A Son of Aran Read online

  Peadar mentioned that Saureen had directed him to a boarding house in Shantalla and told him he was meeting her later that evening. The man inquired about this woman, what was her name, and where she lived. He frowned on hearing that she had a place on the Long Walk.

  ‘Not the best district,’ he said. ‘There are many stories about it. You would be wise not to go there after dark. I live on my own in Wood Quay, a short distance from here. You seem to be a decent man. If you wish, I can offer you accommodation for a little while until you come to terms with your mother’s illness. It isn’t good for you to be on your own at a time like this.’

  Peadar moved into the home of Festy in Wood Quay. It was convenient to the hospital where he visited his mother every day. He wrote to Máirtín, giving him the address and telling him the news of his mother. He asked him to look after things for him in Aran until he got back. He didn’t reveal the doctor’s pronouncement to his mother. He had a feeling that she herself knew she wasn’t going to get better but was keeping up a brave face for his sake. Festy’s companionship was a boon to him. They became very friendly and occasionally shared a pint in the local public house where Festy introduced him to his friends and told them of his predicament. People were sympathetic—they told him not to lose hope.

  ‘God never closes one door that he doesn’t open another,’ one man assured him. Peadar wondered what new door would be opened for him when his mother passed on. Thoughts of Saureen kept coming to his mind all the time. He met her as arranged at the Arch bar. She was friendly towards him, asked about his mother and who was looking after things for him in Aran.

  ‘I have never been to the island.’ she told him. ‘Perhaps I can accompany you there sometime?’ she suggested, as she sipped a gin and tonic while he lowered a pint of Guinness. When he pressed her, she drank two more. Over the following weeks they met regularly but he thought it odd that she never invited him to her apartment. Nevertheless he was pleased to be in her company and he told her so. He would be glad to take her to Aran when an opportunity arose.

  Christmas in Galway was a revelation to Peadar. He had never before experienced the spirited scene that prevailed during the days and nights leading up to the festival— crowds milling through the streets, decorated shop windows laden with fashion wear, toys, plum pudding, sweet cakes, Christmas stockings and giftware. Hams and turkeys hanging from butchers’ ceilings, mouth-watering beef steaks, chickens, chops, rashers, sausages and black puddings displayed in windows, shoppers, laden down with baskets and parcels, greeting one another in festive tones as they carried their purchases home. Crowded bars and hotel lounges remained open long after Peadar had retired to bed. The shouts of revellers reached him as he drifted off to sleep. He had no heart for celebration. Apart from a hot whiskey with Festy as they sat beside the fire after midnight Mass on Christmas night, and a fling with Saureen to welcome in the New Year, he remained abstemious. The days lengthened—soon it was the feast of Saint Brigid, a time when, back in Aran, his mother wove crosses from willow rods and placed them in the rafters to ward off evil for another year. He remembered the mummers who went from house to house with their faces concealed behind masks, twirling and twisting around the kitchen floor while his mother plied them with sweet cake. As he watched her face grow pallid and her hair falling out every time he smoothed it, he knew instinctively she would never again do those things.

  ‘Not much longer,’ the doctor said. His prognosis proved correct. On the night of February 14, (Peadar couldn’t forget the date because Saureen reminded him it was Saint Valentine’s Day), his mother passed peacefully away. Festy and some of his friends rallied around. They carried her coffin to St. Joseph’s church where High Mass was celebrated next morning. Afterwards they laid her to rest in Bohermore cemetery. Peadar would have liked to bring her remains back to Aran where her forbears were buried but, as his father’s body had never been found, he didn’t see a need to incur the additional cost and inconvenience.

  ‘A family grave in Galway might be more meaningful,’ he thought to himself; ‘maybe I will eventually make my home here.’

  He made a return trip to Aran for St Patrick’s Day bringing Saureen with him. In the cobbled street in front of the cottage, hens crowded cautiously around her feet and rose in fright as she impatiently shooed them away. She admired the stone cottage that Peadar had shared with his late mother, the open hearth fire set by Máirtín in anticipation of their arrival, the overhead mantelpiece with its complement of china dogs and vases, the neat bedroom with its soft feather bed, and the small four-paned curtained windows that were never opened. Peadar related to her how the doors of houses in Aran were always left on the latch. Neighbours would drop in without ceremony at any time of the day or night when the family was in residence. A stout bolt shot home on the outside of the door was an indication that nobody was at home, in which case people wouldn’t intrude.

  ‘Despite the dirty hen-litter and the messy ashes from the turf fire, I could feel at home here,’ she muttered under her breath.

  She looked at Máirtín, his workman’s hands scarred from old cuts, his nails gnarled and thick, as he shook her hand. He greeted her as Peadar’s friend but she sensed that he wasn’t overly impressed. He reminded Peadar that it was planting time and asked him if he was going to sow potatoes as he had done every year. Peadar was non-committal.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he replied.

  For the next two weeks Peadar took Saureen on trips around the island, showing her the sandy beaches, the steep cliffs, the ancient fort of Dún Aengus, and the ruined monastery of Saint Éanna. They walked the bare limestone plateau and looked across at Inish Meáin and the coastline of County Clare. She loved the open air and scenery but wondered if she could endure the isolation of island life— it would be so different from the freedom of living on the mainland. If Peadar would sell up and move to Galway there might be a possibility of them making a life together. He hadn’t proposed to her yet but she was in no doubt that he would do so before long. In the meantime she would use her womanly wiles to lead him on.

  Peadar didn’t return to Galway for several weeks. Saureen told him she had things to do there and assured him that she would eagerly await his return.

  ‘Don’t leave it too long,’ she whispered as they said goodbye at Kilronan pier. She waved and blew him a kiss as she boarded the Dun Aengus where it was berthed in deep water. He returned to the cottage, lonesome and downcast—firstly, because of his mother’s absence, and now that Saureen had departed.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Máirtín said when, concerned as ever for his friend, he dropped in with a bottle of poitín(whiskey). ‘Have a shot of this, it will put new heart into you,’ he urged.

  As they sat around the dying embers of the hearth fire late into the night and finished the bottle of spirits, Peadar poured out his feelings of loneliness.

  ‘I’m going to leave Aran and live in Galway for a year or two. I’m sure I’ll get a job in MacDonacha’s fertiliser factory—they’re always looking for able-bodied workers. I’ve grown fond of Saureen; I think she might have similar feelings towards me. In Galway we’d be close to one another and if she agrees I’d like to marry her. Will you look after the house and keep it safe from the storm? And will you take charge of the bit of ground and the cattle until I get back? As for the hooker, I’m sure you’ll get someone to work with you at the fishing. The rest I’ll leave to your own discretion. I’ll write to you from time to time; you have my address in Galway if you need me.’

  Máirtín listened to all that Peadar told him.

  ‘Of course, I’ll look after things for you as long as you want,’ he answered as he gave him a firm handshake. ‘I wish you the best of luck in Galway. I hope you find happiness there. It’s only natural that you should want the company of another woman after losing your mother, but I think you shouldn’t rush into any hasty decision about marriage— there’ll be lots of time for that.’

  MacDonacha’s foreman
took stock of this well-built, brawny-armed, man who approached him for a job in the fertiliser factory.

  ‘Hm, I reckon he’ll fit in well here. I need strong able-bodied workers who can lift two-hundred-weight bags of fertiliser and stack them high in the store—we have lots of townsmen who can use a shovel, but we sure can do with some stronger men for the heavier work.’

  ‘You’re from Aran, aren’t you,’ he commented. ‘We’ve had islanders working here in the past. We were sorry to lose them when they moved to other employment. You may start to-morrow on a month’s trial. If you prove your worth we’ll probably keep you on.’

  Peadar found a place to live in Shantalla within walking distance of the factory; he started work the following day. Two pounds ten a week wasn’t a great wage but it was enough to keep him going for the present. If MacDonacha’s found him suitable they might increase his pay in the course of time. He renewed his acquaintance with Saureen. They met in the evenings whenever her round of social engagements permitted. They went for long walks along the promenade to Blackrock, and shared a drink in one or other of the hostelries en route before he left her back to her house on Long Walk. She never invited him beyond the front door— he hesitated to ask her why.

  ‘All in good time,’ he thought to himself.

  Occasionally as he retraced his steps along the Long Walk, he met a well dressed gentleman in a flowing black coat and tall hat sauntering in the opposite direction, wielding a silver mounted cane as he walked. At work some associates to whom he told his story remarked, ‘You’d need to watch out for yourself on the Long Walk at night; some unsavoury characters are known to frequent that place.’

  ‘And what would bring them down there?’ asked Peadar. ‘Surely they could as easily take the air in Claddagh Park or along Sea Road?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s sea air those bucks are after,’ one man said laughingly. The others hung their heads and didn’t respond. Although he laughed with him, Peadar was puzzled by the man’s remark, but he didn’t want to show his ignorance of what might attract men to the area. Saureen was dismissive when he told her what the man had said.

  ‘Don’t be listening to those fellows,’ she said, ‘they don’t know their arse from their elbow. What would they know about people on the Long Walk or their business?’

  She didn’t allow Peadar’s return to interfere with her routine. They met on a regular basis; sometimes they went to the Town Hall cinema. On one occasion she took him dancing to The Hanger. Peadar wasn’t conversant with modern slow waltzes and foxtrots but, whenever a céilidhe and old time dance was called, he was able to hold his own in battering the floor. Saureen, proud to show him off, cut a dash as she paraded him before her acquaintances.

  ‘An unusual association!’ one woman was heard to comment. ‘I wonder what she’s up to—a city woman taking up with a man from the Aran Islands? There’s more here than meets the eye.’

  Tongues wagged. Oblivious to all that was whispered or said, Peadar was glad to be seen in her company. He was happy in his new environment. He was close to the love of his life. The more he saw of her the more he wanted to spend his life with her. On a Sunday in September, arm in arm, they climbed among tufts of blooming heather on the hills west of Bearn, and gazed in rapture across Galway Bay to Ballyvaughan and Black Head. Far out to sea the Aran Islands, shrouded in a delicate haze of blue, appeared to rise from the sea like scenes from a fairy tale.

  ‘Somewhere out there is Hy Brasil, the Isle of the Blest,’ Peadar told her, as he related the legend to her.

  ‘I’d like to search for that island some day,’ he added with passion. ‘I know it’s out there somewhere. My mother claimed it was where my father went. He was so happy there he never returned.’

  In a spontaneous moment of wellbeing he whispered, ‘Saureen, will you come with me to Hy Brasil? I’d like if we could find the place and be together on it. I love you very much. Will you marry me?’

  ‘Of course I will, Peadar,’ she replied. ‘I thought you’d never ask me.’

  For weeks afterwards Peadar floated on air. He hadn’t used his lovely tenor voice since his mother’s death; now he sang quietly to himself as he carried bags of fertiliser in MacDonacha’s factory and on his way to work. He improvised the words of his favourite song, ‘Eileen, my Eileen,’ to read ‘Saureen, my Saureen.’

  He sang it to her whenever they were alone:

  Saureen, my Saureen,

  Wait for me, Saureen.

  Delighted with his patronage, she even tried to join in. ‘That song has a ring of sincerity,’ she thought.

  ‘When will we have the big day?’ she asked, when the traditional period of mourning for Peadar’s mother was over. ‘I’d like if we were married in spring.’

  ‘Will we go back to Aran then?’ Peadar asked. ‘I’d need to do a few things with the cottage and to bring a fresh supply of turf from Connemara for there’s no fuel on the island.’

  ‘Peadar, love, that might be a problem. I need to be in Galway on account of my business. I could fix up my place on the Long Walk or, if you’d prefer, we could go back to the house in Sickeen where I was born—there’s nobody living there now. Don’t worry about turf—I’ll keep you warm wherever we are.’

  This was the first indication Peadar had that they might not be going back to Aran.

  ‘What was this about business?’ She had never before mentioned that she had a business.

  He was reluctant to inquire in case it upset their relationship; he wouldn’t want anything to come between them at this stage.

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to settle for whatever you want,’ he said, ‘but I’ll need to go back to Aran frequently, and to stay there for a week or two at a time, planting and reaping. That’s where my home is and that’s where I want to settle. It holds many memories for me. It’s where I want to bring up our family if we are blessed with children.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Peadar, I’ll come to Aran in my own time when I get things settled in Galway.

  Peadar had to be satisfied. Their marriage on the twentieth of April, 1934, was a quiet affair. Festy and a waitress friend of Saureen agreed to be their witnesses. After the ceremony in the parish church the group adjourned to the Globe Hotel where they drank glasses of whiskey and pints of porter to wash down a sumptuous meal of bacon, cabbage and potatoes. In his best tenor voice Peadar entertained the company with renderings, (as gaeilge), of An Spailpín Fánach, Thíos i Lár an Ghleanna and other Irish favourites.

  ‘What could be better than this?’ he exclaimed to Saureen when they boarded the evening train to Clifden. ‘Are you happy?’ he asked, as they divested in their bedroom in the Atlantic Hotel.

  ‘Very happy,’ she replied. ‘I love you Peadar—I hope we’ll be together always. Peadar broke into his improvised song:

  Saureen, my Saureen,

  I love you too, Saureen.

  The weeks after they returned to Galway were like an extended honeymoon. Peadar’s heart sang with joy as he resumed work at the fertiliser plant. His mates at work were openly friendly; they congratulated him on his marriage but, when they thought he was out of earshot, their remarks about women of their acquaintance who lived on the Long Walk tended to be less than complimentary. Phrases such as ‘fancy women’ and ‘bits on the side’ were thrown around in conversation. Peadar didn’t really understand their significance. Never for a moment did he think that they referred to his wife.

  ‘Thank you, God,’ he prayed every day, ‘for sending Saureen my way.’

  From their front door, he loved to watch boats coming and going in the Claddagh Basin and he frequently talked with fishermen on their return from a day’s fishing. With his knowledge of the sea around the Aran Islands they had much in common. He was able to discuss with them where the best fishing grounds were to be found, and what species of fish were likely to be running at different seasons of the year. The Claddagh men respected his knowledge and invited him to join them on fishing trips whenev
er he was off work. He became familiar with fishing boats that plied in and out of Galway docks, and he was competent to take charge of any vessel when other hands were occupied pulling in nets or packing fish. He enjoyed this new found taste of his former life with Máirtín—he wished they were fishing together again back home in Aran. A cargo ship named The Sansander arrived regularly in the deepwater with fertilisers for MacDonacha’s. On those occasions, Peadar and his mates helped with unloading the cargo. While the ship was in dock, they worked side by side with the dockers and crew. The latter were of mixed nationality. Most of them had a poor knowledge of English and couldn’t speak of their origins or travels. The captain, a tall good-looking man, spoke perfect English. He frequently left the ship to visit haunts downtown. Looking at him closely, Peadar thought to himself, ‘Haven’t I seen that fellow somewhere before?’ Offhand he couldn’t recall the circumstances.

  The outside of the two-storey house on Long Walk looked dilapidated; inside it was comfortable. On the ground floor one large room doubled as a kitchen and living room while another was a bedroom. Basic washing and toilet facilities were provided in a small annex to the rear of the building. To Peadar’s amazement, two rooms upstairs were permanently locked. When questioned about these, Saureen told him that these were her business premises. They had to be kept under lock and key as her work was confidential.

  ‘You see the telescope by the window,’ she said to him one day, when she showed him into the front room.

  ‘I use it to keep watch on ships and boats that come and go in the bay. A friend of mine in the Customs likes to have information on any suspicious activities that arise, such as boats transferring goods from one to the other. It has something to do with smuggling and evading customs duties.’

  ‘And what is in the other room. Can I look in there too?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Peadar, that’s where I keep confidential information; I can’t let you see that.’