The Hill in the Pale

Emer made corned beef sandwiches.  Fantastic.  I said it at the top of my voice three times just to let her know how much I appreciated it.  Fantastic  Fantastic  Fantastic.  Loved corned beef sandwiches.  We'd just come back from our honeymoon in Italy, which had been an awful headache for both of us (delayed flights, hotel hiccups, pickpockets etc. all kinds of shit went wrong, it was hard to be blind or deaf to it all), and now here we were setting off on the second honeymoon. 

Where to, you might ask? 

Cuchullain's Castle, you might get as an answer.  Though you'd be one of the few to get an answer.  The whole town of Dundalk, every last one of them, blew up in loud heaving wet laughter whenever we told them about our second honeymoon, so we never told them.  It was our little secret.  The castle was a fun and peaceful place in our shared memory, so we decided to go there early one morning and hang out together before life got serious and we would never do things like that again.

Cuchullain's Castle (as it was known for us locals) was built in the 12th Century (maybe) by some guy back then called Norman who did that sort of thing.  The 'castle' lay on top of a motte which provided much wonder and guesswork for us when we were kids.  What was under the castle?  What secrets?  One story told us that Bas-Mall, the giant serpent, descendent of the last dragons of the west, had fled to Castletown and hid within the mound at the time old St. Patrick was indulging in his great saintly snake purge.  Parents used to tell us Bas-Mall had remained there coiled around the motte for centuries.  In the summer, you could hear the snake sssss-ing at you if you told a lie to your friends.  The parents used Bas-Mall as a moral instrument like Santa.  Smart bastards.  Another story involved orgies and devilry in the 13th Century.  Compared to England, Ireland wasn't that well-known for its witchcraft.  That's because it all happened under Cuchullain's Castle away from public knowledge and chit-chat.  If you wanted a ritual slaying or a red hot weekend with the lord of darkness, Cuchullain's Castle was the place to be.

The first time Emer and I went together was in our fifth year of school and a bunch of us went up there one evening to drink and smoke.  The castle had been used for this purpose by many youngsters in the past. Cuchullain's Castle was as good a place as any for the town's willfully misdirected to joyfully misbehave.  Emer and I hadn't hooked up properly yet, but it was on the cards already.  Favourable words had passed between mutual friends, and it had all been set up.  When I was drunk enough, I approached Emer who was sitting with the other girls on the grass at the front of the motte.  She must have been waiting for me to come to her all night because she shot up immediately as soon as I said, 'Hey Emer', with grand coyness, and she took me by the hand and led me down the winding pathway below the mound into a private leafy area she'd seemingly scouted beforehand.  We didn't talk.  Just smiled and then kissed below the chiming crystal stars as above us on the hill the boys shouted our names and added musical sex noises to the twilight orchestra.

We won against the sun in getting to the day and shared our adventure with a tired moon.  Everything in the world except us seemed really mellow and disengaged at that moment.  A drowsy road-sweeping vehicle slowly passed us on the Castletown Road and we scoffed at the curious look the driver gave, us rambling along with our backpacks and giddy abandon.

            'The people think we're mad,' said Emer.

            'We are,' I laughed.

By the time we got there, the sun had begun to climb, and the boreal stickiness of the morning was made clearer in the frosted heath and sparkling white gravel that led us up to the mound.  As we came into the frontage, we noticed two pheasants pottering about in the woodland to our left; they saw us, panicked, and scrambled up a hill, partly using the wing, partly by foot.

We sat under the castle looking out at the white fields as the mist rolled over them gently, and the sun yawned through the trees.  Corned beef sandwiches for breakfast.  Lovely.

'Your father could write a nice poem about this,' I said.

'He probably could.'

As I was finishing the last corned beef sandwich off (it was really delicious, I can still taste it now, that's why I'm going on and on and on about it), Emer thought she saw a ghost in the trees.

'I swear, I think it was him,' she said.  'Archie Given.'

'Why do you think that?'

'He was standing there on that branch.  He was waving at me.'

'But nobody knows what tree it happened on.  They kept all that hidden, didn't they?'

'I swear, I think it was him.'

Archie Given was a student who came up here one Tuesday afternoon in 1983 and hung himself dead in the trees.  He was supposed to be doing his Leaving Certificate Irish exam that day.  Nobody knows why he did it.  He didn't leave a note.

'Would you hang yourself for me?' Emer asked.

'What?  Are you joking?  What sort of a question is that at all?'

'Would you stick your neck out for me?  I mean, go the whole ninety-nine yards and over?'

'Come on, Emer.  This is supposed to be a romantic moment.  Our second honeymoon remember?'  

'What's more romantic than laying down your life for love?'

'But that poor young chap died out here somewhere,' I protested.  'We shouldn't be talking about this.  It's not right.'

'Why do you think he did it?' she asked.

'I really don't know,' I said finally.

There was a rumble in the ground below us, perhaps Bas-Mall waking, a shudder of life from deep within the earth and all its beguiling esoteric history.  

Emer put her arms around me and we enjoyed each other's warmth on the hill in the pale at the dawn of our marriage.