By

Norman Freeman

 An extraordinary story this.  It took place in a town in south Galway one sunny afternoon in Spring.  A fellow called Eanna was alone all alone out in a field on the edge of the town. He had his trusted hurley with him. He was whiling the time away and honing his skills by hitting the sliotar straight up in the air and then swinging the hurley to meet it coming down, sending it up again. Again and again. It calls for a sharp eye and excellent co-ordination to be able to do this for several minutes on end.

He had time on his hands simply because he was searching might and main for a job. He had a degree in English from NUI Galway but it didn't seem to be of much help. He sent out piles of CVs to various jobs but could get nothing. He was taking whatever work he could get and had just finished a ten-week stint Teaching English as a Foreign Language to a group of Brazilians.

This particular day he became aware that the swallows had arrived from Southern Africa. He was fascinated by their speedy, wavering flight over the grass as they sought tiny airborne insects. 

Purely out of harmless divilment he used swing the hurl quickly and let fly the sliotar at a point just ahead of their flight path.  Of course he had no intention of hitting them. In any case these birds always veered away rapidly when they saw the sliotar coming in their direction. He became quite good at this particular accomplishment.

Then one sunny afternoon he heard a scream from a garden in one of the nearby houses.  He looked over to see a sparrowhawk flying away with a small bird in its talons. Quick as he could, he hit the sliotar, aiming ahead of the flight of the bird of prey. The ball actually came within a metre of the hawk. It was sufficiently near to frighten him and he dropped the little bird and zipped away with an angry shriek.

Eanna ran over and picked up the bird, a yellow canary. It was quivering with fright but seemed unharmed. Then a girl's voice called anxiously from over the wall of a garden full of mature trees and shrubs. Eanna went over, bird in hand.

A good-looking girl in a skimpy bathing suit appeared on the wall. She was beside herself with relief and gratitude as she took the bird gently in her hand.

“I should never have let him out of his cage. There would have been <i>míle</i> murder when the parents come back tomorrow and the canary carried away and eaten by a hawk.”

Eanna was much taken by this winsome girl. He had sometimes seen her around the town. All he knew was that she was in some kind of business.  He was very pleased when she invited him into the garden for a cool drink.

There were deck chairs and a sun-bed on the patio. The two of them sipped a can of beer and chatted.  Eanna is an amiable, handsome sort of fellow with a confident air about him. The girl, whose name is Ciara, seemed to take a strong liking to him.

They began to exchange personal information. Neither of them was in any kind of relationship. When, merely in passing, he told her that one of his aims was to become fluent in the Brazilian version of Portuguese, she became animated. "Jesus, you could be the very kind of person we're looking for.”

She explained that she was in a small company that was planning to enter the Brazilian market to sell specialised food products as well as to explore the opportunities of setting up a college in Sao Paulo to teach English.