Exit Unicorns

by Cindy Brandner

  Casey pulled a reluctant Pamela around to face the full scrutiny of Desmond O’Neill’s myopic gaze. It was not a pleasant experience.

  “Desmond this is Pamela O’Flaherty, Pamela my godfather Desmond O’Neill.”

  He nodded and she resisted the urge to step forward and shake his hand. He would disapprove, she suspected, of such a forward move in a girl.

  “Kevin, give over the seat to the lady,” Desmond said without once taking his eyes off of Pamela. She meekly took the seat as he indicated she should, but only after Casey forcibly removed her hand from his own and gave her a small push towards the table. Desmond had seated her next to himself. He smelled surprisingly of a light aftershave, tangy with lemon.

  Casey had been left standing, quite deliberately it seemed. His face was tight, his eyes locked with Desmond’s though there was no hostility in the mutual stare. Only a reassessment she suspected, a cartography, of the land and the years that lay between them.

  “If ye’ll excuse us,” Desmond said cordially to Pamela as he stood and then turned to the displaced Kevin, “get the lady a drink, a beer shandy—‘tis the only lady’s drink they serve here,” he added apologetically to her, giving a nod that seemed like an abbreviated courtly bow. He was, regardless of the surroundings, a man of some refinement it would seem. “Casey,” he swept past him towards the door, “if ye’ll be so kind as to come outside with me.”

  Casey let out a sigh that seemed made entirely of relief, said “Of course,” and followed the tweed-coated form of Desmond O’Neill out of the pub.

  The man named Kevin returned to the table, set the beer shandy down in front of Pamela and then leaned against the wall with his own drink.

  “Wouldn’t you like to sit?” Pamela asked, pointing at the chair Desmond had vacated.

  Kevin smiled sweetly and said, “No tanks, not wurt de risk to me life. No one sits in Dez’s chair, ‘cept the chief hisself.”

  “Will they be long?” she asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as the men at the table cast furtive glances at her and said nothing to each other.

  “Only as long as it takes,” was the cryptic reply supplied by a man across from her, who ventured a timid smile as he spoke. She returned the smile and he flushed scarlet and tipped his head quickly to stare into his drink.

  “Will ye be familiar wid de works of Mr. William B. Yeats?” Pamela turned to her right where the question had issued from and found a pair of bright blue eyes regarding her from over a snowy white mustache and beard.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” she said politely.

  “D’ye know the inscription on his headstone then?”

  “Aw, Barry don’t start on the poor girl, ye know Des doesn’t like it when ye do this. It gets Smoke all agitated.”

  Pamela took in the man’s curt shake of the head and by a process of eliminating the two speakers and Kevin, decided Smoke must be the gray-haired man directly opposite her. He seemed more likely at present to pass out in his drink than to succumb to the vapors of agitation.

  “Pardon me then, Miss, but I asked did ye know the inscription on his headstone?”

  “Um, well not word for word but I’m familiar with the gist.”

  The white mustached man snorted, as if to say one couldn’t expect better from foreigners.

  She took a sip of her drink and deciding anything was better than the silence said—

  “Cast a cold eye on life, on death

  Horseman pass by.”

  “Ah, ye do know it then,” said Barry with some satisfaction. “Johnny,” he waved at the barman, “ ‘nother shandy for the lady.”

  “No, really I’m fine,” Pamela protested only three swallows into her first drink and notified by the gurgle in her stomach that she should have had the good sense to eat before coming here.

  “Barry cleans off the headstone once a week wid a wee feather duster,” said a man in a plaid shirt, two chairs around from her “an’ when it rains he thinks it’s Yeats cryin’ his thanks to ‘im.”

  “Ye ought to have more pride in him yerself. The greatest poet of the age,” Barry thumped a walking stick into the floor for emphasis, “nay the greatest poet ever in the history of this planet buried not a half hour from here an’ ye don’t know even a line of his poetry.”

  “Sure an’ I do,” said Plaid Shirt with a wink in Pamela’s direction—

  “There was a young lady from Dingle

  Who slid on her bottom down a shingle,

  She rubbed it with lotion,

  She—”

  “There is a lady present,” said Barry, waggling his walking stick in a threatening manner. “Did ye know,” he continued pleasantly in Pamela’s ear, “that Yeats died in Paris an’ the dirty Frenchies buried him there as if he were their own?”

  “Really?” she said with what she hoped was polite interest. “Casey and Mr. O’Neill have been gone a long time.”

  “That,” said Plaid Shirt, “is a good sign, means Dez is actually speakin’ to him between the blows.”

  “The blows,” she echoed faintly.

  “Aye, ‘tis why he called the boy outside.”

  She made to rise out of her seat but Barry detained her with a gentle hand on her arm.

  “ ‘Tis between the two of them lass, the boy came to sort it out with Dez an’ ye’d best leave them to do it properly.”

  “Oh,” she said stupidly and sat back down.

  “Anyhow to continue, once the Irish heard Yeats had been buried in France there was a great kerfuffle as ye might well imagine there would be, what with them tryin’ to steal the greatest poet of all time an’ pretend he was theirs—”

  “It was war time an’ it was bury the bastard or let him rot,” supplied Plaid Shirt for which he received an impolitic look.

  “So the Irish got together a contingent of men an’ went to Paris to collect Yeats, but once they got there all was confusion what with the Irish speakin’ the Irish and the French speakin’ the French—”

  “An’ to make a long story short they dug up the bones an’ brought the poor bastard home.” Plaid Shirt finished, earning him the rubber-tipped end of a walking stick waving wildly in his face.

  “Ye take care of the damn graveyard, ye ought to have more pride in the place,” Barry was fairly spitting with rage, an action impeded by the clacking of his false teeth.

  “I take care of the Catholic side an’ they don’t even supply me with a mower so I don’t tend to get emotional over the grave of a dead Prod who’d a fancy way with words. Besides, the fact they don’t know to this damned day if they got the right poor bastard. Ye could be dustin’ the grave of some French peasant. Who the hell knows what happened to Yeats.”

  “That’s an ugly lie,” Barry got to his feet shaking with rage, “take it back or I’ll shove it down yer throat with me stick.”

  At this point the comatose Smoke raised his head, a strange gleam in eyes that were a startling silver gray, one thin fist rose off the table and slammed down hard enough to make the drinks jump, “Where de feck is Yeats?” he yelled and then leaned across the table halting only inches from Pamela’s face. “Do ye be after knowin’ lassie where de bones of dat poor bastard is?”

  She shook her head and Smoke settled with a sigh and hung his head over his drink once again. “Dey should of buried de man in a bee-loud glade, den he would have rested easy.”

  “On the Lake Isle of Innisfree,” Pamela supplied gently.

  Smoke looked up and smiled and she saw that once he’d been a nice-looking man, though time had more than done her work on his battered face. “ ‘Twould be a good rest in such a place as dat wid de sound of de lake lappin’.”

  “And nine bean rows in the garden,” she said smiling.

  Smoke reached across the table and patted her hand with his own gnarled and twisted one, stained yellow w
ith tobacco and brown with the fields. “Yer a good girl lass a good girl an’ sure the prettiest I’ve ever seen.” With that, he returned to the contemplation of his drink and said not another word.

  Plaid Shirt and Barry were surveying her with a sort of stunned bemusement.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked wondering if she’d committed some breach of etiquette.

  “Knowed Smoke me whole life an’ I never heard him string moren’ five words togedder at a shot,” said Plaid Shirt. “ ‘Tis a bit like a mute burstin’ into song te hear him talk that much.”

  Just then Desmond, followed by Casey, re-entered the premises.

  Casey held up a hand reassuringly and mouthed the words, “I’m alright.” He pulled a chair up and waited until Desmond sat before sitting himself.

  “All’s right now, Dez?” asked Kevin, still nursing his ale against the wall.

  Desmond looked at Casey, a fond look, “All’s right lad?”

  “Aye,” Casey nodded, “all’s right, Dez.”

  “An’ how’s the boy?” Dez asked.

  “He’s fine an’ I thank ye for keepin’ an eye upon him while I could not.”

  “I’d never let a son of Brian’s go hungry, though he’s a stubborn wee eejit at times. He’d not take money nor help of any sort.”

  “He’s his own mind, our Pat does, an’ I respect that.” Casey reached over during the conversation, took Pamela’s hand and squeezed it. She took stock of his face and saw no bruises nor any swelling and decided the men must have been mistaken about Desmond’s intention in taking him outside.

  Conversation continued at the table, swelling and buzzing. Male talk of crops and boats, livestock and times long past that wouldn’t come again. Politics were avoided assiduously. Pamela settled back in her chair in a sweet shandy-induced haze, letting the swing and flow of the conversation lull her. Through all of it, even when the tone and current of things bordered on the argumentative, Smoke remained silent staring into his drink as if it contained endless wonders, as perhaps it did.

  It was near to midnight when Casey made his apologies and said they really must be gone.

  “Ye’ll take a room at the hotel,” Desmond said and then as Casey began to protest, “surely yer not so much of a brute as to drag this poor lass back across country in the wee hours, are ye? Ye’ll take a room.”

  “We’ll take a room,” Casey agreed.

  “Tell Siobhan to give ye the best in the house, it’s empty this time of year.”

  “We will.”

  They began to move away from the table, acknowledging good-byes, Pamela almost stumbling over her own feet in exhaustion when Smoke suddenly reached out and clutched Casey’s shirt sleeve. He turned his head, hazy eyes shot through with a strange light.

  “Ye’ll be certain she’s taken care of boy.”

  “Aye Smoke, I will,” Casey said and patted the old man’s hand.

  “Even if it’s not by yerself, ye’ll be certain?”

  Casey paused for a moment and Pamela shivered at the intensity in Smoke’s gaze, it seemed to understand things, to see beyond the present atmosphere.

  “I will be certain.” Casey said in a tone more fitting for a blood oath than the appeasement of a half-senile old man.

  Outside the night was chill, frost puckering on the grass, pub windows steamed solid so that the feeling of having stepped into a strange netherworld was total.

  “What did he mean by that?” Pamela asked, shandy glow having disappeared with Smoke’s words.

  “Ah, only what he said. Some say Smoke has the sight an’ that’s why he drinks so much an’ speaks only rarely. He’s not right in the head, hasn’t been since his wife died, they’d only been married the one year an’ were expectin’ their first baby an’ one day he was in the field, ploughin’ with a tractor an’ she’d come out to see him, bringin’ him his lunch or some such. Well the tractor’d got bogged down an’ he was reversin’ it, layin’ hard on the pedal an’ the tractor shot out suddenly, ran her right down, killed her an the babe. ‘Tis likely why he told me to be certain ye were cared for.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” she said.

  “No it isn’t but somehow on a night like tonight, with every star in the sky as clear as glass it all seems worth it. The good an’ the bad.”

  “Is everything alright now Casey, with Desmond?”

  “Aye, it’s fine.”

  “The men seemed to think he’d taken you out to beat you.”

  “Well they’d know Dez’s ways as well as any, been drinkin’ with the man everyday for the last thirty years or more.”

  “But there’s not a mark on you.”

  “Jewel, there are places ye can beat a man that don’t show on his face.”

  “But—do you mean to say—”

  Casey grimaced, “Ye may not have noticed darlin’ but my stride’s not so easy. Desmond said as I’d acted like a fool child I’d have to take my punishment as such as well.”

  “He spanked you?”

  “Aye, with a boat oar, made me bend over an’ grip the rim of that wee bridge a ways back an’ took his sweet bloody time about it. The man knows the anticipation is ten times the agony of the actual paddlin’.”

  “That you let him is what surprises me.”

  “There’s a certain respect that exists between Desmond an’ I. I broke that respect a thousand times over when I set the bomb, for him ‘twas as if I’d spit in his face an’ followed it with a slap. I had to humble myself in order to make it up to him. A bruised arse is a small price to pay to be back in good standin’ with the man. We’re just up here on the right.”

  She turned when they reached the hotel, a small but comfortable looking establishment and looked back down the road. The town sloped away from them towards the sea, pretty in the dark, the eggshell pinks, yellows and blues of its blistered and fading paint softened by night’s gentle arm.

  She turned then into the arm of her own lover, following him into the lobby, no more than a sitting room really. But it had a fire of glowing embers and a warmth they were grateful for. A woman roused herself sleepily from an armchair in front of the fire, her head a tousled mass of graying curls.

  “Will ye be after lodgin’?” she said yawning and crossing a cardigan over her flannel clad bosom.

  “Finest room ye’ve got, an’ nothin’ less will do, Mrs. O’Neill.”

  She peered at them and then a smile broke her sleepy features. “Casey Riordan ye wee eejit is it

  yerself ?”

  “ ‘Tis.”

  “Have ye not a hug for yer Auntie Siobhan, then?”

  “I do.” He engulfed her in a massive hug, swinging her off her feet and setting her down breathless and laughing.

  She patted her hair and shook her head at the same time. “An’ who’s the girleen?”

  He drew Pamela forward and introduced her. She shook the woman’s hand, just barely suppressing a yawn. “Ye look all done in child. I’ll put a fire in number six an’ it’ll be snug in no time. The sheets are pressed an’ there’s a lovely heavy quilt on the bed. An’ how many rooms will ye be needin’?”

  “Just the one,” Casey said firmly.

  There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence and Pamela was grateful for the dim light as it hid the scarlet hue of her face.

  “Mmphm,” Siobhan made a disapproving sound and then sighed. “Ye’ve seen Dez then?” she asked Casey as she stirred up the fire with a poker and added another turf log to it. “Here ye wee eejit, take some of these,” she stacked his arms with peat logs, “an’ follow me upstairs.”

  “I have been to see Dez,” Casey said, “an’ before ye ask, we’ve settled our business.”

  “I knew ye must have if ye dared to show yer face here. Well I thank Jaysus above for it, he’ll be more bearable to live with now.
He’s been miserable these last six years I tell ye, it right ruined Christmas for him too.” She paused near the top of the staircase to catch her breath.

  “Are ye still takin’ the heart medication?” Casey asked, easily transferring the load of towels she’d carried upstairs from her arms on to the top of the peat he was carrying.

  “I see yer still as meddlin’ as ye ever were,” she gave him an exasperated look and continued up the stairs.

  The room was on the left hand side, its windows looking out over the town and beyond to the sea, a great shushing void in the night. And far, far in the distance was the hulked over form of Ben Bulben, casting its moonlit shadows upon the grave of the poet of the age or perhaps that of a nameless Frenchman.

  Casey set a fire in the grate and within minutes, the chill was gone from the room. Siobhan yawning, said she was for bed and would see them in the morning. She kissed Casey on the forehead, the way a mother who’d seen him only yesterday might have done and patted Pamela companionably on the shoulder. “Sleep ye tight, child,” she said and then looking at Casey added, “ We’ve missed ye boy,” and went out the door.

  They undressed and clambered under the great quilt that covered the bed, sighing with pleasure at the warmth of the sheets that Siobhan had slid towel-covered bricks in between.

  “Ah, now there’s somethin’ more like it,” Casey said with a happy sigh, curling his body to hers in a manner that had become habit for the two of them.

  Despite the events of the day and her previous exhaustion she found sleep didn’t come quickly and lay quiet, Casey’s hand warm in the curve of her hip, his breath coming deeper and deeper on her shoulder. They’d left the curtains open and it was one of those winter nights where the sky was clear as water in a bowl and it seemed as if she might stick her hand in it, carefully, each finger in turn and watch the ripples pour out into the universe, to the very edges of time itself.

  “Maybe that’s why Harry came out of the water,” she said quietly not wanting to disturb Casey if he was asleep.

  “Aye,” he murmured only half conscious, “why’s that?”