Who knew that fishing line tangled so viciously in the trees when a boy tried to cast? Who knew a father would careen from good Dad to raving maniac, tossing the tackle box into the river, kicking the beach chairs into mangled aluminum junk? Who knew a father could slap a boy so hard that he’d hit the earth and bounce?
One week later, the colonel, Joseph, and Sean prepared to leave for the wrestling tournament in Kilkenny with the reportedly ass-kicking guy from Tipperary. This was the last wrestling match before going to Dublin and then on to England. At the last minute, the colonel decided to go by horseback rather than travel by coach. “We’ll leave today and be there long before supper tonight; plenty of time for our champion to rest. We need to ride into Kilkenny like warriors, not baggage. I’ve missed my splendid horses,” he said with a toss of his head.
As the horses were prepared in front of the portico, stamping their hooves, eager for the run, Deirdre appeared with a small cloth bag for Sean.
“Some extra bits of food for the day,” she said loud enough for the colonel to hear. As she walked past Joseph, she whispered, “There is a salve for your leg if it takes a turn for the worse.”
“Where is Taleen? I thought she’d see me off?”
“I have her working in the kitchen. You’re growing foolhardy. The colonel can have no idea that you are in love with her. For her sake, you must think of her,” said Deirdre.
“I think of nothing else,” he whispered fiercely.
They mounted their horses and clipped along the long lane of the estate, coming finally to the road leading north to Waterford and then north to Kilkenny. As they rode past the last of the estate, Joseph saw Taleen and Madigan on the crest of the hill. He knew that she had stolen away from the kitchen so that the last thing he’d see would be her. The colonel followed his gaze.
“Do we still have that runt dog? Sean, remind me to get rid of the dog. We can’t have a runt breeding. Have it killed so that Deirdre thinks the dog ran off; I can’t have the cook turning sour,” said the colonel with a wink. He dug his heels into the well-groomed horse and trotted off.
The day was clear and cold. Sean stopped his horse for a moment and let Joseph come even with him.
“What are we going to do about Madigan?” asked Sean, his eyes filled with panic.
Joseph had never seen Sean panic about anything.
“We’ve two days to think of something. I’ll win the match tomorrow. The colonel will have won more money and he’ll be in the mood for me to ask a favor. I’ll ask him if I can have Madigan. I’ll think of a good reason; I’ll tell him the dog is good luck,” said Joseph.
The colonel bellowed, “Come on, lads! We’ve a wrestling tournament to attend and forty miles to ride.” Joseph and Sean rode on.
Joseph spent a sleepless night at the Kilkenny Wayside Inn. The tournament was held on the grounds of Kilkenny Castle, a massive place, all curving walls and imposing spires. The day of the wrestling tournament was filled with the same festive atmosphere that all the matches had inspired. Wagers were made, the lesser matches were won and lost by young wrestlers trying to work their way up, by impulsive boys who just that morning decided to try their luck, and by some of the more impressive wrestlers of Kilkenny. Sean was absent most of the morning. Joseph caught sight of him once, talking intently with a woman, their heads together, alarm registering in her eyes.
Joseph’s stomach curdled the contents of his breakfast into a sour mash. The pounded earth of the courtyard, often used for livestock, today served the wrestling championship. He took off his shoes and rubbed his feet into the dried clay, hoping for a superstitious connection with the dirt.
The announcer stepped lightly onto a box. “If there is anyone here who has not heard—and I doubt that—our champion from Tipperary, Padriag O’Brien, has been challenged by Joseph Blair, the lad who is sweeping across Ireland. It’s a fine day in Ireland for wrestling, a fine day for reckoning. Step forward, contenders.”
Joseph had seen O’Brien across the courtyard. The man had remained seated, a blanket on his shoulders, an indecipherable expression on his face. He was big, but Joseph had wrestled big before. Big had always been trumped by speed, precision, and balance.
Joseph stepped into the circle, claiming it as his own, trying to shake the feeling of unease that hovered over him. He pumped his legs, running in place, and a tingle from his calf telegraphed him. He disregarded it; he could do anything for five minutes, and that was all he ever needed.
O’Brien entered the chalked ring. He glided along, as light on his feet as one of the wolfhounds. And if a man could be a sight hound with amber eyes, O’Brien fit the bill as he honed in on his prey. He was a challenging combination; big, muscled, and agile. Joseph still had advantages, despite the difference of seventy or so pounds. He was prepared to win and to do so quickly, before the big man had a chance.
O’Brien’s hair was a smoky haze, an early gray that Joseph had seen in many of the Irish. Don’t be deceived into thinking he’s old, he’s not, Joseph thought to himself as he balanced on his feet in the center of the ring. O’Brien came to the center, shook Joseph’s hand, and drained all the win out of the boy, excising it like a vampire.
“Glad to meet you, lad. Call me Paddy, if you can call me anything.”
Shit, thought Patrick. He glanced down at Paddy’s feet, balanced perfectly, each foot turned equally out a few degrees from center, a martial arts stance. Paddy gave an easy tug with his hand that pulled the boy off balance.
“Pardon me, the match hasn’t begun, and look what I’ve done.”
But Joseph knew that the match had begun and nothing would ever be the same again.
He exhausted his sprinter muscles in the first ten minutes, while Paddy danced around him, touching him here and there with a taunting hand. Ten more minutes and the leg cramp reminded Joseph of its presence, not badly, but clearly. With a sudden strike, Paddy pulled Joseph’s right arm from the shoulder socket while he pressed his chest on the boy’s back. He clasped his lips to Joseph’s ear and said, “Shall I pull out one or two?”
Joseph heard his arm rip and pop; if he hadn’t already been on the ground, he would have fallen. He screamed into the dirt. Paddy flipped him over like a fish and, with one hand, pressed the boy’s shoulder blades to the ground.
“Paddy O’Brien, our own, undefeated champion!”
The Irish crowd carried Paddy O’Brien off to a tavern to celebrate his continued stature as champion, while Joseph sat in the dirt. He hung his head, refusing to seek out the face of his benefactor. A doctor in town instructed two other men in how to reinsert the arm bone back into the socket. Joseph had screamed when Paddy O’Brien had ripped the arm from its socket; he screamed when it was put back. When he stood up, he sought out the eyes of the colonel, who looked at him in much the same way he had looked at Madigan—as something to be culled out to strengthen the stock.
“Come along, now. No need for us to stay in Kilkenny after a disgrace. Sean, get the horses.”
“Sir, I’m not sure that he can ride. He’s as gray as a rock,” said Sean.
“Then he’ll have to do a better job of riding than he did of wrestling. Get the horses,” said the colonel.
The colonel set a blistering pace, and the riders were spared any conversation. Every inch of the ride ground into Joseph’s arm, where the nerves were still sizzling and hot. He dug in hard with his thighs and concentrated all his focus on his legs, letting his pelvis operate as a shock absorber. He had never been injured before in wrestling, and the severity of his injury left him filled with shame. What had he done wrong?
The hounds roused Edwards and most of the house staff when the men arrived after nightfall. Clearly they had not been expected until the next day, when the champion was to have triumphantly returned home.
The colonel swung off his horse. Without a backward glance at Joseph, he stomped into the mansion. Joseph slowly edged off the horse. Both Sean and Edwards came to his side.
“I’ll take him,” said Edwards. “See to the horses. Were you trying to ruin the best horses in Ireland? Send for Deirdre; tell her to meet me in the lad’s room.”
Mr. Edwards put his arm out but hesitated, not knowing where to touch the boy.
“It’s best if I walk on my own,” said Joseph. “I’ve already disappointed the colonel. I don’t want him to think that I can’t walk.”
Edwards clenched his jaw. “Very well then. I suppose tossing you into a match with a giant wasn’t enough. I’ll be right behind you.”
Deirdre brought soup and a hot cloth that smelled revolting. She wrapped the cloth around Joseph’s shoulder and arm.
“You’ll need to sleep with this wrapped tight. There’s no permanent damage. But you can’t wrestle, lad. Your arm needs time to heal. Jaysus, I should have been able to hear you scream from Kilkenny. There’s few things that cause more pain than an arm yanked out of its socket. Well, birthing babies, but men never believe me when I tell them, so I should stop trying. Go to sleep, lad. I’m sending in one of the old hounds to sleep with you.”
“Not Madigan. Oh, God, Deirdre, the colonel said—”
“We know, lad. D’ya think we were all born yesterday? Go to sleep,” Deirdre murmured, bending over him to kiss his forehead, placing two hands on either side of his face. Joseph heard the clatter of claws on the floor, then a fluttered sigh as a hound came to rest beside his bed.
The first sound that he heard the next morning was the colonel’s grumbling.
“Get the carriage! Take that food away from me.” Crash. “I’m going to Waterford. I can’t bear to look at the lot of you.”
The old wolfhound was gone by the time Joseph rose. He dressed, treating his arm gingerly, testing it by lifting it level with the horizon and sighing deeply with relief that it worked at all. He pressed his back against the cold wall near the window, taking peeks around the edge until he saw the carriage pull away. Even the mansion itself heaved with relief at the colonel’s departure.
More than anything else he wanted to find Taleen. He splashed water on his face, noticing for the first time the thickening of the fuzz along his upper lip. Joseph made his way downstairs; he was walking out the front door when the ping of hammer on rock caught him by the throat.
Con was slowly walking away, as if he’d been in a wedding procession. He was balancing a steaming crock of tea; Deirdre never failed to remember the stonemasons with early morning tea. The stonemason was at work, fitting rock into rock, and the sound of it filled Joseph with a longing for the very thing he’d never had. If he’d been at home, in his time, he would have been a kid with a police record. And here, in this time, everything he thought he’d had with the colonel was slipping away.
Dreamlike, he walked to the new wall, where the stonemason worked with his crew. The new garden wall was massive, five feet tall.
“Dig the first course and fill her with rubble stone. Then we’ll sort out the other stones,” the stonemason said to his crew of three men. Then he saw Joseph and Con at the same time. “You’ve brought me a wrestler. I could use one this morning. The cap stones cry out for a tussle,” he told Con, squeezing his thick eyebrows together as he took an appraising look at Joseph.
“And how are you this morning? You took a terrible beating. Can you hand me that quoin stone? We’re ready for it.” He pointed to a perfectly smooth stone that was going to fill the gap where two walls met at right angles, then stepped two rungs up on a ladder.
“What did you call this stone?” asked Joseph.
“Quoin. Have you never seen one before? It’s where the whole wall comes together, both sides. It’s where we leave our mark. See here, I took this one home last night and worried it with my chisel by the fire.”
Joseph’s neck and arms prickled. The quoin stone had a spiral chiseled neatly into one edge. Flickering black dots filled his vision, and he leaned hard against the wall.
“Mind the quoin! You shouldn’t be out and about so soon lad. Here, let me take it from you. Did you not like my insignia?”
Joseph slid along the wall to the ground.
“It’s not that at all, sir. It’s my father. I just remembered about my father. He’s been hurt; I should have gone to him. How could I have forgotten; what’s wrong with me?”
“Con, pour him some tea. The brute in Kilkenny knocked all the sense out of him.”
Con poured tea into a tin cup and handed it to Joseph. The stonemason sat on a pile of stone nearby.
“Now what made you think of your father? Sure, we’ve all wondered why you don’t speak of your family beyond a few words.”
“My father was injured in a huge accident. The last thing he said was, ‘Mind the quoin,’ or that’s what my aunt told me when she came to get me in…when I heard you say it, this whole part of my brain got bright and clear. My head feels like it’s going to explode.”
Joseph dropped his head into his hands. The stonemason reached down with his thick hands and pulled the boy up.
“You’re like one of me own, and we take care of our own. When me wife and I took in Con, we said he’d be ours as sure as he’d been born to us. Consider yourself one of the family.”
Joseph looked at Con and the stonemason. “Con isn’t your son?”
“Oh, he is now. But he was born to my sister and she married an O’Shea, so rightfully he’s an O’Shea. They both died of cholera the summer he was born. But in answer to your question, he’s my son now. A man couldn’t ask for a better son,” he said as he winked at Con.
O’Shea. He couldn’t be. No, there was no way that was possible.
“I’ve got to attend to the wall, lad. Now go back to the Big House and go directly to the kitchen, where Deirdre can tend to you. You had a shock yesterday, and your mind is turning about and can’t be trusted today. Will you be a good lad and do as I say?”
Joseph shook his entire body, and then his head, to help clear his thinking.
“As soon as I find Taleen. I need to talk to her.”
Chapter 35
Taleen despised laundry work more than anything. Even with the colonel gone for the day, this was washing day and there would be no school at all for her whether the colonel was here or not.
“I hate the soiled linens! I’ll learn to do anything but this,” she had complained to her mother.
But Deirdre had held firm. She had told Taleen to assist with the bed linens on washing day no matter how much she hated the job. Every element of the process was a pestilence to her—the boiling hot water to kill the bedbugs, the scrub boards, stirring the linens with the large paddle until her arms screamed, the bloody potato water for the starching. Her mother had told her again and again that she wanted her to know how to perform all the functions of the estate, including the cooking, cleaning, putting up preserves, salting meat and fish. Deirdre wanted to enhance Taleen’s usefulness to Colonel Mitford.
Madigan came with Taleen and offered an air of sympathy, batting his eyelashes and tilting his head. The dog rarely sat down. His preferred position was standing, leaning into Taleen, but the steam from the hot water tested even his loyalty. He sulked, and stretched out his long body on the stone floor with his head on his paws. Taleen sweated and cursed at the laundry.
“Aren’t we a pair, Madigan,” she whispered to the dog during a break between rounds of sheets. “I’m the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and you’re the keeper of the soul of the ancient Celts gone by. Right here in the depths of the laundry room. But soon, my gorgeous beast, there will be more of us, one more.”
Madigan obliged her by pressing his huge head into her small hands. If Taleen truly was a healer in training waiting for her specialty to settle in during her young years, and if Madigan, perhaps the last of his reluctant breed, was so awful important, then surely they should be given some worth.
Joseph stuck his head into the steamy room.
“Taleen, can you come out?”
Madigan galloped to Jo
seph, giving him a sniff and greeting him as usual by taking the lad’s arm in his mouth, surrounding it with warm saliva.
“Do I look like I can come out?” said Taleen. Her thin arms struggled to lift the bedclothes for their final rinsing. Her dark hair was tightly bound today. She worked with two older women, whose sleeves were well pushed up. Their biceps muscles popped.
“Oh, go on, Taleen,” one of them said as she muscled out a hunk of sheet. “You’ve been suffering too much for all of us today. We could use the peace. Go on now.”
Taleen did not pause for polite refusals. She jumped down from the risers around the massive kettles and ran from the room with Madigan, eager to be released.
“You lost the tournament. I already heard all about it from Sean. You’ve only had this one loss; no need to fret,” she said with a tone of forced gaiety.
“I need to talk with you. I’ve started to remember about my father,” said Joseph.
They walked to the pear trees, now bare and without a hint of leaf or bud. The garden walls gave the two lovers what passed for privacy.
“What made you remember your father?”
“It was the stonemason. He said he was getting ready to put in the quoin stone,” Joseph told her.
“Well, yes, I suppose he should be ready by now. Con tells me that two whole sections of the wall are done.”
They continued walking while Madigan pranced lightly beside them.
“Quoin. That’s what my father said, the last thing he said after the accident. Anna told me that. And now I’m remembering what else she told me, that he’s in a bad way in a hospital.”
“And why would they put your ailing father in a hospital? My mother has told me that they are dreadful places, filled with disease and sickness and certain death. Is it that your family can’t do any better? You can tell me, my love, I’ll not think any worse of you, and I know you’ve been holding a secret. I’ve known it since they pulled you from the ocean.”
Now & Then Page 29
