Issue 3 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

ELAINE FORD
Whin
I
met Ivor in a pub. Actually, it was not so much
a pub as the back adjunct to a grocery in the Irish
town of Dundalk; I'd come in to buy bread and
canned meat and had become entangled in conversation
with the bar man. He was the sort of man who liked to
start things. He called out to Ivor in a wisecracking
voice, "Hey old man, which way are you headed?"
"North. Home."
"How'd you like to take this girl with you?"
The barman's laughter at Ivor's startled look was a
wise cackle. "She's hitchhiking. A Yank," as though
that explained me.
"My great-grandfather came from Cork."
"Sure you're going the wrong direction." Ivor's
statement was flat, but I could see he was curious about
me. My hair was wet and had not been combed for a
long time; my only possession was a frayed knapsack.
"No, I've been to Cork."
"So it's up to the black North then."
"Just to see if it's as black as they say."
The barman laughed again. "Better her than me."
"Aye, that's right." Ivor set his empty glass on the
bar. He nodded to me, shrugging his neck into his collar,
and went out to the street.
"Go along," the barman urged me. I felt like a
badger shoved into a pen of dogs, but I hurried after
Ivor anyway. Going north, a chill expedition. Late afternoon,
a thin rain falling, and hardly any traffic on the
road. Ivor opened the left-hand door of his pickup truck
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for me. I could see that he was not as old as I'd thought,
though his face was worn and slack. He wore a short
wool coat and a knitted cap pulled down to his ears. But
he didn't look comical. Not a jokester. He'd be indifferent
to how he looked, preoccupied.
"In ye go, then."
We drove out of Dundalk and along the highway
for several miles before either of us spoke. Then he said,
puzzled, "It's a wet wee land for a tour. This time of
year."
"You'd think I'm crazy if I told you why I like it."
"Och, we're most of us a bit daft here."
"When I feel cold and wet at least I'm feeling something.
I know I'm alive, anyway."
"Aye," he said shortly, reaching into the catchall
for a rag. No surprise in his voice, and that surprised
me. "My name's Kate."
"Strachan. Ivor." He said no more until we reached
the border town of Newry; when we stopped for a traffic
light he said, as though pointing out a local attraction,
"See that pillar box? We're in the North now, so it
should be red. The Republicans paint it green. Then
they paint it red again, Her Majesty's Post. Must have
twenty coats of paint on it by now. Still, the mail goes
through."
"Painting's better than bombing."
He smiled for the first time. "They do plenty of
that, too."
After Newry the countryside became more cluttered.
New pebble-dashed bungalows, a bombed-out
hotel, some small factories. A Land Rover full of British
soldiers passed us, going the other way. The rain fell
harder.
"Is Strachan an Irish name?" I asked finally, for
something to say.
"Is now. My people came from Glasgow to work in
the linen mills."
"And that's what you do?"
"Not much work in linen now. I'm a joiner."
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