The afternoon nap--he was perishing for want of it.
Thinking of Lew, he prayed his way upstairs, slipped into their room, undressed, and climbed into bed next to his napping wife.
But he couldn't sleep. He was wired from the coffee he'd slugged down at the bridge table. At Catharmore, they didn't know from decaf.
'Home is the hunter from the hill ...' She turned to him, smiled. He was ever amazed that she appeared glad to see him.
'It's hard being too beautiful to get invited anywhere,' she said, propping on an elbow.
'You're invited up one afternoon before we leave; Seamus will show you around. Except for bridge days, she naps from two 'til four.'
'Well done, darling. It's a little cool, I'll just put on my robe and you can tell me everything.' She sat up and slipped into the Shred, then thumped down beside him, expectant.
'Emma says Lew Boyd has prostate cancer.'
'Thank God he has Earlene. I'll pray. I'm so sorry.'
'Puny found my cell phone.' He felt sheepish; he'd almost rather it was stolen. 'She saw Dooley and Lace on their way to the lake. Dooley emailed to say he couldn't contact my cell. And Katherine would like a hair appointment for tomorrow after one o'clock--she hopes you'll arrange it and ride with her.'
'Only Katherine would fly all night, change planes, drive to Lough Arrow, then race out to get her hair done.' She drank from her water glass. 'I'll take care of it; surely there's some place around here. Okay, get going.'
'Where to begin?'
'The house.'
'As handsome on the inside as it is plain without.' He told her about lintels, cornices, columns, pilasters; stuffed fish in glass cases; the windowed kitchen, the tumbled garden.
'Did you see the surgery?'
'Seamus says they don't venture belowstairs except at gunpoint. More than a little dereliction going on at Catharmore, but most of it out of view.'
'What does she look like?'
'A little like Rose Kennedy, and a lot like Liam. You'll enjoy seeing her portrait as a young woman--it could pass for a Sargent but was done by an Irishman. She told me she's dying, but Feeney said later she's dying in the same way we're all dying. He said he's trying to get her in for blood work, he's concerned for her liver, but so far there's nothing seriously wrong that leaving off the drink wouldn't cure.'
'Was she the ogre?'
'She was eviscerating, to say the least. I was alone with her for maybe twenty minutes, but it seemed an eternity.'
Rain streamed against the windows.
'She eased up over drinks and lunch--maybe a bit sloshed, and quite the coquette. But as soon as the cards hit the table, she was a terror all over again.'
'Who was your partner?'
'Three guesses. I dealt the first hand, and if you could have seen mine, you'd have foundered yourself with laughter. Talk about dying.'
'A bust.'
'And then some. But her cards were good and I managed to provide a little help, after all. They couldn't set us--we won.'
'Hooray!'
'An amazing piece of business with the dogs. They bounded into the drawing room sopping wet--she looked them in the eye, pointed to their beds, and away they slunk with nary a yap. I'd pay cash money for that trick.'
'How is my good doctor?'
'Feeney inquired about you at length, he'll drop around tomorrow evening. He told some great stories about his country practice, but I must say Father O'Reilly was the life of the party. His Irish name is Tadhg O Raghailligh--call me Tad, he says. Told me that Tadhg translates to the anglicized Timothy.
'He seemed to take pleasure in something Freud said, that the Irish were the only people who couldn't be helped by psychoanalysis.'
'Makes me prouder still of my drop from Connemara,' she said.
'He grew up in a two-room cottage with his parents, five brothers, three sisters, and a pony.'
'A pony? In the house?'
'Only in winter. Tad was the eldest, and right from the get-go, set apart by his mother for the priesthood. From infancy up, she introduced him as her son the priest. In seminary, said he slept in a room with only two other boys and felt lonely as Longfellow's cloud--missed the body heat and the roughhousing. 't was no comfort bein' rich, he said. A charming fellow.
'We went on a bit about Irish poetry--in the old days, he says Ireland's standing army of poets never fell below ten thousand.'
She drew in her breath, marveling. He relished the role of Gazetteer.
'Then we talked about the pull Ireland puts on its scattered people, the way it has of calling us back. Tad says no use to look for our ancestors in the cemeteries and church registers--we meet them in the DNA of the folks across the table, in the street, in the pew. I realized I was breaking bread with people whose ancestral blood was spilled with that of the Kavanaghs. It was affecting.'
'And these lovely men keep coming to her bridge table, year after year?'
In a way that's almost certainly conflicted, I think they care about her. Hard to imagine, but . . . in a nutshell, glad I went. How about you?'
'Painted like a house afire.'
She took her sketchbook from the night table and opened it and held it up for him to see.
Pud.
He laughed outright.
Pud sitting in the wing chair near the fire, looking at the painter--solemn as a judge, as Peggy used to say.
'You're an amazing woman. This is extraordinary. We'll have to frame it and hang it over the telly.'
'Something's going on with my work--it's getting better, I think. It started with the portrait of Maureen--some huge step has been taken, I don't understand how or why. You know I've always been comfortable painting animals but afraid of painting people. Today, I kept waiting for the fear to come back, but it didn't. It's thrilling. Look.'
He was knocked out by a close-up of Bella's face, it filled the page. Another pair of eyes that expressed a deeper context than he could read. I have something that must be said . . .
He stared at the curious way she had set her mouth, as if holding hostage a secret power and defying any search for it.
'Out of the park,' he said.
'We had a long talk; she softened toward me. I told her how I tried to take my own life. I don't know why I told her that, except I felt she needed to hear it, that it would mean something. I painted while we were talking. She took her mask off once or twice; I watched the way her feelings shifted. She's a very deep and profound young woman. And she knows something, Timothy, something she's desperate to talk about. It's like a worm gnawing at her.'
'And isn't that the way with all of us? Remember me telling you about old Vance Havner?--he said everybody's tryin' to swallow somethin' that won't go down.' He'd seen it in his years of counseling parishioners; he'd seen it in himself, again and again, and this morning in Anna. The gnawing worm was ever-present in a broken world.
'I'm probably imagining things,' she said. 'Maybe I've been too shut-in, too close to everyone here.'
Their habit of telling each other everything did not include all he was told in confidence as a priest; they were in agreement early on about that sticky business--so far, he'd said little about the meeting with Anna.
'How's the ankle?'
'Swollen. Aggravating. Aren't you going to take a nap?'
'Can't,' he said, getting out of bed. 'Maybe I'll read awhile in the journal, there's plenty of time before dinner. What about you?'
She held up a paperback. 'Patrick Kav'na, the old dear.'
'Tad is a great fan of Kav'na, likes him for his harrows and ricks, the provincialism Yeats chastised. And by the way, St. Patrick didn't drive out the snakes, there were never any here to begin with.' Tad had been a fount of information.
He sat in his chair by the window and turned to the page he'd marked with a sheet from his notebook. Rain sang in the gutters; the scent of something baking drifted up from th
e kitchen ovens.
21 January 1862
My heart is greatly rejoiced--I have gone on my knees before God at the Mass Rock & thanked Him with everything in me--Caitlin sitting up & looking alive as if woken from the dead.
I had been condemning myself most painfully for the failure of the many methods used to revive her, including a variety of nauseous Tonics recommended by Jones Quinn. I am thankful that the Great Physician dissuaded me from the practice of leeching--a practice I abhor, but was ready to use if her languor persisted.
I walked into the Cabin this morning with an imaginary mount on an imaginary rope & handed the rope to Caitlin--She knew at once what I was promising for she had heard the hammering & commotion as Keegan framed the addition to Adam's stall.
Capall she said to A who shrieked with joy--I wept as C gave a fond kiss to the old scar on my cheek, always a sign of her fondest favor. It was the first word she had spoken since Sunday a week & into the bargain she was pleased to choose the Irish word for horse.
Tis a fine bay mare on which C can go abroad on her own Rounds--alone or with Aoife as need be. She says she will call her Little Dorrit after the Dickens novel she so enjoys.
She has tonight supped a little poached trout, a little tea--it is A's every desire that tomorrow her mistress will relish an egg from one of the hens & sop the yolk with a mite of A's fine soda bread.
I have rolled up my pallet from the floor & will sleep again beside my wife. When she saw me doing this she smiled. Baile, I said, pointing in the direction of the house.
Baile, she said, her eyes very bright with happiness.
Soon, I said in English for I do not know the Irish for what is imminent.
A nudge against his leg. He looked down.
'Out on bail,' said his wife. 'I let him come up and sleep under the bed. By the way, he doesn't hear well--it's his age, says Maureen.'
'Where's the shoe?'
'I have it. He gets it back when he leaves the room. This way, you can sit and read in peace.'
'A great idea.'
'We'll see,' she said.
24 February 1862
Balfour has a most Poisonous tongue--he is often drunken & moves among the workmen as someone carrying the fever & infecting all who abide his foul ravings. He has twice refused payment for the Land deeded me--I am sick with anger for my witless impulse to take what cost nothing in order to more greatly supply the Needy. I may as well be a tenant in his view--he has long forgot his child who suffered near death until God wrought a miracle & enabled me to spare her life--nor does he seem to recall the many years of his dysentery which C fervently hopes--though she declines to pray--returns with a vengeance! But then I must strive to cure it again.
I have gone to the Mass Rock this day & prayed to God who didst teach the hearts of His faithful people by the sending to them the Light of the Holy Spirit & asked that He might grant me by the same Spirit to have right judgment in all things.
I trust it is not too late to have beseeched God for right judgment--C says that with God tis never too late.
Many delays in construction due to long sieges of punishing wether.
Keegan hung a young doe in the half-built stall & dressed it--A has never cooked deer loin thus Keegan will himself do the honors and has rigged a spit in the firebox. A Feast will bring much needed merriment to our hearth.
President Lincoln last month issued a war order authorizing aggression against the Confederacy. I had near forgot that country which educated and prospered me. I am saddened by the horrific tyranny of slavery, recognizing in it much that our own Irish have endured. Uncle freed his twelve slaves well before his passing, though our good Cook, Sukey, stayed on & was much accomplished in reading & writing. Her Cookery book writ in her own hand will come with our furnishings when we complete the many labours demanded by Catharmore.
'What is this Mass rock business?' he asked.
'I've been meaning to find out,' she said. 'Help me remember to ask.'
'And who will help me remember to help you?'
'Please try.'
'Righto. What happened to Balfour's place, do you know? Might be something to see before we leave.'
'Keep reading,' she said.
12 May 1862
While one may despise the Oppressor, one clings to his language--it is spoken everywhere the print of his Boot is made--Keegan says the English is for 'mekkin war & the Irish for mekkin love.' Keegan has been twelve years widowed & I see him cast his eye about at the Women--he tells a rough joke on occasion which makes the old women laugh & the young hide their faces behind their hands.
He is correct in asserting that I should be handier at the doctoring if I chose to speak Irish with the people--though twas Mother's milk to me until seventeen or more, I carry no blood memory of it--to have spoken it in America would have marked me as a simpleton. Keegan's own English is good & he speaks enough Irish to have assisted in finding a Name for the place & to interpret when we stir about the Region--he is indispensable among the workmen.
A is a bright thing who wishes to teach us in the Evening--we point like dunces to this & that--the packed earth floor, the hearth, the chickens, the cooking pots--& she gives us the Irish in return. At the same time she is learning a bit of English from us, all of which turns the speech of this narrow household into a stew of befuddlement, causing Laughter to break out like measles & excite the Chickens.
Candle
Baby
Finger
May
coinneal
Leanbh
miar
Bealtaine
She brought very few personal items when she came to us, save for her most prized possession--her mother's old three-legged milking stool. She sits on it before the fire conducting her language lessons, happy to have something to give beyond earnest common labor.
When I speak with Keegan about independence, he says tis a speabhraidi, a pipedream. I hope to soon turn him from this lazy-minded notion--it is a blasphemy.
John Mitchel said it for me--'England is truly a great public criminal. England! All England! She must be punished; that punishment will as I believe come upon her by & through Ireland; & so Ireland will be avenged.'
Many casualties in the recent battle of Shiloh, well above ten thousand either side. It seems to me this war is not over human flesh but Greed as is the case in every armed conflict. God help the brothers who war against one another.
1 June
A fine, soft rain throughout the day--in America I had forgotten how often it rains in the Eire--gratifying nonetheless to be making the Rounds & seeing so many lift their Caps as we pass--Adam was given two apples by the children at O'Leary's cabin, so well do they love my Mount & the fact that their Sister has a good home with the doctor & his wife.
Such a day is a Pleasure when one is haunted so gravely by the many one sees of Suffering.
Have hired on Danny Moore who is deft with the stump & gets about smartly on his crutch--though unskilled, he seems fitted for the plaster work & will apprentice to James Murray, a man of parts--I have given him a wage above that of other unskilled plasterers--he has given in turn his vow not to speak of it to the men as it would incite ill feeling--his mother came on foot to thank me--she & C having a fine tea together.
Will go down to the Dublin Apothecary Monday next, with further intentions of seeing our Solicitor & having a new coat with hood & warm lining fashioned for C--A shall also have something warm for her back--she is small & thin as a reed as are all her family from long years of poor nourishment.
Have today agreed with C how we shall divide our Estate as one never knows when one's Call may come. Having no child of our own, I will name my orphaned nephew & namesake, Padraigin, as heir to Catharmore--he shows good sense in business affairs & is thrifty as a Scot. He has visited once at my decree--quite silent & cold as a trout but perhaps overstrained by travel undertaken on roads nearly in ruin--I would fain do for him what Uncle did for me. Only one of my
brothers living & he in good fettle with fat cows & sufficient Bogland & a hale daughter to care for his needs. C's widowed niece & her many offspring benefit in our lifetime rather than when we are laid in the Grave.
Without further delay of bad wether, we shall move our modest household into the manor no later than year's end. Keegan will turn his cottage over to an ageing sister & lodge in a small room adjoining the Surgery.
C proposes that A should have the care of our lamps when in the house--she is deft at trimming wicks to produce a sweet flame & washing the chimneys without breakage. She will also have sole care of the laundry, the carrying out of ashes, emptying of slop jars & other general chores. A is pleased at the prospect of expanding her duties.
He came awake from Fintan O'Donnell's complicated life and noted the simplicity of his own--Pud's chin rested on his bare foot. Made him miss the Old Gentleman. He could say anything to Barnabas, read him the Romantic poets or discourse on the politics of the day; his good dog inevitably listened with grave interest. An elegant soul.