The Pig Comes to Dinner

by Joseph Caldwell

  His lordship had a bit of trouble lifting away the old wooden trapdoor that closed off the sky. Kitty offered to give it a shove, but he insisted. This was, after all, to be his castle. Its components must be made to submit.

  They gained the battlements.

  Off to the north the hills rose and fell, the modest mountains worn down by the inexorable ages, by wind and by rain, by every scourge the heavens had to offer, but rising still with a comforting solemnity against the sky. Green they were with low walls built stone by stone wrested one at a time from the earth, the walls parceling off one man’s field from another man’s pasture, giving way to commonage on the higher slopes that led to the summit. Massive white rocks lay easily in the sun, awaiting the next upheaval. Sheep, too, were placed without discernable pattern against the land, the herds moving at a glacial pace to fields considered yet more green. One glint, then another, flashed from the stream. The gray roads, bordered by riots of fuchsia and honeysuckle, threaded through. The slate roofs of the cottages were allowed to seem blue in the afternoon sun. A pickup truck and a bus were on their way to town, which consisted of a huddling of houses not visible even from this height.

  Lord Shaftoe, standing at the battlement, negligible chin raised, took in the view, satisfied with what he saw. A slight breeze tried without success to lift the crumpled silk of his tie. As Kitty watched, he turned to the west, toward the sea. Two curraghs bobbed in the waters off Dunquin, and a ferry from Dingle was headed toward the Great Blasket, the island’s slow upsweep a final mute thrust toward the mysteries of the sea itself.

  Again Lord Shaftoe seemed approving of what lay before him. Or, it seemed to Kitty, he stood motionless as if he were a monarch accepting the homage and obeisance of his realm.

  It came to Kitty then that she would come from behind and, with one great heave, lift and shove him down from the battlements onto the stones below. Dispatching him at this moment of high pride all the more ensured that his descent would not end at the foot of the tower but continue on into the netherworld.

  The strength was growing in Kitty’s back and in her arms. She could feel the roused muscles of her legs, the firming of her stomach. Her lungs, too, assured her of their ready assistance. All her being was summoned for the event. And look there! His lordship’s chest was expanding. He was appropriating the air itself. A great wealth of purpose rose in Kitty’s soul. The time was now.

  But before she could make the fateful lunge, another prompting, Hamlet-like, presented itself. If she were to dispatch him now she would be robbing herself of the great moment that had been promised when his lordship would be, in the truer sense, cast down. When he would be told in terms irrefutable and beyond appeal that he had been misinformed, that he had indulged in illusions and encouraged imaginings. The castle was not to be his after all. It belonged in perpetuity to Kitty McCloud and Kieran Sweeney. Every word and gesture of this afternoon would return to him revised and vivified by this devastation. Could Kitty possibly deny herself the sight of his lordship divested of all his presumptions, denied all his delusions? The words written by her fellow Irish writer came quickly to mind: “Absent thee from felicity a while—”

  Surrendering to the certainty of this greater satisfaction, Kitty dismissed the reinforcement that had brought her the added strength needed for her now abandoned purpose. From her back and legs she released the taut muscles. Her stomach was told to hang loose. And, while she was at it, she might as well unclench her teeth and allow the heated blood to drain from her cheeks.

  When, however, his lordship turned toward her—but looking past rather than directly at her—and said, “Yes, this will all do very nicely,” Kitty found her strength returning and her blood rising all over again. Down he must go—and with not another minute permitted to pass.

  But then, an interception: far, far out along the horizon, coming up out of the sea, was an empurpled cloud stretching from one end of the ocean to the other. The needed storm was on its way, the rumored drought was not to plague them after all. Rescue was at hand, advancing toward them over the waters of the deep. The curraghs were nosed toward Dunquin. The Dingle Ferry was on its own. She was returned to her second resolve. She’d wait. She’d savor. All in expectation of the tardy arrival of justice.

  Kitty told the poor man to go ahead down the narrow stair, she would replace the trapdoor in its own idiosyncratic way now that the storm was coming. She was reasonably sure Brid and Taddy would not be at their tasks, and she was proved right. But, unnoticed by his lordship, the harp had been set on the stool and the shuttle placed safely on the frame of the loom. Whether she and Taddy were there in the growing shadows she could not tell, but when a quick flash of lightning flared in the room she thought she saw, off in the corner, Brid sitting on the other stool, her head bowed into her hands, her black, black hair falling over her knees. But in the great crash of thunder all was obliterated as a sudden dark filled the room.

  Kitty, leading now, helped his lordship down into her workroom, having—at his request—to hold his fine-fingered hand as they descended. Just before they reached the final flight that would lead to the long hallway, the man said, “Scarlet Feather?”

  Tonelessly Kitty said, “Maeve Binchy.”

  “Oh yes. Of course. Very good it was, too.”

  Through growing glooms Kitty led him along the gallery and into the great hall. By now the storm was in full flood, the thunder and lightning reveling in the mayhem.

  “I don’t suppose you have an extra umbrella?” his lordship asked.

  Rather than tell a lie, Kitty simply said, “If you get wet, you’ll get dry.”

  With a small smile, indicating he had not the least idea what she meant, his lordship stepped out into the storm. As Kitty was closing the door she saw him raise his right hand, palm opened upward, to confirm the fact that it had indeed begun to rain on his lordly and unprotected head.

  8

  Maude McCloskey, the Seer—or, to Kitty’s preferred thinking, the Hag—had four children, the eldest away in Cork, the remaining at home when Kitty came to call. Two girls and one boy, they seemed to be aged five to nine for the girls with the boy stuck somewhere in between at about seven. They were sitting on the floor, a gray-green wall-to-wall carpet, playing cards. The turned-on television was close enough to suggest that the sports commentators going about their business could, if they chose, peer over the shoulder of the boy and the older girl, and read their cards.

  At first Kitty guessed they were playing poker—cards were being dealt, discarded, laid out before them—but closer scrutiny informed her that those laid out had no recognizable relationship one to the other. It would have to be a game with which she was unfamiliar. But then it seemed possible that they’d made up the game themselves—perhaps improvising as they went along. Her next guess was that they were simply aping with their movements and comments what they had observed when their elders had played. But even that had to be revised when, from time to time, their mother would lean forward and direct the youngest, Ellen, to play a particular card, which she would then do, much to her advantage— and, rather surprising—to the amusement of her brother and sister.

  They apparently accepted this as evidence of the girl’s prowess, ignoring completely their mother’s intervention. The older girl was called Margaret and the boy Peter—not because it was his name, but because his baptismal name was Stanislaus, the same as his father’s, and the household could accommodate only one Stanislaus at a time. So the name Peter was brought in as substitute.

  Kitty had come to ask the Hag how she might get rid of Brid. Kieran was, to Kitty’s thinking, too far gone for rational measures to be of any use. Brid must therefore be dispatched as soon as possible. Kitty knew that great wrongs had been done to the girl, and that quiescence was impossible until some modicum of justice had been realized. But what act or actions might restore the needed moral balance was beyond Kitty’s present powers. The miscreant, the Lord Shaftoe who had ordered the han
gings, was long gone and, presumably, already judged by a power even higher than Kitty McCloud. To reach back into history and pluck him into the present seemed an unlikely achievement. What was required was nothing less than some reconciliation of things of earth with the things of heaven. Somewhere along the line, by whatever mixed signals, some earthly incompletion was let stand, or, quite possibly, ignored by the Eternal Conciliator Himself for reasons of His own. Or could it be that the present predicament had not yet come to the attention of the Supreme Arbiter? Or, worst of all, had everything long since been known by the Almighty but been dismissed as of no interest? Had it been decreed that, at some point, the lesser beings inhabiting a not very prominent planet should, on occasion, be required to figure things out for themselves? More intellectual equipment had been given to them than had been put to use. Divine inspiration shouldn’t have to do all the work. Kitty should be able to discover the formula suited to her present needs. Her situation, after all, had not been imposed upon her. No one had told her to buy Castle Kissane. Nothing but her inborn recklessness, her overevolved urge toward risk, had suggested that she, Francis and Helen McCloud’s little girl Caitlin, should install herself as chatelaine—and now she must pay the price beyond the euros already paid.

  That, Kitty had no objection to doing. She’d been doing it since her wedding day, when Brid and Taddy announced their residency. But now human frailty, in the form of a husband, had intervened. Kitty had no fear of rivals—unless, of course, the rival was not only young and supremely beautiful but also predestined by the nature of the predicament to remain so while Kitty, with all her admitted advantages of looks and intelligence and talent, was subject nevertheless to the claims of time.

  Brid must go. She, Kitty, would be doing her a favor. Brid deserved better than her current situation allowed. And Kitty, with characteristic kindness, would see to her release, as soon as truths as yet unvouchsafed were placed into her resolute hands. It was the Hag who must provide her with whatever clues she might possess, which accounted for Kitty’s present visit.

  “It’s been a full week,” Mrs. McCloskey was saying, “since Peter’s wet the bed, and we’re crossing our fingers for another week. Ellen sleeping next to him is particularly pleased, since he would be wetting her as much as the bed. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a bit of something else in your tea?” She began tipping a bottle of Tullamore Dew in the direction of Kitty’s cup.

  “No, this is fine. The tea’s really quite good as it is.”

  “Ah, yes. If there’s one thing I know it’s how to make a good cup of tea.” Hearing this, Kitty thought it impolite to mention that Peter had made the tea. And besides, Mrs. McCloskey was far advanced in the one topic she considered suitable entertainment: her children. “Now Margaret,” the woman went on, “Margaret there seems to be developing asthma like her aunt, but I’ve warned her it’d better be a chest cold because she could die of asthma with the next attack. Her aunt went just like”—she snapped her fingers— “same age as Margaret is now. So she’s been duly warned.” She reached down, studied Ellen’s cards, pulled one out, and placed it on the rug. Again Peter’s and Margaret’s pleasure at this stunning move was immediately apparent.

  “Ellen’s going to win!” Peter laughed at the inevitability. Margaret, too, rejoiced. “She’s going to beat.”

  Mrs. McCloskey smoothed Ellen’s hair, then, sitting back in her chair—overstuffed, a darker green than the carpet— whispered to Kitty, “Peter’s the one to watch. And to think I was furious the day I found out he was on his way inside my belly. I could have killed Stanislaus. But I decided to send the dear man off to work in Cork instead, where he can send the better part of his wages and we can get ourselves organized around here. But look at Peter now. He’s the one to watch.” Mrs. McCloskey looked toward the television, where the inevitable soccer game was being played, this one on some foreign field where there seemed to be more dust than grass underfoot. The commentators were discussing one of the athletes—someone with an unpronounceable name— which suggested that he was a foreign import on the Irish team. Satisfied with what she saw and heard, Maude tipped a few more drops of whiskey into her teacup, possibly in celebration, then gave her attention to the cards in Peter’s hand.

  Not always a beauty, Mrs. McCloskey was now having a time of revenge. She had, over the years of her marriage and childbearing, become “handsome” in the extreme. Her figure had become more ample, but in perfect proportion one feature to the other. Without resorting to measurements, Kitty could tell that the ratio of her bosom to her waist, to her hips, and to her buttocks was more than presentable. Her hair had calmed itself after several torturings she’d executed during her youth and was now a thick, straight black, pulled strongly together and gathered in a becoming bun. Her lips had filled rather than thinned, her teeth—her own, Kitty was fairly sure—were even, white, and could come close to a dazzle when she smiled, which was often, the woman having a neardemented ability to be joyful at the least provocation. And, in contrast to the animated mouth, the eyes, dark brown, managed to remain serene at all times, reflecting perhaps an inner being quietly pleased with herself and all her works. A woman could do worse, Kitty thought, than advance in the direction so successfully traveled by Maude McCloskey, Hag or no Hag.

  Raising her teacup with one hand, handsome Maude tapped the seven of diamonds Peter was holding and directed Ellen to take it. “This one,” she said. When Ellen drew the card from her brother’s hand, Peter let out a half laugh, half holler. “No, not that one!” he cried, giving full expression to his delight at so masterful a coup on his sister’s part.

  Kitty’s one hope was that the game would end and the children sent out to play or do chores or get kidnapped. She must question Mrs. McCloskey about disposing of Brid.

  As if to let Kitty know that she rather enjoyed having her children about, Maude next began extolling the virtues of Ellen, which consisted mainly of her no longer eating from the dog’s dish. She held out the Tullamore Dew and pantomimed tipping some into Kitty’s cup. Kitty shook her head no and, so as not to waste the gesture, Mrs. McCloskey let a few more drops fall into her own cup.

  “Of course, Joey—that’s the dog—Joey helped. Can you see the little scab on Ellen’s nose? That’s from the last bite she got. Mostly Joey went for her chin, and once her ear, but apparently the nose was what was needed to make its point. But don’t give Joey all the credit; Ellen promised she wouldn’t do it again—and she’s kept her promise, the way she always does.”

  A roar was raised on the television and three players— Irish as far as Kitty could tell from their uniforms—were threatening an official. “That’s it, boys!” Mrs. McCloskey called out to the set. “We’re out to win and let no man take it from us!” On her way to bringing her attention back to Kitty, she gave a cursory glance at Margaret’s cards, took a three of spades and put it in on the rug. Peter quickly grabbed it up and added it to his hand, discarding a four of hearts. Pleased with her accomplishment, Mrs. McCloskey whispered again, “I told you. Peter’s the one to watch.”

  Desperate, Kitty considered bringing up the subject in front of the children, since it was obvious they were going to be in attendance throughout her visit. But she was afraid to open herself to ridicule, or to questions—to which she would have answers she would just as soon not give. She could, of course, tell them to mind their own business and get on with their game, but then Mrs. McCloskey, offended by this affront to her cherished children, might clam up and refuse Kitty the knowledge she’d come to seek.

  An alternative could be an invitation to Mrs. McCloskey to come some day soon to the castle, but there could be no doubt that she’d turn up with her precious children in tow, and Joey as well. A guided tour would be required. The children would run rampant through the halls, screaming in search of echoes, grabbing at each other and saying, “Boo,” and wanting to use the bathroom. There would have to be biscuits and cake. There would have to be Coca-Cola. Joey wou
ld harass the cows. The pig would harass Joey. Sly would slink off and hide for the next two days. The loom would be broken, the harp destroyed. Worst of all, the children might see Brid and Taddy and laugh at the way they were clothed, then scream with delight when they vanished right before their very eyes and insist that the poor apparitions do it again. Kitty could, of course, inadvertently lock them in the dungeon.

  For one of the few times in her life, Kitty was at a loss. Perplexed by an experience so rare, she smiled at Mrs. McCloskey and said, “Maybe I will have a drop after all.”

  “That’s my girl.” Kitty had to steady the woman’s hand after far more than a few drops had been poured into her cup. “Too kind,” Kitty said, trying unsuccessfully to part her upper teeth from her lower.

  Now Mrs. McCloskey was giving her full attention to the television, kneading her knee, closing and opening her fist. “Thieves! Thieves!” For not more than a second, the three children turned toward the television. Their expectations were quickly disappointed—no outright thievery was apparent, merely a group of grown men rushing in more than several directions at once—so they returned their concentration to their cards, with Peter putting down a jack of hearts and neither Margaret nor Ellen the least bit impressed.

  After a fortifying gulp of tea, Kitty said, “Do you think we might talk in private?”

  Surprised and bewildered, Mrs. McCloskey, for the first time since Kitty had entered the cottage, focused her gaze on her guest. “But this is private,” she said. “No one here but family.”