The Letter of Wishes

 

To Whom It May Concern,

Ah, Joe! It has been a day of memories; I saw your parents at the gate. As we walked past for the last time, I felt your brothers watching from the windows of Glenmactire. You’ve joined them all now, buried in that damp, curdling earth.

This letter is an arrow I launch through time. I want to write it now before I still numb from your passing. I have an envelope ready; I’ll hand it to that young Higgins fellow myself. He’s promised to add it to my other documents.

Joe! Poor Joe! We spent a bitter afternoon at that uncrafted hole in the ground where they stuck you. It rained black-striped Galway rain that you loved.

We always liked to linger over our goodbyes, remember? I could have stood there until I was smoothed round by the rain. Today is the only day I will feel comfortable there. Today is your day in that place. Your Death-day, I suppose. Tomorrow you will be just another interned spirit.

How can you settle in Death for that small cavity in the ground? A stained stone marker? Conformity, even in Death. Especially in Death. Did you really believe that the Earth will some day spit you out? That you would rise shining from the ground, dressed in that velvet blue suit of yours? So be it. I saw how much comfort it gave you near the end.

But I will not re-visit you in your gravel prison. Instead, I will visit the wooden bridge at Annalooby to hear your laugh. I will walk in The Ferns in July to hear your brooding silences. I will sit in the waves at Carraroe to feel your touch.

There is a place on Howth Head, not far from Helen’s new house in Dublin. Aoife and I discovered it, but I suppose many people go there. It has a view of Howth harbour and the two slender beaches that run like tendons on a woman’s neck up the coast and onto the cliffs. It overlooks the forest and magical tunnels that weave down towards Sutton Castle. There is a particular spot there. We leaned over and watched a vixen and her cubs exploring the rocks below.

Why wait for the Sun’s death to release me from some gray hole in the ground?

Joe. Poor Joe. I have to stop now.

Maura O’Connell, Carraroe, September 17^th 1979.

***

2024

A line of circling crows led me to her. The Transmitter Tower on the West Mountain lay etched against descending clouds, brown with the blood of the setting sun. She had slid about ten feet down the side of the shale embankment. She had come to rest with her hiking boots pointing back up the hill. My own boots crushed the gravel as I ran over and fell to my knees beside her. The crows scattered, having not yet found the courage to approach her.

She was smiling. Her knitted hat had come off. She had an unfinished arrangement of heather and posies in her gloved hand. I pictured her holding them tight as she slipped, determined not to lose them. I carefully transferred them to the inner pocket of my Bag of Tricks. Above me, the wind whined through the Transmitter wires. A similar sound escaped my throat.

My phone was clinging to a signal. ‘I’ve found her. We’re up the road from the quarry. Near the Transmitter.’

My father was leading my brothers as they searched the cliff walk. ‘Aoife? Is she…’ The signal faded.

‘Yes, Dad. She’s gone to the Summerlands.’

‘Stop that nonsense.’ I could picture him tightening like a fist. At this time of year, the East Mountain shrouded the cliff walk hours before sunset. The air would be cold and dead under a sky filled with a spectral light. He called my brothers and they started back towards the car park in Balscadden. ‘I’ll have the ambulance meet you at the top of Windgate Road. You must guide them up to her. Don’t touch her. We’ll be there as soon as…’

I switched off the phone. I would tell them later we got cut off. I had no intention of leaving her.

I plucked heather from the damp ground and made a circle of it around her. I found wild yellow posies and added them to the circle. The rest I scattered over her head. Some peeled away into the wind, lessening its bitter, polar taste. I began to hum.

I must have done sometime right. A last blast of red sunlight slotted through the gap between the horizon and the clouds. The hillside heather became washed in autumn blood. I began an old Sufi chant. I raised my eyes to the heavens and recited aloud a poem she had taught me. The Sufi poet, Rumi:

Become the sky…

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The speechless full moon

comes out now.

The ambulance lights washed over me, cleansing the blood and nailing me back to the canvas of a harsh reality: my grandmother lay dead beside me. The two men who emerged from the headlights were strangers. They came and walked all over the posies. They led me away before I could open the Circle. They brushed away the heather from her face and covered her with a big, orange, plastic sheet.

***

Nobody greeted us. Danny parked the bike around the back of the house. In the past my brothers had complained about its presence; it blocked their Volvos and Cherokees. I took a knitted cardigan – red and purple with lines of emerald green - from my Bag of Tricks and wrapped myself in it.

The kitchen trembled with a blast from the Bailey Lighthouse fog horn. It was a mournful but reassuring sound.

Danny wrapped his wide arms around me. ‘What are you thinking there, Rua?’

‘I was wondering if she’s laid on all this fog for us.’

‘That’s just what I was thinking myself. You better get in there. Stop putting it off.’ After a moment longer, he gently pushed me loose.

‘Will you wait here for me?’

‘Of course. And remember: stick to you guns.’ His eyes glowed warm over the wild mash of his black beard.

As I walked down the hall, I asked my Ancestors to give me strength, reminding them to keep their promises as I would keep mine. I turned the handle at the the living room door and walked in.

My mother widened her eyes, looking me up and down. I grew conscious of my long black dress and purple stockings, my crazy cardigan. I resisted the urge to tuck away the streaks of blue in my red hair. She sat perched like a small bird on the edge of the old Indian mahogany chair, her pin-black eyes darting around the room. She looked like frosted glass.

Father was flanked by my two brothers, all standing in front of the open fire; two generations of the same broad-shouldered champion breed. They oozed rugby, sex, iron and aloofness.

My mother bit out her words. ‘Where have you been? We’ve been waiting for over an hour.’

Mr Higgins, the family solicitor, wore a rumpled black suit and tie. Under his glasses, a red rash grew on his cheeks. He was sinking into a deep armchair and looked like a hermit crab, half out of its shell.

‘You could have started without me.’ I replied carelessly.

Mr. Higgins cleared his throat. ‘Actually all named persons have to attend, Aoife before I can start.’

Michael and Donal got sixteen thousand each. I noticed a flicker of tightness around Michaels’ eyes. He had been expecting more. Business must be bad, selling cars to secretaries. I cannot help but smile; Granny loved surprises. There were several pendants and a fabulous star chart she had made. Her Tarot card collection was the finest anyone had ever seen. I wondered what she had in mind for me.

‘And next, Glencamtire. This is an estate, just outside Carraroe on the Cashla Bay Peninsula. It includes a beach front and seven acres…’

‘Excuse me, Sean. But we’re all familiar with the place, thank you.’ My mother laughed, pulling at her ear.

‘This has been left to Aoife.’

The room dropped through the floor. I gave everyone a puzzled frown. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Glenmactire, Aoife. It goes to you. Congratulations.’

I sputtered. ‘But I don’t want it.’

‘Let me see.’ My father snapped the papers from Higgins’ hand.

‘That’s great, Aoife. Brilliant.’

‘Be quiet, Donal.’ My mother snapped, her eyes fixed on her husband.

I thought of that ruined house on the beach, its wide drive of broken seashells, dipping down to the house. The sea grass growing in the lawn.

My father handed back the deed to Higgins, a bead of sweat under his nose. ‘Thank you, Sean. Please continue. Well done, Aoife.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ My blood was coursing. The place needed some work. I saw Danny stripped to his waist and standing in the sunlight, a door frame propped up against the wall, half painted. I felt sensations of excitement and satisfaction. We will be open in time for summer. A hostel maybe? I saw Danny and I living with the doors unlocked and beautiful dogs tracking golden sand into a flagstone kitchen. We would watch the beach grow and change over the years. We would convert the front room into a candle-lit bar with session music and the Atlantic lightning flashing across the windows…

The rest of what Higgins said passed like a murmur of muffled waves. He closed the legal documents and removed an envelope. ‘What follows is what we call a Letter of Wishes.’

‘A what?’ Father croaked.

‘It is a document written by the deceased in which they may express their desires for special arrangements. It is dated September 17^th 1979.’

Mother had been staring at me. Her head snapped. ‘But that’s the day…’ Her voice faded as a memory overwhelmed her.

Father cleared his throat. ‘I see. Proceed.’ He eyed the envelope with suspicion. It had the colour of dried cream. The page Higgins drew from it was as white as snow. I recognised my grandmother’s elegant ink-pen hand-writing.

Higgins cleared his throat and began to read through the bottom of his bifocals. ‘It has been a day of memories…’

***

When Higgins finished reading, I jumped to my feet, laughing. My fingertips were tingling. ‘My God, I remember the foxes! I know the exact place. We can all go. This is great!’

‘Stop that nonsense, Aoife.’ My mother snapped. ‘We’ve all been buried in Galway. Your grandfather was buried there. There’s a plot ready and everything.’

Was this how it felt to communicate with aliens? ‘But this is her wish. To be cremated. She wants to be cremated.’

Mother fussed over her sherry. ‘Well, she didn’t really know what she wanted at the end. We know what we’re doing.’

‘But this was written years ago. The day Grandpa died!’

‘Father McBride has already started making the arrangements, Aoife. It’s all set for Tuesday morning.’

I barked a laugh. ‘Well, hold on there, Dad! You heard what she said.’

‘We’re her family, Aoife. We know best.’

‘Oh, come on! Granny hasn’t been to Mass since she was 16 years old. She grew pot and sold homemade Tarot cards. She hated that place. You can’t be serious.’

There was a general shifting of feet. Mr Higgins took the opportunity for a quiet sip of his whiskey. My mother directed a freezing chill towards me. ‘My mother was a good Catholic and will be buried in the manner of her kin.’

I mentally drew a sword. ‘Mr Higgins. This Letter of Wishes…’

He lookup up from closing his briefcase. ‘It has no legal standing, Aoife.’

‘Is that all, Sean?’ Father spoke quickly.

‘Oh. Yes, indeed.’

‘Then let me show you out. Thank you so much for coming in this terrible soup…’ My father crowded over to him, ending the debate. Higgins rose from his chair like a bumble bee tearing away, leaving his sting behind.

‘No way are you doing this. She loved you all, despite the fact that you’re a bunch of stuck-up bastards. And this is how you show your love and respect?’

‘Don’t think that after everything she put us through that you can start issuing orders now on her behalf. She’s my mother, not yours.’

‘You never gave her an inch, did you? Even now.’

Donal was examining the letter, the way he might examine a fossil in his office at the National Museum.

My father returned. ‘Tom. We’re not having any of her pagan, devil worshipping rubbish, is that understood?’

‘I am not a devil wor…’

‘And you.’ Mother turned to me, all guns blazing. ‘I’ve had enough of you shouting down this house, roaring on about her disgusting habits and those ridiculous obsessions. She’s a Catholic. Her whole family are Catholic.’

‘I’m not.’

She took a sharp breath. ‘She’ll go to Church and she’ll be buried on consecrated ground.’

‘So she gets to rot in a box like a load of forgotten fruit. Congratulations. You win.’

There was carpet against my cheek. My mother had slapped me.

 

***

 

The fog made a tunnel of light as we roared up the hill, past the Summit Inn. The bike followed the rising road right to edge of the car park. Across Dublin Bay, the fog glowed orange from a thousand street lights. The silent city could have been in flames from Dalkey to Irishtown. Around us, trees stood like petrified sculptures, etched into the mist. There was only the whispered dripping of leaves around us.

The fog horn rang out suddenly.

‘Jesus, Rua. Where did we park? That lighthouse sounds close enough to kick.’

I lifted the helmet from my head and sat on the wall while Danny rolled a joint on the gas tank. My cheek was still stinging.

‘I got Glenmactire.’

I wondered if he had heard. Then he said, ‘And so she slapped you?’

‘No. Granny wants to be cremated. She wants her ashes cast off the cliff up at the Bamboo Forest.’

That stopped him. He smiled, gazing in the direction of the East Mountain. ‘Excellent choice. We should wait until summer, though. You can keep her ashes in…’

‘Mum refused.’

He lit the joint with a sigh. ‘What is that woman’s problem?’

‘Granny told me a little about it.’

 

***

 

Young Joseph Maher stood in the doorway, his blue suit matching the wide Atlantic summer sky behind him. He was a thin, tall man with a full pair of lips and dark hair oiled across his forehead. ‘Come along, Helen!’

Maura, Helen’s mother, followed her to the door. She was not dressed yet, but wore a thin black night gown. Her red hair curled around the white curve of her shoulders. She leaned against Joseph as if suddenly weak. Helen looked away at the curlews pencilled on the strand. She felt her face burning.

She heard her mother ask: ‘Who’s saying Mass this morning, Joe?’

‘Er… I think it’s Father Convery.’

‘Ah. Too bad. He loves to linger. You’ll be hours.’ Her voice is dark.

‘I can’t help the poor man. He’s only worries for our souls.’ Her father’s voice was light and playful.

‘Say a prayer for me then.’

‘I always do.’

Helen was chilled by her father’s words. She wished now that she had brought her coat. But she cannot re-enter the house; her parents are kissing in the doorway. It takes several minutes but finally, father and daughter start up the driveway. With every crunch of her feet on the sea-shelled path, she feels more and more released. She can feel the stink of incense receding from her clothes in the beach breeze.

She takes her father’s hand and they share a smile. She loves Mass. It is the only time she has Daddy all to herself.

***

I am sitting cross legged on the white sheets of our bed in Bayside. Danny is standing by the door, dressed for work. I am naked.

I search his eyes. ‘Do you understand? Really?’

His reply is calm and solid as oak. ‘Rua, Maura planned all this. She was a crafty old fox. Glenmactire is leverage. There is really only one choice. Stick to you guns, remember?’

He winks and we share a smile before he leaves. I pick up the phone in front of me and press the preset number.

My mother’s voice answers. She sounds exhausted. ‘What is it you want?’

My words are liberating. ‘I want to make a deal.’

***

The urn opens with a sigh and I step closer to the precipice. A tendril of powder lifts away in the wind. I raise my arms higher and tilt the urn towards the airstream. A braided twister of ash pours out like a long sigh. The urn grows lighter and I feel it drawing me upwards. I am lifted onto my toes. I raise my arms over my head. A sustained stream of cinders and ash rushes into the draught. I gaze up at the last embers glittering in the high sunlight. The urn falls silent. I am suddenly dizzy and falling forward, too close to the edge. The abyss below yawns open. Gravity has me. I see the rocks. I will not float.

A pair of strong arms pull me back.