I had never been to Ireland. ‘Oh, you simply must go,’ my friend said. ‘It’s beautiful. And quiet too, if you stay out of Dublin and Cork. God’s own country.’
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that ‘God’s own country’ was Australia. But I could see her point and I did need some peace and quiet. Things between my boyfriend and I have been…strained as of late. For someone who knows a lot of languages, he has a hard time communicating what he’s feeling. I shouldn’t be too surprised, he is English after all.
My friend made the arrangements as I am absolutely hopeless with such things, and I soon found myself in the land of my forebears. Dad said at least part of the family came from Ireland. Regardless, red hair and an inclination to the bottle aside, I felt to particular affinity towards the country when I set down. Oh, it was pretty, no denying that, but there was nothing special.
I stayed in a little town called Balliskryn, near Sligo where W.B. Yeats was influenced in his younger years. My friend had stayed there the year before and the owner of the inn still remembered her. ‘Don’t get too many Americans in here,’ he said. ‘Few Germans, some English but Americans are rare. She was quite obliging, too.’ He licked his lips with the memory.
My friend, the harlot.
The next few days were spent in the local pub with my book, avoiding my lecherous innkeeper and getting lightly buzzed.
‘You should really get out and see the sights,’ the woman behind the bar said after my third straight day.
‘My job is sightseeing,’ I said, not a little tipsy. ‘When I’m on vacation I like to sit in a cave or the nearest civilized equivalent.’
‘Have you been to the caves, then?’ she asked excitedly. ‘They filmed parts of Nightshade there. My da was a monster.’ She pointed to a framed picture on the wall. A dashing middle-aged man had his arm around what looked like a guy covered in bubble wrap. It was signed, ‘To Jonny, stay scary-Edmund Trevithick.’
‘No, I haven’t. I was speaking figuratively.’
‘Oh,’ she sounded crestfallen.
‘I’m sure they’re very nice caves.’
‘It’s a cave,’ she shrugged. ‘But you might be interested in the ruins. You have that look about you.’
‘It’s the khaki, right? Anyway, about these ruins?’ I tried to feign disinterest.
‘There was a sculptor who lived a couple of kilometers outside town about a hundred years ago. Some of the OAPeeps say it’s haunted.’
‘Really?’ Damn, I was hooked.
‘I can get you a map if you like.’
The next day I set off for the ruins with a packed lunch provided by my new stalker. The hills weren’t too bad compared to some I’ve clamored over. If I took nothing else from the experience, I had to admit it was picturesque.
The ruins were just that: ruined. I had hoped for something a little more impressive. It was simply a rundown little cottage. Outside there were several stone statues done in the typical Victorian style. They had been exposed to the elements and neglected for too long, they were beginning to erode. Already some of the facial details had been lost. There was even one statue of someone called Tyrone Power, according to the base, which was missing an arm! It’s funny, because I’ve seen Alexander’s Ragtime Band and that statue looked nothing like Tyrone Power.
The door of the cottage just about fell of when I opened it, but the interior looked to be in surprisingly good condition. There was a hole in the roof that left one corner exposed to the elements. I was thankful it hadn’t rained recently, though it did smell of mould. I flicked open my Zippo to get a little more light inside.
I moved on to the bedroom and found a skeleton in the bed, long dead by the look of it. I pulled back the decayed blanket. The skeleton belonged to a woman with no obvious signs of trauma. I probably shouldn’t have gone near it without gloves at least, but if this place had been abandoned for a century…Pathology was never my strong point, I could tell no more than that.
‘Leave her,’ came an unearthly voice from behind me. I turned around.
There was a ghost. An actual ghost floating right in front of me. I’d never seen a ghost before. You read all sorts of accounts, but what can prepare you for seeing one yourself?
‘Hello,’ I said to the ghost.
‘Leave her,’ the ghost repeated.
I took a few steps away from the bed. ‘My name’s Kate. What’s yours?’
‘Roan,’ said the ghost. He was neither handsome nor gruesome, just a sort of blur. A blue spectre fading in and out of clarity.
‘Are you cold?’ I asked suddenly.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Should I be?’
‘I don’t know,’ I paused. ‘Who is she?’
‘She was my wife,’ the ghost intoned, his voice barely above a whisper.
I cleared my throat. ‘I believe it is customary to haunt the place where you died, not your significant other.’
‘Who said I did not perish here?’ Roan stepped backwards through the wall.
I followed him to the next room. There were more statues here, but they were all of the same person, the same woman. At least, I presumed so. They all lacked complete faces. A few had noses, some mouths, yet not one was finished. In the center of the room, in front of the most complete statue, there was a skeleton holding a hammer and chisel. The ghost was standing next to it.
‘This is you?’ The ghost nodded. ‘And all these?’
‘Are her, yes. I was an artist and she was my muse. She sang and would dance about the room. I always told her to be still, such that I could capture her beauty in the clay and the stone. She never listened.’
‘So you killed her,’ I said.
The ghost turned to me, fury in his dead eyes. ‘How could you say that? I would never do such a thing.’
‘I’m sorry. I read too many books.’
‘She fell ill. A cold, I said, nothing more. But it was. Time caught her and for all reasons took her. I could not bear it. I threw myself into work, ignoring the world and its demands as best I could. I am no Pygmalion and was not able to bring her to life, in my work or otherwise. I died, as she did, groping in dawn’s light for something not there,’ he was on the verge of tears. I’m sure if ghosts could cry, he would have. ‘Now I cannot even remember her face. Was I in love with her or her beauty?’
‘Is there a difference?’ I asked.
He shook his head and smiled at me. ‘Not at this point, I suppose.’
‘You have to move on. Let her go. You’re dead, she’s dead. Cherish the time you had together and get on with your afterlife.’
‘She haunts me so,’ the ghost wailed.
‘Now there’s an interesting concept,’ I said, waling over to Roan’s skeleton. Gently, I pried the hammer and chisel from his hands.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I did not answer him. I placed the chisel against the statue’s unfinished face and struck with the hammer. The statue shattered into a hundred fragments.
‘No!’ Roan cried. ‘What have you done?’
‘Let my indulgence set you free,’ I misquoted back to him. Before he disappeared I thought I saw something in his eyes that understood what I had done. I hoped so.
The autumn wind was blowing as I stepped outside. The dead leaves it picked up touched and danced in the currents. I shut the door behind me and tried to forget the story of all those many years ago.
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