The Pig Comes to Dinner (25 page)

“—fell in love with ghosts.” Kieran completed the sentence.

Without swallowing, Kitty, in midchew, said, but rather quietly, “Yes. Demented.”

“Of course,” said Kieran, “demented. They'd have to be to be.” He put his fork down. “And for either of them to blow up the castle out of jealousy—”

“It makes no sense,” said Kitty. “They … they'd have to be mad. Totally insane.”

“Right. Crazy. Completely crazy.”

After one quick glance at each other, they drained their glasses of the last of the milk. Dinner was over.

Kitty retreated to her computer so that her husband could do the washing up in a solitude similar to the one she sought in her turret room. Too unsettled by their discussion—and the quick glance—she would give the Tullivers, both Maggie and Tom, an evening free of her corrections and, instead, simply check her e-mail and, perhaps, ascend to the landing above and sit silently at the loom and think her thoughts.

Given the knowledge that she, Kitty McCloud, and her husband, Kieran Sweeney, were descended from the rightful candidates for the hanging, she hadn't been sure she wanted to show her face to either Brid or Taddy ever again. Still, since the time of that unwelcome revelation from Peter, she'd been anxious to see how she'd fare in their presence—and what form her responses to her newly found complicity in their fates might take. Would she even be able to bear the sight of them? Would she finally know the horror, the terror a ghostly presence was supposed to inspire? Would she plead for pardon? Would she debase herself in ways as yet unimagined? When the rending of garments had made a slight peep into her consciousness, she rallied herself and came to the only possible conclusion.
She
had not betrayed them, nor had her husband. They were guiltless. It was an accident of history that required neither from her nor from Kieran any accounting whatsoever. And if either Brid or Taddy made the slightest gesture or gave an accusing glance suggesting the opposite, she— And here Kitty stopped.

But now she had this new knowledge to contend with— or, rather, knowledge she already knew and now had been confirmed. She was in love with Taddy. Kieran was in love with Brid. And with a glance, each had let the other know. For the first time, Kitty considered that it was possibly their good fortune that they'd be leaving the castle, as devastating as that would be—a love lost—love for a ghost not least among their sorrows. Or their madness.

Her e-mail, usually an annoyance, would help her find some composure. These banal and irrelevant retrievals would possibly return to her the equanimity she had once possessed—before her ascendance into the glories and curses of Castle Kissane.

Kieran was spooning up the last of the bouillabaisse from the bottom of the cooking pot. Kitty came into the scullery with what looked like a computer printout in her hand. Never had she shared with him her work; never had she sought his advice, reaction, or response. But then, the events of the day might have had some adverse effect on her sense of being in control of her deeds and of her works. He would help her if he could.

Wordlessly, she handed him the page. Unmoving, she waited while he read it. When he'd finished, he looked back at the sink a moment, then handed her the page. Each looked directly at the other, but again the glance was quick. Kitty turned and left the room. Kieran, after she had gone, ran his finger along the bottom of the pot and licked the last of the bouillabaisse. He shoved the pot down into the warm soapy water. The printout from Kitty's lawyer in Cork had informed them that the Shaftoe papers had been declared forgeries. The taxes had never been paid. His lordship had no claim to Castle Kissane. It belonged by decree of the court to Kieran Sweeney and his wife, Caitlin McCloud. Kieran released the pot. When it bobbed to the surface, he pushed it back down into the sudsy deep and held it there, the warm water wetting the rolled cuffs of his sleeves.

12

F
air was the day for the feasting. The field, a kilometer to the west of the castle, out of the shadow of Crohan Mountain, had been handsomely prepared. The chosen pig was spitted above the embered coals. The musicians' instruments were already in place at the far side of the wooden dance platform, the boards raised so that the slap and stomp of the dancers' feet would resonate and thrum beyond the percussive sounds that characterized the Kerry dances.

Guinness in kegs was at the ready and Tullamore Dew in abundance for those whose thirst was as much for rejoicing as for drink. Hot dogs and hamburgers had been suggested by Lolly, but the idea rejected for fear that, given such irresistible temptations, no one would eat the pig. Pizza, too, for the same reason, had been overruled. All the cabbages and all the potatoes in Kitty's garden were joined in pots of colcannon, the entire mess a product of Kieran's wizardry. Nettle soup—a specialty of Kitty's—was kept simmering, since the cold could come unannounced at any minute. Bread and butter were there in plenty, both of Kieran's devising—the butter, of course, from his very own herd before it had been carted off the day before yesterday to his brother Jack's near Blarney, as contracted before it was known the castle would not, after all, pass into the hands of Lord Shaftoe.

Apple brown betty, for which the orchard had been stripped, and tarts made from berries foraged from the roadsides—all were in readiness, eager to celebrate the castle's retention in Kerry hands. Coca-Cola had been included to placate the immature, after Lolly's suggestion of milk had been dismissed as too salubrious for the occasion.

Kieran would see to the pig. Kitty's job would be to mingle graciously and encourage one and all to further indulgence. Since the prosperous young Irish no longer took service jobs, to tend the food and drink young Americans had been hired—three men, one from Yale, one from Columbia, and one from Marquette—and three women—two from Bard and one from Barnard. As part of their recompense, they were encouraged to eat and drink their fill and consider themselves guests of the nation.

Kitty, not without effort, moved among her guests. She was determined no act of hers, no glance, no gesture, would betray the apprehension she felt about the climax she had prepared for the celebratory event. A certain unease had come over her earlier when she seemed to detect a certain distraction in Kieran's behavior. At first she suspected that he had suspicions regarding his wife's plottings. It then occurred to her that he, too, might have made plans not dissimilar to her own, but she dismissed the very idea. Never would he plot so drastic an act without first consulting and informing his beloved wife. The idea that she herself was capable of anything so unfair and he be exempt from an extravagance to rival her own began to formulate itself in her brain, but she dismissed the notion as an absurdity unworthy of her consideration. Kieran could never—she refused to complete the thought. Twice it reasserted itself. Twice it was forbidden completion—each time with greater vehemence.

She'd given a particular welcome to Maude McCloskey and thanked her again for the service her son, Peter, had performed the night before, working the spit, adding more fuel to the fire when needed, and making sure no one came early to sample the roasting animal. It hadn't eased Kitty's discomfort that the Hag herself had seemed a bit agitated and had kept looking off into the distance, in the direction of the castle. The afternoon sun was achieving its usual alchemy, changing the blackened castle stones to a ruddy gold—a revelation of the castle's true glory that, even as it thrilled her, had sent a pervading sorrow deep into the recesses of her heart.

Maude, too, had taken note of the castle's transformation, her gaze impassive, indifferent to the sun-revealed splendors but somehow interested nevertheless. Kitty refrained from comment and decided as well to ask no questions. It wasn't that she had no interest in the Hag's thoughts and possible knowledge. Far from it: she was most interested but was particularly eager that she, Kitty, not be told what she already knew—that the castle would blow up before the feast was over.

Whether the Hag knew it or not, Kitty couldn't tell. But the woman knew something, and Kitty preferred for once not to know what it might be. The words must never be spoken. No one, not even Kitty, must hear articulated the devastation and liberation that would soon make the earth shudder and tremble, the air to rain ashes and the sky to brighten as if the sun itself had burst in one last display of power and majesty.

Only with a great and almost unbearable effort could Kitty keep herself from reviewing in her mind the device she'd employed, its intricacies, its placement, the minute details so cleverly worked out to guarantee that all that she had decreed would come to pass. The Hag, she suspected, would know her thoughts—and, quite possibly, she already did. But so far she'd made no reference to the castle or its fate or to Kitty's part in the fulfillment of its destiny. And Kitty had managed, as far as she knew, to empty her head of any and all thoughts as to what would soon be accomplished.

Now, however, seeing the great gilded stones rising beyond the hill, she felt her resolve failing, her adamant proscription of all thoughts concerning the castle being subverted by the glory of what she saw. How could she let this resplendence be no more? Her answer had been rehearsed over and over, her reasonings, her motives, examined from any and every angle she could possibly imagine.

She had found a motive of her own. She must set Taddy free. She loved him. That he had no flesh, no body that she could touch had long since ceased to matter. Her yearning was enough.

It was not to free herself from this madness that the castle must be sacrificed. Kitty had other reasons, and she must stop
—now—
looking at the turret and the transfigured battlement. It was none of the Hag's business to know so much. And Kitty must not take the risk of communicating, by whatever means, the true and irreversible motive for her action by thinking it in the Hag's presence.

To reinforce her resolve she deliberately turned away from the castle and took in a view of the gathering crowd. She would excuse herself from Maude, graciously reminding the Seer that her duties required her to give her attentions to as many of her guests as possible. And besides, Maude, now reviewing the crowd herself, seemed ready to move on to other concerns and considerations. It did nothing, however, for Kitty's redirected concentration to hear the woman say, “You mustn't neglect your other guests, enjoyable as I do find your company.
Most
enjoyable, I assure you.”

“Too kind,” said Kitty, smiling her sculpted smile. The woman knew every thought that had gone through Kitty's head. Maude was aware of the entire plot. What she would do about it was anyone's guess. Kitty considered asking her outright: Do you know what's going to happen? And then, more disconcerted still, the other question: Do you know why? But she needed to persuade herself that the woman knew nothing, that her most secret thought—made in response to her most secret need—was still a secret and would remain one forever.

Thoughts, almost as much as words, could be dangerous. They could migrate, unspoken, from one person to the next. The Hag merely represented an intensification of a known phenomenon; by some synaptic idiosyncrasy, some impulse of an as-yet unexplained charge could jump from skull to skull— a thought let loose, eager, even insistent on effecting further connections, a kind of mating—all achieved without the knowledge or consent of either the transmitter or the recipient. With this privileged knowledge wandering around inside the Hag's head, the entire gathering could be made aware of Kitty's innermost secrets without a word spoken. The danger might be remote, but it was real. And Kitty could think of no defense against it this side of accusing the woman of thievery and demanding the return of her plans and her most intimate motives.

But, of course, no return was possible. By thinking her thoughts, Kitty herself had given them life, and whether they could grow and prosper and inseminate other minds was beyond her control. She had done what she had done; she was doing what she was doing; and she must be prepared to accept whatever penalties might be imposed.

The musicians—two fiddles, a pennywhistle, a bodhran, and a guitar—were playing, and the dancing had started, the steps choreographed generations before and lustily performed now by couples ranging from preteens through octogenarians, from the unbearably beautiful to the inordinately plain. Hair coloring went from black to white with in-between stops for blond, brown, carrot, tawny, and one purple. All shapes and sizes were represented, each made in God's image, suggesting that the deity, like his human brothers and sisters, preferred to offer more than one version of himself to the rest of the world. The continuing exchange of partners guaranteed that the plain would in turn dance with the handsome, the ample would hook arms with the scrawny, the stompings made in unison with the entire people gathered to celebrate the castle—Kitty's and Kieran's reassured gain of it proof, if proof were needed, that the town and the countryside around were flexible enough to find both gain and loss as sufficient cause for communal rejoicing. A christening or a funeral would do nicely; the arrival of a returned relative, the imminent departure of an emigrant son—each would bring together with equal ease, if not the fatted pig on a spit, at least enough musicians (one could be enough) to rouse the blood and render the feet helpless after the first two notes had been sounded.

Kitty, paired with Tim Tyson, accountant, wheeled and stomped and clapped her way through “Maggie in the Wood”—Tim stern in his determination to prove his knowledge of all the age-old intricacies; Kitty near-forgetful more than once but quickly recovering so that no major collision took place.

When Kitty decided against the next dance, the polka “Bonnet Trimmed with Blue,” Tim was handed over to Peg Fitzgerald, who had been waiting with some impatience for a defection so she could exercise her feet before they did a jig all their own on the periphery of the dance floor. From then on it was up to Kitty's nephew, Aaron, to uphold the McCloud reputation for being as superior at dancing as the McClouds invariably were at any other undertaking they might choose to favor with their prowess and skill.