Galway Bay (13 page)

“Knocnacuradh,” I said. “And I won’t leave you.”

“Get married, or somebody will start telling Michael Kelly that Honora Keeley was for the nuns and she’s probably having second thoughts and too timid to tell him, and here’s my lovely daughter.”

“You don’t know Michael,” I said.

“Honora, you don’t know men.”

Father Gilley married us on the Feast of St. Michael, September 29. I was two weeks past seventeen and Michael was eighteen. It was understood in the townlands that with Máire in mourning the wedding would be small, with no dancing afterward, only a feed of pratties and a sip of the poitín brought by the Keeley third cousin who sat next to Máire in the chapel now.

As he performed our ceremony, Father Gilley looked over at Máire and the Connemara man. Máire stared right back at him. She’d make a good highwayman herself.

Father Gilley went on about marriage not being entered into lightly, while Máire looked him up and down. Then he called Michael and me up to the altar.

“Do you take Honora Keeley to be your wife?”

“I do,” Michael said.

Father Gilley’s voice faded away as Michael took my hand and we pledged ourselves with our eyes—his so blue, the color of Galway Bay on the morning he was sent to me.

“I do,” I said.

Only about twenty of us walked down through the village, past the Big House. Miss Lynch and her father were away in Dublin, and most others in the village were still at the harvest. We came to the boreen that turned down to the sea and our cottages when we saw two riders in the distance, coming from farther out the coast, Fubo way.

“Hell and damnation,” I heard Mulloy say.

The old Major and his son, Captain Pyke. Our group parted to make way for the big horses. Nothing to stop a gentleman from riding you down. Please, ride by.

But the old Major saw Owen Mulloy and stopped. “Leaving the harvest for a wedding, Mulloy?”

“Crops all in, Your Honors,” Owen said.

“Where are the bride and groom?” asked Major Pyke.

Michael and I were within a circle of people, not easily seen.

“Come now, don’t be shy. Tessie Ryan, is that you?”

“It is, Your Honor.”

“A far way from your home, Tessie. Now, show me the bride and groom.”

“There they are, Your Honor.” She pointed through the circle.

The old Major walked his big horse over and looked down on us.

“Ah, the peasant jockey and his colleen bawn. Quite lovely, isn’t she, Robert?”

The young Captain moved up next to him. His eyes fastened on me. Dear God, let them ride on.

“Too bad old Mr. Lynch is so timid with his tenants. Initiating this girl would be a pleasant duty.”

“It would, Father.”

I looked down at the ground.

“Oh, Your Honors!” It was Tessie. “These aren’t Mr. Lynch’s tenants, sir. They’re your very own, leasing from Owen Mulloy.”

“Really? And what are their names, Tessie?”

Shut up, Tessie!

“Michael Kelly, Your Honor, and Honora Keeley.”

“Honora. Now, that’s a name I like. And are you honorable, Honora?” the old Major said, and then turned to his son. “Honor Honora by taking her first night. A fine old tradition, droit du seigneur.”

“Technically speaking, sir, Michael Kelly is
my
tenant,” Mulloy said.

“Now, Mulloy, save your blarney. I’ve known you too long to be taken in by it. You are trying to deny Honora her chance.”

Michael spoke up, cool and polite, but no “sirs” or “Your Honors”: “I would take it kindly if we could start on the right foot. I’ll be a good tenant and pay my rent on time, but I expect—”

Mulloy broke in: “Michael Kelly will reclaim that marshy ground for you, Major Pyke. He’ll set up a forge. A blacksmith’s shop on the high road might be just the in-duce-ment Bianconi needs to send his cars out this way. The Mistress would be pleased.”

“The Biany cars can go to the devil, and the Mistress is in London,” said Major Pyke. “I’m speaking about Honora, Mulloy, Honora and my son. Will he uphold the reputation of the Scoundrel Pykes? Oh, I know what you people call us. . . . Are you ready, Robert, to initiate Honora on her first night and bring luck to the marriage?”

“I am. Come on, girl.” And the young Captain rode close to me, leaned down, trying to grab my hand. “Mount up with me. Later, I’ll return the favor.”

I put my hands behind my back.

“Captain Pyke.” It was Da. “My daughter’s a virtuous girl, she—”

“Of course she is. That’s her appeal.”

Michael stepped in front of me, with Da beside him, putting themselves between the Pykes and me.

“Ride on, Captain Pyke,” Michael said.

“
You
are ordering
me
?”

I stood still, prayers running through my head. If Da and Michael touched him, they’d be jailed, transported, hanged even. No greater crime than attacking a soldier. Michael was reaching for the horse’s reins as Da stepped forward.

“Michael, Da, don’t!” I said. Then I heard Máire.

“Good day, Your Honors.” She moved around Da and Michael, looked up at young Captain Pyke. She took the hand he’d reached out to me, kissed it, and curtsied.

“Who are you?” he said.

Máire became the Pearl, smiling up at him. “I am the Widow Leahy, sister of the bride.”

“The Widow Leahy, you say?”

“I am, sir, but only married a very short time.”

“Ah,” said the old Major to the Captain, as if we couldn’t hear. “Now here’s a specimen—look at those breasts. Games to be played there, son. And an innocent, I would say, as virginal as the sister. These people breed like animals, but they know nothing of pleasure. This one could be taught to do many things. What tutorials you would have! I might even join you.”

“That would not be necessary, Father,” the Captain said. “So, young Widow Leahy, I can’t give you your first night, but perhaps a second or a third.”

“Perhaps,” Máire said.

“Perhaps?” The old Major laughed. “My son will take you or take your sister, as he pleases. Otherwise I’ll evict you, Owen Mulloy, and all the other parasites up there with you.”

“Máire,” I said to her. Dear God, why are you doing this to us!

She turned to me. “It’s all right, Honora.”

Granny and Mam were beside her. Granny spat on the ground. Mam said, “I’ll get Father Gilley.”

“Father Gilley, is it?” Máire said. She looked over at the Keeley cousin, but his eyes were on the ground. He didn’t want to know.

“Take the bride, Robert. They’re trying to cod us. Get the girl,” the old Major said.

But Máire took the young Captain’s hand again. “Your Honor, can I mount up there with you now? I can straddle the neck, no problem. Then you could teach me how to move with your horse, going up and down and up and down. I would be a very good rider.” The Pearl smiled, and I think I heard the young Captain groan. He reached down and pulled her up so she was sitting in front of him on his horse. Then she leaned back on his chest and whispered something to him. He turned the horse’s head, dug his heels in, and started back toward Fubo.

The old Major looked at us and laughed.

We stood in silence, except for Granny. She spoke in Irish, cursing him in a flat, hard tone: “You’ll have not a day’s luck; you’ll have no grandchildren at your hearth, no day without pain, no night without torment.”

“What’s she saying, Mulloy? What’s the old witch saying? Some kind of pagan spell? Tell her she can’t affect me.”

“My granddaughter is descended from warrior queens. You have no power to disgrace or demean her,” Granny said to him in English.

“We’ll see about that, you old hag!” He turned his horse and left.

I started weeping. Michael put his arm around me.

But Granny grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Don’t you dare cry. Don’t waste your sister’s sacrifice. Máire will survive, make no mistake.

“They will not win,” she said. “They will not take God’s grace from us. No matter what they do, Máire will survive. She is a warrior.”

“The Pearl’s shameless, no question,” said Tessie Ryan, but nobody paid her any mind.

The neighbors came to Mam’s cottage. They drank the poitín but said little.

Mam took a burning sod of turf from the fire. “Come, Honora, I’ll carry this piece in from Saint John’s Fire up with you.”

“Thank you, Mam, but Michael and I will go up the hill alone. I think it’s better.”

So.
Siúil, siúil, siúil a rún . . .
Mam’s song: Walk, walk, walk, my love . . . She’d made it a lullaby for us. I heard it in my head, then sang a bit to Michael as we climbed up to the cottage. I stepped over our threshold.

My first night. Major Pyke had stolen it, as surely as if he’d actually raped me. How could Michael and I . . .

I put the smoking turf in our fire, and the flame caught and spread. Michael went out to water Champion, then came in carrying his pipes. He sat on his stool by the fire, and I sat next to him on mine. Michael put the bag under his arm and pumped air into it.

“A lament,” he said.

The sounds flowed out—a dirge for bodies and hearts broken in so many battles of all kinds, century after century.

Granny had said, Don’t waste your sister’s sacrifice. Don’t let them win. But I felt numb with sorrow.

Michael finished, set down his pipes, and put his arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder. We watched the flames. I touched Michael’s face, solemn and set. My hero from the sea.

“Mo ghrá,” he said—my love.

“A stór,” I answered—my darling.

We stood up and went to the soft bed Michael had made from hay that still held the scent of summer.

They did not win.

We claimed our own first night.

P
ART
T
WO

The Great Starvation 1845-1848

Chapter 9

S
IX YEARS.
June 23, 1845. Six years to the day since Michael swam out of the sea to me. He and I stood in the doorway of our cottage, watching the sun douse our fields, warming the wheat and oats and barley, ripening their green into gold. Knocnacuradh met the dawn rejoicing.

“All growing well, Michael,” I said.

He smiled at me. He’d done it. Wrested abundance from the bad land. The struggle had broadened his chest, muscled his back and legs. He’d always had the mighty arms of a blacksmith, and now his whole body held a kind of solid power. A man.

At night I’d run my hands along the length of him, smoothing the knots and knobs from his muscles until he’d reach up, pull me to him, and I’d open myself to his strength. Connecting. The joy of it . . . Dear God, I’m a lucky woman.

Michael put one arm around me, then set a stone into my palm. “Shaped a bit like a heart, don’t you think?” he said.

“It is,” I said, rubbing my fingers along the edges of the small rock.

“See the green under this pinky color? Connemara marble, it’s called.”

“Lovely,” I said. Michael held my open hand in his, and we watched the sun pick out flecks of light on the stone’s surface.

“A gift to mark this day.” This day, that morning.

“Thank you, Michael,” I said. “A lovely token.”

“And tonight after the children go to bed . . .” He kissed my cheek. Our children—tokens of that morning, too. “Of course, we have our living tokens,” he said.

“How do you do that?”

“What?”

“Always know what I’m thinking.”

“I say what comes into my head,” he said.

“And match the words in mine.” From the first, and still—reading each other’s thoughts.

“The baby,” we said together, both hearing Bridget letting me know she was awake and hungry.

“Go on, Michael.”

“I’ve time. Bring her out.”

Already bright inside the cottage. That big window lets in every bit of morning light.

“Here, a stór.”

Bridget’s little face, red with the crying, eased as her bow of a mouth found my nipple. Plenty of milk still, thank God. She’d been born on April 28, when there’d been enough potatoes in the pit, so I could eat and keep her fed. Some flesh on you now, my baby, a help until the new potatoes are ready next month. Easier for you than your big brother Paddy. Our firstborn came during the “hungry months,” and I couldn’t satisfy the poor wee scrap. Awful. A sturdy lad now, though, thank God, five years old in a few days and the image of Michael—same blue eyes, heavy black hair.

Paddy turned over, burying his face in the thick pallet of fresh hay Michael made for him. Next to Paddy, Jamesy slept on, arms stretched out, taking in the sun’s warmth through the glass. Jamesy, two and a half, my Samhain son, born on October 31, when the harvest was gathered and the pratties abundant. A sweet-tempered baby, gaining weight quickly. Very like Mam now with his round face and kind nature, though his eyes were a kind of hazel. Three healthy children. Such a great blessing.

I carried Bridget out to Michael. He brushed his lips over the top of our baby’s head. So gentle with her.

Bridget let go of my nipple and looked up at her da.

“No question where she got her eyes,” I said, and reached up and touched his cheekbone. “Like yours and Paddy’s, the same deep blue rimming a circle of sky.”

We looked at our daughter.

“Your eyes, but Máire’s hair, blonde and starting to curl,” I said.

“Máire,” he said. Her suffering was the shadow over us. “Best be off to the fields. See you at midday. The boys can help me shoo the birds away from the potatoes—flocks of them coming around now the plants are in flower.”

“They’ll enjoy that,” I said.

He’d make it a game. They’d be Finn and the Fianna, or the Warriors of the Red Branch. Was there ever such a man for playing with his children as Michael? My da never went racing around with my brothers. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. A kind of distance there. Not so Michael and his sons. Giving them the fun he’d missed as a boy.

“We’ll come up later. The boys will be delighted to dash around and frighten the poor things.”

Michael stepped away, then turned, waved to me, and walked across the hill.

“So, Bridget,” I said to my baby. “Shall we seat ourselves on the bench your father made and enjoy this summer’s morning?”