An Irish Country Girl Page 9

  “ ‘Divil the bit, Maureen,’ says he, putting on his coat and cap and leaving his coat unbuttoned. ‘When I went out to feed Tessie in your byre this morning, I noticed one of your sycamores was down. The falling of it must have been what caused the caterwauling last night. I’ve heard the likes of it before when I felled a tree.’

  “ ‘Aye,’ says Ma very softly, ‘a blackthorn.’ She looked him straight in the eye and the edge came into her voice, the way it sounded when she’d told him the stain on his face was not sap. ‘If it’s bound and determined you are, so am I. You’ll take two bales of feed from our barn, Connor MacTaggart, and a barrow. You’ll not gainsay me. You can bring the barrow and replacements back the next time you’re out this way. If you’re going to your sheep, go straight from here to the hill road. Even if the road is clear, your gully will be half choked. It’ll take you forever to go home and collect your own barrow and feed, and you can’t push a barrow up your gully. Start from here instead and you’ll be home by noon.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You have to be.’

  “I expected him to refuse, like he had turned down Ma’s offer of peat, but instead, glancing at the clock again, he said, ‘I will, so. Thank you.’ He grinned at Ma with his head tipped to one side. ‘After the seeing to of the sheep, I’ll leave your barrow in the pasture and go back down to my place by the gully. Even if there’s snow in it, it’ll not be too hard going down, and I will be home before noon. Not, mind you, that a skiff or two of snow, if it comes at all, would trouble the likes of a man like me. I’m strong as an ox and stubborn as my own donkey, so.’

  “He crossed the floor, bent down and pecked my cheek, turned, and was in such a hurry to get to the door he knocked over a chair, and the falling of it made a ferocious clatter. ‘Sorry,’ says he, as he picked it up. He blushed and that funny red thing on his face seemed redder still.

  “On his way to the door he grabbed his pipes and crook.

  “I think I’d stopped blushing by the time he’d opened the door. I hesitated for a wee while, but then I ran after him to say one more good-bye. And didn’t I see him coming out of our shed pushing a barrow of bales of straw. He stopped and kissed Fidelma, then waved good-bye as he strode out along our lane, Tess at his heels and ‘The Star of the County Down’ on his lips.

  “And it bothered me not at all that a raven flew overhead—sure, ravens are ten a penny in Cork—but I thought it strange that running lightly over the snow, its coat a bright contrast to the unbroken white, was a single vixen.”

  13

  “I didn’t have any time to spend thinking about foxes, for Ma believed the devil would find work for idle hands. There was a lot of tidying up to do after Christmas Day, and if that wasn’t enough, she was a great one for children writing thank-you letters on Saint Stephen’s Day.”

  Kinky heard a communal muttering among the children. Even in 1964, the thank-you letter was not dead, and Kinky could imagine any one of her audience being just as unthrilled as she had been to pen: “Dear Aunty Bridget, thank you for the lovely string vest. It was just what I wanted.”

  Although the warmth of a string vest would have been very useful that year.

  “I’d just finished writing ‘Yours truly, Maureen’ on the fifth ‘Dear Aunty’ letter when a shadow fell over the table. It was twelve noon by the kitchen clock. The whole room, which had been as bright as it would have been on a day in July, suddenly was as dark as if a switch had been clicked.

  “The north wind came shrieking in. The window frames rattled, and I knew by crashes from outside that slates had been blown off the roof.

  “On the other side of the window, the flakes tossed and fell, soared and danced. I couldn’t see the wall of the farmyard.

  “Fidelma ran into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.

  “ ‘Mother of God,’ says Ma. ‘I hope Art and Sinead and their ones have enough wit to stay in Clonakilty. Da and Tiernan’ll be all right if they stop in the barn until the wind drops.’

  “Ma lit two oil lamps, and in their glow the room seemed a safe place. The three of us sat round the table warmed by the heat from the range and the steam from the pots where Ma was boiling yesterday’s ham bone and the turkey carcass to make stock. We were warm, but outside it must have been like . . . like . . .” Kinky struggled for an analogy the children would understand.

  “Antarctica,” Micky Corry suggested. “Our teacher, Miss Nolan, took us to see a film about Captain Scott.”

  Kinky saw heads nodding.

  “You never saw nothing like the wind there, you know, and the way it blew the snow across the ice. And poor oul’ Scott, you know, and all his men got froze dead, so they did. But they were very brave,” Micky said. Then he shuddered.

  “It was like Antarctica. You’re quite right, Micky. Just like Antarctica.”

  He grinned.

  “I wish,” she said, “we’d been able to smile like you, Micky, but my sister Fidelma, bless her, started to cry.”

  “Ahhhh,” went three of the girls.

  Kinky waited for quiet before saying, “Ma leaned over to us and put a hand on Fidelma’s. ‘There, there,’ she said, all soft and comforting.

  “Fidelma collected herself a bit and sniffed. ‘Connor’s out in that.’ She swallowed hard and I could tell she was trying to stop the tears. ‘Him and his stupid sheep.’

  “I was going to say, ‘And sure wasn’t he every bit as thick as his sheep?’ but I bit my tongue.

  “ ‘I know,’ said Ma. She looked straight at me, and I must have been wiser than my years for I said not a word about the warning she’d given Connor before he left. I could only hope he’d taken Ma’s advice about getting home.

  “I swear, by then I’d thought that the storm could not get any worse, but it did. It wasn’t the windows rattling. It was the whole place. I felt like a pig in the house of straw with the wolf outside, huffing and puffing.

  “Nobody spoke, and we huddled there listening to the wind batter at our doors and windows, trying to get in and blow us all away, or whirl the whole house into the sky like Dorothy’s in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

  “All we could do was sit there and wait for the blizzard to blow itself out.

  “Fidelma and I looked at each other every time a gust of icy snow rattled the panes. I could imagine what she was thinking because I was thinking it too. We knew the time when Connor left our house. We knew how long it would have taken him to get to the upper pasture. We didn’t know how much time he might have spent with his blessèd animals, but by my reckoning he must have still been outside either in the pasture or halfway down the shortcut home.

  “If he was in the pasture, he’d be trying to shelter. I could see him, as if I was on the hillside with him, gathering his solid woolly little sheep around him, and Tess in the lee of the drystone walls on the far side of the hill. That was all there was up there to stop the storm screaming across the open meadow, piling snow in man-deep drifts, cutting through clothes until Connor would think he was naked before it. The same wind that was battering itself against our doors and windows would be slicing at him and chilling him to the marrow of his bones, whirling his cap away to vanish in the white walls of blown snow.

  “Would the vixen be out, I wondered, the wind blowing her fur against the grain, lifting the coarse hairs straight up? Would she be sitting on a snowbank, eyes slitted against the cold and the sheer brute force of the wind, silently surveying Connor?

  “And would Connor plead with the creature, would he ask forgiveness of the Shee then? Would he try to bargain? Connor MacTaggart plead? I thought he would not. For he was a proud man. Perhaps he was thinking that sitting there surrounded by his sheep, dug in against the snow and the wind, wasn’t all that different from being in a trench in France, facing the enemy’s onslaught. Facing it without flinching, for that’s the kind of man Connor was, so.

  “If he was in the gully he’d be hunched against the wind, struggling one step at a time to force his way home
to the sanctuary of his cottage.

  “The back door banged open, and the sound of it brought me back into the kitchen, safe, warm, and dry. Fidelma was silently weeping. I glanced outside. The sun was beaming in through the windows when Da and Tiernan came clumping into the kitchen, leaving puddles of melting snow on the tiles.

  “I glanced at the clock. Half past one, and I realized the storm had lasted for an hour and a half. It had vanished as quickly as it had come, but the snow dumped on top of what had already fallen would make deep drifts up in the pastures.

  “Da and Tiernan went straight to the range and turned their backs to it. I could see wisps of steam rising. Da’s cheeks were grey, and both men had snow clinging to their pants. ‘Dear God, but that heat’s grand,’ Da said.

  “But poor Connor had no friendly range to warm him unless he’d heeded Ma and left in time to get to his cottage. Had he? I didn’t know, and if the not-knowing tormented me, what was it doing to Fidelma?

  “ ‘Da. Connor’s—’ Fidelma started, but she had enough sense to close her trap. Da would have been far too chilled to worry about anything other than getting warm.

  “ ‘For the love of God, Roísin,’ says he to Ma, and his teeth chattering faster than a spoon player’s instruments, ‘get us both cups of tea, lots of sugar, and I’ll not complain if you put stiffeners in them. I’ll not complain at all.’

  “Ma got the bottle of whiskey and poured from it into the cups. “ ‘Here. Tea with whiskey,’ says she solemnly, ‘keeps away the dew.’

  “By the time Da and Tiernan had warmed up, Fidelma tried again. ‘Daddy,’ says she, and she only ever called him Daddy when she was trying to wheedle something out of him. ‘Daddy, I know it’s awful cold outside, but the sun’s shining now. Connor’s gone to the high pasture—’

  “ ‘Wheest, wee one,’ says Da in his gentlest voice. ‘Wheest now, for the answer’s no. No man could get through the drifts. It was as much as Tiernan and me could do to get back here from the barn. It’ll be up to your oxters on the hill.’

  “Fidelma whimpered.

  “ ‘Please, God,’ I prayed silently, ‘please, God, let him have taken Ma’s advice and got home in time.’ That’s what I wanted, but the picture in my mind would not go away: Connor and the great muscles of him, leaning his shoulders into the wind, straining with every step, the snow in his hair, snow caked on his eyebrows, his cheeks slatey blue, his great, grasping breaths steaming and being torn away by the gale. Refusing to give up to the faeries or to nature itself until all the strength of him was drained entirely.

  “Da must have been having the same thoughts. ‘If the blizzard hit before he left the upper pasture we’ll just have to pray that Connor found shelter behind a wall or in a sheep cot and he got warmth from the sheep themselves,’ Da said, ‘for it’ll be a day or more before any man can get up into the hills.’

  “He didn’t say what might have happened if Connor had been caught on his way down.

  “Fidelma gave a great shuddering sob, and Da put his arms round her. ‘I tell you what, girl. The minute I can get out of the yard here, Tiernan and Art, if he gets home in time, and me will round up every man in the townland and we’ll search every glen and every gully where Connor might be.’

  “ ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ says Fidelma.

  “ ‘But all we can do now is hope and pray.’

  “At his words I heard Ma start, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven . . .’

  “And we all bowed our heads and joined in until the final amen.”

  14

  “And it is what it was. Da was right. Two days and two nights passed before the O’Hanlon men could go out anywhere with search parties, and in a very few hours Da came home alone, cold, tired, and defeated-looking.”

  Jeannie Kennedy looked as if she might start to cry. “But what about Connor, Mrs. Kincaid?” the girl said in a small voice.

  Kinky shook her head and ploughed on. “Da called the whole family together around the kitchen table. Ma held Fidelma. ‘I’ll not pussyfoot,’ Da said. ‘We found neither hide nor hair of him on the hill.’

  “Big tears coursed down Fidelma’s cheeks. I wanted to hold her, but that was Ma’s job.

  “ ‘I’ll tell you what we did find,’ Da said. ‘The sheep were all dead, every last one huddled against a wall and each other. His pipes were there too, and our barrow.

  “ ‘No footprints, man’s or dog’s, led into the gully Connor used as a shortcut. The new snow would have covered them if they’d been made before the snow flew. Art, Tiernan, and I scoured the track anyway. Tess was lying frozen-stiff halfway down, and we found Connor’s crook about ten yards from the bottom. From there were a man’s faint footsteps, made after the snow started, with not enough fallen to cover them by the time the blizzard stopped. Connor was caught away from any shelter. Those prints led us right on to the felled blackthorn.’ Da lifted his cap and and scratched his pate. ‘What persuaded Connor to make a detour the Lord only knows.’ He shook his head and blew out his cheeks.

  “ ‘What is it?’ asked Ma. ‘Finbar, what did you find?’

  “ ‘I can hardly believe what I saw. The blackthorn trunks and branches were half covered in snow, the wood still in a great pile, right where Connor had left them when he chopped the thing down.’ Da looked deep into Ma’s eyes and said very quietly, ‘Alongside the dead wood were new green shoots, as if the tree thought it was alive and spring had come.’

  “ ‘No Connor?’ Fidelma asked. Her voice quavered. ‘Where was he? He must have been in his cottage. Mustn’t he?’

  “The pleading in her voice nearly brought the tears to my own eyes.

  “My father shook his head again. ‘The footsteps stopped at the tree and we found no others, so my hopes rose when we started for Connor’s cottage. Where else could he be? Even before we got there we could see there was no smoke coming out of the chimney.’ ”

  Kinky looked quickly at each of the children in turn. “And I remembered who the banshee had called for on Christmas night. One name: Connor MacTaggart.

  “Da said, ‘When me and the boys got to the cottage, I opened the door quickly. It looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for years. Cobwebs like sheets of butter muslin were strung from the rafters to the mantel to the kitchen table. Through that shroud I thought I saw him’ ”—a sharp collective intake of breath came from Kinky’s audience— “ ‘lying in front of the hearth, an arm stretched out to the fireplace. I tore the gossamer apart,’ said Da, ‘but when I knelt to touch him, it was just Connor’s greatcoat, dry and warm even though the cottage was as cold as a tomb.’ Da shifted in his chair, and it creaked. It was then I realized Da was sitting in the one Connor had knocked over in his haste to leave our kitchen two days before.

  “ ‘But it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver,’ Da went on. ‘It was the sight of a huge spider sitting on the coat’s collar. It hissed at me. I tried to stamp on the creature, but it was too quick for me.

  “ ‘The sight of that empty coat made my heart heavy, but our job wasn’t done until we’d searched everywhere, so I looked in the bedrooms. The boys went outside to search the outbuildings. They found nothing either.’

  “Fidelma sat rigidly, staring at Da, biting her knuckles. I think it would have been easier on her if she had cried.

  “Da said, ‘I’m sorry, Fidelma. I . . . I cannot say where Connor is. I only know that we’ve searched every inch of the townland and found nothing. The Shee have taken Connor, God bless him. May his soul find peace. Your brothers are seeing to his cottage . . . and to Tess,’ said Da. ‘They’ll be home presently. I came back at once to bring what news we had.’ He looked at Ma and said, ‘It was strange, but as I was leaving, outside his cottage didn’t I see a vixen crouched on the wall, grinning at me, and from overhead, high, high against the blue was a black speck, and it laughing, toc-toc-toc.’

  “We all sat silently, the only sound Fildelma’s catchy breathing. Then the crash of the back door as it ba
nged on its hinges. It was Tiernan who opened the inner door.

  “ ‘We found him, Da. Under the blackthorn—’

  “ ‘But how?’ Da half rose.

  “Tiernan shook his head. ‘We were in the cottage and Eamon MacVeigh our neighbour heard pipes outside, so he followed the sound of them and it led us to the tree. We found no piper, but when we shifted some of the piled branches, I found Connor. He’d no coat, no boots.’ Tiernan, with softness in his eyes and gentleness in his lowered voice, said, ‘I’m sorry, Fidelma, but he was dead.’

  “Fidelma made a high, mournful keening sound, like the banshee had made on Christmas night. Then in her grief she spoke only one name, over and over. ‘Connor . . . Connor.’ ”

  Kinky let her words hang until at last Hazel said, “Aaah, that’s awfully sad, so it is. Poor Connor. I think he’d have been all right if he hadn’t been so worried about his sheep.”

  “Or mebbe,” Jeannie added, “if he’d listened to your Ma and said he was sorry to the faeries. My mammy says you should always apologize, like.”

  “I’m sure you’re both right,” said Colin, “but I want to hear more about the ghost.”

  “And so you shall,” Kinky said. “So you shall.

  “It wasn’t long after that people stopped pasturing their sheep on the hill, for if they did, within two days a vixen would appear on the slopes. Even in the sunniest of weather here below, strange beasts would appear out of a hilltop fog with bluey-grey paint blobs over one hip.

  “People would find man-tracks and sheepdog tracks where no man and no dog had been. The blackthorn lay where it had been felled. The fresh crop of new green leaves had turned dry and brown, but the trunks Connor had chopped looked fresh as the day he cut them. Everyone knew they would not decay until Connor’s spirit had found its peace.

  “Eamon MacVeigh, from the farm over fornenst ours, went up there to his bog beside Connor’s on the next Saint Stephen’s Day. He swore on the holy Bible he had heard the uillinn pipes played sweetly, like he had when they’d found Connor. And the tunes the piper played were ‘The Wearing of the Green,’ ‘Planxty Gordon,’ ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley,’ and, soft and low, ‘The Star of the County Down.’ His two brothers who’d been with him hadn’t heard a thing, and I thought that strange, but Ma explained that not every human was sensitive enough to hear ghostly music. And she was certain that Eamon had twice heard Connor playing.