Chapter Nine

I got back to Bally Cashin as the sun reached the top of the world. There wasn’t a shadow, just the slates on the roof being blue with the sky. The air was tight and when you breathed in you could taste it. Seaside air, full of iodine. Bridey was standing in the dark kitchen at the table, folding the wash. My own white things were there, reproachfully pushed to their own corner. I supposed nightclothes ought to be hung in confined spaces. The rest of my clothes, she informed me, had already been transported to Auntie Molly’s Bed and Breakfast.

She must have seen my face. “Well now, you said you’d be goin’. I hope I didn’t go do the wrong thing.”

“No! No, I’m delighted. Thank you. I’ll just have to walk myself.”

“Ned was passing Molly’s when he brought back Morocco so I thought he might drop them,” she continued to apologize, but I sensed she wished me gone.

“Thank you. Really.”

We stood about. “Well,” I finally said, stupidly. “I’ll tell my mother you were asking for her.”

“Don’t talk as if I’ll not see you again!” She fussed. “You’ll come for supper tonight.”

I was so relieved. Part of me thought she’d just wanted to be totally rid of me.

“They’ll all be here. Bernadette’s bringing the film crew back with her too.” She placed a cup of tea in front of me.

“Oh?” I brushed my hair up off my neck. Casual. Suspicious. “Bernadette is working with them, now?”

“It’s part of her job with the hotel business, you see,” she offered, defensively, thrusting each dishtowel into the air and snapping it into quick edges. “Public relations.”

Is that what she told you, I thought. Hmm. “The hotel business has so many perks.”

She pushed my pile of underthings toward me. “I don’t think much of the film business, now,” she said. “Too much traveling ’round.”

“Yes.”

“Look at that Temple Fortune. Never more than six months at a time in one place.”

“I thought he lived here.”

“In Cork. Cork’s not here.”

“No.”

“And ask him how much time he spends at home anyway.”

“Just when he’s not working.”

“That’s what I mean. That’s a fine job. When you’re out of work you’re in your home. When you’ve got a job you can’t be in your home. It’s scarce sane is what it is. Why have a home at all?”

“There are worse things, I guess,” I answered. “Staying in one place when you long to be traveling. Temple Fortune does very well for himself. I mean, from what I hear.”

Aunt Bridey said nothing but I would not be stopped. My heart was so full of him I just had to say his name out loud. “I read in the Southern Star the Marist Brothers gave him a favorite son award.”

“Maybe that accounts for why he thinks so well of himself then.” She sniffed.

“I thought you all adored him. You think he’s vain?”

“Not vain enough. Where are his children?” She gathered the monument of folded tea towels and aprons, brought them to the glass-doored wooden cabinet and inserted them snugly in the one empty space. She slammed it shut.

“What do you mean?” I sipped my tea. It was delicious.

“He’s full up with self-loathing, maybe. Never wantin’ to see his sins personified.”

“Aunt Bridey.” I laughed. “He can’t be both.”

She didn’t turn around. “Yes,” she said. “He can be both.”

I didn’t like to defend him and give away my hand, so I put on my sweater and carried my cup to the sink rack. There was a bowl of doubtful-looking nuggety things on the rack.

“It’s Seamus’s bowl,” she explained.

“There’s going to be a great salmon-catching contest to help Mrs. Wooly get a new roof,” I told her. A dog barked far away. “Sunday.” A shutter banged against the ruin that had been Dierdre and Jenny Rose’s home. Bridey didn’t say anything.

“All right then.” I went over and pecked her on the cheek. She put her hand there, like I’d smacked her. “What time shall I be back?” I said. I wasn’t afraid of her disapproval anymore, I’d gotten past it and rather enjoyed irritating her.

“Come when the sun goes down,” she said, “that’ll be time enough.” She stepped to her right. “I wouldn’t come before.”

“Right. See you then.” The desperate pursing of her lips and the overly casual gleam in her eye alerted me that there was something else. I leaned a little past her thinking maybe Uncle Ned was there inside. Peripherally, I took in big feet sprawled and deadlike on the parlor floor. My heart lurched and I almost let out a scream. Aunt Bridey knew he was there, though. The unnaturally deliberate set of her position, I realized, had been to keep my eyes away from him. I recognized those lunky, muddy boots. It was Liam, drunk on the floor, heavy and unmovable. I wouldn’t let on for the life of me. I made a great show of stretching and yawning theatrically so I could get away with her dignity intact.

Taking the middle road, the bog road, I walked thoughtfully to Molly’s, waiting, the whole time, for something to happen. Of course nothing did. I just saw a lot of birds. They fussed and barn-yarded about, bickering. I got to Molly’s, the prettiness of the place striking me as always, the white hydrangea pruned like a little olive tree, the abrupt stalks of foxglove and hollyhock already sprouting from decaying tulip husks. She’d left her basket on the step, filled with geranium seedlings, and her straw hat, which I unkindly imagined a step too romantic, was draped across the barrow. The front door stood open and I went in. The clock was ticking on the mantel. “Anyone here?” I called. Disappointed, I climbed the carpeted stair, hearing the age of the house with every creak. There didn’t seem to be anyone else staying, at the moment. I supposed the Germans had moved on. I sat in my yellow room and looked out the window down the road. All right, here I was. I took off my clogs and shaved my legs in the tiny sink, creaming them with slithery aloe cream. All set now. Time on my hands. Where was he? I washclothed myself shiny in the bathroom magnifying mirror, then sat down, exhausted with apprehension, on the vanity chair.

Enough. I wasn’t going to sit around the house waiting for him to find me. I went down the stairs to a still empty house. Molly had said I could use the bicycle any time. I walked around the property looking for it, but she must have taken it herself, I thought. I took a peek in the shed. It wasn’t there. I was more than a little shocked to see the state of that place. It was worse than my own unkempt cellar. It was more like slovenly. I wouldn’t mention to her I’d been in it, I thought, suspecting it would embarrass her. I brushed the filth from my hands and opened the door, rubbery with paint, to the reassuring dim sky. I’d march into Skibbereen.

I went down the road, enjoying the walk but you know the way it is, when you don’t want the bus, there it is. Fiona Ferry of the badly set broken foot and the bell-clear voice was in her spot and I sat beside her.

“Taking in the town?” Her blue button eyes twinkled.

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t want to miss the Gorta Thrifty Shoppe,” she advised me. “It’ll be just over the bridge from Bridge Street.”

I promised her I wouldn’t think of missing it and told her about Jenny Rose’s plan for a “fish hunt” for Mrs. Wooly.

“That’s a grand idea now,” she said. “’Tis a scandal her own children won’t do a thing to help her.”

“Yes.”

“I hope they hear of it and hang their heads in shame.”

A thought occurred to me. “Miss Ferry,” I said, “I wonder if you knew my mother? Mary Cashin? She would be a lot older than you, of course.”

Her eyes lit up. “Mary Cashin is your mother? Sure, I knew Mary. A lovely young lady she was! We said rosary together at Miss Devlin’s house on Tuesdays. She went off to the States with a Slavic fellow and then the others were left with no one for their card games. Gentry he was. Oh, we were all agog.”

“Polish. Breslinski. Stan Breslinski. That’s my dad.”

“He didn’t come with her last time she was here.”

“No. He was home with the rest of us.”

“A lovely looking man, he was. There were those who thought that match would never last.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Well now, she a country girl. And he … a gentleman.”

She looked at me and I at her. We each had our own thoughts.

The bus hit a rut and up we went. We both just missed the ceiling and cried out in operatic abandon.

“Miss Ferry,” I said, “you have such a lovely voice. And you’re practically a professional. Would you start off the contest with a song?”

“I would,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll have Jenny Rose phone you. Maybe Willy. And tell you the time.”

“Oh. I know when it will be,” she said. “Just after early mass. There’s no other time it could be.”

“Oh. So, may I have your number?”

“Just get in touch with me so…” She moved uncomfortably. “You always know where I am, like.”

“I get it. On the bus.”

“Righteo.”

“Now, Miss Ferry, I’m going to take your picture. Please do not say cheese.”

“I wouldn’t.” Her eyes twinkled.

Before you knew it we were in town and I got up and lurched down the aisle. “Goraivh maith agat,” she called from her seat, which means, I think, may goodness be with you, and she waved to me from the mucky window, too. Mike, the bus driver, waved as well. He had luxurious long eyelashes, I noticed. Another week, I thought, and I’ll know the mayor. I stood there and waved back as the bus drove off. I was sorry about Liam. I know what a drag it is to clean up after someone so impossible but I still felt sorry for him. I wished I could have spoken with him right now, I was in the mood for his kind of talk, biting and funny and punctuated by lines of obscure poetry.

There was a tiny shop no bigger than a closet, the old letters of “The Eagle” worn away, now entitled “The Favorite.” I squeezed in and bought myself a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t open them, just paid for them and put them in my pocket, thrilled with the sin of it. It was exciting to be in my mother’s town, where she’d turned from girl to woman. Now that I had time to look around, I recognized names from the stories she’d told us. There was Hegarty’s Taxi Stand. What had been a horse and cart was now a modest car. And there was Mr. O’Leary, the nice jeweler in the brown shop where my parents had come to choose their wedding rings. The plain gold band she still wore. I caught the glint of my own reflection in the window, went to put my hand away guiltily into my pocket, then recalled Portia McTavish’s blissful expression and pulled it right out. I bought myself a nice pair of brown leather clogs at the corner shop to comfort my pride.

There’s an alley up North Street. A dark, wide tunnel of blackened, worn stone. It leaves the clatter, shops and traffic and forms a dark frame, going far back, moving off to the left in a zen off-centering and then opening onto a tiny view, like a portrait up on a wall, of lively green pastures and hills. The River Ilen winds through a lush place that, although you can’t see it from where you stand, you can feel a cameo of evergreen. North Street is a busy modern street, and to catch a glimpse of the evergreen like that, so near, so fair, I had to stop. I put my package on the ground and took what I felt was a perfect picture. Then I remembered Miss Ferry’s Gorta Thrifty Shoppe so that’s where I went. I crossed the rickety bridge, just painted, the door rattling with reindeer bells as I went in.

Two ladies in jersey dresses and peppery jewelry were rearranging the shelves.

“Just a tourist poking around,” I admitted.

“Is that right?” She and the other woman looked at each other with tidy smiles and doubtful brows. Nice ladies. What you’d call church ladies. They weren’t inclined to bother with me after quickly assessing me as an embroidery hunter, so I was able to amble freely up and down the aisles. I just like to look around at all the stuff. Up on the wall, behind the wads of Keen imitation pictures and Ramsey Lewis cassettes, a painting glowed softly. It was just a pot of flowers, but the gauzy scarf beneath it seemed to float and shimmer with Jenny Rose’s unmistakable translucent light. It moved like a river. “How much is the painting of the kitten with the round eyes?” I called out.

“Five and sixpence.” She looked at the other woman in the yellow hat.

I sighed. “Too much for me. What about the little one behind it?”

She hardly lifted her head. “Six pounds.”

Feigning disappointment, I trudged on.

“Well, that one’s been there for a while. I’ll let you have that for three.”

“Okay.” I scratched my neck. “Say. Have you got another to match it? The same size, I mean?”

“You know”—she pushed her glasses up her nose—“I think I do. Eileen? Do we still have that cliffs one? You know. The water looks all sparkly.”

“I wanted that for Brian for the garage.” She frowned.

“Never mind, then.” I turned away and picked up a ceramic owl. I waited.

“Come on, Eileen. Let her have the match.”

“All right,” I heard her mutter. “But when Rita Keane’s recycle bundle comes, I shall take first choice.”

“Here you are, miss. For your bedroom wall, are they?”

“No.” I smiled happily. “They’re a gift,” I said. And then, “For my sister.”

She wrapped them in newspaper. The lady nudged me on the shoulder. “I’m on to you, miss.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll be wanting those for the frames, won’t ya.”

“Caught me.” I winked. I went out and then, I couldn’t help myself, I went back in and asked the lady, “Just out of curiosity, if I had taken the frames and left the pictures here, what would you have done with them?”

“I’d put them in another set a frames, dear.”

“You wouldn’t want those paintings for yourself?”

“What, me? Nah.”

“Why not?”

“They’re too bold! You can’t see the rest of the room when they’re in it. I wouldn’t want that.”

“Good way to put it. Okay, thanks.”

“Are you stopping here in Skibbereen for long?”

“No.”

“No, no one does. Where are you off to next, then? You must visit Bantry, my hometown. Now that’s a pretty as a town could be. If you get over that way you’ll enjoy it.”

“Bantry?” I remembered I’d heard the word before. “That’s where Molly’s husband comes from.”

“Molly,” she said. “Molly who?”

“O’Neill. My landlady. Molly O’Neill. Auntie Molly’s B and B? What used to be Wattles Cottage.”

“No,” one of the ladies told me. “Oh, no, I would know if he were from Bantry. We’re not that big a town.”

“Oh, well,” I smiled. “Must be her maiden name.”

“That would be it.” She shut the door behind me.

I crossed the little bridge and sat down on a bench at the statue where Front and Bridge Streets meet. I was reloading my camera with a roll of black and white under the clock tower when suddenly there he was in the doorway of one of the stores. I felt his gaze before I saw him. I looked up into those eyes across the street. A flash of green. My stomach lurched up with something like pain. It was him. He was cupping his foreign hand around lighting a cigarette and looking at me. I sucked my stomach in. He ambled across the street. So I can get a good look at him, I remember thinking, with my critical line of thought.

“Come on,” he said, putting his hand beneath my elbow. In a film I would have been gracefully swept up and away with him but I had all these real-life packages and had to bend down ungracefully and collect them. “I want to take you to my place in Baltimore,” he turned his head and said into my neck.

A shiver of delight ran through me. “I’ve spent all my money,” I said.

“I’ve got lots of money.” His eyes stayed on my mouth.

“Good,” I said. “I’m expensive.” I don’t know why I said that. It just came out. He had that effect on me. I found myself saying flippant, outrageous things. I wasn’t afraid of him. I had the idea he adored me and it left me full reign. We sat down in the red vinyl taxi seat. I was glad to go and was curious to see the place Jenny Rose and Willy Murphy considered worthy of a dream. I didn’t like the fact that he took me in a taxi, though, Hegarty’s to boot. I wasn’t comfortable knowing everything I said would shortly be common knowledge and I, besides that, didn’t want to wait. My body temperature had gone up several notches since he’d come close to me and I felt almost resentful that I must behave. Still, there’s a certain enjoyment to postponement. I guess he took his cue from me because for a while neither of us said a word. I asked him about the film he was working on. Well. Then he talked a mile a minute, all technical stuff. How they couldn’t shoot while the moon was full because the tides were unruly and unphotogenic and the actors didn’t like being drowned for some reason … I didn’t so much hear what he was saying as listen to the sound of his voice. Temple has such a lovely voice. He went on until we got there, kept talking as he paid the driver and continued as we walked down onto the pebbles where the dinghys and the yachts were.

Baltimore is one of those brilliant little picture-perfect harbors, tiny, but with five or six top-notch restaurants. The sound of a child’s hesitant then delicate piano playing floated from a dockside window.

“The twelfth,” Temple said knowingly. “F major.”

I raised my ears to listen.

“How to murder Mozart.” Temple winced, slipping his wallet into his breast pocket.

“No,” I defied him fervently, “I think it’s beautiful. Tentative.”

He didn’t say anything but he gave me a kind of look that indicated I was lovely but pathetic. That look was to stay with me.

There were plenty of yachtsmen. They all looked so healthy and available, great rugged fellows in need of a haircut and bundled up romantically in cream-colored fishermen’s sweaters. Temple squeezed my hand possessively and led me up the pier walk, lulling me all the way with his poetic turns of phrase.

It always makes a difference when you see a place at high tide. I was excited with the smell of ale and the bulwarks. Sailboats and brightly colored storefronts marked the cove.

“Let’s have a drink,” he said.

“All right,” I said. We went in to an elegant little place and sat at the bar. I thought of Jenny Rose and Willy Murphy. It certainly wasn’t the sort of place you could buy for a song and stick a few bucks into, as I’d imagined. Ireland seemed to have come a long way since the potato famine. I was surprised there were so many people there. “It’s a lovely day,” he said, as if that would explain it. “What do you want to drink?”

I almost said, “Perrier with a squeeze of lime and then throw it away, please don’t put it in,” which is my usual song, but “Hmm,” I said instead. “Let’s drink Cosmopolitans.” I didn’t know what they were exactly but I’d heard somebody order them at the Odeon bar in Tribeca and I thought that had just the right ring. I also didn’t want to paint myself so goody-goody he wouldn’t think me sexy. I watched him carefully. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved that morning. I wondered in what ways he found me lacking. I was about to provide him with some clues and excuses. After all, no one is ever as grand in person as they’ve become after all those episodes of fantasizing and time hadn’t gone backwards. We were both older, something men wear more appealingly than women. Saying something about it might make us both feel easier.

“You were going to tell me about your work,” Temple said. And that is, really, the most intoxicating aphrodisiac, to have the work nearest your heart taken seriously, to be respected for it, or at least flattered. I could have wept when he said that. It made me remember why I’d loved living in Europe, why I’d forgiven myself for narcissism. I could say anything I wanted. So I spoke for longer than I should have about the pictures I’d taken that afternoon. He seemed to be engrossed in every word I said and so on and on I went, swirling with enthusiasm.

The bartender presented us with huge martini glasses and we picked them up by the frosty stems. I looked at the glass and what was in it and I realized by the time it was empty we’d have gotten back to his work and there we would dwell, until sexual contact would happen. The alcohol went down with a silvery, lemony, Russiany feel.

“Come on,” he said. “Look at me the way you did before you started to think.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. Dear me, that was extraordinary. Let’s have another.”

“All right,” I said, my shoulder muscles loosening.

A lot of people started to fill up the bar. “What do you think?” he said after we’d had two apiece. “Shall we have lunch?”

The moment he said it, I realized I was hungry. I nodded, not wanting to slur the word and suspecting I would. I don’t remember sitting down at the table at all, but suddenly there we were, a heavy white tablecloth between us. “Everyone is looking at you,” he said.

“They’re wondering who that drunken in the afternoon woman is,” I said.

“Shall we have fish?”

“Sure.”

“Claire, you look very pink. Very pretty.”

“It’s my perimenopausal pink.”

“What about lobster?”

“Sounds good.”

“We’d better switch to wine, though.” He opened the wine list and pursed his lips.

“Oh, just get any old thing.” I brushed my hand through the air.

You’d have thought I said, Shoot the dog, the look he gave me.

I decided to act with more restraint after that. Years of Johnny had no doubt loosened me unbecomingly. Humbly, I covered my lap with the great tent of a napkin. As far as I’m concerned if it’s red, French, ’94 or ’95, or white, California and ’97 it’s fine with me. But Temple was, now, I mustn’t forget, an important person. “It’s you they’re looking at,” I mumbled but he didn’t hear me, he was solemnly discussing the list with the waiter.

The waiter was a self-conscious, hives-prone redhead who was flattered to be talking to Temple Fortune at all. He probably thought Temple was wrinkling up his brow like that because he was considering him for a role. Temple, I knew, was truly intent upon which wine would do.

“Well, I’ve begun to enjoy myself,” I announced.

“Good,” he said.

“You can tell you’ve done well just by looking at you.” I smiled. Or if he hadn’t, I thought quietly, he’d taken quite a bit of care about the quality of his clothes. He’d become snooty, my Temple Fortune had. “Of course,” I combined conversation with my braised celery heart, “in Germany you’d already been the rising foreign film director, so I’m not surprised.”

“Plenty a those that fall by the wayside, lassie,” he reminded me.

“Ah, yes, but already you’d worn the prerequisite many-pocketed vest and American ballcap which precludes success.”

“I was always a great hit in Germany,” he remembered.

So was I, I thought but didn’t say. We reminisced silently.

“Ah, there’d been so much money, then.” He joined me in the antipasto. “We both had the added attraction of being foreign even to the foreign place we were.”

“Here in your own country you still stand out, Temple,” I quickly assured him. “Only now you look like the BBC’s idea of the country squire. Such elegant Irish tweed!”

He fingered his sleeve lovingly. “It’s Donegal,” he said.

I felt a little bit shy teasing him about it, because he really was sincere. He’d caught my look, though, and he didn’t take this too well. I sensed he’d lost any sense of humor about his remarkably tasteful duds. Already I was hoping he’d be kind enough not to indicate I’d lost mine about loose-fitting clothes.

“My work was the issue, then as now”—he frowned—“not my clothes, for heaven’s sake.”

“I never meant to suggest your work wasn’t—”

“Some people move on to family life and let their work slide while others—”

“Hold on, bub. I might have put my family first, but I never put my work second. I never let it slide. I just put it on hold while I was raising the future of America.” I said all this with recklessness because, of course, what he’d said was true.

“Dear me! How quickly one takes umbrage.”

“‘One’ happens to have thought an awful lot about this very subject.” I held my chin up. “Just because I come from Queens doesn’t mean I’m dead. Queens happens to house the salt of the earth, the immigrant in transition. Maybe I’m secretly working on character sketches more poignant than I ever could in Paris or Vientiane.”

“Not Vientiane, surely.”

“Well, all right, not Vientiane.” We smiled at each other, happy again. I relaxed and looked around the room. “You know, every move we make will no doubt be reported back to Bally Cashin.”

He winced in agreement.

“I hate that. I know Aunt Bridey is unduly crisp, but I feel for her, I really do. She reminds me of that sister of Lazarus, Martha, who was so miffed about doing all the schlepping and preparations and then along comes this other one, the sister Mary, the good-time girl, who perfumes Christ’s feet and winds up getting all the credit. Poor Martha gets the insult to injury with Jesus telling everyone Mary had chosen the better part. Well, sure she did but who knew that’s how the Boss would feel?”

“Especially after all those humorless instructions in the Old Testament,” Temple agreed. “Or what about the parable where the brother of the Prodigal Son … the one who was good as gold all those years and then the gambling, boozing brother shows up and the besotted father whips out the fatted calf in honor of his return.”

“Exactly. It just seems a no-win situation to be in. All you could do is nod and dodder humbly from the corner. Anything else and you had God Himself calling you a bad sport. Poor old Aunt Bridey.”

“You know there’s an article in the Sun about the mixup. ‘Corpse Switch Staggers Irish Town’ is the headline.”

“Who’s responsible for that one, your friend Tobias?”

“Tobias just handles the camera,” he said loyally. “They surely must have paid your aunt for the story.”

“Or my cousin Bernadette.” I seethed. We’d ordered the lobster. They would soon be here. Meanwhile we were nibbling on prawn dumplings and butter lettuce with crumbles of gorganzola. The waiter had been enthusiastic about the oysters but, “I don’t eat bivalves,” Temple had raised one hand in the air and announced.

I couldn’t help admiring the plain fish at the other tables. Haddock. And what was that beautiful sauce? I wriggled my nose like a rabbit. Gruyere. Mmm. And zucchini croquettes. Someone had crabcakes. I sighed. Would I never be content with what I had? This was my fondest wish here, coming true, I reminded myself. Was scoping out the other diners’ meals all I could do? The waiter appeared beside us. The cork popped out and the bottle fumed. Temple had chosen a ’94 Chardonnay Cotes de Duras.

“So,” he said teasingly, “are you loving the land of your forefathers then?”

“Yes, and I’m ashamed of myself that I never made an effort to come here before this. I feel as though I’ve been everywhere else. I really believed my not coming here was somehow mixed up with my being virtuous, because you were here,” I rattled on. “I thought I was supposed to do the ‘right’ thing and stay away. Now I find out that my own family members have been subtly putting me off coming here for years. Since even before I met you.”

“How would they do that?”

“Just the way they painted this place! ‘So boring you’d die before you woke up.’ ‘So rainy there are fish in the vasty meadow.’”

“Well, with such goings-on…”

“What? You mean the accident?”

“I mean your aunt being gay. I’m sure your mother wasn’t proud of that fact.”

I sighed. “You’re very right about that.”

“You know,” he said gently. “In those days, in her era, that was something no one talked about openly. Certainly not here.”

“But that’s only part of it. You won’t believe the intrigue going on within my own family!”

Temple, always interested in intrigue but less in my family, gazed tipsily at the sailboats bobbing across the street in the bay. Suddenly, he put down his glass. “Isn’t that someone you know?”

I turned to look out the window. “Oh, no!” I groaned.

There at the window, drooling and grinning at us, was Seamus. “I’ll go out,” I said, but just as I said it, he came in. He wore overalls and wet black boots. No sweater for Seamus. You’d have thought it was the middle of summer, to look at him. He was so delighted to see me I didn’t have the heart to send him away.

“Sit down, Seamus.” I patted the chair beside me. I could see Temple’s put-out face. You couldn’t blame him. This was the moment to precede the moment we’d both waited for for so long. But Seamus was here now. He’d probably make more of a scene if I sent him away. And, anyway, I supposed, he was my friend. “Where’s your sweater, Seamus?” I asked, hoping to instigate a joke.

“Weather’s changing,” he said in his mother’s wobbling voice. “African wind.”

Temple didn’t know how to take this. His fork remained in midair for what I was beginning to think was a theatrically rude amount of time.

I ordered Seamus a dish of strawberries. He would enjoy them and they wouldn’t take that long to eat. “How’s your mother now, Seamus? Feeling better?”

“Och, it’s that pain in me limbs.” His hurt eyes rounded into an incredible grimace of his mother’s.

Temple had entirely stopped eating now. He was furious. I thought he should at least enjoy the histrionic aspects. But Seamus was like a big, overgrown child and people who don’t have children themselves are often frightened by what they might do. When you have your own, you can throw back your head and laugh, because you’ve already been cracked open, I guess, and what could be worse? But I remember what it was like. “Aw.” I reached over and rubbed Seamus’s back a little bit the way I’d seen Jenny Rose do to Mrs. Wooly. He put his big head to one side and panted, happy as a puppy. Suddenly he remembered something and sat up and cleared his throat and said, in his own voice, which was a sort of ra-ta-tat rum-pum-pump, “Willy Murphy called Father Early at the rectory and he said yes, he’d come and bless the race and Jenny Rose said could we have the monstrance the way they had it at the sodality parade but Father Early said no he didn’t think they could. It wouldn’t be right, he said, because it wasn’t a feast day.”

“Oh,” I said. “Never mind. God will be with us.”

Seamus hit the table with a crashing fist. Everything clattered. “That’s just what Jenny Rose said!” he cried, then smiled his toothless grin. “Let’s go to me mother’s,” he invited me, turning a shoulder to Temple.

“Not just yet,” I said. The strawberries arrived smothered in thick, fresh cream. I think they were afraid to keep Seamus waiting.

“What do you think about that, Seamus?” I said. That would keep him busy.

I asked Temple about the film, the way you will with sulky children to distract them with something they like. Grudgingly, he started to tell me about the complications, ignoring Seamus totally, how frustrating it was to wait for the sea to calm down so they could wind up shooting. I didn’t understand too much about his film, something moody and inspirational about the end of the healthy atmosphere as we knew it and I hate things like that. I mean I do my bit, I recycle, wash out my tin cans, tie up my newspapers, separate the color from the newsprint, pay the extra wad for the dye-free, environmentally safe detergent, squash the plastic containers, lug the whole heavy mess out in pails but please don’t tell me the world is about to end and we’ll all be wearing gas masks, I just cannot take it, I was thinking, so I was a little taken aback when he said, “It’s a turn-of-the-century film.”

Seamus tugged on my sleeve. “The ferry’s on its way,” he whispered.

“Good. Does that mean you’d like to go watch it come in?”

Seamus jiggled up and down in his seat.

“Go on, kiddo. Be careful.”

He clattered out, upsetting the stride of the slender waiter. Several diners looked up, annoyed. Seamus was such an unfashionable fellow.

Temple was shaking his head, smiling. “Claire. You are wonderful.”

“Oh, sure, now he’s gone, I’m wonderful.”

“Before I interrupted myself”—he laughed charmingly—“you were about to tell me what you were thinking.” He took my hand across the table. His was smaller than I’d remembered it. The restaurant was so filled with sunlight it was a shock. We’d always spoken in darkness, met in darkness. Or so it seemed. Now here we were in the midst of all these people. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I said, “I was just thinking. You really weren’t as crazy about me as I was about you all these years, were you?”

“The truth?”

“Please.”

“You’ve got me so hot, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.” I don’t think he was sober, because quite a few people turned to look at us.

“No, I know, I mean, I know you feel like it now. I just mean it wasn’t the Taj Mahal all along for you, was it?” Now why had I said that? I hadn’t meant to use Johnny’s term.

The lobsters arrived. I love the claws. He cracked the first one open. With a voluptuous click, the flesh slipped out. He dunked it into the mouth-watering sauce and brought it to my lips. I’ll never forget that first taste. “Wow,” I said, and should have left it at that but I never learn, I just have to say what’s on my mind. “What I meant to say was, I was not your every waking thought. I’m not saying this right.”

“You are. You’re saying it exactly right.” He sucked on his other claw. “You mean did I always think of you when a song came on, when the stars would shine.” He grinned mischievously.

I looked at him. God, he was beautiful. “No.” I smiled. “I meant was I there when you washed your face?” I knew I sounded piddling, but I couldn’t stop. “When you’d find yourself alone, was I there?”

He took the back of two fingers and grazed them over my cheek. “Can you come upstairs, take off your clothes and I’ll show you what I think of you.”

I must have an errogenous zone right there because several parts of me began to throb. I turned away. “I know you’ll think I’m a terrible tease, but I can’t now. I promised my aunt I’d go there at dark.”

“What for?”

“For supper.”

We both burst out laughing. “Well, to show my face, anyway.”

“When, then?”

“I … later. I’ll meet you later. Just not in Skibbereen. I don’t want my aunt to be shamed. I’ll come here.”

“Christ, you sound like a local girl.”

“I do? Much practice finding that out?”

He stopped. “Yeah.”

“Ah.”

“Am I supposed to feel guilty?”

“I thought you might, just a little. To please me.”

He reached under the table and put his hand behind my knee. He held it, like he was weighing some London broil, and looked into my eyes. My foot left the floor. “I’ll please you,” he promised.

“It’s awfully warm in here,” I said.

“You’ve always been for me,” he went on, “the moon through the trees.” It was a romantic thing to say. Still, he’d said it mockingly, as though he were making fun of me, and I didn’t know where to look.

It took a long time to have the check brought over. Then there was some difficulty about our not staying to try the pride of Ireland desserts. Finally, vowing to return another time, we left the restaurant.

Outside, the air was salty and fresh. There was no wind and I just wrapped my sweater around my waist, leaving my arms to enjoy the warm air. He took me over to the sloops and dinghys. They sloshed and rocked against the low tide. It was June and five o’clock, the light yellow as butter. Everything I’d dreamed of for the last five years was now wrapped up in Donegal tweed right before me. He took my hand and I tried not to feel silly about mine being so big in his. There was no one around over here on the other side of the boats. He drew me against the largest sloop and started kissing my neck. I hate to say it but the white wine on his breath was stale. And my foot kept catching on that chrome wing where you attach the anchor rope. The moor. I suppose I’d imagined all this happening in the moonlight, in the fairy circle. He was so different from the way I’d imagined him in my fantasies. It was like I had to put the ghost of my thoughts on top of him so they’d dissolve into the reality of his true outline. Like one icon over the other on the computer. “Watch out,” I said, “here comes Seamus with a bouquet of flowers!”

Temple held me behind the bulwark. Seamus marched along, his tubby middle thrust out before him like a basketball, the flowers before that. “We ought to talk to him,” I suggested but Temple balked.

A family of boaters straggled past us, laughing, and we left as well. We walked past the restaurants on the waterfront and up the steep hill toward the tiny Hotel Algiers where he was staying. It looked across at the castle ruins. I saw myself climbing from Temple’s white bed and looking out that window. Looking at those ruins. I didn’t want to say no to holding his hand again so I busied myself adjusting my hair. “I’m not coming up,” I said desperately, when we turned the corner.

He just closed his eyes.

I don’t know why but I felt relieved.

“Just for a minute.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I couldn’t tell him because I didn’t know.

“You are always interrupting our affair with your family!” he cried. I had no doubt he was hurt, because of the vehemence with which he spoke, but if he had said I was always interrupting our love, everything might have been different. I might have stayed right there right then and rolled with him, as they say, in the hay.

“Okay,” he said, easygoing, used to the quirks of women. “I’ll meet you back here. We’ll do it later.”

It? I thought.

“Come on,” he said, suddenly in a hurry. “I’ll find a taxi.”

“No,” I insisted. “Let me take the bus back. Look, it’s already taking passengers down the hill.”

“They’ve just come in from Sharkin Island,” he agreed.

The bus wagged its way the short distance up the hill and stopped for us. Temple walked onto the bus with me and paid the little fare. The way he pressed those coins into the hand of the driver, so carefully, concerned that they might fall to the floor, it endeared him to me all over again. How poor he must have been when he was small, I thought. He then went down the couple of steps and walked to the side of the hill to watch me off.

I turned around, expecting Miss Fiona Ferry and was surprised when she wasn’t there. “Oh, she’s gone to confession,” the driver told me, without my asking, “over in Bantry.” Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy was in the same seat across from me, though, I noticed with surprise when I sat down in the second aisle seat. I nodded politely and was amused to see her chin go up. She lowered her eyes and bowed her head, the bishop acknowledging the bellowing crowds. I had my own things to think about and slid over to my window seat. I didn’t give her another thought until we both got off at the Trinity Lanes. She struggled with her clumsy assortment of parcels and a huge plastic bag of fish. She kept looking around and down the road for someone to come help her. The thing is, you find yourself standing there at a bus stop with this old lady who obviously can’t manage and try as you might to bolt, your mother’s voice appears from nowhere and you hear yourself being her good little girl. “Someone coming to meet you?” I said.

“Evidently not.”

“Oh.” I’m always left defenseless in the face of rudeness. “May I help you with that?” I was ashamed to hear myself say.

“Well.” She looked me over doubtfully. “You might carry the fish.”

I’d never been up the third walk. It was an uncomfortable journey with the new clogs I’d bought in Skibbereen and my instep is too high for any new shoes for any length of time. Then the fish would slither around however you moved your grip.

“Mind how you carry them.” She prodded my arm with her stick. And she wouldn’t put you at your ease by chatting. You’d think her ermine robes wouldn’t touch the mud, the way she sailed along, impressing the road with each step, a wall of Lombardy poplars to our right. Then the path opened and you got a glimpse of the house with the sun just going down. This was the English in Ireland, all right. The impressive approach, the one elderly oak in the center of a tended lawn, the curved, white-pebbled drive, the barn with dark hewn beams, then the main house, formal as a reproach. “Thank you.” She smiled a relieved, false smile. “You are too kind. I was sure Liam would be on the bus. I can’t imagine what happened.”

I stood back and gazed up at the house. “I’ll bet every time you look at it like this, in the sunset, you’re impressed again with its beauty.”

She turned a blank face to me. “It’s drafty and chill. The heater is coal and it’s two hundred years old. I loathe the house.”

I felt such pity for the poor old house. No woman to love its rooms? No one but a lady who sneered, looked down, and never sighed.

“I do, however, love my garden, you see.” She said this haughtily and quickly, as if I’d dare not think what I was thinking. And I’d better not picture Jenny Rose loving it, either.

“Oh? Are you the one responsible for those glamorous roses at Bally Cashin?”

I had her now. She took me firmly by the arm and led me easily around the other side of the house. The fish were tossed in a heap on the grassy bricks at the door. The funny thing was, I could just see Jenny Rose here. I seemed to see her little head at the windows. I could see the barn as her atelier. Even imagined the house full of children … hers and his …

“Where is that Liam?” she complained, stabbing a leaf with her stick. “He is so unreliable!”

“I know.” I clicked my tongue.

“He promised he would be here … He knows I have a spur!” Her brow wrinkled up in self-pity. “He never used to be so uncaring.”

“He’s not really,” I defended him. “He just drinks.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think he means to be bad.”

“He was always bad.” She scowled. “Oh, he was such a wicked little boy. Always in trouble. Forever playing guns and war games. You know the way boys are. Then he thought he had a vocation! Him of all people!” She gave an unladylike snort. “And of course, there was that bit of trouble when someone blew up the footbridge on the headmaster’s meditation walk. I don’t know. Something about some visiting dignitary from the queen. Liam was arrested straightaway.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Nothing was proven. But they did find residuals of gunpowder in Liam’s digs. That’s why he had to leave the seminary. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“For a while there was talk he was smuggling guns. But then a gun backfired or something and one of the seminarians was killed. That scared them all, I think. They all went back to drinking.” We turned the corner and found ourselves in the most formal garden. Perhaps it was a combination of the sun setting so gently on those fragrant roses, the time of year, but I thought, This is great, this is it.

On and on we turned around the grounds. Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy started to sing. It was a thin voice, not good, but she sang as we walked along, everything in lovely Gaelic. Before she got very far, she started to wheeze and then to cough.

“How did you learn that?” I said, to distract her. “I thought you were British.”

“My old nurse, Maura, was born here,” she said.

We’d come to the barn. “Ah,” I said, when she opened the door. “Morocco. We meet again.”

Mrs. Whitetree-Murphy spit into a creamy linen handkerchief and rolled it up and put it into her purse. Morocco had the most velvety, tender, understanding eyes. I took his picture before she had a chance to stop me.

“Ned must have brought him back,” she said and shut the door.

I turned around and leaned against the door. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

“He’s fine.”

“But is he happy?”

“You care if animals are kept happy then, do you?”

“Yes.”

We went to the kitchen. This had a fireplace with a floor space bigger than many New York kitchens. She sailed through, very spry for her age and the height of her heels. And then again the fact that she was dying. There was an old woman in there. She had no teeth. She got up and started the kettle. Mrs. Whitetree-Murphy said, “Let’s go to the sitting room.” We from Queens go willingly to any sitting room, if nothing else just to get a look at it. I followed her in. It was blue. Silvery blue. We sat on gray chairs with nail-head rims and looked out the French doors at the tree on the front lawn. The worst of it was she knew she was giving me a thrill.

“Mrs. Whitetree-Murphy, what is that smell? That strange smell. It’s there the minute you get off the plane in Cork. I can’t identify it.”

“It’s manure.”

“It is?”

There was a stately quiet great old houses have. We sat like that, not talking. “Have you heard what the children are up to?” I ventured.

“The children?”

“Willy and Jenny Rose.”

“William is hardly a child—”

“I’m sorry. Of course he isn’t.” I told her about the fishing meet, expecting her to be pleased. Or proud.

“I’m sure William will not still be here by Sunday.”

“Oh, I didn’t know he was leaving.”

“He’ll be at university.”

“In summer?”

“William will need a tutor if he’s to read at Oxford.”

“Oh. It all sounds really first-world. Is that what he wants to do?”

“Do you have a son, Claire?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then perhaps you can understand my not wanting to see him saddled with a nitwit his lifelong.”

For a moment I thought she meant Jenny Rose. Then I realized. “You mean Seamus.”

“Mrs. Wooly is not doing well.”

“So, what? Why bother fixing the roof when she won’t be long under it?”

“Not at all. Someone will live there. Roofs need fixing. It will save the next owner the cost. That’s not what I meant. Perhaps I’m being too subtle.”

“I don’t find you subtle at all, Mrs. Whitetree-Murphy.”

“Please call me Audrey.”

“Audrey.”

“Seamus is a strong lad. He’s healthier than most, living as he does with the good sea air we have here. There’s no reason for him not to have a long life. I don’t see why my son need be part of it.”

I wanted to be understanding. I didn’t know what to say.

“Eventually, he will have to be institutionalized.”

“Seamus?”

“Certainly. He’s much too strong to be left to himself. He almost killed poor Molly once. Tried to stop her from taking Morocco when Morocco was in need of medical attention.” Her face became pinched. “All of it was Jenny Rose’s fault. You find me cold but I tell you she’s the cold one.” She shook her head. “Anyone who could leave an animal in distress…”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to go up to Cork when Maura was in hospital for her gallbladder. Jenny Rose was to look after Morocco. She left him tied up, by the hoof, for three days. By the hoof. On a tight rein. He was raw on the ankle for weeks after that. When Molly found him, she had to call Dr. Carpenter before she could walk him back. Seamus must have seen them coming. He protested. Jenny Rose was in charge, he said. Molly would have none of it. She wasn’t taking his guff when a poor dumb creature was suffering. Seamus went for Molly, right in front of Dr. Carpenter. If Dr. Carpenter hadn’t been there, Lord knows what would have become of Molly O’Neill. Dr. Carpenter wanted Seamus to go for evaluation straightaway.” She rubbed her arm thoughtfully. “But you know Molly. She would worry about Mrs. Wooly and wouldn’t pursue it.”

I was shocked, but I can’t honestly say I was surprised. “Where was Jenny Rose?”

She leaned over and thumbed through her mail. “Where she always is. Up in that drafty place painting God knows what sort of indecent pictures.”

I looked down sadly. My daughter, Dharma, had once taken a job as dogwalker for some neighbors on vacation and then forgotten about it. I’d had to go over and clean up the mess. I sighed. “I suppose that’s why they call them teenagers.” I tried to make light of what I knew very well wasn’t.

The old woman came in. Audrey indicated in Gaelic where she should put the tray.

The old thing put it down, it was heavy too, answered her in Gaelic and went out.

Thank you, Maura, I’d deciphered. “You called her Maura,” I said. “Not your nurse, surely. She couldn’t be.”

“Yes, she is, actually. India or China?”

“India, please. It’s hard to believe.”

Maura had left us with scones, clotted cream and blackberry jam. I was sorry I was so full of lobster. The tea was welcome, though, thirst-quenching and delicate. “Assam?” I inquired.

“Certainly.” She poured more into my delicate Aynsley cup. “Now that there’s no tuberculosis or plague,” she went on, “the local people are quite hardy.”

“It’s a marvelous place to live, I think,” I agreed. “Especially for children.”

“Well. Yes and no. One puts up with the ignorance. It’s getting better. It was difficult at times. You should ask Molly. You know, she grew up around here. She’s quite active against blatant cruelty to animals. You know the common folk can be quite horrid in their ignorance. Her stepfather, for instance, would scald squirrels to get rid of them nibbling his tomatoes. That’s the sort of thing you’re up against.”

“Yikes.”

“So. She’ll have none of it. Vigilant, she is.”

“It’s a wonder she still wants to live here.”

“Oh, all that’s quite common. Well, I suppose her mother was more spiritual.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s her home. Nil aon tintean mar do thintean.”

“What’s that?”

“No hearth like your own hearth, more or less.”

“Oh. Dierdre speaks Gaelic,” I said, remembering.

“Everyone around here speaks Gaelic. So did Peg.”

“Poor Peg. Did you know her?”

“I knew her well. She handled my banking. Gave me some excellent advice. Actually, I owe her quite a bit. I wouldn’t be on such firm footing had it not been for her.” She stirred her tea around and around. “Yes. Poor Peg.” The great clock chimed the hour. Four. Five. Six. “And who do you think it was murdered her?”

I put my cup down. “Nobody murdered anyone. That was an accident.”

“Oh, that was no accident.” She looked out across the sunny lawn. A shroud of mist lingered along the wall of poplars. “Peg had been coming to that house for years. She knew where everything was. You don’t make a mistake like that.”

“There was a storm.”

“Someone murdered her.”

“Who?”

She sipped her tea. “I prefer China. They say it’s better for you. If William is about, he insists I drink that awful-tasting Essiac tea.” She gave a fond smile. “William still thinks life is the all-important issue.”

“Who do you think it was?” I persisted.

“I wouldn’t like to say who I think it was. That’s a matter for the police.”

“The police have closed the case.”

“Perhaps they have only pretended to.”

“Maybe. On the other hand, if it was a murder and it wasn’t solved within twenty-four hours, the chances of it ever being solved are slim.”

“Most murders are committed by a member of the victim’s family,” she remarked, smoothing the veins on the back of her withered hand. “Isn’t that the finding? I believe Peg had no more blood relations. She’s to be cremated, I heard. She left instructions with Mr. Truelove.”

“And he, in turn, reported straight to you?”

She looked me in the eye. “Never got on well with the church, Peg.”

“So what are you saying, you suspect Jenny Rose?”

“I am only saying”—she smiled very sweetly—“that if anyone were planning a marriage between those two, I rather think they’d better give up the idea.”

“Why shouldn’t they marry? I mean if they both wanted to.”

“You force me to be blunt. I’ll tell you why. I won’t have my son married to a sick mind.”

“Sick mind? Young people are famous for neglecting their duties. That doesn’t make them criminal. I’ve never known anyone less sick than Jenny Rose.” The painting of the many-rooted naked man in the studio sprang to mind. That was sensual, though, not sick. “I’d bet my life on it,” I said firmly.

“I do hope you won’t have to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I believe Jenny Rose is a vindictive, dangerous person. It’s very sad, but there you are.” Then, more gently, she announced, “I won’t have my son married to her.”

I felt like saying, “How dare you!” I’ve learned, however, that such phrases get you nowhere. Instead, I said what I hoped would be more to the point. “If more people were married to the persons they loved, life would actually be the all-important issue.” I thought that might hit her squarely below the belt.

“Jenny Rose ought to be in therapy, not gadding freely about the countryside, drawing pictures of naked men.”

“You want to institutionalize Seamus, put Jenny Rose in therapy…” I burst out hysterically. “I think you’re the one who’s nuts!”

Mrs. Audrey Whitetree-Murphy placed her saucer smoothly on the table. She smiled sadly. “I’m many things, my dear. Insane is not one of them.”

I rose stiffly. “I’m afraid I have to go, now. Thank you for the tea.”

“Maura will see you out.”

“I’ll find my way. I’m sure Maura has enough to do.” I had the stifling satisfaction of hearing her wheeze deeply as I strode past the carved legs of her gray chair. This time I would use the front door. I marched over to it, threw my head back and turned the knob. This, however, would not turn for the likes of me. I swaggered to the back door and left, the way I’d come in.

I still had that long walk in front of me to get to the road. I turned once, to look back at the house. Maura stood in the front, her black wagon full of fish. She raised one arm and waved me slowly away.

I took off my clogs as soon as I was out of sight of the house. The center of the road where cart wheels can’t touch wasn’t worn away so I walked there, on the rubbery green. For a moment I thought there was a fire somewhere, wisps of smoke oozed around the corners of high bush. But it wasn’t smoke, it was mist.

I stubbed my foot on a stone. Bending down, I sensed something and looked up to see the mist move off and three foxes stopped in the road. Little red foxes! A family. Their tails were rich and slung down low. They looked at me and I at them. Then they scooted away. But I had looked into the eyes of the middle one. One paw was up and its tongue was out.

All the way back, I was covered in mist. Good thing I have a good sense of direction, I told myself over and over, for I was frightened. I reached the crossroads and only knew it from Jenny Rose’s cigarette wrapper, tossed away at the bus stop. The whole way home I felt myself being watched. It was the damndest feeling. I ran the last bit when I knew I was near to Bally Cashin.