CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Grey Macha and Chariot Recovered

Over dinner in the dining room, Woodward resumed his tale of the golden chariot.

"As I was saying about the chariot, one morning we decided the weather was just right to get a shot of it racing along the shore with our fleet of Viking ships out on the sea in the background. Everything was right, the wind, the sea the sky, everything.

Woodward impaled a morsel of steak, transferred it to his mouth, made eye contact with Cúchulainn again and continued:

"So we hitched up a filly to it and one of the drivers in full costume, took it careering up the beach, ships in the background, all that stuff. Anyway, later on Phil, our cutting editor, called and said I oughta come over right away and have a look."

He nodded towards a man standing behind a projector.

"Switch on Phil."

A moving image appeared on the canvas wall of the shady side of the dining room. To everyone's astonishment they watched a filly in full harness galloping along a beach, Viking Ships in the background.

A charioteer in armour was floating along behind the filly, in mid air with no chariot!

Phil killed the projector and turned up the lights.

"And that, gentlemen, is the most compelling reason for believing you are who you say you are and that you are from where you say you are."

"Unless," suggested Cúchulainn with a mischievous grin, your makers of illusions are, how d'you say, ag pléidhchíocht leat."

"Taking the Mickey," Mickser offered by way of a free translation.

Woodward regarded Cúchulainn, one eye closed against his cigar smoke, rubbing his chin.

"Well now, why didn't I think of that!"

On the other side of the room, Phil straight-faced behind the projector, shrugged.

"Well," said Woodward getting up from the table, "we'll soon see about that."

The others got up and followed him to his office where he rummaged in his desk and produced a Polaroid camera.

"Come on, let's go," he said, making off down the long corridor.

As they entered the spacious props compartment Cúchulainn gave a gasp of delight.

"That's it, my chariot!

Woodward walked up to it and rapped the side with his fat, hairy fist.

 Would you gentlemen mind lining up in front of it?"

He manhandled the friends none too gently into a position that revealed as much of the chariot as the arrangement would allow.

"See, it's there. Or is it? Well we'll know in a minute."

He stepped back a few paces, pointed the camera and pressed the button.

The bright flash made the Ulstermen jump but they froze in position, gazing with interest as a picture scrolled out of the camera.

"Here we are ... No chariot!"

 He turned to Mickser and Seán.

"And it seems you two Dublin guys are the only ones in this picture."

Woodward extended a hand to Cúchulainn and smiled then shook hands with each of the group, except Farbeg, who was indisposed.

"It looks like you got your chariot back."

He glanced at his watch and affected a horrified reaction and bawled for Maggie.

"Now by way of a goodwill gesture," he said, doing a note-taking mime to Maggie, "I wanna donate the five hunnert I paid for the chariot, which I subsequently recovered, I wanna give it away to any cause you care to nominate."

Woodward laid a restraining hand on Cúchulainn's arm and turning to Maggie.

"Take a note of this for my diary Maggie."

Cúchulainn leaned over as she scribbled in her pad.

"Half the money goes to the Hospice for the Drying."

"You mean Hospice for the Dying," laughed Maggie.

"No, Maggie," corrected Mickser, "he means Ossa Geel Clinic, the addiction rehab place. The Hospice for the Dhryin' is on'y a nickname."

Maggie laughed again.

"And the other half of the money goes to the Copplestown Young Marcach Society."

"Marcach?" asked Maggie. "How d'ya spell that?"

 Mickser spelled the Gaelic word for 'Horseman'.

"Hey!" Maggie exclaimed, "That's CYMS! Same as Christian Young Men's Society.

"Maggie," interrupted Woodward, "you can put me down as a patron of the CYMS and this Ossa Geel place. We're already in touch with those great kids with the ponies and we'll tighten the bond from here on in. The young folk of Copplestown and those dedicated people who care for the er, indisposed, need to be noticed and appreciated and helped by the business community."

The group applauded this announcement and Woodward took another perfunctory glance at his watch.

 Gotta get back to work now. I wish you guys all the very best of everything and I mean no disrespect, but it would be in the interests of all the parties concerned if you would all get back to your respective ages, cultures and neighbourhoods and take all your incredible realities with you. Time travel, invisible chariots, all that stuff."

Woodward's habitual scowl crinkled into a smile.

"We don't relish threats to our business, which is, of course, simulating that kinda stuff. We could never compete with the real thing."

Maggie whispered in his ear and smiled apologetically at the others.

"Oh yeah," he added, "of course I want you guys to stay as my guests until your friend, Am Tash Tally, is fit to move on, or back, or whatever!"

Three weeks later.

An ambulance brought Amtashtalee, fully recovered from his concussion and scalp wound, to rejoin his friends on Thrawfadda. By then the travellers had become firm friends with the film makers, they learned that these creative people were driven less by greed or personal ambition than by a relentless search for ways to interpret and illustrate truth in action.

Whether their truths were uplifting or depressing, it seemed they passionately believed that ultimately truth, and under the influence of the film team Cúchulainn began to see the supremacy of truth from a whole new perspective.

Fascinated by the movie media and television, he spent hours every day viewing news broadcasts, current affairs discussions, documentaries, science features, travelogues, historical films and plays. This vast deluge of information flooded his mind with light, and so stimulated his intellect that he was unable to sleep.

His nights were spend pondering and processing his new-found knowledge and trying to relate it to Ulster of the Red Branch Knights. Floods of insight began to colour his previous preoccupation with Bricriú and the Champion's Portion.

He had begun to share the special enthusiasm of these modern men who had, in an era that ought to have been two thousand years wiser and more peaceable that his own, become painfully aware of how pitifully little had been learned from those two intervening millennia. This they attributed to the failure of each generation fully to exchange the lessons of their collective experience, and the group of movie makers shared a vision of the potential of their medium to rectify this deficiency.

Cúchulainn would sigh and resign himself to the task on his return to Eamhain Macha, of single-handedly imparting some at least of what he had learned at Trá Fada.  

As he watched the cameramen at work on the far side of the film set, he discussed with these knowledgeable, visionary men and women how narrow self interest can be. Most valuable of all, he learned much about himself.

For the first time he began to feel sorry for Bricriú. Here was a man he had so easily cast in the role of an irredeemable villain. He confessed that he had rejoiced in the possibility of poetic justice, that Bricriú would live out his declining years with no friends, and too little of the peace that is born of the giving of oneself as a free gift to another.

Cúchulainn and his new friends had begun to experience a level of intimacy seldom shared by a group of men, but it was an experience they knew was coming to an end.

Laeg had tackled Grey Macha to the golden chariot. He soothed the restive animal, patting its neck and murmuring promises of lush, green pastures in Ulster and the freedom of the wild glens and mountains of home. Cúchulainn stood squinting against the morning light.

"Laeg, I have been learning quite a lot from these demonstrations of modern warfare."

"So have I, it seems ships are the weapons of the future."

Cúchulainn's eyes took on a faraway look.

"Yes, of our future. And more's the pity that we should regard every gift of man's inventiveness as a weapon."

 Amtashtalee interjected: "Oh, if only you knew both the wonders and the atrocities that await the world, I'm afraid our benign gift of ingenuity is held in a precarious balance against human avarice, pride, acquisitiveness, lust, laziness, rage, gluttony ...."

"Speaking of gluttony," said Farbeg, "I'm starving. Let's delay no longer, let's leave now for Eamhain Macha and our own time?"

"And I'll cook you all rashers and eggs," Homofeeb promised.

Mickser sniffed and looked at his friends.

"Well, much as I love you lorra gougers, I've had me fill iv thravellin'. I'll miss yiz for as long as I remember yiz. An' dat'll be for ever."

Cúchulainn placed an arm around the little man's shoulders.

"I'm sure we'll all meet in Tír na nÓg one day."

Said Seán:

"Every time I pass the GPO in Dubh Linn I'll wave and remember you, Cúchulainn, and a few udder quare fellas de history books overlooked."

"Right then, all you old timers," said Amtashtalee, "it's time to go."

Mickser, Seán and their friends from ancient Ulster embraced at the edge of the dunes bidding their emotional farewells.
   
The little gathering of transtemporal friends turned as one at the purr of an approaching moped. It was Ed Woodward's personal assistant, Maggie. She was smiling wistfully, her eyes shining with tears.

"I'm glad I didn't miss you beautiful people, Mr Woodward sends his apologies that he couldn't be here to tender a final farewell."

Her voice broke and she could no longer hold back the tears. She gestured helplessly and shook her head, trying to disguise her sadness.

Cúchulainn stepped forward and touched the handlebars of the moped, drummed briefly with his fingers before shyly laying his hand on hers.

"I will not forget your kindness and your understanding."

As he drew breath to continue, Maggie suddenly dismounted from the scooter, kissed him lightly and placed her forefinger on his lips, whispering hoarsely:

"I sure wish I could go with you guys. My grandfather filled my head with stories of the Red branch Knights. For me there's no more wonderful place than Eamhain Macha. You can have your Disneylands, your theme parks and your virtual reality, Eamhain Macha is the only place to be."

She moved quickly from one to the other, kissing each of them. Then she produced a large lilac carrier bag and handed it to Cúchulainn.

"Well, Cúchulainn, I guess you should take charge of these tokens of our appreciation and, er, affection."

She paused as she brushed a wisp of her black hair aside.

"It's just something to remember us by, for a little while at least."

Cúchulainn looked into the bag.

"This is most generous."

Turning to the others, he made a little gesture with the bag.

"It's Woodward's silver box filled with those wonderful cigars and two bottles of Irish Whiskey! Wait 'till King Conor tastes the whiskey! He'll set up a royal commission to duplicate it!"

Seán, having mastered the quaver in his throat ventured to make a promise:

"Every time me an' de boys goes out for a jar we'll have a whiskey and smoke a cigar in remembrance of yiz."

Maggie boarded her scooter again, kicked the waspish little engine into life, smiled and mouthed, "Bye."

"Well, time to go, boys," said Amtashtalee.

Cúchulainn remained stock still, listening wistfully, until the sound of the scooter died away.

Amtashtalee urged his Eamhain Macha friends to gather under his cloak. Once more he passed around what they had all come to call the thunder juice. Grey Macha was fed a handful of barley soaked in it and now the flask was almost empty.

The last thing they heard on the brink of a chasm of two thousand years was Mickser shouting:

"Contact! Chocks away."

 And Seán, yelling an allusion to the statue in the GPO of the dying Cúchulainn with a raven perched on his shoulder:

"Watch out for ravens loitin' on yer showldhers, Cúchulainn, me oul' flower!"

There came again the now familiar sound of rushing wind, with a roller coaster ride of darkness and light, then silence.

The flask of thunder juice is almost empty! Can Amtashtalee get our heroes home? Log on every Sunday for further chapters.