Greek Myths and Home Truths

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The year died in a blast of snow, frost and ice. Like the proverbial ‘half glass’ its

demise was open to interpretation. A cold bleak finale to a year that had drip fed

a litany of misery and woe, or a welcomed blanket of ice and snow with which to

snuff out the germ of despair which had wormed its way so silkily into Irish life?

Reports concerning the death of the Celtic Tiger had not been greatly

exaggerated. It was in the grave, thrashing its ghostly tail and turning furiously,agitated and frustrated with the squandering of its legacy. Not an inheritance of

health, wealth and prosperity to be equally divided, but a dynasty of inequality,

with the rich receiving a time-line in which to sort their affairs out and the poor

heading off to form another Diaspora. There was in reality little to suggest that

the Tiger had once reigned, save for the scattered lonesome housing estates

which dotted the countryside like burial mounds, the 21st century equivalent of

the Neolithic stone circles. Monuments to a past civilization, houses not homes to

the commuter generation with all the trappings of a once found ethereal wealth

enslaving their occupiers as securely as a gin trap snares a wandering hare.Behind the brightly coloured front doors evidence that the snare has done its job

is plentiful, from the timber floors and leather settees, to the kitchens lined with

marble work tops and the inevitable bold, brash face of the flat screen television.

The only things not on view are the letters from the debt collection companies and

mortgage statements. They lie buried inside the sliding drawer, silent witnesses to

the fact everything is in place, save the job, the occupation, the profession, that

pays for it all.

‘If there really is safety in numbers,’ Ellen Slattery thought, ‘we should all be

flying, eventually.’ She was sat upon a Cork bound bus, leaving the outskirts of adreary, wintry Skibbereen. She couldn’t recall the last time she had been on a

bus. For a moment she transferred her thoughts away from the bigger picture and

concentrated instead on a tiny issue of no real importance. When was the last bus

journey she had made?

There were no bus services in her village. She had taken the car into town to get

the bus. Did people in the so called ‘Green Movement’ worry about that

conundrum? Taking a car to catch a bus, catching a plane, to complain about

environmental destruction in a far country? Whenever she went to Cork or

Killarney or anywhere, she went by car. But she had definitely travelled on a busin recent years, but when? She could even vaguely picture the one she had been

on. Bit by bit the elusive last bus ride drifted into her consciousness like a picture

downloading on the arthritically slow internet she had once been able to afford. It

had been in Malta, in the summer of 2005. All of them had gone and for two whole

weeks they had basked in the warmth of the Mediterranean, hurtling through the

narrow streets of St Paul’s Bay in crowded buses, full of people just like

themselves, relaxing in the unfamiliar, confident that the familiar was awaiting



their return back home. The Maltese buses were nothing like the one she was now

occupying. The seat she sat upon was upholstered, but it was cold, deceptively

cold. At first she had assumed that the chill was due to her proximity to the door

and so she had vacated her front seat with its wide screen picture window, for a

seat further along towards the middle of the bus, but it had made no real

difference, the chill had merely upped sticks and followed her. Now she had to

make do with a side view of the passing world for an old man had swooped into

her front seat like a gull descending on a piece of bread. He was now engaged in

trying to distract the driver with a barrage of unanswerable questions and

questionable statements. Not that she would have gone back to the seat anyway;

she didn’t want to appear like an excitable country gom intoxicated by the idea of

a ride to the big city on a big bus. She turned her head away from the window and

looked forward along the bus, it was almost empty. There had been talk of

services being cancelled due to the unprecedented snowfall but like rumours of an

upturn in the economy, it had proved to be false.

She had planned this trip on Christmas day. As her husband had sat morosely at

the top of the table and her children had exchanged flimsy, poor quality Christmas

crackers, she had secretly and silently planned her getaway. She had told herself

that come the first Monday of the New Year, she would go to Cork; she would

leave behind the depths of the country and travel alone to the city, on a quest for

peace, quiet and tranquillity. Now it was actually happening. Clonakilty had come

and gone, they were nearer now to the town of Bandon. The thick, black, sensible

wheels of the bus were putting up with no resistance from the feckless snow and

icy clad country roads, but all the same the tranquility of the passing countryside

seeped into the vehicle imposing a dreamy ‘other world’ calmness to its interior. The entire route was lined with snow laden trees and hedges which looked

airbrushed so detailed in their perfection. They stood still and composed, radiating

a perfect silence. But there was as yet for Ellen, no peace. Her head felt swollen

with the thoughts that tumbled to and fro inside it. Like clothes in a dryer, they

slid and slipped into one another re-emerging in different shapes and forms. Every

time she sought to disengage her mind from an unpleasant or complicated

thought, the vacancy was filled by the words of a song she had heard on

Christmas night. She had stayed up late, lingering long after her husband and

children had gone to bed, reluctant to follow them, because to go to bed early onChristmas Night smacked of defeat, an acceptance that the day had been a failure

of hope and anticipation. Alone in the kitchen she had sat at the table, unable to

articulate to herself the source of her disappointment. But in the cool and stillness

of the night, a song she had never heard before had succinctly and plaintively

called out to her from the radio on the dresser, condensing and reducing all her

needs into one want. ‘All I want is someone else to share this broken dream.’ Now

as she sat upon a half empty bus on a pointless, self absorbed journey, the



opening chords and intercession of the lead singer were being repeated

incessantly inside her head. ‘I’m crawling to you on my knees.’ Desperate for

distraction from the chaotic soundtrack, she picked her handbag up from the

vacant seat beside her and began rooting inside it. At that moment a rasping

phlegm filled cough was loudly despatched from the depths of the back seat, it

was answered in code like bursts of violent nose blowing, by the old man who had

seized Ellen’s vacant seat. The varying sounds of mucus flowed to and fro in a

watery dialogue and together they interrupted the musical mayhem playing in her

head. Slowly Ellen allowed her mind drift to back to the place and the things she

had wanted to retreat from.

Christmas had come and Christmas had gone without a single argument to boost

the sullen atmosphere. Christmas, where did it get its reputation for being a

season of good tidings and cheer? There was a time when she had loved

Christmas, when the atmosphere had been bright and cordial, she just couldn’t

recall such an occasion right now. Any onlooker though would have been hardpressed to know anything untoward was going on. She had attended her

children’s nativity plays and carol concerts and had even been persuaded to take

part in the annual bag packing activity at the local supermarket, something she

had never done even in ‘the good times.’ The chosen charity had been one in aid

of the homeless and she had participated without the slightest sense of irony.

Martin had done little to help. No, she corrected herself that was an exaggeration;

he had done nothing, beyond shuffling from one room to another, switching the

radio on, and the television off, not looking at one or listening to the other. He

exuded an air of barren hope, looking at her or the view beyond the window,anything rather than face something tangible, something concrete that might

save him. Occasionally he had strode purposefully out to the yard and her hopes

had been raised that something of interest had lured him out. Only each time they

were dashed against the rocks of self pity, as she watched him stand stranded,

like a goat mesmerised by thunder, before turning tail and heading back to the

harbour of the house.

There had been a time when his lethargy had acted like a grindstone to her axe,

when overcome with frustration; she had leapt on him metaphorically and once

even physically, bringing him to the ground with the ease of a jaguar hunting agazelle. He had shaken her off with the same indifference he would have shown a

wasp or a butterfly.

There had been no obituary notice concerning the death of the Tiger, Ellen

thought as the bus pulled to a halt alongside a giant hoarding which promised,

‘Phase two, now available’.However the Tiger had almost certainly been buried

with some style, in the manner of an Egyptian Mummy, surrounded with earthly



treasures. Amongst those treasures had been Martin’s business, his self respect

and their integrity.

She found herself being thrown forward as the bus pulled away before jerking to a

halt to allow a gritter to enter the road. The tractor clambered clumsily from a

farm entrance and began its heroic journey scattering salt and grit with

abandonment. Ellen was able to watch its progress with ease, as the bend in theroad followed the curve of the Bandon River. She cast her eyes away and they fell

by chance on a grey heron standing perched on a rock in the middle of the river.

The water glistened in the winter sunlight and the reflection caught the fragile

beauty of the snow covered bushes, glinting and sparkling like a solitary diamond

and in an instant she caught a snapshot of perfect harmony.

As the bus trudged almost full circle around the bend of the river she turned her

head back and caught sight of the heron, now in full flight and for some

inexplicable reason she felt a choking sensation at the back of her throat. With the

flight of the heron she saw an image of Martin as he had been and in a sudden

insight of understanding she saw how he still was. ‘The supremacy of ideas,’ she

whispered to herself. That was at the heart of it. The idea each individual has for

how life is best lived, so dependent on background, culture and experience. For

Martin it was not about greed, but it was most certainly about work, money and

status, the tangible essence that made life possible, bearable and even enjoyable

for him. There was no refuge, no comfort she could offer him because her idea

concerning life and the living of it was centred on someone, not something. She

felt as if she had made a breakthrough and instinctively she glanced around to

see if her startling discovery had gone unnoticed by her fellow passengers. It had,for the commotion going on in Ellen Slattery’s head made no visible impression on

her outward demeanour. Satisfied that she was not attracting attention, she

turned her thoughts back to her recent revelation. Was she what Bull McCabe had

in mind when he damned women to his son with his assertion that ‘it don’t trouble

them if the hay is scarce and the fields bald'? That is how Martin saw it. He saw

her refusal to stare financial ruin in the face as a sign that it didn’t worry her. Her

inability to despair was to him, nothing short of a toxic mix of foolishness and

wishful thinking. There was some truth in the bit about wishful thinking, she could

acknowledge that, but was it foolish to believe that there are times when walking

on water is possible, when you just have to believe that all will be well even

though the odds are impossibly stacked against you? In the good times Martin had

always been the first to rise each day, texting, ringing, planning. Phone clasped to

his ear, rooting through timber and pipes and all the paraphernalia that make up a

builders backyard. The work had poured in like rain into a water butt from the very

day he had branched out on his own. Jobs as far away as Killarney and Cork City

had beckoned as his reputation for workmanship and reliability had spread. The

work piled in until the great pile up, but the tailback of work had been so vast,



that the realisation that a crash had taken place had taken time to filter through.

The living, the buying and the lifestyle had continued to expand long after the

substance it was all built upon had dried up, he was after all a worker, not a

business man. And now there was nothing but debt and more debt and no hope of

repaying it. Banks, solicitors, suppliers and employees surrounded them like

starlings in a nest, grasping and vying with each other for attention.

Martin had voiced no objection to her taking off to Cork for the day. When she had

told him she was going he had merely replied. ‘Fine.’

‘You will look after James and Naomi?’ she had enquired and he had replied.

‘Of course.’

She had then added the further stipulation. ‘Don’t let them go over to the

Kennedy’s.’

‘I will not,’ he had replied.

He had agreed to her every order and she had sighed a silent sigh of relief.

Months previously he would have roared in fury at the suggestion that he needed

instruction on how to look after his children. He knew about things. He also knew

and would have pointed out with vocal though not eloquent clarity, the complete

stupidity of a pointless visit to a city she didn’t have to go to when she had no

money to spend. On and on he would have gone and the discussion would have

culminated in several rounds of personal insults, a slamming door followed by a

sulky silence. That was once.

She flicked her eyes back to the snow lined fields and the silence of the snow

played back to her the reality of the new peace that now reigned between them. If

only he would openly accuse her, she could in turn find the strength to refute him,

but the reality that she was to blame hung as an unacknowledged truth between

them. Ireland had been her idea, where she led he had followed. He was just too

much of a gentleman and too much the man to vocalise it. The cessation of war

was not an omen for good. The death pangs of a relationship she thought are not

necessarily relayed in bouts of anger, disagreement or assertion. Unthinking

agreement was far more deadly, the all too easy option of going along with anidea, opinion or suggestion, because to refute it takes energy, interest and

passion. That was the carbon monoxide that poisoned a relationship, the silent

killer.

In her mind’s eye she caught a snapshot of her silent home where peace had

been obtained through appeasement not reconciliation, and she saw it

disappearing as thoroughly as a tiny boat taking in water on a vast and stormy



sea. Slowly and silently they were drowning and everything of value was being

submerged. Like Pandora she had unleashed a torrent of Spites upon the family

because she had been the instigator, the one who had opened the box of ‘what if’

when it should have remained securely closed.

She no longer felt cold, instead she felt bizarrely hot most especially around her

face and neck. Unthinkingly she raised her hand to pull down the zip of her fleece jacket before realizing that she wasn’t wearing it. She was wearing a heavy

overcoat, one she hadn’t worn for years. She had bought it at the Brown Thomas

sale during her first winter in Ireland. How delighted she had been with her

bargain, the moment she had arrived home she had taken it out of the bag and

had put it on before proceeding to walk up and down the kitchen, parading in

front of Martin like a figure of authority, coat flapping, collar upturned, hands

deeply embedded in the vast pockets. ‘I feel like a character from Anna Karenina,’

she had said half coyly, hoping to elicit a compliment, and he had replied, ‘Yes, I

can believe that, but which one comes to mind, is it Levin or the fat guyOblonsky?’

She had thrown the empty carrier bag at him followed by the wooden coat hanger

and the pair of them had laughed at the stupidity of it all. She wouldn’t be

purchasing anything from Brown Thomas today though and there certainly

wouldn’t be any teasing or bantering either, even if she defied the odds and did.

She caught a picture in her mind’s eye of Martin being driven to distraction by the

sight of a little, flimsy designer bag, hopping from leg to leg, urging her to have

sense, beseeching her to put it away and the thought made her smile. A little bag

managing to do what no one and nothing else had managed to do namely extracta bit of action from him. Instantly she felt a rush of guilt, it was no laughing

matter. If she allowed herself to laugh at him this sojourn into Cork would no

longer be a benign retreat; it would take on all the attributes of a great black

coated rat abandoning ship.

The bus nearing the end of its slow and ponderous journey pulled into Parnell

station and shuddered to a halt. With the engine switched off an aura of subdued

calm was revealed, even the hacker on the back seat who had contributed so

consistently was silent. There was an air of hesitancy when it came to

disembarking from the bus, as if nobody wanted to face either the winter chill northe reason for their visit and the bus was emptied slowly and silently.

Ellen picked up her bag, pulled up her collar and left the bus. Cork was there for

the taking but the urge to stroll and browse had dissipated. She made her way

slowly up to Patrick Street and walked without enthusiasm past the shop windows,

ignoring their alluring offers of ‘Massive Savings.’ Some shops still featured

cheery looking Santa’s with captions enticing children not to forget the reindeers



and others were plastered with recommendations for appropriate Christmas

presents. She shook her head at the absurdity of it all and turned without

thinking, down a side alleyway she had never ventured along before.

On Christmas Day when she had been swamped with a sudden stifling oppression,

the lure of the city had been invincible. It hadn’t even been the despair of seeing

her children disappointed with presents they hadn’t requested of Santa. Why,Naomi had asked, why had he bought her an art box when she had specifically

asked for a pink DS? James hadn’t even queried as to why his request for an iPod

had so obviously fallen on deaf ears. He liked hearing about the Greek myths, but

he sure as hell didn’t really want to read about them. Nevertheless, thanks to

Santa he now had a bumper edition to get through. Ellen could live with this. She

had spent a childhood never getting what she had wanted and she had survived,

as had thousands of others. Sometimes there were things more important than

presents to die for, like bills, food and warmth. Even so, the sight of the Kennedy

children parading their new bikes and iPods on Christmas morning had made theordeal of calling out seasonal greetings to them more difficult than usual. She had

longed to call out an altogether different salutation, but being Christmas morning,

she had resisted the temptation.

The apparent prosperity of his neighbours hadn’t fanned Christian thoughts or

sentiments in Martin either. His children going without, was a slur on his

capability, but the insult hadn’t acted as a catalyst and that is what had driven

Ellen to the brink of despair. It had spurred him on though to make a bitter and

sarcastic joke. Having read the story of Prometheus to his children who had sat

enthralled, both with the drama of the story and the miracle of their fatheractually reading it to them, he had turned to Ellen and said. ‘Poor Prometheus,

just think though, instead of having his liver pecked out, he could have been sent

to Skibbereen’. No, it wasn’t the desire to consume that had bought her to the

city, just the need for reassurance that there was another world beyond the dark

bleakness of the one she currently inhabited.

She had read about Cancer treatments that encouraged visualization of the

disease as a means to defeating it. She had no problem visualizing her particular

predicament. She was drowning; they were drowning, in a mountainous sea of

debt. She could see her head just above the waves, but on Christmas Day herchin had touched the water. They were in an ocean and nobody even knew they

were there. They were just part of the statistics that radio presenters spoke about

glibly, the foreign nationals who had fled to Ireland. But neither she nor Martin

had come for prosperity, they had come initially for a way of living, more gentle,

more kind than the one they were used to and they had been sucked in. The only

thing they had in common with so many of the indigenous population was the

foolish belief that they were clever rather than lucky.



Martin was lucky to have building skills, he was lucky to be in an Ireland that was

on the brink of a boom. They were both lucky to live in an area of outstanding

natural beauty, lucky to live amongst kind hearted neighbourly people when their

own people no longer existed as in Martin’s case, or were estranged as in hers.

But somewhere along the way they had stopped believing in luck and luck had

stopped believing in them. They had misinterpreted the signs. It wasn’t luck that

had brought about their great good fortune. It was no longer a case of ‘how lucky’

but ‘how clever’. How clever to have chosen Ireland, how clever to have arrived at

the right time and how absolutely brilliant it had to been to speculate on the

property market and to build a dream house on the proceeds.

She glanced back up the narrow alleyway she had wandered along, to Patrick

Street and a sense of panic gripped her as she imagined for one foolish split

second a torrent of water rushing down and sweeping her away. She turned

instinctively for shelter and distraction to the nearest shop window and tried to

focus on the goods displayed. It was a jewellers shop, one that was closing down.She stared in and glanced at a tray of rings. There were emeralds, rubies and

sapphires, all glistening and beaming under the strategically placed spotlight. She

turned her head slowly to the other window and immediately her eyes fell upon a

diamond bracelet. The jewels sparkled and danced like snowflakes caught in the

moonlight. She could not tear her eyes away from the scene. Like the girl with the

red shoes who simply had to dance, she had to look, mesmerized by the dazzle of

an inanimate object. The desire to own the bracelet was almost hot in its intensity.

Surely not even Eve had felt like this when contemplating the apple. She bent

down and squinted at the tiny price tag attached to the black velvet cushion upon

which the object of her devotion lounged. It was reduced, down from 18,000 Eurosto a mere 12, 000.

For one brief moment she thought of turning away, but the urge was too strong.

She pushed open the door and stepped into the dimly lit shop. A faint whiff of

stagnant water floated past her nostrils, no doubt a remnant from the recent

floods that had afflicted much of the city. The floorboards creaked under her, as

she made her way to the counter where common sense began to caution her

against taking her mission any further.

A man sat behind the wooden counter, he was either very small or seated on alow stool for just his head and neck was visible. He was reading a newspaper and

it took a moment for him to acknowledge the presence of a customer. He glanced

up and looked over towards Ellen, peering at her from over his silver rimmed

spectacles.

‘Good morning to you,’ he said. ‘It is a cold one.’

‘Yes,’ Ellen agreed. ‘It is very cold, but at least the sun is shining.’ She paused for



a moment, feeling slightly uneasy about sending a stranger on a wild goose

chase.

‘Is it anything particular you are looking for?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ replied Ellen unable so it seemed to stop herself. ‘I would like to look at the

diamond bracelet in the window.’ She hesitated, not knowing enough about jewellery to be more specific about the one she had in mind. She didn’t want to

say ‘the one with the massive reduction,’ such an acknowledgment would flush

her out. ‘It is 12,000 I think.’

‘Oh that one,’ he said. ‘Now that is a very special piece, very intricate and

delicately cut.’

‘Yes, yes, just show it to me,’ she thought impatiently.

‘Would you like to look at it?’ he enquired.

She nodded, hardly trusting her voice.

He folded up his newspaper slowly and deliberately and all the while she grew

more anxious. Eamon Mulvihill made his way to the window, with just the faintest

hint of a smile touching his eyes. The smile didn’t go unnoticed by Ellen; she

flinched slightly as the idea occurred to her that he was having a laugh at her

expense. He opened his jacket and took a bundle of keys from an inside pocket

and proceeded to unlock the display frame. Gently he lifted the bracelet, together

with its velvet box and hesitating only to lock the frame again, he made his way

back to Ellen. He placed the box on the counter top and slowly eased the braceletout.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have a proper look.’

Ellen held out her hand and he placed the bracelet into her palm. Embarrassed by

the slight tremor of her arm, she sought the strength to act normally. Gently she

raised her hand to eye level and with the fingers of her left hand she lifted the

bracelet up. The jewels danced and glinted, dazzling her with their beauty and

intensity, they were reminiscent of the icy particles that had shined and winked at

her from the passing trees and hedgerows that very morning. It was without doubt

the most beautiful thing she had ever held.

‘I know nothing about jewellery,’ she confessed to the shopkeeper.

He nodded and smiled, she wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already

guessed.

‘But this is exquisite,’ she continued. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’



‘It is from a Danish designer’ he informed her ‘He comes from the port town of

Odense and takes his inspiration I am told, from nature. The town celebrated its

first millennium in the 1980’s and to celebrate they cultivated a forest called ‘the

thousand year forest.’

She nodded; the origin and design were of no importance to her. This was just a

moment in time, an affirmation of beauty in the world.

‘What would you take for it?’ she asked.

‘Doesn’t it have a price tag?’ he countered.

‘It does,’ she agreed. ‘But surely you are open to offers.’

‘And what would you offer?’

Again she hesitated. It was a game. She was foolish to have started it but it was in

play and she couldn’t just walk away, well she could, but she...wouldn’t. He'dreject her offer by countering it, she would have to decline and so they would

agree to disagree.

‘5000,’ she said.

‘You’d offer me that for a jewel yourself described as exquisite,’ he replied without

the slightest hint of rancour. ‘Why, only recently I could have accepted an offer of

11,000 for it.’

‘But you didn’t,’ she said.

‘No, because I knew I could get more. But since it is the New Year and I am going

to make a new start, you can meet me half way between eleven and twelve.’

She glanced at the beauty sitting in the middle of her palm. Did he have any

inkling that she couldn’t offer anything?

Eamon Mulvihill, one time publican, raconteur and horse trainer and soon to be ex

jeweller was well aware of the impossibility of the woman in the worn coat making

a realistic offer. It wasn’t her attire that informed him; he had far too much

experience to judge prosperity on appearance. It was her aura of inevitability. She

was in his estimation, reminiscent of a flame that burns brightly only moments

before it is extinguished, or an intricate frost pattern set to fade with the morning

sun, a woman on a precipice. She gazed at the jewel and he gazed at her. She

took one last look and handed the bracelet back to him.

‘It is very beautiful,’ she said, ‘and I am very tempted, but not for 12,000. Thank

you for your time though.’



‘Yes you are tempted, aren’t you?’ he spoke very softly. ‘And I don’t blame you,

look at it, look at the way it glints and glistens why even dew drops on a mountain

ash couldn’t compete with it. Those sparkles reflect the way we should all look;

it’s what we were made to be.’

She smiled at him. At least he wasn’t acting affronted.

‘You sound quite the poet,’ she told him.

‘I’ve had my moments,’ he agreed with a smile.

She turned to go and as she reached for the door, she heard him speak again.

‘Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘Come back here, can you do any better at all?’

She turned and faced him; standing with one hand touching the door, there was

no way she was going back to the counter.

‘No, I’m sorry; I can do no better at all.’

She turned, wanting to run from the farce she had orchestrated, but before she

could open the door, he called out.

‘I will accept five.’

Her heart begin to beat wildly, it was within her reach, but only in the same way

that the moon is closer to the earth than the sun.

She grabbed open the door before he could say another word and having exited

the shop made her way swiftly towards Patrick Street, flustered and unnerved by

her willingness to have indulged so thoroughly in fantasy. He had known she was

a fraud, a foolish woman. Even the time it had taken him to acknowledge her

presence should have told her that. He had probably thought she was a beggar, or

a wandering itinerant wanting directions. She glanced down and unwittingly

caught a glimpse of her worn out shoes. The biggest give away of being on the up

or on the way down and the sight made her cringe, she was like a moving jumble

sale.

Hurriedly she made her way along the pavement, she was going home, she didn’t

want to but she was unravelling in a public place, who knew what she might do

next? Would she try it on with Brown Thomas or pick on some unsuspecting

passer-by and start a rant, a tirade of obscenity against the whole obscene

situation she and countless others were in? The guards would be called and she’d

be taken off, humiliated forever. ‘Ellen’s Unforgettable Day Out in Cork’, that’s

how the psychologist dragged in to treat her would explain the sequence of

events to her colleagues. She stopped for a moment to pull her collar up, not to



keep out the cold but to keep the world away. If she had sunglasses she would

have worn them too for the sheer luxury of seeing without being seen. She made

her way along the increasingly busy pavement until she reached the crib outside

McDonalds where she stopped to catch her breath. She had taken Naomi and

James to see the crib in the local church, but she hadn’t taken them to Christmas

Mass because Martin had been dead set against it. Indulging in the festival was

bad enough, but actually believing in it was beyond the pale. She had attended

Midnight Mass though, slipping out while the children slept, on a mission to find

inspiration and reassurance but both were in short supply. The quietly spoken

parish priest had delivered a sermon wracked with a heartfelt sympathy for the

despair he knew his flock were floundering in. He had not to her disappointment,

sold the false dream Martin had predicted he would and she had wanted to run

from the draughty church and the overdose of reality it was peddling. But at the

last moment, the priest had redeemed his sermon by quoting the words of St

Augustine. ‘You have made us for yourself O Lord and our hearts are restless until

they rest in you.’ 'This is what we were made for', the priest had said, 'it is theonly truth on offer and the only one worth pursuing'. As the words of the reformed

sinner resounded in her head, they took on a familiarity, as if she were hearing

them for the second time that day. They summed up her Idea, the one Martin and

the likes of Bull McCabe thought of as feckless and wishful thinking but which she

knew was ultimately about trust. She turned her head away from the scene. ‘It

isn’t Christmas until Cork displays its crib.’ That’s what her elderly neighbour

Kathleen always declared. But Christmas had come and it had gone and although

she had made a wish when she had glanced up at the first star on Christmas

night, there was no evidence that it was going to come true. She turned again and

looked for a moment on the figures in the crib, so still, so intent and her thoughts

drifted back to her own family, out in the wilds of the country, oblivious to her

foolishness and complete and utter disillusionment. They had overreached

themselves, in every sense of the word. Like Prometheus, they had striven for the

ideals of knowledge and experience, but in the process they had lost any sense of

what she could only call ‘the other’ and they were now imprisoned in a material

world with no way out. It was the sheer inevitability of it all that overwhelmed her;

nothing was going to change, wasn’t that the lure of the small community? And

this, this wandering into Cork; was this what she had been reduced to? A life time

of small gestures, looking for omens and signs that things could be differentprovided you wish hard enough?.

The choice was stark. Pursue the madness that had led her to Cork and dance

closer to the abyss that beckoned just like the Red Shoes that had enticed Karen.

Or. Return home, recognise like Martin already did, that nothing was going to

change, pick up the script and face the reckoning that was coming. If she chose

the former, all responsibility would be lifted from her. She could hand over the



future of her children, her cares and her woes in exchange for the confines of an

asylum or a deep and murky river bed inhabited by life forms unaware of life

beyond the dark.

As she turned her head to go, she saw him, the jeweller. He was standing adjacent

to her, hands in his pocket, a felt hat balancing jauntily on his head, but she

recognised him all the same. She could not face him. She could not let him be thefirst to see her floundering in the grip of the despair she had resisted so

thoroughly, until now. He raised his hand in a gesture of acknowledgement and

she nodded to him before hurrying on her way. Within seconds he was at her side.

‘Hold steady a moment,’ he called.

She turned to face him, with the dread a shoplifter might feel upon being

confronted by a store detective. ‘Please,’ she said raising her right hand to her

chest, for the very act of speaking was difficult, so anxious did she feel. ‘I wasted

your time and I am sorry. I know what with the downturn and everything thatevery sale counts, but, look I have to go.’

‘So do I,’ he replied, ‘but before I do, take this,’ and pulling her tightly clenched

hand gently away from her chest, he placed in it, a smooth, black velvet box.

She tried to withdraw her hand as if in fright, almost dropping the box in the

process.

‘But I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t....’

‘But you can,’ he insisted. And squeezing her hand closed over the box, he tookhis leave.

There was no way he could account for his action, some things he thought wryly

were like some people, instinctive, and they just had to be felt, said or done. He

had had his fair share of doing and being done in the past. Using his own worldly

interpretation, he had followed the guidance of the Good Book with its instruction

to ‘see the stranger and take him in.’ Usually he never missed an opportunity to

take someone in, stranger or friend, but this time he was doing himself and he

had no explanation for it. It was how he lived his life. Sometimes he regretted his

actions, mostly he didn’t.

In seconds he was gone from Ellen’s view. She stood rooted to the spot, her heart

beating wildly as she half expected him to re-appear from nowhere and snatch the

box back, declaring it was all a joke. But he didn’t come back. She looked carefully

at the elegant square box and slowly lifted up the lid. There it sat in splendid

isolation, twinkling and beaming at her as brilliantly as it had done in the confines

of the tiny, dimly lit shop.



‘Those sparkles reflect the way we should all look; it’s what we were made to be.’

The words of the jeweller repeated themselves softly in her ears. She lifted her

right hand and with the back of it, she wiped away the solitary tear that had

begun its journey in despair. He was right.

How beautiful, how wonderful, how supremely and utterly lucky and unpredictable

life could be. With the bracelet held tightly in her hand, Ellen Slattery took onestep backwards from the brink and an enormous stride forward.

THE END

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Greek Myths and Home Truths