‘Timsy be damned! As undoubtedly he will be. No, I want him to go on making the poteen. And charge more for it. As much as the market will bear. But he’ll have to hand over fifty – no, seventy-five per cent of the dosh. I said we needed a source of income, didn’t I?’
‘Bobbie! You aren’t serious?’
‘Perfectly. It’s not like dealing in drugs. We aren’t going to lead the innocent into error. I remember you said yourself it’s what the country people have always drunk.’
‘Yes … but … if you get caught the penalty’s a swingeing fine, possibly a term in jail. What’ll you say to Finn as he’s being hauled off to chokey?’
‘I shall make it perfectly clear to the examining magistrate that Mr Macchuin knew nothing about it. Which will be true.’
‘How are you going to make Timsy hand over the takings? Oh, blackmail, of course.’
‘Exactly. Either he agrees to give me a high percentage of the take or I snitch.’
‘Never let anyone try again to argue the case against the power of the cinema to corrupt.’
‘If your conscience is queasy you’d better cut along now. But make it snappy. The saw’s stopped.’
‘If you’re going to talk all the time like James Cagney I shan’t be able to stand—’
‘Shh! Stow your whids. Here he comes!’
We waited in the shadow of the open door. As soon as Timsy came in we closed it behind him.
‘Mother of God! The devil’s come down in a whirlwind!’ cried Timsy, no doubt confused by being thrown unexpectedly into a darkness unrelieved by so much as a crack in the door or a chink in the brickwork.
‘Nothing to worry about, Timsy. It’s Miss Bobbie. And Mr Random.’
‘Hello, Timsy,’ said Kit’s voice. ‘Nice little business you’ve got here.’
‘Oh, Mr Random, your honour. You wouldn’t tell on a poor country boy that’s forced to scrape what good he can from an evil stinking trade only because he’s got two motherless orphans to support—’
I took charge. ‘We haven’t time to waste with all that, Timsy.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Timsy groaned. ‘And I’m only looking after this stuff for a friend. To think you do a poor soul in need a good turn and you get into trouble for it! Oh, mercy, Miss Bobbie—’
‘I’ll be more inclined to be merciful if you’ll shut up a minute,’ I cut in. ‘Now listen to what I propose.’ I explained the terms of the alliance.
‘Begor, who’d have thought it! You’d withhold the last anointing from a dying man! And you with a face that’d make the blessed angels want to scratch out your eyes!’
‘Do you accept or not?’
There was silence while Timsy thought. I could almost hear his brain ticking over in the darkness.
‘I doubt you realize, Miss Bobbie, how little the stuff’ll fetch. Likely it won’t be worth your while—’
‘Don’t think you’re going to cheat me, Timsy. I shall send Mr Random into Kilmuree to research the going rate.’
‘Timsy’s right,’ said Kit’s voice bitterly. ‘You would deny a dying man his last spiritual comfort.’
‘Either you play ball with me, Timsy, or I’m going to report you to Mr Macchuin. Is it a deal?’
Timsy dropped the fanciful similes and his voice became brisk. ‘Thirty per cent?’
‘Eighty.’
‘Fifty!’
‘Seventy-five!’
Another silence. Then I heard Timsy make a disgusting sound in his throat and spit noisily. ‘Done, Miss Bobbie. You’ll shake hands on it?’
As it was Thursday Father Deglan was coming to dinner.
When I came downstairs from giving Violet her supper Kit was standing at the sink peeling potatoes. He sent me a smile of complicity. Katty and Pegeen were enjoying a brew of tea by the fire, opening their eyes occasionally to check the progress of the stew that steamed in the black pot on the hook. After a week or two of eating my food Katty had complained that she was ‘up all night with wind like a mare trying to drop a foal’. As Pegeen and Timsy always agreed with Katty, these days the three of them were left to cater for themselves.
Sissy, dressed in a pierrot’s baggy white suit with a red ruff, a row of pom-poms down the front and a pointed cap, was pulverizing a heap of shining black berries in a mortar. She answered my greeting with a glower from cold black eyes. I offered her the plate of currant biscuits I had made to go with the banana ice cream. She crammed three together into her mouth scattering crumbs over her front and continued to pound. In a moment of abstraction Flurry took one, too.
In the dining room, Mr Macchuin was standing by the fire listening to Eugene who was entertaining him with the story of Cuchulain’s magic spear. Mr Macchuin was listening politely but something in his face led me to think his mind was wandering. Kit joined them and brought the subject round to politics.
‘What did you think of Edward Heath’s extremely drastic plan to redraw the border between North and South? You remember: he wanted to transfer those areas of the six counties that were predominantly Catholic to the Republic and create a Protestant sectarian statelet. Was it possible that it might have worked?’
Mr Macchuin’s expression and posture changed immediately. He looked wide-awake. ‘You mean at the time of Bloody Friday?’
Kit nodded.
‘Well, it’s the sort of thing that looks all right on paper. But it would have meant the compulsory rehousing of roughly five hundred thousand people. That would have required an increase in the number of troops in the province and there’s no reason to think that would have brought about any lessening of bloodshed …’
Kit’s social skills were to be envied, I reflected as I took my usual chair at the foot of the table with Father Deglan on my left and Constance on his other side. It was clear the priest was listening to the discussion at the other end of the table as he ate his soup, for he ignored our attempts to include him in our peaceful talk about the paintings of Degas.
As soon as Father Deglan had taken the keenest edge off his appetite he called out, ‘Is it true some of yous is legislating for the introduction of sex education in schools?’
Mr Macchuin paused in the eating of his stuffed onion – really not bad, if a little greasy – to reply. ‘That’s right. It’s pretty sure to get through. And not before time.’
Father Deglan made a sound like ‘Ee-ach!’ and put down his knife and fork. ‘For shame, Finn! And to think we pay you people good money for such knavery!’ His seeing eye sparkled like molten metal. It had to be acknowledged that Father Deglan truckled to no one. ‘Power crazes, ’tis true. Between you, you’ll be responsible for the undoing of our young women. There’ll be a tidal wave of illegitimacy.’
‘You don’t mean to accuse the Senate, surely?’ Mr Macchuin pretended to be shocked. ‘There are only sixty members and some of them are definitely past their prime.’
‘You may mock, if you please. And who is it that’s to impart such perilous stuff in the schools? Ye’ll not expect the nuns to put such words in their mouths fresh after telling the Theological Virtues?’
‘Provided they stick to the truth, in a comprehensible way, it doesn’t matter much who tells them.’
‘And you’d let yer own garsúns listen to such filth?’
‘There’s nothing filthy about sex,’ interrupted Sissy. ‘’Tis as natural between men and women as between bulls and cows and pigs and sows that love to charver all day if they’re allowed.’
Eugene looked pained by this frank exposition.
‘Besides, we can’t all be so fortunate as to conceive immaculately,’ said Maud. ‘Though most women would prefer it. If only men were less libidinous. It seems even the Catholic clergy cannot be continent.’ There had been a scandal about a priest running away with a young woman in one of the newspapers brought by Father Deglan.
Pegeen flounced in as Father Deglan’s face grew fiery. I hoped it was not to announce Michael McOstrich. And if it was, that Sissy
would shut up about cows and bulls.
‘’Tis Rickeen O’Shaunessy, the fiddler,’ whistled Pegeen. ‘Come to see about lunacy.’
At least that is what I thought she said. I learned afterwards that this annual festival in celebration of St Patrick’s victory over a heathen called Lug is spelled Lughnasa and pronounced LOOnăsă.
‘Oh dear!’ said Constance. ‘I’d quite forgotten. What’s the date today?’
‘It’s the twenty-sixth,’ said Kit.
‘Oh, no!’ Constance counted on her fingers. She looked at me. ‘Bobbie, what are we going to do? The entire district will be expecting to come for supper and dancing. In six days’ time!’
THIRTY-TWO
At half past six on the evening of the festival of Lughnasa I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror to check that it was clean. I had washed my hair and rinsed it with vinegar to banish any lingering odour of cows. To sugar the pill of having to share the profits of the shebeen, Constance, who had responded enthusiastically to the idea of turning the still into a source of income, had taken responsibility for the hens and I was learning to milk Siobhan, two jobs Timsy had always hated.
And it must be admitted that now Timsy had something to do that challenged his intelligence he worked hard. He had decided to diversify and to produce a superior poteen from grain as well as the less refined kind made from potatoes. To increase production we had invested in a second-hand immersion heater to replace the kettle element. The apple store was already filled to capacity with dustbins of bubbling fermenting liquid, leaving room only for Timsy and a single customer. The rest waited in the granary so as not to alert the suspicions of Mr Macchuin. Often I heard bursts of laughter and voices raised in song. It was fortunate that his visits to the stable yard were rare.
I was no longer afraid of Siobhan and was becoming more proficient at milking, though the muscles in my forearms were still weak and ached fearfully after each session. But there was something pleasurable about perching on the little stool up to my knees in clean creaking straw, something reposeful in the sound of the milk spurting into the white enamel pail and the grinding of giant molars as Siobhan steadily consumed the hay. Gradually we were learning to understand and trust each other. I was soothed by the flower-meadow smell of her silky skin, the turning and flicking of her soft ears, the occasional backward glances from the corners of her mild butterscotch eyes. I enjoyed doing something that had been done in the same simple way by women like me for thousands of years. The very monotony of the task was agreeable. Rhythmically, methodically, one squeezed out, with the fine stream of frothing milk, the little frets of the preceding hours.
Turning the handle of the separator in the still room afterwards brought further satisfaction. The bluish-white skimmed milk gushed from one spout while the thick yellow cream flowed more slowly from the other. The milk was refrigerated; the cream was left to lie in large shallow earthenware pans. Only the topmost unctuous layer was skimmed off the next day for butter-making. Katty and Pegeen disliked churning so I offered to do it when I had time. If the atmosphere was humid the butter took a long time to turn and your arm ached appallingly but the satisfaction of hearing the sudden slap, slap as the cream parted into lumps of gold and whey was hard to beat.
I leaned over the basin to put on lipstick and mascara, then stood back to examine the result.
The problem of what to wear to the party had been solved for me quite unexpectedly. Naturally I had brought no evening dresses with me, having expected to spend my term of servitude behind a green baize door. Constance and Liddy had been indignant when I had suggested I should stay behind the scenes.
‘Oh, all right then,’ I had said as we discussed the matter during lunch on the day after Rickeen O’Shaunessy’s visit. ‘Of course I shall be delighted to come.’ I had thought regretfully of one or two favourite things gathering moths and dust in my wardrobe at Cutham. ‘I can wear the smartest of my sundresses.’
Liddy was shocked. ‘You can’t! I mean, all your clothes are chic and groovy but you ought to have something long and glittery and exposing lots of flesh. Lughnasa’s the only chance we get. There’s the St Stephen’s Day dance but it’s always so bloody cold.’
‘Don’t swear, darling,’ said Constance in the sort of voice that does not expect to be listened to. ‘And you know Father Deglan has strong views about bare arms and necks.’
‘Bugger Father Deglan!’
Constance looked appealingly at Finn but he was staring out of the window.
‘Ah, well. As you say.’ Constance shrugged and returned to the question of what I was to wear. ‘I’d willingly lend you something of mine but I’m twice your size. Perhaps we could take something in.’
‘Three times would be nearer the truth,’ said Maud. ‘You’d have to remodel the dress entirely. Besides you have the taste of a provincial. Whatever her faults of character, Bobbie has an excellent figure and good style.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘I don’t think Bobbie has any faults of character,’ began Constance warmly. ‘She’s been perfectly angelic from the moment she arrived.’
‘Rather too fond of the men.’ Maud drained her glass of usquebaugh: a liqueur flavoured with coriander which she often drank instead of wine. ‘I’ll have another, Finn.’
Mr Macchuin stood up. His attention was drawn to the window. ‘Why are those people wandering about in the garden?’
‘They’ll be bringing provisions for the Lughnasa supper,’ Constance said quickly.
‘They aren’t carrying anything,’ he objected.
‘Don’t fuss, Finn, but give Maud another glass. Bobbie’s got it all in hand.’
Mr Macchuin did as he was told and then returned, frowning, to the window.
‘This is a particularly good vintage. I can feel it doing me good.’ Maud gave one of her rare smiles as she sipped the fulvous liquid. ‘Now, Bobbie, I have an entire room of dresses that I shall never wear again and you may choose one.’
‘Stone the crows!’ said Liddy. ‘This is more of a miracle than the liquefaction of St Gobnut’s bloody blood.’
‘Liddy!’ said Mr Macchuin but as he did not remove his eyes from the garden the reproof carried little weight.
The next day I had knocked on Maud’s door at the appointed hour. Her room was large and faced south. It contained some wonderful furniture but its beauty was marred by an enormous television: the only one in the house. Liddy complained about this continually for though Maud allowed her to watch it she would not compromise with other people’s tastes, particularly when racing and show-jumping were on.
A cruel fate had denied Maud her greatest pleasures, hunting and dancing, at a comparatively early age. She was fifty-eight, but looked much older. A bottle of usquebaugh and an ashtray filled with cigarette ends were always beside the bed. These and the television were opiates to deaden pain and disappointment, not the least of which must be the condition of Violet. Maud never talked about her to me, or to anyone else as far as I knew, but she must often have thought about that attic room where her only child lay in a state of insensibility.
When Constance had tried to interest Maud in our scheme for the better care of Violet, Maud had turned white and said, ‘You’re a fool for your pains, Constance Macchuin. Nothing can be done for her.’ She had struggled to her feet and gone out of the room immediately afterwards. When Maud was particularly hard and unpleasant I reminded myself what she had to bear.
‘This is terribly kind—’ I began.
‘It certainly is. Get on with it.’ Maud, who was lying on a sofa beside the fire, returned her eyes to the newspaper she was reading. But she added, without looking up, ‘When you’ve chosen let me see you in it.’
Leading from her bedroom was a large dressing room in which stood several racks of clothes. The evening dresses were, I guessed, mostly from the forties and fifties and so had lost any appearance of datedness and become Art. Though they reeked of damp, the fabrics were still
sumptuous, the cutting masterly. I tried on several before deciding on a dress of dark blue silk velvet with an overskirt of layers of tulle. It was strapless but over one shoulder was a trail of diamanté stars stitched to an almost invisible band of net. The stars flowed diagonally across the bodice to the waist from where they trickled down into the gathers of the tulle. It was supremely elegant and wildly romantic at the same time.
‘Balenciaga,’ said Maud when she saw me in it. ‘I wore that to a ball at Castletown in … when was it? Nineteen forty-six – or was it forty-seven?’
‘I can only just do it up round the waist. I’d better not eat anything for the next few days.’
Maud glanced down at her own bony frame with complacency. ‘I don’t suppose self-restraint is something that comes easily to a sensual nature such as yours.’
I repressed a smile. ‘I can’t say it does.’
‘You’d better nip it in the bud or it will be your undoing. Never forget that men want to do the chasing. Throwing yourself at a man’s head never did a woman any good.’ I thought I saw a spark of something like curiosity in her glance before she added with her usual disdain, ‘But you can please yourself about that. It’s nothing to me.’
‘Golly, I’m so envious!’ said Liddy, coming into the bathroom. ‘Why didn’t she lend it to me?’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But you look lovely. You’ve no reason to envy anyone.’
This was true. Liddy had put on weight and her skin was free from spots. She was wearing a white silk dress of Violet’s, which she had altered to fit her. Liddy had been taught by the nuns to sew and had only needed help with the cutting and pinning. She twirled across the floor towards me to display the full effect and then broke into a fit of sneezing.
‘Crikey! You don’t think you may have overdone the scent?’
‘Most probably I have.’ I had hung Maud’s dress before the fire for a day and a night but it still smelt as though it had been unearthed from the family vault. I had poured half a bottle of salts into my bath water and immersed myself afterwards in Shalimar. ‘You don’t detect damp?’
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