An Irish Country Girl

by Patrick Taylor

  Paudeen said, “It’s not just for me. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. O’Hanlon, but the fellah who brought me here, I asked him to come in, and I know he’ll be famished too.” He accepted the cup of tea Maureen had poured. “Thank you.”

  She sat next to him.

  “A fellah? Huh?” Ma cocked her head. “If someone brought you here, I certainly don’t mind feeding him. I don’t mind one shmall little bit.”

  “Where is he now?” Fidelma asked.

  “In your barn. He said he’d see to his flock and his dog first. What’s keeping him, do you think?” Paudeen sipped his tea. He smiled. “I don’t know much about sheep.”

  His flock? Maureen wondered why anyone in his right mind would be herding sheep in this weather. Yet hadn’t she seen sheep yesterday in her vision? She shivered.

  “Is it someone we know? Maybe Eamon MacVeigh, my fiancé, from the next farm over?” Fidelma wanted to know.

  “It wasn’t Eamon. I’d have recognized him. Didn’t I meet him at Lughnasa?” Paudeen frowned. “It’s funny that he never gave his name. Mind you, at the time I didn’t care. All I remember is that when I left Tiernan, bedamned if I didn’t hear the pipes and I wanted to see who was playing.”

  Fidelma breathed in sharply. Ma turned from the pan. Maureen glanced at the empty chair beside her.

  “Like an eejit, I’d broken my compass and I thought I might get lost without it, but then I reckoned I was having a bit of good luck because if I followed the sound of those pipes I’d find the piper. I just knew that whoever he was he’d know how to get to safety and he could give me a hand with Tiernan too.

  “I didn’t see him at first because of the snow; then I did. He was only about a hundred yards up the road, sitting on a wall. A great big fellah with a border collie at his feet. He had snow on his caubeen, a dudeen stuck into the middle of the biggest, blackest Old Bill moustache I’ve ever seen. He’d a red stain on the left side of his face. I thought it was a birthmark . . .”

  Maureen looked at Fidelma sitting with her hands outstretched on the table in front of her. She was crying quietly.

  Paudeen didn’t seem to notice. “. . . and his elbow going ninety on the bellows to blow the bag. I knew the tune. It was ‘The Star of the County Down,’ and your man was a quare hand with the pipes. How his fingers worked in that cold I’ll never know. He even had an audience. A vixen and—”

  “A raven,” Maureen said quietly. She saw Fidelma picking at the skin round her thumbnail.

  “That’s right,” Paudeen said. “You know him?”

  Fidelma nodded and took a deep breath.

  Maureen glanced at Ma, who said, “We all do.” She put her hand over her sister’s. “Go on, Paudeen.”

  “He stopped playing. ‘Dirty day, even for the time of year it’s in, so,’ says he.

  “I asked him to come and give me a hand with Tiernan, but he smiled, and says, ‘Tiernan O’Hanlon? Never worry about him. His folks are looking after their own. They’re sound people. Sure, I’m in and out of their place all the time.’ ”

  Maureen squeezed Fidelma’s hand. He was here today. He’d been there yesterday. He’d heeded her plea to go and care for Paudeen. She looked at Paudeen’s weather-reddened cheeks and his blue, blue eyes. God bless you for that, Connor MacTaggart, for I do love this man so much.

  “Your man goes on: ‘His Da and brother-in-law and sisters are coming to find him. I saw them an hour ago. They’ll get him home.’ ”

  Connor had seen their preparations when she’d spoken to him in the kitchen yesterday morning.

  Paudeen hesitated and looked at Maureen. “ ‘Is the youngest coming?’ I asked him. ‘She is, so,’ says he, and I nearly ran off down the hill there and then.”

  “We’ve been worried silly about you, you amadán,” Maureen said. “If you’d gone back to Tiernan, we’d have found you too yesterday.”

  Paudeen hung his head. When he looked up, Ma was setting a plate in front of him. “That should have been your breakfast, Maureen.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Eat up, however little much is in it, Paudeen. I’ll get Maureen’s ready now, but I’ll not cook a plate for your friend until he comes in.” She looked straight from Maureen to Fidelma.

  “Thank you, Mrs. O’Hanlon. You’re right, Maureen. I should have gone back to Tiernan. I’m sorry you had to worry for an extra night. I wanted to go back down, but the snow was thicker by then. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I asked your man to guide me, but says he, ‘We’ll be better staying put. Don’t you worry. I’ll see you right.’ And, by God, didn’t he just?”

  Paudeen filled his mouth with bacon, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s grand, so, Mrs. O’Hanlon. It hits the spot.”

  “How did he ‘see you right,’ Paudeen?” Maureen asked.

  “ ‘We’ll have to go uphill first a ways,’ says he, and he leads me right to almost the top. He’d a fair-sized flock up there, every sheep as far as I could see with a dollop of blue-grey dye on it. ‘They’ll keep us warm tonight, for it will be safer to go down in the daylight tomorrow,’ says he. ‘There was a while back there I’d have welcomed the chance in a snowstorm to get back to my flock, but I was too far down a shortcut on my way home.’ He sounded a bit rueful.

  “I didn’t understand him, and he gave me no chance to ask him what he meant.

  “ ‘I’m sorry I’ve nothing to eat up here . . .’ says he, and I did think it was odd that a shepherd would be out with his flock on such a day without at least a heel of bread in his pocket or a couple of crúibins . . . maybe a wee half-un in a shmall bottle.” Paudeen filled his mouth with potato cake dripping with yellow yolk. “But he said he didn’t eat much at all these days. I thought perhaps he was ill but he looked hearty enough.”

  Ma, back at her stove, turned and sadly shook her head as she looked from Paudeen to Fidelma.

  Paudeen stabbed a piece of black pudding, chewed it, then said, “We huddled up with the sheep all night. They’re like big hot-water bottles with all that wool. Then this morning I never saw a thing like it. He and his dog—he called her Tess—got the flock moving, and they were like little snowploughs making a path for us. When the ones at the front got tired, he put new ones in the lead and let the tired ones rest at the back.” Paudeen ate a piece of sausage.

  “Once in a while we saw his old friends, the fox and the bird. I suppose some landsmen attract wild animals. I have a friend who has a great way with seals. They come for miles just to see him when he’s out in his boat.”

  “Do you think they could be Selkies, Paudeen?” Ma asked.

  “Women in seals’ skins? They could,” Paudeen said, “I suppose.”

  Maureen remembered his story. This wasn’t the first time the supernatural had intervened on behalf of Paudeen Kincaid. The man must be charmed.

  He swallowed a great mouthful of tea and said, “It seemed no time at all until we were in your yard. I noticed one strange thing as he headed for the barn. The birthmark on the side of his face . . . it had completely vanished.”

  Fidelma gasped and glanced at Ma, and Maureen saw Ma nod and smile. She knew the red was the mark of the faeries the way the blue-grey dye on the sheep was Connor’s mark. Now it was gone.

  Paudeen, who must have been unaware of this byplay, looked out the window. “Glory be,” he said. “The snow’s stopped.”

  It had.

  “I’ll put my sweater on,” he said, “and go and see if your shepherd man needs a hand, for he’s taking forever.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Fidelma said, rising and grabbing her coat from its hook as she went to the door.

  When they’d gone, Ma said quietly, “Do you think the Shee like your Paudeen, Maureen?”

  “You told me the faeries like me because I have the gift. The day he first told me he loved me, there was the vixen.”

  “And did she give any sign she’d heard?”

  “I didn’t see the woman’s face that
time, but I’m sure the fox grinned at us. Connor smiled that day too. He understood about Paudeen and me.”

  “It’s clear to me,” Ma said. “I think they like Connor’s rescuing of Paudeen. They do approve when a Thevshee does a good deed for a stranger, and Paudeen wasn’t from these parts and didn’t know Connor. If I’m right they’ve taken off their spell. Lord,” she said, “I do hope so.”

  “Maybe,” Maureen said, “maybe when I saw them yesterday they were trying to tell me Paudeen was going to be all right?”

  Before Maureen could answer, Paudeen and Fidelma came back. He carried a crook. Fidelma smiled weakly. “There’s sheep hoof-prints all over the yard, boot marks, and dog tracks right up to the barn door, but all we found inside was—”

  Paudeen held up the crook. “I yelled for him, but divil the bit reply did I get. He’s vanished like . . . like snow off a ditch.” Paudeen shook his head. “I . . . I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, bye.”

  “It was Connor, Ma, wasn’t it?” Fidelma went to Ma to be held in both arms.

  “I do believe so, daughter,” Ma said. “And I do believe because he brought you home, Paudeen, he found favour with the Shee. And if he did, their spell will be lifted and we’ll hear no more of the Saint Stephen’s Day Ghost, for Connor will have found his rest.”

  “Thank you, Ma,” Fidelma whispered. “Poor Connor, I let you go a year or so back when I met Eamon, so I’m not holding you by caring too much. May the Doov Shee have released you too.”

  Paudeen, still frowning, still looking baffled, asked, “You’re all talking about the Connor MacTaggart who folks round here say is the Saint Stephen’s Day Ghost? And he rescued me?”

  “We are, and we are sure he did,” Maureen said. “You’ll remember I told you Connor’s story outside his ruined cottage?”

  “I do, and I remember I told you I loved you then, and I’ll tell you again, I love you now.” He moved to her and put his arm round her shoulder. “I’ve no ring, and my knees are too stiff to bend, but if you’ll have me, Maureen O’Hanlon, and before you ask, after we’re wed you can teach away to your heart’s content. I’ll speak to your Da as soon as he gets up.”

  She rose, hugged him, kissed him, and said, “I will, Paudeen. I will, for I love you, so. I always have and I always will love you . . . bye.”

  35

  And she had loved him, her Paudeen Kincaid. Loved him dearly.

  Kinky sighed and got down from her stool. It was time to set the brussels sprouts to boiling and baste the turkey again. She busied herself with her tasks. When she opened the oven door to pull out the bird, she noted how golden and crisp the skin of the turkey looked, how the praties were roasting beautifully, and how well the ham was doing on the rack below.

  She’d told Doctor O’Reilly to be sure to have his party home by five, and she knew he was a man of his word. It was still snowing, so they might even leave the marquis’ party early. Well, she’d kept her word too. Dinner would be ready exactly on time, despite the interruptions of gift-bearing patients.

  Telling the kiddies how Connor had been turned into a ghost, then having a wee shmall rest to herself and a nice cup of tea, hadn’t interfered with her timing, although she needed to get moving now.

  And she did, and as she worked so she remembered.

  She’d enjoyed that cuppa and the trip back into her memories of how she’d met the man she would eventually marry in 1927, the man Connor’s ghost had saved, and by so doing had found release for himself.

  Kinky patted her chignon. From that second Saint Stephen’s Day onward, the silver in her hair had spread. At first she hadn’t liked it. But she had refused to dye it, she thought with a smile, because Paudeen said he admired the colour.

  The change in her appearance wasn’t the only thing different after that day. No more was ever heard of the Saint Stephen’s phantom. And no strange sheep with blue-grey markings were ever seen on the high pasture, nor were the sounds of the uillinn pipes heard with no one there to be playing them. There were no more pockets of chill air in Ma’s kitchen, and the chair never budged from its place again.

  But there was a last chapter for her and Paudeen.

  In March 1927 spring had come early, and a good thing too, for she and Paudeen were to be married in a double wedding with Fidelma and Eamon on Monday, the twenty-first. Paudeen had come over on his bicycle two Saturdays before. It had been a glorious day. Trees were in bud, the yellow gorse flowers reflected the spring sun, birds darted through the hedges, cocks pursued the hens, and in the low pasture ewes nursed their lambs.

  They’d gone for a walk and before long they’d found themselves outside Connor’s deserted cottage. They’d not gone in, but Paudeen had peered through the windows. He’d been surprised to report that despite how derelict the place was, there was not the sign of a spider’s web.

  They’d climbed over the stile and up into the field where Connor had felled the blackthorn. It was as Ma had said it would be. There was nothing left of the branches but flakes of rotten wood. If proof were needed, there it was. The faeries had indeed lifted their spell.

  A single huge boulder stood among the decayed wood, and in its shade a vixen kept watch over her cubs, while in the field beyond a pair of ravens strutted, their agate eyes aflash as they spoke. Toc-toc-toc.

  The lid on the pan of sprouts was knocking. She tipped it to let the steam escape. Kinky sighed deeply.

  She’d sighed because she remembered, word for exact word, what Paudeen had said that day beside the decayed blackthorn.

  “I never thought I’d ever meet a ghost, but I’m glad I did, for without him I’d not be getting to marry you. I’d have frozen to death. I did tell him so, but he just laughed and he said, ‘No you’ll not, Paudeen Kincaid. You’ve the face of a man who was born to be drowned.’ ”

  They’d laughed about that then. With the spring sun and their young love warming them, their wedding only days away, there was no need to talk of death, unless it was to joke about it.

  Kinky used the hem of her apron to brush away a single tear. “I miss you yet, Paudeen Kincaid. I miss you yet.”

  To save money they moved into his mother’s house once they were wed. Maureen Kincaid had to change schools to one in Clonakilty, and she didn’t mind the walk there and back every day. She had passed her Leaver’s with distinction that June, but she never did get to teach, even though Paudeen had wanted her to. There were no positions in Clonakilty that year, but the headmistress had assured her that an older teacher was to retire next year.

  So she kept house for Paudeen, laughed at his pet name for her, “Kinky,” because he said he’d never heard of anything as kinky, as odd, as her way of cooking drúishin—and sure didn’t Kinky fit well with her new surname? In her turn, when she found he was as good at the footracing as he was at the bullets, she called him her giorria mór, her big hare.

  She went fishing with him in the summer to save paying a deck hand’s wages. She wished she’d not taken time off in August to visit her family. She wished, how she wished, she, instead of the hired-for-the-day man, had been with Paudeen when the freak summer gale had washed her love overboard. She cursed the sea that had taken him forever.

  Kinky sighed. She’d lost him, and it was poor consolation that from the day of Paudeen’s death, the sight had come to her more powerfully than Ma’s own, just as Ma had said it might if something enormous happened. Now she saw and she understood what she saw.

  She could foretell now, but she hadn’t been able to discern her own future back in 1927.

  It would have been grand to have been a teacher, but her other ambition had been to travel and there was no chance of a teaching job in Clonakilty until the next September. In early 1928, weary of living with her grief, needing to get away from County Cork and all its memories, she’d gone to see Ireland as she’d promised herself one day she would. She’d fully intended to come back and teach, but, och . . . Kinky smiled and looke
d around. Wasn’t it the grand job she had now?

  All of Paudeen’s sisters were helping support their Ma, and even Casey was sending home money from California. Maureen took the boat, everything he’d owned and could leave to her. With the money from its sale she’d travelled the West through Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, and on north into Donegal. She’d crossed the border near Strabane into the recently constituted province of Northern Ireland.

  Her funds had run out in Belfast, and still not wanting to go back to Cork, she’d answered an ad in the Belfast Telegraph.

  The skills Ma had taught her made her eminently suited for a housekeeping position, and Ballybucklebo seemed a short-term port in a storm. But it had turned into a true haven and had given her a satisfying job and a home. The stop gap had lasted thirty-six years, and sure hadn’t it been grand here? And wasn’t she content? And now with all the years gone by, there was no point feeling sorry for herself.

  Feeling sorry for herself had never been Kinky’s way. She took a deep breath, then lifted and drained the brussels sprouts.

  She heard the front door open and voices in the hall.

  She left the kitchen. Doctors O’Reilly and Laverty and Miss Kitty O’Hallorhan were hanging up their coats.

  “You’re a bit ahead of yourself, Doctor O’Reilly, sir,” Kinky said. “You’ll have time for a drink before dinner.”

  “Lovely,” he said, beaming. “We’ll all go upstairs.”

  “And I need room on the sideboard, so will you take up the bottles Archie Auchinleck and Mr. Coffin brought to wish you doctors a merry Christmas?”

  “We will.” O’Reilly beamed. “And His Lordship wishes you a very merry Christmas.”

  Kinky smiled.

  “It was a grand party and I was for staying a bit longer, but Kitty thought we’d better get home because it is snowing so heavily.”

  “It is, so.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve never seen snow the likes of it down south in County Cork, Kinky.”