Ireland

by Frank Delaney

  On the sands of Rosses’ Point, near the original Coney Island, lay the beached carcass of a whale, high and white like a monument. The silver noises she heard came from the rib cage, where the sea breezes danced through the bones. For many minutes the lady stood and watched and listened to sounds that moved her to tears. She returned enthralled to her castle and immediately summoned her musicians, who played every night at supper.

  “Visit straightaway the sands at Rosses’ Point,” she instructed them, “and listen to the sound of the wind in the bones of the whale, and then come back here and devise a means of making that music.”

  The musicians mounted their horses, rode off to the beach, and dismounted by the carcass. They also found the sound enchanting, and they spent hours there that day, scratching their heads, walking north, south, east, and west of the white shape, trying to divine how the music was caused. What structures, they asked, what tensions, would be needed to create something so lovely? Like scientists, somber and grave, they debated and they questioned and they considered.

  On their return to the court, they began work immediately with Breffni O’Rourke’s carpenter. Some weeks later they produced a very large, ponderous-looking wooden instrument with long, thin staves running from top to bottom across a frame curved like a whale’s rib cage. They wheeled this contraption into the castle yard, and as good fortune would have it, the wind blew from the west that very day. To their great delight, their instrument made sounds even more beautiful than the carcass of the whale.

  Next, they wheeled it around to the front door of the castle and sent a messenger to tell the lady her music was ready. She emerged at once and could hear the melody as she approached; in fact all the people in the castle turned out when they heard these heavenly notes. As they stood and listened, some people felt that a miracle had come to the great house of Breffni O’Rourke.

  But there were two problems. First of all, this instrument was as big as a van, and the lady pointed out that she could only listen to it in the open air; it wouldn’t fit through the castle door, and like the rest of Ireland, Sligo isn’t a place where you can listen to music out-of-doors all the year round. The second point she made—it was now late afternoon, and after a time, as the sun began to sink in the west, the wind dropped. And of course, the music ceased. The Lady Breffni looked at the musicians and said, “Where’s my music?”

  They replied quite reasonably that the instrument only played when the wind blew, to which she said, “Then how am I going to hear it when we sit to dine?”

  The musicians looked at the carpenter, and the carpenter looked at the musicians.

  “Place it in the yard outside an open window of the dining hall,” suggested the carpenter, trying to solve two problems at once.

  “But the wind may not always blow through that corner of the yard,” answered the lady. “And if it does, it’ll make the room too cold to sit in.”

  One of the musicians said, “Perhaps if the carpenter were to make some bellows, like a blacksmith uses for blowing on the fire?”

  “I don’t want a blacksmith’s bellows inside or outside the banqueting hall,” said the Lady Breffni. “Are you all dolts or something?” She was cross by now.

  A child wandered forward, a boy of nine or so, blond and inquisitive. He leaned in to look at the great instrument, reached out to touch it, and drew his fingers across the long, tall staves. But he pulled back his hand with an expression of distaste on his face.

  “I’m surprised the wind wants to play this,” he said.

  He was the son of Lady Breffni’s housekeeper, and renowned in that house for his cleverness and powers of observation. The musicians knew him well because he spent a great deal of time listening to them and observing how they played; one of them had begun to teach him the tin whistle.

  “What’s wrong with it?” asked the carpenter.

  The boy thought for a moment.

  “It’s too—unfriendly,” he said, after struggling to find the word. “These wooden bones—they offer no welcome.”

  “And what would you find welcoming?” asked one of the musicians.

  “Something easy, a supple thing,” the boy said. “Something that would bend to the fingers. Then you wouldn’t need the wind. Any of us could learn to play it.”

  “But how would that make music?” asked the carpenter.

  “These don’t make the music,” said the boy, indicating the wooden slats. “The music is made down here, where the vibrations echo from the blown bones”—and he laid his hand on the broad frame of the instrument.

  “He’s perfectly right,” said the musicians.

  “And it could be a lot smaller,” said the boy, “provided the box was deep enough to reverberate.”

  They carried the huge instrument away, removed the wooden staves, and replaced them with long strings of gut taken from the stomachs of cows and waxed with the grease of a goose. It took them no more than a few hours. They wheeled it back into the castle yard, and that night the Lady Breffni O’Rourke of Sligo sat down to dinner, listening to music that seemed even sweeter than the melody she had heard in the skeleton of a whale. Next day, they made a much smaller version, and brought it into the castle that very night. It was even sweeter than the first. And that, my friends, is how the harp was invented.

  Did you know, by the way, that Ireland is the only nation on earth to have a musical instrument as its national symbol? Canada has the maple leaf; New Zealand has the silver fern; Scotland has the thistle; England has the rose; Wales has the leek; America has the eagle—and Ireland has the harp.

  The program ended, and John switched off the set.

  “Dad! Did you know?”

  “How would I know? I merely switched on the television.”

  Ronan was puzzled. “D’you remember when he came here first?”

  “Who could ever forget it?”

  “Did you know he was coming here that night?” Ronan looked at Kate, who nodded at him to press on. “Dad, there’s something you know that we don’t, isn’t there?”

  John paced the room. “This is my advice. Go look for him.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin. What I want to know,” said Ronan, “is this. Is there something else here—‘more than meets the eye,’ or whatever the expression is?”

  John deflected the question. “You know who I mean by Matt Conway?”

  “The mispronouncer,” said Kate.

  “Yes.” John laughed. “He was talking to me on Wednesday about spies who ‘defecate’ to the Russians. He meant ‘defect’!”

  “See what I mean, Kate? Dad! You’re evading.”

  “Look. When we’re next together, I’ll answer any of your questions. That’s a promise. I mean it.”

  Next day, John’s high jollity prevailed, but much of it seemed forced. Ronan felt discomfort—and even more so at Kate’s unusual distress when parting at the train. Halfway through the journey, she took Ronan’s hand and held it tight. Finally he asked, “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’m sometimes weepy.”

  Kate had suitors in droves. They trooped to the house; they ambushed her at school; they heaped gifts on her Sundays at mass. The smile, the looks, the warm good humor—all men who met her fell for her; one pursuer observed, “There’s money, there’s fame—and there’s Kate.”

  As the shore has waves, they advanced and retreated, some ardent, some wild, some shallow, some deep, with no end in sight to the tide. Some made hilarious proposals; one told her that his family had “the finest plot in the graveyard.” Another said he was going “to bull” all his own cows himself that year. Kate, telling her friends, thought it wise to assume that he meant he would buy his own bull, rather than rely upon the animals of his neighbors.

  “Because if that isn’t what he means,” she said, “life in this parish is about to heat up.”

  One man, many years older than her, asked Kate to marry him, “Because you’d be
nice and warm for the winter.” Another proposer said, “Your legs would always keep me in a good mood.” Len Culleton drove all the way from Abbeyleix in his truck with his farm accounts—and a poignantly cheap wig.

  Many offered much. Simon Nolan, a doctor from Cork, was universally liked, rare for a man with such a fortune. On all other counts he stacked up too: manners, behavior, clothes—and love, of which he gave copious proof. He kissed her in the best possible way—soft and careful, with hints of force to come.

  “He holds me,” she said, posing merrily to her friends, “like Hollywood.” And he could sing like a soloist.

  It almost worked. Kate enjoyed his company and liked his choices; a picnic deep in the woods; theater in Cork; to the coast for the sighting of a whale. She returned from each date looking more and more aglow—until she gauged the mood of the house. And it never wavered—somewhere between lukewarm and cool.

  “Do you like Simon?”

  Alison always said, “Yes, he’s very nice.”

  No enthusiasm, no inflection, no further comment; and John, each time, said, “Nolan? I wonder if he’s Marcus Nolan’s nephew?”

  Nothing more, no interest, no verve.

  The same tepid responses ended a lawyer’s prospects—and a farmer’s and a fellow teacher’s. Yet none of these men felt hurt by Kate, and many became friends. Only one, bitter at failing to win, called her “frigid,” which she was not. But his remark almost reached an insight—or two.

  To begin with, though never cold, Kate had an uneven soul. Nobody in her life and times knew of the phrase mood swings—much less manic depressive or bipolar—and therefore such mercurial heaves swept in without her knowledge. Slowly, slowly, she came to recognize the dangerous elation. And slowly, slowly, she learned to guard against the ensuing blackness.

  Secondly, she could never decide whether she had been born with this saddle on her back or whether—as she also suspected—it was a burden she had strapped on, with a little help. She knew what it was; since she was twenty she had carried inside her a tough secret, a life matter, which lay around the house like a ticking bomb. It could explode any day or hour, with damage far and wide. To intensify matters, if it didn’t explode, should she detonate it herself? Some mornings a loud voice inside her said, “You must”; other days a different voice cried, “Leave it alone.”

  In Dublin she finally decided to unload some of this weight. But on whom? In her society all roads led to the church; God took care of everything. The priest in the confessional heard and forgave, aired the worst; all shall be well.

  Not for Kate; if she was to trust any establishment with her secrets, she wanted more understanding, more debate. She shared none of her sister’s blind zeal; out of Alison’s sight she all but shrugged off the faith. Not out of hate—but she felt no love; given the nature of Ireland, it had to be a pastoral church, she understood that. But at parish level it disallowed all thought and insisted on its rules, and Kate believed it had no room for her issues.

  Debate. Intellectual. Anti-intellectual. Pastoral. Forgiveness. Understanding. As she paraded key words across her mind, she had no illusions—and her thought process ran: I have to think my way through this. Feeling my way through it is no longer any good, I am too often too fraught. Therefore, I need someone to help me in my thinking, someone safe, someone who grasps it, someone intelligent. This problem has controlled my entire adult life. Now it has become urgent, and I need advice—and I need advice that won’t judge me, won’t accuse me, won’t force me to do things I don’t want to do, will help me to find out what I should do, will guide me to a safe place. I can’t ask John for advice. Alison? Certainly not. Kate ran through the catalog of everybody she knew and found no one.

  Back she went once more to first principles: Were I a “normal” Catholic, I’d be discussing this with my confessor. But I don’t have a confessor anymore, because I’ve never liked the low level at which country priests are obliged to forgive the parade of “sin” they hear. But I can understand it from the church’s point of view, the morality of it all. It’s just that—well, it’s not that simple. Definitely not.

  Which is why she sought the job with the Jesuits. She hoped for more than employment; she hoped to find an adviser among them, someone who could be a friend, a guide. They were the Princes of the Church, weren’t they? Their structures, she reasoned, would keep her on familiar ground; they were still priests, but famous for helping people to think rather than depending on blind faith. From her first day at their school she scanned them like a hiring fair.

  Kate chose as her “new friend” a thoughtful man twenty years older than her. English-born, in Ireland twenty years, Father David Mansfield, as deputy head, had attended her interview with the school board.

  He said to her that day, “We’ve asked you many questions. Have you some questions for us?”

  Kate said, “Does scent threaten your vows?”

  He told her afterward they laughed so much that they had to give her the job.

  On Kate’s first morning he invited her for tea; “I’m also teacher liaison.” By the end of the second week, they spoke every day.

  He came for supper, and the evening glowed. They found mutual passions—literature, history, and art; she relished his knowledge of travel; he devoured her country-life tales. No lulls in their conversation, no awkwardness, not even a passing shyness—their friendship took hold, immediate and firm. They ranged over health, education, and the television she had just seen. She cooked sublimely that night, lamb from the mountains, rosemary and mint.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me about your nephew.”

  They had returned to the fireplace; Ronan’s photograph sat on the mantel. Kate groomed her hair, sighed, and made the bold decision.

  “Well, now. Father—here’s the drama of my life.” She picked up the photograph and gathered strength. “He’s not my nephew—he’s my son. But he doesn’t know it.”

  The priest raised no eyebrow, showed no surprise. His tone sought to establish facts.

  “Not at all?”

  “Nobody knows—except my sister, her husband, and me.”

  They both looked at the boy in the frame.

  “I sense a purpose. This matter was—organized?”

  And Kate knew she had chosen well.

  “My sister had miscarriages. Each one got worse than the one before. She knew her husband wanted a child—girl or boy, it didn’t matter. I was almost twenty, in perfect health. That’s how it happened. I mean—that’s where the idea came from.”

  In the summer of 1941, an ectopic pregnancy almost took Alison’s life. As yet her religion had not developed into raw zeal, and she winced again at having failed John. Kate came to stay, to lighten the household load—and Alison came up with the plan. Were John to father a baby by Kate, no one would know. Almost all blood requirements would get satisfied. And the MacCarthys had precedent—this had happened at great-grandparent level, to ensure land inheritance.

  John objected—but not too heatedly, as Alison noted dryly to herself; Kate demurred too, but at last agreed, under assurances that she would help raise the child. After that, practicality had its cold way. Alison had taught her young sister the facts of life and thus knew all of Kate’s rhythms. For a week in January, seven tearful nights, she absented herself with an aunt in Cork, during which Kate slept in the matrimonial bed.

  Between John and Kate no awkwardness took place; they felt neither clinical nor lewd. He led; she followed, natural as light. In the mornings they smiled and carried on with the day; in the evenings they lay and proceeded with the night.

  However, something occurred which none foresaw—a profound love. He felt deeply responsible for Kate, and she fell in love with him. Never admitted, never said, no further “connection” (to use John’s old word) occurred between them—but the silent emotional bond ran down into both like a shaft of gold.

  The secret burdened the years. Alison nursed her regret; Kate never forgot; Joh
n never said; Ronan never knew. And so, between delight in the child and recurring torment at the deceit, Kate had come to this point.

  “What an intelligent solution.”

  “Oh?” She turned from the photograph.

  “Brilliant. Everybody’s happy. You’ve all lived together?”

  “Since he was born.”

  “Was it easy to cover up?”

  “Nobody knew anything. I went for six months to a convent eighty miles away. As you know, the nuns have homes for—well, girls like I was.”

  “Excellent business.”

  Kate had been stopped in her tracks. “Do you really think so, Father?”

  The priest held out four of his very white fingers and counted.

  “Practical. Loving. Efficient. Supportive.”

  “But—also sinful?”

  “Oh, come on! Who’s to say what’s sinful? I have little patience with the way Mother Church manipulates her flock. Tell me more. Were you bewildered? You must have been.”

  “Well—as I say, I was almost twenty. It was a time of very mixed feelings. I was thrilled. I was lonely. I was delighted. I was worried. I felt—unconventional, which I enjoy. I was upset.”

  “Which you don’t enjoy?”

  “No. But not as upset as my sister. She couldn’t look at the baby.”

  “Ohhhhh,” the priest cooed. “That must have been so difficult. And the father?”

  “Took it in his stride. As he does everything. He stayed calm, he taught me how to handle it all, he made the house happy—or as happy as he could make it; he was extraordinary.”

  The priest nodded.

  “But there’s still the problem—” Kate stopped.

  “Of—when do you tell him?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Or—do you tell him at all?” The priest looked into the fire. “I mean—it seems to me that Ireland is full of secrets. The country is one vast secret—and that’s typical of close-knit people. So why is this arising now?”