‘Well, I’ll not be the woman to stand in the way of a man and his work,’ said Ellen, feeling some sympathy for the state he was in – and he, after all, only a simple gasúr, for all his nineteen summers. ‘But it’s a queer thing, all the same, you running off that way, and me offering you the hand of friendship only to have it dashed back at me again.’
She stood away from the door and he bolted for it. But she was quicker, and again he found his way out blocked by her.
‘Now, one piece of advice to you, me fine buachaill …’ she said, her face now close to his.
The smell of her womanliness, her talking to him this way – she was confusing him. Doing it on purpose. His plan had gone all wrong.
Sensing she might have gone too hard on him, Ellen changed her tone. ‘There are plenty of fine young single girls out there, waiting to be taken off their fathers’ hands, for you to be watching a woman that’s married and with children nearly as old as you are. Isn’t that so, Roberteen?’ She was not scolding him now, just stating this in a gentle, matter-of-fact way.
The boy looked at her, his light blue eyes filled with a mixture of infatuation and sheepishness, and she regretted having taken it so far with him.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all he said.
‘I know you are, Roberteen,’ she said, reaching out and touching his arm. ‘You’re young – there’ll be someone for you, you’ll see.’
He did not respond. Wondering whether she had underestimated the depth of the feelings he carried for her, she decided not to prolong his agony.
‘You should go now,’ she said. ‘We won’t say another word about this, or the other thing – the mornings – to anybody. It will just be between the two of us.’
The boy didn’t lift his head as he went out past her. She waited a while and then called after him, so others would hear, ‘Roberteen! Thank you for carrying up the sciathóg – it was getting too heavy for me.’
As the door of his own cabin swallowed him into its safe haven, Roberteen Bawn was grateful for that.
After the Rosary had been said and the children were asleep, Michael spoke to her.
‘I saw our neighbour’s son carry the sciathóg for you today. I’m thinking he has a longing for you, Ellen,’ he teased.
‘Ah, sure, he’s only a gasúr, it’s just the summer madness that’s troubling him. The long cold nights of winter coming in will knock that spark out of him!’ She laughed, and drew closer to Michael. Then more seriously, she asked: ‘But what of the potatoes, and this blight?’
‘Well …’ Michael paused. ‘We didn’t find any blackened ones at all today. We’ll dig again tomorrow. I’m thinking maybe we should lift them all out.’
Ellen considered this. If they dug up all the potatoes now, they would be small. There wasn’t enough room to store them all, so they’d have to sell the excess immediately, but the price they’d get would be low on account of their size. After the rent was paid, there’d be nothing left. If they left the crop in the ground until the later dig in November – ‘the people’s crop’, as it was called – the lumpers would be full size. There wouldn’t be the storage problems, and they wouldn’t have to sell them below price. But were the blight to strike, the second harvest might be ruined. And so would they. It was too big a risk.
She turned to Michael and put her hand to his cheek. ‘You are right, a stór,’ she said, full of love for him. ‘We should lift them all now. Somehow we’ll find space for them.’
‘You know,’ he said, his dark eyes aglow for her, his hands reaching for her hair, ‘it was a joyful sight for me today to see you and the children beside me in the fields. The two small ones sporting and playing, and Patrick, wanting to do me out of a job of work. But most of all,’ her husband softened his tone, ‘’twas yourself, Ellen, singing your old songs on the breeze, tending to the children, bending and picking all day – without ever a want or a word of complaint. You were like the sun itself come down to earth all fiery and bright. Happy any man would be, Ellen Rua, with you next to him in the fields.’
Ellen went to her knees in front of him. She took his two arms in hers.
‘Michael, my love, I’ve something to tell you. The Lord and His Holy Mother have blessed us again.’ She got it all out in one mouthful.
‘You don’t mean …?’ Michael’s face lit up.
‘Yes, I do – I am with your child a month now.’ She said it like a girl, her face shining up into his. He looked back at her, the pride and love bursting out of him. He had always wanted more children with Ellen, but had almost given up hope. After all, it was six years now since Mary and Katie were born. Not that the whisperings in the village worried him – three being a small number of children. No, he wanted more children for their own sake, and now his prayers were answered. Never mind what times lay ahead, he, Michael O’Malley, would provide for all his children, and any more that the good Lord would send. He caught hold of her.
‘Rise up, Ellen Rua, rise up! It’s not for you to be on your knees to me, or to any man. I knew it was a sign from above – you with a song on your lips and the sun dancing around you all day like you were the very centre of its world,’ he declared, holding her to him. ‘I just knew it!’
In the days that followed, they continued to work in the fields: lifting the potato harvest; inspecting the tubers for signs of blight, of which there were none. Late into the night they were cleaning and drying the potatoes, then storing them in their cabin for the winter ahead.
In other years Michael had stored half of each harvest in a pit near the cabin, and the other half, which was for more immediate use, in the cabin itself. This year he decided not to take the chance on outside storage because of the danger that the murrain might attack the potatoes in the pit.
This posed a problem, for the amount of potatoes requiring storage was almost double that of a normal year. Even though the lumpers were smaller than usual, it was going to take some ingenuity to fit them all into the two loft areas which ran either side of the cabin from hearth to door. The potatoes had to be laid out on beds of straw to keep them dry and well ventilated. So Michael and Ellen devised a way of stacking the lumpers to roof-height, taking care not to bruise them, and interleaving each level with straw.
Then it was time to bury the seed potatoes for next year’s crop. These tiny tubers had to be kept in the earth because it was the only way to preserve them until it was time for planting; thus Michael had no choice but to place them in the outside storage pit.
All in all it was a good week’s work for the O’Malleys and most of their neighbours. Some of the villagers had decided to take a gamble and leave a portion of their crop in the ground for the later harvest. Debate raged in Maamtrasna as to the merits and demerits of each course of action, both sides convinced that theirs was the right way. The general mood, though, was one of optimism for the year ahead, and thanksgiving that everyone in the valley had some sufficiency of food for the long winter months to come.
So it was that the much-relieved villagers decided to hold a céilí celebrating the harvest the following Sunday night at the place where the roads to Maamtrasna, Derrypark and Finny met.
At eventide people drew in from all over to the céilí. Father O’Brien turned up; not so much to keep an eye on proceedings, as his predecessor might have done, but to see his people enjoy themselves. Before he had gone to the seminary at Maynooth, the young priest had been well able to step it out with the best of them in a set or half-set of jigs or reels. Mattie an Cheoil – ‘Mattie Music’, as he was known – brought his squeeze-box accordion over the road from Leenane, and Michael took down his fiddle and bow. They were all there: the O’Malleys, the Joyces, the Tom Bawns. Even Sheela-na-Sheeoga crept down the mountainside