The Dancers Dancing Read online

  The college has its own special jargon, which is in Irish. So all the people and the places have a different set of names from those Orla has known – or they have known themselves. Before, everyone and every place in Tubber had an English name, but now they are all Irish. Tubber itself is An Tobar. The Dohertys are Muintir Uí Dhochartaigh. Charlie Paddy Andys are Muintir Uí Ghallchóir. They all sound much more important, it seems to Orla, more correct and elegant, than they do in their own funny Donegal English. The Mollies are Muintir Uí Chnáimhsí. Quilties is Na Coillte. In the English of this area, as of many areas in Ireland, all names sound, to Orla, faintly ridiculous. People have clownish names. Murphy and Meaney and Sweeney and Mulligan. Bally this and Ballyslapdashinmuckerishthat. Irish restores to them dignity and elegance. So she thinks, happily abandoning her own name in English, Orla Crilly, and calling herself Órla Nic Giolla Chrollaigh. That nobody, not even she herself, can pronounce it correctly does not bother her, not now. Anyway she mumbles it, when she says it, so nobody ever hears it properly. But she thinks it looks lovely, with its conglomerations of consonants, its long string of words. She thinks it looks difficult, and important.

  Along with her own name, she puts all the old familiar names aside, and adopts the new, outsiders’ labels. These are as safe and neat as blackboards or school uniforms, and thus eminently acceptable to her. But she knows there is something wrong with them. Their tone is false, they ring laughably in her ears, like the tinny sounds of children playing on xylophones when you are used to old accordions or fiddles, used to deep ancient drums.

  The people and the places cannot themselves change much, whatever about their names. The men still wear old grey suits and wellington boots as they walk around the fields looking at fences and cows and the sky. The women still wear navy-blue wraparound overalls, their deep pockets perfect for storing stray eggs. Or clothes pegs. The children look wild and dirty on weekdays, stiff and clean on Sundays, as before. And the houses have that funny country look to them, be they thatched cottages, which Orla loathes, or slated council cottages, be they the forbidding grey blocks of the old farmhouses or her favourite kind of house, the new stucco bungalows with generous windows, glowing green- or red-tiled roofs.

  The Dohertys’ house looks like Auntie Annie’s place, but it is bigger and better-kept. It is one of the square grey farmhouses, door in the middle, windows like eyes set at either side, chimney perched on top of the black slates. It is set in a shady yard, and its front windows command a view of a corrugated iron barn, painted dark red, a field in which the milch cows, ducks and geese graze, a small green pond. Beyond that stretches the whole of Tubber, and beyond that the sea.

  Unusually for an Irish farmhouse, behind the house there is a garden, surrounded by a stone wall, with a stream running through it. The stream runs into a large field alongside the house before taking a turn and continuing on down through the valley. The girls are quick to discover the stream, as they discover everything in the house and around it. Banatee tells them to keep away from it. It’s deeper and more dangerous than it looks, she says. She calls the stream the burn. ‘That there’s the big burn and it’s a dangerous burn. Johnny Charlie Patsy was drowned in that burn five years ago, so he was, he was down in it fishin for eels. Terrible fond of the fishin, Johnny Charlie, so he was, a lovely wee boy only ten year old and he was drowned at the burn down at yon bend in Mattie the Island’s cornfield. Keep away!’

  The girls nod, but make a note of the burn. They need all the water they can get, to wash their clothes and their hair and their bodies. The supply in the house is not plentiful, one bathroom for everybody. People in Gaeltachts pay little attention to water supplies, lulled by the eternal downpours into the belief that there’s more than enough to go round.

  Irish Irish and only Irish and if you don’t like Irish it’s back to town you go

  You are supposed to speak Irish all the time.

  ‘That is the rule of the college,’ shouts Headmaster Joe, for that is the name of the round dark man, on Monday morning when the whole college is assembled for the first time. He is a bold comma of a man, fond of high drama. He is wearing his black suit, white shirt and red and black tie, striped, today as every day. All the teachers wear jackets of some kind, mainly tweed, but Headmaster Joe is never seen without his suit. ‘If you break the Irish rule you will be sent home on the next bus. And don’t think we won’t hear you when you are away from the schoolhouse. We’ll hear you. We’ll hear you on the road and we’ll hear you in the fields, not that you are allowed in the fields anyway. We’ll hear you when you’re at your banatee’s table and we’ll hear you when you are in bed at night. We’ll even hear you when you are asleep.’ His round black eyes twinkle. ‘So don’t think you can dream in English and get away with it. In this college, boys and girls, you are not allowed to dream in English. Do you read me? That is the rule.’

  Inoperable. Headmaster Joe knows it and so does everyone else; the listening teachers already know it, nodding or shaking their heads in disapproval at such nonsense; the students, stiff and frightened by his stentorian tones, know it after one day in the place. Everyone is here to speak Irish, is supposed to speak Irish, but most of the time nobody actually will.

  Many of them can’t. Pauline and Jacqueline, for instance, know no Irish at all, even though they claim to learn it at their school in Derry. The Banatee and Sava speak the dialect of Tubber, a northern dialect which differs slightly from all other kinds of Irish still spoken and which is almost extinct. Aisling, who speaks Irish all the time at home, claims to find it incomprehensible. The Banatee does not appear to understand much of what Aisling or Orla say either, when they speak their fluent Dublin Irish.

  Orla understands most of what she hears, from the Banatee and Sava, from Pauline and Jacqueline, from Aisling. From everyone. That’s the problem: she’s trying to be free as a baby, blissfully ignorant, but she’s not. She’s knowing, what Elizabeth calls ‘oul- fashioned’. Girls are often oul-fashioned, their eyes are cunning and knowing, peering from their polite and silent faces, while boys are innocent, lovable and cherished. Orla has been taught this since she was about two years old.

  Knowing too much is a burden Orla has been given to carry, because she is a girl. Girls read and learn and in consequence know too much. Nobody in Ireland likes a child who knows anything. Now on top of everything else she knows languages: tongues – or at least myriad dialects. Comprehension of myriad tongues is one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, bequeathed by the same at Confirmation. Some understand many tongues and some speak many tongues. You would think, Orla thought, when she heard the gaunt, thief-eyed Bishop McQuaid citing these words, that the same people must do both. But no. Here she is, quick to understand but slow to speak. Her own limited, shoddy, modern, inaccurate Dublin Irish is what comes out of her mouth when she talks. Anything else would be pretentious. She remembers what happened to Mary Darcy when she came back from Connemara with an accent fit to catch a whale. Children laughed in her face, mimicked her every intonation until even she, bossy, priggish, know-allish, self-assured and old-womanish as she was, had to cave in and revert to the language of her peers. Orla would not make the same mistake, magnified enormously since Donegal Irish is so much more outlandish than Connemara Irish and so much more unusual. Orla has never come across anyone in Dublin, apart from her father, who speaks it at all. She’s not going to be the one to start. Caidé mar atá tú instead of Conas atá tú. Falsa instead of leisciuíl. Fosta instead of freisin. Geafta instead of geata. They manage to mess up almost every single word, even before they start changing the tune of the sentences.

  A traditional Irish schoolhouse

  After Headmaster Joe’s battle cry, the scholars are assigned to their classes. Orla, Aisling and Sandra find themselves in the highest class, with Máistir Dunne. Pauline and Jacqueline are in the lowest, with Bean Uí Luing of the bus.

  Six classes there are, all and every one of them in the schoolhouse. Traditio
nal Irish schoolhouse, as the brochure puts it: windows so high in the walls that the pupils cannot see outside. Will not the folk and animal life of Tubber be putting in on them. Boys’ Side and Girls’ Side, folding wooden doors in the middle.

  Now, although not separated are the boys and the girls, the room divided is into six sections, separated from one another with flowery curtains a-hanging from skipping ropes. Able is every class to overhear all the others, and their eyes to see as well if peer they do under the curtains, which do some, of course, all the time.

  ‘What’s your house like?’ asks Sandra.

  ‘ok.’ Cute as a fox is Aisling; it’s little she lets on.

  ‘Mine is awful. There’s eight of us in one room, eight of us, and the food is disgusting. I’m changing today.’

  ‘That’s great,’ says Orla. ‘Did they say you could?’

  ‘I haven’t asked them yet,’ says Sandra and a puss on her.

  ‘Well you’ll have to ask.’

  ‘But who will I put a question on?’

  ‘Put a question on him.’ Points Aisling to their teacher, leaning against the blackboard, a pipe being smoked by him. Is the room a-filling with pale grey, rose-scented smoke. Pulls in Orla a breath, she fine and contented. Sweet to her the scent of tobacco.

  ‘Him?’

  ‘He’s our teacher.’

  Rises Sandra and asks him.

  Pulls he his pipe out of his mouth and taps against the easel. Falls black tobacco, some of it still burning, on the floor, and tramples he out it with his brown shoe. A look of confusion on him.

  ‘Hm,’ says he. ‘Hm. We’ll talk to the headmaster after class, all right?’

  Returns Sandra sadly to the bench.

  Reads aloud Máistir Dunne’s class from the great classics of Ireland: Jimín and Rotha Mór an tSaoil, Peig, An tOileánach. Organises he debate: Life of the Town versus Life of the Country. Teaches he poem: ‘Fornocht do chonac thú’ (Stark naked I saw you).

  Hear they Bean Uí Luing under bottom the curtain.

  Sentences a-teaches she.

  I am in sixth class at school.

  I am four years teen of age.

  Better to me tea than coffee.

  Hurler good is my brother.

  Footballer good is my brother.

  There is a cat white to me.

  There is a dog black to me.

  It is lovely with me my dog black.

  Repeat the pupils the sentences after her, and then learn they them by clean mind. And they learning by clean mind it is able with you to hear their brains working, like to a machine a-humming, even only over the curtain. Pleasant, comforting sound it is.

  At noon taken are the curtains from their ropes, by pets of the teachers; unpartitioned big room again is the schoolhouse. Bean Uí Luing takes over. Stands she on chair, figure little dressed in cardigan green, and starts to teach the whole college how to sing. ‘Feidhlimí’s Boat’ the first song.

  Boateen of Feidhlimí that went to Tory

  Boateen of Feidhlimí and Feidhlimí in it

  Boateen of Feidhlimí that went to Tory

  Boateen of Feidhlimí and Feidhlimí in it.

  Boateen tiny, boateen lively, boateen noble

  Boateen of Feidhlimí

  Boateen intrepid, boateen lovely

  Boateen of Feidhlimí and Feidhlimí in it.

  Boateen of Feidhlimí broken in Tory

  Boateen of Feidhlimí and Feidhlimí in it.

  Boateen of Feidhlimí broken in Tory

  Boateen of Feidhlimí and Feidhlimí in it.

  Have knowledge some of the pupils the song already, and sing they it with gusto. No knowledge of it have others, and sing they hesitantly. Able some people to sing, and other people not able. Over all the voices voice of Jacqueline rises, voice of fairy, voice of angel – soprano.

  Notice it Orla and Aisling, and look at each other, surprise on them and joy – something that puts even more surprise on them, jealous-hearted little bitches as they are.

  Makes Sandra a wan smile, singing with weak heart, waiting for the end of choir.

  Looks she over the room for Máistir Dunne, but not there is he. Not any teacher there now but only Bean Uí Luing.

  ‘What will I do?’ asks she, her voice cracking.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Orla, although knowledge has she well what Sandra means.

  ‘He said he’d talk to the headmaster but I don’t see him anywhere.’

  ‘Maybe he is talking to the headmaster.’

  ‘Will I ask her about it?’ Looks she at Bean Uí Luing.

  ‘Yeah!’ says Orla, turning and walking away.

  We meet the native speakers

  The cornerstone theory of the Irish college system is that, as well as learning Irish in the classroom, the city children will interact with the indigenous inhabitants of the Gaeltacht, the native speakers. The first and most tangible benefit of this contact should be an improvement of their appalling Gaelic accents. But there is another, more nebulous aim: it is believed that by getting to know native Irish speakers, inhabitants of a rural, western, relict zone, the children will learn something other than Irish, something cultural, the nature of which nobody quite understands. All that is known about this quality is that it is healthier than the culture the students are accustomed to in the city – as the air is fresher, the fields greener, and the water clearer, so is the culture itself more spontaneous, fresh and unadulterated.

  You can’t put your finger on what the difference is. But it exists all the same. Even the children sense it.

  The smells of the Gaeltacht enhance the atmosphere of goodness: the turf smoke, the salt breeze, the tang of cow dung relax Orla, and the other students. Their noses recognise that they are undergoing a purifying experience.

  It is more difficult for their brains to grasp this. Their contact with indigenous Gaeltacht life is confusing, to say the least, and usually less than refreshing.

  For Orla and Aisling, the accessible natives are Banatee, Sava, Faratee and Micheál.

  Faratee is not easy to access. They catch elusive glimpses of him as he walks across the farmyard or drives his tractor up and down the lane. His name is Charlie but he looks like Tom in The Riordans: big and fat, dressed in a greyish suit. Most of the day he seems to spend moving lumberingly from one place to the other, up and down, back and forth. When he meets one of the girls he touches his cap and parts his lips fractionally, presumably uttering some word which they do not, however, hear.

  Micheál is similarly silent and evasive. Although unlike the rest of his family he sleeps in the house, the girls see little enough of him. If they bump into him on the landing or stairs, he averts his eyes, blushes, and ignores them entirely. He looks like an ordinary teenage boy; shabbily dressed in very old clothes, since that is the way all young farming men seem obliged to dress, but otherwise normal enough. He is tall and, Orla guesses – wrongly – about eighteen years of age. His hair is dark red.

  Orla, encountering him as she leaves the bathroom, looks away. But he smiles at her and says hello.

  She replies, somewhat to her surprise.

  ‘You know Micheál ... ?’ she risks with Aisling.

  ‘Oh gonny!’ Aisling says. ‘What a weed!’

  Orla doesn’t mention him again.

  The remaining natives then, are Banatee and Sava.

  Banatee does not talk much.

  She is a darting bird-like women. Her white hair is bobbed like a child’s and she wears basket-coloured glasses on her high shining cheeks. Her everyday dress is a navy-blue overall sprigged with red flowers, and on Sundays she wears a black tailored suit, worn with a straw boater and shoes with thick Cuban heels, strapped across the instep, the kind tap dancers wear. All her clothes look as if they are thirty years old, and they are. Orla regards her with a curiosity that is mixed with affection: there is something neat and attractive about Banatee, even though her entire appearance makes her so anachronistic as to be inaccessi
ble to Orla or any of the girls. To them she might be another species, or at least a race all of whose symbolism is foreign and impenetrable. Occasionally she pours tea for the girls, or can be seen through the open door of the kitchen. But after the first day, she has had little to say to any of them. She is as shy as they are, and the sum of the mutual shyness of city girls and country woman is an effective barrier against even minimal communication – even if the language were not getting in the way.

  Most of the time Banatee does not see the girls, nor they her.

  Leaving Sava. Sava the Silent.

  It is Sava who serves the meals, in the parlour at the front of the house, carrying the plates of dinner in on a tray or bringing in extra plates of bread at teatime. She too is shy and silent, even though she is only a few years older than the girls. Small and thin like her mother, she has her mother’s neat, fine features but in a younger form, so much younger and softer that the girls cannot see any resemblance at all. Besides, she has colour. She is, in fact, extremely colourful – her hair is black, black as a river at night, not black as a raven’s wing. That is Sava’s colour, as to hair, and her skin is pearly, a translucent white. Red mouth, needless to add. She is Snow White, she is Étain, she is Deirdre of the Sorrows. She is a great beauty, as her mother is, but although the girls understand, faintly, that there is something attractive about both of them they cannot see beyond the clothes and style to recognise their beauty. Sava also dresses wrongly. Not wrongly as her mother does, but wrongly in the opposite direction. She dresses like a tart. Her skirts are minier than mini, her T-shirts skintight. Instead of navy-blue and black, she likes shocking pink, lime green, any colour so long as it is loud and horrible. She doesn’t wear make-up on her perfect skin, because it is too delicate to stand it, but her eyelashes are coated in thick, stiff mascara, and they stand around her large blue eyes like black railings around a pond.