Marble Heart

‘I realise that I am addressing a Majella from another time. I don’t know the woman who inhabits an Ethiopian hostel and who has written that her skin is parched by the sun. I was familiar with a fresh, milky complexion, one that glowed with a rich bloom when you became fervent, which was often. That is how I visualise you, untouched by the years, no wrinkles or crow’s feet. You would joke that you’d have preferred the faded, wan look that was popular in the late sixties but your mother had given you too much buttermilk during childhood. The person you are now may hardly recognise the young woman then. When I glance back and see myself I feel an anguished fondness for the needy, uncertain person I was. That Nina bears little resemblance to the woman I am now, a grey-haired, crab-like creature. Finn would have been amazed at my apparent confidence in middle age and the certainty with which I run my days. “Nina Town Mouse” he used to call me in that teasing blend of comradeship and affection, or “Nina-mina-mina-mo”. My own secret name for myself now, stemming from my illness, is Wolf-woman. Finn would have had little time for my sticks and physical weakness. He was intolerant of sickness. When you had tonsillitis he bullied you from bed, saying that it was a question of mind over matter. He prescribed a long walk or a strenuous swim as antidotes for any ailment.

‘You see, Majella, I’m determined to say Finn’s name, to bring him in to this story at the earliest opportunity. We have been so coy about him over the years, leaving his name out but he is there, always a presence around us. Sometimes he used to stand between us and place a hand on our heads as if he was anointing us. I can still feel his palm with the chewed nails resting on my skull.

‘What is it you Catholics say when you enter the confessional? “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” I think I remember you telling me that the first autumn we met. You were an atheist at the time and you were explaining the superstitious rituals of the church to me, its rigid dogma and controls, the way priests ordered the lives of women, subjugating them. Finn came in as you were speaking and lightly ran his finger over the back of your hand. You turned to him with that eager love he always drew from you. He was holding a leather-bound copy of Trotsky’s writings to his chest. He looked like our very own cleric that day, dressed as he often was in a grey polo neck and black jacket. He may even have read an improving paragraph of Leon’s thoughts to us in your kitchen, a homily for the true believers.

‘I clearly recall the first time I saw you. I walked into the lecture theatre on an October Tuesday in 1969 and there was a woman in a frilly, fussy smock bending down from her seat. Your red hair foamed around your dipped head, tendrils spreading across the floor as you retrieved the pen you’d dropped. I had been paralysed with nerves since arriving in Belfast the previous week. My only image of Ireland was the one I’d seen on a flickering TV screen. News bulletins delivered pictures of a savage, reckless place where blood flowed and neighbours freely murdered each other because of complex and, to the English, baffling ancient divisions. I was convinced that I could be shot or blown up at any time, especially if I opened my mouth revealing a home counties accent. I’d hardly spoken because of my fears; it seemed to me that my tongue was becoming swollen and dry, pressing against my teeth. I’d heard somewhere that a shock to the nervous system could cause muteness and I was genuinely fearful that next time I tried to speak, no sound would issue. I had sat alone in my room, looking at the bags I couldn’t bring myself to unpack and listening to the thud of feet in the corridors outside. From my window I saw students hurrying to join societies and heard them calling to each other. Even their accents, harsh and unfamiliar, unnerved me. The sounds they made were like snarls. I’d had difficulty understanding people in the few words of conversation I had been forced to exchange. I would have turned and fled, heading for home but there was little to go back to. I knew that my mother would already have stripped my bed and aired my room, shutting the door firmly, relieved that I would only return for brief holidays.

‘I had steeled myself to attend that first lecture in Italian. I held my books against my chest for security and to conceal my trembling arms. My legs were weak from lack of food. You swept up the pen and threw your hair back as you settled in your seat. I was aware of bows at your shoulders and down the front of your smock. I thought you looked like a sturdy countrywoman in an eighteenth-century painting, fresh from milking or hay-stacking.

‘You watched me hovering and pointed at the empty chair next to you. “D’you want this?” you asked. “You look as if you’re going to faint.”

‘I sank down next to you, overwhelmed with gratitude because I had been able to understand you. Your speech was slower and more measured than the other accents I had struggled with. You introduced yourself as Majella O’Hare and I told you my name.

‘“Nina,” you said, “that’s attractive, musical. I hate my name. I think it sounds like a sweet preserve: ‘a full-fruit Majella confiture flavoured with cognac’.”

‘I thought of marmellata, the Italian for jam. “I’ve never heard it before,” I confessed. It sounded exotic to me.

‘“That’s because you’re a Brit and your unfamiliarity with it is refreshing. My name doesn’t tell you what it would shout at someone from Ulster; that I’m a Taig, a papist, a left-footer, a Fenian and a feckless member of an underclass.” You gave me a friendly smile as you offered me my first lesson in the intricacies of Irish identity.

‘You asked me if I’d read the set text and I said that I had. In the original or in translation? you enquired. The original, I said, replying in Italian. Then you asked in Italian where I was from and I told you Maidstone, becoming articulate in the shared language and accent that provided us with a mutual territory. You hailed from a place called Pettigoe, which you added sounded like a skin disease.

‘“I’ve not seen you around,” you said. “Did you arrive late?” There was something about you that made me feel less fearful. Your voice was rich and amused, your eyes sparked with interest.

‘“I’ve been in hiding,” I admitted, “starving in my room because I was frightened at being in Belfast. I’ve been living on a scant supply of chocolate bars and canned drinks. I feel sick but starving.”

‘“God almighty,” you laughed, “no wonder you look like a wraith.”

‘After the lecture you took me to the canteen and we ate huge plates of spaghetti. Why, you asked, had I come to Belfast if the place was so terrifying? I’d not got the exam grades I needed, I said; this course had been offered through clearing, they were being kind because it was a new degree.

‘“Why did you do so badly in your exams? You don’t strike me as thick.”

‘“My father died last spring. I lost my concentration.”

‘“That’s tough all right,” you said. “It’s not so awful here, you know, we get a bad press.”

‘Strange that you should have used that phrase during our first meeting, “a bad press”. That type of press, the one we considered prejudiced, was our motivation and justification for what we did on that other October day when the rain fell and kept falling until dawn. But on that afternoon in the canteen, with the autumn sun still warm, the comforting clatter of dishes and my famished stomach contented, I was reassured by your presence. I was like a lost child bonding with the first person to offer affection. In saying that, I am not trying to diminish our friendship. I simply wish to record it honestly. I was always a moth to your candle, Majella. You didn’t set out to have me fluttering around you, but that is what happened.

‘I was fascinated by you as I sped through my spaghetti. Your clothes were crumpled and none too clean; under the blue smock you wore several bright vests in mustards and purples, teamed with one of those layered and fringed Indian cotton skirts that had glass beads sewn into the seams. You ate carelessly, gesturing as you talked, unaware of tomato sauce spattering your chest. On your feet you wore clumpy ankle boots. I never saw you in any other footwear, not even in high summer. You were big boned without seeming heavy and you had a clarity that I was attracted to. A strong tobacco aroma clung to you, especially noticeable when you shook your hair and I was puzzled because you didn’t seem to be a smoker. When I met Finn I realised that it was the odour of his French cigarettes that adhered to you like an invisible gauze. I was entranced by your easy laugh and the way you accepted me. As weeks went by I flourished in the affection you offered, an easy friendship that was new and wonderful. And your family romanced me with their noise and boisterousness. They eased the memory of the formality and chill silences I had been used to in my home. I envied you the wholesome, happy childhood I heard tales of when I visited Pettigoe, the kind I had only read about. In my imagination I made it mine, too; the lambings, the shared labours of potato harvesting, the battles to protect the hens from marauding foxes. I pictured lush, bucolic scenes, placing myself in them, filching glimpses of your past contentment for myself.

‘When I met you I emerged from a long, bleak hibernation. In your glow I uncurled, stretched, and stepped into a new life. I grew to see you and the straightforward, honest people you came from as my bedrock. Lacking strong ties and beliefs of my own, I believed in you. When your glow dimmed and I was deprived of your affection I suffered terribly. For some years I hated Finn more for sundering our friendship than for the path down which he led us. Of course, in my blinkered enthusiasm for our cause I didn’t see that our transgression would inevitably mean our losing each other. I was too naive and inexperienced to understand that there are no pure actions in life, that everything has consequences and pay-offs. I don’t think I saw or understood anything. When we set out in the car that night to carry out our mission as comrades we might as well have been wearing blindfolds, so completely oblivious were we to humanity.’

4

NINA

‘Cara Majella,

‘Before I go any further, sifting through memories and years, I must tell you about the letter cards. The first one arrived a fortnight ago, the second this morning. I have them in front of me now. If I hadn’t already made the decision to open up the past they would frighten me more. Even so, they are alarming enough. I feel as if I’m being watched, my reactions monitored. When I received the first I sat frozen in my chair most of the day. As the sun faded I stared into the shadows and saw myself standing in a country lane, my feet mired in mud.

‘The cards are glossy productions, the kind that you fold over and seal. The photographs on the front feature views of phoney azure skies and intense landscape colours that rarely occur in Ireland. The peaceful rural scenes and wide stretches of picturesque strand flanked by hazy blue hills contrast oddly with the information inside. Both cards are a little creased because they have been typed. The first depicts panoramas of County Cork and I have read it so many times I could repeat it from memory:

‘I am stretched on your grave and you’ll find me there always; if I had the bounty of your arms I should never leave you. It is time for me to lie with you; there is the cold smell of the clay on me, the tan of the sun and the wind.’

It is no wonder that there are so many Irish laments and elegies, that so much keening has gone on here. You find it impossible to escape the past in Ireland. Everywhere you turn it surrounds you. You see it in the very shape of the country. You cannot go far here without stumbling over ruins and graves from previous times. Burial sites from prehistory stand silently on hills, watching the solitary walker. Graves hide under the vast boglands, waiting to be discovered by turfcutters. Passage graves, cairns, gallery graves, dolmens, wedge graves, killeens, court graves, portal graves, entrance graves, famine burials in cemeteries or under grass by the side of the road; the land is etched with random and ritual burials. The whole country is a series of catacombs. In the midst of life we are in death; that sentiment rings particularly true in this land where the dead keep close company with the living.

So many secretive graves, concealing the bones of those who died natural deaths as well as the many who were finished off by hunger or their foes.

In the view of Cork harbour, the second photograph, you can see Curraghbinny. It is a hill-top cairn, probably bronze-age. A clay platform inside it would have cradled the deceased but the body had disintegrated by the time the cairn was excavated. High up here, under a steely sky, it seems that the breeze carries cries of grief from that other time.

‘Can you imagine, Majella, how I felt when I picked up that first card? I was puzzled before I opened it and read the message. I know no one in Ireland these days; I could only think that one of my ex-colleagues was taking a holiday there. That line, you find it impossible to escape the past in Ireland resonated in my thoughts all day. An ambiguous you which could be interpreted both generally and specifically. I knew which way to take it, I repeated it to myself, over and over.

‘The card that came this morning was equally disturbing. Joan brought it in with the post when she arrived. I read it while she cleaned the kitchen. She sings while she works; verses from “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head”, “Tea for Two” and other such jaunty numbers. This card is from Limerick and the first photograph shows Lough Gur, calm and sparkling in brilliant sunshine:

Megalithic tombs were built of huge stones and usually contained collective rather than individual burials. Bodies were buried singly, though, and you will still stumble on a lonely place where solitary bones have lain for centuries. Inhumation or interment of the corpse was usual although evidence of cremations has been found. Sometimes, with inhumations, bodies were exposed until the flesh had rotted and the skeleton was then buried.

The wedge grave was the first all-Irish grave form and you can see a fine example of one near the shore of Lough Gur. A couple of cremated bodies were found here but remains of twelve inhumations lay in the main gallery. The buried were surrounded by fragments of some of the good-quality eating vessels placed with them. Even now it is common to bury a loved one with some treasured possession. It is a way of soothing grief, imagining the departed helped on their way by familiar objects. The bereaved take comfort from it, feeling that they have established a link between the worlds of the living and dead. In a nearby churchyard today a musician being lowered in his coffin had his fiddle tucked in beside him. His wife stood by the grave, eyes brimming, lost in her sadness. She knows where her love lies, she will come back to hold vigil over him: ‘I would be a shelter from the wind for you and protection from the rain for you; and oh, keen sorrow to my heart that you are under the earth!’

‘I knew that I had been waiting for this second card. I know that there will be others. As Joan sang, “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair” I understood that my correspondent is determined to unlock my heart. Without warning, I felt that I might break down and release the swell of secrecy that I had harboured for so long. My eyes were scalded with tears but I heard Joan approaching and I composed myself, knowing that I mustn’t give in just yet.

‘In the early hours of this morning I have lain awake, wondering who is sending the cards. Whoever it is seems to be on the move, visiting chosen sites. I was always sure that only you, myself and Finn knew about our plan but now I’ve been imagining that one of the others found out or that you or Finn confessed to a comrade. There could have been a lonely hour, particularly after you split up, when one of you became desperate to share the guilt. Perhaps it was disclosed during pillow talk or maybe you told one of your brothers during a visit home, unburdening yourself while cleaning the hen house. But why would the confidant wait all this time to declare their knowledge? I have heard nothing about the comrades for years, with the exception of Declan. He was mentioned to me at a party and the unexpected confrontation with the past was extraordinary. I trembled as if a warning bell had clanged brutally in my ear. I’ve always assumed that our fellow revolutionaries became respectable middle-class professionals, much as comrades in England did, as I did myself; occasionally they might mention their madcap student days to one of their children or at a jolly supper, shaking their heads, smiling at memories of youthful radicalism. I recall reading that the leaders of the ‘68 Paris rebellion are now bankers, lawyers and TV executives. They featured in a Sunday colour supplement, sleek looking in soft chairs.

‘Then, as a cat yowled in the street at four AM I thought that perhaps your news of Finn’s death had been a mistake. Your cousin could have been confused and it would be easy to muddle facts long distance. What if there was a killing spree but Finn was only injured or he escaped the sprayed bullets and is now announcing himself? It’s the kind of thing he might do, don’t you agree, and a close brush with death can alter perspectives, make one look at priorities anew. My own illness has played no small part in my current actions. And Finn did so much love mystery and the rich weave of conspiracy, especially when they gave him the advantage. The typing points to him; he always typed, joking that everything about him favoured the left, including being left-handed but his handwriting was illegible through being forced to use his right hand at his boarding school. You would complain that his portable typewriter was like a prosthetic, often tucked beneath one arm. His clattering on the keys used to drag you from sleep early in the morning as he set about another day’s crusade. He is the only person I ever knew who would carry his typewriter to the bathroom, balancing it on his lap as he sat on the toilet.

‘I pictured him, perched in hotel rooms in Cork and Limerick, typing, still smoking untipped cigarettes. You may well have had cards too. I’ve no idea how he would have obtained our addresses but Finn was always an excellent information gatherer. Perhaps he is down on his luck and looking for a helping hand from old friends; he’d run through a fair part of his inheritance during the years when we knew him and he had expensive tastes despite his professed solidarity with the proletariat. His public face may have been in harmony with them but when he brought the shopping home he’d always bought the best lean steak and his claret was the finest in the wine rack. Or maybe he simply wants to talk about the past and being Finn, is coming in at a tangent, testing the ground. All these ideas might just be the wild products of a tired brain. I can only wait and surmise, see where the next card comes from. Living with uncertainty is hardly new to me.

‘You introduced me to Finn the day after I met you. “Come and listen to traditional music,” you said, “meet some interesting people.” It was the first time I heard the word craic; “the craic’s great at Mulligan’s” you explained as we headed through the dingy streets. I already knew then that I wanted to get as close to you as possible. You were sporting a fringed shawl and I touched one of the swinging tassels as we walked. I can still feel its warm, rough texture. I didn’t tell you I had never been in a pub, embarrassed by the extreme narrowness of the world I had inhabited. I remarked on the shabbiness around us, gesturing at boarded-up shops and broken glass in doorways. The contrast to leafy, prosperous Maidstone was shocking. I don’t think you ever fully understood how subdued and genteel my childhood had been. You had never visited England, had no way of knowing the culture gap I was experiencing. You replied that it was people, not buildings that mattered; come the revolution, when the proletariat triumphed, all these streets would take on new life and purpose and the equal distribution of wealth would mean that the populace had an investment in their surroundings. I was impressed by your certainty and the apparent imminence of the revolution. We passed an army patrol at a street corner, squaddies no older than ourselves with blackened faces and camouflage jackets that looked out of place in an urban setting. The first soldier said hallo civilly enough and instinctively I nodded back. The second quickly followed with a cockier, “hiya, darlings, wotcha doin’ tonight?” and you snarled back, “fuck off, you bastard shits.” I felt a quiver of fear mingled with excitement as he spat on the pavement. “Nothing to write home about anyway, lads,” one of them mocked behind us.

‘“Didn’t people welcome them with cups of tea and cake when they arrived?” I asked. I had seen photos in my mother’s Daily Telegraph; little boys perched on squaddies’ knees, fingering their guns while aproned women ferried teapots.

‘“A gut reaction of relief,” you said. “Now the military are exposed in their true colours, tools of the fascist state.”

‘In the pub you introduced me to people whose names and faces I no longer recall and we sat in a blue haze of cigarette smoke, listening to jigs and the roar of conversation. I was stunned by the chat which flowed seamlessly; people in England don’t talk to each other the way the Irish do, enjoying the flavour of words on the tongue. Despite the plain floorboards and cracked window glass the pub seemed exotic. I drank in the atmosphere along with my lager. I recounted the story of hiding in my room and described the other women surrounding me in the hall of residence. There were five of them, plump pasty-faced Protestant girls from local townlands I’d never heard of. Union Jacks and banners stating “No Surrender!” had been pinned to their doors. They dressed in white nylon blouses and dark pleated skirts, wore brown barrettes in their hair and plain, flat lace-up school shoes, the uniform of fervent Evangelists. Within days of arriving they had put hand-written notices in the communal bathrooms: “Please Remove Your Hairs From The Plug Holes” – I think it was the sight of pubic hairs that caused specific offence – and “Remember, No one Wants To Bathe In Your Tide Mark!” Perhaps the college accommodation service had thought that coming from England, I would be more comfortable situated amongst a group of students who were loyal to the crown. Early in the mornings they visited each other’s rooms to pray and sing fierce-sounding hymns in their rural Ulster voices:

“Awnwerd Crustyen So-o-oul-dye-erz!

Marchin’ az tuy wur,

Wuth the crawz of Jeezuz

Goin’ awn beefurr . . .”

‘I was sure I had detected a tambourine but there was no danger of “Mr Tambourine Man” drifting through the thin walls. I heard myself being witty as I described them. I had never before been the centre of attention in a group of people, never talked so much and so freely; I didn’t know you could become intoxicated with language. There are times when, clawing my way through a typically constipated English conversation, I find myself craving some of that old, easy jawing.

‘You talked and laughed that night but you were distracted and when Finn came in and you relaxed I understood that your tension had been that of a waiting lover. He was wearing dark clothes and a black beret. A pack of papers was stashed under his arm and he was in a foul mood. That testiness, that air that nothing ever quite pleased him was part of his attraction. Sales had been poor, he said, and Vinny hadn’t turned up to help him. He laid the papers on the table and I saw that they were thin bulletins, printed on a duplicating machine and that his fingers were smudged with dark ink. Workers’ Struggle, The Paper of Red Dawn, I read as I craned my neck and you told Finn my name. He nodded a brief hallo and went to get a drink.