The Ribbajack (8 page)

Roddy feels an urgent desire to be back home in the neat little cottage with his ma. He tries pushing himself upward to the surface, but the fishgirl tugs on the gaff, pulling him back down. She reaches for Roddy’s hat, which is covered with colourful flies and strapped beneath his chin. He puts out a hand to stop her. She knocks the hand away and lets out an almighty shriek of protest.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkeeeeeekkkk!”

Like a red-hot darning needle, the sound goes through Roddy’s eardrums. He opens his mouth in shock, letting the water rush in. Poor ould Roddy, I hear you say, but that is only the start of his troubles. The fishgirl shoves him flat on the riverbed and sits on him!

She pulls the hat from his head and begins unhooking the flies from its brim. Pinned beneath her, Roddy shuts his mouth tight, and bubbles stream from his nostrils. Evidently, this causes the fishmaid some grand amusement. Switching her attention from the hat, she jiggles up and down on Roddy’s stomach, shrieking with laughter at the bubbles that are streaming from her captive’s nose.

After a while, Roddy’s mouth pops open, his last remaining gasp of air bursting forth.
Burrloop!

The fishgirl loses interest in him and starts looping the coloured flies into her long tresses. They look rather weird, but pretty nevertheless.

Just then another fishy female comes on the scene. She is much bigger and older than the girl—in fact, it is her mammy. She deals the daughter a whopping blow with her powerful tail, sending her flying, or should I say floating. Grabbing Roddy in her strong webbed hands, she whooshes him straight to the surface. With a single mighty heave, she flings him high up onto the bank, as though he is no more than a wet dishcloth. The unconscious All Ireland Champion lands with a grand swishing flop, facedown, with his head hanging over the bank.

Streaking back down to the bottom, the big fishwife begins giving her daughter a good ould scolding. The young one bares her teeth, hissing and shrieking as she argues back with her mammy, the way that some fishmaids do. Now, to the layman, the entire argument might sound like a load of submarine caterwauling. But to a student of underwater jargon, the gist of the noises goes roughly like this:

“Arrah, ye daft little shrimp. What’ve I told ye about fishin’ for leggy ones? They’re nought but trouble!” says the mammy.

Then her daughter replies, “Sure, ’twas him that was tryin’ to catch me. Did ye not see all those funny little bubbles comin’ from the leggy one?”

The mother gives her another tailwhack.

“Ye destructive little sardine, have ye not got the sense of a barnacle? You’d probably like to have destroyed that leggy one. Aye, he’ll not be the same again, if he lives. Ah, well, I suppose we’ll have to be goin’ back to the ocean now. Selfish little haddock, ye’ve ruined our river holiday completely. An’ ye can get those things out of your hair, faith, ’tis tatty enough without all that nonsense!”

At this, the fishmaid gives an impertinent pout, just like one or two young madams we might know.

“It’s not fair, Mammy, sure I was havin’ a grand ould time up here in the river. I’m not wantin’ to go back to the ocean.”

The mammy isn’t about to be putting up with teenage tantrums, though, wise fishwife that she is. “If ye had the brains of an oyster, you’d know we won’t get a moment’s peace here when they find the leggy one. There’ll be leggies here in their droves by tomorrow, splashin’ about, hurlin’ rocks and probin’ ’round with great poles. They’ll muddy the water up until our gills are filthy. ’Tis always the same, so come now, move your tail, we’ve got to go.”

Well, away they go downstream, with the young fishgirl still complaining. “But Mammy, that big fat dolphin will be after me again. I can’t stand the great gobeen, forever squeakin’ and smilin’ that big stupid grin of his.”

Like all good mothers, the mammy gets the last word in. “Listen, Miss Picky-fins, ye could do a lot worse than that nice dolphin. He comes from a respectable family, an’ he’s very intelligent, too. So get along with ye before I skelp the scales from your tail!”

 

 

 

So, it is the Sunday morning of the following week that I must move on to, are ye listening? Father Carney has finished the mass, and like the saintly man he is, he goes off to visit his sick parishioners. His first call is at the neat little cottage of the Widow Mooney. The reverent man accepts a cup of tea and visits the poor woman and her son, the former All Ireland Fishing Champion. With a rug about his legs, Roddy sits in an armchair, staring out into space, his face all pinched and thin, the skin white as a corpse. He has heard and seen nothing since that fateful night, living in a sort of permanent coma.

Well, there is not much the father can do. He says a few prayers for Roddy, then blesses him before enquiring of Mrs. Mooney, “Has he not moved at all, spoken or anything?”

The widow serves the priest with a slice of soda bread spread with her very own fresh churned butter. She wipes both eyes on her apron and sniffs aloud. “Ah, sure, I’m completely distracted, Father, me son’s like the livin’ dead. Night an’ day he’s as y’see him now, alive only by the mercy of the Lord. ’Tis a sad burden for a mother to see her darlin’ son in such a miserable state.”

She straightens a lock of Roddy’s hair and wipes his nose on her apron corner. Father Carney looks away, saddened by Widow Mooney’s grief. It is then he sees the crowd of village onlookers jamming the doorway and windows to see what was going on inside. Shoving on his battered hat, he reaches for his knobbly blackthorn stick. “We must trust to the power of prayer, Mrs. Mooney. I’ll drop by again this evening, after benediction.”

Striding out, the priest confronts the crowd of gawping faces angrily. “Have ye no homes to go to? Be off with ye, now. ’Tis not a penny peepshow, there’s a grieviously sick person in there! Give the lad’s poor mother some peace, for pity’s sake!”

Mary Creeley, the village gossip, purses her lips shrewdly. “Father, is it true that Roddy Mooney’s had a spell cast on him by a water banshee?”

The good man shoots her a glare of disgust, then moves off, surrounded by curious villagers all wanting to hear what he has to say concerning the All Ireland Fishing Champion. “Wash your mouth out, woman, that’s a sinful thing to say. Who’s been filling your head with such nonsense?”

Barney Gilhooly winks at the priest and smiles slyly. “Ah, well, Father, there’s some knows what they knows, an’ there’s things not better mentioned. That’s what I always say.”

The priest halts and shakes his stick at the man. “Hold your foolish tongue, Gilhooly! Who knows what, eh? An’ who listens to the tales of snot-nosed urchins or tattlin’ ould gossips that should know better!”

The crowd stands cowed by the reverent man’s wrath. But Mary Creeley, who would have the last word with a hangman, calls out in a whining voice, “Ah, sure, nobody tells us anythin’, Father. We’re left entirely in the dark, with only the words of one witness, the child who was the last to see Roddy Mooney on that day.”

Father Carney’s stern eye seeks out little Mickey Hennessy. “Witness, indeed! Ah, ye make me sick, all of ye. Believing the ramblings of a child who’d say anything for a sweet! Listen to me now, I’ll tell you the truth as only a priest can.”

Little Mickey Hennessy ducks behind his mammy’s shawl as the good father thunders out at his errant flock. “Holy Mother Church forbids belief in all pagan superstitions! If you attended your services more often, you’d all know that. Hah, standin’ outside of Gilligan’s pub, tellin’ fairy stories, ye should be ashamed of yourselves as grown men an’ women! Water banshees, is it? Leprechauns, boggarts, sprites, willow the wisps, phantom coaches an’ pots of gold at the rainbow’s end. Do ye not know that folk with a bit of sense an’ education laugh at such things?”

Father Carney strides off in disgust, leaving the chastened villagers gazing at the ground in silence.

But that ould Mary Creeley, she is like a dog with a bone, she will not leave it alone. She wails out piteously at the saintly man, “ ’Tis yourself that’s right, Father, sure, we’re knowin’ nothin’. Simple ignorant folk is what we are. I’d say it’s your duty as our holy priest to tell us, what really happened to poor Roddy Mooney?”

Holding back his irritation with remarkable fortitude, Father Carney gives his explanation of the affair. “Have ye not got the sense the good Lord gave ye? Your man was out fishin’, an’ he fell into the river. Somehow or other, he was trapped underwater, by the weeds, or mud, or even some waterlogged branches. Poor Roddy was so long tryin’ to free himself that his brain was affected by the loss of breath an’ all that water he swallowed. But by the mercy of Heaven he lived through it all. Though his brain was addled, an’ he’s not the grand feller we once knew, an’ that’s why Roddy Mooney’s the way you see him now. Let that be the last word on it. An All Ireland Champion Fisherman he might’ve been, but an All Ireland Champion Underwater Escape Artist he was not!”

 

 

 

So there you have it, the terrible tale of poor ould Roddy Mooney. It happened almost sixty-five years ago. Now, whose explanation are you to believe, that of a priest or a ten-year-old boy, little Mickey Hennessy? As for meself, I believe the lad, and I’ll tell you why.

Every midsummer since, at the night of the full moon, the boy has gone down to the very spot on the riverbank where Roddy was taken. Aye, all those years, an’ he still goes there. Listen, I’ll not be telling anyone but yourself this, for fear of being laughed at. Mickey still sees the Nye Add lady return, to look for Roddy Mooney. Of course, being the wise man he is, Mickey keeps well away from the river’s edge. But over all that time he has learned to understand the creature’s language, though he cannot speak it, because Mickey’s no great shrieker. The fishwoman told him that she’s neither water banshee nor Nye Add, she’s called a Kelpie. I think that she fell in love with Roddy, because she returns there every midsummer, hoping some moonlit night to see him. Ah, she’s a sad ould thing now.

Well, I’ve told you the tale now, so I’ll go on me way an’ bid ye good day. But it’s a true story, an’ if I’ve told you a lie, then I’m not seventy-five years old next birthday, and my name’s not little Mickey Hennessy.

THEY SAY THAT BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP,
it’s a fact that’s very well known.
So, answer me this question—
how deep is the beauty in stone?
And whilst we’re at this little game,
pray tell me please, what’s in a name?

 

Girls admired Jason Hunter, boys envied him, and not unusually, Jason loved himself. He was a tall, handsome boy with thick blond hair, golden tanned skin, teeth like pearls and heavy-lidded hazel eyes.

Jason was not overly intelligent at school subjects. However, he was adept at most sports, and excellent at running. He was the best sprinter in the school for many terms. As every student knows, this excused him a multitude of faults.

Jason possessed a languid manner and a sarcastic wit. Most folk went out of their way to please him. His group of peers laughed readily at his jokes, and were unanimous in their condemnation of any thing or person that displeased him. Even teachers were wary of offending him, since it was a sure way to make themselves unpopular with the students in school.

Have you got the picture now?

Right. Jason Hunter was the perfect teenage bully!

It was the Friday morning at the start of summer term heralding the Inter Schools Running Finals on the following Saturday morning. Jason was certain to win the one-hundred-metres sprint. The place in the school trophy cabinet was already reserved for the cup he would bring back. This would be added to the three cups he had gained in previous terms, all engraved with his name. The quick glory of the one-hundred metres was more suited to Jason’s temperament than the two- or four-hundred-metres. Nobody dared to mention that it was because he lacked the stamina, or determination, to try for the longer events.

Jason sat on the main school entrance steps, surrounded by his followers. He watched everybody coming to school, amusing his group by singling out certain unfortunates as the target for his caustic comments. “Hi, Tommy, who cut your hair? Tell us who did it, and we’ll go along to his shop and beat him up for you.”

The crimson-faced victim of Jason’s acerbic wit hurried into school, followed by howls of laughter. Jason picked on a fat girl next, she made an easy mark.

“I love the colour of that skirt, Betty.”

She smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

Jason remarked aloud to his cronies, “I used to have a tent that colour, wonder where it went. Don’t suppose she’d lend me it to go camping, do you?”

They followed one after another, each having to run the gauntlet of Jason’s remarks.

“Morning, Ella, I see you got your new braces. That’s funny, has anyone noticed the old railings round the bus stop are missing? Come on, Ella, give us a smile. No, on second thought, keep your mouth shut. The cops might be looking for those railings. Don’t cry, we won’t tell them.”

That was the day the new girl arrived. She stood out from all the rest as she approached the steps. She was very tall and had long dark hair, which hung down almost to her waist. Her face was pale, her eyes a bleak grey. She wore a simple black outfit of sweater and jeans. Moving with a catlike grace, she came closer, oblivious as to what was in store for her.

Mal Blake, one of Jason’s close confidantes, rubbed his hands gleefully. “Look what’s coming this way, must be a new girl!”

Running a comb through his hair, Jason rose casually. “Leave this to me, I like them new and dumb.”

As she reached the bottom step, he stood blocking her way. Jason smiled lazily at the girl, who was standing on the step below him. He uttered a single greeting. “Morning.”

Their eyes met. She replied dismissively, “So clever of you to have noticed.”