The Celtic Riddle

" 'Tis James Joyce he's quoting," Malachy said solemnly. "Ulysses.""Was that a no?" I said acidly, James Joyce or not. "How about Sean McHugh?"

Gilhooly remained silent, but I could see his jaw working, and he looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel.

"I assume your lawyer told you about Eamon Byrne's little game," I said.

"He did. Bloody nonsense. I'd have credited him with more sense. Though I suppose you can't blame a dying man."

"I'll tell you our clue if you'll tell me yours," I said.

"You mean the one about the sea-swell? My solicitor was there, remember."

"I know another one, Michael Davis's," I replied. Actually I had two, if you counted the one that was currently being painstakingly dried out in my room at the inn in hopes that something remotely legible could be found, but it didn't seem to be a good idea to give everything away at once with this bunch. "A couple of us thought it might be entertaining to try and find this thing, whatever it is."

"Entertaining, you call it? There is nothing entertaining about those people up at Second Chance, I can tell you. Nothing whatsoever." Gilhooly tossed his rags into the bucket and started to walk away.

"Are you going to sue the family for a share? Byrne suggested you might, and your solicitor was there. What's his name?"

"Dermot Shanahan. And I would be paying his legal fees how?" he asked bitterly.

I was tempted to suggest he could sell his beloved boat, but decided to be nice. "Can I buy you a beer or something?" I asked him. Maybe, I thought, his tongue would loosen and I'd learn what the bad blood between him and the Byrne family was all about. "Where I come from, girls wait to be asked!" he called over his shoulders as he left.

"I'm not asking you for a date, Padraig," I retorted to his retreating back. "Just for a drink. Sullen men with chips on their shoulders are not my cup of tea. I mean do you fight with everybody on principle, or are you just having a bad day? And by the way, I don't care what girls of your acquaintance do." And don't call me a girl, I added to myself. He ignored me and kept going.

I looked back to see the old guys on the bench laughing so hard the tears were running down their cheeks. Two of them, that is. The third, who'd not yet spoken to me, appeared to be having a long discussion with either himself or a post on the pier.

"If yer not interested in sullen young men," Malachy said finally, wiping the tears from his eyes, "how do you feel about happy old ones? Dere's tree of us," he added, dropping the "h" in "th" the way many of the people in these parts appeared to. "I don't see so good, and Kev don't hear so good, and Denny, well, as you can see, Denny's a bit special, if you know what I mean. But put us together, we're someting."

I had to laugh, too. "Come on," Malachy said. "Take a pew." He gestured toward a broken-down old chair a few feet away. "Drink?" he said, pulling a bottle of whisky and a couple of tin cups out of a little bag beside the bench.

"A little too early in the day for me," I replied. "But thank you. I'm Lara," I said, shaking their hands in turn, before risking the chair. Even Denny broke off talking to himself long enough to shyly shake my hand. Malachy, Kev, and Denny, all dressed in gray wool pants, white shirts, and black fishermen's hats: "Brothers?" I asked. Malachy and Kev nodded in unison."Kev and me's brothers. Denny's our mate. We're all named for saints, you know: me for St. Malachy, Kev for St. Kevin, and Denny for St. Denis. Paddy too, of course, for the greatest Irish saint of them all, St. Padraig. He's not so bad, our Paddy," Malachy added when he'd stopped laughing long enough to catch his breath. "Bit of a chip on his shoulder, maybe. You might be right about that." The other two agreed.

"He'd do no such ting as run you down in the water," Kev said.

"And leavin' you dere to drown," Malachy added. He set the cups on the ground in front of the bench and carefully filled them, handing one each to his brother and friend, keeping the bottle for himself. "May you find yourself in heaven before the divil knows yer dead," he said, raising the bottle in a toast, and then taking a long swig. The others did the same.

"Paddy doesn't get along too well with the people at Second Chance, does he?" I asked. If Padraig wouldn't tell me himself, maybe these three would.

"Not so well at all," Malachy agreed, "but those boyos up dere at the big house don't much get on with anybody these days. Now Eamon, he liked the young lad. Gave him the boat, didn't he?" I waited, but he added nothing more. I was wondering how far I could push this line of inquiry before they got mad at me and clammed up. I had a feeling that, as a foreigner, I would be tolerated only as long as I behaved myself.

"It's nice here, and a lovely day," I said looking about me. And it was: the sea, the boats, the rocky coast stretching out in both directions, part of it shrouded in mist.

" 'Tis, tank God," Malachy agreed.