Chapter Five

It must have been a long night because there wasn’t a soul about when I got up. The small room was in disorder but that’s nothing. It doesn’t take me long to create chaos. I tucked my Contex into my pocket and crept down the stairs. If I made myself tea, I’d wake someone, I decided, so I’d just walk up to Dayday’s. She’d rustle me up something, I thought, looking forward to a charming breakfast out. I opened the door to the beginnings of gray light. And wind—high, whistling wind. Oh good, I thought, I love the wind. I went back in for a moment to say a prayer for Peg at the coffin but it wasn’t there. Then I remembered. During the night the town ambulance had come and gone. They must have transported the body. Now they’d have to do a whole forensics report, I supposed. I remembered the flashing red light in my room, very late, and the whole lot of Irish people outside my window. And me, more asleep than awake, trotting back over the linoleum to the bed and back to my busy dreams.

I buttoned my old raincoat. You never knew. Outside the house the perfume of roses was the first thing that hit you. What a very good idea, I thought. As soon as I got home I’d plant some like this, by the door. Then I remembered. I’d been avoiding thinking about Johnny because I didn’t want to imagine what I’d have to go through. It was easy experiencing other people’s pain and trouble, now, here with strangers. This all was easy. It was the going home part that frightened me. My own button-pushing familiars. The children would be shocked. Or would they? You can do your best not to fight in front of the kids but your tone betrays you when you hear your kids using it. A pinemartin skittered by, through the holes in the flintstone walls. I followed him out to the road and set off. When I’d gone a ways, I heard my name.

Jenny Rose appeared, climbing over the lip of the stone wall. She was all flushed and tattered, her cheeks pink. You could never say she wasn’t pretty. Her boots hit the ground. “Mind if I walk along with you?”

“Delighted. I thought I was the only one up.”

She laughed. “They’ve all gone into Cork.”

“Already?”

“No one could sleep. And Inspector Mullaney has great plans for the day. He took them to the station house in Cork. Couldn’t wait to show the laboratory off. It’s just been redone. All sorts of modern thingees and computer experts that can be put to use. They won’t be back for hours.”

“Aunt Dierdre is all right?”

“Totally upset. Devastated. You can imagine.”

I remembered my own mother’s composure at the beginning, when she’d just learned of her sister’s death. It takes a while for it all to sink in. “Upset, but alive,” I said.

“Yes. Well, she never knew she was dead, did she?”

“Is it Peg who died? I mean are they sure, now?”

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Gee.”

“Yeah.”

“It must be such a shock.”

“Indeed it is.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting Dierdre.”

“Sure.”

“What about you? Are you all right?”

“Me? I’ve just come back from fishing. Out on Shepperton Hyne. We were hoping for eels.” Her eyes shone. “And what did we get but brown trout! One rudd. Five or six pike.”

“With the handsome Murphy I’ll bet.”

“Tch. It’s not like we’re doing a line. Seamus was along.” She threw a stick into the bushes. “Anyway, he’s not that handsome.”

I remembered my last rear view of the surprising Murphy. “No, but he’s pretty cute.”

We laughed together, she about her things and me, weakly, about mine. The green bracken ledge we’d been walking dropped off to the sea. Below us the turquoise lagoon sparkled.

“Oh!” I cried. “The fairy ring! I wanted to come here. Liam told me about it. He told me not to go down, though.”

“This is the fairy ring right here. You’re standing in it.”

“Gee.” I took a shot from every direction.

“It’s, you know, where the fairies walk. Their path. If you find yourself in it, you’ll always return to it. If they like you, that is. If they don’t”—she shrugged—“bad luck, indeed.”

I stood very still in the wind, breathing in and hearkening those fairies, making peace with them and even asking them … what? I closed my eyes and the sky went white behind my lids. My wish wouldn’t wish, as it were. Whoever I was kidding, it certainly wasn’t me. I opened my eyes, the moment passed. But I promised myself that if I ever did have that chance again, I would wish.

“Now you must throw a stone into the water,” Jenny Rose yelled above the wind.

I was frightened to get too close to the edge. I thought the wind would blow me over.

“Go on,” she shouted.

I looked at her, her hair whipping wildly about her small head, her Gypsy eyes lit with excitement. I hesitated. She threw back her head and laughed again wildly and I thought—gulp—maybe she really is mad.

I picked up a smooth rail of flint anyway and chucked it over the side. A startled crane shot out from its nest on the side of the cliff. We ran away, screaming with laughter.

It wasn’t windy at all when you moved away from the edge. We slowed down and walked amiably. After a while I said, “Jenny Rose, I’ve seen your paintings. Some of them. They’re wonderful. Why won’t you go on to university and study art?”

“Look. I’m not goin’ to go sit in a classroom anymore. I’ve had enough.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that. You’re too smart not to know it would be all different from dreadful high school. Different people. More freedom. You can’t think you know all there is to know!”

“I’m not smart at all! I’m bloody awful at figures. It would take me twenty years to figure out a year’s maths. And you need that to get by. Anyway, school here in Skibbereen wasn’t dreadful at all. The nuns were great fun. And sharp. Really, I’ll miss the old Convent of Mercy. And the Art Center always had my stuff up. Only now I’m quite past it and we haven’t the money to send me abroad. I thought I might have but now…” She bit her lip.

She didn’t want to say now that Dierdre was alive, I guessed.

“… and I’d have to go up to bloody Cork to—”

“What? Where everybody knows you?” I was sorry the minute I said it.

Jenny Rose whirled about. “I thought I told you. The only cowards in this story are not on this side of the Atlantic! I thought you understood that I don’t and never have been ashamed of what I am and what I want to do. And I’ll tell you something else. I was never even ashamed of Dierdre for being a lesbian. Never. You can—”

“Dierdre’s a lesbian?”

“What? Did you just ask me if—what, you are really dense. You’re joking, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this!”

“No, I mean I knew,” I bumbled. “Well, I figured … I mean—”

“You had no idea!”

“No. Yes. You’re right. I had no idea.”

“What did you think all that talk of Peg not loving her and running off with her ticket were about?”

I stared at her, the glimmerings of understanding taking hold in my sludge of a brain.

“Never mind”—Jenny Rose patted me on the shoulder—“hopeless old auntie.”

I do believe that’s when she started to like me a bit.

“Somebody has to be naive,” she mumbled.

“I’m not naive. I’m a jerk.”

“Yes, well, never mind.” She smiled at me.

“Does your grandmother know about this?”

She stopped grinning. “You mean your mother?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

“How?” I stood still.

Jenny Rose laughed. “All of Skibbereen knows. Always have. Dierdre and Peg have been together for years. You don’t talk about it. It’s just the way things are.”

“She knew even before she let Carmela give you up to them?”

“Certainly. It would have been pretty hard to have missed it. Oh, I know all the stories. You hear them talking, over the years and all. See, years ago, it was always the four of them, Peg and the three sisters.” Jenny Rose ticked off on her fingers, “Peg, Dierdre, Bridey and Mary. Peg was the intelligent one, I’m sorry to tell ya. All notes and figures. I think it started off she was tutoring your mom with her maths. That’s why they all took to her. She was very in charge. No one thought she was gay.” She cracked up, laughing. “If they even had a name for it, then. Nobody even thought of it. Your grandmother thought she was a good, sensible influence. Not silly and flighty, like Dierdre. Down-to-earth, more. Yes, they all loved Peg, at first. A hearty, plain girl. She and Dierdre both loved to ride.”

“And what were the rest of them like?”

“Well, Dierdre was all airs and graces. Sort of fanciful. Not all battered about the eyes the way she is now. High hopes, Dierdre always had. Frills and a charm bracelet. Still wears a lot of pink.”

“You always called her Dierdre?”

“Yeah.” She met my eye with a glint of challenge. “Always. It wasn’t what you think, that I was holding out for my ‘real’ mother to come or anything like that. Not at all. It was because Dierdre wanted to be forever young. Know what I mean? So, your mom was the practical one, they always said. Had her hope chest full of linens all embroidered and ready to go the day your father asked her, Aunt Bridey said. Always knew what she wanted, your mom did.”

Had my mom been scared away? I smiled. That hope chest was with her to this day. Now it housed Mary’s winter sweaters, wrapped in dry cleaner paper and sprinkled with lavender.

“Anyway”—Jenny rose yawned—“Aunt Bridey was the sour one. It’s not me who made that up. They all say that. Old iron eyebrows. And she of all of them shouldn’t be. I mean, Uncle Ned is a darling. And she has Bernadette and Liam, all grown. She’s got the great house to boot.”

“How come she got the big house?”

Jenny Rose made an elbows-out, pushing-away movement.

“Oh.”

“Aunt Mary’d gone to America and then Aunt Bridey got married to Ned. Ooh, the minute she got pregnant, she had Ned redo the little house for Dierdre. Dierdre was delighted to go, I think. Aunt Bridey isn’t an easy one to live with.”

We both laughed.

“And Dierdre, my mom, she’s pretty bossy herself.”

I thought of the frazzled woman who’d arrived last night from Paris. I tried to imagine her young. It wasn’t hard. She must have radiated life and fun. “So Dierdre got the little house. I guess it was nice to start out fresh.”

“She and Peg were what you’d call best friends.”

“They lived together?”

“No, not like that. Well, there was me. The sisters thought I should be brought up at least with the appearance of propriety. So that’s how it was. Peg always had her own cottage”—she turned and pointed—“just over the hill.” She looked away into the distance. “They used to go off together at night for a stroll. Always had their heads together. Just them and Brownie. Oh, they were great for going out. They’d be down the beach, walkin’ along. Grand walkers they were, too. Or up on Scull Road, as far over as Abbeystrewery, where the potato famine graves are. Peg loved it over there. You ought to go there, you know. That’s worth seeing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. About nine thousand bodies in that grave. One thrown in on top of the other. It’s a sorry place. I can’t imagine famine. I love to eat. You?”

“Yeah.”

“So, Tuesday’s they had their slim-making class at Nancy’s. Wednesday’s were for bingo. Thursday, hearts. Friday they had bowling. Sundays, walk to Abbeystrewery. They were always up to something. It’s rare … I mean it was rare to find them at home.”

“What did she do? I mean, how did she make a living?”

“Peg? She worked at the bank. Took her car in, most days. Gee, I wonder what will happen to the car? She was dead respectable. I mean, they both were. They’ve lasted longer than most regular marriages. Dierdre had her loom, of course.”

“Loom?”

“She made her own cloth. She wove. Didn’t you know? I’m surprised your mother never mentioned it. She made a good enough living at it. Not great, mind you. It’s a terrible loss that the loom is gone. That was what you’d call ‘an heirloom.’ Sounds odd, doesn’t it? I think your great-great-grandfather made it.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Always after me to get a job, Peg was. Now the loom’s gone, I don’t know what we’ll do.” She looked at me squarely. “I didn’t like to ask, but I hope there’ll be insurance money. And I do hope Peg has left us the lot.”

We walked along.

“Lesbians,” I said.

“You sound so shocked.” She threw a stick at the bush.

“Not so much that they were lesbians. Just at my mother’s knowing it.”

“Must be awful to have that kind of a mom.”

“What kind?”

“Secretive.”

Funny her saying that to me, I thought, and not the other way around. “Is it because of Murphy that you don’t want to go away?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me for a minute, just walked along. Then she hung her head and said, “I’m not the one for him.”

“That can’t be true!” I cried, and meant it, despite the fact he was obviously screwing Bernadette, which was different. That was vulgar. It was almost perverted. Bernadette seemed to go about these things in such a businesslike way. As though Willy were one more notch in a favorite belt. It surely wasn’t love. On the other hand, there was something innately pure about Jenny Rose. She might act jaded, but she wasn’t. She was pure.

“I saw him look at you last night,” I said. I wouldn’t dare say what else I saw. Let’s face it, single men have often been known to take what’s offered them. Married men too, I remembered with a tug.

“That’s pity.” Jenny Rose put her arm on her head. “He thinkin’ my mother dead. He knows what it’s like, him losin’ his granddad and his dad in one year.” She shook her head. “He has a great voluminous heart, he does.”

“No. Sorry. That wasn’t pity I saw him look at you with. That was lust,” I lied. What I had really seen was love, but I knew the word lust would make more of an impression. Young girls want lust, not love.

“Ya?” She peeked up at me with that mischievous, lopsided grin. “You think so?”

“There was no mistaking it,” I said.

“Anyway.” Her face clouded. “Even if he did care for me, there’d be no convincin’ his mother. She’s that against me. Oh, no, she has higher hopes for her William.”

“Call me newfangled, but the last time I noticed, guys got to pick out their own gals.”

“I know. But it never works out when everything’s against you from the start.”

“What about ‘love conquers all’? Heh?”

“Spoken like a true film-going American.”

We were already at Dayday’s. The shutters were closed up tight. “There’s a new one,” Jenny Rose said. “Maybe she went into Cork with the lot of them.”

“It’s funny she’s not here?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe she got drunk and she’s still sleeping.”

“Don’t be silly. Dayday may be untidy, but she’s reliable.” She tried the shutter but it didn’t even rattle. “It’s just strange. She sleeps in but she’ll never lock up.”

I shot her a glance.

“What?”

“No. Just wondering why you didn’t go with Dierdre and them into Cork.”

“Phh. Not me,” she said primly. “I’m not your party girl.”

“Well, come on, then, let’s head back,” I said.

“Fuck it,” she said. “Let’s go into Skibbereen and go to O’Donovan’s. They’re always up and about.”

“What, walk? Which road?”

“You take this one here”—she pointed with the toe of her boot—“and I’ll take this other one, and if you get to the crossroads first, you put up a fine stone to show you were there. And if I get there first I’ll knock it down.”

We regarded each other.

“The bus will be along directly.” She held my eyes with her hazel ones twinkling. “I can hear it comin’.”

“I haven’t even brushed my teeth, though.”

“So? It’s across the road from the cattle market. I assure you your breath won’t create a stir.”

“Okay.” I shrugged.

Just then the bus bellowed up. “Here she is”—Jenny Rose threw her cigarette wrapper onto the ground—“all clatter and outdated logos!”

“And dust.” I coughed and we climbed aboard. There, in the same spot as the day before, dressed exactly the same, sat Fiona Ferry, the lady with the broken foot. She waved to me, gilly gilly, as we lurched to the back of the bus.

“Yes, I know,” Jenny Rose said before I had the chance to say a word. “It’s what Miss Ferry does, like. She rides to and fro.”

“All day?”

“Every day.”

“Poor thing.”

“Why ‘poor’? She’s quite happy.”

“She has nothing else.”

“Sure she does. It’s just what she likes to do, see?”

“And at night?”

“One presumes she goes home and rinses out her dress. Gives it a pressing.”

“Oh,” I said, crashing into the last seat. The ride to Skibbereen was swift and bumpy. You had to hold on to the seat in front of you. That and the racing on the wrong side of the road. I still wasn’t used to that.

“I’ve got to stop off at Auntie Molly’s on the way back,” I said as we sailed past her cottage. “I told her I’ll take a room there and then Aunt Bridey took offense and I’d better—”

“Oh, you’ll not be a bother, now. Now there’ll be no wake to worry over.”

“Gosh, that’s right,” I said. “Well, I’d better stop and tell her I won’t be coming, then.” I was somehow disappointed. It was such a pretty cottage. Finally to take residence inside a picture-perfect house. And I’d liked Molly.

“Sure, we can send Liam with that bit of news.”

“No,” I said. “I think I’d like to do that myself.”

We got off in Skibbereen and O’Donovan’s was right there, a tiny blue and purple café with a bay window. Across the street and down an alley was the cattle market, a sort of indoor amphitheater where they’d parade the livestock for auction. She took me in there for a bit and I got a couple of shots. I didn’t like to stay once they noticed us. Not that their expressions changed any. “Come on.” She nudged me and we walked out the alley to the street. One farmer was already done; he sat in the middle of O’Donovan’s, drunk and blithering. He wanted his tea, though, and the young girl brought it to him, warily sidestepping his long legs thrown out across the floor.

We got to sit right in the window. I looked out at Bridge Street and the dotty shops. An old fellow in a cardigan swept the curb. His allergic dog loped along beside him, stopping every couple of steps to scratch his riddled hide. The dust churned up around them in the sunny air.

“So what was poor Peg like?” I asked.

“Peg?” She opened her shirt and pulled out some seaweed. “Peg was a lot of things.”

“Well I mean was she big? Small? Angry? Happy? Nice? Mean?”

“Happy. Yes, she was happy. All the time. It was enough to make you chuck. Efficient. Orderly. All her closets soldier neat.”

“I wonder was she gay because she was genetically attracted to women or attracted to women because of an aversion to men.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, did someone put her off, like a father who was drunk and made advances when she was very young … that sort of thing.”

The girl came over. Jenny Rose ordered a pot of very strong tea. She looked us over and walked away.

“You’re jokin’.”

“Just thinking out loud,” I muttered.

“Jesus. Well. She was such a buxom, sexy thing.”

“Worth a thought, then.” I looked up.

“Hmm. Her father was a bit of a pig.”

“Yeah?”

“Big drinker. Lofty.”

“Yeah?”

“Ooh. And mean when he was riled.”

“Was he? Might have been frustrated. Holding it all in, year after year. Trying to be good.”

“You really are a rip. Missy Freud.”

“Well. You never know. Shall I have the soda biscuits and tea or the shepherd’s pie?”

“Have the oxtail soup. It’s a dream.”

“I don’t think I could do that.”

“No? Have the biscuits. They’ve lovely blackberry currants that go with it. You’re safe there.” She sighed and sank down onto her seat. “I like this place. Peg always made us eat down the road at Field’s. She always had to have the same thing. Drove me mad. Then she’d tally up the bill as we ordered. Each item would go down in her little charty book.”

“Ah. Glad she’s gone?”

“Yeah.” She dropped the fork she was drumming. “I mean I’m glad it’s her and not Dierdre.”

“Having not known her, I can’t say I blame you. Oh, please don’t look so shocked. I mean it’s awful when someone’s pleased with themselves all the time. It’s hard to be around them.”

“She was pleased with herself. And she wasn’t so nice to me. She was hard on me. ‘When we were girls,’ she’d rattle on to Dierdre, ‘no one had to tell us to do our studies.’ She wouldn’t say it direct to me, though. ‘Remember, Dierdre,’ she’d say, ‘how you would help your mam do dishes? You wouldn’t have to be told, would you?’ She was never satisfied, Peg. Always vexed with me. It’s not about blame, though, is it?”

“It is if you killed her.”

Those dark eyebrows drew together.

“Not you,” I hurried to say. “I was only thinking, if someone had killed her.”

“No one killed her.” She pushed herself back from the table with scorn. “It was very dark. The lights had gone out in the storm. It happens all the time. She just made a mistake, the poor old thing.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Thank God you weren’t home,” I said.

“I was off in my studio. I was just coming home. A minute later…”

I’d gone too far. I reached for her hand. “Jenny Rose, I’m sorry. I had to know.”

“I did care for her, too, you know. At least some. As blunt as she was … I mean, I knew her me whole life.”

I said, “It must have been hard for you, especially growing up with the stigma of being someone else’s.”

“I keep tellin’ ya. There never was a stigma on me.” She raised her thumb up and tackled a cuticle.

I reviewed again the plastic-covered menu.

“There was the once, I remember,” she said, her voice dreamy.

I sat up, interested.

“It was in the lane. Comin’ home after school. All the bigger girls had said I could come to their club. They had a garage left over from this Protestant chef. He’d had it built as a holiday house and then lost all his money gamblin’. Nobody wanted it because it was drippin’ with lime and all moldy, y’ see. But this coven of girls took it over. Oh, I’d admired them for what seemed years! They had fancy ways about them, and clothes! Terrific clothes, not made over but bought in stores in Cork and even Dublin. They were very free, sassing the nuns behind their backs and filthy mouths on them. They did what they wanted, like. They’d make a nice fire and cook themselves glassy Chinese noodles. Oh, I thought they were so grand. This one time they said I could come.”

Jenny Rose took a deliberate sip of her water. “I remember the walls very well. It was dark and cool and there were black lorry pneumatics to sit in. Filthy things, but soft as jelly. Lovely. And shades you could pull down made out of the Evening Star. And they had rules. Stiff rules you had to follow. Meg, she was an older girl and the one I liked best, she told me to stand in the middle of the room. I did. Then Kathy Belgooly said, ‘Now show us your britches.’

“‘What?’ I said, goin’ cold. I was frightened because I believed they would hurt me. I had heard they did Indian burns on your arm. I’d seen little girls’ arms with red welts.

“‘What else do you think you’re here for?’ one a them said, real mean, like. ‘Your mother’s social connections?’

“I just looked at them. I didn’t even know what social connections were. I’d just gotten first honors in art from Sister Ancilla, and believe me she was tough. I thought they’d liked me, see. Wanted to be friends. I knew there were second form girls there, too. It was like … I dunno … no one had ever been deliberately cruel to me before. It was such a shock.

“Then, ‘You heard her,’ Meg told me, cracking me with her elbow. She was the one I’d liked best. The one I’d so wanted to be like.

“‘No,’ I said. I wouldn’t.” Jenny Rose took another sip of water. Her hand trembled.

“You poor thing,” I broke in.

“Not for the reasons you think,” Jenny Rose said. “It was because I didn’t have those little bright underwear I thought you were supposed to have if you were a girl, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday type. With little pictures on them, of shovels and sand-pails. And hearts. If I’d had them to show I wouldn’t have hesitated. But my underwear was gray and frayed and a spittle of wee had come down out of fright.”

We both laughed out loud.

“But the thought of them seein’ it was enough to seize me with fear of death,” she went on, “and I wouldn’t. I stood there rigid. One of the girls said, ‘Tell her to shut her mouth. Why does she always stand there with her mouth open, like that?’

“‘Mouth-breather,’ Laurie Margaret said. One of them laughed. I opened my eyes to see who. It was Bernadette. They all just stood there lookin’ at me. ‘Ach. Kick her out,’ the big tall girl with great mounds of ginger hair ballooning from under her arms said.

“Meg took me to the door and opened it. She didn’t look at me and I wouldn’t look at her but I could smell her, loud with lily of the valley cologne and perspiration. We went right past my big cousin Bernadette. She narrowed her eyes at me and she said, ‘You’re some relation!’ She pushed me roughly into the lane. I left my schoolbooks in there, my drawings in there with them. I was so ashamed. I thought I was really finished. No one would ever talk to me again at school, that was sure. I would be an outcast. I walked home and it was warm, like now. I remember the earth was lush and I kept standing around looking at it, taking comfort in the wet warm green, and safety. I can still see the little leaves of green clover. I didn’t want my life to go on. I walked slower and slower. Peg stuck her head out the door of our house. She was just about to yell at me. Then she must have seen that I was crushed because she didn’t yell. She just held the door open for me, looking quite gentle. I think she never wanted to be too affectionate for my sake. So I wouldn’t be afraid of her. Because she knew I knew the way things were. She let me in. She made me cinnamon toast. I remember her puttin’ it before me. She’d put it on a Sunday plate. I was so grateful to her. I think I loved her then. She showed such restraint, you know? No third-degree, just made me feel safe. I don’t know whoever brought my books home. It’s funny, that. I was just a wee girl. And I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Jenny Rose sat there for a minute, entranced, remembering. Then she shrugged and admitted, “So there was that. I dunno. Right now, I’m still sort of glad she’s gone. For the sake of no yelling. I can’t bear that yelling. It’s just that I feel like I’ll start to miss her later. Down the road, a bit.” She shivered.

I didn’t say anything. We just sort of stayed together, waiting for the kettle behind the counter to boil. “Then how come you didn’t try and find her to come back for the funeral?” I said after a while.

“Liam tried. He did. But there was no travel bureau. There was no hotel booked or anything. Just the flight. And it was through the airline, and they’re not ones to give out information, if they even knew anything, which is a bit farfetched. So you see, short of scouting about Paris, there was nothing to be done. Anyway, he was asking for the wrong person. There was no Peg Mulligen off to Paris, was there? It was Dierdre who’d gone, after all.”

“I still don’t understand. Why was Peg wearing Dierdre’s ring?”

“Oh, right, you went off to bed before Dierdre told us. Well, you know the part about Peg supposed to be goin’ off to Paris for a vacation on her own. A little time off. I guess they’d been gettin’ on each other’s nerves. You know, the way people will. I’d heard them arguing before I took off for the studio, as a matter of fact. I didn’t take much notice, though. They were always at it. I remember thinking I was glad Peg was off to Paris. Now we’d have some peace and quiet. Before Peg was about to leave, Dierdre took off her ring and gave it to her. Made her put it on, for all the years, she said. So Peg knew where she belonged, more likely. But then, Dierdre said, Peg announced she didn’t love her anymore. She didn’t want the ring. That’s why she was really going away. To give Dierdre time to adjust. She wept and carried on. There was that storm comin’, you could feel it, Dierdre said. Peg said all right she wasn’t going anywhere! They had a terrible row and then Dierdre took Peg’s ticket and left. More for spite, she said. She waited at the airport most of the night for the ticket sales to open and then she changed them to her name. It was on her Visa card, y’see. Mostly to show to Peg when she came after her. To show her she meant business. She said she couldn’t believe it when Peg never came after her. She was so sure she would. She always had done. It was part of their game. They were always at it, those two. Then she just decided to go off. Why the hell not, she thought. To pay Peg back, like. It would teach us both a lesson. Do us both good. Let us pick up after ourselves for once. She’d had enough.”

“But why didn’t she call you and let you know what she was doing?”

“Well, she knew Peg would tell me what happened. There Peg was, probably waiting for Dierdre to cool off and come back. Meanwhile, poor Peg was exploded up into the air and couldn’t come then or ever, could she? Couldn’t tell anyone anythin’ again.”

Outside was a crossroads and a post pointed you in every direction. I read the names off to myself. They read like poetry. Carberry, Clonakilty, Bandon, Kerry, Bantry, Kinsale, Baltimore.

“Baltimore?” I whirled around in my seat. “There’s a Baltimore in Ireland, too?”

“More like there’s a Baltimore in America, too.” Jenny Rose laughed at my ignorance.

“Is it far?”

“Not far.”

“How far?” I grabbed the shoulder of her pullover.

“Hey!”

“God. I’m sorry. It’s just so many things have happened at once. My driving up a Hundred and tenth Street the other day set off this whole chain of events! And it’s as if it was all waiting to happen. Like it’s all flooding over.” I must have shut my eyes. “I’m just so tired of pretending.”

She was very interested.

I sat back in my seat.

“This is about a guy, right?” she said.

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no.”

“C’mon. I’ve told you my stuff. You can tell me yours.”

“I can’t.” I went for another of her cigarettes.

“Right,” she said. “And next time you can buy your own.”

So I told her. Everything.

“What ever is the problem?” she said when I was done. “We’ll just drive over to Baltimore. I’ll swipe Bernadette’s car.”

“Oh. Perfect. Just what I need. A gorgeous sidekick.”

“I’m flattered,” she admitted. “So you could just go on your own.”

I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. I’m married, remember?”

“But you just told me about your husband and Portia McBabbit—”

“McTavish. Portia McTavish. That doesn’t make me any less married.”

“It would me.”

“I take my marriage vows very seriously.” I sniffed. I gaped at the itch-riddled dog in the gutter. I hadn’t hated my husband during the whole time, really. I’d hated her. I knew why he loved her. She had that same teasing, mocking, you-can’t-get-enough-of-me eyes I’d once had.

“You’re daft,” Jenny Rose shot at me. “The man you love is here in County Cork and your husband is having an affair back in the States and all you can think to say is, ‘I’m married.’ Somber as a judge.”

“Now who’s being romantic? Anyway, it’s complicated.” It was complicated. She couldn’t understand, never having known Johnny’s helpless eyes, admiring me those years ago. She hadn’t held his child. Or watched him become a tender, loving father to Dharma. The tightknit feeling we, all of us, had, going off in the car as a family to Brooklyn when we’d go visit his old partner, Red Torneo. We’d be laden with pastry from Bonelle and a good bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. The children’s report cards. The aroma of sauce and fusilli through the house on a Sunday. The ball game downstairs and Rachmaninoff upstairs, year after year. It wasn’t only love. My family was my culture.

I said, “When I met Johnny, he was like, it sounds very silly now, but, he was my Taj Mahal guy.” I laughed. “Our love was my work of art. The palace I built. My masterpiece. Oh, Jenny Rose, you’re so young. You don’t know yet that there are ten or twenty short moments or sayings we build our entire lives around. Little scenes that give life meaning, things we refer to when we have to make a decision. Years ago, I’d have run away without looking back. God knows, plenty of times I almost did.”

“Yeah? And like what stopped you?”

I took a breath. “When Johnny and I fell in love, he was looking through my photographs. Believe it or not there actually was a time when that man seemed to care about what I did—”

“The first throes of love…” Jenny Rose tut-tutted with a case-hardened cynicism beyond her years.

“Well. He still thought there was money to be made. Anyway, he couldn’t get past this Taj Mahal. I told him how it was a tomb, built by this man for his wife. She’d said build me something that all the world will marvel over and boy did he! Johnny loved the way the tile hearts would light up a certain way at full moon, he just went crazy for the symbol of love this man had created, to work at it every, every day. ‘It’s not enough he loses his wife and has to remember her every once in a while, when he hears their favorite song or on their anniversary,’ Johnny said to me out of the blue, one night lying in bed. ‘He’s got to make it that he remembers her while he’s walking the dog … while he’s washing his face … it was nuts how he loved her. Claire,’ he told me, ‘his love for her was Zen.’” I looked at Jenny Rose. “That’s why I never left him.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. I even thought I saw her hazel eyes fill up. But as quickly as she sank, she swam, and said, “Forget the fucking Taj Majal!” she startled me with a flash of metal. “You just remember one thing. There’s a difference between being romantic and being a fool.”

Now my eyes filled up with tears. “And I am that.”

“You just hold onto that picture of your husband sucking that Portia McTavish’s face. You hang onto that.” Then, abruptly, she looked surprised. “Wait up,” she said, “I have an idea. We could take the boat. We’d cruise right by the film crew. How could Temple Fortune resist? I’d be the bowsprit, the maidenhead.”

“It would take a virgin to get that right.”

“That’s all right, then,” Jenny Rose said. “I’m a virgin.”

“Are you?”

“Of course. How could you of all people be surprised?”

I tucked in my chin. “And who would captain this boat?”

“Why, Seamus.”

I held onto my sides and practically slipped beneath the table laughing.

She watched me until I was done. “All right. I’ve thought of something else. They’re filming around a sunken ship, right?”

“They are?”

“Yeah. That’s what they’re doing. Fancies himself the Celtic Cousteau, your Temple Fortune.”

“He does? I do remember him telling me he’s mad for fishing.”

She rolled up her sleeves. “We could tell them about the ship in our harbor.” Jenny Rose kept her bursting enthusiasm under the lock and key of youthful cool, but every once in a while it would overtake her and the room, the whole room and everyone would smile.

“What ship?” I laughed.

“Well, there is one. Murphy found it.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave me a reprimanding look. “Shake a leg. The bus is here. Come on.” She hugged me affectionately. “We’ll think of something.” She snatched the check while I blew my nose. She had that same pick-up-the-check bravado my sister Zinnie had. She liked to think she was the boss. A kind of a nobody’s-gonna-pay-my-way-but-me attitude. I said a fervent prayer that she would wind up marrying the wealthy Murphy.

“Oh,” she said, “and if you’re worried about fancy Bernadette, don’t be. There’s always one.”

“One what?”

“You know. The village bike.”

*   *   *

We got off the bus at Auntie Molly’s Bed and Breakfast. Jenny Rose went on ahead to Bally Cashin to get things ready for Dierdre. I walked up Molly’s hollyhock and foxglove—lined path to the Dutch door opened at the top. Loud classical music came pouring out. All the windows were open. Puccini, it was. Tosca.

Sometimes, the lighting is so rare you can see the music right in it, and if you photograph it, you can keep it forever. I took three or four pictures with my old Contex, then called, “Hello! Hello!” A rusty bicycle was propped against the fieldstone wall. Nobody answered so I went around the back. The cottage was just as pretty from this angle and I picked up my camera. Unfortunately, a carton of salt was on the step, ruining the shot, making it look too much like an advertisement. I put my camera down and good thing I did. Along the path, I just missed stepping on a slimy mess.

Molly, disheveled, popped up her head. She was on the floor, reworking the cane on a chair from the underneath. “The divil!” she said.

“No, just me, Claire,” I called. “You said I could come, remember?”

“I do.” She struggled up and went to go turn off the tape, then only made it lower, which I thought was nice. She went into the small kitchen. A pot of lentils sat on the stove. She wiped her hands on a clean checkered cloth, came to the door and spotted the slimy mess on the path. “What’s happened?” she asked me.

“What? That? I don’t know. I just missed slipping on it.”

The both of us stood there, peering down at it. Then Molly noticed the box of salt on the step. “Damn him!” she cried.

“What is it?”

“It’s slugs. He knows I don’t like them. I never meant for him to salt their backs, though.” She shivered. “It’s like torture.”

“Who?”

“Oh, Seamus. He helps me out with the yard.” She shook herself. “I don’t hold with these country ways of getting rid of pests.”

“I’m with you.” I shuddered, stepping over it.

“But I also don’t believe he’s a troll, the way the old people around here do.”

“A troll?”

“There now. Bring yourself in. Let me make you a fine cuppa rosy.”

“No, thank you, I’ve just been to town and had some.”

“No reason not to have another.” She looked at me hopefully.

“I wanted to cancel my room.”

The blacks in her gray eyes dilated and I thought, Oh, Lord, she’s gone and canceled someone else so I could have the room. A woman on her own had to be so careful to get the mortgage paid. Always having to be wary of scandal and breakage and leaking charming thatched roofs. It couldn’t be easy keeping this place all spit and polish. “I’m so sorry, Molly. And after you’ve probably gone to such trouble.”

“Foibles of the trade.” She recovered and shrugged.

“Gee, you must have a good handyman,” I said, looking around admiringly. “Everything is in such good shape!”

“Handyman is it! That’s a good one. I’ve only meself.”

She led me through to the parlor and sat me on a butterscotch velvet chair, the back of my knees cool and smooth on the mahogany rim. We sat at opposite corners of a red Persian carpet with squares of sun in different spots between us. There were polished plants and glass-doored bookcases.

“I’m lying, really,” she confessed as she lit up a cigarette. “I have a bit of help from all sides. Ned comes down for the hard stuff. And Willy Murphy looks in once in a blue moon to see if I’m all right.” She looked thoughtful. “But it’s Liam who’s always right there if someone needs to be fetched from the airport in Cork or there’s packages to be lugged.” She looked at me with one brow cocked. “When he’s not feelin’ under the weather, a course.” We eyed each other knowingly.

“So,” she said. “There you are. You’ve come to tell me you won’t be needing the room, is that it?” She plucked a tobacco shred from her tongue and folded her capable hands on her lap. Her ringless fingers were stained with nicotine. She was quiet. “No need for me now to hurry mending that chair.” She looked up. “But now Dierdre’s come back. There’s more reason than ever for you to come here. Where will she sleep? Her house is gone.”

“How stupid of me,” I cried, delighted.

“I mean Jenny Rose would be perfectly happy in her studio in a sleeping sack. God knows she’ll most likely prefer it, but, no, Dierdre will need to settle in. She won’t want to be living in Peg’s cottage. She’s nothing left, poor thing.”

“Of course she hasn’t.” My eyes must have lit up.

“It’s Jenny Rose who’s been betrayed, here,” she muttered. “Peg was that cruel to her. That’s why she’s such a bitter thing.”

I was already thinking of that bicycle outside with the big basket in front. I could go off on my own just about anywhere … I didn’t much care for the way she dismissed Jenny Rose’s losing her home, though. Even if what she said was true. “Jenny Rose didn’t strike me as bitter,” I said, thinking, though, that perhaps she did.

“Never mind.” Molly shrugged. “I had a stepfather growin’ up. I know just what that word adopted means.”

“Has she got plumbing, there in the studio?”

“Jenny Rose? She’s got running hot and cold. A toilet and a tub big as a bath. All she needs do is hang up a couple of drapes. She probably won’t, though. There’s a fireplace draws ever so well. I suppose Liam could take her down that old freeze box I’ve got in the shed. I’d miss that. It’s not dead cold but it’s a grand store box for the Beamish.” She smiled at me. “Some do love to sample the local brew with a chill on it, see.”

“Do you think I could have a quick look at my room?”

“Sure and why not?” She sprang to her feet and a cat, dark as olive, dashed from the room.

“What was that?” She grabbed my arm.

“It was the cat.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Well, gee. You do now.”

Hard to miss, I thought. “It must have been Dayday’s big cat, come for a visit,” I said.

“He’ll not be back,” she said. “I promise you that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said. “They go their way and you go yours.”

“Well, I do mind,” she said. “Filthy things. Pissin’ in my herb garden. And worse.”

“I know what you mean. I keep losing my center white azalea in what’s supposed to be a curving row of them because some cat insists on using it as a latrine. I can’t get him away from that spot. I used cayenne pepper, coffee grounds, but he won’t be deterred.”

“You’ll have to use something stronger than that,” she assured me as we went up the stairs to a tidy hallway. There were oval frames enclosing pastoral scenes of livestock and horses along the wall. Old-fashioned. Conventional. Tidy and safe. “There’s a shower stall for guests downstairs off the kitchen. If you’re not inclined to wait for the big tub in your room to fill up,” she said.

The room was cheerful, almost too cheerful, yellow straw flowers papered the sloping walls. “This is great,” I said, for some reason disappointed, standing at the window and looking out, as far as Bally Cashin and the sea beyond. Something darted. I could see Jenny Rose down there. She was running from the middle road to the coast road, cutting through the tangled bushes and I thought, Why doesn’t she just go around by the road? Why had she left the bus so soon?

I turned around to see Molly. She was sitting on the bed, looking down. Her skirt was in folds around her knees. Then she got up and turned around and leaned over the front of the bed, stretching to straighten the oval picture above the pillows. You couldn’t help seeing the back of her knees. She wore stockings with straps. She turned and saw me looking. I must have turned red. She bustled us both from the room, chatting happily, having got what she’d come for.