Rose Of Skibbereen, The Beginning

by John McDonnell



  ROSE OF SKIBBEREEN SAMPLE VERSION

  By John McDonnell

  Copyright 2013 John McDonnell

  Find out more about John McDonnell at John McDonnell's Fiction Blog

  CHAPTER ONE

  June 1880. Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland.

  “Have you seen him, Rose Sullivan, the fine boy looking at you all this evening?”

  “Mary, how could I not?” Rose said, to her cousin Mary. “He’s been staring holes in me all evening with those blazing blue eyes. Why, he’s looking at me like a dog that hasn’t had its dinner.”

  They were standing in the middle of a dirt floor in the barn of Fergus Flynn, the only person in the countryside near Skibbereen who had a barn large enough to host a proper American Wake. The place smelled of cows and horses, and it was lit by an oil lamp hanging on the wall and flickering candles placed on the rough wooden tables that had been brought in for the festivities.

  The Wake was for Rose and Mary, who were leaving tomorrow morning for America.

  “Then why don’t you ask him to dance?” Mary said. “Old McBride is playing God’s own music on the fiddle tonight, and if you don’t ask the boy, I’ll ask him myself. It’s itching my feet are to dance.”

  “Wisha, what good would that do,” Rose said, “with me leaving for America at break of day tomorrow? Why, we’ll be on the dock at Queenstown this very time tomorrow evening.”

  “No better reason,” Mary said, taking Rose by the arm and guiding her through the groups of dancers to the tall, black-haired boy with the sky blue eyes who was standing in the corner. “We may never come back to dear old Skibbereen, my Rose, and tonight’s the night for dancing the tears away.”

  Rose felt a tightening in her throat at Mary’s remark, and the sadness came flooding back. She had been trying not to think too much about the grim fact that she was leaving her home and family tomorrow morning and sailing to America, and that she may not ever see some of the faces in this room again.

  No, she must not think of that.

  Mary was right. Better to dance the night away than think of that.

  She swallowed hard, looked at the boy standing in front of her, and said, “Is it your plan to stand there all night holding up the wall, or will you dance with me?”

  He grinned and said, “I’m not much for dancing. It’s more of a singer I am.”

  “You wouldn’t take a spin on the floor, then?” Mary said. “It’s her last night in Ireland, and the girl could use a dance to take her mind off her fate. I’m leaving myself, by the way, and if you won’t dance with Rose, would you consider a spin with me?” Mary batted her eyes flirtatiously, but the black-haired boy wasn’t game.

  “I told you, I’m not a lad for dancing,” he said. “But if you’ll get your man over there to stop playing his fiddle, I’ll sing you a tune.”

  “Maybe we don’t want to hear your singing,” Mary said. “Maybe we want to dance.” The way she was standing with her hands on her hips, Rose knew she was spoiling for either a dance or a fight with this handsome stranger.

  “Never mind, Mary,” Rose said. “If it’s a song he wants to sing, let’s hear it.” She turned to where old McBride was sawing away on the fiddle, clapped her hands, and said, “Begging your pardon, Mr. McBride, but the boyo here wants to sing.”

  McBride put his bow down, the dancers all stopped in their tracks, and all eyes turned to the black-haired boy, the planes of his face softened by the candlelight, who looked like an angel or perhaps a prince who’d stepped out of a dream.

  He glanced around the room, smiled, and launched into “Dear Old Skibbereen”, the song about the Famine of the 1840s.

  Oh father dear, I oft-times hear

  You speak of Erin's isle

  Her lofty hills, her valleys green,

  Her mountains rude and wild

  They say she is a lovely land

  Wherein a saint might dwell

  So why did you abandon her,

  The reason to me tell.

  His voice was clear and pure, an achingly high tenor that took the breath away. He closed his eyes and sang with such feeling, telling the sad story of a man who had to leave his farm in Skibbereen, that before long the tears were flowing from every eye in the room.

  Oh son, I loved my native land

  With energy and pride

  Till a blight came o'er the praties;

  My sheep, my cattle died

  My rent and taxes went unpaid,

  I could not them redeem

  And that's the cruel reason

  Why I left old Skibbereen.

  And when he finished with:

  And you were only two years old

  And feeble was your frame

  I could not leave you with my friends

  For you bore your father's name

  I wrapped you in my cóta mór

  In the dead of night unseen

  I heaved a sigh and bade goodbye

  To dear old Skibbereen.

  There was a moment’s silence and then everyone clapped and cheered. The boy broke into a grin and gave a bow to them all.

  There were cries of “More! Sing another!” but he waved his hand and said, “No, let the fiddler play. It’s a time for happy songs, to dance and sing, when girls like these go off on an adventure. It’s starting a new life they are, and we should be celebrating.”

  Rose was about to urge him once more to sing another song, but all of a sudden there was a piercing wail that sent a chill through her, and she turned to see her mother, wrapped in a threadbare black shawl, her white hair askew and her eyes with a wild, unearthly light in them. She was standing in the middle of the floor, pointing a finger at Rose.

  “No happy songs!” she wailed. “No jigs and reels for Rose Sullivan! My Rose, my darling Rose, she is not. The fairies took my Rose and left a foul changeling in her place. She is a fairy child, and not of my flesh.”

  Her voice was shrill and singsong, and it was like a knife opening a raw wound in Rose’s heart once again. A wound that would not heal because her mother kept stabbing at it over and over.

  Rose went over and tried to put her arm around her. “Come, mother, let us go,” she said. “It’s late and you are tired.”

  “No!” her mother said, pushing Rose so hard she knocked her to the ground. “Get away, fairy child! You are not my child! You are a fairy creature, a demon!” She made the Sign of the Cross with her bony fingers and clutched at the black crucifix hanging from her neck.

  The hatred in her mother’s eyes was too much to bear, and Rose felt the sadness coming back. This time she could not push it away, and she felt the tears welling up, her body racked with anguish. All the anxiety, the sadness, all the heartache came rushing back. She saw Mary and some others leading her mother out of the barn, while her mother kept screaming in her shrill voice about fairies and changelings, and then Rose felt strong arms lifting her up and helping her out the back door.

  She did not realize till they were outside that the strong arms belonged to the black-haired boy.

  “Come,” he said. He took her hand and led her on a path that wound up a small hill, till they were standing on a rise that overlooked miles of countryside, farms and fields. It was a clear night with a huge full moon that turned the midsummer sky a deep velvet blue, and in the far distance the light of the moon spilled molten silver on the surface of the sea.

  “Here,” the boy said, taking his black scarf off and handing it to her. “To dry your tears.”

  She wiped her face and gave a long sigh. It had been hard to hold those tears back, and it was a relief to finally let them go.

  There was a large flat-toppe
d stone nearby, and the boy sat down on it and motioned for her to come over. She sat next to him and they stared out at the countryside for a time, neither one saying a word.

  Finally, she said, “Forgive me for that display. Sorry I am I let myself get like that. I suppose it’s because I’m leaving tomorrow. Mother is probably just having one of her spells, and she’ll get over it.”

  “A spell is it?” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “She wasn’t telling the truth, I take it. You’re not a changeling, are you?”

  “She’s touched in the head,” Rose said, ignoring his jest. “When she was but a girl, half her family died in the Great Famine, and she was never right since. Father says people thought she was under a fairy spell, but he decided she just had a special way of looking at the world, and he fell in love with her. She can be so full of life, laughing and singing, but then a cloud will come over her face and she’ll begin to wail and talk of fairies and curses. Lately, it’s been getting worse.”

  “A crazy woman, then?”

  Rose bristled. “Crazy she may be to the likes of you, but not to me. She knows so much of the old ways, the language and the lore. Why, she can tell you all about the ancient kings who lived here, the battles they fought, the beautiful queens and fierce warriors. They’re all real to her, you see. She sees them as plain as if they were standing right next to her. She could have been a teacher, or a poet, in another age.”

  “I don’t believe that all that palaver about mighty kings and queens and such like,” the boy said. “It’s what’s kept this country down, myths and legends, misty stuff. The world is changing, exciting things are happening. We need to get that moldy nonsense out of our heads. I envy you, going to America. That’s the place of the future, not Ireland. My name’s Sean McCarthy, by the way. Glad to meet you.”

  He held out his hand and Rose took it. It was a large, strong, calloused hand, and he shook Rose’s hand with force, then sat back and winked at her. It was clear he was full of himself, and confidence was not something he lacked.

  “I disagree, Sean McCarthy,” Rose said. “I am not going to America because it’s the place of the future. I don’t care a whit for that quarter of the world. I am going because my mother is daft and my father is sick and can’t make enough money on the farm to pay his rent. My cousin Kate went to work in America and she sends back enough money that her family in Cork lives like royalty. She said there’s jobs aplenty there, working for the rich people, if only a girl will put her nose to it and work hard.”

  “So you’ll be a servant girl for the rich, will you?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my family from the workhouse. I’m the eldest girl. There’s only my lazy brother Brian and my two younger sisters, Theresa and Annie, so it’s up to me to do something to save this family. I intend to work hard for ten years and then come back.”

  “Ah, but then you’ll be a dried up old biddy,” Sean said. “Sure, and you’re a young girl with the whole wide world in front of you. Why do you want to go to a place like America and spend all your time trying to get back here? Why, there’s excitement and promise there, they say, and if it was me I’d be enjoying it to the full, with no thought of coming back.”

  “I owe it to my family,” Rose said. “Wouldn’t you do the same for yours?”

  He frowned. “Maybe if I had a family, my girl, but I don’t. My mother died when I was only six, and my father left soon after. He was not a man to be bothered with families. I’ve been fending for myself for ten years now, and I have no ties to family or village or country. I’m like a wild horse, living wherever I please.”

  “I feel sorry for you then,” Rose said. “Family is everything to me.”

  “Is it?” Sean said. “Then why are you leaving them?”

  Rose wanted to slap him for his impudence, but she knew he was partly right. Why was she leaving? Was it really to save her family she was going to America? Or was it because she secretly did long for the excitement, the freshness, of a new start? In her times of madness Rose’s mother often spoke about a curse on the family, and sometimes Rose thought she was right, that there was a curse, and it was best to just leave this spirit haunted land and be done with it. She could never admit that, though.

  “I told you before, I’m leaving only to make enough money to help my family,” she said. “And then it’s back I’ll come. I’m only 16, and I’ll still be in the flower of youth when I get back.”

  “Why, you’re the same age as me,” Sean said. “It’s a glorious time to be young isn’t it? Look at that sea out there. Doesn’t it stir your heart and make you glad to be alive?”

  Rose looked out at the moon-washed silvery waves miles away. There was something about this boy that made her smile. He seemed so carefree and spirited and ready for fun, and the sadness of her mother’s condition lifted from her like a cloud passing across the face of the moon.

  “There’s a big world beyond that sea, and adventures to be had,” Sean said. “Doesn’t it make you excited just to think of it? Cross that sea and you can be anyone you want!”

  “It’s nonsense you’re talking,” Rose said. “I’ll still be Rose Sullivan from Skibbereen, no matter where I go.”

  “No, you’ll be different, my girl,” Sean said. “If you go over there, it’s natural to change. That’s why it will be hard to come back: You’ll not be the same person you were when you left. Everything changes, nothing stays the same. But that’s the beauty of it! Don’t you long for something different than this life? Scraping along on the edge of the sea like this, on your little square of land, living the same life your family lived for generations?”

  God help her, but she did thrill to the message in his words. She did sometimes long for something different, something entirely different, than this life. What it was she did not know. Was that why her mother called her a changeling? Because she was not content with the life she had here in Skibbereen?

  When Rose was a little girl her mother had often told stories about the pooka, the demon horse of legend, that had been known to carry people off, never to be seen again. The story always frightened Rose, and she would lie in her bed and sometimes think she heard the ringing of a horse’s hooves on the stone path outside her window. Along with the fright was curiosity, though. She sometimes wondered what it would be like to ride on the back of a snorting black horse, galloping along a moonlit road to a rendezvous with the timeless beings that lived at the tops of hills and inside the ancient mounds.

  But that was not something to tell Sean McCarthy, was it?

  Just then something caught Rose’s eye. It was a shooting star, in the dark quarter of the sky toward the horizon. It came and went so fast that she hardly knew what it was.

  “Did you see that?” Sean said. “‘Twas a shooting star. Now, that’s a sign of good luck, is it not?”

  And he leaned over and kissed her, full on the mouth. Rose was so startled she didn’t know what to do at first, but his lips were so insistent that she found herself kissing back. It was the first time she’d been kissed like that, but Sean seemed very confident, as if he’d had lots of practice. His lips were soft and pliant, sending a charge through her body like a lightning bolt. Her breath came in shallow gasps, and her skin was on fire. A hunger inside her awoke, and it was something she didn’t know had been there before.

  He pulled her close, and his fingers ran through her long hair, then brushed against her cheek. His touch was surprisingly gentle, despite his calloused hands. She felt herself being swept along, panting for breath, like the time as a child when she’d been caught in a river current and got swept along until she managed to grab a tree root in the riverbank and pull herself to safety.

  She pushed him away.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she said, struggling for breath.

  “Begging your pardon,” Sean said. “Sorry to startle you like that. It’s just, don’t you know it’s good luck for a man to kiss a pretty girl when he sees a shoo
ting star?”

  “I ought to slap you, you brazen fellow,” Rose said. Her face was flushed, her heart was racing, and she could hardly speak for panting, but she wanted him to know he couldn’t do a thing like that to Rose Sullivan.

  “I told you I’m sorry,” Sean said. He stood up and swept his arm toward the sky. “It’s just, that vision out there makes me lose my head. I get so filled up with the beauty and magic of Life that I could burst sometimes. I go daft, I guess. You’re such a pretty girl, and there may never be another night like this, and I just got carried away. But don’t you feel it, Rose? You’re going away, leaving your home, everything you know and love. It’s frightening, but damned exciting, too. Doesn’t it just fill you with awe? Why, it’s a special night, and I think a kiss is not a bad thing under the circumstances.”

  “Wisha, listen to the blarney coming from your lips,” Rose said. “It’s not the night or the shooting stars that have got a hold of you, Sean McCarthy. It’s something else entirely, and don’t try to tell me different.”

  “Well, I’ll not deny I fell under the influence of your beauty,” he said, winking at her.

  “Enough,” Rose said, standing up. “I’d best be getting back to my own party. They’ll be out looking for me before long, and my father won’t be happy to see me alone up here with the likes of you.”

  “Will you remember me, Rose Sullivan?” Sean said. “Will you remember me when you’re far away in America? Tell me you will.”

  “Aye, to be sure I’ll remember you,” Rose said, starting down the path toward the barn. “How could I forget such a bold young article as yourself?”

  “Don’t be surprised if you see me there after a time,” Sean said. “I have grand big dreams, and they can’t be realized in this old, tired country. I need to go to a place where people do grand things.”

  “Then good luck to you,” Rose said. “But you won’t see me there for long. America to me is nothing but a place to make money, that’s all. I’ll be back in ten years.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Sean said. “There’s many who go over there and never come back. Look around you, Rose. The villages are emptying out, the farms lie fallow. Ireland is losing all its young people since the time of the Famine. There’s no future here for them. The future is across the sea, my girl.”

  They were closer to the barn now, and the lively music from old McBride’s fiddle came spilling out into the night air as someone opened a door. They could hear clapping and singing and happy voices.

  “Listen to that, Sean McCarthy,” Rose said. “That’s the sound of my soul. That’s my people, the very roots of me. I can no more leave it forever than I can cut off my right arm. I will be back, I promise you.”

  “Then glad I am that I stole that kiss,” Sean said, “for I may never see you again, and at least I’ll have the memory of that kiss to keep inside forever. Goodbye, Rose Sullivan.”

  And he turned and walked away into the night.