Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

by Sarah-Kate Lynch

  Jamie decided to get over it. “There’s a cat in here and I think it’s having kittens,” he said.

  Lucy hardly had time to notice his speech impediment. “Is it ginger?” she asked, suddenly fearful. “Is it fat and ginger?”

  Jamie nodded.

  “Jesus! Show me where.”

  Jamie moved over to let Lucy into the foliage. “Right under the lowest branches of this rhododendron,” he guided her. “There’s a sort of a nest. Can you see?”

  “Jesus,” Lucy crooned. “Jesus!”

  “It’s okay,” Jamie said, alarmed at Lucy’s distress. “She’s managing fine.”

  “No,” said Lucy. “It’s Jesus, the cat. Jesus is having kittens. God, I have to go. I have to milk. Could you stay here with Jesus until I get back? It’ll only be an hour. Two at the most. Do you know about kittens?”

  “They come from cats,” smiled Jamie. “Yeah, I do.”

  Lucy looked at him suspiciously, then jumped up and started to run for the cottage. “Oh, by the way,” she said, stopping and turning back. “I thought you didn’t speak?”

  “I’ve usually got nothing to say,” answered Jamie.

  “Right,” said Lucy, accepting his excuse without doubt. “See you in an hour. Don’t let anything happen to Jesus.” As she skipped up the path, Jamie settled back into the undergrowth.

  Back in the kitchen, Kit was catching snippets of the most ridiculous conversation he had ever heard.

  “Are you sure it’s actually cheese?” Fergal was saying doubtfully.

  “The square one in the plastic wrapper definitely is,” said Mickey, giving it a poke with his stick. “But I’m fecked if I know what that purple thing is.”

  “Sure, smash a bit of the green one off with what’s left of your stick, Mickey, and we’ll give it to Brian. If he wakes up we’ll ask him if he knows what it is and if he dies, well, would we even notice?”

  The two men giggled like schoolgirls, then Mickey brought his stick down on the biggest cheese of them all. When he smashed through the rind, this released an odor not unlike that found in a busy men’s urinal.

  “Jaysus,” cried Fergal, holding his nose. “Get it in his mouth, Mickey, before it eats away at your crutch!”

  Mickey lurched over to where Brian was slumped and drooling, the near-empty bottle lying in the flower barrel. He brought his stick up to Brian’s mouth and wiped the powerful cheese off on the slumbering drunk’s lower teeth. Brian sputtered and coughed, then swallowed and suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes flying open.

  “Overripe Stanser Schafchas,” he barked. “From Switzerland.” Then he slumped back against the wall and started gently snoring.

  Mickey and Fergal stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “Did you hear that?” Mickey whispered.

  “Has he caught Jamie Joyce’s speech defect,” Fergal wanted to know, “or was that the name of the cheese?”

  “Fecked if I know,” said Mickey. “Let’s try another one.” He limped back to the tray and squashed another wedge of cheese off onto the end of his stick, then turned back to Brian and repeated the tasting process. Again, Brian coughed and spluttered then noisily swallowed the cheese. Mickey and Fergal stared. Brian snored quietly and licked his lips.

  “It must have been a sneeze we heard before, Mickey, do you think?”

  Brian opened one eye but didn’t bother to focus it. “Picodine Feuille Chabis,” he said. “French.”

  Mickey and Fergal looked at each other. “Is he messing?” Mickey said suspiciously, giving Brian a vicious jab in the chest with his cheesy stick. Brian slept on.

  “It’s hard to know, really,” said Fergal. “I think he did work at some fancy restaurant in Dublin once. I’ve heard him talk about it a bit at the pub, but did that sound like English to you, Mickey? Give him a bit of that blue one.”

  Again Mickey mashed off a splodge of vibrant blue cheese and hooked it into Brian’s mouth.

  “Gamonedo,” the slumbering gourmet reared up and shouted. “Spain’s finest.” Again he slumped back into sleeping position.

  “It’s hard to know, really,” Fergal said, scratching his head. “Being as I’m not much of an expert in the cheese department myself.”

  “That makes the two of us,” Mickey said. “In fact, I don’t really like the stuff.”

  “I’m with you there, Mickey,” agreed Fergal. “Give me butter any day of the week but cheese, no thank you.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Mickey?”

  “Does what you’re thinking involve a pint and a packet of pork scratchings?”

  “It certainly does.”

  “Then I certainly am.” Mickey looked at Brian. “What should we do with him?”

  “I’ve seen him walk longer distances in worse states than this,” said Fergal, moving to Brian and pulling at his arm. “And it’ll rile us if he gets the job and finds the treasure without even being awake. You take the other side, Mickey, and if we give him a push at the top of the drive we can probably just pick him up at the bottom.”

  Fee monitored them incredulously from the top window. “They smashed the cheese with Mickey’s stick, shoved it down the dead one’s throat and now they’re all leaving,” he marveled.

  Corrie looked up from his computer magazine. “That’s how many for an interview then?”

  “That’s none,” his friend answered cheerfully. “None at all.”

  Corrie put down his magazine. “I don’t understand you, Joseph,” he said. “We’ve lost it. We can’t make it work. We don’t know anyone who can—so why are you so cheerful?”

  Fee shot him a strange look. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said. “Do the words ‘don’t worry’ sound at all familiar to you, you miserable old hoor? Shift your arse and let’s go down and have a nice slice of Brie, it should be ripe in about ten minutes. I suspect you’ve a little something Châteauneuf-du-Pape to go with it—Guigal, perhaps?”

  “Right so,” Corrie answered almost grumpily. “But what year?”

  “Ninety-eight, of course,” his friend answered. “And stop trying to catch me out. You should know by now you never will.”

  The promise of imminent wine and cheese went halfway toward cheering Corrie and he rose to his feet and headed for the stairs. He supposed he shouldn’t be disappointed by the day’s proceedings. It was unlikely they would find somebody the first day. The first month. The first year, even. Not just anybody could be a cheesemaker, after all. Hardly anybody in fact. And even Corrie wasn’t sure exactly who they were looking for. Just somebody with a certain sort of something. The curd would recognize him. So, probably, would Fee.

  He walked into the kitchen and was surprised to see a sad-looking man of about thirty sitting at the table. Behind him, he heard Fee gasp.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” the man said in an American accent, “but I made myself a cup of coffee. I think Avis O’Regan may have forgotten me.”

  In a moment Corrie took in the strong, smooth hands holding the coffee mug and the square kind face. He turned to Fee, who was beaming so hard his smile seemed to be doing laps of his head.

  “I’m Kit Stephens,” Kit said, standing and holding out his hand.

  “Joseph Corrigan,” said Corrie, offering his own, “and this is Joseph Feehan.”

  “You’re the cheesemakers,” said Kit.

  “Well,” said Fee, “we’d like to talk to you about that.”

  “To me?” said Kit.

  “How long have you been waiting?”

  Kit looked embarrassed. “Well, I arrived around lunchtime I think, but some guy with a funny little hat told me to wait in the garden and it wasn’t until the girl with all the, you know, hair, looking for the cat, told me to come in here about three hours ago—”

  Kit’s rant was interrupted by a feeble knock at the kitchen door.

  “Thanks all the same,” Fee called out, his eyes still on Kit. “We’ve found someone.
”

  “I know you’ve been interviewing for cheesemakers,” Kit started, “and I think there’s been some confusion . . .”

  The knock on the door was back again, only louder.

  “Position filled,” Fee said again. “Thanks anyway. Maybe next time.”

  “I’m here to see Avis O’Regan,” Kit was trying to explain. “I’m going to stay awhile. It’s just that I—”

  But the knock was back again, more persistent than ever.

  Fee was about to say something when he froze, the only movement that of his eyes widening with the realization of what was happening. In a split second he slid wordlessly across the floor and opened the door, standing back to let the knocker in.

  She was medium height with big brown eyes and long, rusty-colored hair and she looked tired and maybe even a little scared, thought Kit. But nice. As she stood in the kitchen, weighed down by her bag and whatever had brought her here, obviously unsure what to do or say, a strange noise like a cross between a gargle and a gasp emerged from Corrie’s throat as he realized who it was. A single tear sprang to his eye and worked its way nimbly down the valley of his wrinkled cheek as the rest of him stood, frozen in an icy mixture of fear and hope.

  “Abbey,” he said quietly, as though speaking any louder would blow her away. “Abbey.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Of course, you don’t want to get too full of yourself after that one single moment because there’s still a fair bit to be done.”

  JOSEPH FEEHAN, from The Cheese Diaries, RTE Radio Archives

  The kitchen smelled of sunshine and cinnamon, that was the first thing Abbey noticed. An ancient coal-burning oven built into a brick wall at the far end of the room was half-covered in dried lemon and orange skins, and she could sense the citrus lingering invisibly in the air. The floor was covered in big square black-and-white tiles, and the counters on either side of the sink in front of the kitchen window were groaning with fruit and vegetables, herbs and flowers, bottles of exotic-looking drink, loaves of bread, an obscene amount of cheese and many different-colored jars of fruit and pickles. Dried lavender hung from the walls around the kitchen, along with a collection of hats and feathered birds that she hoped weren’t real (the birds, anyway). A rack hanging from the ceiling housed an enormous collection of copper pots and pans that caught the last of the evening sunlight shimmering through the window.

  At a long table with bench seats on either side sat a clean-cut preppy-looking guy with bags under his eyes. The big tall man saying her name was her grandfather and the little fat one wasn’t. That much Abbey knew. About everything else in the world, she remained in a state of total confusion.

  “What’s a dote?” the little fat man suddenly asked the preppy guy.

  “I’m Kit,” said Kit.

  “I’m Abbey,” said Abbey.

  “What’s a dote?” the little fat man asked again. “Have you any idea?”

  “Fee,” said Corrie, shaking himself out of his paralysis. “It’s Abbey.”

  Fee looked as if he smiled any harder, his head would split in two. He put his hand in his pocket and stepped toward Abbey, pulling out of his indescribably awful corduroys a handful of rainbow-colored boiled sweets. She took one and slowly unwrapped it, then popped it in her mouth. Corrie looked on in awe. The old bollocks had stopped keeping sweets in his pocket more than twenty years ago. How had he known to have them in there today?

  Kit watched the scene with growing unease. He didn’t know these people but the air seemed thick with their secrets. Something private and painful was about to happen, he felt sure.

  “Do you know, then?” Fee asked again, beaming at him. “About the dote?”

  Common sense dictated that in the circumstances the question was an inappropriate one, but in the absence of anyone else saying anything else, Kit thought of the troll-girl in the garden looking for the cat.

  “Is it something small and cute?” he suggested. “You know, like a little mite? A little dote?”

  Fee seemed to flutter clear off the ground with delight. “This calls for a celebration!” he said delightedly. “I’m going to cook a roast.”

  “I’ve just seen Rose,” Abbey said, rolling the sweet around in her mouth, “and it didn’t go particularly well.”

  “Would I show you to your room, Abbey?” Corrie suggested, unfazed.

  “Would you?” she asked, and she followed her grandfather out into the hall. The house was a maze of hallways and doors and landings and stairs. Dusty sunlight seemed to filter its way around the many corners and crannies, giving the whole place a golden dreamlike quality. At the end of a passage on the second (or perhaps the third, she’d lost track) level, Corrie stopped and opened a door, standing back to let Abbey step into the room.

  It was enormous, with two sash windows, overgrown on the outside with ivy, looking out on to the house’s riotous gardens. The double bed was high and puffy, with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt and white linen pillowcases and sheets. The yellow walls were splashed with faint red poppies and an antique dressing table sat against the wall. The curtains were the same shade of faded red as the poppies, hooked back with handmade swags that looked like braided straw. On a chest of drawers against the far wall sat a buttery-yellow washbowl and jug next to a similarly yellow vase of flowers filled with real poppies, purple ones. The recent hand of Joseph Feehan, Corrie realized.

  “This was Rose’s room,” he said quietly, looking around and adding, “you were born in here.”

  He could remember the day as clearly as yesterday. Rose, scared stiff and lashing out, cursing and railing and blaming them all for her troubles, yet at the same time needing them desperately and hating herself for it. He’d thought his heart would burst that day, with anguish for his beautiful angry daughter and with fear for the life she was about to bring into the world. But from the moment Abbey arrived, everything changed. Even Rose appeared to fall in love with the little dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty who had given her young mother’s soft bones barely a nudge as she made an easy entrance into the world.

  Corrie had never felt closer to Rose than on that day, holding her as she held Abbey. He’d thought then that perhaps he could heal his daughter. That perhaps he and Fee and Avis could be enough of a family for her. But it hadn’t been long before Rose was back to her old tricks, inflicting her own personal brand of pain and torture on those who loved her. And when Abbey was five she had hurt her father the best way she knew how, by taking his granddaughter far, far away and never bringing her back again.

  Yet, here she was.

  Abbey had moved over to the bed and was testing its springs. “I don’t know what to call you,” she said, looking at her grandfather with eyes so dark he couldn’t begin to understand what was going on behind them.

  “Sure, everybody else calls me Corrie,” he said, realizing that anything more familial might seem strained at this early stage.

  “I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Abbey said, almost apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind.” She ran her fingers over the tiny valleys where the patches met each other on the quilt.

  Mind? Corrie could barely contemplate that this lovely, lonely, lost little girl might not think she was welcome here. He wanted to hold his granddaughter in his arms and soak up all her sadness and fear and never, ever let her go. But how well he knew that healing wounds inflicted by Rose would not be a quick or an easy job.

  “Ah sure, this is your home,” he said as casually as he could. “You can stay for as long as you like.”

  At this fragile point he wanted to steer Abbey on a path less painful. There would be no talk of her heartbreak until she was ready for it. He made to leave the room. “I know he doesn’t look it,” he said turning at the doorway, “but Fee is poorly.” Abbey looked at him quizzically.

  “The curd has turned,” he continued, “which probably doesn’t mean much to you at this stage but it’s something of a disaster.”

  Abbey sat on the bed
, unsure what to say.

  Corrie forged on. “We’re too old for cheese—making it—anyway. The thing is, Abbey, Fee was only saying yesterday, would Abbey be a cheesemaker? Would Abbey come home and make the cheese? And here you are. After all these years. It seems . . .”

  For the first time since leaving Ate’ate Abbey felt a happy little burr in her brain that she realized could be hope. “It seems . . . ?” she echoed.

  “Well,” said Corrie, trying not to overdo it. “It seems right. Somehow.”

  They looked at each other, a sea of unspoken questions and answers between them.

  “I’ll let you settle in,” he said. Abbey was holding herself back, he knew, but if she would just stay here at the farm surely he, and time, and who knew what else, could help put her back together again. “You’ll make a grand cheesemaker, I can tell,” he said as he slipped out the door.

  Abbey lay back on the bed and tried to stop her head from spinning. The escape from Ate’ate seemed like a dream, as did the days spent crying inconsolably into her pillows at Shirl’s house. The long flight from Brisbane seemed more real but maybe that was because the distinct aroma of airplane food was still clinging to her. Then there was the shameful scene the previous day at her mother’s house. And the ensuing journey to a dingy B & B at Heathrow, then the flight this morning to Cork, the bus to Schillies and the walk to Coolarney House. She’d come a long way in a short time, she thought tiredly. She supposed she should have asked about her grandmother. What had happened to her? What did Corrie have to do with it? But the effort involved in finding out seemed just beyond her reach. Besides, the idea of being a cheesemaker had created that little nugget of hope that was humming happily in her belly and she didn’t want it to evaporate just yet. Wafts of unconsciousness drifted in and around the pockets in her thoughts until, lulled by the mouthwatering smell of roasting meat juices, she slept.

  “Did she look like a vegetarian to you?” Fee asked in the emptiness that had stayed behind in the kitchen.

  “I’m not sure,” answered Kit. “What do vegetarians look like?”