For Davey
It was Sheeran’s pub on the road to Lochbawn in the County of Clare. And the year was nineteen hundred and fifty three.
The ceilidh was in full swing, and all the young men and lassies of the parish were up, feet pounding on the boards. The vibrations shook the old timber-framed house. The music of the fiddle and accordion, and the yells of encouragement cut through the fug of pipe smoke in the air.
I was just a lad then, gathering glasses for Con Sheeran in the taproom. I am an ancient now. Dribbling on the threshold between this world and the next. And that time seems dim and distant to me, as the surface of the Moon. But the tale I heard that night is a thing I never forgot.
As the dancers set-to again, a voice cut through the din:
“Who is that dancing, and why are they tapping their toes?”
I turned and saw the stranger in the corner. He was old and frail, in a ragged coat. His skin was red and pocked with sores, as though stricken by some Biblical plague. No-one was sitting anywhere near him. An ominous figure. But what struck me most about him was his tinted spectacles. At that time there was only one reason why you’d see a pair of glasses like that on a human being, in Co Clare anyway.
I approached him and said loudly, “Sir, are you in need of assistance?”
He turned his head at the sound of my voice.
“You have no need to be shouting. I’m not deaf.”
“Your pardon, sir.”
“Who is this that’s speaking to me?”
“My name is James, sir. Jimmy, you can call me. I work in the bar here.”
The stranger produced a stick, and indicated the table before him. On it sat a glass of whiskey and a pot of porter, half-full.
“I believe,” he said, “that I am content for the time being. When I am in need of replenishment I will call on you.” He jerked his head toward the parlour. “I was merely enquiring as to the source of that din.”
“That is the ceilidh, sir. We have it here of a Friday. Every week, in the summer. It draws them from far and wide.”
The blind man nodded. A strange, dreamy expression had settled on his ravaged face. “I was a bit of a dancer, myself, as a young man. When I’d sight of the world.”
I was moved then by an odd curiosity. As a rule I did not ask questions of the patrons, but something about this ruined pilgrim intrigued me.
“Sir, might I ask you a question?”
“You might.”
“Well…” I leaned closer, and raised my voice above the din: “… if you don’t mind my asking, how did you come to lose your sight?”
“I don’t mind telling you,” he said complacently, “as it is the only story I have to tell. In my youth I was a mountaineer.”
I sat on the bench beside him.
“Did you say, a mountaineer…?”
“A fellow climbs mountains,” he elaborated. “That was me. I was part of an expedition to the Pyrenees. Nine of us, there was. The party was led by an Englishman, not a bad fellow for all that. We were well-equipped and experienced. And we set out, as one always does, with high hopes. Climbing a mountain is much like life: you set out in the morning with your heart all light and free. And when the rocks get loose underfoot, you tell yourself: that is just the nature of things. And you keep on, not knowing what it is you’re going into.” He sipped his whiskey, and continued. “We’d set out to scale the north face of a great, unconquered peak. At first all was well. We sang, so we did. Valderee, valderaa. And then, about halfway up, we ran into a storm.”
As he spoke, it was as though the air in the taproom grew cold and still.
“It came out of nowhere. Out of a clear blue sky, as the saying goes. It was a test, or a judgement.” He swilled some porter and slowly shook his head. “By Jesus didn’t it come on swift! It decked the mountain in cloud, ’til we could see nothing, not even each other. We were bound together by a rope, and we could hear each other shouting, but that was all. We managed to get to a ledge, and got stuck there. And that was when the rain, it turned to ice.”
I shivered. I could no longer hear the dancing.
“Hail, my boy, like you’ve never seen. God’s own wrath. It flayed the skin from your bones. I was blinded by it. And the others were killed, one by one.”
“Killed…?”
“Aye. I managed to crawl under an overhang, blind and bleeding as I was. And I could hear them, out there in the chaos. I heard their screams. I stayed in my shelter, and when I heard them roaring I did not move to help them. I knew if I tried I’d be lost too. So I stayed where I was, for my own preservation.”
“But… what happened?”
“The screams grew fainter, until there was nothing but the wind. That was when I knew I was alone. And after a while, the storm passed.” He made an odd gesture, half a shrug. “I was blind, and bleeding, and frozen. Running a high fever. I knew I’d die up there, nothing surer. And when the storm passed, a great peace descended on the mountain. A silence, like I’d never known. Like all Creation was a funeral for my friends. I huddled under the rock, and tried to make my peace. And then, from out the silence, came a sound.”
My throat had gone quite dry. “What… what was it?”
“Footsteps, lad. The footsteps of God. He walks on the mountains, you see. And the steps He takes are from peak to peak. Being God, He does not concern Himself with the valleys. From peak to peak He goes. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” He tapped his stick on the floor in time. “And didn’t I get up, sick and blind and more than halfway-dead, and follow the sound of His footsteps. And in doing so I got down the mountain. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I followed the sound and I got back down to the bottom of the mountain and I fell into a gully. I passed out, then. Some peasants came upon me, and brought me to their village. And that was how I survived it all.”
“A miracle?”
“No miracles!” he growled. “There are only places where there is His will, and places in shadow where His will is not. That is all.”
He stopped talking and the sounds of stamping feet and music filled the air again. The world he’d brought me to receded and disappeared, like clouds passed over. I was in the tap room of Sheeran’s again. And I was speechless.
The blind man said, “I like to listen to the footsteps. Wherever I go, I follow that sound. But it is not the same, and never will be. I will never hear those steps again, not until the day after I die.”
He finished his drink and got up, leaning on the stick. He put a gnarled hand on my head, as though in benediction. “Remember,” he grunted. “Dance and drink and fillies is all very fine. But there are profounder things. And if you’re worthy, they will save you.”
He hobbled off into the night, and no doubt you can guess the rest. He went in pursuit of that sound that had been his salvation. And I never did lay eyes on him again.
InkSplinters 