* * *
In the commuter train station, he paid for their fare. He led her to the platform where the train had just stopped, and reticently, Ravenna followed him inside where he sat her down, took the seat across from hers. “I can see this is going t’be an interesting evening for me,” he said as the train began to move.
She wiped at the corners of her eyes. “Why is that?”
“Because what you’re tellin’ me goes against everything I believe in. It’s reincarnation, is it?” When she nodded, he leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped near his lips as he collected his words. “I don’t believe in reincarnation,” he said gently. “I really don’t. But if you’re conning me, I must admit it’s the best con I’ve ever seen. I suppose if you’re bein’ paid by somebody, it would be, yeah?”
“But…why would anyone pay me?” she asked. “Why would I try to con you with a story you won’t believe?”
“I’m sitting next to you, aren’t I? I’m a pushover for misery, she knows that.”
She? The word registered in Ravenna’s thoughts while his gaze drifted behind her. Surely he didn’t believe that, did he? That she’d been paid to seduce him? “You think your wife set this up, don’t you?”
But he wasn’t listening. His eyes, firmly fixed beyond her, flashed with warning so that she turned to see what had caught his attention.
Three boys with buzz cuts glared back. With their Doc Martens on the seats before them, their lanky bodies draped in black, they passed a bottle in a paper sack between them. They swore a lot and laughed more, and Ravenna knew they were talking about her.
“Those lads are lookin’ for a good scuffle t’get into, I can feel it,” Paul said. “Come sit by me, I’d feel better.”
When the train pulled up to the Dalkey platform, she didn’t think of David. She slid over beside Paul, glad for his nearness, and as she sat back behind the denim of his shoulder, she felt his arm come around her snugly. “Now, what were you saying about Devonshire?” he mused.
The boys were out of their seats now, ambling their way down the swaying aisle. From one handhold to another, they talked amongst themselves as if they were innocent of all malicious intentions. When the smallest of the three, the leader, reached the seat Ravenna had just vacated, the boy sat down in it. He made a face at Paul.
The other two laughed, but Paul ignored them, whispered to her, “We lived in a country house, is that what you told me? Next to the sea?”
The boy glanced at his friends, then back at Ravenna. “You’re American, aren’t you?” the boy asked congenially. Paul’s hand gripped her tighter, but with the tone of the boy’s voice and the inviting expression on his dirt-smudged face, she found herself nodding in reply.
Instantly, she knew she shouldn’t have.
“Thought as much,” the boy said pleasantly, as if he thought much more than that. “You’ve come t’Ireland t’kiss the Blarney stone, haven’t you? See the Book of Kells? Or are you searchin’ fer yer Irish roots?”
She glanced at Paul nervously. “In a way,” she ventured.
The boy sat back more comfortably, and draping his arms across the seat behind him, he pointed at Paul with a thin finger. “This yer boyfriend?”
Paul scowled at the boy. “What of it?”
The boy raised his hand as if to keep Paul from hearing. “I reckon he’s a poshy, yeah?” He winked at Ravenna. “Y’know he might be from the Southside, but I guarantee he hasn’t got what yer lookin’ fer in those brash American trousers he’s wearin’. You’d do better with a real lad, say, someone like Fintan here, or then maybe you’d—”
“Look,” Paul broke in, “I don’t mean t’give you the impression we’ve not enjoyed your company, but—”
“But piss off?” The boy looked at Paul innocently. “Tell me, Poshy, did you ever think maybe yer girlfriend came t’Ireland just t’get shagged?”
Paul didn’t even grace this with an answer, yet the boy hardly noticed. “American girls’ll shag anything with a willie,” the boy continued gleefully. “Y’know yerself, these girls’ll come over on holiday just t’find some punter t’amuse themselves with, then they’ll go back t’America and slag him off in front o’ their girlfriends.”
Paul regarded the boy placidly. “Sounds like you’re talking from personal experience.”
The boy tipped back his head, laughed under his breath. “No, Poshy, I was talkin’ about you.”
Behind him, the other boys snickered in support.
“Yeah?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” the boy said. “You’ve not done yer job, I can see it in yer girl’s eyes. It’s not yer company she’s interested in, or are you too daft t’notice? Just look at her. She’s beggin’ t’be shagged. So,” and he stood up, making way for his friend, “are you gonna shag’er, or is Fintan?”
Fintan edged closer. Ravenna felt the muscles in Paul’s shoulder tense as he readied himself, said, “Kind of depends on how much of Fintan is left t’shag, doesn’t it?”
The boy didn’t wait to find out.
Grabbing Ravenna’s arm, he hauled her roughly from her seat before she’d even thought to kick or struggle. Behind her, Fintan blocked Paul’s advance—she knew it because there was a scrambling of feet, something sounding like a punch being thrown. With her arm twisted behind her back, she couldn’t see, but she heard a soft popping noise as Fintan’s hulk lurched suddenly into view. Paul pushed past him in a dig of fists, and Ravenna ducked, for with his well-aimed punch, he’d knocked her abductor back a step.
The thug released her falteringly.
She wasted no time in getting behind Paul.
The train was approaching the station by that time. The third boy stood at the metal doors, ready to open them, and while he cautioned Fintan’s friend to back off, Fintan came to his senses again and dove at Paul from the opposite side.
Paul was amazing in his ferocity. More than she’d hoped or expected, he held his own, for although the boys kicked him with heavy boots and drunken enthusiasm, in just a few short seconds it became all too clear who was really winning. The boys’ punches slowed. Their threats slackened. Even though Paul hadn’t scored as many hits, still he urged them on, fists held high, his eyes dark and sharp with fury.
When the train finally stopped, the boys gave up. With relief, she watched as they fled through the doors and into the darkness, leaving silence in their wake and Paul staggering, breathing hard.
The doors shut tight. The train began to move.
Only then did he lose his fighting stance.
Turning toward her, he steadied her where she wavered fearfully. “You’re OK?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
But it was Paul who’d been hurt. One side of his face had been beaten severely. He held his eye nearly closed on the other. When she touched his chin to turn him toward the train’s dim light, he pulled his face out of her hands. Taking a seat, he pressed his nose to the window. He wasn’t putting up with Ravenna’s mothering, he’d have her know that, and yet some of the fury did drain from his voice when he said, “Come here,” and made room for her on the seat beside him.
Beneath his arm, she tried to keep her eyes from meeting his. She gazed mindlessly at the empty seats, at his reflection in the glass. At last she saw his injured fist lifted to the window. “Is that your blood or theirs?” she asked.
He smeared it roughly into the fabric of his jeans. “It’s mine now.”
“Why did those boys do that?” She shook her head just thinking about it, still trembling fiercely. “I mean, why didn’t they just mug you if they knew you were rich? Why did they attack me?”
Laying his hand on his knee, staring at it, Paul bit his lip before he answered. “They weren’t interested in money. My money stands for everything they’re against, everything they hate about this country.”
“So they beat you up instead of taking it from you?”
He paused a beat. More hurtfully spoken words. “To them,
it’s cooler to beat the shite out o’ the rich than to try making something of themselves.”
“But why? Why do the Irish love to fight so much? With those boys, and the troubles, and—”
But he was looking out to the sea, at the blackness of Dublin Bay, and she sensed the anger flaring inside him. Even when she couldn’t see his beaten face, she heard him talking against the window. “You don’t know the first thing about the Irish,” he said. He turned back toward her, and his eyes were alight with some distant, long-forgotten fire. “It’s not as easy as fightin’ or not fightin’, there’s more to it than that. You can’t know what it means in this country, it’s not as black and white as it seems. The border’s fifty miles away, but…”
“Are we talking about Northern Ireland?”
As if suddenly conscious of his own emotion, he averted his gaze.
For the longest moment, he seemed to be collecting his thoughts, as if he would actually answer her question. His lips parted as if he might at any time tell her some awful story about terrorist violence or lay down ten reasons why she didn’t understand what was happening in Belfast.
But he didn’t. Gazing steadily at his knee, a muscle flicking near the back of his jaw, Paul wiped at the blood smeared on his jeans until she couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “What is it?” She pushed closer, nearer to the heat of his side against hers. “Paul, what are you thinking about?”
He drew in a heavy breath, obviously making an effort to cover the vulnerability she’d chanced to see. “Nothing,” came the answer, gruff, reluctant. “Nothing that concerns you, anyway.”
She noticed then a small trickle of blood oozing from a cut under his eye. She reached out and wiped it gently from his face, and she didn’t think twice until after she’d done it, that he wouldn’t like it. Still, he was quiet under her touch, as if his darkened thoughts about the troubles, terrorists or whatever it was she’d so painfully reminded him of, consumed him so completely he couldn’t be bothered to let his discomfort be known. Distract him, she told herself. You have to tell him the truth about Killiney; maybe now is a good time.
“Would you mind if I told you about our past life together?” She folded her hands on her lap. “I know you don’t believe it, but all you’d have to do is listen.”
The train rocked with an irregularity in the tracks, caused him to sway that much nearer. “Yeah, OK,” he said grudgingly.
“Sure you won’t be offended?”
He frowned a little. “I’m not promising.”
What had he said? I’m a pushover for misery? She made an effort to appear dreadfully hurt by his offhanded comment, and she got what she wanted. He sighed. Positioning himself more comfortably close to her, the pain dwindled from his eyes as he whispered, “All right, then, come on.”
Beneath his cordiality, there remained a storehouse of worries, but he put them aside. It seemed he could charm on command, and she’d counted on this, for as she began to tell him, his attention drifted easily from that terrible aching he kept inside.
“I didn’t like you at first,” she said, feeling his fingers move gently at her collar. “In the end, though, I fell in love with you.”
“Ah, that’s what all the girls say.”
More charm to soothe her. She smiled at his joke as the train pulled into another station and a young couple took the seat across from theirs. As Paul’s arm was still around her, he said more privately into her ear, “And what were the girls callin’ me back then?”
His hair brushed her cheek while he whispered, and she closed her eyes, soaked up the feel of it. “Killiney,” she said. “I called you Killiney, but your name was Richard Henley.”
A few seconds passed while she debated the idea of facing his reaction. When she found the courage to look at him, he didn’t appear the way she’d expected. Cold insistence that they’d never been lovers, an incredulously twisted grin, he was neither of these things. Instead, he seemed uncertain, astonished.
“Do you know about your ancestors?” she asked.
“It seems you do.”
“You were the sixth Viscount Killiney,” she told him. “You died on Vancouver’s voyage in the Pacific Northwest in 1792.”
More silence from him. Apparently the charm had dried up, for he let out a little breath when he looked down at his bloodied knee, as if to say, Yeah, right.
“My friend tracked Killiney back to you,” she went on, watching him fuss with his turquoise ring. “We were hoping we’d learn more from the records at Swallowhill. Have you heard about Killiney before? Are there pictures of him?”
“Who’s this friend of yours when she’s at home?”
“He,” Ravenna corrected him. “David Hallett, he’s the Marquess of Wolvesfield in Devonshire, England. His ancestor was Christian Hallett, the man I married after Killiney died on Vancouver’s voyage. Christian was part of your family by marriage, and he—”
“Let me just get in here,” Paul said. “You’re tellin’ me I was my own ancestor in another life? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Sometimes reincarnation works that way. People’s souls get attached to a certain country, a climate, even a particular family or house. It’s not unheard of.”
“It is in Ireland.”
“No, really, it’s not—”
Looking her square in the face, he tightened his hand on her shoulder gently. “You know, I don’t mean to alarm you,” he said, “but Ireland’s mostly a Catholic country. You don’t hear much about reincarnation at Sunday Mass.”
Ravenna nodded. “So you’re Catholic, then.”
“No, but—”
“You’re Protestant?”
“Look, my spirituality’s got nothing to do with it, really. I might be a Buddhist, let’s say, but if I don’t remember what you remember—”
“So you don’t remember anything? Nothing at all?”
Slowly, Paul shook his head, dropping his eyes when he saw her disappointment. “No,” he said, “no, I think you believe in what you’re telling me, but I can’t believe in it, it doesn’t apply to me, to my life, even if I do resemble the guy. Can you see that? Can you understand what you’re asking of me?”
“All I want you to do is listen.”
“And indeed I have.”
“But you won’t consider that reincarnation might be real.”
“It might be real for you, but…”
And to his obvious relief, the train pulled slowly into the next station. Out the door and down a flight of stairs, he put his arm around her; she’d forgotten the cold outside, was glad for his shelter from the light rain, and matching his step, she pressed close and let a block or so go by in silence before continuing the argument he’d sought to escape.
“So you’re not religious at all?” she asked.
He wiped the hair out of his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”
“You said you weren’t Catholic or Protestant.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not a believer. It’s just that I don’t think a church and a priest are necessary for spirituality, at least not for everyone’s spirituality.”
“So you’re willing to allow there are different kinds of spirituality?”
“There’s no such thing as life after death, OK?” Paul’s eyes drilled into Ravenna’s. “Not for me, at least not in the sense you’re talking about. A guy has it hard enough livin’ the first time around. I mean, why would you want to do it all again?”
She leaned into him. “Now we’re getting to the real problem,” she said. “You’re not happy now, so why would you want to believe in something that might leave you unhappy again in the future?”
A street lamp buzzed above their heads and in its light, she saw that expression gaining strength in his pale features, that something wounded and unspeakably painful which shone too readily in his gaze. Dreading the way he’d brooded on the train, Ravenna shuddered, using the excuse to lean closer still against his warm, protective frame.
Bu
t he was talking again, his determined words breaking the quiet of the street. “It’s just that some people struggle so much. They deserve a bit of rest, y’know? I have t’believe they’re in a better place after all they’ve been through. Why would God put us through it if heaven’s not waitin’ at the end of it all?”
“To me, another chance to learn seems more interesting than heaven.”
He almost smiled. “You are a Buddhist, aren’t you? You’re not going to start chanting?”
“I’m not a Buddhist, I just…I’ve had some experiences I can’t explain any other way. I remember you playing the piano, and when I saw you in that bar, I—”
“Wait a minute, hold on. Playing the piano?” Suspicion flickered at the corners of his mouth, in his guarded eyes as he scrutinized her. “You’re saying this guy knew the piano?”
“What do you mean, he knew it? I thought you were familiar with your family history.”
“Yeah, but I…Just tell me about this fellah and the piano.”
She thought then about the diary, about all she’d read of Killiney’s music. “You played Mozart,” she said, “and Haydn, too, although I don’t remember that yet. There’s a piano at Wolvesfield, the house near Dartmouth where I lived, and you played that piano to seduce me. I crept up behind you when you played, and I remember the awful fight we had afterward. I remember crying when you died, when I knew I’d never see you again, and it’s an unbearable memory. It’s not the sort of thing people invent for fun.”
“So you’re tellin’ me you just spontaneously saw this? My ancestor, playing the piano in Devon?”
“I’d probably remember more if I were hypnotized.”
“And you think I’m him just because he’s my ancestor, because we’ve got the same face?”
“It’s not just your face, it’s everything about you, the way you walk, your smile, how you act around your friends.”
“But couldn’t I have inherited all that? Family traits and such?”
She slowed their pace as she considered his question. She thought of the first moment she’d seen him, when he’d come from the men’s room buttoning up his jeans, when he’d sat down among his friends scrounging for a light. His face was that face she’d been longing for, angular, bestubbled and loving, but how to explain the resonance she felt when she looked at him? That his was the face she’d mourned in the music room, crying at the window as the trees outside whipped in the storm?
She knew it completely. She couldn’t prove it.
“Our son’s name was Paul,” she said to him finally.
“Our son? So now you’re my ancestor, as well?”
“That was his name,” she said, ignoring his tone. “Doesn’t it mean anything, that you and Killiney’s son have the same name?”
“It’s a family name, that’s all it is.”
“But you came up to me in the bar,” she insisted. “You remembered me.”
“Might be a girl in America I’m remembering, somebody you remind me of. You’ll have t’do better than that.”
Ahead of them, between the framing of buildings, stood an ancient tower against the city-lightened clouds. As they gradually approached it, it became clear that this was Paul’s destination, and she knew from her travel books it was Christ Church Cathedral. It stood bleak and inanimate and strangely beautiful in the stillness of the city street, and he led her through its wrought-iron gates to a bench where he sat her down, acknowledged her frustration with a glance and a sigh.
“I don’t mean t’be upsetting you, I really don’t,” he said, “but you have t’try and understand—this is Ireland.”
“You could try to understand me, just a little.” She watched him take a seat beside her, not too close. “After all, I came all this way to find you.”
“And where did you come from, or am I ever going t’learn?”
Listening to his voice, all husky and smoothed by that satiny tone, she felt a warmth spread all through her body. He was Killiney. No one else could have that voice. “Protection Island, in Washington State,” she said. “I took a flight from Vancouver, actually.”
“And that’s where the guy died, yeah?”
“Look, I know how strange it all sounds, how you must feel about the whole thing, but can’t you just consider that maybe what I’ve said is true? That maybe you and I have been together, that maybe God and reincarnation can somehow coexist? I don’t know how, but—”
She stopped. His brows had abruptly slanted in a frown, and he didn’t seem to be listening anymore. His eyes looked like pieces of translucent ice, distant, emotionless, and when his gaze misted over with a fixated stare, she covered his hand with hers.
“Paul?”
He didn’t budge.
She should have been frightened then. Seeing that vacant expression on his face, his unblinking gaze, it occurred to her suddenly that she, too, felt strange: lightheaded and exhilarated all at once, as if she’d gotten up too fast and the ensuing confusion were somehow enjoyable.
Staring at his boots, wondering at their silver caps glimmering like beacons on a distant coast, Ravenna barely noticed when the edges of her vision began to blur. Paul’s eyes, now gazing at her with the utmost serenity, seemed the most impossible shade of blue, and she fell into them effortlessly, didn’t fight the dizziness, the airy, cool weightlessness that lifted her from heavy limbs.
She let herself be taken, surrendered herself until, cloaked in the pattern of dreams that received her, suddenly she knew no more.