Exit Unicorns

by Cindy Brandner

  “Ye’ll be wearin’ white I hope, it seems not so much the fashion these days, what with all the free love an’ blue jeans, though I do be thinkin’ I’ve missed out on something this decade here. Me body may be too old fer the wild sex unfortunately me mind hasn’t quite come to the same conclusion.” She sighed and Pamela found she was holding her breath waiting for the next thing to come out of One Leg Peg’s mouth. But Peg had ceased speaking and looked out the window, apparently without the slightest bit of discomfort.

  “Would you like to see my dress?” she asked, feeling the need suddenly in the absence of a mother to share this last night before her marriage with an older woman.

  Peg nodded and Pamela retrieved the pale cotton dress from the closet, it was blue and scattered with tiny cornflowers and daisies. It was the best she had and the only thing that came near to being appropriate.

  “Well,” said Peg digging out an ancient monocle from the bosom of her red coat and clapping it firmly over one bright blue eye, “I’ll not deny it ‘s pretty but it simply will not do, blue girl, blue on a wedding day, well yer just askin’ fer trouble child.”

  “I am?” Pamela asked, never having heard of blue carrying any particularly ill omens.

  “Blue, my child, is the color of sorrow, of tears and loss, no it simply will not do, ye must be married in white.” Peg said it firmly and with a small thump of her cane as if indeed there were no other way round this matter.

  “But I don’t have a white dress,” Pamela said feeling that, indeed, to be married in blue would be the worst possible start a marriage could have.

  “An’ did I say that ye did?” Peg asked impatiently. “Ye’ll wear mine, I niver had the daughters I saved it for, an’ sure it’s so fine it deserves to be worn more than the once.”

  “I—” Pamela began, feeling she should protest before she found herself standing in the back garden in ostrich feathers and sequins.

  “Ah” Peg waved one scarlet-tipped hand airily, “ye need not be thankin’ me, it’ll be a treat to see someone as lovely as yerself wear it. An’ don’t worry” she grinned impishly “it’s a respectable bit of a dress; ye won’t be gussied up like a Vegas showgirl. Now I suppose we’d best be getting on to my place and see how it fits, not a great deal of time to be makin’ alterations. Ye’ve not much meat on yer bones an’ I was four months pregnant on my weddin’ day so we may need to nip it in a bit.”

  “Four months pregnant,” Pamela echoed before she could think, then she blushed and stammered “heavens, I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”

  “Nay matter girl, I’d not have told ye if it wasn’t yer business. Hard to imagine that crazy old Peg was someone’s mother once, but indeed I was. And someone’s wife and someone’s daughter, near every woman can’t get through life without bein’ those three things, though it’d be a sight better for some of us if we could manage it.” She sighed again and seemed to slip off into some place that had existed many years ago.

  The door opened and Casey stepped in, filling and taking up the room as he always seemed to do no matter the size or grandeur of the setting.

  “I got all your bits and pieces though why ye’ll be needin’ one extra large, round carpet needle at this point is beyond me, I’m only hopin’ it’s nothin’ to do with tomorrow night—ah beggin’ yer pardon, I’d no idea we had company.”

  “An’ you I expect would be the groom?” Peg asked in a quiet voice that for all her strangeness seemed especially strained. Pamela turned to look and saw that Peg’s demeanor had indeed changed and she was staring fixedly at Casey, shadows filtering slowly across her face as if she had glimpsed something irretrievably lost and then lost it again only to bring the pain afresh.

  “I see ye’ll have met our Mrs. MacBride,” said Father Terry slipping in the door, in the strangely silent way he had, behind Casey. “I’ve asked her to witness the marriage tomorrow, with Bertie Small from down the road that makes the requisite two witnesses. That is if yer still certain about not wantin’ any family there?” He looked from Pamela to Casey and sighed, “I see ye’ve the Riordan stubbornness firmly in place. Well then,” he stepped into the breach between Peg and Casey. “Mrs. MacBride, this would be Casey Riordan and I see ye’ve already made yerself known to Pamela, she’d be an O’Flaherty.”

  “Call me Peg,” a soft reflective look came into her eyes and she crossed the room slowly to where Casey stood, “ a Riordan are ye? I’d not need the name to know ye for who ye are. Ah those eyes, burnin’ black and the hair,” Peg lifted her hand and gently stroked the back of it across Casey’s cheek, “Ye’d be Brendan’s grandson, an’ Brian’s son, no?”

  “I would be both of those things,” Casey replied with unaccustomed gentleness taking Peg’s hand within his own and kissing the back of it.

  “I’m sorry,” Peg said “that yer grandfather died before ye could know him, he was a fine man. I cried fer three weeks when he died, didn’t even cry that long for Arthur, who was me own husband and father to my son. It’s a rare man to deserve that many of a woman’s tears.”

  “May I be deservin’ of half as many when my own end comes,” Casey replied, as Pamela stifled a groan.

  “May ye not follow in the footsteps of yer Daddy an’ his and she will have no need of tears,” Peg said with a nod toward Pamela.

  “I intend only to make her smile.”

  “Mmph,” was Peg’s only reply, as if she doubted the ability of any man to make a woman smile for too long.

  “Well then I suppose that’s all then, we’re ready for tomorrow.” Father Terry said obviously intent on stopping Peg before she said anything more. “ Mrs. MacBride will I be givin’ ye a lift home?”

  Peg gave the priest an odd look and said, “Just what in the hell is this Mrs. MacBride stuff, call me Peg as ye always have, or inny of the other dozen or so indecent things ye used to call me when we were younger than these two children here, but fer the love of Old Scratch don’t be after callin’ me Mrs. MacBride, Terence Donovan McGinty!” With that she began her regal procession out, cane tapping its slow dance. She reached the doorway before she turned and said, “I’ll be takin’ the girl home with me, she can’t be spendin’ the last night before her weddin’ with the groom, ‘tisn’t fittin’.” She swept down the steps then, stopping in the yard where she waited for Pamela to follow and had herself, from the looks of things, a most rousing conversation with the rhododendrons.

  Pamela hastily gathered the things she would need for the morning and giving Casey a brief kiss, whispered, “I love you.”

  Casey nodded and brushed her forehead with his lips. “Until tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow,” she agreed meeting his look with one of her own that answered the soft heat in his eyes.

  “Well ladies, if ye’ll just step into the Lady Beatrice there,” Father Terry said, indicating his wee rust heap of a car, “then we’ll be off.”

  “No Terry, I believe we’ll be walkin’, it’s a fine evening and we’ve a bit of talkin’ to do, things that are none of the business of ye men, so p’raps ye’d do better to stay and keep the lad company, a man should never have too much time to think before he marries.”

  “Terry could be talkin’ shoe leather to death,” she added in a none too quiet aside to Pamela, “yer fiancé there’ll be asleep before he knows what hit him.” She tucked her free arm neatly into the curve of Pamela’s right elbow and said loudly, “We’re off then gentlemen. Casey don’t be letting Father Terry get into that whiskey ye’ve hidden under your coat, he’s a scrinty mean drunk.” She laughed, a lovely silvery sound that floated on the cool spring evening, a sound that seemed an omen of good things to come.

  She tugged Pamela’s arm, “Let’s be off darlin’ ye’ve a dress to try on and a good sleep to put in as I doubt ye’ll be gettin’ much rest tomorrow night. Which brings me to my bit of marital advice, havin’ seen your
man, I remember what it was.”

  “Yes,” Pamela said biting her lip in an effort not to laugh.

  “Keep that one happy in the bedroom an’ the rest will hardly matter to him. Holds true for most men, ye know.” She waved back over her shoulder to Father Terry and Casey who still stood in the doorway, Casey laughing and Father Terry shaking his head in exasperation, as if even after all these years he could still not believe the outrageousness of Mrs. Margaret MacBride.

  “A dangerous woman that one,” Father Terry said as the two women disappeared down the heavy leafed lane.

  “Dangerous?” Casey asked, “Honest certainly, but dangerous?”

  “Ah lad, ye’ll be too young to know this but a woman who doesn’t know how to lie is a dangerous woman indeed. Now then,” he smiled, “about that bottle of whiskey ye have in yer coat, shall we be toastin’ the bride?”

  By the time they reached Peg’s little green cottage tucked back in its bower of rose cane and honeysuckle vine, Pamela felt as if she’d known Peg forever.

  “I know the paint’s in great need of a face-lift,” Peg said, indicating the faded green and peeling white, “but it suits me so. And would ye believe I’m such a sentimental auld sot that I keep it so ‘cause Arthur painted it an’ somehow I just never wanted to cover over the last thing his hands did.”

  Inside it was just as enchanted as it had appeared from the road, half caught, it seemed, in a Victorian time warp. Like light trapped inside an empty perfume bottle, it held the charm and fragrance of times long past.

  “Put yer things in the lavender bedroom, I don’t stand on ceremony here, so just flop yerself down where ye please an’ I’ll fix us a wee bite an’ I’m thinkin’ a nice hot drink of tea wouldna’ be amiss.” So saying, Peg abandoned her scarlet coat to the embrace of a deep rose velvet armchair only to reveal a bright yellow blouse that contrasted even more brutally with the virulent green of her skirt.

  Pamela did as she’d been instructed and put her things away in the lavender bedroom, which was not at all lavender, but considering what she thus far knew of Peg this did not surprise her.

  The parlor, located at the front of the house, was a miniature symphony in color and comfort. Victorian in its romance, without the stuffiness or grandiose darkness of the era. Here each element graced and made way for the next. The rag rose rug with spiraling velvet blossoms spilling out from its center, traveling from the great bursting notes of crimson down to the soft windblown of pale pink. The opposing echoes found in the striped emerald and ivory silk of the sofa, the faded and crushed blooms of an ancient and well-loved wing chair, the purple pansies of the ottoman, the slivered white surface of a sideboard reflecting the delicate blushes of myriad wafer-thin tea cups.

  Three walls were lilac-hued, glimpses of them afforded between a vast array of cloudy, pewter-framed photographs. Different faces peered out from sepia-toned paper in groups and singly but amongst almost all was a slight girl with pale skin and big, laughing eyes. An astonishingly beautiful girl who seemed not at all in keeping with the poker-faced men and women that invariably surrounded her.

  The fourth wall was papered in William Morris’ fantastical and unlikely birds. On this wall was a painting alone. A girl, caught on the cusp of running, her eyes half-curious, half shy, the luminous eyes of a gazelle, trembling at the brink of womanhood. Flame-haired, orchid skinned, veiled in the filmy sort of fabric the Pre-Rapaelites had once painted to such perfection. She was, just there, as delicate and perfect as an apricot before the bruising.

  “Told you I was a grand beauty in me day,” said Peg’s amused voice behind her “an’ don’t think I didn’t know it, I was fool enough to think ‘twas all that mattered, me shiny red hair an’ me blue eyes, an’ Lord I had ankles that’d make men weep for the fineness of them. Silly, little fool I was,” Peg said fondly and picked up a picture of her hanging on the arm of a big, fair-haired man with a rather stern look on his face. “Sure an’ it didn’t bring me much but heartache in the end. Didn’t give me any talents, just made me a flighty thing that thought if she fluttered her lashes enough men would forgive her regardless of her sins.”

  Pamela thought she saw a tear sparkle briefly in Peg’s eye but then quick as a wink she smiled, “Well then we’d best get you into this dress, come have a look an’ pray the moths havena eaten the thing.”

  She bid Pamela to follow her into the back bedroom, a lush little gem of a room, striped and flowered, chintzed and satined, powder-puffed and befrilled. It ought to have been obscene with all the color and pattern but somehow it wasn’t. It was like a cozy harem, if such a thing was feasible, thought Pamela.

  Peg dragged out a three-legged stool and said “If ye wouldn’t mind, I’m not so handy as I used to be at hoisting meself up on things. It’s in that big purple box, an’ while yer in there best grab the green one too.”

  Pamela fetched them down and handed them to Peg who laid them on the bed with reverence.

  Peg opened the purple box and gently pushing aside the yellowed tissue, carefully pulled the dress out. Pamela had hardly known what to expect having only a limited view of what Peg might consider tasteful, but this, this bit of perfection, of stardust and wild, white flowers, this dress that would surely make even the plainest of women look like a resplendent rose, had not figured in any of her imaginings.

  Peg held it up against Pamela and sighed with satisfaction, “Sure an’ it looks as if it were made for ye, much as I hate to admit it, it suits ye even better than it did me. Ye’ll have his head dinnilin’ fer weeks after he sees ye in this. Perhaps it was fate, me takin’ it into me windy auld head to come an’ see the wee bride tonight, what with ye marryin’ a Riordan an all.”

  Pamela slipped into the dress and felt the worn velvet and French lace fall into place on her as if indeed she’d been meant to wear it.

  “Come an’ have a look in the mirror, darlin’,” Peg said and Pamela walked to the full-length mirror that sat amidst artfully hung paisley silks. “Ah, would ye look at ye child, the skin on ye like roses wid the dew still clingin’ on ‘em, an then me like an old raisin in the sun too long, age is some bitch, is she not?” Peg asked in a voice that held no question.

  “We’ll do your hair up wid the flowers from Terry’s hothouse, white on that black hair of yers, I’m thinkin’,” Peg said taking a handful of Pamela’s dark curls and furrowing her brow at them.

  “How did you know Casey’s grandfather?” Pamela asked softly as Peg artfully twisted her hair this way and that, mumbling inaudibly to herself.

  “Well now that’s a long story an’ best told on a full stomach, come and have a bite an’ then if the mood strikes me I may tell ye of me own Riordan.”

  Peg had made a simple dinner of sandwiches, watercress and smoked salmon.

  “Don’t mind me high falutin’ san’wiches here, I niver did be gettin’ the hang of good, plain cookin’. Arthur spoiled me too much, I suppose, only knew how to make wee, feckless meals like me ownself. I can still see him standin’ next to the stove in his business suit an’ a frilly white apron some fool’d given me when we married, peeling taties and fryin’ eggs while I sat keepin’ me little hands soft and unsullied by the likes of dirty potatoes. ‘Course then I’ve an Irishwoman’s natural aversion to potatoes an’ Arthur bein’ English did not.” She drifted again, giving one of her splendid sighs and then turned, a strange half-wild look in her heretofore merry blue eyes. “If yer bent on marryin’ a Riordan, child, there do be a few things ye ought to know. Come take yer tea an’ let’s retire to the parlor.”

  It was some moments before Peg began her story. Instead she gazed into the bowl of an antique lamp. How many worlds and bygones existed in that glass bowl for Peg, Pamela could only guess and so she waited quietly, comfily ensconced in the rump-sprung, fern-patterned armchair.

  “I was born lovin’ Brendan Riordan,” Peg began in a voice tha
t was low but fierce with a memory that time had apparently done nothing to dim. “Or at least it seemed that way, though to be certain he was a grand lad of ten when I came screeling me way into this world. The Riordans ye mind, were Connemara men, farmers to begin wid, wid heads as hard as the rocks in their fields. Brendan’s sons were the only boys not born to the land. Though each fool man in the family had his own personal purgatory, Brendan found his in Derry. He was only nineteen when he went there an’ found himself a whole group of fools to play the pied piper to. It’s a talent the Riordans have girl, convincin’ themselves and everyone else that anything is possible. Here,” she leaned forward and pulled open a drawer on the sideboard. She withdrew a picture, one worn from many handlings, one gazed upon with regret and other emotions, Pamela suspected, that only Peg would ever know.

  “Yer Casey has the look of his grandfather about him, same bold eyes, same silver tongue, divils to the man are the Riordans, an’ sure there’s nothin’ more irresistible to a woman.”

  Pamela took the picture carefully and was shocked to see Casey’s face with a few minor alterations looking back at her. He obviously took far more after his grandfather, while Pat was leaner and quieter looking like their own father.

  “He’s near the spit of him, isn’t he?” Peg asked and Pamela nodded though she knew no answer was needed.

  “I was damn determined to be his wife though for many years he saw me only as a child, a wee brat he’d dandled on his knee and amused with bits of string an’ paper. I was only nine when he left for Derry an’ when he came back the man had replaced the boy. He was a full-fledged member of the Brotherhood by then and it had taken things from him that no woman could give back, particularly a very silly sixteen-year old. It took me three more years after that to convince him that I was no longer a child, though I think he never did rightly believe we’d make a go of it, I just sort of wore him down. No small feat with a Riordan, but then it’s likely ye’ll be having had a taste of that yerself.” Peg took the picture back and gazed at it for some moments, the soft light filtering through her hair and erasing the lines of her skin. She stroked the picture softly as if she could still feel the heat of the man captured there in his image. “Ah ye were a fine one Brendan an’ ye broke me heart fer life, did ye know that man?” Pamela knew that she did not imagine the tears that glinted in Peg’s eyes this time.