Chapter 92: The Vote in the Hall

The hall was full at eight in the morning. Every wolf in Dún Aonghasa was in it, standing along the walls and sitting on the benches and crowding the doorway, and there was not a wolf in the village who was not in that room.

Ahern sat at the long table with his case open and the whole of it in front of him. The second charter was on the table and the red ledger and the cooper's book and the black book and the brown book and the letters of his father and the deed of gift and the ring and the weight of forty one. The whole of it was in front of the co-op and the whole of it had been read out loud.

Mary Flannery was in a chair at the front of the hall with a blanket round her and a cup in her hands and her gold hair going grey at the temples and her face the colour of the wall. She had been sick twice on the boat and she had not slept and she had been told a thing at six in the morning that no woman should be told on a pier.

Mairéad was in the chair at the head of the table with her silver hair pinned up and her black coat on and her hands folded.

Declan was by the wall with his hands at his sides and he had not looked at me since the headland.

Cormac was at the front of the hall beside Mary.

And I was in the middle of the floor with the weight in my hand and the whole co-op looking at me.

“There is a thing about this vote that I have to say before it is taken,” Ahern said. “It is not a vote on a claim. It is not a vote on a challenge. It is a vote on a wolf. The seat is vacant and the first blood is in this room and the first blood has not been in this village and has not shifted and has not been in a pack and cannot hold the seat. The co-op may set aside the seat and hold a vote and the wolf who receives the vote is the Alpha until the first blood returns.” He looked at the whole hall. “And there is a thing about the vote that the charter says and that the co-op is going to hear. A vote on the seat requires two thirds of the wolves of the co-op. Not a half. Two thirds. Thirty three wolves out of forty eight.”

The hall stirred.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” Mairéad said. “And I am going to say it before the vote and then I am going to sit in this chair and not say another word.” She put her hands flat on the table. “I am not a claimant. I resigned the seat two nights ago in writing and I am not going to pretend that I did not. But I am a wolf of this co-op and I am the woman who has been in that chair for fourteen years and there is a thing about me that the co-op should know before it votes on a stranger. I have been a hard woman and I have done things that no wolf should do and I am going to answer for them in front of the Council and in front of the co-op and in front of whatever court will have me. But I have also kept this village fed for fourteen years and I have kept the boats in the water and the children in the school and the hunters off this coast. And there is a thing about the woman from Dublin that the co-op has not thought of. She has been in this village for a week. A week. And the co-op is going to hand her the seat and the boats and the hall and the moorings and the whole of it on the word of a woman who has been in it for a week.”

The hall stirred.

“And there is a thing about the vote that I am going to say and then I am going to be quiet,” Mairéad said. “I am not asking the co-op to vote for me. I am asking the co-op to vote against her. Because a wolf who has been in a village for a week does not know the coast and does not know the boats and does not know the families and does not know the north and does not know the men from Sligo and does not know the man in Galway. And there is a thing about the morning that she has not told you. The man in Galway has sent a letter and a man and a bus and he has not come himself. And a man who does not come himself is a man who is going to write another letter and send another man. And the wolf who is in that chair when the second letter comes is the wolf who is going to have to answer it.”

The hall was silent.

Ahern put his hand on the table.

“The vote is on the woman Niamh,” he said. “Those in favour.”

The hands went up.

I stood in the middle of the floor and watched them go up one by one. Tom and Hannah and the woman from the post office and the man who had been at the boathouse with the petrol can. Arthur and his son and the man with the red face who had been at the slip. Leo who did not sleep. Nora. Eileen from the post office. Maire, who had come down from the headland at dawn and was standing by the door with her grey plait down her back. Cormac. Daniel Flannery, who was not of this pack and who could not vote. Ronan, who was not of the co-op and could not vote.

And there were wolves who did not put their hands up. There were eleven of them and they stood along the wall at the back with their hands at their sides and their faces turned away, and one of them was a woman I had never spoken to and one of them was a man who had been at the wake and one of them was Tom's brother who kept the boats at the north pier.

Ahern counted. He counted twice. Then he put his pen down.

“Thirty four in favour,” he said. “Eleven against. Three wolves are not in this room.” He looked up. “The vote is carried. The seat is set aside and the wolf Niamh is the Alpha of Dún Aonghasa until the first blood returns.”

The hall went up. And then it went the other way. The eleven at the back turned round and walked out through the green door and did not look at me, and Tom’s brother stopped in the doorway and said, “You have given this village to a stranger and a book and a woman who has been here a week. And there is going to be a reckoning for it and it is not going to come from Galway.”

He went out. The green door shut behind him.

I stood in the middle of the hall with the weight in my hand and the whole of it on my shoulders and the whole of the morning in front of me.

And then Mary Flannery stood up out of her chair with the blanket round her and her cup in her hands and said, “There is a thing I have to say and I am going to say it badly and I am sorry. I have been on a boat all night and I have been told that I am the heir of a pack and that my mother is in the north and that the woman who was in that chair has been lying to this village for thirty six years. And I do not know what a pack is. I do not know what an heir is. I have been a fisherman’s wife in Killybegs for twenty years and I have two children and a house and a boat and I have never shifted in my life.” She looked at me. “But there is a thing I do know. I have been sitting in this hall for an hour and I have heard the whole of it read out loud and there is not a wolf in this room who has told a lie this morning except the woman with the silver hair. And I am not going to stand in the way of a woman who has been in this village for a week and has told the truth in it.” She put her cup down. “I am not going to claim the seat. Not today. Not until I know what I am. And there is a thing about that which is worse than a claim. It means that the wolf who is in the chair this morning is going to be in it when the man from Galway writes his second letter.”