Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  As Fionn held the curragh, his father carried Mairead over the waves to the shore. Tugging against the sand, Fionn brought the boat onto the beach. Rowan hopped out and ran up the shore.

  “Rowan! Wait!” Rebecca called, as she stepped out of the curragh.

  Mairead and Rebecca followed Rowan up the beach. As they came to the crest of a dune, Rowan stopped. Coming up behind her daughter, Rebecca found a very small asphalt road and across it, a single-story white house sitting within a stone wall fence. It was longer than the cottage Rebecca was staying in and had a little herb garden at the door.

  “We’ll see ya a little later,” Fionn Sr. said as he and his son stepped onto the road.

  “You’re not coming in?” Rebecca asked.

  “We’ll see how Iollan’s getting on. That boy always has trouble with his boat,” he replied.

  Rebecca crossed the road, following Mairead and Rowan through the little red gate in the stone fence. Smoke rose from the chimney, which peeped out of the thatch of the house. The front door was red and wide-open.

  “Mum!” Mairead called.

  “Here I am,” Mairead’s mother replied from the kitchen.

  “I’ve brought Becky, Sharon’s friend from the States, and her daughter, Rowan.”

  Standing next to her cooker, Mairead’s mother took her daughter into her arms. The woman was thin, with silver-gray hair pulled back into a bun. She wore jeans and a deep blue knit shirt, which was reflected in her eyes, making them appear as blue as lapis.

  “Ah—you’ve come to see the ganseys.”

  “Yes!” Rebecca replied.

  “Rebecca, this is my mother, Ina.”

  “Very nice to meet you.”

  “Come. Sit. I have tea.”

  Rebecca sat down at the table, which was pulled close to the fireplace. Rowan knelt by the fire, fingering a bag of loose wool and a hand spindle.

  “Rowan, don’t touch,” Rebecca said.

  Rowan stopped and looked up at her mother.

  “She can help,” Ina said, bringing the tea to the table. “You know how to spin?”

  “Me and Siobhan are just learning from her mum.”

  “Go ahead and practice, then,” Ina offered.

  Rowan picked up the hand spindle and the wool that was attached to it.

  “Mairead was the one who knitted the shanachie gansey for you,” Ina said.

  Rebecca smiled a little and shrugged. “It was beautiful,” she said, her breath catching a little. She did not want to talk about that little sweater—the little magic sweater that Rowan wore on her first visit with Dennis.

  “Every child born to the island gets one. My husband’s mother taught me to knit them and I taught Mairead. Do you teach Rowan to knit?” Ina poured milk into three cups.

  “Uh—no. I haven’t gotten around to that yet.”

  “Good for her to learn while she’s here, then,” Ina replied, filling the cups with tea.

  Mairead sat down at the table and slid the sugar bowl closer to Rebecca.

  “If you have a gansey you’re working on, Mum, maybe Becky would like to see it.”

  Ina nodded, putting her teacup to her lips and peering at Rebecca with her lapis-colored eyes.

  “I do. Two little ones for the wee ones in there,” Ina replied, reaching over and patting her daughter’s stomach. Rebecca swallowed a large gulp of tea. It burned her throat as it went down.

  “I suppose, since Becky has already seen the shanachie gansey, it wouldn’t interest her,” Ina said.

  Rebecca didn’t answer. Her heart was beating in her ears so loudly, she thought if she spoke, she’d yell over it.

  “Did you know, Becky, that some say the ganseys were knitted by men?” Ina asked.

  “Men?” Rebecca whispered, trying to control her voice.

  “When the English were a power in the country, it’s said the women spun the wool and the men knitted the ganseys. It was a code—information passed silently between them as they walked by each other or shook hands—met after Mass or had a pint in the pub.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Rebecca replied with great interest. “You know any men who knit?”

  Ina shook her head, sipping her tea. She looked down at Rowan. “Some say that’s how the patterns came to be. Messages passed from one person to another when a spoken word could not. We are a people of the spoken word. Imagine living in a world upside down—where you cannot speak your language, where you cannot tell your children what you value or your legends or your myths. That was our world for hundreds of years. A prison of silence. But we found a way, and that way, some say, is the patterns of the gansey. One man to another—planning freedom. One father to his sons—weaving the future.”

  “That’s a beautiful legend, Ina,” Rebecca said.

  Mairead’s mother smiled. “There are many legends about how the stitches came to be, Becky. You hear the one about the body washing ashore?”

  “Yes, that’s the one Sharon talked about when we were in college.”

  “Now you know the one about the men knitting their messages. There’s another one. It concerns mistakes.”

  “Mistakes,” Rebecca repeated, wishing she had brought a notepad or her DVD camera. She had been so worried about the trip in the curragh, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that she might need to bring her recording equipment. Worry did that to her. It got in her way, and now she was frustrated with herself.

  “Some say the patterns arose out of mistakes made while knitting. That’s really all they are. Errors.”

  “That’s not very—I mean, that isn’t true, is it?”

  Ina laughed. “No one really knows what’s true about these stories. It isn’t as romantic as the other stories. Now that’s true.”

  Rebecca thought for a moment and then giggled. “Can you imagine if I got this grant and then wrote that? ‘These sweaters are really great, but they’re just a bunch of mistakes.’ ”

  They laughed, Rebecca most of all.

  “Aye. Not a very good book. But it is something to think on,” Ina said.

  The tone of Ina’s voice caught Rebecca’s attention. “What’s to think on?” she asked.

  “That something truly beautiful can arise from a mistake.”

  With wide eyes, Rebecca looked into Ina’s lapis blue gaze, and the older woman smiled at her and then peered down at Rowan.

  CHAPTER 20

  Zigzag/Bobble Within/Ribbing Within

  Zigzag/Bobble Within/Ribbing Within. 1. A single zigzag with a single bobble in the ”zig” and ribbing in the “zag.” 2. A memory of someone loved.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  As Rebecca picked up the rest of the lunch sandwiches and tea-cups from Ina’s table, Fionn, his father, and a man as old as Eoman with brown hair and hazel eyes came through the door.

  “Mum?”

  “Have you met my son, Iollan, Becky?”

  “OO-lan. Hi,” Rebecca said with a smile.

  “You ready to go catch some dinner, Rowan?” Fionn asked.

  “Yeah!” Rowan said, dropping her hand spindle and wool by the fireplace.

  “What are you doing?” Rebecca asked.

  “Since we’re all here,” Fionn Sr. said, “we thought it would be fun for Rowan to come fishing in the curragh. No safer place to fish than in a curragh with three fishermen on a clear day off the islands.”

  “We do need supper,” Ina agreed.

  Rebecca peered over at Fionn as he crossed the room toward her.

  “We’ll be especially watchful,” he said, brushing her shoulder with his warm hand. “My dad and I and Iollan. ‘No what-ifs.’ ”

  “No what-ifs,” Rebecca repeated, though saying “No what-ifs” was easier for her than feeling no what-ifs.

  “Excellent! Come on, Rowan,” Fionn said.

  Rebecca and Mairead followed the men and Rowan out to the beach. Rowan sat alone in the curragh as Iollan, Fionn, and his father pushed the boat out into the waves. In unison, they
all flipped themselves into the curragh, with Fionn and Iollan on the oars and Fionn Sr. seated next to Rowan.

  “She’ll have fun,” Mairead said. “Very mild in the water today.”

  “Sharon says the weather can turn, though,” Rebecca replied, watching the boat bob in the sea.

  “Aye. But someone as old as Sean can tell. He’s not been wrong yet.”

  “Sean?” Rebecca turned her head to Mairead.

  “Fionn’s father confirmed the weather with Paddy this morning. Sean always reports changes to Paddy.”

  “I see. So, if he’s always right about the weather, how is it he lost his sons?”

  Mairead gazed at Rebecca, tilting her head as if listening to a far-off sound, her brow furrowing.

  “I—I’m sorry, Mairead. I didn’t mean to upset you—”

  “It’s not that, Becky. But thinking about that night always turns to Claire for my family. She was my great-aunt.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know Sharon’s story—the one about bodies washing ashore, identifiable only by the gansey they wear?”

  “Yes.”

  “That happened only once that I know of—and I would know, wouldn’t I? My family’s Dirane.”

  “Yes. The shawn-a—”

  “Shanachies. Matthew washed ashore. It was morning and seemed clear the day they set out, just as it had been the day before and the day before that. Joe, Sean’s second son—let’s see, he would have been twenty-seven years old at the time—had been telling all the families a storm was coming. He’d been saying it for eight days because a mistle thrush had been singing when there was no wind.”

  “What’s a mistle thrush?”

  “A tiny bird that sings through gales.”

  “Ah. We have a nest of them next to our bedroom,” Rebecca said, smiling.

  “They’re good luck. So Joe said the storm is coming. Sean’s spine always hurts. A piece of shrapnel is lodged to this day in the middle of his back—a gift given him by the Nazis during the war. The week before he lost his sons, the shrapnel moves, so the doctor says, as Sean set the net upon its pulley. He’s ordered to stay off his feet until he can get to the mainland to have an X-ray to see how close that piece of metal is to his spine. Then the engine goes out, and on the day of the storm the boat’s still not workin’, and so his sons don’t go out before sunrise with the rest of the fleet. All the rest fish, go to market, and return by the time the boat is fixed. Sure as I am standing here, the sky looks clear, and the Morahan boys go out and doesn’t it just turn—a great gale out of the south on a summer’s day. Very queersome. It blows in like it was gonna wipe the islands away, and it was Sean’s sons who were caught in it. The oldest boy, Matthew, his body was the only one that came ashore. On the sand near your house.”

  “Where we left this morning?”

  “Aye. They couldn’t tell who it was, so Padrig Blake—that’s Paddy Blake’s dad. You’ve heard of him?”

  Rebecca nodded.

  “Padrig Blake took the jumper from the body and brought it to Sean’s house. When Mary, Matthew’s wife, saw it, she became so caught up in grief that she went into labor.”

  “She was pregnant?”

  “About six months along,” Mairead replied. “She had the baby there, in Sean’s house, but it had come early.”

  “It didn’t die,” Rebecca whispered.

  “That it did. ’Twas a girl. Claire they named it. Mary started to bleed and they couldn’t get her off the island because of the storm.”

  “Oh, she didn’t die.” Rebecca shook her head, not sure she wanted to know any more.

  “She did.” Mairead was quiet for a minute. “Terrible it was. Left a mark on all who lived through it. All the old people still go quiet when it’s spoken of. Wasn’t long after that, my great-aunt Claire left.”

  “Rose and Liz mentioned that. They said they didn’t know why she left.”

  Mairead grew quiet, gazing out at the ocean. Rebecca followed her gaze. The curragh had disappeared.

  “Where’d they go?” Rebecca asked as softly as if she stood in a church.

  “To the west, if I know my brother. He said he saw salmon that way. You ever eaten planked salmon?”

  Rebecca shook her head.

  “Ah,” Mairead replied, grinning. “Come. My father’s mother was from the mainland and swore by oak. My brother always keeps us stocked with it. He has my father’s fishing boat. It’s old, but it makes a living.”

  “He catches oak?” Rebecca asked, confused, as she climbed the dune back to Ina’s house.

  Mairead laughed. “No, salmon. He brings the oak back from Galway. If he’s seen salmon, he’ll bring one home.”

  Rebecca was still confused, but she followed Mairead up to her mother’s house anyway. They walked around the back, and in a shed they found a stack of wooden planks. Mairead pulled out four. Carrying the wood around the east side of the house, Rebecca found a pit with a stack of firewood next to it. A deep pail sat near the house, and Mairead and Rebecca filled it with water from a spigot near the front door. Ina shuffled outside and pushed the planks into the pail of water as Rebecca set about lighting the fire.

  The sun slid west as the fire matured. With a great cry of triumph, Rowan came flying over the dune, followed by Fionn, his father, and Iollan, each carrying a gutted salmon. Iollan wrapped one of the fish in paper from the house and handed it to his mother for storing. The other two he filleted, creating four separate pieces.

  Iollan set the four soaked planks on the coals of the fire. Fionn and Rebecca watched the coals as Iollan, Fionn Sr., and Rowan went down to the curragh and pulled Iollan’s net out of the boat. By the time they returned, the planks were smoking and crackling. Iollan turned the planks over so the charred side was up, placed one of the four salmon fillets skin side down on each plank, sprinkled each with salt, then covered the pit with a large aluminum pot.

  Setting the kettle on to boil, Ina made tea as Iollan poured four pints—one for each fisherman and one for Rebecca. Ina and Mairead stayed inside to make potatoes and kale as everyone else headed out the door to watch the fire. Rowan played “My Lagan Love” several times, and Rebecca, warmed by the beer, the fire, and Rowan’s music, watched Fionn, who laughed as his father tried to sing along with the little girl. Her pipe was far too high a pitch for his voice. Fionn’s dark eyes reflected the floating embers of the fire and to Rebecca they appeared as a summer night’s sky, soft and black. He gazed over at her and she quickly looked down, smiling at Rowan, who sat yawning by the fire.

  It took forty-five minutes for the salmon to cook. Iollan finally pulled it from the fire as the oak planks continued to pop and smoke and took it into the house. They all followed and sat down at Ina’s table for the meal. The fish was brown and smelled of smoke, and as Rebecca put a piece in her mouth, the smooth, salty flavor rolled around on her tongue. It was, as she stated to all there, the best salmon she had ever eaten.

  The sky was purple when Fionn and his father pulled away from the shore. Rebecca looked over her shoulder and waved to Ina and Iollan. As the boat bobbed to the south, Rowan curled up beside her mother and fell asleep. Rebecca looked east and west, but not south, for Fionn was right in front of her, pulling on the oars.

  “Remember we were talking about Sean,” Mairead said quietly from behind.

  “Yes,” Rebecca replied.

  “I’ve heard Sean has taken a liking to Rowan,” she said.

  “Has he?” Rebecca asked, glancing down at her daughter.

  “Paddy says he’s quite changed. Even Siobhan says he’s nicer now.”

  “Well, I’ve told Rowan to stay away from him,” Rebecca said. “He’s got a nasty streak to him that she experienced the day she arrived here. It’s only a matter of time before it comes out again.”

  Rebecca gazed through the purple light at Fionn. He was pulling on the oars, staring at the bottom of the boat. There was no sound but the water and the oars.

  “To un
derstand why Claire left, you should understand why she first stayed,” Mairead said.

  “I know why she stayed,” Rebecca said coldly.

  “Oh? And why is that, Becky?”

  Rebecca looked west, clenching her jaw, thinking of raspberry sherbet and green knitted dresses. She said nothing.

  “Matthew, Joe, Liam, and Brendan,” Mairead continued. “There was eight years between Joe and Liam. Six of those years were the war. In those other two years, Claire had three stillbirths. Three, and all of them girls.”

  Rebecca rubbed her daughter’s hair.

  “My mother used to say Sean was a tyrant. That’s what she and Claire would call him. It was funny at first because he wanted things to be just so when he married Claire. Perfect in every way for her because he was so in love with her. And Matthew came and then Joe. He became a little tougher with each birth. He was raising his boys and boys had to be men and men have to be tough. So his father had raised him, his mother passing when Sean was but a boy.”

  “They don’t really, Mairead,” Rebecca said.

  “Well, Becky, that’s true. Claire knew that. Sean—Sean knew different. He was raised by his father, and his father was tough on him—to make him a man. Claire said he struggled to not be like his father, but then sons came.

  “So Sean was a tyrant and it just got worse with the birth of each son, as I’ve said. By the time Brendan was born, Claire couldn’t come visit us anymore. Sean kept her close, just as he kept his sons. And he made it unbearable for us to visit her. He talked to her so terrible when we left that she just didn’t invite us anymore. Just like his father had done when Sean was a boy, he kept his family apart from the rest of the island. Claire’s only day to visit with others was Sunday after Mass. Finally, by God’s grace, Matthew married. Mary was her name, and Claire seemed so much brighter after Mary came to live with them.”

  “They lived together in that house?”

  “They did have plans to build another next door when the baby came.”