On the horizon the stain of bad weather is already spreading, darkening. The breeze has stiffened. Silk dresses flap in the wind, a couple of hats cartwheel away, cocktail garnishes are whisked into the air.
But over the growing sound of the wind the voice of the singer rises:
‘is tusa ceol mo chroí,
Mo mhuirnín
is tusa ceol mo chroí.’
You’re the music of my heart, My darling,
You’re the music of my heart.
For a moment it is as though I have forgotten how to breathe. That song. My mother sang it to us when we were little. I force myself to inhale, exhale. Focus, Aoife. You have too much to be getting on with.
The guests are already crowding about me with demands: ‘Are there any gluten-free canapés?’
‘Where’s the best signal here?’
‘Will you ask the photographer to take some photos of us?’ ‘Can you change my seat on the table plan?’
I move among them, reassuring, answering their questions, pointing them in the right direction for the lavatories, the cloakroom, the bar.
There seem to be so many more than a hundred and fifty of them: they are everywhere, streaming in and out of the fluttering doors of the marquee, thronging in front of the bar, swarming across the grass, posing for smartphone pictures, kissing and laughing and eating canapés from the army of waiters. I’ve already corralled several guests away from the bog before they can begin to get in trouble.
‘Please,’ I say, heading off another group who are trying to enter the graveyard, clutching their drinks, as though they’re looking around some
fairground attraction. ‘Some of these stones are very old and very fragile.’
‘It doesn’t look as though anyone’s visited them in a while,’ says one of the men in a calm-down-dear sort of voice as they leave, a little begrudgingly. ‘It’s a deserted island, isn’t it? So I don’t think anyone’s going to mind.’ Evidently he hasn’t spotted my own family’s little patch yet and I am glad of that. I don’t want them milling about among the stones, spilling their drinks and treading upon the hallowed ground in their spike heels and shiny brogues, reading the inscriptions aloud. My own tragedy written there for them all to pore over.
I had prepared myself for how strange it would feel, having all these people, here. It is a necessary evil: this is what I have wanted, after all. To bring people to the island again. And yet I hadn’t realised quite how much of a trespass it would seem.
