The Pig Comes to Dinner (7 page)

But what if he said they must leave, that the castle had obviously overheated her brain, already fevered even in its moments of serenity. She reveled in the castle. She drew sustenance from its stones. The rough-hewn rafters raised her spirits. The view of the sea from the turret battlements made possible this remove inland from the cliffs upon which her family home had been built, the cliffs that had betrayed her by letting her house tumble into the sea, taking with it her first forays into the corrections of
The Mill on the Floss,
a loss she could barely sustain.

Here in the castle she had found her talents awaiting her. Her turret room now held captive the characters she'd sought, the imaginings needed to supplant the misguided author's insufficiencies, the proper plot lines the muses had withheld from George Eliot but revealed to Kitty McCloud, if only she could discern them. Also, for her, the castle pastures were indeed greener, the mire muckier, the fields more fertile. The great hall expanded her spirit—even if it had been given over to the cows and to the pig. The dank cellars inspired in her enough gloom to satisfy the most morbid of her Irish sensibilities. Within these precincts she felt she was in possession at last of this emerald isle, this teeming womb of holy saints, this splendor thrust up by the all-creating sea, this seat of royal Maeve, this mystery, this Ireland.

If Kieran insisted they leave, she would, of course, refuse. That was a given well beyond dispute. Even the very thought would not be entertained or considered, much less discussed. It was this realization that resolved the issue: the potential for disagreement. Immediately she relished the idea. A whole new area of contention. What more could she want?

She found him on the plot east of the castle where he'd been preparing the earth for a planting. He was humming a tune and dropping seeds along a furrow he'd dug in the harsh soil.

“Is it cabbage?”

“Cabbage.” He continued to let the seeds sift from his hand.

“Will they grow, do you think?” she asked.

“We'll find out.”

“Yes, we'll find out.”

Kieran stood up straight and dusted the last of the seeds from his hand, letting them fall where they might.

Still reluctant to proceed with her mission, Kitty searched her brain for an acceptable subject that might occupy at least a few more moments before she'd lead her husband into a territory from which there might be no return. Without much difficulty, she found it. “
I
was going to do the planting,
you
the digging.”

“I'm competent in both.” He brushed his hands against his thighs.

“I never questioned that—nor will I ever. It was an observation only.”

“Of course.” With the toe of his boot Kieran slid some earth from one side of the furrow to cover the seed, then some from the other side. “More trouble with your Tullivers?”

“That, always.”

“And I'm no help.”

“As it has to be.”

“But you'll let me know.” He looked at her and cocked his head to one side. “But there's something else I can help with? Is that it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at you and ask it again. You, shuffling your shoes like a woman not knowing where she wants to go. Will you tell me now, or should there be more talk of cabbages?” Direct as his question was, there was no trace of accusation or impatience in his voice. There seemed even a note of amusement.

Kitty herself shoved a bit of earth over one of the furrows, but without tamping it down. The time had come. She raised her head and shook it lightly from side to side to make sure her hair fell reasonably straight onto her shoulders. That much she could do to bring order into the world. Kieran, his gaze unchanged, waited for her to speak. What she would say would be pure and unadulterated truth. But first she would take him up to the turret, to confess to what she'd seen and to tell about Brid at the loom and Taddy at the harp. Then let him judge if she was mad.

“Can you come with me? Something I want to show you. Something to tell you.” Kieran waited, then nodded.

It was when they were crossing the gallery that led to the stair that they heard from somewhere high above them the sound of a harp. They stopped. Each turned toward the other. Kitty raised her right hand level with her ear as if she were going to cover it. Kieran took in a slow breath and exhaled even more slowly. Neither of them moved. How many moments passed was beyond telling. The harp continued, a plucked melody so plangent it seemed to plead for stillness even as it filled the entire hall with its sorrows. Rising, falling, the harp bespoke a yearning that reached out into the great world in search of some fulfillment of its longing, of the return of something lost and never to be found again.

At that moment, the harp seemed to have summoned the lowering sun from behind a cloud. The hall was flooded with rose-colored gold, making amber the dark stones, burnishing the dull iron of the many-candled chandelier, and transfiguring both Kitty and Kieran, allowing each to see the other made radiant, suggesting that each was being given for just this moment a vision of the other's true self, the world's first glory, a gift no mortal could hope to deserve. The music rose higher, the yearning now an ache beyond bearing but instilled with the promise that it would never cease to be, that its sorrows would be nobly borne beyond the farthest reaches of time, even past the silence where all things die.

Unable to sustain this vision of each other, both Kieran and Kitty turned and looked out over the courtyard. As if in mercy, the song stopped, midchord. And the sun, having done its mischief, retreated. Some remaining rays thrust themselves out above and below, striking the hills, sending one last shaft into the courtyard beneath them.

And there, staring up at them, was the pig, complete with the brass ring passed through its snout to make uprootings impossible now that the garden was being planted.

“The pig,” said Kieran.

“Yes,” said Kitty. “The pig.”

At their words, the animal turned its hams to them and bounded away to its trough. Sounds permitted only to a gorging pig came up to them. “We'll go ahead then,” said Kitty.

Up the winding stones they went onto the first landing, continuing past Kitty's desk. She considered giving a preliminary lecture before making the final ascent, giving Kieran some clue as to what he was about to be told, hinting, perhaps, that he must withhold judgments as to her ability to live in a castle and not have her imagination overwhelmed by ancient lore and thrice-told tales. She decided to wait.

He must already have some premonition. The sound of the harp had been too soulful for any returned squatters and too human to suggest the intrusion of angels.

Maybe Brid and Taddy would be there. Maybe Kieran would see them. Were she and he not one? The implications of this thought were too complex and far too troublesome for Kitty to give it further consideration. Just the fleeting suggestion unnerved her. To be of one heart was acceptable. But it surely had to stop there. To be of one mind with
anyone
but herself was not permissible.

Kieran would either see Brid and Taddy or not. That was hardly for her to decide. But if he did see them, would she be jealous? Would this make her not the unique person she believed herself to be? Would she welcome this rival for Brid's and Taddy's manifestations? To avoid further turmoil—a turmoil given about two seconds of conscious awareness—Kitty continued with even more determination up the stairs, Kieran following behind.

The loom was there, the harp set down on the stool. Brid and Taddy must be off somewhere—if they were anywhere at all—doing who knows what. Again Kitty refused to entertain further speculation. She did not consider it part of the arrangement that she know what ghosts did when they were not in view. That was their business, and she had no intention of sticking her nose into matters that would tax even more her already overburdened imagination.

Kieran picked up the harp. “This could hardly be the one we heard. No strings.”

“It
was
the harp we heard,” said Kitty. “It needs no strings.” She paused, swallowed, then said, “It was a ghost played it.” She paused again, then went on. “And we
both
heard it. I not the only one. Her name is Brid. His name is Taddy. They were at our wedding feast. And before you think anything, whether I might be making sport—or gone daft—I'm telling you the truth. Brid and Taddy. I've been seeing them. Like here, in this room. Brid there at the loom. Taddy playing the harp. Brid with no thread, Taddy with no strings to his playing. You don't have to believe me. But you have to believe I haven't gone away with my head.”

More mournful than fearful, Kieran asked, “Can this be?”

“Who are we to say what can and cannot be?”

“We're rational. We're sane. Or we were until we came to this—this
place.
”

“We”—Kitty squirmed a little as if trying to test the fit of her dress—“we have a few adjustments to make.”

“The squatters—”

“Ghosts, Kieran. Ghosts. The ghost of Brid. The ghost of Taddy.”

Without taking his eyes off Kitty, Kieran lowered himself down onto the stool, still holding the harp. “Ghosts,” he said.

“Yes. Ghosts.” Kitty's voice was quiet. “They appear. And they disappear. They're here, and then they're not here. You can believe me or not, according to your way. But it's God's truth—and if it isn't His, then it's mine.”

Kieran stared toward the window high on the wall. “Then I've seen them, too,” he said quietly. “Even when my own eyes watched them be here, then here no more. Brid in the great hall one evening when the cows first came. Taddy alongside the pig on the slope goes down to the stream. But I couldn't admit who they were, what they are. If I did I'd have to tell you. And how could I do that? Mad, you'd say I was. And— my worst fear of all—you could be right. How could I say anything would make you think you're married to a madman?”

“Are we both gone off with our heads, then?”

“If so, at least we're together.” He guffawed. Kitty, too, allowed herself a small bit of laughter, but it was more than mildly nervous.

“The old tales tell they were innocent,” he said, “and knew nothing of the gunpowder. So if they're here, is the gunpowder here as well?”

“It's something let's hope never to know.”

“And no one sees them but us? Or does everyone see them and not say, for the same fear as ours—that they'd be branded as gone off?”

“Taddy and Brid—I told you, they were at our wedding feast. I saw them. And probably you did, too. But Maude McCloskey didn't. I described them, what they wore, how handsome they were. It disturbed her, that much I know, and nothing disturbs Maude McCloskey. There was something she wanted to say, but she couldn't say it. And Maude never shuts up. If she didn't see them, no one sees them. Except us.”

“But why … ?”

“When you have the answer to that one, will you let me know?”

“And you the same: you'll tell me, won't you?”

Kitty's eyes softened as she looked at her husband. “I'm a woman with no secrets left. Since I've told you what I've told you now, I'll tell you anything.” She paused and raised her right eyebrow. “Unless, of course, I decide not to.”

“Good. Then I needn't feel bad if I do the same.”

“You wouldn't. Hold back, I mean.”

Kieran shrugged, got up from the stool, and reverently put the harp back where he'd found it. Before he had withdrawn his hands completely, still bending, he looked up at Kitty and said, “Are they always with us whether we see them or not?”

Kitty, who'd been running her right hand over the frame of the loom, gave a quick glance to her right, then to her left, then looked down at her hand. “I—I don't know. I never considered it.”

“Could they be here now? In this room!” He made a particular effort not to look around.

“No. I don't think so.”

“But you aren't sure.”

“I'm not sure of anything anymore.”

“May I ask a delicate question?”

“Ask it and I'll tell you if you can or not.”

“When you and I—when we're together—just the two of us—are they—do they—in our room at night and in the morning?”

Kitty pulled her shoulders, her head, and part of her upper torso a full foot back as if withdrawing from the subject itself. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“Well, think about it now.”

“But surely they wouldn't—I mean, why would they— there—at a time like that! No. Of course they're not there!”

“You're sure.”

“It's a terrible thing to think.”

“Yes. Terrible.”

“Shouldn't we just ignore—”

“Maybe you can. But can I?”

“But why would the two of them be spying on us? They're not here for that. Are they?”

“Then why
are
they here?”

Kitty sat down at the loom, unable to answer. With her foot, she worked the treadle up and down. She said nothing. She looked only at her hand on the breast beam, the treadle sending it back and forth. Finally she spoke, but continued the motion. Her speech was hesitant, as if she were giving voice to confusing thoughts as they came to her from some distant region within herself. “They have their being elsewhere. In eternity. Love is theirs. But joy and peace are yet to come. Some part of themselves separates itself from who and what they have become—and stays here, in this place, within these walls, through these fields and pastures, searching for what will make them complete for all time to come. Some task has been left undone. It agitates their souls. It harries their spirits. They are beyond time, where everything that ever was is now and everything that is to come is now as well. It is one moment—and it is forever without change. But sometimes they return to the world of time, where change is still possible. And it is within time that they will fulfill themselves. They will complete their task. And the moment for it is yet to be revealed. And maybe they are here—shown to us alone—to ask our help.” She turned toward Kieran. He was holding the harp again and had just raised his right hand as if to strum his fingers across the nonexistent strings. “They're here,” Kitty whispered.