When All Is Said(34)

‘I think we deserve it, son,’ he’d say, leading me over the bridge on the days the market had gone well. No further incentive was needed. I’d be by his side, smiling, working up a grand thirst.

‘This here beauty, son, always remember she’s fool’s gold.’

He’d watch the stout settle in the glass, eyeing it like a heifer that’s known for kicking. Putting off that first taste a little longer, he’d take out his pipe from his pocket and begin to pack the tobacco good and tight, his thumb pressing down into the bowl. And after, when he’d finally drink the first sip, he’d let out a sigh as if he’d battled winter winds all day and now stood at a blazing fire.

‘If ever you have money, son,’ he’d continue, ‘don’t indulge this jezebel. She’ll empty your pockets and make a drunken fool of you.’ He’d light up then and pull away at his pipe until a scattered orange glow peeped out from the darkness and he’d pap, pap, pap away for the duration.

Sermon over, I’d be free to drink in peace and watch Mrs Hartigan and whichever daughter might be around work at some pace, quenching the many thirsts of the winners and losers of the day. We didn’t talk with any of them. I loved to listen to their conversations, though. That’s what the old lad was at too – eavesdropping, picking up information we might somehow turn to our advantage. That’s how, years later, we came across the first piece of land we ever bought. But when the chat could offer nothing, my eye wandered, falling often on the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, thick as ropes.

‘Are ya done?’ my father would ask, after a bit. Then we’d tip our caps to our hostess and leave.

’Course, my father trusted no one beyond his own. Blood, that’s where it was at for him. (How he ever got a wife was a mystery.) His mistrust followed him to the market and there he’d haggle his way to the best deal any farmer could hope for:

‘Do you think I’m a fool, man?’ My head bowed with the embarrassment of him, sometimes. But when his brusqueness pushed up his earnings, I paid attention. A master in manipulation. I watched his facial expressions and listened for his silences, counting the seconds until he spoke again. Learning his phrases, his hand gestures, his stance. I had it all by heart. By the time my turn came, I was ready. There were many who hated to see me coming but could not deny the quality I brought. Cows and sheep reared on the finest grain and grass. Tended closely. Ailments nipped in the bud before they had time to take hold. I stood at the stall gate knowing none other around had finer. I expected a good price and held my ground until it came. But there were times when even the best of what I had to offer fetched poor prices. I couldn’t always fight the economic tide, try though I might. I was as much a victim to its whims as the next man. But unlike him I would rise earlier, watch longer and pounce quicker.

Fool that I was.

This pint here, son, is for your Auntie Noreen. If it wasn’t for her I don’t think your grandfather Michael would have accepted me like he did. And it was her who solved another part of the mystery of the coin. But, above all, it is because of how much your mother loved and struggled with her. Noreen was a woman forever on your mother’s conscience.

I met Noreen and the rest of the in-laws not long after Sadie and me started stepping out. We were only a couple of months together when we boarded the bus that bumped us northwest to Annamoe in Donegal. Your grandfather Michael met us, a man taller than de Valera and broader than Churchill. Sadie hugged him like he was a big cuddly teddy bear, becoming lost in his coat folds, with only her shoes as evidence that he hadn’t swallowed her whole. When they finally separated, she held on to him with one hand and with the other reached behind to pull me forward and make the introductions. I shook his hand firmly, meeting his unsmiling eye.

‘Mr McDonagh,’ I said.

No words were offered in return. He simply nodded, then released my grip. The jig was up, I was convinced. He knew, as all fathers did, the thoughts that raced through my head about his daughter. I silently pleaded for mercy with promises of never thinking those things again. So distracted was I that I did not see his hand reach across to take my suitcase that I gripped in terror. His arm tugged and his eyebrow raised but still I didn’t let it go. We must have looked ridiculous, me most of all, stood there in this tug of war.

‘Maurice! Daddy just wants to take the case. Would you not let it go?’ Sadie’s words eventually made it through to my panicked brain.

‘The case? Yes. Right,’ I said, looking down at it. And yet, there it remained, still firmly stuck to my sweaty palm. ‘I’ll put it in the trap. Where are we?’ I strode off to God knows where with a foolish determination a man could only pity. I can still feel the trickle of sweat at my neck as I realised I hadn’t a clue what I was at, at all.

‘Maurice!’

I stopped, closed my eyes, steadied myself and turned. Sadie had a look as bewildered as my poor head, pointing to her right, and to a car. A car! I ask you? No one owned a car in those days. But there it was nevertheless, spotlessly clean, no hint that it lived in the countryside, with himself standing at its open boot like a bored taxi man waiting for his passengers to finally say their goodbyes and get the hell in.

‘Even better,’ I commended, like a man in the know, on top of things. I laid the case safely and finally inside, not daring even a glance in his direction.