The Pig Comes to Dinner (12 page)

Kitty's stirring elevated to a squirm. She feared—as well she might—that she had said things she hadn't meant to say. But her fear was quickly dissolved when she considered that Father Colavin had probably heard nothing, or very little, of what she'd been saying. He had gone back to his columns and his figures, his roof, his windows, and his belfry bell. So grateful was she that even with the prescribed barrier between them she wanted desperately to kiss his brow, his white hair, the back of his freckle-splotched hand.

But she restrained herself, eager to be told the amount to be levied against her for the session now drawing to its close. That nothing had been resolved, nothing determined, was, at this point, fine with her. She'd been told—without it being said in just so many words—that the priest could do nothing for her. Evil spirits were his business. Good ones were on their own. She should have known he could offer nothing. But, Catholic that she was, she'd had to try. Her obligation to give the Church first dibs at her problem had been fulfilled. She'd need tarry no longer, except to be given the bill for services that had been, in their fashion, rendered close to her satisfaction.

Father Colavin was scribbling some figures on a paper pad just to the right of the ledger. He was, she didn't doubt, adding up the check. Still doodling, he said, “You're convinced that your husband is in love with Brid. Her ghost.”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever asked him if he is?”

“Why—no.”

“And why not?”

“Because—because I don't have to. I know.”

“I see.” He drew his finger down a column of figures, stopped, and noted three sets of numbers on his pad. He added them up, then looked at the bottom of the column, but without much interest. He turned a page and doodled some more. “And Taddy is no problem?”

“You mean does Taddy suspect about Kieran? I mean, I assume Taddy and Brid, I assume they are—well—they were—lovers. Brid and Taddy. But I'm afraid the two of them are beyond reach. They have their own—existence. I almost said lives, but I guess
existence
is the better word.”

The inward gaze had come again into her eyes. “Neither of them cares anything for us. About me. About how I feel.”

“Then any feelings toward them are hopeless?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Hopeless.” She let the full meaning of the word pass through her. During its passage she repeated the word. “Hopeless.”

“Then what you have in mind is saving someone from an involvement that is hopeless. Is that it?”

With a long-suffering resignation new to her repertoire, she said, “Yes. That's it precisely. I—I don't want him hurt. I can't bear to see him suffer.”

“We're talking about your husband.”

“Why—why, yes. Of course.”

“And have you observed anything like that? His suffering?”

“Well, no. Not yet. But—but it's coming. I'm sure of that. One can't feel so deeply—and know there's nothing ever to come of it—that no matter how much you love—how much you keep longing and wanting—” She stopped, recomposed her features, and said, “As you can see, I get carried away. I'm that concerned. About my husband.”

“Yes. That I can tell.” Father Colavin put down the pen and folded his hands on the open ledger. “Have you anything else you want to tell me?”

“I—I don't think so. There really isn't that much more to tell, if anything at all. You know the situation. And, if I understand correctly, there's not much you can do.”

“May I ask you something, Caitlin?”

“Why, yes. Of course, Father.”

“Do you, does Kieran, do you pray for these young people? For their souls? For their eternal rest?”

The impulse to squirm returned, but Kitty was determined to suppress any and all movement. “Well—no. I never thought in those terms. I just accepted their being there, and that there was nothing much I—or Kieran either—nothing we could do about it.”

“I understand.” He bowed his head, then lifted it, but said nothing.

“We should, I suppose.” Kitty began to squirm after all.

Father Colavin sent his puckered lips forward and puffed up his cheeks a bit. He shrugged. “It wouldn't hurt.”

“I'm rather ashamed I hadn't thought of it.”

“You have other things on your mind.”

“That's true enough.”

“But allow me to ask one thing more.”

“Of course, Father.”

“You seem to feel only Brid should go. To spare you husband. But should the two be separated? From what you say, they seem a comfort to each other. Shouldn't they both be— released?”

The squirming increased. “Well, yes. But, of course, if Taddy wants to stay—”

“Why would he want to stay?”

Kitty straightened in her chair, then managed a quick laugh. “How would—how could I know? I don't even know why he's there to begin with.”

Father Colavin was looking at her more directly than she liked. She should never have come here. It was all getting more stupid by the minute. What she had wanted was some means to deal with Brid, some ritual to send her packing. But now she was being expected to pray for the wench. But then, if Brid did find eternal rest, then she wouldn't be around all moony, and with Kieran watching.

It was too complicated. She didn't want to think about it anymore. At least not here, with Father Colavin looking at her as if he knew more than he was letting on, and was daring her to know what it was. To get both of them back into more comfortable territory, where each knew what the other was up to and what the world was all about, she said, “Not to change the subject, Father, but a thought. Didn't you mention some time or other, something about the belfry, about repairs so the bell doesn't go flying out onto the street the next time it's rung?”

“Oh. That's been taken care of. But thank you for thinking about it.”

“And the windows. Which ones did you say they were? The ones behind the altar?”

“All mended. But thank you.”

“Oh.” She shifted in her chair. “But the roof—”

“Ah, Caitlin, Caitlin. I can hardly ask you about that. You've paid for it twice. Surely I won't ask you again.”

“But—but maybe I could—”

“No, no, no. You've done more than your share—long since.” He closed the ledger.

“But if there's anything else—”

“I'll come to the castle next Tuesday and say my mass there. In the room with the harp and the weaver's loom. It'll be for Taddy and for Brid. That they find their rest. And maybe that will be the end of it.”

“Oh, Father, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you.”

“What you want is of no concern to me. Tuesday. Seven o'clock. You needn't attend. Nor Taddy nor Brid nor Kieran nor anyone. And if I fall in a faint into a heap on the floor at the sight of them, I'll get up soon enough, so don't bother yourselves about it. But that's where I'll say my mass. Is that understood?”

Kitty, rather than hit herself on the side of the head and let loose a few shrieking screams and grind her teeth to dust, nodded her head yes.

7

T
here had been five days without rain, and rumors of a drought spread throughout the county. Even the mists that shrouded the tops of the hills had dissolved and, exposed to the continuing glare of undisrupted sunshine, the citizenry began to feel a slight unease, as if their privacy was somehow being invaded. Good weather had always been looked upon as a blessing, but now the sense of blessing was being withdrawn. They'd been given in its stead a string of days one so like the other that much of the variety and surprise had been removed from their lives. The gorse and the heather on the slopes of the mountains looked the same on Wednesday as they had on Monday and Tuesday. And the peaks of the high hills were always there, easily seen, never disappearing, always present.

Predictability had been introduced, a phenomenon no one could get used to. Unreliability had been the norm, but now one must cope with the threat of certainty: change had been repealed and a succession of days, one like the other, might in time encourage a conformity in the people themselves, a likeness one to the other, a characteristic unknown in their race. Of course, it was only the fifth day and the general unease had yet to heighten itself to fear, but the tension was there.

And, to add to it, Father Colavin—to no effect—had come as promised and said his mass alongside the loom, in the presence of the harp, with Kitty and Kieran in attendance. When told about the impending liturgical celebration, Kieran had responded immediately with approval, wondering why neither he nor his wife had thought of it sooner as a means of bringing peace to the mournful pair.

His want of objection, his instant acceptance, Kitty saw as further proof of his infidelity. He'd been afraid to challenge the event. It would raise questions he wouldn't want to answer, knowing full well he'd have to confess his anguish over the possible loss of Brid.

Of course, Kitty would have had no way to express her worry that Taddy too might be swept away, balancing her loss for his—but this she hadn't really articulated to herself, for the simple reason that she had yet to admit that her suspicions of Kieran's infraction had its source in feelings of her own. Which is why she never thought of it. She couldn't afford to.

There was some disappointment that the ghosts absented themselves from the holy sacrifice. Father Colavin had prepared himself for their presence; Kitty and Kieran hoped for conclusive evidence of their claims. After a full breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, sausages, muffins, potatoes, and coffee, Father Colavin departed, asking only that he be kept informed if any changes had been effected by his efforts. They hadn't. Brid turned up for the late milking, and Taddy had been seen taking the sunshine in the company of the pig.

The following day, it was Kieran who came up with the most plausible explanation for the absence at the mass. It had been said in Irish and not the Latin liturgy so familiar to Brid and Taddy. Unknowing of this remaining shred of conciliar reform, they had no doubt assumed the event was under the aegis of the protestant Church of Ireland—which had, from its inception centuries before, realized it made no sense to keep the liturgy at a remove from its participants and that God was conversant in any language, even Irish. Kieran suggested Father Colavin should return and say a Latin mass, but Kitty contended that the efficacy of the mass was not contingent on who was there and who was not there. Grace was unconfined. They had faithfully participated in their priest's efforts and could now search for other means to bring peace to those in need—whomever that might prove to be.

Another manifestation of the aberrant weather—the constant surveillance by the sun—was, for Kitty at least, an impatience with her work. It could also have been Brid's continuing residence, a possibility that never occurred to her. In any event, she was ready to drown Maggie Tulliver, Tom, and Stephen Guest in the flood waters of the Floss and be done with the uncooperative wretches. But before she could indulge in so reckless an act, she was rescued first by the arrival of Lord Shaftoe and second by a deluge arriving out of nowhere, nearly drowning a cow in the stream and exciting the pig to ecstasy in the courtyard mud.

Lord Shaftoe's entrance on the fifth of the sunshine days was a bit unexpected. Yet there he was, the man descended from the same Lord Shaftoe who had been given the castle as a gift from Cromwell, a reward for his highly efficient slaughters in the days of old. He was descended as well from the Lord Shaftoe who, when he'd been told of the plot to blow the castle heaven high had had the two young people hanged. That particular lordship had then left somewhat precipitously, fearful that the gunpowder was still in place, and encouraged his agents to be pitiless in rent collections, tithings, floggings, and evictions.

A succession of dutiful agents occupied the grounds, but not the castle itself, which remained empty for fear of the promised explosion. They lived high on the hog, with a full complement of henchmen available for the humiliations and whippings known to be a source of imperial enjoyments. The lordly line, over time, became confused by several bastard claims, and the ownership of the castle passed into a maze of litigations from which a single survivor had only now emerged to make his case. One issue, however, had yet to be resolved. Thanks to the unyielding ruthlessness of Kitty McCloud and the machinations (which she preferred to negotiations) of her even more ruthless solicitor, Debra McAlevey, the deed of ownership had devolved into the sure hand of Ms. McCloud, who took proud possession, curse or no curse, gunpowder or no gunpowder. She considered it a return of stolen property, since she'd been told from infancy that she was descended on her mother's side from a kingly line, dispossessed and long since dispersed to lands ignorant of their nobility and indifferent to the calamities. Here in this castle would she flourish, here would she indulge her impulse for intimacy in the company of her beloved husband, Kieran Sweeney, himself descended from kings of equally obscure origin.

But now, under a cloudless sky the color of Our Lady's mantle, the present Lord Shaftoe—George Noel Gordon Lord Shaftoe—drove up in his whale-sized SUV, emerged, and unloosed from the vehicle's capacious rear compartment an evil looking Rottweiler. While the hound, drawn by the scent of the cows, went howling down the hill toward the stream, Lord Shaftoe crossed the drive, opened unaided and unwelcomed the massive door, entered the great hall, and shouted in a voice fully supported by a native arrogance and disdain, “Miss McCloud? I've come to see a Miss McCloud! Hello? Miss McCloud?”

Kitty, having wrested herself from her computer before the summons could be repeated—or Maggie and Tom and Stephen drowned—appeared at the railing of the gallery and said, “If that's your dog, I suggest you fetch it before I start shooting.”