by Elle Casey
My dad gets up and walks over to me, putting his arm around me and squeezing hard. “Yeah, I know. But sure it’s been grand seein’ ye and young Ridlee here.” He drops his voice to a stage whisper and looks to my friend. “Sorry about the food poisoning, Ridlee.”
“Get away with ye, Jack O’Neill! I heard that!” yells my mum from the other end of the kitchen. “She had a bad pint. We all ate the same, so it must have been the Guinness.”
“Really, Mrs. O’Neill…” says Ridlee.
“It’s Una, Ridlee.” Clearly my parents have found their lost child. They love Ridlee.
“Una.” Ridlee smiles beatifically. God, she’s good. “I’m sure it was the airplane food.”
Mum smiles warmly at her.
Ridlee didn’t eat on the plane; she never does.
Pulling two dinner plates out of the oven Mum ushers me to take a seat at the table. “Well, if ye’re going all the way to County Clare, ye’ll need a good breakfast. No arguments.”
It really is almost impossible to think that my mother grew up in the States; I sound more American than she does. But then converts are always the most fervent, aren’t they?
I sit down next to Ridlee. I actually love a full Irish breakfast: rashers of bacon, sausages, baked beans, soda bread, and pudding — the other part of the pig. I’m not going to tell Ridlee that Irish breakfast pudding is made from pig’s blood. It’s delicious; she’ll love it if she gives it a chance.
“What’s that?” whispers Ridlee, subtly pointing her knife at her black pudding.
“Pudding. Now eat up; it could be a long day.”
“Now, Erin, do ye know which way to go to get to County Clare?” asks Uncle Miley, emerging from his newspaper for the first time, winking at me.
“Sure, it’ll be sign-posted all the way,” offers my helpful mother. “Erin’s very good at navigating, aren’t ye, Erin? And sure, ye can always get one of those GSP things, can’t ye?”
I stare at my plate, a full blush beginning to tingle my toes. The tattoo had seemed like such a cool thing to do when Ridlee and I were tipsy, but it has given me no end of trouble since. I cannot believe Uncle Miley saw me naked.
“Yeah, Mum, we’ll probably get a GPS, in case.”
“Cause ye know there’s more than one way to get to Clare,” says my uncle, his bushy eyebrows dancing.
I push back my chair so quickly that it almost overturns, and stand up. “Time to go!” I drag Ridley from her chair and force her out the front door with me, grabbing my purse from the couch as we stumble by.
“What’s the big hurry?” Ridlee asks, snagging her purse too.
“I had to get out of there. Needed some fresh air.” I act distracted so she won’t ask me any more questions. If she finds out about the Uncle Miley incident they’ll both start teasing me and I’m liable to start swinging then.
We pick up the car from the ‘rental’, if you could call it that, that Uncle Miley has directed us to. Seems Miley forgot to tell them we were coming today, so all they have left for us is a Fiat Bambino from the 1970s.
“She goes,” the manager assures me as I stare crestfallen at the tiny pink car. “A classic. Guzzles petrol, mind, but sure that’s to be expected isn’t it?” He scratches his head and looks impotently around the now empty car lot. “If only your uncle had told me when you were comin’, I could have put something special aside for ye. The good news is that the cigarette lighter still works so I’ll throw in a GPS for free.”
“Great. Thanks,” I mumble already bracing myself for Ridlee’s reaction when she sees this hunk of junk.
“Be careful on the motorways. I’m not sure her top speed is enough to maintain in the slow lane. You might have to go the long way round. But sure, they don’t call it the scenic route for nothin’.” And with that he drops the keys into my hands and disappears back inside the port-a-cabin that he uses for an office.
Ridlee arrives a minute or two later with one of the boys from the office dragging her suitcases behind. “What’s that, a golf buggy?” she asks, genuinely, I think.
“No, that is a Fiat Bambino. Our Fiat Bambino, actually.”
Ridlee looks from me to the car and back to me again. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
I’m kind of relieved that little-miss-perfect-for-the-parents-Ridlee has been jostled aside and replaced by my ball-breaking friend.
“Be right back,” she says, and marches off in the direction of the office.
I go back to staring at the ancient, baby pink Bambino. Knowing Ridlee’s mission is probably hopeless, I move to the driver’s side door. It takes an age to get the tiny key into the little lock to get it open. A moment later, Ridlee returns, huffing a little.
“No joy?”
“None whatsoever. He gave me these.” She holds out her hand to show me a knotted clump of bungee rope.
“What are they for?”
“My luggage.”
I have to bite my cheek not to burst out laughing, she looks so angry.
Forty-five minutes later we’re on the road and heading west. The luggage on the roof rack is almost the same size as the car itself.
“Did you put the address into the GPS?” I ask anxiously, because contrary to what my mother says, I can barely recognise Dublin anymore, and getting on the motorway is proving a bit tricky. The device has been way too quiet for way too long.
“There! There!” Ridlee waves frantically at a big blue sign indicating that those wishing to go west should get off the motorway now.
”Recalculating," intones the annoying bitch on the GPS, “in sixteen kilometres make a u-turn.”
“Gimme that!” I grab the device and punch some buttons on the menu. There’s a beep and the voice changes.
“Ar aghaidh leat…”
“Fuck.” I let out a long sigh as I realize I’ve made it worse. Irish school did nothing to prepare me for this.
“What have you done, Erin?” Ridlee’s tone is playful, but I don’t think she’ll be laughing in a minute.
“The stupid thing’s stuck on Irish,” I say jamming my finger onto the touch screen again.
“That’s okay. You’re mom said that you speak Irish fluently,” Ridlee offers, unruffled.
I glance at her and then back to the road.
“You do speak Irish Erin, don’t you?” Suspicion laces her tone.
“It’s been a while, Rid, but hopefully it’ll come back to me.” I focus hard on the road in front of me. Everything looks and feels so different and I barely recognized the streets I grew up on as Dad drove us home from the airport. Now it seems I can’t remember a word of Irish and Dublin city has undergone so many major changes that I’m feeling pretty lost. I’m a stranger here. Still, probably best not to share this information with Ridlee; I don’t want to make her nervous.
CHAPTER SIX
RIDLEE
I RUB MY STOMACH AS we tool down the highway. “Black pudding. What exactly is it that makes the pudding black? And can I just assign penalty points right now for calling something that tastes like dinner food pudding? Because pudding is supposed to be sweet and goopy and something that you eat for dessert.”
“Did you like it?” Erin looks at me sideways as she grins. It’s that grin that has me suddenly very worried.
“I’m not sure.” I rub my midsection again. “Something’s not right in here.”
“In your belly?”
“Yes. Or maybe it’s in my intestines. Ugh.” I look out the window, trying not to see that blob of black non-pudding that was on my breakfast plate earlier today. I ate the whole thing. The whole, black, mushy, gushy, gloopy and slightly lumpy thing. “I change my mind. Don’t tell me what’s in it. I don’t want to know.”
“Ye sure?” She’s taunting me now.
I glare at her. “If you tell me it’s sheep testicles, I’m gonna yack it all up in this Bambino, I swear to God, Erin. And I’m not going to be the one cleaning it up, either.”
“Sheep
testicles? Nah. Are they black? I’ve never looked that close.”
She sounds genuinely curious, so I laugh. “No, I am not going to allow you to pull over so you can go look at that sheep’s balls.” The hillsides are dotted with the puffy white-ish grey-ish color of their fleece. They all look like they could use a good bath.
“It would only take a sec.”
“No. Keep driving. I need to get a pint in me.”
She frowns at me and then leans over, putting the back of her hand across my forehead. “You’ve caught the disease, haven’t you?”
“What disease?” I push her hand away. She’s blocking my view of all the green grass everywhere, and I think this ridiculous excuse for a vehicle is making me carsick, so I need as much of the view as I can get.
“Uncle Miley-itis. The disease that causes you to think a pint’ll cure anything.”
“In the U.S. we call it hair-of-the-dog. It’s not exclusive to your uncle.” Honestly, a pint is the last thing I need, but I’m anxious to get to Lisdoonvarna to find out what we can do to salvage Erin’s inheritance. I’m nervous that I’m not going to have enough time to navigate the Irish legal waters that await. Maybe that’s why my stomach is in knots. This is so important to her; I do not want to screw it up. “I need something in my belly that’s not a fake pudding and not animal body parts that weren’t meant to be eaten.”
“Parts such as …?”
“Intestines, reproductive organs, … actually any organs …, eyelids, ears, tongues, tails,…”
“You’ve cut out half the animal.”
“Exactly. Give me meat. That’s all I want.”
“You like hot dogs.”
“So?”
“Hot dogs have all that stuff you just listed in ‘em.”
“They do not.” I stare at her horrified. She knows how much I like hot dogs.
“Google it.”
Now I’m just cranky. I have to scratch hot dogs off my list? Another penalty point shall now be assigned to all of Ireland. It has to be Ireland’s fault. I don’t know anyone in the U.S. who cooks intestines for dinner. What the hell am I going to eat at Fenway Park now? They can’t possibly expect me to eat nachos.
“What’s wrong?” Erin asks.
“Nothing.” I wave her off. “Let’s change the subject.”
“To …?”
“To what we’re going to do when we arrive. What’s the game plan?” Forcing myself to ignore my churning guts, I put on my business face and wait for Erin’s reply. Hopefully she has it all worked out, since I’ve been too distracted by all the crazy Irish things to do much in that area.
“Well, first thing is to check into the B&B. Then …”
“B&B? What happened to the hotel?”
“Full. The festival has everything booked to the gills. But Uncle Miley has a friend of a friend who got us a good deal over in Doolin.”
“Doolin? What’s a doolin? And you told me Uncle Miley’s good deals were never good deals.” I’m worried I’m going to end up in a shower like Erin had this morning. I’m kind of really attached to the idea of the power-shower or whatever they call that thing I used off her parents’ bedroom. I’m not exactly sure how it earned the name power anything, since the water pressure was barely there, but at least the thing didn’t attack me like Erin’s did.
“That’s generally true, but Auntie Ger said this one was a good one. Doolin’s a town right next to Lisdoonvarna. It’s really close, not to worry.”
“Why does that not make me feel any better?” I’m not really expecting an answer.
“Hey, it’s an adventure, loosen up. Besides, we’re hardly ever going to be in the room, right? We have things to do, places to go, people to see. Bam, bam, bam. Get in, get out, no fuckin’ about.”
I grin. “Well, maybe a little fuckin’ about.”
She smiles back. “Okay. A little. But not a lot.”
“After we check in, what’s next?”
“We find a local solicitor. We find Padraig O’Fuck-me-no-way-are-you-getting-my-bar Flanagan, and then we buy him out.”
I play-frown. “Hmmm … sounds like you have it all figured out.”
She slaps my leg. “Shut up. It’s an evolving plan.”
“And by evolving, you mean non-existent.”
“No, by evolving, I mean feel free to add your two cents because I can’t be expected to come up with everything on my own. I’m just the driver.”
A sign catches my eye, so I sit up straighter and point. “There! That’s our destination. Turn left. Turn left!” I’m still not used to this whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing. It feels weird to be on the left side of the front seat without a steering wheel.
Erin waits until the last possible second and then jerks the car to the left. We bounce off the motorway onto a side road so narrow it could rightly be called a path. My head hits the side window when it whips back in the other direction.
“What the hell!” Stomach ache plus headache equals cranky girl.
“I’m sorry! I was waiting for the GPS bitch to say something.” She waves at the dashboard as she’s leaning really far forward, her boobs resting on the steering wheel. “Is this the right way? Did I go the right way?”
I poke the screen, getting control of my temper. “The GPS bitch is sleeping apparently.”
The Bambino is trundling over this secondary road that’s not only narrow but could also use some re-paving. I hold my hand against my stomach. “My god, where are we? Did we just travel back in time or what?” I’m staring out over mist-covered green fields, outlined by low stone walls that must have been erected over a thousand years ago and possibly by elves. There is nothing out here but us. “How many people are at this festival? Five?”
“No. Thousands. I think we went the wrong way.”
I point. “There’s a guy up there. Ask him for directions.” As we draw closer, I’m struck speechless. He’s holding an actual shepherd’s hook. Thank heaven he’s wearing jeans and not brown robes or I would for sure think we’d dropped back into biblical times. The guy’s black and white dog runs up to the car and starts barking.
Erin slows the car to a crawl and rolls her window down. “Hey there … we were wondering if we’re going the right way. We’re looking for Doolin?”
He stands there and nods at us. The dog settles in at his side, finally silent.
“Doolin,” Erin says a bit louder. “We’re looking for Doolin.”
For a moment I’m thinking he’s deaf, but then he begins to talk. At least, I think he’s talking; but whatever he’s saying, it’s not in English. I love the cadence of his words, even though I don’t understand a single one of them. And he’s not bad looking, either. Maybe a little rough around the edges, but … hmmmm … maybe this matchmaking festival won’t be all bad after all.
Now I’m really hoping we can finish the business of getting Erin’s bar put back whole soon so we have some playtime left over. If the shepherds look this good, I can’t imagine what the rest of them might look like. The old feelings are coming back … the ones that say men in suits are boring and men in dirty jeans are fun. Rawr.
Erin nods a few times and then says, “So how far is it, then?”
I frown because she seems to have understood him. I thought she said her Irish was rough. “What’d he say?” I ask in a loud whisper.
She glances over at me. “Can’t you hear him? Clean out your ears.”
“Of course I can hear him, but that doesn’t mean I understand Irish or Pig Latin or whatever he’s speaking.”
She laughs. “He’s speaking English, fool.”
He finishes up whatever it is he was saying and Erin waves, rolling her window back up with the other hand. “Thank you! Good luck to ye!” he shouts with a grin.
We drive away, and I turn around to stare at him. He’s waving at the back of our car and his dog is running after a stray sheep. I’m kind of hoping he’ll be at the festival tonight. I’d do a turn or tw
o around the dance floor with him.
“Seriously, what’d he say?” I ask, turning back to look out the front window.
“He said we’re on the right road. We took the back way, but we won’t lose any time. Doolin’s straight ahead.”
“What language was he speaking?”
“I told you. English. He had a bit of an accent, though.”
I snort. “A bit? Holy understatement. I’m going to need a translation app, I can tell already.” I pull out my phone and then growl when I remember that I can’t use the wifi in this country. The charges on my plan will be more than my mortgage payment, which means no translation app for me.
She pats me on the arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll start getting it. Oh, look! Houses!”
My gaze follows her pointing finger. The roofs are almost the same color as the ground and the buildings themselves are very squat and low to the ground. They’d be easy to just drive right by without noticing when they’re off in the distance like that.
“What are those roofs made of? They look like really thick bushes.”
“I dunno. Reeds. Straw. Stuff you can grow around here.”
“Is it waterproof?” I can’t believe the way they swoop and turn around the corners of the houses. They remind me of Lloyd Christmas’s haircut with the way they’re cut straight across, like bangs on a bowl cut.
“Of course they’re waterproof. Ireland did actually make it out of the middle ages, you know.”
“But they’re … weeds.”
“Reeds, not weeds. And look. There are some more modern roofs too.” She points to the edge of town that’s quickly coming up to meet us. “See? Tile. Just like home.”
“Home Dublin, not home Boston.”
“Yeah. Right.” Erin goes silent.
I’m wondering why the idea of home always seems to shut her up, but I don’t press her for explanations. Now’s not the right time. Our most immediate need is to find shelter, and even though those reedy weedy roofs look interesting, I’m kind of hoping our B&B has a tile roof over our heads. It has to rain a lot here with the way everything is so misty and green, and I seriously doubt I could handle water dripping on my head while I sleep. I’m all up for new experiences and getting into the culture and all, but I’m pretty sure that the water dripping thing is used as a torture device in POW camps. I have to draw the line somewhere. Yes, I’ll eat a few balls and a loop of intestine, but no, I cannot sleep in a rain barrel. I Just. Can’t. Do it. Captain.