The Pig Comes to Dinner

by Joseph Caldwell

  But, of course, no return was possible. By thinking her thoughts, Kitty herself had given them life, and whether they could grow and prosper and inseminate other minds was beyond her control. She had done what she had done; she was doing what she was doing; and she must be prepared to accept whatever penalties might be imposed.

  The musicians—two fiddles, a pennywhistle, a bodhran, and a guitar—were playing, and the dancing had started, the steps choreographed generations before and lustily performed now by couples ranging from preteens through octogenarians, from the unbearably beautiful to the inordinately plain. Hair coloring went from black to white with in-between stops for blond, brown, carrot, tawny, and one purple. All shapes and sizes were represented, each made in God’s image, suggesting that the deity, like his human brothers and sisters, preferred to offer more than one version of himself to the rest of the world. The continuing exchange of partners guaranteed that the plain would in turn dance with the handsome, the ample would hook arms with the scrawny, the stompings made in unison with the entire people gathered to celebrate the castle—Kitty’s and Kieran’s reassured gain of it proof, if proof were needed, that the town and the countryside around were flexible enough to find both gain and loss as sufficient cause for communal rejoicing. A christening or a funeral would do nicely; the arrival of a returned relative, the imminent departure of an emigrant son—each would bring together with equal ease, if not the fatted pig on a spit, at least enough musicians (one could be enough) to rouse the blood and render the feet helpless after the first two notes had been sounded.

  Kitty, paired with Tim Tyson, accountant, wheeled and stomped and clapped her way through “Maggie in the Wood”—Tim stern in his determination to prove his knowledge of all the age-old intricacies; Kitty near-forgetful more than once but quickly recovering so that no major collision took place.

  When Kitty decided against the next dance, the polka “Bonnet Trimmed with Blue,” Tim was handed over to Peg Fitzgerald, who had been waiting with some impatience for a defection so she could exercise her feet before they did a jig all their own on the periphery of the dance floor. From then on it was up to Kitty’s nephew, Aaron, to uphold the McCloud reputation for being as superior at dancing as the McClouds invariably were at any other undertaking they might choose to favor with their prowess and skill.

  Aaron, in preparation for the event, had been initiated by Lolly in the ways of the Kerry dances and had proved a pupil of stunning receptivity. Lolly suspected some genetic memory but wondered as well if her husband was yet another example of that breed that had flourished among the Danes and the Normans who, once arrived on Irish shores, became more Irish than the Irish—a historical phenomenon from which the English had exempted themselves in a somewhat ornery fashion.

  The one moment, so far, of apprehension as to the success of the festivities came when both Kitty and Kieran, tending to the now perfectly roasted and unspitted pig, its full porcine length stretched out on a wide plank table, saw clambering over the stone wall at the far side of the field their very own resident pig, the one they had spared.

  She realized immediately that pandemonium was at hand. The pig would disrupt the dancing, interfere with the storytelling, and create general havoc among the guests, begging for food, rooting up the turf, and doing whatever mischief was potential to its nature. Most likely the entire project would now become a pig-catching contest. No one Kitty knew would exempt himself or herself from the sport. This would be the remembered event, an addition to local lore, the day we all tried to capture the pig. The winner would be numbered among the great heroes of Kerry. The goat of Puck Fair at Killorglin would be replaced by a pig; the triumphs of Wolfe Tone, the feats of Cuchulain would now be diminished when compared to whoever would finally take hold of the pig and wrestle it to submission.

  By rights, the job should be done by Aaron, now the designated pig person of the family, and, no doubt, he would give it a try. But who would be content to stand by and simply watch? Nor man nor woman, nor boy nor girl worthy of his or her birthright would forswear the chance to participate in the general chaos about to be unleashed by the pig. What Kitty and Kieran had to do—and without delay—was to deploy their forces to protect the tables of food and drink. They must not be overturned, upended, their contents sprawled onto the ground and mashed into the soil, the full energy of the feast now appropriated by the pig.

  The first sign of what lay ahead was the pig’s approach to the dancers, deflected by a boy of about ten, Bryan Kerwin, who jumped in front of it, clapped his hands, and yelled, “Suuueee! Suuueee!” Responding to this enticement, the pig galloped toward the seanchaí (the storyteller), its head lowered, preparing itself for a charge directly into the enthralled listeners. Now it was three boys slapping and shouting and stomping. “Suuueee! Suuueee!” Great cries of glee were interspersed among the shouts and assaults. Attracted by the promise of a riot, the four Tyson brothers set aside their Tullamore Dew and skipped and danced their merry way into the growing tumult.

  Now even the dancers were defecting, rushing into the fray with all the energy the dancing had excited. The pig, no doubt to make sure the sport would be prolonged, began a zigzag race across the field in the direction of the roasted pig. Immediately a phalanx formed in front of the table, not to protect Kieran’s greatest triumph, but to greet the animal and embroil themselves in what was quickly becoming the riot that everyone had hoped for, the mob further inflamed by its own yells, its own shoves and pushes, its own determination that no satisfaction this side of complete anarchy would be considered acceptable.

  The pig had not yet reached the waiting contestants when a strange thing happened. The pig stopped. Three boys in hot pursuit went flying headfirst over the pig’s now stilled body. Two more, plus a girl, stumbled and fell partly onto the pig and partly onto the first group of boys.

  After a few more tumblings onto the heap, the mob, too, began to quiet down, with only a few random shouts insisting that the contest be resumed. But what was the triumph in capturing a quiescent pig?

  With murmuring disappointment, the heap disentangled itself and completed the circle forming around the object of its bewilderment. Solidly the pig stood its ground, its head slightly raised, its ears strained backward. It was staring at the carcass, whose hams had already disappeared. When one of the Tysons slapped the staring pig on the rump, determined not to be deprived of the expected disorder, the pig made no response, neither a blink nor a twitch of the tail or the flick of the ears.

  A few more shouts, a clap of the hands, a feeble “suuee,” but to no avail. The chase was over. The pig had become completely uncooperative, just standing there, transfixed by the sight before it. It raised its head higher and let out a few small snorting sounds, taking from the air the scent of the roasted flesh of its own species. One more slap was tried. The pig remained intent. The festivities threatened to become a disappointment of major proportions, the participants without exception surly at this neutral outcome of the game in which they’d invested their full energies, their lifelong propensity for cacophony, and their congenital yearning for chaos—now all come to naught by an uncooperative pig. Low murmurings began; threats against the animal were being formulated. Soon the festivities would deteriorate into a sullen dissatisfaction far worse than the debacle threatened by the pig’s arrival. Future chronicles of the present age would record a day of thwarted expectations, eviscerated hopes; a day when promised anarchy was left unfulfilled.

  Kitty knew that a simple suggestion that the crowd disperse to its previous revels would do no good. She could dispense Tullamore Dew by the bucketful, but to no effect beyond an intensification of general complaint. She was tempted to offer a guarantee of rewards yet to come—without being in any way explicit—but thought it better not to invite speculation, much less a questioning she was most anxious to avoid.

  Then was heard the beat of the bodhran accompanied soon by the pennywhistle, with the fiddles not far behind. The tune o
f the polka “I Know What Mary Wants” was readily discerned, and, led by Aaron and Lolly, the dancers made their way back to the wooden flooring provided for their slappings and stompings. The music grew more assertive, the notes themselves now dancing in the air. One of the Tysons—Tim, or was it Ted?—began singing in a tenor voice pure and clear as the water of a mountain stream. Other voices caught up the words and sent them out toward the hills and into the heavens above. Tullamore Dew was brought back into action and the nettle soup was served. Sean O’Sullivan took up again the recitation of his story and quickly lured to his hearing even more ears than he’d commanded before.

  The first to disregard the pig’s transfixion at the edge of the glowing pit was Peter, just arrived, having missed the revels that had, so far, provided a defining distinction to the day’s doing. He held out a thick slice of gold-crusted bread onto which Kieran, with an attempt to renew the jollity enjoyed earlier, placed a juicy slab and said, “Tell me if you’ve ever tasted better, and I’ll slay myself on the spot.” The boy, in appreciation of his host’s wit, giggled and said, “No need to do that, I’m sure.”

  Kieran laughed in this throat, giving Peter his own appreciation of the boy’s highly sophisticated riposte. Immediately Peter bit off a chunk far in excess of his mouth’s capacity and, while chewing and shoving in the overhanging meat, made some pleased murmurs that were accepted by Kieran as the honest statement that was his only true reward. Unable not to challenge his luck, he said, “Good, eh?”

  “The greatest, I’ll have to say.”

  Kieran contented himself with a nod, at which the boy smiled, managing at the same time to further swell his cheeks with an additional push of the meat that had as yet refused to enter his mouth. It was then that the seanchaí got his attention, and he wandered off to find out which story was being told. Kieran had slapped a chunk of sizzling pork between two pieces of his best bread and now began to chew with a gusto consistent with his own generous response to all the good things of this world, and a tribute to his own contribution to roasted pork’s excellence. Never had he tasted better.

  After a second chew, the motion of his jaw began to slow. Kitty had come to his side and was helping herself to an extravagant ration. Just as she was about to clamp down on her first bite, Kieran’s hand stayed hers.

  “What?” She made another attempt, but again her husband forced down her arm. “What?” she repeated.

  “Look—the pig,” he said.

  “Look at it? I’m trying to eat it.”

  “No. The pig looking at the pig. See? It’s cross-eyed.” Kitty had taken advantage of Kieran’s pointing off to the left and had taken a generous bite of her sandwich. Dutifully she looked at the pig looking at the pig. It was, indeed, crosseyed. Her chewing slowed and then stopped completely. She was unable to swallow what she had already taken into her mouth, which, when she could speak, gave her words the garbled sound of someone with a mouthful of roasted pig. But Kieran understood them.

  “That—that’s the pig from Lolly and Aaron, the one we picked for the roasting.” She had mumbled so no one could hear. She looked down at the sandwich in her hand, then slowly placed it on the planks near the carving knife. The food in her mouth was moved from one cheek to the other, her eyes making the same motion, appealing first to her left, then to her right, for a solution to a somewhat disturbing bit of information. She knew now which pig she was eating. Accepting defeat she forced the passage of the food through her throat.

  “The butcher from Killarney took the wrong pig,” Kieran whispered. He, too, placed the remains of his sandwich on the plank, too stunned for his body to give a more demonstrative response. “I told them the pig in the pen.” His voice was unable to rise above a hoarse whisper.

  At this, Kitty almost succeeded in straightening herself from the crouch into which she had retreated. “The pig in— in the pen?”

  “Of course, the pig in the pen.”

  “Oh.”

  Kieran scrutinized his wife, who had decided to search among the revelers for someone who might help her in her present predicament. “What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  “Nothing means nothing. Everything means something. And I want to know what it is.” He was finding his voice. Her perplexity was fading; his suspicions were rising. When Kitty did no more than lick her lips, he said, “I definitely told them the pig in the pen. And now we see before us, live, the pig that was in the pen. Is there any explanation you might want to offer? If so, I would like very much to hear it.”

  “The—the pig in the pen was so restless—the one—the one in the pen, the one from Lolly’s. And any minute it was going to be taken away and—” Kitty sounded as if she were pleading, a tone and pitch so seldom used she had to struggle to release the words—“and you know. …”

  “I do know. And I want to know more.”

  “It kept pacing, like in the zoo. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like a panther. Except it’s a pig. And—and the other pig—” she made the slightest nod in the direction of the diminishing pig on the table—“the other pig—our pig—was just standing there, watching. And this—this made the pig in the pen pace even faster. And it—it was going to—well, you know. So it was all going to be over with and done. For the pig in the pen. And I—I—I decided—I decided—”

  “You decided to give the pig in the pen a few moments of freedom before the slaughter. And so there’d be no hassle between the two, the spectator pig—our pig—was put in the pen and the pig in the pen was allowed out. Am I right?”

  “For—for just a little bit. Allowed out, I mean.”

  “How much of a little bit?”

  “Well, I—I did get an idea, you know—about Tom in my novel. Tom Tulliver? It wouldn’t take more than a minute to write it out before I’d forget. But—but—well, you know how it is. You get yourself involved and—”

  “And they take the wrong pig. They take the pig in the pen. Our pig.”

  Before saying anything more, Kitty, trying to be lofty and casual at the same time, then elegant and dismissive, then straightforward and defiant, said, “Yes. They took the wrong pig. They took the pig in the pen.” She returned her gaze to her guests. She looked out over their heads as if nothing in the whole wide world would ever again be of any concern to her, immune as she was to all things that might bring shame or blame onto her singular head.

  After she’d satisfied herself that nothing within view required her attention, she looked at her husband with a bland stare that dared and, at the same time, begged him to say something. Anything. But before the hoped-for response was made, Peter came back, empty handed and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. “You were right. That was the best pig I ever ate. It tasted like none I’ve ever had. Was it you, Mrs. Swee—I mean, was it you, Miss McCloud, did it?”

  Kitty waved her right hand away, dismissing the very thought and demonstrating that any repentance was clearly not to be considered. “No, my husband. All the credit is his.”

  “Not quite all of it,” Kieran said, his voice as dry as dust. “My wife deserves some of the credit.” Kitty, with a slight movement of her shoulders that seemed to shake off her husband’s words, returned to her previous examination of the air about six inches above the heads of her guests.

  “Is it all right I have some more?” asked Peter.

  Not without much difficulty, Kieran steeled himself and, not without hesitation, picked up the finely honed knife, the blade catching the quick glint from the embers in the pit.

  He waved it near where the most recent slice had been cut, as if reluctant to make an incision. “Maybe,” he said to Peter; “maybe you’d like to do it yourself. You are seven, you said.”

  Peter, thrilled at the idea of taking on an adult responsibility, took the knife and, with an expertise Kieran—even in his present condition—had to admire, quickly relieved the carcass of a considerable portion of its flank. Peter giggled as he placed the me
at between the two pieces of bread, as if he had tickled the pig and was now providing the laughter unavailable to the animal itself. Still chewing his first bite, he asked, “Is Mr. Shaftoe coming here or just stopping at the castle?”

  It was Kieran who answered. “I doubt if Mr. Shaftoe will put in an appearance either here or at the castle.”

  “But he should be there by now.”

  It was Kitty who spoke. “Now?”

  “Unless he was just driving around.” Peter took in another fair-sized chunk of his sandwich, too big to fit into his mouth. He pulled part of it free, held it in his hand and looked down at it, giving it the same degree of attention he had given the mucus chip and the bit of shattered stone. “I don’t think he should go into the castle,” Peter said between munchings. “I yelled after him about the gunpowder and the ghosts, but maybe he didn’t hear. Should someone go tell him?” With that, he put the scrutinized bit of meat into his mouth.

  Kitty had already waded in among the guests before Kieran, who had stopped at the dance floor and told Aaron to take care of the carving, caught up with her. He didn’t bother looking at his wife. “Are you going to the castle?”

  “Nothing for you to worry about. It—it’s just he’s not supposed to be there. He—he’s trespassing. And I won’t have it. I’ll be right back.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’ll go too. He might—he might be more—cooperative if I’m there as well.”

  Now they were pushing their way through the guests, returning quick nods and fake smiles as they were showered with comments about the food, the music, the dancing, whatever polite things they could quickly summon and offer to their speeding hosts. “It’s all right,” Kitty said to Kieran. “You’re needed here. I’ll go.”