The Lace Makers of Glenmara

by Heather Barbieri

  “Someplace dry,” she replied with a half smile, dipping her chin slightly.

  “You won’t find it standing there—though those leaves are rather becoming on you.”

  She fingered a length of honeysuckle vine. “The arboreal look is very in this season.” She felt her cheeks begin to color.

  “Is it now? You’re giving the wearing of the green a whole new meaning.” He tipped the rain from the brim of his hat. “Would you like a lift?”

  She brushed the lichen from her jacket, hesitating. Instinct told her to trust him. Besides, she had to consider her options, her present situation. There was nothing but the road and the sheep and the drip-drip-drip of rain. And then there was him, offering her what could be a pleasant alternative. Perhaps it was time to take a chance. He looked harmless enough.

  “Can’t stay out in this weather, that’s for certain,” he continued. “You’ll catch your death.”

  She imagined herself expiring in a field like a tragic heroine in a Victorian novel. “Or drown.” She held out her hand, palm up, catching raindrops, letting them fall.

  “Come on then.” He patted the seat beside him. “Hop up. I could use the company.”

  Chapter 2

  William the Traveler

  In all his days of wandering, William the Traveler had never seen a face so wistful, hope and sadness intermingling. Her skin had the delicacy of fine porcelain, her eyes luminous too, the sort of eyes that revealed every emotion, by turns pensive and filled with mirth. Her hair had a bit of chestnut in it, a wave too, teased by the mist. She’d pulled her hood forward as if to keep the elements and the rest of the world at bay, but a few tendrils crept out, tentative curls clinging to her cheeks, reaching for the light. She hadn’t been eating much, he guessed. Her bones were already too close to the surface, angles pressing against pale skin, which only added to her aura of fragility. And yet she had strength too, apparent in the intensity of her gaze. Nor had she lost her sense of humor, bantering with him there by the road. He spread a plaid blanket across her legs, draped another over her shoulders to ward off the chill. (He was glad he’d cleaned them that week, so they didn’t smell of travel and horses.) It would take a while for her to warm up. Her teeth were still chattering. He wondered how long she’d been out in the weather, if she knew where she was going. From the bewildered look in her eyes, he doubted it. She put on a show of being sure of herself, but the shaking of her hands (he was sure it wasn’t just because of the cold) gave her away. He offered her a sweet damson. They weren’t local, too early in the season for that. He’d bought them in Galway as he was passing through, unable to resist. He liked a good plum.

  She thanked him and took a bite, juice dribbling down her chin. She swiped it away with the back of her hand. No ring, though there had been once, a faint tan line all that remained of the promise.

  She traveled light, with only a small backpack and sleeping bag. Judging by her expression, there were other things that weighed her down, not that she let them, not completely. There was fight in her yet. He saw that in the sense of wonder with which she took in her surroundings, in the way she looked at him with those sparkling green eyes.

  “Where are you from?” the traveler asked.

  Kate told him.

  “My nephew went to Seattle once. He was mad for the music scene. Can’t stand the new stuff myself, though I don’t mind a good craic.” The man paused. “Pipes and the fiddles are more my speed. You been to one?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not much for crowds, eh? Don’t like them myself either,” he agreed. “But craics are different. The music brings everyone together, so no one is a stranger.”

  “Yes, the music.” The Irish tunes called up something in her. She felt them in her veins, a deep place that moved her to tears. It wasn’t sadness, not entirely. It was everything at once—joy, pain, hope.

  “I see you know what I mean,” he said as she blinked back tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. It was the tiredness, that was all, lowering her defenses.

  “No need to apologize. It’s a gift to feel things keenly.”

  “There’s something about being here, about the songs…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to explain.

  “How long have you been in the country?” he asked.

  “Three weeks or so. I don’t even know what day it is anymore. I’ve lost track of time.”

  “That can be a good thing,” he replied, adding, “but it’s the first of May, in case you’re wondering.”

  “Already?” She pushed her bag under the seat with her foot. She hadn’t brought much: a pack stuffed with clothes and toiletries, a sketchpad and pencils; a digital camera, the memory card filled with timed self-portraits taken next to various tourist attractions. Frame after frame showed her smiling determinedly in front of the entrance to Newgrange, the Blarney Stone (she couldn’t bring herself to kiss it, and a gang of boys cheered her escape, shouting that one of their da’s had wee-ed on it after drinking with his pals). A day here, a day there, taking in the major sights of central and southeast Ireland, traveling by bus and on foot, each morning promising a new adventure.

  But her most prized possession was the golden thimble that had once belonged to her mother, Tallulah. Her mother had asked a jeweler to solder a loop to the top, so that it could hang from a slender ribbon, like a charm, attached to the top of Kate’s bassinet when she was a baby—and now to a chain around her neck.

  “People spend too much time chained to the clock anyway. On holiday, are you?” the traveler asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “and looking for inspiration.”

  “I thought you might be an artist.”

  “What gave me away?”

  “I can see it in your hands.”

  She glanced at her fingers before tucking them in her pockets. “I wouldn’t make much of a hand model, would I?” she said.

  “No need to be. They’re lovely hands, small, but capable. A callus here and there to let people know you mean business.”

  “I used to.” She wasn’t so sure anymore, though she kept telling herself things would get better. “Tomorrow is another day,” her mother used to say, right up to the end.

  The traveler handed her a handkerchief. “Thought you might want to dry your face a little, not that there’s much point until the weather stops carrying on like this.” He paused a moment, seeming to sense she was holding back. “You’re too young to give in to disappointment. The joy will come again, and when it does it will be all the better because of what you’ve suffered. Love is life, you know.”

  Ethan had read that line to her, when they were studying for a test in their second English class. “Tolstoy,” she said faintly.

  “The very one.” The traveler kept his eyes on the road while he talked, but it felt as if he were looking right through her.

  “So you’re a reader of books—and people?” she asked.

  “I like a good story.”

  “It looks like you could run a mobile library with the collection you have back there.” She gestured to the stacks of books underneath the canvas cover, hardcover and paperback, well thumbed, by the look of them: Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, John Banville, James Joyce, Roddy Doyle, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Pynchon, among others.

  “I have time for extensive reading. It improves the mind.”

  “I love Edna O’Brien’s work, The Country Girls Trilogy in particular.”

  “Of course you do. And Joyce?”

  “Yes, though my mother was his biggest fan.”

  “She must be a fine woman, your mother. Few are up to the challenge of taking him on.”

  “Yes.” She gazed at the surrounding country, as if to see it with her mother’s eyes, the colors saturated as an oil painting, the sky dusky pearl over fields of foxglove and lupine and wild narcissus, the textured brushstrokes of velvet mosses and tussocks of shaggy green and gold, brilliant in the sun. And
then the rain started again, extinguishing the light, the chill settling over her once more.

  They sat in silence for a while. Kate listened to the tap of the rain on the canvas, on her hood, the traveler’s hat; the beat of the horse’s hooves, the jangle of the reins and bridle, the creak of the wheels, the wind in the grass. “I feel as if I’ve gone back in time,” she said.

  “There’s a magic here, it’s true. That’s why I can’t leave this place. Not for long.”

  “How do you make a living?” she asked.

  “Other than as an amateur philosopher? No pay in that, that’s for certain.” He laughed. “I get by fixing things. There’s always something broken that needs to be fixed.”

  They journeyed for hours, swaying to the rhythm of the wagon, tracing one of the minor routes taken by farmers and soldiers and pilgrims and seekers and famine survivors over the centuries. Kate dozed, dreaming of Ethan again. This time, he was hand in hand with someone new. She tried to call after him, not caring how she humiliated herself, but the sound wouldn’t come. As she struggled to speak, her body turned inside out, nothing left of her but a scrap of cloth, which a homeless woman picked up from the littered sidewalk and used to patch a hole in her jeans, a large needle in her roughened hands.

  Get out of my subconscious! she wanted to shout. Instead, she woke, mouthing air like a beached fish, cheek pressed against a sack of grain.

  “Bad dream?” the man asked.

  She rubbed her eyes and sat up. “But only a dream.” She would not let it get the best of her. She shook off the dust of sleep and took in the scene at hand. The sky had cleared again, a gilded blue now, terns circling overhead. “It looks like heaven,” she said.

  “Sometimes. Others hell, all gray and miserable. Never can tell what the next day will bring. At least it keeps things interesting.”

  “Do you ever get tired of traveling?”

  “Me? No. I was born to it. It’s not for everyone, though. Most people need to settle.”

  She heard cheers coming from over a rise to the west, rising and falling in waves. “What’s going on?”

  “The Saint Brendan’s Festival,” he said. “They’ve got activities planned for two weeks, I hear. The feast day is coming up later in the month.”

  “Saint Brendan. Which was he? Not one of those who met a horrible death?” Her mother had an encyclopedic knowledge of the saints, her parents Irish, education parochial, a book of saints among her belongings, handed down through the generations, the stories of martyrdom scandalous and lurid enough to make the modern tabloids.

  “No, he had it good, compared to some. Brendan the Navigator,” the traveler said. “Set off to discover the world with a band of monks in a coracle. Patron of boatmen and travelers.”

  “A coracle. Aren’t those small boats for traveling by sea?”

  “Yes, with ox hides stretched over a wooden frame.”

  “Doesn’t sound sturdy enough for the ocean,” Kate said. “Did Brendan and his crew make it?”

  “So they say. Takes someone with a strong stomach and conviction to venture out in a coracle, that’s for sure, but Saint Brendan and the monks had faith and God on their side. The boat had some sort of power in it—drop the c in coracle and you have oracle, as my grandmother always said. That must have been true for him too. I suppose he and his men fared well enough, though they didn’t find the paradise they were looking for, and the sea, no doubt, presented its challenges. It can be wicked, that sea.”

  “I don’t think I could have managed a trip like that—I’d need a bigger boat and a life preserver,” she said.

  He laughed. “A smart girl you are—or at least a careful one—leaving little to chance.”

  The land looked greener there, if that were possible. A green that vibrated in its very intensity. A green of dreams. “Where are we?”

  “Near Glenmara. The end of the road. Can’t go more west than this, unless you take wing or boat. I’ll drop you here.” He pulled on the reins. The horse stopped, tossed his head, eager to move on. “You need to get warm. The town’s just over that hill.” He pointed in the direction from which she’d heard the cheering. “Why don’t you stay awhile? See what happens.”

  Kate hopped down from the wagon and stretched, muscles sore from the ride. “Is it so special?”

  “It could be, if you let it.”

  She shouldered her backpack. “Aren’t you coming?”

  He shook his head. “I’d best be getting on.”

  “I could go with you.” Already she missed the rhythm of the wagon, the ease of his presence.

  “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “It’s not as romantic as it seems, this traveling. It’s dirty and hard, but it suits me.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Another camp on a beach somewhere. I like to hear the sound of the sea. I’ll know when I get there. So will you, maybe sooner than you think.” He clicked his tongue and the horse set off, the pace slow, yet steady. She could have caught up with him easily if she tried.

  “Wait,” she called after him, standing at the crossroads beneath the weathered sign with its faded lettering and arrow pointing the way: Glenmara. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “William,” he said over his shoulder, before turning to face the road again. “William the Traveler.”

  Chapter 3

  A Village at the End of the World

  The turnout hadn’t been what Bernie hoped for. She’d done all the right things, advertised in the regional papers, sent press releases to the tourist boards, to no avail. Tour buses bypassed Glenmara in favor of towns with museums, workshops, and more significant histories. Their village, like so many other dying Gaelic hamlets, possessed an obscure narrative, the kind that mattered, if at all, to those who lived there, not that many remained. It was a run-down little place that tried to put a bright face on things—despite there never being enough money or jobs, especially now that the fishing industry, if one could call it that, had collapsed.

  To be sure, the ruined abbey off the coast counted for something—not much left now except the limestone foundations, where the nuns had died of fever, or, more likely, the residents joked, sheer boredom. The town didn’t have a holy shrine, Pictish fort, or standing stones nearby, though someone once floated the idea that a particular boulder in Declan Moore’s field was blessed, which worked for a time, until the priest called them on the lie. Father Dominic Burn-in-Hell Byrne was forever ruining their fun. The seventy-five-year-old priest made note of everything, kept close watch over his flock. He considered Bernie one of the devoted. And she was. Up to a point.

  “Did you notice the chip man is using the newsletter to wrap the kippers again?” asked her friend Aileen.

  “He is not,” she said, aghast. She was the sole editor and writer of the four-page paper, the Gaelic Voice, having taken over the duties from her husband, John, after his death last year. The crime blotter, which she’d added recently at Aileen’s urging, was especially popular:

  Man calls Garda, complaining his neighbor won’t stop playing Frank Sinatra at 2:00 a.m. Garda tells him to be patient. The woman is suffering from a broken heart.

  Woman calls Garda, says there’s a rat sitting on her couch, watching the football match; would he please get rid of it? Garda asks if the rat is a fan of Manchester United.

  “Is,” Aileen said with a pin in her mouth. “What’s the circulation now?”

  “One hundred, including the surrounding villages,” Bernie said. “If I had my way, all the towns up and down the coast would have their own Gaelic papers. A Gaelic newspaper empire.”

  “Careful. You’re starting to sound rather Machiavellian.” Aileen laughed. “You going to have an English edition too?”

  “That’s cheating.”

  “More like subtitles, you know, in films? It’s a known fact the language is dying out. There’s no getting around it, sad though it may be.”

  “I’ve never been much for know
n facts, and it’s my mission to keep the language alive. John would have wanted it that way. I do too.” They could go on like this for hours, debating the merits of the village, the people, themselves.

  But another day was ending, not much different from the last. The vendors were packing up for the day or nodding off in their chairs. The only people wandering the streets at that hour were a group of restless teens and a couple of aging pub regulars—Denny Fitzpatrick, their friend Oona’s da, and Niall Maloney, dressed in trousers, jumpers, and caps. They weren’t the sort who’d be interested in the lace.

  “If we had a beer garden or an espresso stand, people would come,” Aileen said. “My son’s got an espresso bar in Galway. Keeps the bookstore open. He couldn’t run it otherwise. The shoppers go for coffee first, he says, Yeats second.”

  “What’s the world coming to, that Yeats should come second to anything?” Bernie loved poetry. She and her husband had read it to each other every night before bed. She hadn’t imagined she’d forget the sound of his voice; she would have given anything to hear it again. “We can’t sell espresso,” she added. “It would spoil the lace. People are forever spilling things.”

  “I suppose you’re right, though I could use a shot of something right now. I didn’t sleep well last night. The Change, you know.” Aileen had been having hot flashes. She was a striking woman, and if she didn’t keep bringing the matter up, people would have thought she was younger. Not that there was much chance of fooling anyone in Glenmara, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, or thought they did.

  Aileen had never felt comfortable with her looks, not realizing that her flaws—the slightly too large nose, the gap in her teeth, and her whippet-thin figure—were part of what made her interesting. She wouldn’t listen, no matter how many times Bernie reminded her of that. “You’re my friend, Bee, it’s your job to tell me what I want to hear,” Aileen would say.