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The landlord's daughter. As they drove away from the Garda station, Scotus never saw Jimmy O'Lin so mad. In the rear mirror, he saw Breed de Burka standing outside the barracks with a group of concerned citizens and reporters from the local media, watching with delight as Scotus and his father drove away in disgrace. Not only have you thrown away your political career, you've brought shame on your family that will linger for generations to come. It's a misunderstanding, said Scotus, holding his head in his hands, his face burning with shame and embarrassment. A misunderstanding? said Jimmy, steam blowing from his nostrils. You were thrown out of Hyde Park. You were seen drinking in Castleree. Your car was found abandoned by the roadside in Tusk, and you were found naked in a field in Strokes Town. Is that how I feckin' raised you? Is that how I feckin' raised you? Is that how? There was nothing more Scotus could say. He was a confused young man. He was still trying to put all the pieces together. He must have taken a knock on the head in the hide after the scuffle with the groundsmen. It could have been a bad pint, although his memory was of one that was rich and creamy. Was quite lovely, really, and went down well with the bag of Tato. And then, of course, there was the girl called Shefra he met in the Lake of Mist after walking nine times around the ancient ringport at Rakrahan. She too was lovely. She was such a marvelous specimen that he could only have conjured her up in a dream. He wisely told the guards nothing of all this. Your poor mother, said Jimmy O'Lyn, what would she think? My mother? said Scotus, now raising his voice in anger. I never had a mother. And come to think of it, I never had a father either. You spent every damn night of your life in the pub. Is it any wonder I turned out the way I did? Jimmy O'Lyn's face turned deathly pale, as every little drop of blood drained away from his weary old drinker's face. Scottis immediately regretted saying what he did because he knew once the colour returned, as it would, the argument would reach depraved new heights. That, after all, was the only way each could connect with the other. The rakes would be out and the cold ashes would be plundered for any bit of old dirt they could throw at one another. Shovels, too, would be grabbed, and a furious digging would begin until they unearthed any old skeleton they could muster, or even better, released some old ghost that was resting uneasily in its grave. But Jimmy O'Lynn spoke softly, with a trace of melancholy in his voice. When he was a young man of 23 or 24, he completed his master's thesis on the philosophy of Johannes Scotus Eregina, the 9th-century mystic Irish philosopher and theologian. Erigina became better known to the general Irish populace as the man on the five-pound note that was issued in the 70s. Jimmy O'Lin, however, took something of a radical approach to interpreting Eregina, as he had come into contact with the writings of the French postmodern philosopher Jack Derrida in the middle 70s and became something of a deconstructionist himself, a school that Derrida himself had founded. The professors in the philosophy department at University College Dublin took a dim view of Jimmy's approach and a particular dislike to the title of his thesis. Scotus Erigina, the deconstructionist, exegesis and misinterpretation. He had been warned by some silver-haired religious academics carrying around copies of St. Thomas Aquinas wherever they went to take a different approach. But Jimmy ignored the wise sages of Belfield. In the end, Olen's thesis was thrown into dustbin, and the professors failed him without hesitation. Six years of his academic life gone down the drain, just like that. Jimmy O'Lin continued to knock around Dublin in the 70s looking for a job. And while it would have been no easy task to get a job with, say, a master's degree in philosophy, it was even harder to get one with a failed master's degree in philosophy. Eventually he made the difficult decision to immigrate to America and work perhaps on a construction site in Manhattan or bartending Queens. Maybe meet a nice sultry lass from Puerto Rico or Brazil and have five or six kids with her. While working on a building site in New York would have been some come down on his earlier dreams of being a scholar, even of a thirsty one, he had developed an intense hatred for his country and the narrow-minded old bigots who lived there, and truth be told, he couldn't wait to get the hell out of Ireland. On his last day in Ireland, he went back to Roscommon to drink his troubles away with his best friend, Jerry Finn, and to drink his sadness away too. For much as he hated it, he was sad to leave the damp old boghole with its stories, its pubs, and its music, but a boghole nonetheless that provided future for neither man nor beast. They hit every pub in the town that night. They drank oceans of porter and rivers of whiskey and laughed about olden times, sang a tune or two and told mighty stories of the good old days. The teachers they drove demented, the priests who foretold that dunces like them would surely to God end up paupers on the streets of London, alone and destitute. And of course they reminisced about the girls they loved, the pretty girls in their summer dresses, in their swimsuits at Strand Hill and in a scrone. They spoke lyrically of these girls, girls who had now met other men, girls who had left these shores too. They imagined how these girls at night, lonely in some distant land, might themselves have thought of happier times in Ireland, and how surely they'd have a place in their hearts for the two wild boyos that got away: Jimmy O'Lynn and Jerry Finn. The pair of them were footless as they staggered home in the early hours of the morning, blind drunk on the black country roads of Ruscommon. In only a few hours, his neighbor Patty Quinn would arrive at Jimmy's house to drive him to Shannon Airport. When he got home, Jimmy would douse himself with a good bucket of cold water, and that would sober him up awful quick. He'd heard in America that when a man got home from work, he could take a nice long shower. Hot or cold, whatever he wanted. Jimmy's Dampole house did not even have a toilet. One did their business outside, behind a bush or in a field of rushes. Tomorrow he'd be in a new world and he vowed never to set foot in Ireland ever again. There was nothing to come back to. Nada, nada, nada. It was then they heard some music, rousing music, jigs and reels and ladies' laughter. By God, said Jerry Finn, the night's not over yet. You must be joking, said Jimmy. I have to leave for Shannon in a few hours. That leaves time for one more drink, and who knows, maybe one last ride with one of your own before you move on to new breed. Before Jimmy could even answer, Jerry Finn was climbing over the old stone wall fence and stumbling through a field of wild rushes in the direction of the music and the laughter, not wanting tonight to ever end. It was strange because neither of the two boys had ever heard of a she bean or any other known residence down through those old fields. Jimmy, despite his reservations, had little choice but to follow. It was his wake, after all, his American wake, and he might as well enjoy every last minute of it. Tomorrow all this would be no more, a distant memory. These fields he'd never walk again. They would take on a more magical character in his memory. Maybe he'd even miss them. Tomorrow all this would be in the past. They walked through the rushes for a good twenty minutes, all the time guided by haunting penny whistles, toe-tapping fiddles and frenzied baron drums that lulled them deeper and deeper into the Falk Sodden fields. Are we just hearing things? asked Jimmy O'Lane. To be fair, we've both had a good stash of porter tonight. They say music can travel far at night, said Jerry Finn. We should be arriving upon this hoolie very soon if my calculations are right. I'll give it five more minutes, and then I'm turning back, said Jimmy. I don't have the price of a second ticket to New York. He had no sooner spoken these words when the blurred hue of light began to unveil itself behind the fog and trees, and when they brushed by some branches they saw the stately residence, and it was very much like one of the great houses of Ireland, like Clanalis or King or Strokestown House. It was a great castle house, as fine as they had ever seen. That looks like one of those houses belonging to the gentry, said Jimmy O'Lynn. I don't think two country bucks like us would be welcome in that kind of company. Not welcome? This is our country! This is our friggin' country! Is this what the men in 1916 gave their lives for? To be turned away by the red coats? Come on, if they deny a man a drink at his own wig, then bad should grand to them. The two lads staggered towards the castle, dusting their clothes off, straightening their hair, exhaling the alcohol from their breath, lest they need a fresh bread later for the ladies. The door was opened by a young woman, so resplendent in beauty that both men lost the power of speech on seeing her. It was clearly evident to Jimmy and Jerry, standing like frozen gods at the entrance of the great house, that she was just one of the many more waiting inside. Nevertheless, Jerry Finn could not take his thunderstruck eyes off this first woman he encountered, his heart thumping and his gaze glued to the light enchantress, and the thought formed in his brain, the wee circuits that were still loosened, that he would love this woman, body and soul, for the rest of his life. Come in, boys, she said, mischievously taking Jerry Finn by the hand. Jerry and the girl somehow disappeared into some dark shadows, and Jimmy Olen was left to wander alone into a great big room where strange people danced slowly to old haunting Irish ears. Despite the comfort of the music, there was no denying a bog trotter like him did not belong in this company. They were the most genetically privileged people he ever laid eyes upon, with looks that would leave the most handsome Hollywood stars in their wake. They must surely be the gentry he thought, landlord stock. While the Anglo-Irish often looked as ugly as hell in old portraits, some families were now reaping the benefits of a few hundred years of good diet and interbreeding with some of the wealthiest families in Europe. It had certainly worked wonders here. Jimmy Olen was immediately drawn to a dark-haired beauty. In fact, so stricken was he that he felt his whole body sober up the moment he saw her. She stood watching him from the other side of the ballroom, as a creature of the wild would watch her prey. Jimmy was very impressed with how fast the bowl Jerry Finn had got down to business. It was Jimmy O'Lin who had less time on his hands. He needed to get a good dancer to win before he departed for America. What a coup it would be to score in a big old house like this. A poor old peasant lad like him getting his paws on the landlord's daughter. That would be some memory to sustain him in the lonely years ahead. But such was her beauty that Jimmy bottled it on first sight, unable to summon the courage to ask her to dance, despite a belly full of porter and whiskey. But he need not have worried. From the far side of the room, her eyes had narrowed in on him. She glided towards him, softly. Then she pounced. The pair of them were soon out on the floorboard, as if she had truncated time itself in the most informal of embraces. She drew her hands around his neck and dragged him closer to her. He stuttered and stammered at first, but when he finally managed to say something, it was to ask her what her name was. I ever had a naughty name, she said. And who gave you such a naughty name? The clon, she said, using the Gaelic name of her family. Surprisingly enough, for a member of the gentry. I like naughty names, he said, getting over his shyness. She smiled playfully, stroking his chest, a piquant gesture that sent a tumultuous charge of sensations through every nerve on his typically stiff body. Before he could ask her something else, there was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned around to see a young fair-haired man. He desperately hoped the Epicine young man with the Aryan looks was either a brother, a cousin, or like some of his friends up in UCD, playing on the other team. Jimmy Olen knew he could not compete in the looks department with the gentry. His best chance was to charm her with a story, or mystify her with philosophy. Aristotle with Derrida. It did not matter. In the few brief moments when they danced, the girl with the naughty name had stolen his soul. The master of the house would like to speak with you, said the fair-haired man. That's just bloody great, thought Jimmy O'Neill. I'm in big trouble now. I've not only gate-crashed a party, I've smooched with the landlord's daughter, and clasped my paws tightly around her tiny waist. In the old days a man could be shot for such a crime. Perhaps the gentry still resolve disputes with a pistol jewel. At the very least, I'll be taken by the hasp of the arse and kick down those great big steps. The master of the house stood in a corner of the great entranceway in the shadows, and as a result, his face was hardly visible. But sometimes the light from a candle that flickered from a mantle caught it, and the sight sent waves of terror to the heart of Jimmy Olen. For holy and sacred medallion, it appeared more the face of a lizard than that of a man, and he had two red eyes like those of a demon. It must surely have been some bad porter he was served in one of those fine establishments tonight, for it made no sense that the brood could be so beautiful and her progenitor so horrifying. There were no pleasantries. The demon in the corner got straight down to his question. Tell me, scholar O'Lin, snarled the dark man. Are the she damned? The she? The people who rule these lands before the plundering gale. Damned in what way? Excluded like vile outcasts from your gods, heaven. It was a strange question. Jimmy Olen's knowledge of folklore came from his grandparents' generation. The old folk had often talked about a whole cast of supernatural characters. Everything from the Dinish to fairy changelings and the banshee. They greatly believed and greatly feared these beings from the other world, lest their cattle be afflicted with disease or their crops die in the fields. By all accounts they were not a race to be messed with. They were called good people to appease them, but they were anything but good. But to a philosopher like Jimmy, a man educated in rational thought, they were just a mad creation of a wild, superstitious Irish peasantry. Jimmy Olen now scratched his head and thought deeply before answering. He then decided to draw from one of Scotus Erginia's earliest works, De Divinia, Prae destination, despite the fact that this work was considered heretical in its time and condemned to be burned by many popes. God does not predestine any of his creatures to damnation, no matter the realm from whence they originate. Neither human nor she is damned. Everyone has the free will to be good or sinful. Some creatures choose sin, but after living through the temporary hell of the sinful life, these lost souls will eventually return to God. It was the second time that particular summer that the works of Johannes Scotus Erigina, and in particular Olin's interpretation of Erigina, had landed him in a great deal of trouble, for the dark man growled in anger, a primordial anger that seemed to erupt from some black hole beneath the earth. He grabbed Olen by the neck, and his fingers were frizzled old yellow fingers, and his skin was covered with scales like that of a serpent. He began to squeeze Jimmy's neck with his serpent's hands with a lot more power than the squeeze Jimmy had got from the landlord's lovely daughter. The dark man hissing now like a snake began to choke Jimmy until the would-be emigrant went blue in the face. The demon landlord had the strength of a hundred, if not a thousand men. Jimmy was within an inch of his life when the master of the house flung him down the great hallway. Get out, Jimmy Holly! And sent him crashing through the door where he landed on the concrete steps with an awful thump. His first thought was that his back was broken in two halves, but fortunately it wasn't. Though one thing was certain, he'd be awful sore on the plane as it crossed the broad Atlantic in a few hours. He quickly hauled himself up and went running through the fields as fast as he could. In his terror, he forgot about his good friend Jerry Finn. But to be fair, Jerry knew absolutely nothing about philosophy, and was therefore unlikely to upset the man of the house with a theological argument. At the same time, he would have planted more than his fair share of kisses on the other girl by now, and who knew what sort of consequences that would incur? A good kick out the door, no doubt. Jerry Finn would have a good story to tell in the pubs the following night. Jimmy O'Len, on the other hand, had a plane to catch. He was wandering through the fields trying to find his blessed way home, falling into wretched drains and blasted bulkholes when he saw her again. She was standing in the trees watching him. He cursed to Jerry Finn for leading him into this infernal temptation. Though he had to be off to Shannon Airport soon, he could not help walking towards her like a zombie in lust. He'd no sooner reached her when their lips met, and they devoured each other with hungry kisses before falling to make love on the damp grass. The pain in his back soon disappeared, and it seemed the ultimate payback to stretch out the evil landlord's beautiful young daughter on the acres of land that met up his great estate, stolen no doubt, centuries ago from the locals. Devouring the dark man's daughter in the domain, he felt as powerful right there and then as the uncreated creator. As Godus Eregina described the great god himself. They were locked in an unbreakable embrace for what seemed like hours. It was indeed hours. When he finally found his way home. He had missed his lift to Shannon Airport. Gone up in the air was the opportunity of a new life and a new world. What he'd found was a love that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was a very embarrassed Jimmy O'Lynn that drank in the pubs of Ruscoman the following night, and he was, to be fair, the subject of many jokes. The drinks were also on him. He had to make up for the considerable amount support or others had stood to him at his American wake. But it didn't bother him in the least bit. He had a great big grin on his face all day after his conquest in the early hours of the morning. A conquest he dared tell no one about but Jerry Finn. Jerry himself sported a black eye from a fall in the early hours of the morning as he too tried to make his way home after his own night of passion with a young woman called Deirdre. Look, said Jerry, let's go back there again. There's no reason they need to be one night stands. I know these girls were above our station, but we clearly offered them something the pretty boy gentry cannot. If I may say so myself, they were mad for it. What about the landlord? Look, I know you learned all that good shite up in Dublin, but can you not talk about football or something natural besides all that philosophy bollocks? Did you see the look on his face? Did I see the look on his face? I'm sure it was a lot worse when he heard about what you did to his daughter. But he looked unnatural, Jerry. Unnatural! So long as the girls got their mothers' looks. Who the hell cares, Jimmy? Jimmy O'Lynn and Jerry Finn took the same route home that night and jumped into the fields at the exact same spot where they heard the music the night before. There was some nice silver light provided by the moon to guide them along their way, and they followed their tracks through the field, for there was a clear path where the grass was trampled. Indeed, Jimmy could not but smile happily to himself when he saw the group of great big oak trees, where he made long-lasting love to the landlord's daughter. The long grass was well and truly flattened there. But try as they did, they could not find the great big castle again. They circled around the field for hours and kept coming back to the same spot again. They scratched their heads, they took different routes, they debated and argued for hours. Memory was questioned, so was sanity, but the landlord's imposing abode was nowhere to be found. They were still wandering the fields at the break of dawn, still looking for the dark man's house, and desperate for the love of his daughters. In the days ahead they searched more. They consulted old town maps and spoke with local historians. No one had ever heard of a big house down in those fields. All the great houses of Ruscommon were well documented, Analis House, Strokestown House, King House being the most well known. It became increasingly clear to Jimmy O'Lynn and Jerry Finn as the weeks passed slowly by that they had surely been hallucinating from what was lamentably the extreme consumption of gallons of strong black porter. But if it was all a strange vision, why were both men so hopelessly in love with the creatures they had lain down with on that fateful night? No one could convince them otherwise. These were creatures of the flesh, passionate young girls and not some phantoms they'd conjured up in an alcoholic stupor. As the months rolled by, Jimmy O'Lane started saving for America again, while Jerry Finn continued to wander around the fields at night looking for the old castle. Soon people began to talk. Soon people began to say he'd gone to Lally. Jimmy never went into the fields but always took a moment to stop and look at night and to listen, to listen for strange music on his way home from the pub. He never gave up believing that one night, one beautiful night, he might see the landlord's daughter behind those trees again, beckoning him to join her in a sweet embrace. Jimmy O'Lyn was close to having the price of a trip to New York saved again, but there was a knock on his door one winter's night. When he opened the door, there was no one there, but he heard the cry of an infant. He looked down. His blood flows when he saw the little thing squirming at his feet in a makeshift blanket. A voice, a male voice that he thought somewhat familiar, cried out from the darkness, look after your baby, Jimmy O'Lin. And don't you or your friend come near our people again? If you do, there'll be a terrible prize to pay. Jimmy Olen, shivering, picked up the baby. It was a wretched little thing and it cried in his hands. When Jimmy Olen finally recovered the power of speech, he cursed the gods. He cursed them to hell. This was not what he wanted. This was not what he wanted at all. He wanted to be a free man, a free man in America. He wanted to be a rake, an Irish rascal wandering the lands. He wanted to make love to a thousand women, women of every nationality. He wanted to sing rebel songs and pubs late into the early hours of the morning. What he didn't want was this. He didn't want to be a father. He didn't want to be stuck in this boghole for the rest of his life raising this awful, unwanted creature. He cursed the gods. He cursed them to hell. He would christen the boy SCOTUS more out of scorn than as a tribute to the great Irish philosopher. Jerry Finn would never give up his search for his beloved Deirdre, and one morning would be found in the coal fields shivering, raving mad, and his body all contorted as if he'd been born that way. He was taken away to the home for the bewildered, where he'd spend the remainder of his days, never uttering a saying word again. Jimmy O'Lyn heeded the warnings, but spent the rest of his life coming home from the pub drunk. But despite the warning, he'd never fail to stop at those fields and gaze longingly over those stone walls. It was his fervent hope to one day see that girl again. The dark-haired beauty never faded from his memory. Most of all, as he replayed that night over and over in his head, he remembered a strange mark on her back, just above her touch, as they rolled in the dew-filled grass. The thought of it drove him wild with desire. He believed it to be a known tattoo. Her name was Shefra, the naughty fairy. Jimmy O'Lyn's story ended there, and his son Scotus fainted upon hearing it.