In the library, Pete O’Malley, looking sour and wearing a tie patterned with fishing lures.
‘How did it go today at the river?’
‘Was supposed to fair off by noon,’ said Pete, ‘but not a stir.’
He sat in a wing chair. ‘Where did the poker club do their damage?’
‘Lough Key. Hardly any rain at Key. Caught enough fish to sink a freighter-they could go commercial.’
‘They’re that good?’
‘Maniacs, those women. Cast a line, hook a trout, cast a line, hook a salmon…’ Pete swirled his drink, drained the glass. ‘I’m havin’ th’ Irish T-bone this evenin’. Medium rare.’
‘Come on. It’s the poker club’s night to shine.’
Pete looked repentent. ‘You’re right. I’ll have th’ T-bone tomorrow evenin’.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
Pud sat at his feet, unblinking. ‘Give it up, buddy. I’ll catch you tomorrow.’ Seducing aromas from the kitchen. Gray flakes of burned turf rising in the draft.
‘Maybe I should get a dog,’ said Pete.
‘You can tell dogs anything, and they’ll still love you.’
‘If I told a dog everything, that dog would be gone in a heartbeat. Guess it’s different with clergy, not much to tell.’
He laughed. ‘Guess you don’t know much about clergy.’
Pete adjusted his tie, eyed the stair hall. ‘We’re out of here Friday before sunup.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’
‘A pretty good life at ol’ Broughadoon. Like Ireland used to be. Anyway, I’ll be goin’ home to a Manx cat my wife left when she moved out, an’ a parrot named Roscoe that sings Beatles tunes.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Serious as a heart attack. Ol’ Roscoe lives at the office; my secretary treats him like Michael Collins resurrected. He’s been on th’ telly three times.’
‘What’s his specialty?’
‘Yellow Submarine. Want to see his picture?’
Pete pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket, glowered at it, fiddled with it, handed it over. ‘Roscoe.’
A photo of a parrot looking grouchy. ‘Amazing, ’ he said. ‘No grandkids?’
‘It’s hard to get grandkids these days, have you noticed? My daughter has a pig that sleeps on her bed, my son has a wire-haired terrier-that’s all she wrote in that department.’
‘What do you do in Dublin?’
‘Insurance. Family company founded by my great-granddad in nineteen aught nine.’
‘Aught. Haven’t heard that in a while.’
‘I’ve been seein’ a lot of it on my bottom line. Too much stress in th’ business today-I remember what my dad used to say, he owned a cattle operation on the side-stress toughens th’ meat and sours th’ milk.’
‘I’ll buy that.’
Pete looked at him intently. ‘You’re a lucky man.’
‘Can’t say I believe in luck, but why do you think so?’
‘Your wife, she’s a great lady.’
‘She is. Thanks. Puts up with me.’
‘That’s bloody hard to find-somebody to put up with you-in spite of your mess.’
‘Putting up with somebody’s mess works both ways.’
‘I couldn’t put up with my wife’s mess-I don’t blame her for walkin’ out.’
A burst of laughter from the dining room; they were finishing the table setups. Something electric was in the air-something to do with Anna’s surprise, no doubt.
‘I have bad luck with women. But, hey, if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.’ Pete manufactured a laugh.
He knew the feeling. Balding, overweight, and stuck in a remote parish at the age of forty, he had resigned himself to the fact that it was all over for him in the marriage department. What he couldn’t know was that twenty years later, a children’s book author with great legs would move next door.
‘You know what it’ll take to save my marriage? ’ asked Pete.
‘What’s that?’
‘A bloody miracle.’
They heard the poker club coming along the stair hall. He saw the hopeful look on Pete’s face, saw him close it down and try the sour look again.
‘Refill,’ said Pete, getting up and heading to the honesty bar.
In the dining room, newly starched linens; candles and garden roses on tables and sideboard; doors open to the summer evening. A pretty good life at ol’ Broughadoon-definitely.
Though the anglers were full of praise for the club’s fishing skills, they were quick to point out that ghillies and decent weather must nonetheless be given their due.
‘Whatever,’ said Debbie. ‘Slainte!’
Glasses lifted all around. ‘Slainte!’
He gazed with his wife at the lough, silvered in the gathering dusk. ‘Maureen calls this the moth hour,’ she said, half dreaming. ‘The moth hour…’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I haven’t committed anything to memory in quite a while. You’ve inspired me; I’d like to memorize a poem. Maybe Patrick Kav’na. It would be a souvenir we don’t have to pack, and would last us as long as our wits hold out.’
‘Which we pray will be a very long time,’ she said.
Decked in his butler’s garb, Seamus on his night off from Catharmore was standing in for Bella on her own night off.
‘Fresh peach tart this evening, in a rosemary cornmeal crust…’
Seamus paused for effect.
‘… or Blackberry Semifreddo-ripe blackberries blended with fresh mint, verbena, homemade ricotta, and local sweet cream, frozen in a nest of dark chocolate.’
‘Now, that’s poetry,’ he told his wife.
He remembered being seven years old and working along the creek with Peggy in the blazing Mississippi sun. The handles on their tin buckets creaked; heat shimmered off the water.
Pick a berry, slap a chigger, pick a berry…
‘We gon’ be eat up,’ said Peggy.
‘I’m done eat up.’
‘I’m already eat-en up,’ she corrected in the voice that never sounded like Peggy. When he was old enough to know better, he realized she never corrected herself, not one time, it was always him she was after with the English lesson.
‘You gon’ beat me, you keep pickin’ so fast,’ she said.
‘I ain’t gon’ beat you, ’cause I be eatin’ all I pick after I get to right here.’ He tapped the bucket three-fourths of the way to the top.
‘Peoples say don’ eat while you pickin’. If you does, when you eats yo’ cobbler this evenin’, it won’t taste half as good.’
‘How come?’
‘’cause you done spoiled th’ taste in yo’ mouf out here on th’ creek.’
He looked up and rolled his eyeballs as far back in his head as they would go. That’s what he thought about that dumb notion.
Peggy laughed pretty hard; he liked to make Peggy laugh. ‘You know what you is,’ she said.
He did know. He was th’ aggravatin’est little weasel she ever seen…
‘The peach tart,’ said Cynthia.
‘The thing with blackberries,’ he told Seamus.
‘’t is a grand evening you’ll be havin’ in th’ library with your coffee.’
Cynthia adjusted her glasses and peered at their server. ‘You’re looking quite distinguished, I must say.’
‘’t is th’ candlelight-it softens th’ shine on my butler’s oul’ duds. We’ll bury you in it, Seamus, says Mrs. Conor. Aye, says I, for you’ll outlive me and all th’ rest.’
‘What would you know about the Mass rock?’ he asked. ‘Where is it located? O’Donnell speaks of it in the journal.’
‘You’ll have to ask Anna or Liam. I saw it years ago, but can’t remember whether it’s right or left of th’ lake path.’
When Seamus walked away he saw it coming.
‘Cream. Cheese. Chocolate,’ said his wife, reciting a litany of his offenses.
‘Righto. And mint, verbena, and fresh berries. Six of one, half dozen of the other.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Now, Kav’na. Look at all the fish I’m having. Very good for the diabetic. And all the fresh vegetables. Locally grown,’ he said, losing the battle.
The anglers’ table was engrossed in recitation of one sort or another.