A Long Way from Heaven Read online

  Mary lifted her own finely-chiselled nose and sniffed audibly. ‘’Tis right he is. I can smell it too.’

  Patrick scraped his bowl clean. ‘Sure, is there any wonder when you’re standing right next to Brian?’

  Brian hoisted his pink snout and grunted his disapproval over the bales of straw that imprisoned him in the corner.

  ‘Ah, now don’t go blaming the poor pig,’ cried Mary, scratching the animal’s rough skin and stooping to speak to it. ‘He cannot help it if he stinks, can ye, Bri? Will I let y’out in the fresh air, then?’

  ‘Aye, sling the filthy poltroon out,’ Richard answered for the pig. ‘An’ those crazy hens too, they’re doing nothing for the headache.’

  ‘Will ye have a little respect when you’re addressing the creatures that pay the rent,’ said Mary. ‘Which is more than could be said of you. Just look at ye – fit for nothing!’

  ‘Why, the damned cheek o’ the woman!’ retorted the elderly man. ‘Whose cottage is this anyway, I’m askin’?’ Instead of Patrick moving out when he married it had been decided he would stay here and the two would work the land in one chunk. It had seemed stupid to split it into even smaller portions. Being a good-natured sort the girl had voiced no objection, but Patrick wondered regularly if his wits hadn’t been addled on the night of that decision; his father was not the most affable of bedfellows after a skinful the night before.

  The big man sprang up as Mary began to lug away the bales. ‘Away now, I’ll be doing that.’ He gave her a knowing look, the corners of his mouth twitching, then delivered a slap to the pig’s rump and steered it to the door.

  At the pig’s exit a green mist swirled into the cottage, curling and licking round Pat’s legs as he opened his mouth in astonishment. ‘Will ye ever look at this.’ He turned to his father as the swine disappeared into the haze. ‘Sure, I’ve never seen a mist that shade in all me born days.’

  Richard raised his head slowly and stared through the doorway. No, ’twas the drink playing tricks; there was never a mist that colour. The smell was even stronger now, overpowering. The old man suddenly felt sicker than ever as a terrible thought came to his fuzzed brain. His legs trembled as he rose from the stool and shuffled towards the door. Ignoring the questions from his son and Mary he stepped outside into the hideous fog. The others exchanged glances, then followed him into the garden where all were to discover the source of the malodorous wave of putrefaction – the field which last night had burst with ripe potato plants was dead.

  They stared about them in disbelief and growing horror at the clouds of foul-smelling steam that rose from the stricken field. Patrick was the first to break the stunned silence. ‘Jesus, Mary an’ Joseph … what in the name o’ God is it?’

  Richard wiped a hand over his mouth and took a few steps away from his son, his back towards him. ‘D’ye remember that travelling man who came by last year an’ told us of the strange blight that’d ruined a lot o’ the crop?’

  Patrick frowned. ‘I do. If I recall rightly he said it looked as if the field had been … burnt. Ah sure, but it couldn’t happen that fast, could it? ’Twas only yesterday we were saying what a fine crop we had this year. I can’t believe it could happen overnight.’ With an abrupt turn he strode back to the house, his father calling to ask where he was going. ‘To fetch a spade!’

  Richard shook his head at the other’s return. ‘I’ve this feeling on me that ye’ve had a wasted journey.’

  Patrick thrust his spade into the soil. ‘Sure, there’s bound to be something among this that we can use.’ But a curse escaped his lips as the implement yielded only a foul black pulp. ‘Holy Mother, ’tis like digging into a latrine.’ A disgusted poke from the toe of his boot.

  Mary covered her mouth to fend off the rush of nausea, spoke through her fingers. ‘Will they all be like that?’

  Richard glanced at her and nodded, his eyes closed, a man in defeat.

  But Patrick disputed this, ramming his spade back into the earth. ‘There must be something we can salvage – God Almighty there’s got to be.’

  He unearthed another cluster of the slimy tubers then, as if there was no time to lose, began to dig and dig with increasing agitation. Sweat ran down his face and with it rose the panic as each spadeful produced the same agonizing sight.

  ‘Don’t waste your strength, son,’ Richard advised gravely. ‘Ye’ll find nothing worth the effort.’

  ‘But why, why?’ demanded Patrick harshly, then flung down the spade in frustration.

  ‘’Tis as the tinkerman said,’ was Richard’s reply. ‘One day ye’ve a fine, healthy crop, the next … well, ye can see for yourself.’

  ‘But dammit where does it come from?’

  Richard shrugged. ‘Who knows? I did catch the whisper that all was not well with Dermot Laughlin’s crop, but I thought ’twas just the leaf-rot or something – an’ our crop was fine, there was no reason to worry.’

  ‘No reason to worry?’ barked Patrick. ‘The slightest hint o’ disease would seem to me a good enough reason to worry. Why the divil didn’t ye tell me about Dermot’s praties? We could’ve dug ours up early an’ avoided all this. Ye’ll see reason enough to worry when ye’ve nothing to fill your belly with.’ He glared angrily at his father. Mary placed a pacifying hand on his arm.

  Richard stormed back, ‘Oh, is it blaming me y’are for all this, then? D’ye imagine I’d be eejit enough to let it happen if there was some way to avoid it?’ His son waved a conciliatory hand, sorry that he had spoken so hastily, but Richard went on, ‘Well, I’ll tell ye this: there’re better men than Patrick Feeney who’ve tried to beat the blight at its own game by sneaking their praties in early, thinking that once they’re out o’ the ground they’re safe. Didn’t that tinker tell us that last year the market was flooded with seemingly good praties that’d been dug up early? People were buying ’em up right left and centre, only to find when they got ’em home that what they had was a bagful o’ mush. ’Tis a sad fact that this blight cannot discriminate between a pratie in the soil and one in a sack …’ With these words came a horrible dawning.

  The others had experienced it too. Each looked at the other as they remembered the remaining potatoes from last year’s crop which they had recently taken from the pit to make room for the new harvest and had stored in a sack. Stumbling and tripping over each other all three raced towards the cottage. Patrick, whose long legs assured his first arrival, was the one to make the discovery. Even before he felt the pulpy remains squelch through his clutching fingers the same putrid stench rushed from the opened sack. He brandished soiled fingers at his father and knew that Richard’s thoughts were similar to his own: God in Heaven, what were they to do? Their whole lives revolved around this humble vegetable. It was the mainstay of their diet – Patrick himself could easily consume thirteen pounds in one day – and without it they would be destitute. And with what would they drown their sorrows when there were no potatoes to make their poteen?

  Patrick barely saw his father sink to his knees and begin to wail, barely saw the white, questioning face of his young wife as she thought of the child inside her. All he could see was the whole year’s work lying dead before his eyes, the sack of invaluable potatoes which had already begun to suppurate, the evil-smelling slime which oozed through the cloth to form black puddles of death at his feet.

  In despair he turned his face to the valley and, as he did, small patches of the same green mist began to appear and multiply until every one of his neighbours’ fields was clothed with a mantle of corruption.

  Chapter Two

  After giving up hope of saving any healthy potatoes Richard, Patrick and his wife called upon Mary’s parents to investigate the extent of their losses. Patrick glanced around him as he strode down the hillside. The land was changed. Like a beautiful woman whose face had been blemished by some dread disease, so the country was dominoed with the scars of the blight. Burnt patches marred the landscape, denoting the cancerous path of the virus
and at every step of the way there were people prostrate with shock, draped in utter hopelessness over the fences that hedged their plagued gardens.

  When they arrived at the McCarthy dwelling they found Liam, Mary’s father, squatting alone on a boulder, his head cradled in his arms and the familiar stench of death all around him. He raised lack-lustre eyes at their approach. ‘No need to waste good breath for I know what you’re going to say. Couldn’t I see that filthy mist hanging over your own field?’

  Mary bobbed down and took hold of one of his hands as Richard replied wearily: ‘’Tis not just ours that’s blighted, Liam. I’ve yet to hear of anyone who’s escaped.’

  Liam appeared not to have heard. ‘How could it happen so fast?’ he whispered in disbelief. ‘What have I done to deserve this? All gone, every last one. ’Tis as if… as if the Devil has spit upon the land.’

  ‘Don’t take on so, Dad,’ begged Mary, squeezing his hand.

  Liam noticed her for the first time, reared. ‘“Don’t take on so,” says she. Would ye expect me to be organising a ceilidh with our livelihood in jeopardy?’

  ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Is it stupid y’are?’ raged Liam. ‘Can ye not see we’re all in danger o’ starving to death? An’ the only constructive thing you’ve got to offer is “don’t take on so”.’

  Patrick saw the tears begin to form in Mary’s eyes and intervened. ‘Sure there’s no need for us to go falling out over it, Liam. I’m certain we can work something out.’ He craned his neck, trying to see into the cottage. ‘Where’s the mother, is she taking it hard?’

  Liam grimaced. ‘Hard is not the word. The wailing got so bad I was expecting any moment to see the banshee. It sounds as though they’ve plugged it now. Will we go in?’

  Inside the cottage Carmel McCarthy sat glassy-eyed, not bothering to acknowledge their presence as the three men and Mary entered. The room was without its usual mouthwatering smell of baking, the atmosphere one of dejection. Mary’s three sisters observed her with round, doleful eyes, fidgeting, picking at nonexistent specks on dresses, biting hangnails. She seated herself on a rush mat beside her mother and stared back at them, unable to think of anything to lighten their despair.

  Sean, her only brother, stood and addressed Patrick. ‘I’ve been trying to tell them ’tis no use sitting here waiting for a miracle. I say you an’ me oughta take the cart an’ see if we can buy ourselves some seed.’

  ‘I’m in agreement with ye, Sean,’ answered Patrick. ‘The thing is,’ he ran his fingers through his black hair and frowned, ‘I can’t for the life of me think where we’ll get any. Everyone hereabouts seems to have been hit.’

  ‘Sure, it can’t have affected the whole county,’ argued the other.

  ‘Can it not?’ put in Richard grimly. ‘This is a different blight to any we’ve known before. Faith, ’tis so powerful. Ye’ve seen what it can do in the space of a few hours. What’s to stop it repeating that process over the county – over the entire country, come to that. Didn’t that tinker tell us … ’

  ‘Gob, ye’re as bad as this lot!’ Sean jabbed a thumb at his family. ‘I’ve seen livelier faces at a wake – an’ that was the corpse’s. It’ll do no good talking like that, else we might as well all shoot ourselves now. There’s bound to be someone can sell us some seed.’

  Patrick was infected by Sean’s optimism. ‘An’ if ye recall the tinker’s words so well,’ he told his father, ‘Then, ye’ll remember he said the country was like a checkerboard; some fields black, some untouched.’

  ‘Oh, an’ d’ye think if anyone’s escaped they’re likely to be parting with any o’ their precious praties?’ scoffed his father.

  ‘Ach, away with us, Pat,’ said Sean exasperatedly. ‘It’ll do no good arguing with the ould fella.’

  Patrick turned to follow him but Richard grabbed hold of his son’s arm.

  ‘’Tis not my place to stop ye if you’re intent on wasting your time, but heed this: last night I heard the sound of your mother’s grave calling to me an’ her voice was joined by a million others. ’Tis dead we’ll all be before the year is out.’

  ‘Oh, Jazers!’ Patrick shook off his father’s hand in disgust. ‘Let me out while I’m still sane.’

  ‘Sure, ’tis right he is,’ agreed Carmel miserably. ‘The fate is on us.’

  Patrick was at the door now. ‘Mary, I’d away home if I were you. They’ll not be happy till they’ve made ye as wretched as they are.’ He joined Sean who had hitched up the Connemara pony. With a slap of the reins and a last backward wave the cart went bumping and jarring on its journey.

  Mary had followed them to the door and now watched the cart disappear into the distance, her eyes troubled and bright. When it had finally vanished she crossed the room to sit beside her mother again.

  Carmel wrung the hem of her petticoat and sobbed. ‘Lord save us! We’re all going to perish.’

  Mary stroked her hair. ‘Oh no, Mam, everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see – Pat an’ Sean they’ll find some praties, they’ll not let us down.’

  Carmel dried her eyes and patted Mary’s hand. ‘Ah, ’tis a good girl y’are, trying to cheer me up, an’ me not caring to ask me daughter how her new husband is treating her.’

  Mary’s face lost its worried look and took on a secretive warmth. ‘Oh, very well, Mam ye could say, very well indeed. I’m …’ she paused, wondering if this was the right moment to break the news.

  Red-eyed, Carmel waited for her daughter to complete the sentence, then from long experience in these matters guessed the reason for the healthy bloom on the girl’s cheeks. ‘Oh, ye’re not, child,’ she cried. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

  The smile faded. ‘I thought ye’d be pleased for me.’ Carmel looked at her youngest child and her heart wept. She was so small, so fragile. Carmel was hardpressed to decide to which Mary would fall victim first; the hunger or the strain of bearing the child of a giant. She sighed and affected a weak smile. ‘Pleased, pet? Well, I suppose I would be at any other time – but, oh, what a time to choose.’

  ‘Now what wort of a greeting is that to be giving the news of another grandchild?’ asked Liam, attempting to repair the earlier hurt he had inflicted on his sensitive daughter. ‘Don’t be worrying your head, Iníon. Tonight when Sean an’ Pat come home with the praties we’ll celebrate your news.’ Carmel knew that Liam did not believe his own words for one minute but was only trying to reassure his daughter – as she should have been. She tried to instill some confidence into her tone. ‘Sure, ’tis right your father is. I’m just a silly old woman who should know better than to put the fear o’ God into me own baby daughter. I’m only worried for ye, Mary. He’s such a big fella, that Pat. It’ll be a brute of a baby an’ no mistake. He oughta be ashamed of himself.’

  Mary’s red lips parted in laughter. ‘Oh, Mam! What on earth is marriage for if not for having babies? Pat’s a big fine fella ’tis true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean our babies are going to be giants.’

  Siobhan, the eldest, who had come to tell the family that her own land had been hit, chipped in. ‘Look at it this way, Mam. There’s Pat about six feet two an’ our Mary, well I guess she’d be about five feet nuthin’, so things oughta even themselves out in the baby, don’t ye think?’

  Carmel nodded thoughtfully at this sagacity, until Bernadette remarked, ‘By my reckoning that’ll make the baby about five feet seven.’

  For the moment the tragedy was forgotten as everyone rocked with laughter at the thought of such a baby. Bernadette, pleased with herself for dispelling the gloom, sprang up and smoothed her skirts. ‘Dia linn! I’m forgetting me duties,’ she sang at the sight of the hens who scratched around the floor in the hope of finding a crumb. ‘Look at the poor creatures, they must be starving.’

  There was facial collapse as her words brought the laughter to an abrupt halt. ‘Oh, come on now!’ she cried. ‘Don’t be such a load o’ whipped curs. Pat an’ Sean’ll be back before ever y
e know it, an’ long faces won’t bring them back any sooner. Kathleen!’ She shooed the hens out into the mist. ‘Fetch that bowl an’ come help me feed the hens.’

  Kathleen, at seventeen twelve months her junior, grumblingly obliged. She scattered the food amongst the foolish, clucking livestock while the rest of the family watched through the open doorway, the incongruity of such an act lost upon them.

  ‘I didn’t hear y’offer your congratulations to Mary,’ murmured Bernadette slyly, knowing full well the reason behind her sister’s lack of enthusiasm at the news. While Bernadette had accepted Patrick’s choice philosophically – after all, weren’t there plenty of other men around? – Kathleen had made it patently obvious that she had hoped to be Mrs Patrick Feeney and ever since had nurtured an unsisterly bitterness.

  But then, hadn’t it always been the same? thought Kathleen, always Mary, the youngest, as the centre of attention. The memory of being told that she was no longer her mother’s little angel, that Mammy had a new baby to take care of, still rankled and she recalled the fights to gain admittance to her mother’s embrace, the sharp slaps when she had tried to push her new sister out of her rightful place – ‘Ye naughty child! don’t go hurting the baby like that. You’re a big girl now, Mammy can’t be nursing ye any more.’ All through her growing years it had been Mary who was singled out for the compliments – ‘Ah, she’s the bonniest of the bunch!’ and ‘Don’t ye wish ye had pretty hair like your sister, Kathleen?’ That was the thing that hurt most, being compared to Mary all the time … And it was just not fair, for she did have pretty hair, only hers was a dark brown colour while her sister’s was as black and gleaming as a rook’s wing – or the Devil’s heart, thought Kathleen uncharitably. But there was no stopping folk’s thoughtless comments when they set eyes on Mary and Kathleen had just had to learn to live with it. That was not to say she had grown used to it though, and she took every opportunity to take a dig at her sister.