days. But the seas were too high and we were marooned, and there was nothing to do but drink our measly wages, until we were too drunk to care. Soon we had built up a considerable tab and when the rains finally cleared there was no way we could just bugger off. They'd come after us. So we stayed and worked on the local boats, barely earning enough to put bread on the table, let alone clear our debts. And sur' we had to have a sup in the evening. Time passed and the thought of escape just left us. Didn't it Matty?' Matty nodded.
I wondered did Matty have a voice at all. He seemed to exist as a foil for Paudy. When he eventually did open his mouth what came out surprised me.
'Tell him about that oul bitch, Paudy,' his voice had the venom of the small place, the island cut off from the world.
'Ah now Matty, none of that. That's well in the past.' Paudy did not want to bring up what seemed to be an uncomfortable subject. His eyes were darker now. They had lost the brightness of his earlier banter.
'Maybe Matty is right - you should know. You'll probably hear about it anyway. Tongues wag in this godforsaken place.' He finished his pint and on queue my complementary drink arrived. He raised his glass to me and toasted.
'To me new friend, and to the bloody bitch, Molly.' He took an extra long slug, half emptying the glass. He burped and started to talk.
'We were on the island for several years by that time and the locals were slowly coming to accept us. We worked hard and drank hard. We were good for the local economy, weren't we Matty?' Matty did not smile. Paudy continued.
'When yer wan came to the island, byjapers, we were all goggle-eyed. She was a real looker and she knew it too. She played us round her little finger. I spent all me wages on her, buying her drink and such. And not a thing, did I get in return, despite what the locals all thought. We'd drink the night away, and play cards, or sing. The fun was very simple and harmless. Those days were different. We had respect for women - didn't we Matty? We became inseparable - the three of us. All the talk of the island was of Paudy, Molly and Matty. Bad cess to them - they had little to be talking about. Sure didn't we all go to mass together. Father O' took us aside and tried to break us up. I told him where to go and he didn't like it. He talked bad about us from the pulpit. People began to snigger behind our backs. But we didn't care, did we Matty? We were not islanders like them - none of the three of us. We were different. Ya! Very different.'
His eyes glazed over in a mist, as if tears were trying to get out. There was vulnerability in the way his shoulders had taken on a hunched stance. He finished his pint and I ordered another, even though I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the personal nature of his revelations. But curiosity is a very strong force - once whetted it must be satisfied. Paudy took a first sup of the new pint.
'The island doesn't tolerate difference too well. At first it is something to gossip about and then it becomes a threat, dangerous. Lord there was no threat coming from us. We had managed to scrape together the money for a small, ramshackle cottage on the far side of the island. No electricity or running water. But it was home, and we worked hard on the boats, while Molly did her best to make it comfortable for us when we returned. The priest nearly burst a gut at this arrangement, and we had to fend off his visits with words that were not suitable to be used in front of a man of the cloth. But Molly was defenceless when we were at sea. The bugger annoyed her no end. He told here she was a harlot and a Mary Magdalen. He told her she would burn in hell fires, for all eternity. Is it any wonder that she was a wreck, when we'd get back. But what could we do? You can't go up and beat up a priest, can you Matty?'
Matty's hand had stiffened over the pint glass and the knuckles went white as if he were throttling it. His lips quivered and he wanted to mouth venom but Paudy did not let him reply.
'Jasus, were we surprised when she told us, the lying bitch.' Paudy's hand on the glass clenched and I feared it would snap, such was the sudden ferocity in his eyes.
'And we who had never once touched her! Never laid a hand on her and she saying she was with child!'
Paudy was too overcome by emotion to continue. He stared down at his pint and a terrible sadness came over him. I could see that underneath was a gentle, simple man. I could understand how these two bachelors might not even think of touching a beautiful woman, content only with her presence - a presence they ordinarily might not be privileged with. I felt their pain from my own life and wanted to console them.
'What a change!' Paudy resumed his story. 'What a fucking change! One day happy as two larries, and the next a living hell. It took its toll, it did. I took to the drink really bad. The health was bad and the money ran out. At times it seemed we were living on fresh air. The hardship was great, but it was nothing compared to the silence. She never spoke to us again, after them words between us. She said she had never been so disappointed and let down. But still she didn't move out, or we didn't make her. There was just that cold silence and the hunger. Things got to a very sad pass - no money, nothing in the house. But the mackerel were in, and there's no man will starve when the mackerel come in. My chest was so bad and the cough so rough that I stayed in bed, but Matty said he'd go alone. Didn't you Matty? When she heard that she put on her shawl and went off down to the beach where we had the use of an old currach. I saw her leave by the front door. She didn't turn to say good-bye. She just wrapped the shawl around her growing belly and left.'
Paudy, now, had tears in his eyes and Matty's venom had softened in the desolation of loss.
'We never saw her again. The sea took her. She went and joined the mackerel.' Paudy closed his eyes, as if the blackness would shut out the pain.
'But she had done it with the priest, the bloody, bloody bitch.'
His head shook in denial and Matty looked away, aware suddenly that there was a stranger listening to their tragic tale.
There were no words I could fashion to alleviate their shared grief. I was not able to absorb the tragedy of these simple men whom fate seemed to reward , and then so remorselessly throw back into life's cess-pit. I saw life as a meaningless flow of events through which we felt we were swimming with some direction, but all the while being at the whim of a too powerful current. Our fears, joys, hopes are mere bubbles in the flow. I finished my drink and self-consciously made an exit.
I was escaping their world much as Molly must have felt that she had to escape. For me escape is rising from the table and walking away. For Molly it must have so frightful.
I made my way back to my hermitage on the cliff top. I wanted to be alone. The exposure to other peoples troubles weighed too heavily on me. I had enough of my own. They were coming back to haunt me. I felt the blood drain from my face, as the memory forced its way from the vast store of my life's databank of thoughts, feeling, emotion and pain. It came like a raging bull through the narrow streets of my mind. It knocked over all obstacles that I frantically put in its path. It was going to out no matter what I tried.
I reached the camp as the gloom descended. I had just time to scramble for some pills and swallowed them down a dry throat. Then I forced myself into a sitting posture and faced the sea. I waited.
When you are descending a mountain, there is a calmness at having reached your goal, you are on the way back to the world. But this descent was opposite in all respects - the goal had never and would never be reached, and you are leaving this world in terror. It is such a personal experience that I find it hard to put words onto it. By describing it, I underplay the fiercesome trauma of the dark. The emotions are best described as cold and lonely. There is pain in the air, and it is everywhere pervasive - not just in my insides which are wrenched apart and aching most appallingly. But it is the meaningless of it all, that so frightens me. I am like a child on a lonely steppeland, knowing there is a wolf out there but not able to see or hear him. I am constantly afraid. The fear is consuming and makes all other sensation immaterial. I no longer have hunger. My libido shrivels up. There is no pleasure in sight or sound. I cannot bear to touch
. All smells are noxious. There is nowhere to escape. I want to shut it all out. I fear that even the end, is not the end.
But there is no rationality in my darkness. The only thing I know is that I have to be patient and let it have its awful way. I sit there in pain. I rock to and fro, quietly moaning from the depths of my despair. The sun goes down unnoticed and the cold of nightfall descends. Deep in my mind, I know that only one thing can free me from the terror, and that is time. It is that, that prevents me from just walking over the cliff - that and the belief that even such an extreme may not give me the release I yearned for.
On those black days, I visit a different universe. It is totally solipsistic and evil. It is the negative pole of life from which all the bad things emanate. All life force is negative here. It sucks and drains rather than nourishes and grows. It throws up the most grotesque images and feelings. It makes the mind swoon in mental turmoil. It destroys otherness and makes you think only of your own sorry predicament. It mocks you and bullies you, so that your stomach sickens and your head pounds with a searing ache. It taunts you with your wasted and useless life. It makes you so little, that you feel you are almost a nothingness,