Beyond the Breakwater

by Catherine Foley

  73

  A Kaleidoscope of Days

  On the pier

  Looking back,

  Through a kaleidoscope of days

  And a swirl of high skies,

  Time sweeps along

  Over a tide of blue and grey

  To a day when I was younger,

  Braver and unsure.

  I was a toddler first,

  In toeless shoes,

  And a morning-clean sundress with bloomers,

  Standing in a garden of lobelia,

  alongside the paddy-go-sleep.

  Then I was an angel

  in white gloves,

  my First Holy Communion dress,

  with rosary beads

  rattling in my handbag.

  They must have watched with baited breath

  when I stepped forth to dazzle

  and I sang a song

  that curled around my listeners.

  Then I was a grown-up in my first car.

  When they waved me off

  I accelerated like a maniac.

  In the doorway, picture perfect,

  I see them still,

  Not moving but standing

  As if holding onto some pain

  Until the moment of my arrival,

  When I’d waltz in like a princess

  To their welcome home.

  74

  When Walls Grow Cold

  Attached to a wall in our sitting room is a storm lantern, secured in a brass bracket. The oil-fuelled lamp, which once stood in a lighthouse window, always reflects the firelight. It casts a warm glow around the room and sometimes, if you look into the reflection, the telescoped room seems to be humming or spinning as if in a zoetrope.

  A good number of my mother’s paintings hang on the walls of our sitting room. They feature ships and quays, shorelines, stormy seas and moonlit cliffs, dreamy scenes in rich tones of purples and orange, violet and greens.

  There’s a special painting of my father when he was a young man, sitting as the stroke of the maiden eight-man crew when they won the Gough Shield, rowing to victory along the River Suir in the 1940s. My mother did this painting for his eightieth birthday, her fingers barely able to hold the brush at the time. It still shimmers with light and life.

  On another wall, there are family photographs of holy communions and weddings, of children and cousins, neighbours and friends all ranged in a patchwork of lines. Against the opposite wall is an old walnut sideboard that came with us from Lower Newtown. Inside this we keep bottles of port and sherry, sewing baskets, an old pair of binoculars, the willow pattern set of dinner plates and platters that only come out on special occasions and a range of old glass siphons and decanters that never see the light of day. Hanging overhead is the gorgeous red and turquoise painting by the artist Mick O’Dea that I have of myself staring into the future. This is the second portrait I have of myself that Mick O’Dea painted.

  The fire always has to be lit in this room, especially on cold days, because the house in Ring is old and the place is freezing unless we have flames leaping up the chimney. We huddle round the fire at the centre of the house. Even in the summer, the fire is rarely let go out. The people who owned this house in the 1800s, long before my family came here, probably also had roaring fires.

  After a few days away, the bleak coldness of the rooms always strikes me on our return, especially in the sitting room. Like the cold hand of death, there is a chill in the room after our absence and it can feel like a cave. This is mainly because the walls of our house are so wide, and these three-foot deep walls will hold the cold for days, or years if we leave them. The doorways are all set in deep recesses. They go as deep as the length of a man’s arm, a recess that’s as engulfing and unfathomable as the memory of an embrace.

  In the hall, a staircase leads up to the bedrooms upstairs. It is an unusually steep and narrow stairs. Often, as I take the stairs two at a time, I fancy I could be living in the Himalayas where the traditional mountain homes of Nepal and Tibet have stairs like ladders built on the outside of their walls.

  RoseAnn and I, who live here now, are used to the odd eccentricities of this old, two-storey house. Miriam, who lives nearby, is often here too. Each of us knows its creaks and cracks, its flaws and foibles, its wainscoted walls and rattling windows. We know its skylight views and its creaking ceilings, which draw the eye upwards in wonderment when a tiny movement overhead might be a mouse or some other little creature running over the rafters.

  We’ve lived our lives in and around these rooms but when we are gone, the stone walls will still be here. The walls stand quietly, asleep, while the fire is lighting. And they will stand silently there, solid, like sleeping sentries when the fire goes out.

  Today our walls are decked out with our photos and paintings, but once our stories have dried up, once the grate is empty and the teapot has gone stony cold on the hearth, they will slowly take on the touch of damp and the cold clamminess of a corpse. Then mould and flaking paint will appear and rotten wood and mushroom smells will take hold. When the fire goes out, a creeping chill will begin and all you’ll hear will be the lonely echo of our forgotten voices.

  The walls – stoic, stolid, suspicious and stark – will stay shtum. There will be no sounds. There will be no fire, no talk, only the silent freeze of emptiness. When there is no one here to light the fire, the damp will start to seep in and decay will come creeping.

  75

  Midnight Mass

  Attending the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve has been a tradition in our family since my childhood in Ring, a tradition we uphold to this day. Every year follows a similar pattern.

  We sprinkle our whispers like sugar on a cake as we crunch over the frosty stones on our way in through the gates to the chapel: ‘Nollaig Shona dhaoibh’ – Happy Christmas – and ‘Conas a thá sibh?’ – How are ye?

  The church is on a hill overlooking the sea, which is inky black and mysterious at night-time, its waters slipping over rocks that are way down, hidden out of earshot but a presence still in all our minds.

  ‘Tá sé fuar,’ we add – it’s cold.

  ‘Ó, tá sé an-fhuar,’ we hear in response. Oh, it’s very cold.

  Then we are likely to hear a question to a young person from Mona Breathnach, who was a primary school teacher in Ring and knows all about children and their main focus of attention around Christmas time: ‘An bhfuil Daidí na Nollag ag teacht?’ Is Santa coming?

  As we reach the porch, we bless ourselves at the holy water font, nod to each other and go inside. The darkened lights of midnight always give the vaulted church a ghostly feel, as if all in heaven are present, watching us with baited breath. With night-lights on the altar and in the crib, as well as flickering candles around the chapel, the interior seems to heave like the sea and we become aware of the heavens beyond the stained-glass windows rearing high into space. Everything feels medieval and mysterious.

  Huddles of families, returned relatives, rarely seen neighbours and maybe a once-upon-a-time heart-throb, file into the pews in the chapel at midnight. The hush is deafening while we wait, clearing our throats, un-belting our new coats, knocking against kneelers, fumbling with our car keys.

  Us girls have always tripped across to join the choir, squeezing into the pew beside our neighbours and fellow choristers, Saidí Breathnach and Alice Ciuliú, for our annual get-together. There are twinkling eyes and knowing smiles all around as we study the hymn books and try to remember what we’d sung the year before.

  ‘Cad é an chéad cheann?’ I ask – What’s the first one? – and word comes back along the seat, directing me to ‘uimhir a fiche trí, “Don Oíche úd i mBeithil”’ – number 23, ‘For That Night in Bethlehem’.

  Before the priest comes out to the altar, there might be just enough time to scan the faces in the congregation and remember those who were no longer there – my own mother and father, Joe, Sheila, Gile, Breandán, Hannie, Bean Breathnach.

  Whe
n the priest emerges he begins with the blessing: ‘In ainm an Athair, ’s an Mhic, ’s an Spioraid Naoimh, Amen.’ In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When he gives us the look, we straighten up, clear our throats and wait for the signal from Moya Bean Uí Dhomhnaill, who sits at the organ. Then, unevenly at first, with pages rustling, we put our giddiness aside and sing.

  Being in the choir at Midnight Mass was better than Broadway. I had always been a member until I went away to study and work. Still, when I was home on holidays, I was able to join in for special festive occasions such as Easter and Christmas. In readiness for those special Masses, we’d be corralled into order and I’d attend a flurry of last-minute rehearsals. On my full-time return to Ring I’d once again joined the choir.

  On the night of Christmas, we always steal the show. Our hearts swell when our voices rise up to fill the old church with the sound.

  Don oíche úd i mBeithil,

  beidh tagairt ar ghrian go brách,

  don oíche úd i mBeithil

  go dtáinig an Bréithear slán …

  For that night in Bethlehem,

  A night as bright as dawn,

  For that night in Bethlehem,

  When the word was born.

  Afterwards, we sit back, satisfied, our breaths slow, thoughts swirling around in our heads, conjuring up images of angels and stars, shepherds and donkeys, and all the souls who floated above our heads. And I’d begin, as always, to submit to the chanting and soothing pattern of the Mass.

  The ceremony seems to calm the chaos. Time stands still as we listen to the tinkling of the wine being poured into the chalice, our minds so heightened that we can almost swear to hearing the frost settling on the headstones outside.

  It was usually about midway through the celebrations that the much-loved voice of Nioclás Tóibín used to break like a trumpet through the church. Like a mighty zephyr, he filled the vaulted chapel with lovely, clear notes. He usually stood in one of the pews near the back of the church with all the other parishioners. The sound was enough to make the hair stand on the back of your neck. He rang like a bell, tolling the ages, without any accompaniment. You’d see him if you looked back, his chest out, his head back and his eyes looking up, like a boy still, proud that he was singing ‘Ár nAthair atá sna flaithis go hard’ – Our Father who is in Heaven.

  His notes seemed to gather momentum, like a rising wave, holding on for the thrilling finish to come. It was as if a general absolution washed over all of us when Nioclás carried us in that cradle of sound. It drew us down a tunnel of memory to long ago when ancestors worshipped the dawn or bandia na gréine – the sun goddess. We seemed to sway like reeds in a breeze, spellbound. Then his voice took us down the slow lyrical descent in a plea for freedom from death, for salvation, ‘ach saor sinn ó bhás, anam Chríost’ – but save us from death, soul of Christ – as we rose and fell like the tide on the power of his resonating notes.

  There was nowhere to look after he finished singing. Some of us seemed almost afraid to share the moment, to acknowledge shyly the mystical quality of the Mass and so look inwards. There can be no doubt that every Christmas the singing of Nioclás Tóibín calmed our hearts.

  These days, after the ceremony, we drive home, passing the grotto, flying up Bothar na Sop, past the meánscoil, and down the old road to Baile na nGall.

  As we near home, I think of my mother and father and how they loved Christmas, and how my father always sang the ‘Adeste’ with such exuberance and joy.

  When I stand on the headland at Ceann a Bhathla, I’ll remember all those who have gone. I’ll see them sparkling on the waves in the moonlight off Mine Head, floating towards heaven, drifting towards dawn. All night I’ll dream I am travelling towards them, until morning when I wake and it’s Christmas and they have gone. But Nioclás will be singing and the souls will be twinkling, like stars in the firmament, watching over me while the sun rises.

  Acknowledgements

  My family has always been at the heart of what and when, where and how I write. An abiding memory I have is of my father dashing around upstairs before any of us were up, looking for a tape recorder so that he could record one of my pre-recorded stories that was about to be broadcast on the radio. (This was long before podcasts!) He and my mother always encouraged me to write and they loved hearing me on the radio. There was great jubilation in our house if I was in the line-up any Sunday morning just after 9 a.m. when the long-running RTÉ Radio 1 series Sunday Miscellany aired.

  Over the years, going out to the RTÉ studios to record my stories under the guidance and gentle direction of Clíodhna Ní Anluain, when she was producer of Sunday Miscellany, was always a thrilling and a nurturing experience. Clíodhna played a key role in helping me understand how I could become a better storyteller. I am thrilled that subsequent producers, namely Aoife Nic Cormaic and Sarah Binchy, continue to broadcast my stories, while Eileen Heron and Aonghus McAnally also showcased my stories during their time at the helm. I also worked with Fionnuala Hayes and Geralyn Aspill, the programme’s broadcasting co-ordinators. What writer could ask for more than to be able to read their own work to the programme’s devoted listeners?

  Down the years there have been so many good people who have helped me develop as a writer. I’m indebted in particular to Marie Murray, Monica McInerney, Máire Seó Breathnach, Christine Monk, Marie O’Halloran, Jack Harte, Jack Gilligan, Eibhlín de Paor, Margaret Organ, Grace Wells and in particular the late great Ella Shanahan, who was a fellow Waterford woman and my unofficial mentor in The Irish Times. I’ve learned a lot from many former colleagues, contemporaries and friends in journalism, but it is Ella who came back from her posting as the paper’s London editor and took me under her wing.

  Those who have read my work and encouraged me along the way are Michael Coady, Micheal O’Siadhail, Anthony Glavin, Liam Carson and Maura O’Kiely, who published my first story, ‘The Helvick Summer’, in U Magazine back in 1992. I’m also grateful to the late Mairéad Ní Chinnéide, who was editor of my two first Irish language books.

  Others who have encouraged me include Colette Sheridan, my cousins Deirdre Morrissey and Donal Musgrave, as well as Donal’s wife Shirley and my nephew Joseph Foley, who is my technical consultant and has always been on hand to sort out any laptop or Internet issues I might have. I’d also like to thank him – along with my sisters Miriam and RoseAnn, and my brother-in-law, George Macleod – for their support and love.

  About the Author

  Catherine Foley is a full-time writer and broadcaster. She is a former staff journalist with ‘The Irish Times’ and a regular contributor to ‘Sunday Miscellany’ on RTÉ Radio 1. Catherine has had three Irish-language novellas published and has scripted, presented and co-produced a number of documentaries for TG4, including programmes about the writer Molly Keane, the singer Frank Patterson, the journalist Donal Foley and the balladeer Tom Clancy. Catherine also lectures in UCC.

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  erine Foley, Beyond the Breakwater