Fanore

SETTING - The gradual bend in the Old Green Road overlooking Galway Bay. Visibility is still limited by haze and there is little detail beyond the far shore about twenty miles away. Further west are the vague outlines of the most prominent of the Twelve Pins of the Nephin Mountain Range. In between, a stubby trawler leaves one of two wide white wakes as it appears to follow an equally sluggish passenger ferry out towards the Aran Islands from Galway City, somewhere over the hill to the east.

SOUND - Two women with raised voices. One is Mona’s and she is not happy. The other belongs to a young girl with orange red hair who is speaking in a strange language. As Ethan gets closer, the younger girl’s words become clearer by degrees until he knows for sure they are throwing insults at each other. The red haired girl raises the musical instrument and tries to strike Mona in the face with it.

LIGHT - It is as bright as it’s liable to get on a bright summer day except for just one stubborn patch of thin mist that has been following them up the Old Green Road.

ACTION - Ethan is now sweating very profusely and gasping for breath but still manages to expel enough wind to make a shout.

“Wow. Easy.” Like he was talking to a skittish mare. “What do you think you’re doing?” Ethan’s first two word sounds strange even to his own ears, but the question that follows them seems to normalise as each word merges into its own echo. He ignores the anomaly because he is more bemused than genuinely angry and reaches in between the two struggling and mismatched girls to take the tin whistle from the smaller one. Mona gives him a withering look while the smaller girl is distracted by his intervention. Mona seizes her opportunity and tightens her grip on the instrument while releasing the red haired girl.

“Don’t touch her Walker. She’s dangerous.”

Ethan takes a much needed gulp of air and a step backwards. The girl’s hair is long and uneven, totally out of fashion. Her pasty white freckled face has two isolated red spots, one just above each cheek. Their eyes and narrowed and he can see that there really is no friendship lost between them.

“I knew you’d come back for me. I just knew it.” She surprises Ethan by launching herself at him and embraces him tightly, very tightly.

“What the …?” She is sobbing into his chest and Ethan notices that her hair on the back of his hand is as soft on the breeze and she smells of soap and the same smoke as his special brand of cigarette.

“That smoke?” He barely said it.

She looks up with eyes that could have been borrowed from Mrs McNamara. “Why did you have to bring her? She doesn’t belong here Brian Og.”

Was she serious? Someone staring at them both is one kind of insult, but to openly insult Mona by telling him she didn’t belong anywhere she wanted to be was going way too far. Ethan pushes the pale girl away and she stands sulking like a child. Her eyes are turned down to her dirty feet and all he can see is her mass of red hair. She further disarms him by submissively holding her hands behind her back, like she is waiting for punishment or something. “Who are you?”

“She’s a liar Walker. Let’s go back.” Mona reaches over to collect her haversack from Ethan. He had no choice but to carry hers as well as his own after Mona took off like that. But when he heard their angry voices, he was obliged to run with one dangling from each shoulder.

“I’m Shioga. I can see you’ve travelled far Brian Og but I’d know you anywhere and anytime. You probably don’t realise how long I’ve been waiting for you, but everything is fine now.” Tears then ran freely down from her green eyes and Ethan was shocked to see that far from being upset, the girl was deliriously happy.

“Enough.” Mona glared at her and then at him. “Let’s go.” She turned to go back down the Old Green Road but kept her eyes locked on Ethan, waiting for him to start moving with her. She then reached out her hand to take his.

That was when Ethan noticed the red haired girl was in costume. She was dressed like a hippy, right down to the dirty bare feet. “Who is she?” He asked Mona adding. “How come you know her … and how come she knows you? How is that possible?”

But Shioga answered before Mona could. “Your father -,” she began strongly but then hesitated, “- maybe your great grandfather by now. Anyway, he went by the name of Brian Mor McMurrough and he promised you to my father Padraig Kelly for me. We were betrothed but too young to wed at the time so our fathers shook on it but then Brian Mor took you off to America with my dowery. When my father went looking for him, he promised he’d send you back later when you were old enough.” There was barely a pause. “If you’re here to stay and honour your family name, we can forget about the time it took you to get here Brian Og.”

“She’s insane. She must have heard someone in the pub talking about you Walker. Come on. I’ve spent long enough in this crazy place.”

“Have you now?” Asked the girl who called herself Shioga, though in a surprisingly menacing tone for someone so slight. Her threatening voice wasn’t lost on Mona who swung her muscled arm.

Ethan instinctively moved to protect the smaller girl, which stopped Mona in her tracks and shocked her at the same time.

“This whole thing is insane Mona. Why would you want to beat her up? Look at her. She’s just a kid.”

Mona took a moment to arrive at a strategy. “Maybe it’s better if we just carry on.” She said and grabbed Ethan’s hand surprisingly tightly in an effort to pull him away from the red haired girl. “We must be halfway there already.” She finished.

Ethan was really puzzled now. “But the car is back down that way.” He pointed back the way they had come.

Mona had taken just few steps without him before turning slowly. “I need you to follow me now Walker. Remember when I said I’d do whatever I needed to do to keep you from going to war?”

“Well yes, but that was just ..” He stuttered.

“Well nothing.” She interrupted. “That’s what this is all about and I’ll try to explain it better later, but we need to get going now.” She glanced at the road above them and then behind him. Ethan couldn’t move immediately. He was still trying to make some sense of the situation.

Ethan slash Walker then shifted his weight forward to follow Mona, who smiled angelically at him but then destroyed it with a sneer at the smaller girl, using a face he barely recognised.

“I will.” Said Shioga. “And thank you for coming back for me as promised.” She finished. It was said so quietly and with such assurance that Ethan was forced to stop and confirm it was the same, obviously unhinged girl who’d said those words.

Shioga had extremely deft fingers because she had somehow worked the small ring box from where it could easily have been lost from the top of his pocket and then worked it open behind her back. She easily slipped the ring over her marriage finger and positively radiated. “We’ll settle the details another day Brian Og McMurrough.”

Just then, the patch of mist that had been threatening to overtake them did exactly that. Ethan couldn’t believe it was as thick as it was because he lost sight of Mona for just a second, but that was all it took.