The Pig Comes to Dinner by Joseph Caldwell Page A

and plant a kiss on the dear man’s time-furrowed brow. She didn’t doubt that the impulse would recur during this present session, especially since the opening moments—ledger, groans, despair—indicated that all would go according to plan, ending with Kitty pledging a sizeable sum to repair the very roof that she had already paid to fix after her previous intrusions concerning the wedding.
    Also, Kitty was particularly grateful that this was the day set aside for her appointment. She’d just returned from Cork and a session with her lawyer, one Debra McAlevey. Ms. McAlevey had summoned her after Kitty had ignored a series of e-mails informing her that the current Lord Shaftoe, George Noel Gordon Lord Shaftoe no less, had hired solicitors in London to represent his charge that he alone, and neither the Crown nor the Republic of Ireland, was claimant to ownership of Castle Kissane. Kitty had dismissed the previous e-mails and their content as unworthy of her attention— until Ms. McAlevey had threatened to resign as her advocate should she persist in her silence.
    That very morning Kitty had been told that his Lordship’s case was far from negligible. Documents had been presented that might possibly contradict previous assurances that the castle had, through a longtime failure to pay taxes, come finally into the possession of the Republic from which Kitty had made the purchase. She must respond. There were papers for her to sign, affidavits to which she must subscribe and, in general, she must be more attentive to her predicament.
    All of this, she told herself, was no more than an annoyance. Her right of purchase had been thoroughly researched and duly processed. Her claim was as solid as the walls of the castle itself; no one could announce himself after an absence of two centuries and presume to lay a bloodied hand on a sin- gle inch of Irish ground. Although she had signed on every dotted line Ms. McAlevey had placed before her, she had drawn on her inexhaustible fund of displeasure, allowing herself the certainty that these proceedings were meant to do no more than offer a feeble and temporary diversion from the real difficulties with which she was currently besieged—difficulties that had brought her to Father Colavin’s rectory, to her side of the table.
    Father Colavin was again shaking his head, staring down at the intractable ledgers before him. “First,” he said, “the Son of God had no place to lay his head, and now He’s to have no roof over it either. But that’s hardly your concern. You’ve no doubt come on more urgent business.” Kitty considered, by way of experimentation, making a pledge now and getting on with her purposes for being there. But then Father Colavin, in his wisdom, might interpret her opening offer as an invitation to bargain once her needs were made known. No outright increase would be asked, merely repeated interruptions of her cause, Father Colavin noting sadly the challenges to his concentration occasioned by the imminent collapse of his roof. To relieve his worries and focus his concentration, she might consider upping the pledge just a wee bit.
    Kitty decided to stick to the old ways: plead her case now, bargain later. She was fully aware that, before this meeting would be brought to its conclusion, not only the roof but also a stained glass window or two, plus a new bell for the belfry, might be put on the table as bargaining chips in the soughtfor resolution of her requirement that the castle be relieved of one ghost but not the other. She was prepared to include the bell but not the windows. Some things must be kept in reserve for future emergencies.
    â€œNow then, Caitlin”—Father addressed her with the name he had bestowed on her at the font—“tell me what I can do for you and rest assured I’ll do it if it’s within my feeble powers.”
    â€œWhat I have to say, Father, isn’t very