He had gone upstairs for a map to give Walter, pondering the issues of last night.
Slade’s victim hadn’t died but was in critical condition. Sobering, this cascade of incidents since they’d stepped foot on the place.
They gathered in the car park, their wives laughing over some private joke.
‘Broughadoon is wonderful,’ said Walter, ‘but too much drama this time around. If I were in your boots, I’d be out of here.’
‘It’s her birthday, she gets to choose.’
‘A point of considerable merit,’ said his cousin. ‘And speaking of age, I think we’re all holding up well enough, though I deeply regret looking more like Dad with each passing day.’
‘He was a handsome fellow, my uncle. Good looks trump age.’
They had spent the morning remembering their Mississippi rites of passage and hacking through Kavanagh history cobbled together in recent years. He’d also taken the Vauxhall for a practice run around the Catharmore circle, flinging a few dog biscuits while at it.
‘What’s the plan?’ he asked Walter, who always had one.
‘Let’s say Belfast a week from today. An overnight there, then head south, taking our time. Katherine’s up for Guinness pie at that terrific pub we stumbled on in Dundalk, still talks about it. Anyway, we’ll finally see the family drinking horn at Trinity, and the Book of Kells-a long time coming. You have the hotel phone numbers; do what you can at once, given the season.’
‘That works,’ he said. The fact of separate cars had been established; all concerned seemed relieved. ‘Maybe we can squeak out of here a day sooner than we think. Let’s stay in touch.’
‘What happened to your cell phone, by the way?’
‘Don’t ask.’
Walter laughed. ‘To the four winds, would be my guess.’
‘Close enough.’
They recited the family motto-‘Peace and plenty!’-gave the high-five, and, following a round of the cousin’s kiss, which resembled the European greeting model embellished by back-slapping, Katherine scratched the Fiat out of the car park and into the outer lane.
Walter waved from the open window; Katherine honked three times.
‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,’ he informed Cynthia. ‘Her signature honk.’
He opened the door of the Vauxhall, which he’d parked next in line for takeoff, and helped Cynthia into the passenger seat. He was frankly consoled that Maureen had offered to pray for the ‘brilliant performance’ of their loaner.
‘Rev’rend! Cynthia!’ It was Maureen, leaning from an open window on the second floor. ‘Come back safe, please God.’
The side mirror had been reset in the thingamajig and there was nothing on the backseat but the blasted crutches and their versatile snack hamper. He even smelled leather polish, though precious little leather was left to polish.
They were off with a rattle.
For five days, his wife had entertained scant notion of where she was in the universe, save for views from the dining room or a garden bench. She cranked down the car window, poked her head out, gawked. He loved the reflex of her open mouth.
‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Unbelievable.’
To their right, the easy green slope to the lake and its several islands, and the hovering hills beyond. Then the stone walls overtaken by scarlet trumpet vine, wild fuchsia, purple buddleia.
‘I’ll have run out of adjectives by the main highway.’
‘Understood.’
‘And Timothy… now that we’re not committed to flinging ourselves around in the backseat of a car with Stirling at the wheel, I’m crazy about Katherine all over again.’
‘Also understood.’
She fell for the cow barn with the single blue shutter, as he thought she might.
‘How lazy of me not to be more curious about my own Irish connection. I have no idea how we knew that my double-great-grandmother played the fife-Mother tried to trace the line when I was at Smith, but she got nowhere. It’s such a lot of trouble, genealogy.’
‘Next time,’ he said, ‘we can look up your crowd.’
‘Just think, darling-you and I could be cousins.’
Following Anna’s directions, they left the main highway and meandered about for an hour, stopping to sketch a lamb drinking water from a green tub. It was a greater provision than he’d hoped when they found a grassy sward with shade, a dead-on view of Ben Bulben, and a parking spot on the verge.
He helped her to a stooping tree with a massive trunk-a horse chestnut-then went back for the hamper and its cargo of lunch. ‘Just in case,’ Anna had said. ‘It may give you more freedom to roam.’
A light breeze shifted through a patch of blue flowers; across the road, sheep dotted a hill. Perhaps this was divine compensation for the ankle and all the rest of it, this day abroad in a world of mild temperatures and easeful shade and no haste in their bones.
He spread the blanket and sat beside her, as he’d done those years ago in a pasture when the bull chased him and they’d eaten raspberry tart and he’d surrendered his defenses without meaning to.
They’d gone to the country on the red motor scooter he used for eight years after giving up his Buick for Lent; he remembered how she’d clung on behind him and the thrill he felt that such a thing could be happening to him, Timothy Kavanagh. With cornfields zooming past and her warm flesh pressed to his back, he remembered praying that he wouldn’t suffer a heart attack or stroke from such frightful happiness. It had been their last day together before he set off for Sligo.
‘Beann Gulban, the peak of Gulba. What do you think?’
She turned to him with the dreaming look in her eyes. ‘It’s too beautiful. Far, far too beautiful and mysterious. I’m sitting here trying to believe it’s real. What is it, exactly?’
‘A mountain with a level plateau. Limestone and shale, sculpted by glaciers. Stands seventeen hundred feet above the plain. Our guidebook calls it a great satisfaction to seekers of the picturesque.’
‘I don’t see how one can call it anything at all-it defies logic and language completely. Look.’ She flung her arm out to him. Goose bumps.
‘The megaliths would give you a few bumps into the bargain, and so would the Carrowkeel cairns.’
He filled their glasses with Anna’s tea. ‘From the cairns, you can see more than a third of Ireland on a clear day.’
‘I’d love to visit the holy wells.’
‘Holy wells, dolmens, crannogs, caves; Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Ice Age-name an age, the landmarks are all here, but nearly all involve walking. Next time,’ he said, raising his glass to hers. ‘Eat your Wheaties.’
‘I like it when you talk about next times. Getting you on an airplane is right up there with getting blood from a turnip.’
‘I’m doing better,’ he said. ‘And speaking of turnips, let’s eat.’
They devoured their lunch with appetite, then used the hamper as a headrest. Lying together on the blanket, they watched clouds navigate the canopy of leaves and branches. This was what they needed-the proverbial life of Reilly.
‘How’s the ankle today?’
‘Good. I’m tempted to throw away the crutches.’
‘Don’t do it.’
‘I won’t. But I’m so sorry about all this, really I am.’
‘Don’t be sorry. Otherwise we’d be racing around like chickens with our heads cut off. Believe me, if you’ve seen one or two castles, you’ve seen them all. The way things have worked out-it’s better, really. More… idiosyncratic.’
She laughed, traced the bridge of his nose with her forefinger. ‘Tell me what Broughadoon was like the first time.’
He told her of the plainness of the place and how that had suited him in his bachelor days, and the morning he stood at his bedroom window and glimpsed Anna behind the lodge, hanging wash on what she had called her drying bushes-aprons, dish towels, shirts, a child’s jumper. She had hooked items of women’s underwear on twigs behind the bushes, and he’d turned from the window as if caught in some indecent act.
And there was the day the cow got into the garden, and he’d never seen such flapping about of arms and shouting in the unknown tongue while the cow chewed, solemn as a judge, and would not be moved. Someone had brought a halter and rope and managed to drag the creature from the garden, but the damage was done and quite a lot of moaning and groaning was lifted onto the brim of the morning along with a scent of trampled leeks. In true Irish fashion, a kitchen helper had the wits to appreciate the offering the cow left behind, forking it off to the side to cure. Paid ’er dues, he said, pragmatic. They had all got behind a spade or a rake and busied themselves until the garden looked nearly fit again. He’d pitched in as well, and later enjoyed the evening’s special: braised leek soup. ‘Bruised, more like it,’ he’d said, which raised a laugh.
The memories were a movie playing in his head, something slow and indistinct with a tone of sepia to it.
They hadn’t spent much time at the lodge, for they’d been out and about trying to see and do it all, to swallow it all down without chewing. As for the menu, he said, he didn’t remember anything like homemade verbena ice cream or the semifreddo business. Supper had been delicious enough, though compared to the comestibles of this visit, unremarkable. Breakfast was usually brown bread, coffee, jam, and fruit, at a table with a short leg propped up by a packet of matches. He vaguely remembered the young child with dark hair and large eyes whom he knew now to have been Bella-she had not mingled with the guests.
He didn’t remember any dogs, though he had recently got one, or more precisely, one had got him. Nor could he remember anything in particular about the guests-then again, come to think of it, there’d been a Mrs. McSomethingorother, who wore overwrought hats and looked like a character from a Victorian pen-and-ink drawing.
‘It’s coming back to me,’ he said. ‘She traveled with twelve place settings of sterling flatware.’
‘Surely not.’
‘She recited a child’s poem, something like, I’m tired of eating bread with crusts and going to bed too early, and something, something, something about her hair being curly.’
‘But why did she travel with twelve place settings of flatware?’
He pondered. ‘I think it was to prevent anyone at home making off with it.’
‘Why did she come to the lodge? Did she fish?’
‘Like a maniac, as I recall.’
‘Ah,’ she said, wrinkling her brow.
‘So,’ he said, ending his narrative of former days at Broughadoon.
‘Everything’s certainly different now,’ she said. ‘Anna says Bella is in a terrible state-but then, Anna doesn’t look so well herself.’
‘Let’s not dwell on it,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Where shall we worship on Sunday? Church of Ireland or Tad’s place?’
‘Tad’s place, don’t you think?’
They gazed at Ben Bulben, feeding what would soon enough be memory.
‘I’m painting William this evening-by firelight. He said he’d have a nice wash today, and Anna will trick him out in his Sunday best. I’ve never painted anything at all by firelight-so many shadows, and most of them moving. Maybe I can’t do it.’
‘You can do it.’
She turned her head and looked at him, solemn. ‘Thanks. I adore you. Who do you think stole the painting?’
‘I’ve heard a good bit about Liam’s brother and his urgent need for money.’
They hadn’t really talked about what happened. The idea of leaving and then staying, plus the coming and going of Walter and Katherine, had largely occupied their thoughts since the Barret disappeared.
‘Jack Slade,’ she said. ‘Let’s say he did it. Then comes the awful thing at the fair and he gets himself locked away, and it stays wherever he hid it, and when he gets out of prison, he fences it and he’s a very rich stone coper-I think that’s the word Liam used.’
‘I saw Liam this morning. He says Slade is done for-for a few years, anyway.’
‘How was Liam, I haven’t seen him.’
‘Beating himself up. Not only was it something he loved, but it was important to his dad. Then there’s dropping the ball on the insurance-they’ll get something from the business coverage, but not much. Throw in the armoire business and the Tubbercurry incident, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen such a hailstorm.’
The clouds today were swift; sunlight broke over the green hide of the ben, vanished, reappeared.
‘The question is how anybody got it off the place at all,’ he said. ‘No fingerprints, no footprints, no tire marks. If someone could figure that out…’
She slapped at a midge. ‘That’s too hard for me. I’m more interested in who, not how. Maybe a former guest. Or a neighbor?’
‘I haven’t seen any neighbors,’ he said. And Seamus was not in the lineup of possible thugs, he thought, absolutely not. ‘Given the size of it, it would be awkward to carry any distance. Managing it would probably take two people. How about the wine merchant we met coming out when Aengus was driving us in? He parks his truck off-road, and he and a henchman slip down to the lodge…’
‘But if he walks down the lane, he leaves footprints-the Garda said the lane was muddy.’
‘Right. Anyway, if he managed somehow to get there without leaving a trace, he and the henchman pop into the dining room, and in a flash they lift it off the two hooks and away they go.’
‘How would he know the dining room would be empty then?’
‘He watches through the French doors.’
‘But he still wouldn’t know that everyone was in the library, that nobody was likely to come back to the dining room and catch them at it.’
‘Then it’s an inside job. The wine guy knew when people would be out of the room and for how long.’ He felt suddenly foolish in the guise of amateur sleuth.
‘Would they have done it, Anna and Liam, for the insurance money? It’s a horrible thought, I can’t believe I said it. But would they?’
‘If they’d done it for money,’ he said, ‘they would have beefed up the insurance policy. Anna says the coverage was minimal. Besides, I’m convinced Liam loved that painting.’
‘I’m sorry I said it,’ she confessed. ‘Then what if Paddy insured it?’
‘Could be. Who knows?’
‘I wish I’d read more P. D. James. By the way, I don’t think they say henchman anymore-you are so quaint.’
‘Quaint,’ he said with distaste. Being a village parson had turned him off the word entirely-it was something tourists occasionally said not only of Mitford but of him when trooping through town like they owned the place.
She was still laughing.
‘Help yourself,’ he said.
She narrowed her eyes, looked at him approvingly. ‘It’s been ages since you let me paint you.’
‘You made me look like Churchill.’
She pulled a face.
‘Or maybe it was Mussolini.’
‘I could do much better now. What I’m after is that little quirky thing about your mouth, the one your mother had in pictures I’ve seen of her. It’s so fleeting-but I feel I could catch it now.’
Save for her, he would have jumped ship on all this. But he was in and he was glad; it felt right.
‘I’m excited about painting William-all those lovely wrinkles around his blue eyes, and that wicked scar on his temple. A fine nose, too-perhaps it was Roman before it was bashed in. Did the Romans come through Ireland?’
‘The Romans came through everywhere.’
‘William blames the Vikings for red hair, which he says isn’t Irish at all. It came from th’ bloody murderin’ Vikin’s, he says-from th’ numerous rapes an’ rampages that sullied th’ black hair of th’ Gaelic nation.’
‘There’s a view of history for you.’
She slapped her arm. ‘I see how Liam has taken to you, just like your parishioners in Mitford-even people who weren’t your parishioners. You attract that sort of thing like I attract midges. You never seem to mind.’
‘Maybe it’s some assurance to me that I exist, or have meaning-who knows? It’s always been that way.’
‘You’re like both father and priest to Liam, Anna says. That’s a lot to put on someone.’
‘Like you’re breath and life to me. That’s a lot to put on you.’
‘But I don’t mind it. Not ever. Besides, you try so hard to keep that need hidden. You seem afraid it will take something from me. But it doesn’t take anything away-it gives me something.
‘That’s what you do for people. It’s a wonderful gift, but it drains you. You see someone in need and take the plunge-that’s what God does, of course. But when you told Liam the police could jolly well come to you, I think you hit a home run.’
‘A first,’ he said, wry.
A young woman with an infant in her arms appeared on the narrow road, trailed by a border collie. The collie stopped, eyed them, barked. The woman lifted the tiny arm of the baby in a wagging salute to the couple at the chestnut tree, who waved back. He watched the trio disappear around a bend, praying for them as he had often done for the odd stranger or passerby, and even, on occasion, for the crew and passengers of a plane droning overhead. It was a private and instinctive thing, having little, or perhaps nothing to do with being a priest.
‘I love Ireland,’ she said.
‘You haven’t seen much of it.’
‘But I feel much of it, somehow. What if every day had a title, rather like the title of a poem-Psalm of Life or The Wild Swans at Coole, like that?’
‘Ah. So, what would today be titled?’
‘You go first.’
‘Free at Last.’
‘Perfect!’ she said. ‘You win.’
The mild zephyr that shook the blue flowers trifled with her hair. ‘I’m supposed to be painting Ben Bulben.’
‘Never mind. Legions have already done it, I’m sure. Getting down to brass tacks-shall I have Liam drive me to Sligo and rent a decent car?’
‘The world is full of decent cars,’ she said. ‘Let’s rattle around, we’ll remember it all’-she looked toward the Vauxhall-‘more vividly.’
‘Speaking of which, I just remembered…’
‘Tell me.’
‘We didn’t go to the country on my motor scooter.’
‘When?’
‘When we were courting-the time the bull chased me and we ate the raspberry tart.’
‘Who said we went on your motor scooter?’
‘I was thinking about it a few minutes ago, about you clinging on behind me, and it seemed so real. What I remembered was my fantasy about us going on the motor scooter. We went in the car.’
‘I would never have gone on that motor scooter.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘By the way, when I asked you about seeing Balfour’s place, how did you know what happened to it? You asked Anna?’
‘I skipped ahead to the end of the journal. Just for a peek.’ She slapped at a midge. ‘But I’ve decided to read it in proper order, roughly in sync with you.’
‘Do we want to keep reading it?’
‘We do,’ she said.
‘What if it was an inside job?’
‘Balfour’s place?’
He stood up, stretched. ‘The painting.’
‘I wasn’t going to talk about that anymore. But, yes, what if…’ She sat up. ‘I mean, why was Jack Slade at the fair when Bella was there, and why did he stab the fellow for talking out of turn to her? What business is she of his?’
‘Good question. The Garda probably asked that, too. Speaking of-what is it, anyway? Garda with an a at the end or Gardai with an i at the end?’
‘Beats me,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen it with two i’s at the end.’
‘Anyhow, let’s up and away, Kav’na. Tempus fugit.’ He checked his pant pockets, discovered the Connemara Black with its jagged barb-not a good thing to tote around in a pocket.
He helped her from the blanket; she looked curiously sober. ‘Are we nuts to stay?’
‘We’re a little nuts even if we don’t stay,’ he said. ‘So what’s the difference?’
‘Do we really want to visit a graveyard today?’
‘Probably not today. Besides, you already know the epitaph.’
‘Cast a cold eye,’ she said, collecting the picnic leavings and stowing them in the hamper.