‘Done. Delivered to Drimnamore.’
The young man, still cheerful, telephones Dublin and agrees the price. On the way back James asks, ‘You said the boat isn’t exactly what we want. And the smoke-house?’
‘The boat’s perfect, with that big squared-off stern and a new diesel engine. It only lacks a gantry, and we’ll build that ourselves. The smoke-house was thrown in, and smoked oysters are brilliant, fetch a good price. We’re well below budget.’
Three weeks later the building is finished, gleaming white next to the pier, ‘DRIMNAMORE OYSTER FISHERY’ in giant green letters down the inland wall.
‘I’m glad to be back to building,’ says Michael. ‘We’ll need a party to celebrate. Trestle tables and Guinness for anyone in Drimnamore who wants to come out here.’
Curiosity and free Guinness persuade seventy men, women and children to come to the party. The floor laid down by James and Danny looks pristine until the party-goers tramp in mud from outside.
‘It’s designed to clean easily, and that’s why there’s that little slope down to the gutter along the south side. The steam cleaner will see that off in no time,’ says Danny.
‘Where did you get the oysters?’
‘I picked them from out in front at low tide. They’re the descendants of the spats your great-grandfather laid down. And there are plenty more out there. We’ve chosen a good place all right.’
There are a hundred oysters on the table, although most of the guests are cautious about eating them. They are more interested in meeting James. One or two remember John Burke. More than half live in what used to be Derriquin properties.
At the end of the evening one man puts his face close to James’s and says, ‘Don’t think you can buy your way back in here. We got rid of you in 1919, and we could do it again.’
James moves away, but Michael notices and says, ‘That was the drink talking. Half an hour ago Tommy was asking about jobs in the fishery.’
The day after the party they bring in the Drimnamore blacksmith to build the gantry on the stern of the boat. Its cross-beam holds the pulleys that link two chain-mail purse nets to a winch driven by the boat’s engine.
‘We let out the purses, tow them open along the seabed, quite slowly, close their mouths when we haul them in, open them up to drop the oysters onto the counter. Chip them clean here, then wash and grade them in the shed.’
‘What happens if you lose a purse?’
‘Mark the spot and fish it up at low tide. We’ll lose a few, that’s why we have a dozen in stock.’
Two days later they take the boat out for a trial run in low cloud, drizzle and a choppy sea. The twin purses pay out sweetly, Danny driving the boat while James watches the taut towing wires. On the first pass on the far side of the channel they find only rocks, mud and starfish. The second pass is no better. On the third, closer to the shore, each purse has over a dozen oysters; they slap each other on the back, throw all but six of them back into the inner parc, and return, cold, wet and happy, to the shed. James produces a bottle of white wine; Danny shucks the oysters open and they drink a toast.
‘To the Drimnamore Oyster Fishery.’
‘Sláinte. You’ll have to open your own from now on.’
James goes back to his cottage and sleeps soundly. Late in life he has discovered the pleasures of hard manual work. And the perils – he has already sprained a wrist, lost a fingernail and badly bruised his ribs on the building site and on the boat. But his daughter’s advice, and Tolstoy’s, was good.
42
SEVERAL YEARS LATER, the Drimnamore Oyster Fishery is beginning to look like a business. Danny, whose caution offsets James’s optimism, is pleased.
‘We’ll sell a hundred and fifty thousand oysters this year, turn over almost ninety thousand euros, close to break even. We’ve covered my salary and we don’t need the bank for working capital any more. Our man in Cork is working out well.’
Their new distributor is based in Cork and travels to London every week to sell smoked salmon to big department stores and expensive restaurants.
‘His fifteen per cent is a bargain. All we have to do is to get the oysters to Cork once a week. And he’s a Dutchman. I wouldn’t trust a Cork man with my money or my sister.’
‘There speaks Galway.’
They employ six packers in the shed for most of the year. They cover the oysters in fresh, damp seaweed and pack them in woven baskets with a clear plastic cover and ‘Drimnamore Oyster Fishery’ stencilled on the side. The baskets are twice the price of cardboard and, Danny agrees, worth every penny. James and Danny work the dredger together and they have hired Tommy, who turns up most days, to chip the oysters clear of barnacles. They start to sell direct to the public at Oysterbed Pier after a succession of summer weekends spent turning away disappointed tourists.
‘All we need is a blackboard, a big bottle of tabasco and hundreds of lemons. We’ll make double our normal margin, and it’s all cash.’
James has become a fixture in Drimnamore. He is treated with a mixture of curiosity (‘Why would you want to come to the end of Ireland, for God’s sake?’), affection (‘You’ve brought a bit of life to the place’) and suspicion (‘What’s an Englishman doing making money out of Irish oysters?’). He works hard at the fishery, goes for long walks along the coast and up into the mountains, reads Irish history in the evenings, snug in his cottage. He is making slow progress on expanding his monograph into a longer book about the people of Dunkerron between 1840 and 1900. Once a month he goes to the public library in Tralee where there is a complete set of Kerry newspapers of the period: The Kerryman, Kerry Sentinel, Kerry Examiner, and South Kerry Star. Only The Kerryman survives.
‘I know more about Dunkerron in the nineteenth century than I do about the world today,’ he tells Danny. ‘It was like the Wild West.’
He goes to the Church of Ireland service every Sunday to swell its tiny congregation, never more than ten in the winter. He reads the lesson occasionally, sits in the Burke family pew, helps to weed the graveyard and joins the congregation at the Kerry Coffee Shop after the service. He likes the curious mixture around the table, even the bossy evangelical lay preacher, Sheila Perceval. There is a retired bank manager from Dublin, two Brits making their pensions go further, an elderly American hippy and the woman who started the Kerry Coffee Shop six years ago and is still holding on. Holidaymakers double the congregation and triple the collection during July and August. For the rest of the year, James feels he is part of a dying creed in a colonial outpost.
In contrast, sixty go to the big, gloomy Roman Catholic church outside the village. ‘It used to be more like a hundred until they found out what priests and the Christian Brothers had been doing to children for all those years,’ says Sheila with a certain amount of satisfaction.
James buys a boat, a Galway hooker that he finds in Roundstone and sails down the coast with Danny as his crew. He can handle the boat alone on all but the roughest days, sailing among the islands in the estuary and when the weather is good as far out as the Bull, the Cow and the Calf. He replaces the British Seagull with a reliable twenty-horsepower Yamaha to bring him home whenever the wind dies away, fishes for mackerel and sets out half a dozen lobster pots close to Rossdohan Island. Occasionally, when there’s some water, he tries for salmon in the Drimnamore River. His dog keeps him company. Mick is a Kerry Blue terrier that James acquired from Michael Sullivan.
‘That dog is a direct descendant of Michael Collins’s famous terrier, Convict 224. My father was given the dog after Collins was killed, and we’ve bred from the line ever since.’
‘He’s handsome enough, I must say. Lovely colour, and not small and yappy like a Jack Russell.’
Once a month he has dinner with Michael Sullivan and Aisling in the Great Southern Hotel. After a few attempts to introduce James to merry widows, Michael abandons his hopes of bringing James back to the altar.
‘It’s not natural,’ he grumbles. ‘It’s a was
te of a good man.’
‘I’ve been married, I’ve got a daughter,’ says James. ‘I’ve a dog, a cottage, a boat and the fishery. Quite enough for one man to worry about.’
On one of these evenings Michael tells him the story of the glory days.
‘It seemed great while it lasted, and then everyone went bust. My partner Declan shoved off to America with his latest girlfriend and an offshore Ansbacher account. I owed the bank twenty million that I didn’t have, so they took Sullivan Construction, took the Mercedes and the villa, took my banjaxed investments, not that they were worth anything, and settled for that. I never pledged the house, only sensible thing I did, and Aisling stuck with me.’
‘He had soft hands under a hen, that Declan,’ says Aisling. ‘And I got carried away with it all, parties, clothes, flying at the front of the plane. I’m only glad Annie and my da weren’t alive to see it all.’
Michael takes a deep drink from his pint of Guinness and gives his wife a hug.
‘That’s all eaten bread now. I still couldn’t tell you what a Contract for Difference is, although it blew away eight million euros of money I didn’t have. I’ve done apologizing and I’m back to what I know.’
Georgia comes out to see James without Stephen and stays in the big hotel.
‘No, Dad, there’s nothing wrong, it’s just that the business is going through a rough time. Stephen’s sorting it out. And it’s lovely to have you to myself.’
James shows Georgia the oyster fishery and takes her out in the boat with Danny, dredging for oysters on a drizzling day. They pick what they need in two hours, and when they land Georgia says, ‘That was real work. Dad, I’m very impressed. You’ve built a good little business from nothing, not bad for an ex-Permanent Secretary. But aren’t you lonely?’
‘I see people every day, I read a lot of poetry, I do some writing, and I’ve always got Mick. I’m even learning Gaelic very slowly. If I want company, there’s several of them in The Liberator bar who haven’t told me their life stories yet.’
‘You know something, you’re living a different version of the last years of your father’s life. Away from home, celibate, fishing, religion...’
James laughs. ‘Dad was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church, became a monk, renounced all his worldly possessions. I go to church only once a week, with no incense and not much religion.’
A week after Georgia’s visit, James is in Drimnamore buying groceries. He has tied Mick to the Staigue Fort bench. When he comes out of the shop he sees a young boy stroking Mick’s head and getting his face licked in return.
‘He’s a friendly dog. His name is Mick. What’s your name?’
‘Mum says I’m not to talk to strangers.’
‘Dogs don’t count?’
‘Dogs can’t talk. Here she comes, anyway. I can talk to you when she’s here.’
James looks up and sees Anna Pearson walking towards him. She hugs James, and he kisses her cheek, holding her tight.
‘Mum, you told me not to talk to strangers, and you’re hugging this man.’
‘We’ve met before. He’s the one I told you about, that we’re coming to visit.’
‘It’s lovely to see you. And to see Jack James Zachariah again.’
‘How do you know all my names? I’m called Jack. The other ones are spares.’
‘How did you track me down?’
‘I heard from Imogen you’d moved to Drimnamore. Jack knows Zachariah, and I thought he should meet his other, his other namesake. I didn’t think it would be hard to find you in a village this size. She said you were still on your own.’
‘Nosy woman. For all she knows I’ve a string of Irish mistresses. How long are you here?’
‘Days, weeks. You know I don’t like timetables. We came over on the ferry to Cork. That’s my little car outside the Seaview B&B.’
‘You’ll have to stay till the first Kerry Oyster Festival next weekend. Come down to Oysterbed Pier this afternoon and I’ll show you the reason I’m here.’
‘Mum, what’s a namesake?’
Anna and Jack arrive at Oysterbed Pier and James shows them round.
‘At Allenmouth you said you wanted to be a fisherman, and I said you’d left it a bit late. I was quite wrong.’
‘We’re two packers short this afternoon. You and Jack can make yourself useful at a packing station. Look, I’ll fill the basket. Jack, you put on the seaweed and the cover. Anna, you strap the basket round.’
Anna is happy to be put to work, Jack talking non-stop to the other three women on the line as they work. By five o’clock they have filled a hundred baskets.
‘That’s our quota. Now let’s have tea.’
They walk to the new kiosk. James brings over smoked oysters, soda bread and butter, and a piece of cake for Jack. They sit at one of the trestle tables Danny has made from old railway sleepers.
‘It’s always quiet in the afternoon. When the Ring of Kerry tours arrive in the morning there are plenty of customers. Try some lemon on your oyster.’
‘They’re delicious.’
They finish the oysters and walk back to the village.
‘Join me in The Liberator later, once Jack’s in bed. If it’s a good day tomorrow we’ll go for a sail.’
‘What do you say, Jack?’
‘Thank you for showing me the oysters.’
James picks Jack up, hugs him, feels his eyes pricking with tears, and puts him down. Anna comes over to the Liberator after half an hour and they talk for a long time in a quiet corner of the bar.
‘I hope you stay a while. I do miss you. And seeing Jack... he felt like my son when I held him just now.’
‘You hardly know each other. And we’re not going to have a DNA test. He’s your son only if you both agree. But I did want Jack to meet you. He needs a man, not all the time, mind. I can’t teach him to sail or fish.’
‘I can do both. But I want to be more than just an Outward Bound instructor.’
‘That’s up to you and up to him. And I have missed you. I’d forgotten how calm and competent you are. Let’s see how the three of us get on. I’ll bring a picnic for tomorrow.’
‘I’ll see you both at the pier at ten. We’ll sail over to Derrynane if there’s enough wind; the races are on in the afternoon.’
James hoists the dark red sails once they have motored away from the pier; the boat heels over as the sails fill and there is a generous gurgle of water under her lee. Jack sits with his arm around Mick.
‘Mum, is it meant to tilt like this?’
‘Ask the captain.’
‘There’s a heavy keel to stop it going over. It’s called a Galway Hooker. This one is a leathbad in Gaelic, a half-boat.’
‘I remember you told me Kerry was beautiful.’
‘On a day like this. In November, in the rain, with the low cloud blotting out the mountains, it’s altogether different. Mind your heads as we go about. We’ll anchor on the edge of the channel and try for some mackerel. They’ve been around since the beginning of the week.’
They each take a line with half a dozen feathered hooks and drop them over the side. Jack has never been fishing before, and shouts with excitement when he pulls up two gleaming blue, black and silver fish. James shows him how to gut a mackerel, and Jack, doubtful at first, manages to clean one on his own.
‘That’s for your supper. The ones that go in the pots are just slit open. We’ve got three for supper, six for the lobsters. We’ll check the pots on our way back.’
James persuades Anna to take the tiller as they sail in a warm breeze down the estuary and sits beside her as she steers. He puts his hand over hers on the tiller, doesn’t take it away. Anna looks at him, smiles, brushes his cheek with hers for a moment as the boat heels over in a gust of wind. It is a rare, cloudless Kerry day, with enough wind to take them to Derrynane, where they anchor off the point. Anna has made sandwiches, James has brought a bottle of wine and some lemonade, and they eat in the cockpit of the boa
t. They can see the tractors dragging the sand flat for the races and the crowds beginning to gather.
‘Can we swim? I’m very hot,’ asks Anna.
‘The tide’s on the turn, there’s no current. I’ll put the ladder over the stern so you can get back in.’
‘Mum, I don’t have my swimming costume.’
‘Underpants will do fine.’
Anna kicks off her sandals, pulls her dress over her head and before James has a chance to look at her dives into the water.
‘It’s – it’s bracing.’
‘It is the Atlantic. It takes a while to get used to it.’
James puts down the ladder, then watches as Jack, very slowly, lowers himself into the sea.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
‘You always need one on the boat.’
Four minutes are enough. James helps them both up the ladder and they dry themselves on the small towel from the galley. Anna walks forward, her back to James, and slips out of her bra and pants and puts on her dress. She lays the wet clothes on the hatch.
‘They’ll be dry in twenty minutes.’
‘Shall we go to the races? Have you ever been to a horse race? We can take the dinghy over to the pier and walk round.’
‘Won’t the boat float away?’ says Jack.
‘This is a safe anchorage in this weather. We can keep an eye on the boat from the shore. Mick stays on board to keep off pirates. He wouldn’t be able to resist chasing the horses if we brought him along.’
It’s a holiday crowd at the races, determined to enjoy themselves.
‘It’s the only race meeting in the world on sand under the proper rules of racing,’ says James. ‘In the Irish Racing Calendar they give the start time as “depending on the tides”.’
They watch the last three races, Jack perched on James’s shoulders to see over the heads of the crowd.
‘This was how my father earned his living, training racehorses.’
James explains the mechanics of betting to Jack, who likes the idea, likes it less when he loses the euros James has given him for the first two races.
Ashes In the Wind Page 35