Selkie's Song (Fado Trilogy)

by Clare Austin

  O’Malley’s was crowded to the doors as Tynan entered the pub. The bar was standing room only, filled to the walls with fans in team jerseys celebrating a local club’s triumph. He squeezed past the boisterous revelers toward the back.

  The familiarity of this space brought a grin to his lips. Posters of GAA teams, autographed by the players, hung from the dark oak walls. A photo of former U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy occupied the place of honor at the right hand of John Paul the Second, and a footballer, silver game cup in his hands, filled the space on the wall to the left of the Pope.

  A framed front page from the local newspaper, The Curragh, announced O’Malley’s to be “Pub quiz champion of the year.” At the photo of dour-faced fishermen, black and white turned sepia by years, Tynan stopped and wondered where these men might be now.

  “Are you serving food?” he shouted across the bar to a middle-aged man wearing an apron. Mary had said O’Malley’s had the best pub food in town. If there was no room, she suggested the Bloody Oar, but with a hesitance in her enthusiasm.

  “Sure now, seat yourself wherever you can find a space. I’ll send my girl over.”

  “I’ll have a pint of stout,” he said and moved toward a table in the corner where a young man wearing a Thin Lizzy T-shirt and a GAA hat was devouring his fish and chips. “Mind if I join you?” Ty asked and pulled up a chair.

  “No, for sure. This is the only spot left.” He offered Ty his hand. “Simon O’Flaherty. This bunch of hooligans won’t leave until they’re fluthered.” He nodded toward the sports fans.

  “Ty Sloane. How’s the food here?”

  “Ah, it’s brilliant…can’t beat it with a stick. Where ya from anyway? Don’t sound like a North Clare man.” He dug back into his chips.

  “Most recently from Boston.” Tynan wondered how his accent might have changed in the four years he’d lived in the States. “Born and raised in Galway City…called Dublin home until a few years ago.”

  “On holiday, then? Well, now, some pretty sights around this part of the west counties.”

  A mental picture of the cliffs and the dream of a selkie flashed behind his eyes. “So, tell me, Simon, will there be a session tonight? I’m looking for some good trad.” He had almost toted his mandolin along, but thought to check out the local ceol first. Most musicians were friendly enough to let an outsider in, but he didn’t want to presume.

  “Around half nine or later. When the footballers move on and things quiet down a bit.”

  A plump, flush-cheeked girl of about twenty approached and gave Tynan a flirty smile. She set a pint glass of black stout in front of him. “I’m Cait. What can I get for ya?” She pulled flatware out of her pocket and laid it on the table. “The special tonight is local caught salmon and garlic mashed potatoes.”

  “That sounds lovely, Cait. I’m so hungry I could eat the chops off a lamb through a thorn bush.”

  Then the demure Cait shouted to the barman in a voice that could win a swine-calling competition, “Give ’im the special. And he’d like it before the next millennium.”

  “Keep yer knickers on, Caitie girl.” The gruff voice softened with a grin.

  Simon leaned forward and caught her by her apron. “Hey, sweetheart, now that I’m famous, will ya go walkin’ with me?’ He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a rolled newspaper.

  “The day you’re famous for anything other than being unemployed, I’ll keep your offer in mind.” She smacked his hand away. “But I’ll give you this to think about.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and headed back to the kitchen.

  Simon’s hand went to the spot on his cheek and he sighed before his attention turned to Tynan. “Take a look here.” He laid the paper out on the table and smoothed it with his hand. “That’s meself there.” He pointed to a picture on the front page. “Never thought I’d be in the news.”

  Tynan tried to focus his eyes in the dim light of the pub: a yellow bulldozer, a tree in bloom, and a woman, hands cuffed behind her back, dark hair tangled around her shoulders. “What was this all about?” Ty asked, and something about the defiant tilt of her head tickled his memory.

  Simon pointed to the headline. “A community insurrection. Ah, and it was a grand day.”

  ****

  By half nine, Tynan was ready to hear some music. Thankfully, by ten the musicians started to drift in. The crowd of sports fans had long since found their fun elsewhere, and the pub sounds had gentled to a hum of conversation damped by the evening’s food and drink.

  Though he should have been tired from his flight, the only symptom of jet lag was an otherworldly euphoria. The dream he’d had when he fell asleep on the headland kept coming back to tease him. Fantasizing naked shape-shifters wasn’t a bad response to exhaustion in Tynan’s estimation.

  At a large corner table with bench seats, a tall, grey-haired crag of a man sat tuning his guitar. Across the way sat a fiddler with fingers so stubby, if Ty hadn’t known others like him, he would have wondered how those hands could coax milk from a cow let alone a tune from a violin. Simon O’Flaherty, like a man wrestling an octopus, fitted together the puzzling mass of tubes and reeds of uilleann pipes.

  Soon jigs and reels flowed one into another. More musicians came and the crowd grew to stretch the walls. Ty regretted having given up his seat. He leaned a hip on a barstool and sipped the remains of his pint.

  “Can I get you another?” The publican reached for his glass to refill it.

  Ty knew he should wave him off, claiming he’d had his limit, but he felt a need to fit in here, soak up the camaraderie, feel his roots. “A whiskey. Thanks.”

  He studied the room. Cait was looking fine, and he wondered if he had drunk her pretty over the last hours. Fishermen, their faces ruddied by the wind and the sea, talked of the catch, the price of salmon, the weather. Farmers chewed over the breeding of sheep or cows and if the rain would come or go to make a good harvest.

  Snatches of gossip—whose land was for sale, high taxes, would Connaught beat Wicklow, who’d been seen walking out with whom. And everyone, it seemed, had a comment on the front page of today’s newspaper.

  “Feeney was madder than a bag of cats…It’s throwing apples into an orchard to try to reason with him…Give Turlough’s girl some credit…Ah, now, what she needs is a husband and a house full of babies and she’ll forget about her seals…” Each one had his or her solution to the problems of the village, if not the world.

  Someone pounded a glass on the bar and called for silence. Others tapped spoons on their pint glasses until the talking ceased and the room was quiet as a church on Monday night.

  It started so softly, Tynan thought he was once again in a dream by the sea. The singer had her back to him, head bowed. She wore a knitted cap, but dark hair escaped its boundaries and streamed over her shoulders. He knew by tradition her eyes would be closed.

  Her sound was clear as a ringing bell, and he found himself wondering if she had a face to match the beauty of her vocal offering.

  The fiddler joined her with the lightest touch of his bow, and the resonance pulled gently at Tynan’s heart. Her voice was evocative of other times and places. He’d heard the song before, but not with this gentleness…a mother’s hand on a wounded child, a land and it’s people caressed and healed by lyric and melody. It spoke of friends, of fish, and of the summer sunsets.

  Was she muse or prophet? Every cell in Tynan’s body sang along with her, as though she reached out and touched the most intimate threads of his soul. He couldn’t swallow and could barely breathe.

  “I stood by your Atlantic shore and sang a song for Ireland,” she sang in tones meant to transcend the physical and pierce the core of an Irishman’s spirit.

  The strains ceased. A benediction of silence hovered. Ty closed his eyes, picked up his glass, and let the smooth whiskey glide over his tongue and down his throat. The band picked up with a jig and the spell was broken.

  When he looked again, the
singer was gone.

  Tynan had an overwhelming need to be outside, in the air, under the sky, where he could hear Ireland’s own song. “Does this cover it?” He put a handful of euro bills on the bar.

  “Ah, sure, and are you off so early, young man?”

  “It’s been a long one. And even this fine group of players is going to have a time topping that last tune.”

  The publican nodded. “That’s my daughter, Muireann.”

  Tynan’s throat went dry. “Muireann? Muireann O’Malley is your daughter?”

  A roll of laughter rumbled through the barman’s chest. “Sure, she is, and the finest a father could claim.” He turned to serve a pint at the other end of the bar.

  A thrill of anticipation sent a tremor through Tynan’s chest.

  She was here.

  Truly, where else would he have expected her to be?

  Tynan called his thanks to O’Malley and walked toward the back, past the toilets. He didn’t see it coming…the swinging door that hit him.

  “Ow!” The edge of the door had caught him in the temple and knocked him backward.

  “Jaysus. I...Sorry...What are you doin’ standing on the other side of the door?”

  His hand went to his head where a lump was starting to rise. “It’s Tynan, not Jaysus, but you can call me anything you want if you promise not to hit me again.” The sharp pain disappeared and his heart raced. “Muireann?”

  “That would be meself.” Her hand pinched his chin and turned his head from side to side. She narrowed her eyes and searched his face. “Tynan? Tynan Sloane?” Incredulity modified the pitch of her voice.

  “The same.”

  Sable eyes pinioned him with electric intensity and ignited a fire that tore a path straight down his belly and beyond. She tossed her head back and laughed. “What the hell are you doing here? Rumor was you moved to America.”

  Caught off guard, he had no chance to filter his response. “I came to find you,” he blurted. If it wasn’t the entire truth, it was not exactly a lie either.

  “Did ya now?” Muireann’s laugh rang like golden bells with a hint of wickedly naughty dissonance. Tynan was not sorry he had caused it.

  The angles of her face had matured but still sparked with the mischievous brilliance she’d had as a teen. She had not a shred of shyness about her. That hadn’t changed. She’d been fearless those many years ago, accepting his furtive attentions with unpretentious curiosity and then demanding he kiss her a second time.

  “So, Tynan Sloane, it appears you’ve found me,” she said. “Do you have any other plans?”

  “I was just heading out…for a ramble. Join me?”

  “Are you a fool? It’s bucketing.” Her eyes danced with mischief and then lost focus on him. Her attention was drawn to the pub entrance.

  “Ya fuckin’ wanker,” she hissed under her breath and the room fell into an unnatural quiet. “Ian Feeney, don’t let the door hit you in yer fat arse on the way back out of here,” she seethed.

  Tynan turned and saw the target of Muireann’s anger. The man was red-faced and steaming.

  “It’s a public house and I’m the public.” Ian had a rolled newspaper in his fist. “I want a word with you, Muireann O’Malley.”

  “That’ll be the day hell freezes over, ya flamin’ chancer.” Muireann whipped around, pushed past gape-mouthed patrons and out the back of the pub, slamming the door in her wake.

  Even from the back of her angry head, she was still the most beautiful woman Tynan had ever seen.

  He made his way to his car, horizontal rain pelting, blinding him, and Kerry’s warning taunting his memory. “And stay away from those Ballinacurragh girls. You don’t want to be fallin’ in love.”

  Chapter Five

  Being bombarded with sheets of blowing rain cooled her temper before Muireann reached the edge of the village. Simon had promised to give her a lift and now she had, without much forethought, committed herself to getting drenched instead.

  And just when her evening had taken on an interesting new angle.

  Tynan Sloane. God, he looked better than her imagination had allowed. At sixteen he’d been tall, lanky, and sweet-faced with long dark rock-star hair. Now he was so clean cut she was sure he would glow in the dark.

  His eyes hadn’t changed. They were still the deep blue of a midsummer twilight sky and as seductive as sin. Her heart pattered in her chest at the thought of him.

  Muireann gave herself a mental smack back to reality. They’d been nothing more than randy teenagers, after all. Perhaps it was only the freshness of youth that had printed his kiss so vividly in her memory.

  Who’s the fool now?

  She pulled her jacket up over her head, but that only allowed rainwater to run down her jeans and chill her backside. The hasty exit had been worth the look on Ian’s face when she’d confronted him. She hoped this was a good whack to his ego and it would ache at least as long as a thump to his bollocks.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been the epitome of grace to lose her temper moments after reuniting with a man she’d fantasized about for a decade and a half, but Tynan might as well know the real person he’d come to find.

  That was what he said…he’d come to find her.

  What did he mean by that? The possibilities tingled in places she had tried to ignore for too long now. Muireann had to remind herself she had no business complicating her life, and she made a quick vow to disabuse Tynan of any romantic intentions he might have thought to ignite upon his return to the scene of their brief tryst.

  Then she flushed at her own idiocy. For all she knew, Tynan was a married man with a brood of handsome children waiting for him back in America. Likely he’d come to catch up on old times…nothing more.

  The road was dark as pitch and the downpour had slowed slightly by the time Muireann passed the petrol station. She turned to ascend the steep hill where the old abbey loomed stalwart and the ancient cemetery cosseted more stories than the stones would ever tell.

  Headlights flashed as a car rounded the traffic circle, casting a mocking light on the high crosses guarding the souls of the departed.

  Muireann expected to hear the rattle of Simon’s old clunker. He’s come to save me from myself.

  Her heart thumped as a red compact pulled over.

  “Lovely evening for a ramble,” he called through the rolled-down window.

  “It’s a tradition here in West Ireland,” Muireann shot back.

  “What’s that? Giving a man a tongue-lashing or walking home in the rain?”

  “It’s only a heavy mist,” she called through chattering teeth and kept walking.

  The car followed at her pace. “Want a lift?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t mind the air.” She stopped beneath a large hanging basket of lobelia to deflect the chill and relentless downpour.

  He pulled the car to the roadside, shut down the motor, and stepped out into the street, clicking the door lock behind him.

  Muireann rolled her eyes. What was he doing?

  He popped the boot and extracted an umbrella. “Since it’s just a mist and you seem to be enjoying the air…how would you like to show me around this old abbey?”

  She should beg off. She should go home. Cú would be waiting. “I really need to be getting on home.”

  He stepped to her and stood close, covering them both with his umbrella. The patter of raindrops beat in contradiction to her heart, and she wondered if he could hear the rhythm.

  “Surely you won’t refuse me after I came all this way?”

  “Took you a while,” she said before thought could stop her tongue.

  “Most good things take some time to mature,” he quipped. “May I walk with you?”

  The musky perfume of rain on stones and dampened flowers mixed with his scent triggered a shiver.

  “Chilled?” he asked and put a protective hand on her shoulder.

  The heat of his touch penetrated her thin shirt. Muireann flinched. He pulled his
hand away and moved back a half step. “Sorry.”

  “Listen,” she whispered and then held her breath. The call of a gull was the only sound to pierce the silence. “It’s stopped.”

  He lowered the umbrella and his gaze followed hers. The clouds were moving to the east and a three-quarter moon fought for dominance of the night. “Are you sure I can’t give you a lift?”

  “Why? It’s a brilliant night for a stroll.” And she needed a bit of a cooling off. This Ty, this man, was a stranger and yet not. His genteel ways were not that of an overly urgent youth. His casual touch ignited heat that would surely be responsible for more trouble than simple pneumonia.

  He wasn’t quick to respond. The silence was uncomfortable, and Muireann danced a mental jig for something clever to say. She tried without success not to look in his eyes while she untangled her tongue.

  “It’s late.” She felt herself starting to slip down a slope to loss of control. “And I’m in the opposite direction from where you’re headed.”

  “I’m not in any hurry.” Tynan closed his umbrella and shook it out. Muireann almost laughed out loud. He was remarkably tidy for a man.

  “Sure, you can drop me at my place,” she agreed and glanced down at her feet to make sure they were not really slithering out from beneath her.

  As she reached for the car door, he stepped up and opened it for her. Polite, chivalrous, conscientious.

  He arranged himself in the driver’s seat and reached with his left hand for something on the backseat. “Here, give yourself a rubbing off.”

  “With that?” She accepted a T-shirt, a new, very clean one.

  “I don’t have anything else, and you’re dripping wet.”

  A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Are you always this accommodating?”