Papers were not bought. No radio played. Television was barred from the house. The North was silenced. Only at night in their bed did Maisie and Jonathan remember. Then they put it by till their return to Fermanagh in autumn. That would be soon enough. And when they’d return, with great swiftness it all came back.

It took ages before they could settle down once they went home. Then in Fermanagh he’d remember what they had learned in Mullet from MacDonagh. And it all appeared unreal. The verse of Dail Ó Higgins, the verse of Eogan Ó Rathaille. A smattering of Ó Raifteiri and Brian Merriman’s “Cuirt an Mhean Oiche”, whose obscenity and vulgar feminism was of a physical variety the girls had deeply appreciated, while the Sergeant, expecting the usual lyrical soft-heartedness, was dumbfounded. And MacDonagh learned from them that Northern Presbyterians were a dangerous tribe. And all breathed a sigh of relief when, followed by a charge of angry geese, MacDonagh, after two weeks instead of three, took himself away. Sara moved back to her room and sprayed it with deodorant to kill the smell of the Irish teacher. The sheets from his bed were boiled, and the empty bottles of stout stored in the wardrobe were returned to O’Malley’s.

“I wonder what the next fellow will be like?” said the Sergeant pensively, one afternoon the following summer. And the three women looked at each other in trepidation at what lay ahead for them in Jonathan Adams’ search for some marvellous reconciliation.

15. O’Muichin and the Cléirseach

15

O’Muichin and the Cléirseach

Catherine was standing on the step of the house weeding the fishnet globes of earth and flowers that hung each side of the porch when he alighted. Thomas O’Muichin was covered in sweat and still awed by all he had seen on the bicycle ride from Castlebar to Westport, and Westport to Belmullet. He had cycled to Corrloch on a trim blue three-speed bicycle that had accompanied him, rocking on a chain in the guard’s van at the rear of the Castlebar train, from Dublin. He beat his knee with his cap, tossed the bike against the pier of the gate and saluted Catherine with the tip of the index finger to the eyebrow. “Hallo, Miss.” This was followed by a stoic study of the inside of his cap, and a shy look back the way he had come.

“Am I at the right place?” he asked.

“Yes, but my father’s not here at present. He is off having tests done in hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. My name is Thomas O’Muichin.”

“I know. I hope you are nothing like the fellow we had last summer.”

“Why?” he asked. “Who was he?”

“He was called MacDonagh.” Then she added as a reproach, “And he was called Thomas, too.”

“Oh.” O’Muichin shook his head and whistled soundlessly. “Isn’t that something.”