The Dancers Dancing

by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne

  The hot weather and the trips to the beach liberate everyone. Teachers sit together beside Lynchs’ black boat, which is tied up at the back near the river. The students scatter all over the strand, spill over into the boathouse. A teacher is always supposed to be in the water, making sure nobody goes out too far. But in fact this does not work. The children want to stay in for hours, and run in and out, and no adult can stand it for that long.

  Pauline has found another liberation. She has found an escape route, and has commandeered none other than Gerry – teacher’s pet, star student, Irish speaker par excellence – to be her partner in crime. Gerry doesn’t want to escape. He is happy where he is, surrounded by the comforting forces of law and order. But he fancies Pauline, and there is a price to be paid for that.

  Now is the moment for the bold to assert their independence. The tide is right. Pauline knows it. The atmosphere is so relaxed, everyone is so drunk on summer, that teachers have ceased to keep the constant watch they kept during the first week or two. They have learned to trust their charges. This is the dangerous time.

  Pauline noticed that she needs to stay on the beach at the beginning, when each teacher is still connected to his own class and would notice if anyone was absent. And she needs to be there at half past five for the walk home. But between half past two and half past five there is no way of watching her. She could be in the water, she could be in the boathouse – in the glare of sunshine, the distinctions between the children become blurred. They all look the same in their swimsuits, a darting shoal of fish. It’s easy for one or two of them to slip away unnoticed.

  The girls use the old boathouse, crumbling and delapidated, as their dressing room – they are much too modest to undress out on the open beach, where the boys and the teachers are. The boathouse looks like a small church. It is long, dark, musty, damp. It has a cobbled floor which hurts your feet, and it is pervaded by the smell of rotten fish. The girls tend to cluster just inside the doorway, distrusting the darker corners at the back of the building. It seems empty; not even boats are kept in it. But a few old hanks of rope lie around, looming in the dimness. There’s a black tyre under the high narrow windows. The dark, the fishy smells, the sandy crunchy floor, are subtly alarming. Nobody dares venture into the murky back of the stinking boathouse. Nobody wants to know what hides there.

  Except for Pauline. She ventured down there on the very first day she came to the beach, picking her way over the stinking cobbled floor in her long flip-flops. ‘Yuck! How can you?’ the others had said, wrinkling their noses. ‘You’d never know what’s on that floor.’ Excrement, they meant. Human and animal. They could smell it, mingling with the sea smells. From that day a tacit commandment was made. Do not go to the back of the boathouse. Pauline chose to ignore it. She walked barefoot on the stinking cobbles. She checked out the one old broken boat, the lobster pots, the hanks of rope. She peered through the windows: two high narrow Gothic openings in the sides of the building, and one larger one, with stone frames though lacking glass, at the back. Behind this window, behind the boathouse, a high overgrown bank looms, stretching from the beach to the fields above. Now Pauline is standing on the slipway, letting the sun burn her back. She is staring at the clotted tangle of bramble, dog rose, hazel and willow. She notices a faint indentation traversing it, zigzagging from top to bottom.

  ‘You can get up that thing!’ she informs Orla.

  Orla confirms this for Pauline. She tells her a secret: the way from the beach to the top of the cliff is called the Seven Bends, it could be a title for an Enid Blyton book, which is why Orla feels it’s a secret which can be shared. Her father has often pointed out this path to her but warned her not to use it. ‘Why not?’ Elizabeth has said. ‘It’s just like Shanklin Chine that is. Where the smugglers from France used to carry their ill-gotten goods.’

  ‘Let’s go up,’ Pauline whispers. ‘Let’s just try it. Nobody would know we were gone even.’

  ‘No,’ says Orla. ‘We’re not allowed. And anyway I want to swim.’ She looks at the boathouse and the cliff with deep dismay. She has managed to get past her great adversary – her Auntie Annie, in order to gain the beach. She won’t give it up now just to satisfy a whim of Pauline’s.

  ‘All right then.’ Pauline pulls off her shorts and runs down the slip, jumping into the freezing water without a second’s hesitation. She spots the head of Gerry, head of the star boy, cutting a straight furrow through the water parallel to the shore, and marks him as her victim. Thrashing the water with her long arms she swims towards him. Meanwhile Orla picks her way thoughtfully over the golden stones and slides into the water very slowly, like a fish being poured from a green net back into the sea. Once in the water, she spends time with her eyes closed, swimming away from the slip to the middle of the bay. When she opens her eyes, Pauline has left.

  ‘I’ve something to show you,’ Pauline says to Gerry. ‘Go around to the back of the boathouse.’

  ‘Hm,’ says Gerry suspiciously, shaking water out of his eyes, since he has been pretending to be a deep-sea diver.

  Pauline wears a red bikini. Her eyes sparkle and her skin sparkles. Her breasts push against the thin red cotton. Water drips from her hair and runs in shining rivulets into her cleavage. The clear green water laps against her brown thighs.

  ‘Well, ok’ he concedes, placing his hand in front of his swimtrunks as casually as he can, to hide what is happening there.

  They leave the water separately and dress quickly. Pauline slips to the back of the boathouse and climbs out the window. He is standing at the corner.

  ‘You can climb to the top of this cliff,’ says Pauline. ‘Do you see the wee path?’

  ‘Yes, quite clearly.’

  ‘It’s called the Seven Bends. Smugglers used to use it.’

  ‘That’s very interesting. What did they smuggle?’

  ‘Wine and silk.’

  ‘I wonder what use the inhabitants of Tubber had for wine and silk?’

  ‘Tubber wasn’t always like it is now, you know. Did you think it was?’

  ‘Well ... I see no evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘Are you on then?’ Pauline eyes him with an amused smile.

  Gerry clears his throat and puts his hand to it, to straighten his tie. He isn’t wearing one, of course, but he is the sort of boy who is always, psychologically, wearing a tie.

  ‘Of course,’ he says. It is one of the phrases he uses very often, a phrase he thinks sounds grown-up and self-assured. ‘Of course,’ he repeats, with greater emphasis. His eyes shift uneasily.

  ‘Come on then. Follow me.’

  Pauline begins to scramble through the undergrowth. She pushes willows and brambles out of her way, unconcerned about the scratches they inflict on her bare arms and legs. Gerry follows a few yards behind, his body torn by reluctance and desire. They traverse the hairpin bends, stooping under the level of the growth so that there is no chance that anyone could spot them from below even if they were looking, which they are not. The students are all in the sea, the teachers are stretched out on the sand at the other side of the beach.

  Gerry hates it. The undergrowth has the same dank smell as the boathouse, as if many things have decayed in its shelter over the years. He kicks against dried cowpats. ‘Wouldn’t imagine cows actually climbing up here, would you?’

  ‘They would if they had to,’ says Pauline blithely, clambering on. She is graceful and nimble, even when bent double in a tangle of weeds. ‘But nobody has been here for a long time. We are the first, maybe in hundreds of years.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Gerry, disbelieving. ‘Will we have to go down again, immediately?’

  His tone includes a soupµon of sarcasm. Pauline picks it up. ‘You can do what you like,’ she says shortly.

  Fee fie fo fum

  At the top of the cliff is a wooden gate covered in flaking pale blue paint. It opens easily and then, to their surprise, they find themselves on a neat, trodden path which passes throug
h a field of short thick grass – different from the parts of Tubber they are used to, which are pastoral rather than rugged.

  ‘It’s nice here.’ Pauline gives him an encouraging smile. Gerry looks around, surprised by the contrast between this and what they have just left behind. The grass is sheep-cropped and reminds him, comfortingly, of a golf course. The flora is of the pleasant, seashore kind: flimsy windblown pinks and dark blue scabious, elegant translucent harebells, which sway like dancers in the light breeze. Here is no smell of danger or decadence, but a fresh salt tang, a hint of roses.

  ‘Aye,’ he lapses. ‘It is.’

  She runs along the path, which is on rising ground, leading over a small protuberance. Over its brow they find a cottage – the traditional whitewashed thatched kind, of which there are still half a dozen or so in Tubber. The door is open and Pauline walks inside. Gerry follows.

  ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Nobody’s home. They’d never care anyway.’

  ‘How do you know actually?’

  ‘Who do you think owns this place? The Wicked Witch of the Western World? Maybe she’ll put us in a cage and fatten us up for the céilí mór!’

  The cottage is obviously lived in, although it is not clear what sort of person could live in it. Renovation of the original design has occurred. The floor is covered, wall to wall, with a turquoise and black carpet, brilliant and crackling with static. The interior walls are papered with cream paper embossed with huge sprays of silver grass. In one corner is an electric cooker and in another a television. Fireside chairs, brown and beige plush, are placed at each side of the hearth, in which sits an electric fire. Against one silver and cream wall stands a small bookcase.

  ‘Hm.’ Gerry walks down to look at the books. ‘Very interesting.’

  The air is fragrant with the aroma of old fried onions.

  ‘An Analysis of Capitalist Theory,’ reads Gerry. ‘Keynsian Economics Made Simple. The Fortunes of the Irish Language. The Death of the Irish Language. Who lives here?’

  ‘He likes books, whoever he is.’ Pauline is snooping, opening cupboards, sniffing. ‘That’s a lovely smell, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lolita.’ Gerry is still reading spines. ‘The Kama Sutra. Hm.’ He pulls out the volume.

  ‘What’s that?’

  She must know, he thinks. Pretending. ‘Nothing.’ He glances through it. ‘Something about India. Let’s go.’

  ‘Wait a second. We just arrived.’

  ‘Time is getting on,’ says Gerry, still turning the pages.

  ‘Never mind. Look!’ She pulls a packet of Tayto out of a press. ‘Look! Lots of crisps.’ She rips open the packet and tastes one. ‘Not even stale!’

  ‘Don’t eat it!’ Gerry looks up, alarm dragging him away from a riveting page. He slams the book shut angrily, and replaces it on the shelf.

  ‘Och it’s not going to poison me.’

  Pauline opens a door and peeps into the room into which it leads. ‘Look!’

  ‘Let’s go,’ says Gerry. But he does not go. He follows her into the room.

  It is a bedroom. The walls are white, and on one of them a stone carving of a monster hangs. There is a wide wooden bed in the middle of the room, covered with a red-striped quilt. The crooked wooden floor is cluttered with books. Leaning against the end of the bed is a guitar. Pauline picks it up.

  ‘Let’s go!’ says Gerry. ‘Before the owner comes back!’

  But Pauline has sat on the bed, and is strumming the guitar. ‘Are you going to Strawberry Fair,’ she sings. ‘Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.’ Her voice is strong and clear. Gerry sighs and goes to the door of the cottage to keep watch.

  The céilí must go on

  That night, the schoolhouse throbs with sweet, scratched music and the thud of feet on floorboards. The yellow stream of sunlight is still hot, but that doesn’t change anything. The céilí must go on. Everyone knows the dances perfectly by now, and the céilí swings through its repertoire of six dances without a single hitch. The children hop and swing. Killer Jack operates the record-player. Headmaster Joe stands at the end of the room in his black suit, barking out the orders.

  Gerry dances only once with Pauline, towards the end of the evening, to pay her back for her boldness during the day. She is furious but she smiles her sweetest smile and waves. ‘See you tomorrow. Same time same place!’

  He can hardly hide his anger, walking back to his bench by the wall. Damn the girl, he thinks to himself, in his old-mannish way. He knows he will be there, a lamb to the slaughter, tomorrow.

  Orla swings her way through the dances with Alasdair, with Damien Caulfield, with Seamas Brennan. Sandra dances with Seamas Brennan, Damien Caulfield, and Alasdair. Aisling dances with Seamas Brennan and Killer Jack and Máistir Dunne and a new partner called Kenneth.

  Sava takes a big risk

  Sean invites Sava to walk with him in the pre-Cambrian hills. It is so hot he wants to take some time off, take advantage of the summer while it lasts.

  Sava is taken aback. They have been together for three weeks and seen each other almost every night, but they have never before met during the day.

  ‘It won’t be so easy to get away,’ she says. But it is not true. It is easier to get away in the afternoon than at night. All she has to do is get the after-lunch washing-up done quickly and then she will be free until teatime. She runs in and out of the parlour as quickly as she can, scraping the plates of mashed potato, faded red corned beef, glutinous cold gravy, into the pigs’ bucket before her mother can begin to lament the terrible waste – every day, most of every dinner finds its way to the same destination. It takes two hours to prepare and two minutes to throw out. ‘What would they eat?’ Banatee groans. ‘They eat bread and jam,’ says Sava. ‘We can’t give them that for dinner. They’d take them off me if I did.’ Today she is not in the kitchen but out in the byre with a sick cow. Sava hardly gives the girls a chance to eat even if they wanted to. She puts down the plates and takes them away again one minute later. She washes everything in double-quick time. She doesn’t bother to put them back on the dresser, just leaves clatters of delph on the table for Banatee to deal with.

  He meets her at the end of the lane and they drive to the foot of Knockeany, a hill about six miles from Tubber. There is a lake at the top of the hill, an old glacial lake, the reservoir for the local villages, the lake referred to in the brochure for the Irish college, upon which the students should go boating.

  They haven’t walked very far when Sean asks Sava if she would like to take a rest. And she would like to take a rest. They sit on the rough, scratching heather, admiring the view: patchwork of multicoloured fields, little blue roads with a few cars winding along them, the lough.

  ‘Donegal must be the most beautiful place in the world,’ says Sava. Not an original sentiment, but for her quite a momentous sentence.

  Sean is not listening. His mind is on other things: he is wondering if he could possibly afford to buy a television set for his bedroom. This question has been preoccupying him for almost a week, ever since one of his colleagues in the office started bragging about the new colour set she has recently acquired for herself and her mother. Colour set! He doesn’t want that. They cost almost twice as much as black-and-white and what is the big advantage? Ninety pounds for a new twenty-inch black-and-white. You could have a month in Majorca for less. And you couldn’t even get rté here, just Ulster and the Beeb. Such is the train of his thought, on such pathways does his mind inexorably wander, through the crowded passages of little electrical shops and the blank dark surfaces of banks, when Sava jolts him, first of all by saying something, anything at all, unsolicited, and second by saying something romantic, poetic, involving feeling, even if it is only feeling about place, the emotion all people living in the scenic West of Ireland are programmed by history and the tourist board to register as the primary human emotion and the one most suited to spontaneous expression. He pushes the problem of the television, tv or not
tv, aside temporarily, and turns the full focus of his attention on Sava, who is lying, stretched, on the ground. White skin, jet hair, purple heather. It is a good colour combination.

  ‘You are lovely,’ he says. It is saying a lot, for him, and it is the immediate effect of his recent excursus into the world of television.

  She is luxuriating in the sun. She yawns and stretches, stretches her legs, letting the hot sunbeams warm the shins. She is thinking that if she keeps this up she will have a tan that lasts into October or November. But when Sean bends over her she banishes the tan from her mind: it spins above them, up into the azure, along with his television set, and they concentrate on one another.

  Pauline gets her own back

  At the céilí that night, Killer Jack, the most sought-after teacher at the céilí, and the one for whom many girls nurture a tender, painful crush, asks Pauline to dance first thing. And then on the third dance he approaches her again.

  ‘Oh my God.’ He brushes his forehead in mock dismay. ‘I’m losing my memory in my old age. Or maybe ... have I danced with you before sometime?’

  ‘Thank you, I’d love to,’ says Pauline, winking, actually winking, at him. She glances over her shoulder to see if Gerry is observing this. He is.

  Then at Lady’s Choice she asks him up herself, not making a joke of it, just using the formula. ‘An ndéanfaidh tú an damhsa seo liom, a mháistir, más é do thoil é?’ He hasn’t got a choice, according to the rules set by himself, although according to his own personal set of rules he never dances with a girl student more than twice on one evening, no matter how much he wants to – and in some cases he wants it very much. He is attractive, and sexually promiscuous – like a surprisingly high proportion of men in Donegal – but the college girls are out of bounds. The rule has never been spelt out: Headmaster Joe, in common with the world at large, has not allowed himself consciously to articulate the dangers inherent in the situation: nubile girls, young male teachers with heaps of authority and, occasionally, charisma. A month in the country. But not articulating them does not mean he is unaware of them, or unable to communicate his awareness. They all know the rule. Hands off.