Cold Spring, page 1
COLD SPRING
Cold Spring
Patrick McGinley
COLD SPRING
First published 2013
by New Island
2 Brookside
Dundrum Road
Dublin 14
www.newisland.ie
Copyright © Patrick McGinley, 2013
The author has asserted his moral rights.
PRINT ISBN: 978-1-84840-220-1
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84840-222-5
MOBI ISBN: 978-1-84840-221-8
All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.
British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
New Island received financial assistance from
The Arts Council (An Comhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, Ireland
For my grandson Owen
Also by Patrick McGinley:
Bogmail
Goosefoot
Fox Prints
Foggage
The Trick of the Ga Bolga
The Red Men
The Devil’s Diary
The Lost Soldier’s Song
That Unearthly Valley (memoir)
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my brother-in-law Francie O’Donnell for his help with the details of sheep farming and lambing.
1
No one lives in Leaca any more. What was once a lively townland has become a place of roofless houses and overgrown laneways, a hunting-ground for the resident crows and foxes. Now and again two or three lobster fishermen put in at the little slip and eat a frugal lunch undisturbed. Leaca has become a place of solitude, sought out occasionally by hillwalkers in search of peace, or bird-watchers contemplating the movements of gannets and cormorants. The terrible events of the spring of 1948 are forgotten.
In that year Leaca was already in a state of irreversible decline. The young people had fled to Dublin or emigrated to England, Scotland or America. Only eight men and three women remained; middle-aged or elderly. They had known one another since childhood, and had learnt to tolerate one another’s quirks and eccentricities. For the most part they lived like their forefathers, supplementing fishing with sheep farming and vice versa. They did not lack for life’s necessaries, but neither did they enjoy many of its luxuries. All they asked for was good health and a full belly, and most of the time they told themselves that they had little cause for complaint.
What they knew about the great world was what they had gleaned from the local newspaper, and that did not impress them. They rarely talked about the news in the headlines; their interest lay in the daily round of work and the life of the larger community in the lower glen. All of them were accomplished historians of one another’s families, a skill that had been passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter for at least seven generations. The personal qualities they treasured were generosity, reliability, resourcefulness and physical prowess. Anyone who was self-seeking or born outside the tribe was treated with covert reserve.
Red Miller was one such man. He was a successful sheep farmer and he was easy to talk to, yet among his neighbours he had a reputation of being ‘out for himself’. His father and grandfather were said to have been ‘tight’, and his great grandfather, an English coastguard called Habakkuk Miller, got a local girl in the family way and then skedaddled without marrying her. Since Red Miller was a direct descendant of Habakkuk, everyone believed that he had inherited the bad blood of his exotically named ancestor, and when he fell out with his nearest neighbour Paddy Canty over trespassing sheep, they all backed Canty. Paddy Canty was eighty-six, they said. He was the oldest man in Leaca and could not be expected to run after every sheep that strayed. To make matters worse, Red Miller’s dog tore the throat out of one of Canty’s ewes. People shook their heads and said it was only what they had expected. The name Habakkuk was muttered darkly, and when Red Miller’s dog disappeared mysteriously one night, everyone agreed that a dog that worried sheep was no great loss to anyone.
The only other man who did not belong to the self-appointed circle of old cronies was the young Englishman, Nick Ambrose. He and his partner Sharon McElwee first came to Leaca over two years ago. Nick did not shave. He sported a heavy stubble, and wore his black curly hair long. When asked what he did for a living, he would say that he and Sharon were both idealists; that they were escaping from the city and people who know nothing about anything apart from handling other people’s money. Here they would live simply and quietly, in tune with nature and the ancient wisdom of the earth. They bought an old stone-built byre from Red Miller, which they extended and re-roofed. They plastered and whitewashed the stonework and made a snug little two-room cottage with one door and three windows. There they lived together, except when Sharon went off to Dublin for a week to sell her paintings, leaving Nick to take care of their six-year-old daughter Emily.
Nick was not a good provider. He never grew enough potatoes and vegetables for their needs, and he omitted to cut an adequate supply of turf in spring, with the result that he was reduced to beachcombing for cast-in during the winter or picking up bits of timber and dead branches for firewood on his walks. Sometimes he would earn a few shillings helping his aging neighbours with sheep shearing, lambing or dipping, but what little income they could depend on came from the sale of Sharon’s paintings. As she liked a drink, a sizable share of her earnings went on whiskey. Whenever he reminded her of this inconvenient fact, she would tell him that the money she earned was hers, and that if he fancied bacon for dinner he would have to bring it home himself.
To give Nick his due, he wasn’t lacking in ambition. He longed to become a successful writer, and he liked to tell her about the places they would visit when his ship finally came in. He wrote poems and short stories, but as he rarely managed to sell them Sharon advised him to take up serious drinking instead. In his own defence he said that it was not unknown for great artists to live in penury. It was early days, he reminded her. At his age Vermeer was still unheard of. Like Vermeer, he himself was a slow worker. Vermeer had left less than forty paintings. Significantly, he died in debt and didn’t become famous until two hundred years after his death.
‘Two hundred years!’ Sharon scoffed. ‘Even two hundred days would try my patience.’ Sharon would wait for no man. She knew her own mind and there was nothing he could do to change it.
* * *
Coming up to nine o’clock on a cold and foggy evening in March 1948 the men of the townland met in Paddy Canty’s house. Everyone was there, apart from Red Miller and Nick Ambrose, neither of whom had passed the Man of Leaca test. Daniel Burke, the retired schoolmaster, was first to arrive. Then came Tom Barron, Muiris Mór O’Donnell, Marcus Quinn, Cormac Gildea, and finally, Neil Durkin. Paddy produced a bottle of Powers from the dresser and gave them all a glass. He said that he drank nothing but Powers because at his age it was the only whiskey he could taste. The rest, he said, was strictly for youngsters under seventy-five. Then he turned to Muiris and asked him to be fear a’ tí, master of ceremonies, for the occasion.
Muiris was twelve years younger than Paddy. He was tall and sinewy and had lost none of his bulk. His craggy face was weather-beaten, and his bony nose and high forehead suggested a keenly scrutinising mind. He spoke slowly and clearly. He was seen by the others as one of nature’s leaders, a thinking man who meant what he said and never uttered a foolish word or a word he had to retract.
‘Paddy asked for this meeting,’ he began. ‘Like the rest of us, he notices things missing about the house. Turf gone from the shed. Potatoes gone from the barn. Turnips gone from pits.How many of you have noticed what I’m talking about?’
‘We all notice things,’ the schoolmaster replied. ‘Small things, sometimes so small you can’t be sure they’ve been taken.’
‘Small things still add up,’ Marcus Quinn said.
‘It isn’t the value; it’s the nuisance of never being sure. Sometimes I think I’m only imagining things,’ Paddy complained.
‘You’re not imagining it,’ Muiris reminded him. ‘The question is, who’s doing it?’
‘We all know who’s doing it,’ Cormac Gildea said. ‘No one but a foreigner would live on a bog and think of stealing turf.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t the strongest man in Leaca, apart maybe from Red Miller himself,’ Neil Durkin smiled. Neil was a weaver who worked indoors for the most part. He looked paler than the others, and was less robust.
‘Well, we know the culprit,’ Paddy said. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’ He took out his empty pipe and began sucking it with his finger in the bowl. He had given up tobacco for Lent but not the empty pipe.
‘Do we really know the culprit?’ the schoolmaster asked. ‘We won’t know for certain till we’ve caught him in the act.’
‘There’s such a thing as likelihood,’ Muiris said. ‘Who needs turf the most? Who needs potatoes, turnips, eggs? And which of us would put another man’s chicken in his own pot? We’re all sensible and honest. We’ve lived here all our lives. We never lost as much as an egg before Ambrose came.
‘If we’re certain, we need to speak to him,’ Tom Barron said. ‘And if we speak to him, he’ll only deny it. As Daniel said, we need to catch him in the act.’
‘That’s it. Catch him red-handed,’ Cormac said. ‘If we catch him, we’ll come down on him like a ton of bricks.’
‘Who’s going to catch him?’ Muiris looked round at his neighbours. ‘A thief comes in the night. At our age none of us is going to sit up all night waiting.’
‘We’ll lay a trap for him,’ Neil Durkin said. ‘We’ll put temptation in his way and see if he can resist it.’
‘All this is wild talk,’ the schoolmaster said. ‘The whole thing could be someone having a joke or trying to get Ambrose into trouble.’
‘Now, which of us would be mad enough to do a thing like that?’ Muiris wanted to know.
‘No one here,’ Marcus Quinn said.
‘Could it be Red Miller, then?’ Paddy Canty wondered, as if taken by a sudden shaft of enlightenment. ‘He’d do it, be the hokey, if he thought it would get us all at each other’s throats.’
‘The truth is we don’t really know who’s doing it, so how can we pass judgement?’ the schoolmaster said.
‘I don’t agree.’ Muiris raised his index finger. ‘We all know in our hearts who’s doing it but no one is willing to accuse him to his face. At least, not yet. We’ll sleep on it and allow our thoughts and hearts to harden. We’ll give him more rope. The boot hasn’t really started to pinch. When one of you loses a year-old wether, you’ll soon change your tune. We’ll meet at my place on Monday evening. In the meantime keep an eye on your belongings and try to find out what you think.’
‘In ancient Ireland poets lived on the people,’ Daniel said. ‘Maybe we should feel honoured to have two artists living among us. Who knows, they may put Leaca on the map one day.’
‘Artists, my arse!’ Muiris said. ‘They’re good for no one but themselves. Look at that painting on the wall there. It’s supposed to be me. Now look at it and tell me if it’s anything like the man you all know.’
Cormac and Marcus Quinn laughed. Neil Durkin slapped his thigh and joined in the merriment.
‘You mean the man I think I know?’ Daniel said seriously.
‘What are you talking about?’ Muiris demanded.
‘Artists paint from the inside out. That’s how Sharon thinks you’d look if your face reflected what goes on inside your head.’
‘So I think like a gorilla, then! Is that what you mean?’
‘Enough’s enough,’ Paddy Canty said, going around again with the whiskey bottle. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life.’
He put an armful of black turf on the fire and they settled down to a good grumble about the north wind and the cold weather. They wondered how long it would last and discussed the effect a prolonged spell of frost would have on the lambing. None of them was getting any younger. It was a bad time to fall out with Ambrose. His help would be needed with the lambing, not to mention the digging and sowing.
After a while the conversation petered out. A live coal rolled onto the hearth and Muiris reached for the tongs.
‘You’re keeping us all in suspense, Paddy.’ Muiris dropped the coal in the centre of the fire.
‘Suspense about what?’ Paddy asked slyly.
‘The young woman who came to see you today,’ Cormac said. ‘I wish a young woman would come to see me.’
‘That’s not the suspense I meant,’ Muiris said emphatically.
‘She was a fine specimen of a woman,’ Cormac continued. ‘I was in the field fornenst the house when I saw this white car coming up the brae. Someone for the schoolmaster, I thought, but the car didn’t stop at Daniel’s. Straight up the road it went, past Neil’s and past Tom’s till it landed outside Paddy’s door.’
Muiris clenched his teeth, which was his way of expressing outright disapproval.
‘I suppose you were expecting her?’ Marcus enquired.
‘Well, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t,’ Paddy said seriously.
‘You must have got a shock, then.’ Daniel suggested.
‘I got a pleasant surprise.’
‘She was a fine young lady,’ Neil Durkin agreed. ‘I got a glimpse of her legs as she got out of the car. That one knows a thing or two, I said.’
Muiris grunted and knocked out his pipe on the hearth. He blew through the mouthpiece with a whistling sound, before reaming the bowl with his penknife. Looking magisterially round the kitchen, he seemed to indicate that the conversation was several notches beneath his contempt.
‘She must be very important to go about in a white car,’ Cormac said.
‘Well, to be honest, I never noticed the car,’ Paddy smiled.
Muiris groaned, unable to conceal his impatience any longer. He cut a wedge of plug tobacco into his wide palm, then minced and rubbed it with due ceremony. Finally, he filled his pipe with exaggerated care so that no shred of tobacco was lost.
‘We all know you, Paddy,’ Neil Durkin joked. ‘It wasn’t the car that was on your mind.’
‘You’re right there,’ Paddy agreed. ‘At my age a man needs to show a sail in every wind that blows.’
Muiris took a live coal from the fire with the tongs and held it over the bowl. Then he drew on his pipe with a smacking noise until the tobacco glowed and smoke began to pour from his nostrils.
‘Did she say who she was?’ Daniel asked.
‘Well, would you believe it, I never thought of asking her.’
‘She was with you for over an hour. You had a long confab, I’ll bet,’ Marcus probed.
‘An hour, did you say? It only felt like five minutes.’
Muiris removed the pipe from between his lips and inhaled a mouthful of smoke. He was accustomed to commanding the attention of his neighbours, yet the lighting of his pipe seemed to have gone entirely unnoticed.
‘She must have been very good-looking.’ Neil Durkin winked at Cormac.
‘She was so good-looking that I lost the thread of what she was saying to me.’
‘She’ll be coming again, I suppose?’ Cormac speculated.
‘She said she’d like to, but you know what women are like.’
‘You can’t believe a word they say, and some men aren’t much better.’ Muiris slapped his thigh and got to his feet.
‘What suspense did you mean, Muiris?’ Paddy, like the rest of them, knew that Muiris wasn’t slow to take offence.
‘I heard you had words with Red Miller this morning. They say his bull broke through your fence to get at the wee red heifer. Can that be true now?’
‘We had words, certainly. And not for the first time either. But to be honest, the comely young woman drove himself and his bull clean out of my mind.’
Muiris reached for his stick and turned up the collar of his jacket around his ears. ‘Good night, Paddy,’ he said. ‘Next time she comes, send her over to me. I’ll ask her why she didn’t come like Niamh on a white horse.’
There was silence in the kitchen as they listened to his retreating footsteps in the yard.
‘Muiris left a bit sudden,’ Cormac said.
‘He’s a man of sudden decisions,’ Daniel smiled.
‘It could be his kidneys troubling him,’ Tom Barron
conjectured.
‘You mean his bladder?’ Daniel said.
‘Or his big toe.’ Paddy laughed. ‘We all know Muiris. He doesn’t like any talk about women. It’s his great failing. He can only talk about men.’
The steam had gone out of the conversation. After a while, Cormac said it was nearly bedtime. One by one they took their leave, all except Tom Barron who lingered in the hope that Paddy might tell him about Red Miller. Paddy was in no mood to talk about bulls and heifers. All he could think of was the young woman.
‘She’ll be coming to see me again,’ he boasted. ‘I offered to make her a cup of tea but she said she’d make me one instead. So I gave her the tea box and the teapot and watched her bustling about the kitchen like any housewife. She made good strong tea, fair play to her. I put a drop of whiskey in mine but she said she’d have hers straight from the pot. No milk, no sugar. She laughed when I told her she was cheap to run.’
