Chapter 121: The Name I Said Aloud

The boat came round the point with her light going and she was big and she was not from this coast and she came into the cove and dropped her anchor and put a boat over the side.

There were four men in the boat and two of them had lamps and one of them had a case and one of them was Ahern.

He came up the slip with his coat wet and his case in his hand and his face grey.

"There is a thing I have to say before any wolf on this cliff says another word," he said. "The Court of Alphas sat this afternoon and it has read its decision and the decision is in this case and it is signed by nine wolves and it has a date on it. The seat of Dún Aonghasa is set aside. The claim of the line of Maeve is open. And the court has declared that the heir of Maeve is the wolf Mary Flannery of Killybegs and that the whole of it is going to be heard in Galway on the fourteenth of July with the whole of the co-op in the room." He put the case down on the slip. "But there is a thing about the decision that the whole of this cliff is going to hear. The court has heard the whole of the file and the whole of the healer's book and the last page of it. It has not heard the third charter. It has not heard the book in the safe in the cottage on the top of this cliff. And a court that has not heard the whole of it has not made a decision. It has made a half of one."

The cliff was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said. "And I am going to say it in front of the whole of this cliff and the whole of the nine and the whole of the court's man. The third charter has a clause in it that neither of the other two has. It says every wolf of the blood of the Alpha shall be known to the co-op by name and by the hand of the healer. And there is a page in it that has a list of names going back to 1798 and the last three names on it were written by my mother." I put my hand in my coat and took out the book. "Siobhan, daughter of Maeve's daughter, born 1953. Niamh, daughter of Maeve's daughter, born 1955. And a third name. Siobhan, daughter of Siobhan, born 1979."

Ahern took the book and turned it to the lamp.

"Siobhan, daughter of Siobhan," he said. "The child your sister gave to Deirdre in 1979 and who was taken to the north and given to a woman who was going to Galway. The heir of Maeve."

"Mary," I said. "She is in Galway and she has shifted and she is the heir and the whole of it is going to be in that room on the fourteenth." I put my hand on the book. "But there is a thing about the third name that no wolf on this cliff has said out loud since 1979. The name in the book is Siobhan, daughter of Siobhan. And there is a thing about a woman who writes a name in a book and puts the book in a safe and pays for the cottage for thirty six years. She was not keeping a record. She was keeping a claim. And there is a thing about a claim that has been kept in a book for eighteen years and that no wolf has read. It is a claim that is still open."

The cliff was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to ask," I said, "and I am going to ask it in front of the whole of you and the whole of the nine and the court's man. The child in that book is called Siobhan, daughter of Siobhan. And my sister is called Siobhan and she is the daughter of Maeve's daughter. And there is a thing about my sister that no wolf on this cliff has said out loud since April. She was in Athlone from April and she was on a boat last night and she is standing on this slip. And she is not the mother of Mary Flannery."

The whole cliff turned round.

My sister was standing at the bottom of the cliff path with her grey coat over her arm and her gold hair going grey at the temples and her face white.

"Say it," she said.

"There is a thing about the child in the book," I said. "She is called Siobhan, daughter of Siobhan, born 1979. And there is a thing about a name that is written in a book by a woman who is keeping a claim. A woman who keeps a claim writes the name of the child and the name of the mother and she writes them in the hand of the healer and she writes them on the day of the birth. And there is a thing about the name of the mother in that book. It is not the name of a woman who was in the north in 1979. It is the name of a woman who was in this village in 1979 and who was in a hall in March and who was put in a boathouse with a rope round her neck." I looked at my sister. "It is your name."

The whole cliff was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," my sister said, "and I have been carrying it since April and I have carried it in a cottage in Athlone and on a boat and in a court in Galway and I am not going to carry it another hour. The child in that book is my daughter. Not Mary. Not the woman in Killybegs. Mary is the daughter of Deirdre and Fionn and she was taken out of this village in 1975 and given to a woman who was going to Galway and she is the heir of Maeve and the whole of it is true." She put her hand on the slip. "But there is a second child. There is a child I gave to Deirdre in 1979 and who was taken to the north and who was given to a family in the north and who is not Mary. And there is a thing about that child that I have never said out loud and that I am going to say now in front of the whole of this cliff." She put her hand out. "The child was a boy. He was born in the winter of 1979 and he was taken to the north and given to a family called Flannery and he is twenty two years old and his name is Cormac."

The whole cliff went up.

Cormac was standing at the top of the slip with his coat off and his wrist red and his face white and he did not move.

My sister went up the slip to him.

"There is a thing about you," she said, "that I have known since the first night in the hall and that I have not said out loud. You have my mother's jaw and my grandmother's way of standing and you have the mark on your wrist that a rope leaves and you have been in the hand of the Alpha since you were fourteen and you have been a boy who was told his whole life that he was a thing that was broken in 1994." She put her hand out. "You were not broken in 1994. You were taken out of this village in 1979 and given to a family in the north and you were brought back in 1981 and given to Deirdre and she gave you to Declan and Declan has been your father for twenty two years and he has been a good father and he is not your blood." She put her hand on his arm. "I am your blood. I am your mother."

Cormac stood on the slip with the wind in his hair and did not say anything for a long time.

And then he said, "There is a thing about a boy who has been told his whole life that he is a thing that was broken. He does not believe a woman who tells him he is not." He put his hand over hers. "But there is a thing about a woman who has been in a boathouse with a rope round her neck and who has come down this coast on a boat in a storm to tell him. She is a woman who has been carrying it for twenty two years and she is not lying."

The whole cliff was silent.

And then Ahern said, "There is a thing about this night that the whole of this cliff is going to hear and then I am going to get on that boat and go back to Galway. The Court of Alphas has declared the heir of Maeve. It has not heard the third charter and it has not heard the name in it and it has not heard the thing that has been said on this slip tonight. And there is a thing about a court that has not heard the whole of it. It is going to hear it on the fourteenth of July with the whole of the co-op in the room and the whole of the file and the whole of the book and the whole of the name." He put the case under his arm. "And there is a thing about the fourteenth that I am going to say before I go. The woman Mairéad has been in that building since Friday and she has been in a room with a wolf on the door since three o'clock this afternoon and she has been writing. And there is a thing about a woman who has been writing for six hours with a wolf on the door. She has written a confession and it is forty pages long and it has every name in it and she has signed it and she has given it to the court."

The whole cliff was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it before Ahern gets on that boat. The fourteenth of July is a full moon and the whole of the co-op is going to be in Galway and the whole of the file is going to be read out loud. And there is a thing about a full moon that no wolf on this cliff has said out loud. The whole of the pack is going to be in a city on a full moon and there is not a wolf in that village who is going to be on the headland. And there is a thing about a pack that does not run on a full moon. It is a pack that is going to have to run somewhere else."

The wind came over the cliff and the whole of the nine were standing on the slip with their coats round them and their faces turned up.

And then Arthur with the walnut face and the boots from the north said, "There is a thing about a pack that does not run on a full moon. It runs in a hall. It runs in a hall with a vote and a book and the whole of it read out loud and a wolf in the chair. And there is not a wolf on this cliff who has not been waiting thirty eight years for a run like that."