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  But many had heard her music.

  On a dead calm summer night, where a whisper on one bank could be heard so clearly on the other that the listener seemed to feel the breath of the speaker on his ear, on such a night, sweet music spread widely on the air. Fingers moved lightly, softly, across the harp strings as though her touch was no more than a gentle breath, her caresses encouraging the musical secrets out of the instrument; while, west of the house, under a bright moon, men working long hours in the bog of Tuaime, swinging their wide-handled scraw-cutters and hacking away at the twisted heather or slipping their slanes into the soft damp turf, hesitated deeply in their work, entranced and even paralyzed by the music.

  “The sound of the Welcome,” one sighed.

  And with the sun high in the sky, and sitting always with her back to the window, she played and gazed into a mirror, a mirror positioned to catch an image of the opposite bank. Here she spent her daylight hours, playing and watching, never gazing directly on passers-by. For eighteen summers, this woman’s life had ebbed and flowed with the ebb and flow of the river, a life nailed down in this cottage as surely as the hammer had nailed down the coffin lid on her family.

  Two young lovers were gliding along, standing on a floating skip, the sunlight highlighting wholesome, handsome faces. Ailish O’Carolan ceased her playing and reached out to them, but instead of stroking the warm familiar flesh of her memory, her hand touched only the cold glass of the mirror.

  A haunting sigh escaped the body of the harp.

  “Why has God abandoned me in the land of shadow?”

  *

  The sun bounced off the mirror, and Ailish narrowed her eyes against the blinding glare. She left the harp alone to listen to the attractive sound of a musical troupe dancing by opposite. She heard the tapping on the bodhran, the clicking of the bones, the harsh chirping of the whistle, the joyful scratching of the fiddle, the bellowing of the pipes, the wheezing of the concertina and the deep fluttering of the flute. A male voice burst into the Girl I Left Behind Me.

  All the dames of France are fond and free

  And Flemish lips are really willing

  Very soft the maids of Italy

  And Spanish eyes are so thrilling

  Her skin spread with goose pimples. Vivid fragments of memory flashed into her mind.

  Above the notes of the players, she heard the male voice sing with a honeyed tone, a voice in control of breathing, rhythm, timing; a voice touching every note with ease bringing it to a smooth musical pitch.

  A whisper escaped her, “Father?”

  The singing fell away.

  She sprang to her feet. For the first time in eighteen years, without thinking of the consequences, and with her heart roaring in her ears, she stuck her head straight through the open window to gaze upon a full summer day without seeing it only in the reflection of a mirror. She saw the troupe dancing away, their backs to her. Which one was the singer? She gazed until they faded into shadow and dust on the well-trodden track.

  Growing aware of her exposure, she shrank back into the cottage. She dropped on her seat, her back to the world again.

  In a while, she asked the four walls, “Had I fallen asleep and dreamt the voice? Or is it that the voice is trying to awaken me from a dream?”

  *

  One day, the song of youthful laughter jumped in through the window, shaking off her reflective mood and stoking up her curiosity. Out of the chorus of laughter, a single voice broke into song.

  Still, although I bask beneath their smile,

  Their charms will fail to bind me

  And my heart falls back to Erin’s isle

  To the girl I left behind me.

  She stood up, her breath hurrying. Once more! As she knew the sound of the harp, she knew that lilting voice. For only the second time in eighteen years, Ailish O’Carolan gazed straight out her window into the full light of day.

  The voice moved onto the Last Rose of Summer.

  ‘Tis the last rose of summer,

  Left blooming alone;

  All her lovely companions

  Are faded and gone;

  Tears rolled down her ragged cheeks and into her mouth, leaving a bitter taste. She wiped at her eyes, desperate to fix her focus on the musical troupe.

  No flower of her kindred,

  No rosebud is nigh,

  To reflect back her blushes,

  Or give sigh for sigh.

  Yet this voice from eighteen years ago had overpowered her, and like the river the tears flowed freely. “Oh God, what am I to do?”

  *

  Weeks passed. The aching her heart felt at hearing the voice lessened only a little each day. But soon her mind turned to the chill in the air. The butterflies in the grass and reeds were disappearing and the summer heat succumbing to the seasonal change.

  Then, one afternoon she heard the unmistakable and familiar voice singing.

  I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!

  To pine on the stem;

  Since the lovely are sleeping,

  Go, sleep thou with them.

  For only the third time in eighteen years, she poked her head straight out the window into the bright light of day. A young man and woman were strolling on the far bank. He paused in his song to kiss her. She had long fair hair. His darker hair danced in the sun’s rays. Ailish reached out to her lover’s hair. He pulled away from his kiss and Ailish glimpsed his fine nose and full red lips. She gasped. Her father and lover both lived in the same face. The young man turned his head to meet her eye and Ailish swung away from the window, burying her ravaged features behind the protection of her hands.

  She sat down, breathless and wide eyed. What was she to do?

  Her fingers moved on the harp strings, and though a slight trembling rose out of them, she effortlessly added grace to the instrument’s sound. Now she was playing with younger fingers, her father’s voice correcting her, pushing her to go over the music again. Her father’s voice grew stronger and clearer than in her memory. As it drifted into the room, she felt past memories and living present flow seamlessly into one.

  Thus kindly I scatter,

  Thy leaves o’er the bed,

  Where thy mates of the garden

  Lie scentless and dead.

  He was singing and she was playing.

  How could she have imagined that two members of the O’Carolan family would ever perform together again!

  Then his voice was fading, on the way down to Ail Finn.

  A chill swept in and the ivy rustled around the cottage reminding her of her captivity.

  She stopped playing, rose to her feet and began to pace. These four walls had never seemed so small, so enclosing.

  “I have seen him grown. I have heard his song. I accompanied him on the harp.” She gazed deep into the flames of the fire. “And I am hungry for more of him.”

  *

  A low, grey sky brought an early night. The river heaved and hissed and hastened along. The fire’s dying embers glowed sly like a cat’s eyes. She had not ceased her pacing. The past had sprung to life through a song and broken the spell that had imprisoned her all these years.

  In the darkness she could steal down and hide in the shadows by the tavern and let his sweet song caress her ears all night. None would know her. None would see her. None would ever know she had come.

  She threw a shawl about her shoulders, and fled the house. Steadying the boat, she jumped in, untied the rope, and pushed off with her foot against the bank. The boat jumped into midstream. She sat facing upstream, dropped the oars in their locks and began her journey downstream. The current pulled so fast, she needed just a flick of the oar either side to guide the boat steady. The wind rushed across the bows and brushed her face, a face no hand but her own had touched in many years.

  The current quickened. The boat hit the wide bend before Ail Finn. Cross-currents caught the bows, shook the boat and snatched an oar from her hand, throwing it into the blackness. The boat s
pun in the fast-swirling water. Spray soaked her. Her chest heaved up and down. She struggled to steady the boat, but the river tore the other oar from her grip. The water whirled faster, the boat spun faster. Ailish spotted the lights of the tavern on the river’s bend and above the roar of the oncoming rapids she imagined she heard his song. She reached out with her cold hands toward the warm light.

  I will be with him soon.

  So soon may I follow,

  When friendships decay,

  And from Love’s shining circle

  The gems drop away.

  The boat smashed on a rock and ripped in two, flinging her into the torrent. It sucked her down, tumbled her through the violent crosscurrents, and vomited her onto the sloping bank in front of the tavern.

  As the tavern door opened, light spilled out as far as the water. A young woman came running out, laughing. She ran down the bank, a young man on her heels. She stopped with a shudder when she saw Ailish’s twisted body lying on the bank, her eyes wide open, her wet body glistening like a dead fish. The man halted at the woman’s side.

  Others appeared carrying lanterns, and gathered round her.

  “Dear God.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I’d hate to go by drowning,” a man said. “What was she doing out on the river this time of night?”

  “God take her soul gently in his arms,” a young woman said, crossing herself.

  “She must never have known love,” the man said.

  The young woman piped up, “Maybe she was beautiful once and had a lover. Indeed, her eyes are beautiful.” Then the young woman cried out, “Why Michael! Her eyes! But, my dear, they’re your eyes.”

  All those gathered now turned their gaze on Michael.

  This young man of eighteen summers knelt in the mud beside the dead woman. After a short time gazing at her, he closed her eyelids tenderly with his fingers.

  He had touched her. He had touched her face.

  “I don’t know her,” he said in his gentle voice.

  “Soon she will look upon the beauty of the Almighty,” the young woman said. “And he in turn will see her beauty.”

  “Amen,” several said, crossing themselves.

  Later, Michael’s voice, more subdued than usual, finished the words of the song.

  When true hearts lie withered,

  And fond ones are flown,

  Oh! who would inhabit

  This bleak world alone?

  A SUMMATION OF THE STORY

  We’ve worked as close to the poem’s content and narrative structure as we dared, and obviously had to develop certain aspects to strengthen it as a story. Let’s see what this amounts to.

  The inciting incident arrives much quicker than in the poem: when Ailish hears the singer’s voice and recognizes her father’s voice in it. Then the conflict starts as she battles with her emotional state over this discovery, as it is eighteen years since she last heard the voice of her dead father. She is desperate to know more of the voice’s owner. The tension rises after each encounter with the voice. After the third time, her emotional state pushes her to the town to hear him sing some more.

  As far as character is concerned, by making a real connection between Ailish and the young male singer, a greater undercurrent of tragedy exists than in the Lady of Shalott, where Lancelot never knew the Lady, anyway. When Ailish sees Michael’s face it triggers powerful memories and emotions in her as he carries both her father’s and her dead lover’s features, the boy’s father. Michael’s character is also much more active with his singing than Lancelot’s character in the poem.

  The curse in this story is a facial disfigurement from a disease (suffered in the Famine years), and which wiped out her family; all except for her child who has returned to haunt her in living form. We don’t know why she never kept the child; her facial disfigurement would have been as a result of the sickness that wiped out her family eighteen years earlier, so maybe during that time someone took the child from her, or she gave him up believing she was dying, too, and incapable of raising him. This part of her past remains a mystery. The Famine years are also not mentioned directly, which strengthens the mystery of the past.

  Her disfigurement makes her feel shame at the idea of being seen, so she has hidden away as a recluse for eighteen years. But in death people see her, one girl suggesting she may have once been beautiful and had a lover. Indeed, she had, the father of the eighteen-year-old boy Michael standing there. Her son says of her, I don’t know her, though the girl tells him, why, Michael, she has your eyes! Michael doesn’t know his own mother, though he has inherited her eyes and the family’s musical talent. Here is irony which is absent in the poem. This irony is followed by a twist both tragic and macabre. No one has touched her ravaged face in eighteen years, yet her boy kneels and touches it as he closes her eyes, and yet has no idea it is his mother. In life, Ailish O’Carolan was lonely; in death she has the tender touch of her son to comfort her.

  ANOTHER IDEA

  The mystery, nuance and mood of the poem means our intellectual and emotional response will interpret meaning flexibly, which in turn lets our inspiration work just as flexibly, pushing us imaginatively in all sorts of directions. In some respects, of course, this is true of any piece of literature; it is just that this type of poem makes it much more likely to happen. The following early draft plan demonstrates how the emotional response to the poem has inspired something quite unconnected to the subject of the poem.

  This story will be in the third person husband’s point of view in order to deliver strongly on the irony and the twist. We only guess what’s going on in her mind through her body language and various actions. The story is set in the autumn.

  A middle-aged husband is growing aware of his wife’s emotional and physical distancing from him. He wonders if she no longer loves him and whether she is in love with another which might explain her increasing use of anti-ageing products. Neither he nor his wife is particularly good at raising issues of emotional importance to their lives, though he is a fairly observant and analytical man.

  The inciting incident will be something decisive to confirm the fact that she is withdrawing from him. It could revolve around an activity that up to now had bound them together over the years. Maybe a particular meal they cooked and enjoyed together once a month, the meal they’d been eating when he’d first proposed. For the first time, she forgets all about it. He’s shocked she’s forgotten; something she would never normally do. This is an obvious and powerful starter for the inciting incident.

  During the story’s middle part he explores the reason for her withdrawal. He looks for evidence of an affair. He believes he has found it, a hotel receipt from a romantic setting, somewhere she had never before travelled as part of her job. Should he challenge her over it? Or look for more evidence? He looks for stronger evidence of a lover and finds it in more receipts from other similar hotels as the first, hotels, he knows, where her job would never usually take her; and, anyway, he recalls specifically that she told him she was going to a conference elsewhere on one of these dates.

  His anger and frustration reach boiling point. He stands in the doorway of the bedroom, ready to have it out with her, to challenge her over the receipts, when he pauses. She doesn’t notice him. She is standing before her mirror, touching her face in a way that suggests it is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to her. This makes him frown. Why would she look at her own reflection in this way? Is that disappointment, sadness, even loathing in her eyes? What is she looking at herself like that for? The wind hits the window, stirring up autumn leaves outside, rustling them and throwing a bundle against the windowpane. This isn’t the self-examining look of a woman flushed with the excitement of having an affair. That sort of woman would be fussing over her face, sceptically maybe, but fussing in a constructive way, putting the finishing touches to its flaws with make-up.

  In a moment he sees what she is seeing; he sees it with a
fresh pair of eyes. He sees his wife’s face as she sees it; an ageing face, a face out of touch with its youth, a youth gone forever. She turns and looks at him, and blushes. He has caught her in a very personal and private moment.

  He turns away from the doorway, goes downstairs and gazes out at the world.

  Overwhelming emotion grips him. The years have crept up on them so slowly that until this moment he had never noticed the change in his wife’s face. His own, he would accept the changes with a mere shrug. But why had he never thought of the effect it might have on her? Autumn came every year. The leaves turned brown, wrinkled and disappeared from the world. But each human face was unique and wrinkled and disappeared just the once. Each person observed the change with varying degrees of acceptance.

  He re-examines her hotel receipts, and this time checks the hotel websites and discovers that they are in fact not so much hotels as expensive anti-ageing and beauty spas. Now he is seeing this lover of hers in a different light.

  He had almost blundered into a confrontation with her.

  She sees her ageing face as a curse. It is eating away at her self-esteem, causing her to withdraw emotionally and physically from him. Does she think I no longer want her even though I reach for her? He is aware that people with deep insecurities interpret situations often very differently to others. He wonders if the way he has been looking at her of late has had a certain amount of hostility or suspicion or even possibly contempt in it, and whether this look has been interpreted by her as a criticism on her looks.