Kit and Tully | Love or Music?

5 - Celtic God

First Week of July, 199x

Axel Carr finds us together in the big bright kitchen, when he comes in to get a cup of coffee the next morning.

"Jesus, you were in the wars!" He casts an eye over Spike's bandages. "I'm surprised they let you out."

"It looks worse than it is," Spike mumbles.

"What happened?"

Felice and I exchange glances. It's the question we didn't ask. Spike always tells people he fell or walked into a lamp post, but that won't wash with Axel.

"A couple of guys jumped me."

Axel takes a carton of milk out of the fridge and turns to face him. "Do you know who they were? You should report them!"

"It was dark, I didn't see them properly."

"It should still be reported. Honestly, Drimshanra at night is a disgrace. I know the Chief Superintendent and I can call him personally. There might have been witnesses."

"Seriously, Mr Carr, it's really good of you, but there weren't any witnesses."

"Like that, is it?" Axel Carr stirs milk into his coffee. "Well, if you change your mind, let me know. In these situations, it's always better to strike when the iron is hot."

"He's right you know." Felice looks troubled as the door shuts behind her father. "Those creeps shouldn't get away with it."

"Don't you start too! Axel having a 'Dad' moment is freaky enough," Spike replies.

Felice opens her mouth, then shuts it again. There's no point. We've been over it before. Until he's ready to come out to his family, whenever that is, he's not going to report any homophobic attacks.

"Look, I'm finished school now." He spreads his hands on the granite countertop. "And I'm going to Dublin after the summer, so there's not much more they can do to me."

Neither of us agree, and the silence stretches the width of Axel's enormous counter top.

"Come on!" Felice's voice cuts through it. "Let's get out of here!"

It's a good idea and, without a word exchanged between us, we know where we're going –– our special place. 

We stumble across the sunlit fields, helping Spike negotiate the gaps, towards a grassy mound, with a sprinkling of gorse and a hawthorn at its base. Hawthorn has magical properties in Irish folklore. It's a stunted, thorny primordial tree, sacred to the Danu, the fairy folk of Celtic legends, and guards the entrance to their underground realm. 

In May, the hawthorn is breath-taking, with its gnarly form hidden under festoons of tiny white blossoms and bright, serrated leaves, but it's unlucky to pick the flowers. Even my mother, who has no time for folk tales or superstition, refuses to allow them inside the house.

Although it doesn't look much, the mound covers a neolithic burial chamber, with a partially concealed entrance on the far side. It's a listed historic monument but it doesn't attract many visitors, mainly because the Office of Public Works has installed a locked and barred gate to prevent anybody going inside. They say the internal passage is unsafe, but we don't care. We haven't come here to enter the tomb.

There is a hollow on top of the mound and we like to lie there, concealed by the prickly gorse, looking up at the sky, smoking cigarettes and talking. The site has a special atmosphere, old and undisturbed, its peace somehow tinged with a hint of sorrow and regret. When we are there it's like the rest of the world doesn't exist.

The first time we came was the first time I met Spike properly. His grandmother and my mother are close friends,so I'd seen him at the occasional awkward family celebration over the years, but we'd never spoken. Turns out he detested those events as much as I did.