Kathleen: The Celtic Knot

Celtic Knots

The night before the feis, Polly finally finishes the last stitches on the costume. Kathleen gathers up the dress. It’s wool is thick and soft, and Kathleen can hear a quiet crinkling sound as she smooths down the skirt. Polly inserts a piece of stiff lining at the waist to give it some body.

A minute later, Kathleen comes out of the bedroom with the dress on. Polly says she looks lovely. Green is her color. Madge and Lily and Patsy all gather around and pat Kathleen down, and Kathleen wriggles a bit inside the dress getting used to the feel of it.

Polly says it’s a little bit plain. A little shamrock or something would be nice, but surely they can’t have everything. Kathleen is so happy that she doesn’t even mind not having a shamrock.

Polly picks up the brat which is lined with a piece of yellow saffron silk casing from Mam’s best wedding present eiderdown. Kathleen knows that people won’t see much of the underside when it’s on, but it looks pretty all the same.

Kathleen grabs the two Tara pins that Mrs. Maguire gave her, and they pin the brat to the shoulders of the dress. Kathleen does a little skip of excitement. Polly says all she needs now is a touch of geranium lipstick. Kathleen says that it isn’t right for an Irish dancer to wear lipstick. It’s not the cha-cha she’s doing.

Kathleen goes to show Mam the dress. Mam is sitting with her pillow tucked in behind her for support. Kathleen hasn’t seen her sitting since the first day she got sick.

Mam says that Kathleen is simply a vision. Her costume is lovely. And Polly has worked a miracle with those curtains. And even better, Mam says she’s finally turned a corner. She feels as if she could do heaps and kill dead things. But, the one thing she needs right now, is her workbasket.

Mystified, Kathleen goes back into the kitchen to get the large wicker workbasket from under the dresser where it’s kept. Mam says that while she was waiting for the blue material to become a remnant, she started to gather some colored embroidery threads. And she has some nice little Celtic knot patterns that she traced out of a library book.

Mam pulls out a fistful of colors, purple, yellow, red, and white, and spreads them out on the bedspread. Then she reaches back into the workbasket and brings out a piece of greaseproof paper which is penciled with two simple but beautiful designs of interlocking loops.

Mam says that if Polly and Kathleen can thread the needles, she’ll have no trouble with the embroidery. It will only take her an hour at the most.

It ends up taking more than an hour, even with Polly and Kathleen doing the threading and handing Mam the colors as she needed them. She looks drained by the time she’s finished, but the green dress has been transformed from something quite nice but rather ordinary into a beautiful Irish dancing costume. The Celtic knot on the bodice glows with color and brings the dull green of the fabric alive. It’s a costume fit for a dancing champion topped off with Polly’s green beret. They stick the feather from Mam’s best hat on the side.

Kathleen glows with pleasure. Maybe God wasn’t cross with her after all. Mother Rosario always says their prayers are often answered in unexpected ways. There’s no doubt about it—a person never knows what He is going to do next.