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Authors: Mary Carter

BOOK: The Pub Across the Pond
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“Now look what you've done,” Sally said. Carlene didn't know if she was talking to her or Miss Tiara. The women all gathered around the bride-to-be.
“Your marriage isn't going to be like that,” Jane yelled down at Roisin. “Martin's a nice fella. He's quiet and likes to stay at home.”
Roisin lifted her head. “I know,” she said. “That's the fucking problem.”
“What do you mean?” Jane said.
“He's boring,” Roisin said. “I'm going to die of boredom.” At once the women began assuring her that Gary was not boring.
“For fuck's sake,” Roisin said. “He's having his bachelor party in the Aran Islands.”
“The islands are lovely,” Jane said.
“That is a bit odd,” Sally said. “Do they have strippers on the Aran Islands?”
“Yes,” Roisin said. “They're called sheep.” At first there was stunned silence, then the girls all broke into howling laughter.
“Ciaran could stand to be a little more like Gary,” Jane said. “After his bachelor party he came home with a thong between his teeth. I didn't speak to him until the wedding day.”
“Come on, Jane,” Roisin said. “At least you can't say Ciaran's boring.” Ciaran, Carlene thought. Jane was married to Ciaran? Her Ciaran? This was the woman who liked the vampire books? For some reason Carlene never pictured Ciaran having a wife that hot. It did make her wonder why he was in the bar all the time if he had someone like her at home. Jane stumbled up to Carlene, and for a second Carlene wondered if she had just blurted her thoughts out loud.
“What does Ciaran do here all night?” Jane said. “What does he say? Who does he talk to?” What she really wanted to know was, “Why isn't he with me?” and that was one question Carlene couldn't answer.
“Hey,” Sally said. “Bartenders are like priests. No talking out of school.”
“This hen night sucks,” Roisin said. “It's been about as useful as a chocolate willy.” She stumbled over to Sally, grabbed her veil back, and put it on. Then she grabbed the bottle of Jägermeister out of Sally's hand and stumbled down the hall. The rest of the girls followed. Carlene stayed in the bar to clean up. But even from the distance she could hear them singing, and laughing, and shouting, and eventually vomiting into the bog.
C
HAPTER
23
Down the Hatch
Carlene wanted to fully explore the backyard before winter hit. It was nearing the end of October, and the mild fall weather was starting to develop a bitter bite. She had purchased a new pair of wellies, ones that fit tighter this time, and she began tentatively exploring the backyard foot by foot. On many of these sunrise expeditions, the kitten would join her. One morning, Carlene was picking a few wildflowers for a jar for the back porch. The kitten bounded up to her, rubbed against her leg, then shot off again. Carlene watched the kitten trip across the yard. One minute it was there, and the next it dropped out of sight, seemingly vanished into thin air. Carlene's heart dropped. She ran to the spot where the kitten disappeared, a clawing panic gripping her chest. She fully expected to dig the kitten out of the muck, lifeless and stiff.
She should have named her, Carlene thought as she ran. Why didn't she name her? And why was she letting a kitten run around a bog in the first place? She'd tried to leave the cat inside, but the little furball wouldn't have it. She'd morph into a devilish creature, yowling and scratching at the screen door, insisting she be let out. Sometimes the kitten squeezed her tiny body through cracks in the porch and slipped out on her own. Live and let live, Carlene finally decided. It seemed to be the Irish way. When Carlene reached the spot where she had last seen the kitten, she looked down and saw a small hole in the ground.
Carlene dropped to her hands and knees and examined the opening. She was terrified to stick her hand inside, but she could hear the kitten's pitiful meows coming from within. No matter what, she wasn't going to call Ronan. He hadn't come around lately, and calling him to rescue her kitten was taking things a bit too far. Besides, wasn't she the one who lectured Sally on not chasing men? Was it time she faced the fact that Ronan just wasn't that into her?
Carlene picked at the grass on either side of the hole, hoping to make it a little larger. She wanted to at least be able to peer into it before sticking her hand into the abyss. Thank goodness for Saint Patrick, she thought. At least this couldn't be a snake hole. To her surprise, pulling the grass around the hole revealed planks of wood, as if some kind of crate had been smashed on the ground and abandoned. Carlene tore at the grass. Suddenly, she was staring at what appeared to be a small door, or a hatch. The middle of the door had caved in, creating the opening the kitten fell through. Carlene grabbed the remains of the door with both hands and pulled.
It swung open quite easily, revealing a deep hole beneath it. It was big enough for Carlene to jump into. The kitten's meows grew louder.
“Hey, kitty,” Carlene said. “I'm here.” Carlene wished she had a flashlight. She didn't want to leave the kitten for a second, but it was too dark to see inside. She wasn't going to go in blind. “One second, kitty,” Carlene said. She quickly closed the door. There was no one around, but she still had this feeling—this rush of adrenaline that came with discovering a secret trapdoor. She ran like a child to the shed where she'd stored all the tools she purchased from Sally's hardware shop. A flashlight was one of her purchases, and as she ran she mentally patted herself on the back for thinking of it.
She opened the shed, grabbed the flashlight, and turned it on. It worked! Luckily, she'd thought of batteries too. She ran back to the secret door, dropped to her knees, and opened it again. At first she shone the light over the hole so that she wouldn't blind the poor little kitty with direct light. The kitten hadn't moved. He was crouched at the bottom, which appeared to be about ten feet down.
Not a bad drop. Still, she needed something, maybe a chair or ladder to put down the hole. Even with such a short jump, she could sprain her ankle if she wasn't careful. Especially since, from the looks of it, the floor of this hole was covered with stones. In fact, it looked almost as if the stones had been deliberately built into the floor. Carlene shut the door again and ran back to the pub. If anyone was watching her run back and forth, they would have thought she was some kind of nutter doing morning sprinting exercises. Not that she would care. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so giddy. She felt like Christopher Columbus about to discover the New World. She grabbed one of the wooden chairs from the back porch, returned to the trapdoor, and opened it for the third time. She lowered the chair as far as she could and then let it drop. To her relief, the chair stayed upright and she didn't hit the kitten. In fact, the kitten remained curled up on the floor, watching Carlene's every move. Her cries had stopped; now she seemed merely curious.
Should she go back for her cell phone in case something went wrong? Before she could talk herself out it, Carlene lowered herself into the hole. She landed harder than she expected, but other than a shock to her ankles, she was okay. She scooped up the kitten and examined her. She gently touched her paws and the rest of her tiny body. She was completely fine, just shaking, and her little heart was pounding louder than Carlene's. She set the kitten on the chair and turned on the flashlight.
She only had about a foot of space in which to stand upright. The hole did seem to continue, but it wasn't until she got down on her hands and knees that she could see there was an actual tunnel burrowed into the ground. The floor of the tunnel was made of stone, the walls were simply dirt, and the roof consisted of crisscrossing wood beams. Whatever this was, it was man-made, unless beavers in Ireland had rapidly advanced their skill sets. Did Ireland even have beavers? Carlene hadn't a clue.
It was a very narrow passageway, and when she shone the light down it, she couldn't see to the end. The eternal question remained—was there a light at the end of the tunnel?
If she started to crawl into it, how long would it last? What was on the other side? If she panicked, was there enough room to turn around, or would she be forced to crawl backward? What if she started crawling through and the roof caved in? She could suffocate to death without anyone ever finding her body.
And what if someone was hiding in there somewhere? It would be all fine and grand to make it through the passage, unless waiting at the other end was a vagrant with a meat cleaver. She couldn't do this now. She was going to have to think this through. Who else knew about this? Should she tell someone? Ronan?
Maybe she should run next door and get Joe. He would probably laugh at her excitement, tell her it was an old—what? What was this thing? Ireland didn't have basements. And it couldn't be called a cave, this was definitely man-made. Was this the beginning of a trench someone had dug to drain the water from the bog? But it wasn't a trench; it was a tunnel, a passage. What if it was some kind of monument from the Stone Age, or some druid temple? The kitten mewed, a pitiful sound designed to pity her into getting her the heck out of this hole. “All right, Columbus,” she said. “We're going.” Columbus, the discoverer; Columbus, the capital of Ohio; Columbus, her kitten. It was set, she had a name. And she had a secret passage just waiting for her to grow brave enough to explore.
 
After her third full hour of obsessing, it dawned on Carlene that maybe she could learn something about her property at the Ballybeog Museum. She stood in front of the museum door and said a silent prayer before entering. Her positive thinking must have worked—the door swung wide open. She paused in the entry. “Hello?” She heard the ticking of a clock, the squeak of floorboards. It smelled musty and somewhat lemony. She stepped in. It was a one-room museum, two hundred square feet of memorabilia. Carlene felt as if she were standing in her grandmother's attic. She was alone in a space cramped with objects she could actually pick up and touch, if she so dared. This was what museums should be, not standing in line with a hundred seventh graders to look at something behind six-inch Plexiglas. Most museums left Carlene feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, and totally useless because she knew all the facts, names, and dates she had just jammed into her brain would disappear the minute she stepped into sunlight. But here, she could breathe; here, she might even be able to remember.
Carlene stood irresolute, unsure what do first. Commandeering the center of the room, and the only thing under glass, was a model of the town. On the walls were photographs, mostly black and white, of Ballybeog throughout the years: IRA soldiers, businessmen, schoolchildren, and families. Shelves ran the circumference of the room, littered with artifacts: coins; bomb casings; keys to who-knew-what (keys to the castle?); old liquor bottles untouched, the alcohol coagulating inside the dusty bottles; medallions; small, defective toys, such as a china doll with long blond hair but only one blue eye.
The room also contained a small desk. Shoved in the farthest right corner, it was cluttered with books and papers, and a chair. On the chair sat a purse. Someone was around and would be back any second. They were the trusting sort, either that or they were convinced no one would come in while they were gone. It must be nice to live in a place where you felt free to leave your purse open on the chair. Carlene was disappointed. Being alone in here made her feel like she was trespassing, and she was hoping to find someone around to tell her if they knew anything about underground structures in Ireland. She had to be careful; she didn't want anyone to know she'd found one on her property. It was her delicious secret for now.
Unfortunately, the folks in Ballybeog seemed to have an insatiable curiosity for every move she made. She would have to proceed carefully with the chitchat, or “chin-wagging,” as Riley called it. She stepped over to the model of the town and read the placard. BALLYBEOG, 1592. She loved the miniature replica of the walled town, showing all four original “gates” or entrances. A brochure next to the model provided the basic information she already knew: The town was invaded by the Normans, the Vikings, Cromwell, and the Black and Tans. And like the twins had informed her that day in the abbey, French priests. They truly had survived it all. Carlene was thrilled there was still so much of the medieval town intact.
The castle still stood in the center of the town, along with the remains of the abbey, and the still-standing Bally Gate. The model showed that in the original town square there was a church with a large Celtic cross. The original church must have been destroyed, for Saint Bridget's was now on the outskirts of town. Carlene had visited the church on several of her explorative walks. It was a gorgeous place of worship with a soaring steeple, exquisite stained glass, and a cemetery in the back with a mixture of new and old graves.
For some reason, Carlene assumed she would find only ancient graves, as if in her mind nobody in this sweet little town was still dying, still being buried. The new graves saddened her, the older ones fascinated her. Carlene turned her attention back to the church shown in the model. According to the brochure, the town square was where residents used to gather to buy butter, hay, and potatoes, as well as catch up with the news and gossip of the town. Carlene peered down at the model. Sure enough, down a small alley just off the center of town was a public house, Ballybeog's first pub. Carlene wished she could go back in time, walk into that pub.
Carlene moved away from the model and turned toward the door. A mannequin stood in the farthest corner of the room. It was terribly thin, even for a mannequin, and dressed in rags. It must represent a famine victim, Carlene thought. Ballybeog had a gorgeous public park dedicated to the victims of the famine. It was memorialized with a stone monument, underneath which was a mass grave. Carlene stared at the mannequin as she made her way out. It gave her the creeps, and little pinpricks of fear sprang up and down her arms. As she passed, the mannequin moved its eyes. Carlene screamed.
“I frightened ye, did I?” It was the palest, skinniest woman Carlene had ever seen. She had caved-in cheeks and dark hair peppered with gray, and a brown dress that hung on her body as if it were draped over a mop. Carlene couldn't answer—she was still trying to catch her breath, her heart was still in her chest. The woman had almost given her a heart attack.
“You certainly did,” Carlene said. “I thought you were a mannequin.” She shouldn't have said that. It just popped out of her mouth. Although it was better than what she'd been really thinking—
I thought you were a famine victim.
The woman looked almost pleased for having scared Carlene to death. “I just mean, you're so still, and thin—which isn't a bad thing—in America everyone wants to be thin, which is ironic, I know, since you think we're all so fat. We are. A lot of us are. But we have anorexics too and they're very popular. I'm not saying you're anorexic, I'm just saying you would be very popular in America. Do you know Calista Flockhart? Never mind. She's very, very skinny and she's married to Harrison Ford, so there you go. You know?
Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Sexy, absentminded professor cum swashbuckling tomb raider? Speaking of tombs,” Carlene stepped forward, “I'm doing a little research project on underground passages. Do you have any information on that sort of thing?”
Now that she was closer, Carlene noticed a bruise on the woman's face. It was faded, but there was a thin green line sunk into the skin below her right eye, casting a haunted shadow on that side of her face.
“There is an audio presentation that accompanies the model of the town,” the woman said. “Would you like to hear it?” Carlene so did not want to hear it. She wanted out of this room. She wanted out in the fresh air, she wanted to breathe without this woman staring at her, she wanted to run to Nancy's and buy this woman a dozen doughnuts.

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