Victoria Clayton - Moonshine

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ said Kit. ‘Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive?’

‘Mm … yes,’ I said, more decidedly than I felt. Foam streamed in the wake of the ship. Gulls slid up and down the grey-green waves and quarrelled over the last crumbs of my breakfast. I wished the ship would sail on and never come to land.

‘Now I can see for myself that you are fair,’ Kit said. ‘In at least two of the … let’s see’ – he counted on his fingers – ‘six meanings of the word that I can think of immediately. Neither a market-place nor good weather. Beautiful and with light-coloured hair, yes. And I’m willing to bet that you’re just and impartial. But never mediocre.’

‘Oh, don’t! It was so lovely to forget about me. I must look a wreck. And of course I’m not impartial. No one is, however hard they may try to be.’ I attempted to run my fingers through my hair but it was tangled by the wind.

‘I’ll comb it for you,’ suggested Kit. The brightening rays of the sun shone through his ears, turning them crimson. His hair was curly and brown. His eyes were blue and intelligent. It was an appealing face, with its high forehead and good-humoured mouth. Not handsome but attractive.

‘Certainly not. People will think I’m an escaped lunatic and you’re my keeper.’

‘I shan’t mind if you don’t. That steward hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you woke up. You’re putting colour into his drab existence. Can’t you gibber a little and play with your lips? Where’s your sense of civic duty?’

‘I probably am a lunatic. Only a madwoman …’

I paused. Kit had been so sympathetic that I had been tempted to tell him something of my circumstances but then I thought better of it.

‘Oh dear. That suspicious look again. You’re as wary as a bird of paradise who’s just spotted a woman in a rather dull hat.’

I laughed but said nothing.

Kit turned to lean his back against the rail so that he could look directly into my face. ‘Forgive me if this is an impertinent question, but when we get into Cork will there be a husband or a boyfriend standing on the quay, counting the seconds?’

I thought of Burgo, imagined him with the collar of his coat turned up against the importunate July breezes, hands in pockets, frowning, impatient of delay, already running ahead in his mind, planning what we were going to do, where we were going to eat, make love. I felt a pang of desolation.

‘No.’

‘I see. Would it be presuming to ask where you’re going to in such solitary splendour? I promise not to divulge the information to MI5.’

‘I’m going to Galway. To Connemara.’

Kit whistled. ‘Among the mountainy men? It’s a wild sort of place and they’re a strange, interesting breed. “To Hell or to Connaught”, as they used to say. Meaning, of course, that there was little to choose between them.’

‘Where’s Connaught?’

‘Where you’re going. The ancient kingdom of the West. Where Cromwell sent the indigenous Irish after dispossessing them of their nice, fertile, well-drained lands in the east. Are you an accomplished Gaelic speaker?’

‘Not a word. Will it matter?’ I had a vision of myself shut away in some mountain fastness, in a household of eccentrics of whose culture and language I was entirely ignorant. Anthropologists would no doubt have delighted in the prospect. I found it alarming.

‘Not at all. Despite the efforts of the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein to establish it as the first language, it’s fiendishly difficult and the majority of Irish speak English. I just wondered if you were writing a book about the Gaeltacht or researching the dress code of the high kings or something like that.’

‘I’m going to be housekeeper to a family named Macchuin.’

Kit whistled again. ‘That’s the last thing I’d have guessed. What do you know about them?’

‘Almost nothing. I answered an advertisement in a newspaper. When I telephoned, the woman I spoke to said she was desperate for help. She engaged me on the spot.’

‘And you accepted, just as impulsively?’

‘All relevant questions, apart from how to get there, went out of my head. I needed to get away.’

‘I hope you won’t feel as urgent a need to get back. They might be dipsomaniacs, drug-smugglers, sexual psychopaths or an IRA stronghold, for all you know.’

‘Perhaps all those things at once. Though we only talked for five minutes at the most I liked the impression I had of Mrs Macchuin. And I was flattered that she seemed so thrilled when I agreed to come.’

‘Only someone absolutely hell-bent, neck-or-nothing, on escape would be encouraged by such enthusiasm. Are you impetuous, rash, devil-may-care by nature or are the bailiffs after you?’ When I smiled but didn’t say anything he went on, ‘So what did this excitable woman say? Any kind of job description?’

‘All I know is that there are three children between the ages of eight and sixteen, and six adults, one of whom is generally away. Mrs Macchuin sounded exhausted rather than excitable.’

‘Worse and worse. Why is she exhausted, I wonder? Badly behaved children? Too little money? Or too much Mr Macchuin, perhaps.’

‘I didn’t ask. I was trying to think myself into a new role. The sort of person who does as she’s told and doesn’t ask questions. An efficient, invisible menial.’

‘You’ll never be that. Invisible, I mean. You don’t look terribly efficient but here appearances may be deceptive.’

‘I must admit my life so far hasn’t really demanded efficiency. But it can only be a question of application.’

Kit sighed and shook his head. ‘I see problems ahead.’

‘It’ll only be for six months or so. Then I’ll go back to London, probably.’

‘I wish you’d trust me.’ He looked at me gravely. When I did not reply he pointed behind me and said quietly, ‘Land ahoy.’

While we had been talking the ferry, unobserved by me, had been turning slowly. We were about to enter a wide channel bounded by distant promontories, perhaps a mile apart. I felt excited as I examined the low cliffs, half hidden in mist, trying to imagine my immediate future.

‘Your first view of Ireland,’ said Kit. ‘It’s such a beautiful country with the best people in the world, yet the most terrible things have happened here. Do you know anything of Irish history?’

‘Not much.’ I dredged my mind for facts. ‘Um … Cromwell and the Siege of Drogheda. And there was the Battle of the Boyne. James the Second. I think he lost. That’s about all I can remember. Oh, and of course the IRA. I don’t understand any of that. Why did they assassinate Airey Neave? Wasn’t he trying to help the Irish?’

‘Ah, that’s a complicated one. You may as well forget your history lessons. Seen through Irish eyes, Ireland has suffered eight hundred years of merciless exploitation beneath the yoke of English imperialism. Make no mistake. We English are still the “Old Enemy”.’ I must have looked alarmed for he added, ‘Don’t worry. You won’t be held accountable. They’ll be charming to you. It’s the British government and the army they hate. But you’d better acquaint yourself with some proper Irish history if you’re going to make sense of the place. The Irish take enormous pride in their long struggle for national identity. Now they’ve joined the EEC things are looking up economically and a cultural change radiating from Dublin is gradually persuading the country people to abandon their inwardlooking, backward-looking colonial complex, but essentially you’ve still got a population that is rural, conservative and poor.’

‘I thought it was such a fertile country. Why is it poor?’

While Kit was talking, one part of my mind absorbed first impressions of my new country of residence, which I hoped would be something of an asylum. As we steamed into the mouth of the River Lee towards Cork Harbour I saw gentle hills, fields and farmsteads lit by a rosy light. Then the channel broadened and they receded into haze.