July, in Ireland. Already the light has moved lower and is more honeyed. The sunsets linger pink around the edges of the meadow, although the sky is too often a wash of monotone grey. Last night the rain drummed heavy on the roof at dusk, a lullaby to dream by.
Last week, not long after the Solstice, I packed my boy and I into the car and drove two hundred miles south. Down through the heartlands of this island. Deep into the ripening fields of barley, between hedgerows in a thousand shades of green, meadowsweet blooming by the roadside and everywhere an abundance of roses.
In the car is one of the few places my child falls silent. His days are usually a relentless but wonderful commentary of his imagination, but in the car where I have played stories for him since he was a tiny baby, he falls silent and listens. Boys with books, a child lost in the snowy woods, an unlikely duo traveling the world, a witch and her friends, a very brave little hedgehog who can’t keep his feet on the ground. So deep in his listening was he that he was distressed when I stopped the car for lunch.
And whilst he listened to his favourite stories, I was free to listen to other tales as we wound our way south through this storied land. Tales that floated in through the car windows as we drove past local Fairy Hills and sacred mounds, past Cave Hill, Napoleon’s Nose where the mountain looks like a giant lying down and where Johnathan Swift is said to have been inspired to create Gulliver’s Travels. On then, southward, leaving the city behind. Past the Brontë homeland, where their father was born. Past the Cooley Mountains on the trail of The Taín. Through the plains of Royal Meath, the barley turning gold for miles. West of the Boyne Valley where Cú Chulainn was born, and the goddess Bóinn resides. On into County Weastmeath, we skirted Lough Derravaragh where the Children of Lir were turned into swans. West of Tara, the seat of kings. East of lonely Athenry. Further south we encountered Johnathan Swift again, and his Lilliput. Then through a bog stretching deep into the horizon, the bog cotton still swaying against the sky, a thatched cottage overgrown with red roses at its edge. And then, beside the bed where we were staying a book of local Clare folktales.
Stories everywhere, if you know where to look.
There were plenty more stories during our stay, bear caves and cliffs, stone circles, Áine everywhere, a dark harvest god, and another Goddess River. Castle turrets, labyrinths, and Brian Boru the Ard Rí who sent the Vikings packing. Bedtime stories, scribbled stories, make-believe stories, and memory. Huge mythic tales, long winding histories, very local folklore and deeply personal stories shared with ease over coffee.
I sprinted back up those same roads on Sunday to participate in The Stinging Fly’s Writers Summer School. And so, all my days are steeped in stories, but then they always are.
Today’s post is just a note to bring you a glimpse of our adventures and to say thank you for all your incredible support in this space. It is your support and kindness that gave me the courage to apply to the summer school, where I am sharing whatever I’ve free written on the spot. Two years ago, this would have felt unfathomable to me, but now I am enjoying the experience and learning more about this craft and how it moves in my hands.
Below, as a thank you, is the tale I submitted as the application pulled out from behind the paywall. The moon is new at midnight on Saturday and so July’s Writing Down the Weeds will be with you on Sunday morning, all being well.
Thank you again.
Grá agus saoirse
Siobhán
Flight
She’s been driving all day to get there. The traffic is heavy, everyone heading in the same direction. The car is sticky and the toddler restless in the back. He’s been kicking the chair. The empty passenger seat. He wouldn’t come. Called her crazy.
They’ve been interviewing ‘survivors’ on the radio. They’re giddy with it. Flight. It’s easy, they say, just close your eyes and jump. The radio is saying ninety percent survive, but there are so many now they can’t get an accurate count. No one has interviewed Him. She’s been listening all day, and no one has mentioned jumping with a toddler. He’s heavy, already in clothes the next size up. That scares her.
But still she’s driving. People are flying in, on planes, and hiring cars. The road is gridlock with Dublin registrations. He’d tried to take the toddler out of the car. But he’d screamed and cried and kicked, so he’d given up. Slammed the door on both of them. Left her to it. His anger, his fear, about losing them seething from him. He’d just stood there as she’d driven down the lane. She watched him in the rear-view mirror, hands as tight on the steering wheel as his were in fists.
She’d put it into the sat-nav, where to go, but she needn’t have bothered, it was the same direction as most of the traffic. South and West. To the cliffs. Nothing but America so far beyond. They’re here in their droves, apparently some are trying to fast-track passports to come. A miracle, they’re calling it. She’s not too sure what word to use. The news said there had been deaths, in other countries. People trying it there, as if it should be universal and not just on her doorstep. If a three-hour drive without all this traffic counts as her doorstep.
She had to go. She had to see it for herself. She’d had the dreams for years. Flying. She’d dreamt she was just learning at first. Practicing her turns, like snowboarding, arms out for balance and to create the movement, momentum. In her dreams he’d been leaning on the gate of the paddock, watching. The tall trees in full leaf, shielding her from view, but not from his.
She can’t think about the empty passenger seat. She should be sitting there. He always drives. It makes it easier for her to tend to the toddler. She rubs her thigh absently, the way he does whenever he has to change gear. She can’t think about him not being with her for this. But then he’s always been her tether, her rock, her anchor. He holds steady so she can follow her flights of fancy. He’s good old farming stock. Of the land. Dark and deep. The thought of it without him doesn’t feel right. But still she’s driving.
They’re reporting deaths on the radio. Deaths v Flights, like it’s a game. The numbers higher than any game she’s ever seen. On both sides.
The traffic is slowing now. The closer she gets the more there is and the slower it goes. Soon it will be at a standstill. She checks the sat-nav, ten miles out. She turns the radio off for another round of The Wheels on the Bus. Rummaging for snacks to pass into his already sticky hands. He sings and chews with a grin on his face. She misses the mirror she had up back there when he was a baby. She could watch him in the rear-view one. She misses the naps he took then too.
Everything stops moving three miles out. Closer than she thought. Far enough with a toddler. She shoves some things into a backpack, grabs him and his bear from the back and tells them they’re going for a walk. As cheerfully as she can manage. Inside she’s feeling panicky. There are abandoned cars in the fields and on the verges either side of the road. Cleared out of the way. There are so many people walking she doesn’t know if it’s hundreds or thousands. And there is so, so much noise. People and helicopters and portable radios. Phones on loudspeaker. It looks like a disaster movie. It’s beginning to feel like one too.
The toddler is scared, it’s too many people, too much noise. He’s hugging his bear to his chest. He wants carried. She needs him to walk as far as he’s able. She needs to carry him later.
It's not the cliffs it really ought to be. The famous ones the tourist boards use. It’s some innocuous cliff in a farmer’s field, in another county all-together. For some reason that strikes her as funny.
She’s been looking around for more toddlers. She hasn’t seen any. Older children, pretending to be planes, arms out, machine-gun mouths, running up the road. A tiny baby strapped to his father’s chest. But no toddlers.
They walk past a group of people shouting about suicide and sin and the devil’s work. They have northern accents and that explains everything. They never miss an opportunity to spit their hellfire on everyone else. She picks the toddler up to shield him from it. He won’t let himself be carried on her back. He wants to wrap himself around her, hearts together, as he has since the moment he was born. Head on her shoulder. He’s so heavy.
She wishes he’d come. He just swings the toddler up onto his broad shoulders and carries on at the same pace, their grins matching. She feels an ache thinking about those broad shoulders, as he moves above her. That feels like flying. Only his voice and the feel of his skin, hot under her hands, keeps her tethered. She doesn’t know what him not coming, her leaving, means for them. And that scares her too. But she keeps walking.
She’s never been on a pilgrimage. Never felt that call. Her mother has walked the Camino in France, Spain and Portugal, but it never interested her. Raised kind-of agnostic, the whole idea never really caught her. She wonders if this is a pilgrimage now.
It occurs to her very close to the site that she hasn’t seen anyone walking the other way. No one is coming back. There are flashing lights now, emergency vehicles, loudspeakers and TV vans. The authorities gave up days ago, trying to stop people from turning up. From making the jump. They’d stopped trying to control it. But they were still there. The coastguard had given up too. Their helicopters, so close to the cliffs, putting more people at risk. She’d learnt the word for it years ago, back when she studied intellectual things, before her hair near permanently had drool or playdough in it, utilitarianism. The greater good. Ninety percent survived.
A Gardaí woman catches her eye, clocks the toddler and makes her way over. She asks if she’s his mother, as if it’s not obvious, and then asks if she understands the risk. She sounds exhausted. She sounds upset. She has the urge to comfort her, but she doesn’t, she just nods that she does, and she’s allowed to carry on through the entrance to the field. Toddler still clinging to her.
The high hedges had blocked the view. Like her dream she thinks. It’s like a carnival inside. A festival. Tents and people everywhere. There are groups of people praying, in a circle, heads bowed, holding hands. There are people doing yoga. Someone has had the foresight to set up porta-loos, and the queues are huge. She should have peed behind the hedge. The toddler’s nappy is heavy. He should be out of them by now, or so the books say, and her mother-in-law, but he’s been refusing to use the potty for months. She sets him down to change him. He’s tired and scared. So is she.
Then she sees it. A person, through the crowd. They run, maybe a hundred meters to the cliff edge and jump. She holds her breath in a gasp. She fights the urge to be sick or scream. And then she sees him, in flight, above the sea beyond. Arms out like the children on the road. The crowd is thundering for it. Lansdowne on match day. She gathers up the toddler and makes her way over.
There’s a man sitting on his hunkers on the grass. Near the edge but not too close. He’s set apart from the rest. He’s being given space. Him.
He’s smiling, a calm, pleased smile. He’s older than she thought. But Gods generally are, aren’t they? That strikes her as funny too. He’s handsome, as if this really is a Hollywood movie. He’d have to be.
She’s vaguely aware of someone playing Purple Haze. She doesn’t know if that’s hilarious or if she’s manic with nerves. Seeing it, here, is different than watching it on TV. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. It’s beyond belief. And yet it is happening. She’s standing in a field watching it happen.
A group of young women, run towards the edge. Hands joined, laughing and screaming in excitement. They disappear from view and the screams turn to horror. There are less of them in the air than jumped. She turns the toddler away, too late. Although he couldn’t understand. But he’s scared enough as it is. She’s scared enough too.
Her phone won’t work. The place too rural and the network too busy. Like New Years Eve at home. She wants to phone him. She needs to hear his voice. She needs his arms around her. But she left. And he called her crazy. She feels crazy now, watching this. It can’t be real. And yet somehow, inexplicably it is.
She wonders if it’s a trick of gravity, or magnetics. She doesn’t know enough science to even follow the thought. But they’re saying it's Him. On the news, on the radio, even here. Mostly here. Him.
‘So cool, isn’t it?’ A sing-song voice beside her declares. She turns to look, a blonde woman, obviously not from here, she’s not wearing a coat, and of course she has flowers in her hair. ‘You just have to believe. Believe and jump. It’s all here for us. So cool.’
She wants to ask if she’s jumped already but, somehow, she knows she has. She sounds high. She pulls her attention back to Him, and the girl wanders off.
She doesn’t know what she was expecting. He’s wearing normal clothes. A warm jumper to keep out that sea breeze. His dark hair and stubble are peppered with grey. There are laughter lines around his eyes as he watches over the cliff edge like a solitary crow. She finds herself imagining him with huge black wings. Maybe that’s what she was expecting. Something animal, something other. And yet he is other, set apart, the space around him in the crowded space something holy.
He's beckoning to her, and her feet move towards him with a will of their own. The toddler has his own will too and she has to lift him. When she’s close enough he rises to standing, lowers his head and whispers in her ear. What he says makes her breath catch in her throat. Suddenly her legs feel weak and the horizon tilts. The toddler is as confused as she is to find her sitting on the damp grass. He’s low again beside her so he can repeat it, this time loud enough for the toddler to hear.
‘Let him run.’ And the toddler tries to wiggle free.
Panic rises in her chest. She lifts him and runs. Back the way she came. Away from the cliff edge. Away from Him. The toddler is howling with injustice, with exhaustion and confusion. She wants to scream too. He’s heavy and fighting her and she can’t catch her breath. It’s shaky and shallow and feels like she can’t get it into her lungs. She notices something that looks like an old barn across the field and veers towards it. She sinks to the ground again, the wall at her back, and tries to calm them both. He’s clinging to her chest, sodden sobs soaking through her top. She’s sobbing too.
By the time she’s calmed her breath he’s asleep on her, like when he was much smaller, and she sniffs his hair with the memory of it. Those long, milky nights, holding him close in the half-light when he wouldn’t sleep any other way. She wraps her arms around him and closes her eyes.
Someone is calling her name. It takes her a moment to orientate herself, she must have fallen asleep. Her boy is still sleeping on her and her legs ache with the weight. Someone is calling her name. No, shouting it across the field. It takes her longer than it should to recognise the voice. He must have followed them. He sounds desperate, panicked. He’s shouting her name, and the toddlers. She rubs his cheek to wake him, and he snuggles deeper into her chest. It’s very difficult to stand up whilst holding him, but she manages it, using the wall for leverage. He’s still shouting for her, and she moves towards the sound.
He's seen her before she sees him because he’s running towards them. Then they’re apologising over the top of each other, hugging and explaining. The relief she feels is mirrored in his face. He’s checking the toddler and kissing her head. Her legs feel weak again.
He’s still holding them when he sees it, she feels him inhale sharply and turns towards the cliff. A man runs, and jumps. A few seconds later, although it feels longer, he’s in the air moving fast above the sea beyond. She feels him exhale and then hears him swear. It’s enough to make her laugh through the tears. He holds her face, he looks ecstatic, stunned.
‘Let’s do it!’ He says. He’s giving her what he thinks she wants, like he always does. But he genuinely looks like he wants it too. She feels her breath start to catch again. It’s all she can do to nod. They walk towards the cliff; she puts the backpack down in the pile where others have thrown theirs and not collected them again. She doesn’t want to think about that. She doesn’t call his attention to it. She lifts the toddlers bear from it, a reflex. She’s not sure if it’s to comfort the toddler or herself.
‘Put him down.’ He means the toddler. He’s all smiles now he’s had a sleep and his other favourite person is here. She reluctantly lets him go. Months, no years, of carrying him leaves her arms feeling empty. She stops to kiss his gorgeous little head, he squirms away. She looks towards Him, and he gives her the slightest of nods, that pleased smile reaching his eyes.
The toddler moves off before they do. They each take one of his tiny, sticky hands and run.
Well, that is going to stay with me for quite a while! Sign of a good story, and a good telling of it! 💕
I lived within walking distance of Cave Hill for my first thirteen years. Never heard of the connection to Swift before - so thank you for that. That story is one of my favourites of yours. It reminds me a bit of the words of a Guy Clark song called "The Cape".