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Date Posted: 15:25:29 11/08/08 Sat
Author: cg
Subject: This is the Casey snippet, but it's getting a little octopus-like and growing out in a couple of directions I didn't anticipate, so I'm just giving you all the top end of it- because Casey and I aren't certain where exactly the bottom end of it is headed at present>>>
In reply to: cg 's message, "I just came in to light the fire, put the kettle on and see what Elaine is spinning in the corner of the Cottage. I've had certain boyos whispering sweetly in my ear, saying they may drop by for tea or whiskey, whichever is on offer. So pull a chair up to the fire and settle in with your own tea or whiskey, for they'll be by soon." on 12:32:35 11/06/08 Thu

copyright 2008 Cindy Brandner

Chapter (?)- 'Brian'

The cottage sat on the knoll of a small hill, snugged in by low bushes and a screen of oak around the back. It wore a homey look, with puffs of smoke coming up out of the chimney pot, and a warm firelit glow against the thick-glassed window panes.

Casey rested his hand upon the gate, quelling the nerves that had suddenly risen in his gorge. A fine skiff of snow dusted his knuckles where they rested- winter had come to stay it seemed. Suddenly this seemed a mad idea, coming to this woman to ask about his father’s last days. This woman that he had not been aware was part of his father’s life. To judge by the content of the letters, an important part, and yet Brian had kept her a secret, with neither he, nor Pat, knowing anything of her.

He took a deep breath, girding his courage and swallowing his cowardice and opened the gate.

No one answered to his knock, despite the light in the windows. He walked back down the pathway a bit and looked out over the fields. A light coating of snow lay over the grasses, gilding them in the twilight with hues of lavender, blue and grey. Across the field moved a small figure, a walking stick in hand, with a flock of sheep, tightly packed as yarn balls in a crate, at her heels. He moved down the hill toward her.

She never broke stride but he could see her head come up and the walking stick swung smartly until it pointed in his direction. It wasn’t a walking stick at all, but rather a rifle. Casey, poised with one leg about to swing over the top of the stone fencing that divided the yard from the fields, halted and put his hands in the air, a move that made his balance a very precarious thing.

“State yer business,” she said, still moving forward briskly, with the rifle pointed toward an area of his anatomy that he was loathe to part with.

“Are ye Aibhlinn Devine?” he asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt coming through his lips.

“I am, though what business that’ll be of yers remains to be seen.”

Casey took a deep breath, Lord knew the Riordan men did like their women difficult, so this one wasn’t likely to be any different.

“Climb down of that wall boy, an’ stand there ‘til I can see yer face.”

Casey did as bid, for the woman struck him as the sort that would shoot first and ask questions while extracting the bullet from a man’s hide.

She came closer and then suddenly halted, the rifle’s muzzle slowly sinking until it pointed down into the ground. The sheep were all in a muffle, blatting demandingly and butting at her backside and legs, but the woman seemed not to notice.

“Oh Christ- Brian’s son,” she said softly.

“Aye,” he replied, though he knew it was not a question, for the shock of seeing him was written clear on the small, angular face, even in the dim of the evening.

“Here, I’ve got to put these wee beggars away for the night- come help me with them an’ then we’ll go inside.”

It took no more than twenty minutes to sort the sheep out, fill their feed bins with clover hay and put down fresh water for them. They were, Casey thought, as he watched their wooly heads cluster over the sweet smelling straw, a far better behaved lot than that damned Paudeen.

“D’ye always carry a rifle about when yer in the fields?” Casey asked, noting that though she had put the rifle down, it was never more than an arm’s length away from her.

“It’s Armagh- there’s not a hedgerow nor pathway that’s safe in this county- ye’ll know that well enough, I’m sure.”

“Aye.” He did know it too well, for Armagh was a large part of the infamous Murder Triangle that spread from the limits of Belfast down to Dundalk, touching upon the borders of Armagh, Tyrone and Down. Beautiful countryside, but it had always chilled him to the core, for he knew how steeped in blood and vengeance the soil was, so that even the trees and grasses took on a darkness and a quiet where none dared do more than whisper. Just two weeks past a nineteen year old boy had been murdered by a band of Loyalists, shot down in the hallway of his own home, for the great sin of being a Catholic in a mostly Protestant town. Beautiful or not, Casey did not like Armagh and never would, he felt too exposed here, too vulnerable. It was only the need to know about Brian’s last days, that had lured him here.

During the work of feeding and penning the sheep up for the night, he had stolen several glances at this woman, the last to share his father's life and confidences.

She was one of those women that one could never properly guess her age. She was small in stature and dressed in an oilskin jacket and grubby corduroy trousers, her hair tied back off her face and held firmly under a wool cap. Still a few mad curls had escaped the bounds of cap and tie, and licked like flame against her neck and temples. A redhead- not surprising-his da’ had always had a weakness there. She had a wee pointed chin, and a light dusting of freckles. Her mouth was held in a no-nonsense line, but the lips were full and distinctly feminine nevertheless. She was, in a word, lovely, despite her best efforts to hide her light under a bushel, or several layers of grubby wool, as it were.

After the sheep were locked away for the night, Casey followed her up the hill to the house, feeling more awkward by the second. If the woman didn’t say something soon, he was going to start babbling about something nonsensical.

She remained close-lipped until they were inside the cottage, and she had hung her coat on a peg by the door, indicating with a sharp point of her finger that he should do the same.

After she had taken off her boots and an extra sweater under the coat, she pulled the wool cap off her head and Casey almost gasped aloud, would have if he hadn’t thought she might point the rifle at him again. A river of copper fire tumbled down her back- hair that looked as molten and alive as liquid metal spilling from the lip of a cauldron.

She gave him a raised brow, and said, “Yer daddy loved my hair, an’ so I’ve never had the heart to cut it off- somehow it keeps the memory of him closer. Now, come on into the kitchen an’ we’ll have something hot.”

The kitchen was a rectangular galley, with everything bracketed in place, or shelved in gleaming rows of bottles, mugs and bowls. He recognized the workmanship immediately, and knew without asking that his father had built and fitted all the shelving and counters in this room.

She put the kettle on and then turned to face him. “Have a seat, ye make me nervous towerin’ over me like that.”

Casey sat, thinking he’d rarely seen a woman less given to nerves, but wisely refrained from voicing this opinion aloud.

“Ye’ll be Brian’s son, then?” she asked, though Casey knew it wasn’t so much a question as a way of opening what was bound to be an awkward conversation.

“Aye, I’m Casey- his eldest.”

“I did think I was seein’ a ghost comin’ up over the stile there for a minute. The twilight can play odd tricks on the eyes at times, but then as I got closer I saw that though ye resemble him a good deal, ye’ve yer own features too. I saw pictures of ye, when ye were a lad.”

A wistful look crossed her face, and Casey felt a second of guilt for what he was about to ask her, it was bound to bring up painful memories, and she looked like a woman who kept her memories wrapped tight.

“Well then,” she said, tone once again brisk, “ye’ll have a bite with me, then?”

“I will,” he replied, knowing that going through this on an empty stomach wasn’t going to improve matters, besides when it came to matters of food, he was always entirely practical and whatever was simmering on the stove, smelled heavenly.

A moment later a bowl of lamb stew was put in front of him, a small glass of whiskey joining it. He looked up at her, questioningly.

She smiled. “I figure whatever it is ye’ve come to say to me, or to ask me- the whiskey will help it come out or go down that much easier for the both of us.”

“Yer a woman of good sense, I see,” he said, and took a swallow of the whiskey. It went directly to the nerves in his stomach and billowed out in ease and comfort.

“Yer da’used to say as much, too.”

“Aye, well he thought whiskey a good tonic for more than one thing.”

“He was right.” She sat down across from him, and cut several slices of mealy bread from a loaf she’d placed in the centre of the table. “Now fill yer belly man, an’ then we’ll talk.”

Most definitely a woman of great sense, Casey thought, tucking into the stew with relish. Two bowls later, three slices of bread and a re-fill of his whiskey and she gestured that he should come sit in the front room.

It was a charming space, filled with books and a squashy sofa, and an armchair that was sprouting tufts of stuffing under a hand-loomed blanket. The rest of the space was filled by a spinning wheel and highbacked spinning stool, as well as all the oddments of the spinner’s craft.

The entire wall behind the spinning wheel was taken up with carefully piled balls of wool. The colours were all those of nature- puffs of grey like wreaths of smoke that had come to rest for a moment, deep blues that looked as though an ink pot had spilled through them, misty purples like heather wreathed in dew and deep, rich glowing crimson, like that of autumn berries hidden deep in the bracken.

“Well then,” she said, pulling a basket of wool up onto her knees, “let’s have it then.”

His da’ must have had a fine time with this one, Casey thought, she didn’t lack in spirit to be certain.

“I found yer letters to my da’, an’ I was curious about the woman who had written them.”

“Ah,” she smiled, “those letters- lover’s letters those were, ‘twill have given ye a funny view of me.”

“No, I didn’t read all of them, but yes, I got the gist,” Casey could feel his face start to glow like a coal. Aibhlinn laughed, plucking several clumps of wool from a basket and readying them for the wheel.

“Did ye think he was a celibate?” she asked, drawing the fibre out long out long, hands worn, the blue veins pale tracery notes, amongst the chordings of white bone.

“I- well- I suppose I never thought about it much.”

She gave him a look, the hazel eyes gold with amusement. “Well I suppose most children don’t, do they? He was a young man though, when he died, an’ full of vigour still.”

“I’m glad to know he had someone,” Casey said gruffly, stymied slightly by talk of his father’s sex life.

“Not to worry man, I’ll not tell ye the details.”

“Thank ye,” he said, chagrined that his face had been so clearly read.

He watched her deft hands pluck another chunk of wool from the basket, overlap it a few inches with the wool that was already spinning and join it to the whole thread. All this was done unconsciously, for each move was instinctive and borne of an expertise that said she had done this task for many years. The soft clicking burr of the wheel was mesmerizing and Casey found himself relaxed, despite the topic at hand. It put him in mind of all the ancient world tales, which always had at their core the three fates, seated near wood or water, forever spinning out the tapestry and kismet of humankind.

“I think perhaps what the both of us liked the best was the talking, though." she said softly, face youthful in the firelight. "He’d a lovely voice, yer father, an’ he knew how to listen, an’ how to respond. And the man,” she paused to feed another puff of fibre onto the spinning threads, “could tell a story like few others.”

“Aye, he could at that,” Casey rejoined quietly.

“I liked to watch him sleep, he was peaceful until near the end.” She shrugged. “Ye know though, his state of mind before he died, no doubt. Or maybe,” she took in Casey’s expression, “bein’ Brian, he kept it well hid from you an' yer brother.”

“He did, but that was his way. He was determined we were to stay children as much as was possible, but to be realistic at the same time. He didn’t tell us his troubles, unless he felt they might touch us.”

She nodded. "That does sound like the man." She paused for a moment, smoothing at a rough spot in the binding fibre.

“Why did the two of ye never tell us- I don’t understand why we never met ye?”

She sighed. “That was my doin’- I didn’t want Brian to get in so deep with me that he felt he’d no way out. We were both Catholics at heart, despite what we might say and feel. I felt too, that somewhere deep in his heart, in a place he didn’t visit often, he was still married to yer mam.”

“He wouldn’t have spent the time he did with yerself though, unless ye meant a very great deal to him,” Casey said gently, knowing it was the absolute truth, Brian would never have been able to be with this woman, if he hadn’t loved her.

“Oh, not to worry lad, he never made me feel less than treasured- he was a rare one yer da’ an’ I would have been grateful even to be his friend. He was the love of my life though, I regret that I never told him so, he deserved to know it. But I had my pride, an’ I was afraid of bein’ that vulnerable to a man. Fool I was, for I was completely vulnerable without havin’ to say the words out loud, an’ I daresay the man knew it.”

“How did the two of ye meet?”

“Ah- he changed a tire on my car for me- was a filthy day, rain comin’ at me horizontal an’ I was stuck on the side of the road, just outside of the city, an’ along came yer da’ an’ asked did I need help. That tire blowin’ that day was the best thing that ever happened to me. We were together for five years after that, he came down as often as he could, an’ in the summers if the two of you boys went to see yer Gran, he’d stay for a week or two with me. ‘Twas lovely, as though we were truly married for a wee space.”

She picked up a wooden niddy-noddie, a small apparatus that Casey was familiar with because he had helped his father make some, and now he knew for whom they had been made. He remembered clearly the care and time his father had put into each thing- the niddy-noddies, the stool, the hand spindles- the hours of sanding them down so that each groove and round was perfectly balanced, the beeswax that they had rubbed in and left to warm and soak into the wood, so that it would gleam with a soft glow and not snag the fibres of wool and yarn.

“Here, hold this for me an’ just twist it back an’ forth, while I wind the yarn on.” She then pulled a full bobbin from one of the series of baskets that lined the area around her wheel, and began to twist it back and forth around the ends of the niddy-noddie. Casey inhaled the warm scent of lanolin, wondering how many evenings his own da’ had spent thus. He was glad his father had this, before death- an oasis of domesticity and peace, with a woman who loved him at its core.

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