The Tailor’s Folly

The Tailor’s Folly

Part one of Two

The tailor drew the blind and lit the Tilly lamp against the fallen dusk. Filling his tankard he sat down in front of his slumbering fire .A spiral of grey smoke weaved it way like a dancing sensuous woman up the open chimney. He studied the curve of her body. It had been a while since a maiden had danced so provocatively for him.  Lifting his brimming glass of illicit whiskey – smuggled across the Clady border, he saluted her. Then throwing back his head he downed the whiskey.   It burned his throat and set a fire burning in his belly

Giving himself a shake he poked the fire.  It leaped into a flame and the woman disappeared. Tonight wasn’t the night to be thinking about such things, he thought regretfully. The local men would soon be arriving for the weekly card school.” If their damm women let them come,” he grunted. “Damm shrews the lot of them,” he growled spitting into the ash of the open grate. “Putting the hack on me they are, saying my house is a house where Old Nick oversees the drinking and the card playing. “

 

A loud rapping on the stout outer door gave him an inner feeling of satisfaction. There, that would be the card players now. Rising at his leisure he turned down the wick of the lamp and checked the deck of cards sitting in the centre of the card table. Some of the oul fella were half blind with age but sharp card players, he reminded himself. The less light the better.

He ran his finger around the rim of his empty glass savouring the last dregs of whiskey on his tongue before setting it aside.  He furrowed his bushy eyebrows. His whiskey supply was running low and the Custom and Exile men who hid in the bushes along the Finn River to trap the smugglers were getting smarter. Poteen stills had been ‘discovered’ in the Hills of Donegal just last week, he reminded himself. He growled low in his throat. There was a tout about somewhere. Probably one of the card players’ bloody women he thought.

His hand stilled on the latch. He intended to win hands down tonight but he’d have to let the old poteen maker win a hand or two in order to keep him sweet.  But in the end the cards will deal in my favour, he smirked glancing at the pack of cards on the table. He had made sure of that.

In the dark recesses of the kitchen beyond where the gleam of the Tilly lamp didn’t reach, he thought he heard a breath expelled. Hurriedly, he swung the door open. It didn’t do to dwell on the sound of this old house, he thought. Its back wall had been part of an old Workhouse that once houses the insane.

The door swung inwards.  A gust of cold night air crept around him. The tailor felt his bottom lip fall into a gape as he looked at the beautiful exquisitely dress woman standing on his doorstep smiling at him.  She’s certainly not the wife of any of the fools who come to play cards and lose their money, he thought.

“What can I do for you?” he said suddenly aware of the whiskey stains on his whiskers and the long spidery threads that clung to his waistcoat.

 

This will be easy, Nickoa thought as she smiled sweetly at the course featured man framed in the doorway. She moved closed so that the light from the open door fell on her silken low cut dress. “I have business with you,” she said softly.

The tailor started. She was nothing like his usual customer. “The shop is closed for the day. But if you come back in the morning…””

Nickoa pouted. The tailor felt the heat rise in his belly. It had been a while since he’d had a woman….But then there was the cards players – and money to be won.

Recognising the expression of greed in his eyes, the woman slipped a bejewelled hand under her cloak and withdrew a bulging silken purse tied at the neck with a neat bow.

The Tailor’s eyes fastened on it .It was filled with gold sovereigns. He was sure of it. There was more money there than he could ever win at cards.

Nikoa moved closer to him.” May I come in, sir” she said looking up into his eyes.

Gemma Hill 2018   copyright