The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell

Author:Joseph Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2010-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

6

The following morning Aaron considered taking to the hills, to the low mountains rising to the east just above the town, where the moon’s pull would not impose tidal restrictions on his time and force an ending, all too soon, to the day’s sufferings. From the summit he could view the great world spread out before him, the parceled pastures sloping down to the fields that reached the headlands.

But there was a drawback. The hills had distractions of their own. It was his great-aunt Molly, who’d taken him time and time again to the summit, where they would move among the sheep, regarding the wool’s growth, its texture, and its promise of plenty. The hills belonged to Aunt Molly. Not even Phila would be a match for her persisting presence. Just the idea that morning—before even getting out of bed, before thoughts of Phila, before confusions about Declan Tovey—just the thought of climbing the pastures up past the heather, through the furze and the rocks and the muddied paths to the waiting heights, had given him again the sight of his great-aunt, tall, indomitable, astride the summit, gesturing with an arm grand enough in its sweep to include all the lands below and speak to him the words that had struck into his soul and made him Irish forever, no matter what other allegiances he might claim.

“It was surely at this height,” Aunt Molly had said, “it was at this height and at this place that the devil brought the proud powers of England and, speaking, said to them: ‘All this will I give you’ ”—and here the gesture came—“‘all this will I give you if you will but bow down and worship me.’ And no sooner had the devil spoken these words than their knees, their English knees, buckled under them—and who would blame the poor hoors, such a height and such a wonder as was laid out before them? And so we fight not only to free ourselves but to free them too, don’t forget. To get them up off their knees at last so they can stand and walk upright in the lovely land, free of the tempter’s thrall. It’s for them, for the kneeling English too, that we fight, poor hoors. And so it goes and goes and goes until we’ve freed them for good.” But then she would laugh a great laugh and add: “Or for evil. For with them, you never know.” Then she would sigh a heavy sigh and repeat, by way of an amen, “Poor hoors.”

Not all that eager to renew his Irish credentials—not from infidelity or indifference but from a need to indulge emotions not quite so grand—Aaron chose the sea. Some other time he would give Aunt Molly her due.

Aunt Kitty had returned in the night. She was there, in the kitchen, working away at her computer while he fixed himself a full breakfast: two more hot dogs, a banana, and three cups of coffee that, in their black simplicity, were the perfect antidote for the sour Guinness of the night before.

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