Jacinta hadn’t always been vegetarian. She hadn’t always been German either. With hindsight, picking an assumed name with a “J” at the start of it hadn’t been the wisest of moves for someone using an assumed accent that had no use for them. But in this kind of rural community, they were more likely to accept someone really, properly foreign than an ex secretary from Dublin, especially one with radical environmental ideas. Irish people weren’t very green. The irony wasn’t lost on her.
If she’d “come down from Dublin…with her loom” (the stress would have been so heavy on the last word, there’d have been creaking), she’d have been accused of “having notions”. This was a fate worse than drowning or burning at the stake; having notions about oneself was a drier, colder, slower social death. But arriving from Hamburg with a loom and dreams of a goat’s cheese cottage industry was welcomed. It was assumed that you would walk around naked a lot to make up for it.
Of course, Jacinta had never been to Hamburg. The name slipped off her tongue one day when she was asked to fill in some of her background-blanks. She didn’t know if it was North, South, East or West, but she did know she’d been craving minced beef patties that day. She rarely even thought about meat these days, but every now and again when she was stressed, a fat, juicy burger with all the trimmings called to her. Since she’d met Kevin, she hadn’t had one stressful day and the ketchup had remained firmly in the cupboard. There had simply been no need for buns. Until now.
To be continued…if you like.
Running the NYC marathon on Nov 1 for the Alzheimer’s Society. Please sponsor me here.
