Irish Mist

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “ ‘I pointed to the lace school near us, and asked him how the girls got on with the lace, and if they earned much money. “I’ve heard tell,” he said, “that in the four schools round about this place there is near six hundred pounds paid out in wages every year, and that is a good sum; but there isn’t a young girl going to them that isn’t saving up, and saving up till she’ll have enough gathered to take her to America, and then away she will go, and why wouldn’t she?”

  “ ‘Often the worst moments in the lives of these people are caused by the still frequent outbreaks of typhus fever, and before we parted I asked him if there was much fever in the particular district where we were.

  “ ‘ “Just here,” he said, “there isn’t much of it at all, but there are places round about where you’ll sometimes hear of a score and more stretched out waiting for their death; but I suppose it is the will of God. Then there is a sickness they call consumption that some will die of; but I suppose there is no place where people aren’t getting their death one way or other, and the most in this place are enjoying good health, glory be to God! For it is a healthy place and there is a clean air blowing.”

  “ ‘Then, with a few of the usual blessings, he got up and left us, and we walked on through more of similar or still poorer country. It is remarkable that from Spiddal onward—that is, in the whole of the most povertystricken district in Ireland—no one begs, even in a roundabout way. It is the fashion, with many of the officials who are connected with relief works and such things, to compare the people of this district rather unfavorably with the people of the poor districts of Donegal; but in this respect at least Donegal is not the more admirable.’ ”

  Gerry closed the book solemnly.

  He sighed loudly. So did the rest of us. We waited in silence. He cleared his throat. “It was only a little better when herself and I were growing up. Not so much hunger and a lot less consumption, but until 1960 it was still pretty grim. It seems like only yesterday and yet centuries ago. We wouldn’t be Irish if we didn’t think we might lose it tomorrow.”

  “You won’t,” I said firmly.

  They all sighed again.

  Later in our bedroom, with the lights out and the moon peeking beneath the drapes, Nuala took my hand.

  “I’m sorry, Dermot Michael.”

  We had kind of implicitly agreed that it would be awkward making love in her parents’ house, especially since the walls were not all that thick. I wondered if her parents were equally shy.

  How often did people their age who were still attractive physically and patently in love do sex?

  Often enough, I decided, whatever that may mean.

  So we were lying in bed, Nuala in a long T-shirt and I in my shorts.

  “You should be, woman,” I said, “and meself the soul of patience … but would you ever mind telling me what you’re sorry for?”

  “For excluding you from our conversation back in Ballinasloe. I was so excited to be near the Gaeltacht again that I forgot meself.”

  I had forgotten completely, but I knew enough not to say that.

  “Didn’t I enjoy watching you have so much fun?”

  “You really are sounding like any Irishman, Dermot Michael Coyne. We have to get you back to Yankland soon or you’ll go native. You’ll say something every five minutes like ‘me da.’ ”

  “Mr. Coyne, he dead.”

  She snickered. “I’m also terrible sorry for acting the way I did at Jury’s.”

  Aha. Which time at Jury’s? Better not to ask. She probably had been so bad that she would be insulted if I didn’t remember.

  It isn’t easy being married.

  So I didn’t say anything.

  At all, at all.

  “You did the right thing by reading your man from Glentrasna.”

  John O’Donohue.

  “Well, Nuala, you were all worn out.”

  “And you made fun of me, too, and wasn’t that wonderful?”

  Just so long as you don’t do it too often.

  “You were pretty funny,” I said, crawling out on a very long and tenuous limb.

  She laughed. “Wasn’t I a terrible onchuck!”

  An onchuck is kind of a woman amadon. Kind of.

  “I’ll never do that again, Dermot Michael. Never.”

  “Never is a hell of a long time,” I said, quoting Harry Truman.

  “Well, not till next month anyway!”

  “Good!”

  “I don’t know why Herself wants me to do all these things, but what a terrible disgrace of an Irish woman I would be if I didn’t do them because I was afraid.”

  “Fear will never stop you, Nuala Anne McGrail,” I said, drawing her close.

  “Not as long as you are around, Dermot Michael Coyne.”

  You SHOULD FUCK HER NOW. The Adversary suddenly appeared in bed with us. NONE OF THIS SHITE ABOUT BEING SHY IN HER PARENTS’ HOUSE.

  “A lot you know about women,” I told him.

  He went away then and left us alone. We both slept calmly and peacefully in the knowledge that our love, however imperfect and inexperienced it was, would be as durable as the love between her parents.

  The next morning we went to Mass at the local parish church. The liturgy and the sermon were both in Irish. Me wife … damn it, MY wife … sang some Latin hymns, which they all seemed to know. As a concession to the Yank in the church—and perhaps to the Guards—the final blessing was in English.

  “Well, now,” said the elderly but lively priest, “don’t we have another blessing from your man up beyond above in Glentrasna, which is good for all of us to hear. Doesn’t he call it ‘A Blessing of Solitude’:

  “ ‘May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul.

  “ ‘May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.

  “ ‘May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.

  “ ‘May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.

  “ ‘May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

  “ ‘In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ ”

  “See,” said my wife, nudging me in the ribs before I could do the same to her.

  Later on the golf course, she was not a happy camper.

  “ ’Tis not fair at all, at all,” she said grimly, after I had driven a three-hundred-yard green.

  “I’m stronger,” I said mildly, spoiling, however, for a fight.

  ‘That’s not fair either, but, sure, you never practice and you still hit the ball that far.”

  “Doesn’t my father say that if I practiced more I’d win the championship at Oak Park every year?”

  I had already won it once, but I don’t particularly like competition, unlike my wife, who lives off it.

  “At Long Beach, too,” she added, still grim as she teed up her golf ball. “I can beat you with me irons and me putter.”

  “Woman, you can, not a doubt about it, at least the short irons. However, golf is not just about irons. It’s about woods.”

  “That’s what’s not fair.”

  Her drive was perfectly presentable for a woman, 175 yards and straight as an arrow.

  “Nice shot,” I remarked.

  “Gobshite,” she sneered.

  Strength and some skill got me on the green; luck put me close enough to the pin so I sank the putt for an eagle. A glowering Nuala Anne had to be content with a par.

  “What did you think of your man’s story last night?” she said as we went to the next tee, not even congratulating me on me eagle. My eagle.

  My man, in this instance, was her father.

  “Well,” I said, teeing up my ball, “he certainly confirmed that there is
a mystery down there at Castlegarry.”

  “Aye,” she said. “It was so long ago. What has it to do with us?”

  “Isn’t that my question most of the time?”

  I swung my seven iron. The hole was a tricky par 3 with a good-sized Galway lake at its edge. My shot arched high in the air and dropped on the green, an easy two-putt away from a par.

  “We have to go down there,” she agreed as she prepared for her five-iron blast. “Only, I wish I could go home tomorrow.”

  “Home?”

  “Southport Avenue. Where else?”

  Her shot landed about ten feet from the cup, closer than mine, but just a little too long.

  “What do you think happened at Castle Garry in 1922?”

  “They killed her, only I don’t know who they are or what she wants us to clear up. Maybe they didn’t kill her. Maybe she wanted to die.”

  Right.

  As we walked on to the green, I heard her sob.

  “Nuala! What’s wrong?”

  “I’m such a terrible little gobshite of a wife!”

  I put my arm around her. She was trembling with sobs.

  “You’d better putt,” she said through her tears. “We don’t want to hold up them focking amadons behind us.”

  Not being very competitive, I was ready to settle for a par even though there was a good chance she’d sink her ten footer. So I inched my golf ball up to about a foot and a half away.

  “Och, Dermot,” she said through her tears, “you should have gone for it.”

  She went for it of course. And missed by an inch.

  “Two pars,” I said meekly.

  She was still weeping when we arrived at the next tee.

  I embraced her again.

  “Woman, you’re not a little gobshite of a wife.”

  That set off another round of sobbing.

  “What makes you think you are?” I persisted, though I was wary that my question might be too direct for the woman and the time and the place.

  “I didn’t congratulate you on your eagle! And it such a focking brilliant shot!”

  “Just a little strength and a little luck.”

  “Strength,” she murmured, “to get it there, skill to put it so close to the cup.”

  “Pure luck.”

  And it was.

  “And meself such a focking competitive woman, always wanting to win.”

  “I like competitive women,” I said, truthfully enough. ‘Then I don’t have to be competitive. I just have to glide along on my brute strength and my luck.”

  She stopped weeping and began to laugh. “You’re such a dear, sweet, wonderful man, Dermot Michael Coyne!”

  “ ’Tis true,” I said with a mock sigh.

  She was so badly shaken by her sobbing jag that she had to dab at her eyes with a tissue all the way to the clubhouse. However, she competed as fiercely on the three remaining holes as she had before her burst of guilt. Nonetheless, she did compliment me on my drives.

  “Focking brilliant!”

  “Thank you.”

  “I even half mean it!”

  We swam in the pool, though the mists, this time thick and grim, had drifted back from the bay and covered the countryside. The fog had chased away the other swimmers. The pool was chilly, not as chilly as Galway Bay, as transferred to me by the ineffable Fiona.

  “ ’Tis too cold for you Yanks and too warm for you Irish people,” my wife informed me.

  “It notably warmed up when you dived in,” I said through chattering teeth.

  She was wearing a blue bikini that was modest by the standards she usually adhered to at Grand Beach.

  “Gobshite,” she said, splashing me.

  “When do you show me the place where you and your mother skinny-dip?”

  Though she had often insisted that there was such a place, I wasn’t sure that it really existed.

  “Never!” she said, trying to shove me under the water. “ ’Tis a private place altogether. Besides, you’d never swim in Galway Bay, not at all, at all.”

  “ ’Tis true,” I said, wrestling with her.

  We both dragged each other under the water. She was one tough and strong woman.

  “Not quite strong enough,” I taunted her—and swam away as fast as I could.

  We climbed out of the pool, shivering and gasping for breath.

  “ ’Twas great fun,” she announced.

  “Frigid.”

  “Refreshing.”

  While I waited for her in the lobby of the clubhouse, I picked up the Sunday Tribune—Dublin, not Chicago.

  We seemed to have made the news again.

  Father Placid Clarke had told their arts correspondent that the concert had just barely broken even. ‘The expenses of bringing over an America singer are enormous,” he complained. “They’re not very generous people you know. I feel badly let down by their selfishness.”

  However, a certain Michael Patrick Dennis Dunn, the well-known Dublin barrister and spokesman for Nuala Anne McGrail had replied, “Father Placid is singularly ungracious. My client and her husband have paid all their traveling and living expenses themselves, including their taxi ride in from the airport. They have not accepted a single shilling from Irish International Aid. His statement is close to defamatory. If it is true that the concert earned very little money, despite the huge crowd which filled the Point Theater, a formal investigation by the fraud section of the Gardai of the I.I.A. finances might be appropriate. The least Father Placid Clarke could do is present the public with a detailed accounting.”

  Father Placid Clarke had bluntly refused to do that. It remained to be seen what further action Mr. Dunn would take.

  Though I didn’t know that we had a spokesman in Dublin, I saw the workings of the fine Irish hand of my big sister, Cynthia Marie Elizabeth Anne Hurley, Counselor at Law. Poor Father Placid, he had run into a very large freight train.

  The other news about us, though only indirectly, was a profile on Maeve Doyle, “the greatest Irish folk singer of our time.” Maeve Bounces Back!

  The theme of the article following this headline was that Ms. Doyle was recovering from a sharp decline in her popularity.

  “Of course,” the singer observed, “if a person insists on the highest professional standards, there will come a time when those who are moved by the shallow fashions of the moment will lose interest One expects that to happen. My husband and I were candidly surprised that such an interlude was so long in coming. We are now satisfied that it has passed and that the real Irish people, those who know their own musical heritage and value fine music are rallying to our support.”

  Her husband, who was also her manager, was a large, slightly dazed looking fellow with thick black hair, according to the picture which accompanied the article. He was described only as a “prominent musicologist who specializes in traditional Irish music.”

  Ms. Boyle went on at some length about her academic and vocal training, her daily exercises to keep in practice, and the “absolute necessity” of maintaining the highest standards when singing folk music.

  The reporter, who perhaps had a bit of mischief in her, observed that the folk who had originally sung the music might not have understood that necessity.

  “We owe it to their memory,” Ms. Boyle replied, “to keep alive their songs in the most perfect way possible. It is unfortunate that some of the younger and more inexperienced singers do not appreciate that they could easily destroy a fragile tradition.”

  She had sweetly passive-aggressive words to say about several singers of whom I had never heard and of the woman who had invited us to Glenstal. She also dismissed Sinead O’Connor and Dolores O’Riordan (of the Cranberries) as barbarians. Her only comment on my wife was that “she ought better to stay in America where she belongs.”

  Probably nothing defamatory in that, though it ignored Nuala Anne’s Gaeltacht roots. The reporter noted dryly that Irish was not Ms. Doyle’s first language, though she sang it very well, ac
cording to many Irish-speaking music critics.

  Aha.

  We had made some wonderful friends in Dublin.

  “A phone call for you, Mr. McGrail,” a polite young man with flaming red hair said to me.

  Mr. McGrail was it now?

  “Yeah?”

  Silence.

  “Who’s calling?”

  More silence.

  “We want our money!” a hoarse voice shouted into my ear. “We want it soon, you focking gobshite, or we’ll cut off her tits and your balls.”

  The phone clicked off.

  I hung up calmly and walked out to the car.

  “Inspector Murphy,” I said to the copper (having learned his name and rank from my wife), “I just had another call from your friends in the ‘Real’ IRA. They threatened dire harm to my wife and myself.”

  “Focking bastards,” he said. “Excuse me, sir. … I’ll call the Commissioner.”

  “You do that.”

  We drove back to Carraroe, picked up Gerry and Annie, and drove back for dinner at a restaurant on the bay side of the road. It specialized in extraordinary Norman cooking, the man of the house being a Gaeltacht native and his wife a cook from Normandy. We complimented them on their cuisine. They asked Nuala to sing “Galway Bay” for them, though the mists were so thick that one could not even see the bay, which was only a few yards away.

  1 Irish Gold

  —26—

  CASTIJEGARRY DID not look in the least sinister. Outlined against the setting sun, which had turned the Shannon Estuary orange and gold, it was a typical late-eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century Georgian manor house, not as big or as ornate as those that survived near Dublin and hardly a place for peers of the realm. The prospectus said it could accommodate eight couples in comfort, plus one honeymoon suite. Crowded comfort, most likely.