The New Policeman (4 page)

There had been several competitions earmarked for the summer that had just passed, but somehow all the dates had come and gone without J.J., all of them lost in the headlong rush of their lives. And now there wasn’t even time to wonder about it; about what it was they had been doing that was so much more important than the fleadhs.

His fiddle was hanging on the wall. It was a beautiful instrument, coveted by every fiddler who had ever played it. Its tone was vibrant and sweet, ringing through the tunes, however fast and furious their pace. For a moment J.J. allowed his eyes to rest on it, savored the little lift that the prospect of playing it always produced in his heart. He had been trained early; indoctrinated, some might even say. He was good. Playing had brought him prizes and praise. But none of these things was responsible for the soft flutter of anticipation, the itch in his fingers as they longed for the feel of the strings and the bow. J.J. played because he loved it. J.J. Liddy did, anyway. But what about J.J. Byrne?

Helen called him from the foot of the stairs.

“Coming!” he called back.

Half the clothes he owned were strewn around the floor, some dirty, some nearly clean. What did lads
wear to clubs anyway? He had never been to one, nor could he remember having seen any of his friends on their way to one, or on their way back. He opened his jeans drawer. His best trousers were in there, the ones he wore to mass. They would be too smart, surely? He didn’t want to look like a dork. What, then?

“J.J.?” Helen again. “Come on, we haven’t much time.”

He swept his way across the room, snatching up clothes with his hands, kicking them into a pile with his feet. When everything was in one heap, he bundled it up and charged down the stairs. It could all go in the wash. He would decide later what to wear.

Helen was sitting beside the range, getting the concertina out of its case. Music was always played there, in the big old kitchen. In the old days that was where the dances had been held. Helen told visitors that, and showed them the places where the flagstones had been worn down by generations of dancing feet. The conversion of the barn had been her own enterprise. Her mother, who was still living at the time, had been disgusted by the idea until she saw the result. Then even she had been forced to admit that it was a lovely place for dancing. When J.J. looked around the kitchen now,
he found it hard to believe that four sets had ever had room to move in there. Four sets was thirty-two dancers; all on the go together. It was a big kitchen, but it wasn’t that big. Helen, however, swore that it was true. She had played for the dancers herself, along with her mother.

As J.J. crammed the clothes into the washing machine, he heard his mother’s fingers moving tentatively across the buttons of the concertina, fishing for the old tunes she wanted him to learn. He picked up three powder boxes before he found one with some left in it. Another long-finger job—tidy up the utility room. He set the program, turned on the machine, and raced up the stairs for the fiddle. But even as he lifted it from the wall he heard the knock on the door and the voice in the little porch.

“Hello?”

He should have been expecting it. It was always the way, these days. Carve out a bit of time for something and what happened? Something, or someone, came along and stole it.

ROLLING IN THE BARREL

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The visitor was Anne Korff. She didn’t need to be shown the worn patches on the kitchen flags; she had come to the house many times before. Anne had been living in the area for more than twenty years, running a small publishing company producing books and maps based on the Burren. She knew the region better than many people who had lived there all their lives and was fiercely protective of anything that posed a threat to its delicate environmental balance.

J.J. came downstairs, the fiddle in one hand, the bow and rosin in the other. Anne’s little terrier, Lottie, wagged her tail at him but didn’t venture out from behind Anne’s legs. From his bed beside the range, Bosco looked on with heroic restraint.

“Ah, you are just going to play,” said Anne. “I’m disturbing you.”

“Not at all,” said Helen, and meant it. The hospitality of generations ran through her veins. Nothing, not even music, was more important. “We’re just having a cup of tea. Sit yourself down, there.”

Anne understood better than most the pressures of time. “No, really,” she said. “I was just passing your door and I thought I would pop in and get a bit of cheese.”

Helen sold most of her cheese to a wholesaler who distributed it to delicatessens around the country, but there were a few people, like Anne, who liked to call in and buy it direct.

“Of course,” said Helen. “But you may as well have a cup of tea while you’re here.”

“No,” said Anne. “I would love to, but I’m way behind schedule with the new book. I’m up to my eyes in editing. There just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Helen wearily. “I’ll get you some cheese, then.” She moved toward the door. “A small one, is it?”

“And how’s life with J.J.?” said Anne, when Helen was gone.

“Good,” said J.J. automatically. “And yourself?”

“Good, good,” said Anne Korff. “You’re getting so
tall these days. I suppose you are going to clubs and everything now, eh?”

Her words hit J.J. in the solar plexus. Helen was already returning with the cheese, wrapped in greaseproof paper. If she had heard Anne’s question, she gave no sign of it.

“That all right?” she asked.

“Perfect,” said Anne. She turned to J.J. “You know your mother makes the best cheese in the country?”

“Ah, now,” said Helen. She put the cheese on top of the dresser beside the door.

As Anne paid her for it, she said, “No, I was just out for a walk. Nosing around on your land. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Why would I?” said Helen. “Walk where you like, Anne.”

“I know that, of course,” said Anne. “But I was looking at that old ring fort up at the top of your grazing land. I never knew it was there. It’s not marked on any of the maps, as far as I know. Such a beautiful fort as well. So well preserved.”

“I suppose it is,” said Helen.

The terrier was getting bolder, venturing out from behind Anne’s feet and beginning to explore the kitchen.

“No, it’s just…” said Anne. “I see the field there has been bulldozed.”

J.J. saw a hint of suspicion creep into his mother’s face. The edges of the Burren contained a lot of rough, rocky land of very little use to farmers. In the past, some areas had been cleared by hand and, since the invention of bulldozers, a lot more had been mechanically cleared. It was illegal now, and had been for several years, under environmental protection legislation. J.J., like his mother, thought that Anne might be suggesting they had broken the law.

“That was a long time ago,” said Helen. “When I was a child.”

“Of course,” said Anne. “I can see that. I was just interested to see how careful they were to preserve the fort. People in those days had such respect.”

“Not just in those days,” said Helen. “I don’t know of any farmers who would touch a fairy ring. They’d know it would bring bad luck down upon them.”

“They still believe that?” said Anne.

“Any that I know,” said Helen.

The terrier was sniffing around the dresser, vacuuming up bread crumbs. J.J. could see that Bosco’s patience was wearing thin.

“It’s good to hear,” said Anne. “But that one is such
a good one. I must put it on the map when we next revise it. Would you mind?”

“Why would I?” said Helen. She had no objection to people walking on her land, and Ciaran positively encouraged it, being of the belief that whatever the Land Registry might say, no one could really be said to own land.

“Is there a souterrain in it, do you know?” said Anne.

“No,” said Helen.

“What’s a souterrain?” asked J.J.

“Underground houses,” said Anne. “Most of the ring forts round here have them. Some have several rooms with beautiful flagstone ceilings. Have you never been inside one?” J.J. shook his head. He hadn’t, though he knew now what she was talking about. A lot of his friends had been inside places like that. They called them caves.

“I will show you,” said Anne Korff. “Come down to my house one fine day. There is one fairly near where I live. I will show you.” She turned back to Helen. “So, this ring fort. Has it ever been excavated?”

Helen didn’t get as far as answering. J.J. could have prevented what happened next; he had seen it coming a long way off. The talk of the souterrain had
distracted him, and while he wasn’t looking, Lottie had discovered Bosco’s food bowl. There was nothing in it, but that didn’t prevent the old dog from being fiercely possessive about it. There was an explosion of barks and yelps. Suddenly there seemed to be dogs everywhere. Everyone started yelling at them at once, and at the first safe opportunity Anne whipped the quivering terrier up under her arm, from where it peered out at everyone with a victimized expression.

“Sorry about that,” said Anne. “We’ll get out of your way now.”

“Do you need a lift?” said Helen.

“No, no. My car is at the bottom of the hill.”

And she was gone.

Helen sat down and picked up the concertina. J.J. began to rosin his bow. But before they could start playing, Ciaran came in.

“What did Anne Korff want?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “That stew must be ready now. Where’s Marian?”

“Learning her lines for the play,” said Helen. “But no one’s eating anything until we’ve gone over these tunes.”

Ciaran went off to find Marian, and Helen started fingering the keys again. She gave J.J. an A and he
tuned the fiddle. Then she began fishing again, and before long a haunting little jig began to emerge from the bellows. J.J. had never heard it before.

“It’s lovely,” he said, when she had played it through twice. “What’s it called?”

“I don’t remember the name of it. My grandfather used to play it.”

Helen’s grandfather. His great-grandfather. J.J. went cold again. “On the flute, was it?” he asked.

Helen looked up. “How did you know that?”

He didn’t answer.

“J.J.?” Helen could see from his expression that something was wrong. “Has someone been telling you stories?”

Ciaran and Marian breezed in. “You’re overruled,” said Ciaran. “Two against two. Maz has to get to drama. We have to eat now.”

This time, neither J.J. nor Helen had any resistance to offer.

THE CONCERTINA REEL

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“Right,” said Ciaran, plonking the stewpot down on the table and sitting down behind it. “Before our mouths are full, and before the phone rings, and before the goats break out again—”

“And before Anne Korff comes back for her cheese,” J.J. broke in.

“What?” said Helen.

“And before we start talking about Anne Korff’s cheese,” Ciaran went on determinedly, “I have something to say.”

“You’d better be quick then,” said Marian, ladling stew onto her plate.

“I will,” said Ciaran. “What do you want for your birthday?”

Marian passed the ladle to Helen, who dipped it
into the stew before she realized who Ciaran was talking to. “You don’t mean me?”

“I do,” said Ciaran.

“It can’t be my birthday again already,” said Helen. “I’ve only just had one.”

“I know how you feel,” said Ciaran. “It seems as if your last birthday was only a month ago, but that short month was in fact a short year. In three weeks’ time, which will feel to us all like three days, you will be having another one.”

“Oh, no,” said Helen. “Forty-five!”

“Forty-six, actually,” said Marian, who was always right.

“I can’t be!” said Helen.

“Twenty-one, then,” said Ciaran. “We don’t mind. But what do you want?”

Helen sat back and dropped the ladle. J.J. took it and filled her plate, then his own.