The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven (16 page)

“I now take pleasure in the certainty that my ancestral home,” his lordship was saying, “is in such capable, may I say, such
loving
hands.”

“You may,” said Lolly, “but your car is still blocking—”

Declan had come down from his perch, waiting to see if his intervention might be necessary.

“Yes, of course,” his lordship said. “And I must move it immediately. But first, do you think it would be objectionable if I were to, shall we say, wander the grounds and indulge myself in reveries of what was never meant to be? I mean, of course, the return of the castle to its rightful … I mean, the fulfillment of my childhood hopes that I, as Lord Shaftoe, might walk again the halls and fields my ancestors graced in happier times?”

“I'm afraid it's a permission I have no right to give. Now if you'll just move your bloody—”

“Oh, yes. But wait. Here comes someone who might be more obliging.” He raised a hand and called out, “Mr. Sweeney! It's myself. I've … yes … I've come to thank you. I hope you don't mind.”

Declan had already seen Kieran coming down Crohan Mountain, then making a wide arc to avoid the mire at the foot of the hill. As he approached the courtyard, he acknowledged the intruder's call. “Mr. Shaftoe, is it?”

His lordship laughed a laugh that managed to be both a giggle and a cackle. “If you prefer. Surely I'm as much an egalitarian as the next fellow—depending, of course, on who the next fellow might be.” He delivered himself of a congratulatory guffaw, undeterred by the want of amusement among those around him.

Kieran came closer. “Why aren't you in jail?”

“Well, one can't demand of the state unending keep, can one? Or, I should say,
I
can't. I accepted its hospitality for a sufficient time and must now become responsible for myself again. As would any self-respecting citizen.”

“You've come with a purpose, I suppose.”

“Mainly to thank you. I won't go into the details, as I'm sure you haven't forgotten your kindness. You did, after all, prevent me from committing an act inconsistent with my nature, to say nothing of my station in life. You, in effect as well as intention, saved my life. That day? On the tower? You
do
remember?”

“Vividly.”

“Good. I, too, shall never forget. Nor will my gratitude be subject to the mutations of time. I am a man steadfast when it comes to a point of honor. And your action surely makes demands of me that are far beyond my powers to commensurately discharge.”

“Very nice. Thank you.”

“That said, I don't suppose … I mean, I'll soon be returning to Australia, but I was hoping that before I … I almost said
embark
, but one hardly embarks any more, does one? Then, before I take leave of this land of my ancestors, best exemplified by the castle here, I am hoping you'll allow me one final … well, perhaps a quick tour—”

“I think you have memories enough.”

“Then perhaps you'll allow me to renew … to revitalize them before I—”

“I really don't think—”

“Surely you're more aware than any other mortal of what the castle means to me.”

“Yes. Enough for you to try to steal it with forgeries and false oaths.”

“But doesn't that all the more eloquently give measure to my affection? That I would so far forget myself as to descend into common criminality? That I would debase my name and resort to manipulations reserved for perjurers and scoundrels?”

“Very nice. Very nice indeed. But I still don't—”

“Let's compromise then. Forget the tour. Perhaps just a quick step inside. Into the great hall—for which I had such magnificent plans, none of them to be realized. Surely that much can be allowed.”

“Well, if it will bring an end to this conversation—”

“Gracious as ever. And I thank you.”

“You remember that it's little more than a barn at the moment.”

“Of necessity I have long since schooled myself to ignore … nay, to be oblivious to that which offends, be it sight or scent. I am prepared, I assure you, to be selective in the experience you've so kindly agreed to.”

“Okay. Come on. But be careful where you step.”

After a dismissive guffaw, his lordship started toward the doors to the great hall, passing the truck with the now whimpering pig aboard. Kieran opened wide the imposing doors.

The reek easily reached both Declan and Lolly, but neither made the least response. To them it was a smell associated with cows, beasts of sweetness and docility. It improved the air with the reminder that a being so comforting as a cow was a castle resident, and Declan went so far as to feel a twinge of regret that soon, thanks to his labors, the cows would be put into the sheds, protected from the elements by his masterly thatch. That they might miss the comparative opulence in which they'd lived for more than a year was a possibility, but Declan dismissed it, giving the animals credit for an adaptability denied to most of the species that took such advantage of their maternal generosity.

“I hope he goes down in dung,” he heard Lolly mutter. “And has to roll over in it to get himself up. Or maybe I'll go in and give him a small shove.”

Declan was about to return to his roofing of the second shed when he saw his lordship emerge, his left arm firmly held by Kieran's right hand. The man was limping and his shoe was covered, it would seem, with a coating of fairly fresh manure. Lolly was thrilled beyond speech. His lordship stomped his foot, but to no effect. The dung refused to be dislodged. “I didn't expect it to be quite
that
befouled.”

Kieran was completely unable to suppress a gleeful smile. “You can't say you weren't warned.”

“No warning could possibly have been sufficient.”

“You're safely out of it now—and let me say goodbye before any more ‘befoulings' come your way.”

Kieran steered him toward the Bentley. He even opened the driver's door himself. His lordship paused before crouching down to get himself inside. “I don't suppose I could take a few steps over there, to the grass … to … well … as you can see, there's a considerable deposit on my shoe—”

“That's not the grass. That's our garden. And it's been fertilized enough, thank you.”

“But surely one of you can do something for—”

“It's a service not included in my hospitality. Goodbye, Mr. Shaftoe.”

“Well. Really.”

His lordship got inside the car, slammed the door, and revved the engine, perhaps a bit more insistently than was necessary. With a quick turn that spewed gravel, he was off. Kieran brushed his pants, more to observe the departure of his lordship than to rid himself of the dust and dirt deposited by the speeding car.

After a nodded greeting to Declan and Lolly, Kieran went over to the garden and began picking something or other, the captive pig now bashing itself against the tailgate, screaming and screeching as if its slaughter were already underway. Lolly got into the truck and started it up the roadway. The phantom lover galloped ahead and threw itself in front. But to no avail. The truck continued on, the pig appeared again as whole as only a ghost can be, solitary in the middle of the road, proof, if proof were needed, that the spirit world cannot make good its intents without the help of an earthly agency.

The phantom pig, head lowered, then lifted, looked for a moment or two at the door left open by Kieran after he had escorted his lordship out of the great hall. It entered. Although Declan knew it hardly needed an open door to make its way into the hall, he himself took advantage of the convenience: he walked over and went inside.

There, for all to see, was the smeared manure to mark the spot where his lordship had come to grief. There, too, was the pig, staring upward. And there, hung by raw and rasping ropes from the grand chandelier of a hundred candles, were the bodies of Brid and Taddy, circling in the mild breeze brought in through the open door. There were the black and swollen tongues, the bulging eyes.

Never before had Declan seen this. Never had he been warned of its possibility. He would have to cut them down. Quickly. But before he could reach the door to fetch the needed tools, he realized that even the ropes were ghostly, impervious to his intervention. He turned back to look again. Slowly they turned, first toward, then away from each other, their unseeing eyes unable to give the solace the sight one ghost might bring to the other.

Almost solemn in his movements, down into the heavily strewn straw, Declan Tovey knelt. Down into the reeking stench he put his forehead. Out from his sides he spread his arms and made his vow. They would be freed. They would be sent on their way. By whatever means, a means he would make it his cause to find.

He lifted himself and stood erect. They were gone. The pig, too, had vanished. He was in a great room given to shit and piss. This sacred place, defiled. Yes, he would thatch the sheds. They would be finished this day, this hour, the cows expelled, the air scented only by mists sent up from the sea. This he would accomplish—and consider his life fulfilled. For this he had descended from ancestors he would now honor. All would be achieved. All would be accomplished.

When he went out through the door, he passed Kieran carrying a bunch of something Declan took no time to name. He hurried past, not seeing the puzzled look on Kieran's face. Declan didn't doubt that the man had seen him covered with dung and smelling of piss. But what was that to him—or to anyone.

9

A
nd so Declan had vowed the castle would be blown to dust and it would be his doing. The sight of Brid and Taddy hanging had given him more than the needed impetus. Long had he wished to be the instrument of their release—since the day of his tenth birthday, the day on which, by family custom, he was considered to be a man. In September, on the Feast of St. Michael, his father had taken him by the hand and led him to Castle Kissane, a good distance to go, but a long walk was required for his father to prepare him for the mysteries into which he was about to be initiated.

From Declan's first days on earth he had known of the ancient Tovey heroism, when his ancestors, aged as they were, had offered themselves to be hanged and the fine young Taddy and the fair young Brid set free to fulfill a destined happiness, and how they had been whipped for their attempt to thwart the greater pleasure his lordship would find in abbreviating the life of one so fine and one so fair. But now the time had come for ten-year-old Declan to be inducted into the more intimate mystery that attended it. “The first thing you must do,” his father had said, “is swear an oath it would be your damnation to break. Are you the man for it?”

“Yes, Da.”

“Then listen—and show no one except a child of your own what you'll be shown today. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Da.”

“You're a good man, Declan, and your father's a proud father.” And then the tale began.

Declan and his father arrived at the castle. “Say nothing and make no sound,” his father said. After removing some stones at the base of the tower, his father pointed down into the blackness opened before them. “Follow me there. But take my hand, because only I know the way.” Down some earthen steps his father went, into the dark, Declan behind him. Dank and rancid was the earthen floor, and no air to breathe. After a few panicked wavings of his hand, Declan hit his father's shoulder and quickly found the hand he was to hold. His father led him through the dungeon, up a rotting stair, and through a door flung wide leading to the main floor of the castle. Through rooms walled by stone, some covered with lime, his father took him to yet another stair, this one winding upward. They were in the castle tower, ascending.

They came to a wide but empty landing with a window high on the wall, but continued on until they came to a second landing. What Declan saw there disappointed him. All this solemnity—and it had taken them to nothing more than a young man sitting on a stool with an unstrung harp held against his chest, and him foolishly pretending to play. There, too, was a loom, ancient by the look of it, and a girl, perhaps a bit more than a girl according to the stirring that ten-year-old Declan felt at the sight of her, and she pretending to be weaving.

“Watch and say nothing,” his father whispered.

Obedient, Declan watched. The young man ignored them as did the woman, each continuing their foolishness as if no one were there. Was it to see these obviously demented people who'd made their home in a castle ruin that his father had brought him all this distance? And then Declan saw their necks, raw from the rasp of a rope it seemed, the flesh scarred by the wounding. His father put his finger to his son's lips. The two of them continued to watch.

“This is Brid,” his father finally said. “This is Taddy.”

Declan's mouth fell open in awe. These were names he knew. Long did he watch, and his father, too. The harp silent though plucked, the loom moving noiselessly back and forth, though without a single thread to give it purpose.

And then the boy and his father silently left. On the way home, they were as soundless as the youths they'd seen. And his father no longer held his hand. Declan, now a man, was on his own from this day forward. The secret was now his; he was now the keeper of the mystery.

The sun, well toward setting when they had left the castle behind, was now gone below the mounded hill ahead. His father spoke. “We are the ones who can see them and no one other. The cause of it is known, the offer of themselves by our ancestors. How it is will be forever a strange and wonderful thing none of us can ever completely explain. All we know is they are there. And we, if we choose to share their sorrows and their suffering, and the sorrows and sufferings of those ancestors gone before us, we may return and Brid will be there, and Taddy, too. Somewhere. Other rooms, perhaps. Or in the fields I've seen them as well, and walking the orchard gone to a ruin. And now, you, too, may go. If it is your wish. But you must always remember the oath. The Toveys would be thought mad—and mad we well may be. But it is a sacred madness. And ours alone. By blood. Ancestral blood, and may it never cease to flow. And Brid and Taddy never be forgotten or forsaken. Have you heard my words, son?”