Black Welcome
Nigel Fitzgerald
© Nigel Fitzgerald 1961 *
*Indicates the year of first publication.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER I
A SMUDGE which had for some minutes been visible on the horizon resolved itself into a cluster of toy, grey-green mountains pushing their rounded heads out of the blue immensity of the Atlantic. A few wisps of cloud were gathered above them.
“The Kerry coast,” said the fat man who had appointed himself to the office of Fund of Information for the flight. “We’re home.”
It was no doubt true of the speaker, but not of his neighbour. Hector O’Brien Moore was making his first visit–within his adult memory–to the land of his fathers. He had a vague childish recollection that he associated with Ireland, of trees and water and an old dark house, but it was an impression rather than a clear picture. Business had claimed all of his attention since his graduation from Harvard; his rare vacations had been spent in sailing off the Florida coast, hunting in the Rockies, or trying to play serious tennis without having had the necessary practice. His professor of poetry had many times held forth, as had his father, on the loveliness of Connemara, but up to now he had not found time for a visit–and now he had been called home for a family consultation by an aunt whom he did not remember.
“You’ll see the Lakes of Killarney in a minute,” said the fat man.
Hector was already aware of the fact from his study of the route-map and from the blonde hostess’s soft-voiced reminder when she had brought him cigarettes a few minutes earlier; his fat neighbour, however, seemed to believe that each item of information required to be reiterated and confirmed.
“You’ve heard of Killarney, of course.” It was a statement, but he made it a little anxiously; Americans were unpredictable. “You know–heaven’s reflex and all that.”
“I’ve heard of it. I even know the song.”
“Good for you. See! There are the lakes now. We must have been losing height for some time. They always come down as low as they can to give passengers a good look.”
Hector had not expected to be impressed by the view from the air and it was with surprise that–after a sharp intake of breath–he found himself likening the chain of lakes to a diamond necklace thrown with careless artistry onto a cushion of green tapestry. Water and hill and rock were more vividly spectacular than any poster could suggest, print could not have reproduced the delicacy of their colouring. The few feathers of white cloud that hovered over the peaks softened the picture with their shifting shadows.
“It’s much, much lovelier than I had expected,” Hector admitted. “I had imagined it as smaller and cosier–with thatched cottages looming larger than the hills.”
In obedience to the order which had just been flashed on, the fat man with obvious regret stubbed out two inches of cigar in his ash-tray and began to adjust his seat-belt. “You don’t want to go to Ireland, of all places, with preconceived ideas,” he said. “Because whatever the ideas might be you’d find that they were right and you’d go away without ever having seen the country at all.”
“You know–that seems to me a fairly profound observation.” Hector considered it for a few seconds. “You mean that you can find anything that you’re looking for? I suppose that’s true, in a way, of every country.”
“It’s not things so much as people. Were a notoriously insincere race–or is it that we’re too hospitable? I don’t know.” The fat man’s pudgy hands folded up the magazines into which he had been intermittently dipping during the flight and pushed them into his brief-case. “Anyhow we do our best to give the performance that’s expected of us. We can be stage-Irishmen of any variety, not so much to entertain the tourist as to strengthen his conviction that we are what he always knew us to be. We can put on a veneer of charm, or virtue, or efficiency–or the reverse–so well that it would puzzle ourselves to recall what we really are underneath. We can imitate such disparate Irish types as Bernard Shaw or Brendan Behan, General Montgomery or Lola Montez, or––” He hesitated, apparently casting around in his head for suitable names.
“Lola Montez!” Hector exclaimed in astonishment. “Was she Irish?”
“Born in Ireland anyway–Limerick or Mallow, I forget which. But my point is that, if you go with an open mind, you’ll see the country as it is and you’ll probably enjoy yourself; you won’t be surrounded by people pretending to be either Einstein or Handy Andy.” The fat man chuckled. “And for the love of heaven don’t admit to any interest in literature. If you do, you’ll find that every second person you meet was at the same school as either Joyce or Wilde. I suppose you’ll be staying in Dublin?”
“No. I’m going straight to the west–a place called Newtown Moore. I’ve been there before, but not since I was five.”
“The O’Brien Moore’s place?” The fat man glanced sharply at Hector. “In that case you can forget what I said–as far as your hosts are concerned anyhow. If you’re kin of theirs, you’ll know as well as I do that the O’Brien Moores are one of the great Irish families. Nothing short of a hydrogen bomb on the breakfast table would make them any different from what they are.” He turned to the window. “Here we are, coming in to land.”
They passed over the lakes; it needed a backward glance to see how the mountains had assumed authority as the aircraft lost height. On every side land now stretched to tire horizon, except for a single broad ribbon of silver, a river that could only be the Shannon. In silence Hector watched the ground rising to meet them; clumps of trees, scattered white houses, hedges and low limestone walls reached up in turn and were left behind, then the greyish dun of the runway was beneath the wheels, almost imperceptibly the touch-down became a landing and the flight was at an end.
“Welcome to Ireland,” said the fat man. “You’ll be leaving the flight here, I suppose? No point in coming on to Dublin, if your destinations in the west.”
It was a point about which Hector was not at all sure. In a letter which he had received just before leaving home his aunt had assured him that she and her family would meet him at the airport, but she had given no indication as to whether she meant Dublin or Shannon.
“This is nearer Newtown Moore, is it?” Hector asked.
“Oh, yes–eighty or a hundred miles nearer.”
“That’s what I thought. I only booked to here anyhow.”
With tile deliberation of a walking bird the aircraft turned from the end of its landing-run to taxi towards the terminal buildings. No longer were either mountains or river to be seen; the landscape seemed flat and featureless, but for a scattering of low trees beyond the perimeter of the airport. Construction-work of different kinds and in varying stages of incompleteness was in evidence on all sides, giving to the place something of the appearance of a new area of mushroom development in the Middle West. Hector found himself surveying the scarcely impressive scene with an altogether disproportionate feeling of excitement.
It was the distinctive air that he noticed as soon as he had stepped down to the tarmac, an air fresh and invigorating that smelt faintly of the sea and carried more strongly a pleasantly smoky tang that Hector at once remembered without being able to identify its source. Beside him the fat man inhaled and exhaled with audible pleasure before volunteering the explanation.
“It’s the turf-bogs between here and the Atlantic. Turf-smoke and kelp! If you could collect that breeze and pour it out when you wanted it, ’twould be as good a tonic as anything that ever came out of a bottle. I suppose I’d
better say goodbye to you now–and good luck.” He held out his hand. “Take what comes and enjoy it and you’ll find that you know something of Ireland before you leave.”
“Thank you,” said Hector. “I’ll do my best to live up to that.”
He was guided through the brief formalities of arrival by unprofessional smiles and directed by soft voices to the inquiry desk, only to learn that no one had been asking for him; an appeal broadcast to all the public parts of the airport produced a similarly negative result. To make matters worse, it appeared that there was no vacancy on the plane for the final stage of the journey. Hector found himself momentarily at a loss for ideas; his aunt had mentioned in one of her letters that her house was so far out in the wilds that it had no telephone.
“The best thing for you to do is to have lunch at your leisure and then ring up Dublin about the time that your flight’s due to land there,” suggested the red-head behind the counter after Hector had explained his predicament. “You’ll find your friends will be waiting there, I’m sure. You could go up on the afternoon Friendship flight.”
“I’ll do that. Is there some place outside that I could eat? Airports are much the same all over.”
“Not this one,” said the girl firmly. “But you’ll find Ennis is still rural Ireland. Try the Old Ground Hotel.”
“Thanks–I will. Can I get a cab?”
“You can, of course. Ask the porter who brings your luggage. The drive will take twenty minutes.”
She pronounced the word as minyuts; it was not this point however that claimed Hectors attention. The girl had been consciously mothering him; her tone of voice and expression had been such as one would use to a child. He had, Hector supposed, been asking to be mothered, since there is something peculiarly irritating about trying to fit in with the imperfectly understood plans of an unknown person with whom one cannot get in touch. His mood, as his fat fellow-passenger had forecast, was meeting a sympathetic response. The response, indeed, outlasted the mood by a matter of seconds; a fatherly porter conducted him to the exit and ushered him into a black Chrysler with as much anxious care as if he thought that Hector had never before entered an automobile.
“You’ll be all right now, sir. They’ll look after you well where you’re going.”
“I’m sure they will. Thank you.” Suitable coins changed hands, and the door was shut. Hector’s annoyance had been conquered by amusement, but he spoke with a more consciously American crispness when he called to the driver–“Ennis–the Old Ground Hotel.”
“Check,” said the driver. He changed his gum to the other side of his mouth and gunned the Chrysler from the kerb.
The first sight of Ennis was disappointing; on one side of the road oil companies’ signs hung before a succession of shabby filling-stations, while on the other a rash of dreary little bungalows presented their faded red tops to the sun, but the town itself soon banished tire memory of its outskirts. In impossibly narrow streets with no more than a foot or two of sidewalk, people strolled or gossiped or went about their business, ignoring the snail’s-paced cars that nosed their way past, brushing against coat-tails and scraping by an occasional parked bicycle. Most of the houses were narrow and few of them more than three stories in height but they were painted with assertive individuality; the whole effect was of a toy town shining with a homely cleanliness in the bright invigorating air. Here and there tiny donkey-carts mingled unconcernedly with the traffic and fitted so well into their background that they made the more modern conveyances seem anachronistic. Hector saw a couple in a highly polished dog-cart, an elderly man and woman in clothes that might have been thought old-fashioned during: the presidency of the first Roosevelt, while the dignified impassivity of the two weather-worn faces would have done credit to a Sioux chief. It was almost without knowing how he got there that Hector found himself sitting on a stool at a pleasant cocktail bar; he asked for a dry Martini.
“Certainly, sir. Five to one? And a pickled onion perhaps?”
“That will do very nicely,” Hector said and relaxed in peace.
At once he felt himself at home in the Old Ground. He liked its blend of efficiency and charm, its critical appreciation of the exact proportions in which to mix the old and the new, the unselfconscious way in which it fitted into its toy-town background; almost at first sight he had fallen in love with Ennis and with its tonic-air which made him feel that any physical activity was possible but that none was necessary. After a leisurely luncheon he rang up Dublin Airport, to find that his aunt had telephoned only a few minutes earlier to leave a message for him: her car had met with a slight mishap on the way to Dublin and had prevented her from completing the journey. She hoped that Hector would not mind being asked to make his way to Newtown Moore under his own steam.
Hector did not mind at all. He hired a car to take him the ninety odd miles to his destination and looked forward to seeing something of the country on the way, without getting his impressions blurred by the necessity of making conversation with an aged and probably eccentric relative. He felt that his driver would probably turn out to be an equally informative and less demanding companion.
“I don’t want to get in too late.” Hector got into the front seat and spread a road-map on his knees. “At the same time I’m prepared to go a few miles out of the way, if there’s anything very special to be seen.”
“Very well so.” The driver was a sporty looking young man in a check cap and a rumpled hacking-jacket. “There’s nothing very special that wouldn’t take us too far off of the road, but I may try a couple of small detours to make sure that you see things from the best angle, like. Some people take to this part of the country, and some don’t.”
“What do you think of it yourself?”
The young man glanced briefly but searchingly at Hector. “It can be the divil in winter,” he said.
The road led past gentle hills covered with wild flowers to an upland plain, bare and windswept, dotted with limestone outcrops, where there was scarcely grass enough for mountain-sheep. Hector could imagine what it must be like when the Atlantic gales swept across it unimpeded, though now its paleness merely refracted the sun and there was barely breeze enough to carry the smell of tire turf-bogs and the sea. After a time the flat uniformity of the plateau began to change; rock-faced gorges appeared, in some cases so close together that they were divided only by strange twisted pinnacles of limestone. Small valleys with sheer, forbidding walls were brightly carpeted with yellow and purple and blue. Suddenly the road seemed to drop over the edge of a precipice and began to corkscrew down to a level some hundreds of feet lower than that which it had left. Hector could see for what seemed to be a prodigious distance over a purplish brown landscape broken by stony hills and sharply etched rock-formations; in the far distance loomed something that looked like a flat-topped mesa.
“I suppose it’s a trick of the light that makes the distances seem so enormous,” Hector suggested. “This valley looks as big as the state of Texas, but it can’t be–for obvious reasons.”
“ ’Tis only about ten mile across,” the driver confirmed, then he added rather tentatively–“We call it Injun Territory. There was a rumour one time that Mr. John Ford was going to make a Western picture here with Irish actors in it.”
Hector laughed. “He could, you know. The west of Ireland may be a bit short on redskins and vultures, but the setting’s all right.”
“There are vultures everywhere, God knows.” The driver pushed his cap to a more rakish angle and settled down to talk. “I was up in Dublin a while back when the rumour was strong, and I went in to a play. I was thinking, an’ I looking at that bunch of actors, that if you took any one of them that had his hair and shaved it to a top-knot, stuck a feather in it, sthripped the fella down to a breech-clout, and set him on a tinker’s pony on the top of one of them stony hills, with the whisky runnin’ out of his eyes–I was thinking that he wouldn’t look so unlike the last of the red men.”
“He w
ouldn’t, for a fact,” Hector agreed. “There was a good deal of similarity between the faces of the old plains Indians and the typical Irish face, particularly the people in these western counties, of course, with their big noses and high cheek-bones.” He added–“like my own,” when he realised that he had involuntarily glanced at the driver and met his eye. “And in any accent the word ‘how’ sounds much the same.”
“So does ‘when,’” muttered the driver meaningfully, casting a longing glance at a pub that had just materialised round a bend in tire road. “That, now, is the only water-hole in the breadth of the valley.”
“Then we’d better stop here. Hadn’t we?”
Hector did not particularly want a drink, but he was sure that even in his forgotten childhood he had not seen the interior of an Irish country inn, and he felt that the opportunities for such exploration might be limited when he became a guest under his aunt’s roof. He hoped, too, that a halt would put an end to his feeling of irritation with himself. His fat neighbour on the flight from New York had succeeded in introducing into his mind a tiny seed of doubt about the genuineness of Irish behaviour and Irish motives; he felt that he must try to get rid of that seed before it grew into a flourishing weed. He had already been asking himself if the silly conversation about cowboys and Indians had arisen naturally or merely because the driver had mysteriously but accurately sensed Hector’s reaction to the unexpected character of the countryside. Obviously he was being unduly suspicious; all the same it was not pleasant even to suspect that no one was going to be natural in his presence, that everyone whom he met was prepared to put on a performance for his benefit at the drop of a hat. He decided to make his mind a blank and begin his explorations afresh.
“Good day, gintlemen.”
The pub was long, low, whitewashed and thick-walled; until the voice spoke it was as silent as the tomb and almost as dark. It was only by peering into the blackness from which the sound came that Hector was at last able to descry a big thick-set man, shirt-sleeves rolled high on his massive arms, leaning with statuesque stillness against a dark wooden counter; slowly the gleam of the bottles arrayed behind him came into focus.
Black Welcome Page 1