The Pig Comes to Dinner (28 page)

His lordship stood erect, his arms at his sides, his face blank, as if he'd shed all feeling along with his jacket and his tie. A breeze flapped the open collar at his neck. “I didn't mean for this to disrupt your festivities. And I apologize. I am also not appareled for receiving company. For that I apologize as well. If you could just leave me here, I promise I'll be here no more when you return.”

Kieran shook his head, trying to clear it. “And what are you doing here now?”

“Since you ask, I assume I'm obliged to answer.” He waited, then went on: “I am going to jump. I'll be found—or, rather, my remains—will be found at the foot of the tower. To be disposed of in accordance with a letter to be found in my pocket there.” He nodded toward the jacket. “And if you would excuse me, I would like very much to complete the task I've set myself.”

“You—you're planning to jump?” Kitty, too, shook her head, an attempt, like her husband's, to rid it of its confusions.

“Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Yes, I am going to jump. But, if you don't mind, I'd like it to be a private affair.”

“Why jump?” Kieran brought his forehead lower, an attempt to better focus his eyes.

“The purpose would seem to be quite obvious.”

“But why? I mean, you—you must have a reason.” Kitty had to shake her head again.

“I assure you. Yes, I have a reason. But that, too, if you'll allow me, is privileged information.”

Peter popped his head through the opening, then climbed the last few steps onto the parapet. His chest, so skinny and frail, kept heaving up and down as he fought to take in air. “He—he—”

Kieran put his hand on Peter's back. He could feel the shoulder blades poking against the lean flesh. “Easy, easy.”

“He—he”—Peter made no attempt to continue with what he wanted to say—“he—”

Kitty went to the boy's side. “You'll tell us, but give yourself a chance to breathe first. Slowly. Breathe.”

Peter let out a yell. His lordship had lifted one leg to the top of the battlement wall and was grabbing at the stones, trying to get some hold that would help raise the other leg. Kieran, after one swift stride, circled his lordship's waist and pulled him down and away from the wall, ripping away two buttons from the front of the man's shirt. His lordship made no effort to resist. He stood quite still, his head bowed, his arms straight at this sides.

Peter had picked up one of the popped buttons that had landed at his right foot. Instead of looking down at the button, he gazed off into the distance, toward the sea. “All his life,” Peter said, “away there in Australia, Mr. Shaftoe—or, I guess, Lord Shaftoe—all his life he dreamed of coming to live in the castle his ancestors had held. Word of the castle had been passed down from generation to generation and—”

“Nonsense! The poor child's—” Lord Shaftoe had stiffened at the sound of Peter's words. “Why do you let the boy babble on like this?”

Peter, as if he hadn't heard, continued. “—and to reclaim the castle and live here himself was what he wanted more than anything in the whole world. He'd heard about the gunpowder and the ghosts, too. It didn't matter. All that mattered—”

“Stop. Make him stop. Please, I …” His lordship then spoke more quietly, even despairingly, as if knowing his plea would never be heard, “I beg you.”

“Is he telling the truth?” Kitty asked.

His lordship let his own gaze reach out toward the darkening hills to the north. With a simplicity that seemed foreign to his nature, he said, “I am not a criminal by habit. For all my faults—and I've been told they are many—forgery, bribery are not among them. But there are times when one feels compelled to—enlarge—the range of one's natural inclinations.”

He seemed to have seen something in the distance that held his gaze, unmoving, almost entranced. “This castle was to become my own true home, the home won by my ancestors by means I know too well but have chosen to dismiss. It had been the lordly seat of my family for centuries, no matter what history has to say. All my youthful yearning reached out toward these stones, this turret, these lands around. And the sea besides. The boy spoke the truth. What is gunpowder to me? Or ghosts? Or ancient perfidies? Let it all be on my head. But it is here that I must live. Or not live at all. And if the boy has more to tell, I'll listen to him now.”

“No,” said Peter. “I have no more to tell.”

“Then,” said George Noel Gordon Lord Shaftoe, “by your leave.” He picked up his tweeds, his tie, and the other button Peter had decided not to retrieve. Again erect, he smiled wanly. “And for my crimes, for trespassing beyond the bounds of my nature, I must to prison go. Where I doubt I'll take upon myself the mystery of things. And now, I wish you good evening.”

Head high, with only the stately step his words had earned him, he made his measured descent down the winding stair, disappearing little by little until he could be seen no more.

Peter looked down at his hand. “He forgot his button.” He started toward the stair, but Kieran stopped him. “Let him go. He'll get himself another.”

Peter considered this, nodded, then contemplated the button. Kitty looked at Kieran, Kieran at Kitty. Peter obviously had more to say. “And so no one knows if the castle will blow up or not,” he said. He thought this over, then shrugged his shoulders. “I was eating my sandwich and I found myself looking into the eyes of the pig there on the plank. They were open. And so I came here to warn his Lordship. Because at that time, the castle was going to blow up. And he wasn't meant to get blown up with it. That's all I knew then. The rest I knew here. About him and all his life. But now I can tell you this. No one knows if the castle will blow up or not. And I want to know, is it all right if I go back and eat some more of the pig?”

“Yes,” said Kitty, still quiet. “Of course.”

“Thanks.” He started toward the stair but stopped. Without turning around, he said, “What you don't know, either of you, about why you were setting off the gunpowder is this. Mr. Sweeney, you love Brid. But you love your wife more. And so Brid, a ghost, must be let free, only this time not to her death, but to her rest. For love of your wife.”

Peter seemed about to take another step but said instead, “And Mrs. Swee—Miss McCloud, you love your handsome Taddy, and there's no one should blame you, the same as no one should blame Mr. Sweeney. Brid's that beautiful and Taddy the most handsome. And they have all their sorrows, too. You shouldn't even blame each other. These are things people sometimes can't decide for themselves. But much as you love Taddy, you love your husband more. And that's why Taddy's ghost must also be freed. For love of your husband.”

Kitty raised her head. “You've told me what I'd never intended to tell. It was in my thoughts at the feast when I was with your mother. She knew what I was thinking. And so she told you.”

“Oh, no,” said Peter. “I know this only now, here, with the two of you.” Again he seemed about to move but chose to speak again. “And if there's more I ever know, would you want me to tell it?”

Kieran, his voice kind and quiet, said, “No. You've said what had to be said. For both of us. We need hear no more.” Peter nodded, then continued toward the stairs.

His foot on the top step, he stopped once more. “Your truck is down there across the pasture and beyond the next field. If you're going back to the feasting, may I have a ride? I really would like more of that pig. I don't know how, but it's the best ever.”

At that the harp was sounded and, above its thrumming sound, the creak of the treadle and the whisperings of the loom. When Peter received no answer to his question, he waited as both Kitty and Kieran raised their heads to listen. Plaintive was the melody rising into the evening air, steady and measured the sound of the loom. They listened, then Kieran nodded, letting Peter know they would follow.

Down the stairs they went. Peter passed the loom, the harp, seeing nothing, and continued on his way. Kieran and Kitty stopped to watch, to listen again. Streaks of red and gold slashed across the western sky, seen through the window, the hills darkening and the sound of the sea and the revelers' cries coming more clearly through the evening air.

Kitty retrieved her device, wrapping the wires around it. Kieran lifted his from under the stool and put it into the crook of his arm. They both looked toward Brid. There, as she worked the treadle and moved the shuttle through the taut threads, a rich cloth of many colors appeared, spreading itself out along the length of the frame. They could do no more than stare. To them both it was as if Brid were weaving a great cloak, the patterns of which would hold, in their warp and in their woof, the long story of the land and all the souls gone on before, their sorrows and their griefs. And it was given to Taddy to set the harp to singing, the plucked, strummed strings sending forth the plangent song that told of love and loss and the sad yearnings that reach out past the ends of the bent world.

And it came to Kitty and to Kieran that here they would live out their lives—here in the castle—haunted, each of them, by the ghost of a lost and impossible love. Sorrow would be with them always, and with it the remnant of an ancient guilt. And this would be companion to their love for each other.

Clutching the devices that were to have brought the castle down, they followed after Peter, crossing the great hall, treading on gunpowder, holding even closer to themselves the means to set it alight. Out in the courtyard, they went to the farthest shed and thrust deep into the pile of accumulated discards left behind by the departed squatters the implements for which they had no further use, planting even deeper the Internet text and the Texas catalogue with their deadly but now unneeded knowledge.

Kitty and Kieran danced the night away, and their guests danced, too. “Dingle Regatta,” “I Wish I had a Kerry Cow,” and, of course, “Sweeney Polka.” They wheeled around, they changed partners, then went from one figure to another, clapping, slapping their feet, whirling and twirling until it seemed no combination had been left untried. They had journeyed through the labyrinth and emerged exhilarated.

Inspired by the rising moon, the musicians excited each other to greater and greater energy. The Guinness was gone, but enough Tullamore Dew remained for one final sip before the night was over. The spitted pig was left with only its head, which Kieran spirited away for decent burial. Even the pot of nettle soup had been emptied and the bread eaten to the last crumb.

To the battlements Kitty and Kieran went to watch the sun come over the eastern hills. Silver, then golden came the light. The dark pastures could now be seen, the green beginning to show itself little by little as they watched. The sea was already awake, slurping against the indifferent scree.

Brid was seen in the distance with Taddy behind, moving toward the orchard through the morning mist, and after them, the pig, unjustly slain, its presence no more, no less ghostly than theirs, trotting, snuffling, lifting its snout to catch the first breeze of the new morning. “The pig,” Kieran whispered. Kitty, her own voice hushed, repeated the words, “The pig.” She paused, then said, “Will we ever know where it really came from? And what it meant?”

“No,” said Kieran. “We won't. Nor should we. Not everything has to be explained. Some things are better left to the unknown.”

Kitty gave a single nod of agreement. With no more words spoken, and no prior agreement needed, wife and husband lay down alongside the crude battlements, each in the other's arms. Before the sun had fully risen they had become—not for the first time and not for the last—the envy of angels.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, the author must thank Noelle Campbell-Sharpe and her Cill Rialaig Project, in County Kerry, for his cottage stays on the cliffs above Ballinskeligs that gave added inspiration to this work.

Both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony also provided the author with generous hospitality, and he is most grateful. He also thanks Catherine, Mary, and Eileen Clarke, as well as their friends Doreen and Harry Naughton, for the muchneeded information about their native Ireland. David Smyth an Irish bartender, also contributed.

His thanks to Margot Mensing for her shared expertise in the ways of weaving and to Martha Witt for her welcome help and encouragement. A special thanks to Beth Leanza, of the Saratoga Springs Public Library, for her assistance in the complexities of research.

The Luddite author's final draft, in typescript, was transformed to digital format by his nephew Jim Smith and carefully copyedited by his sister Helen Smith. Daniel D'Arezzo made the corrections in the document submitted to the author's agent and publisher. To them all he is deeply grateful for this helpful accomplishment.

For the dedicated and gifted expertise of his editors, Barbara Ascher and Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, he is grateful beyond measure.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author©s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Caldwell

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