The Grey Horse
Page 27
At the door he found a wreath of weeds, now very sodden, which had collapsed against the jamb, proving that though the door wasn’t locked, it had not been used in some time. And there was a red ribbon with three sticks tied into it on the stoop, and a bowl of milk, well diluted with rain. (It seemed that this year it would rain all spring and summer and into the autumn, too.) More peasant piseógí to encumber Ó Baoill’s work. He went in.
The place was empty of furniture. Ó Baoill went to the kitchen to find the cupboards bare. He stood in the kitchen, away from the rain, and let his attention wander over the faded, much-repaired murals on the walls, while he considered his drive back to Galway over the bad roads. The paintings were very naive; they made him laugh. A bridge. A Chinese girl. An umbrella. Ó Baoill had left his umbrella somewhere, perhaps at Blondells’s.
Ó Baoill went home feeling very depressed and feeling that more than enough had been done in this instance. He wrote out a short report, in which he recommended having the house at Knockduff checked for structural stability before they considered taking it in lieu of land taxes. It might not be seleable.
Ruairí MacEibhir and his family were most probably still in Ireland, he wrote, because without some sort of passport they could not enter any neighbouring country, not with the war. It was possible they were to be found in Mayo or Cork or Dublin, like so many dispossessed Connemara men.
And if they were not found roaming, by the census or the parish or the police, then the missing people would eventually turn up again amid the bog and stone of their home. People like MacEibhir do come back.
Ó Baoill’s understanding was flawed and his reasoning biased by a desire to be finished with his fruitless task. But despite all this, his conclusion was correct. People like MacEibhir do come back. Again and again.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1987 by R.A. MacAvoy
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0276-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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R. A. MACAVOY
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