlier than usual.

At this point I had not lost faith in the old man but I was naturally concerned. On each of my subsequent visits I would notice new additions to his collection. At first they were very subtle inclusions. What looked like toe bones were decoratively spread upon the coffee table, about a dozen in number, then a bone, that could not have been anything other than a rib appeared on the bathroom window ledge. Eventually there were other ribs, all on display in the living room. Again I said nothing for despite knowing of his morbid hobby the old man was as much the same jolly and hospitable person as before. During those months his work rate also increased and his craftsmanship improved to such a degree that I came to accept his bone collecting as a low-key secondary pastime. He also flattered me by giving away a lot of his art work and handicrafts as his house and garden were becoming far too cluttered even for his liking! Amongst these gifts was a finely detailed model airliner, World War II tanks and a wooden dragon! Therefore it was for these reasons that despite witnessing the growth in his collection, I said or did nothing to stop it. Now, I wish I had.
I was departing for home one evening when he called me to wait a moment.
“Here,” he said handing me a curved shallow piece of what looked like crockery.
“What it is?” I asked.
“Let’s call it an ashtray,” said the old man.
“But I don’t smoke.”
The old man thought for a moment.
“But your girlfriend smokes, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said.
He laughed.
“Well if you ever get a girlfriend, and she smokes, she can use it,” he said pressing it into my palm.

Then came the lowest point of our friendship. Some time ago he had built a greenhouse, ingeniously cementing together any glass he came across into an elaborate framework. It was mostly comprised of old car wind screens but also some window panes he’d purchased for the task. The only things he grew in it were tomatoes and they were the nicest tomatoes I have ever tasted! Together with the lettuce and scallions from his vegetable patch he prepared many delicious salads. Now one day in August he brought me out to help him pick the new crop as the blushers (his word for tomatoes) had ripened inside the hot house. We went out into the sunshine and entered the stifling homemade greenhouse. About a dozen or so tomatoe plants had bunches of their juicy fruit ready for plucking. I put on a pair of gardening gloves and crouched down to pick the tomatoes and put them in a plastic container. After removing three of them I stopped and cringed. Tied to the green stem of the plant by a piece of blue cord was another long bone! Another! Not only that, I was sickened, sickened; to see yet another on top of it and another and another… Attached thus they served the purpose of straightening the growth of the tomatoe plant just like his plant on the patio. Long human bones! Not bamboo rods but bones, taken by the old man from the graveyard! I was nearly sick. The sudden movement I made as I recoiled from the sight alerted the old man’s attention.
“Caterpillar bite you?” he chuckled.
With an almost dizzy sensation ringing in my head I turned to him. His warm smile could not assuage my disappointment in him nor could it cure the acute unease combobulating in my stomach. I didn’t answer him and looked back at the plant to ensure that what I’d seen was really there. It was. I looked at the plant next to it. It was supported in the same way; a half dozen long bones atop each other. As was the next plant and the next one and the next one; all of them were tied to a pole of bones! He had taken it too far. Unsettled, I looked at him plaintively but his determined countenance did not drop one bit. He said that perhaps it was too hot to work outdoors that day and that we go in for a drink. So we did and soon after I went straight home. I did not raise the issue of the bones nor did my old friend mention them but again I felt let down and I have not eaten a tomato since.

Perhaps I should be grateful because the full realisation of the extremes the old man had gone to with his collection and how he put such objects to use caused me to consider moving away from my native part of the country. There were other reasons of course; boredom, loneliness, plus I’d become chagrined with country life and felt like making a fresh new start elsewhere. Maybe I’d even go abroad. Before I made any decision however I decided to confront the old man and ask him to return all the bones he had taken, indeed stolen, back to the cemetery. It had been a few weeks since seeing the sight in his greenhouse and while I did not want to end my friendship with him I was nonetheless determined to speak to him about those awful things.

“Well stranger, where have you been?” he asked answering the door.
I said I had been busy with work and planned to leave the country. When I told him this he looked concerned and said that while he would miss my company he could only wish me all the best for the future.
“But I wish you’d been here last week!” he said.
I asked why.
“I was burgled!”
He heard them come in at night. They broke through the patio doors. He had heard the glass break and heard them wreck the living room. The old man had stayed in bed, listening, waiting for them to come down the hall and find him! But they didn’t. They left soon after without speaking a word.
“Did they take anything?” I asked.
“Nothing substantive,” he said. “Just a few trinkets; all the little relics I borrowed from yonder.” He pointed up the road to the cemetery gates.
“Well thank God for that!” I said, becoming panged with guilt. I apologised to him and said that perhaps if I had been about the week before the presence of a younger man would have deterred them but he would hear none of it!
“How were you to know son? It wouldn’t have mattered to those drunks; opportunists don’t think like that, now come on in and let’s get a bite to eat!” “Did you call the police?” I asked him.
“No need,” he replied.
I didn’t argue and in my relief that the old man was alright I completely forgot about the main reason for my visit. In any case the “trinkets” the old man kept in the living room were the only things taken which was unusual in itself.
“Probably a bunch of Goth kids,” I commented.
“Yeah, well they smashed up the talk box too,” said the old man ruefully. “And my patio; left a real mess out there!”
We spent a pleasant afternoon and when I left for home I had failed to mention the bones in the greenhouse.

Two days later I returned and gave him a gift as a way of atoning for my long absence. He had long been coveting a mobile phone so I bought him a fairly up-to-date model and he was delighted!
“Wonderful!” he said. I did not need to show him how to use it as he was already proficient having seen me use my own over the years. After playing with it for a while he set it down and sighed deeply.
“More bad news son. They’ve come back.”
They had come the night before last. As he lay in bed the old man heard them lurking outside in the dark. They had moved quietly at first, walking around the garden, not speaking as before, but betraying their presence only through the cracking of twigs and the rustle of grass and grating stone. Then they came to the greenhouse, just outside the old man’s window. He waited in cold fear, all alone in the dark and beyond any help.
“Then they tore up the hot house,” sighed the old man.
It had been completely destroyed he said. Each time he heard a piece of glass smashed it was like a lightning bolt through his soul such was his fear. When every makeshift pane and windscreen in the greenhouse had been wrecked the vandals went inside and ransacked it. Then they left as silently as they had come.
“You’ll have to call the police this time!” I insisted. He shook his head.
“The police have murderers and rapists and drug dealers to catch,” he said. “I’m not going to waste their time asking them to come up here when I can go outside tomorrow and rebuild it myself!”
The old man was adamant and I could not dissuade him otherwise.
“Then let’s go out and get started,” I said eager to help him.
“No, no,” he answered waving his hand. “It’s something I want to do myself,” he said kindly.

I came back again the next day to check on him. Fortunately neither the burglars nor vandals had returned but I resolved to try and visit him every other day to keep and eye on him and act as a deterrent in case the house was being watched.

Somehow we got talking about life and death and came to discuss the afterlife. As far as the old man was concerned there was none.
“There is no ‘Great Beyond’,” he scoffed. “You just end up in a hole in the ground,” he concluded firmly.
Privately, my Christian faith disagreed, so I asked the old man, if he did not believe in an after life, why he had a crucifix in his hall way.
“For decoration,” he replied, giving me a long, thoughtful look.
“I’ve something to show you,” he said at last. Then he rose from his chair and beckoned me to follow him down the hall. We came to a padlocked door at the dark end of the passage. He nodded at the door.
“There should be no secrets between friends,” he said. I watched the old man take a key from his pocket and unlock the padlock. Pulling it away he pushed open the door which produced a long drawn out squeak. He hobbled into the darkness beyond, his walking stick in one hand, and then stood to one side waiting for me. I stepped into the room carefully and waited. The old man reached for the light switch.
“This is my prize collection,” he whispered as he pressed the switch.
The solitary bulb hummed then flickered. I caught sight of shelves. This room was small and square. Three walls were streamed with wooden shelves and there were things on each one. The bulb stopped flickering and I saw what they were. Lining every shelf, in neat order, were skulls! Yes, skulls! Human skulls! No, not only skulls! But also the decomposed heads of men, women and children! I admit I nearly laughed. Perhaps it was out of disbelief or the sheer madness of the sight but my laugh became as gasp of horror as the odour of decay hit me. Beside me the old man stood expressionless with his hands in his pockets. I tried to admonish him, question him, say something, anything by way of rebuke but no words could come out and I held my hands to my face as I backed off. As I did the old bare bulb began to give out. It flickered rapidly. The faces on the shelves seemed to move; they glared, snarled, contorted into grimaces of hate and loathing as they beheld me with disdain in the blinking light. Then the bulb went out. In the dark, did I hear the briefest of hisses? Was it me? Was it the old man? Or, was it one of them? I covered my face and ran from the room, not stopping until I reached the front door where I fell to my knees like an exhausted athlete. I heard the rattle of keys as the door was secured and padlocked then the shuffle of the old man’s feet and the dull thuds of his cane as he walked slowly back down the hall. He stopped and though I had my back to him I knew he was looking at me, uncertain what to do now that he had revealed his last secret.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” he whispered, breaking the awkward silence.
“No,” I said standing up and turning to him. “I’m going home.” He nodded slowly.
“Yeah, I suppose you’d better go,” he said.
“You know you’ve got to take them back,” I said, able to speak again.
“I know,” he said calmly. Then in acknowledgement of this being my likely final visit he extended his hand. I shook it then unlatched his front door.
“Good luck in Spain,” he said as I walked away. I paused and faced him again.
“Why did you take them?” I asked.
The old man shrugged then beamed one of his warm, trademark smiles.
“Because I could. Goodnight son.” He closed the door and I went home in a silent daze.

Three nights later I got the call.
“Well son,” he said briskly. “This is it!”
“This is what?” I mumbled, still half asleep.
“I just want to thank you son, for the friendship you’ve given me and your company for so long a time.”

Beyond him I heard repeated, violent thuds.
“What’s wrong?”
“Thanks for everything son.”
“What’s wrong?” I repeated as a resounding crash arose in the background.
“Their here.”
The line went dead.
I tried calling him back but got no reply. After several more attempts I was so overcome with weariness that I fell back into a grateful slumber.

When I woke I instantly remembered this conversation so I flung myself out of bed and dressed hurriedly. Still there was no answer from his phone so I got in my car and sped recklessly to the old man’s house along the narrow roads. In the dawn light all was still and silent as I braked to a halt at his bungalow. His car was there and the windows were intact but the front door was gone! It was lying face down in the hallway. I stepped inside and called the old man’s name. There was no sign of life inside as I went into the living room. Shards of glass lay on the floor. They had smashed in the patio door again as well! I ran through it into the back garden again shouting the old man’s name. There was no answer. I came to the greenhouse. All its windows had been smashed weeks earlier but he had not yet rebuilt it. I looked inside, dreading to come across something awful. The remnants of the tomatoe plants hung lifelessly on the damp concrete floor. Only then did I remember the bones. They were gone! The old man had not told me this! Like a rushing wind the ghastly memory of the room full of skulls and heads came back to me. With it came another thought, a reluctant realisation that made me feel very cold. This was the third time they had come. On the first night they had taken the bones in the house without taking anything else. On the second night they ruined the greenhouse and took the bones. Their bones. These were…. ‘No, no!’ I thought. ‘This can’t be real!’ And on the third night, last night, they took back their…. If I checked that room then, surely to God this, terrifying notion with all its implications for my sanity would be proven true!

The hallway’s carpet had been churned, pictures knocked to the ground; the signs of a violent struggle as if someone was carried away in terror against their will. I walked firmly down the hallway to the room with every sense racing in anticipation. My very soul sank at the sight! The door was strewn in splinters but I knew I had to look inside one last time. I closed my eyes before reaching the threshold and braced myself.
Empty. Threadbare. Devoid of heads.
“Oh, holy God!” I breathed.
I charged back down the hall and out the front door into the coming daylight. It all came together in my mind so quickly and I cursed my acute sense of logic for I had little doubt left now about its certainty! These were no Goth kids. These were no burglars or thieves. These were no vandals. Those who had come to the old man’s house had not come to steal, or destroy or to ruin. They had come to reclaim what was theirs. And they had not come very far. I breathed deeply and wiped the perspiration from my sweaty brow. It began to rain as I walked away from the house.

In front of me loomed the rusted iron gates of the cemetery. With firm yet wary steps I went up to them. The faded metal was cool and coarse to the touch as I pushed them open. They swung back with as vile a noise as had the door at the end of the hall and for the first and last time in my life I stepped into the cemetery. As I moved forward everything around me fell silent. No birdsong, or stray far-off sound or even a breath of wind seemed to penetrate that place and I did not blame them even if it were possible to accuse a sound of cowardice. Every step I took was an ordeal. Beneath my feet there were so many sleeping dead amidst this jungle of gravestones and vile greenery. A bout of vertigo tingled me. As it faded I sensed that there was something here. Something that was neither alive nor fully dead. I went on slowly through the headstones, crosses and long wet grass; unsure of what it was I was looking for. After what seemed like an age I arrived in a kind of clearing with a series of old tombs dotted around me. In the drizzle they appeared older, fouler and in my heightened mindset they brimmed with an icy malevolence. I looked for a way forward but I was to go no further. In the middle of this clearing rose a pile of fresh earth, strewn with rocks and, as I peered closer, something else. From the churned soil, in the very centre of the small mound, came a hand. It bore a ring, a ring with a solitary ‘r’. A sleeve of a pale blue sweater ended at the wrist where the earth had consumed the old man leaving only the hand I had embraced four nights past. He was down there. With them.

I tensed. There was vigilance around me. I was certain of it! From every direction came a series of thuds like something being closed. The sounds resounded through the empty silence of the grave yard. I turned and ran. I avoided the tombs and their stone doors, stumbling through the rain in desperation to escape. On that soaking morning I must have set a record for I’d no sooner blinked when I came to those dreaded, spiked gates that led back to the real world! I was out! I sprinted down the muddy road back to the house, leapt into my car and drove home as fast as I had I come!

Dried, showered and safe, I lay shattered on my bed. It was all sinking in. Hours passed and I did not move from the security of my bedroom. The greenhouse, the bones, the skulls, the heads, the old man, the grave yard, them; it would never go away. Outside the rain pelted my window as the autumn dusk ate up the daylight. Still the events of that morning clung to my thoughts like a fever with no cure. Then my mind relaxed and I remembered something. It was as if it had conspired to be forgotten about until that very moment when, weary and anxious again, I sat up on my bed and glanced at the long chest of drawers by the window. Perched on top was the final gift that the old man had given to me; my future girlfriend’s ash tray. I had barely given it a thought since the day I got it but now I looked at it carefully. It was not large or particularly aesthetic, unique with its hollow concave curvature, pointy sides and bone-like colour. Bone-like. Bone-like! I had seen enough of them to now realise that this object that my non-existence girlfriend would one day use was no ceramic ash tray! It was the top of a skull, a human skull taken by the old man from that haunted cemetery! And it was in my house. My house! For months it had lay here utterly forgotten, the only object not returned to that boneyard! I leapt up and grabbed it! They had come for the bones in the old man’s house, they had come for the bones in greenhouse and they had come for the skulls in the padlocked room. As I held it I could sense an approach like an oncoming storm as inevitably this trend would continue until everything taken was returned to where it came from. For the first time I cursed the old man’s name as the legacy of his folly now moved to destroy me in body, mind and soul. The thing I had been burdened with felt like some unexploded bomb that I could not disarm or hurl away but was also acting as a magnet to an unholy force that would stop at nothing to regain it! Should I flee? Should I throw it out into the rainy night? My indecision was dispelled by a sudden noise, the grating vibration of my mobile phone. It stopped abruptly; I had received what is called a text message. I breathed a little easier. All day I had been caught up in this torment and a greeting from a friend would serve as a window, however small, back to the warmth and safety of reality. ‘I’ll call a priest. No, I’ll go to my brother’s’, I thought as I flipped open my phone to read the message. In an instant my hope was crushed.

It displayed the old man’s number. The message had been sent from the dead old man’s phone; the phone which I, in my own folly, had bought for him. I had not seen it nor given it one thought since running from his house that morning. A pulsating trepidation surged through me, heightening my every sense as I braced myself. With a long deep breath I pressed ‘read’ with my sweaty fore thumb. A deadly, rankling phrase: a simple statement of primitive intent sent to confirm what I already knew but dared not think:-

we are coming for you

© Ciaran McVeigh 2010

The Ballroom of Romance

“Come, let me take you to the Ballroom of Romance….”

Did you hear what’s happened to the dance hall, the Ballroom of Romance? Come on now you must know it! It’s the big dance hall that looks more like a barn or a warehouse. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it was once used as a barn! You must know it! Where is it? Why, it’s just off the main road to the west. You can’t miss it! It’s got ‘The Ballroom of Romance’ in big black letters above the door and there’s a rainbow leaping over the letters. Mind you it’s probably all faded away by now.

God, I could tell you some stories about that place. The things we all got up to! First time I went there was for my 18th in 66’, I’d got a sleeveless polka dot mini-dress especially for it! I still have it. It’s probably up in the loft somewhere but don’t tell your Dad; he’ll want me to try it on! Not that it would still fit me! Anyway, you know what? That was the very night Sullivan showed up. Now, he was the man that built the place. Well, he didn’t build it, his workmen did. He sat in his warm office drinking tea. He wasn’t a local man by any means in fact he was Glasgow-Irish and you know what they’re like – as hard as frozen nails and then some! He had his hand in everything had Sullivan. Property, bars, restaurants, haulage, – you name it. He’d made many enemies, but he was that type of man, he was tough and didn’t care. Coarse and vulgar, you know? What brought him out here I don’t know. There was rumours going round he’d dabbled in the vice trade in Glasgow, you know? Whores and drugs! Of course you’d know; you’re a student!

There’d been an awful row between him and the parish priest at the time. Who was that again? Ah, yes it was Father Moore, he was a bit of a sod himself but compared to Sullivan he was a saint! It was said he was unhappy about Sullivan building a ballroom; a den of immorality – that’s what he’d called it. Ireland was different then, a lot more conservative but Sullivan had money, lots of money and then as now those with money always prevail and get their way. To rub salt into the wound he chose a site not one-eighth of a mile from the church so that every day Father Moore could see and hear the diggers and the labourers putting it all together. Now, I don’t know if this next bit is true but I’m inclined to believe it was. Father Moore gave off to them that they were building too close to the where the old church had stood, the one that the English destroyed in the 1600’s. Apparently there were even graves dating back to God knows when. Sullivan didn’t take kindly to this intervention and not long after Father Moore’s housekeeper found a dead kitten stuffed in the letter-box of the Parochial House. Father Moore went promptly over to the building site to confront Sullivan but he soon ran home again. Sullivan apparently leapt into a bulldozer and threatened to demolish the effing priest’s house if he stuck his effing nose in his effing business again. The police were summoned but it took them the best part of a day to get up there, you know what they’re like. In those days the Priest’s word carried its weight in Gold but when the Gardai questioned Sullivan’s men they kept quiet. He’d brought them all down from Derry for the work you see and you know what Derry ones are like. So Father Moore was left to fume and give off from the pulpit but he’d been doing that even before Sullivan came.

Now, I’m digressing a bit. I was talking about my first time there. Actually now that I think about it, it was everyone’s first time there. It opened on my birthday, Friday the 4th of March, 1966. Me, Lizzie and Maggie; the three of us went together but we knew nearly everyone there. Except of course, Sullivan. The hall was packed but wherever he went it was like Moses parting the Red Sea. And, my God, wasn’t he like the President of the United States? In his fancy suit and surrounded by tall, well-dressed lackeys who were like his very own secret service bodyguards! He was civil enough mind you and even wished me a happy birthday but that was the only time I ever spoke to him.

His investment really paid off. The Ballroom became a sensation and every Friday and Saturday night young ones from places as far away as Sligo, Enniskillen and even Armagh were flocking to it! Our gang went nearly every week for the dances. That’s where I met your Dad so if it hadn’t been for Mr Sullivan you mightn’t be alive today! But before I met him I’ll tell you this. Really it’s a sad story. There was a young fellow called Daniel, Danny we called him. He came alone to the dances and assorted with no one in particular, he just liked to drink and dance. God forgive me because he was, what you’d call, a bit of a simpleton. He lived alone with his father and did a few odd jobs hereabouts. He became quite a popular figure at the ballroom for he’d just dance around like an eejit for all he was worth and he’d drink pint after pint and then let loose on the dance floor again. We’d all cheer him on!

But someone as full of life as Danny would inevitably fall foul of someone as dour as Sullivan. I’d seen him scowling at him from his favoured snug in the corner more than once. Then Danny, after a boisterous rendition of the twist, collided with Sullivan and spilt a pint all over him. Sullivan appeared outwardly calm as he wiped the stout off his suit while Danny was energetically apologetic. But the boy was soon sent packing. He arrived the next Friday fired up for a night of dancing but no sooner had he set foot inside when he was quietly informed by one of Sullivan’s hirelings that the management had invited him to leave. Poor Danny didn’t fully understand. For him the word ‘invite’ bore no ironic connotations. Only after they’d roughed him up a bit did he get the message. Even after that we saw him a few times hiding by a tree across the road looking forlornly at the revellers as they entered the hall. Danny never came back after that. Not long after they found him in a ditch. The Gardai said it was a hit and run driver who did it. Danny’s father died heartbroken not too long after. Had he not been barred from the hall Danny would never have been walking on the road at that time. But this was probably the least of Sullivan’s sins.

There were rumours flying around that Sullivan was a bit of a Mary-Anne, or an Oscar Wilde. I never saw him with a woman it’s true but I put that down to the fact that most of us were terrified of him. To be honest I don’t care what he was one way or the other but a group of lads from up the country latched onto these rumours and decided to have a bit of fun. They were about six of them and they were led by a lad called Jacko and his mate Malachy. Now, in those days nearly everyone had a cousin or other relative in America and a lot of us harboured hopes to go there ourselves one day so they organised a 4th of July ball, complete with American food, buntings, the stars and stripes and lots of balloons. Apparently Jacko and his gang had got hold of three of these balloons, two round and one long, and tied them together in such a way as to resemble a man’s you-know-what. They deposited it in Sullivan’s snug before the big man arrived along with a note that read, “Happy 4th O’ July Sullivan ye’ bugger!” I’ll never forget the look of utter fury on that round face of his! You’ll often see cartoon characters turn scarlet when they get angry and that’s just the colour Sullivan turned when he discovered what was inside his snug that night. One of his cohorts was an aul’ lankey devil we called Slim. I can’t remember his real name. Anyway Slim ordered the band to stop playing and had the bouncers lock us in! Then he held up the balloons in the form of a man’s you-know-what and demanded that the pranksters own up. The hall erupted in laughter. We thought he was joking! What did he expect by going on stage holding a massive inflatable willie? I think I was laughing more at what I thought was his ability to keep a straight face. Anyway it became obvious that he wasn’t joking when the red-faced Sullivan joined him and eyed us with those awful brown eyes of his. We all seemed to shuffle away from Jacko and co. He and his pals were the only ones who hadn’t stopped tittering. It didn’t help matters when Malachy, I think it was, not so much broke but shattered the silence when he yapped out, “Come on Sullivan, ya big poof ye!”

I distinctly recall the heavy thud of Sullivan leaping from the stage onto the dance floor. Jacko et al prepared to defend their friend from the charging bull but the bouncers soon surrounded them. They were pulled, pushed, punched and kicked out of the hall. Some time later I heard one of them got a broken nose or finger from the fight. Needless to say this put a dampener on the rest of the night and when the band played ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ there was only a handful of people left. Everyone gave Sullivan an even wider berth after that but every week the crowds still went. Two people who would never go again though were Jack and Malachy. They were found hanging from a tree on some farmland that October. Some gossiped that it was a suicide pact, others said murder. If the police suspected Sullivan they did nothing. Both of them were orphans with no close family or money to speak of so the matter was soon forgotten about.

Meanwhile Sullivan’s feud with Father Moore continued. Nearly every week at Mass the priest would calmly express his disapproval of what he called the “floozies and the posers” who traipsed to the ugly “edifice” just up the road and whenever he mentioned it he would nod his head and jab a finger in its direction. Yet many felt his rants were more of an indirect attack on Sullivan himself. We all knew Father Moore was fond of a drink and a flutter on the horses and truly there was nothing wrong with that. Had a more benign man built the hall and enlisted Father Moore’s friendship and flattered him accordingly there would be no doubt that the priest would have joined the revellers now and again. But Sullivan had stood up to his ego and this could not be left to die. Around this time I also remember hearing another of Sullivan’s sins.

He always drove a dark ugly car. I think it was a big jaguar. And the speed he drove it! You know how bad the roads are around here nowadays. Well back then they were a hundred times worse but this mattered not to Sullivan. He’d belt along them at seventy miles an hour and more I’m sure. The roads were also much narrower in those days but he’d never slow down. One day Father Moore was driving along when up ahead looms Sullivan’s rig hurtling towards him. Father Moore flashed his lights and blared his horn to no avail and in the nick of time he swings his car into the hedge by the roadside where it got stuck. Sullivan didn’t even slow down. Following this each time Sullivan tore past the parochial house he would sink his horn, intent on reminding Father Moore of the incident. We all wondered if Father Moore could ever find it within him to forgive Sullivan. Either that or he was begging the bishop for a transfer!

We’ll come back to them shortly because before I forget I have to tell you the oddest thing that happened to me in the Ballroom of Romance. It would have been the summer of 1967. Now it was a very inclement summer that year, we’d lots of rain and wind pouring in from the west off the Atlantic and generally the temperature was fairly cool. One Saturday night in June I was there with my usual gang. The hall’s heating was never up to much especially in the winter but for some reason I remember it being very humid in the hall that night. It’s funny how you remember details like that. We were drinking away and keeping an eye out for any eligible fellows when I noticed a young man I’d never seen there before. He was alone which was very unusual for you always went with at least one person but he seemed happy enough and looked very smart and dashing in his black suit and tie. I was immediately drawn to him cos he gave off such warmth and charisma not to mention confidence. ‘Right’, thought I, ‘I’m getting him before Maggie sees him’, so I half-sauntered, half-danced over to where he was. It didn’t talk long before he started chatting me up. At that age you fall for their pleasantries and compliments and wry humour and I was no different. He bought me a drink, we had a dance and he spoke so seductively of nothing in particular.
“Do you want to out for some fresh air?” he asked me in such a way that it be sinful for me to refuse.
‘God yes!’ I thought.
A man didn’t really want fresh air when he invited you outside. Strangely, when I was with him out there the air didn’t fell any cooler. I confess that my own temperature must have risen when he took me by the hand and led me over to the car park. We talked away for a good while and to be honest I can’t remember what we even talked about but I seem to recall that I told him a lot about myself while he didn’t divulge a thing.
“I don’t even know your name,” I said to him.
“Neither do I!” he laughed.
He was a real tease and I was starting to think I’d taken up with a ner-do-well but I was still smitten with him and decided to give him another chance. Yet he went and blew it because before our conversation could continue he suddenly thrust his lips against mine. I was not that smitten with him. Strange to say but his lips were unnaturally warm and as for his breath? Yuck! I swear to you he must have been eating charcoal cos that’s what his gob smelt of! I pushed him back indignantly. He just laughed again.
“Are you one of them?” he asked.
“One of what?” I asked in turn.
“A church goer,” he said.
I was puzzled.
“I am,” I said.
He laughed again and walked away.
“It’s all a scam,” he shouted with his back to me. He went out of sight round the back of the hall. I was surprised and incredulous all at once. When I’d recovered I thought I’d give him a piece of my mind so I carefully tip-toed my way over the pot-holed car park in my precarious high heels and looked round the corner. He was gone. What a chancer! Leaving me out there on a freezing cold night! Such wasters were not uncommon at the ballroom but he was the strangest I’d ever met. He could go to Hell for all I care!

This occurred at a time when Sullivan had not been seen for some while. We’d all hoped he’d cleared off for good and whilst he was gone the hall seemed a much merrier place than usual. But sure enough the sound of his big car tearing along the roads was soon heard again. I don’t know where he’d been or what he’d been doing but it was suspected that perhaps he’d been lying low in relation to some wrong doing elsewhere. Nonetheless he was back and he’d brought Slim with him.

Really it’s no wonder he came back. The venue was as popular as ever and he was making good money. Word spread far and wide about the Ballroom of Romance and it fell on ears only slightly less unscrupulous as those of its owner. Animals compete for resources and when money’s at stake violent men are no different. Back then money was as scare as ice in the Sahara and even crime lords had trouble making ends meet. One could never know the whole story but parts of it trickled out in the papers afterwards. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years and it actually began with Father Moore.

The full story came out in drips and drabs but this is roughly what happened. Still reeling from his run-in with Sullivan I believe Father Moore planned his own dances to attract the more clean-living crowd. They would take place every week for a month in the church hall not too far away from the ballroom. Admission would be free of charge but there would be no alcohol. Revellers were therefore faced with a dilemma, go to a dry dancehall for free or pay for admission and drinks at the ballroom. Surprisingly many chose the former on the first night but they were mostly locals keen to placate Father Moore in a once-off diplomatic gesture. But there were other forces moving against Sullivan.

We all knew Gracey’s photo from the papers. They had dubbed him “the crime lord of Limerick” He’d been forced out of the rackets of that city and had presumably been looking around for a lucrative franchise to move in on. Now his attention turned north to the Ballroom of Romance as there was no doubt he had heard of its popularity. It was successful, profitable, fairly remote and away from the prying eyes of the law. If he assumed its owner was a weak-willed provincial wimp, ripe for easy extortion then he was sorely wrong. Gracey sent in reconnaissance to scout out his would-be new territory. A handful of men with Limerick accents were overheard in the locality and these stoic yet playful new comers attended the ballroom over the next few weeks. Something must have been said because an awful fist-fight erupted between one of them and Slim. He laid a series of solid blows on one of them but by the end Slim’s long face was dented with bruises. There was no clear winner from what I can recall and the Limerick ones were not seen again after that. My gang began to consider alternatives to the Ballroom of Romance. It was getting far too wild. This is why we opted to go Father Moore’s dance in the church hall and thank God we did!

Sullivan seemed to be fighting a war on two fronts. Word filtered back down to Gracey that his men had taken a beating while Father Moore was propagating his own dance throughout the district and further afield. Despite reservations Father Moore’s ball was, to begin with, not so bad mainly because there was, in contrary to what he had advertised, a curtailed amount of alcohol for sale. Turns out he had lied simply to avoid the local bishop finding out. With the wine and the beers flowing we were soon dancing in good spirits.

Just down the road the ballroom was filling up rapidly. According to a girl I know who went there that night there was no sign of either Sullivan or his man Slim but two of his lackeys named MacNiece and Burke were warming his snug for him. Those who cared to notice didn’t even think that much of Sullivan’s absence. I suppose he was on his way to the church hall at about the same time. Father Moore became aware of a mild disturbance at the door and he rushed out to see the elderly doorman, Seamie Roach, standing small and defiant as Sullivan and Slim loomed over him. Apparently they said they simply wanted to inform the crowd inside that there would be free drinks for the next hour at the ballroom. Seamie would have none of it and stood his ground. Sullivan calmly explained his plan to Father Moore who, already livid at the sight of Sullivan, nearly had a heart attack when he heard the man’s incredulous offer. Before things could turn uglier their attention was turned back down the road where the lights of the ballroom were clearly visible. The chill air carried with it a salvo of sudden noise. Yells were heard and a car’s tyres screeched as it swung onto the road and raced towards the church hall. A crowd gathered behind it watching it go. Sullivan and Slim seemed to know what was happening.
“The bastards!” hissed Sullivan as his bodyguard reached into his jacket pocket and dashed to the roadside. Slim didn’t get a chance to fire his gun. Dazzled by its bright headlights he misjudged the speed of the car and as he dived out of its way the driver anticipated his dodge and Slim’s long legs went under the wheels. The car belted on into the night.

Mayhem ensured. The dance-goers flocked in unison from the church hall to be greeted by the sight of mangled limbs, an enraged gangster and the mortified priest and Mr Roach. Sullivan howled and Father Moore was knocked to the ground. Rather than attending to his dying comrade Sullivan ran up the road to hear the news that two of his men had been shot at point blank range by an occupant of the same car that knocked down Slim. Presumably MacNiece and Burke had been mistaken for Sullivan and his right-hand man.

The police could ignore or overlook an accidental death or a rural suicide but this was murder. When a notorious racketeer in Gracey’s pay was found lifeless in a ditch near one of his boss’s drinking dens in Athlone Sullivan’s days were numbered. Perhaps he was being pursued by his enemies or just fleeing in the night to his native Glasgow when the accident happened. His battered Jaguar was found resting at the bottom of the lake in the Glenarc Valley on the main road north. The drop from the road is about four hundred feet.

The outspoken Father Moore was no doubt privately relieved when he got wind of this news. Sadly for him he was not around for much longer. His housekeeper found him sprawled over his breakfast one morning; his head in a bowl of cornflakes! He’d suffered a debilitating stroke and died in hospital in Dublin some weeks later. Word came back to us that it had been caused in part by the stress he’d endured ever since the Ballroom had been built years before.

If anyone thought the future now looked brighter for the Ballroom of Romance they were mistaken. A local businessman took it over and for the first time it actually felt like a genuinely safe place to visit. During this time I met your Dad there. But it was not gangsters or deranged priests that brought about the demise of the ballroom but the people it catered for. Young people far and wide were leaving the district, myself among them. Some were bound for the east, others to England, Canada, America and elsewhere and who can blame them? I certainly can’t blame you for leaving. This is a beautiful but often dreary place. We have only come back to retire.

So the ballroom continued to host patrons well into the early 70’s but it was now past its prime. It changed hands I don’t know how many times and was losing money as the shrinking population took its toll. It closed its doors for the last time in 1975.

I sigh when I think about it but even that wasn’t an end to the tragedy associated with that aul place. One summer’s night a young couple from the north were driving west for their honeymoon. Their car went off the road and it slammed right into the ballroom’s thick concrete walls. They had no chance God help them. But it didn’t end with that. A big Dublin developer hit upon the idea to refurbish it into a hotel or a conference centre or something like that. The year was 1983. Anyway, his men were working away inside when suddenly the old wooden floor gives way and collapses completely! Your cousin Rob was driving by at that very moment. He saw the commotion so stopped to lend a hand and he later told me what he saw. The hall was dark and filled with dust but it soon cleared and he sees a gaping hole spread across the floor in front of him. And in the pit, lying there in their coffins, is a horizontal row of grisly skeletons, twelve in all! Twelve! And down with them were two motionless workmen who’d fallen in with the floor. One of them was stone dead with a broken neck and the other died later in hospital from injuries sustained in the fall.

Holy God I’d never felt such guilt! To think that for all those years we’d been dancing, quite literally, on those poor people’s graves! They were solemnly removed and re-interned in the new graveyard. Questions were asked and eventually the hype died down but many, myself included, have never forgotten. Sullivan must have known about the graves and built the ballroom irregardless. Now, I’ve never read much into coincidences but when you count them; Danny, Jacko, Mal, Slim, MacNiece and Burke, Father Moore, Sullivan, the poor couple and the two unfortunate workmen makes twelve and matches the number of bodies found beneath the floor, and all of the former group died as a direct result of that dancehall being built in the first place. It makes me think, and call me a bit superstitious if you want to, but I wonder if forces other than human selfishness were at play. Forces that sought, as it were, to redress the balance. Twelve for twelve? Only God knows. I’m happy not to know! After that the developer pulled out and so the hall stood there abandoned and derelict, its paint flaking, its windows broken, open to the pounding of the elements and the cold years.

But wait! Sweet Jesus, I’ve almost forgotten why we were even talking about it! Did you hear what’s happened to the Ballroom of Romance? Your Dad’s after telling me when he got home tonight. He was driving past it and he says it’s all aglow. The flames are licking through it and it’s completely ablaze! Soon it will be gutted ash. The fire brigade? Well, it will take them an hour or more to get up here, there are no houses close to the fire that might be at risk and no one with a wise head will go near a burning building. If the hall still has an owner they won’t even care. Believe me. So, no, I won’t be calling the fire brigade and neither will you. Just let it burn.


© Ciaran McVeigh 2010

Vinty Is Dead

Late afternoon came on a damp day in late November. The patrons of a pub were arriving in from work to de-stress with a drink and escape the cold, misty drizzle. Those already inside the pub either had no work or were too old. All of them were men.

Two of them sat at the bar conversing amiably as they enjoyed their beers. Both were in their forties and plainly dressed in builder’s gear with dabs of paint and other stains on their clothes.
“What’s up at the weekend then?” asked Dan.
“Dunno yet,” answered Pearse. “Depends what she wants to do.”
“Always the way isn’t it?” chuckled Dan.
“Defo mate. She’ll drag me to the shops probably,” said Pearse.
“Ouch! Working all week and then having to go through that,” remarked Dan in amusement.
“I’m telling you Dan, the best advise my father ever gave me, God rest him, was this; ‘Never go shopping wi’ women son. Never!’ Utter waste of time!”
“Now if that’s not sound advice I don’t know what is!”
“Takes them five hours to go through twenty shops to buy one pairs of jeans! Life’s too short to be spent doing that!”
“Especially on a Saturday,” said Dan.
“Especially on a Saturday,” agreed Pearse.
“Ah well I suppose it makes them happy.”
“Aye, its does,” said Pearse with a sigh.
The door opened and a stocky, dishevelled, middle-aged man in a broad, cream coloured coat entered the pub. His head was wet from the rain and his plump face red from the cold outside.
“Look who it is,” whispered Dan jerking his eyes to the door.
Pearse turned and swore.
“Seamus, for God’s sake.”
The newcomer hobbled over to them and acknowledged the builder’s with a curt nod.
“Seamie,” they said, greeting him.
He leant his arms forward on the bar and blew his nose noisily.
“Aw God,” he croaked.
“Well Seamie, how was today?” asked Dan pleasantly.
Seamie did not reply. Instead he looked at the men and shook his head as though that were as good an answer as any. Pearse then ventured to engage him.
“Were you working today Seamie?”
“No, no.”
“Still outta work?”
“Aye, there’s nothin’,” said Seamie.
“Ock I’m sure something will turn up,” said Pearse.
The awkward silence that followed prompted Dan to ask;
“So, any news Seamie?”
Seamie turned and looked at him ruefully.
“I got off the phone there,” he said softly. “Vinty is dead.”
The builder’s exchanged glances.
“God, I’m sorry to hear that Seamie,” said Pearse.
“Aw God Seamie, I’m sorry. When did it happen?” asked Dan.
“It was…. It was half two the day,” answered Seamie.
“God save us all!” said Dan.
Pearse set his hand on Seamie’s shoulder.
“You alright there Seamie?”
Seamie nodded.
“Aye, I’ll be alright so I will.”
“You’ll take a drink?”
Seamie thought for a moment.
“Aye I will. Thank you.”
“Basil!” called Pearse.
From the back room came Basil, the bar owner.
“Alright there?” he asked.
Pearse gestured to Seamie.
“I couldn’t get a pint for Seamie, Basil? His brother’s just died today.”
Basil’s round, bearded face promptly morphed from an expression of congeniality to one of polite concern.
“Oh, I’m very sorry now Seamus,” he said offering his hand. “Are you okay?”
“Aye, I’ll be alright so I will.”
“Are you sure now? Do you want to sit down?”
“Aye, we’ll get you on a stool Seamie,” said Pearse who helped him onto the seat to his left.
“That’s better now, isn’t it?” said Basil pouring Seamie’s pint of draft.
“Thank you,” said Seamie.
“What exactly happened to Vinty, Seamie?” asked Dan carefully. He did not want to cause the man further upset.
Seamie clasped his hands together and answered;
“Heart attack.”
“And you don’t hear much of heart attacks anymore, sure you don’t?” commented Dan.
“You don’t, right enough,” said Pearse.
Basil pushed the pint across the bar to Seamie while Pearse paid for it.
“Dropped dead at work,” said Seamie as he took a lengthy sip.
“Dear God,” sighed Basil shaking his head.
“Aye, they only phoned me just now,” explained Seamie hoarsely.
“Aw that’s awful. Will you be going to get him tonight then Seamie?” asked Dan.
“Aye, in a wee while,” he replied.
“Do you need a lift or anything Seamie? I could bring you if you want,” offered Pearse.
“No,” answered Seamie immediately. “You’re grand. I’ll make me own way up when I get my head straightened.”
“I suppose they’ve taken him to the undertakers already Seamus,” said Basil.
“Aye they have. I’ll just go up tonight and sort it all out.”
“Then you’ve to arrange the funeral, tell the priest, put a notice in the paper and so on,” continued Basil.
“Oh aye, I’ll get all that done,” said Seamie.
To the men’s surprise he put down his now empty pint.
“I’ll get you another one there Seamie,” said Dan.
“Ta, now.”
“Awful aul businesses these funerals,” said Pearse ruefully.
“Dam sight expensive an’ all,” added Dan.
“There was my mother’s funeral in July,” said Basil. “Three and a half grand for a bleedin’ coffin! Plus there’s the grave, the flowers, the hearse, and the soup and sandwiches after it.”
“And you’ve to pay the priest too!” said Dan.
“Well some of them don’t take money from ye,” said Basil passing Seamie his second pint. “Though with the one who did my mother’s, the wife said I should give him about fifty quid so I did.”
“Ock it’s not so bad,” said Pearse.
The three men realised their chat was veering away from the bereaved brother.
“Do you have many other relatives who should know about it Seamie?” inquired Dan.
“Not many. There’s the odd cousin out in the country, the nieces and nephews. I suppose they will have to rung and told of it.”
“That will take your mind of it Seamie,” said Basil sympathetically. “Give you something to do.”
“Aye, aye,” said Seamie. “I just can’t believe he’s dead that’s all.”
“I know Seamus, I know,” said Basil.
“We’ve all been there,” said Dan.
“Its gonna happen to us all one day,” said Pearse.
“Aye, that’s true now,” said Seamus drinking away.
There followed another period of silence until Basil said;
“It’s all still sinking in for you Seamus.”
“What?”
“I say it’s still sinking in for you. It’ll take a while to get used to Vinty being gone.”
“Oh it will, aye,” he replied. More quiet followed and Basil thought he would have to reignite the conversation again when Seamie spoke unprompted.
“Me and him used to go on holidays with one another,” he said with a smirk. “One year we got the bus up to Bundoran. There were these three lads sitting at that the back and they gave us a bit of trouble. They were mouthing and swearing at us so when we got off the bus up there we waited til they got their suitcases out. Then they went to the toilet so we grabbed their bags and threw them in the sea!”
Seamie laughed quietly to himself.
“I’m sure you and Vinty got up to all sorts down through the years,” said Dan who had been amused by the anecdote.
“Oh aye,” said Seamie as he sunk another chunk of his pint. “That’s just one of them.”
Seamie coughed and recounted another.
“Aye, do ye remember back in them days they never fastened down the park benches? Well there was many times we’d hoy over the gate in the evening and we’ throw all the benches into the duck’s pond.”
“You don’t think of any consequences do you Seamie?” laughed Pearse.

By this point a number of eavesdroppers had joined the group to express their condolences to Seamie and each of them promised him a drink. Whilst belonging to no particular clique of the pub Seamie was nonetheless modestly popular due in part to what were often described as his “bullshit” stories. Yet he always took the banter in good heart however that night he was naturally more downcast and quiet. At the same moment Basil presented Seamie with his third free pint a haughty looking, balding man in a long black coat entered the bar and sized up the proceedings. He was surprised to see that Seamie was the centre of attention and tapped the shoulder of a young man on the periphery of the group.
“What’s the craic Ryan?” he asked gesturing to the crowd at the bar.
“Alright Joe? Seamie’s brother Vinty is dead,” answered Ryan.
“Oh, is he”? said Joe blandly. “He told you, did he?”
“Nah I just heard from Dan a minute ago,” said Ryan, more interested in his mobile phone than talking to Joe.
“Seamie seems to be taking it well. He’s drinking away there,” commented Joe with a tinge of scorn.
“Aye that’s Seamie for you. He gets on with it!” said Ryan.
“Doesn’t he now,” said Joe flatly. “I’d better say hello.”
Joe made his way to the bar to come alongside Seamie who took another eager sip of lager.
“Bad news Seamie?” asked Joe above the growing clamour.
Seamie’s mild, relaxed countenance suddenly became edgy when she saw who posed the question.
“Aye, its bad news,” said Seamie.
“Poor Vinty,” said Joe.
“Poor Vinty,” echoed Seamie. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“I’m sure you can’t. Must have been a shock for you Seamie.”
“Oh, aye. It was a heart attack he had. That’s what killed him.”
“God, Vinty would be the last person you’d expect to have a heart attack,” remarked Joe looking carefully at Seamie.
“I know. He looked after himself so he did,” said Seamie thoughtfully. “Then, just like that, he’s gone,” he concluded snapping his fingers.
“Do you remember the time I gave you and him a lift home one night?”
“I do, aye,” replied Seamie unsure where the conversation would lead.
“He wanted out to take a p…, go to the toilet. So when we got to the country I stopped the car and he got out and went all over the passenger door!”
Seamie laughed.
“Aye that’s right! I remember now that you mention it.”
“I must say I was raging with him at the time but then do you know what happened?”
“No, what?” asked Seamie.
“You got out and did your business on it too!”
“Did I?”
“Aye, you did.”
Seamie laughed again.
“I must have been too pissed to remember it,” he said.
“Yeah, you were,” said Joe raising both eyebrows. “You’re alright for a drink then Seamus?”
“Aye I’m grand.” Seamie was half way through his third pint at this stage. “I’ve more lined up for me too,” he said indicating the half dozen or so men around him.
“Lucky you Seamus,” said Joe. “If one of your relatives died every day then you’d be sorted for the drink, wouldn’t you?”
Seamie looked wryly at Joe before saying;
“Aye, I would but I don’t have many of them left mind you.”
“The years take their toll,” said Joe forlornly.
“They do their weedin’ out, aye,” agreed Seamie.
“How are you feeling now Seamie?”
“Aye, I’ll be alright so I will.”
“Good man,” said Joe. “Is someone sorting out all the burial arrangements?”
“Well,” began Seamie who was approaching the end of his pint, “my cousin, he’s gonna help me do it all. I spoke to him. He’s on his way now. He’ll bring me up to the morgue.”
“That’s not so bad then. You need support at a time like this.”
“You do indeed, all the help you can get, you know?”
There was another pause and Joe quietly felt as if Seamus did not welcome his company but he still had questions for the bereaved man.
“May I ask how he died?”
“It was very sudden,” said Seamie. “A stroke. Sorry, heart attack, is what it was.”
“There I was thinking heart attacks were a thing of the past.” said Joe.
“Aye, that’s what those lads were saying as well,” said Seamie meaning Dan and Pearse.
“Did they get him to the hospital?”
“No, he…. died there on the factory floor,” muttered Seamie.
“Awful way to go,” said Joe.
“It is, aye. I wouldn’t wish it on me own worst enemy.”
Joe followed suit with the male tendency to slowly shake one’s head when acknowledging the grief felt by the death of someone close to an acquaintance.
“So what will you do with yourself now Seamus?” he asked eventually.
“Ah, I don’t rightly know,” muttered Seamie. “Have to do something I suppose.”
“Aye, sure there’s no rush.”
“I’ll have to get a job sorted out so I will.”
“Ah right. You’re not working at the minute?”
“Ock, the odd day I would be. Now and again there’d be something.”
“Well don’t worry too much about it. Just get the next couple of days over with then you can look for something.”
“Then I’ll sort of your dosh for you Joe. You’re probably after it.”
“No, there’s no rush Seamus. Don’t be worrying over it. Whenever you can, call into the office and we can sort it all out.”
“Aye, I will do,” said Seamie finishing his beer.
“I’ll let you go here Seamus, there’s a queue to buy you a drink forming,” said Joe moving away.
“Don’t worry about it Seamie,” said Ryan. “We’re all buying for you tonight, right lads?”
“Ah, yis are good,” said Seamie, smiling for the first time.
Dan meanwhile had retreated to the edge of the throng in order to stretch his legs.
“What do you make of this?” Joe asked him.
“Awful business, right enough. Poor old Vinty. I mean I don’t know Seamie well but you feel for him all the same.”
“That’s true.”
“You know him though, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Joe, “though mainly from the legal work I did for them.”
“Oh right, what exactly?”
“I sold their farm for them last year after they fell on hard times. They still haven’t paid up and I doubt they will now,” said Joe gloomily.
“Well, that’s probably the last thing Seamie’s thinking about now Joe,” said Dan. “I’ll tell you this; he and Vinty are characters, real characters.”
“Oh I know,” said Joe. “I just reminded him of the time I gave them a lift home one night and the two of them needed out to answer a call of nature. What did they do but piss all over my passenger side door!”
Dan’s beer nearly sprouted from his nostrils as he tried to contain his mirth. Joe was unmoved.
“Mark my words they’ve probably got more money than they let on,” he said. “And I still haven’t seen a penny of it.”
“Well, now’s not the time to be chasing it Joe. Considering.” Dan nodded to the bar where Seamie was already well on the way to consuming his fourth pint.
“The other week Seamie said he could pay me back in instalments. I arranged to go out to their house to run over the details but neither of them were at home. After that I couldn’t get hold of them for a few days. Apparently they’d gone on holiday and not told me!”
“Well, they probably just forget to tell you,” said Dan who was becoming a bit displeased with Joe’s attitude.
“Then I got a letter from another solicitor, I can’t say who, accusing me of sneaking about his client’s property. His clients were none other than Laurel and Hardy; Seamus and Vinty! I wonder if they’ve paid him. I’ve a mind to check!”
“A solicitor? What did he say?”
“He said I was seen looking in their windows and had prowled around their garden and fields. I did look in the window but only to see if they were at home like they’d promised. I never went near the fields! So, if they were away on holiday, who was it that saw me ‘prowling’?”
Joe’s voice sounded almost livid.
“I dunno Joe. It’s best you wait til all this dies down,” said Dan diplomatically.
“I’ll do my best,” said Joe with an angry sigh.
“I’ll take to you later,” said Dan moving back to his friend at the bar.
No ooner had he gone when Joe was joined again by Ryan.
“Poor aul Seamie, eh?” said the young man. “He didn’t deserve this. I just went and told him I was sorry about Vinty. As well as that I said forget about the fifty quid that he owes me.”
Joe smiled then said;
“Well if he owed me fifty quid I’d have let him off as well but would you forget his debt if it had been, say, twenty thousand?”
“Not bloody likely,” laughed Ryan. “Why, is that what Seamie owes you Joe?”
“It’s in that ball park,” said Joe grimly.
“Jaysis,” breathed Ryan. “That’s an ugly sum. I thought I had it bad with my mortgage. It’s eight hundred a month!”
“Doesn’t leave you much to live on, sure it doesn’t?”
“Or drink on!” roared Ryan. “Seriously though I’m definitely gonna try and cut down on the beer. I don’t want to end up like poor Vinty and have a stroke!”
“Stroke?”
Joe’s interested was suddenly aroused.
“Aye, that’s what he died from, Seamie told me,” said Ryan.
“He told me it was a heart attack.”
“Heart attack? Well he was adamant that it was a stroke.”
“Was he now?” asked Joe suspiciously as he turned to see Seamie be commiserated by another generous patron.
“Aye,” said Ryan. “I think the stress is getting to him. Maybe he’s confused.”
“Or maybe he’s….”
Joe trailed off having thought better not to say what he was thinking.
“What Joe?”
“Never mind.”
“I wouldn’t wish a stroke on anyone,” continued Ryan. “My Granda died from one. He ended up as a vegetable for two weeks before he went. Vinty was lucky not to have to go through that!”
“Yes I suppose he was,” said Joe thoughtfully, not really paying attention to the younger man.
“Life won’t be the same for Seamie although at least he’ll have the house and the jeep.”
“What jeep is this?” asked Joe aghast.
“Oh, he says Vinty bought a new one a couple of weeks back. He loves his cars does Seamie.”
“They’ve money tucked away then by the sound of it,” said Joe who looked ready to seethe.
“Oh, aye. With the land they owned, definitely.”
“I’m going to have another word with him,” said Joe.
“What about?”
“This and that,” replied Joe making his way to the bar again.
There was a lull in sympathisers around Seamie who was already well into his fifth pint.
“So are you enjoying your new jeep Seamie?” asked Joe bluntly.
“My jeep?” responded Seamie guardedly.
“Yes, your jeep.”
“What jeep is this?”
“The one Vinty got.”
Seamie’s forehead became a row of wrinkles as he pondered this statement from Joe whose eyes narrowed to scrutinise him.
“Aye the jeep now, yes,” stammered Seamie putting down his drink. “It’s one we got a loan of you see,” he said raising him hands as if he was trying to construct his very words with them.
“A loan?”
“Aye, to do runs into town and for Vinty to go to work. He uses it.”
Seamie went orange prior to correcting himself.
“Used it for work I should say!”
“Who owns it then?”
“We do. I mean to say a cousin of ours owns it. He lent it to us. I’ll buy it off him when I get your money sorted out for ye Joe.”
Joe looked at Seamie with contemptuous disbelief but decided to say nothing.
“Well,” said he said at last, “I would like you to get it sorted as soon as you can Seamus. It’s gone on long enough.”
“It has,” said Seamie. “I’ll not deny it. I don’t want it to be said that I’m a man who never pays his debts!”
‘Bit late for that mate’, thought Joe.
At Seamie’s utterance of the word ‘debts’ ears that had hitherto not been actively listening began to pay attention. Surely Joe, the money-loving lawyer, could not be pressing for payment at a time like this?
Joe was tapped firmly on the shoulder.
“Are you wise Joe?” hissed Pearse.
“What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re hawking him for money!”
“I’m not,” answered Joe calmly. “I was just asking Seamus about his new jeep.”
“I hope that’s all you were asking him!”
Seamie had become sensitive to this exchange and before it could become more heated he raised his hands in a call for peace.
“It’s alright Pearse. Joe has a right to know when he’ll be paid but don’t have a row about it! Vinty wouldn’t have wanted yis to fight boys. He was a man of peace, a bit like me self. I hate fighting, especially after someone’s just died! It ain’t right. If you want to fight go outside, I want nothing to do with it.”
Seamie sighed deeply.
“It’s just me now. I’m all one me own.”
He looked long and hard at his beer. His voice seemed to come from very far away.
“You should be glad you have people to go home to.”
Seamie paused.
“I don’t.”
The pub fell largely silent.
“Let’s have another drink Basil,” said Seamie.
“I’ll get it for you Seamus.”
Seamie turned in surprise because the speaker was Joe.
“I hope I caused you no offence,” he said softly so that no one else would hear him. “I got a bit carried away. It’s been a long aul day and the wife’s been bitching me about everything under the sun. It’s just when I saw you in here this evening Seamie and after what I heard I jumped to all sorts of conclusions. God almighty what an idiot I am!”
“Ah don’t worry about it Joe,” said Seamie.
Joe offered Seamie his hand with a warm smile.
“I’m really sorry about Vinty Seamus. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“I will now and thank you Joe,” said Seamus shaking Joe’s hand.
“Will you be alright now Seamus?” asked Joe.
“Aye, I’ll be alright so I will.”
The ambient chat had already resumed and the atmosphere was friendly again. Then one of the patrons, oblivious to the entire conversation surrounding Seamie and his bad news, said goodbye to his mate and headed for the door. Through it came a man in a large, cream coloured coat identical to Seamie’s. His features were also very similar to those of the man who sat at the bar drinking his fifth free pint of the evening.
“Alright Vinty?” said the man who was leaving.
“Hello and goodbye!” beamed the newcomer cheerfully. “Salutations to you all my friends!” he exclaimed.
The babble of talk was snuffed as every jaw in the pub dropped. Glasses clinked, shoes squeaked in sudden movement and hushed curses stained the once warm air.
“Lazarus!” shouted someone with a laugh.
Tilting his head round to get a better look, Seamie seemed only mildly surprised to see the new arrival.
“Seamie?” said Pearse at last. His tone appeared to request an explanation. Seamie kept quiet and bowed his head.
“Well well well,” said the man. “How’s my twin brother? You alright there Seamie?”
“Aye, I’ll be alright so I will.”
“That bus was mental tonight!” he said sitting down beside Seamie. “Queues of traffic all over the show. Anyway Basil, give’is a pint there will ya?”
Basil didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end he opted to glare.
“My friends!” laughed Vinty as he grew aware of similar expressions from the others. “Whatever is the matter?”
“What is this Seamie?” demanded Dan.
“What’s what Dan?” asked Vinty with amusement.
“We were informed Vinty, that you had died.” said Joe grimacing.
“Dead? Me? No! You’re mistaken! But who told you I was dead?”
Joe jabbed a finger at Seamie.
Vinty, aghast, looked questioningly at his younger brother. Seamie took a long swig of his final pint then set it down noisily on the bar.
“I’m sorry lads,” pleaded Seamie. “I was desperate for a drink and I had no money!”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Joe furiously. “I knew it was sympathy ploy! God, how the hell could I have been so bloody stupid?”
“Calm down now Joe,” insisted Seamie. “Vinty here will pay yis all back what your owed, won’t you Vinty?”
“I bloody won’t!”
“Get out the pair of ye!” yelled Basil.
“Go on, get out!” roared Pearse.
“Hey now, cool it!” said Vinty getting off his stool. “This has nothing to do with me!”
Alas for Vinty; guilt by association with his lying brother was enough to condemn him also.
“Who gives a shit? You’re a prick!” retorted Pearse.
“Out yis go and don’t set foot inside my pub as long as yis live!” declared Basil shaking his fist as the duo edged their way through the unfriendly throng.
“I’ll see you both in court!” called Joe after them as they reached the door where they were half-pushed, half-kicked and thrust out into the drizzle.
“Pair a bleedin’ chancers!” said Dan rocking his head in sheer disbelief.
“Let me buy you a drink Joe,” said Pearse. “You were right and I was wrong.”
“Thanks but you’re not to blame. As I said Seamus is a crafty old so and so. He’d sell his own mother if he could!”

Outside the two unscrupulous siblings bickered acrimoniously as they trudged through the gloom. Vinty argued his corner and so did Seamie but it made no difference for after that night neither of them was believed nor bought a drink in that town ever again.

© Ciaran McVeigh 2010

A Lament

The twilight rules this place. From across the water comes a steady breath of wind neither warm nor cold. Perhaps it too is ethereal. It cascades gently against my home softly beating the stone walls then rises and entwines itself around the turreted battlements. A solemn silence reigns broken only by a rush of humming air. Faint bluish light cascades vaporously around me. I know where I am. I seem to linger in a fixed place here and I am carried about it seems by another wind: a breeze of stale memory, an imprint of what was. What was?

Pride. Excitement. A carriage decked with white flowers. A white horse pulls it. A smiling man beside me. A carriage ride through sunlit trees. The carriage halts. A broad green and high pristine stone lit up by sunlight. He takes my hand and I smile as he lifts me from the carriage. The vision evaporates and becomes a slowly swirling mist.

A cancerous ill feeling. Latent strife breeds in dark places around and within me.

Our lands must remain our lands he explains. Hillgakley Castle, our home, must remain ours. As if I am ignorant of this. An heir, a progeny is required. I am aware of this too. My father owned half of Leinster! Greed always conquers virtue and reason.

I am put to bed a week before time. I hear him without in the hallway.
“What news girl?” he asks the maid. Always the same question. “What news girl? What news? What of the child?”
Why so can he not inquire this of me? Am I extraneous to him? I shall not forget nor f..….

In the end it is an irrelevancy. Stillborn.

Temporal duration. Latent hate brews. He was becoming grotesque even before the unbirth. Coarsely insensitive. Flabby, hairy, eyes stewing like a bitter broth. Speaks nothing. We are approaching destiny.

Land but no heir. Land but no heir. Land but no heir is his ceaseless refrain. In shadowy stealth he plots. His mother. They plot in unison. Scattered kinsmen are chosen to succeed him. Not I.

Not I.

That dire woman! The one who squeezed him into being. She is as stubborn as she whom I sense lingers with me here: that hardy sprite who saw off Cromwell’s hordes before I came. No matter.

Ruthless action. My vexations have conquered me and send into exile my old sensitivities. What use be they in the coldness of the world?

He remains not immune to my long hid charms and bodily satisfaction. I am willing, yes. To regain a foot hold amidst his good graces and to lure him via subtle pleasures into my designs. Then I will wreak my own satisfaction. The reward is worth his odious skin against mine.

His covetous kinsmen are disinherited. The new testament is sanctioned in my favour. A gentle kiss and a smile to steady his good inclinations on this new course. But behind him lurks that shrewish mass of his maternal progenitor. Her warnings are like slashing poisoned blades upon the temperance of my mind. The altered will is her burning concern. She utters venomous prophecy; “ere three months of the day thou mark that Will thou will lie with thy father in the vault.”

Let us fulfill it.

A raging rain punches the windows as if to warn. To warn he or I? I brew the ailment in the tower. The tempests wail outside. It is ready. He shall drink this. He shall drink this. May I be dammed otherwise.

Our chamber nestles in the dark. His form portrudes beneath the sheets.
“Your drink my love,” say I.
He takes the chalice and consumes. He settles back and splutters, his eyes bulge in surprised fury at the knowledge of my deception.
“Enjoy thy death my sweet.”

He is Gone. Good.

Now I can set forth my plans for the betterment of this place. With my brother’s wealth and my guile we shall in unison and through our good industry uplift it and ourselves to the heights of oppulence and favour.

Passage of time and all be well. Then the elements shake and tumble round and round and round. My victory is pyrhic. This dwelling crumbles and fades. No. It lingers. Tis I that crumble and fade and yet languish here! Aye. Fettered somehow. Enthralled hither! O’ panic! Is death not a door? Have I fasened myself to these stones by my acts and my deeds? O’ to wail without a voice! This agony! This cannot be! Cannot be!

But it is.

And always will be.

Trapped forever more. I relive it all again and again: powerless to unwind my wicked course. I am outside myself and look and see, as though it were painted on shattered glass, the moving form of my living self plot and lie and kill and cry.

And die.

Tethered for perpetuity. Chained with murderous self-loathing. Spiralling downwards towards a noxious limbo. I am gnawing in upon myself. Again.

And again.

And again.

Because I could not choose to love.



© Ciaran McVeigh 2007

The Wail of the Wind

Read carefully. I know how easy it is to embellish and exaggerate accounts of stressful situations but this is the truth. Word for word. This January, bereft of both love and a job, I drove west. I came to a place they call Connemara. It was wild, wet and bleak. After spending one night in my car I looked for somewhere with a bed to stay. Half an hour of searching brought me to a small house. It was remote, intact and grey, miles from anywhere, except the fuming Atlantic. I was tempted to break in but didn’t. I was in enough trouble. A mile down the battered road was a small farm so I stopped and inquired there as to who owned the cottage by the sea. Turned out it belonged to the farmer himself. He was haughty at first but he was a kindly man despite my accent and sudden arrival. I asked about the cottage and he said I could stay in it for as long as I liked. He charged me less than half the seasonal rate for a week’s stay. More than enough time to decide what to do with my life. He even gave me a cup of tea, some bread and a few eggs.
“Be careful,” he said as I set off.

I threw my bag on the bedroom floor. The bed sheets were ancient and cold. Down a narrow hall was a bare kitchen on one side followed by the front door of faded green. There was also another empty bedroom and a small sitting room with an armchair and fireplace. In time I got the fire going, I brought in the car radio and managed to get it going as well. For dinner I had toast, eggs and some ham by the fire. Peace and quiet! I scrawled a rubbish poem in my notebook while I dozed. The fire burnt low. I locked the door and peered out the front window for a long time, listening to the constant beat of the waves. I went to bed.

The house shuddered slowly. A gushing sound rose gradually in volume. There was a thud and the wind howled through the hall. Had the front door come loose? My bedroom door then reverberated. Yes it must have. Dam. I flung off the sheets and got out of bed. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, now I had to get up to sort this out. The bedroom door I near torn off its flimsy hinges! The gale almost knocked me off my feet when I entered the hall! I leaned against the wall and trudged through the dark. The front door was blown open – as I had thought! Aw God! Beyond it was the faintest of lights. From the Moon probably. I reached the door and pushed it. The wind pushed it back. I pushed it harder. The latch clicked. I grabbed a log from beside the fire and stuck it by the front door. That should keep it in place. I went back to sleep.

Above the hall way was a trapdoor. After breakfast I took a chair from the kitchen and stood on it. I pushed the trapdoor away and pulled myself up into the attic. Nothing was up there except for a tin box; like one of those fancy biscuit tins you get at Christmas. But this one wasn’t decorated and it had no biscuits in it. I took it down and set the plain tin on the kitchen table. It was quite hard to open it because the rim of the lid was rusted shut. Inside was a gun! It was an old revolver, like a soldier’s. I’d never held a gun before so I gingerly lifted it from the tin and set it down carefully. Wait a minute. There was more!

An old crucifix. Parts of Jesus’ metal body had crumbled off. Interesting. More interesting was the last item in the box – an antique silver comb. The type of comb a woman would use. It must be of some age, older than the gun and the cross. I set each of them back in the tin box and put it under my bed. I’d take them home and sell them. The farmer needn’t know. He already had money. Probably.

I went out for a walk along the windy strand. It got dark earlier and started to rain so I ran back to the cottage and followed the same routine as my first night’s stay, dinner, fire, bed. Gaelic music played on the radio. Peace and quiet!

Outside a storm rushed in from the ocean. There was an intense scraping sound coming down the hall. Then a Boom boom boom. God! The wind wanted in through the front door again. It was worse than last night. I waited, half asleep, for it to crash open again. But it didn’t. The wind died down and I fell asleep.

The morning was very calm. I had bacon and eggs for breakfast, toasted over the fire. Tasty! Later I planned to go out and buy more food.

“Any trouble up there?” asked the farmer.
“No, no trouble, all’s grand thanks,” I answered.
“You’re okay for food?”
“Wouldn’t mind more bacon if you’ve any.”
“Just watch yourself up there. The wind can be wild.”
“I’ll be grand thanks, the place is holding up well.”

I hadn’t noticed the marks on the front door. Five roughly parallel lines cut into the wood. Funny, how I hadn’t seen them when I arrived the day before yesterday. They looked fresh enough. I unlocked the door and went in and set my shopping on the kitchen table. That afternoon I went for a walk on the beach again but this time I went in the opposite direction. There was no one about. Not even a sea bird. The rain began on queue and an icy wind arrived. I ran home. Again, dinner, fire radio etc. I’d developed a routine!

I dozed. God how the wind howled! It was like a singing wolf, raising and lowering its voice. I imagined a wind swept tree to be conducting a wolf-choir in the moon-light. No, it wasn’t a wolf. More like a woman. She’s an echoing soprano. In fact she’s right outside. I wonder if she’s as lonely as me.

“Come on in, baby. Yeah, come in and get into bed with me and…”

Boom boom. Not again. That bloody front door! A rough, elongated scratching. Boom boom boom. The wind squeaked through every chink in the house. I need to sleep! No wonder no one lives here in this dump! I closed my eyes tightly.

Christ save us! How the hell? More marks on the front door! How did they get there? Wait. There was a tree nearby. I suppose the branches were blown against the door during the night and that’s what caused it. But was the tree close enough? I’ll think about it later, I’m going for a walk.

Those scratches on the door have filled my head all day. What a place this is!

My senses have got used to this environment. I know what to listen for, what to see. Every night there was the constant wind! I lay in bed waiting. Expecting. It came suddenly, sometime in the dark between midnight and the dawn. Knock knock knock. My fingers seized the bed sheets like the frenzied talons of an eagle would seize its prey. Then a deep echoing howl, of lamentation, of warning, of forebodeance. I near choked. It wasn’t the wind. That was an unearthly woman’s voice or I else I am insane! I sat up rigid in the bed but I did not flee - how could I escape it in the storm? Like nails traversing a black board it scratched at my front door. Christ help me! I leapt head first from the bed and reached beneath it for the tin box. I dug my nails onto the lid and pulled it of. I fumbled for the cross and held it to my chest. As if sensible to my movements and the noise I’d made within, the mournful wail rose in defiant anger. I kissed the cross and yearned for the dawn.

Nothing happened. The howling continued intermittently. Then with the first light of the day it died away. I finally exhaled. I got dressed in a heartbeat. I was leaving this place. I was leaving today!

I flung my clothes into my bag along with the tin. I thrust a mouthful of lukewarm bread between my lips. I raced outside without locking the door, leapt to the car, slipped and fell into the snow. Snow! The country was consumed in white! Holy mother of God! Where had it come from? I don’t care I’m leaving. I got in the car. The engine began hesitantly. Typical! It was an excruciating trial getting up that narrow unpaved track! And it was a trial the car failed. It was lodged in the snow. The farmer would have a tractor! I put my rucksack on my shoulders, pushed open the door and walked into a blizzard. His farm was somewhere amidst this frigid white hell. I trudged in the direction I guessed it to be. The passage of time became a conjecture. Every way I went I could see nothing and the more I pressed on the more the wind blew. Forget it. I chanced back upon my frozen car, now covered under centimetres of snow. Through the swell I glimpsed the cottage. It seemed untouched by the storm. It was waiting for me. Bearing no particular emotion I went back to it. By now, so numb with cold, I’d forgotten why I’d even left it. I didn’t care. It was shelter. I took off my snow-covered coat and clothes then somehow got the fire started. And you know what? I’m crazy. I’m crazy to think whatever it was, was after me. The wail of the wind I’d misconstrued as a ghostly yell. And that tree’s coarse branches had damaged the door. ‘Go out and see for yourself’, I thought. ‘You’ll see last nights damage’. I opened the door and stepped outside. It had stopped snowing but still there blew a gale. It was too dark to go out and try again. Now, those marks! See? Scratches running here and there across the door…

No tree did this! O’ Lord Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!

I raced inside and slammed the door! It must have come to the cottage on each night of my stay. This would be my fifth night and I did not doubt it would come again. I did not even think why it came to the door. Let it come! Who cares?

I sat on the bed, eyes fixed on the front door down the hall. Tap tap tap. Knock knock knock. A cry of entreaty, as if it were the voice of the wind itself, came from beyond. A faint light too. I tried to aim the gun but my unsteady hand prevented this. I set it down on the bed.

Boom boom boom boom.

Each thud seemed to press a mighty weight down on my chest. Then my mind, despite its battle with recent stresses, managed to suddenly recall an old lore:

To greet or beckon a spirit’s kin
is to invite the Devil to come in

And my words from two nights before came back to me with a jolt.

Come on in, baby.

Followed by,

Come in, get into bed with me and….

I’d said that! Muttered it rather. But even that had been enough!

I jumped up and gently closed the bedroom door. I had wanted to slam it but it would hear me! How pathetic. It already knew I was in here hiding! My frigid fears and hot self-admonition at having entreated this thing welled within my throbbing heart. I could feel the chill through the thin door yet it did not relieve my pulsating temper. But this barrier could not block out the wails, the moans or the echoing disembodied, marrow-chilling shrills of the thing outside. I reached for the gun but instead my hand came back clutching the silver comb. The front door smashed open and a roar of icy rage, louder than ever before, gushed into the house like the waters of a bursting dam. A dismal light flowed down the hall and lit the perimeter of the darkened bedroom door. And then a horrific realisation came crashing into me as I held the antique brush before my frantic eyes. Of how spirits, like the one now setting foot inside, coveted such things! It didn’t want me. It wanted the comb! It wanted its comb; the same comb which decades before had been left by some idiotic soul in a biscuit tin! God alone knows why.

The wailing grew and grew. I yelled in answer and wretched open the door with half-shut eyes and flung away the comb with all my might! Vividly, I recall only the noise, the streams of light cast like wisps of hair and torn garments and, what I pray is my own mind’s creation, a long grey face of wrinkled torture with empty shells for eyes.

“Take it!” I shouted.

I shut the door and heaved my back against it. I grabbed the gun and held it close. It was now my crucifix. The silence did not last long. Its cries began again and now, to my ears, they sounded thoughtful as if it was scrutinising the item now in its possession. I pictured it skeletally fingering the comb. I sat down slowly on the bed and raised the gun to the door. The wailing died down. But I still felt its icy presence and its echoing cries linger in my head. I opened this, my notebook, and began to write. In utter silence, as if I was whispering this tale to you, I’ve scrawled the above and have come to this point.

I’ve written this story from the perspective of a survivor. I can say now with no shame that I have misled you in this regard. You see my fear has made me mingle by past and present tenses in an effort to assuage this terror. A terror that lurks, waits and watches not ten paces from me. For I am still in the house. It is still in the house. It has its comb but is still here. And it is coming down the hall. It is coming for me….

© Ciaran McVeigh 2010

The First Ghost Story

Long ago in a cave far away a man, his son and daughter wrapped themselves in bear skins and looked out at the land as the sun disappeared beyond the mountains. A small fire burned briskly nearby.
“I think the sun will shine brightly tomorrow, a real hot day is coming,” said the son in a slow, uncertain voice as if expecting confirmation of this forecast from his father.
“It is hard to say,” said his father. “There is a wind blowing in from the north and east.” The older man paused and exhaled a long thoughtful sigh as he gently scratched his bristled chin.
“No,” he said at last. “It will rain. Not a heavy rain but it will last most of the day. The wind will die out before the dawn though.”
That was that. The daughter, who was younger than her brother, pointed out at a tall rock some distance away.
“Dad,” she laughed. “Do you see the man’s face?”
“What’s that my girl?” he asked leaning his head her direction in order to better hear her soft voice.
“The stone!” she said stabbing her finger towards it. “Does it not look like a man’s head?”
“Where is it?” asked her father.
“There! It sits before the tree on the hillside!” she said excitedly.
Her father narrowed his eyes.
“Ah! Yes I see it, Haha! Very cleaver of you my girl.”
His daughter smiled at his praise.
“Looks like a big rock to me,” said her brother glumly.
“No, my son,” said his father. “You can see many things if you care to look more closely. Why, just the other day on the hunt I was watching from a tree. I so happened to look up at the blue sky when I saw a mammoth!”
“A mammoth Dad?” asked the girl, wide-eyed.
“Aye, a mammoth!” laughed the father.
“Did it have wings Dad? Was it flying?” asked the boy with sudden interest.
“No, no, it had no wings,” answered the man.
“How then?” asked the children together.
The father paused a few moments to add to their mood of expectation.
“What I saw was a cloud that resembled a mammoth; tusks and all. Haha!”
The children laughed.
“That’s not the same thing as a real one Dad,” said the boy.
“It is, it is!” insisted his sister.
“What else have you seen Dad”? asked the boy.
“Oh, over time I’ve seen many things. Don’t forget that I’m an old man, I’m thirty-eight winters!”
“Please do tell us Dad,” implored his daughter.
“Yes, come on Dad,” said the boy.
“Very well then I will,” said their father. “I will tell you this story. It begins some twenty-seven winters past before both of you were here. Try and picture me as I was in those days. I was shorter, thinner and there was no hair upon my face!”
The children giggled.
“Now the men-folk were all gearing to go forth for the great late-summer hunt. I was to go with them as was Uncle. He and I had been out on many hunts with the other men-folk so we were confident and set off in good cheer! Our quarry were the deer of the forest plains to the west of here. In the winter season they lurk in the woods to escape the cold but when the weather grows warmer and the sun shines stronger they come forth to mate in the spring then will linger in the plains until the autumn before retreating back into the trees when the snows come once again. My father was to lead us as was his honour for he was the chief and in his crafty eyes you could almost see all the skills of hunting and the memories of every kill he’d made for he was an old man, very old, fifty winters at the least and his hairs were turning white with age. I can remember him as clearly as I see the two of you now. He was tall and broad with a beard longer than mine. On his head he wore attire of sorts. Ages before he had hollowed a piece of wood to fit upon his head and on it he had fixed two mighty Oxen horns! His spear was streamed with peacock feathers in order to give it greater flight. With such a countenance and his mighty visage I am glad I was his son and not his enemy! Can you imagine him chasing after you with one of his savage roars?”
The children listened wide eyed at this thought. They edged back slightly. The father paused; his smile indicated a contented memory lingered in his mind.
“Well, the hunt started well. We were two days from home when we chanced upon wild swine. Info the forest they fled as we fell upon them from the higher ground. I recall my father bolting after them down the slope and into the mirk of the wood, his loud voice bouncing off every tree and branch. In the darkness of the forest I lost sight of him but I could hear him from far off. His voice trailed away into the depths as myself and Uncle and the other men killed swine in the woods. The day waned and we had slain many as the sun disappeared, casting its amber sheen through the darkening wood. As we worked one of the solemn elders emerged from the forest and beckoned Uncle and me towards him. He led us silently back the way he had come, into the depths of the trees. After much walking we come to a large rocky pool at the bottom of a slope. There were a group of our clansmen already there, huddled together. Beside them was the carcass of a mighty bull Oxen. They stopped speaking when we appeared with the elder. We looked at him.
“Thy father is slain,” he said gravely. He gestured to the men who parted ways to let us see our father’s body.
“The bull took him,” said the elder. “But your father impaled the beast. He died with great honour.”
Uncle and I stepped over to our father. He had two large wounds; one his chest and shoulder where the Ox had skewered him but he now seemed to lie in peace. To his side lay his helm while half of his spear hung from the neck of the beast. His blue eyes shone even in death. My brother and I grieved in silence. It was hard to believe we had seen him alive that very morning as he stormed through the wood after his prey. Now he was as dead as a stone. But such is the way of things. We are born, we live and we die. It will happen to us all. My father always carried his ornately carved spear decorated with its peacock feathers. We set it atop his burial cairn which we made on a rocky hillside high above overlooking the lake.

Uncle became the chief and after that we had many good years. However the Winter’s were crueller then and seemed to last for eternities yet in the merciful respite of Summer we hunted long and hard. Thus when the snows came we had plenty to eat and could horde our meats in the ice even as we do so today. Over time I learnt all the tricks of the hunt; stalking, ambush, methods of attack. It was a good time for us. Year after year the tribe prospered under Uncle and in our summer hunts the men ventured further and further from our territory.”
The father stopped and sighed. His children leaned in closer again, intrigued at this sudden change.
“Now there came the time of year when summer was ending. The sun went to bed more quickly and the days grew shorter. Already I could feel the first traces of the cold whenever the wind blew strongly. During that summer I surpassed myself. I led the hunts along with Uncle and we brought back more food than we could carry on our tired backs. After each hunt I grew bolder and more confident. I felt I knew everything there was to know about hunting and that no beast, however cunning, could elude me. Then came the final hunt of the summer. It reminded me of ten summers before on that fateful hunt on which my father died. This time we were to venture south into lands we did not know. There lay the mountains. Neither of you have seen them but they are so high the snow never leaves their summits. We started well, catching deer and oxen and even a prideful bull mammoth. Some of our men took these spoils home however the rest of us continued south. We were eager to explore this new territory and gain knowledge of it for it bounty had persuaded us to return the following summer. On our tenth day out they attacked us. The mountain tribe must have known of our approach and made good their ambush. Fortunately for us we fought them back with little injury for we were always prepared for a fight. After the battle Uncle, yearnful for home, turned us round. However the venture had certainly been worth it. We had explored a strange new land and tested the strength of its inhabitants but the mountain men would know to expect us the next summer. Uncle led us into a fresh pine wood and it was there we camped. We slept above a deep ravine with trees on either side and at its very bottom. In the morning I was the first to wake. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and looked to the edge of the campsite. The Doe was as startled to see me as I was to see her. Leaping to my feet I grabbed my spear. As soon as I moved she bolted away on her four nimble legs! I followed her, bounding over the rocks in her wake. I unleashed a cry, the type of cry my father once used when he bore down on his prey long ago. Still the graceful doe ran on, using every muscle in its strong hind legs to maintain the distance between us. But I had the advantage; I had my spear and I never missed. I ran faster over the rocks with it gripped firmly in my right hand. Checking my aim, I retracted my arm and readied myself to hurl it. Then everything turned upside down. My left shin seemed to burn in fury. I fell into the air and spun. The spear rattled onto the rocks. My body landed on the cold stone and I rolled. As I did I caught sight of what had caused this disaster; a protruding rock, taller than the others which had caught my left leg at the moment of the kill. I had moved at such speed that I continued to roll, then fell faster as the rocks came to a sudden incline. Down I went head first; the friction ate into my hands and legs as I tried to stop my inevitable fall into the ravine! It was to no avail. The rocks disappeared and I was in the open air; falling and falling. My life was saved by a tree. Its canopy broke my fall. I had enough of my strength and senses left to snatch a great pine branch. My weight caused it to drop and I heard it snap at the trunk but it did not come apart entirely! It jolted me and the force caused me to let go and I was falling yet again! My sight became a darkened blur. Around me came the confused, violent sounds of breaking wood as my body struck the tree’s lower boughs. It was painful but enduring that was better than dying. Then I cleared the trees branches and finally dropped right into the middle of a jagged hedge!”
The children erupted in laughter. They had been listening solemnly to their father’s tale but the description of his plummet down the ravine caused them great amusement.
“Oh Dad, if only you’d had wings,” teased his son.
The man allowed himself a chuckle then beckoned them to listen again.
“Well there I lay; battered, bruised and thoroughly miserable! Above me my kinsmen had become sensible to the disturbance on hearing my cry. However I later learned that although they had not seen me fall off the cliff they had guessed that this had been my untimely fate. As I lay I could hear them calling my name but so shaken was I by my fall that I could neither move nor speak a word in answer to their cries. Nor could they get to me! The ravine went on at great distances in either direction meaning it could take them days to find me; days they did not have. Their rations were declining, the hostile mountain men were nearby and the weather was turning cold. As that miserable day ended my brother called out my name one last time. Then they departed into the night for home. I was alone; alone in the vast expanse of the wild with no food, no cloak, no weapon and no friends! What would you have done?”
The children sat up straight and hugged their lower legs at this uncomfortable thought.
“I lay in that dark ditch a whole day and night. On the following dawn I had recovered enough to venture to move and stand up. I felt no better from having to move yet it was vital that I did so. If I moved onwards now I could perhaps catch up with my companions. So with careful, ginger steps I set off northward up the small valley. It was the start of a grim adventure.

The ravine ran north the same way my friends had gone but before long it bent eastwards. It lapsed into so many twists and turns that I soon could not tell one direction from another. On top of that the day was grey with no light of the sun to give me any help. My heart was heavy with weariness and disappointment. I had naively thought I would be reunited with the others by the day’s end but now I spent a second night huddled in a clump of trees. On the next day I fared little better. The ravine turned south again and seemed to run in a straight line back towards the mountains. I was starved. The meagre berries that grew thereabouts did nothing to satisfy the fire in my belly. Lack of proper food rendered me weak but I had no alternative but to press on and hope to see the warmth of home again. As the third day of my trek ended I came at last to a gradual incline that led out of that accursed ravine. This, at least, gave me some encouragement but I had no idea where I was. When it felt as if my plight could not get grow more ill I noticed the surrounding rocks were covered with white dust. Then an icy wind greeted me at the top of the slope as the first specks of snow descended slowly from above.
“Oh, help me!” I said aloud. There was no one to hear me say these words but I spoke them nonetheless then spent another night in misery. ‘This would be the day’, I thought as dawn broke. I had to get back to familiar terrain. If not I was as good as dead. But I was back on roughly the same level of ground from which I had become separated from my friends and this gave me some chink of hope. It was still early morning and already I was weary. My stomach panged for nourishment but all I could feed it were those awful, bitter berries. Now the cold joined it allies of hunger and fatigue in assailing me. The snow strengthened throughout that miserable day as I trudged along with my arms folded to store my body’s heat. It made little difference for the snow is cunning; it fell onto my head then slid down my neck and back! The resulting discomfort caused me to run but the effort added to my weariness and soon the snow was trickling down my back again. This frustrating cycle was repeated countless times until I came to a thick pine wood. It was a grateful sight and with renewed hope I jogged into the wood as the snow died down. Some time later, in the warm centre of the wood, I lay my sore back again a tree and fell to sleep. The outline of a tall bearded warrior conquered my dreams. Somehow it was comforting. Voices woke me however and I instantly forgot about it. My first thought was that it was my friends. They had come back for me! But then I listened. I could not understand their tongue though it was heavily familiar to me. Indeed I had heard it not more than five days past when the tribe of the mountains had waylaid us. Then it had been their curses and war cries which caused our younger huntsmen much dismay! Now they spoke softly and were in merry cheer but I was in their very midst and dreaded to think what they would do if they found me hiding in their woods so near their camp! I crawled forward into the undergrowth to better assess my predicament. They had gathered in a small hollow surrounded by fern barely twenty paces from me. In the centre of the circle burned a camp fire that cooked a wild boar! How my belly leapt when I smelt the scent of roasted meat on the bone! My senses were overcome by a strange mixture of hunger and fear as I watched the pig glisten appetisingly on the spit. I observed my enemies from close range. They were a wild, hairy bunch made all the more alien to me by the language they spoke. I began to think that I had strayed too close to them and felt they would snatch me from the fern at a moment’s notice but they were all relaxed and no doubt looking forward to their well-earned feast at the waning of the day. In this regard they were not so different from my own people. Their leader, a huge dark beast of a man, stepped forth and cut a prized piece from the boar. His men followed suit and before long I was watching enviously as they ate the meat from sticks that they had broken off from the trees. As I lay face down in the dirt, feeling sorry for myself, from deep in the woods came a noise, the unmistakable sound of a hunting horn! Some of the men dropped their sticks and looked around with fear ridden looks. Their chief arose and pointed into the darkening forest. He gave a command and all of them stood up and set down their food. Each of them collected their spears and with their chief leading them they went off into the trees opposite leaving me alone. Evidently they had another enemy lurking in the forest and in whispers I thanked the man who had blown the horn. I waited until they were at a safe distance then I ventured into their camp. What would I take? First I gathered up the chief’s fur cloak and threw it over my back then I picked up a large empty sack close at hand. Using the iron cooking tongs I gingerly lifted the boar from the spit. Its weight almost overpowered me. Indeed it proved too much for my weak arms and despite my determination my stolen dinner crashed onto the dry ground. I wasted no time stuffing it into the sack. Then I hastily gathered as many of the meat laden sticks the mountain men had discarded and threw them in with the roasted boar. I was so hungry I kept hold of one of them and sunk my teeth into the sweet flesh. So delicious was it that I took a second large bite but in doing so almost proved my downfall. In their haste my enemies had not left a sentry to guard their camp and when one of the younger men came back we were both alramed to see each other. Before he could shout out for help I threw the stick at him. He turned and fled screaming to his comrades. I picked up the sack, flung it over my shoulders and legged it back the way I had come!

Luckily for me his comrades were scattered as they sought the blower of the horn and I made sure I put a great distance between myself and them before stopping for a rest. The heavy contents of the sack impeded my progress but I put up with the hardship as my life was at stake. As I ran it pressed against my rear end and the heat from the red hot boar smote through my new cloak onto my backside! But on and on I went through the forest. Night drew down and still I heard of sign of pursuit from my enemies. At last I came to stop on top of a secluded rise. Before I even lay down I wretched open the sack, took out a large piece of meat and gorged myself on it. When my hunger was quenched I happily realised that I still had enough of the meat to last me at least a full seven days. Only a few hours previously I had been ready to die in the snow. Now with my stomach feeling pleasantly full I felt anything was possible. Good food can cure anything, even despair.

I slept lightly that night with one arm around the warm sack. At dawn I woke and treated myself to another lump of boar meat. There was no rumour of the mountain men. Had they given up their pursuit? I resolved to remain cautious in case they hadn’t and continue on my journey immediately. Although the snow had stopped when I entered the wood on the previous day it now began to fall again. This time I was protected by the warm fur cloak I had acquired from the chief of the mountain men. His pride must have been greatly wounded upon learning of its theft and once again I blessed whoever had blown the horn that caused such chaos for my foes and rendered me a life-saving bounty. By morning’s end the snow relapsed and that day saw me travel a great distance through the woods though I would have gone further had I not made my every step a cautious one. As the sun sank beyond the trees I took another mouthful of meat. It had now gone cold but the flavour was still wholesome and because it had been well cooked I could eat it without fear of falling sick. Yet my food would not last forever so I decided to ration it as best I could. So ended another day.

The dawn was quiet. All throughout the labyrinth of the forest there was no sound as if the trees were waiting for something. I had eluded my foes and could go forth with lesser fear. My route led northward back to my home land which was somewhere past this mass of green. I set off and had not walked very far when yet again the snow puffs fell; much heavier than in days past. This was what the trees had been waiting for. Still I could only go on so I continued my trek joylessly. In union with the snow the air became colder. To this my cloak offered great respite but I had still to fasten it tightly. After much walking it made me uncomfortably warm and while it was tempting to open it and expose myself to the crisp air to do so would risk exposure to the cold sickness. That had been one of the first things my father had taught me; always stay warm in the snow. As I went on my pace slackened. My shoulders grew sore from carrying the sack and the snow was growing thicker on the forest floor. The sun was gone. It was up there somewhere but the low clouds were unloading so much snow it was obscured to me. I had now lost my only way of navigating. I slept that night under a thick thorn bush and hoped that the morning would see an end to the snow. It did not. The sun was still invisible so with a weary heart I plodded on through fields of white in the direction I guessed to be north. Underfoot the snow was so deep that walking was now a sapping chore. Due to this I did not travel far that day. My one solace was the food I had and I looked forward to every meal with relish but whenever I stopped to rest and shelter the cold discomfort I felt made me more miserable than when I had fallen off the cliff at the start of my adventure. This was the most awful day of my journey but it was about to get worse. It was approaching nightfall and with heavy breathes I stopped at the top of a small hill. As I rested my arms on my knees the dull silence of the forest was riven by a deadly howl. Hearing it made me feel colder than I already was for I knew of only one creature that made such a sound. It was the baying of a snow-wolf! Of that there could be no doubt. Its cries were legendary amongst my people and a cry like this meant only one thing; it was on the hunt. And it was not alone. A second wail sounded through the woods in response to the first. Then came another. And Another. There was a whole pack of the fiends at hand! They must have scented the meat inside my sack and tracked me like when we send out their brothers the hounds to sniff out smaller game. But on that dreary evening it was no mere hare that was their prey! It was me! I backed off, not daring take my eyes off the route I had come. Then I saw them. They slinked into view from nowhere; scarcely indistinguishable as they were from the whiteness around them. In the parched light their eyes twinkled with cunning malevolence as they scanned the terrain before them. One of them was larger than the others. No doubt it was the leader of the pack, the alpha-male, who was the strongest and fiercest of them all. He swaggered forward toward the base of the slope and stopped. Our eyes met. Was it my mind, deceived by a trick of the light, or did he grin? I did not wait to look again to see for I spun away and stumbled through the snow. It was almost up to my knees yet somehow I made headway as my survival instinct took over. Behind me I heard the barking of the wolf chieftain. Like a man he gave orders with his mouth; orders to catch and kill me! I can’t tell you the alarm this thought gave me; to have been killed by the mountain men would have been evil enough but to become supper for a pack of hungry dogs galled my pride as I surged through the deep snow. If I was to be captured so be it but I promised myself that I would give them a fight of it. Even now they were running over the snow as if it were not even there, making ground on me. It was inevitable that they would catch me. Or was it? For at that moment I was seized with an idea. It was risky but to keep running and be taken from behind was riskier still! I came to a tree, stopped running and put my back against it to face my pursuers. There was nothing to see at first. After a moment I saw what looked to be large clumps of snow hurtle in my direction! The snow wolves cried out together in cheerful yelps for they believed their quarry was cornered and as good as finished. I took the sack containing my food from my shoulder and opened it. Reaching in I took a handful of meat and threw it back the way I had come. Then I threw another and another until some twenty or more generous pieces of boar meat lay between me and the fast approaching snow wolves. I took one of the sticks which the mountain tribe used to skewer and eat the flesh hoping my plan would work. The nearest wolf, a lean young thing, had its eyes fixed upon me. Its nose twitched suddenly. His head darted from side to side. Then, will alarming force, it sunk its heels into the snow and halted barely ten paces from me; as close as I am to you right now. Its head and nose went downwards and swept the ground before it. His jaws then opened and he bit something before his hungry mouth opened and closed in rapid succession as he devoured the food I had thrown. To my immense relief its fellows, some five of them, also halted alongside him. They looked at him with surprised curiosity then, realising there was ready food at hand, began searching the ground for the rest of it. Now was the time for me to sneak away. Keeping my back to the tree, I side-stepped to the left onto the open ground. Each of the wolves was happily munching away. I threw them another piece of meat for the more time they spent eating the more time I had to escape. I got to about thirty paces from them and still they ate but there then came another howl! From the gloom beyond them came their mighty leader! Why he had remained behind I did not know but he snapped at his docile minions as he charged towards me. This one was a true hunter who could not be bought with meat or semi-tamed by man. With unrelenting fury he bore down on me with grimacing fangs and eyes bleeding with hate. I put the sack between us to act as a shield and as he leapt upon me I lunged forward with my spear-like stick. It was an awful fight. He snapped and snarled and clawed and bit but I kicked, stabbed and punched in reply. Eventually, in sheer fury, he dug his teeth into the sack with such force that he tore it open and took away a whole hind leg of the boar within! As he savoured his prize I walloped him across the face with my stick and swore at the beast at the top of my lungs! Leaving him to eat and lick his gashes I limped off into the night. He had given me cuts upon my arms and legs which stung me profusely but there was nothing I could do to treat them. The snow continued to fall and after some I collapsed into a dry, leaf-strewn hollow where I slept.
‘Let the wolves and the hairy men and all the terrible creatures of the night come and test me if they want’. Those were my thoughts as I dropped into a strangely comfortable slumber.

All that joined me in that warm hollow was nothing more than a sparrow looking for his breakfast. When I stirred it hopped out and flew away. My whole body ached from the wolf’s attack and I did my best to treat my cuts but thankfully they were not serious. Most of my food was also gone as I had sacrificed it to the wolves in exchange for my life; a fair trade but one that did not guarantee my survival. After eating a meagre portion of the boar I set off. At least the snow had stopped however it remained thick on the ground. The next four days were quiet and uneventful. I saw neither sight nor sound of bird, beast or man as I continued north through the forest. Surely now I must be in the same region from where I had been separated from my brother and companions. I judged that I was. Perhaps I merely sought to boost my morale at the knowledge of being closer to home and while I could not be certain there was a familiarity about the land I had now entered. The trees became less concentrated and in parts there were wide open spaces between them therefore I was nearing the fringe of the forest. Soon after I emerged into lands of undulating hills. Patches of woodland lingered in places but the worst of the forest was behind me.

This stage of my journey would perhaps prove the most testing. I had come far and suffered much but I knew that if I kept a steady course north I would be home within ten days. Fortune though had its own agenda and it was contrary to mine. Having been out in the elements for so long had attuned me to their temperaments. Clearly snow was nature’s favourite son at present and by its colour the sky gave notice of its intent to lavish more of it upon me. My judgement told me that I could expect a downpour in the near future but the air tasted mild to give me enough heart to continue. To my frustration I went little distance. Here the snow was thicker underfoot than amidst the forest where the tree branches caught it and gave protection to the ground. Thus I sought routes through the clusters of trees thereabouts both in order to progress and guard myself from the eyes of spies for I was still in the realm of the mountain men and by straying within the woodlands I would be less visible to anyone who cared to look for me. Indeed I guessed that I was not far from where they had ambushed my party some days before so I had extra reason to remain on my guard ere any of their kinsmen lurked nearby. In this uneventful manner I continued for three days; striding slowly through the woods, up and down endless hills all the while remaining vigilant. My sack of food grew lighter with each passing day forcing me to ration it further. This meant I would once again go hungry but what else could I do? To my relief it did not snow again but the air was so bitterly cold that even my thick cloak was becoming of little value. My only respites came when I stopped to rest and eat in dry sheltered places; under hedges or trees or any dry spot I was lucky to find as I went trudged onward. I took to speaking to the birds for I had no one else to talk to. It even helped pass the time.”
“Hello good Robin, how are you?”
“I have a burning chest man of the Earth. That’s why I linger in the snow, to cool it down.”
“Very wise of you, little bird though I am famished with cold and long for some heat!”
“I cannot help you and now I must fly home to my nesting where it is warm.”
“Can I follow you there?”
“No, you are too big. Farewell!”

“My head was hot and filled with a horde of wild, nonsensical ideas that caused my belly to quake. Birds, trees and beasts all spoke to me, mocked me and made me feel sick. I don’t know for how long the ravages of my journey unhinged my mind so but thankfully these absurd notions passed only to be replaced by a tangible concern. I came to the top of a hill the summit of which gave me a wide view of the surrounding lands. Was I lost? The snow made it all look different and if it had been summer I could well have reckoned exactly where I was in proportion to home. But the very act of looking vexed my weakened body and I fell onto my knees, put my head into the snow and was sick upon the ground. Dispensing of those bodily waters appeared to revitalise me somewhat but for a while I lay there happy to die. My bones would lie in that lonely place forever, forgotten and unadorned but I would be asleep in peace.

Something rugged struck my face. It had the same clammy feel of a hand like when your mother slaps me awake in the morning. I opened my eyes but there was no one about me so I guessed it to be another delusion. Far away, in the middle of the valley I had ascended some hours before, appeared a sight that brought me to my feet! My eyes had followed the trail I had left in the snow the night before and half way up the valley stood the figure of a man! Even at this range I could see that he was a tall warrior armed with a great spear. He stooped to the ground then tilted his head up in my direction. I was surely at too great a distance for him to construe me, concealed as I was by a ring of trees, yet I felt very afraid. Rising, he put a hand to his mouth, whistled, then bounded up the slope! With no hesitation I gathered my pack and ran! It was foolish of me to run in the snow for I made less ground than I would when walking. I had also churned up so much snow in my wake that my pursuer could easily track my course hence I slowed down when I reached the bottom of the hill. Attempting to hide here would have been impossible. When he came to the point where I had first seen him the man could espy me so with the fastest walk I could muster I bore towards another patch of trees not far away. It would soon be dark and if this wood was large enough I could hide therein for the night. I entered it and fled to the darkest part of it. This wood was denser than the larger one I had recently traversed so the snow was lighter on the ground giving me leave to move faster from the wild man behind me. The light waned but I continued on and only when it was fully dark did I stop and spend an uncomfortable night in the boughs of a tree.

I had no time to rest further and the first light saw me rise and continue. A pitiful handful of meat was my breakfast; it was scarcely enough but was all I could afford to eat. All that day my instinct told me I was completely alone; no one was nearby and I was just beginning to relax and had even allowed myself a more generous supper when I heard a sound that made me feel as if I had been thrown into icy water. The wailing of the wind carried it from afar right to my frozen ears; an animal’s howl. It was unlike any sound I’d ever heard an animal unleash. To add to my distress it was accompanied by the wild entreaties of a voice; a human voice that seemed to be urging on whatever snarling beast it was! In his pursuit this hunter had a deadly ally. My pursuers could not be far and seemed to show no slack in their determination. With a weary exhale I went on into the night.

I cannot tell you how time passed after that. It could have been a day or a week or more. What I can tell you is that it was an ordeal that was almost beyond endurance. Day and night became the same. When I did get an hour’s sleep its worth was lost as I went on running as soon as I opened my eyes. Long ago I had become oblivious to the cold and used to traversing the snow but my enemies were too for hardly a moment passed when their battle cries and howls terrorised my mind and lashed my back like the strokes of a whip. I had to keep going! I was veering north and already the land looked more familiar but it did not comfort me much. An unsettling nausea flared up in my belly causing my pace to slacken. My vision faltered. Everything was submerged with a sickly haze and with each step this gloom intensified. My head was aflame inside and my back and legs ached. The noises behind me grew louder. They were indomitable and such was their force that the temptation to give up was strong. ‘Why not halt, take a rest, let them get you’, said a traitor’s voice in my thoughts. It was countermanded, not so much by another thought, but by the intensity of my physical momentum coupled with the overriding survival instinct that had overall authority of my being.

This unconscionable period of agony for me receded when I found myself somewhere in the rocky hills. Thankfully the snow had not yet come to those parts and a change in the air brought me into calmer thoughts. I was still alive, still had my warm cloak and sack of food but I was still being chased. My pursuer and his beast were nearing me, their crises resounding off the flat, grey rocks. I was not as afraid as I had been on my delirious sprint to this place yet I was more alert and despite my ordeal felt fresh and eager. Still I could not survive a fight with such a determined foe so I made my way through the corridors of jagged stone hoping to elude them in this barren maze. The ground was coarse underfoot after the familiar softness of the snow. I tried to keep my feet on the flat stones as much as possible but after only a few steps they were bruised and sore. It made me winch and I had to fight the temptation to stop and try to soothe them as the echoes of an enraged snarl reverberated amidst the rocks. Clearly my demented pursuers had no such qualms over brittle rocks pressing hard upon soft flesh. Maybe they felt no pain, no compassion, no remorse. This made them all the more terrifying and at this realisation the sweat upon my back froze to chill my very spine. Surely my fate was inevitable. They would kill me! They would kill me and leave my bones to rot forever in this dismal, lonely place with no one to remember my story. Tales may be told by my friends of how I had vanished in the wild, taken by something worse than the men and beasts of that desolate region. And so my own tribe would become more fearful of the outside world, more insular, more vulnerable to their enemies. Thus I had to reach home for their sake more than mine! I had to assuage them not only of the world’s worth but their own.

First I had to face an evil in the dark. The labyrinth of ashen stone led to a clearing in the hills, a large hollow with steep ranks of rock on every side. When I came to the wall of stone I stopped and set my weary head against it in a breathless state. This was it. I could go no further. With no way out but the way I had come I turned, threw down my sack, put my back against the rock face and sunk to the cold ground. From the entrance to the hollow the clamour behind me was extinguished. Then, after a dreadful pause, there entered a man and a beast. Even now I cannot say which was worst. The man’s height seemed almost unnatural. I am sure he could have leapt out from that pit of stone if he had the inclination. His visage though was more beast than man. Pitch was his hair and his deformed teeth protruded outward from his rough face while his eyes exuded a smug blood lust. Yet I had seen that face before. I had seen it when hiding in the fern from the mountain men. It was unmistakably their leader, their chief who had caught up with me at last. But it was not so much the man that added to my despair but the creature he had leashed. It was a sabre tooth; a giant cat of the plains, the breed which no one could tame yet here it was, thirsting for my flesh at the command of a wild man whose prize cloak now draped around me. Both grimaced with a prideful rage as they beheld me, their prey, exhausted and with all hope gone. The chief licked his lips as he produced a cruel-looking spear bedecked with the bones and hairs of its past victims. He rattled its base against the rock making a noise which was an agony to hear. Then he eased his grip upon his pet’s leash and the pair advanced slowly towards me.

How does one face their end? It surely depends on where we are, how we feel, what we are faced with. I had been a coward too long on this chase. Now I could run no more and if they thought I would fall easy they were mistaken. When they were half way across the hollow I lifted my sack and hurled it at them. It barely brushed the cat’s face and hit the ground. With a swing of his left leg the chief kicked it away. His laugh seemed to say how pathetic my effort to stop them was. Next I lifted a fist-sized rock and threw it. I missed. The chief’s mocking laugh would have infuriated me if I had the strength to be angry. His sabre-tooth, yearning for the kill, pulled him as he held fast its leash.
“You thief and coward!” he scoffed.
The cat’s hiss was like a poisonous vapour. It clawed at me but the chief was determined to make my suffering last longer.
“It was a long chase,” he said. “I will have my sport!”
He relaxed his grip on the leash. It was enough for the sabre-tooth to lunge forward and gash my right arm. Before it could maul me the chief grasped the beast’s tether tightly once again. My defiance was over. I pressed my left hand against my wound and sunk against the wall behind me. The chief raised his spear, pointing its tip toward my neck.
“Farewell thief,” he said with an evil smile. I closed my eyes. Moments later that lonely hollow in the hills was riven by the singing of a horn. Its melody was accentuated by the roundness of the place and its loudness revitalised me whilst dismaying my would-be murderers. I opened my eyes to see them changed. Fear had supplanted their hate as they raised their heads in search of its source. I saw it before they did. There on the crest of the hollow, silhouetted by a partial moon, stood a tall broad warrior. His blaring horn rested in his mouth and his spear-hand was poised with a long, keen blade. When he saw the figure the chief went numb. Perhaps his keen hunter instinct sensed something other-worldly about it. The cat too had undergone a change. Its head turned every direction and when it saw the warrior it was ready to bolt to oblivion. The chief dug his feet into the earth and pulled at the leash in an effort to stop the animal’s flight. This task was made harder when the figure put away its horn and leapt down into the hollow. It paused. In the profound silence which followed even I felt unnerved but for some reason I felt no threat from the mysterious man whose face I could not see. At last the chief could restrain the beast no longer. The figure’s descent into the pit was now too much for the sabre-tooth to endure and with one last effort it extricated itself from its master’s hands and fled. As it passed the warrior there was a flash of movement and I saw the glitter of metal as the cat gave a howl before limping away into the night. The chief stood there trembling as the newcomer turned to see face him. Then he slowly advanced toward the mountain man. To see such a mighty person turn and run amused me despite my condition. He jumped up the wall and clung to the side of the pit with both hands at the top, trying to dig himself out. The stranger showed no urgency as he moved over and grabbed the chief by the cloak. With an effortless flick of the wrist he sent the chief hurtling backwards to land with a crash right in the centre of the hollow. The chief groaned and tried to cover his face when the warrior approached him. He raised his spear and set it to the chief’s heart.
“No,” I whispered. I had no desire to see him die. To my relief the warrior did not skewer him. Instead he raised his spear and pointed it to the entrance of the hollow; an invitation for the mountain chief to join his cat and flee. But the chief was too terrified to move and after a dreadful moment the warrior once again put his horn to his lips and unleashed a long blast. Overwhelmed though he was, the chief managed to crawl to his feet and sprint away in sobs.

Now I was left alone with the stranger. I did not feel afraid, merely apprehensive. With a tilt of his head the warrior looked towards me with his unseen eyes. There followed a long silence. A fog began to spill into the hollow. As it began the warrior gently walked towards me. He reached out his hand and helped me to my feet. Though it was too dark to see his face I caught the outline of a silver beard sparkle in the faint moonlight. Then he stepped back and held out his spear. He wanted me to take it. I did so and after another long look at me he turned and walked into the mist without a word. With unusual quickness the fog relented and I found myself alone. Dawn arrived and I dozed for a while. When it was fully light I noticed to my delight that the chief had discarded a plentiful sack of food at the entrance to the hollow so I enjoyed a hearty breakfast, the nicest I had had in ages. Then I tore a piece of sack and tied it around the wound on my right arm as best I could. It was now time to press on so I gathered my sacks and spear and set off. Thanks to the daylight it did not take me long to escape the confines of the rocky hills and at around noon I came to a smooth expanse of rock that led down into the snow-strewn plains. Despite the cold this vista warmed my heart to see it for this land was the domain of my own people whom I would soon be among once again. The low winter sun shone warmly as I walked down the mountain. In the distance, on the cliff side I spotted what looked like a large solitary boulder. As I drew nearer it was apparent that it was not a boulder. Instead it was a cluster of small grey rocks all stacked on top of one another to form a mound, or rather a cairn; a cairn of burial. A latent memory arose in my mind for I now remembered that I had stood there, on that very spot, once before. Under this very cairn lay the bones of my father! It was there, on that mountain side, that we had buried him on that fateful day long ago. It was only then that I recalled the spear. With trepidation I took a long, careful look at it. It too I had seen before. Strewn with peacock feathers and richly carved, it was as fresh as the day we had left it atop the cairn when we laid its owner to rest there in time past. This knowledge served to make my heavy cloak useless for the cold sensation I then experienced felt as if I was standing naked in the frosty air! There was no mistaking it; this very spear was the one that had belonged to my father! My father, whose spirit had saved me in the night, had bequeathed it to me to keep safe for the rest of my life. That same noble spirit, whose horn waylaid the mountain men in the woods and defeated their chief and his sabre-tooth, watches over us even now. And to prove it, here is the spear!”
From behind him the father unfurled the same weapon he had described. The children shrieked!
“Here it is,” he laughed. “Thy grandsire’s lance; given to me on that dark night in a dreary hollow of the hills! I lingered on the mountainside for most of the day contemplating the night before and the day of my father’s death. Now I was no longer afraid, I was grateful and blessed that I had passed his grave. Such are the pleasant intricacies of fortune.

The next few days passed easily. I was well warmed and had plenty of food but most of all I was nearing my homeland. One mid morning I walked out into a snow-drenched field and halted. Amidst some trees not far away I saw some people move. There were three of them. They emerged and saw me. One of them cried out in alarm and they all reached for their weapons. Their leader led them towards me but when he drew nearer he stopped and looked closely at me. I called out in greeting and he threw his blade upon the ground and laughed. Then Uncle, for it was he, lunged his arms around me and held me in a long embrace. I had been given up for dead he said. While he had wanted to continue the search for me on the day I toppled off the cliff the threat of the mountain men and the coming snows had forced him to lead his men back to our own country. He had feared the worst but a faint sliver of hope deep in his heart made him feel I was still alive out there in the wild. We went home to our shelter as the east wind began to blow just as it is tonight.”
The man took in a deep breath at the completion of his story.
“So there you have it. I was going to wait until you were older to tell you that tale but with age our minds become less inviting and such stories may be wasted on the old.”
“What else did you do when you were young Dad?” asked his son.
“Yes! Did you have any more adventures?” added his daughter excitedly.
“Did I have any more adventures? Does Winter turn to Spring? Of course I did! I could tell you of how I once crossed the frozen sea to the island of the north!”
The children leaned in expectantly to hear this new tale.
“But I won’t,” laughed their father.
“Dad!” implored his daughter.
“Sorry my dears. One story is enough for tonight. Now you must sleep but perhaps one day I will tell it to you.”
The boy and girl groaned and departed to the place where they slept. Then the mother of his children appeared.
“Was that story true?” asked the mother with mirthful suspicion. She didn’t believe it for an instance but it had amused her.
Her man grinned.
“No,” he said at last. “At least not all of it. For a start I may have exaggerated about how I was chased by the wolves but as for the rest, believe it or not, it did happen.”
His spouse looked at him closely.
“Even if it wasn’t true, I enjoyed hearing it,” she said.
“Thank you.” said the storyteller solemnly. “I wonder….”
“Yes?”
“I wonder if their Grandsire still walks abroad on nights like this. Do all such noble spirits linger? Do they watch us even now? Perhaps many winters from now when our bones and those of our children have turned to dust and world has changed beyond our recognition men will know the answers to such questions.”
“Or maybe they won’t,” said the woman. “If we knew the answer to every mystery beneath the sun then life would be dull. Would it not?”
“That it would,” said the man holding her closely while he took one last look out at the nightscape before both turned and went to sleep as the first shards of a light rain began to fall.



© Ciaran McVeigh 2010