No Country: A Novel Read Free Page B

bread, and was gone.
    Mr. O’Flaherty picked up the bundle and spoke loudly from the threshold itself, without turning to look at us, as if he werespeaking to the far wrinkled sea out there, “Go home, go away today,” was all he muttered.
    From the next day Poor Madgy Finn did not show up at school, rocking in time with the multiplication numbers, did not lie in the dirt under that tree, waiting for her morsel at Mr. O’Flaherty’s door.
    •  •  •
    T HINGS LULLED BACK in a few days, as they always did in our corner of Ireland, beneath the prow of Bulben, which faces the Atlantic. To the east, a sandy pebbled arc with a stone breakwater holds the harbour where fishing boats bob beside Mullaghmore village, between the open sea and the high Ben.
    From Cairns Hill you can see Lough Gill, which holds within itself isles—one named Innisfree, a calm eye in the lake. Hazel woods east of the lough whisper from early spring into the grey slant of autumn. In the twilight, you can see the twinkle of the village of Dromahair, under a purple vein still bleeding in the sky.
    There was water all around us, starting with the Garavogue, right by the harbour. On the slope to Ben Bulben, a stone hut usurped the small storm-bitten green on which it stood. Out on a jaunt, Padraig and I sheltered there once, from a sudden rain. Snug, under the muttering rain on the slate and sod roof, we watched through its door how a tunnel of radiance bore its way from the Atlantic waters, through wreathed mist, until it was all clear. Far out west the Atlantic glittered under a full and falling sun, turning its waves beyond Ben Bulben into layers upon layers of gleaming fish-scales.
    During that last spring of 1843, when he was still with us,Padraig used to take me and go, sometimes with Brigid tagging along, toward Rosses’ Point, where there is a small church. Turn left and it took us to seven miniature lakes. Farther along this road we could see Dead Man’s Point and the broad chest of the Atlantic gleaming, the wide rocks like armour. Underfoot, the crawling tides tug to and fro, depending upon the time of day. All we could hear—above the stir of pebbly water and the sudden squawk of a seagull—was the gong of an iron bell swung whimsically when it pleased the Atlantic gust. To the right, Ben Bulben sets the scene, like the master in his house.
    During our jaunts, Padraig seemed so much less taken with Brigid than usual. I had him more to myself. Brigid tried to match his carefree mood, but I could feel my sliver of jealousy, how she was waiting to be wooed, and I feeling that small pleasure of his neglect of her. He was my brother in spirit, but it troubled me how much or what I sought of Padraig. I was content with my unwillingness to delve more. I found Brigid looking at me, in unguarded moments, in an appraising manner. We both looked away if our eyes met, but I could tell I was being measured on some inexplicable scale through her woman’s eye, probing to learn the weight on my heart.
    •  •  •
    P ADRAIG AND I had always known Brigid; we had known her as baby and child and girl. ’Tis a mystery how Padraig, who teased little Brigid, almost a year younger, pulled her hair and made her cry, now turned and began to go silent and watchful as she grew tall.
    Padraig was the one to go nest-egg hunting, the first to bringin a frog to put in someone’s school satchel. He was also the first to share his praties or give away his slice of bread to a girl or boy without lunch. His flung stone was death itself to the squirrels until one day when Brigid cried, staring at the limp bodies hanging from his bloodied fist. That’s when he pulled her hair, and made a face, to be friends again. But the lass shook her mane of black and looked away. Padraig, who could bear everything but to be ignored, grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her mouth. I saw he was breathless, while she walked off as if indifferent.
    The host of children with