Beautiful Stranger

Since their first meeting, Patrick had been mesmerised by Brigid Donohue . . .

PATRICK CALLIGAN came with a team of peat cutters to this remote corner on the coast of Ireland, liked what he saw and stayed on, building himself a two-roomed bothy on the headland.

Having acquired a goat and hens for milk and eggs, he bought a handy pony and cart and set up a tranter’s business, transporting anything from trade goods to household chattels for a moderate fee.

Happy with his lot, he lived contentedly in his shaggy-roofed dwelling, the sound of breakers crashing on the rocks far below in his ears and the tang of brine and thyme-covered slopes in his nostrils.

Until, that was, his attention was caught by a stranger at the market.

She was setting up a stall with bright skeins of homespun and dyed yarns and knitted shawls.

Dark-haired and comely, she was the usual stamp of young women hereabouts.

What set her apart, Patrick could not say, yet he rested the reins and gazed on, watching with mild interest as she completed her display. Who was she?

It was St Patrick’s Day, and with shafts of pale sunlight stealing from behind tumbling clouds, and feeling an affinity with his namesake, Patrick wondered if the newcomer’s presence was significant.

“Sure’n would yez be sittin’ there gawping all the day long?” a cheerful voice enquired.

Duffy O’neil was peering up at him, grinning.

“Duffy, you old rogue! Wasn’t I lost in thought?”

“An’ wasn’t I once just as taken with a pretty colleen as you look to be?”

The grin broadened and Patrick affected nonchalance.

“Curious, so I was. I don’t seem to know her face.”

“Mebbe I can enlighten you there. She’s taken lodgings with Ma Stacey at the shebeen. Name of Brigid Donohue.”

“She’s all alone here?” Patrick asked. “You’re more in the shebeen than out of it. You must know more than that.”

Duffy shrugged. “She’s a close one. You’ll be hard put to learn more.”

But Patrick, risking another, more serious, glance at the young woman behind the stall, promised himself that he would.

Duffy turned his attention to the yet unpacked cart.

“Would yez be bringing those goods to today’s market or tomorra’s, I’m wonderin’?”

Patrick chuckled. “Enough of the lip! Give me a hand with the deliveries and I’ll stand you a sup of porter.”

“A deal, so it is,” Duffy agreed with a nod.

****

Kept busy all day, the stranger faded from Patrick’s mind.

But that evening, as he fried potatoes for supper, her image returned in full force.

Later, instead of settling down by the peat fire with his pipe, he headed off along the coast for Ma Stacey’s shebeen.

Rain fell and the shebeen was full of tobacco smoke, strong ale and the reek of damp garments.

Answering greetings, Patrick approached the bar and placed his order.

Ma Stacey, matronly and many chinned, handed him his drink and eyed him shrewdly.

“Not often we sees you here weeknights, Patrick.”

“Didn’t I feel the need for company, Ma?” he returned. “Talking of which, I’m told you have a companion here yourself.”

“And what might be your interest?”

“Saw her at the market and wondered.”

“If I were paid a silver piece for every enquiry I’ve

had I’d be laughin’.”

Ma Stacey rested her dimpled elbows on the bar.

“An’ I shall tell yez the same as I’ve told the rest: my lodger is here to set up in business and that’s about it.”

Knowing he would get no further, Patrick turned his attention to his porter while, across the crowded shebeen, Ma Stacey sent Duffy O’neil in a far corner a conspiratorial nod.

****

March continued with blustery downpours, and Patrick, aware that the mysterious incomer’s stall would suffer from the onslaught and keener than ever to get to know her, seized his chance by adding some protective tarpaulin and makeshift framework to his load on market day.

He was to find that someone had beaten him to it, and her wares were snugly dry under a canopy of well-tarred ship’s canvas.

Undeterred, he threw caution to the wind and marched up to the stall.

She surely had garments other than shawls on offer.

“Morning to you. Do you have any socks I could buy?” He smiled.

“Men’s socks?” Lapis-blue eyes met his with regret. “No, sorry.”

“A muffler?”

“No mufflers. I shall eventually increase my range, but for now my shawls meet the greater demand. I have wool here that is suitable.”

She showed him skeins of hard-wearing yarn.

“I’ll take the lot,” Patrick said rashly, and came away with enough for socks for the entire male population of the coastline.

The problem was, how was he to knit them?

“Do show me the result,” she called after him. “I’m willing to pay knitters for items of quality.”

“Is that so?” he replied non-committally.

Emerging was a memory of his mother knitting by the fire.

Needles going clacketyclack, the garment magically growing. How had she done it?

On a haberdashery stall he purchased knitting needles.

It couldn’t be beyond him, he reasoned, to knock up a simple pair of socks.

That evening, Patrick took up a skein of damp, pungent-smelling wool, frowning.

How to wind it into the remembered ball from childhood?

He removed the four threads that held the skein intact, hooked the loop of yarn over one wrist and, breaking off a strand, tried to wind it up.

But the big, work-callused hands which were so deft at cutting peats and making outdoor repairs refused to comply with the more delicate task.

“Here’s a fine shebangle!” he exclaimed.

The stray cat who had sneaked in to warm herself by the fire blinked yellow eyes in response.

Giving up, Patrick lit his pipe and settled down for a peaceful hour before bed.

****

Patrick avoided the wool stall after that, but the girl’s face haunted him.

Her looks and name were Irish enough, yet her speech had held barely a trace of the lilt of Eire.

He went again to the shebeen, hoping to hear more of Brigid, but her presence in the community had been accepted with uncharacteristic speed and talk had turned to other matters.

He considered offering to transport her and her goods to the various markets, then learned she had acquired a donkey and trap for the purpose. Thwarted at every turn. He tried again to wind the remaining stubborn skeins into neat balls and, still defeated, tossed the tangled lot into a corner.

Next morning, he found that the stray cat had claimed it for her own and was nursing three newborn kittens in its woolly depths.

****

In the event, Brigid came to him on a fine evening in April.

Patrick was milking the goat outside the shed, and there she was, rapt attention on her face.

“You make that look so easy,” she remarked.

Patrick stared, hardly able to believe his eyes.

“It is – once you know how,” he managed to say. “Have you never seen anything milked before?”

“There was little opportunity where I come from. Milk arrived on a cart. Watered-down stuff that barely coloured tea.”

“Would that be in Dublin?”

“No. London.”

So that explained the different speech. He was making progress at last.

As he was about to ask more, she forestalled him.

“My landlady says you run a carrier’s business. I’m renting a cottage on the far side of the headland.

“Could you transport some belongings for me?

“A man at the shebeen told me when I would find you in. He said he was a friend of yours.”

“Duffy O’neil? Little fellow, not young?”

“That’s the one. When can you move me in?”

“That bothy’s stood empty a while and might need some attention,” Patrick replied. “I remember moving the family out.

“They couldn’t abide the buffeting wind and the bleakness and –”

“Saturday would suit me fine,” she interrupted him. “The market closes early then. Mid afternoon?”

It was short notice, but he could rearrange his schedule to fit.

“Right you are. The name’s Patrick, by the way. Patrick Calligan.”

“So I believe,” Brigid said. “Until Saturday, then.”

She left Patrick wondering what made her choose such a forbidding location to live.

****

Every evening that week, Brigid went past in the donkey trap, the small vehicle stacked with cleaning utensils.

Until late, a light flickered at the small window of the cottage where she was clearly at work.

Saturday saw Patrick pulling into the yard of the shebeen.

Supervised by Duffy and Ma Stacey, he loaded on to the cart two spinning wheels, a heavy iron-bound chest and numerous bulging canvas satchels. “Is that it?” he enquired. “It is,” Ma Stacey replied. “Then I’ll be off now.”

Patrick avoided the wool stall after that

At the bothy, Brigid was emptying the trap of sundries.

“Will I help unload?” she called out.

“No need. You get yourself sorted. I’ll bring this lot in.”

Inside, the whiff of limewash and lye soap smarting his eyes, Patrick looked round in bafflement. “No furniture?”

She shrugged.

“I bought some secondhand at the market, but the man can’t deliver it till Monday.”

“And what do you do in the meantime?” Patrick asked. “The market will not be over yet. I’ll fetch it meself.”

It would mean more juggling, but when needs must . . .

An hour later he was back, unshipping some basic furnishings and a box of pots and pans.

“You need a shelf for those,” he told her. “I’ll fix you one.”

He drove home, found what he was looking for and knocked up some handy shelves in the chimney alcove.

“I’m grateful.” Brigid gave him a smile that warmed his heart. “What do I owe you?”

Patrick named his standard delivery fee.

“Regard the shelving a welcome token. Just the removal payment, then I’ll be away.”