Walk the Blue Fields Read Online Free PDF

a milky fog in the orchard the night she came up to the house. It was All Soul’s, and he was alone in the parlour with the fire blazing. Earlier that day he’d given last rites to a young man at the hospital, then he’d driven back to say evening Mass. It was one of those nights when he felt the impossibility of being alone. He was thinking of the young man, of how he himself was still young. The clock on the mantelpiece was loud. He threw more coal on the fire and paced the floor. She came to get a Mass card signed, for her mother. He asked her to come in, to sit with him. She had stayed, he felt, so as not to offend him. He never meant to touch her but when she stared into the fire, the priest looked at the white line on her scalp where the dark red hair was parted. He’d reached out simply to feel the heat of the fire on her hair. That was all he had meant to do but she had misunderstood the gesture and reached out to clasp his wrist.
    Always, they met in out-of-the-way places: on the rough strand at Cahore or Blackwater, in the woods beyond the common paths of Avondale. Once, they ran into Miss Dunne on the strand. She was walking towards them and it was too late to turn away but just as they were about to meet, she turned towards the sea. She had not on that day nor ever since given any hint that she had seen them.
    The seasons passed and winter came again. They got away, travelled north to The Silent Valley and stayed in a little guest-house near Newry town. That night, over dinner , she caressed the stem of her glass and told him she couldn’t stand it any longer. If he could not leave thepriesthood, she would not see him this way again. They had gone to a heritage park the next morning on the way home, walked backwards through the ages, from Viking yard and house through the crannógs, and wound up at a Neolithic tomb. There, they had stood at the edge of an artificial lake where a crude, wooden boat was half submerged . The water’s surface was thick with dandelion seed. Acold breeze hissed through the reeds but they were silent, locked in the knowledge that nothing again would ever be the same.
    Now, she is married. Tonight, Jackson will lead her to a room and take her dress off. The priest can still see the brother’s cock, the size of it, how he couldn’t get it back into his trousers. He leans over the bank of the river, pulls the heads off a few tall weeds. He should go back to town, get into his bed, but he is unwilling to let the day end. Instead, he walks in the opposite direction, crossing the stiles between the fields. The land changes from coarse stubble ground to bright shoots of wheat. Such a dry winter as they had. Further on, there’s smooth pasture and, all about him, sheep are grazing. So, this is Redmond’s land. He looks up towards the road, sees the roof of the big hayshed. Beside it, sheltered, with blades of light around the blinds, stands a caravan.
    As soon as he sees it, he tells himself he did not come down here for this. The last thing he wants is company but his feet seem, of their own accord, to take him through the pasture. In a sheltered place, beyond currant bushes, a patch of ground is neatly fenced with wooden posts and sheep wire. Drills are set in neat rows, fresh clay on a rake. When he pushes the plain timber gate, it squeals. The priest stands there in the garden for a while, listening. He hears nothing from inside and, feeling confident thatnobody is home, knocks on the door. As soon as he knocks, he turns to leave but the door opens and a Chinaman, wearing flip-flops and a loose track-suit is standing there.
    ‘Yes,’ he smiles. ‘Come.’
    The priest backs away. ‘Good evening.’
    ‘Yes,’ says the Chinaman.
    He should not have come but it would be an insult now not to enter the man’s home. Inside, the caravan is shining: a polished floor, a mattress with a stiff, white quilt. There’s the pungent smell of boiled tea, steam from a kettle. A bright light is