Galway Bay (3 page)

“Sorry to get between you and your story, Michael. Go on.”

He cleared his throat. “So. This chieftain William Boy led the clan during a sliver of peace, the Normans settled and Cromwell not yet arrived. He decided to have a party, the greatest party ever given or heard about in the entire island of Ireland. He invited all the chieftains and princes for many miles around. They came with their wives and children, their warriors and servants, their poets and priests, to Gallagh Castle for this great Christmas feast. In those days, families within the clan owed allegiance to the chieftain, and each one coming to Gallagh had a particular duty. Take the Naughtons—they carried the Kellys’ French wine from the port to the castle, an important responsibility,” he said.

“And have you a great fondness for drink?” I asked.

“I can take it or I can leave it alone,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “So. Go on. I suppose the guests brought horses?”

“They did. Splendid horses—some glossy black, others pure white. One’s coat was the color of a newly ripened chestnut. Lovely for horses, or women,” he said, and brushed the crown of my head with his one finger, soft and swift, yet I felt his touch through my whole body. “A good heavy fall of red brown hair you have—like Champion’s tail.”

“Champion’s tail!”

“Couldn’t begin to compare with the thick, lovely mass of your hair, Honora Keeley. Your eyes . . . so clear. Green with flecks of gold and . . .” He stretched his hand toward my face, then dropped his arm back down to his side.

I swallowed. “Go back to the party, Michael,” I said, my voice sounding hoarse.

“Oh, right.”

“So . . .”

“So the feasting began. They roasted whole sheep in huge fireplaces. And all the guests thanked the cooks kindly.”

“Good manners,” I said.

“Right,” Michael said. “And if someone wasn’t mannerly? That person’s slice of meat was cut from the far end of the animal, the cold shoulder. William Boy’s guests were enjoying themselves so much that he hadn’t the heart to send them away when Christmastime passed. They stayed on, and the feasting and the racing and the dancing and the storytelling and the music went on for three seasons, until the first of August—Lughnasa—when the harvest called them home. The openhearted generosity of William Boy O’Kelly is remembered to this day, for even now, when someone wants to warmly welcome you, they extend the Fáilte Uí Cheallaigh, the Welcome of the O’Kellys.” He stroked my hand. “A very warm welcome indeed.” He let go.

“Your mother, Michael,” I said.

“She comes into it now. Years after the party, when our enemies took the land, the Blakeneys pulled down Gallagh Castle and changed our town’s name to Castle Blakeney. Still the Kellys remembered and told the old stories.

“And one morning before dawn on Bealtaine, my mother set out to climb the hill to Gallagh Castle. In our part of the world we believe that on Bealtaine, the first day of May, the dew on the grass has great power.”

“We believe that, too, Michael.”

“Do girls wash their faces in it to improve their complexions? Not that you would need concern yourself about that.”

“It is said, Michael Kelly, that roll in the dew that day and your body will glow with great beauty,” I said.

“Roll?” he asked. “I suppose no clothes would be worn?”

“I wouldn’t think so, Michael Kelly.”

“Ah,” he said. Then he jumped up and turned away from me.

I stood. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“I’m not. Not at all. But Champion needs a drink of water, and so do I.”

“Of course,” I said. “There’s sweet water in the stream near Saint Enda’s well.”

Michael took Champion’s reins, and we three walked toward the gap that led into the woods.

We passed Barna House—curtains still closed. But the sun’s full up. Miss Lynch will be awake soon and looking out her window. We stepped into the clearing around the well.

“Now, your mother on Bealtaine?” I asked after Champion drank from the Tobar Geal and Michael leaned down for a quick swallow of water.

“My mother had terrible trouble with her feet: corns and bunions and swelling ankles and hammertoes, a disaster altogether. A wise old woman told her if she walked up to the ruins of Gallagh Castle at dawn on May Day, the dew would cure her.

“So, up she went to climb the slopes of the course while darkness held the town quiet. At first light she saw the castle. She started up the hill but then stopped. She heard music . . . the sound of pipes. Could they be fairy pipes?”

Michael paused. Champion lifted her head as if to hear better. The oak trees shaded us. Michael walked over and sat on the stone wall surrounding St. Enda’s well. He patted the space beside him. I settled myself next to Michael. We smiled at each other. He continued his story.

“Now, all her life my mother enjoyed hearing about the good people and all their doings. She’d marked the raths and fairy trees, abided by all the good people’s requirements from a child. She found the same comfort in respecting their rituals that she did in performing the patterns and prayers at wells like this one—all a way to put shape on the wild randomness of life, she told me. But to really hear fairy music . . . This was something she had never expected.

“The music pulled her forward. If following that tune meant leaving her father and the forge and the whole surroundings of Gallach Uí Cheallaigh to live the rest of her life in some fairy rath, well, so be it. . . . And then she saw him. A piper, surely, but rather raggle-taggle for a fairy and much bigger than the good people are said to be. He sat on the big rock near the arched entrance to the ruined castle, sending his music up to the dawn. And that was my father.”

“Your father,” I said.

“He was playing the sun up out of the shadows, and when it shone full on their faces, he greeted her. ‘I’m Michael Kelly,’ he said, ‘from Callow Lake,’ which was ten miles south, a marshy lake where William Boy’s son had settled. ‘I’m a piper, as you see,’ he said. ‘I intended to come here and play a sad lament for the Kellys of old. But I hear joyful tunes in this air, reels and jigs. Powerful how the memories of a great party linger.’ And my mother agreed, ‘It was a powerful party.’ So . . .”

“So, they married, didn’t they, your mother and your father?”

“You want me to rush to the end of the story?”

“I only want to know that one thing.”

“They married.”

“Good,” I said. “Go on.”

“My father had over five hundred tunes, jigs and reels, laments and marches, music for dancing, for mourning, for war, and for peace. For generations his family were pipers to the O’Kellys of Callow, supported by them. But now with the land lost and times hard, my father traveled the roads, playing where he could. Every place he went he learned a tune or two, sometimes from a tin whistle player or a singer who sounded the notes for him. In the winter, he’d come back to Callow Lake, where Edmond O’Kelly, William Boy’s descendant, kept a small cottage for him. He’d entertain Edmond with the stories of his journey. He collected bits on the history and genealogy of the Kellys from the various branches of the family, which interested Edmond. ‘And is there a wife in that snug cottage in Callow?’ my mother asked him. ‘There was,’ he told her, ‘a fine woman who gave me a son before she died.’ ‘And you didn’t marry again?’ my mother asked him. ‘I wouldn’t afflict the life of a piper’s wife on another woman, not when I have to travel so far to play for so little. The snug cottage’s gone now, and my son, Patrick, hires out to whatever farmer will have him.’”

“So, you have a brother, Michael,” I said.

“I do—twelve years older than me. Very accomplished altogether.”

Patches of sun splashed the ground around us now—morning going, the Keeleys getting up. But I couldn’t leave, not with Michael’s father about to confront his grandfather.

“My mother and Michael Kelly, the piper, walked into the forge, just enough light to see Murtaugh Mor Kelly, bent over the fire. He straightened up, all sweat and grime and strength, the hammer clenched in his fists. Rigid with silence. My father stood his ground, didn’t turn away as those who’d wanted my mother’s hand before had done, but stated his proposal. ‘You’re courting the forge,’ my grandfather said to him, ‘looking for a soft spot to land in your old age.’

“‘I have my own trade,’ he said, and showed my grandfather his pipes.

“‘A wandering piper—ever on the roads, sleeping God knows where, not much better than a beggar—would take away my daughter?’

“‘I would not ask any woman to follow my path, though I might invite her to join me on a great occasion, at a gathering where my pipes played a proper role.’

“‘A great occasion,’ my grandfather said, banging the hammer on the horseshoe before him. ‘Few of those in this country these days.’

“‘True enough. At least you have a reminder of the old spirit here in Gallagh Castle.’

“‘Gallach Uí Cheallaigh,’ my grandfather said. ‘And it’s a ruin.’

“Now they were conversing in English, though my father and mother had spoken in Irish on the slopes of Gallagh Castle.”

“Do you have Irish?” I asked. We’d been speaking English.

“I do, Honora,” he said, “though not as fluent as I would like. In our part of the country, the Blakeneys made it a condition of keeping the forge that no ‘O’ be used in our name and no Irish spoken. I think my grandfather lived in great runs of silence because he didn’t want to put English on his thoughts. But he daren’t speak Irish and risk betrayal. I once heard him curse Queen Elizabeth for forcing the Kelly chieftains to swear they’d bring up their children after the English fashion and have them speak only the English language.”

“Miss Lynch said who Elizabeth was angry because the Normans and Old English families who first conquered Ireland had come to speak only Irish and Latin. ‘
Ipsis Hibernicis Hiberniores—
more Irish than the Irish,’ she called them.”

“Who is Miss Lynch?” Michael asked.

“My teacher. I’ll tell you about her later. Now, please, go on with your story.”

“My throat is dry,” he said, and he got up from the well and went over to the stream.

I followed him. He knelt down and cupped water into his two hands, then stood up and lifted his hands to my face. I opened my mouth and he tipped the water past my lips. I wanted to kiss the hollow of his hand. Jesus, what’s happening to me?

“The story, Michael,” I managed to say, sitting down on the well, him taking his place next to me.

“My grandfather had forgotten the horseshoe left in the fire, turning now from red to white. He quickly speared it and dropped it into the trough of water. The hiss of the steam and the smoke rising distracted both men, and my mother spoke up.

“‘I want to marry this man,’ she said.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

“Just like that,” Michael said. “Unexpected.”

“Well,” I said, “didn’t Grainne fall in love with Diarmuid the moment she saw the love-spot on his forehead, though she was meant to marry Finn, the chief?”

“I believe that was the case,” said Michael.

“And Deirdre, intended for King Conor her whole life, ran off with Naoise the first time they met. Unexpected.”

“A surprise for Naoise, and Diarmuid. Both fellows off adventuring and here come these girls and they’re in love. . . . Not what a fellow expects,” he said.

“I suppose not,” I said. “Especially if he’s out riding his fine chestnut horse, going who knows where.”

He’s only passing through. I’ll never see him again. . . .

But Michael said, “Those old tales come from somewhere. My mother marrying my father was very unlikely.”

“Unlikely,” I said. “But it happened.”

“It did,” he said.

He covered my hand with his. Warm. He stopped speaking. I took a breath.

“Go on. What did your grandfather say to your mother?”

“He said, ‘It’s late in the day for marriage, Fionnuala.’ My mother’s name was Fionnuala.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

“I like a good strong name on a woman—Fionnuala, Honora.”

“Ah,” I said.

“‘There’s a time for breeding,’ my grandfather said to her, ‘and when that time is passed, it’s gone.’”

“A hard saying,” I said.

Michael nodded. “My father spoke right up and said, ‘I have a son and I’m not worrying about getting another. But when your daughter stepped toward me, I felt the loneliness I carry lift as mist does in the warmth of the sun. My son Patrick’s mother was a good woman, and she wouldn’t begrudge me happiness. Perhaps it was her prayers brought your daughter to me,’ my father said, all solemn-like. ‘It was my bunions,’ my mother said. So . . .”

“But it wasn’t too late for her, because you were born.”

“I was, and grew up with her and my grandfather Murtaugh Mor, the blacksmith. My father would spend the winter with us, and sometimes my brother, Patrick, would come. I had a solitary enough childhood, but I could romp around a bit with Patrick.”

“I’ve always had my sister, Máire, and— Oh, dear God, Máire’s wedding! How could I forget? I have to go, Michael. Now.”

“Wait,” he said.

I stopped, then turned back. “I never asked where you were going before you dove into Galway Bay.”

“I thought I was off to see the wide world, Honora, carrying my father’s pipes and a blacksmith’s skill. I’d come to Galway City to get some handy money for the journey.”

“What do you mean?”

“Champion and I mean to win the Galway Races.”

“The Galway Races? You have to be a gentleman to enter the Galway Races. Michael, you’re not a gentleman, are you?”

“I am not!”

“Thank Jesus and his Blessed Mother. My da might let me marry a tinker, but never a gentleman! Oh, I didn’t mean to say ‘marry.’ I mean . . . You must think I’m terrible bold.”

“For speaking the truth? Here, let’s go and speak to your father right now.”

“But what about traveling the world?”

“I don’t fancy traveling alone anymore,” he said.

“Oh.” My voice went very soft. “I’m glad.”

We walked together onto the strand toward the cluster of cottages. The neighbors were up, and many seemed to be looking our way, talking to one another, pointing.