Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland

  She grew excited and I expanded—how the storyteller would arrive in the evening, be given a meal and a drink, and afterward take pride of place at the fireside. There, for the evening, sometimes into the small hours of the morning, he would tell a tale of long ago, and the flickering of the flames lit the stage of his face.

  We planned—we would have James come and stay, and he would instruct her.

  “Can’t you do it, Ben?”

  “I have no talent,” I said.

  “Oh, but you have. You just haven’t gone looking for it yet. Or you haven’t been forced to find it. Do you know any stories? James told me some.”

  Although I’d been bold with her in love, now my shyness was visible matter—and she had the sensitivity not to press me; she knew I couldn’t do it. Not then, anyway.

  We spent the next day making notes, calculating distances in Ireland, guessing at the sizes of towns, figuring out where we might find or open a theater. As a team, she and I scarcely needed to speak aloud—over and over, each of us interrupted the other with the same thought. Again, we had a perfect day, and I thought that we’d shrugged off the shadows that hung over us.

  I’m still gripping the chain of events; I can still feel the cold, cold links. Without my need to know and perceive it, my life growing up on the farm had given me the concept of perfect days—no disturbances, a rhythm of the seasons, a wheel of life. In that light, you can see what had changed and you can also see the contrast with the system that had been mine. How could it have become so exotic so quickly—though not all for the best? On the simplest, most outward level, there I was, driving one of the few motorcars in the province of Munster, a great ghost of a machine, sitting up behind the wheel like a red-haired young grandee, Alexander the Great in corduroys, now a young bridegroom and a father-to-be and a slayer of dragons. Mystifying—in part, anyway, and I could begin to grasp the sense in James Clare’s view of life as a myth. Now consider what came next, and feel the chill of the chain.

  That night, Venetia, at bedtime, said to me, “I want to arrange a surprise for you. Give me some time.”

  I heard the sounds of furniture being dragged around upstairs. I sat in the living room and tried to net, as though they were butterflies, the thoughts flying about in my head. I kept returning to the problems that had to be solved. And I also found comfort in summarizing them—and my life.

  When at last Venetia called, and I went up to our room, I found that she had used curtains, sheets, clothing, and all kinds of props to create a miniature theater, much more elaborate than the previous exercise when Blarney had asked me if I loved Venetia.

  She sat “center stage,” with Blarney on her knee. He greeted me.

  “Hello, Ben.”

  “Hello, Blarney.”

  She had changed his costume. No longer an Irish farmer, or King Lear’s Fool, he looked like an old man; he had a white mustache and a battered hat and a black garment that might have been an overcoat.

  “Ben, I’m learning to become a storyteller.”

  I hadn’t yet interrogated the presence of Blarney in Venetia’s life. Once or twice I almost raised it—I wanted to know the training, the interface, how her personality and spirit belonged in his persona and stage act.

  Reticent, awkward, she said, “I wanted somebody to speak for me. To say the things I wanted to say. To utter my rage.”

  But she veered away from any discussion as to whether she viewed Blarney as a separate person. If I had to guess now, I’d say that she did—as evidenced by what now took place.

  “I think you’ll be a very good storyteller, Blarney,” I said.

  Blarney replied, in a sober, almost sad way, “Let me try out a story on you.”

  “Good man, Blarney,” I said. “Vote for Blarney.”

  He closed his eyes at the inappropriate levity and turned away his head. When he was ready, he spoke; and I sat down. This is the story that Blarney told me; although I’m now telling it to you in my own words, I’m content with its accuracy.

  A long time ago, in a village not far from here, lived a young and clever girl. She went to America and started a school there and married. When she found that she was expecting her first child, she came back to Ireland so that the child would be born Irish. As indeed he was. Not far from here.

  And so, the child grew into a young man who spent his time between New York and North Cork, because he often came over to see his grandparents, and he was always welcome in these wide fields. In time, he married a girl from Connecticut—she was from an Irish family too, and had also been born in Ireland. And when she was expecting a baby, they came back here so that the baby would be born Irish, just as the young man’s mother had done.

  But the young man had a poor character, and he involved himself with bad local people. With their help he got a farm, but he got it through trickery and devilment.

  His young wife with her young child didn’t like this. She said it to him, and told him that if he didn’t make amends, she’d go back to her mother in Connecticut.

  A coolness sprang up between them, and the young wife made arrangements to go back to America, because she was afraid. And she took another precaution—she told somebody her story. She told a local policeman, a young fellow by the name of Luke Nagle, living in a place called Coolnagle. He, a clever and observant man, wrote down the story, and told of the young wife’s fears.

  She never went back to America. They found her body floating in the reeds in the lake named Lough Gur, not too far away from here. At the inquest the coroner recorded an open verdict, meaning that nobody would attempt to say how she died. The husband sold his farm and took his small daughter back to the United States. And the young detective has spent the rest of his life holding that story to himself in his house out at Coolnagle, where he reads books all day. He’s an old man now, and his daughter sells eggs to people here in the town. And that’s the end of my story.

  This was the time to weep. For all of us. I had the thought If Blarney sheds tears, will his paint run? In the silence I heard a door close somewhere. I helped Venetia to dismantle the little “set,” we stowed Blarney in his case, we lay down, and I can’t say who held whom the tighter. In the darkness I whispered to her, “You know, don’t you?”

  Her head nodded at my chest.

  “And you know what I’ll now do?”

  Her head nodded again.

  Luke Nagle and I became friends. I visited his house many times. In his late seventies when I first met him, still a steel rod of a man, straight as a pike, he had hair that stood up as though he’d had a fright. And he had some kind of second sight, because the moment I walked through the door, he knew why I’d come.

  His daughter made tea.

  “No, Rose, give the young fella a drink.”

  “He’s underage, Dada, he won’t be able to hold it.”

  “He’ll hold whiskey.”

  “No, he won’t and it’ll take that lovely gloss off him.”

  How she spoiled her father—patted him, fixed his woolen cardigan, checked that his tea wasn’t too hot, smiled at him all the time. She winked at me.

  “He’s a lovely man, my dada.”

  Luke Nagle opened the furrow, so to speak.

  “Did you see that resignation?”

  I nodded.

  “A thunderbolt,” he said. “A political thunderbolt.”

  “They’re reeling from it,” said the daughter.

  “He should be in jail,” said the father. A bead of milky tea hung from his mustache.

  “Can we put him in jail?” I said.

  “Will I get it, Dada?” asked the daughter.

  “Rose hates him,” said Luke Nagle.

  She went away and came back with an envelope.

  If you yourself read what Luke Nagle wrote—and I hope one day that you will—you cannot doubt what happened. King Kelly murdered his young wife, Sarah’s mother. My guess is that he held her facedown in the water of the lake, and then dragged her b
ody through the shallows along the bank of Lough Gur to another spot, the place where she was found, so that no traces of a scuffle could be linked with the discovery of the corpse.

  Irish official writing has always been large and looped, every word as clear as elocution. In a vivid recounting, Luke Nagle, the procedural policeman, had listed the days and dates of the young wife’s visits to him, and had kept a detailed record of their conversations. At the very least it would have cast a shadow over the young husband.

  “Is this the only copy?” I asked.

  “No,” said the daughter. “The authorities, they had one, I don’t know if they still have. And we have another.”

  “Can I keep this?” I said.

  “Only if you’re prepared to use it,” said this feisty little man; no wonder we became such friends.

  I sat back, read it again, drank more tea.

  Rose said, “You can tell that it’s true, can’t you?”

  Luke Nagle said, “I never tell lies.”

  Rose ruffled his spiky hair and said, “Except about how many drinks you have with Tommy Heffernan.”

  I said, “What was she like, the woman who died?”

  Without having to think he said, “Tall as a statue, and she had the nicest nature, sometimes quiet, and sometimes she’d chat like a sparrow, and as kind as good weather.”

  Rose said, “She was blondy-haired a bit, wasn’t she, Dada.”

  “I wasn’t married then, but anytime she touched my arm—I’d have married her for that alone. And I’d have been better for her than him. That animal.”

  “She was a dancer, wasn’t she?” said Rose. “Over there in New York.”

  Luke Nagle shook his head in sorrow, and I rose to go.

  He shook my hand. “Did you ever hear the saying ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’? Well, it isn’t. Politics is.”

  It’s not a big lake but it’s lovely, in placid and welcoming countryside. The deep breast of the Knockfennel hill reaches down to the reeds. Woods line the other shore between the water and Bourchier’s Castle. You won’t find many places in Ireland with as much depth of antiquity. People have lived here since thousands of years before Christ. I often go there now and walk in the stone circles and touch the rocks that the ancient men lifted into place for their rituals. Ireland is a small country, with an ancient gene pool, so these were my people, and perhaps Venetia’s. Pagans then—and pagan enough still; her grandmother won’t have been the first beautiful woman who got sacrificed in the horseshoe lake.

  For transport, I had the white Daimler. I shouldn’t have taken it down that long narrow lane to the lake, but it stood up well.

  I had the thought What is wrong with me? There’s a myth everywhere I turn. And I changed that thought to No. What is right with me? How did I get such good fortune?

  With one last look at the thick and silver-sheened water, I drove back to Charleville, where Venetia held up her hands in a warding-off gesture.

  “Don’t tell me. Not yet. Can you do—can you do what you have to do, everything—can you do it so that it’s all over?” Today was one of those days when she flew through the air high above us all, remote and swirling, turning this way and that.

  Another challenge. “I think so.”

  I was used to challenges now. She put a note in among the clothes in my suitcase. All it said was, Dear Ben.

  King Kelly recognized the car. Not many cars on quiet Dublin streets anyway. You know—he was frightened. He stood back against the railings, scared.

  “Don’t come near me,” he said. “You’re after putting a curse on me.”

  “The farm,” I said.

  “Go away.”

  “Give it back.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Give it back. We can go to a solicitor’s office and do the papers now.”

  “Aren’t you after ruining me enough?”

  I stood there, not saying a word, staring at him. He tried to hold the silence too, but couldn’t, and erupted.

  “What?”

  “The farm.”

  “Go away. Forever.”

  He began to walk down the street. I expected that he was catching a tram into the center of the city, and I walked beside him.

  “Do you ever go near Lough Gur these days?” I said.

  I hadn’t expected him to stop. And he didn’t—until I pulled the handwritten pages from my pocket.

  He directed me and we drove to a gathering of shops and offices.

  “Stop here,” he said.

  I parked near some sidecars, used by visitors as sightseeing transport around the city. On the short journey, King Kelly had been subdued beside me; not a word, not a gesture until “Stop here.”

  He led me through a doorway to a legal office above a greengrocer’s shop. I stood back, near the window, as he had a whispered conversation with a man in striped pants and morning coat. This man kept looking at me over his spectacles, looking at King Kelly and back at me.

  Through the window, the rows of cabbages and pails of potatoes smiled up from the stalls below. The smell of farming came to me, and I grew passionately vigilant about the transaction that was supposed to take place across the room.

  It didn’t seem to be moving fast enough. I walked across to the desk and said to the elderly lawyer, “This document has to be short, clear, and unchallengeable.”

  “These things take time—”

  “No. I’ll dictate it. Now.”

  “All right, all right,” he said, and I thought he had relief in his voice.

  “No, no,” said King Kelly.

  “Tom,” said the lawyer, his voice inflected with warning.

  I had long had it ready in my mind and I said, “I, Thomas Aquinas Kelly, do hereby give back to Harold and Louise MacCarthy their farm at Goldenfields. I cancel any mortgage that I once had on that entire property, and I state that at no time in the future will I ever try to state or reinstate any claim of any kind to it.”

  The lawyer said, “Well, God knows, that’s clear.”

  I repeated it, he wrote it down, called in a secretary—a woman who walked sideways into the room, and sideways back out, and sideways in again, with several typed sheets, the original and copies. She—standing sideways—witnessed King Kelly’s signature.

  “Give me the other paper,” said King Kelly.

  “No, give it to me,” said the lawyer.

  As I handed over the Luke Nagle report, I asked King Kelly, “The men on the property. Where are they?”

  “There’s only Mary,” he said, as sour as a quince.

  The rest of the proceedings took two days to complete. Two wonderful days, they were, two days of incomparable rejoicing, two days of relief and restoration. Without boasting, I can say that I did it all, I organized everything, and I sent a telegram to Venetia: ALL WELL. HOME SOON.

  You may find my first act surprising—my first act after driving down home, that is. Not wanting to hurt my father’s feelings, I hid the Daimler.

  Near our entrance stood an old ruined farm building, down a kind of awkward and overgrown lane that ran parallel to part of our driveway. Through grass as high as the door handles, I nudged the Daimler toward the old ruin, turned it around so that it faced the direction I had come, pulled aside the branches that covered where there had once been a stable door, and backed the car in. Then I pulled the branches back across the door—perfect concealment.

  Nobody stopped me as I walked up our drive—no soldiers, no blue shirts. The house looked deserted, although I heard sounds from the yard, some barks, some whinnies.

  Our car, the Alvis, was parked to one side and looked as though it hadn’t been used. I knew why—it was too well known locally and any driver other than my father or me would have raised questions.

  I walked in. My house. My home. My place of birth. I knew that I was going to do this right.

  Mary Lewis heard the footsteps and came from the kitchen. She looked terrified.

&n
bsp; “Don’t hit me, Ben, don’t hit me.”

  The insult! As if I were like that!

  “Mary, I need you.”

  Never did she work as hard. And probably never would again.

  “Two things, Mary. You’re to clean this house from top to bottom. And you’re to speak to nobody. If anybody asks you a question, you’re to say only that you’re not allowed to speak.” She nodded. I felt like a young commander, barking orders. “Where are Billy and Lily?”

  “They haven’t been here for weeks, Ben.”

  “Who’s in the yard?”

  “Only Ned Ryan, Ben. And the dog. And Bobbie Boy, Ben.”

  I left her to her terror, told her I’d be back later, and drove off in the Alvis.

  My next port of call brought cheers and shouts.

  “Flock! Flock! Flockin’ great out!”

  Large Lily almost swore too, but Billy dominated. He wouldn’t stop shaking my hand. “D’you know what, Ben, you’re flockin’ cat, that’s what you are, flockin’ cat.”

  Though I never got to the bottom of that Irish term cat, it means marvelous and wonderful, and I was flattered by it. Speaking of which, when they’d left our house, they had taken Miss Kennedy, who now rubbed herself against my legs.

  Billy told me that everybody in the locality hated King Kelly. “Even them of his own flockin’ stripe. You should hear Davey Treacy, the vet; he said to me, ‘Billy, I wouldn’t give that Kelly fella the flockin’ time of day, he can flock off with himself.’”

  Since Mr. Treacy had the mildest manner and the cleanest mouth in the county, I had some adjustments to make to get a clear picture.

  Billy and Lily and Miss Kennedy sat in the car with me as I made three more visits—to Mollie May Holmes, Joan Hogan, and Kitty Cleary. They behaved, those three women, as though I had garlanded them with flowers. Such excitement!

  For the rest of that day, we all toiled. Billy hadn’t been in the yard for several months, not since King Kelly had thrown him and Lily off the property. He fumed at the lack of care evident in Bobbie Boy. Large Lily began to order Mary Lewis around like a slave.