Maureen was taken with the softness of his speech and—if she told herself the truth, and why should she lie?—with his eyes, blue like the calm summer sea. She’d ask him later what a long-liner was. A ling, she surmised, was some kind of fish.
Malachy moved closer to Sinead and said, “I knew you’d not mind, pet, but Tiernan and me asked Paudeen to come and have a wee bite with us before the dancing.”
“It does be nice to have company,” Sinead said, now smiling with her eyes and, Maureen thought, remembering her manners. “Mind? Not at all. It is very welcome you are, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Grand, so,” said Malachy. “Let’s be having our tea. I could eat a back door buttered, and we’ll all be needing our strength for the dancing after.” He sat beside Sinead, leant across and pecked her cheek. “And I’m sorry we’re late, love.”
“Och, you’re forgiven, seeing it’s only a few minutes and you did have only the one,” she said, then offered Paudeen a ham sandwich.
“Thank you, Mrs. Aherne,” he said.
He’s a polite man, Maureen thought, as she sat on the grass beside Fidelma. She helped herself to a chicken sandwich and a glass of lemonade. She was trying to think of a good question to ask him, the way she’d asked Eamon about his lorry. She’d ask about his long-liner, but Tiernan beat her to it.
“Go on, Paudeen,” Tiernan said, “tell the womenfolk what the stationmaster at Clonakilty station told the Englishman who was fit to be tied because the train from Kildare was three hours late.” Tiernan gave a wry grin at Sinead. “You’ll like it, Sinead. Your man here’s a grand one with the stories, Fidelma. A right seanachie, Maureen, just like Da.”
Paudeen blushed and shook his head. “Och, no.” He took a bite from his sandwich.
“Go on with you, Paudeen Kincaid,” Malachy said. “Tell us. It’s perfectly fit for mixed company to hear, and Tiernan’s right. It’ll suit Sinead.”
Paudeen nodded, held up one hand, but finished chewing first.
When his mouth was empty, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said, “An Englishman, very snobby, does be waiting in Clonakilty for the train from Kildare, but it does be late. He keeps scowling at his timetable and getting very red in the face. Finally he storms into the stationmaster’s office. The Englishman had a look on him like the scowl on a bulldog that had chewed a wasp.”
Maureen was already chuckling. “A bulldog that had chewed a wasp” painted a wonderful mental picture. He was a seanachie all right, with a great turn of phrase. She liked that quality of story-telling in her Da, she always had, and she realized she admired it in this man too.
Paudeen continued. “ ‘My man, the train’s precisely three hours and four minutes late. What on earth is the use of this timetable?’
“ ‘Och, sir,’ says the stationmaster . . .” The corners of Paudeen’s eyes crinkled as he spoke.
So those were laugh lines. He had a sense of humour all right. She liked that.
“ ‘We print them only so learned men like yourself, your honour, can know not just that the train is late, but exactly how late it is.’ ”
Paudeen had to wait until everyone’s laughter died down before he delivered the final line: “ ‘And that does be her coming round the corner now, sir. So good day to you, my wee maneen.’ ”
There was a fresh round of laughter, and Maureen clapped, pleased to see Sinead laughing as heartily as everyone else.
It had been four years since the English left the twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State, but Maureen, like everyone else, still enjoyed a good joke at their expense. And this man Paudeen made her laugh, just the way Da did. She found herself looking straight at him—and him looking straight back.
She noticed her pulse was going as if she’d just played half an hour of hard camogie.
“You’re a gas man, Paudeen Kincaid,” Tiernan said, wiping his eyes. “But you should stick to the stories and not get any better with the bullets. I’ll not be wanting you to beat me next time out.”
Maureen waited to see how Paudeen would respond.
“Tiernan,” he said very seriously, “you’re a sound man yourself, bye, but in singles I’ll try to beat you every time. I don’t play to lose.”
Neither did Maureen when it came to her camogie.
“But I’ve a better notion.”
“And what’s that?” Tiernan asked.
“I think the pair of us would make a powerful two-man team.”
Tiernan’s eyes widened. “And Malachy here could still be our helper.”
“True on you,” Malachy said.
“And here we are, come all this way to go to a dance,” said Fidelma, “and what do we get? Three men with nothing better to do than sit around blethering about playing marbles for grown-ups.” She helped herself to another sandwich.
“I’m sorry, Miss O’Hanlon,” Paudeen said. “Would you like some lemonade to go with your sandwich?”
“I would, so.”
Paudeen leant over, filled her mug, and looked her right in the eye. “And now we’ve stopped blethering, can I ask you a question?” Those blue eyes twinkled.
“You may, so.”
“Would you give me the pleasure of the first dance, bye?”
Fidelma blushed, then chuckled and said, “I will, so. When I’ve finished my tea. And the music starts.”
“Don’t bother asking me, Malachy,” Sinead said. “I’m far too big to go lepping about. You’ll stay and keep Finbar and me company.”
“And you’ll be my partner for the first one, Maureen,” Tiernan said. “I’ll not take no for an answer.”
Maureen laughed. “My pleasure.” She stole a glance at Paudeen Kincaid, at those amazingly blue eyes, and wished he’d asked her, not Fidelma. She really wished he had.
This fisherman from Ring had stirred something in her, something that she had never known before. And it felt good. She blushed. Was one of the Pavee’s prophesies coming true already? Was Maureen O’Hanlon starting to fall in love? And if Paudeen asked her to dance with him—and she accepted as she knew she would—would the feeling grow stronger?
23
Tiernan had Maureen on her feet the moment the music started. He led her to the bandstand, where the musicians were at one end warming up. Melodeons, spoons, pennywhistles, bodhrans, a banjo, fiddles, and pipes tore into “The Wearing of the Green,” while the dancers formed sets of four couples.
Fidelma and Paudeen, Maureen and Tiernan, and Eamon MacVeigh and Dolores Hennessy, a girl from Cappeen who attended Maureen’s school, were joined by two smiling strangers. The young man had as many freckles as a queen bee has workers.
The music stopped and the leader of the band held up his hand. “Is it good and ready youse do be now?”
There were loud cries of assent.
“Right youse are. Three jigs for to start with,” he said, tucking his fiddle under his chin. Then with the hand that held the bow he gave a four count, and the musicians let rip with “The Irish Washerwoman.”
Away the dancers went, arms and upper bodies rigid, feet and legs flashing to the six-eighths time, their shoe leather pattering on the wooden floor. Maureen was so busy keeping step she could manage only the occasional glance at Fidelma and her partner. At first she’d been disappointed that Paudeen had asked Fidelma and not herself; by now, though, she’d had time to half hope her sister and this Paudeen would hit it off—for Fidelma’s sake. But as he flashed past, dark hair tossing, blue eyes shining, smile as wide as MacGillicuddy’s Reeks, she wondered if perhaps she wasn’t being too generous. What was it that made this man so attractive? She missed a step. Concentrate, girl, she told herself.
Tiernan was light on his feet, a pleasure to have as a partner, but after the third jig, “My Darling Asleep,” he gasped, “Have mercy on your big brother, Maureen. I need a drink.” He led her off the bandstand.
“Lemonade?”
Tiernan grinned and lowered his
voice. “Archie Bolan—he’s another of the bowling crowd—has a bottle of poitín. He’s round the back of the fort. I’m going to nip round for a minute or two.”
“What’ll Sinead say?”
He winked. “You won’t tell and . . . what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over. Anyway, I don’t have to drive . . .”—they saw Fidelma and Paudeen approaching—“. . . or catch a tide like your man there.”
“Reels next,” the bandleader announced, “so get your partners, form your sets, and get ready to kick up your heels to ‘The Bucks of Oranmore.’ ” Fidelma stood close to Maureen.
Eamon MacVeigh appeared. “And could I have this set, Fidelma? You p . . . promised.”
“I thought this afternoon you asked me for a hornpipe,” she said, but she was smiling.
“Well, I—. W-w-w-well, I—”
Poor stammering Eamon. The more he stuttered, the more embarrassed he became.
“Would I do instead, Eamon?” Maureen asked. It would only be for one set, and now with Tiernan leaving, she didn’t want to be partnerless.
His face lit up. He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Maureen. I’d like that,” he said clearly.
“You would not,” Fidelma said. “A promise is a promise, even if it was supposed to be for a hornpipe. I’ll dance with you, Eamon, and anyway”—Fidelma turned and winked at Maureen—“I think you’d fancy a turn with Mr. Kincaid here.” She lowered her voice so only Maureen could hear. “I saw the looks you gave him up there. And each time you did, I thought you were going to trip over your own feet. Go on. He’s not my kind anyway.” She looked Paudeen right in the eye. “And he’s already told me he was going to ask you, Maureen. Haven’t you, boyo?”
Bless you, Fiddles, Maureen thought.
Paudeen half smiled. “I . . . that is . . . I . . .”
Lord, Maureen wondered, is every young man in County Cork tongue-tied by the O’Hanlon girls? “I’d be delighted,” she said, dropping a small curtsey to Paudeen, but smiling her thanks to Fidelma. “Who else’ll we get to make up the set?”
“Your man with the freckles,” Paudeen said, “and there’s an older couple there on their own. Come on. We’ll ask them to join us.”
By the time the third reel, “The Boy in the Gap,” was finished, she’d seen what an excellent dancer Paudeen Kincaid was, but that was all she’d found out about him. Irish dancing was so strenuous it barely left time for thought, never mind conversation. Nor did the dancers ever touch anything but their hands. She wondered what it might be like to be held and waltzed by a man like Paudeen Kincaid.
As the sets began to reassemble for the next dance, the evening fell quiet with little to be heard but the buzz of muffled conversations and the plinking of the bald banjo player retuning his instrument.
Maureen overheard the bandleader say to him, “Jasus, Cathal, if you don’t stop picking at it, it’ll never get better.”
She and Paudeen both laughed then, and, wiping the back of one arm across his forehead, he said, “This dancing’s the hot work, bye.”
He’d taken hold of her hand and she didn’t want him to let go. “Do you fancy another glass of lemonade, Mr. Kincaid?”
“Grand, so. And would you please call me Paudeen like everybody else does, bye?”
“I will if . . . if you’ll stop calling me ‘bye’ and use my real name. It’s Maureen.”
“Maureen it is, bye.” He shook his head and grinned. His laugh was deep and made her think of the taste of a cup of hot chocolate. “Och, dear,” he said, when he finally stopped laughing. “I’m sorry. I will try to stop, I promise—”
“Bye,” she said and stuck out the tip of her tongue.
They were still laughing when they found Sinead, Malachy, and Finbar.
Sinead was rocking Finbar’s pram. “Hello, you two,” she said. “Fidelma and Tiernan still at it?”
“Aye, so,” Maureen said. It wasn’t really a lie. Sinead hadn’t specified what “it” was. She’d no wish to set Sinead off on another scold by telling tales on Tiernan. “Is there a taste of Ma’s lemonade left?”
“There is.” Sinead handed Maureen the bottle and two mugs. “Here.”
Maureen gave a mug to Paudeen. “I’m glad you’re not a bowsey,” she said. Heading off with your bowling friends, she thought.
“Divil the bit. A jar now and then is plenty, and I’ve had one today, buh—” He bit off the “bye” he had been going to say.
His slip set them both off laughing so helplessly that not only Malachy but Sinead too joined in.
When he had calmed himself, Malachy asked, “And did you enjoy your dance with Paudeen, Maureen?”
“I did, so.”
“And so you should. I knew when I met him at the bowls I’d seen Paudeen somewhere before. It was last year at the feis, the festival, in Cork City.”
“Och, it was only a small faysh, Malachy,” Paudeen said, frowning. “Let that hare sit now.”
“I will not, Paudeen. There’s no need to hide your light under a bushel. Your man here and his partner were Cork slip-jig champions, so.”
Paudeen shrugged and pursed his lips.
His partner. Maureen felt a twinge of envy, but said, “Malachy’s right. You should take pride in it. I’m proud of you.” And she was, as much for his modesty as for his achievement. She finished her lemonade. “And if the Cork step-dance champion thinks he’s getting off with just the one set . . .” She rose and Paudeen followed.
The evening was three quarters gone before she knew it. Moths and night insects fluttered round the Japanese paper lanterns strung around the bandstand. In the distance, the lights of Clonakilty threw a low aurora over the valley.
The fields were bright in the glow of the newly risen moon. As she skipped and hopped, Maureen could see that it was waning, just past the half. It hung low over the hill fort, so low it looked within her grasp should she but reach out.
As if using sparkling hands just beneath its surface, the distant sea caught moonbeams, then held and polished them before releasing them to rise shimmering from the calm waters.
“So,” Paudeen said breathlessly, after the last set, “would you like to sit the next one out, Maureen? I’m getting puffed.”
“I would.” Maureen hesitated, then the words came out in a rush. “Paudeen, would you . . . would you like to get a bit of quiet away from the music?”
She could see the lantern light reflected in his eyes as he looked into hers and said quietly, “I’d like that very much.” He took her hand and they strolled away from the bandstand toward the hill fort.
She walked with him through the still night where the dew fell gently on the springy grass and the almond scent of the whins was as gentle as eiderdown. The squeaks of bats were muted descants to the trilling of a nightingale. And high overhead, the stars bored diamond holes in the anthracite sky.
“Tell me about yourself, Paudeen Kincaid,” she said quietly. “I’d like to know.”
“Would you now? There’s not much to tell. I’m twenty-one. I was born in Clonakilty. I live in Ring now. I have five sisters, two older, three younger, and an older brother. I like to dance—”
“I know that. You are very good.”
“Thank you. I like to bowl and I like reading.”
“I love reading. My Da and Ma have been telling me Irish stories since I was a wee girl, and my teacher has a wonderful way of teaching Irish history. If I was a boy, I’d want to go to university and study it, but I don’t think you’d get much of a job with a history degree.”
“You’re likely right,” Paudeen said, “but you can read about it to your heart’s content. It’s not my cup of tea. I like adventure novels. I like P. C. Wren. He does great stuff about the French Foreign Legion.”
“Beau Geste?”
“Right.”
“I don’t just read history, you know.” She’d not want him to think her a dry stick. “I borrowed Tiernan’s copy a couple of months ago. I though
t it was very sad.”
“Aye, sad, so, but your man, Beau, was someone who took his honour seriously . . . as a man should. He was quite the hero in my book.”
“And mine. You like heroes?”
“I do.”
“Have you read King Solomon’s Mines?”
“By H. Rider Haggard, and his She and Allan Quatermain, and G. A. Henty does great stuff about the North-West Frontier, R. M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island and The Gorilla Hunters. I love them all.”
So, she thought for a moment. Paudeen was a fisherman, probably left school at fourteen, but he liked to read. That was interesting. “Do you read on your boat?”
He shook his head. “No time for it at sea. I read onshore. I’ve always liked the reading and the learning well enough. I had my Junior Certificate, hoped maybe I could go on and eventually get to university. I’d a notion for studying the architecture.”
She felt a kinship to a man who liked learning. He wasn’t simply an unlettered fisherman, she thought, and wondered why he hadn’t gone further at school.
She’d heard a wistfulness in his voice when he said, “I had a notion . . .” She waited for him to explain and wondered if she could trust him with her own dreams. Paudeen did not elaborate and she was not surprised. She had already understood that he was a private sort of a kind of a man, so she said, “I’m sure you had your good reasons.”
“I had,” he said.
She sensed the loom of the fort’s old earth rampart, darker against the indigo sky.
She felt his hand tighten on hers. They stopped walking.
“I’m glad Ma let me come to the Lughnasa céili,” she said.
“So am I.” He moved closer to her, and in the moon’s light she could see that he was smiling. “Very glad.” With that he bent forward and she felt his lips on hers. His were soft as dandelion fluff, fine as a bee’s wings, fluttering and making her tingle. Hers parted, and she tasted him, and her heart swelled.
“Paudeen,” she said. “Paudeen.”
He stepped back a pace. “Thank you, Maureen,” he said. “Thank you for letting me kiss you.”