The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven (10 page)

After Maude had taken another considerable sip, she leaned back and provided the opening gambit of the game that was sure to follow: “It would seem Declan Tovey has come back to us.”

Kitty made her next sip a Maude-sized gulp. This accomplished, she looked forward to eating the olive, but that would wait until after she had said, “He was a long time away. Have you any idea of where he might have gone off to?”

Maude, too, drained her cup. “I thought surely you would be the one to know, close as the two of you once were, unless it be Lolly McKeever—or is it Lolly McCloud now? Well, no matter. But one of you or the two of you must still be aware of where he might have gone and what he's up to now that he's back.”

“Really?” Kitty picked up the olive, turned it over between thumb and forefinger, then dropped it back down into the cup. “It's been my impression that you yourself had by far the greater claim than anyone to the doings of Declan Tovey.”

“I? Oh, no. I could never presume to be privy, as it were, to privileges bestowed upon many, but never, shall we say, never
accepted
by some. Among the deprived I number myself. On some subjects I know so little. But you—”

“For all the many times he was among us, surely he impressed you sufficiently for you to—”

“I was never very impressionable in that way. Unlike some. I had, as you know, distractions not of my own choosing. So it could be that I was inclined to engage myself in other ‘pursuits.' Yes. Other. But you …”

Kitty popped the olive into her mouth and began to chew vigorously, clamping down on the pit. But rather than admit to her distress, she said, chewing more slowly, “So he made no impression when you saw him last? And you had not even the curiosity to ask where he'd been? Could it be that you already knew?”

Competitive to the last, Maude, too, popped her olive into her mouth, but sucked on it instead of chewing. Then, holding it in her right cheek, she said, “I had no reason to ask. Of the two of us, you must be the more knowledgeable. Don't forget, Kitty dear, as I mentioned on other occasions, you know a great deal. Sometimes I suspect you surpass even me in, well, in perceptions and events that would, at best, invite my envy. Don't forget, I myself have told you, you are a prophet. In this instance, I know whereof I speak. It's in your writings. You know truths unsuspected by the rest of us. You have God's greatest gift: an imagination. What is to prevent some power you already possess from extending its range, so that an unheard voice might say, ‘Don't stop. Keep reaching, farther, farther.' I know many things and that is one of them.” Now she began chewing. Rapidly. So rapidly that she soon pulled the pit from her mouth and put it on the tray. Kitty did likewise.

As she poured from the pot, Maude asked more quietly, “Have I gone too far?” She dropped an olive into each cup. There was a minor splash.

“No,” said Kitty. “It's all right. It's just that I'm not used to anyone knowing what my writing is really about.” She drank.

“Not just your writing. You. You, Kitty McCloud. The gift is yours. Don't be afraid. Accept it. I did. And my dear sweet Peter, he has accepted it, too, child that he is. Now it's you must do it.” She drank.

“I … I'm sorry, but I don't really understand.” Kitty drank some more.

“Have another olive. And here's a bit of something to wash it down.” She started to tip the pot.

“Oh, I mustn't.”

“When did that ever stop you?” Maude poured, and for herself as well. “There's nothing to understand,” she said. “It's beyond understanding. That's the point. You speak of Declan Tovey. You think I know what I don't know. And I don't, I promise you. I know only what everyone else knows about most things. Now I'm talking about the tales, or the common gossip that keeps a long night from getting longer. What we were talking about before wasn't, of course, rumors. You and Lolly McKeever. And Declan Tovey. Those are facts. What I mean now are the old stories. Ancestors, Taddy, Brid, you remember all that, I'm sure. Oh, and by the way, do you still see them? Taddy and Brid? At your wedding feast, remember how they were there? You didn't even know their names. And you the only one could see them. Are they still about?”

“We … we were talking about Declan. About ancestors.”

“Oh, yes. That. But you must know about it already. Declan and the hanging in the castle.
Your
castle I might add.”

“Declan and the hanging?” Kitty wondered if now was the time for another sip. She decided it was.

“Surely you've heard it all from the time you were born.”

“Tell me now, so I'll know whether I know it or not.”

“A tale is all it is, except the Toveys themselves always told it as gospel truth. And who could blame them, claiming to be descended from heroes and all that.”

“No. I don't know any of this.”

Maude chose to laugh. “Don't tell me the McClouds paid no attention to what was said for centuries at every hearth in the village.”

“Possibly. But what is it about Declan being descended from heroes?”

With an eager smile, Maude replenished the cups. “You'll stop me when it becomes familiar. Promise?”

Kitty took a generous gulp. “Promise.”

“The hanging. You know about that?”

“I do.”

“Good. We'll start with that. And you'll speak up if you've already heard—”

“Yes, yes. I promise.”

“The hanging. The gunpowder. A Lord Shaftoe coming back after a few generations gone, two centuries and more ago. He hears of a plot to blow him up. All that you know. We talked about it at the wedding. But here begins the Declan part. His lordship demands to know who's plotting against him. The villagers, the cottagers around, some, he insists, must know. The miscreants must be informed on. But no one speaks up—probably because no one really knows. Hostages are taken. Brid. Taddy. Lovely it's said they were. Young and to be married one day. Either the plotters be delivered up or the young ones hanged.”

“All this I know.” Kitty's patience was being sore tried.

“Well, then, here comes Declan.” Maude lifted the pot and poured again. Kitty did not protest. Maude went on. “Ancestors of Declan, an old man by now, and an old woman, they present themselves to his lordship. He expects them to confess, which in its own way disappoints him. He had looked forward to stringing up someone young and with a whole life to be lived. But then he's not disappointed after all. The old couple had come not to confess but to offer themselves in the hostages' stead. They plead. ‘Let them live. Let ourselves be hanged and they go free.' But his lordship will have none of it.”

She took a goodly gulp. “Why the stupid fools didn't simply confess, get themselves hanged, and be done with it, no one really knows. The Toveys have always claimed that the old man, the old woman, thinking themselves about to be dead, were afraid to tell a lie and be damned for it. Believe it or not, that's what the family has claimed.”

Maude plunked another olive in each cup. Kitty began to make a gesture of protest, but changed her mind. Maude poured. After she'd set the teapot down, she went on. “To reward the old woman and the old man for their insolence in coming before his lordly self without naming the names he had demanded, he had them whipped and sent home. And to the villagers, seeing them in pain and with the blood showing through their clothing, and begging an explanation, the old couple tell their sorry story. Just as you've heard it now. If it's gospel or not, I'll leave it for you to decide.” She raised her cup and held it out in salute to the tale she'd told.

With only the slightest hesitation, Kitty responded with her own raised cup. And how could she not? Maude, possibly knowing exactly what she was doing, had given her some information she'd neglected to hope for. Naturally, Kitty was a bit disappointed that more had not been required of her own gifts for manipulation, but she could hardly register a complaint. It was a triumph, and she must not deny herself the pleasures it had offered. Now she knew. Declan's ancestry, like hers, like Kieran's, had made possible his sightings of Taddy and of Brid. What Maude had said might have been only a village rumor, but it was not impossible that she had given the tale this lesser designation—as opposed to an outright vision proceeding from her Seerage—to diminish the authority and spare Kitty the accusation that she was inventing from first to last what she'd given.

Kitty had no trouble believing. It all made sense—if such a word could be applied to something so totally contrary to the common definition. She emptied her cup. Maude emptied hers. The moment demanded nothing less.

Now Kitty understood the reason for her summons. Judging other people by her own example, she had expected an unending exchange of manipulations: Maude determined to know what Kitty knew about Declan, Kitty equally determined to exact from the Hag any knowledge she might have. And here Maude was, deliberately telling Kitty a not improbable story relating to Declan and Brid and Taddy. Kitty and Kieran's ability to see the couple proceeded from a truth less heroic. Their ancestors had (unwittingly) been responsible for the hanging. Declan's ancestors were much the opposite. And Maude had helped her to know it.

There might have been an element of spite in the telling, Maude reveling in the disparity of ancestral contributions to the fate of the young martyrs, but Kitty was too grateful to give that particular reading to Maude's motive. The woman had done a good and generous deed, and Kitty would concentrate on that to the exclusion of other more satisfying possibilities. Friends they would be from this moment on.

Maude was reaching for the olives again when Peter came into the room. She leaned closer to Kitty and whispered, “Let me get the child out of here and we'll have still another. I don't encourage myself to do it in front of family. You understand.” She turned toward her son, now changed into jeans with the obligatory rip at the knees and a T-shirt smaller than those worn by boys in this day and age. It barely reached mid-thigh, much less to his knees. “Be a good boy now and run along. You've chores. And if I'm not mistaken, you're a bit late. Is that true?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Then do as you're told. And say goodbye to Mrs. Sweeney. No. To Ms. McCloud.”

Having paid minimum attention to what his mother had been saying, Peter reached down and picked up one of the olive pits from the tray. Kitty suspected it was one of hers. With a mixture of curiosity and concentration, he began turning it over, staring at it.

Kitty knew immediately what he was doing. He'd done it before, once with a piece of dried mucus picked from his nose, another time with a button popped from Lord Shaftoe's shirt when the man had tried to jump to his death from the castle parapet and was rescued by Kieran. Peter would now offer some revelation. Kitty had no choice but hold her breath.

But before the boy could speak, Maude reached over and plucked the pit from his fingers. Gasping as if struck, Peter looked in bewilderment at his mother. “Now run along, son. And say goodbye to Ms. McCloud. Or must I say it yet again?”

Peter blinked and turned his head away as if trying to remind himself of where he was. He looked down into his empty hand and blinked again like one awakening, puzzled by a dream already escaped back into the world from whence it had come. “Oh. Yes.” His bewilderment had not quite dispersed. “Well … goodbye, Miss McCloud.” He paused, then added, “Did my mother ask you to talk to Mr. Tovey about me thatching? To learn the trade? I … I'd like that. You'll ask him, then?”

So mournfully lost did the boy seem that Kitty had to say, “I'll do what I can, surely.”

He nodded. “Yes. And thank you.” Without looking at his mother, who was still holding the olive pit, he started out the door, turned to take one more perplexed look at Kitty, then closed the door behind him.

“Finish up so we can have another.” Maude was still whispering. “And do ask Declan. It would mean so much to the boy.”

Kitty put her hand over her cup. “Oh, no. No more. I think I've had enough. And it … it's very kind of you. Very kind. But I'd better be going. Too many olives disagrees with me. I can't understand why.”

“Me, too. I can't understand it at all, either.” Maude picked up the pot and filled Kitty's cup to the brim. Kitty watched, not particularly displeased. “Now tell me,” Maude said, “you are coming to see the girls in the pageant, aren't you?”

Kitty realized the official business had been tended to. The social moment had arrived, and she must give it equal attention. The time for revelations had passed. Maude, knowingly or not, had given Kitty the ancestral justification for Declan's ability to see the ghosts of Taddy and Brid, the apparent reason for the teatime invitation, and Kitty knew better than to press for more than had already been said.

“Margaret plays broccoli,” Maude continued. “Very convincingly, I'm told. Poor Ellen is rutabaga and takes it personally. But once she starts to sing, she'll feel she's a nice plump tomato and will do quite well. You
will
come, I'm sure. You'd never forgive yourself if you didn't. And look, there's plenty more olives and it's Margaret doing supper. Colcannon, of course. Her specialty. So we don't have a worry in the world.”

Kitty reached for her cup. She was beginning to agree.

6

T
he night was cool, almost cold, but not cold enough to suggest to Aaron that this was the Christmas season, during which time Americans of competing persuasions went to performances of Handel's
Messiah
. Lolly had explained that in Ireland the oratorio transcended seasons.
Messiah
was, after all, an Irish work. She didn't go so far as Kitty with her insistence on Shakespeare's irrefutable Irish lineage and claim that Handel was her countryman, but she did point out that the oratorio's world premiere was not held in any of the grand halls of Europe, nor was the honor given to London. It was at the Music Hall in Fishamble Street in Dublin, the one city in all this world that could assemble an audience worthy of its glory.