Feeding Strawberries to Pigs Read online

  Colm arrived the next day. That night by the light of the oil lamp sitting in front of the peat fire, he persuaded his grandfather to ‘give the woman a chance-there’s money in it that could go towards having the water and electricity connected.’

  Fiona Cholmondey was feeling sorry for herself. She sat in the kitchen, her new range belting out all the heat it could summon, trying to tune her radio to receive Radio 4. She had been experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms from ‘Women’s Hour’ and ‘The Archers’ since moving to her Irish idyll. The knock on her door startled her and she was rather alarmed to see the rude old druid from the tip over the road standing on her doorstep. Her reactions were swift; having lived in London she knew better than to open your door to anyone you hadn’t known for at least three years. She opened the small window in the study and called to him in her best Irish accent.

  ‘Hello there, is it me you are looking for?’

  Brendan heard the disembodied voice and searched for its source. Then he noticed a woman’s head poking out from a window at the front of the house. She had a face that would frighten a horse he thought.

  ‘Brendan O’Flaherty, I’ve come to offer my house for the bed and breakfast.’ He answered.

  Fiona thought the man was a walking health hazard, but knew better than to alienate the locals

  ‘Grand and how lovely.’

  Fiona stared long and hard at Brendan O’Flaherty’s thatched cottage, and sighed. She could tell that it would be entirely unsuitable. It was authentic, but who in their right mind wanted to stay in a property that whilst quite pretty, was a crumbling relic? She knocked on the door with her bare knuckles, dislodging the flaking paint as she did so.

  The next day a rather formal letter told Brendan ‘that unfortunately Mrs. Cholmondey would be unable to represent his home unless extensive modernisation is undertaken.”

  ‘She’ll have no luck!’ Brendan vented his spleen by writing to Colm enclosing the offending letter. A month later Brendan watched a couple in a Range Rover arrive at ‘Backtoouroots’ with shot guns and thorn proof coats. They seemed to hesitate before ringing the door bell.

  The following day everyone in town was full of it. Prince Charles of England was coming to stay at ‘Backtoouroots’. All Brendan could be inclined to say was ‘Bah!’ Although when he got home he gave his opera glasses a good shine.

  A month later Brendan looked out of his window and could not believe his eyes, an army of workmen had descended upon ‘Backtoouroots’.

  When the work was finished Brendan decided to call on Fiona and take a closer look. The addition of a thatched roof, small wooden windows and white wash, made the bungalow unrecognisable. Fiona was surprised to see Brendan. There was a wonderful smell of baking wafting through the window that evoked fond memories of his late wife. Fiona was surprised to see him.

  ‘Mr O’Flaherty, do come in, sure it’s nice of you to call.’

  Fiona delighted in showing Brendan her letter from Clarence House. Brendan read about ‘Charles’ love of traditional Irish architecture’, and how he was looking forward to staying in a real Irish cottage.’ By the time Brendan had finished reading, he decided that Charles was the first Englishman he could truly like. He returned to his house with half a barm brack and a smile in his heart.

  When there was no sight of Charles, and the word in town was of trickery and the folly of Fiona trying to ‘make a sow’s ear from a silk purse’. Brendan felt a twinge of pity for Fiona whose gifts of brack and potato cakes had brought new warmth into his life.

  Brendan opened his door and found Fiona Cholmondey, resplendent in golfing slacks and cashmere jumper. He blushed and felt inclined to tell her he was busy, only he smelt the unmistakeably aroma of fruit cake and soda bread coming from the plate she was carrying.

  ‘My dear Brendan may I come in and see your delightful cottage once more?’

  3 months later

  Colm parked his car on Fiona’s drive and rang her bell. He glanced over at his grandfather old home with a twinge of nostalgia.

  Fiona came to the door and welcomed him in.

  ‘Brendan is just tucking into a plate of stew, come into the kitchen.’

  Brendan, like the bungalow had been transformed. He was cleanly shaved and his grey locks had been styled by Fiona’s Knightsbridge hairdresser who was a regular visitor. The linen shirt he was wearing brought out the colour of his eyes and the scent of his pomade and after-shave hung pleasantly about him.

  ‘Ah Colm, lovely to see you! As you can see I’ve got my feet under the table alright!’

  ‘How’s the bed and breakfast business going?’

  Fiona answered.

  ‘Well Colm, we’ve Lord Stockbank and a whole shower of them booked in over the summer.’

  ‘And they don’t mind fetching water from the well and having no electricity then?’ Colm said incredulously.

  ‘Not at all, once the word got out that Charles had been ‘up for it’, we couldn’t keep them away. And I am quite content lodging here. Fiona has to cook for them, but she’s paid handsomely for her trouble. Everyone is happy.’

  Colm smiled. ‘All’s well that ends well’ he thought. Buckingham Palace had denied all reports that Prince Charles had ever intended to stay at an Irish bed and breakfast. But as usual their denials gave it greater credence. Colm smiled as he thought that in the end new technology had been his grandfather’s saviour. Brendan and Fiona had no idea what trickery was possible with a lap top and scanner.

  THE CASH COW

  Lorraine was driving to work with her radio tuned to the Today programme; she smiled as she heard that the latest research showed that farmers who named their cows had better milk yields. Her long dead uncle would be turning in his grave.

  1963

  Lorraine watched as her mother peeled off the fivers from the bundle in her handbag and smiled. Her mother could spend it when she had it. Being the only child left at home felt so good at that moment. They went to a Berni Inn armed with their new outfits in bags and ate mixed grills and had Rhum Baba to follow, her mother drank tea, and she was allowed a Coke Cola.

  Whilst they ate, her mother ran over their schedule for the umpteenth time. Nora Boyle was so excited and was clearly relishing the thought of their trip home that year.

  ‘Mr. O’Reilly will take us to the station and we’ll get a porter to help us with our cases and then once we get to London we will get a taxi to the bus station and take the bus to Heathrow Airport. Imagine us at the airport rubbing shoulders with the stars. We will be met at Shannon Airport by your uncle with the car.’

  Looking back Lorraine realises that for her mother who’d only ever known the boat between home and England, the flight from Heathrow to Shannon must have represented a great change in fortunes. Lorraine was eight years old and the youngest of three, and to be honest the mistake of the family. Her mother had recently returned to work and for the first time in their lives money was starting to flow. It was a trickle at first, but the flow was in the right direction at last. Her father could not come with them her mother said it was because his holiday entitlement had been used up earlier in the year, when he attended his mother’s funeral. Lorraine now realised that their money would not have stretched to all three of them going away. That is how it was in those days people lived within their means.

  A week before they were due to leave the plans changed, they were going to spend the night before their trip in Hammersmith with Aunt Maureen and she would get the chance to see her cousin Bernadette again but really it also provided her mother with an ideal opportunity to show off what her improved financial circumstances were doing for her.

  Their holiday was going to be such an adventure, the last time they had been home had been three years ago Lorraine could remember little glimpses of the journey but this year she would remember every detail.

  Whilst her mother drank tea with her sister in the Hammersmith flat and boasted, Bernadette and Lorraine whispered in the dark
about boys at school and pop groups.

  The following morning dawned leaving all a little exhausted, but Mrs. Boyle had unpacked her demure self for the journey. Bernadette’s dad found them a taxi and they smiled and waved as the black cab headed for the airport. There was a moment of panic once they arrived with suitcases that needed a porter with none to be seen and with no man to help they struggled, until a nice man offered to help them. Lorraine watched as her mother turned on the charm and beamed at the man. The man was a typical English gentleman who realised that this was their first time at an airport and explained the drill.

  Nora Boyle was in ecstasy as she climbed the stairs to the plane. She pointed out the shamrocks on the Aer Lingus plane and delighted in the tiny bars of wrapped soap she found in the lavatory and the little plastic snack tray which she put in her bag to show her mother later. Lorraine thought she was far too deferent to the stewardesses, who seemed to think that they were something special. Then Lorraine was transfixed by the views from the little window and delighted in seeing the cars and houses get smaller and smaller and saw faces and animals in the clouds.

  Her mother was strangely still just before they landed, and was muttering the Rosary under her breath. Lorraine was relieved and enjoyed the brief respite from her mother’s chatter about all she could see on the plane and her half baked theories about the other passengers.

  ‘He looks shifty that one.’

  ‘Who does she think she is asking for another cup of coffee?’

  ‘Oh wait until I tell my sister Catherine about the stewardesses, proper ladies every one of them. Such an exciting job, dashing all around the world. Of course they are all qualified nurses too you know.’

  Lorraine had brought her ‘useful bag’ with her. A cloth bag made from an old curtain it contained all she would need for the hours she would spend wandering through the fields in search of adventure. It contained her new Agfamatic camera bought for her by her eldest sister (the one with the wealthy boyfriend), string and a hook for fishing, a pen and notebook, a wad of paper and card held together with rubber bands for flower pressing, a handkerchief, pair of scissors and now two small bags of nuts and a plastic cup from the plane.

  Uncle Mick was waiting for them when they got off the plane, and Lorraine remembered his small black Morris Minor car with the glued-on statue of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard and the St Christopher medals dangling from the rear view mirror they jingled when he went around bends as she tried to fathom out his impenetrable Cork accent. She was wearing a salmon pink crimplene suit which had been much admired by her cousin Bernadette in London the night before. The journey from Shannon took them through a landscape of wild green scrubby pastures full of black and white cows, rivers spanned by narrow bridges and fields criss-crossed by stone walls.

  Lorraine listened in to the conversation in the car, her mother was sounding more Irish than usual. She listened to Uncle Mick who was married to Catherine her mother’s youngest sister, speaking of who had been buried lately. Lorraine hoped they had had been dead first, as they seemed so keen on burying people in Ireland.

  The towns they passed through all resembled each other, but seemed to feature brightly painted shop signs in strange curvy writing. Lorraine could smell turf fires which re-stimulated a forgotten memory of her grandmother who wore only black clothes. Memories and questions rose in her mind

  They were completely exhausted when they arrived at her grandmother’s house. They had to drive up a path with seven gates to open. Her grandmother lived in a small house with four rooms and a small porch which was called the creamery. It housed a very strange metal device which was used to make butter. To a young child from an Essex council estate this second home, her mother’s home was like another world, as mysterious and as exotic as any part of darkest Africa or the Souks of Morocco, places which were only glimpsed at in school books. Her grandmother looked strange and when she spoke to her she saw her physically recoil and remark, ‘she’s more English than Bernadette.’ Her uncle PJ lived with her grandmother, he was unused to children she was reminded and was warned to ‘leave him be’.

  Lorraine had expected to be hugged and made a fuss of, but then no one seemed particularly delighted to see her mother either.

  Her grandmother was not like the cuddly ones seen in story books that dote on their grandchildren; Lorraine tried to get close to her and followed her around the house watching as she went about her daily chores. There was an unchanging pattern to all she did. And there were questions that Lorraine needed to know the answers to, if she was to understand and get to know her grandmother better.

  ‘What are you making Granny?’

  ‘Granny? Sure I’m Grandma.’

  ‘Sorry Grandma what are you making?’

  ‘Soda bread, haven’t you seen your mother make it?’

  Lorraine shook her head and watched her grandmother knead the bread which she baked on a flat iron in the huge fireplace.

  Her grandmother did not appreciate endless questions about her actions.

  ‘Why do you keep a bird’s wing by the fire?’

  ‘Why do you put the tea pot on a piece of burning peat?’

  ‘Why are there a brown packages hanging from the beams?’

  ‘Why don’t you have electricity?’

  ‘Where do you have a bath?’

  ‘Why don’t you wear normal clothes?’

  ‘Why do you have witches caldron’s under your drainpipes?’

  When Lorraine stopped talking her mother seemed to take over telling stories of household appliances that were transforming her life. ‘Imagine having a fridge and a television.’

  No one seemed to be that impressed, and no one seemed at all curious about their life in England. Too many miles of differences now separated Nora from her family.

  Lorraine overheard conversations, she heard her grandmother tell her mother that she was awful bold and that Bernadette would never dream of asking such things of her. Her mother snapped at grandmother and said it was what came of not getting home enough and that all English children were the same. And Lorraine began to wonder why her mother always told her when they were in England that she was Irish, but now she was in Ireland she had become English. She didn’t dwell on it too long because she knew that adults were always contradicting themselves.

  Lorraine also overheard her uncle and grandmother talking about her mother, saying how English she had become and she realised that in their eyes nothing could be worse than that.

  Bored with the lack of answers and irritated by her uncle’s obvious dislike of her mother, Lorraine decided that she would not ‘Let him be’. When her uncle returned home that night she watched him sitting by the fire listening to the radio. She could see his dog sitting outside, the dog was not allowed in the house.

  ‘Uncle PJ, why do you call your black dog Brownie?’

  He looked at her hard and long.

  Her grandmother replied. ‘Sure faithen, it’s just a dog; it has no use for a name other than to come when called.’

  ‘And what about your cows PJ what are their names?’

  Her uncle shot her a look that would curdle the milk and picked up his stick and went out.

  Her grandmother was laughing and Lorraine realised that it was the first time she had seen her laugh and that they thought she was silly.

  But Lorraine was not going to be defeated and told her grandmother about her animals at home her guinea pig called Samantha and her tortoise called Toby. Her grandmother seemed most unimpressed.

  Looking back Lorraine appreciates now that her grandmother was an Irish Victorian and definitely prescribed to the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ school of thought.

  Lorraine decided that she needed to get her uncle on her side and went out to the fields to find him. She saw his cows in the distance and set off to see them instead. They were all black and white but if you looked closely at them you could see they were all slightly different. She set about giving th
em names, the one with the longest tail she called Bessie and the slow one was Daisy. She had a job thinking of enough names for twenty cows, but she wrote them in her note book with their descriptions to show her uncle later.

  That evening after Farming News she opened her note book and read the names to him. He looked at her long and hard then somewhat quizzically, and got up without replying and went to bed.

  Lorraine dreamed of pastures and cows running to her when called by their pretty new names, Bessie, Chamomile, Buttercup and Daisy…

  The next day her uncle had already left so she went out to find him, she saw him in the distance herding the cows in for milking. He carried a stout stick which he would use to make the stragglers keep up with the others. She followed the muttering man, sneaking up on him with her camera taking his photograph as he went about his work. He was accompanied by his black dog called Brownie.

  He ignored her but as she approached him she could see something in his eye which made her mindful of her father when he was in ‘one of his moods’ and she was wary and stayed some distance from him. Then one cow seemed to resent being herded and turned around and headed back up the field, what happened next has never left her memory. Her uncle seemed to spring to life and headed after the cow screaming at it and calling it names she did not know the meaning of. The cow was stubborn and whilst the other cows continued ambling on to the milking shed this cow broke away at a pace with her uncle in pursuit. He caught up with her with surprising ease and the cow suddenly ground to a halt and turned her head to look at her uncle with a sort of resigned air of defeat. Lorraine watched with horror as he stepped back several paces and took his right leg far back and gave her an almighty kick up the backside, although he probably only kicked her five or six times it seemed to take several hours and she heard herself screaming at him to stop.

  ‘Don’t kick Daisy, she just a bit slow.’

  He ignored her and carried on until the cow had turned and headed off to the shed. Lorraine ran over to her uncle and screamed at him telling him how cruel he was and how he should treat his own animals with care, and that by kicking a cow he would not get the best out of it.