Excerpt
She turned away abruptly and walked into the crowded dining room. But Finn followed her. When she sat down on a chair he confronted her from the far corner, as if accusing her of something.
Don’t look at me like that, Finn. Mother Ross tried but could not keep her eyes away for long from the brooding apparition that glowered at her from across the room.
The spectre filled Mother Ross’s heart with fear for the future. She scarcely heard the people who spoke to her: the polite people who made the predictable remarks about how happy she must be, how proud she must be. She had been happy once; she had been proud once; but not now. She had been happy when Finn MacLir was alive. She had been proud because he loved her and cared for her and respected her. He, Finn MacLir, had done all that for her, the former Sinead O’Neill, for so many years. Now he was dead, and his ghost had begun to haunt her, to make her frightened and miserable. A tear slid from each eye, and she wiped them away with her sleeve.
“Go on, Mother Ross, cry if you like. I think you’ve a right to today.” Una Slattery paused by her chair and offered her a piece of cake.
“No thanks, Una. I’ve had plenty.”
In the hall a trio of fiddlers started to play, and couples formed themselves into sets down the length of the hall and in the sitting room where the sofas and armchairs had again been moved around the walls. “The Sweets of May,” someone shouted. “Let her rip, lads.”
Mother Ross turned in her chair. Through the doorway she could see Nora and Flynn, Caitlin and Michael sharing a set with two other couples. They laughed as they stepped and swung and slapped their hands and knees. Caitlin and Nora had changed out of the dresses they wore at the wedding; Michael and Flynn had taken off their suit jackets and undid their ties; all four were laughing happily.
The fiddlers’ music soared above the shouts and laughter from the dancers in their sets and from the merry groups of watchers who tapped their feet and clapped their hands in time with the rhythms of the reels and jigs. Loud voices called for more. “The Walls of Limerick.” “The Siege of Ennis.” “The High Caul Cap.”
“Oh Jesus, but I’m breathless,” Sweeney puffed as he staggered across the dining room to where Mother Ross was sitting. “Here, Jinnie, up on your pins. We’ll call for a nice slow Pride of Erin and show these young folk how to dance.”
Libros Libertad 