Orla

And there’s the wind now, coming like a lazy blow to the cheek, with a crooked aim, and the metal chatters and the ropes flutter, as she wakes to the breeze, unafraid.                                                         No voyage is written.  Forget your eyes.  Listen.  Listen good for pathways. There are no signs in this world, only keys in whispers. The ice has secrets but no wish
to keep them.                                                                                      The end is not easy.  Beginnings neither.  So why would the in-between....?                                                                                                                                                  She’s buckling now with the excitement.  She’s ready to
crash those rolling doors. 
The cool drip starts, and the body flexes.                       It’s only the beginning.  Soon, she will meet that immeasurable fury and tame it, and end the never ending.                                              No not an end.  Never an end.  Are there ends to the earth?                                            Perhaps.              Let’s find where the end starts – let’s get there first and mark it when we see it.  Let’s see it unafraid.                                                                                                                              Now she is awake.  Now she is ready. She has heard whispers in the ice before.

It was three in the pm.  A standard nameless rain was falling.  Fergal Littlewood was tightening the life buoy fittings on deck when his thoughts turned to her and the pig farmer jumpers she liked to wear.  Parading the streets in those jumpers, she looked like a trade union leader on her way to bring the company down, her flossy trail of long brown tresses blowing, and those big green eyes.  Orla.  He wondered where she was and what she was up to.  He thought of her usually in the afternoons.  At those times when he knew she was not with the Garda.  If he thought about where she was and what she was doing in the mornings and the evenings, then the Garda might appear in the picture too, and that was not something he wanted to think about.  Her and the Garda holding hands; waking up together; eating breakfasts; dinners; things like that.  No, he didn’t want to think about that.  But in the afternoons, he could think about where she was, and what she was doing, and be confident the Garda was off doing Garda business at that time; so the picture would just be of her.  And in that picture he could see her doing all kinds of things.  Like baking bread in the kitchen (he’d heard she was good at that); or fingering her hair while reading a book in the garden; hanging out the clothes to dry; things he never got to see her do, but which he could see her doing clearly in his mind.

At the foot of the boat he saw Father Masterson, standing by himself, staring out to sea, and snoring.  Was he sleepwalking?  Sleepstanding?  As Littlewood got closer, he realised there was no cause for worry.  He was not in fact snoring.  It just seemed to be how the man breathed.  Some people breathe more heavily than others; some more noisily than others.  Masterson’s breaths contained a snort-pop-unng-poooo like one usually heard from a person in the slumber bracelet.

‘Hello, Father.  You didn’t go for some dinner?’

‘No, I held back,’ replied Masterson.  ‘I’ll have a sandwich later.’

‘Suit yourself, but trust me, you’ll be regretting not having a decent dinner when we’re out there.’

‘I’ll be fine and dandy.’  Father Masterson turned to face Littlewood then and asked: ‘So how do you see us faring out there, Cap’n?’

‘Well – we’ll get to where we are going, for sure.  You can bet on that.  Any which way, we’ll find a way.’

‘That’s somewhat vague.  I thought ship captains were meant to be a bit more candid and plain-speaking.’

‘We come in all shapes and sizes.  Just like the vessels we steer.’

‘And this one.  It’s a good boat, you think?’

‘Dolores?  Ah, Father.  Come here till I tell you a wee secret.  Dolores – she’s my one true love in this world.’