Why I Let My Hair Grow Out

by Maryrose Wood

  My plan was to saunter past the buffet, grab a plate of food and bring it back to my room, but when I got to the dining room I saw Lucy Faraday eating alone, thumbing through a newspaper and looking . . . not sad but not happy either.

  Where the fek were Heidi and Johannes and the Billingsleys? The Pippin-Woodwards? Or Patty, even? I couldn’t believe there was not one person available for Lucia to have dinner with. Except me.

  Here I was, there she was. I could go say hello. I could find out if she wanted company or was happy with her newspaper. I could even apologize for acting like a jerk. Me apologize, imagine that.

  Too hard. It was all too hard. The truth was I didn’t want to sit with her, talk to her, deal with her. Not because of anything to do with her. It was because of me and what a dope I’d been earlier.

  So I left (I was really hoping she hadn’t seen me make the U-turn) and took my empty stomach for a walk. I’d had that big shepherd’s pie lunch so I wasn’t going to die of hunger anytime soon. I figured I’d get some food at the pub, later.

  my Walk around town Was enjoyably ego-boosting, as I strutted my edgy new look around the picturesque medieval village like a rock star on a humanitarian tour. Small children stared, adults frowned or looked puzzled or made a point of ignoring me and the more punk-looking young guys smiled and called out, Hey, hey, here’s my number, call me, Sinéad, call me! I was ready for my entrance at Durty Nellie’s, feeling hungry and sassy and with a fresh coat of gloss over my lipstick.

  If Raph could see me now, I thought. One of the things he used to nag me about was that I didn’t “dress up” enough when we went out. I always thought I looked fine, but if I wore sneakers instead of boots or didn’t put any makeup on, he typically made some kind of comment.

  “I’m not here to pick up guys,” I said to him once. “I’m with you.”

  “But I like being with someone who other guys would want to pick up,” he explained.

  “But that’s gross.” Why I’d bothered to disagree I don’t know; it was impossible to win an argument with Raph.

  “No, it’s not,” he’d said. “It’s perfectly normal. All guys feel that way.”

  And who was I to say he was wrong? I didn’t know anything about “all guys.” I figured Raph was more of an expert on that subject than me. But maybe he was just an expert on Raph.

  i Was expecting the vibe at durty nellie’s to be YBBS, otherwise known as Your Basic Bar Scene: more male than female, more under twenty-five than over, music blasting from a jukebox and everyone there to get drunk and/or hook up. (Presence of a live band made it YBBSWB: Your Basic Bar Scene with Band. These abbreviations were coined by me and Sarah. Sarah had given me a fake ID for my sixteenth birthday in the hopes that she and I would soon become experts in YBBS. We’d barely begun our research before I started going out with you-know-who.)

  But Durty Nellie’s was a pub, not a bar. There was drinking and hooking-up going on for sure, but also families having supper with their kids and middle-aged ladies out whooping it up together after work. It was a real mix of people filling up the place, like a cross between a restaurant and a block party. The jukebox was a note of familiarity, but it only took Euros and was full of bands whose names I wasn’t sure how to pronounce, like the Pogues.

  There were round tables in the center of the dining area and wooden booths along the walls. In one booth I saw Patty with Heidi and Carrie Pippin, and a row of empty shot glasses on the table between them. Maybe it was the lighting, maybe it was the shots, but to my eye Carrie seemed to have turned a fairly vivid shade of green. Patty and Heidi were having a fine old time, if drunken chick-versus-chick arm wrestling is your idea of fun.

  The bar itself was a massive dark wooden one about a mile long. One could easily imagine that it had been there unchanged for centuries, if not for the addition of that indispensable modern bar feature, the big-screen plasma TV broadcasting a sporting event. A dozen young guys were clustered in front of the on-screen game, and that was where I spotted Colin.

  He saw me right away. “Hey, Mor,” he yelled across the room. “Is that a faery mound on top of your head, or are ye just glad to see me?”

  What a clown he was, grinning at me in the dim light of the pub with a big mug of dark beer in his hand. His accent seemed to have grown thicker now that he was partying.

  “What you just said makes no sense at all, Colin,” I said, ambling over to him.

  “No doubt!” He laughed and looked down at the bump on top of my head, which honestly was not very big. “Ah, look at the poor little nub. It’ll be prone to the sunburn, stickin’ out in the open air like that. We’ll have to get it a hat.” His voice softened. “But the rest of ye is looking sound, very sound indeed.”

  Yessss.

  “Thank you,” I said, standing up as straight as I could manage. Good posture maximizes cleavage, as Sarah always said. I was determined to act my pretend-age and be cool and wry, with no tantrums or giggling or insecurity attacks. A beer would be a big help right now, but I wasn’t going to order one myself with all these guys hanging around. That would be pathetic.

  Like me, Colin had cleaned himself up nicely since this afternoon. His hair looked damp from the shower and he’d put on a clean blue oxford shirt. It made the blue of his eyes practically glow, like the eyes of a Siamese cat.

  “What’ll ye be drinking, Mor?” he asked, right on cue. “You can have anything you like as long as it’s beer. We have laws about such things in Ireland.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, nodding at his drink.

  “That’s Guinness, love. It’ll make a man out of ye, though that would be a bloody shame, wouldn’t it?” I think he might have stolen a look at my chest, but if he did it was quick. “Taste and see what you think.”

  He held the giant mug to my lips, and I slurped. It was beer all right, but dark brown and bitter, nothing at all like the Coors from a keg and rum-and-Cokes everyone served at parties at home. I didn’t hate it, exactly, but it would take some getting used to.

  He saw the look on my face. “Too much too soon, eh? We’ll start you off gently then. Pat! Beamish for the young lady, please!” Before I could even ask what a Beamish was, Colin had slapped money on the bar.

  “Put your wallet away, Colin, this one’s on me!” Stuart Woodward emerged from the pack of men hooting and cheering in front of the TV. An American Express card dangled from his fingers; it was one of those fancy plutonium ones that my dad refused to get because the annual fees were so expensive. (Dad was a great one for tearing the junk mail into confetti before throwing it in the trash; it’s his form of stress relief: “Do they think”—rip—“I am made”—rip rip—“out of money?” rip rip rip.)

  “I’m buying for Morgan here, but you can get my next one if you like,” said Colin agreeably. Stuart was looking bleary and happy, and he draped his arm around Colin’s shoulders like they were brothers.

  “Will do, man! You call me when you’re dry!” He waggled his hand in a little “call me” gesture next to his ear and cracked himself up. Then, still chuckling, he wandered back in front of the television, where I saw him high-five some bewildered, beer-wielding men. Luckily the men were much more interested in the game than in Stuart’s goofball behavior, and they tolerated the drunken foreigner without one person threatening to clock him in the face. A friendly country indeed.

  I turned back to the bar in time to see a tall mug of pure foam being placed in front of me.

  “Thanks, Pat!” said Colin. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

  Pat looked at me with the narrowed eyes of a suspicious barkeep. In Ireland the drinking age is eighteen (I’d checked, believe me), so I wasn’t too worried, since I’d been passing for twenty-one back at home. But I’d left my fake ID in my room. It would be a drag, not to mention way uncool in front of Colin, to have to go get it.

  I widened my eyes and prepared to exude eighteen-year-old flakiness. Luckily Pat was in a forgiving mood. “That’s not chocol
ate milk, there, young lady,” was all he said. “I hope ye’ve had something to eat.”

  “She’ll be sharing my bangers and mash; thanks for the grandmotherly concern, Pat.” Colin picked up a fork from the bar and gestured with it. “Ye can bring our food any time this year or next, by the by—no rush, mate!” Pat rolled his eyes but the mob at the far end of the bar was clamoring for his attention, so he left us.

  “It’s twenty minutes already,” said Colin, not sounding perturbed at all. “How long does it take to grill some bloody bangers?”

  “What’s ‘bangers’?” I said.

  “Ye’ll see. Try the Beamish first, though, while your taste buds are still pristine.” Before my eyes, the mug of foam was gradually transforming itself into a creamy, cocoa-brown liquid.

  “Is it beer?” I asked, lifting the heavy glass to my lips.

  “It’s stout, Mor,” Colin said, with reverence. “Drink of the gods.”

  I was planning an experimental sip, but the Beamish was so good I took a nice long chug instead. Smooth, not as bitter as the Guinness, toasty and almost sweet and practically chocolatey, like the bartender had said. Yum. I took another drink.

  As I did, the bartender slid a plate of what looked like fat, grilled human fingers in front of Colin.

  Colin clapped me on the back. “Good girl! That Beamish’ll put hair on your chest, if not your head. Now munch on some bangers; it’ll build your strength.”

  I stared at the plate of greasy digits in front of me. They were truly horrifying. It looked like you might find a wedding ring on one of them. Or a fingernail.

  “Relax, luv! It’s just sausage and mashed potatoes.” Colin stabbed one with his fork and took a hearty bite.

  I used my fork to coax some mashed potatoes out from underneath the sausages, but they were all covered with banger grease. I concentrated on the Beamish instead. It tasted so rich it was more like food than a drink, anyway.

  “Bloody fantastic game!” Stuart shouted. He seemed to have acquired an accent in the minutes since we’d seen him last: a little Irish, a little Beatles, a little Monty Python. “It’s brutal!”

  “It’s rugby, mate,” Colin agreed. “Not some pussy game like your American ‘football.’ ”

  “Eeee-lectrifying. I love it!” Stuart leaned against the bar for support.

  Patty and Heidi strode up to the bar. Heidi was nearly a foot taller than Patty and agewise they were probably fifteen years apart, but the evening’s revelries seemed to have forged some deep bond of sisterhood between them. The other thing between them was Carrie Pippin, looking greenish and very loose. Her arms waved about randomly, like she was treading water.

  “Do they use animal products at any point in the brewing process?” she was asking, with difficulty.

  “It’s whiskey, lady! Not beef gravy!” Patty signaled the bartender with three fingers in the air. He seemed to know just what she meant.

  “Yes, but sometimes it’s hidden—there’s rennet in cheese and horse hooves in Jell-O. Not everybody knows that. I know that, but not everybody does. Well, you do, because I just told you—”

  “Here’s some Jell-O for ye,” said Pat, amiably, as he poured three shots. “They call this flavor Black Bush.”

  “Like black cherry?” Carrie giggled. “That was my favoritest, favorite Jell-O flavor, when I was little—”

  “Drink!” ordered Heidi. “Eins! Zwei! Drei!”

  And Patty, Heidi and Carrie threw back three simultaneous shots.

  “She’ll be flying high in a minute,” said Colin, elbowing me and looking over at Carrie. “P’raps she and Stewie-boy here will forget they know each other. They can meet and fall in love all over again, even better than before. Eat up, Mor. The rest is yours.”

  He pushed the dish of food in front of me, but I was more interested in the fresh mug of Beamish Pat provided, as Stuart signed off on a new round of drinks for the three of us.

  “Tell me more about rugby,” Stuart slurred to Colin. I tried nibbling the end of one of the bangers. It wasn’t horrible, just a strong pork sausage taste and kind of chewy. They were cold now, which didn’t help. I washed the taste out of my mouth with more Beamish.

  “Rugby!” answered Colin, pounding the bar with delight. “The ultimate sport. A little rough sometimes. When the boys are in a fightin’ mood the game gets bloody as Cúchulainn’s wedding.”

  “Kahoolin? What team does he play for?” said Stuart, giving me a wink.

  Cúchulainn? I could have sworn that’s what he said, but wasn’t that the name from my crazy dream? My head-bonked hallucination?

  I speak now of Cúchulainn, greatest of the heroes of Ulster. . . . There was Fergus’s voice, whispering in my ear like he was some guy in the bar.

  Maybe it was the beer, stout, whatever, but the room was starting to spin. I grabbed Colin’s arm.

  “How did you know about Cúchulainn?” I said.

  “It’s bloody Ireland, Mor; everybody knows about Cúchulainn!” He looked at me like I was unhinged. “He’s like—who’s that bloke you have in America? Davy Crocker!”

  “Betty Crocker!” Stuart was getting sloppy. He’d already offered to get Pat bit parts in movies. Pat, admirably, declined, claiming he was only interested in playing romantic leads or action heroes or, preferably, both.

  “You mean Crockett. Davy Crockett,” I said, impatiently. “What does this have to do with—”

  “Crockett, right,” said Colin, keeping one eye on the TV. “Is he the one with the apples?”

  “No, she wrote cookbooks!” crowed Stuart, helpfully.

  “No!” I said, trying to turn my back to Stuart. “That’s Johnny Appleseed. But what about Cúch—”

  “My point is,” Colin said, cutting me off, “in Ireland, Cúchulainn is like Davy Crocker or Johnny Appleseed. Part of the national bullshit, you know.” He started to laugh. “Except your Johnny skipped about the flowery fields scattering bits of fruit across the land, but Cúchulainn—he bloody chopped off heads and whacked off limbs till the ground was soaked with gore and guts and—GO! Go go go go!”

  All the guys in the bar started screaming at the television.

  “Fekkin’ brilliant!” moaned Stuart in ecstasy, when the play was done. “Has anyone ever done a rugby movie, I wonder?”

  My head was pounding from all the screaming.

  “Well sure, there’s that one about the cannibals,” said Colin.

  “Did I say cannibals?” Stuart giggled. “Damn, I must be drunk! No, I mean a rugby movie. Has anyone ever done a rugby movie—”

  “It’s cannibals and rugby,” explained Colin, not entirely sober himself. “See, a whole rugby team goes down in a plane crash in the high snowy mountains. And half of them get killed in the crash but the other half live.”

  I wasn’t listening. I knew—I knew—I had never heard of Cúchulainn before. Before my head bonk on the faery road, that is.

  So—my dream, hallucination, whatever—what was that?

  His battle cry is fierce; his chariot makes the ground shake. . . .

  “Dude, I thought you said it was about cannibals?”

  “It’s rugby and cannibals, that’s what I’m telling ye! The survivors were trapped in the snowy wilderness for months. They had to eat bits and pieces of their dead mates until they got rescued.”

  Something was strange, very strange indeed.

  ... bits and pieces of their dead mates . . .

  “Raw or cooked?”

  “Raw, I’m certain of it. How could they bloody cook anything in the snowy wilderness? It’s not like they had a microwave.”

  I was staring at the bangers. The bangers were staring back at me. I was starting to not feel so well.

  ... he chopped off heads and whacked off limbs till the ground was soaked with gore and guts . . .

  The conversation around me started to recede, as a kind of rushing noise filled my ears, almost drowning out Stuart’s voice.

  “Rugby! Plane cras
h! Cannibals! Now that would make an incredible film!

  “It already did, mate. That’s what I’m telling ye! And you know what else? It’s a bloody true story!”

  “GO!”

  The room went wild. Even Patty and Heidi and a red-faced Carrie were screaming at the TV now.

  “GO! Go go go go go go!”

  That’s when I raced off to the bathroom to puke.

  eleven

  “go! go go go go go!”

  I drained the mead with a slurp. A deafening cheer shook the air around me.

  “Drink hearty, Morganne! We drink to your health and the health of the king!

  Double dose of Advil plus empty stomach plus two pints of stout and a head injury equals—

  Me, puking and passing out on the bathroom floor of a bar, excuse me, pub, an ocean away from home?

  Nope. It equals me, with long wavy locks of reddish-gold hair tumbling down my back, in a flowy cream-colored dress straight out of the Disney Princess fashion show. I was standing on a great wooden table with one foot on top of a barrel and what looked like two hundred extras from Braveheart egging me on as I chugged a goblet of mead.

  I don’t even know how I knew it was mead, but I did. Sweet, honey-flavored wine. It was a forty-ounce goblet at least, but I showed no signs of queasiness. In fact I felt quite confident that I could drink anyone in the room under the table and beat them in a footrace too.

  I wiped my lips and looked around at my adoring fans. Fergus was at my feet, a cute little mead-mustache on his upper lip.

  This was not a dream. Oh fek.

  “Fergus,” I said, scrambling down off the table and into his arms. “We need to talk. Now.”

  On the way out of the crowded banquet hall i’d been invited to compete in several wrestling matches and an archery contest, but I managed to evade all my challengers and sneak out through the scullery door with Fergus. The noise of the feast carried through the night air, rising and falling but never stopping, like the roar of the surf.

  We were at the castle. King Conor’s castle, to be precise. It had been two days since Fergus had woken up in the grazing meadow alone, the animal skin still warm from where I’d fallen asleep next to him.