The Race of the Tiger

by Alexander Cordell

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Born into the appalling deprivation of Nineteenth Century Ireland, Jess O'Hara and his high-spirited sister, Karen, flee their impoverished homeland to seek a new life in America. Exhausted after a nine-week crossing in an overcrowded, disease-ridden 'coffin ship', they arrive in Pittsburgh - the tumultuous steel capital of the United States. Surrounded by smoke and fire-belching chimneys, they struggle to adapt to this alien world. At first resisting the tug of easy wealth, Jess forsakes his fellow immigrants and bulldozes his way to fame and fortune, exploiting the love of two women to become a financial tiger in a city where only the strong and ruthless prevail.

Release date: July 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 352

Sample

IT WAS on my fifteenth birthday, I remember, when Ma started her pains with Melody, the next child, which put the place upside down and me especially. I knew the dates of the Beast Cromwell’s landing, I could recite part of the Act of Union with the best Irish historian, but I didn’t know much about the delivering.

‘She shouldn’t be producing yet,’ I said to Karen, my big sister. ‘She said she was due in June and this is the middle of April.’

‘She’ll produce when she pleases,’ said Karen. ‘Go and fetch water.’

I picked up the bucket. ‘D’you think she’s got the date wrong?’ I asked.

‘You are talking of things you don’t understand,’ said Karen. ‘Away with that bucket and set it on the fire.’

‘It could be the gripe,’ I said. ‘It was a pretty strong rabbit she had last night and she did herself well on it. Is the pain bad with her?’

‘I’ll tell you one day,’ said Karen. ‘Where’s Hosea?’

‘Down in Galway with the cans and pegs,’ I replied. ‘And I’m away up the hill for a hare, for a labouring woman needs feeding.’

‘Ach, you sweet thing,’ said Karen, and kissed me. ‘I’m worried to death, you see. For your mother’s inclined to the breech birth. We should be setting the caravan towards home, for Patsy O’Toole’s the best turning woman in Connemara.’

This set me faster across the meadow to the well, for I knew even less about the breech birth. Halfway across it I saw the Turvey caravan and Barney, our gipsy neighbour, sitting in the ditch near by with his feet up. Back teeth awash, poaching cap over his eyes, he was snoring in fumbles, dreaming of the inns of Galway, so I lowered the bucket and fished out my spoon. Mind, I’ve spooned out easier ones than Barney Turvey, for he was a man most sensitive to heat and cold, and cold spoon on the thigh could bring him wide awake and roaring. Sitting in the ditch beside him I lightened him by twopence. With the spoon well down into his pocket I was fishing for a sixpence when Karen howled like a dog on the other side of the meadow.

‘Jess O’Hara!’

She was standing by our caravan with her red hair flying out in a wind from the sea, and the language she gave me was enough to singe Satan.

‘Bless me soul to hell!’ she cried, at last. ‘Is there any justice? There’s me relieving yer mother and not a pint of hot water between here and County Clare. Where the devil have you been?’

‘Spooning out the Turveys.’

She threw up her hands. ‘Och, the O’Haras are plagued with thieves and pugilists. And I’ll be breaking the back of that big oaf Hosea when he lands home. There’s me been working since cock-crow while he’s leaping beds with the trollops of Galway.’

‘He is not,’ I answered sharp. ‘He’s fist-fighting, for money.’

‘And where’s Michael?’

‘Away somewhere with the Fighting Irishmen.’

Hands on hips, she surveyed me, foot tapping. ‘So this is what I’m landed with – three useless gunks of brothers.’

‘How’s Ma?’ I asked, to sweeten her.

‘The poor soul’s wracked. Fetch that water this minute, or I’ll damned fry you, big as you are.’ She kicked the bonfire into a blaze and just then the window of our caravan went back and Ma’s head appeared.

‘Karen, is that water coming to the boil?’ she shouted.

‘It’ll need a couple of minutes, Ma,’ I shouted back.

‘Right,’ she cried. ‘Come in here, Karen, and help me strip the beds, for I’m starting the monthly wash.’

‘What about your labouring?’

‘Changed me mind,’ said Ma. ‘Dear God, I’d give me soul to lay hands on himself yer father. Hanging was too good for him – landing me with a seven-month child.’

The hills above the caravan field were bright in sunlight that April evening, the grasses spear-tipped with diamonds of rain below the gallows where Tim Rooney was dangling, the first of the grain-raiders to hang in 1875, poor soul.

There is a loneliness about a hanging man; swinging black against stars in the music of chains; fluttering his rags in the breeze of morning, dew dropping cold on a gaunt, tarred face. Rosa Turvey, Barney’s daughter, was sitting with her back to the gallows, a queer old place for a girl. I knocked up my cap.

‘’Evening, Rosa Turvey.’

‘’Evenin’, Jess O’Hara.’

Her knees, I remember, were brown against the ragged hem of her dress. Never seen knees like Rosa Turvey’s before – like wrinkled crab-apples in winter and as smooth as brown ivory in summer, and there was a dark sweetness in her gipsy glance that butterflied the stomach. She said:

‘You come up to meet me?’

‘Got enough women back home.’

‘Is it true you’re walking out a girl from Galway, Jess O’Hara?’

‘If I answer that you’ll be as wise as me,’ I replied.

‘Not even a whistle for me, then? Your big brother Hosea whistled my big sister Rachel.’

‘I’m whistling for a hare,’ I said, and jerked my thumb. ‘Try giving the eye to Tim Rooney up there, girl, you’ll get more from him than me.’

‘Pig.’

‘You’re welcome,’ and I went over the hill to the glade.

There was a hum of honey-bees here, a shine of blackbirds, and five hares were kicking up their legs and nudging each other as I came, for there’s nothing so daft as a March hare in April. Ears rose behind hillocks, the long grass waved to cloven feet. Taking off my coat, I put it in the middle of the glade, not the least interested in hares, then walked round it in circles, every circle bringing me nearer to the hillocks. Petrified by curiosity, they sat. Wandering up, I took my pick of a big fella, belted his ear and took him up the hill to the gallows.

‘Can I see the hare, Jess O’Hara?’ asked Rosa.

‘Unless you’re blind,’ I answered. ‘I’m away home to cook me mother’s supper – would you have me tarry with you, and her comin’ to labour?’

‘Then go to hell,’ she said fuming.

‘Pull your dress down, woman. D’you think you’ve the only decent legs in Galway?’

The Turveys, like us, were a tinkering family, and wherever we O’Haras went they followed, though the quality of their cans didn’t match ours. They were the spawn of the devil, said Karen, with Rachel fishing for Hosea, Rosa winking at me, and Barney, their Pa, giving our mother the eye from the other side of the meadow.

‘Trash gipsies,’ said Karen now, when I got back to the bonfire. ‘Didn’t I see that Rosa going up Rooney’s Hill just now?’

I threw down the hare. ‘You did. And is there a law against it?’

‘There’s not, but d’you mind explaining where you’ve been for the last ten minutes?’

‘Hunting this hare,’ I said.

‘Are you sure you haven’t been rolling that Rosa?’

I stared at her. ‘Has your brain gone soft? It’d take me ten minutes to get her horizontal – do I work like bloody lightning?’

‘No bad language,’ said Karen, her finger up. ‘You keep that nose off Rosa’s, or I’m nipping off the end of it. It’s bad enough to have that fool Hosea moonlighting with Rachel Turvey – I’m not having two in the family.’ She flung more wood on the fire and shot me daggers from her dark, slanted eyes.

Ma came squeezing through the door then, barged about with washing, stripped it over the hedges and pegged it on the lines and then set herself down beside the fire in grunts and wheezes.

‘There’s me sweet wee Jess,’ said she, patting me. ‘It’s a fine big hare indeed for me supper.’

‘And eat it easy,’ I said, ‘the last one fetched the wind.’

‘Did you cross yourself when you passed Tim Rooney, boy?’

I nodded, and she sighed. ‘Ach, there’s no justice. There’s better men on ropes than on the soles of their feet these days. Where’s my big son, Hosea?’

Karen was shaving at pegs. I glanced at her and she looked away.

Sweat was on my mother’s face as she peeled the hare. Her black hair was tousled, her face as a hatchet of ugliness, but there was a softness in her for sons. Now she was great in the chest and stomach and carrying enough milk for the famines of Connemara. I watched, loving her.

‘Will nobody answer me? Where’s me darlin’ son?’

‘Down in Galway with the cans,’ I replied, and Karen looked at the stars.

‘For the brawling and drinking, eh?’ said Ma, and sighed deep in her throat. ‘Ah, Jess, listen. The drink is the leaven of malice and wickedness. There’s some pretty long gullets hanging in tap-rooms in our family, and Hosea’s got his share – taking after himself your father. D’you see the spite it brings to woman?’ She flung the entrails on the fire. ‘So I mated for a girl this time, for I’m tired of hairy chests and fists.’ She smiled. ‘Though he’s a fine big boy, my Hosea, save for the drinking and women.’

Karen said, ‘Rachel Turvey will settle him, Ma.’

‘He wouldn’t give that bitch a second look!’

‘Would he not? Haven’t you heard him say that any woman’s worth a fumble after a quart of Galway porter, and he’s winking at Rachel dead sober.’

‘It’s a lie!’ I said.

‘So it’s a lie, is it? Haven’t you seen the flouncy swing to her lately? The fella’s off his food, too, haven’t you noticed?’

I hadn’t. He was sinking enough these days to drop twin elephants.

Ma whispered at the fire, ‘God save us. I’d rather see him filling a house with screechin’ children than hunting the taverns for winsome witches like Rachel Turvey.’ She glanced up. Karen had a leg in the air, drawing on a long black stocking and tying it at the thigh with a bright, red garter.

‘Are you away, then?’ asked Ma.

‘Aye, for the dancing,’ replied Karen.

I said, ‘We can’t leave Ma – not till Hosea gets back, or Michael.’

‘If we wait for Hosea or Michael we’ll be waiting a fortnight.’

‘We’re not leavin’ Ma,’ I repeated.

‘Ach, away to your dancing,’ said my mother. ‘The Connemara dancers haven’t missed an evening market from Bantry to Wicklow – there’s good money to be earned, and we need it. If you see either of your brothers, tell them I’m waiting for them.’

‘Mike’s down with the Fighting Irishmen,’ said Karen, ‘he’ll not be back till the dawn.’ She went to the caravan and came back in the scarlet dress she wore for her dancing, and I sensed the itch in her as she tossed me my fiddle. Ma drew me aside, whispering:

‘It’s a big hunting moon tonight, Jess, so keep her off the fellas, remember,’ and she kissed me. ‘Children, children,’ she mumbled to herself, ‘it’s enough to kill a labouring woman.’

Barney Turvey was squatting outside his caravan, jaws champing on his clay; behind him, in a gleam of caravan brass, stood Rachel and Rosa, watchful as ever.

‘Don’t spare them a glance,’ hissed Karen as we passed. Down the field we went and through the bulging, dusky streets of Galway and the Spanish Arch to the sea.

HERE, beyond the quay, the pennants of the transportation hulks were as stiff as bars in the wind and the coffin ships bound for America rolled and heaved at their moorings in the thump of the Atlantic breakers. Fine ladies and gentlemen were gathered here for the evening market, treading daintily among the clogs of herring-wives, whose hands were flashing among circling knives and passing bright bodies into baskets. The wind was sweet with the smells of Galway. Urchins, rags fluttering, barged among the crowd; dandies doffed their hats to stately ladies. Bow-legged, the riff-raff of the taverns lurched from one inn to another.

‘It’s a fine big crowd,’ said Karen, ‘it’ll be worth half a sovereign.’

Lorgnettes went up, shawls were pulled aside as we went into the crowd. With my fiddle under my arm I followed Karen, watching the bed-stares of the dandies and the old men craning their necks like animals scenting a mate. For the wind had got her red hair now and was flinging it about her naked shoulders. She winked at me and I chinned my fiddle. Laughing, chattering, the people formed a circle about us. Head bowed, Karen stood in the middle of it, slowly raising her skirt; higher, higher, and showed her red garters. I took a swing at the fiddle and she linked her hands above her head, slowly pirouetting; now spinning, flaring her skirt. I scraped out the lilt of the reel and she began to dance. Roars of joy from the people now as a beefy sailor leaped in beside her, his clogs clattering. Next came a buxom herring-wife with a fish in each hand, shrieking with delight, her great breasts shaking. And soon the quay was alive with dancers. Other fiddlers got the tune now, pennies were rolling and chinking and the urchins scrambling after them, and I worked like a nigger booting them out of it. With my hands full of coins I rose and came face to face with my brother Michael. Gripping me, he pulled me out of the crowd.

‘Did you have to choose tonight?’ There was a trembling in him as he looked towards the Spanish Arch.

‘Ma sent us dancing,’ I said.

‘Quick, Jess, take Karen home, there’s going to be trouble.’

‘If there’s trouble coming I’m going to be in it, man.’

Fine and arrogant he looked standing there watching the Arch; two years older than me, but a man. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘she takes her chance, and you do, too, you brat. Where’s Hosea?’

‘He’s fist-fighting in Ennis,’ I said, and his eyes glowed in his face.

‘There’s a fine patriot,’ he breathed, and left me, shouldering his way through the crowd. Not all the men were dancing, I noticed: some were standing stiff-legged, like men with cudgels down their trousers, and all were turned to the Spanish Arch. Then a woman screamed faintly from the town, and the dancers faltered. Again she screamed, louder, and the fiddles scraped into discord, and stopped. The crowd froze into immobility as from the Spanish Arch came the clank of manacles and the slither of naked feet. Then Redcoats spilled on to the quay in a gush of colour and brass, and between their ranks came the prisoners.

The felons came four abreast, and all were women. With their arms crossed before them, some chained, some roped, they walked bare-footed to the transportation ship. Nearer, nearer they came, and the crowd was muttering. Sailors were spitting on their hands, fish-wives rolling up their sleeves. And suddenly the people near the Arch went down on their knees, forming a block between the prisoners and the ship. Uncertain, the Redcoats hesitated, staring down, and the people stared back: like tomcats meeting on a wall.

It was then that I saw Beth O’Shea.

Roped by the wrists, she was drooping beside a tattered matron. The shadows were deep in her cheeks, I remember, her shoulders were bare and wealed with beatings. Then a command rang out and the soldiers began to force a path, callously thumping with their muskets, but their slanting eyes betrayed their fear as they neared me, for the herring-women were around them now and knives were appearing. I saw Michael’s dark head among the crowd and the Redcoat beside him suddenly upended. Bedlam! One moment market day, next a riot. Helmets were coming off and cudgels coming down, muskets waving, knives flashing, a mêlée of commands and shrieks, a fine old Irish brawl. Out-numbered ten to one, the soldiers panicked, sinking in a scramble of arms and legs, with Karen quickly in the thick of it with a clog in her hand, tipping off helmets and cracking English skulls. I was after her in an instant

‘Come out of it, woman!’

‘Ach, away!’ she cried. ‘It’s the best fight I’ve seen since the Tipperary riots,’ and she went round stamping on fingers and filling the air with shrieks.

I ducked a swing from a soldier, flattened him into the crowd and gripped Karen, but she fought me off. Over my shoulder I saw the gangplank of the prison ship rear up and crash and the great square rig above it heel against the sky. Hawsers were splashing into the sea, halyards and strainers snapping as the ship came loose from her bollards. Lurching before the wind, she was sweeping fishing-boats from their moorings and crashing against the jetties. Sensing victory, the crowd bit deeper into the soldiers in cries of victory and forced them to the edge of the quay. Arms flailing, shouting, the Redcoats floundered into the sea as Michael and his comrades got among them.

‘Right,’ I shouted, ‘now run!’ and I dragged Karen to the shelter of a wall.

‘And I’m ready,’ she gasped, ‘for I’ve just caught a fella’s boot. Have we won, Jess?’

‘Run!’ I shrieked, and watched her gallop for the Spanish Arch, skirts up, hair streaming. Flattened against the wall, I looked for Beth O’Shea.

Men and women were dashing past me towing freed prisoners. A priest checked his headlong flight to snatch at a child, and ran with her, his gown billowing. Fish-wives had their thick arms around girls, sailors were dragging at grandmas. Diving among them, I scrambled through a tangle of ropes to the edge of the quay where Beth O’Shea was kneeling, gripping a capstan.

‘Come on!’ I shouted, and seized her wrist, but she arched her back, feet skidding.

‘Run, girl, run!’ called the priest, dashing past us, and she came instantly. And the last thing I saw of the quay was the Fighting Irishmen flooding through the Arch with the crowd helter-skelter behind them. Arms and cudgels littered the flagstones, baskets were overturned and herrings flapping to the thieving descent of the gulls.

‘Quick,’ I whispered, and we ran on, snatching at breath till the cottages of Galway thinned and the fields rose up through the night mist. On the track that led to the caravans we rested. Panting, Beth turned on her elbow.

‘Where are you taking me? You’ve got the stink of the bogs on you, man – are you decent?’

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ I gasped. ‘With you being transported and me as free as a lark.’

She wept then, tearing at the grass, and said, ‘They got me for thieving in Clare. I stole bread, and the dragoons came. …’

‘So you’re a thief, is it?’

This sat her up. ‘If stealing for hunger is thieving. Have you heard of them dying in County Clare? And you fat and well fed. Ah, to the devil and back with you.’

The wind whispered, the grasses sighed, the clouds dropped a drape over the bright April moon. She wept again, and I pitied her.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘No business of yours, fella. I wouldn’t have come at all if it hadn’t been for the priest. What’s yours, for a start?’

‘Jess O’Hara.’

‘Sure, that sounds like a woman. Mine’s Beth O’Shea, and if you think you’re having sport with me you can think again, me darlin’.’

‘Why, I’ve no such intention.’

‘Then where are you takin’ me?’

‘Back home to Ma.’

‘So you’ve a mother?’ She wiped back her hair. ‘Whee, jakes! I thought you were a vagrant.’

‘There’s a cheek. A vagrant, is it? Have you ever heard tell of the fighting O’Haras?’

She peered at me, kneeling.

‘That’s us,’ I said. ‘We were around Clare in snow-time selling the kettles. So if you’ve never heard of the Big O’Hara there’s no holes in your ears. Didn’t he finish your Bull Macalteer in sixteen rounds last January, and him the champion of your county?’ I waved in disgust and lay back on the grass. ‘And me sister Karen’s the finest dancer in the whole of Ireland, I’m telling you.’

‘Is that right, Jess O’Hara?’

‘It couldn’t be truer. She’s a riot. And my second eldest brother’s the biggest revolutionary since the dear, dead Daniel O’Connell himself.’

‘Who’s that fella?’

I sat up. ‘D’you mean to tell me you’ve never heard of the fine Dan O’Connell? Even the beasts of the fields still talk of him. And I’ve another brother over in Americay working the Pittsburgh iron and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up governor of the State of Texas.’

‘God bless the Pope,’ said she, all eyes. ‘Have you a relative in America?’

‘I have. The name of O’Hara is ringing from Wexford to Clifden, and we’re the finest people in Connemara, that’s agreed. And I’ll tell you something free that you’d better remember. If you’re comin’ home with me you’d best keep clear of me brother Hosea, for he’s a holy devil with the women when he smells of the poitheen.’ I got up. ‘Are you coming?’

‘If he keeps clear of me,’ she said, ‘for I’m sick of the sight of men, you included, for telling me a pack of bloody lies.’

‘Rest your soul, woman, you must be in the arms of Satan,’ I replied. ‘Sure, you wouldn’t believe the truth if I was smitten with the tongues of angels. Are you coming or staying?’

Bats and blackness were dropping over the land as we went up the crest to the caravans. Ma’s bonfire was winking red as we crept past the Turvey caravan where Barney was ripping up the night with snores. And I thought, as I led her into the glow of the fire, that I’d rather be called a liar by this new one than a saint by Rosa Turvey, for there was a bit more to it than crab-apple knees.

I SAT by the embers of the bonfire long after the women were abed and peered through the mist, waiting for Hosea and Michael. The buzzards were mewing like cats for cream, the hoar-frost pin-sparkling the grass, but the beauty of that night was sullied for me, despite the pages of my beloved Plato which a wayside priest had given me to read. For Hosea was spilling his manhood in the claws of a cat, and I loved Hosea.

I hated Rachel Turvey and her dark, slanting eyes; the wreath of black hair over her shoulders, the shadows deep in her breast when she washed in the morning to give us a treat. Hating, I nodded over the fire, dreaming of cats and purrs and sweeping hands, and awoke to the whisper of feet in grass, and straightened.

‘Where you been?’ I asked.

Hosea stood on the other side of the fire, his brown face waving as disembodied in the glow.

‘Where you been?’ I repeated, and he showed his white teeth in a grin, and bowed.

‘I’ve been going about me lawful business. Do I have to account to a nip of a boy for every minute?’

‘You been lovin’ that Turvey woman!’

‘Bless me soul, hark at that,’ he answered, double bass. ‘Shall I tell you me movements? First I went down to Ennis and took their Will Murphy in five rounds for a sovereign, and then I came back to Galway to watch me brother and friends cracking the chins of the bloody English. But I wasn’t in a state for much fighting myself then, for I was full to the ears with porter.’

‘And then you had that woman, Rachel Turvey.’

He grinned wider, and came round to me, hands on hips, his great bulk blotting out the stars. ‘Dear God, Jess, did you see those fighting Irish? Did you see that fisherwoman stripped to the waist. D’you know something? If you could put the spunk of Galway into the rest of the towns of Ireland you’d have the country booting Victoria instead of spouting the odds about the Repeal.’

‘Why do you fither with that Rachel Turvey?’

‘D’you think we’ll get the Repeal of the Union, Jess? I think we’re wasting our time, for we’d be having fat pensions and titles all over again if we gained it. The English Parliament’s graft to the eyes, but it isn’t a patch on the old Irish one – God, what a country.’

‘Ma will have her in strips,’ I said. ‘She’s trash Irish.’

It angered him. ‘And aren’t we all trash Irish – you included? Living like pigs with no settled home.’

‘We’re O’Haras!’

‘Christ, that’s a fine one! With Karen a pickpocket and you a poacher?’ He spat. ‘Ach, away to hell with your great ideas – your nose is so high you’d drown in a rainstorm.’ He jerked his thumb at the caravan. ‘You’re raking at me because I chase a decent skirt – haven’t you a woman in there, or did I see double?’

‘A prisoner,’ I said.

‘And did you save her for the love of humanity or the love of Jess O’Hara?’ Watching me, he chuckled. ‘Is she a pretty wee thing? Ah, she couldn’t be otherwise for me favourite brother. How’s Ma?’

‘She had a turn today, but she’s steadier now.’

‘Thanks be to God. We’re on the road at first light tomorrow. She’s not birthing in a ditch, the sweet thing. Is Mike back yet?’

I shook my head, and he whispered:

‘Is there any sense in it? He can keep his Irish revolutions – I’m planning to work the roads with the cans, not march for the honour and glory of Ireland.’

‘You’ll march one day,’ said Michael, wandering up.

‘Eavesdropping,’ said Hosea; ‘we leave that to women.’

Michael sat on a log and stretched his long legs. ‘Ach, you fool, you can be heard for miles.’

There was an inborn dignity in Michael that claimed respect. Hosea was like a crag, drunk with strength, hateful of arrogance. In height they were equal. One day, I thought, they might try each other for weight. Michael said:

‘They tell me you took Murphy in Ennis today.’

Hosea waved and turned. ‘Murphy couldn’t lay a swing on a two-month baby.’

‘Joe McManus?’ Michael glanced up, smiling.

‘McManus ducked out of Galway the day we came in.’

‘D’you blame him? Would the champion of Ireland break his hands on your thick head when he can pick up real money against people like Milligan? You might land him a lucky one, but it would take you a week to do it.’

‘Aye? Then would you like me to land one on you this minute?’

I rose, gripping a log, but Michael only grinned, and crossed his legs, saying, ‘Anyone can thump, Ho. And when we’re ringing the bells of freedom we won’t have the likes of you to thank. Will you spin me for a bed in the van? I’m sick of being under the thing.’

‘There’s no spare bed,’ answered Hosea. ‘This Plato fella’s got a woman in it.’

‘What woman?’ Michael swung to me.

I told him.

‘And you’re the one with the brains,’ he whispered. ‘You damned fool, Jess – would you have us all swinging up there with Rooney?’

‘So you can free them, but you can’t house them, is it?’ laughed Hosea.

‘I’m raking her out and kicking her back to Galway,’ whispered Michael.

‘Then try your raking and kicking at me first,’ said Hosea, and barred his way.

‘Ma!’ I wailed, and the caravan window went back and Karen’s head came out.

‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘Mike’s going to kick out Beth O’Shea,’ I cried.

‘Is he? If men come in here we’re clouting with the nearest thing handy. Under the van with the three of you, or I’ll be out there shedding blood, your ma’s dog-tired.’

At dawn, with the attics of Galway looped in sunlight, we harnessed the mare and jingled west for Connemara, with the Turveys following, as usual. Hosea was at the mare’s bridle, his steel-tipped boots ringing on the road. Drooping against Michael on the foot-board with the reins in my hand I looked at the sky. Thunder clouds were gathering in the peaks of the mountains, shouldering across the canyons of the sky with a threat to flay us alive. I remembered again the famines of the granite land, the billowing smoke of the Quaker field boilers, the hiss and spit of the Indian meal on my hands and the bottomless coffins of the famine dead. The wind comes briny along the road to Connemara, the granite slabs glower at the Bay of Kilkieran, the fishing-boats curtsy along the rotting quays. Sitting there, I dreamed in the clanking hooves of the mare; felt again the swinging tugs of the herring on the lines: heard the curlews crying on wet, misty mornings when Hosea and me turned our boat through the foaming troughs; smelled the tar and seaweed, the fly-blown ribs of the wrecked schooners whose sailors were moulded in the sands of Rossaveal. I loved and hated this savage land that made me a part of its scream of freedom.

TWO DAYS LATER we arrived at our two-acre plot of ground near the shores of the Bay of Kilkieran, unharnessed the mare and tethered her and set up home for part of the summer.

Most summers we came back to the Kilkieran plot to tend our crop of potatoes on Squire Rochford’s estate, for you could never tell when the selling of kettles and cans might dry up and put you in the workhouse. The sun exploded over the mountains a day after we got settled in, dripping its liquid fire over the bay, and in its incinerating heat the famine people of Mayo straggled in thin, black lines along the road to Galway, their land of promise. It rained at night, as if in recompense for the sultry days; the red clouds of evening splitting themselves apart in vivid flashes. The rivers heaved, the brooks spewed up in the blood-red soil, cascading over the plains to the blue, mother sea. I was stripped to the waist and hoeing up the spuds when Hosea wandered over from the caravan and sat on a boulder, watching.

‘I’ve been doing some thinking, Jess,’ he said. ‘She’s a sweet wee thing, that Beth O’Shea. If I hadn’t a woman in tow already I’d be walking her down the road to Screeb for a look at the scenery.’

‘You can give her five years,’ I said, ‘she’s too young for you.’

He chewed on a straw. ‘Ach, there’s nothing like catching ’em young, and she’s as clean as a new pin around the place. D’you know she bathes naked in the spring water every morning over in the Hollow? It’s a fair sight to see, I’m telling you. The last time I saw it done was Liza Gallagher, and she was beef to the heels.’

‘You shouldn’t be