“And in this corner, we have Aileen Flanagan, the local favorite, defending her title,” Richie said as if he were announcing the contenders in a boxing match. “How many years in a row has it been? I’ve lost track.”
Aileen laughed. “So have I, or I’m trying to!” She could be charming when she wanted to be.
Kate headed for the bar. Her legs shook. Nerves. Sullivan Deane caught her by the elbow and helped her up. He gave her a smile of encouragement before joining the band once again. “Good luck.”
Kate had a feeling she’d need it.
Aileen gave Kate a superior smile, as if she knew what it took to win—and she’d no doubt stood on that very spot many times before. She unleashed a flurry of steps right away, hardly waiting for the starting bell. Kate stood there, frozen, until Bernie called her name, and the spell—it had only been a matter of seconds, but felt longer—was broken and her legs released from momentary paralysis, her mind from the fear of taking the first step.
“Your feet know the way,” her mother had said when she’d nearly panicked before a feis years before. “Let them guide you.”
Kate matched Aileen step for step in two-four time, dancing the “Downfall of Paris,” one of the old jigs she probably thought Kate wouldn’t know, but Kate’s teacher had been from Ireland. She knew them all.
“Draw!” Richie called.
They danced again. And again. And again. “The Planxy Drury,” “The Blackthorn Stick” in six-eight time, “Yougal Harbour” in four-four. Kate couldn’t feel her legs anymore. They moved with a will of their own, like those of the girl in The Red Shoes.
Neither woman would stop dancing, constantly challenging the other with flourishes. No one could say exactly how long the duel lasted. What a spectacle it was: their legs flashing, heels stomping. The bar would bear the marks of that night for years to come. The cheering rose and fell in waves.
Kate remembered her mother applauding at the first feis she won, how she put the trophy on the mantel where everyone could see. The cup shone there on the day of her mother’s going-away party. Lu had worn wings, like an angel, white and feathered. She wouldn’t want to miss a party in her honor. “I want to celebrate with you while I’m alive, not after I’m dead,” she said. And they’d danced long into the night—everyone from the theater, the college, the co-op, her book group—dancing her to heaven. Lu was too weak to join in, but she sat in the red velvet chair by the fire, clapping her hands, flames in her eyes.
Kate found the cup, later, still shining—her mother must have polished it before she went into the hospital for the last time. It almost felt as if Lu were with her, in that lone Irish village, cheering with the crowd, willing her to win, holding that gleaming cup aloft, a reminder of what she could achieve.
Aileen felt victory slipping away. She’d thought about scratching. Despite her bravado, her hips weren’t what they used to be. Nothing was what it used to be. And yet when she saw that the girl planned to take the stage, she knew she couldn’t back down. The prize had always gone to a Gaelic speaker. To her several years running. It would again.
“That’s a girl!” Richie cheered. She’d dated him in school before the business with Rourke—who wasn’t there that night, because he had to work. He worked hard, did his duty, supporting the family, supporting her. Richie never married. He still had his freedom. He asked her to meet him once, not directly but in a roundabout way, or at least that was what she thought, and she’d almost gone to him, last year, but she’d sat in the chair by the fire and watched the minutes tick by, the opportunity slipping away. They’d never talked about it. They’d let it go. And it was all right, because she’d made her life with Rourke, loved Rourke, yes, though it frightened her, the thought of the children going and the two of them alone together for the first time in years, ever, really, because the first baby had come so soon, as they often did.
She had a stitch in her side. Her knee ached. She’d never experienced such pain, thought her leg might give out entirely, but her determination had always seen her through. It would again. She heard her gran’s voice in her head, counting the steps. Hours and hours she’d practiced to be the best. And she was. For years. No one could touch her. She felt the music in her bones. The cheering, the stamping, the clapping. Oh, the energy of that room. It filled her, as it always had.
And then it stopped. Just like that. Her ankle collapsed. She tumbled into the crowd, and as she fell, it seemed as if she were watching someone else. That couldn’t be her.
But it was.
She cried out, more from the pain of losing—of losing to her—than the twist itself. The villagers passed her to the corner by the door as if she were a sack of flour, their eyes on Kate, hailing her triumph. You would have thought the girl had won the World Cup, for all the commotion. Bernie, her best friend, part of it too. She barely stopped to ask Aileen if she were all right before pressing forward with the throng. Aileen plugged her ears. They were ringing, the decibel level deafening. Brilliant. She’d suffer hearing loss along with everything else. Her knee and ankle throbbed, her body felt bruised. Her joints couldn’t take it anymore. Youth was defeating her at every turn, first Rosheen, now this.
Where was Rosheen, anyway? She’d attended the craic every year before. Had even danced herself. She was talented. She could have beaten the girl if she’d been there. If she’d—
But things had changed, hadn’t they?
Still, Aileen had hoped that her daughter would walk through that door, take the first step toward reconciliation. Aileen was there alone, no family to support her. She hadn’t asked them to. She didn’t let them know how important it was to her. She hadn’t realized it was, until then.
“Let’s see the ankle.” Bernie had procured a bucket of ice from the bar.
Aileen stuck her leg up on a chair. “It hurts.”
“Doesn’t look too bad. You’ll live to dance another day.”
“Not if she has anything to do with it. She did that on purpose. A dirty move, it was.” She shot a poisonous glance in Kate’s direction, but Kate was surrounded by admirers and wasn’t paying attention.
“What are you talking about?”
“That flip kick. It knocked me off balance.”
“Ailey, she wasn’t anywhere near you. You lost your balance because you turned to look. You never turn to look, remember? You concentrate on your own dance. That’s one of the first things we learned in class. Why do you keep comparing yourself to Kate?”
“It was a competition, wasn’t it? A competition I’ve won every year up to now,” she said. “And there you were, suggesting she put her name on the list when you knew how important it was to me.”
“I wanted her to feel like part of the community,” Bernie said. “She’s a lost soul. Can’t you see that? She doesn’t have anyone but us.”
“Looks like she’s got plenty now, including my prize and my friends.” Aileen gestured toward the bar.
“You’re not being a very good sport.”
“Why should I be? Do you know what I’ve been through lately? Oh, wait. Maybe you don’t, since you haven’t paid any attention to what I’ve been saying over the past few days. If you had, you’d have realized that this was the last thing I needed,” she said. “The very last thing.”
Bernie paused for a moment. “If it makes any difference, I didn’t realize what a talented dancer she is.”
“You don’t realize a lot of things.”
“That’s enough, Ailey,” she warned. “Your temper’s getting the best of you.”
“You’ve been taking her side ever since she got here. You’re my oldest friend, and you don’t give a damn about me anymore.”
“Yes, you’re my oldest friend, Ailey, and you always will be, but you’re forgetting that there’s plenty of room in our lives for other people. Just because I’ve welcomed Kate into my life doesn’t mean I’m shutting you out.”
Aileen stared at the wall. She couldn’t look at Bernie. If sh
e did, she was afraid she’d cry. She heard Bernie sigh and join the others. Aileen could have followed. She could have walked on the ankle. It was no more than a bruise, really. It would heal. What kept her from the rest of them was another kind of hurt. She watched as they placed the crown—gold paper, easily torn, but still—on the girl’s head.
This was her village, her dance. Why had Kate taken everything away so easily? It wasn’t fair.
What does fairness have to do with anything? Her mother’s voice. Words from her youth, when she came to understand, quite literally, the black places in which a woman could find herself.
When the commotion died down, Sullivan Deane escorted Kate to her seat—or rather the seat next to him. Bernie grinned from across the room, as if that was what she had in mind all along. The other musicians went to the front of the bar to play a ballad. Sullivan stayed with Kate, his fiddle resting on the table, two strings sprung.
Kate’s face felt flushed from dancing, and the victory too. She’d gotten the best of Aileen, if only for the moment. “You play hard,” she said to Sullivan.
“I do.”
“Player means something different in the States,” she told him with a knowing smile.
“Does it?”
“It means someone who strings along several women.”
“And which meaning do you ascribe to me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Maybe in time, I’ll help you reach a favorable conclusion,” he said, adding, “I didn’t know you could dance like that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She smelled the wool of his sweater, the sea in his hair.
“Ah, she has an air of mystery this evening.”
“The same could be said for you.” She tapped her foot beneath the table, adrenaline still flowing—or maybe it was the nearness of him—wondering if they’d leave together again that night. No, not wondering, knowing. Knowing what she wanted.
“Could it?” He looked away, lifting his hand to greet a friend across the room as if to cover his sudden unease, but she noticed it just the same, touched his arm. He met her gaze then, his eyes the same warm brown as ever, making her wonder if she’d imagined it. “Is that why you’re studying me so carefully?” he asked.
“Just looking,” she teased. The banter flowed easily between them again, without a second thought.
“There’s too much going on in that head of yours to ever just look.”
“I’m really not that interesting,” she said, enjoying playing the coquette for once.
“I think you’re very interesting indeed.” He wound a strand of her hair around his finger.
“It’s the dancing.”
“Yes, the dancing.” There was that endearing dimple near his mouth again. “You know, you’re technically supposed to wear something shorter.”
“Why, so you could see my legs?”
“Or up your skirt.”
She nudged him with her elbow, though she wasn’t in the least offended.
“Not that I haven’t before.” He pulled her chair closer. Their legs touched, hip to knee. “Perhaps I should speak to the barman about having you disqualified.”
“So you’d take my paper crown?” she protested. “The one I worked so hard for?”
“Maybe you’d have to dance again.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Or you could wear the crown later.”
“Later?” she asked, but it wasn’t a question as much as an agreement. Everything aligned, their words, their movements, as can happen early on, when nothing is at stake. They hadn’t gotten to know each other well enough for matters to get complicated. For now, they were just two people in a bar, two people who liked what they saw, and when the band struck up another tune, he joined them, and it seemed as if he sang only to her.
Chapter 17
Singing to the Sea
Colleen supposed she should have grown accustomed to the waiting. She’d done enough of it during the years of their marriage, but by six o’clock, she couldn’t stand being at home any longer: the tick of the clock reminding her of how late Finn was; the drip of the faucet hinting at leaks, in plumbing, in boats that could sink; the wind rising, a gust blowing over a chair he’d leaned against the railing before he left, stronger at sea, where the waves were tall, engulfing.
She’d argued with Finn before he departed, telling him not to go, that the boat was barely seaworthy. In the early days, its brass had gleamed, its wood too, the grain so complex it flowed through the timbers like elegant script. She’d helped him refinish the vessel. The state of her hands was terrible from the solvents afterward, even though she’d worn gloves, but it was worth it in the end, yet another thing they’d accomplished together. The boat was pure magic then. He’d named it for her, both of them his loves. The Fair Colleen.
They didn’t fight often, but when they did it was fierce—the raised voices, flashing eyes. They became strangers to each other, transformed by the fury. He’d turned his back on her, slammed the door. She didn’t go after him. She banged pots, called him names. She didn’t mean any of it. It was the anger talking, spending itself.
Maybe she should have opened the door, called to him, and yet it would have been too soon. He would have been too angry to listen. Only now could she think of what she should have said: that she was sorry for calling him crazy, the boat a piece of shite.
She didn’t want to be right. Not this time.
She bustled around the kitchen, baked a rhubarb pie, his favorite. Cleaned the house, top to bottom, even hoovering the curtains with the attachment, for something to do. The place hadn’t been so neat in weeks. Every time she turned off the machine, waiting for the motor to go quiet, she hoped to hear the sound of his step on the porch, his laugh, feel his arms around her again.
But he wasn’t there.
The hands on the clock moved to the hour, the half hour, the chime making its report. She had to get out of there. She walked down to the bay, past the budding hedges of eglantine, the wild, apple-scented roses he’d picked for her when they’d first gone walking in the lanes, so in love, so young, together every moment that summer, before the fall fishing season, their first, learning to be without each other for days at a time.
She’d never gotten used to the separations, to standing on the docks, as she was now, looking for signs of him, the horizon empty but for roiling clouds, darkness falling. She listened to the ping of lines on masts, the groan of wood, the bones of everything bleached, exposed. The lanes and marina were deserted at that hour. Everyone celebrating at the craic or at home, eating dinner, watching the telly, arguing, making love, whatever they did to pass the evening. Everyone except her.
Where are you?
He said she was his figurehead, that he could always see her when he rounded the bend and entered the bay. No different from that first day long ago, her brown hair gleaming in the sun, gone silver now. Her face lined, but as beautiful to him as ever. His constant, she was.
Is.
Nothing was past tense, not yet. She wouldn’t allow herself to entertain the possibility.
She wore a knit hat, gloves, a wool coat, a cardi underneath, jeans, boots for warmth. She was out in the elements. The only person as the light bled from the sky and night came on. And she wore the lace her friends had made for her, lace the colors of the ocean, with sea fans and mermaids—if he could only see it—lace that made her feel she could dive into the sea and swim to him, bring him home.
Where are you?
He was due hours ago, hours and hours. Another boat had gone out to search for him, no word yet. They didn’t know where he’d gone. He never filed a plan, said he’d go where the fish took him, changing the route every time, sailing by instinct. She wished they’d send a helicopter, but it was too soon, and besides, the machine in the nearest village was grounded. Too much wind. No one could raise him on the radio. No surprise. He’d been having trouble with the instrum
ents lately, insisted on fixing the problem himself, didn’t listen when she told him to take it to the repair shop in Kinnabegs, stubborn as always.
She stared at the sea. There was a time when she sang to the waves, and they to her. Her grandmother said the women on her father’s side of the family had seawater in their veins, thanks to a selkie who’d come ashore and married her great-great-grandfather, before returning to the depths. Colleen had felt the connection when she was young. As a girl, she could swim mile after mile in any season.
“You’ll catch the hypothermia,” the old women said. They didn’t know what she was capable of.
She hadn’t tried in years, but she must now. For him.
She sang to the wind, the waves, like a madwoman, not caring who heard, convinced the land, the sea, could be made to understand the yearnings of the human soul.
She closed her eyes, not daring to open them, to see the emptiness. Time bent. She was in a place without watches, without clocks, without measured chronology.
She hadn’t sung to the sea since she was a girl. She’d done it often then, felt the pull, as if she were one with the tides, the power and strangeness of it, telling no one, lest they think her mad. No one taught her. She discovered the gift on her own. Had lost it somewhere along the way.
She had to believe again.
Was it too late?
What if the sea wouldn’t listen?
Her heart, her blood, pulsed with the beat of the waves on the shore, her breath with the sigh of the wind. She threw her arms wide, sailing over the water, toward his boat.
Follow me home. Follow me.
Finn.
The feeling left her as quickly as it had come.
No.
The sea spat and rumbled; it wasn’t in the habit of granting wishes. The doubt was rising again, her mother’s voice after her father drowned one crisp October day, no clouds, no wind, the sea hungry all the same; it would take people on fair days as well as foul: You can’t bargain with the sea. It always exacts a price. He’s gone, child. He’s gone.
The Lace Makers of Glenmara Page 14