The Little Hill of Women

 

I wasn’t prepared for the sheer beauty of Omey Island.  The extraordinary quality of light, the shifting patterns of currents in the water and the clouds in the sky, the poles marking the causeway.  The calm sea was almost imperceptibly advancing, swallowing up the ripples in the sand, inch by inch.

Before parking in the small car park at the slipway, I’d gone into Sweeney’s, the pub cum village shop.  When I asked about Patti, the shopkeeper told me that she had been buried three months ago.  I had known I would be too late.

‘She never married,’ the woman said.  ‘Too busy painting.’  She pointed at some postcards.  I bought water and a sandwich and set off.  The causeway would be open for another two hours.

 It was brightening up, the wind blowing holes in the clouds.  A funeral procession was gathering to walk over to the graveyard.  Here, even funerals here were subject to the tide. Crossing the causeway to the island and walking up the slip road felt odd.  The familiar smell, salty and tangy, jiggled my brain.  My feet knew the road better than my brain; on the top of the small hill the wind grabbed me and then I remembered.

 

The first time I went across to the island I couldn’t wait for the tide to go out; I waded across, sandals in my hand and trousers rolled up.  When I came up the slipway, I heard a muffled sound.  Then something wet and slimy landed in my neck.

‘Yuck.’ I fished a clump of damp seaweed from my collar.  I heard a whoop, and then got hit again, this time in the face.  I saw someone jumping off a wall, running.

‘Wait a minute!’ I gave chase, managed to catch up and soon was able to wrap my arms around the ankles of my attacker. We came down with a heavy thud. 

‘Ouch!’

I let go of the ankles.  My mouth fell open. 

‘Catching flies or something?’  I closed my mouth.  The girl stood up and brushed the sand off her clothes.  She was my age, about thirteen years old and tall, just as tall as I was.  She had dark hair; grey-blue eyes and was wearing blue shorts and a blue shirt.

 ‘What are you looking at?’ 

‘I’ve never seen a girl wearing shorts.  Are you allowed to wear shorts?’

A mischievous smile crept over her face.

‘My mum knows better than to force me into a dress.  By the way, you’re not a bad runner!  Do you play?’

I admitted to playing in the school football team.  Thinking it was the mature thing to do, I extended my hand.  She shook it briefly.

‘I am Tomas. I live in Dublin. We are on holiday here. ’ 

‘I am Patti.  Actually, it is Patricia, but if you call me that I’ll thump the living daylights out of you.  I live here, right in that house.’ She indicated a white-washed cottage near the road. 

‘Would you like me to show you around?’

 

That holiday, I learned to read the tides; I was the first to arrive when the beach was clear, the last to leave, cutting it fine and running just ahead of the incoming tide.  My parents let me run wild; never in my life had I had so much freedom.  Patti and I shared my picnic lunch and my bottle of lemonade; we ate apples that she nicked from her mother’s kitchen.  She taught me how to listen to the gulls to predict the weather, how to read the currents in the water to know where to fish.  She taught me the cloud patterns and I was mesmerized by the shifting light on the dunes.  All summer, she was drawing: the sea, the hills, the seagulls and the cows which were roaming free.  She drew the light on the rocks and the clouds reflected in the sea.  Once, she drew me, lying in the sand.  It did and did not look like me.  I still have it, in a frame.

I told Patti about Dublin, about the lights in the night reflecting in the Liffey.  She had never been further than Clifden, let alone abroad.  Days stretched into weeks.

 

One morning Patti was waiting for me.

‘I thought you’d come,’ she said.  ‘I’ll show you something.’

It was a dull day; the island was shrouded in mist.  We clambered up a low hill.  I could not get my bearings; the swirling fog changed everything, the light and the sounds.  The waves sounded muffled; coming from different directions. 

‘This is the Little Hill of Women,’ said Patti.  ‘Look!’

She picked up something and gave it to me.  I brushed off the sand; it was a bone. 

‘That is a knee bone,’ said Patti, ‘from a woman.’  I nearly dropped it. Patti laughed at me. 

‘Don’t worry, it is safe enough, they’re not after you.’  She pointed at the ground.  I could see that the ground was littered with bones, large ones, small ones, fragments and complete bones.  The ceaseless winds shifted the sands and the bones were covered and uncovered all the time.

‘This is the Little Hill of Women,’ Patti repeated, now serious.  ‘For thousands of years the fairies have buried their own here.  Listen, you can even hear them; their stories and their cries.’  I listened.  It could have been the wind, but would have sworn I heard women whispering and keening. A chill ran down my back.

‘Last one down is an eejit!’ I shouted.  Breaking the spell, I ran down and was glad when we crossed the causeway and bought ourselves a rare treat of an ice cream at Sweeney’s.  We never spoke of the Hill again and I never asked her why she took me up there.

 

The last day of my holiday Patti was unusually silent; it suited me for I did not feel like talking either.  Side by side we lay in the sun, looking at the white fluffy clouds.

‘Will you come back and take me away from here?’

I was taken aback by Patti’s question.

‘I’d like to see the world.  Granny has been in Dublin, but she got homesick and came back within days.  Mum’s never been farther away than Galway.’

‘Why not?’  I tried to imagine life on a small, tidal island.

‘We can’t really leave Omey Island.  No-one in the family ever has.  It’s like a curse.’

‘I may come back next year,’ I said.

‘That is not what I mean.  I mean, will you come back for me when we are grown up?  I will only be able to leave when my true love shows up to take me away.’

‘Surely that is only in fairy tales?’  I looked at Patti.  She wasn’t joking.

‘Only if you promise never to take any more pot-shots at me.’

‘Huh- who’s talking?  You’re just jealous because you are pretty lousy with the sling.’

I lay back again, closing my eyes against the sun and feeling awkward. 

Then, in a different universe, I felt Patti’s lips touch mine.  She kissed me; the first kiss I’d ever had in my life.  Her kiss was as light as her breath against my skin.  She smelled of salt and sun, and something I could not put in words.  In the distance I heard the pounding of the waves. I heard whispers near us and felt that we were not alone. 

After what seemed an eternity, I opened my eyes.  Patti’s eyes mirrored the sea, flecks of sunlight dancing on the surface.

‘I will always be here.  You’ll come and get me,’ said Patti.  It wasn’t a question.

 

The island had not changed much in sixty years, although most of the houses were now second homes.  After Patti’s death there were no permanent inhabitants any more, the shopkeeper had told me.  To me it did not feel as if Omey was an uninhabited island.  I sat on the Little Hill with my picnic, listening to the wind carrying stories and soft cries.  The sun was playing catch with the gulls.  Once or twice I saw a flash of blue in the corners of my eyes.  Something stroked my cheek and touched my hand.  I wasn’t frightened. 

I waited till the mourners were walking back to the village before I searched for Patti’s grave.  There was no permanent headstone as yet but I found it easily.

‘Patricia O’Connor; born 10 April 1955, died 17 June 2018.  R.I.P.’, the simple wooden cross said.  The grave was still fresh.

‘Patti, here I am, finally.  It’s me, Tomas.  I’m sorry I could not come earlier.  I never forgot you.’ There was no answer. 

‘I didn’t even know your full name.’

A gull screeched.

I smoothed the earth on her grave and tidied up the plants.  I knew I was being watched, but it didn’t bother me.  Soon I had to go; the tide would cut off the island.  I scooped a few grains of soil from her grave. 

‘Goodbye, Patti.’

I heard the waves answer and the dry grass reply.  I felt a little shiver in the hill, and heard the gulls’ cries.  With only moments to spare before the waters met, I walked back to the village.  I didn’t need to look back to know that there was a pair of footsteps following close behind me, disappearing when the tide washed over them.