Free Blasket Spirit by Anita Fennelly Page A

Aisling.’ I nodded. ‘You must be the girl staying in Ray’s? There are rumours that you exist. Now I have proof.’ While she chatted, she proceeded to make a tuna sandwich. ‘She’ll eat tuna, that’s about all. I don’t know how she manages to have such beautiful skin, what with all the chocolate she eats.’ Between serving other customers, making sandwiches and baking, she continued to chat. Finally she leaned on the half-door again and introduced herself. Her name was Laura and she was from Canada. Her father was Russian. She had worked with a touring dramatic group on the European circuit and now was doing her own little tour. The European tour had become the Blasket stopover. She just could not leave the place. Every day she walked the island before the ferries arrived and then again after they left. Her routine was the reverse of mine. Working in the cafe earned her enough to survive. ‘Now, I know someone who would like to deliver a take-away tuna sandwich.’ With that, I was relieved of my messenger duty. A sixteen-year-old boy who worked in the cafe jumped at the task entrusted to him with obvious enthusiasm. Laura leaned on the door, gazing dreamily after him. ‘Young love. Romance begins on the Great Blasket. Well, for some of us. We won’t see him for an hour.’ She had slipped a second can of Coke into the bag. Each time there was a lull in customer orders, she picked up a wind mobile she was making and threaded extra shells and feathers onto it. ‘Men! Wouldn’t you easily know one man owns the place and another runs it? There’s not a picture, an ornament or a mirror in the place.’ Laura’s stamp could be seen already here and there. On the deep windowsills sat two dramatic pieces of driftwood. ‘Nothing – neither a map of the island, nor a photo of Peig on the wall. It was her house after all.’ She seemed to be able to do ten things at once, all the while chatting with me and laughing with the dozens of tourists. Every so often she took a glance out over the half-door, down to the left. Some distance away, a TV reporter was interviewing a man. ‘We’ll have to wait to hear the great plans on the telly.’
    After a few minutes Seán came hurrying up the bank to the cafe. ‘Everything under control?’ He needn’t have asked. Laura could run the place single-handedly while blindfolded. ‘Where’s Colm?’
    Laura looked up, feigning surprise. ‘Oh, has he gone out?’
    I was about to disappear when the cameraman hailed me. ‘Can you lean on the door, as you were a few minutes ago, and the two of you continue talking?’ I excused myself and suggested that he shoot the many other tourists around instead. ‘No. The frayed shirt looks great against the backdrop of the cottage.’
    ‘You mean the brown legs look great,’ Laura challenged him from inside. The cameraman’s colleague, a reporter, immediately intervened, as I turned away, embarrassed.
    ‘We just want a shot of the heads chatting over the door,’ he assured me.
    ‘Come on,’ Laura said to me. ‘My mom will see me on TV at last. Will you broadcast this in Canada? I can call my mom.’ The cameraman took her seriously and began to explain that
Nationwide
was broadcast on RTÉ, only in Ireland.
    I leaned on the door, as directed, and held a most self-conscious conversation with Laura. As I left, she called after me. ‘Drop up to the hostel some evening.’
    I walked back along the rabbit track. A cluster of students were peering in the window of my hut when I returned, so I sat on a grassy mound outside the
Dáil
and waited. When the coast was clear, I ducked inside and put water on the stove to make some tea. Then, armed with two steaming mugs, I dropped down to Aisling and suggested to her admirer that he’d better get back to work and have an alibi at the ready for Seán when he arrived at the cafe. He looked at his watch in shock and sped off.
    ‘Colm teaches sailing in Dingle and he crewed on a huge sailing