Nature as a cultural artifact … Daniel’s words were ringing in her mind when a willowy woman wearing a long, clinging dress of gray jersey, her face framed by silver-gray hair, emerged from a hallway that extended to the back of the gallery.
“Danny, so sorry to have run off and left you like that—I’d been waiting for that phone call from New York for hours. Hello, I’m Margitte Vaughan.” She posed an elegant hand in the air, and a row of thin silver bracelets ran up her arm in a symphony of delicate clinking. Annie took Margitte’s hand, expecting a cold, bony clutch. She was surprised by the strength and warmth of its grasp.
“Margitte, this is Annie Crowe, visiting Beara from Seattle; Annie, Margitte owns this gallery. She’s been a champion of mine for a long time, far longer than I deserve.”
“Nonsense. Daniel is one of Ireland’s most important metal artists; Ireland just doesn’t know it yet. But they will, if I have anything to do about it. A pleasure to meet you, Annie. Are you in the arts? A friend of Danny’s?” Words delivered with a sylvan accent of Scandinavia lined with London.
“I—well, no.” Annie’s face flamed. “I’m in the area on business. It’s just a coincidence that I’m in Kenmare today.” Coincidence seemed too cheap of a word for all that had happened this week. It couldn’t be coincidence that Daniel had found his way to the bar where she’d been plotting her destruction. This trip was beginning to feel like fate sticking out its foot as she ran toward it, heedless, blind.
“And you’ll be here for Daniel’s opening next week, of course?” Margitte swept her hands around the room, and her bracelets set off a shower of chimes like fairy bells. Annie imagined if this woman wriggled her nose, the art would fly free of its wrappings and settle itself on the walls and stands according to her whim.
“I didn’t know … ” She wouldn’t admit this was the first she’d heard of Daniel’s show. She cringed in embarrassment for them both.
“Annie’s a photographer.” Daniel stepped in. A small flush of pleasure to hear him claim her as an artist. But how she wished not to be the center of attention.
“Then you must see Grainne’s work. What sort of photography do you do?” Margitte slipped her arm into Annie’s and steered her toward the photographer’s collection.
“I just dabble. Landscapes, mostly. I was looking at Grainne’s work when I came in. She uses a four-by-five large format, doesn’t she? It’s something I’d love to learn.”
They stopped in front of a photograph of a storm brewing over the Skelligs. “Grainne’s work is exquisite. It’s what brought me inside.”
Margitte rested a hand on Annie’s wrist, and the warm fingers seemed to search beneath her skin, just as Margitte’s eyes had searched her face. She didn’t want to leave; there was something so peaceful about this gray and silver woman and her otherworldly grace.
“Yes, she’s quite a sight, tramping the hills with her gear in tow. Grainne is offering a workshop on landscape photography in June—she’ll be roaming around the Beara and Kerry peninsulas with a small group, perhaps eight? If you are still in the area, you should join her. She’s usually booked months in advance, but she slipped this week in with little fanfare, so you might be in luck. There’s a brochure on the front counter—Seamus can help you.”
The faint trilling of a mobile phone saved Annie from having to respond. Margitte mouthed her apology and stepped away, answering the call in a throaty language Annie guessed to be Danish.
Suddenly shy to be left with Daniel in the middle of this conversation and this room, she turned back to the photographs. “I wish I had a tenth of her talent,” she said. “I could live inside every one of these photographs.”
“You said that once before.”
“I said what once before?”
“That you could live inside these views. Monday, on the Beara Way? I have a vision of you stepping over a frame into a tableau and waving good-bye to the rest of us stuck in the real world.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso, to hug close the image of walking into this fantasy. “Wouldn’t that be the dream?”
A faint humming interrupted the shared reverie. Daniel patted the front of his shirt, his jeans pockets, and finally retrieved his phone from a display table a short distance away. He thumbed the screen of his phone and grimaced.
“My niece,” he muttered as he tapped out a text. “I dropped her and a friend off at the cinema a couple of hours ago and yes, I’m officially late picking them up, as six texts in the last fifteen minutes would attest.” He tucked the phone into his front pocket as he came to her side again. Nodding at the photo of the storm that had so enchanted her, he said, “You don’t have to dream it—the real thing isn’t so far away.”
“Yes, but I was hoping for an escape from the real world.”
“You ask for a lot.”
“No, I’ve learned not to ask for much of anything. But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming.” It was too late for more unguarded revelations. She had to let him go. Annie glanced at her watch. “I should be on my way, too—I want to be home before dark. Even with GPS, I’m bound to get lost on these roads.”
“Follow me,” he said. “The cinema is on the way.”