The Pig Comes to Dinner (9 page)

The Dingle racecourse consisted of a dirt (or mud) track the width of a single lane road and fenced with white wooden rails nailed to white wooden posts. It was situated in a field that sloped gently upward, with the starting point at the top and off to the left of the grandstand, a fair distance but near enough to require the horses more often than not to pass the grandstand twice before reaching the finish. The grandstand itself was raucous and snug at the same time. Its limited seating made it seem like a fairly large but overpopulated opera box filled with a celebratory rabble that had come to exercise a determined joy and, in the process, raise as much ruction as possible.

Kitty and Kieran preferred the grassy infield, where they could wander among the horses, the trailers, and the jockeys—boys of about fourteen, thin as sticks, with a ferocity made endearing by a sweetness even their more ruthless need to win could not disguise. For food, the Travelers—people descended from gypsies still in thrall to their ancient wanderlust—had brought their carts and stalls, offering hot dogs, potato chips, beer, and whatever else might satisfy the spectators' appetites.

Most important were the bookies: men wearing woolen pants, ill-fitting sweaters, scuffed shoes, and, for most, a stained fedora pushed to the back of the head the better to display a face so creased with knowledge and weathered with intuition that it could afford a look of disdainful indifference at the entire proceeding. Standing on his crate, his chalkboard with the next races' odds at his left, each called out his encouragements, suggesting by the tone of voice, by the casual loftiness of manner, that he and he alone had a direct line if not to the horse's mouth, then at least to those unseen, unsung arbiters who might or might not exercise an influence one would do well to consider.

(For the event, Kitty was wearing a Mets baseball cap and Kieran a floppy hat, the brim of which tickled the tops of his ears—which is why he wore it.)

After they had placed their bets for the third race—Kitty putting two euros on Rory's Boy at seven-to-one, Kieran five euros on Quodlibet at three-to-one—it was time for a hot dog and a beer. As they made their way through the crowd that ambled aimlessly around the infield, some scrutinizing the scheduled horses, others clustered to compare notes, more than a few enjoying a welcome visit in the afternoon air, first Kitty, then Kieran became aware that they were being stared at, mostly by women in their middle years, even though no comments were made beyond a wickedly smiled greeting. When Kieran reached for Kitty's hand, she drew it away. “Why not let's have a row, just to make them
really
happy.”

“Fine with me. Any idea what about?”

Before Kitty could answer, Kieran had slowed and was looking intently toward one of the horse trailers. When Kitty followed his gaze she saw what he was looking at. There, talking to one of the jockeys—a boy in blue and white silks—was a girl, with creamy white skin and hair so black it suggested ancestral association with the raven. She was wearing what hinted at the return of the miniskirt, made of black leather and making a joyful display of legs so perfectly formed that to cover them could be deemed a crime. Her tank top lacked style—which tank top does not?—and the color beige helped not at all. (Kitty herself would, in similar circumstances and with similar figure, have chosen red, forgetting that this particular young woman required no such extravagance to attract the world's attention.) Most striking, however, was the slender neck rising unblemished in a natural flow from the delicately boned shoulders to a head composed of a highly successful merger among geometric shapes that had contended for the honor of crowning so pleasing a proof of what God could do given the right genes to work with.

To add to the obvious perfections was, at the moment, a laughter so animating that the jockey, in self-defense, could only grin sheepishly and try not to look at her too directly. He also kept striking his riding crop against his right leg, the inflicted pain intended no doubt as penance for the thoughts and urges rushing through his young libido.

“It's Brid,” whispered Kieran.

After Kitty had made a chuckling sound, she said, with a light laugh, “It's not at all Brid.”

“But the face. How often have we seen it? Just look at her.”

“Why? You seem to be looking hard enough for both of us.”

Too distracted by the girl to detect any emotional content in his wife's words, Kieran continued, “Listen to her laugh. She's not sad anymore. She's come alive.”

“Have you never heard of recurring genetic traits? Maybe Brid died, but didn't her brothers and sisters carry into the next generation the same ingredients, and didn't their children pass them on so they could be passed on again and again until now?”

“But I want it to be Brid. Alive. Happy.”

“Well, it ain't Brid. So get over it.”

Now the girl was walking away from the jockey toward the bookies, bumping into one person, then another in the crowd, neither of them aware of the honor. The boy's grin had transformed itself into a leer of such lasciviousness that Kitty wanted few things more than to go up and give him a smack. He was punishing his right leg with an intensified whipping and had begun to pull on his left earlobe with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, the equivalent of a pinch to convince himself he wasn't dreaming.

Kieran's eyes were following her. He shook his head in disbelief. “Why don't we go see which horse she's going to bet on? Maybe it's good luck.”

Kitty took hold of his upper arm, squeezing into the muscle. “And you tell me I'm the one superstitious.”

Kieran looked down at the ground.

He spoke quietly. “She was once as happy as this. At the castle I see her all mournful and wondering where she is and where everyone and everything's gone off to. And she has only the sight of the cows to comfort her and the sad move of the loom and Taddy with his harp playing whatever tune she might hear. Have you never seen her just sitting there, her muddy feet touching the stones? And patience she had for all the bafflement. And a sweetness to match how lovely is her face and her hands not meant for so much work as she'd had to do. Have you ever really watched her?”

“Yes. I've watched her.” Kitty loosened her grip and let her hand fall to her side. She was looking at the girl move more deeply into the crowd, the sway of her hips avoiding obstacles, shifting her entire behind with unconscious agility rather than adjust her step or make the slightest change in the course she'd chosen.

For lunch, Kieran had two hot dogs with ketchup and onions, Kitty three with mustard and sauerkraut. Kieran had one beer, Kitty two. When the little girl tending the stand—a child of about ten—shortchanged Kieran, he offered no correction. When she asked if he wanted his palm read, he smiled and said no. Kitty considered encouraging him to change his mind but thought better of it and set down on the counter her plastic cup, her second beer only half finished. That the child had shown no interest in reading
her
palm puzzled Kitty—until she decided (wrongly) that the girl wanted only to hold her husband's hand.

There were no further sightings of the girl who reminded Kieran of Brid but soon it would be Kitty's turn. Three lead horses had made the turn into the homestretch. Kitty and Kieran were at the rail just down from the grandstand. Kieran had five euros on Jackeen at three-to-one, the jockey in blue and white, the one Brid's descendant had favored with her torments. Kitty had one euro on—unavoidably—Pig-O'-My-Heart, twenty-to-one, the jockey in silks featuring huge pink polka dots on a field of pastel green, making the boy—the single chubby jockey in the entire pack—look like an anemic ladybug. Jackeen had yet to make the far turn, but Pig-O'-My-Heart was still in contention in third. Now the horse was making its move, challenging Fisherman's Folly. Kitty crushed her fists into her cheeks. Kieran, ever the sport, called out, “Pig! Pig! Pig!”

As the horses galloped toward the finish, Kitty prepared herself to scream, the sound already rising toward her glottis, when the chubby boy in the saddle slipped sideways, not falling, but hanging on as best he could, jerking the horse's head up and giving the signal that the animal could ease its efforts, that the race was over. As for Kitty, as for Pig-O'-My-Heart, as for the chubby boy, it was over indeed. Who came in first was no longer of any interest. When Pig crossed the line, seventh but well ahead of Jackeen, the boy's torso was parallel to the ground, his head held slightly higher, his right leg raised as if in rude salute to the grandstand spectators who responded with the wildest cheering of the day.

Across the track, in the shadow of the grandstand, looking angrily down at the ticket in his hand, was Taddy. Not Taddy exactly, but nonetheless wearing mostly brown: brown corduroy pants, a brown sweater, and, in concession to the era in which he was living, white sneakers. The hair was only a bit shorter, but the shoulders, straight and broad, were readily recognizable, the torso tapering to the narrow waist. The hands had experienced no evolution. As they tore up the ticket and let the tatters sift onto the grass, Kitty could see that they were unwashed and calloused by some harsh task not different from those performed by his antecedent. When he looked up, his brown-eyed gaze went just beyond Kitty, to her left. Mournful he was and again there was the bewilderment. He, too, must have bet on Pig-O'-My-Heart, and if he didn't know the origin of this prompting, Kitty did.

Taddy at the castle had been chosen by the pig as a favored companion. And Taddy seemed to have accepted the honor. From the narrow turret window of her study she had seen more than several times the pig running, its snout down into the grass, hoping against hope that the ring with which it had been pierced would not prevent it from visiting the usual devastations upon Kerry's green and pleasant land. Taddy, meanwhile, would stand aside and watch, his head bowed for the first few thrusts of the snout. Small jerky movements would he make, pausing, then swinging his head to another point on his one-hundred-and-eighty-degree range as if on guard against anyone who might ridicule the pig's bootless efforts. When no one would appear, Taddy would bow his head again, reassured that no one was aware of the pig's humiliation, that he, Taddy, every faithful, was on guard and would allow no amusement at the pig's expense.

Then, at other times, he and the pig would simply wander the field, Taddy ahead, the pig following, more a dog and master than pig and ghost. For these excursions Taddy walked slowly, not looking down, gazing off somewhere. An exile, he was having perhaps some vision of the world taken from him long, long ago. So needful was he in his bewilderment, so forlorn in his loss, yet innocent and manly in his every movement, that Kitty had experienced, over the days and weeks and months, first a sympathy, then a grieving of her own, and, finally, a yearning, a need to hold and to cherish, to comfort and to—

Here she would invariably stop. She was indulging herself. There was work to be done. Maggie Tulliver still had not been successfully redirected along the plot lines that would correct Mary Ann's ineptitude. Kitty's agent, her publisher, and, of course, her ravenous public were all waiting with aroused appetites and money at the ready. She would return to her computer and stare at the wall in front of her desk. She would tell herself not to budge until the needed corrections came to her, until one word, then another, then another appeared on her screen. She would remain planted despite a desperate urge to rise up, to go to the window and see again the brownclothed form brushing through the pasture grass, with the sturdy legs, the slender waist, and the large calloused hands, their corded veins pulsing surely with Kerry blood even though he was no more than a wandering shade lost this side of the River Styx with no one to make the offering to the ferryman who might see him safely across to the Elysian shore.

Kitty would return to her computer. How could Maggie be so inane as to allow her rising id to direct itself toward a man so impossible to her happiness as Stephen Guest? Of course love should make its claims, but impossibility was still impossibility, and any woman worthy of her gender would surely check her impulses and take control of her heart before disaster could strike. Thank God, she, Kitty McCloud, would never be capable of such insanities. Never. Not she. Not Kitty McCloud. Never. Et cetera.

She would stare at the blank screen; she would stare at the wall. It had been around this time that she began to suspect that her husband had fallen in love with Brid. There was evidence enough—if only she knew where to look for it.

The young man on the other side of the racetrack was kicking the scattered pieces of the torn ticket at his feet. Kitty considered directing her husband's attention to the youth by saying something like, “Oh look! There's Taddy!” But she decided not to. It was of no interest. And the young man didn't really look that much like Taddy. Taddy was far more handsome, more manly, less sullen. He certainly wouldn't have littered the ground with the remains of a losing ticket. Then, too, there were the sneakers. Without the sight of bare feet, mudcrusted and calloused, the Taddy across the track was much diminished.

Kieran said, “Oh look! There's Taddy!”

Kitty looked sideways at her husband. Had she been staring at the young man? Was that what had prompted Kieran to look over and see him standing there? Had she been observed in her ruminations? She was relieved to see that her husband was nothing more than mildly pleased at this apparition of an apparition. It meant little to him, if anything at all.

“Where?” Kitty asked.

“Can't you see him? Right there. Kicking the ground.”

“Oh. Him.” She gave her head a bit of a shake. “Well, yes, I can see some resemblance. The county is probably overrun with Taddys if we wanted to take time for a census. You want to see the horses for the next race?”