Forbidden Fruit (17 page)

That dream still haunts me.

While I was remembering, Eamonn looked into my eyes and saw something of my appalling anguish. That was why he, my White Knight,
found it necessary to enter into my world and save me.

Dear God
, I prayed,
if you are out there somewhere, thank you for sending me the one man who would never betray me
.

Without realizing it, I had been weeping for some time. Eamonn had his broad protective arm around my shoulder.

“I’ll look after you, Annie,” he was saying. “I’ll bring you back into the fold.”

That night, poor Eamonn was himself in for a shock. Even in my sad mood, I could not resist playing a little joke on him.
After prayers, he came into my bed, only to find me unwilling to make love.

“Whatever’s the matter, Annie?”

“I’m busy.”

“Busy?”

His hand went wandering down me, only to come to a shuddering halt. He snorted like a water hose starting up.

“God
Almighty
, is it a brick you have between your legs?”

He peeped below the covers.

“A
red
brick,” I said. “Be grateful.”

“Grateful to a brick?”

“Bow down to it. Without it, you’d drop dead.”

“ ’Tis true, ‘tis very true.”

He had finally seen the proof that I was not pregnant.

“I really would expire, Annie, if that sort of monthly blood-letting happened to me.”

“You’re learning what we women go through to produce men like you.”

“So,” he said, “red is the green light, so to speak.”

“If you’re Irish you might put it like that.”

His restless mind was already at work on a new problem.

“Why, Annie, don’t you use those internal things?”

“You’d prefer them?”

“Wait, now, this is very, very serious.” He was squirming with roguish delight. “I might enter you in a rush and push one
of them things right up to your navel.”

“Knowing you, you might.”

“Promise me one thing. Don’t leave them lying around.”

“Okay. What’re you going to do now, leave the bed?”

Wistfully like a dog: “I won’t stay as long.”

Why not? I wondered. Didn’t I need healing when I had a period?

“Please yourself,” I said.

“You don’t seem as concerned as Helena about such things.”

“That’s because Irish women plan their lives around their periods, which is sad.”

“But you are free from all that.” Then that thought started to scare him. “Maybe you ought
not
to be so free.”

“Maybe
you
ought not to be so free,” I said, seeing that his only worry was that I was not worried.

At least he was able to administer confirmations for a few days without first having to race to Killarney to confess.

O
NE SUMMER’S EVENING around eight, Eamonn took me to see his relatives at Castleisland.

Joan Browne owned a bottling company, so I expected a distinguished house. Instead, as I passed through the open front door,
I was too late in making a grab for Eamonn’s arm as I fell down crooked stairs onto a crooked floor.

“I feel drunk,” I said.

“You will be before you leave,” he promised. “Eat plenty of cheese and crackers. Leave anything cooked by herself alone.”

Joan came to meet us with her brother, Paddy Joe. Their welcome was overwhelming.

“After our charming evening at the Glenbeigh,” Joan said, enveloping me in her arms, “I couldn’t wait to see you again. Finally,
the greedy
Bishop
has consented to bring you.”

“Are you talking about anyone I know?” Eamonn said.

In the living room, after pouring us each a big glass of sherry, she said:

“You were brilliant at the dinner, Annie, turning Mary O’Riley’s disgrace into a medical emergency. Eamonn could not have
been more cunning himself.”

“Cunning?” Eamonn echoed, helplessly.

“Why haven’t you brought your housekeeper tonight?”

Eamonn said, “She is in Killarney, preparing for my clergy dinner tomorrow evening.”

Joan put on some music and, as a crowd gathered, there was dancing. Pushing her dark glasses onto the forehead, she opened
wide her big brown eyes, and said, “Why don’t you leave, Eamonn?”

“I have only just come.”

“Leave the priesthood, I mean.”

Eamonn and I looked at each other and laughed.

“Leave and marry Annie,” she went on, in her lilting voice. “A blind man can see you are mad for her.”

“In the name of God…” He almost choked on his drink. “You know I am vowed to celibacy.”

“I also know,” Joan returned, “that the present Pope has dispensed thousands of priests to allow them to marry.”

I was out of touch. Since I was a girl I had taken it for granted that the Church never allowed priests to marry.

“But I’m not an ordinary priest, I’m a bishop.”

“You mean it’s too nice being a bishop to give it up.”

“I mean I don’t want to give
anything
up when I’ve given my solemn word.”

Joan rolled her eyes operatically. “Really. When Annie’s around, I could pick up splinters by the light in your eyes.”

“For God’s sake, Joan, you’re daft.”

Paddy Joe chipped in with “One thing she isn’t.”

Joan said, “I read in the
Kerryman
you inherited three and a half million pounds from a parishioner. Sure you could leave”—she snapped her fingers—“any
time.”

“What
are
you talking about?”

Joan said, “That dinner and the band the other night must have cost you eight hundred pounds. Anyway, your name is Casey,
is it not?”

He banged his palm with his fist. “Did the name have ‘Bishop’ in front of it?”

I said, “He has to deny it, Joan, whether he inherited the money or not.”

“But I didn’t,” and he slammed three drinks down his throat in irritation.

Afterward, Joan said to me privately, “Why did you defend him?”

“I didn’t want to spoil a great time.”

Joan looked at me slyly. “I
like
you. You are a fellow conspirator.”

Eamonn’s mother, she told me, had been a real saint. His father, on the other hand, was obsessively religious. He put Eamonn
in the care of the parish priest, who encouraged him to enter the seminary.

“With the father always working,” Joan said, “it was young Eamonn who had to sort out family problems. Too much responsibility
on young shoulders.”

She went on to say how much Eamonn loved England. When he worked there soon after ordination, he had a motorbike and freedom and he started housing projects for young people.

Eamonn enjoyed being among his relatives. He danced with everyone. Later, the youngsters went on dancing and trying to eat
Joan’s food while the rest of us chatted in the living room. We had had far too much to drink when Joan took Eamonn in one
arm and me in the other as if to introduce us.

“My God,” she exclaimed, “it has just struck me.”

“What, Joan?” Eamonn tittered, rocky on his feet. “What has just struck you and where?”

“What if Annie gets pregnant?”

Paddy Joe fell off his chair, clutching his heart and saying, “I am going to die. I am. I am.”

“I always knew you would break your vows,” Joan said. “Annie’s an excellent choice.”

“Joan Browne,” Eamonn said, “you are murdering your brother with the wicked things you say.”

Junior, Joan’s eldest son, married to a Rose of Tralee, came over to hear his mother say, “If Annie gets pregnant, you will
have to dip into your millions then.”

She could say anything to Eamonn. Mischief was irresistible to him, even when he was on the receiving end of it.

Really high now, he grabbed me for a dance and even cuddled me in a corner with Joan looking on, smiling and nodding her wise
old head.

She mouthed to me over his shoulder, “Sure, himself is gone on you, completely
gone
.”

The drive home was scary because, for the first time, Eamonn was really plastered.

“Slow down,” I said. “Think of the cops.”

“Three and a half millions,” he said, in a slurred voice, his left hand busy under my dress. “How would I get anyone
pregnant
?”

We were within a mile or so of Inch when, trapped in the headlights of the car right in the middle of the road, there was
a lamb. There was a loud crunchy bang and a flight of wool.

“Why didn’t you swerve?” I screamed.

“We would have gone over the cliffs ourselves.”

“Stop, Eamonn, it might not be dead.”

“ ‘Course ‘tis dead.”

“You don’t
know
that.”

“I do, Annie. I have hit them before. ‘Tis a lamb, only a lamb.”

Slaughterer of lambs. Eamonn, supposedly a shepherd—“Behold the Lamb of God”—did this regularly and still drove like a
madman with one hand poking me under my panties. My man was a ruthless man.

That lamb, spring-born, innocent, was suddenly a symbol of everything that stood between us. How could he hit it and not even
bother to stop?

I started to open my door with us careering up the narrow mountain road at about fifty miles an hour.

“No, Chicky Licky, you will kill us both.”

Seconds later, we halted with a screech and shudder at the front of the house.

He opened my door and saw I was almost in tears.

“Why didn’t you stop, Eamonn?”

He touched my shoulder gently.

“I didn’t want you to see a poor bloodied little lamb spread on the rocks. I’ll drive back, it can’t be more than a mile,
and check ‘tis dead.”

I nodded and made to accompany him.

“No, Annie.” He spoke protectively. “Your baby covered with blood still haunts you.”

“I guess you’re right.”

He took the flashlight and drove away. That made me even more apprehensive. I was sending him back down a mountain road high
on drink. If he crashed, I’d never forgive myself.

Fifteen minutes later, I met him at the door.

“I was right, Annie. ‘Twas dead.”

He was still puzzled. “What am I to make of you?” he said. “You have guilt about a dead lamb but no sense of sin. There’s
a tough part of you and another that is fragile, which I’m determined to mend.”

Yes, we were both full of contradictions.

The frightening drive back and the search for the dead lamb in the dark had made him very amorous. He was no sooner inside
the door than he was tugging off his clothes.

He led me into the living room, where, seeing I was shaky and cold, he put a match to the fire, which was already laid, and
offered me a short brandy. “Thank you,” he murmured, “for defending me over that inheritance.”

“I knew you’re such a liar we’d never get to the bottom of it, anyway.”

We never made it to the bedroom. We ended up making love on our favorite rug by the hearth. He was not at his most proficient,
but he was still amusing. Once or twice, he catnapped. That, too, was consoling; proof we were a couple.

There was nothing to stop us sleeping in his bed. The whole house was ours. Or so we thought.

We were about to retire when we heard noises. He put his fingers to his lips, switched off the living room lights, and we
held hands like Adam and Eve after they ate the apple.

“Mary must’ve come back,” I said.

“No. Her car is not here. Besides, I called her from Castleisland. She is in Killarney making ready for the meal.”

Heavens
, I thought,
he takes no chances
.

Who, then, had broken in? Had a dog, a sheep, or a fox come through an open door? A burglar? There was another blood-curdling
bang from somewhere in the heart of the house.

“God Al
mighty
,” he said, “my clothes are strewn everywhere, beginning at the front door.”

“What’ll we do?” I said, enjoying every minute of this.

“Get your things, Annie, and hide under the piano. No, behind the curtains. Flatten yourself against the wall.”

I had difficulty rounding up my clothes with the only light coming from the embers of the fire and him moaning his usual “I
am going to have a heart attack, I am.”

Behind the drapes I managed to slip on my panties, my dress, which I did not button up, and my shoes.

The rattling noise went on. He came across to me, whispering, “What’ll I hit the bastard with, Annie? My silver candlestick
or a decanter?”

I laughed aloud at the hard choice before him. He pressed the drape in the direction of my mouth to make me shut up. I made
a quick curtain call to stop myself having a panic attack. There he was with his hair sticking out in all directions, with
one hand stuffing his shirt into his pants while wielding a solid silver candlestick in the other.

“It’s the wind,” I said, zipping up his pants for him.

“You think so?” Pulling me away from the window, he pushed me ahead of him while he brandished his weapon in the rear. “Open
the door and look see.”

The corridor was empty save for his jacket, stock, and clerical collar by the front door.

“All clear,” I whispered.

“Get me my clothes, then, quick.”

I went to grab them when a frightening shape materialized out of nowhere and came soaring within inches of my head. I hurtled
backward into the living room.

He looked really scared.

“What was it?”

I didn’t answer. I grabbed a coverlet, a kind of shawl, from the top of the sofa and wound it round my head.

“Have you gone bonkers, Annie?”

“It’s a bat,” I squealed. “I hate them.”

He snatched the shawl from my head and wound it around his.

“So do I,” he said.

“You stinking coward,” I yelled. “Give it back.”

“I will not. You have lots of hair.”

“That’s why I need the shawl so it doesn’t nest in here.”

“I need protection so I don’t get rabies on my unprotected head.”

The strange thing was, because I suffered from panic attacks, I liked to see him panicking. Coward speaketh unto coward. His
weakness was my strength; I depended on it. His lack of shame endeared him to me. We never in our heart of hearts
condemned
one another.