‘Well, then,’ he said.
He had been given more unlikely missions, though not many.
Twenty-three
He stepped into the dining room as she came in from the kitchen.
‘Bella! Good afternoon.’
He felt the perfect fool; regretted the unwitting use of his pulpit voice. ‘I bear a message from my wife. She sends her love.’
She glared at him, scornful. ‘You’ll get nothing from me,’ she said, wheeling back into the kitchen. The door swung behind her.
An encounter with Bella was right up there with having your face slapped ’til your jaws rattled. Perhaps Anna had told Bella of their talk in the fishing hut. Maybe she knew Liam had confided his own concerns. It hardly mattered. Bella Flaherty was fenced by a thicket of nettles; he wouldn’t invite her sting again. And no way would he stick his head in the kitchen and order a pot of tea, much less try to ring Dooley.
He walked up to the library, scanned the bookshelves; Fintan O’Donnell’s long dissertation had put him off the notion of reading.
Rain oiled the windows, obscuring every view. He examined the sepia photographs, searched a group shot. Did Liam resemble any of these men? He squinted at a tall fellow in the back row, eyed the angular face. But why waste time on nonsense? Did he, Timothy, look like his tall, exceedingly handsome father? Of course not-he was the near-image of his portly, balding Grandpa Kavanagh.
He paced the room. He wasn’t good at having nothing to do, and having nothing to do for days on end was losing its luster. Whatever zeal he’d entertained for memorizing verse had definitely waned.
‘Reverend?’
‘Anna!’ He was glad for the sight of her attentive face; even her clogs were consoling.
‘Was she rude to you?’
He smiled.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘She’s in very bad sorts, something gnaws at her dreadfully. I always believe it’s my fault, that if I only knew how, I could make things better.’
‘I understand the feeling.’
‘She says she’s suffocating from the remoteness of the place, and no one about under forty-an ancient age to her. She told me this morning there was someone who would have taken her away, but it’s impossible now.’
‘Jack Slade?’ He hadn’t meant to say that, not at all.
She blanched, offended. ‘I have no such evidence.’
No mother would want such evidence-he had overstepped.
She saw that she had put him off. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Broughadoon’s endless refrain.’
‘I’m sorry I asked.’ In truth, he could dig a hole and crawl in it. But three apologies in the span of a few seconds? What was there to do but laugh a little?-and so they did.
‘The rain puts an end to the roses for a time,’ she said. ‘And the lavender hates it, of course.’
‘There’s a price to be paid for being green,’ he said, making small talk.
‘We’ve had a postcard from Moira. Hired cars are too dear in Positano, so she’s getting about on a Vespa.’
‘Holy smoke.’
‘Ti sei bevuto il cervello is her war cry, she says, to Italian drivers.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Loosely translated, Have you swallowed your brain?’
They had a small chuckle. ‘Anything at all from the Garda?’
His question put the instant worried look on her face. ‘They can find nothing to go on, they say. I don’t understand…’ She pulled forth a scrap, gave him an innkeeperish smile.
‘Well, then,’ he said, prepared to hurry off.
‘The dining room must be lonely,’ she said, ‘without the anglers. Will you join us in the kitchen this evening for supper? Dr. Feeney will be here for his house call, you know, and Seamus is with us. It’s our family night; we do it each month.’
Hadn’t she said innkeepers are ever forced into the society of guests? Perhaps he should decline. And yet, he wanted to join them in the kitchen. ‘Unless you hear back from us, we accept with pleasure.’
‘Grand!’ She took a deep breath and drew herself up and smiled her old smile, revealing a healthy store of what his mother called ‘milk-fed’ white teeth.
‘I’d like to take a pot of tea up to Cynthia,’ he said. ‘If that’s convenient.’
‘I just gave a knock to deliver your laundry, but no answer. I looked in and she’s sleeping. Shall I carry it up?’
‘No, no, I’ll take it up in a bit. No hurry.’ He would have mentioned Cynthia’s loss of sleep from the pestering ankle, but Anna would have said she was sorry and off they’d go on a rabbit chase.
She seemed hesitant, smoothed her apron. ‘You said you would tell me about Dooley, how things… went along for you.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve a few minutes off the clock. Would this… be a good time?’
‘A very good time,’ It gave a small pleasure to be asked-he needed the work.
‘If it isn’t asking too much,’ she said.
’Not at all. I like to talk about Dooley.’
Her green eyes were luminous. ‘Please come, then.’
They turned left before the dining room, then right, and proceeded along a narrow hall with a bank of windows. The close passageway smelled of something cooking on the red Aga.
‘Smells good,’ he said.
‘Bella’s cooking this evening. Italian is her favorite cuisine since she was little.’
A blue door then, which she opened with shy pleasure.
‘My Ibiza,’ she said. ‘Please go in and make yourself comfortable, I’ll only be a moment.’
He stepped into the room, heard her clogs sounding along the passageway.
He looked at the tall windows clouded by rain, at images pinned to the wall, of gardens, flowers, reproductions of paintings-one by Cecil Kennedy, whom he admired. He searched for the legendary ladybug that appeared in all of Kennedy’s remarkable paintings of flowers, and there it was, of course.
On a long worktable, trowels, pruners, gloves, clay pots stacked by size-the usual detritus of the earnest green thumb. Above the table, pencil sketches tacked to a corkboard. Garden designs. He looked at a large sketch in which islands of space were identified in block letters:
LODGE. KITCHEN GARDEN. LANE GARDENS. HIDDEN GARDEN. BLUEBELL WALK. ORCHARD. MASS ROCK-the elements tied together by a winding pathway.
Facing the windows at the end of the room, an artists’ easel and a high stool. At the end of the table, a jumble of paint tubes, brushes in a Chinese vase, a smeared palette, a tole pitcher filled with roses. A bloom gave way as he stood looking; petals fell silent as nuns to the stone floor.
She came in with a tea tray and set it on the table. ‘There!’ she said, slightly out of breath.
‘I can see why all of Sligo wishes to visit Ibiza.’
‘’t is a great clutter, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s its charm.’ He felt happy in some new way. ‘I didn’t know you’re an artist.’
‘I’m not, really. Just trying to get the hang of it, but there’s never enough time.’
She poured two cups of tea, handed one to him. ‘No one comes here but myself, and that all too rarely, so I have but the one chair-like your Mr. Thoreau. Please sit; I’ll bring my stool.’
She picked it up and brought it over and was perched on it before he could set his cup down and give a hand.
‘I was after converting it to a guest room,’ she said. ‘We could use it in the busy season-but Liam won’t allow it.’
‘Good fellow,’ he said, taking the armchair.
‘So please tell me, Reverend…’ She looked suddenly worn. ‘How did you do it?’
‘With prayer. A lot of prayer.’ He sat back in the chair, inhaled the fragrance of the steaming tea. ‘With patience, too, of course-but not enough. As for love, I had no way of knowing how to love a wounded boy-perhaps because I had been a wounded boy myself, I don’t know.
‘We think of love as warm and cozy, and that’s certainly part of it. But it was hard to muster those feelings toward someone who vented his lifelong rage on me. I felt pretty sorry for myself, sometimes.’