AS I have said before, I need time to think before making a decision. I’ve had a lot of time for thinking in the last few months.
I have discovered that there are worse emotions than guilt. Such as regret. And loss. And the sense that one has been a total eejit and a terrible amadon altogether.
Today I will mail the completed first draft of Nell Pat, translated by Nuala McGrail, edited by Dermot Coyne, to my publisher. I have checked the account in gold futures into which I put our advance. My trader, the most skilled in the precious metals pit, tells me that it has already doubled in size. A nice bar of gold for someone coming to America.
Marie Fionnuala Anne McGrail will arrive at O’Hare International Airport at five twenty-five this lovely spring afternoon on an American Airlines flight (information courtesy His Gracious Lordship, Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduff and Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora). A half hour or so later she will clear immigration and stroll into the arrivals lounge. She will be dressed smartly and will carry two impressive bags and will walk with the self-confidence of the experienced world traveler. Even the guitar case slung over one shoulder will not diminish her image as a sophisticated woman of the world. No greenhorn this beautiful woman, the observer would say.
Chicago will, nonetheless, not be ready for her. It won’t know what hit it. No way. Soon she’d be solving crimes for the Chicago cops. I could sign on as her Dr. Watson if I wanted to.
There will be not the slightest hint that she’s scanning the waiting crowd in the remote hope that someone might be there to welcome her to Chicago, perhaps even to take her home to his mother’s house. Yet her shrewd, fishmonger eyes will be taking in everything, a shy child, hinting at a God who is also a shy child.
And she’d be wondering whether there would be mysteries to solve in Chicago, with or without me as her spear carrier.
Then she’ll see me.
She’ll drop her bags and rush, like a Connemara hoyden, into my voracious, waiting arms.
I’ll beg for forgiveness. I will be told that I’m an eejit for thinking that’s necessary and myself perishing with pneumonia. How would she know about my pneumonia? George, of course. Then I’d tell her that I loved her and would always love her. And she would hold me very close and say, sure, hadn’t she known that from the first night at O’Neill’s? Then I would take her home to Mom.
Alive, alive oh!
Alive, alive oh!