Chapter Ten

Like Odysseus off to see good queen Arete, she came,” Liam was telling them. “Covered in mist.”

Food and glasses filled the table.

“May I use the telephone, Aunt Bridey?” I said.

She looked worried, so I said, “It’s just a local call.”

It was late. The evening had turned sultry and all the windows were thrown open. I’m not used to drinking in the middle of the day like that. And now this. The thought of heading back up the road and making my way into Baltimore seemed more than I could manage. I yawned with fatigue. Illicit sex, I thought, would surely be more rewarding after a good night’s sleep. There was a local directory inside on the telephone table and it only took me a few moments to get through to the Hotel Algiers. The same spot I’d stood when I’d called him the first time, I remembered. It seemed a long while ago. I’m just going to tell him I can’t come, I rehearsed as I was dialing.

“He’s not here, I’m afraid,” came the voice, “he’s gone out.”

“Gone out? Are you sure?”

“I am.”

Well! I thought. Of all the nerve! The fact that I was calling to postpone until tomorrow didn’t enter into it.

I went back to the table inside and sat down. Liam, showered and cowed, pulled out my chair. “You haven’t eaten a thing.”

I looked down at myself. “I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”

“One or two wouldn’t hurt, at that,” Liam agreed.

“Now’s not the time to slim down,” Dierdre said, rattling her charm bracelets, “just when Bridey’s gone and made her silky pudding.” She got up and stood profile in the mirror, drawing her skirt tight across her round belly. Her head popped up. “We could put the wireless on,” she said hopefully.

A car crunched up the drive and the headlights shone in the windows.

The door was thrown open. There were Bernadette and Temple Fortune. “Look who’s given me a lift!” she cried, loaded down. She ran to the cupboard and stuck a shopping bag in there.

“I pinched a car from my gaffer.” Temple grinned.

“Delighted, delighted!” Dierdre said. “Come sit right to the head, there’s a good film director,” she said, embarrassing us all.

“Get the man a glass,” Liam said.

Temple rubbed his hands together happily. He hadn’t brought a thing with him.

Bridey looked worriedly from one to the other. “I’ve just put the kettle on,” she said. “A fine cup of tea is what we’ll have.” She’d just got Liam on the glimpse of sober and didn’t want him starting up again.

I went to get the tablecloth. When I opened the cupboard, there was a crisp, new Marks and Spencer shopping bag in there. I moved it to the side. It was full of lacy underwear, the tags still on. I didn’t know what to think.

Jenny Rose stormed in the door, slammed it and turned flashing eyes at all of us. She stood there panting, very much, I thought, like a wild animal. No wonder Audrey Whitetree-Murphy thought she was mad.

It occurred to me that maybe Jenny Rose had lied. For how would Audrey Whitetree-Murphy know Jenny Rose had drawn a picture of a naked man if I was the only one to have seen it? Unless of course she made a habit of drawing naked men. Maybe I wasn’t the only person she’d shown that painting. Or maybe she’d simply talked about it to Willy and he’d foolishly mentioned it to his mother. Or maybe, I thought, my heart sinking, he’d decided he didn’t really want a girl who drew great pictures of naked men.

Dierdre went up to Jenny Rose. She didn’t take her in her arms, just stood beside her, presenting her with her nearness. Always a good idea with young people, who tend to fling you away.

Jenny Rose still trembled. She was white with rage. “That bitch! You know what she’s gone and done? She’s signed him up for a tutor. At Oxford! And he’s going! He’s going!” Her dark head collapsed onto thin white arms. Narrow shoulder blades went up and down. Sobs filled the kitchen.

Brownie drove around Jenny Rose’s legs in worried moaning-along. Nobody knew what to do.

Dierdre put her hands over her ears. “And us without a home to go to!”

Fueled anew, Jenny Rose’s head came up. “I wish we could go home! I want to go home,” she wailed.

I started to go to her, but Bridey shook her head. Let Dierdre, her eyes said, and so I did. She leaned over and whispered to me, “In comforting, Dierdre will be comforted.”

“Right,” I nodded. Jenny Rose must be thankful at least that Dierdre was alive.

Bernadette grabbed my wrist. “Come on,” she said. “You can help me make up their beds.”

Shaken, I went with her. Temple caught my eye as I hurried past him. He made a sort of face. He was enjoying this.

Bernadette hummed nervously as she went up the stairs.

It was terrible to think the two of them had to have beds made up for them every night. Couldn’t they have just left them there? Dierdre and Jenny Rose really would have been better off fixing up the studio, I thought. At least it would have been their own. This was terrible.

Bernadette’s room was neat and clean. She pulled out the foldout bed, rolled it around and threw fresh sheets on the top. Right away I started to make up the bed. Another car pulled in the drive downstairs.

“That’ll be Willy,” Bernadette said. “Coming to ask ‘Will you wait here in limbo gladly while I go discover the world?’ The bastard! It’s enough to sicken you!”

“All these years they’re the best of friends and now, suddenly, off he goes,” I agreed, tugging to get the four-corner sheet snug.

“Still.” Bernadette sat at the vanity mirror and tilted her head. “That’s the way of the world.”

She looked very much like her aunt Dierdre, it occurred to me. The way Dierdre must have looked when she was young.

Bernadette tugged the brush through her hair. “You’ve got to figure which way it is the wind blows. It’s yourself you’ve got to look after.” She regarded herself with shining eyes. She had that complacent look of someone who looked after themselves very well. “Claire,” she said hesitantly, “were you ever…”

“What?” I said.

“Did you ever, well … when you were young … did you ever fall in love with someone unattainable? Elusive…?” She turned and saw me. I must have looked shocked. “You know these things happen.” She turned back to the more interesting event, herself in the mirror. “Sometimes just like a thunderbolt.”

I sat down on the bed. I don’t know which bothered me more, the “when you were young” or the fact that she thought it so unlikely. “In answer to your question,” I stated defiantly, “yes.”

She put her hair up on top of her head and with the other hand ripped the delicate freesia blossoms from the bud vase. She clipped them in. The vase stood on the polished wood with the empty stems shocked and headless. I was suddenly filled with jealousy so pure I broke into a sweat. That, or was it a hot flash? But she wanted my dream. She would lower her breasts and drift her head beside his face and he would lift, wanting her. I could have smacked her brassy young face.

There was a knock at the door. Uncle Ned cleared his throat. “Claire,” he said, “will ye come to the door?”

Bernadette cracked it suspiciously. “What’s going on?” she said.

He looked at me over her head. “Someone’s here to see you, Claire,” he said.

“For me?”

“Your husband,” he said.

*   *   *

Bernadette and I followed her father down the creaky little stairs. I was trembling. It had to be a joke. “I can’t believe it!” I said when I saw him.

“Claire!” he said and took the room in a couple of strides. He kissed me before I knew what had happened. I must have looked shocked because Aunt Bridey said, “Well, now, what a surprise! Liam, go get that fruitcake out of the shed. I’ll bet that’s tasty by now. Good thing Molly spotted him on the middle road. He’d be halfway to China.”

Molly leaned, half in and out, one hand on the doorknob. “I thought, Who’s this patroling the countryside with all that liquor?” she said.

There he stood. I still couldn’t believe it.

“This is great,” he said.

Uncle Ned made formal introductions all around. You could tell Molly didn’t think much of Johnny. You could tell the way she stood with her back a little to him. But she was very kind and discreet. Johnny hadn’t slept, you could see that. I don’t think he’d ever looked worse. And his clothes! He looked ridiculous. He was busting out of them. He couldn’t believe those clothes still fit him! I couldn’t have been in a more unbearable position. I felt like murdering him and I was forced by propriety to stand there in my aunt’s house and act politely.

“Come on, sit down,” Dierdre urged Molly. “Have a cup of tea, at least.”

“No, I can’t.” She smiled. “I’ve left the car up in the road. Your lane’s like fudge. I thought I’d never get out if I drove in. Now I’m worried some lorry will barrel by and smash me car.”

“Righteo.” Dierdre got up to walk her out. But Molly stayed right where she was.

“I thought Ireland was cold and rainy,” Johnny said, accepting a cup of tea. “This is like the Caribbean!”

“You’ve brought the mistral with you,” Uncle Ned said. “African winds, ya know.”

“How do you like that?” Johnny looked at Temple.

“This calls for a celebration,” Temple said sarcastically.

Hmm. I reconsidered my position.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Johnny pulled the plastic bag from the wall and held it up in the air. It was bursting with liquor.

Liam’s eyes lit up.

“What a fine gift for the house.” Uncle Ned took the whole thing. “A tribute to the very best duty-free shopper! Leave it to the Americans to come with their arms full!” he declared, pointedly grinning at Temple, walking away with the lot before anyone could stop him.

Jenny Rose was sitting, hunched and miserable but at least calm. “All the wee purple flowers have sprung up.” She pulled her forehead back with her fingers and flattened her nose. “Have you seen them? All at once, like.”

Dierdre looked at her and you could tell she was furious at Willy for the way he’d treated her. She was edgy and upset all around, Dierdre was. You couldn’t blame her.

“I told you it would turn fine,” Seamus said from the side. I hadn’t even seen him there. I saw Johnny’s eyes open wide at the sight of him. He hadn’t noticed him either. And Johnny notices everything.

“That’s right, you did say that.” I smiled at him.

“The winds blow soft across the greeny bogs,” Liam tried out loud with one big hand up, gesturing in the air, “and purple trails of flowers…”

“… don’t fill the sorry hours,” Dierdre finished, looking down.

“It’s not a country-western song,” Liam said cruelly.

“Hey,” Johnny put on his domestic arbitrator voice. “It is what it is.”

“It’s not anything at all, as far as I can tell,” Jenny Rose shot. “It’s sitting there in the air without so much as a copyright on it and I or anyone else can say whatever we bloody well please.”

Johnny looked around happily. He smacked his knees with the palms of his hands and shook his head. “Zen,” he said.

And that’s another thing that burns me up about Johnny. He hasn’t got the slightest grasp of the concept Zen, but there he goes, using it as his, just because he put one of my Japanese Buddhist tapes in once when he was stuck in traffic on the Belt Parkway.

Seamus stood before him in the middle of the room, his arms at his sides, his mouth wide open, gaping, captivated, at Johnny.

“You know what’s going to happen, now,” Bernadette said dourly. “Every drop of that alcohol will be consumed by week’s end.”

Johnny winked at Liam. “Oh, well,” he said. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

“You’re here just in time for the big fish meet,” Seamus said to Johnny.

“Why don’t you sit down, big fella,” Johnny said to him. “You make me nervous. Like you were waiting for a drug run.”

I could have died. Seamus never sat down.

“You could borrow one of my rods,” Uncle Ned offered, filled with magnanimity now that he had the liquor stashed.

“Do you know how to hold a rod?” Temple asked him. Temple, I knew, had invested thousands of pounds in the very best fishing equipment.

“Me?” Johnny laughed. “I’m a beer and pretzels guy. I hold the clicker.”

“Tch,” I said.

“The clicker?” Dierdre said.

“Well, have you never fished?” Uncle Ned asked cautiously, foreseeing Johnny perhaps losing his second-best rod in the river.

“I used to drop lines from the Rockaway Bridge,” Johnny remembered. “If you saw what the fish over there look like now, you wouldn’t want to eat them, I’ll bet.” He twirled his toothpick with his thoughtful tongue. That toothpick, I had no doubt, had accompanied him clear across the Atlantic.

“What do they look like?” Seamus drew near.

Johnny looked him up and down. “Full of tumors.” He grinned. He was leaning so far back in his chair that in a minute the whole thing was going to go over with him in it. It would serve him right. He had no manners. None. I could see Aunt Bridey worrying about the linoleum. He was creasing a wedge in it, already. I loathed him.

“Will you have a piece of cake?” Bernadette asked politely.

I almost choked when, not only did he not wait to be served, but he helped himself to the knife and cut off a huge slice, then swallowed the whole thing impatiently in two greedy bites.

I could feel Temple’s triumphant eyes upon me. I supposed he pitied me. I knew they were going to laugh about him when we left and so I kept postponing it.

“Where are you staying, John?” Temple asked him impertinently.

“Dayday’s?” Johnny said.

“Nobody stays there long.” Dierdre patted her hair, sharing a look with Molly.

“Really?” Johnny blotted every last crumb from the plate with his finger. “I thought it was terrific.”

Of course he thought it was terrific, I thought, a load of drunken villagers joking and laughing around an amber-lit beer bar.

“Sure, he’ll be staying with his wife, now he’s found her.” Liam laughed.

They let that sink in.

Molly, lingering at the door, said cheerfully, “Well, there you have it. No one ever knows what the future holds, do they?”

“You said you’d bring that pretty blouse for me next time you came,” Dierdre said to Molly. She said it somehow accusingly.

Molly’s smile wilted, but only for a moment. Everyone knew Dierdre was a little unhinged right now. “I didn’t know I was coming, though, did I?” Molly laughed good-naturedly.

Dierdre trotted across the kitchen. She seemed to be puzzled. “It was the prettiest blouse I’d ever seen. What with embroidery on the collar and cuffs. They were white with dainty tufts of forget-me-nots.” Then she stopped in the middle of the floor. “Peg would have loved me in that,” she said, “but it’s too late, now.” A tear slid from one eye. “And it’s all my fault.”

“There, there.” Aunt Bridey pulled her arm to sit down. “No one could have foreseen what was to happen.”

“But I lied,” Dierdre said. “I’ve not loved Peg for years. I only stayed because she couldn’t bear to have me leave.”

Everyone stared at her, shocked.

“It’s true,” she said. “It was me who didn’t love her anymore. But she was so jealous! My tears were not for loss. They were relief. I’m in love with someone else,” she sobbed.

“But who?” Liam asked, dumbfounded.

She got up and stood beside the door. She took Molly’s hand in hers. “It’s Molly I love, y’see.”

“Don’t be a fool.” Molly freed herself from her. She cringed in horror.

“Sure it’s no lie! Do you think I’d go lie for ya?”

“Yes, I do. You’re overwrought. You don’t know what you’re saying. You make us both look foolish.” Molly was clearly embarrassed. She looked to Bridey for help.

“Well, I didn’t have to, did I?” Dierdre gleamed with her brutal confession.

Jenny Rose let out a sob and went to her.

“Poor thing, poor thing.” Bridey went over, put her arms around them, encircling them both. She looked over Dierdre’s sobbing head and signaled Molly to go ahead and leave.

Sighing, Molly slipped into her coat and let herself out. I felt terrible for her. Dierdre was so piteously out of control.

Bernadette went to the sink and filled the teapot with a rush of water. She lit the stove and banged the lid on.

After a while, Dierdre seemed to recapture herself. “I suppose I’d best be off to bed.” She sniffled.

“Yes,” Bridey agreed. “Everything will look new in the morning.”

Jenny Rose walked her up to tuck her in.

After they left, Liam said to Bridey, “This is never going to work. You see how she is. She just gets worse and worse.”

“Hush!” Bridey warned.

“Why should he hush?” Bernadette said. “All our lives, every time Aunt Dierdre beeps, it’s hush hush hush. She’s neurotic compulsive. It has a name. She fixates on people. She’s obsessive! It’s ridiculous! They have drugs for this sort of behavior.”

“I don’t suppose you’d have thought of parading by some available bachelors, in that case.” Liam pressed his lips together.

“Ye’ll be thinking of your mother’s nerves, at this point, I should think,” Uncle Ned cautioned. “She’s been so good to us all in this difficult time.”

“Aye,” Liam put his big hand lovingly on her knee. “That she has.”

Temple glowered from the corner seat.

The clock slipped on to the half hour.

Jenny Rose came back downstairs. She folded Dierdre’s shawl up neatly and put it defiantly on its own chair.

Finally, Bridey said to me, “You’d better get that husband of yours off to bed before he passes out.”

Johnny looked at her gratefully. He stood up heavily and put his arm around Seamus. “Here you go, sport,” he said, slipping something into his pocket.

My God, he was tipping Seamus!

Jenny Rose and I looked at each other. Only she knew what I was going through. I was shocked when she grinned wickedly.

Uncle Ned came out and pointed us in the right direction, which was pretty unnecessary; the stars were out and winking green. “Ye’ll go down there along the cliff just donna get too near or ye’ll fall right off,” he directed. “So just follow it along and then ye’ll go up there and then ye’ll turn right about when you get to the pump. It’s a useless pump now so don’t be looking for a drink.”

“Don’t worry.” Johnny waved.

“Oh, and Johnny!”

We both turned on the starlit gravel. It was bright, like the whitewashed stone of the house.

“Did you hear the one about the young soldier from Leitrim?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“He went off to be a soldier. But that didn’t work out, it was too rough for him, y’see. So he sent a wire back to his mam on the farm: ‘Sell pig. Buy me out.’ She sent the wire back: ‘Pig dead. Soldier on.’”

Johnny bit his lip. “So there’s this taxi driver sees a nun in the rain and he says, Well, I’ve gotta take this nun home. So he pulls over. Oh, bless you, she says and she climbs in. They’re talking. He says, You know, I’ve always had this fantasy about nuns. Are you Catholic, my son? she says. Yes, I am, he admitted. Well, pull over, she said and they hopped in the back. Soon after, they’re on their way once again. I’ve got to make a confession, sister, he says. What is it, she says. I’m not Catholic, he says. That’s all right, says the sister, my name’s Ralph and I’m on my way to a costume party.”

I thought I’d sink straight through the bog.

To his credit, Uncle Ned never flinched. He held his side and turned around in a silent little dance.

Johnny had his bag at Dayday’s so it was just he and I. We trudged away, Uncle Ned waved and went back in the house and then I stomped on ahead.

“Where the hell are you racing?” Johnny called, in his normal saved-for-the-wife uncharming voice.

I didn’t answer, just kept going. The ground had so much give it was easy to go on but it took up time. On our right, the land went up and down in wavy territory. The waves were breaking beneath the cliffs to our left.

“What, are you going to walk the whole way there ahead of me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I fumed, marching on.

“Hey!” He caught up with me and turned me around by my waist.

I said, “In case you didn’t know, nuns to the Irish are like, like the pope to the Italians.”

“Yeah? And? The pope likes a good joke.”

An owl called out nearby. “Listen!” he cried in a hoarse whisper. “What is it?”

“It’s an owl,” I said, acting as if in my world owls hooted all the time, left and right.

We both looked around.

“You ever see so many stars?” he said.

“Never,” I said. It was the strangest thing, we were in a moonlit circle. Flowers slept, strewn in a cascading path.

“Oh, no!” I moaned and pulled away.

“What?”

“We’re in the fairy walk!” I don’t want to be here with you, I screamed in my heart.

“The wha?”

“Just look at what you’re wearing!” I shouted instead. “Black jeans and black sneakers and black T-shirt and black racetrack jacket! Aqueduct, no less!”

Johnny looked down at his feet. “I paid a hundred forty bucks for these kicks,” he said huskily.

“Exactly,” I said.

He moved over and took my elbow in the cup of his hand. “I thought you liked how I dress,” he said.

I stood there, seething, breathing in and out like a boxer on the ropes. Before I knew what was happening, I felt the harrowing nudge of his hands, warm, squishing down my pants onto my cold rear end.

I cried out at him, “You don’t want me for months and months, now you come over here just to take possession—”

“Who says I didn’t want you?” He took my wrist. “It’s you who puts the pillow between us every night!”

“That’s not true! Don’t make like it’s me! I put a pillow up on both sides, to rest my knee on. I always liked to sleep that way.”

“You used to like to sleep with your coulie up against my—”

“You’re turning everything around … I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it!”

He opened his pants and took his swollen penis in his hand. “Believe this!” He picked me up and lowered my back onto the rubbery ground.

I almost floated away, but then I saw his hands on Portia McTavish’s neck. “Is this what you do to her?” I cried out, miserable.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were greedy, already under my blouse. They moved to my eyes. “She has this terrible skin.” He bent and tried to put his ear on my heart. “She puts on all this greasy cream, but the skin underneath is still all rough.” He slipped his calloused hand onto the pulse on my neck. He would always go for that spot. It made me feel like the victim in a crime scene and now he knew I was alive.

I’d stopped struggling.

He sighed. Then he said, “I was always thinking of you. That’s the trouble.”

The terrible truth of it is that that’s what did it. Just knowing he wanted my body more than he’d wanted hers opened me up to him like the loose, vulgar calla lily I suppose I am. If anyone had come out on the moor for a stroll they would have seen these two guile Americans plugging away. And isn’t it sad that it was that superficial admission that made him okay for me and not some higher if guilt-ridden recollections of vows? The truth is never easy. We deserved each other, I suppose. But at that moment, with the moon shining down on his soft, brushy chest hairs, I was transfixed. Around him, a grass as pale as his favorite Del Monte peas framed his long, hairy legs. We carried on for quite some time. Johnny’s brutish demeanor frightened people. It certainly had frightened me. But then when he became intimate he was endearingly selfish and direct, taking what he wanted with such forthright greed that you knew right away what he wanted and how to accommodate. He took me, like that, in the fairy walk, out on the mysterious green with the planets there, all around. Then, with an oil of evening primrose gush of lugubrious heat, I came. Then he came. Then, to make matters worse, we both laughed our heads off. Naked silhouettes on the black horizen. The roused-from-sleeping pinemartins whined with eerie yelps. The owls, at lunch, looked up.

Absurdly contented, I fell back and looked at the stars.

Johnny cleared his throat, making way for some announcement. “Claire,” he said, “I have to tell you, I didn’t come here because of you.”

So. He’d only made the effort because of the children. I knew that well enough. He didn’t have to be so cruel as to say it, though.

Out there in the godless watching of those cursed, translucent limbo dwellers, I could feel my heart break, the way they describe it in songs. It was just like that. Zerissen, the way it sounds in German. That’s what happened to my heart. Zerissen. I could feel it tear.

I knocked him off me.

“Ow!” he cried. “Don’t hit me there!”

“Get away from me!” I screamed.

“What’s the matter with you?” he cried.

“Always the same!” I yelled. “Always! I’m just not enough for you!”

“What is this?” he said. “You lift me up to wipe me out?”

I didn’t have to take this, this humiliation. I collected my clothes and got up at the same time. I dashed off in a furiously dressing huff. He would find his way back to Dayday’s or he wouldn’t. Let him spend a night on the moor, I barked a laugh out loud, it would do him good.

How could I have slept with my husband, I kept thinking. How could I do that, me who wouldn’t do it at home? I made my way back to Molly’s Bed and Breakfast, dropped onto the bed and slept the sleep of the wined and dined and utterly, if swainly, gratified.

*   *   *

Something scratched. I heard something. I raised my head. It was very late. I’d been sleeping a long time. It was really hot. I got up. Cautiously I went halfway down the stairs. Molly was sitting in front of the blazing fire, her back to me. There was a red heat. She turned and looked at me. She had the strangest look. “Come here,” she said.

Don’t ask me why, but I was frightened. “Have you any aspirin?” I asked her.

“’Tis the middle of the night,” she said. At least I thought that’s what she said.

I went back to bed. I could have sworn I could hear her talking to someone. I looked at the moonlight on the ceiling, moving like the sea. My wooden rosary was on the nightstand. I reached over and grabbed hold of it, clutching it fast, and fell right to sleep.

In the morning I rose, feeling fresh and well, despite the fact I’d slept in my clothes. It was overcast but warm, with the sultry promise of more heat to come.

I grabbed my bag and went out into the hall, thinking I’d go shower. Molly had been stacking towels in the linen closet. “Off to town?” she said as she went down the stairs.

“Yup,” I said, remembering last night and feeling a little foolish. I would have stopped for a chat. I’m ready to talk the minute I wake up. Everyone hates that about me. Then, seeing her disappear into the kitchen, I decided to go back and take advantage of that big claw-foot tub in my room. A nestling bath was in order. While the tub filled, I pushed open the window. It was snug under a low-roofed, slanting dormer that overlooked the moor. Birdsong filled the air. There was an assortment of teas on the dresser, next to a new hot plate. I took the chamomile and peppermint bags and swirled them around the hot water, brewing a lovely, scented bath for myself. While I was lying there, swishing this way and that, turning green and a nebulous yellow, I remembered something my sister Zinnie’d once said to me, when she’d been working on a difficult whodunnit with a family of Lower East Side lowlifes. “The one who is in danger, who they must protect, that’s the dangerous one,” she’d said. I don’t know why that popped into my mind just then, but it did. Well, I thought. That would be Mrs. Wooly, wouldn’t it? Although how she could have orchestrated murder from her arthritic and woebegone cottage was beyond me. And then again, why would she? What would she gain? I didn’t want to float the day away, nor did I want to pursue the idea of someone else being the one to protect … like Jenny Rose, so I got out dripping, couldn’t find a towel, dried myself in the bedclothes, put on my silky rayon Punjabi dress the color of sage. All you have to do is hang it up with you while you bathe and you never have to press it. My kind of outfit.

Outside someone was chopping wood. I leaned through the window and saw Molly chopping old furniture up by the shed. “Hello,” I called but she didn’t hear me. I dressed quickly. You never knew what these people considered junk. If I hurried, I might rescue some interesting little souvenir. I slipped into my boots. I’ve got several yards of the most beautiful purples and heathers and mosses that make a good shawl. Everyone thinks I got it at Takashimaya on Fifth Avenue but I really just got it for a song at the Georgetown Fabric Store on Liberty Avenue. It’s nice and soft and warm, and many a night I’ve used it as a blanket while up late watching TV. I rustled through my luggage. Ah, my dangling citron earrings. I stood at the mirror while I screwed them in, then bent over to get my shawl. There was a terrible sound outside. Horrible. I flew to the window.

Molly had raised the shovel up behind her head. I reached my hand out into the air. She crashed the shovel down. She’d hit the cat, Bob the cat from Dayday’s. She’d hit him with the shovel.

I flew down the stairs and out the door. She looked up, shocked, and saw my face.

Mouths agape, we beheld each other.

“What happened?”

“He killed the kitten!” she cried. “He tortured it. The little kitten.”

I covered my mouth with my hand.

I thought Bob must be dead.

She knelt down and picked up the broken kitten and took it to her breast. “Poor wee thing,” she keened and rocked it back and forth. Gently she placed it back on the ground and I helped her into the cottage, went across the room, and got her her cup of tea. It wasn’t hot anymore but it was sweet and I thought she might be in shock. I covered her up with a quilt. I thought I’d better go and get someone but no, she said after a while, she’d be all right. She didn’t want anyone. “There are some terrible things no one can help you get over,” she said and I knew she was going to cry again.

I left her in front of the television and went outside. The big cat must have gotten away. But that was impossible. He had to be dead. I looked into the trees. There was Seamus’s blank form going away, trotting. He had something in his arms. He’ll bury it, I thought. Or bring its demented body back to Dayday. The little one was dead, blood coming still out of its tiny mouth. A wave of nausea came over me. I picked up the shovel and dug a small grave for it in the soft garden earth. It only took a few moments. I patted the earth with the back of the shovel and stomped my feet on the step to shake off the dirt. Molly didn’t get up and come out so I left her there and went away with a heavy heart. I went toward Bally Cashin. Everything felt ruined. I’d hated Johnny already last night but there was something lighthearted and dizzying about the whole episode, as though we’d been Nick and Nora Charles in a film. We hadn’t felt like us. Or, rather, we had, but it had been so much fun. Now it all felt heavy and ruined. And now I had to apologize for his brutish behavior. Why did he always have to behave like a jerk? I went back on the bike the same way Johnny and I’d come. The ground was pressed and stuck where we’d been. I hurried past.

I heard someone behind me, panting, charging toward me, out of breath. I envisioned an enormous cat. When I tell you I was terrified, it’s true. Really, I thought someone was coming to push me over the cliff. I threw myself and the bike down on the ground where I’d be more difficult to wedge away.

But it was Molly. I grasped my chest in relief. “For heaven’s sake,” I said, standing up. “I thought it was someone coming to kill me.”

“Thank God I caught you,” she gasped. “I couldn’t let you go on your own. Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course,” I said gratefully.

We fell into step. “Did you bury them?” she asked.

“I buried the little one.” I touched her shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting gesture.

“Where did you put the other?”

“I didn’t. I saw Seamus carrying it away.”

“Saints preserve us! He’s done it now!”

“Done what? What’s he done?”

She stood still, grasping my arm. “It was Seamus tortured those poor dumb animals!”

“Seamus? How? What do you mean? I thought it was the big cat murdered the little one.”

She regarded me. “That would have been better. I wish that’s how it had been. I should have let you think it.” She chucked a stone at a zillion-stone wall. “He’s always been this way. I used to think I could teach it out of him. We love our Seamus, but— You’re sure the big one’s dead?”

“Yes, I’m sure it must be. You hit it with the shovel.”

“I was trying to put it out of its misery, bleedin’ from the mouth like that. If I’d had a gun, I would have shot it. If it’s not dead, he’ll find it and torture it again. He lays in wait.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seamus.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe this.

She sank woozily down onto the grass. “I just hope it’s dead,” she said.

“Please tell me what’s going on.” I sat beside her.

“There’s something wrong with him. Years ago, when I first moved into Wattles Cottage, I’d find him. I thought he was kindness itself, feeding the things. And what was he doing? Torturing birds.”

“No!”

“It’s true. I’d watch from my window. I didn’t know what he was up to. He’d take them down to the riverbank. Once it was a pig. You should have seen that! Oh, it was a dreadful story. I don’t even like to remember it.” She looked at me. “You mind when it’s a wee animal, but something frightens you when the animal gets closer to human size. You worry what’s next. Know what I mean?”

Stunned, I just sat there.

“He likes to torture things. Animals. Anything, really. He likes to make things squirm.” She shook her head.

“I can’t believe it.”

She clutched her head. “Sometimes I want to tell someone.”

“I’d better tell Uncle Ned.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she pleaded. “They’ll have him committed! They’ve been talking about it for so long as it is!”

“It’s terrible! He ought to be committed then.”

“And if they have him committed now, what will happen to Mrs. Wooly? Sure, she’ll die of a broken heart is what she’ll do.”

She’ll die soon anyway, I thought. “What if he would do something like that to Jenny Rose?” I said, my teeth aching.

She narrowed her eyes. “He’d never hurt Jenny Rose. He needs her.”

“I just can’t believe it,” I said, getting up. “He seems so gentle.”

“Aye, he’s a sly one.” She pulled herself up, leaning on my arm.

But I could believe it. I’d seen an edge of violence in Seamus. I’d felt it when we’d gone past his old house. Jenny Rose had known I’d felt it, too. She’d covered for him. I know she had. It was just the art of his violence that was such a shock. I’d envisioned a blinding rage, a lashing out in powerful anger, never the slow, time-consuming occupation of torture. I hadn’t sensed that at all. No wonder he could imitate the lot of us. He studied us. I shuddered. It was too horrible. “I have to tell you,” I confided, “there was a moment there … when I saw you raise up that shovel … well, I thought it was you—”

“Who tortured that old cat? Me? I’d be the last to hurt one of God’s creatures. Although … I’ve got to be honest, if just with myself, there’s a spot of that in us all. I remember as a child I’d watch the gulls. My mother said don’t throw your sweets at them now or they’ll choke. Then when she was gone I did, I threw my candy at them just to see what would happen.” She shut her eyes. “I’ll never forget it. My mother was just inside, she was baking and there was flour everywhere. That bird did the most garish dance … I shall never forget it.” Her head went down. We both beheld the past in our minds’ eyes, hearing the present’s gulls screaming above us. She turned and faced me. “But you grow from it, away from the horror, like. Not toward it. It’s part of experimenting and growing up, I suppose. I’d never hurt a living thing after that. I guess you know that now.” She held herself dearly as we continued to walk. “There’s them what takes their pleasure from another’s pain,” she said in a tight voice. “I’m just sorry you had to see it.”

“What must have happened to him as a child?”

She smiled at me and shook her head. “Nothing. He’s just lost to goodness. You Americans are always trying to justify evil. That can destroy you.”

“I’m devastated,” I admitted. “But that’s not true. I do believe in evil, plain and simple. I just think there is such a thing as cause and effect.”

“There are people born each day without an arm or a leg. Why should it be impossible to be born without a conscience?” She was trembling, outraged. “A missing gene. It’s not about fault.”

I remembered the poor dead kitten. “And I’m worried about Jenny Rose. No matter what you say.”

“You’re not to worry about that girl.” Molly smiled. “She has luck.”

That was hardly reassuring news to me. I anguish for the fun of it.

“Now,” she said, stopping. “I’ve told you what I had to.”

“Why not come in and have a cool drink? Now that you’ve come the whole distance.”

“No. It’s the walking does me good. It winds me down. Just please don’t say a word. Mrs. Wooly won’t last the summer. If they take him away from her, she’ll—”

“I know. It will break her heart.”

“Not only that. She’ll curse the village.”

“I don’t believe in that sort of superstition,” I said.

“Neither do I.” Molly looked over her shoulder. “But she’ll leave the house to the church, then, for spite. And I want the house.”

I said nothing. I too had longed for my share of forbidden houses. “You can still come in,” I said.

She smiled and looked out over the moor. “And I don’t much care for Bernadette.”

“Oh.”

“We don’t get on,” she admitted. “She always makes me feel like the cat who may well look at the queen, if you get me drift.”

Only family loyalty held me from agreeing with her. We smiled in wry understanding.

“Oh,” she remembered. “Last night, that film director was around the house.”

“He was?”

“Yes. I doubt somehow he was lookin’ for me.”

I shrugged, guiltily. “Molly?”

She turned and gave me a radiant, conspiratorial smile. “Yes?”

“He won’t come back and bother you, will he? Seamus?”

“He bloody well better not. I’ll take the shovel to him meself if he does.”

“God protect you.”

Her face turned thoughtful. “Claire”—she touched my arm—“just mind you be careful up there, at Bally Cashin.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook herself free of a shiver. “I don’t know.” She looked uneasily up to the house. “Something festers there.”