by Tom O'Neill
After not very long he jumped up to a ferocious banging. The dogs were growling at the front door. Dawn was only a faint lightening yet. He stood silently and looked through the kitchen window. There was no car in the yard. He considered leaving by the back door, sneaking away though the rear paddock. Instead he went to the door with a poker in his left hand. He opened it a squeak with his shoulder against it in case someone pushed. Standing back in the shadow of the house was a small figure. As it stepped forward Dark entered full fright mode, kicking the door open while raising the iron rod in both hands, ready to swing. Just in time he recognised Joey Banner.
Joey was from a small farm across the river further down from Saltee’s. He was a timid man who lived alone and rarely talked other than to his dogs and ducks. People said he was ‘one of God’s children’ or that he ‘wasn’t the full hundred per cent’. But whenever Dark had met him down the fields, he had noticed nothing wrong with his reasoning.
‘I heard about Connie,’ said Joey, out of breath. ‘Are you alright there, Arthur?’
‘Hey Joey. I’m okay, thanks. But I have to go feed the calves now.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Joey. ‘Here, I cooked a bit of a feed for yourself.’
He pushed a frying pan towards Dark. Dark noticed his trousers, soaked to the top. In his hurry to deliver the sausages hot he had not gone along the river to the point where you could ford it without the water going over your boots. Instead he had run the shortest route, a straight line across the fields. Joey also pulled out a jute sack. From it he conjured two very large eggs.
‘They’re from Sadie and Mags,’ said Joey, ‘the two best birds I have. The best in the world I’d say, no codding.’
Dark had never eaten a duck egg and didn’t like the idea of them.
‘You sit in there now and ate them and I’ll go and throw a drop of milk and a few nuts at the calves.’
Joey rarely talked other than to his dogs and ducks.
The sausages on the big old black frying pan were the best Dark had ever tasted and he remembered he hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. Dark considered giving the eggs to the three best dogs in the world. But he couldn’t bring himself to it. After so much effort to get them here he was obliged to take them on. He ate them completely.
When he was finished Joey came back in and took the pan. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Them calves is grand.’
‘Thanks,’ said Dark.
Joey skipped back off out across the fields without another word.
Dark looked around. He wanted to be out of the house. He couldn’t stop thinking about the hospital and the tubes and whether Connie would be coming back. His fears were crowding in on him. It was starting to rain and looked like it was down for the day, so there was no work he could do outside. And he wouldn’t be able to get to the hospital until someone came to collect him later. So he fed the dogs and cleaned himself up for school.
On his way, he met a blue van from which a huge fat arm flagged him down. ‘I was heading out to you there, Arthur, to see if you needed a hand.’ It was Baldy Kirwan from down the road.
‘No thanks,’ said Dark. ‘Brian is there now at the cows.’
‘Well, why don’t you put the old bike in the back and hop in here so I can drive you,’ said Kirwan, ‘there’s a good man.’
Dark was disconcerted by Kirwan’s efforts at being nice. He uncertainly put his bike in with the empty toolboxes in the back of the JJK Builders van. Kirwan had been an occasional visitor in Connie’s kitchen, not overly welcome because of language so foul that it made even Queenie wince. Still, Dark would have preferred that Kirwan to this one.
Kirwan turned the van and headed in towards town. He drove with only his knee on the wheel as he phoned several others relaying Dark’s text message from the hospital. ‘Helen says Connie had a good night,’ he said with an unnatural hushed politeness like he was trying out a new language. ‘And Arthur is grand. He’s here with me.’
He dropped Dark at school and said that he’d keep in contact with the other people around and give any help needed. Dark thanked him but it didn’t make him feel good to have a hardy buck like Kirwan talking so carefully to him. It was like the respectful air he had felt at a wake where everyone rallied to help out, trying to distract the relatives and themselves with busyness.
School was a haze. At break time when the other lads headed down town, he stood at the school wall with the smokers. He noticed Ciara hanging out with Kevin across the grounds. They were laughing. Kevin gave her a hug. Why should he care about that? Anyway, he had probably been getting ahead of himself. She was never really officially with him. He was determined not to let anyone see that he had lost any feather. The talk with the lads was not unusual. Top Gear, hurling, paint balling and other stuff. Anything except school or home or whether you were feeling like shit. Which was all fine except for every time he caught sight of her and Kevin. He had even less reason to be in school now.
Shortly after they had gone back in, during maths, he heard ‘McLean!’ called familiarly on a loud hailer. It wasn’t the school intercom. Through the window he saw the Mack, looking even more enormous next to the school gates. The door of the bright orange vehicle opened and down the steps climbed The Red. He didn’t bother coming in on school ground. A murmur of astonishment went around the classroom. The Red just stood at the turnstile, barely as tall as it, and gave a thumbs up.
‘Excuse me, Miss,’ Dark said to Ms Sullivan, as he stood up and headed for the door.
She just rolled her eyes and made a clucking noise.
‘Lucky bugger,’ whispered Sneakers. Others giggled.
‘Well,’ said The Red, by way of greeting.
‘Alright?’ said Dark. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘No bother, no bother, I want to have a chat with the man myself,’ said The Red, still showing none of the respectful waking tone of the neighbours. He laughed when Dark asked him what he thought about Connie. ‘He owes me a few good turns and may the devil mend me if we’ll let him depart before he gets a chance to make good on them.’
And the music hadn’t exactly turned mournful either. He had replaced the disco music with vintage rap and the cab was vibrating with the noise.
Dark asked him what he meant by ‘we’ not letting Connie depart.
‘By we, Arturo, good buddy, I mean you,’ and he laughed again. ‘Why do you think I’m driving you down to him?’
The Red was making as much sense as ever, so Dark just sat back and tried to sleep.
A large friendly nurse took them through to ICU. His mother was asleep in the chair beside the plastic tent. Connie wasn’t asleep and the pain on his face dissolved for a minute as he tried to greet them. He barely managed a nod. It must have been shock that hit Dark. He couldn’t say anything for a minute. He was just staring at the tube coming out of Connie’s nostril and at the large bony head. Someone had trimmed the beard and made him look like a much older man.
‘Well!’ The Red shouted. ‘Still in the bed! You big lazy arsehole!’
Connie tried to laugh. Dark’s mother woke up and hugged Dark and thanked The Red.
Dark regained himself. He gave Connie his usual report. One cow with mastitis. Two yearlings not thriving; he had given them a worm drench. The protein was up in the milk according to the printouts from the coop, so the new feed mix was working. The dogs were well. That was about it. Connie was still looking at him with raised eyebrows, waiting for more. Both his mother and The Red were also looking at Dark now, not guessing what Connie was asking him. He just nodded at Connie reassuringly. Connie relaxed then.
Being in the city, being in this modern hospital, Dark suddenly felt a panic of cold reality sweeping over him. All this high tech equipment, the electronics and monitors, all of this scientific modern knowledge of the body and of micro organisms and of how everything works – this was the real world. Had he been keeping his head in the sand all along and wasting precious time thinking about
herons, stoats, and fairy men? Most likely, there was some simple explanation, something the medics had overlooked, something they hadn’t checked out properly.
‘What do they say now, Mam?’ he said to his mother.
‘Still running more tests,’ she said.
‘Do you want to go back to the B and B, Helen,’ said The Red. ‘Me and Arthur can sit here with this eejit.’
‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘There needs to be someone with him through the night.’
‘Sure, we could stay the night, couldn’t we Arthur?’ said The Red. ‘I brought a deck of cards and we can see whether he’s as good at cheating through that old fertilizer bag.’
‘I’d prefer to stay,’ said Dark’s mother quietly. ‘Arthur, I think Connie would be more contented if you were at home keeping an eye on things.’
Connie nodded. Dark knew that the reason Connie wanted him at home was not to mind the cows. If only to set his mind at ease, Dark nodded too, but he was already thinking of a different tack. A real world tack.
The Red drove Dark home. The drive back was quieter. He was playing weird music from a CD just called affrojazzmania. When they got there, he offered to stay over if Dark was lonely. Dark said he was fine. ‘Good enough then buddy,’ said The Red, texting Dark his newest phone number – The Red got a new sim card every month. He disappeared down the driveway. Dark stood at the front door watching for no particular reason. Instead of going right, towards town, the headlights turned left – which was strange, because that road only went up into the forestry on the hills. Maybe he was off lamping deer or something.
Determined to keep his focus on reality now, the idea occurred to Dark that the practical thing for him to do was to get a look at the hospital records. He didn’t expect to understand much. But he might be able to find out for sure if they had ever looked into that bite. Just maybe this was the little overlooked detail that was the key to helping them save Connie. He knew he would only be made feel foolish if he asked them again about it. The records would surely be stored electronically on some server at the hospital. And surely the hospital network was hooked onto the internet. If it could be broken into, he knew only one person who would be able to do it.
He had a funny feeling about calling his friend. He hadn’t talked to him for a few days. He didn’t feel at all like talking to him now. But he had to put that out of his mind. Kevin had been Ciara’s friend before Dark knew either of them. And if there was more now, well that was their business. There were more important things at stake. He phoned. Kevin was very cheerful and friendly. Almost overly so, maybe? Through his exhaustion Dark tried to straighten out his thoughts. He chatted to Kevin as normal and neither of them said anything about Ciara. He started telling Kevin what he wanted.
‘That’s mad, boy,’ whispered Kevin. ‘That’d be nearly impossible, I’d say. It’d be like trying to get into a military computer.’
‘That’s what you said the time we messed up the school test records,’ said Dark.
‘Completely different ballgame, completely different league, I don’t think it can be done, or at least it could take a long time.’
‘But you could try?’
‘How soon do you need it?’
‘Tonight?’
‘Christ! Forget it, bud,’ laughed Kevin. ‘Why not just get your uncle to ask for the records. Did you ever think about doing anything the easy way, Arthur?’
‘He’s sick, Kevin, like I told you,’ said Dark angrily.
‘You didn’t really tell me. Sorry, Dark. Is he very sick?’
‘Very sick. Tubes and wires and ...’ Dark paused. Then he said, ‘It’s like this Kev: he is dying, right. What else do you want me to say?’
‘Sorry, Dark. Really sorry,’ Kevin said. Then he made his distracted clicking sound like he was calling a dog. He started talking to himself in the language of his world. A world that he had learned to mostly keep private so as to seem normal. It was what had made him and Dark such close friends from the beginning. ‘Must check privacy regulations. Records might be encrypted. But only to TEA-128. Hopefully Oracle in a Linux environment ...’
Arthur stopped hearing once Kevin’s talking went past firewalls and database security. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Maybe a week, if I’m lucky, but I will start right now. I’ll try my best bud, I promise.’
There was nothing else for Dark to do now. It was out of his hands. So after feeding the dogs he went to the rath.
No longer needing to parse what they were telling him for clues about birds or stoats, he could purely enjoy the warmth of the home of the little people, the absence of pitying looks, and the transport from his concerns.
The Old Man asked how he was progressing in his search for the Noble Lady. There was a hint of an accusing note. Or maybe Dark imagined that. Everyone seemed to pay close attention to his non-answer.
‘Alright,’ he muttered. He had no inclination to explain to them that he expected nothing more of them; that from here on, help would come only from modern and sensible sources.
The Old Man looked at him and through him. Eventually he said, ‘Good enough then,’ and, pointing to Etain who had appeared with her goblet, he added, ‘Don’t ever refuse an offering from good hands.’ Whatever that was supposed to mean. Dark didn’t care. He wanted to be away and he took the chalice without question.
Chapter 7a
THE ANCIENT CIRCLE OF WISDOM
Mac Cumhaill could see that the geis still had a hold on Matha. He knew Matha would not be able to take up the offer of Fianna training from Conán any more than he had been able to take up the offer of lodgings from Oonagh. The road was calling him. Always calling. He was already resigned to the fact that he could not rest for more than a night in one place. As he was leaving Tara to continue his search for the way back to his home, Mac Cumhaill said to him, ‘You will find your way.’
‘Why do you believe that?’ said Matha, who wasn’t at all sure.
‘Because many people lose courage when they meet trouble. That’s the only test that counts. You have met adversity and you still have heart. I have the bruises on my back to prove it.’
Conán laughed and shouted after him, ‘Humour is at least as important as courage, boy. Of course, some men not only lack courage but also lack humour. Keep away from lads with no gaiety. They’ll drown you faster than that road into the bog water could ever have done.’
For another year Matha traipsed, often on little used pathways. He traversed dense forests and desolate mountains without fear or excitement. If the Mac Tíre or any other force wanted him they could have him. He hardly cared. But the Mac Tíre always seemed to turn away.
As he went, he sought wise people. He tried to gather wisdoms from brehons, poets, druids and herbalists. All he needed to find was just one wise person who knew of a way to make his valley peep out from under its fold.
As time went on, he learned much. He came to know secrets, given to him readily by some of the truly learned healers and gifted priests. Word of his quest was travelling before him, the news flying from home to home faster than he could walk. He worried that the belief in him having powers also continued to spread. Some people were now convinced that he had more powers than their local healers and druids. In some cases this turned out to be true. But only because their local healers had not even the power of common sense. They made sick people worse by sending them away from the warmth of their firesides, away up mountains to search for holy water, or by applying ointments that made wounds blister.
Many of the seers had never done anything other than find a few stray animals or lay cold hands on a sick person making them jump up. Most had never heard of such a thing as a folding mountain. Some nodded sympathetically, thinking he was lying about ever having had a home, as if he had been walking this way forever.
The better poets were at least entertaining, with words like sharpened blades cutting the ground from under the power hungry, the gr
eedy and the inhospitable. He spent many good nights by firesides where poets and singers transported everyone away from their troubles.
The local wise men and brehons were the least help of all. Some had spent years learning to recite various complicated rules and set themselves above people, maintaining an aloof learned air. But he gradually realised with dismay that after only a few years of travel he already knew more about the way of things than most of them seemed to.
It was unfortunate that his opinion of wise men was already somewhat faded at the time when he decided on his return to Tara. As bad luck would have it, in the time he had been travelling, the place had become a den for those same tedious old coots.
Matha had decided that it was time to go back to see if the geis would at least allow him to spend some time in the company of Dreoilín. Unlike many of the fellows and women he had sought counsel from in recent times, the old wren man had always told him up front that he didn’t know the solution to his puzzle. Matha was finally starting to accept what Dreoilín had told him long ago – that only he himself could discover the solution.
Maybe if he spent time just watching Dreoilín’s ways and observing how he thought about things, he might one day see what it was that was supposed to be obvious to him.
As he arrived at the first camp of Fianna soldiers near the main settlements of Tara, he was taken to their commander. He knew this woman. She was thin with long red hair tied in plaits. She wasn’t sturdy looking. But her reputation with a sword was already the makings of many a legend. And, as a leader, she was spoken of with fearful respect by all. She was Liath Ní Choinchin, one of the youngest commanders and one of Mac Cumhaill’s most trusted. Matha found it hard to believe, looking at her, but people said that if you crossed Ní Choinchin she would go through you for a shortcut.
She recognised Matha and welcomed him. ‘You are tired of travelling?’
