Irish Whiskey

by Andrew M. Greeley

“Isn’t that terrible expensive?”

  “Won’t I use all the money I saved because you paid for the movie?”

  “Go long wid ya!” she said, snuggling even closer to me in the failing light.

  Even in the encroaching darkness people still took a second and third look at her. As well they might.

  “What’s your man up to now?”

  Her arm stiffened in mine.

  “I’m not going to lose my temper, Dermot Michael. I’m NOT! I will not blow my top because of that friggin’ gobshite!”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Didn’t I get three calls today, and meself at work, from Michael and Pedar and Nessa? And themselves all worried about what he had told them on the phone? And wouldn’t I have heard from Fionna, too, but she won’t talk to him?”

  “And that was?”

  “That your family lacked quality and that you were unstable!”

  And didn’t I laugh at that?

  And then didn’t I become very angry?

  “They believed him?”

  “Not to say believe. None of us ever exactly believe Laurence, if you take my meaning. He upsets us. We half wonder whether he’s right. We have to reassure ourselves that he isn’t.”

  “And you told them?”

  “That he was full of shite and that I wouldn’t discuss the matter and that they should see for themselves when they come to the wedding and that I’d marry you even if you were the poorest man in Chicago and yourself being far from that anyway!”

  “But the luckiest.”

  “Because you made a little money?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because the most beautiful and most wonderful woman in the world wants to drag me into bed with her!”

  “Dermot! Aren’t you a desperate man!”

  Right there on the bridge over the Chicago River, didn’t she kiss me?

  A respectable kiss, mind you, because weren’t we in public?

  “Should I mail my statements of net worth and my tax returns to everyone?”

  “Ah, no, Derm. Wouldn’t that be too direct altogether if you’re dealing with the Irish?”

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  She thought for a moment as we bore down on the Water Tower. “Couldn’t I send just your statement of net worth meself, without a word of comment?”

  “In a Federal Express envelope?”

  Why that would be less direct than my suggestion escaped me. But I would spend the rest of my life trying to learn the rules.

  “Wouldn’t that be a good idea now?”

  “Tell you what: I have the statements and the FedEx materials. I’ll drop them off tomorrow morning at the counter in my building with your name as the sender. That way they’d have them on Thursday or Friday at the latest …”

  “Aren’t you the brilliant man?” She kissed me again.

  I was assaulted only twice more before we arrived at Grappa.

  “Oh, Dermot,” she said after the last exchange of affection, “I want you so bad.”

  “And I can’t believe my good fortune.”

  “Go long wid ya!”

  She very carefully removed the lipstick from my face.

  “You can’t go into that nice restaurant looking like you’ve been walking down your Magnificent Mile with an abandoned woman.”

  “Nothing better in the world than an abandoned woman.”

  She merely giggled.

  We ordered a bottle of Chianti Classico and ravioli with meat sauce and settled down to our dinner conversation.

  “You just chose a booth so you could feel me up again,” she said with mock horror. “And made me sit in the corner, so I can’t escape your machinations.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it …”

  “Don’t you dare! Not in public!”

  I was sure she was insincere, but we had other matters at hand.

  I opened my attaché case.

  “We have three issues to face, Nuala Anne. First of all …”

  “I don’t want to see the jacket for me disc. Not at all, at all.”

  “All right, we’ll cross that off the list …”

  “Give it to me!” she demanded, pulling the folder I had removed from the case away from me.

  “That’s honeymoon options.”

  She pushed it away.

  “I don’t care how bad it is, I want to see it!”

  She was laughing at herself, but also, as Ma would have said, half fun and full earnest.

  “Just a moment now.” I pushed her hand away. “I’m not going to eat it … Ah, here it is.”

  I held up the sample jacket.

  She examined it from a distance, frown on her face; then, now very gently, removed it from my hand and examined it up close, examined it critically.

  “Well, now, it isn’t so bad after all, is it?”

  “I never said it was.”

  “Me eyes don’t look that way …”

  “Woman, they do!”

  She ignored me.

  “But it will attract attention, won’t it, because I look so Irish and with all them designs from the Book of Kells?”

  “It might.”

  “Och, no, Dermot, it will. Sure, isn’t it what they call a commercial cover?”

  “Some might even say a beautiful cover.”

  She ignored me again.

  “May I take it along with me?”

  She put it in her purse, just to make sure I wouldn’t take it away from her.

  “You certainly may … A couple of hundred early discs will show up at your house on Monday for the wedding guests and anyone else we might want to give it to.”

  “Won’t that be grand,” she said softly, as though she were in deep reflection. “Have I told you, Dermot Michael, what me next disc will be?”

  “You have not.”

  This was the same woman who had argued vociferously that she was NOT a singer and that she would NEVER take voice lessons and that she would NOT, repeat NOT cut even a trial disc.

  “Won’t I be calling it Nuala Anne Goes to Church! And won’t I sing Irish songs and American songs and songs in English and songs in Irish and songs in Latin and maybe even some songs I’ll write meself?”

  “And won’t God be delighted that you’ve at last made peace with Her?”

  “She loves me a lot, Dermot, or She wouldn’t have sent you into me life. Wasn’t it Her that gave me the idea for the album? And won’t I be standing in one of the old monasteries, one they’ve rebuilt, with the stained glass behind me and meself in front of the altar and dressed in some sort of white robe like I’m a monk or maybe even a priesteen?”

  What does one say to that?

  What I said, “Nuala, that’s dead focking brill!”

  “Go long wid ya!”

  But she thought it was, too. She would always surprise me. And that was dead focking brill, too.

  “Now there’s the matter of the honeymoon …”

  “People only have them things when they’re married,” she replied, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “So I am told … I see three options …”

  “Only three?”

  Her hand found its way to my knee again.

  I ignored this distraction.

  “Well, within those three options there are of course suboptions.”

  “Are there now?” She moved her hand slowly up and down my thigh, stopping only when our wine was poured.

  “There are,” I said. “Europe, America, and a combination of both.”

  “They all sound nice.”

  “What I would suggest is the combination.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “We could spend two weeks on the beach in San Diego, which has the nicest climate in this country, swimming and soaking up sun …”

  “Lovely,” she interjected.

  “Then we could go to Italy and spend a week in Rome and a week in Flore
nce and maybe a few days in Ireland on the way back.”

  “Lovely,” she said again.

  “But we don’t have to do it that way.”

  She removed her hand from my knee and wrapped my hand in both of hers.

  “Whatever you think best, Dermot Michael.”

  “Hey, it’s your honeymoon, as well as mine.”

  “Dermot, have you forgotten that I was never out of the County Galway until I went up to the University? And never out of Ireland till I got off the plane at your O’Hare Airport? I never expected to leave Ireland. What do I know about all these grand places? Why shouldn’t I follow your suggestions?”

  It was all very reasonable. But it wasn’t like Nuala. Well it was yet another persona—and an appealing one at that.

  “Then we’ll do that. No fair complaining if you don’t like these places.”

  “If you like them, Dermot love”—she squeezed my hand—“I’m sure I’ll like them, too. All that matters is that you’ll be there with me.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes.

  “The third matter is a delicate one.”

  “Is it now?” she said with a wicked grin. “I bet it has to do with focking!”

  “In a manner of speaking … We, uh, have yet to determine where we will spend our wedding night.”

  “That IS an important question,” she said, her hand returning to my knee.

  “We could reserve the honeymoon suite at the Drake. I don’t imagine it’s taken on Friday night.”

  At least I hoped not. I had delayed too long in raising this issue.

  “We could.”

  “Or I could reserve a suite at the Four Seasons across the street. It’s one of the best hotels in the world.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Or we could go up to your house on Southport …”

  “Our house.”

  “Right. Our house.”

  “Whatever you think best, Dermot Michael.”

  “Woman, it’s your wedding night.”

  “Tis.”

  “You decide.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “You do.”

  “Well,” she said, her eyes down, and then paused. “Well, if it’s all the same to you … Sure, wouldn’t I like it to be in the house where Letitia and her man lived and where we’re going to live and raise our children? Isn’t it kind of like our cottage, even if there are no bogs around, but only your Chicago River?”

  “We’ll have to make our own breakfast.”

  “Ah, no, Dermot, you’ll have to make our breakfast!” She laughed happily. “Won’t it be wonderful altogether?”

  “I’ll have a king-size bed sent up there. I don’t want to have to sleep in your cot.”

  “You’ll have a hard time catching me in a bed that big.”

  “Woman, I will not.”

  We were both giggling, a little bit embarrassed and very happy. We toasted each other in the Chianti and started to work on our Portobello mushrooms.

  “I can hardly believe it, Dermot.”

  “What can you hardly believe?”

  “That I’ll be sleeping with you a week from Friday night. Or early Saturday morning.”

  “You will be, Nuala,” I said.

  It was my turn to take her elegant hand into my huge paws.

  “Didn’t that first night in the pub, I say to meself I want to sleep with that man? But I never thought I would. And now a year later won’t I be doing just that?”

  “You said that to yourself?”

  “I did. And wasn’t that awful of me?”

  “Terrible altogether, and yourself pretending not to want to talk to me.”

  We waited for the pasta to be served. Then Nuala continued, the soft burr still in her voice, but now in simple declarative sentences.

  “I’d had crushes on fellas before, but nothing like this one. I couldn’t sleep the night when I rode my bicycle away from you in the fog. I told myself that I was a dirty-minded slut. That didn’t do any good at all. Then I said I would never see you again. Still I couldn’t think of anything but you. I imagined you playing with me and teasing me and hugging me and kissing me and taking off my clothes and thrusting into me and I thought I’d go mad with joy. Then you found me, like I knew you would. And you were not only beautiful, you were kind and sweet and respectful. You adored me and cherished me like I was a rare and fragile piece of crystal. You took care of me. I hid behind my banter and kept you at a distance. I said to myself that I was too young to fall in love and I was going to be an accountant and stay in Galway and not immigrate and that there was no room for a big, gorgeous rich Yank like you in my life. But I knew in my heart that I belonged to you, Dermot Michael Coyne, and always would. Do I shock you, my love?”

  We had begun to eat our pasta.

  “You must tell me in full detail what those fantasies were like so I can make them real.”

  Our laughter broke the ice.

  “Not quite yet, Dermot, except to say that I imagined you as very determined and very tender, which is what you are anyway … Am I saying too much about meself?”

  “You’re the most fascinating subject in all my world, Nuala. Please go on.”

  “You have to remember how shy and inexperienced I was—and still am, as far as that goes. I was hopelessly in love with you and terrified of you and of my own desires. I wanted you and I wanted to run away from you and I didn’t do either. Then, when you were sick at Dublin Airport, poor man, and broke up with me, I told myself that I was relieved and happy. At last you were out of my life. My crush on you … I still called it that … wouldn’t go away. So, shameless woman that I am, I came after you and have been making a fool of myself over you ever since. I don’t care. I still want you and soon I’ll have you!”

  What does one say to a woman who makes herself so vulnerable? What one doesn’t say is that my emotions had been parallel to hers all along. Or that one doesn’t merit such affection and desire.

  “You were in love with me, Nuala,” was all I could manage.

  “Was I ever! … It’s been a terrible year and a wonderful year. I learned so much about meself and about men and about you. Maybe I’ve matured a little … Do you think I’ve grown up, Dermot, just a little bit? Am I something more than a shy child?”

  “We’re both shy children, my love, and always will be, thank God. ‘Mature’ isn’t the word I’d use.”

  “And what word would you use?” she asked with a shy child smile.

  Desperately I searched for the right word.

  “More self-possessed, more secure in your own identity—and more outrageous!”

  “Outrageous, is it? Well, I like that word!”

  “You have found some inkling of who Nuala Anne really is and, despite yourself, you kind of like her and in all her different manifestations. So you like being Nuala Anne. A year ago, even a month or two ago, you wouldn’t have revealed so much of yourself to me. If you want to call that maturity, it’s all right with me, but that doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.”

  Her hand returned to its place on my knee, a position I suspect it would often occupy in the years ahead.

  “I’m not an accountant, Dermot. I’m a singer and an actress and a good one, good enough that a lot of people will actually pay money to hear me sing. Folks like me, your whole family likes me. The more outrageous I am, to use your word, the more they like me. So I don’t have to change, I just have to be me. If it weren’t for your love, as solid and as firm as that lovely body of yours, I would not have learned who I am so quickly, maybe not ever. I owe you everything, Dermot Michael, everything.”

  Tears formed quickly in her eyes and flowed down her face.

  “Maybe not quite everything, but we’ll let that stand.”

  She grabbed a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes, in the process abandoning my thigh for the moment.

  “I don’t care that I’m crying,” she said. “I don’t care at all, at all.
I’m in love and I’m going to have my man so I should cry.”

  It was my hand’s turn to search for a thigh in which it was likely to revel for a half century or more. It was, I noted not for the first time, a substantial thigh, nothing soft and yielding about it. At all, at all.

  “Dermot!” she gasped. “You’re a desperate man and taking advantage of my vulnerability!”

  “I plan to do that for a half century and more; and yourself wearing a skirt that makes it easy.”

  Laughter replaced her tears. I explored a bit closer to my ultimate target, but still stayed safely away. Having instinctively—and luckily—played the courting rituals pretty well thus far, I was not about to mess up the game at this late stage.

  YOU SHOULD MAKE LOVE TO HER TONIGHT, the Adversary intruded. SHE’S READY FOR IT AND SO ARE YOU.

  “Go away,” I told him. “You’ve been wrong all along and you’re wrong now. Besides I didn’t invite you to dinner.”

  Grudgingly he slipped away, but he lurked in the background, sneering at my delicacy. She was, however, my bride, not his. Delicacy now was good practice for what would be a life of delicacy towards a woman who would always be fragile crystal and a shy child.

  “Sure, why else would a woman wear a miniskirt, except to make men look at her legs?”

  “Seems reasonable to me.”

  “One last thing, Dermot Michael Coyne. I may be more self-confident, as you say …”

  “Self-possessed. There’s a difference.”

  “Fair play to you, Derm me love. Fair play to you. Anyway, that doesn’t mean I’m going to change.”

  “If you ever try, I’ll ask the Church for an annulment.”

  “You’d never dare!”

  We returned to the remnants of our pasta and then ordered dessert, chocolate mousse cake.

  “Isn’t it strange,” she said, returning to her self-revelation, “how desire and love get mixed up? I want you, Dermot Michael Coyne, and I love you, and I can’t tell the difference.”

  “If Prester George is to be believed, that’s the way God made us to give us a hint what She’s like. We’re not supposed to be able to untangle them. Love renews desire and desire renews love. It really is kind of ingenious, isn’t it?”

  She sniffed. “Good enough for him. He probably heard it from the little bishop, but the Church doesn’t say that often enough.”

  “We’re the Church, too, Nuala Anne.”