“Did you ever talk to him?” Jenny Rose said.
“I met him twice, now that I think of it. Once in Gstaad. We sat at the same table, outdoors. We ate trout. He told me my eyes were asleep while I was awake.”
“How awkward for you!”
“Yes, it was. It was humiliating. He was right, though. And it bothered me when he said it. It was very soon after that I changed my life, I think. Pulled myself together. So, oddly enough, Armond Lavecci influenced me as well.”
“How strange!” Jenny Rose got up from her place and came over to sit before me. “We’re locked together in our destinies.” She took my chin with both hands. “I knew it the moment I saw you.” Her passion was so genuine, I found myself sitting there with a lump in my throat.
Mrs. Wooly took hold of my cup and peered inside. She swirled the dregs around.
“Long ago and far away,” Jenny Rose was humming.
“What do you see?”
“Something be missing,” she said, squinting and moving her head this way and that. “I canna for the life of me see today.”
“Let her do you in a couple of minutes,” Jenny Rose suggested. “She’s got these floaters in her eyes, along with the cataracts. They move around and she can’t see a thing.”
Willy licked his lips. He ran the cool tap water over his handkerchief and blotted it over his face. Then he sat down again. “He lives off the coast of Italy, I think. That chap Lavecci.”
“No, it’s Spain,” Jenny Rose said firmly.
“That’s right,” I said, remembering, “that’s where I met him the second time. In Ibiza. He has a finca there, a big place.”
“Was he kind to you that time?” Willy asked me.
“He was kind to me the first time,” I said. “He woke me up.” I didn’t think I’d mention the part about his amorous advances, which were entirely nonpartisan, by the way, when I’d had to physically remove his inebriated bulk from the finca where I was staying. Heroes are best left intact.
“That’s our dream,” Jenny Rose said. “Me and Willy. We’d go all over the Mediterranean.”
“With backpacks,” Willy specified. “Not with those great self-important cases on trolleys.”
“Right,” Jenny Rose agreed. “We’d stop at every little village.”
“Not just drive in, eat at the fanciest digs and drive on.”
“No,” Jenny Rose said. “We’d spend some time.”
“Jenny Rose could draw,” he said.
“And Willy could get secret family recipes from the old Grandmas, he’s good with old gals,” she teased. “We’d make a cookery book and sell it to the Americans.”
“Why would they give you their old secret family recipes?” I said.
Seamus cut in excitedly, “Well, they just would! Once they got to know our Willy Murphy.”
We all laughed. It seemed he’d heard this particular dream before. “And someday,” he parodied the light texture and musical cadence of Jenny Rose’s voice, “one of the shops on our port here will come up for sale and we’ll buy it and turn it into a first-class restaurant. And we can settle down … together … all of us…”
“What, here in Skibbereen?” I said.
“Och.” Jenny Rose put one block on top of the other to get Seamus going. “That’s the stuff we used to dream. When I was a kid. Remember, Willy?” She gave him a poke.
But Willy had gone moody and didn’t answer.
“I don’t think it’s such a farfetched idea. It’s important to have a goal,” I said, wanting to cheer him up, forgetting I had none.
“My mother would never go for that,” Willy said.
“Which part?” I said. “The recipes, the trip or the restaurant?”
“All of it,” he admitted.
“Well, surely you’re old enough to decide what you want to do?” I said.
“Ye-ye-yes,” Willy stuttered. “I am. Bu-but you don’t underst-stand.”
“There are other problems involved, y’see,” said Jenny Rose, her eyes down. She was wiping the crumbs from the table, her mouth very grown-up, tidy.
“Oh,” I said, not seeing at all. It was all too pat, Freudian for me. I stood up. “I’d better get back. I’ve got to go over to Molly’s and pick up a key. I’ll be staying there from tonight on,” I added, hoping, I remembered, for some dreams of my own coming true.
Jenny Rose took hold of a fresh piece of paper. “I’m going to get right on this contest. I must call Arthur at the Fishing Club.” She chewed her lip. “And I’ll go up to the convent and ask the nuns if they’ll let me have some old sheets to make my sign.”
“I’m not so sure if I want that old salmon caught,” Willy muttered, fetching his stick.
Jenny Rose jumped up when she saw I was going. She walked me out and shut the little door behind her. You could hear the waves crashing against the shore. “Audrey Whitetree-Murphy has emphysema,” she confided. Her voice was reverent. “She’s probably dying.”
“Oh, dear,” I said.
“So you understand a bit more now,” she whispered.
“Sure,” I said. “Her life is over so now everyone else’s has to be.”
“Go on with you now.” She laughed good-naturedly and pushed me away. I went off smiling, not sure all was lost. Life wasn’t horrible for everyone. All we needed was a fresh look at things. I wondered how long it would take Temple to find me. Walking back over the moor you could hear the strains of Seamus’s flute. I was surprised he was so good. But then he had such a great aptitude for mimicry, why wouldn’t he be good? He wouldn’t have your more normal person’s predjudices about mastering an instrument. It would be natural to him, like eating. Then the wind blew from another direction and you couldn’t hear past the sea. It’s a weird place when you’re on your own. The wind whistles in and out of log holes and badger doors. For a second you imagine what it would be like to be lost, or blown over the side. With a great herder’s whoosh, Brownie galloped past me, pushing my leg with a playful nose-nip. “Decided to come along with me, eh?” I said, feeling safe. She threw back her head and led the way. There really is nothing like a dog. My silk scarf had dried on the heater and it was stiff and crinkly. I was glad to have it, though. I tied it under my chin and hurried along, fair lassie I imagined myself. Wait until Temple Fortune got a load of me, I thought, snuggling my hands into my pockets. I’d just spotted the straight wisp of gray smoke from Bally Cashin when it occurred to me Mrs. Wooly hadn’t gotten around to reading my tea dregs. And what had she meant there was something missing?
The walk turned. There was someone standing on the bluff beyond the path, out overlooking the water. My heart leapt. I thought it might be him. It was a woman, though. It was Dierdre, I saw, as I came closer. I thought, Oh boy, I hope she doesn’t plan on jumping.
“Dierdre?” I called.
“What?” She seemed confused for a moment. She turned and looked at me, shading her eyes with one hand. Her face, dusted pink, was slushy with tears.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Are you all right?”
She sighed and sat down on the rock. “I’d smoke a cigarette if I had one.”
“I would, too,” I said. “Let’s move over here, out of the wind.”
“No, thanks.” She frowned. “Fairy ring. I don’t want to sit there.”
“Why not?” I said, cold.
“Don’t know what they’ll do to you.”
“Who?”
She looked at me gravely. “The wee folk.”
“Oh.” I laughed.
“That’s their spot, there,” she said, not smiling back.
I crossed my arms the way she did. We looked out over the sea and shivered. Brownie too stood, looking.
There would be starshine here tonight, I thought inappropriately. I could come with Temple Fortune. Absorb wee folk rays. Hold his hand. Touch his exquisite back … The nearness of my dream thrilled and horrified me. “They’re going to have a fishing contest,” I blurted. “Jenny Ro
se and Willy Murphy are. Sunday. To raise money for Mrs. Wooly’s roof.”
“Always up to somethin’, those two.” She looked at her watch. It jangled with loose-fitting charms.
“Jenny Rose sure loves that Willy Murphy,” I took a chance.
“Are you only just finding that out? That’s old news. They’ve been mad about each other since she was old enough to talk, those two. Jenny Rose used to bait his hooks, the little sap. Damn. I must have one somewhere.” She scrabbled around in her basket. “A lot a good that will do her. ‘Stay with your own kind,’ that’s what I always told her.” She came up with a battered cigarette. “Lovin’ above your station comes to nuthin’ but heartbreak.”
“Aunt Dierdre, you crack me up. You sound like Upstairs, Downstairs.”
She amazed me by getting it lit in the gale, then batted the match at the the wind. “And you think things have changed since those days, no doubt. True love conquers all and all that.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that Audrey Whitetree-Murphy stands in their way. Still. If she’s dying … then it’s only a matter of time.”
“Tch, Audrey Whitetree-Murphy was supposed to be dead years ago, according to herself. She’ll be dyin’ as long as it suits her. Listen. You hear that? That’s the Sherkin Island ferry. You can see it if you wait a bit.”
“I guess you can live a long time with emphysema,” I agreed, shivering.
“Just ruinin’ everyone else’s life, while you’re about it. And who says she has emphysema? She’s got asthma. She had to get rid of her horses because of it. Don’t know why she keeps that stubborn donkey. She can’t go near it. She acts big but she’s just as sentimental as the next one.” She glanced at me. “That’s what Peg said about her.”
“Oh,” I said.
“She made our Bridey’s life nuthin’ but hell for years. Always being the understanding, unattached holier-than-thou. And always with her hair combed out.”
“What do you mean?”
She let out her ready chortle. “That’s quite an appealing package to present to a man who’s got a flesh-and-blood wife at home, with her hair in rags. Who’s tired and haggard with the raising of the kids and the meals. Just gettin’ that lot off to mass on a Sunday would drive you mad. The pressing of clothes it takes to get that Bernadette to rights!” She clicked her tongue and narrowed her eyes at me. “You didn’t bring any pictures of your own children, did you?”
“No.” I patted my empty pockets, embarrassed. “It was supposed to be Zinnie coming. Then, at the last minute—”
“You know what I think?” she interrupted me, not listening. “I think your sister Carmela has forgotten she ever had a child.”
For a moment, I remained quiet. Then I snapped, “I thought it was you who made Carmela swear on the Bible! You made her pledge not to interfere with your raising Jenny Rose. Not to ever try and get in touch with her!” I was trembling now, not just from the cold. Thank God I knew now what they’d done to Carmela. She wasn’t to blame. Not entirely. How conveniently they’d forgotten. How silkily they’d handled her.
Dierdre kept her gaze out over the sea, like she was trying to see something far away. The bright sun shone down on her cruelly. “Yes,” she finally said. “It was Bridey’s idea. But I made her do that. I can’t deny it. When I think of it now! Carmela was just a young lass, younger even than our Jenny Rose is now. Still. You’d think she’d come looking for her anyway. Just out of curiosity, if nothing else.”
I wanted to say something retributory, something to do with the depth of Carmela’s pledge, her secret sorrow all these years, after what they’d made her do, even though, at heart, I agreed with Dierdre, but I didn’t. I held my tongue. Dierdre’d been through too much, too. She blamed herself, I could tell. “It cannot have been easy for her,” I said at last.
“It wasn’t bloody easy for Jenny Rose. Bein’ raised up by the likes a me.” Dierdre sobbed, then caught herself. “And Peg. Always harpin’ at her, she was. I was such a fool, thinking Peg would provide some discipline there, where I’d give her none. It wasn’t right.” She shook her head unhappily. “I remember Jenny Rose coming to me when she was a wee girl. All in tears, she was. I’d left Peg alone with her. Every time I’d go off, she’d have Jenny Rose tidying the mess. Oh, she’d roar at her like a drill sergeant, Jenny Rose told me. She would always tell me. How she’d make her clean. Hard cleaning.” Dierdre looked at me, her forehead riddled in doubt, her quick, little pointed hands wringing each other out. “I never should have let Peg order her about like that. But I’ll tell you the truth, I was glad to come home and find the house in order.”
“Jenny Rose told me she had a wonderful childhood,” I said warmly. “You’ve done a wonderful job. She speaks of you in a way I’d be proud and delighted to have my own daughter speak of me.”
“She says that because she’s a decent sort.” Her voice turned harsh. “And she doesn’t want pity from you. That would kill her. But it can’t have been easy for her. There was a while we’d be gettin’ threats from the village. Lezzies, they’d call us.”
“What? When was that?”
“Oh, years ago.”
“How awful!”
“I know. Such an ugly word! Poor Jenny Rose was just four or five. I don’t know how much she remembers. It didn’t go on too long. Constable Mullaney meant to put a stop to it. But you know how it is. Then Father Early came to the parish. He went to see whoever it was.”
Brownie whined and nudged me on the back of my knee with her nose.
“She wants you to go along with her now, how do you like that?”
“Come on back now,” I said, glad for the excuse to go. “I don’t like leaving you here.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll not jump.”
“I didn’t mean—” I saw her face. “Well, if you’re sure.”
“I was gone them five days. That’s enough.” The scarf around her throat stood out like a flag in the wind. “A lonely business it is.”
“What?”
“Bein’ dead.”
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.
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