Tales of Disturbance

The Ring

Every summer we come here: to walk the ring, to walk the line. It's an ancient ring. Neolithic uncle says, and he would know, probably being a professor and all, at Queens the university here.

There's a dolmen in the centre - that's a few stones balanced on each other to form a megalith. It's a tomb really. That's what uncle says anyway.

The capstone has fallen over and sits at an angle. They found some incinerated bones under the dolmen.

It's dated around 2700 BC. That makes it almost 5000 years old. That's before the Egyptian pyramids. That's old. The sands of time are such a mystery to me, but then I probably don't sit down and try and understand. 

Strange concepts frighten me. 

We are dropped off in the rain. The car stops with a crunch of gravel and we get out. Edith hands us the picnic basket out the window. I notice her salmon coloured nails and wonder where she's heading and with whom. She's telling us we are not to go outside the edges, not to get into trouble, to put the blue blanket down on the grass when we have the picnic and to try not to get our clothes wet. She will be back in no time at all.  She gives a final wave, keeping her hand still and the car crunches again and swings round the corner and out of view. 

Yes, we come here every year, to Ireland at the beginning of the school holidays. It seems a strange wild place, full of stories and rain. We come from the middle of nowhere, well Surrey is the formal name but it really is the middle of nowhere in Surrey. In any case it's very different from here, this raw and rugged land.

I am an imaginative child with a head full of ideas. The University where my uncle works is a high red building full of rooms you're not allowed to go into. Apparently he's very important there - some kind of doctor, though not the kind with stethoscopes and theatre equipment he says. though he does dissect things. In a way. And there are definitely a few sick philosophies that need tending to.

We dump the wicker picnic basket (with the chicken mayo sandwiches, lemonade and crisps). We'll go back for it later; either that or sneak off to buy sweets with our pocket money. We slouch along the top lip of the ring. It's like a mouth that has been held wide open for five thousand years I say and Alfie laughs. I am in my red rain coat, my brother in a yellow one, though a high, cold wind needles through us and it's starting to rain harder.

An Irish summer. 

Alfie breaks off into a run. He is playing at some strange game. Down the bank now, his arms pointed to the sky like a rocket.

'Vroooom. Vroooooooooom..... Apocalypse... Apocalypse now! Exterrrminate! Vrooooooooooooooom!'

The air is still and silent in this strange Neolithic place that's full of time. 

I walk on looking out over the great gaping hole, wondering what it was for. Burial they said. They found bones, burned bones. That's sad to me. Yes, there's a sad feeling about this place. Five thousand years of sadness because of the bones being burned. 

I wonder why it happened. Was it some kind of human sacrifice? People could be very cruel.

People had been cruel to Alfie at school. They had held him out the window until he thought he was going to fall to his death. The teacher, even after this was discovered, did little.

I keep glancing at his bright yellow raincoat bobbing up and down the hillside. The centre is a nothing. A great, vast, pointless, bony emptiness. The rain is slicing up the land now. The visibility is unclear and I think we should go back for the basket. 

'Alfie' I yell.

There is a figure. He wears a black hood held up against the wind...

 Afterwards, I can't tell if I imagined it; if he was really there at all, or it was just a figment of my imagination. An apparition of some sort. I wipe the rain water from my face that is blurring my vision. I think I hear thunder - but I'm not sure. It seems a strange thing to leave us here in the storm, and uncle and Edith know about the weather. 

If there is an actual storm we'll certainly need some shelter. 

I don't want to have to shelter under the dolmen, especially with this creepy man hanging around. I know this is not rational, it is simply a feeling -- but when I back again, the figure is no longer there. 

There is another rumble of thunder in the distance. 

Closer this time.  

In these minutes, I forget about my brother. He has disappeared over the edge of the lip of the rim. I have not heard his voice for some time.

 I look back, and at that moment, I face my own sudden empty hole.  

I yell his name. I scream his name. Only the wind and the rain pounding, pounding. 

I yell and scream and look and look. 

But it's no use. It's no use at all. 

My brother is gone.