by Hannah Kent
‘No. There is no work.’
‘You have been grieving, then.’
‘I have been afraid to come, Nóra. I have been afraid of what I would see. ’Twas not until I heard that Martin had passed, Lord keep him, that I knew I needed to visit you.’
‘Tadgh? You’re scaring me, the talk of you.’
‘I wasn’t going to say a word about it, Nóra.’ He looked at her with the darkling, lowered stare of a hunted man.
‘Johanna. ’Twas in the last days. She was in the bed, and the cloud was on her mind, and she was fighting it best she could, but the pain was awful on her and it made her say some things.’ He frowned. ‘She said some awful things, Nóra.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I don’t want to tell you.’
‘Tadgh, tell me. For God’s sake, you’re frightening me.’
‘One time, she was lying abed, her eyes closed. For all of me I thought she was sleeping. And then I hear a queer muttering coming from her, and I says, “Are you awake, Johanna? Is it the pain?” And she shook her head, slight, like this . . .’ He turned his head slowly from side to side, his eyes never leaving Nóra’s. ‘And I says, “What is it?” And she says, “Bring me Micheál.” So I pick the lad up and put him on the bed next to her, and she opened her eyes a wee bit and took a look at him, and a queer expression crosses her face. Like she’s never seen him before in her life. “That’s not my child,” she says. She’s looking at me, shaking her head. “That’s not my child.”’
Nóra’s mouth was dry. She swallowed thickly.
‘“Sure, ’tis,” says I. “He’s your own son, so he is. Do you not know your own son?” And she tries to sit up and looks at him again. “That’s not my boy,” she says. “Bring me my boy.” Sure, I didn’t know what to do, so I keep telling her ’tis Micheál, and her strange way of talking was scaring me that much that I put him on her lap, and that was it. She started screaming. “That’s not my son! Bring me Micheál!” And she’s pushing Micheál off the bed, and were I not there to catch him he would have had a tumble.’ Tadgh was breathing heavily. ‘I didn’t know what to do, so I took Micheál away, out of her sight. But all that night long she was like it. “My son has been stolen from me. My boy has been stolen.” She was clawing at me to go and get the police, raise a watch, like. She wanted to put Micheál out the house. “Get rid of it!” she was saying. “Put it on the dung pile and bring me back our son!”
‘That was it then. That was the last of it, before she fell asleep. ’Twas the last thing she said to me. In the days after, she was not herself. She was halfway to God.’
Nóra stared at Tadgh, feeling like she would choke.
‘I didn’t want to tell you, Nóra,’ Tadgh said, pressing his fingers into his temples. ‘But I see him now, Micheál . . .’
Nóra looked down at the little boy. He was jerking his head, as if stabbed by something unseen.
‘I see him now and I wonder. I wonder at what she said. I see him and I know he’s my son, but I don’t recognise him at all.’
‘I know why.’
They turned to see Mary in the open doorway, her apron wet and dripping, clutching the pail of water to her chest. Her face was chalk-white.
‘He is a changeling,’ she whimpered. ‘And everyone knows it but you.’
The dark unpainted forge of the blacksmith’s sat in the heart of the valley, by the crossroads that divided the community into quarters. On most days the patterned ringing of hammer on anvil could be heard in all directions, and the constant smoke from the forge proved an easy marker for those who required ironwork, or sought to have their teeth pulled. At night, once the day’s labour had been done, people often gathered at the blacksmith’s, the forge becoming a rambling house for the men and the small cabin beside it one for the women. It was a place of frequent company. On nights when the moon gave a clean, clear light to the valley, it was not uncommon for the young people to step outside and dance at the crossroads above the buried bones of suicides, the very place Martin Leahy had died.
Nance did not often come to the blacksmith’s. There was little she owned that needed the attention of pumping bellows and sweaty-faced men – she preferred the quiet skill of the travelling tinkers. It was also a place where she felt her difference. It was often busy with farmers and labourers bringing workhorses to be shod or to be treated for spavins or farcy, and, despite her years in the valley, Nance had never become accustomed to the way conversation stopped in her presence. It was one thing to enter a wake house and have the company fall into respectful silence. It was another to move through a crowded yard in the prickled air of others’ wary regard and to hear laughter at her back. They made her feel like nothing more than a strange old woman plucking herbs, her eyes clouded with age and the smoke of her own badly fired hearth. No matter that some of these men came to her with their carbuncles and congested lungs, or lay their wheezing children by her fire. In the broad light of day, amidst the noise of industry, their stares made her feel scorned and feeble.
‘God bless your work, John O’Donoghue,’ Nance said, standing in the doorway. She had lingered on the road until she saw that the yard of the smith’s was clear of people, then clenched her teeth and made for the forge.
John paused, his hammer raised in the air. ‘Nance Roche,’ he said simply. A local boy, charged with pumping the bellows, gaped in Nance’s direction.
‘I was wondering if you would let me take some of that water there. Your iron water.’
John put down his hammer and wiped his sweating face with a greasy, blackened cloth. ‘Iron water,’ he repeated. He stared at Nance, breathing hard. ‘How much do you need?’
Nance pulled her water pail out from under her cloak. ‘As much as I might carry.’
John took the pail and lowered it into the bucket where he cooled the iron. ‘I’ve filled it to half. Will that do you?’
‘It will. It will. I thank you, John. Bless you.’
John nodded, then returned to the anvil. As he raised his hammer he motioned towards the cabin. ‘Go see the little woman, Nance. She’ll give you something to eat.’
The cabin of the O’Donoghues was built from the same mountain rock as the forge, but was thickly whitewashed, its thatch of heather and oats rising high over a cavernous ceiling. Both half-doors were open to admit the light, and Nance could hear a woman’s voice singing inside.
‘Bless you, woman of the house.’
Áine O’Donoghue was kneeling in front of the turf fire, scrubbing a shirt in a wide wooden tub. She looked up, squinting. ‘Nance Roche?’ Her face eased into a smile. ‘Come in and welcome. ’Tis not often I see you here.’ She rose to her feet, wiping her wet forearms on her apron. ‘What’s that you have?’
‘Only a little forge water, Áine. Your man was good enough to give me some.’
‘Did he now. I suppose I shouldn’t be asking what you want that for?’ Áine gave a wry smile and patted the stool beside her. ‘Sit you down. Would you like something to eat?’
‘Go on with your washing, Áine. I don’t mean to stop you.’
‘Sure, ’twould be a poor thing if I did.’ Áine picked up a cold potato and gave it to Nance. ‘How are you keeping?’
‘I’m still alive, which is enough.’
‘Are you prepared for the winter? Isn’t it awful bitter out? And not even December.’
‘Pure bitter. I see you and John are well.’
‘Well enough.’
Nance gestured to the bucket of forge water at her feet. ‘Protection. I thought Brigid Lynch might be in need of it. Her time is coming.’ She peeled the potato and glanced at Áine. The woman was looking intently at the puckered skin on her fingers, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
‘Why don’t you come see me?’ Nance heard herself asking.
Áine feigned surprise. ‘See
you, Nance?’
‘I can help you.’
Áine blushed. ‘And for what? The mouth sore is gone from me now. You gave me the cure and I thank you for it.’
‘I don’t mean the sore.’ Nance took a bite of the cold potato and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘It can’t be easy, seeing the women of this place full of children and you having none yourself.’
Áine gave a strange, wan smile. Her voice was soft. ‘Oh, that. Sure, it can’t be helped, Nance.’
‘There are ways, Áine. For every ill thing set upon this world, there is a cure.’
Áine shook her head. ‘An rud nach féidir ní féidir é. What can’t be done, can’t be done. I have made my peace with it.’
‘You poor unfortunate.’ Nance dropped the rest of the potato in her lap and took Áine’s hands. The woman smiled at her, but as Nance continued to hold her fingers Áine’s face tightened and her chin trembled.
‘Have you truly made your peace with it? With your quiet house?’
‘Don’t,’ she whispered.
‘Áine.’
‘Please, Nance. You’re a good woman. Don’t be upsetting . . . Please.’
Nance pulled Áine closer to her, until their foreheads were almost touching. ‘Children are the curse of this country,’ she whispered, gripping Áine’s hands. ‘Especially when you don’t have any.’
Áine laughed, but pulled away to hastily wipe her eyes.
‘Come and see me,’ Nance whispered. ‘You know where I am.’
Shuffling back to her cabin, the narrow handle of her water pail cutting into her hand, Nance thought about what had come over her. She didn’t normally like to pry into others’ business. Maggie had always taught her to stay away until she was summoned.
‘The cure will always work best for those who seek it,’ she had said. ‘Those who look are those who find.’
But in that moment Nance had felt a quiet summoning to speak to Áine. There was a hesitation. A look of raw longing. That’s how it was with most people. All that private pain kept out of sight, but sometimes, in the space of one breath, something opened and you could see the heart of things before the door was shut again. It was as good as a vision. A murmur of vulnerability. A tremor in the soil, before all was still.
How hidden the heart, Nance thought. How frightened we are of being known, and yet how desperately we long for it.
Father Healy was waiting for Nance outside her cabin, his stark figure cutting a black line against the rising alder. He stood still, watching her walk the path with his arms folded in front of him, and then, noticing the heavy pail she carried, stepped forward and took it from her.
‘Thank you, Father.’
They walked in silence to the muddy ground before Nance’s cabin, where he set the pail of forge water down and faced her.
‘’Tis Nance Roche they call you?’
‘’Tis.’
‘I want time with you, then.’
‘Time with me, is it, Father? What an honour.’ Nance bent her aching fingers back. ‘And how can I help you?’
‘Help me?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve come to tell you to help yourself, woman. I’ve come to tell you to stop your ways.’
‘My ways, now. What ways would they be?’ Nance put her hands on her hips and tried to catch her breath. Her chest felt dry and tight from lugging the water across the valley. All she wanted to do was return inside and rest.
‘Word has travelled that you were keening at Martin Leahy’s wake.’
Nance frowned. ‘So I was. And what of it?’
‘The synod forbids professional keeners wailing at wakes as an unchristian practice. It is a heathenish custom and abhorrent to God.’
‘Abhorrent to God? I find it hard to believe, Father, that God does not understand sorrow. Sure, Christ died on a cross surrounded by his keeners.’
Father Healy gave a tight smile. ‘’Tis not the same at all. I have been told that you make it your trade to cry at burials.’
‘What is the harm in that?’
‘Your sorrow is artificial, Nance. Rather than comfort those who are afflicted, you live upon their dead.’
Nance shook her head. ‘I do not, Father. That’s not it at all. I feel their sorrow. I give voice to the grief of others when they have not a voice for it themselves.’
‘But they pay you for it.’
‘’Tis not money.’
‘Food then. Drink. Payment in kind for immoderate, false sadness.’ The man gave a sad laugh. ‘Nance, listen to me now. You can’t be taking money – or anything like it – for keening. The church won’t stand for it, and neither will I.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘When I heard about the keening I asked about you.’
‘Is that so, Father?’
‘People tell me that you drink. You take the pipe. You don’t come to Mass.’
Nance laughed. ‘If you’re after visiting all them that don’t go to Mass, you’ll be out on that donkey of yours the whole week long.’
Father Healy pinked a little. ‘Yes. I mean to correct the lack of religious feeling here.’
‘But the people here do be having a spiritual temper, Father. Sure, we all have faith in the things of the invisible world. We’re a most religious people. Come now, Father. Would you not care for a drink? Look, the sky is turning.’
The priest hesitated, and then followed Nance into her cabin, glancing around the dark room in uncertainty.
‘Be so kind as to sit yourself down on that creepie there. Make yourself easy. I’ll have the water on the boil now.’
Father Healy lowered himself down on the stool, his knees sticking out at angles. He gestured to the dried herbs hanging from the rafters. ‘William O’Hare tells me that you act the charlatan.’
‘The schoolmaster? What would he know? He’s never visited me in his life.’
‘Aye, him. He says you live by keening and quackery. That you lure the people of this parish with false promises of healing.’
‘Some folk here . . . Well, we don’t agree together.’
‘So, ’tis not just the money-taking for the false bawling, but you act the bean leighis too?’
‘Act?’ Nance handed the priest a steaming cup. He regarded it with suspicion. ‘Father. People come to me of their own accord and I use the knowledge that has been given me to help them. They leave me gifts in thanks for it. I am no thief.’
‘Well, now, see, this puts me in some state of confusion!’ The priest ran a hand through his hair. ‘For Seán Lynch tells me you prey on the trust of others and try to get something for nothing.’
Nance sucked her gums. ‘I help them. I am a doctor to them.’
‘Oh yes, so I have heard. Like the Dublin doctors, so you are. O’Hare said that you forced a gander’s beak down his wife’s throat when she came to you for thrush.’
‘Ah, Éilís? ’Tis an old cure. Did it not heal her?’
‘William did not say.’
‘It healed her alright. Éilís O’Hare might be thinking she’s above herself now, married to a Killarney man. But she’s a liar if she says I never healed her. That woman would be in the ground if it weren’t for me.’
‘No one dies of thrush.’
‘I healed her all the same.’
The priest peered at his tea and put it firmly on the ground. ‘Can you not see that I am trying to help you?’
Nance smiled. ‘I respect you, Father. Sure, you’re a good and holy man with a heart for the people. But you should know that Father O’Reilly, God rest him, saw I had the gift. He sent folk to me. Drink your tea.’
‘I won’t, if ’tis all the same to you.’ The priest looked up again at the herbs. ‘I know the likes of you. I know the poor turn their hand to whatever living they can make. The vulnerable.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘There’s still a need in this parish for
the . . .’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Handy woman. For the mothers. Give up the keening and the herbs and charms and all the pagan superstitions, and make an honest living by that.’
Nance sighed. ‘Father, as little as the wren needs, it must gather it. ’Tis by the cures and keening or my heart would break in hunger, but ’tis more than that. I have the knowledge given to me by the Good People and I must use it for the people here or ’twould leave me.’
There was a moment of silence. The jackdaws disturbed the trees outside.
‘’Tis not the fairies you’re talking of. No, I won’t have that.’
‘Do you not believe in the Good People, Father?’
The priest rose to his feet. ‘Nance Roche. I take no pleasure in being here. I take no pleasure in harsh words. But do you think of your stomach or your soul?’
‘Ah, you’re no believer. But I tell you, Father, ’twas the Good People that led me out of my misery on the roads and led me to this valley and to Father O’Reilly. ’Twas the Good People who saw me safe and not starving in Killarney when my family were gone and I alone with no man or money to my name. ’Twas Them that gave me the knowledge to cure folk and bring the fairy dart out of them and –’
‘’Tis pagan to say they exist at all.’ The priest’s face suddenly took on a look of pity, and Nance felt a wave of anger at the condescension in his expression.
‘Well, God be praised. A priest who is against the curing of the sick. God knows ’tis hard I work for the bit I have, and ’tis poor I am and always have been, but never have I begged from any Christian in this valley, and haven’t I always meant well? And haven’t I cured the priest before you, and him always seeing the good in all?’
Father Healy shook his head. ‘And to the bad he turned his eye. You know what they say, woman? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’
‘And the road to Heaven is well signposted, Father . . .’ Nance smiled. ‘But badly lit at night.’
The priest snorted. ‘I’ll not have keening, and I’ll not have women seeking to swindle the sick with talk of fairies. By all means, be a handy woman to those in need, but I’ll not have this parish riddled with superstition by those who mean to profit by it.’
