Then her daughter replies, “Sure, ’twas him that was tryin’ to catch me. Did ye not see all those funny little bubbles comin’ from the leggy one?”
The mother gives her another tailwhack.
“Ye destructive little sardine, have ye not got the sense of a barnacle? You’d probably like to have destroyed that leggy one. Aye, he’ll not be the same again, if he lives. Ah, well, I suppose we’ll have to be goin’ back to the ocean now. Selfish little haddock, ye’ve ruined our river holiday completely. An’ ye can get those things out of your hair, faith, ’tis tatty enough without all that nonsense!”
At this, the fishmaid gives an impertinent pout, just like one or two young madams we might know.
“It’s not fair, Mammy, sure I was havin’ a grand ould time up here in the river. I’m not wantin’ to go back to the ocean.”
The mammy isn’t about to be putting up with teenage tantrums, though, wise fishwife that she is. “If ye had the brains of an oyster, you’d know we won’t get a moment’s peace here when they find the leggy one. There’ll be leggies here in their droves by tomorrow, splashin’ about, hurlin’ rocks and probin’ ’round with great poles. They’ll muddy the water up until our gills are filthy. ’Tis always the same, so come now, move your tail, we’ve got to go.”
Well, away they go downstream, with the young fishgirl still complaining. “But Mammy, that big fat dolphin will be after me again. I can’t stand the great gobeen, forever squeakin’ and smilin’ that big stupid grin of his.”
Like all good mothers, the mammy gets the last word in. “Listen, Miss Picky-fins, ye could do a lot worse than that nice dolphin. He comes from a respectable family, an’ he’s very intelligent, too. So get along with ye before I skelp the scales from your tail!”
So, it is the Sunday morning of the following week that I must move on to, are ye listening? Father Carney has finished the mass, and like the saintly man he is, he goes off to visit his sick parishioners. His first call is at the neat little cottage of the Widow Mooney. The reverent man accepts a cup of tea and visits the poor woman and her son, the former All Ireland Fishing Champion. With a rug about his legs, Roddy sits in an armchair, staring out into space, his face all pinched and thin, the skin white as a corpse. He has heard and seen nothing since that fateful night, living in a sort of permanent coma.
Well, there is not much the father can do. He says a few prayers for Roddy, then blesses him before enquiring of Mrs. Mooney, “Has he not moved at all, spoken or anything?”
The widow serves the priest with a slice of soda bread spread with her very own fresh churned butter. She wipes both eyes on her apron and sniffs aloud. “Ah, sure, I’m completely distracted, Father, me son’s like the livin’ dead. Night an’ day he’s as y’see him now, alive only by the mercy of the Lord. ’Tis a sad burden for a mother to see her darlin’ son in such a miserable state.”
She straightens a lock of Roddy’s hair and wipes his nose on her apron corner. Father Carney looks away, saddened by Widow Mooney’s grief. It is then he sees the crowd of village onlookers jamming the doorway and windows to see what was going on inside. Shoving on his battered hat, he reaches for his knobbly blackthorn stick. “We must trust to the power of prayer, Mrs. Mooney. I’ll drop by again this evening, after benediction.”
Striding out, the priest confronts the crowd of gawping faces angrily. “Have ye no homes to go to? Be off with ye, now. ’Tis not a penny peepshow, there’s a grieviously sick person in there! Give the lad’s poor mother some peace, for pity’s sake!”
Mary Creeley, the village gossip, purses her lips shrewdly. “Father, is it true that Roddy Mooney’s had a spell cast on him by a water banshee?”
The good man shoots her a glare of disgust, then moves off, surrounded by curious villagers all wanting to hear what he has to say concerning the All Ireland Fishing Champion. “Wash your mouth out, woman, that’s a sinful thing to say. Who’s been filling your head with such nonsense?”
Barney Gilhooly winks at the priest and smiles slyly. “Ah, well, Father, there’s some knows what they knows, an’ there’s things not better mentioned. That’s what I always say.”
The priest halts and shakes his stick at the man. “Hold your foolish tongue, Gilhooly! Who knows what, eh? An’ who listens to the tales of snot-nosed urchins or tattlin’ ould gossips that should know better!”
The crowd stands cowed by the reverent man’s wrath. But Mary Creeley, who would have the last word with a hangman, calls out in a whining voice, “Ah, sure, nobody tells us anythin’, Father. We’re left entirely in the dark, with only the words of one witness, the child who was the last to see Roddy Mooney on that day.”
Father Carney’s stern eye seeks out little Mickey Hennessy. “Witness, indeed! Ah, ye make me sick, all of ye. Believing the ramblings of a child who’d say anything for a sweet! Listen to me now, I’ll tell you the truth as only a priest can.”
Little Mickey Hennessy ducks behind his mammy’s shawl as the good father thunders out at his errant flock. “Holy Mother Church forbids belief in all pagan superstitions! If you attended your services more often, you’d all know that. Hah, standin’ outside of Gilligan’s pub, tellin’ fairy stories, ye should be ashamed of yourselves as grown men an’ women! Water banshees, is it? Leprechauns, boggarts, sprites, willow the wisps, phantom coaches an’ pots of gold at the rainbow’s end. Do ye not know that folk with a bit of sense an’ education laugh at such things?”
Father Carney strides off in disgust, leaving the chastened villagers gazing at the ground in silence.
But that ould Mary Creeley, she is like a dog with a bone, she will not leave it alone. She wails out piteously at the saintly man, “ ’Tis yourself that’s right, Father, sure, we’re knowin’ nothin’. Simple ignorant folk is what we are. I’d say it’s your duty as our holy priest to tell us, what really happened to poor Roddy Mooney?”
Holding back his irritation with remarkable fortitude, Father Carney gives his explanation of the affair. “Have ye not got the sense the good Lord gave ye? Your man was out fishin’, an’ he fell into the river. Somehow or other, he was trapped underwater, by the weeds, or mud, or even some waterlogged branches. Poor Roddy was so long tryin’ to free himself that his brain was affected by the loss of breath an’ all that water he swallowed. But by the mercy of Heaven he lived through it all. Though his brain was addled, an’ he’s not the grand feller we once knew, an’ that’s why Roddy Mooney’s the way you see him now. Let that be the last word on it. An All Ireland Champion Fisherman he might’ve been, but an All Ireland Champion Underwater Escape Artist he was not!”
So there you have it, the terrible tale of poor ould Roddy Mooney. It happened almost sixty-five years ago. Now, whose explanation are you to believe, that of a priest or a ten-year-old boy, little Mickey Hennessy? As for meself, I believe the lad, and I’ll tell you why.
Every midsummer since, at the night of the full moon, the boy has gone down to the very spot on the riverbank where Roddy was taken. Aye, all those years, an’ he still goes there. Listen, I’ll not be telling anyone but yourself this, for fear of being laughed at. Mickey still sees the Nye Add lady return, to look for Roddy Mooney. Of course, being the wise man he is, Mickey keeps well away from the river’s edge. But over all that time he has learned to understand the creature’s language, though he cannot speak it, because Mickey’s no great shrieker. The fishwoman told him that she’s neither water banshee nor Nye Add, she’s called a Kelpie. I think that she fell in love with Roddy, because she returns there every midsummer, hoping some moonlit night to see him. Ah, she’s a sad ould thing now.