The Opposite of Chance

by Margaret Hermes

  “What were you before?”

  “A part-time textbook editor and teaching assistant, a full-time wife, and a sometime anthropology graduate student.” She made a face. “I divorced my husband and my dissertation on the effect of clan identity on leadership roles among the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin and moved in with my sister and her husband and their two boys while I went back to school for a master’s in library science. I couldn’t afford to live on my own. The money I got from editing went for tuition. And therapy,” she grimaced. “But living there has been about more than economics. It got me through a rough time. Like you, my sister is a rescuer. Oh, and by the way, Gina’s an actress. Not professional, but really good.”

  “I can only say I’m grateful you didn’t get bitten.”

  “I thought you theater people always stuck together.”

  “I’m not a ‘theater person,’ I’m an electrician.” Declan moved near and, as punishment for improperly labeling him, began filling her mouth with tayberries, poking in one at a time, until speech was no longer possible. Betsy couldn’t laugh for fear of choking. He took his thumb and wiped the juice from her lips. She closed her mouth over the tip of his thumb and nibbled until the tayberries were gone. Declan’s eyes went wide. She looked up into them as she sucked his thumb clean. Then he leaned in and kissed her. It was a slow kiss, very like the kiss she had been imagining.

  “Sorry,” he pulled away. “Sorry.” Not the words she had been imagining would follow.

  “Well, I’m not.” She couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  Suddenly he barked, “Bollocks. What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced down. “It’s gotten so dark I can barely see my hand.”

  He tilted his head back and shouted, “Anybody know the time?” His query was met with silence. “This is your last night gone arseways. Usually there’s enough folk about that you notice a great migration around nine. Park closing is at half past. I’m guessing ’tis well onto ten now if not later.”

  “Well, it’s not like they lock the park gates anymore.”

  “Ah, but they do. Every night. Promptly at half nine.”

  “Oh. God.”

  “Prayer might be your best option at that. Boosting you over the fence would be doubtful under the best of circumstances, but it’s not on with that arm of yours.”

  “What will we do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do except wait till they open the gate in the morning.”

  “How early?”

  “Parks in Dublin open at ten.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m a right eejit. I wouldn’t blame you if you was to eat the head off me. If you can’t get the airline to honor your ticket for a later flight, I’ll pay for another. The fault’s mine alone.”

  “Maybe I can still make my flight. If you drive me to the airport.”

  “What time does it take off?”

  “Noon. A few minutes after.”

  “We’ll make it,” he said. “I swear on me mum.”

  “Okay,” she said, uncertain that it would be okay. She sighed deeply.

  “You must be knackered.”

  “It’s been a long day,” she agreed.

  “Feel around and see if you can come up with the bottle opener and what’s left of the cheese. I think I’ve located everything else. I’ll clear off the blanket and we can wrap up in it and get some sleep.”

  Betsy thought that might possibly be the least romantic speech ever made.

  When things were put away, or at least off the blanket, Declan felt for her hand. He moved toward her, pulling the blanket around them, careful not to bump her swaddled arm.

  “Sleep now,” he said. “You’ve got two long days of travel ahead of you.”

  No, this was the least romantic speech ever, or at least a tie.

  She settled into the crook of his arm and lay still but her thoughts were racing and her heart pounded to keep up. As when he’d carried her away from the protest, she lost all sense of the passage of time. Finally, she turned toward him and buried her lips in his neck. Declan didn’t move. His passivity brought out the seductress in her. She raised her wounded arm and turned his face toward hers and her mouth sought his. Then she pushed his jacket open and drew her hand slowly down the front of his body until it rested below his belt. This was the reassurance she’d needed. Forget speeches. She didn’t want words. With one hand she worked at his belt buckle and then his zipper until she could slide her hand into his pants.

  She amazed herself. Not because she learned she was capable of acting the aggressor and not because this was the only man other than her former husband that she had touched in this way—and she had known Declan for less than a day—but because she was so sure. About this, the present, and so unconcerned about tomorrow. She wondered if that was how men felt. She raised herself cautiously and swung one leg over his prone body, straddling him.

  “We can’t, Lizzie,” he said, breathing heavily. “I don’t have any protection.”

  His resignation only emboldened her. “When I saw all the things that you produced from that jacket—a knife, glasses, napkins, bottle opener, even a roll of surgical tape—it did occur to me to wonder if you’d slipped a condom or two into one of those pockets.”

  Declan grunted. “You’re thinking that would be simple, are you now? A quick stop at the chemist’s? I guess you have no call to be knowing that contraception is illegal in our fair Republic.”

  “You can’t be serious!” She could feel him shrug. “You are serious.”

  “A law was passed last year making it possible for married people to get contraception but by prescription only and they have to pledge to the doctor it will be used solely ‘for family planning.’”

  “Good lord. What a country.”

  “You’ve got that dead right. There is an outfit that gives out condoms for free, but you’re expected to make a donation.” He laughed. “The Family Guidance Company.”

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Other than their name? I just remembered where their office is located. Right on Merrion Square.” He laughed again.

  Betsy took a deep breath and whispered, as though the park were rife with listening ears, “It’s all right, Declan. There’s no chance of my getting pregnant. I’m not fertile.”

  Still he didn’t move or say anything.

  “I hope you’re okay with my being on top,” she said into the darkness. “With this arm, that’s probably safer.”

  She felt his hands slide slowly up from her hips to unbutton her cardigan. He slipped the sweater back from her shoulders and carefully wriggled it off her arms. His hands caressed her breasts through the thin cloth of her dress. “Sweet Jesus,” he said and she laughed and pressed his palms against her.

  “I think I can get my dress off okay but I’m not sure I can manage my bra.”

  In one minute he had deftly lifted off her dress and unhooked her brassiere. Given the fragility of her arm and the utter dark, peeling off her underpants took a bit longer. “I wish I could see you,” he murmured.

  “You will,” she promised. “Since the gates don’t open till ten, we’ll have a lot of daylight before anyone comes back in.”

  They made love twice that night, the first time was quick and greedy, the second unhurried, as though they had the rest of their lives.

  Afterward, she lowered herself gingerly back into the space he had made for her and dropped into dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, Betsy prodded him awake, saying, “My watch reads 7:20. We need to make the most of the time left.”

  He sat up and unfurled the blanket and dragged his eyes down the length of her and then slowly back up. He nodded, as if something had been confirmed for him, and then lay back down.

  A thin
white line ran down from Declan’s hairline through his eyebrow like a snail’s trail. Betsy traced the scar with her finger. “Who were you demonstrating against that time?”

  Declan smiled and the skin around his eyes puckered. “The most dangerous adversary a lad can have. That was put there by my mother.”

  “What?” Betsy drew her hand back as though burned by the raised skin. “That sweet white-haired woman did that to you?”

  It was Declan’s turn to pull back. “You saw my mum then?”

  “She came outside and talked to me while you were getting things from the house.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Nothing in particular. She asked about my trip. When I would be leaving. That sort of thing. I think she was just curious to see what her son had brought home from the demonstration. So how did that happen?” she said, pointing to his scar.

  “I don’t remember much—I was only five or six—but it was quite the story in the family. She had taken me down to the Grand Canal at Clondalkin to teach me to fish. Mum was demonstrating how to cast when the hook caught me right here.” He touched below his eyebrow. “She didn’t realize it was me she’d caught on the end of the line and gave a good tug. Seems the hook tore up my forehead and out my scalp. They tell me that she carried me into the dispensary and then fainted. There was so much blood from the scalp wound that my eye was covered and she thought she had blinded me, but it had missed my eye altogether. Later, my Uncle Colm went back to the canal to collect our fishing things and the picnic basket and whatever else was left behind and he delivered them to the house. Nana was after thanking him when my mother came to the door and grabbed both poles and broke them over her knee, each one. That was the end of fishing for the Joneses. As they tell it, my mother has always been a woman of firm decisions and strong convictions. And now,” he said, lifting her and settling her on top of him, “if you don’t mind, I think that’s talk enough.”

  At twenty to ten, they were standing at the gate, as tidy as they could make themselves, gnawing on what was left of the cheese and spotted dog, the paper sack at Declan’s feet and the blanket rolled and tucked under his arm.

  The park attendant shook his head at the guilty parties. “Don’t bother tellin’ me the tale you’ve crafted, grand as it might be. Why add a fib to what you’ll have to be confessin’ to the priest?” He tsked. “And at your age.”

  They ran to the car. “No need to worry, Lizzie,” Declan pledged, “I’ll drive her like I stole her.”

  When they pulled up outside the B and B, the front door sprang open. Betsy wondered if Mrs. Murtaugh had stationed herself there through the night.

  “You’ll have to face her on your own,” said Declan. “I’m waiting in the car.”

  Betsy ran up the path. “Were you worried about me? I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have. I’m really in a rush. My plane leaves at noon.” She hurried past Mrs. Murtaugh and up the stairs.

  “But where were you this whole night?” Mrs. Murtaugh called after her.

  Betsy slammed into her room and quickly washed and changed into jeans and an embroidered peasant blouse and her sweater to cover her wrapped arm and stuffed the rest of her belongings into her backpack. She realized with a start that sometime after making love with Declan the first time, her arm had become considerably less painful. She considered throwing away the dress that had been torn in the demonstration, but decided her sister would appreciate a prop when the story of Merrion Street was told. When she opened the bedroom door, Mrs. Murtaugh was standing outside it.

  “Where were you?” Mrs. Murtaugh repeated.

  Betsy didn’t want to give away a single word about Merrion Square. She said, “We had dinner with his friends and we all went to a pub and then Declan took me for a ride,” moving Mrs. Murtaugh aside by proceeding with her backpack clasped in front of her.

  Mrs. Murtaugh gasped, just a slight intake of breath. “You don’t want to be saying that, pet. I’m sure it means one thing where you come from, but here it means quite another. ‘He gave me a lift’ is what you want to be saying to anyone who asks.”

  Betsy laughed. She said over her shoulder, “That’s all right then. No one else would ask.”

  Declan ran to the front door and took the backpack from her, ran to the car and threw the pack in the backseat, ran to the passenger side and opened her door, ran to the driver’s side and had the car in motion by the time she got her door closed. Betsy half wished he wasn’t in such a hurry. If she missed her plane, even if she missed the first few days of her new job, she was sure that all she had to do was present her injured arm and the story of a tourist blundering onto Merrion Street for allowances to be made.

  Declan got her to the airport at twenty-eight minutes past eleven. He parked his car illegally, grabbed her backpack, and ushered her inside. He left her while she was collecting her boarding pass from the ticket agent and returned with a wheelchair and pushed her to the security checkpoint.

  “I can’t go further. Only passengers from here on since the Aer Lingus hijacking.”

  As she sat, she had been fumbling in her backpack and now pulled out the book she’d lifted from the Take One/Leave One shelf. She turned to the dedication page of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, printed her address in Milwaukee on it, and handed the book to him. “You’ll write to me?”

  “I’m not one for writing.’”

  “Since about eleven o’clock last night, you haven’t been one for talking either.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t feel sorry, I feel lucky. I was damn lucky you came along yesterday afternoon. And lucky last night. And this morning.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up as he shoved the book into his jacket pocket. “And lucky to make your flight out.”

  “That’s the one I’m not so sure about.”

  “You’re a lovely lass, inside and out.”

  She blushed and then laughed to see him blush as well. “You will write?”

  “I will that.”

  “Swear.”

  “On my mother’s eyes.”

  She stood and set the backpack in the wheelchair. She put her good arm around his neck. “How do you say ‘Until we meet again’?”

  “See yeh after.”

  She reached up and tugged his hair. “I meant in Irish.”

  “Here’s how.” He leaned down and kissed her, the way he had the first time.

  “I wish you could put that in a letter. Bollocks,” she said with a grin. “I’d better hurry.”

  She went through the checkpoint and saw him waiting while she emptied her backpack and a gruff security officer poked through her things with a metal wand. She saw that Declan waited while she repacked. She didn’t look back before turning a corner. She didn’t want to see him gone.

  The Opposite of Chance

  14.

  Declan turned the key and pushed open the sunflower-yellow door. He found his mother sitting just beyond it, hands folded in her lap, a rosary entwined in them, her eyes a stranger’s appraising him.

  “I hope you haven’t been worrying all night,” he said, trying to disguise his unease as concern.

  “I sleep in a chair as well as not,” she said.

  “Since when?”

  “Since me only son was replaced by a changeling. He looks like Declan. He has the voice of Declan. But he acts like he thinks he’s Parnell.”

  He knew the Parnell reference wasn’t so much about the politics of Irish Nationalism as the womanizing that brought him down.

  “It’s the stage you should’ve gone on, Mum. You’ve got a rare talent.”

  “I didn’t have a voice for the stage. I lacked volume. And then there was me accent.” Cliona Jones stood as though this were her exit line and walked stage left into the kitchen and put the kettle on to
boil, thinking this was the one thing she shared with her deceased mother. The women of that generation had dealt with all difficulties by putting a kettle on to boil.

  Declan was stubborn, but—Cliona thanked the God she had once renounced—not stubborn like his mother. He was not willful as a lad, her child of grace made of butter. He always listened—and then made up his own mind. She had been the headstrong one.

  As a girl of seventeen, the first thing Cliona renounced was the wearing of girdles. The second was the Catholic Church, for much the same reasons. Neither seemed relevant to her. Both struck her as practices adhered to not out of conviction but out of custom. She was on the tall side and thin—willowy was the word often used to describe her—so she didn’t see the need for a girdle. In her view, a girdle was something that was imposed by society on a lass to (a) keep her in her place (not just keep her buttocks in place), (b) promote restraint in all things (no wiggle room), and finally (c) add another layer of impediment to unmarried sex (a twentieth-century chastity belt). She thought religion functioned much the same way.

  Once Cliona decided that the strictures of the Church did not apply to her, she stopped attending Sunday Mass altogether, to the horror of her devoted and devout extended family, who kept a tally of her accumulating mortal sins. No threats from her father moved her, so Monsignor McLafferty himself came to the Rooney house and gave Cliona a tongue-lashing followed by a penance beginning with a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed and ending with ten Hail Marys, with five Our Fathers, the Act of Contrition, and a corporal work of mercy in between. Cliona declined to undertake the penance, and the monsignor, in a phlegmy fury, told her not to come near his church until she was ready to accept His authority, which suited Cliona just fine. But the priest’s ostracism offended her father and petrified her mother, who fulfilled Cliona’s penance on her daughter’s behalf that very afternoon, reciting all the required prayers in her daughter’s hearing and sending Cliona with a shepherd’s pie to the McGintys, where Jack McGinty was out of work and Mairéad was swelled up with dropsy. Sheila Rooney hoped this errand would credit her daughter with a double corporal work of mercy as it entailed both feeding the poor and visiting the sick.