A Whispered Name (46 page)

‘I
followed you, too,’ he said, head still bowed. ‘I followed you out of hell. You
saved my life when it was least worth saving —’ his shoulders sank, and his
voice all but faded away — ‘you took my place.

There
was no other sound, save the clink of the mast head lines and that faint
fluttering of tiny flags. When John Lindsay looked up, his face crushed and
unrecognisable, Brendan rose, huge in the gloom.

‘When
Seosamh took your place,’ he said, eyes on the woven cloth, ‘you became my
brother..’

Despite the tradition of
an all-night vigil, Myriam invited the weary to sleep, to be fresh for the
crossing at sunrise. Anselm had no idea how long he stayed. He seemed to have
entered a floating universe where time did not run, where the darkness had a
pulse and the real world was itself a memory. When he got up to leave, only
Brendan and John remained, kinsmen at either end of a table: near to one
another, yet so very far apart.

Anselm
had no recollection of sleeping. He lay on his bed, eyes upon the depth of
night, committing to memory the passage he’d chosen from the Apocalypse. The
sea was astoundingly silent, more a breathing presence. When a sliver of
morning touched the horizon he went outside into a vast, growing murmur. He
could see nothing, just the jagged outline of bent trees. But something was out
there, greater than the bay, greater than the black sky. At the appointed hour,
Kate came to meet him. She arrived as when he’d first seen her: in a long black
coat, her thick auburn hair gathered tight, her face pale.

In a
faint light that picked out the gathering of decks, cabins and wrapped sails, Anselm
and his five companions stepped off the harbour into a small fishing boat. The
pilot, a short wiry man with face wrinkles like scars, nodded to each of them
in silence, doffing a rumpled woollen cap.

2

Anselm leaned on the prow,
his cowl pulled tight around his face. Occasionally waves slapped on the fore
timbers, sending a spray on to the deck. They were heading into a luminous
vapour that neither rested on the sea nor rose from it. He could see nothing
distinct, just the lines of foam like cut string. But then … vague dark rocks
like smudges of black ink appeared in the mist. A hint of brown and green
glowed with the rising sun, but then faded into grey, subsiding into the water
where it joined the air. Collapsed gable ends, still white, flashed briefly. A
rocky wall straggled into the sky as if it were built on nothing … but as
they entered the haze a field took substance, grounding the stones. Quilted
cloud lay upon a hillside with fallen houses spaced like broken ribs. Waves
thundered on to a scree heaped at the base of a spectacular cliff. Sea birds
circled on the breeze, their long wings held wide and still.

So this
is Inisdúr, thought Anselm, the one place on earth where the land and the sea
are one.

The
pilot knew his route like Anselm knew Larkwood. One arm hung loosely on the
wheel as he guided them through stacks and part-submerged tables of granite.
Rounding a headland, they entered a cove where the water became calm, changing
colour from blue-grey to green. Without seeming to look at what he was doing,
the pilot moored along a stone wharf built against the rock. The wharf followed
the cove, losing height until it met a small beach fronting steps that led to a
track.

Seosamh
came that way, thought Anselm, his eyes following the path that wound up a
gentle incline to the brow of a low hill. This is the route we will take.

Anselm
was right. As the dawn grew stronger, Brendan and John led the way. From some
natural sense of correctness everyone else kept some distance behind them. Side
by side, the family elders began their pilgrimage. Each of them had a stick,
but they leaned more on each other, pausing at intervals to dredge up strength.
They passed half-standing walls and gaping doorways, the stony vestiges of a
long-forgotten life. Finally Kate and Sabine helped them, and Anselm took the
arm of Myriam. They moved as one gathered assembly, bound together in a
relentless, dogged march to a place of stunning tranquillity.

The
farm of Muiris and Róisín Ó Flannagáin lay within the arms of a natural
embankment, unprotected from the sounds of the sea but free from the wind.
Waves hammered the rocks with rousing violence, but here, in the hollow, a
breeze seemed to saunter round the hillside. A low cottage hugged the land. The
roof was roughly intact but the windows had perished long ago. A timber door
hung aslant. Beyond, the farm’s walls lay in tumbled ruin … except one.

Brendan
and Kate unfastened a wooden gate to a circular field. Like hesitant intruders,
unsure of their bearings, everyone walked towards the centre, looked around in
bewilderment.

Angular
stones, smooth boulders, rough rocks, pebbles … every kind of unyielding
substance … had been brought together and balanced, miraculously. This wall
should fall, thought Anselm, sensing the frailty. But it won’t, because of the
paradox of true strength. The great depended upon the small. It was perfect. A
scraping sound made him swing around.

Brendan
was on his knees. His wide cap hid his head and face so Anselm only saw the
activity of his fingers: he was tearing at the land that he’d made. It was an
overwhelming sight. Without a word, he forced his nails into the soil; he
pulled at the roots of grass; he opened up the darkness in the ground. When a
small hole had been fashioned, Kate and Myriam helped him to his feet. Brendan
leaned between them, exhausted, his hands cut and shaking.

The
morning had grown stronger now Colours were deepening. Anselm could make out
the delicate yellow of lichen on the wall. It was like lace, but no one could
have invented the pattern, or made it. A soft clink came from his side.

John
had taken Seosamh’s identity tags out of his coat pocket. He held them up for a
long time, so long that Anselm thought he was back in that beating darkness of
the parlour … only now there was a growing tide of light. The wind carried
the distant clamour of birds around the cliffs. Bending forward, Sabine’s arm
around him, John lowered the red and green discs into the land. Then Brendan
sank once more to his knees.

“‘If
anyone has ears to hear, let him listen,”‘ recited Anselm, his voice loud. “‘To
anyone who is victorious I will give the hidden manna. And I will give him a
white stone, and on it will be a new name, known only to him who receives it.

Thus
the righteous enter into glory, thought Anselm, looking beyond the wall, the
salt—bitten fields, and into a very distant mist, the mist out of which Inisdúr
had appeared, a mysterious mist that would come to reclaim it.

3

Kate lightly tugged Anselm’s
sleeve and whispered, ‘Let me show you something.’

They
left the others at the farm, to refreshments that had been brought up the day
before. The compact rooms had been swept clean so there was a sense of
homeliness and of Róisín’s welcome; and an echo of Muiris, who had built the
place with his father.

‘Don’t
turn around until I say so,’ said Kate.

Anselm
followed his guide along a sandy path that ran along the embankment. Kate moved
quickly, following an old expertise. This was still her island. She knew its
moods and temper. And she knew its anatomy, for she left the path and drew
Anselm upon a ravaged slope covered in scattered rocks. The land became steep.
Against the sky, rising from the ground like the arched back of a whale, was
Kate’s objective, an outcrop of granite. She stood upon it like a conqueror,
her auburn hair loose and flying in the wind. She was a girl again, the girl who’d
fled the island but had come back to find it anew When Anselm clambered on his
hands and knees to her side, she said, ‘Now you can look.’

Out of
breath, he turned and gazed below, to the place he’d come from.

Dawn
had died. The day had woken. The Following was over.

All
around, as far as the eye could see, were the pastel shades of Róisín’s
weaving. The colours were almost transparent, and would have crumbled if a
mortal hand could touch them. It was a landscape of frightening delicacy. But
standing out, shockingly bright, was Seosamh’s Field. The green was lush, with
livid shadows and a blue bruising that shifted with the whims of the breeze. It
was like a graveyard without graves. A memorial without a monument. It was
simply and majestically alive.

Anselm
breathed in slowly until his chest ached. He called upon Herbert to witness
this verdure, along with Major Glanville, Lieutenant Oakley, Regimental
Sergeant Major Joyce, Private Elliot, Captain Sheridan, all those involved in
the review process, Harold Shaw and his eleven nameless companions … Lisette
Papinau, John Lindsay … and the strangely powerful presence of a man hardly
mentioned in the trial papers — a Chaplain who’d been present at the beginning
and end of Seosamh’s adventure into dying: Father Maguire. Anselm threw back
his head and soared on the savage.’ joyous lift of the wind.

‘The
island belongs to Seosamh, now,’ said Kate, from far, far below.

Epilogue

When Anselm came down from
that island Sinai he was a different man, changed by what he’d seen. Perhaps
the greatest transformation, though, was that of Kate Seymour. Up there,
sitting on that exposed outcrop, arms around her knees, hair scattered by the
wind, she made a decision. The name on the white stone of her baptism had been
scripted in Gaelic: C-á-i-t. She’d renounced it, discreetly, on entering
Trinity College, Dublin. It was part of the turning away from Inisdúr towards a
modern life, an up-to-date life, away — she’d come to realise in these past
months — from the secret grief of Róisín and her desperate attachment to the
fields. The person who now came down to the wharf with Anselm was Cáit Ó
Flannagáin. ‘I just might introduce my husband to another woman.” she’d joked,
seriously.

Anselm
knew enough about mountain visions to be very cautious when he got to the
bottom. Things were never quite as clear. Doubt often settled in. It required
faith to abide by simple insights. This wariness was almost anticipatory,
almost prophetic. And he sensed the approach of its fulfilment when, on a cold
December morning, he saw Sylvester picking his way between the white crosses
and aspens, coming towards the hives.

‘Hail,
Keeper of the Gate,’ said Anselm, meeting him at the edge of the clearing, ‘welcome
to the communion of saints.’

They
sat on the pew and the old man folded his arms tight. The hood of his cloak hid
most of his face. Anselm could only see a pointed nose.

‘I’m
sorry about the address,’ muttered Sylvester.

‘No
matter,’ replied Anselm. ‘Losing it helped everyone in the end.’

‘I didn’t
lose it.’

Anselm
leaned back, lifting his eyes to the branches spread like fingers across the
pale sky. Now is the time of awakening, he thought. Now is the time when the
secret thoughts of all will be laid bare. This is the Following of Herbert
Moore.

‘I’ve
known about the execution of Joseph Flanagan since nineteen twenty-five,’ said
Sylvester. ‘When young Kate Seymour came with her questions, I didn’t know who
she was … and I thought her true interest lay long before the court martial
of nineteen seventeen. You see, Anselm, that’s not where Herbert’s story
begins..’

The
Gatekeeper drew back his cowl and passed a bony hand across his angular
cranium. Strong blue veins crawled above large ears towards white fluff. ‘I
feared for him, and I feared for you.’ He turned, bringing his watery eyes on
to Anselm. ‘I didn’t want to see her disappointment on your face.’ Lowering
his head, he added, sadly, ‘But I’ve seen it … even if you try to hide it
from yourself.’

‘When I was a novice, back
in nineteen twenty-five.’ Herbert suggested we have a chat,’ began Sylvester
after a long pause. ‘In those days we didn’t talk very much, but on this
occasion we used no hand signs. You see, I’d been asking for stories of the
war, so he thought he’d tell me one. We came to those trees over there —’ he
pointed towards the aspens — ‘back then, no one had died, so no one had been
buried. It was just a copse. And Herbert and I stood among these thin trees and
he said, “Now I’m going to tell you about sacrifice and shame.” I don’t know
why he picked this spot, but it was as though we stood among witnesses. And
this is what he told me.’

Herbert’s
military career began in May 1914 as a second lieutenant with the 22nd Lancers,
explained Sylvester. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot in the June
and by August Herbert was with the British Expeditionary Force in France. They
were outnumbered and driven back from Mons. Amongst all that chaos.’ Herbert’s
unit took part in a vital rearguard action at Le Cateau. The objective was to
buy time while the army made its retreat. Unfortunately, Herbert joined the
withdrawal a fraction too soon.

‘He was
on the edge of a cornfield,’ said Sylvester, one hand on his neck. ‘Men to his right,
front and left were shot, all in a split second, caught in a spray of
machine-gun fire. Herbert didn’t even decide to move. He found himself crawling
away and then running. And once he’d gone a few hundred yards.’ he couldn’t
come back. It was too late. He’d left his men. That was the thing. And he was
an officer.