An Irish Country Girl

  “Connor shrugged. He could wish, but that would not alter the fact that it was where his best pastures were and he had a living to make. The sooner he got going the better.

  “He and Tess could have walked the mile along the main road toward Clonakilty to reach the gate of the lane down to the O’Hanlon farm, then another two miles past that to a mile-long side road that climbed higher up the hill. It skirted his peat bog and a wide outcropping of flat bare rocks. That was the way he took when he moved the flock up to their grazing, but going that way took at least an hour and a half.

  “There was a back route in, impassable to sheep and uphill all the way, that he and Tess would use. They’d be in the pasture in thirty minutes, and when he’d finished with the flock he could nip back down the shortcut and take the Clonakilty Road. He’d be at the O’Hanlons’ farm before ten.

  “He crossed the field where the chopped-down blackthorn lay and made a short detour to stand beside it. On the ground the trunks and bare branches lay mute. Skeletal. Cold. Perhaps he had been a bit impatient in cutting them down.

  “The day before, it had been a living thing. Now it was dead. He’d miss the sloe berries he gathered here every autumn. In spring the branches had been nesting perches for the birds, the leaves food for caterpillars; the white flowers held nectar for the bees. Three years ago an owl had used the uppermost branch as a daytime roost before it went hunting at night for small animals like the shrews, voles, and field mice that had their burrows among the roots.

  “Connor pulled some branches aside, taking care to avoid the thorns, and sure enough, when he peered down, there was his boulder jammed in the tunnel’s mouth. But he also saw that fresh earth had been thrown aside and a new entrance gaped beside the boulder. In the damp soil, he saw tracks—bird and fox tracks. And he smelled the scent no doubt of the same fox that lay just outside a stone’s throw, waiting for Connor and Tess. So she hadn’t gone searching for a new lair. Instead she had repaired the old one.

  “Connor bent down and cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Whoever’s down there,’ he yelled, ‘I’m sorry. I should have left your tree alone, so. But what is done is done.’

  “He laughed a bit at himself. Who was he apologizing to? He shrugged. No matter how much a man had learned or seen, beliefs of childhood died hard. He cocked his head. It was probably just the bit of a breeze that had sprung up rattling the dead branches, but the sound he thought he could hear was laughter. Dry, mocking laughter.

  “Connor frowned. ‘Take a grip on yourself, Connor MacTaggart,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to be imagining you’re hearing things two days in a row.’ He straightened up. ‘Come on, Tess.’ And away they went.

  “The top end of the field was bordered by a wall. Two leafless elms grew by it. The shadows of their branches were etched, immobile and bony, on the coarse grass below. As he neared, a wood pigeon with grey-blue plumage, white collar, and wings marked with white bars dived from a tree. The clattering of its wing tips meeting with each frantic beat sounded to Connor like a burst of machine-gun fire. The Lord knew he’d heard plenty of that as an eighteen-year-old in the Dublin Fusiliers at Passchendaele in 1917. Weeks he would rather forget.

  “He looked over at the vixen and shook his head. Stupid creature if it thought that someone who could survive unscathed for eighteen months on the Western Front was going to worry about the Doov Shee. He’d seen London and Paris. He’d given the little people the benefit of the doubt right up to when he’d said he was sorry down the burrow, but stories about faeries and ghosts were nothing but a load of superstitious, rustic blether to scare the kiddies, and he wasn’t going to let it bother him anymore. And that was that.”

  “It’s not blether,” Hazel Arbuthnot said. “I’m scared of ghosts. More scared than Jeannie is of spiders.”

  Kinky saw every head, girls’ and boys’, nod in solemn agreement. “I think,” she said very seriously, “you’re right to be. I think Connor was wrong.

  “He made his way down the side of a bramble-and fern-choked gully and walked along a narrow path at its bottom. The path angled upward and was little more than a rabbit track, just wide enough for him and Tess at his heels. From time to time, he had to stop and pull thorns from his coat, and once when he did this a briar snatched at him as if trying to bar his way.

  “ ‘Begob,’ he muttered, dragging a tough stem aside, ‘it’s even more overgrown than it was the last time I was up this way.’

  “After only a few more strides he had to pause and untangle himself again. The moment he was free he heard rustling. Something was forcing its way through the undergrowth. ‘Och, well’—he shouted, so that whatever it was could hear him—‘the last wolf in Ireland died about 1773, and heaven knows when the last bear or boar lived here, so I’ll not be worried whatever you are.’

  “Probably rabbits, he thought, or perish the thought, that bl—” Kinky checked herself. Her listeners were children. “That blooming fox. And when finally, a little short of breath and tutting over the plucks in the tweed of his jacket, he came to the field at the end of the gully, he saw he’d been right about the rustling. But what he saw made Connor frown.

  “Six rabbits, plump and healthy-looking, were nibbling calmly on the short grass. He glanced at Tess and saw her looking up at him. ‘Good dog. Stay.’ She’d not hunt unless he told her to, and they’d no time to waste chasing coneys today.

  “Beside the rabbits lay the vixen, staring at where the gully opened onto the field. It was as if the rabbits, the fox’s natural prey, understood that she wasn’t interested in them. She had more important matters on her mind.

  “That fox must have something wrong with it, Connor thought. Foxes were shy animals and usually hid from men and dogs. But this one? It had been pursuing him as if she were a man-eating lion, and Connor, who liked his books, had read that man-eaters would ignore antelopes if they were hunting a human.

  “He remembered a conversation he’d had during the war. He’d been in a trench at a dressing station with a medical orderly, a Dubliner who was bemoaning the number of cases of lockjaw he was seeing. And he mentioned a rare case of rabies; an infected dog had bitten a soldier. The orderly had laughed and said maybe the generals should try infecting some of the more timid recruits with rabies because when even the mildest animals got it, they’d attack anything.

  “Connor knew there was rabies in Europe, but none in Ireland—thank the Lord for the Irish Sea—but maybe this fox had something akin. There had to be an explanation for how it was behaving.”

  “There was,” Micky said. “The fox was the queen of the Doov Shee, and Connor was an eejit not to believe that. He should have heeded your Ma, Mrs. Kincaid.”

  “Aye, so,” she said. “But if he had, I’d not have a story to tell you now, would I?

  “Connor kept tramping. He soon reached and skirted the shorter side of the bog where he cut his turf. The brown grasses, where patches of purple heather bloomed despite the lateness of the year, were marked by shallow trenches. They were wide and black-walled where his slane had sliced off slabs of the dark, damp, compressed grass. The line of spade cuts shone wetly in the sunlight.

  “The bog squelched under his feet as he strode along. At one end of the nearest trench, sods were stacked in piles drying, waiting to be picked up and transported to the turf heap beside his cottage. ‘Never mind using baskets. I’ll bring up the cart tomorrow,’ he said, looking across to where the fox stood watching. ‘If I can take down a decent load, it’ll maybe spare me the trouble of cutting up any more blackthorn.’ ”

  Micky Corry interrupted again. “I don’t want to hold you up, Mrs. Kincaid, but was Connor being smart because turf burns slower than wood? Or was he maybe . . . maybe, for all his belief in science, starting to worry a wee bit about the faerie tree and wanting to leave the rest of it alone?”

  “What do you think, Micky?”

  Micky frowned, took a breath, blew it out down his nose, and said, “A bit of both, li
ke?”

  “Indeed you could well be right, so,” she said, “but whatever the reason, Connor, having decided, walked on. He wasn’t a man to hang about worrying once he’d made up his mind.

  “It didn’t take him long to come to the end of the bog. Its far edge was marked by outcroppings of great, flat, moss-encrusted slabs of rock. He made his way by leaping from slab to slab, using his crook as a vaulting pole. The hobnails in the soles of his boots gave him purchase on the slippery moss, although once he did feel his foot start to slide and only saved himself from taking a tumble by jamming the butt end of his crook into the ground and leaning heavily on the staff. He paused to get his balance and catch his breath. ‘There’s times,’ says he, ‘I could use four legs like you, Tess. I’d not like to take a purler up here. A man could lie for days. Few folks but us come up here.’

  “Tess, who was springing from one slab to the next, stopped at the sound of her name, turned, and looked at him. ‘Go on,’ says he, walking ahead. ‘We haven’t all day.’

  “Off goes Tess, agile as a mountain goat. The only thing moving through the rocks more nimbly than Tess was . . . the fox.

  “The edge of the rocky plateau bordered the upper pasture, which was divided into two sections by a drystone wall. Irregularly shaped tree branches cut to four-foot lengths and trimmed had been driven into the ground at uneven intervals as fence posts. Many leaned to one side or another, creating a haphazard fence on three sides of a two-acre pasture. Rusting barbed wire—in places four strands, at others three—ran from post to post. Dirty tufts of wool hung from the wire where sheep had tried to push through.

  “There was not a tree in sight, and the wind tugged at his jacket. The only possibility of shelter was the low stone wall ahead. Connor turned up his collar.

  “Past the wall more fields sloped upward and over the crest of the hill. There the grass was greener and longer. Russet clumps of dry benweed stood bowing and rustling.

  “His animals were scattered through the nearer, lower enclosure where the grass was cropped short. He was going to move them to the lusher grazing in the higher upper pasture.

  “Connor was proud of his flock of black-faced mountain sheep, a breed more common in Mayo, Kerry, and Donegal. Their wool was coarse, and the meat of the lambs sweet. They were hardy animals and could live out of doors year-round on the grass of the pasture and the occasional load of silage in hard weather. He’d been lucky so far this winter. He’d not had to bring in extra feed—not yet.

  “The nearest animal wandered in Connor’s direction, and he admired its black face with white markings, its short horns, and its squat, compact stature; it was less than two feet high at the withers, weighing no more than forty pounds. If he had to, he could sling one over his shoulders and carry it to his cottage. He laughed when he remembered how, when he’d been a corporal in the British army, his pack, rifle, and equipment had weighed sixty pounds.

  “Connor held an upper strand of barbed wire down with one hand and swung his legs over. Tess wriggled under the bottom strand. The fox, as if she knew he’d return this way, didn’t bother to come into the pasture. She sat patiently. Watching. Waiting.

  “She could wait, he reckoned.

  “As Connor crossed the pasture with Tess close to his heels, the sheep clumped together and ran away from him. No matter, the dog would soon round them up. Connor reached the wall and opened a gate. The drystone walls of these fields served less as enclosures and more as depositories for the stones as the land had been cleared.

  “From where he stood he could see over the crest. In the distance, twenty miles ahead and a bit to his right, the church spires of Cork City stood proudly above the houses beneath.

  “Farther still to his left, from horizon to horizon he could see the ridges and peaks of the Caha and Shehy Mountains separating Cork from neighbouring County Kerry. Closer lay Macroom. Connor grinned. There was a good pub there. He hunched his shoulders and shuddered. He’d not mind being in there now with a glass of hot whiskey in his hand, even if it was only morning, so.

  “But Connor knew he had to stop daydreaming and get on with his work. He bent and spoke to Tess, who raced after the sheep, ran past them, and started chivvying the flock back toward the gate. The panicked animals, bumping into each other in their haste to escape, rushed to avoid her, but she kept them hard against the wall and heading toward Connor.

  “Connor stood, arms outstretched. With a man threatening ahead and a dog nipping at their heels, the animals had no choice but to run into the next field. As soon as the last one was through, Connor closed the gate. ‘Good dog, Tess.’ He fondled her head. ‘Come on.’

  “He walked quickly across the pasture and soon reached the field of flat slabs where he had last seen the vixen. She’d gone. Good.

  “Connor started picking his way back down the hillside. Not only was the moss slippery now. A mist had rolled in from nowhere, just as the sudden gale had sprung up yesterday, and even the stones themselves were slick from the moisture in the air.

  “It was as cold and clammy as the face of a corpse, and damp to chill a man to the marrow of his bones. He couldn’t see more than a few yards, but Connor knew this hill as well as he knew his own kitchen. ‘And I’ll not be sorry to see the kitchen, Tess,’ Connor said, tensing to jump from one slab to the next. As he leapt, out from a billow of fog darted the vixen”—Kinky heard several children gasp and saw that Colin Brown was holding his breath—“right under Connor’s feet. He tried not to step on her, felt his boot hit, then slither.

  “The next thing Connor knew he was lying on his back on one of the stone slabs. The mist had lifted. He had a ferocious pounding in his head. He’d no idea how long he’d lain there. He pulled out a fob watch. It said two o’clock. Connor started to shake his head in disbelief, but the sharp pain made him stop at once.”

  She heard Colin exhale. “Jesus,” he said, “I thought your man was dead.”

  “Not big Connor MacTaggart,” Kinky said. “It would take more than a rap on the head to kill him dead.” She waited a moment to let that thought sink in before she continued. “Tess lay beside him and licked his face. He pushed her off, sat up, and cradled his aching head. When he took his hands away, the bandaged one was covered in fresh blood, and he knew he must have gashed his scalp. He struggled to his feet and supported himself on his crook. Connor looked all around. There was no sign of that cursed fox.

  “But then he heard a toc-toc-toc from overhead. And when he looked up, he saw through a hole in the fog a black cross against the pale afternoon sky where a raven hovered, stared down, and mocked the man and dog below.”

  8

  “It was too late in the day now to go to the O’Hanlons’ farm, and Connor hoped Art had had enough wit to go on to the game without him. Kickoff was at two thirty. Connor’d need to go over there tomorrow, though; if he didn’t show up for a couple of days, they’d start to worry about their neighbour and come looking for him.

  “But now his clothes were damp, he was cold, his head ached, and he wanted to go home.

  “He looked up at the bird. Hadn’t he said he wasn’t going to let a lot of blether bother him? He yelled at it. ‘Some say you’re Satan’s own bird, some say you’re a familiar of the Shee, but I say you’re nothing but a raven, and I hope all your “tocking” does give you a sore throat, so.’ And with that he started on the long walk home, not bothering once to look up to see if the bird was still there.

  “But it was,” said Kinky. “Oh, yes. It was.

  “When he got home, Connor put Tess in her kennel and let himself into the cottage. He shivered, shrugged out of his damp coat, hung it up, and blew on his hands. He’d been away for so long the fire had gone out and the ashes were cold. But the fire would have to wait. He’d see to it later. He had a headache to beat Banagher.

  “He got down the Queen Victoria tin and rummaged through the contents: surgical lint, cotton wool, a jar of Vaseline, some stomach powders, a little bottle o
f castor oil, a few sticking plasters, and what he was looking for, a box of aspirin. He took two tablets, and without even bothering with a drink of water he swallowed them whole.

  “Then he had a look at himself in the mirror he used on those few days when he actually shaved. Blood was matted in the hair on the right side of his head. He’d see to that after he’d lit a fire. He peered more closely at himself; the daylight was starting to fade, but in the half-light he could see red stuff sticking to the left side of his face. It looked like some of the sap that had come out of the blackthorn.

  “He inspected it more closely. It wasn’t an irregular blob, but had a definite shape. It couldn’t be, could it? It could not. Not at all. Not . . . at . . . all, he thought. He was imagining things. If he could just put this newfound imagination to work, maybe he could write a book and get rich. And yet . . . He peered at his reflection, shook his head, then glanced up to where he’d got the cobweb gossamer yesterday. There was no sign of the creature.

  “He looked back at the mirror. In this light, he could persuade himself, just barely persuade himself, that he was seeing the shape of a spider. There was its fat belly, its legs, the claws at their ends, and two curved, jagged mandibles.”

  “Mandiwhats?” Irene asked.

  “It’s a big word; I’m sorry, Irene. It means jaws.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that one bit, so I don’t,” Jeannie said.

  “Nor did Connor. He touched it. The surface was hard and not a piece came away on his fingertips. It must have been there since he’d cut down the tree. He knew the juices of plants could be like that. If you were silly enough to pull dandelions and get the white sap from inside the stems on your hands, they’d be black for days. Blackthorn sap must be like that too, he told himself.”