PROLOGUE PART ONE
MURTY MULDOON’S CURIOSITY
Summer 1947
I want to get past Black Donnelly’s horrible place; but not before my uncle is convinced of things there. Was it really a nightmare I had last night?
No! I am certain of what I saw.
Rounding the bend, there it is. Black Donnelly’s place in the spent bog, as bleak and foreboding as ever. Parked in front is Mickey Motor’s motor-car. And Mickey peering in through the front window, cupping his hands to his eyes against the glare of the dirty panes.
“I brought two pigs for Donnelly. He’s not in the slaughterhouse where he ought to be at this time of day. And there’s no answer from the house. He must be dead or something!”
Mickey goes around to the back, to enter the slaughterhouse by the trapdoor, the one used to haul the carcasses by the winch. There is an entrance to the house from the slaughterhouse. Mickey seems to know his way around the forbidding place. We wait for Mickey to reappear. My uncle hammers on the door with his fists.
He shouts, “Mickey! Mickey! Are you there? What’s keeping you? For God’s sake, Mickey, answer me!”
There is a sound from the house. Mickey, or someone, is falling about in there. Is he tripping or slipping or what? At last the sound of the front door being unlatched, and Mickey stumbles out holding on to the wall for support. His black boots and blue overall knees are wet, so he must have fallen on a wet floor. He moves away from the door, still leaning on the wall for support. Then he vomits and slides to the ground. He is shaken, pale and weak. Nevertheless he grips my uncle’s wrist like an iron vice to prevent him from entering. I am still down at the road, but I can hear their lowered voices.
Mickey is still spluttering and coughing bits of vomit. “Donnelly – dead.”
“Do you think the lads from Cork…?”
“No! Too gruesome. Not even the Tans at their worst would have done this.”
“Done what?”
Mickey grips him with two hands to impress upon him not to enter. “His chest. His heart cut out.”
“With his own knives?”
“I don’t think so. It’s too crude; many hacking cuts; more like he was gnawed.”
Now my uncle slides to the ground. So bewildered am I that I almost laugh at the spectacle unfolding in front of me.
This is the evidence – what I saw last night was no dream.
I shut my eyes. How quickly things change.
...........................................................................................
Four Weeks Earlier
In the ’forties I noticed all sorts of anomalies resulting from ‘the Troubles’ (1919 – 1923). But no one spoke about ‘the Troubles’, so I could only speculate, and for the most part remain unenlightened. I still know very little about ‘the Troubles’, and although this story is not about ‘the Troubles’, it has a lot to do with the fallout – the uneasiness left hanging unresolved.
I grew up in rural South Donegal near Lough Erne, in the ‘Free State’ (more correctly ‘Éire’, but the previous term was still commonly used). Standing at the spot where the Termon River enters the lough, I reflected. The river was in the ‘Free State’; the lough was wholly in ‘the North’. Eddies and miniature whirlpools appeared and disappeared where the current of the river thrust into the placid water of the lough – sometimes here, sometimes there, a few feet away. The actual point where the river became the lough changed second by second, and was influenced by the ever-changing flood of current in the river. Experts, politicians and surveyors were certain as to the exact location of the border – where the river ended – yet could not agree on which of the many ‘certain’ and ‘exact’ locations is the correct one. In all likelihood, they never will.
I swept my eyes around the wedge-shaped field to take in the ruined castle and the herd that grazed contentedly on the lush grass. The point of the wedge, where I stood, was at the lough. The ground here was soft, evidenced by the number of rabbit burrows dotting the bank. The riverbank was heavily wooded. And on the other side of the wedge, the forest of the estate came to the lough’s edge. The smells were in perfect balance – the rich grass, the clean water, the woodiness of the trees. And as the breeze gently lifted and fell, the forest seemed to whisper from one side of the field to the other in conversation. How could there ever be turmoil in such a tranquil place?
I walked over to the slipway where a boat was moored. I looked into the boat at the pool of still water collected in the bottom, probably from the morning’s rain. I studied my reflection – Murty (actually Murtagh) Muldoon, nine years old, reddish-fair hair and freckles, slighter than the boys who worked on farms, brown short-sleeved shirt over brown dotted tweed knee-length trousers.
The wedge of the field protruded into ‘the North’ –
Looking out over the lough, I faced ‘the North’;
To the right was also ‘the North’;
And to the left, ‘the North’ yet again.
Lough Erne was actually south of where I stood. The only visible place here that was not ‘the North’ was north. ‘The North’ was also called the ‘Six Counties’, which made sense. I could name all six – Derry, Antrim, Down, Armagh and Tyrone that touched Lough Neagh (the largest lake in Ireland or Britain) and Fermanagh with Lough Erne. The house here beside the slipway, where I stood, was also in the ‘Free State’, unoccupied (as in ‘not lived in’). It was previously occupied by the British when it was in ‘the North’. And then the border had been redrawn. Perhaps it was never in ‘the North’, but the British just held on to it after the treaty.
That’s the way it was then, 24 years after the ‘the Troubles’ ended – the border unresolved, houses vacant, owners absent, and reclusive people hidden away silent in remote houses. ‘The Troubles’ were still the source of a lot of unexplained anomalies, and I wanted to find out more and uncover their secrets. In the summer, the summer of 1947, I planned to do just that.
My paternal grandparents live in Mayo. I spent summer holidays with them there in Killbawn. And it was that summer that I went to work on my Uncle Ben’s farm in Ballycorry, ten miles outside Killbawn. Nine-year-old boys do a lot of responsible work on farms. Most of the boys in my class are involved in sheep farming or cattle farming, and they all do a man’s work. I spend a lot of time on farms, even helping out with the sheep dipping. I was never responsible for any farm work of my own, just helping out whenever I choose. It was more like a game. But that is about to change.
My uncle, Ben Muldoon, lives alone on the farm. To say he lives ‘alone’ is misleading. There are farm workers constantly in and out of all the farms in the area. Work is shared. Each helps each other with the work – here today cutting the corn, and the next day over on Magee’s farm working on the hay – and Mrs. Slattery brings lunch out to them. They hang about in the evening drinking porter.
My favourite animal on the farm is a jennet. My uncle calls it a ‘jinnit’, because that’s how they talk in Mayo. She is smaller than a horse, but does the work of a horse. She has no name other than ‘the jinnit’.
I don’t like the sow. She is my least favourite animal. She is fat and greedy and would dunt you out of her way in her quest for food, which is almost anything, anytime. The jennet doesn’t like the sow either, and will not venture near the apple trees if the sow is about. And if the sow ambles in, the jennet gets spooked.
There is a lot to do on the farm – honeycomb to collect from the beehives, butter to churn – but that concerns me less now that my uncle has a real responsible job for me. Tomorrow I would drive the jennet and cart to the market, and later bring her back. But first we need to repair the cartwheel.
The cartwheel is lying on the ground within two stone circles, each shaped to the design and size of the wheel. The wooden part, comprised of the rim and the spokes, is lying in one circle; and the iron ring for the outer rim is lying in the second circle. This second circle also contains burning turf coals, so that the iron rim is hot, really hot. With tongs, my uncle lifts the iron rim and carefully places it over the first circle so that it encircles the wooden wheel. Then he pours water on it. The iron rim hisses and steams and contracts to grip the wooden wheel. Ah! So that’s how the cartwheel is held together. Some generous lathering with goose grease and placing it on the cart axle with a secure pin, and the cart is in good shape for the morrow. Next we apply Dubbin to the harness, massaging the leather straps between thumb and forefinger. Dubbin consists of wax, oil and tallow. It keeps the leather supple and soft, and prevents it from stiffening and cracking. It has a pleasant leather smell, like newly-polished boots, but it does not impart a shine.
Tomorrow would be Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the month. According to Old Moore’s Almanac, the first Tuesday of the month is pig-market day in Killbawn. The sow had given birth to a litter of ‘banbhs’, and it is time to sell them. There is no harm in that. The greedy sow has no interest in minding her own banbhs. They would be much better off on another farm.
On the morrow, Tuesday, I hitch the jennet to the cart, a red cart with blue painted shafts, and set to padding the crate with straw for the banbhs. My uncle told me to use straw, not hay. Of course I know the difference between hay and straw; I know the difference between hay-for-fodder and bedding-hay. Straw does not feel as dry as hay, and has a neutral smell, not like the rich smell of hay. The crate, well-lined with straw is put in the box of the cart. My job is to hold the jennet easy while the squealing banbhs are placed in the crate one by one – all ten of them. The jennet needs a lot of calming. She is snorting and flicking her ears and tapping the ground skittishly. She sure is nervous around pigs. Stroking her nose calms her, and with the banbhs now quiet, she is anxious to get away from them. With blinkers on, she does not realise that they are in the cart and coming with us.
My uncle, 5’6’’, dressed in a grey cloth cap, a striped blue collarless shirt, dungaree overalls, and black hobnail boots, sits down in the cart with one eye on the banbhs and consults his ‘Old Moore’s Almanac’ in the section under the heading ‘Agricultural Fairs, Markets, and Livestock Auctions’, jotting some figures with a pencil.
I, for my part, stand in the front of the cart and make all those tsking and clicking noises with my tongue that horses and jennets understand. Down the lane we pass Slattery’s. Slattery’s is the farm next to us, and Noreen Slattery told me that I could use her bicycle anytime. Noreen Slattery is also nine years old. Unlike other girls her age, she has her brown hair cut short, and favours primrose yellow frocks and bare feet. That way she is able to run shortcut through the stream beside the house to access the fields. She had left her bike against the gable of the house for me, but I don’t want to ride it. It is a girl’s bike with a basket on the front. Still, it is nice of her. The whole Slattery family is nice.
I see Mrs. Slattery cooling her morning batch of bread on the window sills. Mrs. Slattery is short and plump, and waddles as she walks. She always wears a flower-patterned wrap-around apron that totally conceals everything else she wears, even her shoes.
“It’s a fine day! Mrs. Slattery!” my uncle shouts in greeting.
“A fine fair day, Ben!”
“A fine pig-fair day!” I say.
“So you’re off to the market with the sow and banbhs, then?”
“Just the banbhs!”
“All right then. I’ll have the twins keep an eye on things while you’re in town!”
Pat and Joe Slattery, the twins, are two years older than me, and at eleven years old, are already doing a man’s work. They always work together as a team, and often help Uncle Ben on the farm.
The jennet kept a steady pace throughout this exchange and, having passed by the house, I guide her left onto the boreen that would take us to the main road, and thence to Killbawn. The whole journey would take a couple of hours.
“So, what’s in Oul’ Moore’s Almanac?” I ask.
“Well, that depends on whether it’s the Irish one or the English one. They’re not the same, at all, at all. This one’s the Irish one,” says he, waving it at me. Maybe that’s the reason it has a green cover. “Everything you need to know is in here – the market days for every town and village in Ireland, what weather to expect, the number of daylight hours in any day of the year, sunrise and sunsets, the tides, and lots more. This is what I consult to determine if I should go to the bog on such-and-such a day to cut turf, or mow the meadow, or whatever. It tells you all you need to know.”
“Well then, does it tell you about ‘the Troubles’?”
“No! It doesn’t tell you about ‘the Troubles’. Nothing tells you about ‘the Troubles’.”
“You said that it tells you all you need to know, and I need to know about ‘the Troubles’.”
“Ah, cub,” he says softly, and I am aware that he says ‘cub’ in the warm Donegal fashion rather than the local more dismissive term ‘gossoon’. “You don’t need to know about ‘the Troubles’.”
To change the subject, he says aloud, “Pay attention to the road; there might be a car!” I knew he was pulling my leg because he says “kyar” to mock my accent.
I sing back at him in cuckoo-call fashion “kay-ir! kay-ir!” – which is how they say it in Mayo. And we take to laughing. I laugh so hard, I get dust up my nose and I sneeze.
“Dia linn!” (God be with us!), he exclaims.
“What did you say?”
“‘Dia linn!’ That’s what we say in Mayo when you sneeze. What do you say up in Donegal when you sneeze?”
“Up in Donegal when we sneeze, we say ‘Ah tisshew!’” And we take to laughing again.
The roadside hedge is thick with brambles filled with blackberries. The berries are not yet ripe; they are red, which is the colour of a blackberry when it is green. Coltsfoot and nettles compete with the brambles for space at the roadside. Bees and dragonflies buzz and dart about. After some distance the hedges peter out to be replaced by whin (gorse) and mountain ash. The whins are just coming into bloom. Whin flowers are a pretty yellow, like daffodil-yellow, and have a distinctive coconut scent that attracts bees and insects. But they are a bane to farmers due to their invasiveness. Where whins are abundant, farmland is sparse. Their presence signals our departure from the farmlands.
PROLOGUE PART TWO
BLACK DONNELLY AND
THE BLACK PIG
Suddenly all is quiet. The jennet’s ears are twitching; her nostrils are sensing the air as we round a bend to view a bleak landscape. The boreen crosses an area of bogland. It is bleak because the bog has been worked out and there is no more turf to be had there. Treeless. Not even a hedge at the side of the road. Lifeless. It is without colour, and is dark even with the morning sun beating down full. Not fit for man or beast. At the bend ahead, the road swings sharp left at a right angle, and then straight as a rush for a mile across the flat bogland to where the welcoming farmland takes up again. All three of us stare ahead; even the jennet has forgotten to blink. There is a stone house at the bend. It will be on our right as we pass. We are approaching it from the gable side. Its frontage is at right angles to the long bog road. It’s as if the straight road is built as an approach to this house, and then just before it reaches the front door, it suddenly changes direction and turns sharp right.
The jennet’s shoes are clicking a rhythm of iron on stone; the iron-rimmed wheels are making that peculiar crunching sound on the black stone chips that surface the road. As we near the bend we can make out the front door of the house, black and lifeless, even though it is facing east and is taking the full light of the morning sun. The whole house appears even bleaker than the bogscape, and we can make out the surrounding low buildings almost hidden by the bogland sloping upwards behind the property. Not fit for man or beast.
And now a whiff of pig, disturbingly different from the smell I am familiar with on the farm. It brings to mind manure and rot – and something dead. The jennet is getting skittish. I do my clicking thing to soothe her, and she settles back to her rhythm. As we round the bend I notice the front door nudge open a fraction. Is someone peering at us from out of the dark interior? Through the partly open door I hear the ‘bong, bong, bong’ of striking clocks. Just then I am startled by the unexpected added sound of alarm clocks, all ringing at the same time, and the door closes with an audible clunk. How strange that there should be so many loud clocks in a lifeless house out here in a dead bog.
My uncle mutters, “Black Donnelly’s.”
The dark sinister house is now behind us, and a mile of straight road lies ahead. I had heard of Black Donnelly. But I thought it was just a story to frighten children. Like my granny in Killbawn would say, “If you don’t behave yourself, Black Donnelly will get you!”
As we travel further from the house, the smell of pig diminishes. The banbhs in the cart do not smell of ‘pig’; they smell clean like oatmeal. There is no other smell except for the flintiness in the air that blows incessantly from the exposed bedrock of the worked-out bog. It would be some time before we reach the market, enough time to learn something about Black Donnelly and maybe gain some insight into ‘the Troubles’ – surely only ‘the Troubles’ could drive one to live in such a forbidding abode. Donnelly was not from around here, at least no family admitted to being related to him. He is dour, friendless, reclusive. He runs a pig-slaughtering operation which supplies the local butchers with sausages and black puddings. If it were not for the high quality of his sausages, he would have no contact with humanity. I remember seeing butcher shops with the slogan ‘Donnelly’s Sausages are the best...’ and then give all the current reasons why they are so. Donnelly’s only interest, outside of pigs, is with clocks. He repairs clocks, he makes clocks, he collects clocks – but not from anyone around here. They say that he has hundreds of clocks, but what I heard today sounded like a million. My uncle does not enlighten me beyond this, because it goes back to ‘the Troubles’; and no one talks about that. I wonder what Donnelly might have done during ‘the Troubles’ to render him an outcast.
Where did he come from?
Why is he called ‘Black’?
Is it by his own choice that he is friendless?
Perhaps Donnelly was a bombmaker or an executioner.
Or an informer. No one likes an informer.
Maybe he is lying low and there is a price on his head.
What if his real name isn’t Donnelly at all?
Here we are at Killbawn. Second street on the left, down the hill and beside the river, is the pig market. I don’t remember turning off the boreen onto the main road to town, distracted by my wild imaginings of deeds and misdeeds that Black Donnelly might have committed during ‘the Troubles’. We set up our crate in the market. There are other farmers with pigs, and all have crates or roped-off sections for their pigs. Some are selling pigs and some are buying pigs. All the pigs here smell clean, like the banbhs. There is a noticeable smell of pipe tobacco in the air. Smoking and talking go hand in hand, and there is a lot of talking as everyone is intent on catching up on the news. No one is in any hurry, and I see from all the socialising that this is going to take all day.
I see Uncle Ben strike up a conversation with Mickey Motor. His real name is Michael Carr. He is called Mickey Motor on account of converting a motor-car into a transport van. From what I could see, he had removed the back seat and installed a wooden cage. Still, it is better than a cart, and he is proud of it.
During all the wheeling and dealing I am left in charge of the jennet. She needed water, some oats and a turnip. She is munching the grass on the green and I am happy with myself. I observe Uncle Ben and Mickey spit on their hands and then clasp them in a handshake. This indicates that the deal was struck, and they go into the pub for the ceremonial drink to good health. It’s time for me to hitch up the jennet to the cart and be ready for the trip back to the farm.
Most of the farmers are drinking ‘good health’ by this time; there are more pigs than farmers visible in the market square. Next to us is a makeshift pen, unattended and not very secure, with a pig in it. This piggy sees his chance to freedom, and runs through the ropes – right toward the jennet and through her front legs. I am standing in the cart holding the reins when the jennet rears up and takes off at a gallop. Vegetable stands are knocked over as the jennet races in panic through the market, and straight for the river. Keeping my balance I steer the jennet around and to a slower gait. She is still skittish, but slow enough for Uncle Ben and Mickey to run from the pub and catch her. We manage to soothe her. My uncle is proud of the way I handled the situation in saving the jennet from certain drowning, and it earns me a few back slaps from the onlookers.
Mickey remarks that I speak with a northern accent, “You don’t sound like you’re from the 26 Counties, do you now?”
“He’s from Donegal…” says my uncle.
“…where they ate the spuds, skins and all,” laughs Mickey.
I understood ‘Free State’, and ‘Six Counties’, a bit confused about ‘The North’, and now here in Mayo they speak of the ‘26 Counties’. I suppose that has to do with ‘the Troubles’ too. But I say nothing, and Mickey did not expect an answer. He is eager for an excuse – which my jennet-handling skills provided – to order another round of drinks – oh, and a lemonade “for the gossoon.”
The pub is a low limestone building with a slate roof. The windows are small. Inside it is dark, made even darker by the tobacco smoke hovering throughout the saloon. The floor is spread with fresh-smelling sawdust but is unable to compete with the smell of pipe tobacco and cigarettes and the sweet-sour smell of spilled porter. There are no chairs. Benches along the wall surround the room, but no one is sitting. Everyone is shouting at the same time and laughing and slapping each other in camaraderie. Mickey and Uncle Ben make their way to a square wooden table in the corner where they indicate that I could sit on the bench. Uncle Ben brings me a soup and a wedge of cheese from the bar, and two pints for himself and Mickey, and then he remembers to return for the lemonade. I am unable to eat because of the invasion of competing smells – smoke and stout and sawdust – so I take my bowl of soup and plate of cheese with glass of lemonade balanced on top, and go out to the cart. I see Mickey leave the pub a few minutes later, but Uncle Ben remains socialising with his farmer-friends for an hour or so. It had been a good day, and now it is time to return to the farm.
On the way back, my uncle makes himself comfortable sitting in the cart, propped up in one corner. With the excitement over, and a few porters in him, he eventually rolls over onto the bed of the cart and falls sound asleep in the banbhs’ straw. Standing in my position of driver, I urge the jennet to keep up a steady pace. Being tired, and since my uncle would not notice, I sit down and let the jennet choose her own pace. Shortly, she decides that it is time to go home. She ceases chomping the roadside grass and sets a steady pace with determination. We are heading west into the evening sun. I could tell. Sitting against the boards with my back to the jennet and the reins slack in my hands, I lazily observe the lengthening shadow of the cart on the road. The iron rims mark the road surface behind us, tracking our progress. We might still get to the farm before dark.
The lurching of the cart rocks me left and right with the rhythm of the jennet’s steady pace. I am being lulled to sleep, too sleepy to light the lamps on the tailgate. The carbide is probably stale, I suppose, and would be unable to ignite. And I don’t have matches.
The tracks of the wheels on the road are like the wake of a boat, drawing two white parallel lines all the way from Killbawn to the farm. Now and again I check our progress through half-closed eyes looking backwards at the road behind us, recognising a tree or a bend in the road, and now passing the creamery… all the while the two white lines are being scored into the black road surface. As the shadows lengthen, the black road surface gets blacker; the white tracks of the wheels get whiter. Our progress is being written in luminous white lines suspended in darkness.
The sweet smell of moist earth and grass diminishes as we leave the farmlands; the sylvan smells of leaves and ferns fade as we leave the fringe woodlands; and I feel the cold flinty breeze of the desolate mountainside brush the top of my head. We had turned onto the straight length of bog road that leads to Black Donnelly’s. I am unperturbed, too elated and too content with myself to let thoughts of Donnelly ruin a perfect day. I am rehearsing in my mind how I would relate this day’s event at school in Donegal next month. Most of the children would have tales to tell – the turf, the hay – but my story would take the biscuit. I am sure of that.
Something rounds the bend behind us. Probably a local dog. Dogs are common sights on country roads, and like the jennet, this dog is probably on his way home. A black dog on a black road. It is difficult to make out his features or determine the breed. But there he is, trotting up between the two luminous strips of white, as if he owned the road. Who does he think he is? De Valera en route to the airport? The setting sun illuminates his eyes. They glow red. This is the only discernible thing about him, indicating his size and proximity.
The lengthening shadows give over to twilight as the sun goes down. But the eyes still glow, even brighter, and ever closer. My eyes, which were half closed, come to full alertness, and my hair stands on end, as I strain to make out what manner of dog this is. I listen for his panting. What I hear alarms me. I hear the snorting breathing of a snout, and surmise that this may not be a dog at all. The realisation of what this might be registers with the jennet. She rears up and takes off like she did earlier at the market. Galloping up the road, I am aware that the cart is not designed for comfort or speed. It lurches and skids from side to side. I grip the side panel for fear of being thrown overboard. My uncle is lying in the bed of the cart, sound asleep. He is no help. I am frightened and helpless.
Even with our increased speed, the glowing eyes still come closer and closer, until I lose sight of them under the tailboard. There is a thump on the tailboard, and I see a malevolent face piercing me with its eyes, a black pig with fiery eyes burning into my chest. I fear my heart would stop. The black pig attempts to clamber over the tailboard, but his crubeens fail to grip, and with a lurch from the cart he falls back onto the road. Now he is coming again. Snorting saliva and wheezing steamy breath, and staring with his demonic eyes.
A feeling of dread washes over me from my head downward, and I feel the warmth drain from my body, and I feel the blood drain from my veins, and my bladder fails. This is dying. I know this is dying. I feel my mind slipping away.
Thump! There he is again clambering over the tailboard. This time he might succeed. Death itself cannot be worse than the terror of dying, and I wished that he would get it done and over with. Another lurch. The cart tilts up on one wheel. Sparks are flying from the skidding wheel, red and blue. The cart is going to tip over and that will be the end. But the pig has lost his grip once again as the cart bumps and rights itself. I feel myself leaving my body, drawn to the malevolent beast of death. I cannot hold myself. In one quick glance, like a lightning flash that is instant but can be viewed over the succeeding few seconds, I see that we had rounded the bend and that the pig-beast had continued straight on to the front door of Black Donnelly’s. I see him disappear through the black door; or is the door wide open with the entrance in black shadow? I cannot tell.
And I am gone... I see the cart; I see my uncle in the bed of the cart; I see myself sitting in the cart still gripping the sides. I see the jennet ease her pace, and though still spooked, get home. I see my uncle waken, not fully awake, but enough to perform the routine actions. I see him and me unharness the jennet and push the cart into the shed for the night. I see this from outside. But where am I, really?
And then I am back... I am sitting before the fire. I am cold, and I am afraid in the dark. I sit there poking the fire to produce higher flames and brighter sparks in an attempt to produce warmth and light. At daybreak I am still there poking the fire. My legs are measled with first degree burns from the fire, but I am still cold.
My uncle is shocked at my appearance when he comes for breakfast. He was not aware of it on the previous night. In answer to his puzzled look I say, “Black Donnelly is dead; the Black Pig got his heart.” He tries to convince me that it is my imagination, stimulated by the excitement of the day. Understandable. Everyone had heard of the Black Pig, a popular piece of local folklore. No doubt I had fallen asleep on the journey back and had experienced a nightmare of sorts. And considering my uneasiness with the Donnelly place, very understandable. But something to get over. He tries, but fails to convince me.
I insist on leaving the farm in Ballycorry and going to my granny’s in Killbawn. This annoys him. He is a day behind in his farm work and needs my help. But seeing that I am so distressed, he softens and says that he would get the Slattery twins to help out. He tells me to take his bicycle; it is the fastest way to get to town. But I do not want to pass by the Donnelly place alone, and insist that he comes with me. Okay! He agrees to go as far as the Donnelly property, and thence I would continue on alone. Uncle Ben’s bicycle is too high in the saddle, so I would have needed Noreen’s bicycle regardless.
Down we go to Slattery’s for Noreen’s bicycle and to arrange for farm help. Uncle Ben goes into Slattery’s; I remain outside and get Noreen’s bicycle from the gable end. I am anxious to get going, and stand by the gate. From inside I hear Mrs. Slattery quizzing my uncle about the market and the banbhs.
“I suppose you sold them to that eejit, Mickey Motor; he has two pigs fattened up for slaughter, so he’ll be needin’ to start fattenin’ the next lot.”
Only Mrs. Slattery’s voice carries through the walls. “So you’ll be wantin’ the twins to help out today?
“Fine! Fine! They know the routine.
“A nightmare, you say? Well, I’ll have to have a look-see at him.” Out she comes and looks at me. My pants are stained and I must look a sight. “You haven’t had breakfast!”
It wasn’t a question, so I do not answer. She spits on the corner of her apron and rubs my cheek with it. As she turns back to the house she whispers admonishingly to my uncle, “Benedict Francis Muldoon!”
She returns almost instantly with a thick slice of soda bread, a farl sliced horizontally, still warm, and the butter melting on it. And she places another farl of the scone in the basket of Noreen’s bicycle.
“And what do you say to Mrs. Slattery?” my uncle prompts me.
“Black Donnelly is dead; the Black Pig...” I begin.
“Stop!” she says holding up her hand. “There’ll be no talk of the Black Pig here!” With that, she surprises my uncle as her upheld hand became a well-placed fist to his ear, sending his cap flying and knocking the almanac out of his pocket.
“In the name of God, man! Have you no sense, fillin’ this gossoon’s head with nonsense and frightenin’ the wits outta him? Look at the state he’s in!”
She attempts another fist; my uncle dodges this one. “You were drinkin’ with that amadan Mickey Motor last night? And scarin’ your own kin with banshees and ghosts?”
My uncle retrieves his cap and almanac, not too sure which one goes where.
“Come, a graw (love),” she says to me, “spend the day with us till you get settled.” And then in the direction of the house, “Isn’t that all right, Noreen? We’ll look after him…” and turning to my uncle, “…where his own kin is doing such a poor job.”
I am eager to leave as soon as possible and go to my granny’s. I tell this to Mrs. Slattery.
“Very well, then.” And to my uncle, “Take him directly to his granny. No pubs; and no Mickey Motor! I’ll be callin’ in to Maggie Muldoon tonight, and if that young gossoon is not cleaned up and settled down you’ll get the other ear thickened. “D’ye hear?”
“Yes! Mrs. Slattery! Of course! Mrs. Slattery!”
I see the twins coming down from the upper field, attracted by the commotion. They are both dressed in blue shirts, blue dungaree overalls, and black Wellington boots. They are bare-headed, hair bleached by the sun, tall and broad-shouldered for eleven-year-olds. The whole townland would know inside the hour, but I don’t care.
We make quick progress on the bicycles. I am anxious to get to Killbawn, and then get back to Donegal. My uncle is anxious to get some distance from Mrs. Slattery, his left ear stinging red. I want to get past Black Donnelly’s horrible place, but not before my uncle is convinced of things there. Was it really a nightmare, and my fear and dread unfounded? No! I am certain of what I saw and experienced, but I need someone to see the daylight evidence.
Rounding the bend, there it is. Black Donnelly’s place in the spent bog, as bleak and foreboding as ever. Parked in front is Mickey Motor’s motor-car. And Mickey peering in through the front window, cupping his hands to his eyes against the glare of the dirty panes.
Seeing us coming, he shouts, “This place is dead!”
Of course it’s dead, I could have said. Everything here is dead – Donnelly, the clocks, the whole place.
And he continues shouting to us as we near; but I stay well back on the road as my uncle approaches the house. “I brought two pigs for Donnelly. He’s not in the slaughterhouse, where he ought to be at this time of day. And there’s no answer from the house. He must be dead or something!”
My uncle had reached him by now and gives him a dig in the ribs to shush him. Now both of them peer through the front windows.
“It’s quiet, all right,” says my uncle.
I shout from the road, “Of course it’s quiet, the clocks are dead!”
They look at each other, and back at me, but say nothing. Mickey goes around to the back, to enter the slaughterhouse by the trapdoor, the one used to haul the carcasses by the winch. There is an entrance to the house from the slaughterhouse. Mickey seems to know his way around the forbidding place. We wait for Mickey to reappear.
I shout to my uncle, “Can you see any clocks?”
“A few.”
“What time do they show?”
“Twenty past ten on that one, and twenty past ten on the other one,” a pause. “It’s twenty past ten on all of them.”
“The time of sunset?”
“I don’t know, and even...”
“Oul’ Moore knows!”
He pulls out the almanac, and consults it. Puts it back in his pocket, but is a shade paler now. He hammers on the door with his fists, shouting, “Mickey! Mickey! Are you there? What’s keeping you? For God’s sake, Mickey, answer me!”
There is a sound from the house. Mickey, or someone, is falling about in there. Is he tripping or slipping or what? At last the sound of the front door being unlatched, and Mickey stumbles out holding on to the wall for support. His black boots and blue overall knees are wet, so he must have fallen on a wet floor. He moves away from the door, still leaning on the wall for support. Then vomits, and slides to the ground. He is shaken, pale and weak. Nevertheless he grips my uncle’s wrist like an iron vice to prevent him from entering. I am still down at the road, but I can hear their lowered voices.
Mickey is still spluttering and coughing bits of vomit. “Donnelly – dead.”
“Do you think the lads from Cork…?”
“No! Too gruesome. Not even the Tans at their worst would have done this.”
“Done what?”
Mickey grips him with two hands to impress upon him not to enter. “His chest. His heart cut out.”
“With his own knives?”
“I don’t think so. It’s too crude; many hacking cuts; more like he was gnawed.”
Now my uncle slides to the ground. So bewildered am I that I almost laugh at the spectacle unfolding in front of me.
This is the evidence – what I saw last night was no dream.
Mickey puts a cigarette in his mouth, but is unable to strike the match. “We’ll have to get word to the guards.”
“You go, Mickey, in your vehicle.”
“Yes.”
But neither one moves. Mickey tries to strike another match, but it breaks.
“Mickey! The guards!”
He stumbles up shakily and staggers down to his motor-car.
“And drop off the young lad at Muldoon’s on the way to the barracks!” my uncle shouts after him.
He looks at me as he fumbles with the matches. “Are you comin’ or stayin’?” he asks with little interest.
“Home!”
“Home to the Six Counties, is it?”
He tries again to light his cigarette, but his hands are shaking badly. He breaks another match. I get into the car; he is not going to invite me. The two pigs are still in the back, the unlit cigarette is still in his mouth. It begins to rain. He starts the car. The wipers don’t work, so he has to drive with his head out the window. Now his cigarette is wet.
Mrs. Slattery was right. Mickey is an amadan. He never learned my name, and thinks I am from ‘the Six Counties’. And his car is a wreck. And it smells of pig stink, and of Mickey-vomit, and of wet cigarettes.
I shut my eyes.
In the ’forties I noticed all sorts of anomalies that were a result of ‘the Troubles’. But no one spoke about ‘the Troubles’, so I could only speculate, and for the most part remain unenlightened. I still know very little about ‘the Troubles’. But I don’t wish to know any more.
I never hitched a jennet to a cart ever again.