The Guest List(42)

‘We were having a little explore,’ Duncan says. ‘You know, get the lay of the land.’

‘Didn’t think we’d have the pleasure of rescuing a damsel in distress,’ Pete says.

Their expressions are almost completely neutral. But there’s a twitch at the corner of Duncan’s mouth and I get the feeling they were laughing at me. That they might have been observing me for a while as I struggled. I don’t want to rely on their help. But I’m also not really in any position to be picky.

They each take one of my hands. With them pulling, I finally manage to yank one foot from its hold. I lose the boot as I pull my foot from the last of the bog and the earth closes over it as quickly as it had opened. I pull my other foot out and scrabble on to the bank, safe. For a moment I’m sprawled upon the ground, trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline, unable to find the energy to rise to my feet. I can’t quite believe what just happened. Then I remember the two men looking down at me, each holding one of my hands. I scramble to my feet, thanking them, dropping their hands as quickly as seems polite – the clasp of our fingers suddenly feels oddly intimate. Now that the adrenaline is receding I’m becoming aware of how I must have looked to them as they pulled me out: my top gaping to expose my grey old bra, cheeks flushed and sweaty. I’m also aware of how isolated we are, here. Two of them, one of me.

‘Thanks, guys,’ I say, hating the wobble in my voice. ‘I think I’m going to head back to the Folly now.’

‘Yes,’ Duncan drawls. ‘Got to wash all that filth off for later.’ And I can’t work out if I’m reading too much into it or whether there really is something suggestive in the way he says it.

I start back in the direction of the Folly. I’m moving as fast as I can go in my socked feet, while being careful to pick only the safest crossings. I suddenly want very much to get back inside, and yes, back to Charlie. To put as much space as possible between myself and the bog. And, to be honest, my rescuers.





AOIFE


The Wedding Planner


I sit at my desk going through the plans for today. I like this desk. Its drawers are full of memories. Photographs, postcards, letters – paper yellowed with age, handwriting a childish scrawl.

I tune the radio into the forecast. We get a few Galway stations here.

‘It’s likely to get a little windy later today,’ the weatherman’s saying. ‘We have conflicting evidence about the Gale-force number, but we can say that most of Connemara and West Galway will be affected, particularly the islands and coastal areas.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Freddy says, coming in to stand behind me.

We listen as the man on the radio announces that the winds will hit properly after 5 p.m.

‘By that time they’ll all be safely inside the marquee,’ I say. ‘And it should hold fast, even in a bit of wind. So there will be nothing to worry about.’

‘What about the electrics?’ Freddy asks.

‘They’re pretty good, aren’t they? Unless we have a real storm on our hands. And he didn’t say anything about that.’

We have been up since dawn this morning. Freddy has even made a trip over to the mainland with Mattie to get a few last-minute supplies, while I am checking everything is in order here. The florist will arrive shortly to arrange the sprays of local wildflowers in the chapel and marquee: speedwell and wild spotted orchids and blue-eyed grass.

Freddy returns to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to whatever food can be prepared in advance: the canapés and hors d’oeuvres, the cold starters of fish from the Connemara Smokehouse. He’s passionate about food, is my husband. He can talk about a dish he’s thought up in the way that a great musician might rhapsodise about a composition. It stems from his childhood; he claims that it comes from not having any variety in his diet when he was young.

I walk over to the marquee. It occupies the same higher land as the chapel and graveyard, some fifty yards to the east of the Folly along a tract of drier land, with the marshier stuff of the turf bog on either side. I hear frantic scurryings ahead and then in front of me they appear: hares startled out of their ‘forms’, the hollows they make in the heather to bed down in. They sprint in front of me for a while, their white tails bobbing, their powerful legs kicking out, before veering off into the long grasses on either side and disappearing from view. Hares are shapeshifters in Gaelic folklore; sometimes when I see them here I think of all of Inis an Amplóra’s departed souls, materialising once more to run amidst the heather.

In the marquee I begin my duties, filling up the space heaters and putting certain finishing touches on the tables: the hand-watercoloured menus, the linen napkins in their solid silver rings, each engraved with the name of the guest who will take it home. There’ll be a striking contrast later between the refinement of these beautifully dressed tables and the wildness outdoors. Later, when we light them, there’ll be the scent of the candles from Cloon Keen Atelier, an exclusive Galway perfumer, shipped over from the boutique at no small expense.

The marquee shivers around me as I do my checks. It’s quite amazing to think that in a few hours this echoing empty space will be filled with people. The light in here is dull and yellow compared to the bright cold light of outside but tonight this whole structure will glow like one of those paper lanterns you send up into the night sky. People on the mainland will be able to look across and see that something exciting is going on on Inis an Amplóra – the island they all speak about as the dead place, the haunted isle, as though it only exists as history. If I do my job right, this wedding will make sure they’ll be talking about it in the present again.