Walk the Blue Fields: Stories

by Claire Keegan

The stronger the wind, the stronger the tree.

‘Aisy!’ says Brennan with a frown. ‘There’s a man of the cloth here.’ ‘Aye,’ says Sinnott with a grunt. ‘And we all know the white cloth is aisy stained.’

Why is tenderness so much more disabling than injury?

She said self-knowledge lay at the far side of speech. The purpose of conversation was to find out what, to some extent, you already knew. She believed that in every conversation, an invisible bowl existed. Talk was the art of placing decent words into the bowl and taking others out. In a loving conversation, you discovered yourself in the kindest possible way, and at the end the bowl was, once again, empty. She

Judge is glad he cannot speak. He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever improve their lives. Their words make them sad. Why can’t they stop talking and embrace each other?

She has a way about her that is sometimes frightening. She looks at her feet and concentrates. Before she can begin she must find the scent; every story has its own, particular scent. She settles on the roses.

When she got to Ennistymon, the mad man on the bridge signalled her to stop. ‘There’s ostriches on the road!’ he cried. ‘Slow down!’ She was glad there were crazy people in the world. She watched him, wondering if she wasn’t herself a bit mad. When she rounded the corner, ostriches were walking down the main street. People were standing on the footpaths watching them go past and a young girl with plaited hair was driving them along with a stick. So, being mad was the same as having your wits about you, Margaret thought. Sometimes everybody was right. For most of the time people crazy or sober were stumbling in the dark, reaching with outstretched hands for something they didn’t even know they wanted.

He could feel the grief of Margaret Flusk. Her grief was beyond comparison. And her strength; Margaret had the strength of two men. Weren’t her legs and arms the same as in his dream? He stood there and heard the plaster loosen, then the stones.

‘Do you know nothing?’ she said. ‘No.’ ‘Neither do I.’ ‘Aren’t we blessed?’