Blessed Are the Cheesemakers Read online

  It was hopeless trying to think of anything else, she realized. They should just turn all the cheeses and get the hell out of there before the whole place went up in smoke or melted or something. She’d spent the three days since the embarrassing close encounter trying to work out what to do with her life and where to do it. On one hand, it seemed pathetic that she was twenty-nine years old and had nowhere else to go apart from her grandfather’s farm in the country. But on the other hand, the feeling that she constantly fought about being in the wrong place at the wrong time had diminished over the past few days to the point where she suspected that the funny little buzz she got in her belly when she woke up in the morning meant she was close to being home. Not to mention, she reminded herself as she moved a rack closer to the middle of the room, the way she felt about the cheese.

  The swoosh of the milk into the vat first thing in the morning made her bones tingle. She swore the blood pulsed quicker through her veins at the very sight of it. After just four days she could feel muscles in her arms high-fiving each other with every slice of the curd-cutting paddle. And the feel of the sweet, squeaky stuff between her fingers? It made her want to scream, the same way the feel of the fat, soft, spongy arm of a happy milk-fed baby made her want to scream. In a good way.

  She leaned in toward a cheese hiding at the back of the rack and found herself staring suddenly into Kit’s troubled green eyes, peering at her from the other side. Abbey sucked in her breath and stood back. They had met in the middle of the room.

  “Do you want to talk about this?” Kit said, mooching down slightly to look at her across the top of a tasty two-week-old.

  “Talk?” she repeated, flustered, her heart beating a little too quickly for her liking. “About what?”

  “About this whole thing,” Kit said, absently turning another cheese. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all, especially anything like that, but it had just popped out. “I mean I don’t really know what’s going on either but it seems to be bigger than both of us and I think we should talk about it.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Abbey said uncertainly, her hands reaching out for another Coolarney.

  Kit sighed. He didn’t want to be doing this. It was tough. His hands locked on a cheese, midtwist. “Abbey,” he said, “please don’t make this any harder than it is. I think you know as well as I do that ever since that first night there has been this great big scary sort of hot kind of thing between us and whether we like it or not it is there and as mature adults we should decide what we want to do about it.”

  Abbey was frightened by his honesty. In a thrilled sort of a way. Scary sort of hot?

  “Corrie and Fee want us to make cheese together,” she said lamely, her own hands tightly gripping an as yet unturned cheese.

  “I’m not talking about cheese,” said Kit, squeezing his own so hard in frustration that he rendered it unsaleable. “I’m talking about you and me and whatever the hell this zing is between us. Jesus, Abbey, I have spent three days trying to fight it but I just can’t stop thinking about you. Every moment of the day you’re either there right in front of me or inside my head. I can’t explain it but it’s driving me nuts and I want to talk about it.”

  “You Americans just want to talk about everything,” Abbey said, attempting a lighter tone and failing. Kit said nothing, and it was her turn to sigh. He looked pretty done in, and she felt sorry for him. It had been brave to bring the whole humiliating subject up, and the least she could do was admit she knew what he was talking about.

  “It’s the same,” she finally said, digging her thumbnails into the Coolarney she was still gripping. “It’s the same for me. I don’t know what to do about it, either. I don’t know what to do about anything.”

  “You can’t stop thinking about me?” Kit asked, looking at her, a bit of color creeping back into his cheeks, a light in his eye.

  “You’re not even my type,” insisted Abbey, ignoring the question.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Kit added enthusiastically. “That’s fine. That’s great, in fact. You’re not my type, either.”

  There was another silence.

  “It’s just that I haven’t felt like this about anyone for a long, long time and I’m not sure that I want to now,” Abbey said slowly, realizing as she spoke that it was true.

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I definitely don’t want to, but I still do,” Kit said. “Does that make sense?”

  They looked at each other across the cheeses. Kit had never noticed before how quiet the curing room was. Dead quiet. He could swear the Blues were listening.

  “So,” Abbey asked, “how would it work?”

  “You mean us?” Kit answered. “I don’t know. I guess we could decide that as long as we are both here making cheese then we should stop fighting whatever it is that’s in the air that’s making us so crazy for each other.”

  “You’re crazy for me?” Abbey asked, smiling, releasing her grip, finally, on the poor mashed Coolarney Blue in her hands and starting to move slowly toward the end of the rack.

  “Yeah.” Kit smiled, dumping his own strangled cheese and moving in the same direction. “I am. You know, in a wanting-to-get-naked kind of way.” They met, face to face, at the end of the rack and looked at each other.

  “What about—” Abbey started to say but Kit put his finger to her lips. It tasted of honey and sunshine and blue mold and him.

  “What about nothing,” he said, and he took her in his arms and kissed her like he’d never kissed anybody before.

  “What in the name of Jesus do you two think you are doing?”

  Avis’s loud hiss gave Corrie and Fee such a fright that they rose from their crouched positions outside the Blue door with great speed, bonking their heads together in the process.

  “Jaysus feck,” cried Fee, holding his temples with both hands. “You’ve broken it.”

  “What do you keep in there, you eejit, bowling balls?” Corrie moaned, rubbing the front of his own head where a medium-sized egg was already forming.

  “You two should be ashamed of yourselves,” Avis said, towering over them, hands on hips. “Grown men eavesdropping on two troubled young people. It’s disgusting.”

  “We were not eavesdropping,” said Corrie, wobbling on his feet. “I dropped something on the floor and Fee was helping me look for it.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Avis, “and what would that be?”

  “Something very, very small,” said Fee, concentrating on his head still.

  “Is that right?” Avis said, not letting up. “How small?”

  The two men looked at each other. “So small it doesn’t even have a name,” Fee said proudly.

  Corrie rolled his eyes, whimpering at the pain this caused in his head. “Is that the best you can come up with? So small it doesn’t even have a name?”

  “It’s a terrible thing, concussion,” Fee answered cheerfully, earning an extra headshake from Avis.

  “Go away and leave them alone,” she said, “before I take my broom to the pair of you.”

  “Go on,” said Fee, a mischievous glint in his eye, “you want to know just as much as we do.”

  “Of course I do,” said Avis, “but I’m not going to listen in on them. You should know better than to show such disrespect for other people’s privacy, Joseph. Anyway, I only came to tell you that it’s low-blood-sugar time so I’ve left a freshly baked raisin bread and a pot of tea in the smoking room. If you get over there now it’ll still be hot.”

  Abbey was so hungry for Kit she couldn’t think straight. Their kisses were desperate with unleashed passion and their hands were tracing hurried routes over each other’s body as though scared they would never find their way to the good bits again. Abbey was pressed against the wall and had one leg wrapped around Kit’s thigh, her groin pushed hard against his as his kisses devoured her. Her bottom half had long surrendered to his touch but her mind was still fighting something, not him, but something.

  �
�I’m not sure,” she whispered to the ceiling as his lips burned up her neck. “Perhaps we could . . .” she mumbled as his mouth found hers and nibbled at her lips, a helpless groan escaping him. “Oh,” she tried again, as she smelled the clean freshness of his hair and he fitted his knee up between her thighs, lifting her higher against the wall.

  “Kit,” she cried, louder, suddenly sure what was wrong and pulling her head away from him in panic. “Not here!”

  Her fear finally registered with him and he stepped back, panting. She was trembling, and not, he was certain, because of him.

  “Not here,” she said again.

  “What is it, Abbey?” he asked as gently as a man knobbled in the throes of wild passion could. “What’s the matter?”

  “Not down here, that’s all. Just not down here,” she said, not meeting his eyes. Frustration wasn’t a big enough word for what Kit was feeling. He knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her and he couldn’t for the life of him work out why she was pulling the plug. She wasn’t a tease, he was sure of that, but her flakiness was certainly confusing.

  “Here, there, anywhere,” he said. “Does it really matter?”

  “It’s not you,” Abbey said. “It’s here.”

  Kit thought again of her flight from the curing room on their first cheesemaking day. “Did something happen to you down here?” he asked. “Did something bad happen to you down here?”

  Abbey felt hysteria nipping at her edges. She knew it was stupid, that she was stupid, but she couldn’t fight the fear. “Not me,” she said, as Kit put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to make sure he was looking in her eyes.

  “Then who? What happened? Tell me.”

  “My grandmother,” Abbey whispered, tears gathering in pools at the bottom of her big brown eyes. “My mother told me . . . Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” She took a deep breath. “I think my grandmother is buried down here,” she said. “I think Corrie buried her here.”

  Kit’s eyes widened.

  “You think Corrie buried your grandmother down here in the caves?” he asked.

  Abbey nodded, an enormous weight lifting off her shoulders at the relief of having shared her terrible doubts about a man they were all convinced was so kind and sweet and helpful and dear.

  “Why?” asked Kit. “What’s wrong with the cemetery?”

  “Oooh.” Abbey shook her head and banged her clenched fists against the wall behind her in frustration. “You don’t understand. I think he buried her—in secret—after, you know, doing away with her.”

  “Doing away with her?” Kit asked incredulously.

  She nodded.

  “With his own bare hands?”

  She nodded again, although she hadn’t actually thought about that.

  “You think he did away with his wife with his own bare hands and then buried her down here with all this beautiful cheese under this stone floor that we’re standing on right now?”

  Abbey nodded, her tears spilling over her cheeks.

  “This stone floor?” Kit asked again, stamping one of his feet on the ground. “This smooth, flat, unlined floor with no body-sized holes in it?”

  Abbey nodded again. “I suppose,” she said.

  “What are you? Nuts?” Kit said, lifting his hands off her. “You think your own grandfather would do something like that? Jesus, Abbey, you have no idea how ridiculous that sounds. I mean does the guy really strike you as a murderer?”

  It took a few moments for Abbey to realize that Kit was not agreeing with her. The weight came back and landed squarely on her shoulders again. Why had she told him?

  “Well, what would you know?” she said, angry at having let down her guard. “You don’t know anything about him.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t know anything about him either,” Kit said, not unpleasantly exactly but with some frustration. “You’ve been gone since you were five and your mom has obviously been filling your head with garbage about the poor guy. But think about it, Abbey. Would your grandfather really want a rotting cadaver stinking up the very air that he relies on for the flavor of his precious cheese?”

  “That’s my grandmother you’re talking about,” Abbey said angrily, but Kit just laughed.

  “Corrie, a murderer? Jesus, he must have laughed his head off when you put that to him. I mean, what did he say? Did he confess immediately and beg to be brought to justice?”

  Abbey looked away and Kit knew then, for sure, that she had not asked her grandfather about his wife, that that was the reason why she stiffened whenever he came into a room and seemed so uneasy in his presence.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Abbey,” he said. His heart, to his own surprise, was suddenly full of sympathy for her. She was so complicated it wasn’t funny. It was very unfunny. She hung her head.

  “It sounds silly, I know, now that I say it out loud,” she said. “But why else would she run away and never come back? Why else would she keep me away from him all these years? You don’t do that stuff for nothing, you know.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and Kit pulled her toward him and took her in his arms.

  “I don’t know why she did what she did,” he answered truthfully, “but I do know you need to talk to your grandfather about all this.” He leaned back and pulled Abbey’s chin up so he could look her in the eye. “And I promise that when he calls the Twinkie-mobile to come and drag you to the nearest nut farm, I will fight him with all the strength in my body.”

  If I have any left, he thought to himself, after all the effort of not throwing you to the ground and having you right here and now, dead murdered rotting cadaverous grandmother or not.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Your troubles are like germs, you can’t bring them into the cheese factory. Cheese is sensitive, it can tell if something is weighing heavy on your heart, and in my experience, it doesn’t give a shite. It wants you to feck right off and come back when you’re able.”

  JOSEPH FEEHAN, from The Cheese Diaries, RTE Radio Archives

  Corrie and Fee were sitting in the smoking room with an aged cheddar Fee had filched out of the fromagerie. Avis’s tea had gone cold, and anyway they both felt their separate headaches would be improved with a bit of a tipple.

  Corrie had something he knew would be perfect for the match and was not even halfway to the wine rack when Fee crowed with delight.

  “You’re right,” he said. “A Chilean Merlot. Who would have thought?”

  “You won’t know this one,” said Corrie. “I got it sent over from London specially.”

  “Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta, if that’s how you say it,” said Fee. “Well done yourself.”

  Corrie was torn between being highly impressed and highly irritated. Was there nothing he could do to surprise the little toad? The little toad looked at him and shook his head, beaming from ear to ear as he watched the wine being opened.

  “Is shitey a word, do you think?” he asked, changing the subject and stretching his fat little legs out in front of him.

  “As in what?” Corrie asked.

  “As in ‘The day started quite well and then turned shitey,’” Fee answered.

  “Did you really think it started well?” Corrie said.

  “I’m not talking about today,” said Fee, “I’m talking about shitey.”

  “Well, I think today started out shitey, got a bit less shitey, then a bit more shitey, and will hopefully not be so shitey again,” said Corrie, rubbing the egg on his forehead as he let the Merlot breathe.

  “So you do think it’s a word, then.” Fee grinned. “I thought as much. Well, now we have that settled do you think you could do us all a favor and cheer up a bit?”

  The truth was, Corrie was scared to be happy. They thought they had overheard hopeful sounds coming from the curing room, but what say they were wrong?

  “For the love of God!” cried Fee, reading his thoughts. “Would it kill you to look on the bright side for a bit? Abbey’s come home
, there’s a fellow wants to make cheese and who knows what else with her, the sun is shining and everything is going to be all right.”

  “I’m not sure she likes him,” said Corrie. “And I’m not sure she’s wild about us either.”

  “She seems to like me all right,” Fee said. “So what could she possibly have against you?”

  Corrie sliced off a chunk of mature cheese and scooped it into his mouth, its zesty zing giving him a brief respite from his depression. “Well, I can’t be absolutely sure,” he said slowly, “but she seems to be scared of me, Joseph, and all I can think is that Rose has been telling her things that have frightened her.”

  Fee took a sip of wine and savored it, then swallowed. “So,” he said eventually, “she knows they’re not your own teeth?”

  Corrie ignored the poor attempt at humor and pressed on. “It’ll be to do with Maggie, like it always was. I think Rose might have been up to her old tricks again, Joseph, telling Abbey stories about Maggie. Her favorite stories.”

  “And what makes you think that?” Fee asked.

  “Because why would anybody be scared of me? God knows I’ve made mistakes but I’ve always tried my best to do what is right—well, what Rose wanted and what is right and they weren’t always one and the same but I tried my best. I just wonder . . .”

  Fee swallowed and licked his lips. “You wonder what?”

  “I wonder if perhaps my best wasn’t good enough,” said Corrie.

  “Don’t be so feckin’ hard on yourself, Joseph,” Fee answered. “You weren’t a bad father at all—you just didn’t have the ideal daughter. It happens. Sure, you’re not the only one who’s had a hard row to hoe as far as their children are concerned, you know.”

  “I do know but she’s my only child and Abbey’s her only child; they are all I have so I must have done something terrible to end up without either of them. I don’t know, Joseph. I just don’t know.” For the first time in a long time, he felt his age. He felt old and achey and slightly confused and not sure what to do about any of it. He had thought having Abbey back home would be the best thing that could ever happen to him. He had waited for it for so long. Yet, here she was and here he was. The two of them, miserable.