KATE OPENED THE letter with the American stamp and smiled in delight.
“Rodney Jackson is coming,” she told David, whose dark head was visible above the paper.
“Good,” he said vaguely.
“Isn’t it great?” she insisted.
“Very,” he mumbled
“Very what?” she demanded
“Very interesting,” he said.
“What’s interesting?” Kate asked.
“Whatever you said,” he answered.
“What did I say?” she demanded.
“You have me now,” he admitted, lowering the paper and grinning across at her.
“You’re not a morning person,” Kate told him, “and I should have learnt after eight years that at breakfast I’m talking to myself.”
“Let’s start again,” David told her folding the newspaper and putting it away. “It was something about Rodney Jackson, wasn’t it?”
“You got it! Some part of your brain must have been ticking over. He’s coming for a few weeks.”
“That will give Lizzy and Julia something to keep them occupied,” David declared.
“He creates a great stir every time he comes, doesn’t he,” Kate said with relish, “and it’s the last thing that he wants to do.”
“Well, he does stand out a bit in the crowd, but I suppose with his height it’s understandable, and then he doesn’t dress like a local farmer.”
“And the funny thing is,” Kate said, “that he’d love to fit in so well that he wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Well, tell him this time to put on a pair of wellingtons and a torn jumper and not to shave for a week.”
“Could you imagine him?” Kate laughed.
“No,” David admitted, “but no matter what he did, he’d never look as if he were born in Kilmeen. You only acquire his look after years of the good life.”
“And he sure looks good,” Kate said in an affected American drawl.
“And most women in Kilmeen would agree with you,” David told her.
“If I weren’t so happy with my lot,” Kate smiled, “I’d be throwing my hat into the ring too.”
“One good man is enough for any woman,” David told her, rising from his chair and ruffling her hair as he slipped on his tweed jacket. She reached up her arms and drew his head down and they kissed long and lingeringly.
“A day doesn’t begin any better than this.” David smiled down at her lovingly.
“You might not be too attentive to conversation in the morning,” Kate told him, “but you’re all switched on in other departments.”
“You smell so good,” David told her, burying his face in her hair.
Suddenly the door burst open and Fr Brady shot in waving a letter.
“We’re playing Ross in the final on Sunday …” and then he stopped short and smiled at them. “Isn’t that a great way to begin the day?”
“Nearly as good as morning prayers,” David laughed, “but I’d best get down to the school and get the young in off the street before Fr Burke complains again that they are making too much noise.”
“Never happy unless he is complaining,” Fr Brady assured him.
“I’ll see you for training at lunchtime, and were you saying that the final is fixed for Sunday?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Fr Brady told him.
“That will sort out the men from the boys, as Jack would say,” David declared, going out the door and blowing a kiss to Kate over his shoulder.
“Sit down and have a cup of tea with me, Fr Tim,” Kate invited him.
“Delighted to,” he told her, “but stay where you are and I’ll get a cup myself.”
“Well, how are things?” she asked as she poured.
“Oh, the usual,” he told her, “himself complaining and me trying to turn a deaf ear.”
“Nothing changes,” she sighed.
“Sometimes I get fed up with it, to be honest,” he told her seriously, “and I wonder will I ever be able to stick it.”
“Oh my God, I never thought that he was getting under your skin to that extent.”
“Well, not all the time,” he admitted. “Sometimes there is a clear run and then all hell breaks loose. Maybe it’s just that we see the priesthood in a totally different light.”
“Thank God for that. No parish could survive two of him,” Kate declared as she poured him a second cup of tea. It always amused her the way Fr Tim did everything so fast. It could not be good for him to be always on the go, and she felt sure that it was only when he was fishing that he came to a standstill. He was full of compressed energy, and she knew from experience that he moved first and asked questions afterwards. But for now he seemed to be putting thought into what he was about to say.
“Well, what is it?” she prompted him. “You seem to have something stuck in your craw, as Jack would say.”
“Kate, would you give me a straight answer to something that’s bothering me?” he asked.
“Try me,” Kate told him, “and I’ll do my best.”
“How am I shaping up as a priest?” he asked. “Sometimes I have huge doubts about my suitability for this business.” Kate looked at him in amazement.
“You’re the best,” she told him. “You’re what it’s all about, and that’s not alone my opinion but the opinion of most people in the parish, especially the young ones.”
“Sometimes I think that I’m a bit of a fraud,” he said grimly. “I preach the love of God to people, but there are times when I question if he is even there.”
“Don’t we all?” Kate assured him. “But despite that we still keep going, and then one day something happens and you know that he is right there in the heart of everything. When I sit by the deathbeds of old country people who have lived close to the earth and God all their lives, I feel Him with them. Their simple faith confirms me in mine.”
“I know what you mean,” Fr Tim agreed slowly. “Death is a sobering moment, when all the masks slip away and you see reality. Some of these old country people are amazing.”
“Not all of them, mind you,” Kate smiled. “Probably only the ones who found their own inner harmony. I was with my mother when she died, and she slipped away as quietly as she had lived.”
“‘As a man lives, so shall he die,’” Fr Tim quoted to himself.
“I suppose,” Kate continued, “if we haven’t found God in our daily round, nothing is going to change in death.”
“He is very important to you, isn’t He?” Fr Tim asked.
“I don’t often sit down and analyse things like we’re doing now, but in my job I feel His power when I watch people die and, at the other end of the scale, when I help deliver a baby.”
“Whenever I meet you after you’ve delivered a baby, there is a special glow about you,” Fr Tim smiled.
“It’s a miracle every time,” she told him.
They sat in silence for a while.
“It must be very hard not to have one of your own,” he said gently.
“Very,” she told him grimly.
“You never mention it.”
“Maybe I’m afraid that if I start talking I’ll never stop. I don’t want it to become an obsession with me because in many ways I have so much. David and I are very happy together and I know that he would love a child, but because he knows that I feel the same way, we try not to let it become a mountain in our lives. We have almost come to the stage now where neither of us brings it up in case of upsetting the other, and that’s not right either.”
“Understandable though.”
“Still, it’s good to discuss it occasionally, and strangely enough Jack and myself sometimes talk about it.”
“You’re very fond of Jack,” Fr Tim smiled.
“He’s been the backbone of my life, always there through every storm that blew through Mossgrove,” she said thoughtfully.
“The last one shook him up quite a bit,” Fr Tim said.
“It did indeed,” Kate sighed. “His hay would be sacred in Jack’s eyes, and to see it being burned was almost like scorching himself.”
“Hard to understand Conway,” Fr Tim said.
“What was it St Paul said: ‘Understand it even though it’s beyond all understanding.’”
“Never knew that you were a biblical scholar.”
“Funny the way you remember certain little bits,” Kate told him. “Oh, and by the way, I almost forgot to tell you that Rodney Jackson is coming soon.”
“The dashing American rides into town,” Fr Tim smiled.
“No Mrs Jackson yet?”
“Not yet,” Kate told him, “but if he is on the lookout, there would be no shortage of contenders around here.”
“He would probably fancy an Irish wife,” Fr Tim suggested.
“Well, he has decided that everything else Irish is to his satisfaction anyway.”
“You must know him pretty well at this stage since he always stays here with you,” Fr Tim said.
“What you see is what you get. Direct, generous and decisive, wielding huge power in his business world, and yet very unassuming and very anxious to do everything that’s good for Kilmeen on account of the family connection here.”
“He has made a big difference to this place,” Fr Tim remarked.
“Getting the old Jackson house for the school was wonderful for David, and he has never looked back. And, of course, what Rodney has done for Mark is fantastic.
Now Rodney is organising this exhibition in New York and Mark is going over for it.”
“He must be worth a fortune.”
“I’d say so,” Kate said, “but he keeps a very low tone about it. He thinks that we Irish are very special, so much so that he almost tiptoes around local sensibilities in case he’d upset anyone.”
“God help him,” Fr Tim declared, “he’s in for a rude awakening some day.”
“Oh, you of little faith,” Kate smiled. “You must have got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“Something like that,” he admitted, rising from the chair, “but do you know what, Kate? I’m the better for talking to you. You always straighten me up and face me in the right direction when I find myself going astray.”
“A signpost,” Kate told him laughing. “Maybe I should stand up at the village corner and point people in the right direction.”
After Fr Tim had gone, she sat thinking about him. She was extremely fond of him and sometimes she worried that he had become too big a part of her life. He seemed to have slipped into Ned’s shoes, and she depended on him to discuss and tease out things with her. But whereas Ned had been tranquil and calming, Fr Tim, although he had the same deep sensitivity as Ned, was full of restless energy. It was just as well that she loved David deeply and had done so since she was a teenager, because it would be very easy to be carried away by the vibrancy and excitement of Fr Tim. The fact that he was totally unaware of his appeal made him more appealing, and maybe the fact that he had a collar around his neck marking him as unavailable added to that.
As there was still about half an hour before the dispensary opened, Kate walked out into the garden. She liked to stroll around the garden in the morning and see how everything had survived the night, and she never failed to be delighted at the little changes each day brought.
Now she saw that one of her mother’s old roses, which she had transplanted with care from Mossgrove, was turning from a bud into bloom. Its deep rich aroma more than compensated for its lack of showmanship. Kate always thought of it as a quiet rose. It could almost go unnoticed as you walked around the garden, but once you had passed, it reached after you and enveloped you in veils of fragrance, and then you returned, apologetic for overlooking it in the first place. Since she had moved in here she had tended this garden with loving care and turned it into her haven of delight. She came out here to be healed when she returned home after handling sad cases on her rounds. In the early days of her marriage, she had visualised a pram under the tree at the end of the garden. She thought of the impending visit of Rodney Jackson and his big plans for Mark’s exhibition. It gave them all something to look forward to, which was a great thing after the upheaval of the hay burning. It was wonderful the way he loved this place and came as often as he could. Maybe Fr Tim was right and that he might meet a local girl. Pity that Nora is too young, Kate thought. Wouldn’t she just love flitting back and forth on his trips with him? Kate smiled to herself. She had better watch herself or she’d turn into a second Julia or Lizzy.