Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan Read Free Book Online

is almost sorry he came in. When the pint is ready, Leyden puts it on the beer mat, turns it round.
    ‘Never mind the land. It’s the woman that’s your loss,’ he says unhelpfully. ‘That was the finest woman ever came around these parts.’
    ‘Ay,’ Brady says.
    ‘There’s men’d give their right arms to have a woman like that.’ Leyden says, coming in tight and taking hold of his arm.
    ‘They would, surely.’
    The waitress passes with two sizzling plates.
    ‘What happened at all?’ asks Leyden.
    Brady feels rooted to the stool. Back then some days were hard but not one of them was wasted. He looks away. The silence rises. He lifts his glass but he cannot swallow.
    ‘It was over the horse,’ he says finally.
    ‘The horse?’
    Leyden looks at him but Brady does not want to go on. Even the mention of the horse is too much.
    ‘What about the horse?’ Leyden persists but then he looks away to leave Brady some room.
    ‘I came home one night and she told me I’d have to buy food, pay bills. She told me I’d have to take her out for dinner .’
    ‘And what did you say?’
    ‘I told her to go fuck herself!’ Brady says. ‘I told her I’d put her horses out on the road.’
    ‘That’s terror,’ Leyden says. ‘Did you have drink on you?’
    Brady hesitates. ‘A wee drop.’
    ‘Sure we all say things –’
    ‘I went out and opened the gate and put her horses out on the road,’ Brady says. ‘She gave me a second chance but it was never the same. Nothing was ever the same.’
    ‘Christ,’ says Leyden, pulling away. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you.’
    *
    It is well past closing time when Brady finds the van. He gets behind the wheel and takes the back roads home. It will be all right; the sergeant knows him, he knows the sergeant. He will not be stopped. There are big, wet trees at either side of these roads, telephone poles, wires dangling. He drives on through falling leaves, keeping to his own side. When he reaches the front door, the bread is still on the step. The dog hasn’t come home but he knows the birds will have it gone by morning. He looks at the kitchen table, the knife in the empty jar, and climbs the stairs.
    He gets into the wisp and takes his jumper off. He wants to take his boots off but he is afraid. If he takes his boots off he knows he will never get them back on in the morning. He crouches under the bedclothes and looks at the bare window. It is winter now. What is it doing out there? The wind is piping terrible notes in the garden and, somewhere , a beast is roaring. He hopes it is McQuaid’s. He lies in his bed and closes his eyes, thinking only of her. He can feel his own heart, beating. Soon, she will come back and forgive him. The bridle will be back on the coat stand, the cloth on the table. In his mind there is the flash of silver. As sleep is claiming him, she is already there, her pale hand on his chest and her dark horse is back grazing his fields.

The Forester’s Daughter
    Â 

    Deegan, the forester, is not the type of man to remember his children’s birthdays, least likely that of his youngest, who bears a strong, witch-like resemblance to her mother. If occasional doubts about his daughter cross his mind he does not dwell on them for, in fairness, Deegan has little time to dwell on things. In Aghowle there are three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage.
    Some of Deegan’s hardship he brought upon himself. When his father passed away and left the place to his sons, Deegan, who was not yet thirty at the time, borrowed money against the place and bought them out. His brothers , who had other ambitions, were glad of the money and went off to make lives for themselves in Dublin. The night before the bank took over the deed, Deegan walked the fine, south-facing meadows. It broke his heart to mortgage the place but he could see no other way. He bought a herd of Friesians, put electric fences round the land and installed the milking parlour.