Galway Bay (17 page)

“Quite right, Jackson. Quite right. Here rarely—and more and more rarely, I hope. We’ve the new house in London, and Her Ladyship’s family’s made a place in the country available to help her recuperate. No, we won’t be seeing as much of you, dear Pearl, though my son will be home for his annual leave and will expect your services. Quite good services, Jackson. I wish I could offer you a turn, but my son is absurdly possessive about his Pearl of great price.”

I kept my head down. Mam wouldn’t come up here with us. Afraid she’d pick up a knife, stab him straight through the heart, she’d told me.

Jackson snorted. “Your son has nothing to be concerned about,” he said.

“Do you hear that, Pearl? Jackson’s impervious to your charms. It’s his breeding. Good Ulster stock. He told me Andrew Jackson, who was president of America, is a connection. Jackson—isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Your Lordship.”

“Tell them. A history lesson is always salutary.”

“Andrew Jackson came from Carrickfergus, like I do. An Indian fighter, he was, and defeated the savages and made the land safe for decent farmers,” Jackson said.

“And you, Abner, will do the same for me. Clear my land of these swarming good-for-nothings. Wipe it clean. Wide fields and vast pastures to raise cattle and sheep, with good solid men like yourself, Jackson, to tend them. I’ve been soft and the land has suffered, but deliverance is at hand, as the Reverend Smithson might say, deliverance. This evil people will be chastened—evicted. Big news for you to carry back with you, Honora Kelly. I’ve let your horse-riding husband hide behind Mulloy long enough. Tell him and all my tenants that rents will be increased. And no more hanging gale. The rent will be paid, and paid when it’s due, or they’ll be gone. Mr. Jackson fears nothing or no one and doesn’t care about outlaws lurking in the mountains, do you, Mr. Jackson?”

“Not at all. Let them try to stop me from doing my duty.”

“A good time for courage, with two new regiments coming to Galway City,” the old Major said. “Steal food from this house and you’ll find yourself in jail, Pearl, or transported to Australia. No more blind eyes turned. Consider yourselves warned.”

He dropped his voice on those last words and limped away. Jackson followed him. Thomas and Daniel started crying. Granny went over to them. Johnny Og ran out the back door.

“Good at frightening women and children, aren’t they?” I said.

“It’s not as bad when Robert is here,” Máire said.

“You can’t stay here, Máire,” I said. “Da will come up with Michael and Dennis and Joseph to face him down. Let Major Scoundrel Pyke and Jackson thunder at four strong men.”

Máire stroked Daniel’s hair and looked down at Thomas.

“You won’t leave us, will you, Mam?” said Thomas. “You wouldn’t let him take us?”

“I’ll never leave you, boys. You know that,” Máire said.

She looked at us, shook her head.

“You’d better go,” Máire said.

Granny hugged her and the boys. Máire whispered in my ear, “He hates us. Jackson hates us. Tell Michael to mind himself.”

“I will, Máire. But will you be all right?”

“The old Major needs Robert, and Robert needs me.”

Da and the boys were unloading the catch as Granny and I arrived. Josie Bailey, Dennis’s wife, was sorting through the fish. Now there’s a true fisherman’s daughter—deft and quick and good at selling, ready to go to the market, though she’d soon give birth to their second child. They’d one little girl and Josie wanted another. “Sisters.”

Mam came out, holding Bridget. “A fog’s coming in,” she said. “I’ve been watching the mist collect on the hills. You’d best stay here tonight, Honora.”

“I need to get back, Mam.”

“Shall I walk you up, Honora? I’d like to see Paddy and Jamesy. I could sleep up at Knocnacuradh,” my brother Hughie said. Twelve now, very smart.

“Isn’t there school tomorrow? The master will be expecting you. Mam says you’re a great student.
Amo, amas, amat
,” I started.

“
Amatus, amant
,” he finished. “But I could read your book, Honora,” he said.

Michael had found an old Latin grammar book for me in Galway City, probably had belonged to some hedge schoolmaster. “It was cheap enough,” he’d said. “When the high road comes and I open the forge, we’ll buy more.”

“You’ll all be coming to help dig the pratties tomorrow, and I’ll give you a loan of the book,” I said to him, our only redhead, another tall Keeley.

“Time for you to sleep, Hughie,” Mam said. “Honora, this fog’s settling. Stay. You won’t be able to see the road.”

“If I didn’t know every crack and crevice on the path up to Knocnacuradh from the coast road by now, wouldn’t I be an amadán and a shame to Hughie the scholar?”

“Amadán means ‘idiot’ in English,” Hughie said.

“Right you be, Hughie,” I said. I kissed Mam and put Bridget on my hip.

“Safe journey, Honora,” said Mam.

The fog wrapped itself around me, heavy and moist. I’ll go along the strand—faster, and the tide’s out. I could hear the waves hitting against the fingers of rocks that stretched out into the water, but the fog hid the Bay from me.

Bridget cried out.

I’d squeezed her to me without realizing it. “Sorry, a stór. Mam’s baby, Mam’s baby girl.”

In the deep dark, only the feel of rough ground and ridges under my feet told me I’d found the path. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.

“Jesus, Mary, and Holy Saint Joseph! Protect me!” I shouted. How far have I come?

A flickering light above.

“Honora!” Michael stood on the drumlin, holding a piece of burning turf.

“Honora, there you are. I was getting worried. This is a very peculiar fog. Come in, come in, we have your dinner ready, the boys and I.”

At our own fireside we ate sweet, floury new potatoes from the early crop, and I said over and over what good cooks my boys were. I held Bridget in my arms while Michael and the boys told me of the great raid they’d made on the chestnut trees in Barna Woods.

“First tell your mam, Paddy, what’s special about those trees.”

“They’re old, Mam, old, old, old.”

“And what’s important about that?” Michael said.

“Because . . .” And Paddy chanted, “Ireland was thrice clad and thrice bare.”

“Very good, Paddy,” I said.

“Thrice,” said Jamesy. “Thrice, thrice.”

“He doesn’t know it means three, Mam.”

“I do,” James said. “Three, three, three!”

“And what does thrice clad and thrice bare mean?”

“It means,” said Paddy, “they cut our trees down three times.”

“They?”

“The bad people.”

“Shorter than telling him about the Vikings and the Normans and the Sassenach and Cromwell and the rest of them,” Michael said.

I nodded. “Same story, different characters,” I said.

“Ireland had tall trees everywhere, Mam, but now they only grow around the Big Houses. But, Mam, we got some of our own back on our raid,” Paddy said.

“A raid!” said Jamesy.

“We sneaked!” said Paddy.

“Hands and knees,” said Jamesy.

“Da, too, Mam, crawling through the woods until we came to the tallest chestnut tree. Then we threw sticks and stones up into the branches,” said Paddy.

“I threw, too, Mam.”

“Be quiet, Jamesy, I’m telling it,” Paddy said. “Stones and sticks—”

“Paddy threw hard,” said Jamesy. “Hard.”

“I did,” said Paddy. “Right, Da?”

“You both did well, and chestnuts fell, and we grabbed them and ran home singing ‘The West’s Awake.’ Come on, boys.”

And their high voices joined Michael’s deep baritone:

For often, in O’Connor’s van,

To triumph dashed each Connaught clan,

They stumbled through the verse but were strong on the chorus:

The West’s Awake!

The West’s Awake!

They repeated it while I clapped my hands and Bridget laughed.

“Now,” Michael said as he stripped the green covering off the chestnuts. He made a hole and put a bit of line through each of the two nuts. “See,” he said, “you swing one against the other. The chestnut in my right hand attacks the chestnut in my left.” He cocked his wrists and made the two nuts collide.

The boys cheered. “Let us try, Da, let us try!”

Paddy took one and Jamesy the other.

“Let’s watch them,” Michael whispered to me. “You can tell a man’s character by the way he handles a chestnut.”

Paddy swung his chestnut straight at Jamesy’s, but Jamesy held his back until Paddy’s went by him, then let fly with his. There was a great collision, but neither chestnut shattered.

“Now there’s a grand combination for brothers,” Michael said. “Jamesy with the brains, and Paddy with the brawn. One man plans the strategy and the other unleashes the mighty blow.”

I started laughing. “Michael, Jamesy’s not three years old yet, and Paddy’s only five.”

“All the more reason to start. But here’s the most important lesson. Listen to me, you two.”

And his sons quieted, looking up at him.

“Stick together, and no man can better you. See my fingers?” He spread them out. “Jamesy, take Da’s finger and bend it back.”

“I’ll not hurt Daidi.”

“I’ll do it,” said Paddy, grabbing Michael’s smallest finger and pushing on it.

“Ow,” said Michael. He jumped up and ran around the place until he had both boys as well as Bridget and me killing ourselves with the laughing. Then he made a fist. “See, I put my fingers together in a fist. I hold them tight. Now, mo bouchaill, try to bend it.”

Paddy couldn’t dislodge the finger at all.

“Strong now, because these boyos are together. Together. Do you understand, boys?”

“We do, Da,” Paddy said, and Jamesy nodded and nodded, his plump little face jiggling.

“And now to sleep,” I said.

We settled them onto the straw pallet to the side of the hearth.

“A story, Da,” Paddy said.

“A day of stories,” Michael told him. “And work tomorrow.”

I tucked Bridget into the rough cradle Michael had made and stretched out on our straw mattress.

Michael had found bogdeal—petrified wood “from when Ireland was clad”—in the forest and tossed it into the fire. The flames turned as blue as the flowers on Gentian Hill, then became the red purple of the fuchsias that would bloom in our lane.

“The flowers of May come in October,” I said to Michael.

He took off his trousers and got in next to me. I put the blanket over him.

“Here we are, so warm and cozy—so lucky. And Máire’s up there in that prison,” I said.

He held me tighter.

“It’s as if she’s paying for our happiness. I can’t bear it.”

“Máire’s strong,” Michael said.

“I’m tired of hearing that. What does that mean? Does she suffer less because she’s strong? She’s afraid, Michael. Máire was never afraid, but this agent is a hard, dour man. The old Major’s let this Jackson bring in missionaries.”

“Missionaries? You’ve lost me, Honora.”

“To turn us Protestants. We’re heathens, and we shouldn’t have decent land. After all the loads of seaweed you carried up on your back for the fields, after the planting and pulling and watching and waiting, this Jackson’s yearning to raise the rents and evict us, and all because Johnny Leahy drowned and Father Gilley wouldn’t let Máire marry again.”

Michael’s arm came around me.

“And she’s not strong,” I went on. “Well, the Pearl’s strong, flirting and flouncing, but Máire—Máire’s frightened, and so am I.”

“Shhh, now, shhh.”

“Michael, this Reverend Smithson, he wants to take the Blessed Mother from us, too.”

“Now, a stór,” said Michael, “they can’t evict the Mother of God. Ireland is hers.”

“They can if she falls behind in her rent,” I said. I took in a long breath. “I’m so worried, Michael. Jackson’s a different seed and breed altogether. He hates us. And he knows you are on Mulloy’s land. The landlords might not have much use for us, but I’ve never felt the cold, out-and-out hatred from them that I did from this Jackson. It went across my heart and chilled me to the bone—like the fog. It’s an awful fog, Michael.”

“Shall we have a sip of poitín, a stór?”

“Poitín?”

“It’ll warm you, lift the fear a bit.”

“I don’t know. I’ve only ever drunk it at dances, wakes, or weddings. Never just sitting and talking.”

“Try it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be drunk.”

“And right you’d be. Drunk’s frightening on its own terms, but if you sip in the warmth, it brings a kind of courage. Warriors swear by it.”

He reached down behind the bed and brought out the jug of poitín that Patrick kept replenished on his visits.

Patrick Kelly came to us two or three times a year—in the spring, casting a cold eye on Michael’s potato beds and fields to make sure they were proper done, at Christmas, and then sometimes in the summer. Came at night, stayed one day, and left at night. He never said where he’d been or where he was going, but he always had a jug of poitín for us.

“Take a sip of this, a stór. A drop of whiskey, the fire flaming in colors, a story, and a good husband can take the fear right out of you.”

I took a quick swallow from the jug and then a longer pull, and he was right. I felt the whiskey go down to calm my fluttering stomach.

“Uisce beatha,” I said, “the water of life.”

“Fadó,” said Michael. “There lived a blacksmith, said to be the strongest man in Ireland, and men came from all over to challenge him. Who could hold up the mighty hammer longest? Well, this fellow held it high over his head for days and days and nights and nights, his arm all straight and stiff.” Then Michael stopped and brought me to him, whispering to me, and I knew who was the strongest, the best, the most loving man in Ireland—my husband, a ghrá mo chroí, love of my heart.

After we made love, I felt a great energy in me. Why suffer the old Major and Jackson?

“Michael, let’s hitch Champion to a wagon, load up our children, go up to Pyke’s, get Máire and her boys, and go. Escape.”

“Escape where, a stór?”

“Anywhere, get away from the Scoundrel Pykes and Jackson. Be gypsies. You could learn to repair tin pots.”