THAT NIGHT, WE eat again at Joe Moloney’s in Ballykilleen. Sylvie plays with her hair braid, wrapping it around her hand.
“D’you like it?” she says. “It’s really pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s pretty,” I tell her.
It’s utterly dark when we leave, all around us the great still scented quiet of the Irish night. Adam drives slowly. A dazed sheep runs in front of the car, then lurches off into the blackness.
We come to the right turn that leads across Coldharbour Bog. There’s a sign that says YIELD, and usually Adam stops here. He brakes, but the car glides forward, over the line.
“Shit,” he says.
My pulse races off.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“I think it’s the brakes. They feel kind of spongy,” he says.
He drives on very slowly to a place where the road is wider, pulls over, turns off the ignition. It’s so quiet in the car without the engine noise.
I can see the black of the sky and the denser dark of the mountains, and the lights of Coldharbour far off, like a handful of bright beads flung down.
“But can’t we just drive on—you know, really slowly?” I say.
“No, we can’t,” he tells me.
I feel the dark edge closer.
“Please, Adam.” There’s a shred of panic in my voice. “I don’t want to stop here.”
“No. There’s no way I’d risk it. Not with Sylvie in the car.”
“But if we just drive very slowly?”
“No, Grace.”
There’s something hard in his voice—I sense he could get angry with me. I glance at him. He looks shaken. I think about Jake, of the fear he must have that something like that could happen again. I feel a surge of protectiveness, wanting to reach out and put my hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll shut up now.”
“I’ll ring the AA. We’ll just have to wait,” he tells me.
He turns on the map light, starts flicking through the information folder. With the light on, there’s a deeper darkness to the night outside. We’re so exposed now, people miles away could see us.
“Adam. If it’s the brakes, could someone have done something to them?”
Yet even as I say it, it seems a wild idea.
“Grace. Calm down,” he tells me. “I’m sure nobody’s tampered with anything.”
But I see his frown, the sharp little lines between his brows.
I wind my window down. Cool air touches my cheek, carrying the smell of the peat bog, that heavy scent of roots and rot and wet. The countryside smells stronger at night. In the frail gleam from the map light, the cotton grass has a bleached look. You can hear the strange, scraping croak of some hidden frog or bird, and a hissing in the grasses, the incessant seethe of the wind.
Adam is making his call.
“Can’t you be any quicker? We’ve got a young child in the car.”
I hear the anger in his voice. He’s more worried than he’s admitting to me.
“They’ll be an hour,” he tells me.
I feel afraid, but I don’t know what I’m afraid of.
I turn to Sylvie. “We’re going to have a bit of a wait,” I tell her.
She undoes her seat belt, leans across the seats between us. She’s looking at the Saint Christopher that hangs in the front of the car. She taps it with one finger, and it sends out sparkles of light.
“You could read your comic,” I tell her.
I hand her Big Ted and the comic and a felt-tip.
“I’m hungry,” she tells me.
I have emergency supplies that I bought at Barry’s this afternoon—a Twix, a packet of potato chips. I give her the Twix; she pushes down the paper, takes a bite. She sits back in her seat, but she can’t seem to get comfortable, and I take off my sweater to make a pillow for her head. She opens her comic and works on one of the puzzles, using her felt-tip to trace a path through a maze. Now and then she picks up the Twix and takes a little bite. There’s a sepia trace of chocolate around her mouth. Whatever scares me about this place doesn’t seem to frighten her.
We sit there in the quiet. My breathing seems too loud. I hear the click as Adam clears his throat. The Saint Christopher goes on moving long after Sylvie has touched it, as though it’s stirred by some secret movement of air.
And then the moon rises, moving above the mountains—a full moon, bright and sudden, like a light switched on. You can see the patterning on it, the penciling in of cold, vast craters and seas. Everything is washed in its cool whiteness. I realize I am shivering without my sweater.
When I first hear the car, it’s a very long way off. Sound travels for miles across this empty land.
My heart pounds. I turn slightly toward Adam. He’s tense, alert. I know he’s heard it too.
The sound grows slightly louder. The car is coming down from the mountains, coming the way we came. Sometimes it’s louder, sometimes it fades where a wall or hillock blocks the sound, but always drawing closer. It stops for a moment, and I know it’s reached the intersection at the edge of the bog, the road we came by. I will it to turn left, to follow the road that leads off toward Barrowmore, willing it with all my strength—as though with the force of my mind I could actually make it change course. But it starts up again, and the noise draws nearer, coming straight toward us, its approach quite steady across the flat, straight road through the bog. The sound is so clear and distinct, you can tell when the driver changes gear.
I glance at Adam again. He’s drumming his fingers rapidly on the steering wheel.
I’m watching in the wing mirror. I can see it now—the thin, long thread from its headlights, bright where it falls on water or gilds the blowing grass. Then the road turns a little, and the light shines straight in the mirror, so I’m briefly dazzled. I hear the engine slow. The car pulls to a stop behind us. I hear the thud of my heart.
The driver turns off the headlights. A door swings open, a man gets out, straightens, comes toward us. He’s a big man, but I can’t see him clearly in the darkness. Then he moves through the square of flimsy light that falls from the side of our car.
“Thank God,” I say. With a quick, warm rush of relief, I recognize Marcus Paul. “It’s Marcus. It’s okay, Adam, it’s okay. I know who it is.”
I open my door. Marcus Paul comes to my side of the car. He has a tentative half smile. I’m so happy to see him.
“Now, I think it’s Grace, isn’t that right?” he says. “We met at St. Vincent’s, didn’t we? Brigid told me who you were.”
“We’ve broken down,” I tell him.
“I kind of worked that out.” His smile is a little ironic.
“This is Adam,” I tell him.
“Delighted to meet you, Adam,” says Marcus. He bends and reaches across me so he can shake hands with Adam. He’s wearing some cologne that has a spicy, opulent scent. I feel a flicker of inchoate desire, briefly reminded of Dominic.
I turn toward her.
Sylvie is intent on her maze. She doesn’t even look up at him.
“Sylvie. Delighted,” says Marcus.
He smiles at her, but she’s staring at her comic. He reaches to shake her hand, he’s being charming, treating her like a grown-up, but she won’t put her hand out, so instead he pats her arm.
“I like Twixes too,” he says.
I feel a flicker of irritation that she won’t even smile at him when he’s so polite to her.
“I can give you folks a lift back to the village,” he tells us.
“We’d be so grateful,” says Adam.
“What I suggest—you could leave the car here till the morning and see Jimmy Flynn at the garage. He’s got a tow truck.”
“I will,” says Adam. “Thank you.”
“And when we get back to the village,” says Marcus, “I’d be delighted if you’d all come to my house for a drink.”
I’m so happy at the prospect of seeing inside Kinvara House.
Adam rings the AA to tell them not to come.
“What are we doing?” says Sylvie.
“We’re having a drink at Kinvara House. We’ll go in Marcus’s car.”
“No. I’m not going to.”
I feel a brief, hot rage.
“Well, sweetheart, that’s what we’re doing,” I tell her briskly.
“I don’t want to, Grace.”
This time I won’t give in. I’m longing to see inside the house and to get to know Marcus a little better. I’m not going to pass up my chance of that.
“Sylvie, it’ll be fine. It’s that great big house, the one with the falcons and the gorgeous garden. You’ll love it . . .”
I hunt for a tissue to wipe the chocolate from her mouth. She has muddy legs and an ice-cream stain on her fleece. I wish she looked a bit cleaner. I want Marcus to think I am a good mother.
I wipe her mouth. She twists away from my hand.
We climb into Marcus’s car, which has a rich male scent of leather. Sylvie stares out the window. I have a weak, shamed feeling—as you do when you’ve been afraid, yet your fear has proved utterly groundless.
It doesn’t take long to reach Coldharbour. It’s good to leave the bog behind and all its chilly emptiness, to drive through lighted streets, past the petrol pumps and the cheerful windows of Barry’s General Store.
Marcus turns in at Kinvara House, between the tall stone pillars. The drive is narrow: azalea bushes drag against the car windows, the touch of their flowers and foliage as soft as the touch of a hand. The color is leached from the flowers by the headlights, so they all look palest amber. I glimpse the garden through the gaps between the bushes—everything beautifully tended, but just a little casual around the edges—wide, sleek lawns and drifted narcissi that glimmer in the moonlight. The drive sweeps around and we see the facade of the house, its elegant windows and colonnade and the stone steps up to the door.
Sylvie has her face pressed to the car window, with both hands cupped around her eyes, as you do when you’re in a lighted place and you’re looking out into the dark.
When I open the car door, the scent of azalea brushes against us, a clingy, voluptuous scent, so different from the thick, earthy smells of the untended countryside.
Sylvie has Big Ted with her. But as we reach the threshold and Marcus puts his key in the lock, she grabs at my handbag and forces Big Ted inside. Perhaps she’s worried that it’s babyish to have a cuddly toy. She pushes hard, keeps pushing at him, then wrenches the zipper shut, so my bag is bulging but he’s completely hidden.
The door swings open; inside, the lights are on already. The hall is spacious and lovely, all decorated in tranquil colors, white and palest gray. The stair has an elegant curve and is made of some pale mottled stone, with a banister of black metal. On a side table there are white orchids, their complex blooms like gaping mouths. An imposing gun is mounted on the wall, beneath a pair of oars, perhaps from his university rowing team. There are alcoves along one side of the room, illuminated with amber light, displaying an ivory chess set, a jade Tang horse, a dancer sculpted in bronze.
Sylvie stops on the threshold.
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?”
She has one hand in mine and the other hand over her eyes.
“I don’t like guns,” she says.
“No, of course not, sweetheart. But no one’s using that one. It’s just for decoration, that’s why it’s up on the wall.”
She presses against me. “Bad people have guns,” she says.
It’s what I’ve always taught her, but I wish she wouldn’t say it now.
“But it’s only meant to be looked at,” I tell her. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
I feel the conflict in her—that she doesn’t want to come inside, yet she won’t let go of my hand. I pull at her, follow Marcus.
The room he ushers us into is wonderfully proportioned—high-ceilinged, with tall arched windows looking out over the sea. There are floor-length curtains of some sheer white fabric, pulled back so you can see out into the night; I glimpse the black water, the track of the moon, the lamps along the seafront. In the center of the pale oak floor there’s an antique Turkish carpet that has an intricate pattern of tangled leaves and flowers. The fireplace is made of white marble, and logs are blazing in the grate.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he says simply, accepting this. “I’m very lucky to live here. I fell in love with the place—it’s twenty years ago now. I drove past and I knew I had to have it. I’ve made a few changes, of course. I put in a new staircase and built a music room on the side. But I hope I’ve respected the feel of the place.”
I sit with Sylvie on the sofa, which is covered in soft white woolen fabric. She has a smell of chocolate, and her hair is greasy and limp. She presses up against me and grabs my arm and wraps it all around her. Adam takes one of the chairs. He sits back and stretches out his legs, and the frown lines ease from his face. I wonder if he was more alarmed when the brakes failed than I realized.
“There’s quite a view from these windows,” says Marcus. “You must come in the daytime sometime so you can see it properly. It’s quite spectacular.”
I like the way he assumes that we’ll be friends.
There are bottles of spirits on a side table, and tumblers of Waterford glass. He pours us Irish whiskey. He offers Sylvie lemonade. She doesn’t look at him, but she nods. He gives her the lemonade in one of his opulent glasses. She cradles the glass very carefully in her hands, but as she wriggles back in her seat, a little lemonade slops on the immaculate sofa.
I’m intensely embarrassed.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry.” I reach in my bag for a tissue.
“Really—don’t give it a thought,” says Marcus. “Houses are meant to be lived in.”
I like him so much for saying that.
“I’m afraid Sylvie’s rather tired,” I tell him. “We’ve had a tiring day.”
“Sea air can take you like that,” he says.
He gives me my glass, and his hand brushes mine, so I feel the cool touch of his skin. The whiskey has a rich color, like a peaty stream. I drink, and the whiskey slides into me, warming me through.
“Brigid told me a bit about you,” says Marcus then.
He’s leaning on the mantelpiece, gazing benignly down at us. He’s tall, imposing; next to him, Adam looks somehow insubstantial. I remember what Brian said. Marcus knows how the world works—he wears his life like it’s tailored just for him . . . I think how we’re so young still, me and Adam.
“She tells me you’re researching family history,” he says. “That you’ve got a family connection to this place?”
“Yes. Kind of,” I say.
“So which one of you is it?” he says.
He’s looking with interest from me to Adam and back again.
I tell him that it’s me. I wonder if he can read the discomfort in my face.
“You must let me know if I can be of any help,” he says. “Though of course I’m just a newcomer here. Well, relatively speaking. So—let’s drink to your quest.”
We raise our glasses and drink. I feel a shiver of unease. I think how crazy our purpose is, how irrational. In this exquisitely ordered room, I feel distanced, detached from it all—from the things I half believed in. I think how Marcus might react if he knew, how he’d give a disbelieving smile or maybe raise one eyebrow in a charmingly quizzical way.
I look around me, wanting to move the conversation onward, and my eye is drawn to a painting hanging on the wall. It’s a portrait of a woman, done with photographic precision. She’s thin but lovely, unsmiling, all blue shadows and beautiful bones, staring coolly out of the picture.
“I love the painting,” I tell him.
He smiles. “The artist is a good friend of mine. Geoffrey Falke. He’s a portrait painter in Dublin.”
“He’s a wonderful artist,” I say.
“He’s particular about his subjects,” says Marcus. “The women he paints all have to have some special quality about them.” His eyes rest on me a moment, and I feel the warmth in his gaze. “If he met you, Grace, I know he’d want to paint you.”
“Well,” I say, shrugging, at once flattered and self-conscious. “I doubt it.”
He shakes his head a little. “You’re so self-deprecating.” He turns to Adam. “Isn’t she?”
Adam murmurs something.
I flush. I glance at Adam and try to smile, but the smile comes out wrong. I feel Marcus noticing this moment of awkwardness between us, perhaps seeing now that we aren’t a couple and sensing my embarrassment. I’m grateful when he moves the conversation on.
“So tell me what you think of our beautiful village,” he says. “As long as it’s complimentary, of course.”
“It’s such a peaceful place,” I say.
He nods. “Nothing much happens here, and I have to say I like that. It makes a real break from the city—that dog-eat-dog kind of world.”
I lean back on the sofa. I hear the luxurious soft shuffle of the wood fire, and feel a surge of pleasure. I can’t believe our luck, in meeting Marcus, in coming here.
He takes a casual sip of whiskey.
“Though we’ve had our share of tragedies even here,” he says. “You’ll probably have heard about Alice and Jessica Murphy?”
I feel his warm gaze on me. I don’t know what to say.
“Yes,” says Adam. His voice sounds sharper. I can tell he’s suddenly alert. “Brigid told us.”
“It was a terrible thing,” says Marcus. “Alice worked for me, of course. Did Brigid tell you that?”
“Yes, she told us,” I say.
“I blame myself for not seeing how depressed she was. I knew she’d been ill, but I really thought she was recovering. Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of our eyes . . . Well, you’re a psychologist, Adam, I know. You’d have some thoughts on that . . .”
“It can be hard, certainly,” says Adam. “Depression is often covert.”
“The thing is, Alice was a very private person.” Marcus’s face is pensive, concerned. “And maybe no one could have seen it. But of course I blame myself . . . At least we know that the gardai did everything they could. The investigation was really quite meticulous. And now I guess that everyone just wants to let it lie. It’s good to let the past go, to put it behind you. Wouldn’t you say so?”
He’s waiting for some response from us.
“I know what you mean,” I say vaguely.
“Well, there you go,” says Marcus. “Sadly, I guess these things happen everywhere. Now, tell me, have you been to Foley’s? We always say they serve the very best oysters in Ireland.”
“Yes, I’d heard they have quite a reputation,” says Adam.
They talk about Irish seafood.
I notice an antique desk that’s pulled up to one of the windows. It has an inlay of gilt and looks very light and feminine, like something you might find in a French château. I wonder if this was where Alice worked. I think what it must have been like for her—living at Flag Cottage with a husband who sometimes hit her, then coming here to see Marcus, to work in this beautiful high-ceilinged room, at this desk with its view of the sea. It must have seemed like Paradise. How could she not have fallen in love?
I need to go to the loo, and Marcus directs me to an upstairs bathroom. Sylvie insists on coming; she clings to my hand. We cross the hall, keeping well away from the gun.
I’m about to go upstairs when Sylvie tugs at me.
“It’s that way, Grace,” she says.
To our left, where she’s pointing, there’s a narrow passageway. At the end, you can see a downstairs cloakroom through an open door. I think, How did she know that? Did it seem familiar to her? Or did she just happen to spot it? But I can’t answer these questions.
We go in. There’s a washbasin, a toilet, a Chinese vase with a crack in it. It’s where they’ve left the forgotten things, the things that don’t belong. On a shelf is a bust of Beethoven; someone has put a trilby hat on his head. The window is open at the top because the catch is broken. Cool air that’s sweet with azalea comes in. Outside, the pane is almost entirely covered by creeper. I peer out, hoping for another enticing glimpse of the garden, but the creeper is dense and tangled, and I can’t see through. The branches creak as they rub against the window, as though something is moving the creeper, although the air is almost still.
“I want to go,” says Sylvie. “I want to go back to St. Vincent’s.”
There are smudges of blue in the frail skin under her eyes. I feel bad about keeping her up so late.
We go back to the drawing room.
“I guess we should head off,” I say. “It’s long past Sylvie’s bedtime.”
“Yes, of course,” says Marcus.
He sees us to the door.
“Thanks so much for rescuing us,” I tell him.
“A pleasure.” He shakes my hand. His musky scent is all around me. “I hope you’ll come and have a drink with me again. And the very best of luck with your researches. You must absolutely let me know if I can help at all.”
He says goodbye to Sylvie. She puts her hand over her eyes.
I’m about to apologize to him, but he preempts me, as though he knows what I feel.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “It can all be a bit much, can’t it, when you’re four? Being away from home and so on . . .”
I’m grateful to him for being so understanding.
We walk along the seafront to St. Vincent’s. You can just make out the phosphorescence where the waves break, so faint you think you’re imagining it, like the frail blue-white dazzle a sparkler leaves on the dark.
“What did you think of Marcus? Did you like him?” I say.
“Well, I certainly liked his single malt,” says Adam.
But I sense a slight reserve in him. I wonder if he’s jealous of the attention Marcus paid me, and there’s a greedy, yearning part of me that’s glad.
We say good night outside my room.
“I’ll go to the garage first thing,” says Adam. “You two could have a lie-in.”
I take Sylvie into our bedroom. It seemed so pleasant before, but it looks a little drab now, with its embossed wallpaper and battered chest of drawers, after all the glamour of Kinvara House.