Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

by Sarah-Kate Lynch

  “Wait a moment,” she called crankily, but Avis kept walking.

  Lucy stood up and aimed an angry kick at her stool. It skittered underneath Maria, who gave it a swift left-hinder and sent it scooting under the bail in Jack’s direction, where it took out her near-full pail of milk, splashing next-door Wilhie, who’d been having Braxton-Hicks all night and was nearly delirious with tiredness. The chain reaction of swearing drowned out Julie Andrews, the Captain, all the von Trapps, and most of the orchestra. Lucy turned her back on the din, extricated herself from her stall and stomped after Avis, who could move remarkably quickly for someone of her age and stature.

  “I said, wait a moment!” she called, breaking into a run when it became obvious that Avis was not going to stop for her. “Didn’t you hearing me calling you?” Lucy said crossly when she caught up, well clear of the dairy and in view of the factory.

  Avis stopped and turned to her. “It’s about time you snapped out of it and faced a few facts, young lady,” she said, her smile and kindly face belying her crisp tone. “You might get away with this sort of behavior at home but in this family it is not tolerated. We will offer you all the help and support you need, Lucy, but in return we expect at the least a little kindness, at the most a little gratitude, neither of which you have displayed in the past three days to ourselves or the Marias, who have done nothing, as far as I know, to deserve the treatment you are meting out to them.”

  Lucy, in her embarrassment, took refuge back in her nastiness. “They’re only stupid cows,” she said sulkily.

  “Well, around here, Lucy, we treat stupid cows with the same respect with which we treat everybody else,” Avis said looking at her pointedly.

  Lucy blushed at the inference but bit her tongue.

  Avis appreciated this small concession and softened slightly. “Listen, Lucy,” she said, “I don’t know what is going on inside that pretty little head of yours but the truth of the matter is that no one ends up here, as I think Mr. Feehan has already told you, unless there’s a shortage of other places who will have them. You had better face the fact that you’re pregnant, Lucy. You are working as a milkmaid. You are going to have a baby. You are going to be a mother. Whether you stay a mother or not is up to you—that’s a big decision and one there’s no rush to make. However,” she continued, “what you decide will affect the rest of your life and the rest of your baby’s life so you need to do quite a bit of growing up between now and the day you bring him or her into the world.”

  Lucy opened her mouth to protest but instead burst into tears.

  “But Kit’s in love with Abbey,” she sobbed. “I saw them doing it and you can just tell by the way they’re horrible to each other.”

  Avis looked at her in surprise. You just never knew which way the wind blew in these parts, she thought to herself. “And what’s wrong with Kit being in love with Abbey?” she asked, in a kinder tone all the same.

  “I want him to be in love with me,” Lucy wept, seeming younger than ever. “He’s gorgeous.” And she launched herself, sobbing, at Avis’s bosom. It was quite some time before Avis eventually managed to deliver the good news that one of Jesus’s babies had been found alive and well in Ruby O’Toole’s knitting bag.

  Fee, meanwhile, was sitting at the kitchen table belching up large chunks of Tessie’s homemade marmalade. It was nearly seven, Abbey and Kit were due any moment now at the factory for their fourth attempt at cheesemaking and Corrie had just announced that today, for the first time since the Greek flu of 1972, he wasn’t going to work. He was going to stay at home with a John le Carré novel and a Camembert and wait for his morning tipple.

  “You can’t leave me alone over there with those miserable bollockses,” Fee protested. “I’ll freeze to death stuck between the two of them.”

  “It serves you right. You keep telling me everything will be all right,” Corrie said, “but in the absence of any evidence—”

  “All right, all right,” Fee interrupted rudely, banging his mug of tea on the table. “Thank you for your input, Mr. Kavanagh QC. Evidence, me arse.” He sat there looking grumpy. The truth was that the cheesemaking was not coming together as quickly as he needed it to. He already knew what today’s curd would taste like. Like it had his grandmother’s toenail clippings in it. And they hadn’t called her The Old Crow for nothing. He looked across the table at his old friend and noticed his poor color. The past few days had taken their toll. Fee straightened up and stretched his aching back.

  “You’ve trusted me before, Joseph,” he said, “and you can trust me now, evidence or no evidence. They’ve got the chemistry, even you can see that, they just need the time. And in the absence of time, they need a bit of a shove.”

  “You talk about them like they’re cheeses but they’re not,” Corrie said almost gruffly. “They’re people. They’re made of flesh and blood and we don’t know what’s gone into them so far. Chemistry or not, they don’t seem to like each other and they’re making cheese that tastes like toe jam.”

  And I’m the one supposed to know what people are thinking, thought Fee.

  “Not to mention,” Corrie was still going, “you said there was no time to waste and that was three days ago, which means three days have been wasted.”

  Fee said nothing. He didn’t make the rules, he just knew when they were going to be broken.

  “It can’t be Abbey,” Corrie was saying. “She’s family. She’s one of us. Our flesh and blood. It must be Kit. We’ve been fools to think a boy from New York City with no ties to Coolarney at all could make cheese just because he turned up at the right time. I know you like him, Joseph, but don’t you think his teeth are too straight? I think his teeth are too straight. There’s been something bugging me about him since the moment I clapped eyes on him and I’m pretty sure now it’s those great big teeth.”

  Fee looked at Corrie as though he were mad and shook his head in disgust. “Just because he turned up on time?” he repeated. “There’s only one fool here and it’s you, Joseph Corrigan, if you’re doubting him on those grounds. Turning up on time is all that matters, as if I need to tell you. It’s all about timing. Everything is about timing. I’ve told you this a million times and still you don’t believe me. I’m disappointed in you, Joseph, I really am.”

  Corrie sighed. There had to be a reason why timing wasn’t enough in this instance, but there was no point arguing this further with Fee now that he had pulled the disappointment card, which he only used when desperate.

  “I still say it’s the teeth,” he muttered as Avis appeared from the hallway with a photo album under her arm and a smile a mile wide.

  “Oh, it’s the teeth, all right,” she agreed, making much of bustling in between them and opening the 1970s album and pointing to a photo in the top right-hand corner of the page. It was of a beautiful dark-haired woman, about six months pregnant, smiling radiantly at the camera with a very tall, solemn-looking man, slightly balding, standing behind her. She was wearing a red-and-white gingham sleeveless shirt, flared out to accommodate her pregnancy, and red trousers.

  “Greta,” said Corrie, recognizing her immediately and running a finger over her face, then stopping, his eyes widening, as he realized the significance of her smile.

  “It’s the teeth!” Fee whistled.

  “They’re Kit’s teeth,” Avis said proudly. “I thought I’d seen them somewhere before. And then when he mentioned his mother being a cheese fan. Well, things like that don’t happen around here without there being a reason.”

  “Greta?” Corrie asked her, in amazement.

  “Kit’s mother was a Coolarney girl,” Fee said delightedly, clapping his chubby little hands with glee. Corrie looked at him for a split second then reached across and slapped him across the back of the head.

  “Jaysus!” Fee was stunned. “What did you do that for?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Kit’s mammy was a Coolarney girl?” Corrie demanded.

  “I just did,” answ
ered Fee indignantly, rubbing his ear.

  “But Avis had already told me,” shouted Corrie.

  “Well, why do I always have to be first?” Fee retorted.

  “Because you are the one who—”

  Avis stepped back and reached around the outsides of the two men’s heads, clapping one hand over each of their mouths as she did so.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, resting one head against each enormous bosom, “we have just made a very reassuring discovery that should be cause for celebration, not shouting at each other like common guttersnipes. I don’t know what has gotten into everyone today. There’s trouble in the air. No wonder the cheese tastes like a certain grandmother’s toenail clippings. What would be the chance of a Coolarney getting a bit of peace and quiet around here, I don’t know.”

  She slowly took her hands away and Corrie and Fee remained silent.

  “Tea anyone?” Avis asked, and they both nodded dumbly.

  “A Coolarney mum, eh?” Corrie marveled eventually, the beginnings of a long-lost smile playing on his lips. “Next best thing to flesh and blood wouldn’t it be, Joey?”

  “Remind me about Greta, would you?” Fee asked Avis.

  Avis sat down at the table, her hands clasping the teapot as a fond, dreamy look wandered over her face. “Oh, I remember the day she arrived like it was yesterday, don’t you, Joseph?”

  Corrie smiled and nodded. He did, as a matter of fact. Greta had been one of the best milkmaids they’d ever had and an excellent Scrabble player to boot. She’d been a favorite, inasmuch as he let himself have favorites.

  “She came up the drive with her brother, Morris—they were twins, weren’t they? Anyway, he was the most handsome young man you can imagine—gorgeous—and Greta sitting there beside him, glowing with health and what turned out to be little Christopher.”

  Greta, Avis reminded Corrie and Fee, had been on vacation in Europe with her brother when she had succumbed to the charms of a lanky French saxophone player after much cheap Chianti and a jam session at the 606 Club in London’s Chelsea. She’d settled in beautifully at Coolarney House, but six months into her pregnancy was visited by an old school friend with whom she’d been corresponding who begged her to marry him and return home his wife.

  “Do you remember him?” Avis asked Fee. “You must. We’ve not had that many rescued before. He was that nervous, the long streak of misery. Oh, my heart went out to the poor soul, and she was that happy to see him. Look at the smile on her.” Avis turned to the photo again. “What a beautiful girl.”

  Avis wondered how long the smile had stayed on Greta Stephens’s face. She knew that the girl had gone home, heavy with child, with Ben Stephens’s ring on her finger, but that her father would not speak to her. She knew that Morris had gone on to study architecture even though it was his sister’s dream, not his. She knew that Greta had given birth to a bouncing baby boy named Christopher but that was all. Greta had stopped writing when the baby was still small, each letter before then slightly sadder and more disappointed than the last one. Avis filled in the gaps in Greta’s life, knowing where she was headed as a twenty-year-old, and where she had ended up, sitting now in a rest home, her head full of the adventures she’d never managed to have.

  “She should have stayed here,” she said to the two old men. “She should have had the baby here and gone on with her life.”

  “I’m sure her family would not agree with you there,” Corrie said. “I’m sure her family think she did go on with her life. And she certainly seems to have done a fine job of bringing up Kit, more or less,” he added, remembering the reason why Kit was here. “Anyway,” he said to Avis, “you know as well as we all do that just because you don’t end up leading the life you thought you would, it doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your time.” They had had this conversation many times before.

  “You’ve got it all arse about face,” interrupted Fee. “If she hadn’t gone away, how would Kit have come back? We’re one cheesemaker up on the whole deal so you can stop your bellyaching, the two of you.”

  “Do you think he knows?” Corrie asked suddenly.

  “I’d say he definitely doesn’t know,” Avis answered vehemently.

  “Can we tell him?” Fee asked excitedly. “It might speed the whole thing up a bit.”

  “No!” Avis and Corrie cried in unison. “You know our policy on that sort of thing,” Avis scolded. “What happens on the farm stays on the farm and no exceptions.”

  “But doesn’t he have the right to—”

  “No!” Avis and Corrie closed him down again. “Don’t you breathe a word, Joseph Feehan,” Avis warned. “Not a word.”

  Fee finished his tea with a loud smack of his lips and stood up. “But if he knew about—”

  “No!”

  Fee lifted and then dropped his round little shoulders in an exaggerated huff. He knew they were right and he would not interfere, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Still,” he said to himself, shaking his head, as he went out the kitchen door, “a Coolarney girl all the same. Now, if that doesn’t make sense I don’t know what does.” Warmed by this latest development, even if he did have to keep it to himself, he hurried over to the factory, where it came as a shock to find the temperature as frosty as it had been the day before, and the day before that. Kit and Abbey were silently cutting the curd, doing an excellent job, Fee had to admit, but he could just as easily have cut the air between them. The tension ricocheted around the well-scrubbed floors and counters and pinged off the vats and molds, rattling the whole room with its horrible silence.

  Fee’s back was killing him and he knew without even tasting it that the curd was plain but Ruby and Marie claimed the so-so cheese they had been producing was actually doing them a favor. They had months of back orders for cooking cheese that they had been unable to fill until now, so producing the stuff wasn’t a total waste of time. With this in mind, he tried to put his bad temper and aching back behind him, and started to help Abbey and Kit pack the molds. Before long, though, the chilly atmosphere got to him. It was as clear as a bell that the two of them had what it took so why they didn’t just get on with it he couldn’t fathom.

  “For feck’s sake,” he suddenly growled at the pair of them, as the last mold was packed and dripping its quick-time drip on the floor, “if the fecking curd wasn’t sour already, it fecking would be now. Will the two of yis go downstairs and turn the Blues, I’m sick of the sound of you.”

  Like sulky schoolchildren, Abbey and Kit turned and headed for the stairs, entering the Blue room wordlessly. Kit washed his hands in the basin by the door as Abbey stood behind him waiting to do the same. He swore he could feel her breath on his shoulder blade and started to sweat slightly before heading to the opposite end of the room, leaving Abbey to start on the racks nearest the door.

  This was the first time they had been alone in a small place since the near-sex episode of three days before, and he felt slightly panicked. His head and his body had totally different opinions about Abbey, and it made being close to her physically difficult, to say the least. He had tried to avoid her as much as possible over the past few days, outside their cheesemaking duties of course, but found his thoughts crowded with lustful apparitions of her when he was on his own. There was no doubt in his mind that a weird sort of chemistry existed between the two of them, but he hadn’t the faintest clue what to do about it.

  She didn’t like him and he didn’t like her, and the sooner his hormones got a grip on that, the better. Crouching to turn the cheeses on the lowest shelf, he glimpsed through the racks and saw Abbey’s hands snake deftly around a perfect Coolarney Blue and flip it. She did have very nice hands, he tried not to notice. Practical and no-nonsense but still the hands of a woman.

  His own hands sought out his next cheese and turned it. The rind felt cool and slightly damp to touch, and the sound it made as he dropped it back on the rack was a good sound. It was as though the cheese sighed a happy sigh when it got
back on familiar territory. As though just a nanosecond out of its comfort zone was a nanosecond too long. You knew where you were with cheese, Kit thought. You knew what it needed and how to give it that. He supposed that was what Fee had been trying to tell them the first day they gathered down here, when Abbey had freaked out and run away. All you had to do was look after the stuff to a certain point and then you could rely on it finishing the job itself. He realized that he and Abbey were turning the cheeses in perfect time, the muffled “pflumpf” of the cheeses’ overturned sides hitting the rack simultaneously, forming a fractured, almost funky, beat. He peered through the racks again as Abbey’s hands, a rack higher now, worked their magic.

  She had good wrists, too, Kit thought. He’d never noticed that before. Just the right size for her hands, with a sexy knobble of bone jutting out and rolling around as she lifted and turned. He lifted and turned some more himself and tried not to think about her. Instead, he found himself pondering her husband. What sort of a man would Abbey be married to? A bastard, surely, to be cheating on her when she was so incredibly—he checked himself. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t some pimply teenager seething with testosterone; he was a grown man and could control himself. He thought for a moment he could smell her fresh passion-fruit smell but then realized that meant he wasn’t controlling himself and so began instead to think of state capitals, starting with Alaska.

  Abbey, too, could hardly ignore the uninvited tension that appeared between herself and Kit whenever they were in the same room and was also trying to quash it. Kit was a sexual predator hell bent on deflowering her, Lucy, most likely Jack, Wilhie and even Avis O’Regan, she tried to convince herself as her fingers sought the moist sides of the fresh Coolarneys and flipped them. He was a prick of the highest order and she should have reported him to the, um . . . she wondered who she should have reported him to. Her grandfather? Hmm. His mother? Hmm. And anyway, what would she report? She was the one who had gone to his bed and felt his head. But he seemed ill, she argued with herself. But you could have established that from the doorway, herself came back. But I tried that and it didn’t work, she continued. And kissing him did? herself countered sarcastically.