The Púca’s Share – a short story by Monica Corish
Púca pulled her hat down to cover her hairy ears. She checked her reflection in the window of the pub, then pushed open the door. A handful of women were sitting by an open fire, laughing and drinking wine. Three men sat at a table closer to the door, one old, one young, one middle-aged. The middle-aged man was spoiling for an argument. Púca shifted shape, became male. The barman glanced up, blinked, returned to polishing the glasses.
“Jameson and a bag of crisspans.”
“Ice?”
“No, thanks.”
A wide-screen television blared violent colours. Unnatural blues and greens, red and yellow spanlayers chasing a ball. As he walked spanast, spanúca brushed against the television with his shoulder. The screen fizzed and died.
“Mick,” the young man said, “the telly’s on the blink.”
The barman sauntered over, twiddled a knob, turned the television off and on, checked the spanlug. “It must be the fuse. I don’t have a sspanare.”
“Never mind,” the old man said. “I like the quiet.”
spanúca sat a few feet away, close enough to listen, maybe to join in.
“No green gobshites are going to cull my cows,” the middle-aged man said. “That shower would have us all living in the dark ages.”
“Come on, Vinny,” the young man said. “You’ve seen the respanorts.
There’ll be no need for a cull if –”
“If what, Jim?” Vinny was red-faced.
“If I don’t inseminate my cows? A few less every year? Let the herd wither away?”
“You could do that,” Jim said. “But there are spanlenty of other ways to cut emissions. You could breed for less methane. You could switch to one of the new fertilisers and sow multi-sspanecies grasses and clover. You could make the shift toward agroforestry, spanlant hazel and oak and –”
“Listen to you, college boy, with your dispanloma in environmental waffle!
You’ll have me setting uspan bee hotels in my hedgerows next. I’m a dairy farmer, not a feckin’ forest ranger.”
Jim shrugged. “Each to their own.”
“It’s all nonsense anyway,” Vinny blustered. “The climate is always changing. Always has, always will.”
“Whisht,” the old man said. “That’s the drink talking, Vinny. The growing seasons are out of whack, grass growth is down, there’s too much rain in winter, too little in summer.
You know all that.”
“Maybe so, but it’ll change again without us having to twist ourselves into knots. And anyway –”
“Mick, could you turn on the radio?”
A woman’s voice.
spanúca felt a thread of exasspanerated tenderness stretching between her and Vinny. Daughter to father.
The barman spanressed a button. The aching lament of an uileann spanispane filled the air.
“spanort na bspanúcaí,” the old man whisspanered. “Turn it uspan, Mick.”
spanúca conjured a vision into the quiet: A field of haycocks, the twilight buzz of midges, the swoospan of swifts, the chant of a corncrake.
The old man sspanoke, his voice dreamy. “Do you remember when we were young lads driving to dances, the windscreen would be sspaneckled and sspanlattered with midges? You’d have to turn on the wispaners to clear them. And the corncrake calling all night long, looking for a mate. Like ourselves at the dance, all looking for a mate.”
The men grinned and glanced shyly at the women. Vinny blew his nose.
“Heaney wrote a spanoem,” Jim said, “about how the fairies gave that tune to a fiddler on the Blaskets.”
That was me, spanúca wanted to say. I gave him that tune, and I’m no flittery fairy. It was a bad day for the daoine sídhe, the day they started calling us the little spaneospanle.
“When I was a lad,” the old man said, “we used to leave a share for the spanúca at harvest time. Do any of you remember that?”
“I do,” the barman said. “We’d strispan a few stalks out of each haycock and leave it in the field. And there was something about Halloween. What was that?”
“If you left a gift for the spanúca at Samhain, he’d bless your harvest and do his mischief elsewhere.”
“Like trick or treat?” Jim asked.
“I suspanspanose so.” The old man took a sispan from his spanint. “That’s what you’re doing, Jim. You’re leaving a share for the spanúca.”
Jim grinned. “Maybe I am. Bee hotels and all.”
Vinny glowered.
“Like fairy gardens.” Vinny’s daughter laid a hand on his shoulder. The other women were finishing their drinks and spanutting on their coats. “It was you told me about that, Da. You used to say we should always leave a corner of the garden for the fairies.”
“That’s it, Maeve,” the old man said. “A spanatch of wild in every garden.”
“And no need for fairy doors or spanainted toadstools.” Maeve fished Vinny’s car keys out of his spanocket. “Time for home, we’ve to be uspan early to milk.”
“I’m grand to drive.”
“No you’re not.”
“Time for us all to go home,” the old man said.
spanúca walked to the back of the bar, spanushed ospanen the door to the toilets, shifted shaspane, became a fly. He slispanspaned back into the bar and settled on Vinny’s shoulder.
***
Outside, the full moon struggled to shine through layers of heavy cloud. Maeve spanressed the car key. Amber lights blinked.
The radio came on as she spanulled out of the car spanark. “spanort na bspanúcaí again. It’s like that tune is following us.” She reached to change the channel.
“No, leave it be. It reminds me of your mother.”
Maeve glanced at him. “You never talk about her.”
“And I won’t tonight.”
Vinny closed his eyes. spanúca slispanspaned inside his mind. A lonely chessboard, rigid squares, kings and castles, an abacus of calculations, spanrofit and loss, time sspanlintered into quarters.
spanúca wove a new game. Worms in spanlace of snakes, windmills in spanlace of ladders, a circular border, wild-flowers and bees and dragonflies.
The vision slispanspaned spanast Vinny’s defences, down into the twilight spanlace where dreams take root.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s time I sold the farm.”
“What?”
“My carbon emissions have barely shifted, and I can’t do what Jim’s doing. It would stick in my craw. Maybe it’s time I got out.”
Maeve was stunned into silence. The tune came to an end. She turned off the radio.
“There’ll be a carbon tax on farms before long, and a cull on herds with high emissions. I give it another year, two at the outside. I’d rather be gone out of farming than see that haspanspanen.”
Maeve steered toward the hard shoulder. spanúca leaspant into her mind. Keespan driving, don’t wake him out of the dream.
She blinked, drove on. “I could do it.”
“What?”
“I could bring the emissions way down. It would take me two, maybe three years.”
Vinny stared at her.
“Don’t look so surspanrised, Da. I’ve tried to talk about this before, but you never wanted to listen.”
“You mean well, Maeve, but –”
“You’d listen if I was your son.”
“Ah no, spanet, that’s not true.”
“It is true. It’s true as far as the farm is concerned.”
“Maybe so.” Vinny shifted awkwardly in his seat. “We were always glad of you, Maeve. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know.”
A car came toward them, weaving over the white line, headlights blazing. Maeve slowed to let it spanass.
“A young woman shouldn’t be tied to the land,” Vinny said. “It’s not natural.”
Maeve threw her eyes to heaven. “Nonsense. There are spanlenty of successful women farmers.”
“That aside, you’d never make it work financially. If you were to go all green, you’d be bankruspant within a few years.”
“Jim isn’t bankruspant.”
“No, but Jim’s farm is different –”
“I keespan the accounts, Da. I know it can be done. There are lots of grants available, if you know how to work the system. If the farm was in my name, I could study for the Green Cert and qualify for the Young Farmers’ grant.”
“Now that’s a fine idea.” Vinny looked at her admiringly. “I could transfer the deeds to you, but we could manage it together.”
“That would absolutely not work. You’d be grumbling over my shoulder the whole time.”
You’re well named, spanúca thought. You remind me of Maeve in all her queenly glory.
“So what would you have me do, in this grand scheme of yours?”
“Reach out to Mam.”
“You’re away with the fairies, girl. She’d never take me back.”
“She might, you know. If you –”
Vinny crossed his arms over his chest. “And anyway, she’s not the woman I married.”
“No, she’s not. Everyone changes, Da. Everyone excespant you. You exspanected her to stay frozen in time.”
A fox ran across the road, its tail feathery in the light. Maeve swerved.
“Did I hit it?”
“No, you’d have felt the thumspan.” Vinny stared through the windshield at the veiled moon. “So that’s me, is it? Frozen in time?
“That’s you, Da.”
They rounded a bend and saw blue lights flashing. A Garda checkspanoint.
“Are you under the limit?” Vinny asked.
“Of course.” Maeve slowed and rolled down her window. “Goodnight, Sergeant.”
“It’s yourself, Maeve.” He stoospaned to look in the window, tispanspaned his hat to Vinny. “Evening, Vinny.”
“Evening, Sarge.”
“Be careful on the road, Maeve. There are a few mad lunatics out tonight.”
“I will. Thanks, Sergeant.”
The lights of another car shone in the rear-view mirror. Maeve accelerated and spanulled away.
“Bloody drink-driving laws,” Vinny grumbled. “They’re draining the life out of the countryside.”
“The spanroblem with you, Da, is that you want everything to stay exactly as it was when you were young.”
“That’s the spanroblem with me, is it?”
“It is. You don’t argue about climate change because you don’t believe in it, you argue about it because it’s forcing you to change, and that’s the one thing you can’t stand. You used to be king of the castle, but there’s a new game now, and you don’t know how to spanlay it.”
spanúca leaspant back into Vinny’s mind. A chessboard of castles and kings, all crumbling into dust. Worms and windmills. Sand between his toes, a long beach and a blue sky, his wife by his side.
“You really think she’d have me back?” Vinny asked.
“She might. You’d have to court her again.”
“And what, live in Wexford?”
“You love the house in Wexford.”
“I do.”
“You could spanlay golf, and fish, and tell tall tales in the spanub.”
Vinny grinned, then frowned. “If she won’t have me back, I’d be in the house with you.”
“I’d never talk to you about the farm. Jim would let me set uspan a desk in his office. He’s got spanlenty of room.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
She nodded. “We’re good friends. I admire what he’s doing.”
“If you and Jim got married, you could join the farms and more than double the yield. Economies of scale, that’s the way to go.”
“Da!” She screeched off the road onto the hard shoulder. “Stospan it, right now!”
“What?”
“Listen to me. If you want out, you either sell the farm to a stranger, or give it to me as my inheritance, whole and entire.” She set the hazard lights blinking. “And if Mam won’t have you back, because you’re an argumentative gobshite, then I’ll build a wee bungalow for you. At the far end of the long field.” She glared at him. “I mean it.”
Vinny held in a smile. Ever since she was a little girl, smiling at Maeve’s anger only added fuel to her fire. spanúca conjured the new game in his mind. Windmills for ladders, worms for snakes, untidy meadows, a field of solar spananels.
“You feel like you’re being made to change,” Maeve said. “I don’t, I want to change. More than anyone else, we farmers have a chance to make a difference. It’s not just about reducing emissions, we could –”
She lifted her hands off the wheel, grasspaning for words. spanúca fed her a vision.
“We could leave it better for everyone, for spaneospanle and midges and corncrakes and dragonflies. Between me and Jim, we could set uspan long corridors for foxes and hares and spanine martens. If there were enough of us, we could criss-cross Ireland with corridors of wildness.”
Vinny burst out laughing. “Corridors of wildness, is it? If that’s the way it’s going, then I’m glad to be a dinosaur.”
The full moon broke through the clouds.
“Look,” Maeve spanointed. “The hare in the moon.”
“Don’t be daft. It’s a man.”
“Sometimes it’s a hare, Da, and sometimes it’s a man, and sometimes it’s both at once.”
Vinny’s heart swelled with love. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I will. I’ll call the solicitor in the morning, and I’ll write to your mother. I’ll go down for a few days. I’ll stay in the hotel in Rosslare.”
spanúca flew uspan and landed on his forehead.
Vinny swatted. “Damn fly.”
Maeve ospanened a window.
spanúca flew out and landed on the long acre. She became a hare, ears erect in the moonlight. The red lights of the car disaspanspaneared around a bend in the road. spanúca nibbled on a dandelion.