An Irish Country Girl

by Patrick Taylor

  She didn’t know what to say and was happy when he kissed her again.

  “I think,” he said, leaning away, “we’d better be heading back. I’d not want your Sinead to think we’ve been handfasting.”

  “Handfasting? What’s that?”

  “It’s a Lughnasa custom. Boys and girls would stand on either side of a gate with a hole in it. One would put their hand through the hole, and if the other clasped it they were married and they could live together for one year.”

  She gasped. “Just one year? I mean, was it like they were married properly?”

  “Not at all. At the end of the year they might get married in church, but if they’d found they didn’t like each other, all they had to do was stand back-to-back and walk away, and the handfasting marriage was over.” His face was smooth when he said, “You needn’t be worried, Maureen O’Hanlon. I have no time for a half-baked marriage, nor will I want no easy way out neither. When I give my heart to a girl, I’ll give it for good and all, and I’ll be on one knee with a ring in my hand, so.”

  She leant forward and kissed him as softly as he’d kissed her. When they moved apart, she said, “That’s a picture, you on one knee . . .” The imp in her spoke. “Bye.”

  Paudeen laughed. “Bye yourself, bye.” He held her in his arms and kissed her again, then took her hand and started to walk. “It is time we were back.”

  They walked in silence, hand in hand, both in step like a couple in a hornpipe. She tried to guess what this wonderful man was thinking. “Penny for your thoughts,” she said.

  He stopped and faced her. “A while back you asked me about me. What about you.”

  “Me? I live with my family on a farm near Beal na mBláth. I play camogie—”

  “Tiernan says you are very good at it.”

  She blushed. “I try. Besides the camogie, I’ve already told you I love to read Irish history.”

  “You have.”

  Should she tell him her dreams? “I’m still in school, working for my Leaver’s, so.”

  “Good for you. I mean it.”

  She suddenly felt she could trust him. A fellah who wouldn’t try to impress a girl, but keep to himself that he was a dancing champion, would know how to preserve a confidence.

  “Paudeen, don’t laugh, but if I get . . . no, when I get my Leaver’s, I’m going to take a job as a schoolteacher.”

  “Are you, now? Well, that would be a thing.”

  What had Ma said the time she’d explained to Maureen about the sight? “Teacher is it? There’s a thing.” Paudeen’s tone was as sceptical as Ma’s had been. Maureen saw him shrug and flick his head to one side. Did he disapprove? “Do you not think I should?”

  “It’s not for me to say.”

  He did disapprove. She swallowed. And up to now, tonight had been perfect. She felt the heat in her cheeks. “Why shouldn’t I be a teacher?”

  He sounded puzzled. “Do you never want to get married?”

  “But what’s getting married got to do with being a teacher?”

  “I don’t know about teaching. I know about other jobs, the Civil Service, the bank.”

  “There’s not many women do jobs like that.”

  “I know, and if they get wed they have to resign.”

  “They what? I did not know that . . . and it’s not right. It is not, so. Miss Toner says—”

  “And who’s this Miss Toner?”

  “My teacher. She says there’s no reason women shouldn’t have important jobs like men.”

  Paudeen chuckled. “And I suppose she thinks women should have the vote too?”

  “As a matter of fact she does. She says it’s only a matter of time.”

  “She sounds like a right bluestocking to me.”

  “That’s not very nice.” Maureen knew how cold her voice must sound. “I’m sorry, Paudeen. I’m getting cross. I shouldn’t, but—”

  “But what?” There was, she was sure, a conciliatory tone to his words. “What?”

  “I want to teach, that’s all.” She tried to read the expression on his face, but the moon had gone behind the hills, and in the darkness she could not make out his features. “And I’d expect support from a fellah like you when I do.”

  “You’re not in a rush to get married, that’s for sure. I’d not want any wife of mine working. Most of the lads feel that way. It’s a man’s job to support his family, so.”

  “I am not in a rush to marry . . .” Then her words took over. She could hardly believe what she was saying. “And certainly not to a narrow-minded, do-what-the-rest-of-the-lads-do fisherman like you, Paudeen Kincaid. Not one bit of a rush, so.” She turned and, her breath coming in short jerks, strode off into the darkness.

  She heard him call “Maureen” twice, but did not turn around. If Paudeen Kincaid was half a man, he’d follow her.

  She stopped walking and saw just ahead, dimly outlined, the ditch and earthen wall of the sidthe, the hill fort. From inside the heaped earth mound, she heard a harpist and a piper. In her mind echoed and sang the words of Yeats’s “The Host of the Air,” a poem she had learnt at school. “And never was piping so sad, and never was piping so gay.” Was Connor here so far from home?

  Maureen sat on the dewy turf at the edge of the ditch. While the pipes rang in her head, it was as if she could peer through the very earth of the fort’s wall to the flat sward inside. She saw them: small people, fair of face and light of step, in sets just as she and the others had been this evening. They were dancing a hornpipe. A woman sat at a harp, and a man with a beard to his lap played the pipes.

  A young man smiled at her and beckoned her to him.

  She shook her head for she knew that humans who danced with the Shee were lost.

  Maureen shook as she stood. Her fists clenched and she could feel her nails digging into the palms of her hands. Surely she’d had enough for one day? Foxes with human faces, seeing herself in mourning—well, she was that all right, already bitterly regretting her outburst of moments ago. Why didn’t you come after me, Paudeen?

  Now this. She didn’t want to see faeries. Not now, even if Ma had reassured her they’d do her no harm and would keep an eye out for her. Maureen didn’t want to see the future. Knowing it was a curse. A curse. Ma was wrong.

  The tarot had predicted love, and the churning in her, the tingling joy she’d felt at his kisses, her pride in his dancing success, his modesty, his sense of fun, those blue eyes, the aching sadness deep in her now that Paudeen was gone, the boiling turmoil in her soul, must be love. She didn’t need the sight to tell her that her stupid, pride-ridden words had cost her that love even before it had begun. Her vision and the Death card had meant great change and the death of a love, not a person.

  Maureen walked slowly back to the bandstand. The farther she got from the ring fort, the softer the faery music played until she could hear not a note.

  Och, Paudeen, she let out a long breath, and straightened her shoulders, can you not understand? I can’t give up my dreams. Since I told Fidelma and Ma nearly two years ago, I’ve worked toward them. Striven. They could come true next year if I do well in that exam. Maureen O’Hanlon would not end up working in the mill, desperate to catch a husband, but och, ochón . . . och, ochoan. Paudeen, Paudeen.

  She hoped he would be waiting for her. She’d apologise, help him to understand, show him she needed him and her dream. He’d understand and—she tingled at the remembrance—maybe he’d kiss her again.

  But when she rejoined her family, Paudeen was nowhere to be found.

  24

  Nor did Paudeen reappear in the two weeks that followed, but Maureen could not forget him. Like Connor’s spirit, the memory of the fisherman from Ring haunted Maureen. A glimpse of the deep-blue glaze of Ma’s porcelain would bring back pictures of his smiling eyes; the mahogany colour of a brick of peat could summon the ebony of his long hair shining in the afternoon sun.

  It was Maureen’s turn to envy Fidelma, who seemed now, after almo
st four years, to have put Connor away for good and was walking out with Eamon MacVeigh. It had started at the céili and surprised everybody, except Maureen, when Fidelma had refused a ride home on the sidecar and had instead let Eamon run her back in his lorry.

  A week later Fidelma had confided to her sister that once you saw past his girth and stutter there was a lot more to Eamon. Looks weren’t everything. A lad with a solid head on his shoulders, who played the harp like an angel, who would one day be coming into a forty-acre mixed farm, and who worshipped Fidelma had a fair bit to recommend him, she reckoned. Good for Eamon and fair play to Fiddles. More power to her wheel.

  And, Maureen thought, she had better put a bit more power into turning the crank of this barrel churn if she was going to get the butter made. She adjusted her stool and glanced up to where two bright, chaff-dancing rays of morning light streamed through a pair of small holes in the barn’s roof. On a day like today it was best to start the churning early, before the heat of the sun made the task impossible.

  She’d already separated the cream from the skimmed milk. The watery stuff remaining in the galvanized bucket would go to feed the pigs. She poured the cream into the churn’s barrel, closed the lid, and turned the handle. It was a mindless task, and as she cranked she sang to herself,

  Let him go, let him tarry,

  Let him sink or let him swim . . .

  And wouldn’t sinking serve him right, so, him and his “I’ve my own boat”? Him and his “Well, that would be a thing.”

  He doesn’t care for me . . .

  If he had, he’d not have said what he had. He’d have tried to understand, and maybe that was what had annoyed her most. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the wife of Paudeen Kincaid to work; it was because he seemed unwilling to even consider such a state of affairs, and to Maureen that seemed very closed-minded.

  And if he cared, he’d have done more than merely call after her when she’d walked away, wouldn’t he?

  And I don’t care for him . . .

  There was the rub. She paused and the clattering of the crank settled. She did care. Even after so brief a meeting. All the conflicting emotions she’d felt as she’d walked away alone from the hill fort that night still gave her no peace. She’d think of Paudeen’s eyes as she lay in bed. His kisses. She might be reading a book when his face would somehow appear on the pages, and she’d think she heard him saying, “I’d not want any wife of mine working,” and she’d purse her lips and growl in her throat. She might see a row of washing blowing on the line, and she’d imagine how light he was, how skillful he been as he’d danced with her.

  She cared a great deal, and in losing him before she even got to know him properly she understood now how poor Fidelma must have felt when she lost her Connor. She hoped her sister and Eamon would be very happy and that Fidelma would not be hurt a second time.

  Och, well. Sitting feeling sorry for herself would not get the baby a new coat. The handle was more difficult to turn when Maureen went back to work. Soon it would be time to drain off the buttermilk. You had to use it immediately. Buttermilk didn’t keep. Ma and she would use it to bake scones with today. She wished she’d not been like bitter buttermilk with Paudeen.

  Maureen wondered if there might be some way to apologise for storming off into the Lughnasa night, to see if they could give what she felt for him another chance. But how? A letter wouldn’t do. A letter couldn’t look into his blue eyes nor let him look into hers, and anyway she’d no idea where he lived in Ring.

  It was too far to walk there to look for him. What if she took the bus Fidelma used to get to the linen mill in Clonakilty, walked the four miles to Ring—that wasn’t far—and went to the harbour? A local would know Paudeen’s house or boat. But what if when she arrived he was at sea? Wouldn’t she look the right óinseach? Maureen O’Hanlon did not like to be made to look like an idiot.

  She set to cranking for all she was worth, feeling the stiffness with each turn of the handle as the butter solidified.

  He can go and get another

  That I hope he will enjoy . . .

  She really had to strain to crank. It would soon be time to stop and take off the lid. She had to rest before churning once more; then she put all her strength into the job.

  For I’m going to marry a far nicer boy.

  Maureen felt the sweat running into her eyes.

  “You’ll blow a gasket if you don’t slow down, Miss O’Hanlon, bye, and I thought marriage wasn’t in your stars anyway.”

  She spun on her stool. Paudeen stood in the barn, propping a Raleigh bicycle against one wall. He stooped to take from his ankles the clips that prevented the cuffs of his trousers from catching in the bike’s chain.

  Her hand flew to her mouth. She wanted to leap to her feet and run to him, but instead she said, “It is yourself, Mr. Kincaid?”

  “It is, bye.”

  There it was, that “bye” of his. She shook her head and thought about leopards and spots. “Just excuse me for a minute. I need to run off the buttermilk.” She did have to, but she also wanted to collect her thoughts.

  “Take your time, now. I’m in no rush.” He bent over a wicker basket that sat on top of the rear mudguard and was held to the saddle by thin leather straps.

  Maureen poured the buttermilk into a pot, spilling some in her haste. She took a small wooden slat and scraped the fresh butter off the walls and lid of the churn, letting the yellow chunks fall within the barrel. Then she filled a ladle with buttermilk. “Would you like a drink? It’s a long uphill ride from Ring.”

  “I would, thank you,” he said. “It is hot after the sun is up, and it is a fair ways on an old bike like this. I think I pushed it more than pedaled on the steep bits.”

  He left the basket alone, accepted the buttermilk, and swallowed half at one gulp. “Begob, that’s good,” he said, wiping the white moustache from his upper lip.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” she said, praying that he had come because he felt as she did. She searched for the words that she could use to apologise. She was too shy to blurt out, “I love you.”

  He finished the buttermilk, gave back the ladle, and looked straight at her. “I came over to see your brother. If the pair of us is going to be a team, we’ll need to have lots of practice at the bowling, so, and I never had a chance to talk to him properly about it at the céili.”

  If it’s only Tiernan you want, not me, there’s no chance we’ll be a team, and that’s all because I never gave you a chance to talk properly that night. “It’s Tiernan you’re after, is it?” she said stiffly, trying to ignore the prickling behind her eyelids.

  “It is.” Just a hint of a smile played on his lips. “I know we’d be good together . . . him and me that is.”

  Was he teasing her? He couldn’t be. Even though she knew so little about him, she couldn’t believe Paudeen Kincaid would ever be cruel. But if he had come for Tiernan, her initial elation was unfounded. Maureen turned to hang the ladle on a hook and was glad to. With her back to him, he’d not see her face. “He’s gone to Skibbereen today, so you’ve had a ride for nothing. Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Kincaid?” She started to churn.

  “Not for nothing,” he said and bent over the basket. “I brought you this salmon. Sometimes they do get caught on the long line, and I thought maybe your family would enjoy this one.”

  “We will.” She didn’t want to turn. Not until her eyes were dry. She wanted to talk about making up, but he’d said he’d come to see Tiernan. She had to say something. “Salmon are the fish of knowledge.” She kept her voice level with some effort. “They get their wisdom by eating sacred hazelnuts that have fallen into the river from a tree in Ossory.” She knew she was prattling, not saying what she really needed to, but she wanted to keep him near. “When Fionn MacCumhail ate such a salmon, he became the wisest man in all Ireland.” Perhaps this Paudeen was no dozer himself, she thought. Perhaps he was pretending to have come to see Tiernan in case she rebuffe
d him. He could always salvage his pride if she did by insisting he’d not wanted to see her anyway.

  “I know the stories,” said Paudeen. He laughed. “But I’m not Finn MacCool, chief of the Fianna, the warrior band. I’m not a fighting man. I hate fights.” He waited.

  Maureen heard the asking note in his voice. She dashed her hand over her eyes, sniffed, and turned.

  He offered her the fish. Its scales were silver and its eyes barely dulled. He looked long and hard at her. “I just thought that if this fish let me catch it, maybe it wasn’t one of the smart ones after all . . .” He raised one eyebrow. “So I decided not to let it get away.”

  She managed a smile. “Thank you for the fish,” she said. “It’s kind of you to have brought it . . . and . . . I’m sorry . . .” She wanted to say she was sorry she’d stormed off, but the words wouldn’t come. “I’m sorry Tiernan’s away, so.” She took the salmon and placed it on the table beside the churn.

  He laughed his warm chocolate laugh. “I’m not,” he said. He moved close to her. “For it was yourself I came to see, Miss Maureen O’Hanlon, to say I’m sorry I didn’t come after you that night.”

  Maureen stood rooted, feeling a glow spread through her. “Och, Paudeen,” she said, “it was all my fault. I got way too far up on my high horse. I’m sorry too.”

  “You had a point to make,” he said. “Fair play to you, now.”

  “And you’d a tide to catch. You’d told us and I’d forgotten. I was just so cross you weren’t there.”

  He nodded. “I think I should have missed it and stayed on.”

  “No,” she said. “You’d your work to go to.” Och, Paudeen, Paudeen, she thought. Thank you. “And I’ve mine, so,” she said, filling the ladle again and giving it to him. “Drink up while I finish the churning.” She wanted to leap up and kiss him, but Ma was in the kitchen and might see.

  Maureen poured cold water into the churn and replaced the lid.