by Russ Durbin
“I’ve never seen fog this thick. Is it often like this?”
“No, Padraig. I have never seen anything like this fog.”
“Hang onto me; I’ll feel around to find the car.” A few feet from the pub door, the building was no longer visible, as if it had never existed. Eerie. I shivered slightly, then turned in what I thought was the direction where I had parked the car.
“Damn!” I exploded. “Double damn.”
“What, my love?”
“I cracked my shin on something.” Feeling around, I realized that I had found the car. At least, I had contact with the bumper. I put her hands on the car so she could feel her way to the door and I felt my way around to the driver’s side and opened the door. No light inside. I felt for my keys, inserted them and the car came to life. Turning on the lights, I found they barely penetrated the dense fog.
Cautiously, I backed the car away from the rocks that I knew lined the car park and crept from the parking area onto the road. Driving that narrow, crooked road back to Cork in that dense fog was a distinct experience I would happily forego in the future.
As we approached the outskirts of the city, the fog lessened amid the glow of the lights.
As we did the night before, we sat in companionable silence in the car in front of her home.
“Maggie?”
“Yes, Padraig?” Thank goodness the “Yank” was gone.
“What you said back at the pub. Did you mean that?”
“What?”
“You called me ‘my love’.”
“Ah, it was just an expression,” she explained. I nodded, but was somehow disappointed by her answer.
She glanced up at the light in a third-floor window of her house. “My boarders are back, I see. Tomorrow will be a busy day. I do the wash on Mondays. And I must go to the market.”
“May I see you again?”
“Of course,” she answered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Maggie, I have a number of meetings tomorrow and I may have to go to dinner with a consultant from Dublin. May I see you Tuesday evening? We can go out to dinner.”
“I have a better idea,” she said, turning to me. “Why don’t I cook dinner for you?”
Before I could protest, she put her finger to my lips. “Shush, no arguments now. Be here at half seven.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I saluted like a good soldier. She laughed and gave me a quick kiss. As she started to get out of the car, I pulled her back and kissed her hard. Her arms slid up around my neck. As we kissed, I could feel her breath quickening and my passion rising.
“No,” she said, breaking away. “Too much too soon. I’ll see you Tuesday.” Off she flew to the door and was inside without a backward glance. I sighed.
Chapter 8
DINNER AT MAGGIE’S
She had said “half seven” but it was more like a quarter past eight when I pulled up at her door.
“Sorry I’m late.” As a peace offering, I held out a bottle of a good French red.
“Late? You’re right on time, Yank!” Uh oh. Back to being a Yank again. Not a good sign. No kiss, either.
She led the way to the kitchen, source of some tantalizing smells. Um-m-m. Beef, onions, and …uh…mushrooms?
She handed me the bottle opener and gestured to a kitchen chair. I opened the wine and poured two glasses, handing one to her.
“Not bad,” was her assessment, after swirling the wine about in the glass. She turned and planted a brief kiss somewhere in the vicinity of my mouth. “You’re forgiven, Padriag.”
She placed a salad bowl on the table, then carefully divided the contents of the skillet onto our plates. The menu was thinly sliced beef filets sautéed with mushrooms and onions.
“Compliments to the chef,” I murmured, polishing off the last bite. She smiled her crooked smile, refilling our glasses.
“Leave the dishes,” she said as she rose, taking my hand and leading me down the hall to the “sitting room.” It was cold. She closed the shutters across the tall dark windows overlooking Western Road. Kneeling, she began to put bricks of turf into the fireplace on top of wadded up newspapers. Striking a match, she touched it to the paper and a satisfying flame appeared.
She turned the radio on low and, as we listened to old Irish tunes, we sat on the couch with our arms entwined and watched the flames cast shadows on the walls and high ceilings.
“What is your wife like?”
I was startled by the question. Looking at her for a long moment, I asked, “What prompted that question?”
“It’s important to me to know.”
“Well, Kerri is …” I paused, not sure what to say. “I guess I’ve been in love with Kerri ever since I met her. We were twelve. She had just moved to our neighborhood, and I met her at a party to welcome the new girl. I took one look at her sparkling blue eyes and long blond curls and that was it.”
I sat quietly, remembering just how it was. I had my first dance with her; my first kiss, too. We had shared our first informal anatomy lesson. We were inseparable all through high school.
We married right after graduation, and then moved to State College where we lived in the housing for married couples at Penn State. After getting our degrees, hers in marketing and mine in English, we moved to Philadelphia after I was hired as a reporter for The Bulletin. Kerri got a job as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company in the city.
When we discovered we were to be parents, we moved to our first home in the Philadelphia suburbs, and I sought a job in corporate public relations. Kerri stayed home to raise our son, Jonathan Patrick O’Connor. Then Elizabeth Ann came along. She was the image of her mother. When the children were old enough to be in school or day care, Kerri began working from home as a free-lance marketing consultant to her former company.
There were good times and some difficult times. There were tensions and arguments, mostly over money but sometimes over my travel schedule. But thinking back, we had overcome our differences, patched up our lives and had remained strong together. Overall, it had been a good life for both of us.
“Come back, mo chara. Come back to me.” Maggie’s voice broke into my reverie.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about my family.”
“Go on.”
“Well, Kerri is a very neat, organized person. Organization is her strong suit.” I realized how impersonal that sounded. “She is a very good mother to our children. She manages the house while I am gone, and does it efficiently. Overall, we have a good life.”
“And you love her and your children, I can see. Does she love you?”
“Of course! Why do you ask?”
Abruptly, she rose from the couch, pulling my hand. “Come, there’s something I want to show you.” She grabbed her coat from a nearby chair and handed me my anorak.
“Where are we going?
“Hush, you’ll see.”
Into the cold night we went. Spring nights in Ireland can be nippy, I had learned.
Hand-in-hand, we walked down Western Road several blocks, then veered onto a paved path leading to a branch of the Lee River. Ahead was a white arched footbridge over the river. As we stepped onto the wooden planks, we could feel them shake slightly. We stopped at the mid-point and watched as wind traced designs across the surface of the water, black beneath us. As we leaned our arms on the cold metal rail, we could feel the bridge shake and sway slightly as another couple walked onto the bridge from the other side. It was a pleasant sensation high above the gray-black water. The shaking stopped when the other couple stepped onto the path. We were alone.
I shivered slightly as the wind whistled round my ribs.
“Cold?”
“Yes, Maggie.”
“Poor Padraig.”
I smiled at that.
“Cold hands and cold feet?”
“Yes, Maggie.”
“But not your heart?
“No, Maggie, not my heart.”
As my ar
ms circled her, I could feel her warmth and the beating of her heart.
She sighed, “I wanted to share my shaky bridge with you. It is a place where I come when I want to think. I’m all at sixes and sevens.”
I waited for her to explain. “I’m waahed out by the struggle between heart and head. ‘Tis all so wrong and yet so beautiful.”
“What?”
Her voice was low, almost a whisper. “This love I feel for you.”
I was silent. What could I say? I stood there, my arms around her and thought about her declaration.
She turned, looking up into my face. “Oh, my dearest kindred spirit, I never knew. I just never knew how love would be. How beautiful and how painful it would be.” She shook her head. “No, I had never really felt love until you came into my life. And it has all happened so quickly, too. Less than a week we have known each other, and already I feel you are, and forever will be, a part of me.”
I just stood there, tears I couldn’t control trickling down my face. Yet, I could not speak the words I knew she wanted to hear.
How long we stood on the shaky bridge, I will never know. We were both thoroughly chilled when she finally took me by the hand and led me back to her house.
It was a night I’d not soon forget.
Chapter 9
WHAT NEXT?
The rest of the week flew by. My days were spent working as my communications plan began to take shape. By Thursday, I realized that to complete one major part of the plan I would need to spend a day or two in London with another team of consultants and people from our Brussels office.
That meant no Maggie for a few days. My phone call was met with a cool, “As you must. I must go to see about my boarders.”
With an empty feeling, I booked Aer Lingus for a quick hop to London, hoping that fog would not prevent takeoff from the Cork Airport south of the city.
Two busy days of meetings in London hotels and consultants’ offices left me worn out but eager to get back to Cork and Maggie. I phoned after lunch Friday, but got no answer. After dinner, I tried another call. A man answered and informed me Maggie was away at her sister’s. Assuming this was one of her boarders, I asked if he would take a message. I gave the time of arrival of my plane on Saturday morning, and he said he would leave a note by the phone.
My flight on Saturday morning was delayed for two hours because of heavy fog that shut down the airport at Cork. Finally, we took off and arrived at noon. No fog, and all was bright sun, giving the green fields surrounding the airport a postcard-clear vividness.
As I headed toward the car park, a familiar voice hailed me.
‘Halloo, Yank.” Turning, there was Maggie with her friend, Mary Kate.
“You got my message, I see.” I gave her a hug as Mary hung back.
“I did and I have plans for us today,” she grinned. “The day promises to be a glorious one!” She threw her arms in the air and twirled around. Mary Kate looked amused.
“And what does my tour guide have planned?”
“I’m taking you to my special places in and around Kinsale, Padraig.” She looked over her shoulder at me, adding, “Didn’t you say your ancestors were from Kinsale?”
Nodding, I unlocked my rental and stowed my bag in the boot. Mary Kate’s tiny Cooper was parked nearby.
“Thanks for bringing Maggie, Mary Kate. This was a nice surprise.”
“You’re welcome.” Turning to Maggie, she gave her friend a raised eyebrow and said, “Don’t let the Yank talk you into doing anything you’ll regret.” Although said in jest, I had the feeling Mary Kate meant what she said. There was a slight edge to her voice.
I sensed that Maggie’s friend didn’t particularly like me but I wasn’t sure why. I knew that she was highly protective of Maggie. They had been best friends since childhood.
“Mary Kate, why don’t you join us for the day, if Maggie agrees?” I invited. Maggie nodded enthusiastically.
“No-o-o. You two go on. Three is one too many.”
“Nonsense.” Taking her by the arm, I coaxed, “We’d love to have you with us.”
Reluctantly, she gave in at Maggie’s urging.
The day proved to be as spectacular as the weather promised. With Maggie directing, and Mary Kate correcting, the girls guided me on a tour of the countryside that ended at Innishannon Cross. Turning down a winding road above the Bandon River, we stopped briefly to examine the ruins of an old “castle” at Shipool Wood. Mary Kate, something of an amateur historian, explained that this had been not a castle but a watch tower along the river, built to alert the Irish of invaders in the ancient past.
At one high point in a curve in the road, Maggie pointed to a small lay-by. I pulled the car over and we got out. She had brought along a disposable camera and we took pictures, using as a nature-provided backdrop sparkling sun on the winding river and white sheep dotting the green fields.
The wind blowing Maggie’s red-gold hair framed her face as her eyes reflected the joy of the moment. It was a moment forever imprinted in my memory.
Mary Kate hung back as I snapped the picture. Maggie grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her up to stand beside her as they surveyed the valley below. I stepped behind the girls and, without thinking, put my arms protectively around them. I felt Mary Kate grow tense and then slowly relax as we stood there in silence absorbing the scenery and enjoying the richness of the moment.
As we drove into the quaint town of Kinsale, a sailing port on the southern coast of Ireland, I was struck by the bright colors of the houses and buildings, set close together with narrow cobblestone streets that seemed hardly wide enough for a single car.
“What happens,” I wondered aloud, “if another car appears at the other end of the street?”
“You back up or we all die!” Mary Kate declared. So unexpected was her answer that we all burst out laughing.
I eased the Cortina into a narrow parking space near the town center where a small beach curved around the bay. Dozens of fishing and sailing boats lined the marina. In the car, I had switched from my suit coat and tie to a heavy Irish wool sweater (the girls called it a “jumper”). As usual, Maggie wore her green knit hat snugly on her head. Mary Kate wore a blue anorak over her blue jumper that matched the color of her eyes.
It was a lazy, peaceful afternoon spent sightseeing, shopping and just enjoying each other’s company. It seemed as if we had been doing this all our lives. Mary Kate proved to be a clever, witty companion. We had tea at an outdoor table at a local pub and shared funny stories from our respective work experiences.
Mary Kate had a wealth of stories from her years working in women’s clothing. “One rather plump lady insisted on trying on a one-of-a-kind French designer gown we were showing from our haute couture collection,” she recalled. “Well, the woman managed to get into it, but she couldn’t walk in it; it was too tight. She waddled out of the dressing room looking for help, but we couldn’t get her out of it because the zipper was stuck on some of the fabric. I thought our store manager was going to faint when we had to cut open a $1,000 dress to free the woman. As she left, the customer said she really didn’t like the color anyway.”
“Well, my boarders have certainly given me my share of griefs and laughs over the years,” Maggie said. “Oh-o-o, I was so embarrassed one time when I opened the door to the bath in my apartment only to find one of my boarders stepping out of the shower in his altogether. ‘What, may I ask, were you doing in my bathroom?’ I demanded of him. He was so startled, he started stuttering, grabbing a towel to cover himself, and trying to explain all at the same time. ‘ Th-th-the upstairs b-b-bath was oc-oc-occupied, and I th-th-thought you weren’t h-h-home.’ Then he turned and ran. All I saw was his bare bottom disappearing up the stairs!” We sat there laughing as we pictured the scene.
“I’ve committed my share of faux pas in my life working for a major international company,” I shared. “I was at a corporate cocktail party when I asked one man whom I didn’t know w
hat he did for a living. He looked me up and down so he would remember me, and then replied, ‘I am the CEO of this company.’ I was glad he didn’t know my name. Believe me, I made myself scarce after that!”
As the fading sun cast long purple shadows down the narrow cobbled streets, I asked if the girls were hungry.
“Indeed I am,” Maggie declared. “I’ve worked up an appetite with all this walking, talking and shopping, Yank!” I was not offended. The term Yank had a much softer sound than when she first called me that.
“You know the places. What do you suggest?”
“Well-l-l, there’s the Bistro just one block over,” Mary Kate offered.
“Or there is Man Friday up the hill from the town,” Maggie chimed in. “Of course, it may be hard to get in there. It’s very popular.”
“And it’s horribly expensive,” added her friend.
“Man Friday it is!” I declared.
Night was deepening as our car pulled into the airport carpark for Mary to collect her Cooper.
Holding out her hand, Mary Kate said, “Thanks so much, Pat, for including me. It was a lovely day and I truly enjoyed it.”
Ignoring her hand, I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “You’re welcome, Mary Kate. It was fun.”
As our car topped the hill overlooking Cork City, Maggie cried out, “Oh, Padraig, stop the car for a moment.”
Dutifully, I eased the car to the side of the road. Spread out before us were the sparkling lights of the city looking, for all the world, like a fairy tale village.
“I love this view of the city at night,” Maggie breathed.
As she stepped to the edge of the hill, I moved behind her, enveloping her in my arms. In silence we absorbed the sights and sounds before us. We could hear the deep rumble of a ship’s horn somewhere on the River Lee that flowed through the far side of the city. The night was clear and becoming chill. Stars were sharply etched in the black sky, and a sliver of moon cast a slight glow as dew settled on the field before us. I felt her shiver and wrapped my arms more tightly about her. Turning her head, she kissed me. It was a slow, tantalizing kiss that left both of us feeling shaky.
“Take me home, Padraig, mo gra.”