Amy, Mort MacGeoghegan’s beagle, bounded past the window where Daniel sat on the long, cushioned bench, a sketchpad propped against his knees. He stilled his charcoal pencil and watched as Mort appeared in the driveway, proceeding at his dignified pace with a tall walking stick in his right hand, pulling the earth toward him in stretches his elderly legs could manage.
Daniel rapped on the window, and Amy dashed back, her tail slicing the air like a wiper blade. Barking, she ran to meet the incoming bullet that was Bannon. By the looks of the heeler’s mud-caked fur, she’d been rolling in just-turned fields, nosing around for moles, or chasing seagulls. Daniel closed his sketchpad, knocked on the window again. Mort opened the studio door as Daniel clicked on the kettle.
“Danny. Just the man I was in search of.” He propped his walking stick against the wall and sat on a bench to unlace his boots.
“Beautiful morning for a walk. I was planning a run up Hungry Hill after lunch.”
“That it is. Wish I could join you. I might make it up in time, but I’m afraid this arthritis would make coming down damn near impossible, unless you carried me.” He massaged his swollen knee joint. “But I’ll manage my five kilometers today.”
Mort, despite the pain and the deterioration of his joints, maintained a rigorous daily walking habit—more exercise than most people a third his age managed. Love and frustration for this vital man, who refused to quietly accept the degeneration of age, surged through Daniel.
“I’m on my way to see your sis, but if you’ve got a spare moment or two?”
“For you, Mort, always.” The kettle clicked off. “You’re just in time for tea.” Daniel pulled a carton of milk from the small fridge and put a mug together the way Mort preferred: black tea, a healthy splash of whole milk, no sugar. “But you know Fi’s in Skibbereen this morning?”
“Yes, but she rang to say she’d be home by lunch.” He checked his watch. “I’ve timed it just right. Half an hour, at the most.” Mort took the tea with a sigh of gratitude and stretched out his legs, wiggling his stockinged toes. Daniel pulled around a chair and sat across from him.
“Great turnout at the meeting last night,” Mort began. “I was mighty proud of Fiana. But the American woman was a surprise.”
“Yes, I got an earful from Fiana as soon as the meeting broke up. You’d’ve thought we were conspiring against her.”
Mort’s blue eyes, so like Daniel’s own, sparkled with laughter over the rim of his mug.
“Yeah. Don’t you start.” Daniel grew serious. “Sure, she’s lovely, but if that interested me, there’s no end to the punters hanging out in the pub if I wanted a fling. Why are we talking about this?”
“Because I sense that it matters to you. That she matters.” Mort, in his gentle way, held on like a dog with a stick, daring Daniel to wrest it from him and toss it far.
“Matters? Matters how?” Daniel set his mug on the worktable with a smack. “She’s an alcoholic.” The older man raised his trim, white eyebrows. “Not that I plan to invite her into my life, but that one I didn’t see coming.”
“How’d you find this out?”
“I saw her at an AA meeting in Bantry.” Daniel wasn’t ready to admit he’d been inside her house, nor could he begin to explain the shouting episode. He was getting too close.
“I’ll leave you be, lad. But don’t be afraid to listen. I think you know what I’m talking about.”
Daniel’s thoughts flashed to the soft, throaty voice that delivered lines from a famous poem into the air, reaching for him with some purpose he couldn’t yet understand. “’Fraid I don’t. But if it makes you feel any better, I spend most of my days in silence. If there’s something to be heard, I’m sure I’ll catch it. Did you really come here to talk about Annie?”
“Not exclusively. I wanted to catch you before I talked to Fiana. Just the two of us. I’ve been doing a little advance legwork, so to speak.” He grimaced as he flexed his aching knee. “A great group of kids from UCC have been scrambling to rally the troops. I didn’t want to bring this up last night in case it was premature, but I received the word just this morning.”
He took a swallow of tea before continuing. “The Beara Chough Coalition have enlisted the support of BirdWatch Ireland and the Irish Wildlife Trust, and together we’ve prepared an injunction against Eire-Evergreen Metals. We’ll be filing by the end of the day, using a pro bono attorney in Dublin. We’re invoking the strictures of the Special Protection Area Act to halt further development of the mine.”
“Will it work?”
Mort raised his shoulders and pressed his lips together. “Likely it’ll at least stop Eire-Evergreen until they sort things out. The more time we have to mount our campaign, the better prepared we’ll be.”
“Fi’ll be thrilled when she finds out.”
“Oh, she knows most of the story already. I just need to bring her up to speed on this morning’s events. I really came to ask you to reconsider.”
“Reconsider?”
“A video production class at the university has offered to film a promotional spot. The kids think they can get it to go viral on the Internet.” Daniel held back a smile at this elegant man’s colloquial phrasing. “They want you to be the face and voice.”
“Isn’t this about the chough? Why is there even a need for a spokesperson?”
“You’re handsome and well-spoken. You’re the antithesis of the bleeding heart environmentalist. You look like you should be in that mine, but instead you’re fighting for a little black bird.”
Daniel snorted his contempt. “I’m not an actor.”
Mort held his gaze. “Exactly. I think you should do it for the very reason you don’t want to. Because of what you represent.”
“What the hell do I represent?”
“A man who has rebuilt his life after failure, whose story is the story of Ireland. A man whose life’s work is devoted to sharing the beauty of his country.”
“I am a man who took the life of a five-year-old boy. Let that story get out, and your campaign will be in the viral bunghole. Ireland is a survivor; that is true. I’m an ex-con with a drink-driving manslaughter conviction on his résumé.”
“We would never try to hide your past, Danny. But I wonder if you will ever accept the Burkes’ forgiveness and do as they asked: Turn what you’ve done into something good.”
Daniel whistled low. “You’ve been taking lessons from my sister, haven’t you?”
“I can’t tell you what to do, of course. But you’re like a son to me, lad, so I’ll tell you what I think. I think you should let go of this self-flagellation. What is served by hiding away, denying yourself a future, a family, any measure of happiness?”
“Happiness is temporary. It’s shite. I gave up the right to happiness when I killed that child. All I want now is to be at peace. The art, the guiding, it’s enough. Why doesn’t anyone believe me? I have enough.”
Mort swallowed the rest of his tea, set the cup on the floor, and retied his boots. “You’re what, forty? Barely half your life behind you. I’m looking at it from the other side. And what I’m proudest of are the fifty-five years I spent with Birdie. I had the good sense to marry her when we were eighteen, and I never regretted a day. It’s hell now, being alone. Maybe it’s time you let someone else in your life.”
Daniel choked back angry retorts that burned like bile in his throat. Slapping his hands on his thighs, he said, “I’ve got some work to do here. The house is open if you want to wait inside for Fiana.”
Mort ran a hand over his jaw, rubbing the white patches of beard. Daniel waited for an admonishment. Instead he said, “Understood, son. Thank you for hearing me out.”
Daniel watched as the old man leaned into his walking stick and hoisted his thin body to standing. He turned before the door closed behind him.