Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Thank you very much,” says I.

  “They have a Renault outside already. It’s not as big as your Benz, but it’s a good sound car and the biggest they have here. You can drive it back to Dublin after your weekend is over or leave it here and take the train—it’s only a three-hour ride. I talked to the St. Catherine Hotel in Salt Hill and they’re holding your booking. I rang herself’s mother and she didn’t quite believe I was the bishop of Galway, but they’ll be expecting you out there for lunch. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “A winning ticket to the Irish sweepstakes?”

  He roared. Even the fair Nuala smiled tolerantly. “I’ll call himself all the way in Alton, Illinois, this afternoon and tell him he has a brilliant nephew, that’s what I’ll do. And yourself a great teller of tales at that.”

  I couldn’t remember any tales. “Thank you.”

  “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have a call or two to make and a meeting with twenty of me priests that will take four hours. Be sure you stop on your way back to Dublin.”

  And the wind blew out of the room.

  “Saints preserve us.” I lathered strawberry jam on my brown bread, a tolerable substitute for raspberry. “What a dynamo!”

  “And worshiped in the whole County Galway, let me tell you. If ail the priests in the world were like him, we’d have a grand church, wouldn’t we now?”

  “We would indeed. . . . How are you feeling?”

  “Sore, but all right. You?”

  “The same.”

  “I’ll hurry up so we can be on our way to Carraroe.”

  “Don’t rush, we Stone Age people have a different sense of time. So long as me ma an’ da know I’m coming, they’ll be grand.”

  The air was cold when we lugged our bags out to the Renault, but the sky was as clear as crystal, weather as different as it could possibly be from the day before. Galway Bay glowed like the Bay of Naples.

  “It’s just like Naples,” I said to herself as I put our bags in the boot.

  “I’ve only seen pictures, but, ah, ’tis lovely today, isn’t it? Sure, I hardly need to tell you that we don’t always have Neapolitan weather, do I?”

  Nuala was smiling contentedly, proud that her home county was putting on a show. Then I understood why she was in such a good mood—she was going home. I also understood why she had wept so bitterly over Ma’s final entry in her first volume.

  Nuala knew how hard it would be to leave this beauty, even if the sun didn’t go down over Galway Bay, as the song says, every day.

  “Sure, doesn’t it rain in Naples too?”

  “Ah, we’re corrupting you, Dermot Michael, you’re beginning to talk like a native.”

  “That’ll be the day,” I said as I started the car.

  I was scared stiff at the wheel and drove very slowly and carefully, jumping at every car that came my way—once again trying to figure out which side of the road I should be on.

  I worried, however, about more than other cars as I drove carefully along the shore of Galway Bay.

  I was convinced that a bullet had ripped the tire to shreds, not a sharp rock. Thus far no one had attempted to kill us. A shot at a tire wasn’t necessarily murder. It could be merely another warning. If murder was what they had in mind, they would have shot at the driver, not the tire. On the other hand, the blowout could have killed both of us. The other side was raising the stakes. They were now saying, “We don’t want to kill you, but if we cause an accident in which you die, that’s your problem.”

  If I had been driving faster or we hadn’t hit the ditch at the lucky angle we did, the Guards could have written off our deaths as an unfortunate accident, a Yank driving on a road he did not know and in bad weather.

  Was it a message from Brendan Keane? Could he have passed us on the road and lain in wait for us?

  Or, more likely, had he phoned ahead? Or was it part of the plan from the beginning, a more brutal and dangerous warning in the series that began with Superintendent Conlon in the lobby of Jury’s?

  I hadn’t told Nuala about this speculation. Probably she’d thought of it too.

  The St. Catherine Hotel was comfortable enough, though Jury’s it was not. The people in the hotel were friendly, they all knew Nuala, so I pronounced it “grand” and we went on along the shore of the bay out highway L100.

  Nuala continued her commentary on the countryside, which had begun with a description of the old fishing village called the Claddagh across the river from Galway, whose wedding bands had become popular all over the world.

  “Sure, wasn’t it a victim of urban renewal and itself another one of your alien subcultures?”

  I heard a lot about St. Nicholas Cathedral (Church of Ireland), the Kennedy Park across from the railway hotel, the Spanish Arch, the merchant families of Galway and their castles—including the O’Kellys.

  “Daniel O’ Kelly must have been a descendant of one of those families, eager perhaps to recapture some of their lost wealth,” I said.

  “ ’Twas lost long ago.”

  As we drove along the beach at Salt Hill, she pointed out the golf course to me. “ ’Tis said to be one of the best in Ireland. I suppose that a big amadon like you wouldn’t be playing golf, would you now?”

  “Woman, I would.”

  “And yourself with a high handicap, I’m thinking?”

  “Four.”

  “Four?” She seemed impressed.

  How long was it since I had swung a club at Butterfield, the family country club?

  “Wasn’t I saying that?”

  “Well”—she drew a deep breath—“you should play more so you can lower it down to zero.” We both howled.

  “It took you awhile to come up with that response.”

  “Would your gram have said that?”

  “And my mom and my sisters and my sisters-in-law and the nuns who taught me in school!”

  She told me about the fairs and festivals that are the big events in the life of Connemara. “Maybe your gram bought her pony at the festival when she was a lass.”

  “Did you have a pony, Nuala?”

  “Ah, no. Weren’t we too poor to own a pony? Sure, I had a bicycle after a while, and wasn’t that enough?”

  We drove beyond Spiddal (site, I was informed by my tour guide, of an Irish-language athletic meet—in which she had won a prize for sprinting) towards the far fringe of the Connemara peninsula where land and water and hill and valley mix in dramatic juxtaposition. The region was deforested long ago and is not mountainous enough for a comparison with the fjords of Norway, yet the combination of ocean, lake, white- (or blue- or red-) washed homes on the side of lakes (loughs, as the natives called them), and steep paths lined with whitewashed rock fences was unique and dazzling.

  “It’s marvelous, Nuala. Incredible.”

  “ ’Tis all of that,” she said, radiant with anticipation of home, “but, Dermot, ’tis poor land and we’re poor people, terrible poor.”

  “And I’m supposed to be shocked at that?”

  “No.”

  “And my grandparents didn’t come from here?”

  “They did.”

  “Must I tell you again that I’m not a snob.”

  “Only a prude.” She laughed happily. “Ah, Dermot me love, I’ll not fight with you today. I’m too happy to be home again, home where I belong.”

  Indeed where she belonged, yet she was perfectly ready to give it up for me.

  As Ma was ready to give it up for Pa.

  I was coming home too in a certain sense. Ma had occasionally told me what beautiful country it was, adding almost in Nuala’s words “and terrible poor at that.”

  Carraroe itself was like a crown of jewels in the bright autumn sunlight, the strips of green and brown land, farm and bog, being the structure of the crown and the loughs the large, glittering stones.

  The town was not a concentration of building but several strings of cottages on the shores of the loughs, m
inor jewels around the large diamonds.

  “It’s like Venice.” I had stopped the car and Nuala and I had stepped out to admire the area. Somehow my arm found its way around her waist.

  “I’ve never seen it myself”—she leaned against me—“but I’m sure Venice isn’t as cold in the winter.”

  “And Carraroe isn’t going to sink under the ocean.”

  “It only seems that way when the rains and the winds sweep in from North America.”

  I led her back to the car. “Ma didn’t paint this picture in her diary, did she?”

  “The poor thing had nothing to compare it with and myself knowing what that’s like. You know your village is beautiful, but you don’t know how to describe it.”

  I started the car.

  “Now, Dermot Michael”—she clutched my arm—“they’ll be having a grand lunch for you. It’s more than they can afford, but there’ll be no stopping them, so don’t make a scene about it or try to pay for it.”

  “I understand. . . . I brought a bottle of Green Label for them. Will it be all right to give it to them?”

  “They’ll nurse it all winter long and, sure, into the spring too.”

  Nuala’s people were very poor. Their cottage was small and the roof thatched. There was a single cow in the yard and a few sheep and a couple of small outbuildings that served as barns. However, the thatch was neatly trimmed, the whitewash of the cottage fresh and bright, the red and black trim carefully painted, and the sign “Teas given” clear and attractive in green and orange on white.

  Her parents were waiting for us in front, sitting on one of the benches at the tables where they “gave tea” to tourist buses, arms around one another, himself in the gray suit that seems required of the Irish countrymen and herself in a blouse and a skirt not unlike that which Nell Pat might have worn.

  “Welcome home to Carraroe!” Sean McGrail extended a big, callused hand.

  “ ’Tis good to have you home.” Meg smiled at me.

  “Och,” says I. “With such a warm welcome, I’m thinking I never left!”

  That’s how you deal with Irish exaggerations—top them!

  Whatever other Irish families might do to hide affection, that didn’t seem to be a custom with Meg and Sean McGrail. They both hugged their youngest child fiercely. For much of the visit the two older people kept their arms around one another.

  They were both tall, slender, and handsome. Nuala inherited her beauty from both sides of her family. Her father’s hair was gray but his face glowed red with energy. Her mother’s hair was mostly black still and her face radiant with joy. I suspected that she and Nuala could wear the same clothes.

  A man married to such a woman as she for forty years and more would have no difficulty thinking erotic thoughts about her. Not at all, at all.

  “God and Mary be with all who live in this house,” I said as I was conducted inside.

  “God and Mary and Patrick be with those who visit it,” they replied together, pleased that I knew the right words.

  “I don’t suppose you take a drop now and then.” I extended the box that contained the bottle of Bushmill’s Single Malt. “But maybe some of your guests will need protection from the cold.”

  Meg accepted the gift. “Ah, well, Dermot Michael, sure we might sneak a wee taste of it ourselves at the odd time, might we not, man of the house?”

  She handed him the bottle.

  “ ’Tis the truth you speak, woman of the house, even if it embarrasses our youngest daughter to hear us saying it.”

  I liked them instantly, which was a foregone conclusion. However, they liked me, a phenomenon about which I was not so sure when we drove up. I was a Yank, a rich man from the big world, and moreover, I might carry away their youngest daughter, for all they knew. Would they not be shy and formal with me and perhaps servile?

  Such reactions could occur in other cottages in Ireland and perhaps even in other cottages in Carraroe. But not among the McGrails. Their own dignity made it easy for them to welcome the stranger no matter who he was.

  Better and better did I understand their daughter.

  The lunch that was spread out before me could have done honor to any home in Ireland, even if were served in a cottage with a stone floor and a peat fire burning in the fireplace. (Next to which, perhaps inevitably, there stood a small television, Carraroe’s window to the big world.)

  “Glory be to God, woman of the house,” I exclaimed, “you’ve made brown bread!”

  “Wasn’t herself saying you were addicted to it, in a manner of speaking?”

  “Me ma,” Nuala said proudly, “makes the best brown bread in the whole County Galway.”

  I was asked to say the grace, as herself had warned I would be. So I recited the Irish grace I had dutifully memorized.

  “Beal na gcuig ara agus an iase

  A roinn Dia ar an gcuig mhile duine,

  Rath on Ri a rinne a roinn

  Go dtie ar ar gcuid is ar ar gcomhroninn.”

  Everyone was greatly pleased with my efforts and did their best to hide their amusement at my terrible Chicago accent.

  The prayer says:

  The blessing of the five loaves and two fishes

  That God shared among the five thousand,

  The bounty of the King who made the sharing

  Came upon our food and all who share it.

  Meg and Sean were, for all their warmth, quiet folk. They spoke softly and gently and in allusive and indirect sentences. The room where we ate was charged with affection, but it was gentle and delicate affection, communicated by a flash of an eye or a touch of a hand.

  Yet there was always a promise of a smile at their lips, and every second remark displayed quick wit that you would miss unless you were attending to each word they said.

  If this were the last Stone Age race, give me the Stone Age.

  They spoke proudly of their children and grandchildren and showed me pictures while we ate. Nuala helped her mother and watched and listened, her eyes beaming with pride over them and, God help us all, over me.

  “It’s a shame that they are all so far away, isn’t it?” I said.

  “ ’Tis.” Sean sighed.

  “But then if they were near, wouldn’t we likely fight with them? As it is when they come home, isn’t it a time for celebration? Sometimes”—Meg smiled quickly—“a bit of a celebration when they leave too, isn’t it, Sean?”

  “ ’Tis good when they come.” He wiped his lips with a linen napkin. “And not always bad when they leave us in peace.”

  The two of them sang the praises of their Nuala Anne.

  “She’s a grand child, so kind and loving.”

  “And a mind of her own too.”

  “Of course,” I said with a wink, “she does have her sulks, doesn’t she now?”

  “She does that, heaven knows.”

  “But then they never last overnight, do they?”

  “Not so far.”

  Nuala did not seem at all embarrassed.

  “And weren’t we proud of her when she won all those prizes?”

  “And herself studying all the time when she wasn’t singing?”

  “Or acting?”

  “Or dancing with the boys?”

  “Or playing football with them too?”

  “And hurley too, until the lads thought she was too good for them?”

  “Ah, wasn’t she a wicked woman with a stick!”

  “A grand student, wasn’t she?”

  “Da!” Nuala was scarlet now. “Dermot Michael knows about me sulks, but now he will be thinking I was a terrible tomboy, won’t he?”

  “The thought would never enter my head.”

  We all laughed and Nuala got up to clear the table, firmly constraining with a hand on a shoulder her ma to stay with the menfolk.

  In Dublin Nuala would not tolerate that, but this wasn’t Dublin.

  “Will you take a drop?” Sean asked me.

  “I will, but only a drop beca
use we have work to do this afternoon.”

  He brought out a plain bottle filled with clear liquid. “

  “Tis the poteen,” he said reverently. “Only a little bit illegal.”

  “Just a mite,” his wife agreed.

  The clear liquid was poured into ordinary water glasses.

  I lifted it to my lips. Nuala was watching me with an enormous grin.

  I sipped it carefully.

  Liquid electricity!

  “It has a bite to it.” I gasped. “A very nice bite.”

  They all laughed at me, soft, gentle laughter.

  The Yank was a good sport.

  He did manage to finish the poteen, although his head whirled for a couple of hours afterward.

  Then we settled down to business.

  They had collected from the PP (parish priest) brandnew baptismal and marriage and death certificates. The “young priest” with the pretty brown eyes had become rector of the Pro-Cathedral in Galway and a canon. He still had a great reputation as a wise and holy man, if “a bit of a nationalist.”

  The only record that seemed important was the remark on the baptismal certification of Mary Anne Malone, Tim and Moire’s daughter and Ma’s godchild, that she had been married to a man named John Sheerin in San Francisco at the Mission Dolores in 1942.

  “I’ll try to check up on that. He could have been a sailor stationed there during the war. It’ll be hard to track them down.”

  “There’s almost no recollection of the Troubles,” Meg said. “And no wonder, it being such a terrible time. Some of the old folks remember hearing about the Malones, once very important folks in Carraroe and themselves owning the best farm in the district. You’ll see the house this afternoon, Dermot Michael. There’s not much left to the old farmhouse, and it having been modernized.”

  “What do they say about the Malones?”

  “They say that they sold their farm and went away together before 1930. Probably to America, but no one remembers where.”

  “Maybe we’ll find that in the diary later on, Dermot. She’ll certainly say something about them.”

  “Aren’t you lucky, Dermot Michael”—her father winked at me—“to be having such an expert translator?”