Buried in a Bog (6 page)

“I’ve tended bar in Boston—I can work the taps if you want.”

Rose looked as though she’d been handed a Christmas present. “Oh, could you? I’d be so grateful. At the very least I’ve got to get some glasses washed or we’ll have nothing to drink from. Can you handle the Guinness tap?”

“I know the routine, no problem.” Maura made her way around the bar and slid in behind it. She took a moment to familiarize herself with the layout, but she’d worked in plenty of bars, and they were all pretty much the same. Especially the Irish ones all over Boston. She looked out at
the crowd, still growing as more people came in the door. Several of them stopped talking long enough to look back at her, as though she were some exotic creature dropped in their midst. Maura smiled. “What can I get you?”

“American, are you?” the nearest man said. “A pint, please. You’d be Bridget Nolan’s visitor, then. Do you know, have they cleared away the body in the bog yet?”

M
aura laughed to herself at her earlier impression that Sullivan’s was short of business. At the moment the small pub was filled to capacity, which she estimated at maybe thirty if a few didn’t want a seat, with a few people even spilling out the door onto the sidewalk beyond. For all she knew, the entire population of the town was there, men and women alike—and they were all talking about the body pulled from the bog. Word had spread fast, probably by mobile phone, but apparently people wanted face-to-face conversation about something this big.

Maura could tell that people were curious about her—it looked as though all the people in the room knew each other well, while she was the stranger—but she and Rose were madly busy filling pints, finally helped out by Rose’s father,
Jimmy, when he returned empty-handed from his excursion of the day. Maura smiled when she saw his expression at finding a stranger behind the bar, but when he realized she knew what she was doing, he joined in the fray.

“You’d be Maura Donovan, eh? Rosie said you’d arrived.”

“I am.”

“You’ve pulled a few pints in your day, haven’t you?” He smiled, even as his hands were busy filling yet more pints.

“Enough. Hope you don’t mind, but Rose was swamped.”

“We’re glad of the help.” He turned away to a waiting patron. “What’ll it be, Con?”

Maura kept working at a steady pace. When those few people who took the time to talk to her found she had been on the scene when the body was found, they were disappointed at how little she could tell them. No, the policeman hadn’t told her anything, nor had she seen the body, and she wasn’t about to guess about its age or condition. She didn’t even know enough of the local landmarks to explain just where the bog site was, but when she admitted that, people were happy to fill her in about its entire history, going back to who had owned it in the 1800s.

Maura fell into the familiar rhythm of pulling pints from the taps at the bar and opening the occasional bottle of hard cider, while Rose collected the empty glasses and washed them so they could be used again. Thank goodness Maura knew how to handle Guinness properly, else she might have been faced by a riot. When there was a lull, she allowed herself a brief break, first heading for the restroom at the back (and shutting her eyes to the filth there), then making her way into the thick of the crowd, just listening to fragments of conversations, in accents both familiar and
different at the same time. The main topic seemed to be the identity of the body, although as far as Maura knew it still hadn’t been established how long it had been in the bog. Twenty years, two hundred, two thousand? Apparently it wasn’t uncommon for ancient bodies to be pulled from bogs in Ireland, often sliced up by the mechanical turf-cutters or other industrial-strength equipment that had exposed them in the first place.

If she’d thought the crowd would thin out as the evening wore on, she was wrong. “Where’s Mick?” she shouted at Jimmy at some point. “We need help!”

“No idea. We’ll manage,” was Jimmy’s unhelpful reply.

Maura was beginning to feel exhausted as the clock approached midnight, but the crowd hadn’t budged. She shoved her way back to the bar, where Jimmy was in place.

“Don’t you have some kind of closing time here?” she shouted over the din.

“Sometimes.” He winked at her, without pausing in pouring the next pint. “You aren’t sayin’ we should turn away a roomful of customers?”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Maura asked.

“I’d wager the gardaí have enough on their hands, what with this body turning up. They’re based in Skibbereen and they don’t pass by often, so don’t worry yourself about it.” He set the current glass aside to settle as he topped up the one he’d started before.

She assumed “gardaí” meant the police. “If you say so,” Maura mumbled to herself. It wasn’t up to her to work out the legal issues. “Did Rose go home?”

“She did. It’s just the two of us, darlin’.”

Mick was still AWOL, although if it was past regular
closing time it seemed unlikely he’d show up now. “So, still need me?”

“Indeed I do, if you’re willin’. You’re an angel dropped from heaven.”

“If I can stay awake.” She started yet another glass, while eager hands reached out for the finished ones.

At midnight Jimmy turned out the lights in the front, but no one budged from their place in the bar. Maura didn’t think that would fool any passing policeman, but at least Jimmy was acknowledging the law, sort of. The room in the back, where other people had drifted, was still lit and noisy.
These people must be starved for excitement
, Maura thought.
Half the town is still here, and they’re all talking about the body from the bog.
How long would it take the police to figure out who it was? Would they ever?

It was well past one when the last customer straggled out into the cool night air. Maura had been so busy doling out drinks and collecting the empties that she hadn’t noticed when Michael Nolan had come in. He finally shut the door and pulled down the shades in the front.

“You’ve missed all the fun, Mick,” Jimmy said, bouncing nervously behind the bar, a dirty towel in his hand. “Grand evening, wasn’t it? Wish we could order up more of them.”

Mick slouched against the bar. “I doubt there’ll be a body all that often.”

Maura perched on a stool to rest her feet, noting that he hadn’t explained his absence. Again, none of her business—he and Jimmy could work that out. “Not that many suspicious deaths around here?”

Both men shook their heads. “It’s a rare thing,” Mick said. “Not like Boston, I wager.”

Maura debated about how to answer that. “Last year Boston had, like, sixty homicides.”

Mick’s mouth twitched. “Ireland had about that for the entire country. What’re you having?”

It took Maura a moment to realize that he was talking about drinks. “I don’t need anything. I should be going—I’m beat.”

“Come on,” Jimmy chimed in. “Surely you need to taste Guinness on its home turf. To celebrate your arrival, kinda.”

“All right, I guess. Thank you.” Maura hated to appear ungracious, but it was late, she was tired, and she really didn’t drink much—she’d seen too many barroom regulars reeling home after late nights, sloppy and stupid. Still, she thought she should be polite.

As Jimmy poured her a Guinness, she sat silently, mesmerized as always by the cascading bubbles of the dark stout. It was almost a religious ritual, when done properly—there was no rushing a Guinness. When it was finally judged ready by the men, Mick reached for it and handed it to her with a flourish.
“Sláinte!”

Maura raised her glass and nodded, then took a sip. Dark, bitter, yet not heavy. Maybe it
was
better over here, closer to the source. Or maybe she was wiped out. Had she even eaten dinner? No, or lunch—her last food had been tea and cookies at Mrs. Nolan’s, a long time ago.

Jimmy and Mick exchanged complicated glances, involving eyebrows and nods, and Maura wondered what they were trying to communicate to each other, or if they’d had some earlier conversation. Finally Jimmy said, “You did a grand job here today—don’t know how we would have managed without you. I said it—like an angel, you were, dropping in
like that.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I don’t suppose you’d be wanting a job?”

It took Maura a moment to digest what he’d said. A job, tending bar—here? In Ireland? “What?”

“You know, working regular like, here. It’s clear you’ve done it before,” Jimmy said.

Maura couldn’t make sense of his offer. “But I hadn’t planned to stay here long. Shouldn’t you be looking for someone more permanent?”

Another exchange of cryptic glances. This time Maura was watching for it.

“I didn’t come to Ireland to spend my time cleaning up after drunken old men, you know,” she snapped, more rudely than she had intended. “I’ve got a flight home next week. And I can’t afford to buy another ticket. I’ve got no money.”

“We’d pay you, of course,” Mick said carefully.

“Enough to live on here, even for only a while?” Maura shot back.

Mick cocked his head at her. “What do you need? I’ll venture Ellen will give you a good rate for a longer stay–she doesn’t see much business herself, this time of year. You’ve got my grannie’s car, and you’ll be needing a bit of gas for that, to get around. That leaves you with food to worry about. We can manage enough for you to get by on.”

“How many other employees are there?” Maura said.

“There’s my Rose,” Jimmy began.

Maura cut him off quickly. “Is she even old enough to be serving here, legally? What about you, Jimmy—do you take your turn?”

Jimmy managed to look hurt. “Now and then–I watch over the business side.” He ignored Mick’s short laugh.
“Ordering and the like. But it was Old Mick who covered the bar, most days, and we’re still adjusting to him being gone. When it was slow, he’d sit by the fire there, but when we got busy, he’d be behind the bar, telling stories and having a grand time. We always thought that was what kept him going so long.”

“So do you two own this place now?”

“No, we just manage it,” Mick answered. “Old Mick only died last week. He was ninety-four when he passed, and he’d never married and had no children. He’d outlived most of the rest of his family, or they’re long gone from Ireland. It’ll take a bit to sort out what’ll happen with the place now. We’re just keeping it running until then.”

“I’m sorry to hear about his passing,” Maura said. Not that she was, particularly—after all, she’d never known him—but it was the polite thing to say. “So who does the pub go to now?”

Both men shook their heads. “We don’t know. Old Mick, he didn’t say much about his affairs. There might be a will, or not.”

“Apart from tonight, are there ever many customers here?”

“Ah, you’ve just seen it at a slow time,” Jimmy said jovially. “Come the weekend, there’s lots more going on. And summer! We’re right along the main road here, and there’s many a tourist who stops by for a quick glass. It’s a solid business, isn’t it, Mick?”

“It could be,” he agreed. “If Old Mick had done anything with the place, it could have been better.”

Maura yawned. “Listen, guys, I’m about to fall over. Look, I’m glad I could help out today, but that doesn’t mean
I want to keep doing it, okay? Let me think about it. Good night.”

She gathered up her bag and jacket and walked quickly out the door, to end any discussion. The road was deserted, and nothing moved. Quiet: something she wasn’t used to. There wasn’t any real quiet back where she came from, or any real dark. She crossed the road slowly, marveling at the unexpected emptiness. Gravel crunched under her feet as she walked down the drive that passed in front of the now-dark Keohane house and found her way to the back door leading to her room.

But before going in, she sought out a plastic chair on the small patio and dropped into it. She was exhausted, but she was also confused and bewildered by what she had seen and done that day. She’d spent time with what was probably her grandmother’s oldest surviving friend; she’d acquired a car, if temporarily; she’d been offered a job. Before she’d left Boston, she’d thought about what she might say to Mrs. Nolan, once she’d learned of her existence, but the car and Jimmy’s offer had come as a complete surprise. And as for that last, she needed to think. Now, when she was wiped out? Heck, maybe that was the best time—her first reaction might be the truest one. If she had a job, even short term, she could stay around as long as it lasted. Did she want that?

Maybe
—and she was startled to find herself thinking that. Of course, that would give her more time to get to know Bridget Nolan, and her last chance to learn anything about her gran’s life before she went to Boston. That would be good. And maybe, just maybe, she should learn something more about Ireland—the real Ireland, not the shoddy caricatures. She knew that it wasn’t all shamrocks and rainbows,
but what was it really? And wasn’t she Irish herself? She had a passport that said so, but she’d never really felt it, inside.

And there was nothing waiting for her at home. In fact, there was no home. She had no ties, here or there. So why not stay awhile?