The Crow of Connemara

by Stephen Leigh

  “I hear you,” Colin told him. And right now, if I punched you on that broken nose, I think you’d go down hard, he thought.

  “And what is it yer hearing, Colin?” Maeve interrupted, coming up behind Niall. She set two pints on the table. “Niall, I hope yer not bothering me houseguest.”

  Niall straightened, still staring at Colin. He picked up his glass again and took a swallow. “Nah,” he said. “We was just having a bit of a chinwag like old chums.” With that, he nodded to Maeve—nearly a bow, Colin thought—and went to join those standing near the door. Maeve sat next to Colin. Her hand covered his. If they’d been in a tavern in Ballemór, Colin might have turned his hand over to lace his fingers with hers, and he might have pulled her close enough to kiss her. But here . . . He was too aware of the eyes watching them.

  “Niall thinks he got the worst of the fight at Regan’s,” she told him. “That’s why he seems so angry. That, and he’s afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  She didn’t answer, only gave him a smile that was almost shy. Her fingers stroked the skin of his arm. “I told Keara yeh’d play music with her and sing a few songs. How about it? Show me some of what yeh’ve learned in yer time here, and from that book yeh bought.” She leaned toward him, her face close to his, her eyes large and dark and smiling. “And after yeh’ve done that, we’ll go back to my place and we can continue what we started, if yeh’ve a mind.”

  Her lips touched his, soft and inviting, and their kiss was slow and gentle. For that moment, the room vanished. Then Maeve pulled back, and the noise of the room returned. Her hand touched his cheek. “G’wan,” she said. “Sing something for me. Show me people what a gift yeh have.”

  Colin grabbed his Guinness and his gig bag, sliding between the tables toward the back of the room. Keara saw him coming and lifted her fiddle bow in salute, giving him a smile and a beckoning nod. One of the people sitting next to her vacated his stool as Colin approached. He set his stout there and unzipped the bag, pulling out his Seagull acoustic. He took a drink of the stout and set the glass on the floor beside him, sitting on the stool and quickly checking his tuning. “What’dya want to play?” he asked Keara.

  “Yeh can pick,” she said.

  “How about ‘Mháire Bhruinneall’ in E?” Keara nodded, and Colin looked out at the crowd. They were nearly all watching him, the room quiet. He concentrated on Maeve’s grin rather than the dour face of Niall. He strummed an open E, adjusted the tuning, and ran his fingers across the strings again. “I have to sing this one in Gaelic,” he said to the room, using what his sister Jenn always called his “teacher” voice. “Hope you forgive my poor pronunciation.” He glanced over at Keara. “Ready, then?” She nodded, and he played the opening chords, running through a verse with Keara playing the melody line above him. The next time around, he began to sing:

  Órú ‘Mháire bhruinneall, ’bhláth na Finne (Oh, Maire Bruinneal, flower of the Finn)

  I ndiaidh mé do leanúint aniar anall, (I followed you here and there)

  Ó, ba bhinne liom do bhéal ná na cuacha a’ seinm (Your mouth was sweeter to me than the cuckoo’s singing)

  Is tú ’d’fhág mise i ndealraidh ’n bháis (And it’s you who has left me at death’s door)

  ’Á mhéad é mo thuirse ní léir domh an choinneal (I am so grieved I couldn’t keep her)

  ’S deir siad gur mise a mheallas na mná (They said I was one who deceives women)

  Mharaigh tú go deo mé, lagaigh tú go mór mé (I never killed you; I wanted you weakened)

  Is gach a bhfuil beo domh, bhris tú mo chroí (And all that’s alive in me, you broke my heart)

  All the talk in the pub had died entirely, everyone listening. He nodded to Keara, and they went through a verse and chorus with her improvising, leaning heavily into the strings with her bow, her eyes closed as she played. He began singing again, more confidently now.

  Tá a trí phointe óir léi síos go troigh (Her golden trident points down at her feet)

  ’Gus iad á gcarnadh ar gach taobh (and they are piled on every side)

  Mharaigh tú go deo mé, lagaigh tú go mór mé (I never killed you; I wanted you weakened)

  Is gach a bhfuil beo domh, bhris tú mo chroí (And all that’s alive in me, you broke my heart)

  Bhí mé lá go ceolmhar ins an ród (One day I was singing in the road)

  Tharla domhsa an óigbhean chiúin (And I met that quiet young woman)

  Mharaigh tú go deo mé, lagaigh tú go mór mé (I never killed you; I wanted you weakened)

  Is gach a bhfuil beo domh, bhris tú mo chroí (And all that’s alive in me, you broke my heart)

  He nodded to Keara, and as he launched into the repetition of the first verse, she played along with him, her fiddle harmonizing with his voice and curling grace notes around his words.

  Órú ’Mháire bhruinneall, ’bhláth na Finne (Oh Maire Bruinneal, flower of the Finn)

  I ndiaidh mé do leanúint aniar anall, (I followed you here and there)

  Ó, ba bhinne liom do bhéal ná na cuacha a’ seinm (Your mouth was sweeter to me than the cuckoo’s singing)

  Is tú ’d’fhág mise i ndealraidh ’n bháis (And it’s you who has left me at death’s door)

  As he struck the ending chord, the applause broke over them, appreciative, and he grinned at Keara, at Maeve, at the crowd. He saw Keara look toward Maeve, tilt her head toward Colin, and nod, as if she was confirming something that Meave had said. “Come on, then,” someone called from the crowd. “Give us another!”

  Colin shrugged. “Your turn,” he said to Keara.

  “‘Ghost Lover’?” she suggested. “Yeh played that one at the pub.”

  “Sure . . .” They played that, then a few instrumental reels and jigs with Keara playing the melody as Colin accompanied her. Whenever he looked for Maeve, she waved to him from a different location in the room. She’d left the table, moving around and speaking softly to one group or another as they played, smiling and laughing. Someone came up with a bodhran, and the mandolin player returned, and Colin sang a few more songs. Someone brought the musicians a round, then another, and another. The alcohol dispersed the last of his inhibitions; he played a few American songs, and even one of his own modeled on an old Irish melody he’d once heard. No one seemed to mind; unlike Niall, the crowd gathered around the musicians treated him as one of their own—or rather, they treated him as the centerpiece of the group, and the crowd in the pub grew as other of the Oileánach came in and stayed. Colin could feel them watching him and listening carefully as he sang, sometimes nudging one another with an elbow and applauding loudly at the conclusion of each song.

  When he finally snuck a glance at his phone—there was no service out here, but at least he could check the time—it was already nearly midnight. He blinked, trying to clear away the alcoholic fog. He played one more song, then made his excuses to the players, putting his guitar back in the gig bag. There were protests from the crowd as he prepared to leave the musicians: “Nah. Play some more. ’Tis early yet. That’s a lovely voice yeh have; give us more of it!” Maeve came up to him as he was slowly zipping up the bag.

  “How’d I do?” he asked her.

  “Do’nah know yet,” she answered. “Maybe we’ll find out, if yeh aren’t too bolloxed. How many pints have yeh had?”

  “Four,” he answered. The word sounded strange to his ear. He made certain to pronounce the rest distinctly. “Or five. I may have lost count.” Maeve was shaking her head, though she was smiling at the same time.

  “Indeed. And how many shots along with ’em, or have yeh lost count of those as well?” She shook her head at him some more.

  “I’ve had a bit more than I probably should have had, I’ll admit,” he said, “but I’m not drunk.” He shouldered his gig bag. It seemed heavier than usual, and the room spun a little with the moti
on. “Oh!” he said suddenly, stopping. “You ‘don’t know yet.’ Does that mean . . .” He took a long breath to steady the room. “. . . what I think it means?”

  “It might,” she answered. She laced her arm through his. “I’m thinking it depends on how the night air and a stroll up the hill works on yeh. I’d hate to have yeh just fall into bed an’ start snoring. ’Twould be a waste.”

  “Well, then, let’s go,” Colin said. He smiled at her. He wanted to kiss her, but everyone was watching, and he glimpsed Niall still in the pub, watching the two of them. He settled for pulling Maeve tightly to him. He thought he could feel the gazes of everyone in the room on them as they left. Together.

  He knew that Niall, if no one else, watched their exit carefully.

  As they walked down the grassy lane, as they reached the gate in the drystone wall outlining the yard of Maeve’s cottage, Maeve stopped suddenly. When Colin tried to stop with her, he wheeled about clumsily and had to put his hand on the gate to stop the world from whirling around him. “What’s the matter?” he asked Maeve. He could hear that he slurred the words—“Wassamattah?”—but decided against trying to repeat the words more distinctly. He blinked heavily, and glanced upward into the night sky. “Wow,” he said. Distinctly.

  The night sky would have been stunning all on its own: stars dusted like multicolored salt on black velvet, and the dusty sweep of the Milky Way arcing overhead. Colin had seen night skies like this in Ireland before, in country villages far away from any city lights. But what made him gape were the curtains of light and color washing across the sky.

  He’d seen the aurora borealis before. This was similar, yet very much not a common aurora. This display was too small: too localized and far too low in the sky. It was as if a miniature aurora hung over Inishcorr and especially over Maeve’s cottage and them like a glowing, rippling cloud, and the colors were intense and unusual. The auroras Colin had seen before were mostly a pale green, with occasional reddish curtains. This one . . . the colors were far more saturated, and seemed to contain flashes of every possible color. Through his smudged glasses, they shimmered with bright halos.

  His grandfather’s stone, now in his pocket again, seemed to respond, or maybe that was just his inebriation. It felt cold against his thigh and he slid his hand to put his fingers around it. He gasped at the touch: it was cold, as if it had been sitting in snow. The lights in the sky seemed to be dancing for him, and coming closer.

  He thought he could hear the whisper of voices in his head as he held the stone.

  “Pretty,” was all he could manage in response, and he heard Maeve’s silvery laugh answer. She seemed to be looking at his hand, and he guiltily pulled it from his pocket, reluctantly letting go of the stone. The ghostly voices in his head faded.

  “Aye, pretty indeed, ’tis,” she said. “Here, let’s put yeh inside so yeh can sit, and I’ll be right in behind yeh . . .” With that, Maeve took his arm, opened the gate, and escorted him to the door. She pushed it open. “G’wan in. I’ll be with yeh in just a bit. Why not start some water for tea, and have a bit of the bread and jam that Keara brought? That’d be good.” She hugged him, kissed him fleetingly, then gave him a little shove inward. “G’wan,” she said, and closed the door behind him.

  He yawned and used the poker to stir the banked fire in the kitchen hearth, checked that there was water in the kettle, and put another piece of dried turf on the fire before swinging the crane over it. He sliced two pieces of bread and put tea in the pot. Maeve still hadn’t come in; he went to the window and glanced out. She was standing in the yard, staring upward with her hands raised as though she wanted to touch the aurora’s glow. As Colin watched, the impossible aurora seemed to respond to her gesture, but not in the way Maeve seemed to wish. The tendrils of the light curled away from her, fading now, though they were brightest just above the window where Colin stood.

  The kettle over the hearth began to whistle, and Colin glanced back at the white steam flowing from the spout. When he looked back at the window, Maeve was no longer there and the aurora light had faded entirely. He heard the door open, saw her walk in. She was grimacing, as if something pained her. “That tea ready?” she asked.

  Colin shivered, the alcoholic fog returning to his head. She sounded so . . . distant. He went to the kettle and swung the crane away from the fire so that the whistling slowly faded. He took the kettle by its wooden handle and poured the steaming water into the waiting teapot, and set the kettle back on the crane. He straightened . . . and found Maeve facing him, very close. She took off his glasses and her lips found his, sweet and yet oddly passive. “Are yeh too tired?” she asked, pulling back slightly from him. He shook his head; the alcohol fumes had cleared entirely from his head.

  “No,” he answered. Then: “Maeve, that aurora . . .”

  “’Tis vanished now,” she said. “Sorry.” Her hands were still cupped around his neck, his glasses dangling from her fingers.

  “I thought I saw yeh trying to touch the lights.”

  “Yeh’ll see many things on Inishcorr,” she told him. “An’ I know the place for yeh to see more.” She inclined her head toward the bedroom. She put his glasses back on. “Bring the tea and bread in there. I’ll be waiting for yeh.”

  The Grainne Ni Mhaille ducked her head into the waves as it left the shelter of the harbor in Inishcorr, sending salt spray flying over her bow. Maeve laughed as the cold water drenched them. “It makes yeh feel alive,” she said to Colin, shaking the folds of her red woolen cloak.

  Colin wiped futilely at the front of his sweater, beaded with water, holding onto the railing as the Galway hooker pitched and rolled in the long swells coming in from the southwest. He peered through the water-speckled lenses of his glasses. They were alone in the bow, with the crew farther aft handling the sails. Niall wasn’t among them this time. Looking down at the water, Colin saw two seals carving paths through the gray-green, heaving sea alongside the boat. He shivered. “It makes you feel damp and cold,” he answered, “if that’s what you mean by alive. Glad my guitar’s back in the boat’s cabin.”

  Maeve laughed again and came over to him. Her arms went around either side of him, her hands on the rail, pressing him against the side of the boat and holding him captive. She smiled up at him, the cowl of her cloak falling back; he leaned down to kiss her, letting go of the rail and holding onto her instead.

  “So did yeh enjoy yer visit to m’island?”

  “I had a wonderful time.” He could feel the hunger for her again, but also the guilt. He glanced over the prow of the boat and beyond the bright red foresail, where the steep landscape of Ceomhar Head, maybe two miles away, was half-hidden in mist. “Maeve,” he said. “We should talk.”

  She cocked her head slightly toward him. “Now?”

  “Yeah, well . . .” His voice trailed off. He’d tried to speak with her this morning, after they’d awakened, but Keara had come to the door with breakfast, staying in the house while they’d dressed. After that, they’d walked into town, and it seemed they hadn’t been alone long enough for him to broach anything personal. “I just wonder . . . After last night . . . When I’m back in Ballemór . . .”

  She laughed, though the amusement didn’t quite touch her eyes. “G’wan and pick a sentence,” she said. “Any sentence.”

  “I just don’t know where we stand right now,” he said finally, still holding her, her arms still binding him to the rail. “I didn’t come out here with the idea . . .”

  “That we’d end up in bed?” she finished. “Oh, yeh knew when I asked yeh to the island, did yeh not? ’Tis a wee bit late now for regrets, I’m thinking.” She lifted her hands from the rail and took a step back from him. He dropped his hands from around her and reached behind to hold the railing as the Grainne Ni Mhaille rolled again; Maeve simply shifted her weight easily, not seeming to notice.

  “No,” Colin said hurri
edly. “I don’t have any regrets. None at all. I’m just—” He stopped again.

  “Are yeh worried about what yer friends back there—” she nodded toward the shoreline ahead of them, “—are going to think, yeh involved with one of the Oileánach women?”

  He shook his head. His woolen cap sprayed droplets with the motion. “They can think whatever they want.”

  “Then what, Colin?” He thought he saw pain in her gaze, which she tried to hide by looking away, blinking into the salt spray. “What is it yer wanting to know? Are yeh thinking this was a mistake, that it’s better not to see each other again?”

  “God, no.” He released the rail to make a gesture of denial, and the deck tilted underneath him. He had to catch himself again. “No, Maeve. You’ve the wrong idea about what I’m trying to say.”

  Her chin lifted. “Then tell me what the right one is, because I’m flummoxed right now.”

  “I’m saying that even though we’ve made love, I feel like I really don’t know you as well as I should.”

  “So yeh do have regrets.”

  “No,” he insisted. “It’s just that, well, I’ve never been the guy who goes easily from bed to bed, no matter how things might appear to you right now. I’m wondering where we go from here, wondering what happens now, wondering what it means. Do you understand?”

  Her face gentled, and he saw the hint of a smile touch her lips. “Aye,” she said. “I think I do.” She stepped toward him again, hugging him with her head against his chest before looking up at him with such open vulnerability in her face that it pained him. “I know what Niall told yeh,” she said. “He claims it was me that made a choice, but he’s wrong. ’Tis always been yer choice to make, Colin. Always yers. Always will be. It must be that way. Once yer back there, in that world . . .” She put a strange emphasis on the phrase. “Well, yeh think about me and my people. If ’tis me yeh still want, then we’ll make that work. And if not . . .” He felt more than saw her shrug under the cloak. “Then I’ll deal with that as well. I put no claim on yeh for last night. None at all. If ’twas just the one night, then it was a very nice one, and I’ll remember the time and yeh fondly. If it happens to be more, then . . .” Her voice quieted so that he could barely hear it over the wind and the sea. “Yeh need to know all of what that means, and I’ll tell yeh then. But I’d like that. Very much.”