The roads were thronged, too, by another breed entirely, pilgrims bound for Dingle town. She looked out the window to see college students with packs on their backs, some walking with determination, others standing at the side of the road, their thumbs out in the universal gesture of the hitchhiker. Even if only a small percentage of the crowd from Tralee found its way to Dingle, the little village would be hard put to house the crowd. It was still early in the day, and every time the bus passed hikers and hitchhikers she had the selfish thought that she would at least beat these people in the search for a room.
“Dingle town,” called the driver. She looked out the front window and saw nothing resembling a town. Then the bus curved around yet another turn in the road, and she saw the little village laid out before her at the base of the hill.
Her worries about finding a room turned out to be groundless. The first bed-and-breakfast house she tried was full, but the gentle-voiced proprietress recommended the house two doors further down on Strand Street, the main commercial street of Dingle. There Ellen found several rooms available and took a large one on the second floor just down the hall from the bathroom. She signed the register, then went to her room to unpack. On her way out of the house an older woman smiled to her and asked her if she was a folk singer.
“Why, yes, I am,” she said, surprised. “How did you know?”
“Not much in the way of detective work, I’m afraid.” The woman spoke in an accent Ellen had trouble placing — not Irish, certainly, but quite unlike the English and Scottish speech she had heard. “I’m staying here myself, and I was upstairs when you checked in. Saw you had a guitar, and it seemed an odd thing to carry for decoration, so I had to assume you played it. Will you be engaging in the competition?”
“No, I haven’t registered.”
“The actual competition’s all in Irish, I understand, though I trust there will be some songs in English. I certainly hope there will. I don’t understand Irish, do you?”
“No.”
“Though the sound of it is not unfamiliar. They still speak Cornish in my part of the world, and it’s another of the old Celtic tongues. I wonder if the Irish speakers can understand Cornish. Probably not, I suppose; the way these languages form dialects of their own over the centuries, you know. Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I? I’m Sara Trevelyan, from Cornwall. The usual British schoolteacher on vacation, I’m afraid. Retired and husbandless and unutterably dull. And don’t rush to tell me that I can’t possibly be dull.”
“I’m Ellen Cameron.”
“Yes, I know.” Sara Trevelyan smiled. “And from New York, aren’t you? Again, no great shakes as a detective. I looked in the guest register. There’s a countryman of yours who signed in just after you, incidentally. Has a German name, if I remember correctly. Now what was it?” She wrinkled her brow in thought. “Koenig,” she said. “Doctor Robert Koenig, I think it was, and he’s from Philadelphia, which makes you almost neighbors, doesn’t it? Has a wife and two children with him. Not the most adorable children in the world, I wouldn’t say, but then perhaps I’m biased against children. Taught too many of them over the years and had none of my own, and that can rather set one against children. Not that I don’t admit the necessity of children, of course. You can’t produce people without having children as the first stage of the game.”
Ellen laughed.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Just as you need caterpillars in order to have butterflies. Sometimes I think the parallel is a very close one at that. Horrid crawling things those caterpillars are, and look at the lovely, fragile creatures they become. And when I think of some of the dreary lads and lasses I taught over the years, and of their metamorphosis into rather worthwhile gentlemen and ladies, it’s hard to believe they’re all of the same species.” The Cornish woman sighed. “But I do run off at the mouth, don’t I? Perhaps I’m a little grateful to have someone to talk with. Are you anxious to get free of me? Or would you take lunch with an old woman if she promises not to talk too much?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“I’ve been here since last night. Came straight from Killarney. I suppose you were in Tralee?”
“Yes.”
“Crowded, was it?”
“Very much so. And very active.”
“Then I’m just as glad I missed it. I’m not that strong for crowds and fast-paced holidays. I’ll be glad for a chance to hear the singing, but I can hear it as well without all that hullabaloo going on. That’s what you call it in America, isn’t it? Hullabaloo?”
“That’s right.”
“But you’re smiling, so I suppose I misused the colloquialism slightly, as one is apt to do. Hmmm. I was here last night, as I said. There’s a restaurant just a block from here, not fancy but rather pleasant. They do grilled meats well enough. Would you like to go there? And then I’ll promise to leave you alone for the rest of the afternoon.”
“But I’m enjoying this very much!”
“Are you? I know that I am. I find children charmless, but I do enjoy young people. I hope you like the restaurant.”
She did like the restaurant, a narrow café where a pert and pretty young waitress brought them small filet steaks and chips. And she did enjoy the company of the older woman. Cornwall, that little peninsula at the southwest corner of England, was another of the places she had long wanted to visit. She tried to remember if anyone had ever recorded an album of Cornish songs. She couldn’t think of any, although it was certain that the Cornishmen would have folk music of their own, just as every little pocket of culture throughout the world did. Later, perhaps, she might ask Miss Trevelyan if she knew any of the old songs. A shame she was out of tape, but perhaps she could learn a song or two.
After lunch they parted company. The retired schoolteacher planned a hike along the beach in search of shells and a taste of salt air. She walked back to the B-and-B with Ellen and got her walking stick from her room. It was a knobby blackthorn stick, and she showed it to Ellen.
“Quite the thing, isn’t it? Do you think it goes well with the tweed suit? And does it make me look properly Irish?”
“Oh, very Irish.”
“I suspect it stamps me as a tourist, actually. In a week I haven’t seen a single Irishman carrying one of these silly things. A great knobby stick, isn’t it? I’m sure they’d never make them at all but to sell them to the English and Americans, and fools we are to buy them. Would you believe I paid four pounds for this one? And it’s only a silly piece of wood.”
“It’s attractive, though.”
“Perhaps. I do know it’s a great help in walking. Well, thank you again for lunching with me. I hope we’ll see each other again. You’ll be in Dingle a few days?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you at the breakfast table, and perhaps around the town as well.”
She spent the afternoon wandering around the town but not making as strenuous a project of it as the elderly Cornish lady. She windowshopped at the little stores on Strand Street, wandered through the side streets among the little rows of neat well-scrubbed cottages. She stopped in a Catholic church, covering her head with a handkerchief and walking slowly through the aisles, studying the stained-glass windows and sitting for a moment before the altar. A person could find a special sort of contentment in any house of worship, a nonverbal sense of the presence of some greater force. Sitting there, in a small church in a small town deep in the southwest corner of Ireland, she thought for a moment that she would like to pray, to give thanks for the pure delight of the trip. But she had never found prayer natural, and after a few moments she got to her feet and left.