In the Company of Others

by Jan Karon

  At the puzzle table, four pieces out of five hundred already fitted together to form the hindquarters of a ram lying among a flock downhill from a thatched cottage. He studied the image on the box lid: In the foreground, a young man and woman on bicycles, pedaling home from the turf field with side baskets loaded. The woman wore a bandanna over her hair; the man, a beat-up hat slanted at a rakish angle.

  He sat with her and looked for border pieces; he liked to start with the borders. She Who Would Start Anywhere the Notion Struck busied herself with turning pieces face-up.

  'For a moment,' she said, 'I thought it was Anna and Liam on the bench, but of course Anna isn't here tonight.'

  'Not to mention that they never sit down.'

  She slid another piece onto the ram.

  'I hate it when you do that,' he said.

  'I wonder who it was.'

  'It was Pete and Moira.'

  'Surely not.'

  'Trust me.'

  They were picking up steam with a portion of thatched roof when Pete and Moira breezed in and stationed themselves by the hearth.

  'Ta-da-a-a!' Moira alerted the assembly at the top of her voice.

  Pud woke up and looked about.

  'We have great news, everybody!'

  He noticed the high color of Moira's face, the necktie with the fishing-lures pattern sticking out of Pete's jacket pocket.

  'So that's buzzer fishing,' said Cynthia.

  Pete looked dazzled, or perhaps dazed. 'You're not goin' to believe this.'

  'Way not,' said Moira. 'We can't believe it ourselves.'

  'Troth, 't is a guessin' game,' said William, who didn't appear to care for guessing games.

  'Wait, wait, don't tell us,' said Debbie. 'You're goin' to meet in Atlanta and see how things pan out!'

  'Or,' said Lisa, 'Roscoe is flyin' up from Dublin?'

  'Try again,' said Pete, rocking on the balls of his feet, grinning.

  Nobody tried again; they were dumbfounded.

  His wife leaned to him, whispered, 'Moira said she wouldn't go out with him if he was the last man on earth. What happened on that bench?'

  He didn't know, but he and Cynthia were next in line to check it out.

  'Get on with it,' said Hugh.

  'Okay, okay,' said Pete. 'Ready?' he asked Moira.

  'We're cousins!'

  Tom whistled. Pud barked.

  'My great-great-grandmother Margaret on my daddy's side,' said Pete, 'went with a crowd of O'Malleys from Sligo to Tyrone, where she married a Tommy O'Beirne--'

  'O'Beirne bein' my maiden name,' said Moira. 'And Tommy bein' my great-great-grandfather--it's in our old family Bible plain as the nose on your face: Tommy O'Beirne of County Tyrone to Margaret O'Malley of County Sligo, emigrated 1869 to Boston. I used to study all those names when I was a little kid, I loved that stuff. So I just called Atlanta and my daughters looked it up in th' Bible, and ta-da-a-a, I was right!'

  'Oh, Lord,' said Debbie. 'This is way too much.'

  'And,' said Moira, 'since Pete is cousins with Hugh and Tom, maybe, just maybe I'm cousins with them, too.'

  The din grew in volume and pitch. William thumped his cane. At the anglers' request, Seamus brought forth a tray of Guinness.

  Amused, they worked part of the thatch, two sheep, a bit of hedgerow, as one by one the exhausted club made their way to bed.

  'I'm callin' it a day, too,' said Hugh. 'We're up with the roosters and off to Strandhill first thing in the morning. Tim, Cynthia, sure great to meet you, hope everything goes slick as grease from here out.'

  'Ditto,' said Pete. 'Hope you'll come over again next August, same time, same station, we'll help you finish your entry in th' guest register.'

  Back-slapping. Hand-shaking. Laughter.

  Hugh handed him a card. 'Give me a call if you're ever in Annapolis. Got a nice guesthouse with a pool, you'd be welcome.'

  'It's been a pleasure,' said Tom. 'Here's a little something to remind you of this rough crowd.'

  Tom deposited a fishing fly in the palm of his hand. 'Connemara Black. Might come in handy someday.'

  'Why . . . this is beautiful. Thanks.'

  'Tied that myself. That's a feather off th' crest of a golden pheasant, that's black seal fur right there, an' th' beard hackle's off a blue jay. You can use that for sea trout or salmon.'

  'Great,' he said, 'Thanks again.'

  Tom gave him a serious look. 'That's your classic pattern for that fly.'

  'God be with you,' he said, shaking Pete's hand.

  'Dhia dhuit,' said O'Malley. 'As for my Irish, that's th' whole kabosh right there. Take it easy.'

  He held on to Pete's handshake, feeling an odd regret. Somehow, he and Pete O'Malley hadn't finished being together in the same place at the same time.

  The library was empty. Strangers had come into their sphere, shared a connection, and vanished into the remainder of their own lives. The anglers had been like a wallpaper pattern that took some getting used to, followed by the realization that one had grown fond of it.

  They went to the garden and sat looking up into the great hall of night. The laughter in the library had been relieving; an ice floe had melted. Her bare shoulder fit neatly into the cup of his hand.

  'There is no light in earth or heaven,' he quoted, 'but the cold light of stars; and the first watch of night is given to the red planet Mars.'

  She mused. 'Not Yeats.'

  'Longfellow. Tomorrow, Ben Bulben, Yeats's grave, and lunch in a good pub. We'll go out every day and see the sights, but never anything to stress your ankle.'

  She was off in that world of hers. 'You know how the Irish say nothing's so bad it couldn't be worse?'

  What could be worse than the painting being stolen? He didn't want to think about it.

  Even in the dark, he could see the flash of her smile. 'How about this, instead? Nothing's so good, it couldn't be better.'

  She turned to him and kissed him. Then kissed him again. He thought it might be the scent of the golden iris, but it was the fragrance of wisteria.

  On their way through the library, she turned off to the powder room and he discovered Pete in a wing chair.

  'Guess I'll be sittin' up awhile. I never drink coffee at night--then on these fishin' trips, I start rollin' th' dice.'

  'It'll catch me, too, before it's over.' He sat in the chair facing Pete.

  'I'm always rollin' th' bloody dice--with alcohol, women, business, life in general.' Pete furrowed his brow. 'I'm goin' home an' call my wife.'

  'Glad to hear it.'

  'All I can do is call. As for seein' her, that's up to her. Out on th' bench, Moira talked me into it. Before I found out we're cousins, I was comin' on to her, Reverend, I admit it. I put my hand on her leg, I mean, what did I have to lose, us leavin' tomorrow and all that? Touch me again, she said, and I'll kill you. Can you believe it?'

  'I can believe it,' he said.

  'So we got to talkin' about me being such a badass, and what was my problem, anyway, and first thing you know, I'm bawlin' like a baby, because she's right. I'd been wanting to have another shot at things with my wife, but I didn't have th' guts to go to her, hat in hand. I'm not wired that way.'

  'You love your wife?'

  'It'd be a flamin' lie if I said I didn't.'

  'Let her know it,' he said. 'I'll pray for you.'

  'I need it. I'm goin' to try, I swear to God. I'm tired of bein' th' bloody walkin' wounded.'

  'While you're at it, stay in touch with the one who wired you. We're all wired for love, all wired to go hat in hand if that's what it takes.'

  Pete looked at him, looked away, sighed.

  'Talk to him about everything, Pete--your wife, your business, what ails you. One of his jobs is to listen.'

  Cynthia was making her way out of the powder room.

  'Nothing to lose,' he said.

  They stood; shook hands again, embraced.

  'Next year,' said Pete.

  'Maybe,' he said. 'I'm o
pen.'

  He made the slow ascent of the stairs with her, carrying the crutches. As they reached the landing, he heard someone below.

  'Reverend?'

  He couldn't see Liam's face in the shadowed hall, but the despairing tone of his voice was familiar.

  'Could I see you when Cynthia is safe in your room? It's extremely urgent.'

  'He's after disproving my edit of the Irish proverb,' Cynthia said under her breath. 'Trust me.'

  He did trust her--as well he might. While playing the fiddle at the Tubbercurry Fair, Liam said, Bella had been approached by a drunk who became obscene and aggressive. Jack Slade had appeared out of nowhere and brutally stabbed the man. Slade was being held without bond, Anna was with Bella at the Garda station in Tubbercurry--could Liam come at once.

  Eighteen

  He had gone upstairs for a map to give Walter, pondering the issues of last night.

  Slade's victim hadn't died but was in critical condition. Sobering, this cascade of incidents since they'd stepped foot on the place.

  They gathered in the car park, their wives laughing over some private joke.

  'Broughadoon is wonderful,' said Walter, 'but too much drama this time around. If I were in your boots, I'd be out of here.'

  'It's her birthday, she gets to choose.'

  'A point of considerable merit,' said his cousin. 'And speaking of age, I think we're all holding up well enough, though I deeply regret looking more like Dad with each passing day.'

  'He was a handsome fellow, my uncle. Good looks trump age.'

  They had spent the morning remembering their Mississippi rites of passage and hacking through Kavanagh history cobbled together in recent years. He'd also taken the Vauxhall for a practice run around the Catharmore circle, flinging a few dog biscuits while at it.

  'What's the plan?' he asked Walter, who always had one.

  'Let's say Belfast a week from today. An overnight there, then head south, taking our time. Katherine's up for Guinness pie at that terrific pub we stumbled on in Dundalk, still talks about it. Anyway, we'll finally see the family drinking horn at Trinity, and the Book of Kells--a long time coming. You have the hotel phone numbers; do what you can at once, given the season.'

  'That works,' he said. The fact of separate cars had been established; all concerned seemed relieved. 'Maybe we can squeak out of here a day sooner than we think. Let's stay in touch.'

  'What happened to your cell phone, by the way?'

  'Don't ask.'

  Walter laughed. 'To the four winds, would be my guess.'

  'Close enough.'

  They recited the family motto--'Peace and plenty!'--gave the high-five, and, following a round of the cousin's kiss, which resembled the European greeting model embellished by back-slapping, Katherine scratched the Fiat out of the car park and into the outer lane.

  Walter waved from the open window; Katherine honked three times.

  'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,' he informed Cynthia. 'Her signature honk.'

  He opened the door of the Vauxhall, which he'd parked next in line for takeoff, and helped Cynthia into the passenger seat. He was frankly consoled that Maureen had offered to pray for the 'brilliant performance' of their loaner.

  'Rev'rend! Cynthia!' It was Maureen, leaning from an open window on the second floor. 'Come back safe, please God.'

  The side mirror had been reset in the thingamajig and there was nothing on the backseat but the blasted crutches and their versatile snack hamper. He even smelled leather polish, though precious little leather was left to polish.

  They were off with a rattle.

  For five days, his wife had entertained scant notion of where she was in the universe, save for views from the dining room or a garden bench. She cranked down the car window, poked her head out, gawked. He loved the reflex of her open mouth.

  'Amazing,' she said. 'Unbelievable.'

  To their right, the easy green slope to the lake and its several islands, and the hovering hills beyond. Then the stone walls overtaken by scarlet trumpet vine, wild fuchsia, purple buddleia.

  'I'll have run out of adjectives by the main highway.'

  'Understood.'

  'And Timothy . . . now that we're not committed to flinging ourselves around in the backseat of a car with Stirling at the wheel, I'm crazy about Katherine all over again.'

  'Also understood.'

  She fell for the cow barn with the single blue shutter, as he thought she might.

  'How lazy of me not to be more curious about my own Irish connection. I have no idea how we knew that my double-great-grandmother played the fife--Mother tried to trace the line when I was at Smith, but she got nowhere. It's such a lot of trouble, genealogy.'

  'Next time,' he said, 'we can look up your crowd.'

  'Just think, darling--you and I could be cousins.'

  Following Anna's directions, they left the main highway and meandered about for an hour, stopping to sketch a lamb drinking water from a green tub. It was a greater provision than he'd hoped when they found a grassy sward with shade, a dead-on view of Ben Bulben, and a parking spot on the verge.

  He helped her to a stooping tree with a massive trunk--a horse chestnut--then went back for the hamper and its cargo of lunch. 'Just in case,' Anna had said. 'It may give you more freedom to roam.'

  A light breeze shifted through a patch of blue flowers; across the road, sheep dotted a hill. Perhaps this was divine compensation for the ankle and all the rest of it, this day abroad in a world of mild temperatures and easeful shade and no haste in their bones.

  He spread the blanket and sat beside her, as he'd done those years ago in a pasture when the bull chased him and they'd eaten raspberry tart and he'd surrendered his defenses without meaning to.

  They'd gone to the country on the red motor scooter he used for eight years after giving up his Buick for Lent; he remembered how she'd clung on behind him and the thrill he felt that such a thing could be happening to him, Timothy Kavanagh. With cornfields zooming past and her warm flesh pressed to his back, he remembered praying that he wouldn't suffer a heart attack or stroke from such frightful happiness. It had been their last day together before he set off for Sligo.

  'Beann Gulban, the peak of Gulba. What do you think?'

  She turned to him with the dreaming look in her eyes. 'It's too beautiful. Far, far too beautiful and mysterious. I'm sitting here trying to believe it's real. What is it, exactly?'

  'A mountain with a level plateau. Limestone and shale, sculpted by glaciers. Stands seventeen hundred feet above the plain. Our guidebook calls it a great satisfaction to seekers of the picturesque.'

  'I don't see how one can call it anything at all--it defies logic and language completely. Look.' She flung her arm out to him. Goose bumps.

  'The megaliths would give you a few bumps into the bargain, and so would the Carrowkeel cairns.'

  He filled their glasses with Anna's tea. 'From the cairns, you can see more than a third of Ireland on a clear day.'

  'I'd love to visit the holy wells.'

  'Holy wells, dolmens, crannogs, caves; Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Ice Age--name an age, the landmarks are all here, but nearly all involve walking. Next time,' he said, raising his glass to hers. 'Eat your Wheaties.'

  'I like it when you talk about next times. Getting you on an airplane is right up there with getting blood from a turnip.'

  'I'm doing better,' he said. 'And speaking of turnips, let's eat.'

  They devoured their lunch with appetite, then used the hamper as a headrest. Lying together on the blanket, they watched clouds navigate the canopy of leaves and branches. This was what they needed--the proverbial life of Reilly.

  'How's the ankle today?'

  'Good. I'm tempted to throw away the crutches.'

  'Don't do it.'

  'I won't. But I'm so sorry about all this, really I am.'

  'Don't be sorry. Otherwise we'd be racing around like chickens with our heads cut off. Believe me, if you've se
en one or two castles, you've seen them all. The way things have worked out--it's better, really. More . . . idiosyncratic.'

  She laughed, traced the bridge of his nose with her forefinger. 'Tell me what Broughadoon was like the first time.'

  He told her of the plainness of the place and how that had suited him in his bachelor days, and the morning he stood at his bedroom window and glimpsed Anna behind the lodge, hanging wash on what she had called her drying bushes--aprons, dish towels, shirts, a child's jumper. She had hooked items of women's underwear on twigs behind the bushes, and he'd turned from the window as if caught in some indecent act.

  And there was the day the cow got into the garden, and he'd never seen such flapping about of arms and shouting in the unknown tongue while the cow chewed, solemn as a judge, and would not be moved. Someone had brought a halter and rope and managed to drag the creature from the garden, but the damage was done and quite a lot of moaning and groaning was lifted onto the brim of the morning along with a scent of trampled leeks. In true Irish fashion, a kitchen helper had the wits to appreciate the offering the cow left behind, forking it off to the side to cure. Paid 'er dues, he said, pragmatic. They had all got behind a spade or a rake and busied themselves until the garden looked nearly fit again. He'd pitched in as well, and later enjoyed the evening's special: braised leek soup. 'Bruised, more like it,' he'd said, which raised a laugh.

  The memories were a movie playing in his head, something slow and indistinct with a tone of sepia to it.

  They hadn't spent much time at the lodge, for they'd been out and about trying to see and do it all, to swallow it all down without chewing. As for the menu, he said, he didn't remember anything like homemade verbena ice cream or the semifreddo business. Supper had been delicious enough, though compared to the comestibles of this visit, unremarkable. Breakfast was usually brown bread, coffee, jam, and fruit, at a table with a short leg propped up by a packet of matches. He vaguely remembered the young child with dark hair and large eyes whom he knew now to have been Bella--she had not mingled with the guests.

  He didn't remember any dogs, though he had recently got one, or more precisely, one had got him. Nor could he remember anything in particular about the guests--then again, come to think of it, there'd been a Mrs. McSomethingorother, who wore overwrought hats and looked like a character from a Victorian pen-and-ink drawing.