Martin Lalor never knew his mother. She died bringing him to life and was hardly cold in the ground when his father demanded the infant from the nurses. A week later, he left the Council's new estate and returned to live with his mother and her invalid sister. The family home was a tradesman's cottage lurking in a laneway off the town's main street.

Growing up, Martin was known to schoolfriends as the quiet lad who 'lived with the two oul' ones'; to his teachers he was always the bright, courteous pupil who showed little or no interest in his work. But every evening after supper, the spelling and arithmetic were pushed away and Martin Lalor became a completely different child. From her squalid bed in Taylor's Lane, Aunt Mary mesmerized him with the heroic ancient sagas, the tragic history of Ireland. Plundering the centuries, the hoarse masculine mouth spat a litany of outrage and glorious revenge. Leaning forward, breathless with emotion, she shook rosary beads at Martin and cursed every Laoisman who ever joined the RIC. Her face was prayerful as she named the brave young local lads who burned out Harcourt House; her black eyes danced as she recalled the one survivor squealing like a banbh across the fiery midnight lawn.

* * *

In the early summer of 1974, a week before his son's fourteenth birthday, John Lalor travelled by train to Dublin. Throughout the journey, dreading his appointment with the specialist, he stared at his fingernails or through the window at the undulating wires. He worried about the tightness in his throat, his alarming loss of weight, but most of all he feared what might become of Martin.

That afternoon, beaming in the knowledge that the growth could be removed, he emerged into the sunshine and found himself with an hour to kill before his train. He took a bus to the city centre and, suddenly remembering Martin's longing for a history book he couldn't get in school, made his way towards the shop in Marlborough Street. Looking forward to getting home again, he hurried across O'Connell Street, decided not to visit Clerys, and walked straight into the bomb in Sackville Place.

* * *

Over the next few years, Martin was usually dismissed as either harmless or odd. While his schoolmates followed convent girls or marvelled at the airport noises on 'The Dark Side of the Moon', he was always seen alone. Occasionally he would break his silence and stop reluctant acquaintances - sometimes even total strangers - with incoherent monologues on the boyhood of Cuchulain, Mad Sweeney's flight through Ireland, Cromwell's devastation of the Rock of Dunamase.

* * *

Towards midnight on December 31st 1978, the faithful of this drowsy Midland town left their firesides and, straggling behind a band of shrill accordions, converged upon the statue in the Square. Poised behind the microphone in a furry Russian hat, the young priest cleared his throat and invited them to sing a hymn to Mary. On their knees, reminding themselves of the figures in the manger, they sought her intercession throughout the coming year.

Out of sight behind the war memorial, Martin Lalor stood and listened. Suddenly, he shook the sweat from his hair, wiped his eyes, and stepped back again to swing his father's sledgehammer. In steady rhythmic arcs, he attacked the stone then, resting for a moment, like a blindman touching someone's face, traced the pulverised inscription with his fingers. He was sobbing at the treachery of some long-forgotten regiment when the car pulled up behind him. Turning quickly, he brandished the hammer at the hesitating Guards.

"The Gae Bolga! Beware the Gae Bolga!"

"C'mon now Martin, the Granny's wondering where you are. C'mon like a good lad, give us that yoke now."

In reply, the hammer hurtled through the air, above the crackling voices in the car, and slid along the frosty ground.

* * *

One irate Councillor demanded that the delinquent be charged with defacing public property. Kids in discos marvelled at how 'he thought he was fucken Cuchulain'. A local doctor gave a lecture to the Golf Club on the signs of hebephrenia. The sisters' favourite priest pestered them with parables on the waywardness of youth. What eventually happened was this: the town decided it had enough of Martin Lalor and so, one January morning, he found himself ascending the steps of St. Fintan's, Father Ging beside him, cheerfully repeating that it was only for a day or two, a week at the outside, just for a little rest. That first afternoon, he bemused an Indian psychiatrist with his adventures in the wonderland of Irish myth. His eyes leered with pleasure when his arms were Aoife's legs clenched around his spine. With tears streaming down his neck, he hacked at his beloved Ferdia. Cowering in a corner of the room, he shuddered at the Morrigan's curse of heifer, wolf and eel....

* * *

As aimlessly as cattle in a meadow, the patients shuffled around the ward. Martin peered at them through the glass panel, then nonchalantly turned and walked along the corridor, pausing now and then to sniff at cabbage, piss and futile disinfectant. He passed the porter's vacant desk, pulled his jacket tight around him, and strode along the avenue to the road. Past the church railings and the still, congested river; up the hill behind the house in Taylor's Lane, past the barracks and the football field, out into the darkness of the countryside. "That's it so for another day. Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Of course I shall. I just need some assistance with the stairs."

"Well, I'll be off then, Miss. I'll be in again first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, Nan, and goodnight to you."

While Iris Harcourt sat before the bedroom mirror, Martin Lalor struggled with an outhouse door. Fingering wisps of snow-white hair, she sighed and reached for her comb. Cursing the darkness, he groped until he found a crowbar. As the withered fingers fumbled with her buttons, he padded through the kitchen. While she sat for a moment, irritated by the ladder in her stocking, he stood on the landing, his eyes fixed on the sliver of light beneath her door. She was wondering if Nan had turned the cooker off when the handle turned and his screech convulsed her tidy room.

* * *

Faster than the hound, Caoilte sped along the forest floor. Crashing through the branches, the curse of Ronan thundering in his head, Sweeney traversed the wintry trees of Ireland. His face a weeping mask of pain, Martin Lalor stumbled through the depths of Togher Wood. On and on until, finally, on his hands and knees, senseless with exhaustion, clutching at tufts of grass, he tumbled over a low ditch. For an instant he lay on the icy ground, then picked himself up and, flapping his outstretched arms, ran, fell, and ran again until he reached the bridge.

* * *

In the townland of Togher, like the woman who met the púca in her garden, or the man who still used horses in the fields, Radar Bergin was regarded with affectionate suspicion. He could detect, so the stories went, whose dog provoked the howling midnight uproar; what caused the nocturnal rustling in the hedge, even, he once proclaimed, the height, sex, and destination of anyone passing his cottage in the dark. But tonight, leaning on his saddle at the foot of Railway Hill, he was baffled. He lowered his bicycle, unhooked the flashlamp, and cautiously approached the bridge. Halfway up the slope, he craned his neck to listen. Amused that he had come upon some drunken neighbour, he drew a long breath and resumed his pace. As soon as the light appeared, Martin Lalor sprang to life and leapt up on the parapet. Silhouetted against the moonlight, reeling with the frenzy of flight, he flailed at the incandescent stars, and for one miraculous moment, seemed to hover.

©2006 woodlawn fiction