Graveyard Trip

The Holy Mother is submerged in a ball under my feet. She’s been placed on a copy of the Wexford people because the biosphere in which she has been imprisoned is now leaking. I peer down at her nervously, checking she isn’t completely drowned – or is that how she’s supposed to look? To me, a half submerged Mary seems the lesser of two strange evils, at least she has a chance! The water swishes back and forth as the BMW winds its way through Fethard’s back roads.

             When I’m not keeping an eye on Our Lady, I’m pretending not to listen to my father and grandmother’s conversation.

“Do you remember Paddy Cullen?”

“Over in Wellington Bridge?”

“Yes, he had a stroke the other day.”

“Really? I saw him on a tractor on our way up.”

“Ah sure he’s on his last legs.”

“Hmm, hmm.”

“…And you know Mary Redmond?”

“Hmm.”

“Killed, last Tuesday, run down by one of those boy racers.”

“What age was she now?”

“Oh young enough, in her late 60s I’d say.”

“Hmmhmm.”

We make the usual walk up and I read the tombstones, the dates and the names.

“There’s a new one,” Granny says, a twinge of glee in her voice. “Just Monday, I think,  little girl only lasted two days.”

“Mulrankin, is that the Mulrankins of Ramsgrange?”

“No, no, Campile.”

“Ah.”

Grandad’s grave looks nice, fresh flowers and now another submerged Madonna to add to the collection. Dad hands the holy water to Granny and she sends a little shower out onto the grave’s green and white stones.

A waterlogged grave seems depressing, makes me think of weathering and erosion. Poor ole Grandad isn’t getting much help with three submerged Virgin Marys on top of him, particularly when their structural integrity has been seriously undermined. I stand for the perfunctory moment’s silence. Surprisingly, Granny breaks it; pointing to the neighbouring grave.

“That’s my sister and her husband there.”

“Oh?”

“When your Grandad died, Elsie made sure the graves would be side by side and the two wives together.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll fight and argue like we did when we were alive,” she chuckles to herself.

Dad laughs. I look at the fields and the blue sky. It’s a lovely bright day but as always in Ireland, there’s the promise of rainclouds on the horizon.