Bird of Passage Read Online Free Page A

content to be resting after the exertions of the journey. When it grew darker, they came indoors, and somebody passed around a bottle of whisky.  Micky Terrans would have disapproved, but he had gone away to his own lodgings, down in the village, by then.  Jimsy brought out a battered squeezebox, and played Oh Danny Boy and one of the men sang along, the rest of them joining in the chorus.  When they asked who else could carry a tune, Finn nudged Francis. Francis coloured up, and shook his head, but Jimsy had seen the exchange. ‘Come on lad. Don’t be shy. Are you a singer?’
    Francis nodded.
    ‘Then give us a song! What can you sing?’
    ‘He can sing the Curragh of Kildare,’ said Finn. ‘Go on, Francie!’
    Jimsy struck up the first few notes, and Francis stood up and sang, his voice wavery at first, but growing in confidence.
     ‘ The winter it is past, and the summer’s come at last,
    and the little birds they sing in the trees.
    Their little hearts are glad, but mine is very sad,
    for my true love is far away from me ...’
    It was his one talent. He had a sweet voice, and he sang well, his voice dipping under and over the notes, embellishing them in a dozen ways. The men and women fell silent. There could not be one of them who had not heard it before, many times. It was a song that told of youth and heartbreak and hurts that could never be repaired. Afterwards, Francis sat down, blushing even more fiercely at the praise for his singing. Finn nudged him in the ribs.
    ‘They liked that!’ he whispered to his friend. ‘Do you know any others?’
    ‘A few. I’ll need to think.’
    Francis was sometimes called upon to sing in the church, but was seldom asked to sing the old songs he had learned from his grandmother.  He had once sung the Salley Gardens at a Christmas concert, but that was about the sum of it and besides it had not turned out well. He had drawn attention to himself, and that was not a good thing. But perhaps it would be different here, among these people.
    ‘I’ll see what I can remember.’
    The boys had begun to yawn widely, and the yawning proved infectious. Soon after this, they went to their beds, the women to their own quarters, the men to their stalls. The blankets smelled musty, as though they had been stored away for a long time. Finn fell asleep almost immediately. He woke up in the night, woke from a dream of buzz saws, alarmed by the extreme dark and the unfamiliar surroundings, but especially by the chorus of snores from the older men. But the day had exhausted him, so he snuggled back down and drifted off to sleep. He dreamed again and this time, the dream was familiar. It came to him often in the cold school dormitory where the boys sighed and shivered in their sleep and the rats scurried in the walls, and sometimes came closer than that.
    He was a little boy again, back in Dublin with his mother. It was a light summer night, and they were in the warm room at the top of the lodging house, with the window open. They were in bed. Snug as two bugs in a rug, his mammy said. She was in behind him, her two arms around him, her body moulded against his back. She held him close, even though it was warm, and they were sweating gently.  He could feel her breath against his neck, and he could smell her apple blossom talcum powder.
    In the dream, he climbed out of bed, and went walking down the stairs with their brown lino, down past half a dozen closed doors, towards the front hallway that smelled of boiled cabbage and bacon.  And although he was quite alone, he didn’t feel afraid. It was dark now, but the moonlight filtered into the hallway through the green and red stained glass panels in the door. He could find his way easily enough, and so he carried on, down towards the cellars. He had never been here before, but doors opened as he approached them, his feet floated down the stairs without touching them, and it was a pleasant sensation.
    The dream cellars were light and