Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan Page A

curiosity is stronger than his common sense. He crosses his legs and accidentally kicks the boy who is sitting, attentive, in Judge’s old bed.
    â€˜Sorry,’ he says.
    At the sound of his voice the neighbours turn, remembering he is there.
    Davis says he walked all the way to Shillelagh but by the time he got there one of his feet got terrible sore. He took his boot off and there, inside, was a big spoon.
    â€˜Not a small spoon but a big spoon!’
    â€˜You’re joking!’ Sheila Roche says. It’s what she always says after hearing something she doesn’t believe.
    Tom Kelly says he’s going to do away with the milking parlour, that there is no money in milking any more. ‘The farmer’s days are numbered,’ he says, and shakes his head. ‘Sure isn’t milk the same price now as it was ten year ago?’
    That subject keeps them going for a while but some timelater the subject of farming dwindles and comes to a halt. A few balls of speech are kicked out into the dwindling conversation but nothing catches; they roll off into silence. The neighbours get more drink and begin to look at Martha. They turn quiet. Someone coughs. Davis crosses his legs. Because the priest is there, the request is left to him:
    â€˜I’ve heard you’re a great woman for a story, Mrs Deegan,’ he says. ‘I’ve never had the pleasure.’
    â€˜Ah now, Father, I’m not at all,’ says Martha.
    â€˜Aye. Spin us a yarn there, Martha!’
    â€˜God be good, nobody can tell them like her.’
    â€˜All she needs is a bit of coaxing.’
    â€˜Ah, I’ll not.’ Martha swallows what’s left in her glass. Tonight, she needs a drink. Her mother always said that her father’s people had tinker’s blood and that this tinker ’s blood would take them to the road. More than once she has been mistaken for a tinker. She settles down, knowing the story she’ll tell. It is only a matter of deciding where, exactly, she should start.
    â€˜Ah, you’ve heard them all before.’
    â€˜If you don’t tell us a yarn, we’ll all go home!’ Breslin shouts.
    â€˜That’s no way to persuade the woman,’ says the priest.
    Martha concentrates on the room. She has a way about her that is sometimes frightening. She looks at her feet and concentrates. Before she can begin she must find the scent; every story has its own, particular scent. She settles on the roses.
    â€˜Well, maybe I could tell ye this one.’
    Deegan’s wife pushes her hair back and wets her lips.
    â€˜Now we’re in for it!’ Davis rubs his hands.
    She waits again until the room turns quiet. She has noidea what she will say but the story is there; all she has to do is rake it up and find the words.
    â€˜There was this woman one time who got a live-in job in a guest house by the sea,’ Martha says. ‘She wasn’t from there. She was a Bray woman who had gone down south to look for work. The house she worked in was a bright, new bungalow – much like the ones you see down in Courtown. Nothing fancy but a clean and tidy place. Mona was a big, fair-skinned woman. She was tall and pale, freckled. People sometimes mistook her for a tinker but, despite what people thought, she hadn’t a drop of tinker’s blood. She was a postman’s only daughter and one of the things she could do well was dance. That woman could swing on a thrupenny bit and not step on the hare’s ear.’
    â€˜That’s a lovely type of woman,’ Breslin says quietly, remembering something of his own.
    â€˜In any case, she went off this one night to a dance. It being the summertime, there was a great big crowd in the ballroom. She wasn’t really looking for a man but this night the same farmer kept asking her out to dance. He was a wiry fellow with a big red beard but he was light on his feet. He led her across the floorboards same as a