Rainsongs Page 16

  But you came back to Kerry, Colm. Presumably you could have stayed in Dublin or even gone abroad?

  Sure I could. But I love this feckin’ place. Not the diddly-diddly leprechaun or Eurotrash mentality. Language. That’s our great strength. For a little nation, we punch well above our weight. All of us speak with the accents of our native place. No Irishman is judged by the way he speaks as you are in England. We’re not obsessed by class or with where people come from. Though I can’t be doing with all this contemporary spiritual bollocks about ley lines and standing stones. To me it all feels like some sort of weird hippy nonsense from muppets who’ve lost their way and given up thinking. Ireland’s always been full of dysfunctional families, miserable loveless lives, illness, old age, mind-numbing religion, and rain. Our national hymns are rain songs, our pastimes boredom and drinking. One keeps the other at bay. That’s the truth, Martha. My truth—and that’s what I write about. That and the savage beauty of this place. The other sort of Irishness? Well, that’s for tourists.

  As they’re talking a German woman with peroxide Heidi-plaits and a wrist wrapped in knotted leather bracelets is leaning over the bar talking animatedly to two local men. Apparently she’s lived here for a long time and in her inebriated state feels that gives her the right to be frank.

  The Irish, they are stupid, she says, in her accented English that has both a Hibernian lilt and a heavy German inflection. They do nothing for the environment. They are just dirty. Dirty. Drive behind them and you’ll see they throw the cigarette packets out of the car window. A German would never do something like this. Ireland is the last free country in Europe, she continues, warming to her theme. Wild spaces, clean air and water, but my neighbours they would destroy it all. It makes me sad. But we Germans are bringing environmental education and good taste to Ireland. Of course, the Irish are lovely people, but ignorant.

  Sure you Germans are hardworking, sure you’re smart, one of her drinking companions, a young man in fisherman’s gear with a lobster face, sneers. Smart enough to feckin’ have voted for Hitler, he says, storming off and plonking himself, unasked, at Martha and Colm’s small table.

  God-give-me-strength, he says, pulling up his stool, before launching into his own drunken diatribe about how he could sort out the six counties, no trouble at all.

  The Prods, now, they need a proper pasting before they come round, he slurs. You can’t alter the march of history. Ireland unfree shall never be at peace. Did you ever hear that now? he asks, leaning a beery face into Colm’s across the table.

  I certainly did Colm says, pushing his unfinished pint aside and getting up slowly. It’s from Patrick Pearse’s oration at the graveside of the Fenian O’Donovan Rossa, 1915, you fucking eejit. Come on Martha, he says, grabbing her coat sleeve and pulling her through the crowded bar into the street. Let’s leave this lot to their nonsense. They’re about as bright as a lighthouse in a damp fog.

  4

  Eugene is driving to his solicitor in Killarney. He has Paddy O’Connell’s letter in his pocket and is seething. Joe McNeil has been his lawyer since the early days. They were at school together and still regularly play golf. Joe understands Eugene’s needs. He must be able to find a way round this. Eugene has just heard from the bank. They’re all ready to go with the money at a good rate. It’s there for the asking. He met with the architects again yesterday. There shouldn’t be any problem sourcing the materials they want. He parks his Range Rover in the Church of Ireland car park and makes his way up to Joe’s office.

  Joe is short and balding with broad shoulders. He wears an expensive pink shirt that only just buttons round his middle, slip-on suede loafers and strong aftershave.

  Good morning to you, Eugene. It’s been a few days since we spoke. How’s Siobhán?

  Eugene ignores him and sits down in front of Joe’s desk and hands him Paddy’s letter.

  Well, Joe says, glancing at it. That’s most unfortunate. But I’m sure we can find ways and means. Whiskey?

  Joe passes Eugene a heavy Waterford crystal tumbler, then takes off his reading glasses and leans back in his chair. His office is sleek and modern. Through the glass partition Eugene can see his secretary busy at her keyboard. Joe’s desk is covered with files and documents. A photo of his wife, his three red-headed children and their golden retriever, sits in a silver frame.

  Look, I see it like this, Eugene, Joe says, sizing up the situation. Like a cool-headed poker player. You have to plan your moves carefully. Keep a few paces ahead. Outwit the opponent. You need a long-term strategy. Now, as I thought, the Keegan brothers are happy to take the money and sit in the pub all day and I’ve had a word with Mike Kelly. He’ll let the deal go through and move into one of those new bungalows if he can keep his grazing rights in the far field. That shouldn’t affect anything in terms of the building programme and I think guests would appreciate seeing a few genuine Irish cows out of the window. It keeps things authentic, gives the place a bit of atmosphere. But this thing with your man Paddy. Well that’s a bit trickier.

  Eugene sighs impatiently. I know that Joe. That’s why I’m here.

  Well my suggestion would be to go ahead with the purchases that you can make. Crowd him out. If you get those other two properties you can at least widen the track to the edge of the Cassidy woman’s field and start getting in some building equipment. Make it look as though you mean business. That it’s all a done deal. No harm in a bit of bluff, is there? Any further thoughts from her, by the way? Will she sell?

  Eugene shrugs. I’ve no idea. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a woman like that?

  You can make it difficult for O’Connell, Joe continues. Disturb his stock. Make it awkward to get feed through. I’m not suggesting anything illegal mind, but the track officially runs over the Keegan boys’ land. I’ve checked that. So it’s just habit that he uses it. There’s nothing in writing, nothing binding as far as I can see that gives him the right. Now, if you were to own that stretch, you can say no. It’ll be your land, and you don’t have to let anyone cross it if you don’t want to.

  But that’s not going to guarantee that I can go ahead with the project, is it? Eugene asks tetchily. Not unless I have O’Connell’s place. That’s where the building’s going to go.

  Well, maybe not immediately, Joe says, scratching his ear and swivelling round and round in his black leather chair. But give it time, Eugene. It wouldn’t do any harm to buy that land up there anyway. After all you aren’t paying much for it by today’s rates. And the bank will let you have the money for more or less nothing. Hopefully the Cassidy woman will play ball and want to be shot of her place. That would certainly help. Then you’d have direct access and that would leave O’Connell isolated. He’ll have a real problem if he can’t get in feed or drive his sheep and cattle up on the mountain. Maybe then he’ll see it’s no longer viable to farm up there and that he’d be much better off taking up your offer and living the life of Riley, rather than struggling on. And you know a few people on the council. Arrange a few pro bono dinners, some rounds of golf at one of your clubs, bend a few ears. You know as well as I do how these things are done.

  But that could take a while, Eugene sighs. This is ridiculous.

  5

  Paddy has fretted all day since he put the letter in the post. He’s not sure what more he can do to stop Eugene Riordan. That he owns the title deeds to his cottage and land, he knows. They go back three generations. His granda built these walls. But wealthy men like Eugene don’t just get rich by chance. They know a thing or two and have clever people working for them. Paddy has put his heart and soul into this place, keeping the corrugated iron roof in good repair, repainting the outside walls each year with lime wash, the inside with green gloss paint: dresser, window ledges, and chairs. Every week he puts out the furniture and mops the floors just as his mam used to do.

  Until he was ten they hadn’t the electricity. His da col
lected talla from the strand. A big yellow ball of grease that used to drift in off the boats. He made candles with it and had a special thing for threading the wick. When it was lit it would burst like a bomb. He remembers his mam sitting by the Tilly lamp knitting; the click-clack of her needles, the dog snoring by the grate. When they got the electricity they looked up at the bulb for a week. Thought ’twas blind they were getting. His mother’s eyes were never good with all that knitting and mending. She bought a pair of rimless spectacles from the little Jew man in the felt hat. He came spring and autumn with his suitcase of glasses, with their buff cloths to give them a polish. When he opened his battered leather case there was all sorts: bottles of liniments for rheumatism and cough mixture guaranteed to loosen even the firmest phlegm.

  His da was always suspicious of the Jew. Warned that like the dark-skinned gypsies on market day he’d cheat you soon as look at you. Furriers and jewellers were Jews. That was well known. You had to check they’d not slipped the jewels from out your watch when you took it to be mended.

  The day they buried his mam, the long red curtains blew in and out of her window in the rain. She always slept with them wide open to get the benefit and no one thought to close them. Marie and Nora, his two sisters still at home, were beside themselves. They sat next to her wardrobe, their faces buried in her dresses that still had the scent of Ashes of Roses on them.

  The gloom was palpable. His da moped in the kitchen, while the girls tiptoed round him, fixing his dinner, which he pushed away. He didn’t seem to notice if there was food in the house or not and the girls were too frightened to ask for money. As like as not he’d get in a rage. It was the alcohol talking. Although he’d never been a drinker, now he’d drink and drink until he passed out. It wasn’t that he was a violent man but he couldn’t deal with the grief. He stopped going out, stopped having baths. The time the parish priest came round he just shut the door in his face.

  Paddy’s parents had been fixed up by a matchmaker. In those days if you saw two men with their heads together in the pub you knew a match was being made. Not all the marriages worked out but you were stuck with what you got. His parents were blessed with seven children. Though they lost one early to the scarlet fever and then poor Bridie at sixteen. After his mam was taken, his da just went downhill.

  And all the while Paddy carried on feeding the cattle, laying muck and digging potatoes. Slowly his da began to take an interest again, stopped hitting the bottle and went back up the mountain with the sheep. He always liked the sheep. Getting up in the early morning mist as the sun rose over the sea. He knew every nook and cranny of the hillside. There was none better with a lamb that was breech. And although he never touched the whiskey again, he never really got back his strength. It was then that Paddy knew he wouldn’t be leaving. And he’s been here ever since. Minding the place, minding his business.

  6

  Martha is running a hot shower. She got cold in town. As she slips off her thermal vest she notices she put it on inside out. A sign of good luck. Well, she could do with a little luck right now. She’s soaping her hair and enjoying the jet of hot water when a car door slams outside, followed by a knock. She can hear someone in the front room. She never locks the door.

  I’m in the shower.

  Irritated, she wraps herself in a towel and goes through to the main room to find Eugene standing with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and an expression on him like the back end of a sheep.

  Martha, I have to talk to you, he says, not apologising for disturbing her, or making any reference to the fact that she is half-naked and dripping wet.

  Does it have to be now? As you can see I was otherwise engaged.

  Yes, yes it does.

  Well, you’ll have to wait while I put something on.

  She goes back into the bathroom, pulls on a pair of jeans and one of Brendan’s old sweaters, and then wraps her wet hair in a turban. Next door Eugene, is still standing in the middle of the room.

  Oh for goodness sake, Eugene, do sit down. You’re making me nervous.

  He takes off his coat and settles himself by the stove.

  Have you any glasses?

  She’s tempted to say that they’re in the same place as they were the last time he was here but resists and goes to fetch two from the kitchen.

  So what’s all this about?

  I need to talk to you about this place. I need to know if you’ll sell, or at the very least, let me have the end of the field. It’s crucial to this project. We’ll be creating a lot of work up here, he says, in what sounds like a justification, if not an apology. At least ten permanent jobs.

  She takes a long slow sip of the whiskey he’s poured and breathes deeply.

  The truth is Eugene, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the place. It’s just too soon.

  But surely you won’t want to come back here on any regular basis? Not now. And I’ll give you a good price.

  She feels such a swell of anger. As if she can just be bought off. As if the money has anything to do with it. She realises that this is the only language Eugene understands. His eyes are the colour of winter sea. She tries to make sense of what he’s saying. Why does he want this so much? Why does it matter? He’s a wealthy man. What’s driving him? She finds it almost impossible to look him in the face and fiddles with the towel tying up her wet hair. She wants to say something but can’t find the words. As he sits there waiting for her to reply, surrounded by her late husband’s books, the Bible he won as a schoolboy, the catalogues on St Ives and Peter Lanyon, she realises that there can be no meeting point between her and this man, however much he once cared for her husband. Would he, she wonders, have asked this if Brendan had still been alive? What would Brendan have done? Surely he wouldn’t have agreed or maybe he’d have been able to discourage Eugene before things ever reached this point, talk some sense into him. But perhaps this is just what Eugene does. Pursue things he doesn’t really want or need but that will mean an inestimable loss to others, simply because he can.

  She half had it in mind, when coming over on the boat from London, to put the place up for sale and be shot of it. She couldn’t imagine coming back here on any regular basis after all these years, and wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Brendan’s death. It would be a drain on her resources to keep on a cottage that she never uses. She could let it for part of the year as a holiday let. But that would have its own problems. She’d need to find someone to change the sheets and clear up after the tenants left. And then in winter there’d always be problems with tiles or bits of guttering blown off by the wind, a leaking window or the electricity going down. She will have to give some serious thought to what she’s going to do with the place.

  7

  The moon is pale as a shut eyelid.

  Colm climbs from his van, slams the door, hunching inside his anorak against the rain. What does he want her to say? Perhaps he should have bought her something. A bottle of wine or chocolates for her trouble. But he’s driven here in his work clothes and is later than he intended, unshaven and unwashed, after milking. He wonders how long he can sustain the herd, keep things going with so little help. His mam is not getting any younger. But he likes the earthy closeness to the animals, going to the corn merchant for feed. The smell of the place. Oats. Antiseptic. Saddle soap. But cows are demanding and leave him little time to write or play music.

  Martha is the first person he’s ever asked to read his work. He’s not sure why he decided on her. Her relationship to Brendan, no doubt, and the fact that he hopes as an outsider she’ll be objective. There’s also something vulnerable about her that attracts him, something sympathetic.

  Her hair is wet when she opens the door as if she’s just climbed from the shower. She’s wearing jeans and a man’s knitted jersey. Her feet are bare. It makes her look like a girl. When he steps across the threshold the room is nearly dark except for the glow of
the stove that throws shadows onto the whitewashed walls and the candles burning in a brass candelabra on the sill. He takes off his wet anorak and hangs it on the back of the chair. Then settles by the fire. She brings him a glass of wine and, uninvited, says:

  They’re good. Your poems, you know. Very good.

  He doesn’t speak but waits as she settles herself on the sofa, her legs curled beneath her like a teenager, a rug over her knees to keep out the chill.

  Well, I know ‘good’ is a pretty feeble word, she continues. But they are. What I mean, she says leaning forward and reaching for her glass on the small table and taking a slow sip, is that they move me. Stay with me. They seem, somehow, I’m not sure if this is right, to transcend the world as it’s immediately experienced. I read them slowly, each one several times. There is, if this doesn’t sound too pompous or corny, something transcendental about them. Of course they deal with the everyday, with the life you know and experience around you. But still, there’s something other-worldly about them. Isn’t there a phrase Yeats used—you’d know better than me—about the ‘foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart’? I think something like that applies to your poems. I like the merger between traditional and modern idioms. They’re nostalgic but not soft. There’s something uncanny and tough about them. If anything I want a little more of that. Occasionally, for you to explain less. To trust the reader.