Turning the Stones (38 page)

Kitty says, ‘Do you know what I am going to tell you now?’

I do, Kitty. I do know for I was there and I will tell it back to you and to Captain McDonagh in my own voice.

The House of O’Halloran, Connemara
October, 1749

The autumn that year was hot and dry and it seemed likely that the season would stretch itself out as a boon to the O’Hallorans. For all its toilsome effort, the kelp fetched barely one pound for the ton, but if the burning could be made to last through October, Josey O’Halloran might put his supplementary earnings towards the purchase of timber for a boat. The O’Hallorans and Kitty Conneely, the heart-friend who was always in Nora O’Halloran’s company, were laying into talk on this subject when there was a rustle at the doorpost. Martin Lee, an old neighbour, edged himself into the cottage and announced he was not stopping, only he had a skerrick of news to pass on.

He had come to tell Nora and Josey that the sacred well on the saint’s island was flowing for the first time in living memory. A crowd would sail the following morning to collect the holy water and Martin urged the O’Hallorans to do all in their power to join the throng. ‘There is not a man, woman nor child who would not go to Saint MacDara’s Island in the morning,’ he said.

Josey said, ‘Thank you kindly, Martin, but my work is already cut out for me.’

‘Faith, man,’ Martin pressed, ‘the saint’s island is the place to be on the morrow.’

‘The kiln must be cleaned and I have agreed to do it. I can be of some use to yourselves as a lookout while I am at it.’

‘God preserve your honour,’ Martin said. ‘I will drink to that.’

Devotions were against the law of the land. There were always bluecoats snooping about and the people must hide from them their patterns and priests and the sacred apparatus. Moreover, there was an additional force at work on Josey O’Halloran that prevented him from reneging on his pledge to clean the kiln.

Despite the passing of years and his coming to know Nora’s island home backwards, every sprawl stone and grass blade of it, Josey could never be other than set apart from the men born of the place. To their islander eyes he would always be O’Halloran the hill man. Nevertheless, he strived perpetually to prove the worth of himself in order to overcome the divide. It vexed Nora badly, though, that he felt bound to take on more than his share.

The night was drawing in. Nora said, ‘O’Halloran, if you do not lay down your head you will be no good for your work in the morning,’ and at last Martin and Kitty took the hint and shifted themselves.

As Nora rose to see them out, she noticed a sultry little breeze intruding through the doorway. It reminded her of the fug of body heat that strikes one when entering into a house packed with roisterers. That kind of thickening in the air is regarded as a warning. It is the sign of a band of faeries travelling from one fort to another and you will want to be on your guard against them.

And God with me, were there other signs, too, she
wondered, that should be minded? The marvel of the flowing well and the blessing of the exceptional weather, for instance, and Martin Lee coming by to make a point of urging them to celebrate the miracle. Should she and Josey take little Molly and sail to the saint’s island in the morning after all? Col would say that his boat was full, but they could find someone else to make room for them. Nora wished she had not been so sharp to Martin Lee. She had put a sour mouth on her, she was ashamed to say.

Josey called, ‘I can hear you thinking, Noreen.’

‘It is only that I wonder why you must be at labour on the morrow when everyone else will sail to the saint’s island. Let us go, too.’

‘I gave my word to stay at my work.’

‘Josey, my heart, you too often sacrifice your own convenience to others.’

‘I cannot be other than I am.’

‘Stubborn, you mean, and righteous.’

Josey took Nora in his arms and she mock-pushed him away, laughing, and said, ‘Am I not a terrible harridan?’

‘You’re well known for it.’ Josey pulled her back into his closeness and Nora sighed and pressed her hands against the muscles in his back. His life was hard, but his spirit was light. There seemed to be no end to Josey’s light, even in the darkest moments, and Nora could not have enough of it. It was difficult to believe that a circuit around MacDara’s well could be an action of greater virtue than the cleaning of the kiln by a man who would stay behind for the benefit of others.

*

Turning her head in its nest of curls, Nora watched as the cat rose from warming his backside at the fire and put his nose to the doorway. Josey made a grumbling sound, flung up an arm and began to stir. Climbing to her feet, Nora donned her petticoats and tied up her fall of hair. She reached for the cauldron, hung it on a hook and filled it with water from a pitcher.

There was an edge to the morning as sharp as an oyster shell. The earth of the floor felt especially smooth and cool underfoot. She noticed that the spade resting against a wall and the kelp hooks hung nearby were limned with light that had squeezed in under the door flap. It gave the impression that there was more to these humble objects than met the eye.

As she went about her customary tasks – the settling of the fire, the fanning of the embers with an apron, the putting of the potatoes to boil – Nora had the peculiar sensation that some kind of import was attached to them. She felt, as she picked up the bowl with the animals’ feed and the pail, as though she were acting her part in a mysterious, intricate pattern. They were all part of it, she and Josey and myself, Molly, and the tall two-year-old pig in the yard, and the goat.

At the sound of Nora’s step, the goat brought herself at once to the milking stool and waited while Nora threw potato peelings and seaweed mash into the pig’s trough. The pig shifted its stance, its hoofs making a sucking noise in the mud, and began to nose through the peelings. No sooner had Nora squeezed the first spurt of greyish milk from the goat, than the cat arrived to lick the drops that fell on the ground. Nora pushed him out of the way with her foot without breaking the rhythm of wringing the teats. The milk made its racket
against the side of the pail, while the inevitable gulls cried overhead.

She could hear the rise and fall of voices, and laughter, which came from the people bound for the saint’s island. She recalled the queer breeze that had stirred the dust in the doorway the night before, and wished she had said a prayer against it.

I stumbled into the yard, tousle-haired and heavy-eyed with sleep and cried, ‘Brr, it’s cold, Mama!’ The goat lurched and Nora placed her hand on the beast’s flank to calm it. She said, ‘Shush, Molleen. You’ve given her a start. Put your hand on her now like this and give her a stroke and you will feel warm altogether as well.’

I pressed my hands against the goat’s hide and Nora went on with the milking, watching with satisfaction as the frothy level in the pail climbed higher. I yawned and flopped against my mother. When the goat was empty, Nora moved the pail of milk out of the way and scratched the goat underneath her chin. She said, ‘Your turn,’ and chucked me in the same way. I twisted away, laughing, pressing my chin into the hollow of my shoulder to escape the tickle, and the goat backed away in consternation.

While Nora mashed the potatoes with the milk for breakfast, Josey dressed and pegged back the door flap to release smoke from the house. The still air carried voices from the strand, and they heard the clunk and splash of boats being launched. ‘They will want to hurry to catch the tide,’ Josey said, and sat down to his breakfast.

The O’Hallorans ate without speaking. She and Josey both, Nora observed, seemed to be in a reverie of attentiveness:
Josey was watching me toss from hand to hand a ball he had made for me from the dried holdfast of a sea-rod and Nora found herself aiming at the cat an unswerving gaze that made him shift uncomfortably and frown over his striped shoulder at her.

Presently, Josey stood up and said, ‘Well, my pretty girls, there’s been that much loitering you wouldn’t credit. It’s about time I went to my work.’

Nora followed him out of the house with a basin of laundry on her hip. She noticed the beginning of a stoop in his posture, influenced by the loads both manifest and unseen that were persistently set upon his shoulders. She was aware of her own alterations, too. Many parts of her had coarsened – her once lissom waist, her hands, her feet, and the Lord knew what in her interior.

They came out into a morning of impossibly limpid light, and Nora exclaimed, ‘Isn’t it a pet of a day?’ There were a few clouds folded on top of one another near the horizon, but an otherwise faultless pale pink sky streamed over their heads. Out on the flat golden sea, shouts of excitement and the splash of oars rose from the fleet of boats swarming towards the saint’s island. Josey’s gaze, however, lingered on a hut in the field across the boreen that belonged to Liam Black. On the slope of its roof, a dozen or more big flatfish were laid out to dry in a dovetail pattern.

Nora could almost see the boat-shaped thought that occupied Josey’s mind. He was exasperated by the want of his own vessel. The O’Hallorans’ drying hut had nothing better in it than a score of pouting, a desperate, meagre fish at the best of times, but beggars could not be choosers. His brother-in-
law, Colman Mulkerrin, was a gentleman who did not care to be bested in any arena, and on the intermittent occasions that he permitted Josey to come fishing with him, the good cod with its wide mouth went as a matter of course to the house of Mulkerrin, while Josey took home the cod’s lesser relations.

Josey said, ‘Right-oh, jewel, might as well make the most of this weather,’ and the earnestness of his smile reminded Nora of that heartbreaking spade he had carried on his arrival at the island. He set off at a lope in the direction of the kiln and Nora turned to the basin, which she had set down on the wall of the boreen, and began to wring Josey’s shirt. Although he worked at his limit, the kelp and the turf earned little, which left the O’Hallorans vulnerable to the outbreak of hard times. A man with a boat might pursue the fat shoals of herrings and mackerel that flooded the bays twice a year, and sink lobster pots and dredge for oysters in the autumn. He might fish for wrasse to put up for the winter at his own convenience, and there was always work to be had rowing woolpacks out to the illegal French ships. It was a secretive coastline and the contrabanders who anchored in its hideaway harbours easily bore away the wool from under the noses of the revenue men in exchange for tea and silks, wine and brandy. Had Colman Mulkerrin been a decent character he would have made his brother-in-law a partner in his fishing boat, but it gratified him to keep Josey at a disadvantage. And since the passing of his father there was no one to rebuke his conduct. As Josey could only go to sea at Colman’s whim – no other crew would invite him for fear of aggravating the disputatious Mulkerrin – possessing a boat of his name was an aspiration that gnawed at him with increasing bite, although
the getting of wood for a boat in this treeless place was as troublesome a prospect as the amassing of a fee for the boatwright.

Just as Nora shook out the folds of the wrung shirt with a snap, a shadow darted at her and made her jump.

‘God be with you, Noreen. Did I frighten you?’

It was Kitty Conneely with her black mantle drawn low over her head and a wicker creel strapped to her back. She raised a hand – there were links of dried heather wound around one of her wrists – and pushed behind her ear a lock or two that had strayed from beneath her mantle. Her hair had lost its brilliant colour and was faded to the same russet tone as her petticoat. The vividness had gone out of her since the losses of the great cold, although she was not alone in that.

Nora said, ‘I am only surprised to see you, friend. Did you not think to go to the saint’s island yourself?’

‘Ah, no, it’s the quietness of the shore will suit me more.’ Kitty lifted her head at an angle like a bird and cried, ‘Molleen! How’s yourself?’

I was a little shy of Kitty, but I tried to oblige her by coming forward and allowing myself to be petted. ‘Look, jewel,’ Kitty released from her wrist the twist of heather. ‘I have something for you.’

‘Have you no use for such a pretty thing yourself?’

‘Ah, it is only coming in my way, Noreen. Let the child have it.’

With the necklace in place, I peered down my nose to view the tiny purple-pink blooms. Kitty never rested but she obliged the O’Hallorans with an over-brimming fondness that seemed to find no other outlet than to dote upon the little family.

Nora anchored Josey’s shirt on the wall with a stone, and said, ‘What is wrong with me I do not know. I have not yet made up a bundle for our dinner.’

‘I have potatoes galore at me. They will do for all of us.’

‘That is a great help, Kitty.’

Nora found my basket and a knife whose blade was sunk into a piece of sea-rod for its handle. I settled my doll into the basket and waited with an impatient jiggling foot while Nora gathered herself. As soon as I left the house I raced ahead and Kitty strode after me. Nora paused, however. She felt compelled to cast a backward look at the house – it seemed to loom at her in a clinging way, as if it thought she was about to abandon it, and a shiver passed through her. What a fierce morning for feelings it was. She turned away from the house and walked down the path, trying to shake the sense of misgiving.

Nora passed among the seaweed cocks above the strand, hurrying to catch up with Kitty and me. Josey was at work near the kiln, preparing a beacon, and Nora stopped to watch him as he raised a knee and broke a piece of kindling across his thigh. In the event that men of the militia put in an appearance, he would light the beacon to signal the people on MacDara’s Island that their pattern was in danger of discovery. He looked up and caught sight of Nora. He waved his cap and Nora lifted an arm in reply. She pressed a hand against her breast to quiet the thud of her heart. She could feel Josey’s love running through her like her own rivers of blood. She watched as Josey picked up his ash pole and began to saw it back and forth as he teased apart tangles of weed. She could not seem to tear her eyes from her man.