No Country: A Novel by Kalyan Ray Page B

itself.
    Everyone thought that Mrs. Aherne could not leave Mullaghmore, for the baby was too small, but she made arrangements to have Mrs. Hanrahan stay with the mite, and with Odd Madgy Finn proven to be regular as clockwork, and the baby thriving now, there was no let or hindrance for her quest.
    Old Mr. O’Connor agreed to accompany us, and we made the rounds of the grey buildings where, with the businessman’s intercedence, the great ones of Dublin deigned to speak to us. But it was all futile. I could think of no words of comfort as Padraig’s ma’s face grew more gaunt each day.
    On Sabbath afternoon, I went on a solitary walk by Dublin’s port when I ran into Declan Clooney, a sailor friend from Mullaghmore,just returned from a two-month sail, and quite surprised to see me in Dublin town. When I apprised him of our search, Declan became agitated, for he had news of Padraig. He claimed that a friend of his, Ben Gantry, with whom he and Padraig used to have a dram or two at Sligo, had spied Padraig in a fancy suit on the next quay boarding some ship, a large one. Surprised, Ben called out to greet him from his deck, without success in the wharfside din.
    “And he is sure?” I exclaimed.
    He certainly was, swore Declan. So I dragged him forthwith to Mrs. Aherne and Mr. O’Connor, who made detailed enquiries about departing ships from that period. But since Ben Gantry himself was away on another ship, and so many others had sailed from Dublin to such a variety of destinations, that we had to resign ourselves to the prospect that Padraig would return when he did.
    “He is alive,” whispered Mrs. Aherne.
    “Yes,” I responded in relief, “yes, thank God.”
    •  •  •
    B UT THE MONTHS passed.
    Now when I got up of a morning and had the peat fire on the grate a-going again, Mr. O’Flaherty was the first to come and sit by it. The pupils came much later. I took the time to pray and walked upon the headland, and when I returned, the mist still smoky about my shoulders, I put the kettle on the strong fire where it began its day’s work with a hiss. Mr. O’Flaherty gropes for his glasses until, like as not, I find them for him. His left eye had a milky ring around its blue centre, and the other one was none toostrong. He had aged in the last few months. Although he has never talked about it, I felt, in an obscure way, he held himself partly responsible for Padraig’s disappearance.
    I had built another room attached to it, so that we had what space we needed altogether. He had asked me many a time, and when my poor ma died one silent night last winter, and Mr. O’Flaherty getting more slow and wanting my company, I made up my mind. What use was it trying to keep that cottage? I could not carry its tax, small though it was. Truth be told, ’twas a relief for me, that decision—for in the evenings I became sore miserable in that cottage without the putter and talk of my gentle mother. Soon it would fall into itself, and the good earth reclaim it as if my parents’ lives had never existed.
    With Padraig disappeared from the very face of the earth beseems, and I teaching all the lessons at the hedge-school, I thought to move in once and for all. It had suited us both. The children came, bright-eyed with the walk, and I led them in prayer before we got down to the lessons. When we did the recitation for the tables of multiplication, in that lovely singsong way, I always glanced out the window, expecting to see Odd Madgy Finn a-rocking with glee, keeping time with the numbers, but she did not come here anymore. The tree under which she used to sit had flourished and cast a generous shadow, but it had no company all the school day.
    Madgy had nursed poor Brigid’s child, but refused to sleep in the cottage, although Padraig’s ma had so wanted that. Mrs. Aherne would set her out some thick slices of good bread, a pratie or two, slices of cheese on a china plate, and a glass of buttermilk, but Madgy got it