Only with Blood

by Therese Down

  “Can I be very honest with you both? Can I?”

  “Of course!”

  “Of course you can, pet.” Mick and Mrs Spillane responded at once and together.

  “It’s kind of hard to say and I am not sure how ye’ll take it.” Donal frowned and looked at the table as though he were about to announce bad news.

  “What is it, son?” urged Mick. Mrs Spillane covered her mouth with a hand and braced herself for more tragedy. Donal suddenly looked up and stared intensely into Mick’s eyes.

  “Do you remember that night I came into the bar below in Dunane and I walked out again real quick?”

  “The first time – I do,” said Mick, frowning, trying to anticipate what was coming and failing entirely.

  “Then I came back again another night,” went on Donal, “and you asked me if I was seeing a young one?”

  Mick’s expression lightened. Donal was going to ask him to help out with a match – speak to someone about the availability of a daughter. He sat back and smiled. “Well, there was – there is – a girl I like all right.” Mrs Spillane did not remove her hand but her eyebrows rose as high as they could go and her eyes told her intrigue.

  “Spit it out, Donal! Sure if I can help you, I will.” Mick winked, reached towards Donal, and slapped him on the shoulder.

  Donal looked at Mrs Spillane and then to Mick, swallowing hard. “It’s Caitlin.” Mrs Spillane gasped.

  “Caitlin?” exclaimed Mick. “Sure Caitlin is married, Donal – you saw that for yourself today!”

  “I know that, Mick! Sure how do you think I found out? I came to the bar in Dunane that first night in search of someone who knew her and discovered ye were all celebrating her marriage!”

  “Oh!” Mrs Spillane removed her hand at last and sat down heavily on the nearest chair. What a plethora of possibilities was unleashed in her head in that instant.

  “And that is why,” said Mick slowly, “you started towards Jack Flynn on that Sunday, on the steps outside the church.”

  “It is,” admitted Donal, looking down again and nodding. “I could not help myself.”

  A cock crowed somewhere. Mrs Spillane ached with regret and grief that her daughter might have been sitting beside this fine young man as his wife, if only they’d waited – if only her stupid, headstrong, greedy husband had not rushed everyone into that horrible marriage for five hundred stinking pounds. She stared at Mick and could not disguise her fury. Mick stood up and pushed away from the table, rubbed his face, and turned his back on them.

  “There,” said Donal, getting up. “I have made ye all angry and upset – and after that lovely meal. I am very sorry. I should not have said anything. I’ll go. No need to drive me,” he added, crossing the kitchen and retrieving his jacket from a hook in the back door. “I’ll walk.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Mick. “Sit down, will you, and have some tea. It’s a shock, is all.” Donal hesitated and looked at Mrs Spillane, who smiled at him and nodded her agreement that he should resume his seat at the table. She poured him some tea. Mick was thinking as fast as he could.

  “How did you know Caitlin at all?” he asked, standing behind his chair and leaning on the back of it.

  “Sure she hid in our barn,” came the reply. “When she tried to run away, like – before the wedding.” Again there was general shock and gasping from Mrs Spillane. “I found her when I went out to get turf for the range. She ran off and left a pony behind. She’d put a note in its harness.” Donal paused and appeared to be trying to remember what the note had said, though he remembered it vividly. “‘I belong to Pat Maher of Dunane’, it said.”

  “So it did!” exclaimed Mick. “It did! And was it you brought back the pony?”

  “It was. Myself and Deirdre, my sister.”

  “Incredible!” said Mrs Spillane, eyes filling with tears again.

  “Incredible!” echoed Mick. “Maher is losing it, boy,” he added animatedly, tapping his forehead. “He couldn’t remember who had brought back his horse. Just said it was a girl and a young fella. Sure we had no clue it was you!”

  Donal sat still and contemplated the grooves and marks in the wood of the table. He waited for the full effect of his narrative to sink in; waited for an outcome he had planned but could not be sure of. How many times had Caitlin sat at this table, he wondered while he waited. How many of the grooves in it were there because she had slipped with a knife as a child buttering bread or because she had placed something on it too roughly? He passed the flat of his hand over the edge of the table. It was almost a shock when Mick spoke again.

  “It is a great pity things turned out as they did, but she is married now and that is that.”

  “There is nothing to be done,” said Donal. “I just wanted to let you know… in the interests of honesty, like, as we’re becoming friends.” And he smiled at Mick and then Mrs Spillane, whose watery eyes smiled back at him above her handkerchief.

  “Wait, now,” said Mick, a note of suspicion in his voice. “Is that why you took the teaching job at her school, is it?”

  “Well,” said Donal, “not entirely. Sure I am a maths teacher and the pay is good. Was I supposed to not take the job because he let her carry on at school? Sure who would ever have thought he would do that?”

  “Fair play, fair play,” said Mick, raising a placatory hand. “It’s just that this is a shock, boy.”

  “It’s fate, that’s what it is!” cried Mrs Spillane. “Poor, poor Caitlin!” And she got up from the table and left the room, unable to stem the sobs any longer and burning with hatred for her stupid, stupid husband. The kitchen was quiet. The clock ticked sleepily. Late afternoon. Soon, it would be dark and time to milk the cows.

  “I think I’d better go,” said Donal, getting up again.

  “I’ll drive you home, son,” said Mick. “Come on.”

  “Funny, that,” said Donal.

  “What?”

  “You called me ‘son’, there, Mick.” Mick said nothing. He watched Donal put on his jacket, fetched his own jacket from the back of the door, and checked that his keys were in the right pocket.

  “I did,” he said at last, looking almost sorrowfully at Donal.

  “You know,” went on the younger man as Mick opened the door and stood aside for his guest to go through it, “I was thinking all the way through lunch how different things could have been if I had met Caitlin first.” Then, seeing Mick’s face darken in a frown, he added quickly, “Of course, I don’t blame you for what you did, like.” Donal stopped walking and put a reassuring hand on Mick’s shoulder. “I can perfectly understand it. Times are hard and hard times need hard decisions, right? A real man doesn’t let sentiment get in the way of business, no sir.” They proceeded to the truck. Donal waited till Mick was in and had leaned across and opened the passenger door from the inside. He climbed in, and continued, “Only I was thinking – imagine if I had met her first and you and I had chatted, like, and I had said if I marry Caitlin, the two of us would run the two farms together – like father and son, is all.”

  Mick started the engine, turned the wheel slowly, and the truck rolled towards the entrance to the yard. He looked right and left, pulled out.

  “That would have been grand,” he said quietly.

  “’Cause imagine, now, Mick…” Donal warmed to his narrative. “I could have helped you out here as well as above, and when…” He paused, struggling against the genuine sorrow which pricked his heart. “When my auld fella… well, then I would have the whole farm and you would have a son – and I would have a father still. Think, Mick, if Caitlin and I had kids, sure you and I would have ensured our farms were kept in the family!”

  Mick drove on quietly. It was hard to tell how he was reacting. Donal turned to look at the countryside speeding past the passenger window, allowing his words to sink into Mick’s thoughts.

  “I didn’t think you were too interested in farming, now, Donal,” said Mick at length, looking briefly
sideways at his passenger.

  “Well, I would be if I were married to your daughter and thought I had a family here!”

  When Mick pulled into Dan Kelly’s yard he noted its neatness; how the cobbles of the yard were swept and its perimeters weed and grass free. The barn was painted black and shone against corrosive winds and rain. The window frames of the little house were clean and painted white.

  “Thanks, Mick,” said Donal as he got down from the truck. “I’m sorry now if I upset you. Say sorry to your wife for me.”

  “Not at all, Donal. Sure we’ll see you again.”

  “I’m not sure about that now, Mick,” said Donal.

  “Oh?”

  “I am not sure I can go on working at the school, like, and seeing her… every day.” Mick pursed his lips and shook his head, struck the steering wheel with his hand. “And even if I wanted to carry on, sure it’s the divil’s own job getting to Dunane. Without Fennessey’s car, I’d be stranded. We don’t have a horse here – just a donkey.”

  “Is that right?” asked Mick. “No horse?”

  “There was no need of a horse after Daddy got ill. He was an old thing anyways and not fit for hard work any more. We sold him to the knacker’s yard. Sure the old man couldn’t plough after the heart attack anyway. The donkey does fine well for turf cutting and messages. The girls can get in and out of Golden easy enough. We’re close enough they can walk to school and mass. What need of a horse?”

  “So ye won’t be planting any crops, either?”

  “Nah.” Donal leaned on the passenger door frame and bent down to look at Mick through the open door. “We’ll stick to grass and hay, keep things simple. Sure we can load a fair few stooks on the donkey cart. The girls will help me carry in the rest.”

  “A horse would get you to Dunane in an hour, easily.”

  “It would, but sure horses are expensive, Mick.”

  “It would pay for itself with ploughing. If you had one, you could get a crop or two in the ground in a month’s time.”

  “Too many uncertainties,” replied Donal. “But a horse would be handy all right for getting about. We are truly stuck out here.”

  “Leave it with me,” said Mick, decisively. “All the best now, Donal.”

  Donal slammed shut the truck door and bent again to wave goodbye through the glass of the passenger window. Mick swerved away in an arc, pulled out of the yard, and was gone.

  “That,” said Donal aloud to himself, “is one shameless man.”

  * * *

  “That was a long lunch, son,” remarked Dan as Donal came whistling through the door.

  “It was, Daddy, but I’m home now. Give me a few secs and I’ll away and get the cows.” Dan put down the paper he was reading and watched his son leap from the floor to the second step of the stairs.

  “Jacintha,” Dan said.

  “Yeh?” Jacintha had just cleaned the kitchen, stoked the range, and emptied a bucket of slops into the pig trough. She entered the kitchen flushed and breathless. She was tall and, Dan considered, too skinny. She wore her hair up all the time and it exposed the protruding bones of her neck and upper spine. But she had her mother’s chestnut hair, with a hint of red in it, and her mother’s round, hazel eyes. If she would just fatten up a bit and let her hair loose once in a while, she’d be lovely.

  “Do you know the Spillanes up at Dunane?”

  “Spillane?” Jacintha frowned. She put down her bucket and used her lower lip to direct a breath upwards so that it displaced a lock of hair which had fallen over her right eye. “The name is familiar all right, wait…” Dan continued to look at his daughter over the top of his reading glasses. “There was a Caitlin Spillane, played the accordion at dances – Dundrum and Cappagreen – but I don’t know if she’s the same Spillanes, now.”

  “Is she a looker?”

  “Why?” asked Jacintha, smiling quizzically at her father, using her foot to shift the slop bucket to its corner. She crossed the kitchen to wash her hands as she waited for his response. When none came, she carried on, drying her hands on a towel and replacing it on the bar of the range. “Yes, she’s a fine-looking young one. Why, Daddy?”

  “Is she married?”

  “I haven’t a clue! I doubt it – sure she’s only Deirdre’s age or thereabouts. Why?”

  “Where’s Deirdre?”

  “Upstairs doing her homework – will I get her?” Dan nodded and Deirdre duly appeared.

  “Yes, Daddy, what is it?”

  “You remember that young one Donal found in the barn – the one who was to be married against her will?”

  “Yep.”

  “Was she not a Spillane?”

  “I think so now – I can’t remember. Will I get Donal?”

  “No, no, leave him be. I was just curious.”

  “Is that it?”

  Dan lifted up his paper again. “It is – thank you.”

  Deirdre and Jacintha exchanged puzzled glances, then went about their business.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  One late afternoon halfway through the last week of February, Caitlin started her walk home from school. Preoccupied as usual with the difficulties of her life and various academic problems such as a new history essay and her frustration with advanced trigonometry, she did not heed the sound of hooves as they caught up with her.

  “Caitlin!” A man’s voice demanded her attention. She stopped. She was astonished to see Donal Kelly driving her father’s horse and cart. He stopped beside her, smiling broadly. “Get up,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift home.” She frowned at him, shook her head. “Come on,” he insisted, patting the seat beside him. “Sure I won’t bite!” The horse tossed its head and seemed to paw the road in its eagerness to be off.

  “Why have you got my father’s horse?”

  “He brought him along to the school for me to try – see whether he suits me and how long it takes to get home in the cart.”

  Caitlin tried to make sense of the news. “But I thought he was selling him to…” What did she call Jack Flynn? “My husband” was out of the question.

  “He was,” replied Donal, matter of factly. “But I made him a better offer.” He grinned at her, winked. “Come on, Caitlin, you can tell me all about the horse and how he goes.” Still hesitating, Caitlin looked ahead at the road as it stretched away from Dunane. There was something very wrong about all of this, she felt, but she had been so badly wronged herself, why should she care? She moved to the cart and climbed up, sat beside Donal. He clicked-on the chestnut, which lurched forward. “He’s a flighty one,” laughed Donal, struggling for control of the animal. “Very different from a donkey, boy!” he said, as they trotted full pelt away from the village.

  They passed many children; several stopped to stare at their maths teacher flashing past them in a cart pulled by a sprightly chestnut horse. The girl beside him looked like Caitlin Spillane. Why would that be? More curious than the children was Jim Fennessey, who had to slow behind them and then overtake carefully in his Austin car. What the jumping Jupiter was Kelly up to? he wondered for the umpteenth time. He decided, as he pulled away, to have nothing more to do with him.

  Jack emerged from his kitchen and was about to feed his few pigs before he brought in his horse for the night. The sows were about to farrow and there would soon be bainbhs to get to market. He had stopped milking now, for his cows were dry and would not yield again till they next calved, from early April. Jack wondered if his horse would be fit to pull a cart load of crated piglets to market in a couple of months’ time. These thoughts occupied him as Donal Kelly erupted into his yard and barely persuaded Spillane’s horse to stop before it knocked Jack off his feet.

  “What the…?” Jack exclaimed, leaping out of the way.

  “Whoa! Steady there!” ordered Donal, and the chestnut, sweating and chomping at its bit, finally consented to stand. Jack could make little sense of the scene before him. Caitlin got down from the cart and stood awkwardly in the yard.
Donal smiled broadly at her and tipped his head at Jack in greeting.

  “Is that Spillane’s horse?” asked Jack.

  “It is – well,” responded Donal, “not really. He says if I like him, I can buy him. And I like him! He’s spirited, boy, but that suits me. Sure, who would want to break his spirit? Or anyone’s?”

  “Spillane promised that horse to me!” shouted Jack, coming forward and dropping the bucket he had been carrying as if he had forgotten it. Pig nuts fanned across the muddy ground as the pail hit stone. Jack caught the horse’s bridle and held on tight. The horse shied and stepped back in alarm, fighting for its head.

  “Well, as I recall,” retorted Donal, “no bargain was concluded. He gave you a price and you said you would think about it. I made him a better offer.” Jack was furious, desperate to get at the young man in the cart.

  “Get down here, you brazen little scut, and we’ll see what you have to offer!” he shouted. The horse was beside itself with anxiety; it tried to rear, snorting in its alarm.

  “Let go of my horse, Flynn,” scowled Donal, matching Jack’s fury with his own. “You cannot buy and bully your way through everything. You think you can buy people and horses and make everyone do what you want, is that it?”

  Jack could not let go of the horse in case Kelly got away and he could not climb into the cart to get at him unless he let go. In an agony of frustration he roared, “Get down off that cart, Kelly, and we’ll see how much of a man you are!”

  “You are an idiot, Flynn!” Donal shouted back at him. “An impotent, stupid old man who has met his match. If I get down off this cart I will probably kill you. Thank your lucky stars I do not – though it would give me great pleasure, I can assure you. Now let go of my horse before I run you down!” Donal let out such a roar and slapped the reins so hard on the chestnut’s rump that the animal, in complete terror, lunged forward and Jack was forced to let go of its head and dive for cover, sprawling helplessly in the mud of the yard. Turning pointedly to Caitlin, fixing her with a meaningful look and nodding his departure, Donal Kelly left Flynn’s yard with a deafening clatter and more vocal encouragement to the horse, which hardly needed it. For a few seconds, they could be heard galloping up the road towards Golden.