Conference tallis::celt

65.0. "A SACRED PLACE" by NMGV08::FITZGERALD (Maurice FitzGerald @JGO) Mon Aug 18 1986 04:04

                         A SACRED PLACE
                                               Copyright M. FitzGerald 1986

         Five mongrel dogs of  various  colours  and  sizes  followed  each
         other, nose to tail, in a line that led obliquely across the waste
         land.  They broke ranks briefly as they reached the dying fire and
         snuffled about among the rags, the bits of paper,  the  scraps  of
         bread  and  stale cake. A signal no human ear could hear drew them
         back into line in the same order, led by a small bitch with  bowed
         stumps for legs.

         The  dogs  were  ignored  by  the  young  boys  playing around the
         wheelless shell of a burnt-out Toyota. The  boys  were  about  six
         years  old  and most of them bore a remarkable resemblance to each
         other.  Their  dark,  straight  hair  was  close-cropped  in   the
         old-fashioned  pudding  bowl  style. They were a good looking lot,
         with high foreheads and large hazel eyes. Some  had  runny  noses,
         and  one  or two had hacking coughs. The reds, greens and blues of
         their pullovers were turning to a uniform grey in the fading light
         of the mild Winter's night. A few of the boys were very different:
         carroty locks  tumbled  down  around  their  ears  and  foreheads,
         emphasising  the green of their eyes. They were taller and thinner
         than their black-haired second cousins.

         The door of one of the nearby caravans opened. A tall,  statuesque
         woman stood framed by it, silhouetted by the glow from an oil lamp
         set  on  a table inside. She called to the children while removing
         large rollers from her hair, allowing it to fall,  jet  black,  to
         her shoulders, not quite concealing huge hoops of golden earrings.
         She was wearing a crimson polo-neck jumper and a black skirt.

         Inside it was warm and bright. The glint of copper jugs caught the
         eye  at  one  end, where an old woman sat with a small girl on her
         lap. The grandmother dragged on a cigarette and, putting  it  down
         carefully on the edge of a plate, she started brushing the child's
         hair.  She  spoke to the girl in a deep, hoarse voice, interrupted
         by bouts of coughing. When she coughed  tears  streamed  from  her
         sunken eyes onto the furrowed skin of her cheeks.

         A  girl of eleven wiped the last of a pile of dishes and threw the
         greasy, grey water out the door. She sat at the table  beside  her
         granny  and  started  to  do her homework, while the younger girl,
         hair shining, climbed into the large bed at the other end  of  the
         caravan.  Two small babies were there before her, sound asleep and
         rosy-cheeked. The dark-haired boy who  had  just  come  in  to  be
         scrubbed and cleaned, would shortly join them in the same bed.

         Their mother put on a grey fake-fur coat over her jumper and skirt
         and  left  for  a  meeting  in  the  next caravan. Five women were
         already there  when  she  arrived  and  the  air  was  thick  with
         cigarette  smoke.  Paraffin  oil  fumes and perfume mixed with the
         smoke to produce a peculiar, sickly smell. Maggie was holding  the
         meeting in her place because all of her children were grown-up and
         working  in  Scotland  and  there  was  both room and peace in the
         caravan.

         The women were gathering to decide what should be done  about  the
         order  they  had been given to move off the campsite by the end of
         the week. Two young couples had left yesterday and  already  their
         sites  has  been covered by enormous boulders. The women had tried
         to persuade the young people to stay but,  like  most  itinerants,
         superstitious and also fearful of authority, they had not dared to
         stay. They left because the two wives were pregnant and they badly
         wanted  these  particular  babies. Though only eighteen years old,
         Bridget had  already  suffered  two  miscarriages,  one  at  three
         months,  and  the second one, tragically after an accident, at six
         months. Annie at twenty eight was pregnant for the first time. She
         and her husband had been the butt of many jokes and snide comments
         over the past twelve years. To be barren is a  dreaded  affliction
         among  Travelling  People.  Annie  had  to  carry her pregnancy in
         safety to full-term.

         The group of women at the meeting were at a loss to know  what  to
         do.  All of the families had been camped there for years, some for
         more than twenty years, in fact. They were used to it and  it  was
         convenient,  being  close  to  buses, schools and the shops. True,
         they would like piped water and toilet facilities  and  a  Council
         skip for their rubbish. They were sick asking for all of these but
         the  local  residents always objected to anything that would smack
         of permanence or would give the place an official recognition.

         The recent trouble had started because a decision had  been  taken
         to  build a Third-level college of Technology on the ten acre site
         behind and beside the Travellers. Work had been in progress for  a
         month.  Pipes  for  sewage  and  water had been laid down and some
         construction had commenced.

         Things had begun to go  seriously  wrong  when  the  builders  had
         started  preparing  the  site  for  a church that was to be on the
         college campus but was also intended for the  local  community.  A
         priest had called to the doors of the caravans. They were breaking
         the  law  by  camping here, he had pointed out; they would have to
         move away. The itinerants took no notice because  they  had  heard
         this many times over the years, though never before from a priest,
         and  nothing had ever happened to them. The priest was followed by
         a policeman who issued the usual threats  of  prosecutions,  court
         appearances  and heavy fines. It was obvious that his heart wasn't
         in it, though, because there  were  no  legal  parking  sites  for
         Travellers in the town.

         Then  an  angry  deputation of women had come over from the nearby
         houses. "You must get out," they shouted. "Now we have the  chance
         of  raising  the tone of this area with the College and the Church
         and all. We can't have you spoiling  it  on  us."  The  travellers
         asked where they could go, how their children would get to school.
         "That's  not  for  us  to say. Go back to wherever you came from."
         Annie said she was born right here. This had always been her home.
         Where were the housed women born, she wanted to know. The  housing
         estate was there only eleven years.

         The  women  went  back  to their houses. One of them was in tears,
         feeling guilty and full of remorse. She had always given water  to
         the  women  in the caravans and now her husband had ordered her to
         stop doing this, even though her heart bled for the tinker  women.
         Two  hours  later men from the houses approached the site. By then
         the husbands and older sons of the itinerant women were home  too,
         the  pubs  having  closed.  Angry threats were exchanged and a few
         punches thrown but when a huge itinerant  man,  Maggie's  husband,
         picked  up  a  car  jack and started waving it about, the visitors
         departed, muttering curses and shaking fists.

         All was quiet until two days later, when the event that had driven
         Bridget and Annie away took place.  At  eleven  o'  clock  in  the
         morning  Bridget  heard a knock on the door of her caravan. Annie,
         in the next caravan, had her door open to let in the fresh morning
         breezes and she heard Bridget's greeting- "Good  mornin'  Father."
         She  could  not  resist  the temptation to go outside when she saw
         that it was the same priest back again,  and  she  was  glad  when
         Bridget invited them both into the caravan.

         Inside,  white  dishes  gleamed on a wooden stand covered by a red
         and white check cloth. Ornamental plates, with inlaid  photographs
         of  Bridget  and her husband on their wedding day, stood on a tiny
         table near the window. A copper vase held artificial flowers, red,
         yellow and pink. The bed was  covered  by  a  patchwork  quilt,  a
         wedding gift from their cousins in Galway.

         "I see you haven't left yet" said the priest. "Shur where would we
         go  Father?"  asked  Bridget. "Every place is illegal." Instead of
         answering, the priest looked around the caravan. One didn't really
         pay too much attention to these people when one drove by daily, as
         he had done for the last three years. Of course one felt sorry for
         them as well as having twinges of conscience about their  homeless
         state. They always seemed alright, though, and much tougher in the
         face  of  wind  and  weather than people from a settled background
         would be if they had to live like this. He often thought how  true
         it  is  that  God  fits  the back to bear the burden. This was the
         first time he had actually come inside one of the caravans and  he
         was amazed at how neat and cleaned it looked. He was relieved that
         there  was  no  real  sign of poverty nor were any sickly children
         about. That always made him uneasy.  Indeed  it  was  because  the
         children  often had some sort of skin rashes or sores, that he had
         avoided the encampment in his last parish. Looking at  the  rashes
         made  him  feel  itchy  all over, especially when their faces were
         painted with that hideous purple lotion. "You know the  church  is
         being built out there across the field."

         "We  know  that,  Father.  'Twill  be  great  havin'  it  so near,
         'specially in the winter." "Well, I'm afraid I have to  disappoint
         you  there.  In  fact  I  have come today to order you to leave. A
         church is a sacred place, the house of God.  It  must  be  treated
         with  respect.  You  must not stay so close to consecrated ground.
         You will never have any luck if you don't leave now."

         As he spoke he looked straight at Annie, his eyes seeming to  bore
         their  way  inside  her body. The infant in her womb moved and she
         shivered and grew pale.

         In the afternoon the two women and their young husbands set out on
         the long road to Galway, where they would stay with their  cousins
         until their babies were born.

         The  other  families  were determined to stay, come what might and
         the meeting was really an opportunity to talk it all over  and  to
         give  each  other  the  courage to hold out against all pressures.
         They just hoped no one would weaken.



         That was two years ago. Today students hurry to and fro across the
         new campus. Staff arrive in their cars and  on  special  occasions
         the  Bishop  says  Mass in the church. Once a year the students go
         crazy:  they  put  on  fancy  dress   and   make-up;   they   ride
         penny-farthing  bicycles  and  throw  raw  eggs  and flour at each
         other; two of them carry a third on a stretcher from pub  to  pub.
         People  complain  about  the  mess  and the noise but thousands of
         pounds are collected in the town and some of the money is given to
         the itinerants, who are still at the same site.

         No traveller has ever plucked up courage to walk across the campus
         to Mass. "We'd be ashamed" they say. Annie  and  Bridget's  babies
         are  thriving  but  they  were  not baptised in the nearby church.
         "We'd be too afraid  and  embarrassed  before  all  them  educated
         people."

    Well done Maurice!  If you are not aware of it, there is a conference
    on writing:  MLOKAI::PROSE.  Use the SELECT key.
    
    
    			/Dermot