Love, I shall perfect for you the child
Who diligently potters in my brain…
—SEAMUS HEANEY
Siobhan spent Friday morning making pub fare for the evening ahead, her mind racing. She’d had a bad night, restlessly wondering if it would be an “intellectual” decision to show her poetry to Tim. What would he think of it?
She now sat behind the Leeside with a folder of poems on her lap. The weather was misty but the mist had a weakness to it, as though it knew it wouldn’t have the strength by noon to withstand the penetrating sun. The day would be warm.
Staring into the glowing air, Siobhan tried to convince herself that all she wanted was Tim’s opinion as a teacher and a scholar. Her poems were written in the style of the sixth and seventh centuries, epic poems of heroes and saints, tragic poems of love and poverty, poems of tribute to Ireland’s beauty and its sustaining effect on the human spirit. But were they any good? That question had haunted her for years. She had never shown her poems to anyone since she’d left school, not even Uncle Kee. What if she showed them to Tim and he wasn’t touched by them? He would be polite, of course, and gracious, because that was the kind of man he was, but when he left he would dismiss them, and her. That was the heart of her dilemma. Secretly she wanted some way, some excuse to stay in touch with him after he’d gone. She didn’t want him to disappear from her life. If getting up enough courage to show him her poetry was the only way to accomplish this, she’d just have to push herself to do it.
Last night she ran upstairs to intentionally listen to Uncle Kee and Tim talking out by the shore as the darkness hid them from her view. She shivered as she sat on the floor of her darkened room, below the open window, listening with the alertness of a vigilant animal. She herself was nocturnal but the comfortable dark lost its calm with Tim’s presence. Siobhan felt no guilt listening in; she often eavesdropped.
“That’s a good night’s work,” Uncle Kee had remarked. “I thank you for helping me with those loads in the shed. Siobhan is much stronger than she looks but I find I’m not able to lift what I once could. I’m going to be fifty soon and not looking forward to it.”
“You’re much stronger than I am. You seem very fit to me.”
“Oh, aye. I suppose I’m just a bit superstitious about it. My mother died when she was fifty—my father didn’t live to see forty-five.”
“How did they die?”
“Dad died in a lorry accident. He was a driver for a fish-packing company. And Mum passed away from lung cancer—she smoked like a sack of turf.”
“I’m sorry. So Siobhan never knew her parents or her grandparents at all.”
Siobhan had held her breath in the pause that followed. Then Tim continued: “What happened to her parents? I hope you don’t mind my asking. Were they really killed in a bomb attack? How terrible.”
Uncle Kee’s voice sounded a trifle gruff. “Aye, t’was terrible.”
Still Siobhan dared not breathe. Would he keep on? Would he talk about it, that shadowy dark night? Her breath came out in a gasp as she heard her uncle’s voice continue, heavy with resignation. She covered her mouth with her hand.
“My sister, Maureen, left home when she was sixteen. Both our parents were dead by the time she was thirteen. I had to come back from Trinity College to take care of her and run the pub. We’d always been close, she and I, but I had to start being a parent instead of a brother to her. That caused problems. Jesus, I was hardly an adult myself. A free spirit she was, a lover of life. Mum worried about her something chronic. After Maureen left school she started helping me in the pub full time, but she tired of it. Soon after her seventeenth birthday she went to Belfast with a girlfriend, and over the years I saw her only a couple of times.” He paused, as if remembering.
Tim said, “That must have been hard.”
Uncle Kee’s voice was hard to hear. Still with her hand over her mouth, Siobhan had to strain to catch it, pressing her head against the windowsill until her forehead ached.
“It was. I missed her something terrible. She was always one of those people who are the life and soul of a place, you know? But Maureen wanted adventure and excitement. And she got it.” His voice sounded like a bitter wind.
“Where was she killed?”
“A nightclub in Comagh. The IRA hit it because it was a British army hangout.”
“I’m sorry,” Tim had said again. “And Siobhan’s father was killed that night, too?”
“That’s right,” Uncle Kee answered shortly. “He was a Brit—a solider.” Then, evidently feeling he had said too much, he forced a laugh. “How did we get on to talking about all this? It’s water under the bridge now. Ancient history. I must be more tired than I thought to jabber on like this. Time for bed, I’m thinking. Let’s go in.”
Siobhan had sat wrapped in bewildered wonder. Never would she have dreamed that Uncle Kee would talk about the past like that, with a stranger, as he never had with her. About her mother and her…father. She had never known before that her father had been a British soldier. A momentous revelation—she felt bewildered that Uncle Kee had finally talked to someone about it, and that the someone wasn’t herself. Her heart constricted with the pain of that and also with the new history about her mother.
Sitting behind the pub now she shivered, even as the sun broke through the remaining shreds of defeated mist. What had made him talk about her parents? The story made her heart ache in a strange, soaring way that was difficult to bear. The ache spread out along her bones into her arms and hands, then her legs took the pain and made her thighs tremble. Frightened now, she suddenly wanted to be in the lough, to feel its familiar cold wetness.
Siobhan stood up stiffly and walked straight into the water without any hesitation. She knew where to enter, when the water would come past her ankles, her calves, her knees. She had no memory of being afraid of the water. The lough had been part of her family from early on. As a young child its clean freshness had seemed a miracle; it dispelled the vague recollection of sour smells and the gritty feel of her skin from her days with her mother. The expanse of water before her young eyes went on forever. She didn’t mind that it was cold, for it wasn’t the inescapable cold of too few clothes and rooms without heat. This cold was glorious, a celebration, full of tingling energy. A rebirth.
Soon Siobhan stopped walking and sat down on the sandy bottom, tucking her knees beneath her chin, an absurd little figure, but eerily at home among the swaying reeds that pulsed against her neck and trapped her hair.
She closed her eyes. Why had it been so long since any poems had come to her? This unsettled inner stirring did not invite the words inside, it tossed them into a flurry of senseless sounds. The words ran away, eluded her, which was frustrating and confusing. They had never frustrated her before. They were, aside from Uncle Kee and the Leeside, her greatest treasure.
Sunlight poured down over Siobhan’s blue-black hair, which absorbed and spread the energy into her scalp and down her neck. The water was exquisitely cold all around her but her head was filling with heat. Her cheeks and lips burned with it. Eyes still closed, she imagined tiny blue flames dancing along her hair, silent, secular, sensual.
The heat overcame her and, unable to stop herself, Siobhan plunged her head under the water, and in the next moment stood up, gasping. Rarely did she put her face in the lough, as that was an intimacy she did not seek. Dripping, she pulled herself back to shore and sank into the basket chair, itself intensely warmed by the sun’s rays. She could not escape the heat unless she went inside. She should go inside. But inexplicably she still sat, feeling the warmth creep into her again. Was that heat within her chest caused by the penetrating rays of the sun, or something else entirely?
“Siobhan!”
Hearing Tim’s voice sent the warm confusion coursing throughout her body. She looked up at Tim coming toward her, unable to reply.
“You certainly know the sunny spot,” he said, as he sank fluidly to the ground next to her, surprisingly so for one so tall. His eyes crinkled in the bright light as he gazed out at the scene before them. “Do you always go swimming in your clothes?”
Siobhan swallowed twice before she could answer. “Well, I got so warm.” He’d think she was really thick, sitting here in dripping-wet clothes.
“I envy you your spontaneity. When one is too warm, and has a beautiful lough at one’s doorstep, going into the water is the natural action to take. The sun is certainly unusually intense today, for an Irish sun.”
He didn’t think it was strange at all, she thought with relief.
“Have you finished your baking?” he asked her.
“Yes, I’m done.”
“I’m glad. I had a wonderful walk this morning; I went into Carnloe. It’s a lovely little village, so tiny. I had a chance to show off my Irish to the lady in the shop.” He laughed slightly.
Siobhan tried to relax and told herself to speak to him. Ask him something about him you want to know. So she asked him, “Why did you want to learn it—Irish, I mean?”
He shrugged slightly. “It seemed vital, I guess. Vital to my understanding of everything I was trying to study. Vital to getting the true flavor, the nuances, the subtle allusions. All of that. I’m glad I did it. It helped me get closer, when I couldn’t come here myself.”
All she wanted was for him to go on talking, so again she lost her shyness and asked him, “Why couldn’t you come here? I thought you’d been here often.”
He glanced up briefly, with a warm smile, and shook his head. “It was a long time before I could afford to come. I first visited with my parents when I was eighteen. We stayed for three weeks and it was then I decided to change my chosen course of study at college from prelaw to Irish studies. I’ve never regretted it. But my parents didn’t have a lot of money, so I had to work while I was in school. Then after I got my master’s degree I was foolish enough to get married.”
Siobhan sat very still. “Married?”
Tim nodded. The woman he had married, he told Siobhan, was a drama teacher at the local high school who shared his passion for Beckett and Wilde. But she spent money to an extent he hadn’t known was possible. She kept him in debt, a thing he abhorred, throughout their marriage and when she became bored with him and left, Tim felt nothing but relief. Now he could begin to save. Only now could he truly immerse himself in the ancient knowledge that was his passion. Poetry, mythology, folklore, and history—all were grist for his obsessive mill.
Tim paused and looked up at Siobhan, a question in his eyes. He spoke lightly. “You’re not really interested in all this semi-ancient history of mine, are you?”
She nodded and said simply, from the heart, “Please tell me more.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and met her gaze resolutely.
“Then I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else. I haven’t even put it into words to myself yet. I’m feeling…Something is happening to my passion for ancient Irish literature. It’s sort of veering off course with my experiences of not just the dead-and-gone Ireland but the present-day Ireland.” He gestured expansively. “All of it, the villages and towns, Dublin, the incredibly beautiful hills and shorelines of today’s Ireland are all so very much alive, so vibrant. I’m enjoying the pubs as much as visiting the ancient tombs and abbeys, and studying the manuscripts in the libraries. It never occurred to me that the ancient poetry and legends are part of what makes the people and the heritage what it is today—it seems strange but I honestly never thought about how it’s all interconnected and that you can’t really understand the…sensibilities of the past without knowing the present. How’s that for scholarly blasphemy?” He laughed slightly. “I mean, if my reason for coming really isn’t to do research into the ancients…what am I doing here…” Tim’s voice trailed off and he stared out at the lough.
Siobhan didn’t try to respond to his question. Even she, with her disconnection from people, knew that he was asking a question all humans had within their souls.
It was almost ten o’clock that evening and the Leeside reveled in its raucous crowd. There was live music playing; Brendan Doherty had brought his guitar and Katie O’Farrell had persuaded her head stableman to come and bring his fiddle. Siobhan listened to them playing and thought they were doing a grand job, considering they didn’t play together very often. Of course, most people were only casual listeners, preferring instead to visit with neighbors or acquaintances they didn’t get to see regularly. So the pub was also filled with the muffled roar of simultaneous conversations.
Siobhan dreaded the contest ahead and was silently brooding on last night’s overheard conversation. But for Uncle Kee’s sake she’d try to get into the spirit of the evening.
“Great craic tonight, isn’t it, Uncle Kee?”
He laughed happily. “Oh, aye, the jokes and stories are flowing free, so they are.”
“Too bad your pints aren’t,” quipped someone in the crowd.
“They might not be free,” he shot back, “but flowing fast they are, with all the lovely assistants I’m blessed with tonight.”
They’d been very busy for the last two hours, and Katie, as well as Brendan’s wife, Maura, were helping behind the bar. Maura was her only childhood friend, and Siobhan smiled at her now with pride. Maura was a stunning redhead, and looked as if she had never done a day’s work in her life. But Siobhan knew her efficiency at the taps, as well as the capable yet gentle manner in which she cared for her elderly, frail father, now settled in a special chair Uncle Kee had brought out for him. Maura and Brendan’s little girl was with them as well, a child almost too beautiful to be real. There were many willing neighbors to watch over Triona and the elderly Seamus while Brendan and Maura helped the Leeside to have a good night. The two ancient farmers, Eamon and Liam Kelly, came in and sat at the table with their old friend Seamus. They looked with bemused wrinkled faces at the enchanting Triona, who, for the most part, sat and colored with crayons in a large coloring book, when she wasn’t on her feet dancing to the beat of her father’s music.
Another person Siobhan noticed in the crowd was Father Keith O’Grady, the one priest of the neighborhood. He handled the duties of the two churches, St. Brendan’s in Carnloe and the bigger St. Mary’s in Ballynaross, with as little effort as possible. A man in his late sixties, Father O’Grady didn’t make a secret of the fact that his dominant characteristic was laziness. He performed a daily Mass in Ballynaross and one Mass in Carnloe every Sunday, and little else. He tried to have regularly scheduled confessions, but often failed to show up. Since few people took advantage of this sacrament, however, it didn’t matter.
The priest usually frequented the big pub in Ballynaross, but once a week or so he stopped in at the Leeside to keep in touch with his Carnloe parishioners. Father O’Grady preferred the Ballynaross pub since that publican was more likely to forgive his drink bill, which Kee Doyle certainly was not. He’d never absolved Father O, as he called the priest, simply for being a priest. Fresh in his mind and not forgiven were the vicious clouts he received from priestly hands as a schoolboy. Not to mention the hypocrisy of forgiving the same group of worshippers for the same sins over and over again. And Kee still remembered his fear of the clerical retribution that had threatened to descend on Maureen for her “bold” behavior. But it was Siobhan’s unspoken opinion that Father O’Grady at least attempted to serve his parishioners. He was a good listener, because he said he found listening so much easier than talking and pontificating never helped anyone. Siobhan remembered him saying once that if you let them talk long enough, people usually managed to figure their way out of their own problems. And the women of the parishes quite liked him. He was nice-looking, in an Anthony Hopkins kind of way, always very neat and clean, and smelled of cologne, which was more than could be said of many of their menfolk. And nary a breath of scandal about him, which was a small miracle. He was a good man, if an idle one.
Siobhan decided, for reasons she refused to examine, to have her hair down tonight, not in her usual braid. Fronds of black silky hair hung almost to her knees, sweeping gracefully around her small body with each movement. She observed the scene before her with more indulgence than she usually felt when the pub was full. The atmosphere was alive with goodwill and wit. She knew that Uncle Kee enjoyed watching the faces and listening to the banter. Although he often appeared taciturn, he was in his element tonight and she was happy for him. But the happiness leapt back and forth among a cluster of other emotions, each elbowing for attention in the pit of her stomach. Nervousness about the upcoming competition, annoyance at Katie’s bossiness and low-cut red blouse, thrilling shocks of excitement whenever her eyes captured Tim’s looking at her, and dismay at the realization that her familiar detachment seemed to have deserted her. Tim’s expression flustered her anew each time their eyes met, and her varied emotions played across her face like a silent movie.
Siobhan saw that Niall Curry, Maura’s brother, was jealously noticing Tim’s interest in her. Niall had had a boyish crush on Siobhan for a long time, and now it was just habit. He walked boldly up to Tim and fixed him with a challenging stare.
“You’re a college professor, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“Right. Well, to my mind, that doesn’t sound like a real job.” Niall had raised his voice slightly, glancing at Siobhan.
“Not a real job? What do you mean?” Tim asked.
“Well, it’s not a real man’s job, is it? Not putting in an honest day’s hard labor, like some of us.”
Uncle Kee snorted loudly and remarked, “We’d love to hear you expound on that subject, Niall, but we’re not quite sure who this honest laborer might be that you’re referring to. Someone from around here, is it?”
Niall gave him a dirty look.
“I’m only asking,” her uncle continued innocently. “I wasn’t aware that bending the elbow constituted—what was it?—an ‘honest day’s hard labor.’ ”
Niall left them and Tim laughed. “You really don’t like that kid, do you?”
“Silly little sod.”
Tim asked Siobhan, “What’s your opinion of that young man?”
“He’s harmless enough,” she answered softly.
Uncle Kee chided her. “Ach, he’s been in love with you for years, darlin’. That’s why you’re easy on him.”
Siobhan felt herself flushing and found herself saying the first thing that came into her head. “I hope tonight goes well.”
Katie overheard this and declared, “We should get started.”
Siobhan’s nervousness lurched to the foreground of her being. Her stomach swam and she stepped back to lean against the kitchen doorjamb, her hands clasped tightly behind her. She listened to Katie’s raised voice, sternly telling people to slow down their eating and drinking so the bartenders could take a break.
Uncle Kee protested mildly. “The more they buy, the more money I make, in case you’ve forgotten, love.”
But everyone quickly settled down and the attention focused on the upcoming challenge. Siobhan closed her eyes briefly and willed her stomach to quiet down. She opened them again, reached for her notes, and found Tim looking at her with real sympathy.
He said to her in a low voice, “I’m nervous, too. I’ll just have to pretend I’m in class.” Siobhan looked up into his face.
“Do you do that sometimes? Pretend things, to make things easier?”
“Who doesn’t?” he answered, and smiled. It was reassuring and her jitteriness subsided a little.
Katie’s loud voice cut through their conversation.
“We did a grand job of talking up tonight. This had better be good. There are even a few tourists here, I think. Maybe you’ve finally been discovered.”
“God forbid.” Uncle Kee feigned a shudder.
“You’re hopeless,” Katie told him. She then hoisted herself up easily onto the bar and clapped her hands. “Right! Listen up, everyone! Quiet down now. You’re all going to learn something and it won’t be any too soon. Are you two gents ready? You’d best sit in the musician’s chairs by the window.”
Uncle Kee and Tim self-consciously walked over and sat down. They smiled somewhat sheepishly at each other. Katie said to Siobhan, “Where are you going to stand? Do you have the questions ready?”
“They’re ready,” Siobhan replied quietly. “I’ll stay here behind the bar. They’ll be able to hear me.”
“I can barely hear you,” Katie scoffed, and jumped down from the bar. “At least stand up here so people can see you. Go on!”
Oh, why do Katie’s bossing ways bother me so? Siobhan asked herself, as she did as she was told. Her face flushed again, this time with embarrassment, and she hoped people would attribute it to her clambering onto the bar. She felt nervous and exposed standing on the bar, and thought how odd everyone looked as she stared down at the tops of their heads. She was so used to looking up at people; this was an unfamiliar point of reference.
Katie gave Uncle Kee a firm nod and he obediently launched into his speech.
“Good evening to you all. It’s grand that you’re here, having a good time and spending your money. Especially that last.” This got a laugh. “I hope you’ve all got your bets placed by now. We’re going to have a little contest, Tim and I are. By the way, this is Professor Tim Ferris who’s over here from Minnesota to reap the benefit of my extensive expertise in the field of Irish literature.”
There were shouts of derision at this and someone yelled, “Less talk, more action!”
Then another person called out, “What does the winner get? What’s the stakes?”
Uncle Kee and Tim looked at each other blankly. They hadn’t thought of any prize. They both shrugged and Katie commented, “What about half the taking on the bets?” But this met with loud boos and a chorus of refusals.
Uncle Kee made a calming gesture with his hands.
“Now, now. Tim and I are competing for the pure pleasure of it—to cover ourselves in glory. That’s enough for us, right Tim?”
Tim nodded gamely and it looked to Siobhan like he wished he was elsewhere.
“What about a kiss from Katie?” a raucous voice yelled. “That could be the prize!”
There was a swelling chorus of agreement. Siobhan’s fingers froze in their nervous shuffling of her note cards. There were more shouts from the crowd.
“Aye, and a good prize that’d be!”
“She doesn’t have to stop there, neither—that’d be up to her!”
“That’ll light a fire under ’em!”
There were several other more ribald comments, and Katie shouted out, “Oh, shut up, you sods! Fine, fine. We’ll do that, to satisfy your savage instincts.” She sounded reluctant but her teasing eyes were sparkling at Uncle Kee and he gave her a wink. Tim just looked embarrassed. Siobhan’s instinct was to flee the building, but she was trapped by the surrounding humanity, and by her promise to Uncle Kee.
He now said, “Let’s get started, Siobhan love. You all agree Siobhan will be the judge of the contest? What she says goes for the answers! No googling by you lot.”
The crowd murmured its consent, and Siobhan swallowed and nodded. She consciously willed her brain to fog over and told herself the only way to get through this was to go numb. Fortunately she could always do that when needed.
“I’ve got twenty-one questions here,” she began in a clear, toneless voice. “I made up an uneven number of questions in case there’s a tie. Whoever calls out the answer first gets a point. If it seems you both said it at the same time I’ll be asking for more information about the answer. All right?”
Uncle Kee and Tim nodded.
“Question number one. What was the name of the landowner who owned the young Saint Patrick as a slave?”
Before she could quite finish the question, Uncle Kee called out, “Miliucc!” Tim nodded ruefully and Siobhan said, “Correct.” There was a smattering of applause, and Siobhan quickly continued, also feeling a small thrill of pride in her uncle.
“Question number two. Which mythological poem tells the tale of a supernatural being with a mysterious sickness that can only be cured by the love of a fairy girl he saw in a dream?”
Tim said quickly, “ ‘The Dream of Oengus.’ ”
Siobhan met his eyes, smiled and nodded.
“But that’s the theme in a lot of poems,” Uncle Kee protested, “ ‘Echtra Conli,’ ‘Serglige Con Culainn’—”
“No,” Siobhan replied, surprising herself with the firmness of her tone. “In all those poems the lover is a human man, not a supernatural one.”
He smacked his thigh and grinned. “You got me there,” he remarked.
“Wow, you’re tough, Siobhan,” came a voice from the crowd.
“Question number three. Who said, and in what context, ‘To every cow her calf, to every book its copy’?”
Uncle Kee hesitated and Tim answered, “King Diarmait—after Saint Columcille secretly tried to copy a book of the king’s that he coveted. When the king found out, he gave his permission for the book to be copied—probably history’s first copyright case.”
“Very good,” his opponent congratulated him.
And so the contest went on, with Siobhan’s questions becoming more and more difficult. Each time Tim or Uncle Kee managed to find the answer—she was never able to stump them both. The three of them were caught up in the familiar magic of the myths and poetry, and Siobhan, underneath her shell, felt an unfamiliar sense of control, even power. Uncle Kee and Tim awaited her questions and her judgments with deference. And palpable, even to Siobhan as she tried to pretend the room wasn’t full of people, was the appreciation and attention of the crowd. The two competitors had captured the imagination of the spectators.
When there was only one question left, the score was tied ten to ten. Siobhan looked at her last question, and she realized she must have subconsciously wanted Tim to win. The question was about a fairly obscure epic poem the two of them had just talked about the evening before. But now, if Tim won, the prize was…Her detachment evaporated in a flash fire and she had a sudden, vivid, Technicolor vision of Katie kissing Tim. For a horrible moment she thought she might pass out. She knew that Katie and Uncle Kee had kissed before—more than kissed. Siobhan didn’t want Katie to kiss either of the contestants, but if she had to pick, it would most certainly be Uncle Kee.
Appalled at the violence of her emotions, and feeling defiant and guilty at the same time, Siobhan quickly thought up a different question. “What—what saint had a vision of his soul leaving his body and being shown both heaven and hell?”
“Saint Fursey!” Uncle Kee exclaimed.
Siobhan caught Tim’s eye, hesitated, then nodded. “That’s right.”
A cheer went up and Tim shook hands with her uncle and complimented him. He sat back in his chair as the winner was led off to the bar in triumph. Siobhan found Tim’s face in the crowd and there she saw rueful awareness at what she had just done. She lowered her eyes, scrambled down from the bar, and disappeared into the kitchen. Uncle Kee’s last answer was wrong. Tim knew it and Siobhan knew it. Saint Fursey had a vision of his soul leaving his body, it was true, but it was not taken to heaven and hell; rather the forces of good and evil in the guise of angels and demons fought over it. The angels were, of course, victorious. Unlike in the current battle over her own soul.
Siobhan’s stomach was fluttering with panic. She knew that Tim knew she’d made him lose on purpose. He would be angry with her, and he had a right to be. Her mind was flooded with panic and shame that he might guess the reason—that she didn’t want him to kiss Katie. But why should she care if Tim kissed Katie? On the surface, Siobhan. Stay on the surface…
The kitchen door burst open and her uncle, beaming, swept her into a hug, a rare demonstration of affection. She smiled wanly.
“Congratulations, Uncle Kee.”