Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan Page B

cat’s tongue moves along a saucer of cream. They talked but the farmer could talk about nothing only the place he owned. All the acres, the trees along the lane, how fine the house was. He talked about the new milking parlour and the orchard and the big high ceilings. For the want of a better name, I’ll call him Nowlan.
    â€˜Now Nowlan asked the woman if she’d meet him again and she said no but Nowlan wasn’t the type of man to take no for an answer. Being the eldest boy, he was used to getting his own way. He followed the woman here, there and yon. One time she looked up from eating her bit of dinnerand there he was, looking in at her through the window. He hounded the woman and the woman gave in. In the end it was easier to court him than to not court him, if you know what I mean. But he was good in his own way, would buy her cups of tea and scones, would never let her put her own hand in her pocket. And, always, they danced.
    â€˜They danced the foxtrots and the half sets and the waltzes same as they were reared on the same floor but in her heart Mona didn’t really take to him. He smelled strange, like pears that are near rotten. His sweat was heavy and sweet. Really, he was past his prime. Everything was all right when they were dancing but as soon as the band stopped and he went to put his lips on hers, the woman knew the match wasn’t right. But like every woman, she wanted something of her own. She thought about living in the place Nowlan had described. She could see herself out under the trees sitting on a bench in the shade, reading the newspaper of a Sunday after Mass. She could see a child there too, playing in the background , banging two lids the way children do.
    â€˜One night Nowlan asked her if she’d marry him. “Would you think of marrying me?” He said it with his back to the light so she couldn’t see him properly. They were close to the sea. Mona could hear the waves hitting the strand and the children screaming. It was the end of summer. The woman didn’t really want to marry him but she wasn’t getting any younger and knew, if she refused, that his offer might be the last.’
    â€˜Now we’re getting down to it,’ says Redmond.
    â€˜Well, to make a long story short –’
    â€˜Ah, what hurry is on us?’ says the priest. ‘If it’s long don’t make it short.’
    â€˜Isn’t that the very opposite of what we say about your sermons?’ Davis is getting full. He has taken over the whiskey bottle, giving himself the best measures while it lasts.
    The priest lifts a shoulder, lets it fall.
    â€˜My stories aren’t a patch on your sermons, Father,’ Martha says and looks across at Deegan. Her husband’s arms are frozen across his chest. She sees the boy under the table but it’s too late to back down now. She remembers the girl and the report she got from the school and carries on.
    â€˜Well, this woman, Mona, accepted his proposal. She married this man and went off to live on the farm. She thought by all his talk that the place would be a mansion so she got a terrible shock when she walked in through the door. The only thing you could say about that auld house was it wasn’t damp. Nowlan had a herd of cows, all right, and a milking parlour but the furniture was riddled with woodworm and there was crows nesting in the chimneys. She made every attempt to clean the place but when she found two pairs of dentures in with the spoons, she gave up. On her wedding night she felt springs coming up like mortal sins through the mattress. And wasn’t it all she could do some days not to cry.
    â€˜Nowlan spent every day and half the nights in the fields. You see, as soon as he’d won her, he paid her little or no attention. Most of the time he was gone. Where he went, Mona didn’t always know. It wasn’t that she thought he’d be off with other women. She’d seen him