'What'll it be, Missus Kav'na? I hope you're not a teetotaler like th' rev'rend here.'
'Ah, no,' she said, 'not a'tall. I'll have th' poteen, if you'd be so kind.'
Jack Kennedy amused. 'Th' poteen, is it? An' which kind would it be?'
'Which kind do you have, Mr. Kennedy?'
'I can pour you th' fightin' kind, th' lovin' kind, or th' cryin' kind.'
'I'll take th' cryin' kind, for we're leavin' soon an' I'll be sad t' go.'
Jack marveling.
'Just kidding,' said Cynthia. 'Make it a ginger ale, straight up.'
Laughter all around.
'I can't take her anywhere,' he said.
She sipped her drink.
'What are you thinking?' he asked.
'How bad could the meatloaf be, Timothy? Because now I'm hungry for meatloaf.'
The Vauxhall crunched onto the Broughadoon gravel at nine-thirty. Laughter floated out to them.
'Merriment,' she said. ''t is a lovely sound.'
'We'll be having our own merriment soon enough.' At fall break, four boys, mostly grown, each a dazzle to their adoring younger sister. Picnics in Baxter Park. Grilling in the back yard. And Barnabas looking for a handout. Oh, yes.
'Let's sit on the bench,' she said. 'It's been ages.'
'Good. But let's go through the lodge. Too much gravel to navigate.'
Pud raced out, tail wagging. No shoe. Maybe he should get serious and help the little guy find his shoe. He leaned down, gave Pud a scratch.
'Did you take his shoe again?'
'I did not,' she said. 'Scout's honor.'
'Rev'rend! Missus!' William by the fire in his blue jacket, a pocket handkerchief, a tie they hadn't seen.
'It's Mr. Yeats himself!' said Cynthia.
'You're slaggin' me, now.'
'Not a bit. You look wonderful.'
William's cheeks coloring, eyes bright. 'Thank ye, thank ye. Sit down an' take a load off your foot, Missus. Y'r Pud was at th' door since ye went out, not lookin' left or right.'
They sat on the sofa. He patted the vacant cushion; Pud leaped onto it.
'So, William, how about a checkers game tomorrow evening?'
'Will do. Seamus is stayin' close to home for a little. I'll try to go easy on ye.'
'Very kind of you.'
'Are ye goin' up Catharmore tomorrow?'
'Not tomorrow. We're off to Tobernalt.'
'It's good ye're seein' th' sights now. Did Jack Kennedy treat ye right?'
'He did.'
'When ye do go up, might I come along?'
'Now, William.'
'Takes th' Gards a while to make it over to us, we'd be well away by then.'
'Sorry. Against the rules.'
'I'll be no trouble a'tall; she'll never know I'm about.' William leaned forward. 'I'll sit in th' portico. If she knows I'm about, 't will be because ye told her.'
'And if she asks me, I'll have to tell the truth. She'll have both our heads.'
'I'll sit on th' front steps, so.'
Right up there with the midges.
'Can't do it, William.'
More laughter from the dining room. 'Having a bit of fun, the Sweeneys.'
'Aye. Sweeneys like their bit of fun,' said William, looking glum.
'It might be a while,' he said to Cynthia. A while for the Sweeneys to uproot and go to their slumber, for the kitchen to settle down and hear what Bella had to say. He felt the urgent pull to Catharmore. 'Half an hour,' he said. 'Would that be okay?'
She knew what was on his mind. 'Take your time. I'll just have a chin-wag with William.'
'I'll tell ye about th' bloody Black an' Tan that came along our road when I was in th' cradle, how my grandfather did his bit for Ireland.' William drew out his handkerchief, gave a honk. 'An' where are ye off to, Rev'rend?'
'Mesopotamia,' said Cynthia.
Fletcher met him in the hall. 'She's completely done in. Dr. Feeney left a few minutes ago.'
'Won't stay long. Just wanted to be here. How are the wrists healing?'
'Th' splint can come off soon, we'll be doing OT, get those joints movin'. We think th' break is fine, she'll need th' cast at least another four weeks. 'Tis th' hematoma that's th' worst of it; my heart's breakin' for her, Rev'rend.'
'Make that two of us.'
The lamp burning in the corner, Cuch looking up as he came in, the air close. He sat, elbows on knees, head in hand.
'Is it you?' she whispered.
'It is.'
A long silence; minutes must have passed. He thought she may be sleeping, then she turned her head and looked at him.
'I lost the peace. You said that would happen if we wander.'
The Enemy ever prowling to and fro. 'It was fear that pulled you away--Paddy, and all that happened today,' he said.
'What will we do? How will we all go on without each other, the way things were?'
'The way things were didn't work.'
'Yes, but they were familiar. At Cathair Mohr, we care for each other after our own fashion.'
'I understand.'
'Do you really understand, Reverend, or is that what you were trained to say?'
'It's how my own family cared for each other. I do understand.'
He couldn't tell her what Bella hadn't yet confessed to Liam and Anna, that wasn't his precinct. What if they learned Paddy had hired Slade to do it? Anything could happen.
'Let's work on the fear,' he said, 'on running back to his peace.'
'Work on leavin' off the drink, work on being courageous, work on defeating the pain. Work, work, work, Reverend, and now I must work to reclaim what I thought had been given for all time.'
'Faith is radical and often difficult. It's the narrow footpath, not the broad wagon road. Have you asked him to draw you back and take the fear away?'
'He should be good enough to do it without being asked. He's God, after all.'
'Here we go, then. Hold on to your hat.'
He touched her forehead, prayed for her--for the fear to be released, for peace to flow in.
In the long silence, her even breathing. 'What shall I do without you?'
'You'll do just fine without me. You have the one who's always available--for peace, mercy, grace, forgiveness--you name it. And of course there's Fletcher as long as she's needed, and Seamus and Liam and Anna and Tad and Feeney . . .'
'Anna, perhaps, but not Liam. I was unfair to her, but I've been especially unfair to Liam. How does one know, Reverend, what a mother is supposed to be if one has had no mothering? I suppose mothering comes from a place of deep feeling, but after the fire, that place was locked away.'
'Ask Liam to forgive you.'
'Paddy,' she said, her thoughts elsewhere. 'I tried to help him--with everything--but in all the wrong ways, I see.'
'Ask Paddy to forgive you.'
She gave him a fierce look. 'If I do all you say, Reverend, I shall be a hundred years old before I catch up.'
He laughed. Then laughed some more.
She smiled a little. 'Bloody Protestant,' she said.
The Sweeneys were still at it, but they'd spilled out to the garden, into an August night lit by fireflies and the glowing tips of cigarettes. Voices murmuring now, with the occasional bursts of laughter, little explosions of some long-held happiness or hope.
They sat in the dining room and had a decaf, watched a light moving on the lake. The kitchen was cleaning up.
'Can you make it?' he asked. 'It's been a long day.'
'Weeks were crammed into this day. But yes, I can make it if you can.'
High-five with his deacon.
'I hate that they took our journal,' she said.
It did seem their own; no one else had been interested. 'But we left off at a good place, I think.'
'The lad improved, their marriage spared, Balfour off his back.'
'The pony,' he said. 'Don't forget the pony.'
She laughed. 'Shall we drive by Balfour's place tomorrow? Anna sa
ys it's on our way home.'
'Let's do it.'
She looked toward the kitchen door. 'Bella will be in a state. To have to work all evening with that on her heart . . .'
The kitchen door swinging open, and Bella coming to them, grave. 'Are you doing . . . you know, what you should be doing?'
Cynthia embraced Bella. 'Not at this precise moment, but yes, ever since you told me. God is with you and it will be good; it's going to be good.'
'If th' Sweeneys ever leave,' said Bella.
The Sweeneys' guests were indeed leaving. They crowded into the lodge, saying their good nights to Liam and Anna and tossing fags into the fire and slapping each other on the back and speaking a bit of Irish into the bargain. The scent of wine and cologne mingled on the air, then out the door they went, crunching into the car park, as the remaining Sweeneys hied themselves to bed.
''t was a hard evening,' said Bella. 'Everyone is all-in, even Mamo, who never gets all-in.' She was trembling.
He had never seen such trembling as had been roused at Broughadoon and Catharmore--his own included.
'You're brave,' said Cynthia. 'Your family will be, also.'
'I'm tryin' to be brave like Liam's oul' mum.'
There! he thought with sudden pleasure. There's one for Evelyn Conor. And definitely one for Bella Flaherty.
He slept hard and woke fresh, as if he'd journeyed in himself to an unknown spring of curative power, and drunk of it through the night.
They lolled in bed. 'When do you think we should go home?' he asked. 'We'll need to allow a little time for Emma to get the tickets hammered out.'
'When we see what Corrigan thinks of all this, I suppose. I can't dwell on the thought of Bella getting a sentence. I cannot imagine it, I will not.'
He dressed and went down for her coffee and took it up, then went down again to drink his in the garden and pick up the fag ends, make himself useful. He checked his watch. They needed to get going by ten, Anna said.
Liam came out in jeans, a cotton shirt, barefoot. There was the smile, almost.
He rolled out the corny proverb with the kernel of truth in it: 'The oul' silver lining.'
'Righto,' said Liam. And there was the full smile he hadn't seen in a coon's age.
'Bella was brave to tell us. She dodged a bullet with Slade, he would have mucked her life up for good.'
'Paddy's innocence will help your mother.'
'Paddy, for God's sake! I hope it teaches him a lesson, to spend time in th' slammer.'
'Did they release him?'
'They're holdin' him 'til we take Bella in for a statement. He deserves a bloody fortnight in th' can, just on general principles.'
He laughed. Liam laughed. Laughing was good.
'Any fingerprinting done yet?'
'They didn't find Paddy's, an' Seamus's were only around th' light switch an' furnace box. They'll keep working.'
'You'll put in a good word for Bella.'
'No question,' said Liam. 'Beg if we have to. I think she's turned a corner, we mustn't let it count for nothing.'
'Amen. And is there, by any chance, what we call a chain of title for Catharmore? Would Paddy have it?'
'I have Da's papers, they came with his library. He was pretty meticulous about records. Endless fishing logs, correspondence with his solicitor, that sort of thing. Why?'
'Curious. Reading the journal has us interested in how things fell out for O'Donnell and his crowd.'
'Can't do it now but I'll give a look. We have a loft room where all that's stored. I need to get up there anyway, for the provenance on the painting. Da made quite a thing of it, several pages on Barret, Sr., that I haven't read in years. A must-do.'
'How's Anna this morning?'
'Grand. Having breakfast with Bella in Ibiza, then we're off to th' Garda station.'
'Ah, Ibiza.'
'I'm takin' Anna to th' real place, Rev'rend.' Liam grinning. 'For two weeks. Don't say a word to a soul, especially Maureen, she'll shout it from th' rooftop.'
'Scout's honor. When would this happen?'
'As soon as we see how things come around.'
'You mean with Bella?'
'And with Mother.'
'Who will mind the store?'
'God above, I've no idea. If I waited 'til that was sorted out, we'd never leave th' car park. It's only fourteen years we've talked about it. I'm lookin' in Riverstown for someone cheerful to manage th' place.'
'Thumbs up,' he said. 'What's that sound?'
Wings threshing the air overhead. He looked and saw the great white bird flying above the beeches, then another, and another; heard their snorting cry and the sound of their terrible wings, like a contraption designed by da Vinci.
''t is th' swans goin' over,' said Liam. 'They fly about now and again--to exercise their wings, it's said. Clamorous wings, Mr. Yeats said.'
Another and another, their orange beaks and black masks against the blue sky . . .
He was five years old, his mouth open in a gape, heart pounding. Back up the stairs, then, and out of breath with the morning gazette:
He'd seen swans flying, he said. You can hear their wings working. They creak.
The Conors would beg the judge or whoever they had to beg for the best decision for Bella.
Liam had laughed--out loud.
And here was the cover story, the best of the breaking news:
Liam was taking Anna to Ibiza as soon as things settled down and they could find someone cheerful to manage the place.
'Don't look at me,' said his wife.
The old boatman was nowhere to be found, though a small boat was drawn into the reeds.
Out of the car with the art hamper, stumbling about to find a stone to sit on, and the ensuing sketches of A Boat in Reeds at Innisfree.
'Very small,' he said of the island. 'Clearly no human habitation on it, and too densely wooded to walk about, anyway.'
'Yes, but on the other hand, midnight's all a glimmer there, noon is a purple glow, and evening is full of the linnet's wings.'
'You have a point,' he said.
A warm day, the midges out in great number. They found Tobernalt at once serene and celebratory. Visitors were inclined to leave ribbons, beads, trinkets of all sorts hanging from every bush and tree. Coins slept like fish at the bottom of a clear pool, people spoke in whispers or not at all. And all the while, the cool, natural spring burbling up in the heart of the ancient forest as it had done long before St. Pat-rick first arrived as a slave boy.
They prayed for those at home, both here and abroad, for safe travel whenever that might be, and for God's richest blessing upon the Eire and its people. Though against everything in his nature, not to mention the Scout's oath to leave things better than they were found, he wanted to offer something, too--something beautiful, from the heart, not bought over a counter.
She went through the hamper to no avail. He went through his pockets and found the Connemara Black with its feather from the crest of a golden pheasant, dark fur from a seal, and beard hackle from a blue jay.
He held it in the palm of his hand and she put on her glasses and looked at it again. 'So delicate and beautiful. Are you sure you want to leave it?'
He couldn't say why, exactly, but he did. She sketched it--for posterity, she said--and he hung it on the smallest of twigs and thought it handsome there.
Balfour's pile was a shock of sorts, though Cynthia had known for some time what had happened.
'A terrible fire,' she said, 'on Christmas Eve of 1873. No one died, but it spread to the stables and . . .'
And there was the ruin of it, dark against the afternoon sky.
'All flesh is grass,' she said, 'and architecture, too.'
'Do you want to sketch it?'
'No.'
'What did Fintan have to say about it?'
'That it grieved him for the Balfours, and for the lovely horses.'
'When you read ahead of me that time, what did you learn about Eunan, what be
came of him?'
'I don't know,' she said. 'I only read about the fire and how people hereabout picked through the embers and found food stored in the cellar still edible.'
He took Cynthia to their room and went down to find Liam, who was repairing the hinge on a shutter.
'Thomas Jefferson said, It's wonderful what may be done if we're always doing.'
'Just foostering about,' said Liam. 'Dinner is easy tonight. Poached salmon, a few roast potatoes. How was your day?'
'Good in every part. How did it go at the Garda station?'
'They haven't released Paddy, they're pursuing his tie to Slade. A Gard had a chat with Jack Kennedy, who remembered that Slade and Paddy had knocked back a few together.'
'When was that?'
'During the time Slade worked at Broughadoon. '
'What do you think?'
'Paddy admits he had a drink with Slade, who was already there when he came in. A total of thirty minutes, he says, and Jack Kennedy agrees. Paddy says they talked about the economy, nothin' more. Paddy says he has no idea how th' painting got in th' cellar--his fingerprints aren't on it, that's one bit out of th' way. I don't know, Rev'rend. As low as Paddy can be, I'd rather think he had nothin' to do with it, though there are times I'd like to see him rot somewhere.' Liam looked down, kicked at the gravel. 'But he's my brother, for God's sake.'
'How did Bella do?'
'She was wonderful. Really sharp and clear. Terrific.'
'What do you think is next?'
'Corrigan was very touched by her confession, it seems. He has a daughter her age. We don't know. He says keep her close by, they'll get back to us.'
'What's your gut on it?'
'No way to know. She has no record, she's clean. That helps.'
'Your mother?'
'Anna went up with a jar of her famous chicken soup. Says Mother took a little an' it didn't come back.'
'Good,' he said. 'I'd best go to the room and get myself ready for the big game tonight.'
'William's not th' best player you'll ever come against, it's th' craic he's after.'
'Craic?'
'Th' fun, th' blather.'
He was ready for fun and blather.
'Oh, Rev'rend.' Liam trotting after him as he started up the stairs.
'I forgot to tell you I got into Da's papers. Amazing what's up there, your bit wasn't hard to find. If you've got a minute . . .'
They met for a half hour in the library, where he took a hurried scramble of notes.