‘Uncle Billy devoted most of his life to making people laugh. He believed that laughter doeth good like a medicine, as scripture says, and it must have done him a world of good, for he lived into his eighties.
‘I remember the day he called me at the church office and said, Preacher, I done fell off a twelve-foot ladder.
‘Good Lord, I said, did you hurt yourself, any bones broken?
‘No, sir, he said, not a dent. I only fell off th’ bottom rung.’
William laughed, raised his glass. ‘To Uncle Billy!’
‘Uncle Billy!’ said Seamus, raising his.
‘Uncle Billy was married to a fierce woman named Rose. Here’s something that may have had special meaning; I’ll try to tell it the way he told it.
‘Well, sir, a feller died who’d lived a mighty sinful life, don’t you know. Th’ minute he got down t’ hell, he commenced t’ bossin’ around th’ imps an’ all, a-sayin’ do this, do that, an’ jump to it! Well, sir, he got so dominatin’ an’ big-headed that th’ little devils reported ’im to th’ chief devil, who called th’ feller in, said, How come you act like you own this place?
‘Feller said, I do own it, my wife give it to me while I was livin’.’
A prodigious roar, he thought, considering the size of the crowd.
‘Give us another!’ cried William.
‘Well, sir, there was this census taker a-goin’ round, don’t you know. An’ he come to this house an’ he knocked on th’ door an’ a woman come to th’ door. He says, How many young ’uns you got an’ what are their ages?
‘Well, let’s see, she says, we got Jenny an’ Benny, they’re ten. We got, uh, Lonnie an’ Johnnie, they’re twelve, we got Timmy an’ Jimmy, they’re-
‘Census taker says, Hold on! You mean t’ tell me you got twins ever’ time?
‘She says, Law, no, they was hundreds of times we didn’ git nothin’.’
There was the light again in Anna’s eyes, and Maureen’s unhindered laughter. Applause, even.
William thumped his cane. ‘Another, if ye’d be so kind!’
He appealed to his wife, who was hammering away on the damp paper. ‘Um,’ she said, furrowing her brow. ‘The gas stove?’
He reeled it off, brought the house down. This was heady stuff.
Maureen wiped her eyes. ‘We’re starvin’ for entertainment.’
‘Obviously,’ he said.
‘Last man standin’ gets a pint on th’ house,’ said William.
Seamus put forth another; Moira rendered one with the full Georgia accent; Maureen stood, smoothed her apron, drew a breath.
‘O’Shaughnessy,’ she said, ‘had emigrated to America an’ done well for ’imself, bein’ made th’ actin’ foreman…’
‘Actin’ foreman,’ said William, approving.
‘… an’ with th’ grand rise in pay they give ’im, he decides to share his good fortune with th’ folks back home in Sligo. So he rummages about for a grand present for ’is oul’ mum an’ da an’ settles on a lovely gold-rimmed mirror for th’ parlor.’
‘Good thinkin’,’ said William.
‘An’ so he parcels an’ posts it, an’ before long his oul’ da is openin’ it up an’ lookin’ into th’ mirror. Come here, Mary, he says, an’ see how your son has aged since he went to that Protestant country!
‘And so the mother leans over th’ father’s shoulder an’ looks in an’ says, I’m not surprised a’tall. Look at th’ oul’ hag he’s livin’ with.’
He was oddly moved by the laughter, the ease of it. ‘Give us another, Maureen!’ he said.
‘Aye, Rev’rend, an’ don’t you know Mike Gleason is fetchin’ his long-lost brother from th’ airport tomorrow? Mike says he hasn’t laid eyes on ’im in thirty years. So I say to Mike, An’ how will ye recognize ’im, as he’s been away that long?
‘I won’t, says Mike, but he’ll recognize me, ’cause I’ve niver been away a’tall.’
Encouraged by the ensuing ruckus, Seamus set aside his pipe, combed his mustache, and stood, bowing slightly. ‘’t was a quiet night at Jack Kennedy’s.’
‘Seamus likes to put on th’ local color,’ said William.
‘Only two oul’ gents at th’ bar, who had gone at their pints quite fierce an’ would need th’ cab to get home. First one looks over, says, I’ll stand ye a round, ’t is me birthday.
‘Well, now, says the other, there’s a coincidence f’r ye, ’t is my birthday as well.
‘If that don’t take th’ cake, says th’ first, and how old might ye be?
‘Sixty-seven, says the other.
‘That’s bloody amazin’, says the first. I’m sixty-seven meself.
‘A twist of fate if I ever heard it, says the other. An’ where were ye born, then?
‘Enniskillen, says the first. And yourself?
‘’t was Enniskillen for me, th’ very same. What a blinkin’ fluke.
‘The phone rings, Jack answers, his wife says, Any business down there, darlin’?
‘Ah, no, he says, not much. Just the guzzeyed O’Leary twins.’
Miles from Yeats’s pavements grey, in what had been stables in a once-isolated corner of his paternal homeland, they were hooting and cackling like maniacs-all without help from TV, CD, DVD, or any other gizmo. Such merriment wouldn’t last, of course, but that was life and they were grabbing it and holding on.
He was the first to see it finished. The watercolor was the laughing William Donavan, the very breath of him.
Cynthia looked up, and he stooped and kissed her forehead. ‘You did it,’ he said. ‘The shadows might have been painted by the firelight itself.’
She leaned forward, holding it up for William to see.
‘Aye, God!’ William said.
Anna put her hand on William’s shoulder, pleased. ‘Mr. Yeats himself was never so handsome. ’
Maureen drew Bella into the circle around Cynthia and her paints. ‘Look, babby. Th’ spit image!’
‘Brilliant!’ whispered Bella. ‘’t is yourself, Daideo, with th’ necktie matchin’ your eyes.’
William gazed at the damp paper, mesmerized. ‘A prodigious fine work, Missus. I don’ know how ye did it.’
‘I had help,’ said his wife, looking a mite dazed.
As they heaved their way upstairs, Pud in tow, he felt her exhaustion as palpably as his own. Bouncing around in the Vauxhall for two days running made the prediction of tomorrow’s heavy rains sound welcome.
But it wasn’t weariness he was feeling. He realized he was bracing himself for something to do with her work. He would risk ferreting out the truth instead of tensing for the unknown.
They put on their nightclothes and lay in the dark, looking out to the sheen of the moon in a mackerel sky.
‘What are you going to do with this new ability to paint people?’
‘What do you mean, do with?’
‘It seems you’d want to do something with these wonderful portraits-perhaps an art show.’
‘An art show? Where? In the Local behind the produce section? On our clothesline where the garage used to be?’
‘You have contacts in New York.’
‘But I don’t want a show, Timothy. It’s too much work, it’s insanely too much work. And then the critics go after you and find you provincial, which I am, and who would want to buy a portrait of someone they don’t even know?’
‘Ah,’ he said, feeling some relief. He had pressed Uncle Billy to give an art show-Andrew Gregory had framed more than twenty of the old man’s early pencil drawings of wild-life and hung them in his antiques shop. The show had been such a hit that Uncle Billy pronounced himself ‘nearabout killed.’
‘What I want to do is give the portraits away. I want Bella to have hers, she seemed so pleased with it. And William must have his, to show off sometimes, or just look at and remember how gay we were this evening by the fire. I still can’t believe how well it came off tonight-William has a very busy face.’
No art show, then. He breathed out. However…
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘You’ve never been able to fool me.’