Deara watched the woman’s hand reach out for the token she offered. She was aware of the grey eyes smiling, the touch of the woman’s fingertips. In the same moment she experienced a strange, shimmering weariness and then knew herself to be alone.
She sighed and looked around her. Gone. Yes, she had gone. And everything else as well. The old trees, the stone on which she had sat, the shorn meadow and the strange dwelling place. In front of her stood the familiar worn stone coping of the God’s well. The fading flowers of her last offering dropped their petals around the base of the small earthenware jug which held them. Driven by the warm breeze they fluttered into the lush grass which grew where the water always splashed down from newly drawn pitchers.
For a few moments Deara stood, poised between joy and sorrow, elated by hope and possibility, yet saddened by the brevity of this strange meeting.
Then, into the stillness of the deserted grove, where only birdsong broke the heavy somnolence of the afternoon, came words of comfort. Merdaine’s words, spoken in this place, when she had talked to Deara about joy.
‘Joy, true joy, comes but rarely, but when it does, cherish it. Cherish the moments you have without longing for others.’
Deara took the flowers of her offering and looked at them. It was the moments she had just been given that she must cherish. For them she would give thanks.
Two days after the estate agent’s visit to Anacarrig, a lengthy communication dropped through the letterbox. He thanked me for my kind instructions, repeated all he’d said about the state of the market, the possibility of finding the right kind of buyer and the likelihood of achieving a satisfactory sale. He named a selling price which amazed me. But it was his final paragraph that left me feeling agitated and upset for the rest of the morning.
He regretted he’d been unable to advertise in this week’s local papers because the photographs of the property were not available until Thursday afternoon. However, he’d gone ahead with putting the house in the Belfast Telegraph, as we’d agreed. Their weekend property guide had a wide circulation, he assured me, and as his firm’s offices remained open all day on Saturdays he would no doubt be in touch with me to arrange viewing for this coming weekend.
Working so hard all week to get the house ready for viewing, it just hadn’t struck me I could end up having to show people round so soon. The thought appalled me. I realised with a shock that I wanted to see no one here at Anacarrig.
For a whole week I’d hardly spoken to a soul. Apart from the estate agent, the only other person was the mechanic who was working on Mother’s car. He’d called in on his way home from work to let me know why it was taking so long. A matter of a part that hadn’t been sent when it was ordered. Mr Neill had rung to ask if I needed anything from the shops in Armagh, but I’d reassured him that Sandy had filled the freezer so full I’d have a job eating it all up before it was time to leave.
I would have phoned my dear friend, Helen, but she was still in Oxford on her course. Joan had gone to visit a cousin in Rye, Sandy was somewhere in France buying old farmhouses and my beloved Matthew was visiting hill villages north of Maharajpur a dozen miles at least from the nearest telephone.
I hadn’t been aware of my solitariness at all. In fact, I had actually enjoyed being on my own. Tears of disappointment and frustration sprang to my eyes as I read the letter a second time and imagined what would happen when the phone started to ring.
And, of course, I had a rotten morning as a consequence, the kind where nothing you begin to do can be carried through. Some tool, or code number, or critical piece of information just isn’t available and you can’t get on without it. It got so bad at one point and I felt so irritable that I just couldn’t keep going. I took myself off across the lawn and down to the hawthorns. I hoped if I sat down and composed myself something might come to comfort or inspire me. But nothing happened. All I was aware of was the scratch of the worn stone against the seat of my jeans, the buzz of an insect swooping around behind me, the clacking racket of some new piece of machinery in the farmyard across the road and a dull throb in my lower back. Of my friend, Deara, there was no trace. I simply couldn’t reach her.
I gave up eventually, tramped back to the kitchen feeling thoroughly upset, climbed awkwardly up onto the work surface, took down the curtains and put them in the washing machine. After the morning’s record of disasters, I could hardly believe my luck when I pulled the switch and it actually worked. I watched the curtains swoop and fall, swoop and fall, and was strangely comforted by the rhythmic swish of the rotating drum.
‘All things pass, however ghastly.’ The words took shape of their own accord. Yes, it was true. There was no doubt I’d feel better in an hour, or a day, or a couple of days. What I did while they did their passing was the problem.
Not surprisingly, I ended up in the garden and although I worked much more slowly than usual I made some progress. I trimmed my way along the sandstone path at the foot of the rockery, taking out the dead leaves from the flourishing succulents that spread over the warm flagstones. I touched their bright rosettes, each fat point tipped with red. I began to feel it was far better to get on like this and do what I could manage than to strain after something way beyond my present capacity.
After a time, I leaned back on my kneelers, stretched my aching neck and turned it towards the sun, so its warmth would be like a gentle hand on the tight muscles. The thought of Deara and the brooch she had carried from the Hall of Council came into my mind. I’d caught only a glimpse of it: dark, gleaming metal inset with bright points of colour.
I spread some loosened soil on the path in front of me and traced its circular outline with my finger, hoping I might recall the pattern of its subtle, intertwining spirals. But what happened was very different. My finger bit deeper into the soil, but it was not the soil of the Anacarrig garden.
Startled, I looked around me. The path had gone. There was no garden around me, no house perched on the terrace above me. I was kneeling on the soft, dusty edge of a small, sloping vineyard through which a stony path led upwards to the hilltop. A low colonnaded villa with a tiled roof stood silent in the warm sun. There was no sign of anyone about.
I stood up and ran my eyes around the countryside spread out below me, hoping to find some familiar landmark. But there were none. Apart from the pink and gold touch of autumn on a cluster of chestnut trees nearby, there was nothing remotely familiar in the whole landscape to tell me where I might be.
The valley below was densely wooded. Only in the distance where I saw the gleam of water did the woodland give way to lush green meadows. Cattle were grazing there – angular, bony creatures, shaggy and hollow-chested, a far cry from the plump Frisians and the well-fed Shorthorns on the farms close to Anacarrig.
Apart from the villa, there were no other signs of human habitation, though there were trackways, criss-crossing the water-meadows and disappearing into the woodland. From where I stood, the path ran downhill and joined a more substantial causeway at the bottom. This stony track skirted the hill, cut through the woodland to the water-meadows and then disappeared again into more woodland away to my left.
Suddenly, a flash of light caught my eye. To my right, as far as the causeway reached before being enveloped in the woodland, a party of horsemen had just come into view and the sun glinted on their metal collars and the weapons they carried. They were moving fast. Moments later, over the thud of hooves, I heard the jingle of harness as they drew nearer.
Wanting to get a better look, I moved towards the rosemary hedge which bounded the vineyard. It was then I heard a rustle behind me. I turned and saw a