Rain on the Wind, page 20
‘Ah, well,’ said Mico, rising and uncoiling the rope from around the mast.
Big Micil came then. There was still some anger in his face.
‘Is everything aboard, Father?’ he asked.
‘It is indeed. Who are yeh askin’ things like that from for?’
‘All right, all right,’ said Micil. ‘I was oney askin’. I wasn’t thinkin’.’ He looked down then and regarded the bent back of his young son.
‘You know, Father,’ he said in a loud penetrating voice, ‘I’ve been thinkin’.’
‘Begod, that’s a miracle,’ said Gran, ‘and no mistake.’
‘I was thinkin’,’ said Micil decisively, ‘that mesel and Mico’d take a long time over this trip. Wouldn’t you think now, Father, that the fishing over in Cleggan would be very good for a change? Isn’t it about time we followed the herrin’ over there for a change now and called in to see Uncle James? What do you think now, Father, of that?’ He pretended to ignore the face of his son looking up at him with the mouth open.
Gran looked at him too with his mouth open; even deigned to rise to his feet.
‘Well, honest to Christ, Micil,’ he said, ‘I never thought you had it in you and here you’ve done it at last. Whatever dumb thought inspired yeh, I think yeh have the thought of a lifetime.’
‘Now,’ said Micil, a big smile on his face, warming under his father’s appreciation, ‘ what would you be thinkin’ of that plan now, Mico?’
Mico looked up at him. He didn’t say anything. Not for a time. ‘Father,’ he said then, slowly, ‘ I think it’s a great plan.’
Micil flushed at the warmth he felt and scratched his head and bustled about. ‘Well, what the hell are we doin’ here now so?’ he wanted to know. ‘ Isn’t it time we got under sail? Won’t we have two days on the job? Let us be off now. We can make Rosmuc tonight and lie up there and then get back west tomorrow.’
They bustled, they activated, and it wasn’t long before they swung into the flow of the river and the sail caught the wind and they turned to wave back at the small man on the quay. Well, it’s no doubt, Gran was thinking, but Micil is a surprising man. He shook his head and grinned a little and then reaching into his pocket he took out the white fishing line that was wound round a stick and he unwound a bit of it and got his jar of worms from behind the bollard and with a sigh he made his way slowly to where an ancient with his hat pulled over his eyes and his finger listlessly holding a line was fishing in the river.
As Gran sat beside him with a grunt, waking him grumbling from his dozing, the black boat rounded the pier and headed buoyantly for the open bay.
Chapter Fourteen
‘HE WILL,’ SAID Maeve.
‘He will not,’ said Coimín.
‘He certainly will not,’ said Mico.
‘We’ll, we’ll see,’ said Maeve.
They were walking back to Aughris to Uncle James.
It was a November night and there was a chill on it, even though the day had been remarkably fine. In fact so fine was the weather for this November that old men were racking their minds to dig out one that was as peculiarly fine as it. Cloudless blue with a sort of misted sky over, as if somebody had covered it with muslin, and at night like now there was a moon. It wasn’t a big one because the hunter’s moon time was gone, but it was a good respectable moon, small and businesslike, as it tried to penetrate the sky mist. You could see the road under your feet and you could see the shimmer of the calm sea on all sides, and you could hear a dog barking over in Inisboffin almost and another lonely cuddy in Omey Island answering him. Maeve was walking between them and she was holding an arm of each.
They had been surprised to see Mico. It had been worth the coming almost to have walked in and surprised them. He had found their house easy enough, because he had never forgotten them showing him where it was to be, and there it was just as they said, as if the fairies had built it in a night for them. There was a wall all around it and a small gate that Coimín had made himself and a walk up to the house with sea-shore gravel on it and the path bordered with white stones from the beach. Nice flowering bushes that were protected from the raping wind by the little hillock, and the white-faced house with red paint on the doors and window-frames and the glass blue from cleaning, with flowering pots behind and they framed by bright chintz curtains. Somehow he knew the house would be like it was exactly, inside and outside.
‘My God,’ said Coimín, ‘it’s Mico, and where did you come from at all, and you’re as welcome as good turf weather, and, Maeve love, put down the kettle and get the pot and boil an egg.’
‘Ah, listen,’ said Mico.
‘In me own house,’ said Coimín, ‘and he doesn’t want to ate a bit with us.’
‘Oh, Mico,’ said Maeve, laughing and going over and hanging the kettle on the crook above the fire.
‘I’ve been atin’ in every house from Aughris to here,’ said Mico. ‘In Uncle James’, and Michael Tom’s, and the house of your father Tadhg, and indeed I’d want to have the two stomachs of a cow to be able to eat everywhere.’
‘Well, you’ve grown so big, Mico,’ said Maeve, ‘that I hardly knew yeh, an’ a big man like you sure you’d want the stomach of a bull, not to mind a cow, to be able to support yourself, and come on in and turn and let us have a good look at you.’
There was great laughing and snorting and shining in eyes, and they said, Well, now, I never would, and how did you come and what brought you and why didn’t you let us know so that we could kill a calf? Ah, it was great! It raised your heart up to heaven to be there talking to them, and he told them about his father and his decision to come over.
That was two nights ago that he had been with them first. Since then he had moved around.
The fun down at Cleggan Pier when the nights of the fishing came and all the men down regarding their boat. The Lazy Man’s Boat they called it as they rallied Big Micil. Their own boats were heavy-oared boats that they pulled with great sweat and labour out four or five miles for their fishing. Look at Big Micil, they’d say, and that son of his. Oh, the lazy bees, they’d shout, sitting down on their ahs and letting an oul bit of a sail do the work for them. Sure ye don’t know what fishing is. Isn’t it luxury fishing ye are and isn’t it a wonder ye aren’t ashamed t’ call yerselves min and to be goin’ out in a yoke like that that does all the work for ye without ye stirring a hand. Big Micil was indignant at this slur on their manhood and pointed out with suitable language the amount of manual labour involved in the sailing boat. He cursed the daylights out of them and they adjourned to the pub and argued long into the night over the merits of the sailing boat and the oared boat, and talked about herring and mackerel and all the rest of it, and it was a great night, and Big Micil blessed the thought that had come to him and started to talk about his holiday in the country, and the next night they went fishing with the others, and they could go quicker and come quicker and go farther so that they returned with a very heavy catch of herring with which the Bay was abounding at this time, and there was more jeering and blasphemy and rejoicing in the pub afterwards.
‘And do you think for a minute,’ Coimín’s father, Tadhg wanted to know, ‘ that Big Micil would be able to row one of our boats? Sure isn’t he as soft as a woman now, with his sitting in the tail of his pleasure yacht? Sure wouldn’t it break his heart now, to come out in my boat and pull at oars for seven hours of a stretch? Wouldn’t he be roaring with the pain of it and wouldn’t he have to stay in bed for two days afterwards?’
‘Feel that!’ Big Micil said to him, holding out an arm like an oak tree and bending it so that the muscle bulged against the coat. ‘Is that fat or isn’t it? Isn’t that good Claddagh sinew?’ he wanted to know, ‘and if I go out in your boat with ye won’t I be oney disgracin’ ye with the power of me pullin’? There wouldn’t be a man of ye able to hold up yeer heads afterwards for evermore.’
‘Ho-ho, listen to him, will ye, for God’s sake?’ the Táilliúr said, his grey moustaches creeping down the sides of his face and the thick hair growing under his eyes where he never managed to shave. ‘Isn’t it oney braggers ever that came out of the Claddagh!’
‘I’ve had enough a ye,’ Micil swore. ‘I’ll go out with two boats. If ye tie the two of them together I’ll man them be meself and row over to China.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ said Tadhy. ‘ Come out with me tomorra night and you can go with the Táilliúr the night after, and if you’re not a dead duck after that at least yeh’ll know what hard work means.’
It was sealed on pints and curses and loud boastings. All great fun, and Mico was never to forget that evening in the pub and the fun they had with Tadhg and Coimín and the Táilliúr and Michael Tom and Peadar Cavanagh and Tommeen Tady and plenty more.
He had slipped back into the life among them as if he had grown up with them. That was the pleasure of life there, he thought, it moves so little that you can catch up with it, and that’s a brave thing to say.
So tonight Big Micil was going fishing with Tadhg, and to make the space for him Coimín was coming to fish Uncle James’ currach with Mico, and at the last minute here was Maeve saying that it was about time she could go fishing too, and that she would go over with them and ask Uncle James if he minded her going, and being a gentleman Uncle James would say, Of course, Maeve dear, I will be deeply honoured to have you with us.
‘He’ll curse like hell,’ said Coimín. ‘He doesn’t give a damn who’s listening and your ears’ll be red be the time he’s finished with yeh.’
‘A woman in a boat,’ said Mico, ’ is the same as if you brought the devil into the boat with you. It’s bad luck sure. And you know that as well as anybody and you married to a fisherman.’
‘Ah, ye give me a pain,’ said Maeve. ‘That’s an oul fable that ye thought up in case the wife would go and see how little work is really done at sea, and so that she wouldn’t be with ye when ye come home and ye could be goin’ drihkin’ unbeknownst to her. Oh, ’tis well I know it all.’
‘Well, indeed,’ said Coimín, ‘you’d be welcome to come fishing. It’s only the once you’d be wishing to come, I can tell you.’
‘What’s the use,’ said Maeve, ‘when even Mico has turned against me? It wouldn’t have been that way with him, the last time he was here. Would it, Mico?’
‘I didn’t care then,’ said Mico, ‘I was young. I’d have let the devil in hell ride with me and not give a damn.’
‘Ah,’ she said with a sigh, ‘ ’tis a pity we all change.’
‘We don’t change all that much,’ said Mico. ‘It doesn’t seem any different to me now to be walking along with the two of ye. It doesn’t seem so long as all that that we were walking down the lane after the sand-eels. That was a grand night.’
‘Well, imagine you not forgettin’ that now, Mico,’ said Maeve.
‘I’ll always remember that,’ Mico assured her to the pressure of her hand on his arm and he looking down into her face with the bright eyes that was looking up at him. ‘I can never forget that. It was so grand.’
‘Aye,’ said Coimín, ‘ it was a fine night.’
‘And Coimín didn’t change a bit, Mico,’ said Maeve. ‘He’s still the same oul self-satisfied one-and-tuppence that he was then.’
‘Haven’t I cause to be smirky?’ said Coimín.
‘Indeed you have,’ said Mico with a small sigh, that passed unnoticed on the calm breath of the night. He had thought that seeing her again after all this time with children about her (why had they no child?) it would float away on a destroyed dream, the picture he had built up about her. But it didn’t. The dream grew up, that’s all, and it was a time he was having to stop the dull beating of his heart with the feel of her hand burning his arm, and the shame inside him when he saw the calm Coimín, that he should be nursing a feeling, however innocent, for his wife. But it was buried deep in him and any time he let it drift to the surface of his mind it was so that it might cauterize the pain he felt when he saw a body falling over and over a tall cliff, dying alone, in a bleak place with not a loving soul near.
‘Me father,’ said Coimín, ‘is on to Uncle James now. Did you know that, Mico?’
‘Aye,’ said Mico, ‘I heard a few words of it, but it wasn’t finished.’
‘Well,’ said Coimín, ‘his story now is that the fame of Uncle James’ beauty and wealth have spread far and wide over the Joyce Country and the province of Connacht, and that eligible young women from all parts are making a pilgrimage back to Aughris in the hopes of winning him.’
Mico laughed. ‘Ah, go on. Does Uncle James know?’
‘He’s heard a few titters,’ said Coimín, ‘but he enjoys it more than anyone else although he pretends not to be talkin’ to me father when they meet. ’ Tis great gas to see the two of them together.’
‘He was tellin’ me the latest saga today,’ said Maeve. ‘ Last May day, he said, it’s reported that there was half a mile of women lined up in Aughris waitin’ to have a crack at Uncle James. Isn’t it funny, Mico, how ever since you were here he has been called Uncle James?’
‘It is,’ said Mico, ‘ but aren’t you just like a woman! Can’t you finish the story and then we can get on to something else?’
‘Ah-ha, Mico is the boy for you,’ said Coimín, laughing.
I wish I was, thought Mico, and said, ‘I’m sorry for breakin’ in on the story. Tell it now.’
‘So Uncle James pokes his head out the door at half eleven after having his breakfast and washing the dishes and baking the cake, and he says – Let the first come in now. So in comes a grand big black lassie from Clifden and he looks at her and he says, ‘‘Can you talk?’’ he asks her. ‘‘ I can,’’ says she, showing him her teeth. ‘‘Well, get to hell out of here so,’’ says Uncle James, ‘‘ because you don’t suit me, and send in the next one.’’ She was brown-haired and she came from Costello. ‘‘Can you talk?’’ asked Uncle James. ‘‘Divil a talk,’’ says she, having been warned, but forgetting, and Uncle James gives her the door. The next one comes in, a buxom one from Letterfrack. ‘‘Can you talk?’’ he asks, and she shakes her head from side to side. ‘‘Ha-ha,’’ says Uncle James, ‘‘that’s better. Can you hear?’’ he asks her and she nods her head. ‘‘Well, get to hell out of here,’’ says Uncle James, ‘‘you don’t suit me, and send in the next wan.’’ The next lassie comes in. Appears she’s from Leenane and she’s as fair as flax. ‘‘Can you talk?’’ he askes her, and she doesn’t do anything. ‘‘Can you hear?’’ he asks her, and divil a stir from her. ‘‘That sounds better,’’ says Uncle James, and he gets a bit of paper and he writes on it, ‘‘Can you write?’’ ‘I can,’’ she writes back at him. ‘‘Get to hell out of here,’’ says Uncle James, ‘‘for you don’t suit me,’’ and he sends her out. In comes then a most lissome lily from Oughterard. She can’t talk and she can’t hear and she can’t write. ‘‘ No, but,’’ says Uncle James, ‘‘you can walk and you can get to hell out of here, for you don’t suit me at all.’’ ’
They were laughing at the way she was imitating Tadhg, the rubbing of the big hand across the moustache and the spit between each incident. And she gruffened her voice and like he did aped the accents of the women and pantomimed their goings-on.
‘Had he any more?’ asked Mico.
‘There were more episodes,’ said Coimín, ‘ but he hasn’t thought them up yet.’
‘Here we axe now,’ said Maeve, ‘and although ye won’t believe me I am the only woman in the world that can get around Uncle James.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Coimín, pushing the gate.
Uncle James was inside, wrapping up sandwiches in a brown parcel that would be wrapped then in the oilskin to keep the water out of them. He hadn’t aged at all. His body was bent like a bow and he was wearing the same bainin coat that Mico knew him in seven years ago. But like all good things it had become yellower and tougher with age, and it smelled like the smoke from a turf fire. He looked up from his packing to greet them. ‘Ah, there ye are, ye lazy bees,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d have to be tackling the ocean on me own. ’Twas aisy known that there was a woman at the back of ye.’
‘Uncle James,’ said Maeve, coming in and facing him directly, ‘would you take me fishing with ye?’ Uncle James looked at her wink and then regarded the two young men at the door with their faces split by grins and the look of expectation in their eyes.
‘Me dear Maeve,’ said Uncle James, ‘it would give me great pleasure and honour if you would come fishing with us.’
She turned back to them then. Their grins had gone and their mouths had opened into great Os of surprise.
‘There ye are now,’ said Maeve smugly. ‘What did I tell ye?’
They gathered their packages and Uncle James reached for the oil lamp and took it from its nail on the wall and left it on the table and curved a big palm around the globe and blew at the palm and the wind put out the wick and they were in darkness.
They walked down the small winding lane to the field where the currach was lying up-ended, and Mico and Coimín swung it on their broad shoulders and put their heads under it and walked with it to the shore. A funny sight it was, like a big black, beetle with four legs and trousers on them. Maeve told them that, laughing and looking in up under at them as they walked. ‘ Listen,’ Mico whispered, ‘how did you get around him? Tell us how did you get around him like that?’
‘If you want to be talkin’ to women,’ said Uncle James, ‘then meself and Coimín’ll go fishin’ and leave you to it.’
‘That’s how,’ said Maeve.
They launched the craft beside the narrow pier that Uncle James had built in the cove near the point, and they got out the oars and hit them on to the rowlocks and they stowed away the gear, and then Maeve stood back when they were seated, Mico stroking and Coimín behind him and Uncle James sitting in the stern.
