Chapter Eight

The road to Castletown goes too far away from the coast and out of the way, so we walked the ledge itself. It was a perfect day. The whitecaps leapt and spangled below and out across the turquoise sea. Brownie was with us. I had my heart in my throat as I watched her jump and twirl after low-flying gulls. “She’s too close to the edge!” I would cry.

“Och! She’s fine.” Jenny Rose would push me as though we were old friends.

Brownie would catch my eye with her own when she’d taken a daring step in any direction. I thought, She really enjoys my distress. I waited ’til Seamus was far up ahead of us. Then I said to Jenny Rose, “Called Mrs. Walsh, did you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Jenny Rose dug into the bag and came up with a crisp apple. We walked single file now, descending a path tangled on each side with bracken and thorny growth.

“His landlady in Baltimore just happened to mention that salmon?”

“Didn’t hurt anything.” Jenny Rose’s eyes twinkled. “There really is a great salmon. Tantalos. Everyone’s always yellin’ to get the tourist share down our way. Stop taking my picture, if you don’t mind.”

“I thought nobody wanted them.”

“Yeah, well, half do, half don’t. It’s like some want foreigners buyin’ homes down here, some are dead put-off by it. Claim the land should stay in the families.”

“Who’s that?” A lone figure made its way toward us across the cliff. It was a woman. We watched her bent-forward determined progress.

“It’s Molly, I think.”

She came closer. Yes it was Molly. She waved at us. We met her at the top point.

“Well, here we are.” She laughed.

“Visiting Mrs. Wooly?” Jenny Rose nudged her flying hair under her workman’s cap.

“The Kulbachs.” She wagged the top of her head behind her, indicating the German family, I took it, who’d bought the Wooly house.

“Everythin’ all right there?” Jenny Rose said above the wind.

“Right as rain. They’ve relations and friends coming for the summer. Booked out my whole place.”

“No wanting there.” Jenny Rose looked at me meaningfully.

“Wallets fat and fit as fiddles,” Molly agreed. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?” She narrowed her eyes at Jenny Rose.

“It’s just when local folk face hard times, those rich Germans are right there to buy up the land.”

“Isn’t it good someone wants it?” Molly said, snorting.

Jenny Rose’s face remained sulky. “People ought to keep their land.”

“When will you be comin’ down?” Molly ignored her and asked me, her hair whipping across her face.

“Tonight,” I said, snapping her picture.

“See you then,” she called over her shoulder, hurrying past.

“Nice lady,” I said.

“She’s a good neighbor,” Jenny Rose agreed, grudgingly.

She yelled something we couldn’t make out.

“What?” we called back.

“Come before seven,” she called, “and I’ll give you a key!”

“Okay!” I waved and we continued our march.

“About Temple…” I said.

“Yeah?”

“He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

“He’s good-looking enough, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I know he’s goo— I mean that part’s obvious. It’s just—”

“I got him here for you, didn’t I?” she said indignantly.

“Yes.” My silk square blew off my head. It flew out over the ocean and stayed up in the air, flipping about, for the longest time. We watched it. Then down it floated, down, down into the salty purple deep.

Seamus had started to run. We were getting close to his house and the big lumbering fellow just took off. We had to trot to keep him in view. The cliffs softened and there was a sandy cove with a house just on the water. Seamus looked at it, ran toward it ’til Jenny Rose called out, “No, Seamus, stop! It’s the other one!”

Seamus turned, his arms at his sides, anguish on his face.

“He’s forgotten again.” Then she called, “It’s all right, sweetie. It’s the other house. Up the lane.” She waved her arm offshore. Brownie was already headed up the lane, barking. It hit Seamus all of a sudden, his expression filled with delight. “Mam!” he cried and he ran up the lane toward a little house, all but invisible at first. It was stone and the roof was matted with kelp.

“Once in a while he forgets,” Jenny Rose explained apologetically.

“What would he do if you weren’t here?” I panted. We were both out of breath. “Go to the old house?”

She sighed and flung the apple core into the sea before we turned off into the hedge. “He never does, when he’s alone … or just with me. He’s just excited because you’re along, that’s all.” She frowned. “Once or twice, he did go there.”

“What happened?”

She stood and looked toward the house on the sea. “Nothing,” she said, but I had the feeling she was lying. I was beginning to learn when she was lying; she had this bad-actress self-conscious sincerity you can’t miss. If she didn’t stop doing that, she’d wind up a first-class sphinx like my husband, Johnny. You never knew what he was thinking. Just the thought of him enraged me. Unhappily, I stretched my neck in every direction, seeking relief. I hardly saw the boxhedge or the blue slate foot-stones up to the house, then I noticed how neatly they were swept and I came back to myself. I breathed the refreshing air.

The little door ahead was open, from Jenny Rose going in. It was so small you had to bend down to go through. “Shut the door,” Jenny Rose called. My ears and hands and feet were cold and I was glad to be inside. The spinning wheel was between the bog fire and a kerosene heater. I’d never seen one outside of a museum. The fire was lit and the heater on full blast. A pale light edged its way from the fire. We’d brought the cold in with us but you could tell the chugging warmth would soon take back over. I removed my heavy sweater. The smell of old age, apothecary jars, and the past mingled with seaweed drying on a grid on a shelf in the fireplace. The goats were leaning up against the window, bleating to get in, hopeless, adorable.

I stood in the middle of the room on a little rag rug.

“Claire, this is Mrs. Wooly. Here she is, come on, you can touch her.”

I was so taken aback I didn’t know what to do. There in front of me, shriveled and waxen, the oldest-looking, tiniest lady I’d ever seen lay curled beneath a plaid horse blanket. My first thought was that she must be dead. Her mouth was caved in where teeth had once held up the fort. When she turned her milky eyes on me, I was just about terrified. If Jenny Rose hadn’t been there, I would have turned and run.

Slowly, a minute claw was presented to me from beneath the cover. I had nothing to do but take it into my own hand. It felt like wood. No, glass. But as I stood there holding it, the gnarled fingers loosened and unfolded and the smooth, curious softness of her palm took hold of mine. There the flesh was plusher than mine.

Muted words I didn’t understand came toward me.

“It’s Gaelic,” Jenny Rose said. “She’s speaking our own tongue.”

Not knowing what to say, I said what my mother would have: “God bless all inside this home,” loud and clear, that way she would hear me.

“She said she wants her teeth,” Jenny Rose said.

“Oh,” I said.

“She hears the grass grow.” Jenny Rose leaned into the bed and gently propped her into a sitting position, fluffing pillows behind her crooked back. “It’s seeing she can’t do. Seamus, go get her teeth. You know where she puts them.”

Brownie fiddled about under Mrs. Wooly’s bed, then begged to go outside to torture the goats.

Seamus moved out from his place against the wall. He had this way of making himself invisible that I found so disconcerting. He wouldn’t go, though; just stood there chugging from side to side, one foot to the other, like some huge, well-behaved dog who’d been told time and again not to jump up on his mistress.

“Och!” Jenny Rose threw her arms in the air and went to look for the teeth herself. Mrs. Wooly craned around the dim room till she spotted Seamus, then patted the bed beside her. He fell onto the spot, never bending, just thunk, landed there, his funny face flattened into a delirious grin. Mrs. Wooly petted him, crooning all the while in a scrawny singsong. He answered her in an identical whistle, just deeper. Beautiful, I thought. I leaned against the refrigerator-sized radio. It rolled away from me. I pulled it back and leaned against the wall. Their keening blended together in the most mesmerizing sound. They began again, a Gaelic tune. Worried, I thought, What will happen, now? Will they sing all morning? I itched to reload my camera but didn’t want to offend anyone or Jenny Rose would yell.

She poked her head around the corner from the bathroom. “Who’s been here?” Her voice was five parts fear, five parts confidence.

“Young Murphy,” Mrs. Wooly answered in English, remembering. She leaned on one arm and shifted herself up with some strength. “He’s down the gate,” she added, her musical brogue gentle with understanding.

Jenny Rose didn’t answer. I had a feeling she was looking in the mirror.

Mrs. Wooly turned to me. “Go bring the tea, missy,” she said.

“Okay,” I said and got up, poking around for cups in the dusty, free-standing cupboard. I love dusty old cream cupboards, thick with paint. There were canning jars with flower decals on them from years ago. The cups were there, up front, Chinese or Japanese, with delicate lips and worn enamel dragons. They were a little dingy but I thought I’d do more harm than good if I made a hefty, hygienic scrub so I just did as I was told, gave them a hot rinse and laid them out on the metaltop wooden table. Two of them didn’t match.

Jenny Rose came in and went to the cupboard herself. Her cheeks were pink with excitement. “I don’t know who keeps bringing her these tins,” she muttered, pushing the sardines and chutney off to the side. “She can’t hold the opener to get anything out of them. I mean, people just don’t think.”

“I can hold it some days,” Mrs. Wooly said imperiously. Then humbly, “I just can’t get a grip on the bugger to turn it.”

“Never mind.” Jenny Rose had found the china windmill of sugar and put it on the table. “Claire,” she told me, “move this table closer to the bed with me, will you?” Mrs. Wooly was sitting up, her shiny legs not reaching the floor. Right away her little ankles filled with edema. She swept her head up sideways, bravely. The effort must have cost her. You could see her wince. She mopped her face with a yellowed hanky. A dingy commode awaited on rickety legs.

I opened the stringbag of goodies and slid them onto a plate. It was a chipped Lalique, old as the hills and decorated with pretty pink roses. There was another one with purple and yellow pansies. I put them both out.

Jenny Rose hopped lightly onto the side of the bed. On the night table was a handsome soft-bristled brush. “Now”—Jenny Rose cleared her throat—“we’ll dandy you up a bit, first.”

You could tell the old lady revelled in the young girl’s delicate touch. Jenny Rose unwound the coil of yellowed white hair and spread it over the old woman’s crooked back. She moaned with pleasure as Jenny Rose slid the brush down and then down again. The hair was so light and feathery, it didn’t take her long to separate the knotted strands at all. So many years those hairs had been maneuvered into place that now they almost found their obedient ways on their own. Like my father’s car driving itself home from the bowling alley.

“You sound a little wheezy,” Jenny Rose clucked.

“Still have a touch of that cold, I guess,” Mrs. Wooly said. “Forgot to take that echinacea you left in the cabinet.”

“Now you know these colds,” Jenny Rose scolded, “they take a week with medication, seven days without.”

The windchimes outside rattled. “That’s a north-east wind, that is,” Mrs. Wooly shouted. “There’s good for your angling, Seamus.”

“Aye,” Seamus agreed. He was sitting up, all set now for the scones unveiled.

“Would you be mindin’ if Claire took some black and white photographs of your wheel?” Jenny Rose said.

“Not a bit. I like a black and white photo.” She picked up a button and threw it at the window at the bleating goats, mad to get in. “Makes me feel young.”

“Bull’s eye,” Jenny Rose said.

Mrs. Wooly smiled and nodded encouragingly as Seamus devoured half of the scones without waiting for the jam. She felt my look, I know she did, because she said, “I’ve had some already, you know, so don’t think of me. Mr. Willy Murphy always thinks of me, he does.”

In came Murphy, light on his feet. He rested a broom very gently on the threshold and rubbed his hands before him. “Better than it was,” he said, assessing his work. “Cold today.” He was wearing the same salt and pepper fisherman’s sweater he’d had on my first day here. Jenny Rose’s and his eyes collided.

“Will you sit with us t’day, Mr. Murphy?” Jenny Rose couldn’t suppress a radiant smile.

“I’d be delighted, Bonnie Jenny Rose Cashin.” He swept low in a dashing bow. “Oh!” he stood up suddenly. “I almost forgot! I’ve got oranges from Tunisia!”

“Go on with you!” Mrs. Wooly cried, clapping her hands in her lap.

“No, I do. I left them at the gate in a wooden box.” He ran outside.

“He leaves anything outside in the dell in case you-know-who is here,” Mrs. Wooly whispered.

“Who?” I said.

“Molly,” Jenny Rose said.

“She’s a fine one for sticking to the doctor’s rules, y’see,” Mrs. Wooly explained. “No citrus before cereal. And no wine with the heart medicine!”

“Well!” Jenny Rose said. “We put a stop to that.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “You can’t mix alcohol with those medications. It negates all the good they do.”

“No, dear.” Mrs. Wooly patted my hand. “We put a stop straightaway to the medication.”

They both had a good laugh.

Willy Murphy reappeared moments later with the cardboard box. It was filled over the top with tight-skinned, glistening oranges.

“Where did you get them?” Mrs. Wooly said.

“Three boats come in at once over in Baltimore.”

“They’re that curious with the film ship about,” Jenny Rose said. “Think they might get a look at a film star with her top off.”

Seamus stood up in expectation.

“Give one here.” Jenny Rose tapped her pointer finger on the table. Willy threw one across the room and she caught it with one hand. Their eyes locked. A blush ran up her cheeks like tipped-over beets.

“Did Morocco make it back home all right?” I asked, sitting down on a hassock.

“Much to my mother’s chagrin,” Willy said.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought he was your mom’s donkey.”

“It’s a long story,” Jenny Rose said.

“Here, Mrs. Benedetto.” Willy came over with an armload of newspapers to sit upon and make me higher. “My mother never was one to care for animals.”

“Thank you, Willy Murphy,” I said. “But, please call me Claire.” I put my sweater over the papers and sat down. “It’s so confusing, between my married name and my working name. So why does she keep Morocco?”

“The thing is, she keeps trying to get rid of him. She’s allergic, see? But that donkey loves her. And whenever she sells him he finds his way back.”

Jenny Rose nodded. “It’s awful.”

“Especially when she has to return the money,” Willy said.

Mrs. Wooly fingered my sweater. “Cape Clear knots,” she said.

“Really?” I said. “How can you tell?”

“You know. You learn whose knots are whose, from which family, over the years. The knots differ from village to village and then family to family. So’s they can identify a drowned ’un.” She leaned across and I could feel her light breath on my cheek. “After a body’s been in the drink for a while it’s divil hard to identify.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

Willy Murphy gazed out the window.

Jenny Rose frowned. I could see she didn’t care for the turn our conversation had taken. I remembered Liam telling me Audrey Whitetree-Murphy’s husband had drowned when he’d gone over the cliff in his father-in-law’s Bentley. That would be Willy’s dad. “Come on, Seamus”—she hit his knee with the back of her hand—“tell them what a sweater is.”

He looked at her blankly.

“You remember.”

His childlike face lit up. “A sweater is something a child has to wear when his mother’s feeling chilly.”

“Very good!” they all said.

“What do you feed the goats, Mrs. Wooly?” I asked.

She put herself up on an arm. “Hay, oats, barley, corn. Molasses. There will be mice with molasses. Sweet. That’s what they like. These are Nubian goats. Nubian goats give the sweetest milk. They have Oberhausliis, Tagenburgs and Alpines. But Nubians give the sweetest milk. Unless you’ve got a male around. They pick up that frowsy scent.”

I looked over at Jenny Rose to see how she was taking this. But she was just absorbing everything in that intent way she had.

“That donkey come on a boat,” Seamus said proudly.

“No he didn’t, Seamus. He was born right here in Skibbereen,” Willy said.

“Boats are the big thing, you know,” Jenny Rose explained. “No end of interesting things to be seen when the boats come in, aren’t there, Seamus?”

“Yes.”

“All sorts of illegal fruits and coffee.” Willy piled the oranges carefully into a triangle.

“And cigarettes,” Mrs. Wooly said.

“Oh, there’s not so much of that,” Willy Murphy said sadly.

“Yes. Remember the time the cigarette boat from Casablanca to Lisbon got caught in the storm and they docked her at Baltimore?” Jenny Rose said.

“Everyone had cigarettes for weeks.” Mrs. Wooly got excited. “Bernadette made a pretty penny, too.”

“Well, yes, there is that,” Willy admitted, not liking his Ireland to look clandestine, I imagined. “There are those who’ll make money from a stone.”

“I thought you liked Bernadette,” I said to him, a note of challenge in my voice.

He moved his mouth out, shut. “I like all the Cashins and the Mulderrigs,” he said. He yanked his big pullover over his head, revealing a wrinkled purple T-shirt.

“Things can’t always find their way through customs.” Jenny Rose frowned. “Not when nature plays a hand.”

“Like when they just land on the beach,” Mrs. Wooly added.

Jenny Rose’s eyes blazed. “If it’s presented to you it’s hard not to take it.” She was meaning something else.

“And guns.” Seamus’s eyes shone.

They all looked at me. “Will you have a fresh scone, Claire.” Willy passed the plate. He’d decorated it, while we were sitting there, with sage leaves and thyme.

“Claire is Mary Cashin’s daughter.” Jenny Rose broke open the first orange. It smelled wonderful.

“Put those peels above the fire, Jenny Rose, there’s a good girl. They’ll be incense for me later.”

“These aren’t sprayed, like the American oranges, with pesticides,” Willy Murphy explained.

“Ah,” I said. “Certainly not. Far be it from a Tunisian to make an unecological profit.”

“Mary Cashin,” Mrs. Wooly said dreamily. “Dierdre, Brigid and Mary Cashin. I remember Mary as well as the rest of them. Good-hearted, Mary was.” She looked tenderly at Jenny Rose. “Brought us nothing but love, Mary did. And you say she’s well?” The chin hairs stood out sturdily in the light, her hair had balded in one spot, but the sweetness of her expression made her unearthly lovely.

“She’s all right now, but she had a slight heart attack. That’s why she couldn’t come herself for—”

Mrs. Wooly counted out loud on her fingers. “Mary left for the States, then Brigid married good Ned Mulderrig.” She turned her head sideways. “Not without a grand fight from Audrey Whitetree, though.” She chuckled. “And poor Dierdre was left with nothing more than Peg.”

“What do you mean, Mrs. Wooly?” I said.

“Well, you see,” she whispered, her eyes lighting up, “Dierdre and Peg took up like man and wife.”

“No, I mean about Audrey Whitetree-Murphy? Did she used to have a crush on Uncle Ned?”

“Ouch!” Jenny Rose jumped. “Must have sit on a pin! Say, Claire, why don’t you whip out your camera. I’m sure no one will mind.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Wooly peeled the yellowy seams from the orange and put them in a horrible pile. She buffetted it around with an arthritic knuckle. “Peg was always a sour note,” she said. “Nothing pleased her. Even Dierdre, who she loved. You know the way Dierdre is, silly and flouncy. Up in the clouds. Wasn’t Peg always at her for that very thing. Imagine trying to change the very thing it is you love about a person!”

The wild, fierce will of my husband came to mind. The way I’d hollered at him when it all got to be too much. With my face full of hate. I bit my lip.

“One time,” Willy said, “Peg closed the road. The coast road up to Bally Cashin.”

“Well, does the road belong to Bally Cashin?”

“A road doesn’t belong to any a man,” Willy said passionately.

“Better if she’d never been born,” Seamus agreed.

Silence. Then, “Ooh, now,” they all chimed at once.

“Every one of God’s children has a right,” Mrs. Wooly said. “Ah, yes, those days are gone, now, when the Cashin girlies reigned. Down the lane they’d come blowin’ in, puffy with crinolines in their rayon dresses. One prettier than the other.”

I filled with pleasure, listening to her.

“They used to come down to the old house with records.”

“What records?” I wanted to know.

“Oh. Glenn Miller. Harry James. I loved that Glenn Miller.” She shook her head. “My Dan used to get up and dance when they’d put him on.”

“That’s my dad.” Seamus grinned. “But we didn’t have him long.”

“No, we didn’t.” She smiled reminiscently. “But didn’t he love those old songs! What was that song he used to get up for? ‘Long Ago and Far Away,’” her old voice waddled. “That was it. Good songs, those. Ah, well, that’s all over now. Now it’s the new generation, isn’t that right, Jenny Rose?”

“Mmm,” Jenny Rose answered absently. We were all drowsy with the fire. It didn’t do any good talking to the two of them. Jenny Rose sat, poised, on the voluptuous coral hassock. Willy was pale as green almost, with veins like raised rivers that pulsed and wound up and down his neck and arms and hands. As many times as they would look away from each other, they’d find themselves looking back.

“And then Peg come along and ruined it all for everyone,” Seamus said out of nowhere.

“Well, she didn’t ruin it all, Seamus. Those were different days. Things weren’t like they are now. You kept things more to yourself, like.”

“She did, too. Mary Cashin didn’t like her dancin’ with her sister. You said it!”

I sat up. “It was my mom who objected to Peg?”

Nobody looked at me.

“Mind you,” Mrs. Wooly warmed to the subject, “no one could say a word about the two a them.” She mashed an orange slice onto a scone and drizzled it with honey. More of the honey landed on the plate, though. “About them takin’ up together. They were always dead discreet. Well, mostly. It was enough just knowin’, if you know what I mean. But I was just saying to Seamus last week that that’s no life. It’s silly, dressin’ up in men’s clothes.”

“Och!” Jenny Rose cried out as she let Brownie, back in. “You’re all wet! You’re a night in November, now look at you!”

“What’s she got, there?” Willy said.

“Why, it’s my scarf!” I said. “She went and fetched my scarf!”

“She’s got to be in and out all the blithering day.” Jenny Rose mopped the linoleum floor with a rolled-up rag beneath her foot.

Brownie put the thing on the floor, not next to me but close enough.

I gave the dog a wrestling hug, wet or no wet. “You can’t beat a dog,” I said.

“No, you can’t,” Willy agreed. “You see that Oriental? Under Jenny Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“You used to play on that. Remember?”

Jenny Rose ran her hand along it lovingly. “I do. It was my magic carpet, this.”

“You used to go places on it, remember? Where was it you’d go?”

“Norway. Baghdad.”

“Right. Norway. With your dolls. The whole carpet would be filled with grubby dolls.”

“Shut up.”

Mrs. Wooly squinted at me. “Was there something you wanted specially to photograph?”

I jumped. “Oh,” I said. “Yeah.” I stood up and got out my camera, then sort of strolled around while they talked. There was very little light but I didn’t have to worry about using highspeed film with my Contex. It would come out a touch grainy, but I never mind that. I puttered around, shooting the loom, the pretty window, the stove and the oven, this and that until they’d get bored with me enough to relax, which they did. Then I could catch them off-guard. They were discussing money. Money for Mrs. Wooly. The roof would make it through this summer it seemed, but what would happen in the fall?

“Now, you children don’t fret. I’ll be glad if I make it myself through the summer,” she said.

“Don’t even talk like that,” Jenny Rose reprimanded her. She was sketching the woman’s old face on one of Mrs. Wooly’s torn recipe cards.

“I wouldn’t mind, dear. One more summer would be lovely. Just the one. I don’t think I could bear another winter, truth be told.”

“I don’t suppose we could have another auction?” Willy suggested unenthusiastically.

I put my camera down. “And what about Dierdre?” I said. “Shouldn’t we do something for Dierdre?”

“You?” Willy Murphy said. “You’ll be back in America the fortnight.”

And you, I thought but did not say, haven’t stuttered once since we got here.

“You’re going home,” he said. “You act like you’re part of us and you’re not!”

“So? What’s so bad about it?”

He stood still. “You’ve never let me cook you a fair meal, for one thing.”

“I could stay that long.”

“Of course, there will be plenty of money for Dierdre now,” Jenny Rose said. “You needn’t worry about her.”

“How?” I said. “From Peg?”

“Insurance. She had every sort of insurance. Always after Dierdre to get herself some. Dierdre never had two pence to rub together at the end of the month, though. She and I are alike, there. Dierdre will be well off now.”

“Will she?”

“Oh, yes. I think so.”

“She won’t even have to live in Skibbereen, if she doesn’t want to,” Willy said.

“Why wouldn’t she want to?” Jenny Rose said. She opened the pot and stirred. The enchanting smell of new brewing loose black tea filled the room. “What do you say we have a great fish hunt?” she suggested. “We’ll have a fine steep entry tariff. And the winner will donate the proceeds to go to a new roof.”

“That’s a splendid idea! There are plenty of sportsmen from abroad here already for the season. Some of them have come back from last year. Everyone wants first shot at hooking that old devil, Tantalos. They’re all after him. Especially the Germans.”

“Tantalos?” I said. “People know about him? Tourists?”

“Sure. That huge salmon they’ve all seen and no one’s hooked. Not for at least three years. A course, Liam says he doesn’t really exist. But he does. He must be huge by now.”

“Liam says too many scary things,” Seamus said.

“What things?” I said.

“Oh, you know, stories. Liam loves to get your hair on edge. That’s just the way he is.”

“Well, them stories is too scary now.” Seamus buttoned and unbuttoned his top. “I told him to stop.”

“He just likes to try them out on you, you big sucker.” Jenny Rose punched him playfully. “You know,” she went on, “there are a great lot of Bavarians holed up at Castle Park Marina in Kinsale.”

“What do you want to do, go looking all the way in Kinsale?” Willy said. “Why, there must be twenty of them already here over on Sherkin Island alone. And another twenty on Clear Island.”

“That’s true. And they’re here now.”

“I could stretch a great sign from the O’Driscoll ruin—”

“Mother of God!” Willy cried. “There you are! The O’Driscoll Clan Gathering is set to start tomorrow! They’ll all be here later today if they’re not here yet.”

“We’ll take advantage of that lot as well!”

“Why, there’s enough of them alone staying over in the Algiers already. They’d jump at it!” Willy Murphy fondly put an arm around Jenny Rose. He looked, glowingly, at her pretty face. “Isn’t she clever?” he asked me.

“Clever enough to go to college,” I said.

“Oh, please.” Jenny Rose made a miserable expression.

“Well, you are,” I said, taking a bite of scone. “God,” I said, “this is the best scone I’ve ever eaten.”

“Bridey makes them good,” Jenny Rose said.

“They’re all good when you’re hungry,” Mrs. Wooly said. “Bernadette made a great fuss to get her in college up in Cork.”

That was the second time I’d heard what a grand effort Bernadette had made. “I’m sure Bernadette had nothing to do with her getting in,” I said without thinking. “Anyone who knows anything about it would just have to look at her work and they’d be proud to have her.”

“I don’t care,” Jenny Rose said, not stubbornly, just still in her own meaning. “I can’t sit in a class. I would go and work under a master, though. Like Lavecci. I could work for him. Just to be near him and watch what he does. I’d love that. But you know, he lives on an island off Spain.”

Willy poured the tea.

“Armond Lavecci?” I sat down uncomfortably. “I met him, years ago.”

“Really?” Jenny Rose cried. “What was he like?”

I thought for a moment. Megalomaniac? “Very temperamental,” I said out loud. “You know, crazed with his own opinion.”

Jenny Rose drew in, nodding, eating each word.

“But kind, I think. Very concentrated eyes, for all the brouhaha. Ambitious.”

Seamus, bored, had pulled out a cardboard box of blocks. Crash. He tipped them onto the floor.

“There’s a good boy,” Willy said. “Make us a lovely brown house, now.”

Seamus furrowed his brow in concentration and went to work.

“Did you ever talk to him?” Jenny Rose said.

“I met him twice, now that I think of it. Once in Gstaad. We sat at the same table, outdoors. We ate trout. He told me my eyes were asleep while I was awake.”

“How awkward for you!”

“Yes, it was. It was humiliating. He was right, though. And it bothered me when he said it. It was very soon after that I changed my life, I think. Pulled myself together. So, oddly enough, Armond Lavecci influenced me as well.”

“How strange!” Jenny Rose got up from her place and came over to sit before me. “We’re locked together in our destinies.” She took my chin with both hands. “I knew it the moment I saw you.” Her passion was so genuine, I found myself sitting there with a lump in my throat.

Mrs. Wooly took hold of my cup and peered inside. She swirled the dregs around.

“Long ago and far away,” Jenny Rose was humming.

“What do you see?”

“Something be missing,” she said, squinting and moving her head this way and that. “I canna for the life of me see today.”

“Let her do you in a couple of minutes,” Jenny Rose suggested. “She’s got these floaters in her eyes, along with the cataracts. They move around and she can’t see a thing.”

Willy licked his lips. He ran the cool tap water over his handkerchief and blotted it over his face. Then he sat down again. “He lives off the coast of Italy, I think. That chap Lavecci.”

“No, it’s Spain,” Jenny Rose said firmly.

“That’s right,” I said, remembering, “that’s where I met him the second time. In Ibiza. He has a finca there, a big place.”

“Was he kind to you that time?” Willy asked me.

“He was kind to me the first time,” I said. “He woke me up.” I didn’t think I’d mention the part about his amorous advances, which were entirely nonpartisan, by the way, when I’d had to physically remove his inebriated bulk from the finca where I was staying. Heroes are best left intact.

“That’s our dream,” Jenny Rose said. “Me and Willy. We’d go all over the Mediterranean.”

“With backpacks,” Willy specified. “Not with those great self-important cases on trolleys.”

“Right,” Jenny Rose agreed. “We’d stop at every little village.”

“Not just drive in, eat at the fanciest digs and drive on.”

“No,” Jenny Rose said. “We’d spend some time.”

“Jenny Rose could draw,” he said.

“And Willy could get secret family recipes from the old Grandmas, he’s good with old gals,” she teased. “We’d make a cookery book and sell it to the Americans.”

“Why would they give you their old secret family recipes?” I said.

Seamus cut in excitedly, “Well, they just would! Once they got to know our Willy Murphy.”

We all laughed. It seemed he’d heard this particular dream before. “And someday,” he parodied the light texture and musical cadence of Jenny Rose’s voice, “one of the shops on our port here will come up for sale and we’ll buy it and turn it into a first-class restaurant. And we can settle down … together … all of us…”

“What, here in Skibbereen?” I said.

“Och.” Jenny Rose put one block on top of the other to get Seamus going. “That’s the stuff we used to dream. When I was a kid. Remember, Willy?” She gave him a poke.

But Willy had gone moody and didn’t answer.

“I don’t think it’s such a farfetched idea. It’s important to have a goal,” I said, wanting to cheer him up, forgetting I had none.

“My mother would never go for that,” Willy said.

“Which part?” I said. “The recipes, the trip or the restaurant?”

“All of it,” he admitted.

“Well, surely you’re old enough to decide what you want to do?” I said.

“Ye-ye-yes,” Willy stuttered. “I am. Bu-but you don’t underst-stand.”

“There are other problems involved, y’see,” said Jenny Rose, her eyes down. She was wiping the crumbs from the table, her mouth very grown-up, tidy.

“Oh,” I said, not seeing at all. It was all too pat, Freudian for me. I stood up. “I’d better get back. I’ve got to go over to Molly’s and pick up a key. I’ll be staying there from tonight on,” I added, hoping, I remembered, for some dreams of my own coming true.

Jenny Rose took hold of a fresh piece of paper. “I’m going to get right on this contest. I must call Arthur at the Fishing Club.” She chewed her lip. “And I’ll go up to the convent and ask the nuns if they’ll let me have some old sheets to make my sign.”

“I’m not so sure if I want that old salmon caught,” Willy muttered, fetching his stick.

Jenny Rose jumped up when she saw I was going. She walked me out and shut the little door behind her. You could hear the waves crashing against the shore. “Audrey Whitetree-Murphy has emphysema,” she confided. Her voice was reverent. “She’s probably dying.”

“Oh, dear,” I said.

“So you understand a bit more now,” she whispered.

“Sure,” I said. “Her life is over so now everyone else’s has to be.”

“Go on with you now.” She laughed good-naturedly and pushed me away. I went off smiling, not sure all was lost. Life wasn’t horrible for everyone. All we needed was a fresh look at things. I wondered how long it would take Temple to find me. Walking back over the moor you could hear the strains of Seamus’s flute. I was surprised he was so good. But then he had such a great aptitude for mimicry, why wouldn’t he be good? He wouldn’t have your more normal person’s predjudices about mastering an instrument. It would be natural to him, like eating. Then the wind blew from another direction and you couldn’t hear past the sea. It’s a weird place when you’re on your own. The wind whistles in and out of log holes and badger doors. For a second you imagine what it would be like to be lost, or blown over the side. With a great herder’s whoosh, Brownie galloped past me, pushing my leg with a playful nose-nip. “Decided to come along with me, eh?” I said, feeling safe. She threw back her head and led the way. There really is nothing like a dog. My silk scarf had dried on the heater and it was stiff and crinkly. I was glad to have it, though. I tied it under my chin and hurried along, fair lassie I imagined myself. Wait until Temple Fortune got a load of me, I thought, snuggling my hands into my pockets. I’d just spotted the straight wisp of gray smoke from Bally Cashin when it occurred to me Mrs. Wooly hadn’t gotten around to reading my tea dregs. And what had she meant there was something missing?

The walk turned. There was someone standing on the bluff beyond the path, out overlooking the water. My heart leapt. I thought it might be him. It was a woman, though. It was Dierdre, I saw, as I came closer. I thought, Oh boy, I hope she doesn’t plan on jumping.

“Dierdre?” I called.

“What?” She seemed confused for a moment. She turned and looked at me, shading her eyes with one hand. Her face, dusted pink, was slushy with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Are you all right?”

She sighed and sat down on the rock. “I’d smoke a cigarette if I had one.”

“I would, too,” I said. “Let’s move over here, out of the wind.”

“No, thanks.” She frowned. “Fairy ring. I don’t want to sit there.”

“Why not?” I said, cold.

“Don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

“Who?”

She looked at me gravely. “The wee folk.”

“Oh.” I laughed.

“That’s their spot, there,” she said, not smiling back.

I crossed my arms the way she did. We looked out over the sea and shivered. Brownie too stood, looking.

There would be starshine here tonight, I thought inappropriately. I could come with Temple Fortune. Absorb wee folk rays. Hold his hand. Touch his exquisite back … The nearness of my dream thrilled and horrified me. “They’re going to have a fishing contest,” I blurted. “Jenny Rose and Willy Murphy are. Sunday. To raise money for Mrs. Wooly’s roof.”

“Always up to somethin’, those two.” She looked at her watch. It jangled with loose-fitting charms.

“Jenny Rose sure loves that Willy Murphy,” I took a chance.

“Are you only just finding that out? That’s old news. They’ve been mad about each other since she was old enough to talk, those two. Jenny Rose used to bait his hooks, the little sap. Damn. I must have one somewhere.” She scrabbled around in her basket. “A lot a good that will do her. ‘Stay with your own kind,’ that’s what I always told her.” She came up with a battered cigarette. “Lovin’ above your station comes to nuthin’ but heartbreak.”

“Aunt Dierdre, you crack me up. You sound like Upstairs, Downstairs.”

She amazed me by getting it lit in the gale, then batted the match at the the wind. “And you think things have changed since those days, no doubt. True love conquers all and all that.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that Audrey Whitetree-Murphy stands in their way. Still. If she’s dying … then it’s only a matter of time.”

“Tch, Audrey Whitetree-Murphy was supposed to be dead years ago, according to herself. She’ll be dyin’ as long as it suits her. Listen. You hear that? That’s the Sherkin Island ferry. You can see it if you wait a bit.”

“I guess you can live a long time with emphysema,” I agreed, shivering.

“Just ruinin’ everyone else’s life, while you’re about it. And who says she has emphysema? She’s got asthma. She had to get rid of her horses because of it. Don’t know why she keeps that stubborn donkey. She can’t go near it. She acts big but she’s just as sentimental as the next one.” She glanced at me. “That’s what Peg said about her.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She made our Bridey’s life nuthin’ but hell for years. Always being the understanding, unattached holier-than-thou. And always with her hair combed out.”

“What do you mean?”

She let out her ready chortle. “That’s quite an appealing package to present to a man who’s got a flesh-and-blood wife at home, with her hair in rags. Who’s tired and haggard with the raising of the kids and the meals. Just gettin’ that lot off to mass on a Sunday would drive you mad. The pressing of clothes it takes to get that Bernadette to rights!” She clicked her tongue and narrowed her eyes at me. “You didn’t bring any pictures of your own children, did you?”

“No.” I patted my empty pockets, embarrassed. “It was supposed to be Zinnie coming. Then, at the last minute—”

“You know what I think?” she interrupted me, not listening. “I think your sister Carmela has forgotten she ever had a child.”

For a moment, I remained quiet. Then I snapped, “I thought it was you who made Carmela swear on the Bible! You made her pledge not to interfere with your raising Jenny Rose. Not to ever try and get in touch with her!” I was trembling now, not just from the cold. Thank God I knew now what they’d done to Carmela. She wasn’t to blame. Not entirely. How conveniently they’d forgotten. How silkily they’d handled her.

Dierdre kept her gaze out over the sea, like she was trying to see something far away. The bright sun shone down on her cruelly. “Yes,” she finally said. “It was Bridey’s idea. But I made her do that. I can’t deny it. When I think of it now! Carmela was just a young lass, younger even than our Jenny Rose is now. Still. You’d think she’d come looking for her anyway. Just out of curiosity, if nothing else.”

I wanted to say something retributory, something to do with the depth of Carmela’s pledge, her secret sorrow all these years, after what they’d made her do, even though, at heart, I agreed with Dierdre, but I didn’t. I held my tongue. Dierdre’d been through too much, too. She blamed herself, I could tell. “It cannot have been easy for her,” I said at last.

“It wasn’t bloody easy for Jenny Rose. Bein’ raised up by the likes a me.” Dierdre sobbed, then caught herself. “And Peg. Always harpin’ at her, she was. I was such a fool, thinking Peg would provide some discipline there, where I’d give her none. It wasn’t right.” She shook her head unhappily. “I remember Jenny Rose coming to me when she was a wee girl. All in tears, she was. I’d left Peg alone with her. Every time I’d go off, she’d have Jenny Rose tidying the mess. Oh, she’d roar at her like a drill sergeant, Jenny Rose told me. She would always tell me. How she’d make her clean. Hard cleaning.” Dierdre looked at me, her forehead riddled in doubt, her quick, little pointed hands wringing each other out. “I never should have let Peg order her about like that. But I’ll tell you the truth, I was glad to come home and find the house in order.”

“Jenny Rose told me she had a wonderful childhood,” I said warmly. “You’ve done a wonderful job. She speaks of you in a way I’d be proud and delighted to have my own daughter speak of me.”

“She says that because she’s a decent sort.” Her voice turned harsh. “And she doesn’t want pity from you. That would kill her. But it can’t have been easy for her. There was a while we’d be gettin’ threats from the village. Lezzies, they’d call us.”

“What? When was that?”

“Oh, years ago.”

“How awful!”

“I know. Such an ugly word! Poor Jenny Rose was just four or five. I don’t know how much she remembers. It didn’t go on too long. Constable Mullaney meant to put a stop to it. But you know how it is. Then Father Early came to the parish. He went to see whoever it was.”

Brownie whined and nudged me on the back of my knee with her nose.

“She wants you to go along with her now, how do you like that?”

“Come on back now,” I said, glad for the excuse to go. “I don’t like leaving you here.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll not jump.”

“I didn’t mean—” I saw her face. “Well, if you’re sure.”

“I was gone them five days. That’s enough.” The scarf around her throat stood out like a flag in the wind. “A lonely business it is.”

“What?”

“Bein’ dead.”