Rainsongs Read online

  They each had their jobs. He had four enamel buckets to fill from the well each morning. In the evening, after school, he gathered furze. It was tough work. The furze had to be cut up in a big old machine and fed into the manger for the animals. And twice a day the cows were brought in off the land and turned into the stall. Sitting on a three legged stool he, or one of his sisters, would milk them till they were dry. He loved those cows. Their warm velvety coats smelling of mud and grass, their gentle lowing. Afterwards the milk was put into big, flat pans and left to sit for a few days. When there was enough they’d skim off the cream and churn it for butter. There were two types of churn, the dasher and the barrel. The dasher had a hole on top and a long handle with a flat paddle inside. He liked to listen to the cream slapping the sides as it thickened.

  Everyone loved the duck eggs. They were large and green with specks on them. But you had to be up early to look for them if you wanted one. His mam hatched the hens, ducks and geese but bought in the turkeys. They came by rail at around five days old. He fed them hard-boiled eggs and potatoes. Then when they were big enough they had yellow meal from the corn merchant. And he looked after the pig. The children were fascinated by its curly tail. It ate all the kitchen waste: potato peelings and turnip tops, the left-over scrapings from the dinner table. They treated him like a pet, going for piggyback rides round the potato patch. His father put a ring though its nose to stop him rooting around too much. The night before the inevitable killing he had mixed emotions. They couldn’t feed the pig as it had to be fasting. But there was excitement knowing that after the slaughter they’d get the bladder for a football. The following morning they were up early and took the table from the kitchen out into the yard by the back door, checking the legs for any signs of weakness as they had to withstand the weight of a struggling pig. Then the timber barrel was made ready. His mam was busy all morning boiling water in a three legged pot that hung from the crane above the open fire. This was stored in creamery cans and used for the scalding. Gradually the men who’d be holding down the pig arrived. His uncle Mick from Dún Géagáin. Jamsey O’Sullivan from down the hill and Pats Sheehan and Daniel, their cousins, from over Waterville way. His da greeted each of them with a bottle of stout. But most important of all was Ned Reilly, the butcher, who came puffing up the hill pushing his bicycle just as the pig, a rope knotted around its top jaw, was brought out squealing into the yard. Immediately the men surrounded it, each catching a leg and hoisted it onto the table, holding it down with their combined weight. The squeaking and the crying was something awful. His mam was supposed to hold the pan to collect the blood but began to feel queasy and asked Paddy to do it instead. He remembers the mix of pride and revulsion. Would he be big and brave enough when the men called ‘hold him tight now’ and Ned Reilly took hold of the rope on the pig’s snout, to position himself at its throat and not flinch? He couldn’t watch as Ned pulled the long butcher’s knife from the inside of his coat pocket and thrust the blade deep into the pig’s neck in the direction of her heart. The squealing and kicking was terrible. But as the blood started to flow, it slowly faded and the struggle was over. Afterwards he took three or four pints of warm blood inside to his mam, with not a little pride. He can still remember the warm rusty smell as he carried in the metal basin. Though she reprimanded him for getting his clothes splattered, he didn’t mind. He felt like a man.

  After the killing, a barrel was placed at the end of the table, half-filled with boiling water from the creamery cans and his da climbed up to lower the pig in, head first, and remove the bristles. All the children stood around gawping, amazed that this inert carcass had once been the pet they’d tickled behind the ear and ridden on. Then the pig was turned and its rear end plunged into the steaming water. When it was brought out and placed on the table his da and Ned shaved it, before dragging the table under the two iron hooks attached to the ceiling joists, where a skewer was run through its hind legs. After the table was removed, the intestines were cut out and placed in a galvanised bath. The liver, kidneys, heart and tongue put in a bowl and the lights fried for the dog. He can still recall the terrible smell of the innards as they searched for the bladder, which their da blew up with a goose quill. Later they took it up to the Flat Field to kick it around until it deflated and began to stink. Back in the kitchen his mam stirred oatmeal, onions and seasoning into the warm blood. For days after they would be eating nothing but black pudding for breakfast.

  Going up the mountain to cut the turf was another big occasion. It was a fair old climb through the bog and gorse. Upwards of a hundred people might be working there at any one time. He was twelve or thirteen the first time he went. The children messed around pegging sods at each other, helping the Sleán Man and the Pike Man lay them down side by side in neat rows. There was even dancing at dinner time when someone got out a melodeon. And always there was a fire to boil the kettle. The tea a smoky mix of peat and earth. His mam would give them each a hunk of cold bacon and bread. No one had a watch. But they knew, alright, when their bellies were back as far as their backbones, when it was time to eat.

  Christmas and Nollaig na mBan—the women’s Christmas on the 6th January when the men did all the household chores—were special. They whitewashed the parlour and kitchen and his mam and da went down in the donkey cart to bring back the tea chest full of goodies. A big seed loaf, a barmbrack, and a pot of jam in an earthenware jar. And there was always a ling fish. So salty you’d be drinking for days. Then they’d fetch up the Guinness in a big brown jar. There was no Christmas tree in those days and no tinsel. Just little mottos sent from a cousin in America they hung round the walls that said God Bless Our House and Merry Christmas. On Twelfth Night they were carefully rolled up and put back in the cardboard shoe box till the following year.

  Around eight o’clock on Christmas Eve the whole family would set out for Midnight Mass. The half-hour journey down the mountain could take several hours because of the stopping to chat with every man, woman and child they met on the way. When they reached the chapel the usher directed them to their seats and the queue for communion. Paddy loved that time. The smell of incense. The special Christmas candles that lit up the colours of the stained glass windows. Some of the fellows would roll in after the pubs shut a bit worse for wear. One year ‘The Rose of Tralee’ was heard ringing out across the aisle. But his teacher, Miss O’Shea, soon put a stop to that and your man was shown the door. But even the Mass has changed. He can well remember being told never to touch the host with his fingers, even if it got stuck on the roof of his mouth. Now people receive it in their hands. And the communion rails and curtains have all gone. So, too, has the Latin.

  Now he’s the only one left. Mikey is long away to Newcastle in Australia, where he’s the manager of a supermarket and his wife a school secretary. He’s sent Paddy photographs of the nieces he’s never seen. Two little blonde, blue-eyed girls in sun hats, dangling their legs in a turquoise swimming pool. His sister Nora is a teacher in Cork. Marie’s married with four children and lives in Sneem. And Jo was ordained. He works in Chile, teaching children in knitted hats, who live in the high mountains, how to read. And Bridie? Well, poor Bridie hadn’t made it. The meningitis got her at sixteen.

  He finishes his tea, pulls on his waterproof, his tweed cap and Wellingtons and makes his way out in the lashing rain. The ground is pock-marked with hoof holes and the cattle under the blackthorn low as he approaches them with an armful of hay, their swollen udders swinging as they push against each other. As they crowd round the concrete feeder, a damp warmth rising from their muddy flanks, a young heifer lifts a stringy tail and releases a river of warm excrement that gives off a cloud of steam as it hits the cold ground.

  Paddy checks their ear tags, talking to each animal by name, scratching their woolly fringes that remind him of the ladies of a certain age coming out of Julie’s hair salon with tightly crimped perms on market days. When he’s seen to the cows he goes up to che
ck on the sheep and see if any more lambs have been born in the night. High between the outcrops of rock the spongy bog is too rough for cattle. As he squelches across the field he notices a dead rabbit, its eye sockets wriggling with white maggots. Further up the headland are the small stone shelters built by the anchorites waiting to go out to the Skelligs. And beyond them, the Atlantic, as far as the eye can see.

  He wonders what the Cassidy woman will do with Brendan’s place now he’s gone. He was no age and a pleasant enough fellow. Always had the time of day. Paddy often passed him on the track with his little sketch book and paint brushes. They’d stop and exchange civilities, chat about the weather. He couldn’t see her keeping the place on and coming here on her own. It must be a hard thing for her to come back after that summer.

  He finishes up with the animals and trudges down the mountain, glad to be getting out of the rain. Hangs his waterproof and overalls on the back of the kitchen chair, then gets out the old black frying pan, opens the fridge and cuts a lump of lard from the basin of dripping. While the eggs and rashers are sizzling he turns on the radio. He likes a little company while he eats. After he’s finished his breakfast he clears everything away, wipes the table and puts his plate in the pink plastic bowl in the sink. Just as he’s doing the washing up there’s a thud on the mat and he hears the postman’s van drive off down the track. There are two envelopes. An electricity bill and a white one that he can’t immediately identify. He reaches for his spectacles in their old brown case, cleans them with the buff cloth resting inside the lid, then pours another mug of tea before sitting down to open the letter.

  He has to read it twice. €100,000. That’s a lot of money. Eugene Riordan must want his place really badly to come up with a figure like that. He breathes deeply, folds the letter along the creases and puts it back in the envelope, then goes to the dresser and slips it behind the souvenir plate from the Aran Islands.

  This is his home. His mother worked in this kitchen to feed her family, cooking over the open turf fire, serving them at this same big table he’s seated at. The planks were scrubbed white and on the two long benches his brothers and sisters sat waiting hungrily for a slice of the new-baked bread cooling on the window ledge, away from the dog. There were quarrels and disagreements, of course. But nothing that the odd clip round the ear couldn’t sort out. It was a hard life. But he wouldn’t have changed it.

  3

  Eugene is on the beach with the dogs. At least they don’t argue or make a scene. He’s wearing his wax jacket, flat tweed cap and a plaid woollen scarf. He hasn’t had breakfast, showered or shaved. Just grabbed the clothes he left lying on the chair last night and slipped silently out of the house leaving Siobhán to sleep. His tongue feels furred, his skin like putty. He calls the dogs and they come bounding down the sandy path that leads to the strand. He’s been up half the night and had more than enough tears and door slamming. Jesus, Mary and Joseph hadn’t he simply said he didn’t want her bringing any more interior design magazines or paint swatches when she came for the weekend. That he didn’t need or want her advice when he was paying for a designer. It had all escalated out of control when she realised he’d been speaking to Niamh. Niamh ran a small firm of interior decorators in Dublin and worked as a contractor for the architects. Somehow it had reached Siobhán’s ears that Niamh had been down for couple of days to discuss the décor for the new treatment rooms and that he’d taken her out to dinner. Siobhán had screamed and sulked, calling Niamh a scheming bitch. Surely Eugene had watched her working the party scene in Dublin and must realise she was only where she was because her father put up the money for her business and she had big tits, which she flaunted at every opportunity. And her designs? Well she had no taste, no style. Leave it to Niamh, Siobhán, screamed, and the place would look like a feckin’ bordello.

  He wonders if it’s worth all the bother. He could just settle for a quiet life. But he needs a project, something to occupy his mind. He stands in the wind watching the dogs run backwards and forwards clutching bits of driftwood between their frilled chops, which they come and drop at his feet. He loves the way they chase across the sand barking. Their ears flapping, their coats matted with salt spray. It’s a grey, drizzly morning. The sea stretches out in front of him like a sheet of corrugated iron. Two white seagulls wheel and mew overhead as the waves split on the rocks. There’s no one around. Just the way he likes it. It was here that he played with Brendan as a boy. He’d never had a proper friend before but Brendan had an innate confidence that was infectious. For that summer, at least, some of it rubbed off on him. Brendan was always initiating things—fishing from the far rocks, building camp fires. As a child Eugene was crippled by shyness, tongue-tied when he had to talk to anyone he didn’t know. When he considers, which he rarely does, what it means to be happy, it’s that summer he remembers.

  The fine rain is cool against his face. He needs the air and exercise. For last night, after the decorating fiasco, in a period of comparative calm and rapprochement, Siobhán announced that she wanted to move in with him. They had sex and he was just drifting off to sleep, the last whiskey working itself through his veins, when she leant over and asked if he was awake. He tried to ignore her as he felt the pull towards oblivion and pretended to be asleep. But she went on poking and prodding, stroking his bald patch, which always irritated him, so in the end he was forced to fling off the covers and, exasperated, sit up and take notice.

  Can’t a man even get a night’s sleep in his own bed? And since she was asking, no, she couldn’t come and live with him. It was out of the question. He didn’t want to live with anyone ever again.

  She shouted, cried and demanded. What were her words? That he stop dangling her on a string and make a commitment to their relationship. But what relationship was that, he wondered? As far as he’s concerned the terms are clear. She can come and enjoy the house; sleep with him if that’s what she wants. Though he never asks her to, even if it’s true that he generally does nothing to dissuade her when she rings to say she’s on the Friday train to Killarney. And he’s happy to help out financially from time to time. But he’s tired of her lectures about the need to ‘get in touch with his real feelings’. He is as he is. He doesn’t want to share his homes with anyone or let anybody get too close to him again. Hasn’t he only just got rid of Bridget—and look what a mess that was? No, he doesn’t need another woman to move in and lay claim. Certainly not one who keeps him awake in the middle of the night asking every five minutes if he loves her. Why do people always want things from him? Why can’t they just leave him alone?

  He’s exhausted. He drank too much again last night, smoked too many cigars. His mouth feels like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. He throws a stick to Brutus who goes bounding after it. He needs to call into the office and find out if there’s been any developments with the land up by Bolus Head. It’s all taking too long. Why won’t your man just take the money? It’s more than Paddy O’Connell will see in a lifetime. He needs to get on with things. The bank’s waiting, the architect’s waiting, and the builders are waiting. All they need is the go ahead from him. He’s been doing some research on spas in Scandinavia and come up with a few novel ideas. He fancies the idea of a birch-twig sauna with a cold plunge pool, and a Turkish steam room for which he’s seen some very attractive lapis lazuli tiles imported from Istanbul. There’ll be a gym with a number of highly-qualified personal trainers and massage rooms with different scented aromatherapy oils and candles. In fact, that’s a good idea. He’ll call each room by a fragrance: lavender, rose, sage and decorate them in those colours so that the guests can have the relevant treatments—calming, invigorating or simply relaxing. There’ll be a discount for the first hundred people that sign up for a year’s membership. Six months’ free for anyone who buys five years and special privileges for Life Members: VIP events, private changing rooms with their names on the door. He’s planning a big opening. Lots of seafood and champagne. That�
��s what he likes best. Making things happen, being in control.

  He should call in and see Martha. She’s probably still on her hands and knees sorting out Brendan’s stuff but he could do with some sensible adult company. He’d be better off with a woman like that, a mature woman nearer his own age. But that’s never been his style. He knows where he is with younger women and he’s always felt a bit judged by her silent, English middle-class reserve. He should have gone over for the funeral. He regrets that. But he wouldn’t have known anyone there and couldn’t believe that Martha would really have been pleased to see him standing in the crematorium while she was saying goodbye to her husband. Still Brendan was his friend and he feels bad. He wonders what she’ll do. Whether she’ll marry again. She’s still an attractive woman. He could do worse than her. An involvement would mean that he could get her on board. She’s had her own career. A teacher, if he remembers right. She might have some sensible ideas. It would be good not to work on his own, to have someone to bounce his decisions off, to help him entertain, as well as share his bed. No, he must be mad. It would never work. She’s too opinionated, too independent, too English. He wonders what she made of his offer to buy her out. She surely can’t want to keep the cottage?