On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (12 page)

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Under great Celtic crosses the black-clad mourners began moving away from the grave in twos and threes. Fr Liam Foley, with a plaintive countenance, picked his way to higher ground and stretched out his hand to Leo. A moment later Paddy McCann arrived beside them, shoulders stiffened, suit collar up. The three men huddled amid headstones mottled by moss and age.

Fr Foley recounted the day, just two years earlier, as he remembered it, the spring of 1963, when Róisín came to see him to be married and had a bother with a curate, since gone from the parish. She had hinted then to him about her health without saying more. And then her marriage ending after just months. A tragedy, no less, he declared, Charles Quin and his idea of marriage, not deserved at all by such a grand wee lass.

‘Have only meself to blame,’ Paddy said, eyes red and watery. ‘Talking to her on Monday I was. Had a feeling all wasn’t what it should be. And what did I do? Sweet fuck all! At twenty-six any gobdaw would’ve known. Not this gobdaw. Clear as day now, her telling me she was off to see Sean Breathnach and getting me to drop the wee one up to yourself and Peg. Big fat
amadán
is all I am, a dunce. No other way to say it.’

‘That’s totally nonsensical, Paddy, I’ll hear none of it,’ Fr Foley said. ‘You’re not God. No more than I am. No call blaming yourself. She went to see Sean alright – for a reason. Do you know what that reason was? To fix up the will, so the child wouldn’t be done out of whatever’s rightly hers. Our Róisín was smarter than she let on to any of us. Young Róisín gone, can you believe it, Tommy Doyle’s only daughter, poor unfortunate soul.’

‘Smart she was. Too good for the likes of me.’ Paddy sobbed into his handkerchief. ‘One of the best.’

‘Come on, Paddy,’ Leo said. ‘Pull yourself together.’

‘That’s what she said to me, on Monday, the very words. I was one of the best, if you can credit that.’ Paddy’s distress broke into his words. ‘She put both of you, by your own names, in the same company. Leo and Fr Foley, she said. And Paddy McCann. The best.’

Leo squeezed Paddy’s shoulder. ‘Too hard on yourself, man. Liam’s right, the blame’s not yours. Not a soul could’ve known what lay ahead.’

Leo’s crestfallen stare searched both men’s faces then travelled to the unfilled hole in the ground. ‘Where was her Saviour the day she needed him? Could you explain that to me, Liam?’ he asked.

‘She was in God’s hands all along. Every day. We can count on that.’ The priest took both men’s arms, drew them closer. ‘Dr Lappin called it a miracle, his very words to me. She borrowed five years, he told me, that she shouldn’t have had, and she knew it, knew it all along. It was the good doctor himself that broke the news to her, when she was only sixteen. Leukaemia. Not much anyone could do, he told her, except pray for a miracle. She wouldn’t accept that, not for a whole year. Told him she’d cure herself, that nothing would stop her getting married, rearing a family. As certain as you like. So on with us she went for another eight whole years. Can you beat that? The spirit.

‘She swore the doctor and the ma and da to secrecy that first day. And held them to it ever after, never relented. She’s with the da now: Tommy, me old pal.’ His smile lived only seconds before he reached to Leo, as though to stem his own distress. ‘The grave is but a hollow tomb,’ he said, ‘that inherits nought but bones. We can never let ourselves forget that, men.’

‘What about the wee lassie, Leo?’ Paddy un-did the knot in his black tie. ‘Any change?’

‘No change. Still just staring into space. Won’t even cry. They’ve a name for it I don’t remember. She’s up in Harcourt Street Hospital; supposed to be the best. Peg’ll stay with her for as long as they let her. Could be a while, they said, before she snaps out of it. Or she might not.’

‘If there’s a god in heaven she’ll be right as rain,’ Paddy said. ‘Or I’m done with the Church for the rest of me days. Sorry y’have to hear that, Liam, that’s how I feel.’

‘And by God’s good grace she will turn right,’ the priest said. ‘She’s in the prayers of everyone in the parish, and far beyond.’ He paused, forlorn looking, then took a more stout-hearted bearing. ‘We don’t know better than God, men, why he calls those he does. I’ve shaken a few sticks at him in my time, but I do know he has a purpose in giving us the crosses we bear.’

Paddy climbed down from the rise to greet his parents.

‘I know how much you’re suffering,’ Fr Foley said quietly to Leo. ‘I believe I’m free now to tell you what Róisín told me. That you were always the closest to her heart. Said yourself and her da were the kindest of all and meant the most to her. A fortnight ago she confided that to me.’

‘Then you know I asked her. More than once. She wouldn’t have me.’

‘I do know that. And I know more, being of the cloth, as they say. The girl knew she wouldn’t be staying long with us, despite her courage. Saying yes to you wouldn’t have been fair; she truly believed that. Hardest decision she ever had to make, saying no to you; you have my collar on that.’

‘But the innocent child. Look at the state she’s in. I can’t understand, why, why she – ’

‘
Mo chara dílis
, there’s more to living and dying than any of us will ever understand. In fairness to the dead, no one on earth, not Róisín Doyle nor anyone else, could have foreseen the wee lassie crossing the bog in the black of night, in that weather. Could even be she was drawn there by a spiritual connection with the ma; such things have happened.’

Leo nodded, hands in his pockets, his gaze in the distant Atlantic.

‘I hear Charles asked yourself and Peggy to look after her till matters get sorted out?’

‘Yesterday. Telegram from Australia. How could we not. Róisín’s brothers are all emigrated and Granny Doyle’s not able for a wee one.’

The cold morning mist had thickened and now it hung heavy and damp over graveyard and mourners. Paddy, puffing clouds of breath, climbed back to the men.

‘Have to get inside out of this shagging weather.’ He pinched his lapels together under his chin. ‘C’mon, Leo, I’ll stand you a drink. And yourself, Father. The chill up here would freeze the balls off Satan himself – sorry, Liam.’

The priest shook his head. ‘I’ll stand us all a large Powers, two apiece. God knows we deserve it. Christmas Eve tomorrow, I’ll be on me last legs. Confessions from ten till six then turkey and bulldust with the purple-hat brigade.’

As the trio trudged toward the gates, Leo fell behind. Alone in the watery light, he glared back to the new white cross atop the rise, luminous against the dark dome of Mweelrea.

‘Y’all right, boy?’ Paddy whispered over Leo’s shoulder. ‘The Morris is ready when you are, in your own time.’ And he departed Leo’s farewell.

8

The double knock came again. Tony slipped into his jeans and called out. It was housekeeping, a female voice responded. Lenny let out a gasp and flopped back in the bed. The room was fine, he shouted, and he fell back into waiting arms.

‘I could stay here forever,’ Lenny said. ‘Resign from the world and all its rottenness and indiscriminate pain. Keep it all at bay.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘But we cannot.’

As she made to rise he pulled her back. ‘Let’s resign right here for the whole day.’

‘You have fire in your hair,’ she said, freeing her naked form from his hold. ‘The flame of the Celts.’

‘When I was fourteen, in Newark, all I wanted was Puerto Rican hair or Dago hair, even Chinese hair, anything but Irish hair.’

‘That’d make you a totally different person. Which would not be good.’

‘You did it. You changed to blond. Did you become a new person?’

He watched as she stepped into her dress of a thousand tiny flowers, watched her settle it on her hips, raise it over her breasts, then fix the shoulder strings and pat the cotton smooth.

‘Too soon to tell,’ she said disinterestedly.

‘You know, I know zip about you. You realise that? I know you’re smart, you’re pretty, you’re rich, that’s it. And one other thing: after last night I know there’s no words for some things I know.’

At the oval mirror her hands flicked at her hair. ‘A warrior talking to me like a poet. Hard to fathom. Like a dream.’

‘Warrior?’

‘I saw them. So many scars. Your snoring woke me up. That long purple one inside your thigh.’

‘That.’ He was caught suddenly by memories, which he suppressed with effort then lay back in the bed, arms spread wide. ‘Whoever he was, he’s long gone. I’m ready to surrender. To you.’

She pressed a small gold-heart earring into each ear, and didn’t answer him.

‘Surrender can be better than victory,’ he said, as though speaking to himself. He pulled his mind into the present and sat up. ‘Now that you know me, scars and all, what are you planning?’

‘I don’t own you, you don’t own me.’ Her demeanour seemed stiff. ‘I have to go up to the Abbey. One or two errands.’

‘Work?’

‘Woman of leisure. Remember?’

‘Pleasure?’

‘Leisure. Opposites, often.’

‘I’ll go with you. Then we can get something to eat in the village.’

‘No!’ she said firmly, appearing to strain. ‘Better not. I should be through in an hour.’

He suppressed his protest; dissuading her felt impossible.

‘I’m going. I’ll be one hour, possibly two. Don’t look so damn depressed.’ She buckled her sandals, bent across the bed, and winced momentarily as she kissed him.

‘Everything ok?’ he asked.

She kissed him again, lightly, looking as though her thoughts had already left. Then her fingers slipped away, leaving his hand suspended in space. Neither said goodbye, nor gave any goodbye sign.

Now alone, he locked his hands behind his head, wondered how long an hour would feel in this new life. And he thought about how far he had come. From childhood innocence, his original life in this land, to an epoch of ugliness and violence, his life since he left this land. Now time ran back and history paraded in detail: America 1980, the new kid, fourteen, Irish and wild, how most of his peers tagged him, or crazy, tags that stuck as he grew older, taking on all-comers: jocks and toughs eagerly sought out, no size or race or religion rejected, all jerks welcome, scumbags too, big-mouths, punks, slicks, home boys, anyone who thought they could fight; but no hardware, just fists, feet if needed, and all submissions honoured. Then at sixteen, how the code fell apart, rulelessness took over, when blades and wharf hooks and Saturday-night-specials made Goliaths out of worms and wrecked too many unfortunates. And how he, Tony MacNeill, ruled on, fought well, stayed king of Witchell Heights for one more year. And from that time a dark stain burst out:, the face of Jesus Pomental. And the blood. He tried to bury it, because here, he was sensing the first feelings of rebirth, because here his faith in the future felt real, much more than hope, for the first time.

He drew her pillow across his face, inhaled her legacy: subtle and exciting. What part had he played in creating this, he contemplated, being alive and awake and lying here in his own dream? How much should he trust in it, this turn in his life? He was certain it was that, a turn, maybe bigger even than the freedom Joel had opened up for him. Joel Vida, the smartest man he’d ever known. Now his old fantasies felt hollow, juvenile. Crazy how in the year since he’d met her he could not have imagined her passion, the way in which she had loved him, so terrifying, so warm. How wanted he felt. And lonely now. But lonely only for an hour, maybe two, not even that long.

Truth was, he realised, he could not remember anything he had envisioned in the year just gone. Had he even once allowed himself to imagine beyond just seeing her again? Not that any of that mattered now, for nothing could have prepared him for the love of Lenny Quin. If that’s what it was, love; if that’s what she was feeling for him. It had to be, he told himself, it was in her, how she could sense what was going on in his head, what he was feeling; already she knew him like no one ever had. This time no running away. He’d care for her so well that she’d always be as happy as now, joy the world didn’t often give, exactly as she had said. And he’d keep his past to himself, the guilt, the despair, the violence, all the crazy shit.

Then his mind turned again. What if all this was just his own delusion, what if he was assuming, naïve, jumping too fast, dumb, if she felt none of this? He couldn’t permit such thoughts. No self-crucifixion, Joel had warned him. He’d rounded the final turn, finally free, that’s how he’d see it, the end of an old life, end of pain, end of Newark, end of parole, old ghosts disappearing. And true to his oath to the end, he was never going back.

The sun was up now, shining in his window, sharp autumn sun. When Lenny got back they’d celebrate this first day of September 1994. Lenny and September, somehow they seemed to go together.

He jumped at the blare of the telephone. The clock radio’s red digits read 11.05am.

‘Tony, it’s me.’ Her tone sounded stern. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. Just thinking. Waiting for you.’

‘How long will you be staying in Aranroe?’

‘What? Staying in Aranroe? Why? Is something – ’

‘I need to know. Two days, two weeks, a year, one hundred years, what?’

‘I’m not planning to skip town. If that’s what you’re thinking. We’re going to do things together, aren’t we, like we said? Climb Mweelrea, row out to Intinn Island, lots of things, whatever you’d like to do.’

The silence was interrupted only by her laboured breathing.

‘Lenny? . . .’

‘I have to go away. Two, three days.’

‘But, hold on – ’

‘We’ll get together soon, as soon as I get back. You’ll be here?’

‘Of course I’ll be here. But where, where are you going? Why?’

‘We’ll talk.’

‘Lenny, I want to know what – ’

‘Have to go, Tony. It’s not, it’s not – ’

‘Is this like before? Is somebody hassling you? I’ll, I’ll . . . Lenny, tell me!’

‘That’s not it! Definitely not.’ Her assertiveness brought back to him how she had dealt with her father’s intrusion the night before.

‘Then tell me. What is it? Why?’