by A. A. Glynn
The Poncas still dance in Oklahoma and they say Deer Woman still intrudes. The young men watch for her and vow they will capture her one day. They have yet to succeed.
“Deer Woman, Seal Woman…it’s all so familiar, Dan,” said Leonora. “Sean-een told me how a beautiful woman one day appears, seemingly out of the sea. She is voiceless because seals do not have the gift of speech. She finds a man and he becomes obsessed with her. They live as man and wife, becoming reclusive, wholly absorbed in their love. The man becomes just as voiceless as his seal-wife. One day, she hears the call of the sea and the beckoning of the seal people. She cannot resist it, abandons her husband, and runs into the waves. Her husband watches helplessly as she sinks. When her head appears, it is not that of a woman but that of a seal.”
She paused, tightened her arms around my neck and whispered with and edge of fear to her voice: “I don’t like the next bit, Dan. I don’t like it a bit. The abandoned husband becomes more reclusive and lives as a hermit, pining for his lost seal-wife. Then, one day, he hears the call of the ocean, runs across the shore and into the waves. Watchers on the shore see him sink. Then two heads come up from the waves—those of a pair of seals who swim away together.” She gave a shudder. “That’s why we’ve got to get away from here. We must go—now!”
We left immediately, although I went through it all in a half-dazed state, and Leonora handled things with her usual efficiency, declaring we could arrange to sell the cottage from a distance. We spent a few nights in a Westport guesthouse, and Leonora contacted her aunt in Tulsa who had recently vacated her old home for a smaller one, intending to put the old one on the market. It was still available, so we lost no time in making for Oklahoma.
I was entitled to a green card for employment, having worked in the United States in the recent past, while Leonora entered without trouble being American born. Some casting around the academic circles of Tulsa and the university town of Stillwater brought me a schedule of part-time lecturing while Leonora took a job with a welfare agency.
Far from the sight and sound of the ocean, we were now in the midst of vast plains country where many a native has never seen the sea or smelt a salty breeze. We could think ourselves free of any threat held by a distant ocean. Yet still it came. Dimly at first, as if breaking through all the barriers of the New World, then growing in strength—that menacing and hypnotic eons old chant from the deeps, the sea song.
I tried to dismiss it as mere imagination at first, but it persists, overriding city traffic noises and carried on the night wind, whispering in from the surrounding plains. In recent weeks, it has increased its intensity and, once more, I hear that fearsome, ghostly enticement: “…man of the O’Hynes, I will have you from the land woman.…”
I have vowed never to return to Ireland and, though I have never mentioned my haunting to Leonora, I know she senses it. Often, when the sea song comes upon me, I see her body stiffen, her nostrils flare, and the shadow of subtle change crosses her face, bringing a memory of the old shaman. It is then that Leonora’s Cherokee heritage seems to be my only safeguard from the menace carried by my own Celtic heritage. But for how much longer?
Although I am determined to keep well away from the western seaboard of Ireland, just the other day, I saw an attractive magazine advertisement, showing a thatched cottage and an ocean strand, such as I knew at Carrowmore and Bunowen in Mayo.
Its message read: “No matter where you are in the United States, Ireland’s international airport at Knock puts a magnificent land of magic and myth on your very doorstep!”
On the very doorstep!
And the sea song continues, becoming louder, enticing, beckoning, beginning to sap my will, beginning to be irresistible…beginning to overpower me.…
THE BAD SPOT
Heffernan, the former journalist and a noted old soak, was holding forth in the snug of Deasy’s pub. It was more or less a nightly performance with Heffernan. Well lubricated with stout, he would loudly relive the great moments of what he claimed was a sparkling career in the world of ink and newsprint during which he had encountered everyone under the sun who had any claim to fame.
Tonight, he was on about the time he interviewed Jack Doyle. The regulars, who knew him of old, were only half listening while Heffernan hooted a monologue embellished with wild swinging of the arms.
“…so Jack Doyle, he says to me, he says: ‘I’ll show you how to keep up a perfect guard and hold off your opponent’s attack’ and he sticks up the two fists of him to shield his chin and, says he to me: ‘Now, make to hit at me face and don’t be afraid to use force’.…”
Young Sullivan, an off-duty Civic Guard, was enjoying a quiet pint in a corner, mildly amused by Heffernan’s antics, carried on from his regular spot in front of the bar.
“…so, I prepares to land him one, bunching me fist…,” continued Heffernan.
The stocky figure of O’Cathal in a neat civilian suit entered the snug, nodded to Sullivan, and walked over to his table. O’Cathal, also off-duty, was Sullivan’s sergeant at the station in this outlying Dublin suburb to which Sullivan had only lately been posted.
“What is it with your man, tonight, Tom?” he inquired. “Another lurid yarn, I suppose.”
“It’s about the time he interviewed Jack Doyle—whoever he was,” said the young policeman.
“Sure, do you young fellows know nothing?” gasped O’Cathal. “Jack Doyle was Ireland’s hope in the ring. He was the boxer who did a bit of singing—or the singer who did a bit of boxing. I don’t know if anyone ever worked out which.”
“…lunging at him with all me might,” droned Heffernan, matching the words with a windmill-like sweep of the arm and just missing the pint of a little chap standing close by. “And I connected. For all his boxing genius, Jack Doyle couldn’t guard against the clout I put on him. I totally outsmarted his famous guard and I floored him. It was all fair and square and he was on the floor, all but senseless. Now, what I’ve wanted to know all these years, is could I rightly claim his title?”
“What title?” piped up old Ted Kelly, another of Deasy’s regulars. “I don’t remember Jack Doyle ever holding a title.”
“What?” exploded Heffernan. “Isn’t that typical of you, Kelly? An old ignoramus who doesn’t even know the history of the heroes of his own country!” He turned to face Deasy’s barman. “Give me a half-one of Power’s, Dennis,” he ordered. “I need a fortifier after hearing treachery the like of that. And don’t serve me from them blasted optics. I’ll have it from the bottle. Put the bottle on the counter—and don’t cork it up.”
“Now he’s really cruising,” commented the sergeant. “When he take shots of whiskey with his porter, he’s out to give the drink a fair battering. He likes to have the bottle at hand, and ‘Don’t cork it up’ is his usual cry.”
“He’ll be footless in no time if he drinks at that rate,” Sullivan said.
“Oh, he has an old-time newspaperman’s capacity for it,” said O’Cathal. “He can take on a middling heavy cargo, but you’ll never be able to touch him for being either disorderly or incapable. He’ll find his own way home as dignified and proper as an archbishop. Sure, I have some sympathy for him. It’s loneliness that drives him into the pub. Never been married and has no relatives so far as I know, and he’s all alone in a little flat. He makes an old fool of himself, but he had a considerable reputation at one time. Beyond in Fleet Street in London it was, and here in Dublin before that,”
O’Cathal strode over to the bar to order for himself and the younger man as Heffernan began another anecdote.
“Listen, did I ever tell you how I hobnobbed with an ex-king—him that became a boy king in the thirties after his old fellow was assassinated? In the old days in Fleet Street it was, when he’d been kicked out of his country by the Communists. He used to get away from all the flunkeys and ex-generals that were in exile with him by slipping away on the quiet into a little pub I knew. Nicest young fellow you could ever mee
t.…”
“Are you going to tell us now, Heffernan, that you somehow took his title from him and that, by rights you’re a king as well as a boxing champion?” put in old Kelly.
“Stop interrupting, you ignorant old bostoon,” answered Heffernan. “Dennis, fill up the pint pot and give me another half-one from the bottle—and don’t cork it up. That’s the old motto—don’t cork it up! As I was saying, I used to go into this pub and.…”
Closing time was past when Heffernan, well-oiled though he was, made his way as dignified and proper as an archbishop to his lonely flat along the road from the hostelry.
He turned on the television for the late night news, and found an excited commentator gabbling out of the screen from some outside location to which a rocky foreshore and a distant sea made a background.
“While no one can say for sure what’s caused this dreadful development, it’s certainly a most serious situation, and the local Gardai are carrying out a thorough investigation,” he was saying. “Superintendent Pat Callaghan is in charge of operations. Is there anything more you can tell us, Superintendent?”
The screen was filled by a heavily-built figure in uniform. “It’s too early to make a statement, and we’re waiting for the State Pathologist to view the bodies,” he said. “I would, however, stress that people in this part of Mayo should not panic or listen to rumors. The authorities have matters well in hand.”
“But you can confirm that bodies have been found?” urged the commentator.
“With regret, I can. Three of them.”
“And there’s talk of the possibility of more and what about these mysterious things—these creatures—that some people claim to have seen?”
“Well, I don’t wish to feed conjecture and alarm,” growled the senior policeman testily. “Our investigations are by no means complete.”
“But,” prodded the commentator, “something odd was seen in the region of the bend on the coast road at Ballyquin just where the extensive building work is going on at the site of the new apartment complex?”
Heffernan stood transfixed and wide-eyed before the screen. He struggled to find his voice then gurgled: “Bend in the coast road at Ballyquin…building works…mysterious creatures…my God, they’ve disturbed something at the bad spot!”
He staggered towards a corner cupboard, opened it, and produced a half-full bottle of Power’s whiskey. He yanked off the cork and took a strong pull of the contents, then, clutching the bottle, returned to the television set, which now showed a middle-aged man and a youth, both with alarmed faces.
“Mr. Jimmy Finnerty and his son, Sean, were cycling on the coast road when they saw something unusual,” the commentator was saying. “What exactly did you see, Mr. Finnerty?”
“Well, ’twas up in the trees, just where the land rises above the bend. Scooting through the trees was a sort of thing with a body like an eel, except it had legs. And it was big—bigger than a man, and I’ll swear the head was something like a fish’s head but somehow like a man’s as well,” gabbled the man. “I always heard that bit of the road was a bad spot and laughed about it but, begod, I believe it now. I have a feeling there were more of them up there in the trees.”
“There were,” chimed in the boy. “I looked back and I saw three or four moving in and out among the trees, and some of them were more like frogs than men.…”
“God save us all!” mouthed Heffernan. “It’s the building works that have caused it. They’ve dug into places that are best left alone. And deaths have occurred. I’ll have to warn them about it—at least, tell the Guards what they have on their hands.…”
He took several more gulps of the whiskey, almost draining the bottle. On top of the evening’s heavy intake of drink, this replenishment knocked his legs out from under him and he dropped to the carpet in a semi-stupor. He lay there for a spell, helpless.
And memories from the days of his youth crowded in on his fuddled brain.
* * * *
Tash Burke, the news editor, tugged at the moustache that inspired his nickname, glowered at Heffernan, and told him: “I’m sending you down the country on a feature.”
“Me, Mr. Burke?” breathed Heffernan. He was in the first flush of youth, could still hardly believe that he had actually landed a reporter’s job on a Dublin daily after his fumbling start on a country weekly, and, so far, had plodded warily, feeling intimidated by both the news editor and the persnickety chief reporter.
“Yes, you! I’m sending you to Mayo on a special,” growled Burke. “I want a feature on this old coot, Shannassy, who writes that crackpot weekly column on Irish legends and myths for us. It’s all rubbish, but the public like it. Though summer’s ending, everything’s still slow apart from the antics surrounding this Hitler blatherskite beyond on the Continent, and I want a solid feature or two for the weekends. Shannassy’s more or less a recluse, I hear, in a cottage that was once part of an old domain in a place called Ballyquin in Mayo. Go down and get an interview with him. Play up the mystery and myth nonsense and get back for Saturday.”
With some trepidation, Heffernan set off on the assignment with Burke’s instructions to find a night’s cheap accommodation in Mayo and always keep the expenses down ringing in his ears.
He sought out Shannassy’s obscure dwelling place which was, as an old man in the tiny village of Ballyquin told him, “the oul’ gatehouse to what’s left of the Mountcarroll estate, down yonder against the ocean.” And, to add to the young reporter’s trepidation, there came a dark warning: “Don’t be lingering too long in that place. ’Tis a terrible bad spot. And that oul’ omadhaun that’s living in it needs to be watched. Sure, he should be certified in my opinion.”
The location was on a sweep of rocky coastal road, curving around a shoulder of land. On the side facing the rise of wooded land there was only the magnificent, flat panorama of the Atlantic, calm as a mill pond now, but capable of storms as ferocious as any in the world when the ugly mood was on it. Against a hump of land, Heffernan found a pair of once ornate gateposts carved with what must have been armorial devices, but now worn almost wholly away by the scouring Atlantic gales. A wide pathway straggled from between the posts and twisted into the trees which half hid a squat, weathered, brick building.
This, thought Heffernan, must be the gatehouse. He knew nothing of the Mountcarrolls, but supposed they were of the old Anglo-Irish gentry, so many of who had long departed the land. The tumbledown gatehouse was almost as worn as the gateposts and an abundance of weeds crowded against its walls. Nervously, Heffernan rapped on its scarred oaken door, which creaked slowly open after a fall minute.
A pinched, lined, and scrubby-bearded face peered out suspiciously. It was hardly welcoming and Heffernan recalled the old man’s observation that the resident of the pace should be certified.
“Mr. Shannassy?” inquired Heffernan.
“Professor Shannassy,” corrected the face.
“I’m sorry. I’m Heffernan, from the News in Dublin. I would have phoned, but you don’t seem to be on the phone.…”
“Indeed! You haven’t by any chance brought a check or two have you? The News owes me for a couple of articles,” cut in Shannassy sharply.
“Sorry. The paper wants me to do a piece on you. It’s thought that the readers will be interested in the man who writes on old myths and legends.”
Something like a beam of satisfaction spread over the lined face. “Better come in.” He swung the door open wider, and Heffernan entered the single room of the gatehouse. It was cramped, gloomy, and almost awash with books and documents. From somewhere among the debris, Shanassy found a chair and shoved it towards his visitor.
It proved a difficult interview. Shannassy was reluctant to reveal too much about himself, and it emerged that he had only withering scorn for the academic establishment. He had, it seemed, awarded himself the title of professor. “I have more right to it than the stuffy old idiots up at Trinity or University College in Dublin,” he grow
led. “All they ever did was learn a few oddments from a clutch of textbooks. I’ve spent years and years delving into the byways and back roads of ancient Irish culture. I’ve made it my business to discover things at ground level among the people of the land who’re still steeped in the old stories and traditions. You have Irish, I suppose?”
“Of course,” said Heffernan.
“Aye, the sanitized Irish shoved into you by the Christian Brothers, no doubt, but not the old-time, raw Irish of long ago. You’ll know the meaning of the world piseog?”
“Yes—an old folk-superstition.”
“And are you a countryman at all?”
“More or less. Originally from a small place in Kilkenny.”
“Then you’ll know there’s many a piseog to be found around every corner in all the Four Kingdoms of Ireland, and the old folks are stuffed full of ’em. Well, I’ve spent my time investigating all the old superstitions, tales, legends, call then what you will, and I went right to the roots of the people to find ’em. No foostering around in university libraries for me, though I’ve collected my share of books and manuscripts, as you can see by looking around.”
Heffernan gave an inward sigh. He had not yet produced his notebook, but could see there was no hope of honing his youthful interviewing skills on this old eccentric. Shannassy was a talker and seemed set fair to talk a blue streak without Heffernan ever getting a word in. Still, he thought, if he memorized something of what the old man said he would probably get the makings of a decent feature.
“And I’ll tell you this: there’s more truth in the old tales that have never died out than the big city people with their wirelesses and aeroplanes ever dreamed of—and some of ’em are damned uncomfortable and downright dangerous truths,” breathed Shannassy mysteriously. “I suppose you know the sort of place the people call a bad spot around your own home place, and probably more than one?”
