An Irish Country Girl

by An Irish Country Girl (epub)

  She shook her head hard, then blinked, and the picture of a windswept Paudeen faded until there he was, standing at the wheel, head thrown back, mouth wide as he sang:

  Just tell me old shipmates,

  I’m taking a trip, mates,

  And I’ll see you some day in Fiddler’s Green.

  The man was in his element. He was where he belonged. Maybe she’d seen him in one of the gales in this “tough little boat.” Maybe—och, blether, she thought. I’ll not let it spoil today. “What’s Fiddler’s Green?” she asked.

  “It’s a marvelous place, a paradise where sailors and fishermen go after they die.

  Where the skies are all clear and there’s never a gale

  And the fish jump on board with one swish of their tail.

  “An Irish legend says you can find Fiddler’s Green by putting an oar on your shoulder and walking inland until someone asks you, ‘What’s that thing you’re carrying, sir?’ ” He laughed. “I’ve heard tell that American cavalrymen used to believe they would go to the same place when they die.”

  She knew she should have laughed too, made some crack about it sounding like Tir na nOg, the mythical Land of Eternal Youth on an island away to the west. But after what she had just seen, this talk about death disturbed her. “I see,” she said.

  Perhaps he sensed her discomfort and wanted to distract her. He moved to one side of the wheel. “You steer.”

  “Me?”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at him hard, accepted his challenge, and stepped up to the pedestal. Paudeen lifted his hands away, and she grabbed the spokes where he had held them. “Now, try to hold a straight course.”

  “All right.” But already the front of the boat was turning to the left. She should stop that. How? Perhaps if she turned the wheel the opposite way? She did, but it must have been too far, for the boat now turned to the right and kept on turning. Maureen gritted her teeth.

  This wasn’t going to beat her. She turned the wheel a little way left, and to her delight the front stopped moving right and came round left. She moved the wheel back a bit, then stopped. This time the boat was heading in the proper direction. She discovered that each time it wanted to move to one side or the other, if she held the spokes lightly and exerted only a little pressure in the opposite direction, the boat’s front stayed moving in a straight line.

  “Very good,” he said. “Grand, so.”

  She smiled.

  “Now I want you to steer a compass course. Do you see the card in the binnacle?”

  She frowned.

  “In through the little window under the brass dome in front of you, there’s a circular piece of white cardboard.”

  She looked down and nodded.

  “Those numbers around the circle are compass bearings, and them and the spokes going out from the middle to each point are the compass rose.”

  “Compass rose. Right.”

  “The card’s in a bowl and is free to move. It has a magnet under it, and that magnet always points north; that’s shown by the big arrow on the card, so take a good look.”

  She did. The arrow was nearly pointing straight at her. “Does that mean . . . Ring’s behind us . . . so it’s to the north?”

  “It does. Well done. Now, do you see outside the circle there’s a narrow white rod that sticks out from the edge of the bowl? Straight in front of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does the number underneath it say?”

  She peered more closely. “One sixty-five.”

  “All right. So the boat’s running on a course of 165 degrees, nearly south.”

  “I see.” She understood. “And,” she said, the words tumbling out, “if you know where you want to go is on a course of . . . och, I don’t know . . . say 200 degrees, all you have to do is line that number on the card up with the rod, so?”

  “It is. Well done yourself, bye.”

  She looked up, saw the smile in his blue eyes, and thought, you’d not make a bad teacher yourself, Paudeen Kincaid.

  “Now if you steer 180 degrees due south, it’ll take us straight out to sea.”

  Maureen bit her lip and concentrated. She moved the wheel and the compass rose swung, but it went past 180 degrees. She brought the wheel back, but try as she might the card kept swinging, a few degrees too far left, a few degrees too much to the right. “It’s not possible.”

  “No,” he said with a laugh, “it’s not. The trick is to keep the swings as shmall as you can, and you’re doing very well.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dropped a kiss on the back of her neck. “Stop it,” she said, but grinned as she spoke. “The boat’ll be all over the place if I don’t concentrate.” She was pleased the way the compass card barely moved.

  “We’ll make a sailor of you yet, bye,” Paudeen said. “You’ll love it as much as I do.”

  “You do love it, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “The sea can take a hold of you, so, and it has of me. I’ve told you that.”

  “I’m glad for you, Paudeen, as I’d be glad for anyone who found what they wanted to do and were doing it.”

  “Och, sure,” he said, “my Da, his Da, and Grampa’s Da all fished.”

  “You’re a lucky man, Paudeen Kincaid. You’re doing what you love, and you’d not had to upset anybody by making a different choice of a life.” The way I may be going to upset you, Paudeen, she thought.

  “I might have done just that with the architecture,” he said, “if Casey had liked fishing or if Da hadn’t . . .” He shrugged.

  “I’m sorry about your father, so.”

  “Och.” He managed a smile. “Sure and didn’t Da, God rest him, didn’t he go doing what he loved?”

  She nodded. “I do understand, so. There’s enough folks like my sister Fidelma working at jobs they hate. Not like your poor Da . . . and you. I envy you, Paudeen.”

  He cocked his head, a smile on his lips.

  And, Maureen thought, I told Fidelma I’d wait until the time was ripe to talk to Paudeen about my hopes. This might be the very moment.

  “You’re wandering a bit,” Paudeen said, pointing at the compass.

  “Sorry. It was my mind was wandering.” She turned the wheel and brought the boat back on course. She straddled her legs more widely, gripped the spokes more firmly, took a deep breath, and said, “Paudeen, can I ask you something?”

  “What? For the moon? It’s yours for only the wanting of it, Maureen O’Hanlon.” He kissed the nape of her neck and laughed.

  “Not the moon, you eejit. Just a question, and please don’t take it wrong.”

  Paudeen was still smiling. “Go ahead. I’ll try not to.”

  “The night I met you, you weren’t too happy about me wanting to be a teacher.”

  “I remember.” His smile was fading.

  “When we made up, you told me you’d been thinking on that.”

  “I had.” His smile was gone. “I did tell you that.”

  For a moment Maureen hesitated to carry on.

  The boat pitched and tossed in the wake of a vessel that had gone past. Maureen clung to the wheel until the motion eased. She brought the boat back on course, along with her resolve.

  “Paudeen, you never told me exactly what you thought.”

  “I did not,” he said, his voice very flat, “and I did say I’d thought on it. I’ll not deny it.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “I’d decided that if I gave you time you’d come to love me enough to come round to my way of thinking. And that’s why I didn’t say more then, was glad you didn’t ask me, and I’ve not mentioned it since in case I might upset you.”

  Maureen’s hands tightened on the wheel’s spokes. She sighed and thought bitterly, great minds think alike, Paudeen. So alike, but so differently too. Something gnawed inside Maureen’s stomach. Her mouth tasted dry, bitter, and she felt her hands sweaty on the spokes.

  As if to echo her turmoil, clouds shut off the sun.


  Paudeen shook his head. “Maureen, I’ve been looking forward to today for a month. Do we have to talk about this now? I don’t want a row.”

  “Neither do I, but I think we do have to talk. I love you, Paudeen . . .”

  “I love you, Maureen . . .” Paudeen stared ahead, looked down at the deck, then into her eyes. He said very softly, “I’ve had a notion, maybe in the new year, to ask you to marry me when you finished your school. I’d want you to finish. I’d wait for you to do that. I would, so.”

  “And are you asking now? I thought you said when you did you’d be down on one knee with a ring in your fist.” She kept her tone light. She loved him with all her soul, she’d marry him tomorrow, as long as he’d let her—

  “I will be, when we’ve this settled once and for all.”

  “Paudeen,” she said, “I love you. I want to marry you . . . but you don’t want me to teach, do you?”

  Before Paudeen could answer, Maureen heard a racket overhead like a demented kettle-drumming. Raindrops rattled on the roof, and she saw them ricocheting off the deck. The sea had turned gunmetal grey, and black clouds raced overhead.

  “I’ll take her,” Paudeen said, moving to the wheel. “There’s a squall coming. Sailors say, ‘Rain before wind, your sails you must trim.’ We’re in for a blow. We’ll have to run for shelter.”

  28

  The wind piled the water into breakers and ripped spume from their whitecaps. Paudeen held the helm so the boat’s bows faced into the waves, but still she pitched and rolled. He did something with the engine lever, and the sound of the diesel decreased. The Princess slowed, but her bows kept rearing up, then smashing down to hurl up sheets of spray and make her hull shudder. Every time a wave crest rolled under the boat she heaved from side to side.

  Maureen clung to the pilothouse railing and stared at Paudeen. She couldn’t bear to look ahead at the endless peaks and troughs marching relentlessly toward the Princess.

  “Maureen.” He had to shout to be heard. “I’m going on deck. You steer.”

  He wanted her to take the wheel? In this tempest? Maureen shook her head, mouthed “no” in a small voice, then said loudly, “Don’t ask me to, Paudeen.” Her mouth was dry, her palms sweating. “I can’t. Please don’t make me.”

  “You must.” Paudeen reached out and took her arm, dragging her toward the pedestal.

  Still shaking her head, Maureen let him put her hands on the spokes. She took a deep breath, got a tighter grip on the wheel and her fear. Thank the Lord she’d had one short lesson and the wheel gave her something else to hold on to.

  “Keep her bows pointing straight into the sea.”

  She nodded. The spokes in her hands jerked and tugged and she had to fight them. Oh, Lord, she thought, it was bad enough I started a row with Paudeen and now I have to wrestle with a gale too?

  The waves were steeper and Maureen shuddered when she thought what might happen to Paudeen if she let the boat turn sideways onto them. She remembered the wave she’d seen behind him a month ago, then white stuff in his hair not an hour before. “Be careful, Paudeen,” she yelled over the incessant racket.

  “I’ll be quick,” Paudeen called back, opening the door.

  When the wind swirled inside, she heard things falling from the chart table, heard the chart flapping.

  Paudeen darted out and slammed the door behind him.

  She watched him lean into the wind to struggle along the deck, past the hatches of the fish hold, his pants plastered to his legs, his long hair tossing like kelp fronds in the storm. He reached the foot of the mast, wrapped one arm round it, and started working with a rope.

  She wanted to call out, “Hold tight, Paudeen,” but she realized the uselessness of trying to be heard over the screaming of the wind, the battering of the seas. Futile as trying to get this big, strong, gentle but pigheaded man to change his mind. He’d not replied when she’d said he didn’t want her to teach. He didn’t have to. She knew.

  The wheel gave a mighty lurch to the left, and the boat’s head began to turn. The Princess heeled. Water flowed in over the boat’s right side. More loose objects clattered to the floor. Maureen saw Paudeen throw both arms round the mast and stare at the pilothouse.

  She thought the muscles in her shoulders were going to snap, but as she strained, the wheel moved and with it the boat’s bow. Slowly, slowly, the little trawler turned back on course. Maureen’s breath came in short gasps. All those harvests when she helped pitchfork hay onto stacks and hoisted grain sacks into the cart, coupled with her fear for Paudeen, had given her a strength she did not know she possessed.

  Paudeen waved once and went back to work. Each pole in turn descended until the poles stuck straight out from either side of the boat and he was able to start struggling back to the pilothouse.

  It took Maureen a moment to understand what he had done. While the Princess still rode over the crests like the car on a demented roller coaster, the awful tossing from side to side had almost ceased. The poles were acting as stabilizers the way a tightrope artist’s long pole gave him balance.

  It took both hands and all Paudeen’s strength to close the door. He leant against the wall, panting, soaked, and in his hair she saw clots of white spume.

  “I’ll take her,” he shouted. “Well done.”

  Maureen wedged herself in a corner and grabbed onto the chart table. She watched as Paudeen fought to hold the boat head to a sea more white than grey, as waves crested and crashed and salt spume flew. Spray and rain clattered on the pilothouse roof. The seas broke green over the bows and ran along the decks to stream from the scuppers. When water from a wave bigger than the rest battered against the windows, she flinched, expecting the glass to shatter.

  It was cold and she shivered, yet somehow she was not afraid now that she thought she’d understood what her sight had told her. The white she’d seen in his hair was the spume of this storm, and when he’d appeared to her he’d been standing as he was now. Rock solid. Unconcerned. Dealing with the elements as he must have done many times before. Keeping his boat and those on her safe. Maureen was sure she had nothing to fear.

  She saw him in profile. The veins of his neck stood out and he clenched his teeth as he strained with the wheel when the boat tried to yaw. Struggling, winning. Och, Paudeen. Paudeen. She loved this man for his courage, for his concern, for the sacrifice he’d been willing to make for his family, for his softness with her, and for the uncompromising way he was battling the sea.

  I don’t want to fight with you, Paudeen. I’ll not overwhelm you the way this gale might. Why, Paudeen . . . why must you be as intransigent with me? Why aren’t you prepared to compromise for my sake? Surely to God we could find a way to marry without me having to let go of my dreams?

  “I’m going to start putting her across the sea to head for home,” Paudeen yelled. “We’ve not long until we won’t be able to get through the gut because the tide will have dropped. I want her into shelter as quick as possible.”

  She nodded to show she understood.

  She saw Paudeen move the lever, and the engine speeded up. “It’s going to be lumpy, so hang on.”

  She took a firmer grip and stood with her legs well apart, the way Paudeen did. As the Princess changed course, angling across the waves, the rolling became more violent and each pole tip in turn brushed the water.

  It was not just the sea that was in turmoil, she thought. A moment ago she’d been scolding him in her mind for his unwillingness to bend. Wasn’t she guilty of the same sin? Yet if she caved in on this, something so vital to her, would she be setting a pattern of having to bow to all her husband’s wishes? Lots of girls did after they wed.

  But that wouldn’t be right for Maureen O’Hanlon.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said, “in about twenty minutes when we get inside the harbour. It’ll be calm there.”

  She nodded, but thought, no, it won’t be, Paudeen. I started something today. And he had said, “Do we have to talk abo
ut this now?” Men, she’d learned, were like that, able to put difficult questions in boxes in their minds and think about them at a later date. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted this finished today.

  She’d once seen Dirk, one of the family’s border collies, with his teeth locked in the wool of a sheep that had fallen into a flooded gully. Da told the dog to let go, said he was worried Dirk might be dragged in too. Usually obedient, Dirk hauled until the sodden animal was dragged to safety.

  Dirk wasn’t the only determined creature on the O’Hanlon farm.

  “Another half hour and we’ll be alongside,” Paudeen said.

  But he was wrong. It took nearly an hour of tossing and rolling before they were inside the breakwater, the poles rigged in and Paudeen busy mooring the boat.

  By the time Princess Macha was up against the quay, sunbeams, the first skirmishers of a watery sun, were forcing their way past the stragglers from the heavy battalions of storm clouds.

  Maureen felt less chilled and was thankful that the deck under her feet had stopped its crazy gyrations.

  As soon as he had made the dock lines fast, Paudeen trotted back to the pilothouse. “Jasus, girl, I’m colder than a penguin’s paddles, so,” he said, blowing on his calloused hands. “I’m soaked through and I’m foundered. I’ll only be a minute or six.” With that, he vanished down the ladder.

  Maureen looked out the windows. The sea in the harbour was a very different creature to the violent enemy it had been outside the breakwater. The water was slicked here and there with rainbows of fuel spills, spotted by the occasional floating can, cork-net floats, and old seaweed. Its surface was ruffled, not boiling.

  From below she heard a clattering of crockery and the shrill voice of a whistling kettle. Paudeen appeared in the hatchway. He was wearing a dry jumper and held an oilskin jacket in one hand, the handles of two steaming mugs in the other. “Stick one of those on the chart table—it’s Oxo—and put on this jacket for a bit of warmth.”