Selkie's Song (Fado Trilogy)

by Clare Austin

  She liked having the hound near. So far he had never lived up to his warrior name Cú Chulainn …hound of Culann, but strangers kept their distance. Locals knew the only harm he might cause was from the copious drool he was happy to slobber over anyone foolish enough to show him attention.

  “Let’s go see what Mary’s about,” she said, reached for his collar, and let him pull her up the steepest part of the path by the stone steps that had been known for centuries as Manach Dréimire, the Monk’s Ladder.

  Cú lowered his head and rumbled a growl deep in his chest.

  “Jaysus, would ya look at that now?”

  The man lay prone with his head resting on a rolled-up jacket. He appeared to be deeply asleep. She wondered if she should wake him. It wouldn’t do at all to have him get disoriented and fall off the headland. Even here, where the drop was only a few meters, he would have a nasty landing.

  But the gobshite had been watching her, and she wasn’t inclined to get into a conversation with him. She’d seen him while she swam. They had made brief eye contact when she had stripped off. Let him get an eyeful, she had thought. Good for the tourist trade.

  She took him in from the back of his head to the soles of his leather shoes. He was certainly not from around here. No North Clare man would venture out on these sheep paddocks in those shoes. Besides, she knew everyone from Tarbert to Galway City and this man would have been hard to forget. She would have known him…and she didn’t.

  “Stay close, Cú,” she warned by tapping him lightly on his nose. “We’ll not disturb him.” He whined and started to pull. He wanted to play with this sleeping form, sniff it, pounce on it. “You’ll scare the man to death,” Muireann whispered and tugged Cú along with her until he stopped objecting.

  The sun shimmered green and gold across the fields, but Muireann felt, rather than saw, clouds gathering in the west. Boats that usually fished until late in the afternoon were making their way to the shelter of the harbor. The weather was changing, and fisherman were always the first to respond.

  After a day on the water, the whole of Ballinacurragh would be ready for the craic and a song or two. Pints would flow at O’Malley’s tonight.

  Conneely’s Pub attracted the tourists. Eámon Conneely had hired a three-piece band from Ennis with no shame about how many times they would play “Dirty Old Town” if the stout ran free. That left O’Malley’s for the locals. Turlough O’Malley served the best pub grub and pulled the fairest pint in all North Clare. It was a known fact and even though Turlough was her very own da, Muireann believed she was unbiased in her opinion.

  A hare skittered across the field, and Cú took off chasing it toward the house. Muireann’s attention was drawn away from her hound to a red car parked at An Currach. “Auntie’s got a guest, it seems.”

  Then it struck her. The red compact hire car. She had seen it on the road when she was headed here. It had started to pull out in front of her. Actually, she had almost run it down. Her thoughts had been elsewhere. She refused to let go of her fury that Ian Feeney had hired a bulldozer to take out the whitethorn tree at O’Malley’s old place.

  He had clearly underestimated the strength of tradition in Ireland’s west counties. Muireann didn’t buy into the superstitious blather about fairies and such, but she’d use anything necessary to save Ireland’s treasures from Ian and the intrusive grasp of outside interests.

  “Auntie M…are ya in here?” Muireann called into the way door. “Your houseguest is out there sleepin’ on the cliff edge.”

  Mary could bustle more convincingly than anyone in the long and confusing history of Ballinacurragh. That is how she always entered a room. “So, you’ve met the handsome fellow from Boston?”

  “Not exactly.” Muireann pulled off her shoes. Boston? An American. Figures.

  “Oh, my dear, look at your hair! Hurry and shower. Yer da rang. He needs to chat with you, he says.” Mary flounced off toward the kitchen. “Do you need a meal before you go? I’ve fresh bread and vege soup.”

  “I’ll grab a bite in the village,” Muireann called as she trotted down the hallway to the bedroom Mary saved for her when she didn’t have time or inclination to drive back to her own cottage after her swim.

  The room smelled like paste and paint. Mary was redecorating again. Some women knitted, others gardened. Mary Conneely hung wallpaper. Who could argue with that? Not Muireann, to be sure.

  She pulled jeans, Pogues T-shirt, clean knickers, and bra out of the bureau, found a fresh towel, turned the shower to hot. The digital clock on the bed table read three-fifteen. She could take her time as long as the hot water didn’t run out.

  Usually Muireann didn’t have trouble holding on to her anger when it came to people like Feeney, but this afternoon her thoughts drifted past irritation and onto the man at the cliff. Who was he and why was he here? A tourist, maybe, but a man like that didn’t usually travel alone. He must be a businessman. One of the many, of late, come to disrupt the peace of her world.

  Granted, he was pleasant to look at, from what she had seen. Dark hair that must be quite curly if it hadn’t been cut short. He wore a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves to above his elbows and stretched across a broad back. Slim hips, tight arse, and long legs…not a bad combination in Muireann’s thinking.

  She poured shampoo into her hands, rubbed them together, and massaged her fingers into her scalp. Sand and bits of seaweed loosened and swirled down the drain. Her body felt slick, her hair fragrant, and her thoughts pleasantly wicked. A grin pulled at the sides of her lips when she recalled how boldly she had stood there, naked as a newborn, and taunted him. Her mother would have smacked her ears for such an unmitigated lack of modesty.

  ****

  Muireann walked the two kilometers into the town center. The exercise was a pleasant diversion from her mix of anger and self-indulgence. She took the track through the back lanes of several farms rather than walk on the busy main road. Her shoes would get muddy, but she didn’t care. This was Ireland. Mud happened.

  When she came around the corner into the village, hot blood shot to her head at the sight of Feeney’s black Audi parked neatly in front of her father’s business establishment. She hated that car and what it represented: wealth, power, and a financial stranglehold on the community. Then she remembered the promise she made to herself the last time she spied Ian’s obnoxious symbol of affluence. It was probably only his compensation for his small dick.

  Not that she had any personal acquaintance with Ian’s wiggly bits. Muireann had rebuffed his romantic advances years ago when they were schoolmates. He’d cornered her in the library—between Joyce and Yeats as she recalled—and tried to kiss her. She’d given him a swift knee to his groin and laid him flat out for several minutes while she found the assigned Ulysses and left the building.

  Years later, he’d groped her during a set dance at a Kilfenora ceili. She stomped down on his instep with the heel of her dancing shoe and sent him off limping. The man was thick as a brick when it came to subtlety and apparently not much more brilliant with brute force.

  Muireann had no interest in confronting Ian today. She slipped quietly into the back entrance of the pub. She’d get a head start on the food preparations for this evening’s dinner crowd and save her dad the trouble.

  “What’ll it be, Feeney?” Turlough’s voice boomed with an uncharacteristic edge of disdain. O’Malley’s pub had a reputation for its friendly atmosphere but Muireann knew it was a stretch to extend that graciousness to Ian. The banker had turned down a loan request for much needed repairs to the ageing building. Of course, he claimed the reason was only business, that the pub was not fiscally sound by the parameters set by the bank. Turlough took this as a personal affront.

  “A pint of the black stuff,” Ian said.

  Why did it always grate on Muireann that Ian tried so hard to sound like he belonged when it was obvious he held a deep contempt for this place?

  Sure, he had grown up right here in
this very village. He’d been a schoolmate of Muireann and Simon. Though Feeney was a name as old as Connaught itself, Ian had only come by it thanks to his stepfather, Hollister O’Feeney. All would have been copacetic if Ian had just let the name stand for itself.

  But he made it clear with his superior attitude his people weren’t from around here. The heritage Ian felt most proud of, the lineage he wouldn’t let the O’Malleys and Conneelys forget, was as English as beans on toast. According to local rumor, his birth record bore the name Claypool, though to Muireann’s knowledge, he had never known his biological father. The staunchly revered family tradition was that the Claypools had come with Cromwell, been given part of the O’Malley land as a reward for their duty to the English Crown, and thumbed their noses at the local language and culture.

  The collective memory of the Ballinacurragh natives coveted hundreds of years of genealogy. All Ian had earned from his pompous assertions was resentment and bouts of eczema.

  Muireann peeked stealthily around the door. Turlough pulled a pint and waited for it to settle. “That’ll be four-fifty euro,” he said, his voice devoid of the warmth for which he was famous from Ennis to Athenry.

  Ian put a five on the bar. “I want to talk with you, O’Malley…about your daughter.” He unrolled the newspaper, smoothing it with his palms.

  “There’s not a thing wrong with Muireann’s hearing. You’ve got something to say, take it up with herself,” Turlough said, his voice a growl of annoyance. “She’s a grown woman, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  Ian belched, coughed, and cleared his throat. Muireann flinched as his little pig eyes reddened and watered.

  “As you are probably aware, I’ve tried to be reasonable with her,” he continued and punched his forefinger into the photo on the front page of the paper. “I only want to help the community prosper.”

  Turlough flipped the picture around to take a closer look. “Damn decent likeness, don’t you think?”

  Muireann’d had enough. She needed some fresh air. But as the kitchen door slammed behind her, Ian stood, hand on one hip, leaning casually against his car in what looked to her like a pose meant to send a message. The intent of that message she didn’t know and didn’t care.

  “Fine day to you, Muireann O’Malley.”

  “’Twas…before I saw your ugly gob, Ian.”

  He pressed his key and his car came to life, headlights blinking like he had awakened a dragon from a nap. “You might be feeling a bit more friendly toward me in the future. Not a good thing to burn bridges. Not in this economy.” He smiled, showing his stained teeth, straightened his tie, snugging it up so tight she wondered if he’d stop breathing, and settled his bulk behind the wheel of his Audi.

  She didn’t wait for him to drive off. Feck ’im. Muireann pulled the door to O’Malley’s open with such a furious yank, the glass shook in the leaded window.

  Turlough O’Malley was standing behind the bar, pulling a pint for Mícheál Delaney. God bless Mick. Without his chain-cutting skills, she’d probably still be shackled to that fairy tree.

  “Ah, an’ if it isn’t our local hero,” Delaney said and stood from his barstool to give her a bear hug. “Lookin’ fine, ya are, this afternoon.”

  “Not so bad yerself, Mick. How’s the family?”

  “Prettiest girls in all the counties. That’s a father’s opinion, anyway.”

  Delaney had six girls, ages three weeks to twelve years. They were all as blond and blue eyed as himself, except the eldest, Émer, the mirror of her mother, Niabh Ní Conghaile. Like nearly all the women descended from the Ó Conghaile, Niabh had eyes the color of strong coffee and hair to match. And, though no one but her ma and her husband knew for sure, rumor said she had the lightly webbed toes that, though rare, still might grace the delicate feet of the selkie’s kin.

  “What can I get for you, Muireann?” Turlough asked.

  “You can crank up your new cappuccino machine and make me a cuppa.” Muireann had encouraged her father to install the new fangled coffeemaker, much against his insistence that it was a silly excess.

  “I’m not good at it. Come behind the bar and do it yourself.”

  “You’re going to have to master it sometime,” she said as she made her way to the business side of the bar that separated them. “You have this week’s Currach?” She pressed the switch on the espresso machine and smelled the fragrant black coffee filling her cup.

  “Sure do.” Turlough slapped the newspaper down on the bar. “This doesn’t help, you know.”

  Muireann scanned the front page and her eyes nearly popped from her sockets. “Well, would ya look at that now? Just the back of my head but not a bad picture, if I have to say so myself. Color. Impressive.”

  The bold image showed Muireann, hands cuffed behind her, standing triumphantly face to face with one Ian Feeney. He looked like an overdone pork roast complete with red cheeks and the wind blowing the comb-over off his balding head. The headline read: Ballinacurragh Fisherman’s Bank loan chief challenged by local woman.

  “This was, you might say, hand delivered by none other than the Feeney himself.” Turlough’s jaw tightened.

  “I’m supposing he didn’t see the humor in it.” She added hot milk to her coffee and cradled the warm cup in her hands.

  “Daughter, you’ve got to stop taunting the man.” Turlough shrugged his shoulders and looked away, busy wiping at a stain that wasn’t there.

  “Da? What’s up?” Worry over local politics did not fit well on him, and he always found the wit in it.

  Mick must have sensed the tension, because he picked up his pint. “I’m goin’ to check on the telly for the latest race results. Here’s for the pint.” He tucked adequate euros under the coaster and headed toward the back room.

  “Da? Would you turn around and look at me, for feck’s sake?”

  When he did turn, there was a sadness in his eyes she’d rarely seen. He stepped to her and steadied his hands on her shoulders. Turlough was a big man, burly and broad, but at this moment he seemed shrunken and almost frail.

  “Now, no panic,” he began, and heat rose in her face in anticipation. “I’m thinking we need to have your ma come down and help in the pub during the day.”

  Muireann clenched her jaw to keep from swearing. “And why would you be doing that? She hates hanging out here.” She strained the words through her teeth, and Turlough backed a step. “If you need help, hire Simon. God knows he needs a real job.”

  He blew out a resigned breath. “I don’t need help. I need to have her close to me…to watch over her.”

  She spun on her feet, turning her back to him. “I won’t talk about this. You know how I feel.”

  “I do know how you feel, and I know you’re wrong.” He took one step to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s confused. I left her in her garden for ten minutes and when I came out, she was gone. She’d wandered off toward the headland.”

  “And since when is it a crime to take a stroll.” Muireann choked on her sense of defensiveness.

  “When I asked where she was off to, do you know what she told me?”

  Muireann didn’t want to hear. She yearned to roll the day backward and forget it ever started. Yes, she would admit her mother became confused at times. Artists were like that. Thinking about this and that, what color to add to make her work perfect. The flower garden was Ma’s canvas. She’d probably gone off to capture an idea or hunt for a clump of sea pinks.

  Turlough continued. “She was headed to the harbor to fetch Ronan for supper.”

  A bolt of pain socked into Muireann’s gut and gave her a knock backward. “Da…she’s grieving.” Her voice came out in a soft gasp. “I miss him too.”

  “We all do.” Turlough’s voice seemed to shake in his chest. “But we remember he’s gone.”

  Muireann regretted her sharp tongue. “I can take her with me when I deliver my pottery.”

  Turlough shook his head. “And where will yer ma
be when you go and shackle yourself to the next tree, march in the next demonstration, run off to bail one of your activist friends out of the local jail?”

  She had no answer.

  “It wouldn’t work,” he emphasized. “She’ll seem perfectly fine and the next minute she’s off—”

  “What, Da? Off with the fairies?” Tears choked in Muireann’s throat. She shoved them down until they burned in her chest.

  “Sure, now, I won’t go so far as to claim she’s mental.”

  Muireann’s heart sank into her stomach. She knew the evidence was damning. Her mother had always been forgetful—distracted. What had seemed like innocent inattentiveness had evolved into frequent bouts of outright confusion. “It’ll break her heart to take her out of her garden all day. She’ll feel like a prisoner here.”

  “Daughter, forty years ago I promised to take care of my wife. I’ll do that how I’m able.” The hint of caution in his voice quickened Muireann’s pulse. “I could afford to hire a companion for her if I borrowed a bit from Feeney at the bank.”

  “You tried that last year for the remodel and he turned you down.” She hated to remind him.

  “If you’d be a little nicer to him. Maybe have him over for tea.”

  “If wishes were horses...” she groaned. “You can’t trust Feeney. One missed payment and he’ll shut you down.” Muireann stepped to the door and pulled her jacket off the peg.

  “No worries now. He wouldn’t be so cheap.”

  “Da, he’s so cheap he’d live in one of your ears and rent out the other,” she snapped, yanked the door open, and left the premises. She secretly allowed herself to hope he would stop her, but there was nothing under the Irish sky more headstrong than an O’Malley daughter, except perhaps, the father who’d raised her.

  Chapter Four

  The air over Ballinacurragh was energized with an impending storm. A renewed vigor bordering on restless enthusiasm tingled through each cell of Tynan’s body and he was tempted to walk from An Currach to the village. But he hadn’t spent his years growing up on this misty island without gaining some respect for the fickle nature of her weather patterns. He took the car and drove to the town center. A soft fall of moisture slicked the road.