“Ooh, I don’t think she’d mind that. You’re in for a treat, if that’s what you want. She has a spinning wheel and there she’ll be, spinning all the day long, when she’s up to it. You’d think you were in Rapunzel’s godmother’s cottage, or something. She’ll read your tea dregs too, if she’s in the mood.”
“She would?”
“Long as we bring her some scones, she’ll let you take the furniture.”
“Yeah, I’ll go. What’s this?” I picked up a sketch.
“Oh, just a rough draft.”
“From the mural at your old house?”
“One of them.”
It was a scene of women dancing. The likeness was so true, they were Bridey, Dierdre and Peg.
“My ‘three graces,’” Jenny Rose said, brushing off her knees. She looked at it over my shoulder, pleased to see it.
In the woods along the side was a face half-blended in the trees. It was Molly.
“What’s Molly doing in the trees?”
Jenny Rose bent over and picked up her brushes like flowers. She looked at me over the tops of the bristles. “It was just a dream of Seamus’s. I shouldn’t have put it in. It didn’t fit.” She looked at me with that frank gaze of hers. “I meant it to be Mary. Your mom. But I didn’t know her. And portraits from snaps always look like they’re portraits from snaps. I know, I’m impossible that way. Once I’ve put something in, I just can’t take it out. I mean it just looked so true.” She snatched the paper from my hand. “So absolutely right, ya know? I just liked it.”
“It looks haunting to me.”
She regarded her work, pressing the tip of her tongue on her top lip. “It does, you know. Good thing no one saw it. They wouldn’t approve of themselves all naked. You know how people are.”
“No one saw it?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Do you not like Molly all of a sudden?”
“What? No. No, I like her a lot. I was just wondering if it could have hurt her, seeing this. It looks so…”
“Scary?”
“Yes.”
“Seamus has dreams. The nightmares of the innocent.” She laughed. “You can’t take them seriously, though. You’d be up all night. Sometimes he dreams of me, awful things, surrounded by blood. Fighting … He’ll dream of everyone. You should hear what he dreamt of Bernadette!”
“What?”
“He said she was out in a dinghy chewin’ on a stick.”
“A stick?”
We both burst out laughing.
Jenny Rose wiped her eyes on the edge of her shirt.
I held the paper up. “So she never saw this?”
“Nah.”
“And it’s the only draft.”
“Yeah.”
“Just wondering.”
“Wonder away. Hold on.”
“What?”
“Nah. That wouldn’t have—nope.”
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“No, I was just thinking that maybe there had been another copy of that drawing. But just when I was sketching it. I mean I must have thrown it right away. I only mention it because you seem to think it was important.”
“Maybe it was. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. No one comes up here but Seamus, I told you.”
I looked again at Seamus’s finger paintings. They were vibrant, all right. But I wasn’t surprised they wouldn’t sell. There was something flat, for all the color. Flat and without depth.
Jenny Rose arced her slender back, cheetahlike, listening.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Jesus! Look out! Someone’s coming!”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Brownie.”
The dog had raised herself from her spot and begun circling in front of the door. “Mind you, don’t let her out now.” Jenny Rose covered the painting with a battered dropcloth. We peered out the window. It had started to rain, madly now, and it was difficult to make anything out.
“It seems to be a man.” I squinted.
“Heavens! It’s Morocco!”
“It’s a donkey!” I cried.
“Hold the dog! Quick, take hold of him.”
“You can’t go out there! You’ll be soaked!”
“He’ll walk over the cliff!” She ran out the door. I watched her go, then slammed the door. I stood there with the dog, the two of us with our ears cocked. Then I thought, Oh no, something’s wrong, and I pitched open the door and sure enough, there’s Morocco heading straight for the edge and Jenny Rose alongside him, dragging his mane and he’s paying no attention to her at all and it looks like the two of them are headed to go over the side.
I didn’t care what happened, I went out, my arms flailing. Of course, I made everything worse. Morocco just picked up his speed. Jenny Rose was crying and dragging the beast but he was having none of it so then what did she do, she jumps up on his back and just when I thought she wasn’t going to let him go even when he went over the side with her on him, along comes Brownie, barking and nipping, snarling and biting, her little bedraggled self between this monstrously determined donkey and the very edge of the now rivuleting cliff.
I guess it was me who screamed.
Well, we all lived, no small thanks to Brownie, which is the main thing, and we made our way, the four of us, down toward the house, Jenny Rose and I riding, half falling off the little donkey, thinking we’d climb in the back window, same as we’d come out, but by then we were laughing so hard we didn’t realize for the moment what we were going to do with Morocco, our wicked Morocco as we now were pinching his velvet lugs, those are his ears, and calling him and it sounds ridiculous but I swear he did seem to be enjoying all this to no end, so help me, he was smiling. We were streaming with rain.
And of course brave Brownie, who had gone from a great fluffy thing dog to a skeleton, really, all wet and amazingly smelly, even outdoors, but then there you go, they would say later, there’s a goat dog for you; all energy and content. She had a way of throwing back her head. She pranced alongside and under Morocco, hurrying him toward the wisp of smoke from the main house. Darned if those two didn’t seem to understand each other, stubborn Morocco and frisky, responsible Brownie. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard since I was a girl. We were bumping along down from the hill at what they rightly call breakneck speed, down to Bally Cashin. I spotted glittering eyes holed up under the eaves. A nightbird, I thought. An owl. It sobered me for a moment. We pulled up to the front of the house, joggling past the platoon of cars there in the mud. We slid off the fool donkey and I don’t remember whose idea this was but one of us thought it would be good to include Morocco. We were all so soaked nothing seemed to matter. Into the room we lurched, let loose from our hooved sedan. All but Morocco himself. Here, he put the brakes on. No, he wouldn’t come in. Well, this just set us off again. The minute we hit the dark kitchen our clothes began to steam. Jenny Rose and I were falling over ourselves, wracked with laughter so intense there was hardly a sound coming out, just the occasional rasp of an unfeminine snort. You had to cry at their astonished faces, especially Aunt Bridey, ever so shocked. It took us a good while to come to ourselves. And, on top of this, there were strangers in the kitchen, men with down vests on their backs. They were interviewing Bernadette, it seemed, she cozy there with the throng upon her until we’d burst in. She looked lively, all dolled up in black for the police. Jenny Rose smacked my back over and over again and I turned around to tell her, oh, please, stop because by then I really couldn’t get my breath when, in turning, I realized they weren’t the police at all and I caught sight of one of the four men who was sitting there with Liam and the rest of them, drinking whiskey, just as he turned and saw me.
Him! My heart leapt as my eyes met his in the blue haze.
His mouth and eyes opened.
There was so much chatter and goings-on, no one noticed our rapt expressions. “Jenny Rose!” Aunt Bridey cried out in the most reprimanding of to
nes. “Pull yourself together, girl!”
Jenny Rose, doubled over, wheezed and sighed to a halt. “Claire,” she said to me, mockingly, “do pull yourself together too!” But I’d already stopped.
Liam had become agitated with delight at the heartiness of other men in the house. He leaned across the table, tipping the flask sloppily into their glasses.
Bridey instructed Seamus to take Morocco out to the shed. “Come on, Seamus.” She cuffed him. “Get the lead out from your shoes!”
Seamus didn’t like to miss anything but he wanted less to tangle with Bridey, so he took up a slicker from a peg and got going.
Temple Fortune had recovered. “Is it always this exciting in far-off Skibbereen?” he asked, his eyes on me. They were murky green and blue at the same time, those eyes. Like the sea. But it was the voice, that inexplicable pitch that mysteriously penetrated my being and had me standing there captive to what would happen next. I don’t know about you but I’m not the type to be moved by a brawny, cocoa-buttered torso. No, it’s audio all the way with me. And any surprising dialogue that comes along with it.
Jenny Rose told them in a rush what had happened.
“Ned,” Bridey said. “You might call Audrey Whitetree-Murphy. She’ll be wonderin’ what’s become of him.”
“And worried sick,” remarked Dierdre.
Ned did as he was told. He stood up to use the phone, although it was just beside him, being of the generation where one launched one’s self to make a call.
Bernadette smoothed her skirt. She pulled Temple Fortune back into his chair. She looked dazzling enough in high-heeled boots and a stretchy black skirt to her ankles. “These gentlemen have come to speak to me about a television piece they’re working on,” she explained with elaborate magnanimousness. As if we were simple or deaf. They must have had her drink scotch. I felt a flicker of annoyance. “I’m afraid they won’t have enough time to hear any more of your tale, right now,” she informed us, giving a co-conspirator’s smile to the men.
“And you, Jenny Rose,” the cameraman said, “are you still in school?”
“I paint,” Jenny Rose said.
“And what do you paint?” He smiled condescendingly. “Watercolors?”
“Well, I’m in the process of change at the moment.” Jenny Rose picked up a chocolate and popped it into her mouth.
“Good thing,” Bernadette said. “You wouldn’t want to be stuck doing those tromp l’oeil forever, you know.”
“Why not?” Jenny Rose said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“The phones are out.” Ned put the receiver down carefully.
“Blast,” Dierdre said. “She’s probably wanderin’ around in the marsh, looking high and low for the varmint. You’d best go investigate, Ned.” She looked at the bottle. “Will you be havin’ a drink yourself, Claire?”
“No, thank you.” I stood there, still. I asked myself if what I felt was disappointment. So was this what Cork’s favorite son was up to, interviewing the families of notorious accident victims for television?
“I can hardly see that.” Bridey laughed a nasty laugh. “Audrey Whitetree-Murphy out in the marsh! Not likely. Not for a jackass.” She took a draught of her whiskey. “Not for any jackass.” The one candle burned on the polished side table.
“I take it you’re Temple Fortune.” Jenny Rose reached a friendly hand across the table.
“Uh! What an oaf I am!” Bernadette smiled toothlessly. “Mr. Temple Fortune, may I present my cousin Jenny Rose Cashin. And Mrs. Claire Breslinski Benedetto, my cousin from the States.”
Could she make me any more married? I thought. She got it all right, though, I’ll give her that. She wasn’t a fool, Bernadette. A part of me was pleased that she’d taken that much note of my particulars.
Temple stood up and came around the table. We pressed our cheeks together. He felt so soft. I love you, I said to myself.
We stepped back and looked at each other. “I thought you were snug as a bug in New York,” he accused.
“I thought Baltimore was in Maryland,” I said stupidly.
“You don’t know each other!” Bernadette cried. What an actress! As though she were glad.
“Mrs. Breslinski and I worked together on a film in Munich,” Temple said. “Five years ago, was it?”
Five years, one month and eleven days I had the wherewithal not to say. I could do nothing but stand there.
“Here, now. Is that true?” Dierdre was thrilled.
“Mrs. Breslinski broke my heart,” Temple said in an offhand way.
“If you’re going to refer to me in my married state, you might as well use my husband’s name,” I said, doing battle to his lighthearted tone with my own. “It’s Benedetto.” Now what the hell had I said that for? I flinched.
He took another step back. “Mrs. Benedetto.” He gave a curt bow.
Then he went back with his friends. He had a way of being next to you and then magically not being with you at all. What had I thought? He’d take his place beside me?
Liam busily refilled the glasses, his mouth screwed into a happy bow. Oh, he did enjoy all these going-on. “Mrs. Benedetto,” he said to me in a mocking, fun-filled tone. “Have you found your four-leaf clover, yet?”
“You can go a life long,” Bernadette informed me, “and never find one a those.”
Temple took his glass. “Is that what you’re looking for, Claire?” He smiled at me.
“Well,” I said, “if one turns up.”
“Still serving false gods?” he said.
“Was I then?”
His chin went up. He narrowed his eyes. “Right. Not a god. A policeman.”
Everyone laughed. I could feel my face turn red. He had that power over me. Over all of us.
Temple’s troop was British, I suspected. Or if they weren’t, they might as well be. None of them had very good teeth. Like a gang with jobs and benefits was what I thought. They introduced themselves. I didn’t even hear what they said. The room swelled with Temple Fortune’s presence. It wasn’t just me. Everyone leaned toward him.
“Nowadays”—Aunt Dierdre was making conversation—“married girls call themselves by their maiden names and no one says a word. You wouldn’t hear that in my day. Not without a touch of scandal.”
Liam gave her a you-should-talk look. “What about Audrey Whitetree-Murphy?” he pointed out. “There’s always her.”
“There’s never not her, that’s for sure.” Bridey sounded spiteful.
“Where there’s money, there’s exception.” Liam rubbed a circle into the table with his napkin.
“Aye,” everyone muttered in resigned agreement.
“Money about, eh?” the one they called Tobias put in.
Ned sucked his empty pipe. “That’s a nor’easter, that is,” he remarked about the wind, changing the subject.
Just then, the door blew open. Liam got up, looked out and shut it. “The footee bridge is out,” he announced.
“Fine!” Bridey said. “There’ll be no milk but goat’s milk, then.”
“I’ll have my coffee black, if you don’t mind.” Bernadette winked at Temple.
The voices came and went as though I were in a dream. Bernadette, unworried, stretched her arms, threw out her chest and yawned theatrically. Her top was very low for so early in the day, I thought. Something was wrong. This certainly wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. Then she whipped her glossy blond cap of hair about her head, laughing provocatively, looking, at the end, not unlike a tousled highland terrier. You couldn’t not look. Temple looked too. I know it’s natural and human but these things always cause me such pain. I am reminded that I am no longer “in the running,” as they say. Men no longer whirl about in the street when I catapult by. I realize that. My figure is as generous now from the rear as it once was just from the front. I’m not kidding myself. On my face, you can see I’ve lived. Still, I have a way about me. I refuse to move over into the corner because I am no longer young.
>
I lit a cigarette. There was a part of me that had taken energy from Johnny’s betrayal and run with it, like a football.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Temple said.
“So let me get this straight,” the man beside him said. “You went to Paris, Peg stayed here, your house blew up and Peg went with it.”
“That’s it, yeah.” Dierdre’s head bobbed up and down with a rat-a-tat despondency.
Temple took hold of her big hand. It was as big as his. “Forgive us,” he said, “we’re a jaded lot, we media folk.”
The windows were white with steam. The fire small, but fierce.
Seamus came in, the wind along with him.
Jenny Rose took his slicker, shook it out, sat him down. He’d had enough. Brownie, all wet, jumped onto his lap, pink tongue out, all set to play bridge.
“You must have loved your aunt Peg,” the cameraman said to Jenny Rose. “I’m so sorry.”
“Jenny Rosey me blowsey,” said Seamus in the voice of the dead. “Get out of the house or I’ll kill ya.”
Bernadette knocked over the pitcher of cream. “That sounded just like Peg,” Dierdre cried. There was a general sense of discomfort. What a moment, I thought, waiting for the chill to pass. “I think I will have that drink, if you don’t mind,” I said to Aunt Bridey. All of us mopped and batted at the spill with our napkins. Aunt Bridey held the bottle up in the air and the overturned pitcher in the other, inspecting it for a nick. “Of course,” she said, annoyed. “I was just about to serve the coffee, though.”
“Well, fine, then,” I said, cheerfully. “Coffee it is.”
“Why do you stay with him?” Temple asked me, frankly, right in front of everyone.
“He is the sludge of my forbearance,” I answered him. It sounded right. Don’t ask me where that came from, but it was true.
Aunt Bridey turned her back. “Let’s see,” she said, “then I’ll have to have a go look for another cup.” There was music from long ago on the radio. She walked away, then stopped. You could see her tight shoulders melt. She turned around. “Och. The divil. A fresh round of whiskey all around. That’s what we need.”
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