Mink River: A Novel (22 page)

6.

Today is June ninth, the feast of Saint Columba, says the priest as he steps down into a beam of buttery light from the shadowed altar and begins his homily at the noon Mass. There are four old women in the front row and three old men in the rows behind them and one youngish man he doesn’t know who must be from out of town a trucker perhaps and to his surprise there in the back nestled together hand in hand are Rachel and Timmy and as the priest’s eyes adjust to the light he also sees amazingly Grace O Donnell deep in one corner and deep in the other shifting restlessly from foot to foot Owen Cooney who has never ever not once in eight years set either of those restless feet in this church. The priest resists the urge to say something to Owen and indeed being an experienced campaigner he knows to not even look in his direction although he cannot resist looking at Grace again to be sure that it’s really Grace sitting primly half in and half out of the fat golden light. Well, he says, Columba is celebrated as a great saint of the Scots but he was not Scottish, nor was his name Columba, and for much of his life he was hardly a saintly man, which makes him an apt figure for us to ponder this morning. He was born in County Donegal of the O Neill clan of the north, his father being Fedhlimidh, great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and his mother Eithne, granddaughter of the King of Leinster. He was christened Colm and he grew in learning and stature so wonderfully that by the time he was twenty-five years of age he was renowned throughout the North for his skills as a poet and his physical strength and his voice so loud and melodious it could be heard a mile off. He loved books and traveling and he went everywhere in his country preaching and teaching. However he also had a violent temper and after a friend of his was slain over a sporting accident Colm instigated a vendetta that left thousands dead at Cuil Dremne. This horrified Colm so much that he fled the country, taking twelve of his cousins with him to sea in a small boat built of wood and leather. They landed on the island of I, also known as Iona, and there he spent the rest of his life as abbot of the island community, receiving visitors of all sorts and stripes from every walk of life, most of them in some sort of physical or emotional or spiritual pain and seeking his counsel, which he gave most generously and continually in payment of the deaths his temper had caused, though he offered counsel in an austere and brusque fashion, it being said of Colm that of all his qualities gentleness was precisely the one in which he failed the most. Yet gentleness was the trait he sought above all others, seeking the limitless joy to be found in good work that leads to a peaceful nature, not in strife either in himself or with his companions and enemies, and many enemies he had, though as Colm said his greatest enemy was finally himself, for each of us, man and woman alike, is a seething sea of desires and shadows, of illusions and dreams, of courage and cowardice, and we arrive in peaceful harbors only by sailing ourselves true, by finding and wielding our talents as tools to help others. In a real sense we arrive home only by leaving the island of I. This is the message that comes down to us through the years and across great waters from the man called Colm; and it is the thought I leave with you this morning. Amen.

7.

Ite missa es
, the Mass is ended, go in peace, says the priest at the end of the Mass, and he gathers up his chalice and paten and white hand-towel, the tools of his trade as he likes to say, the minutiae of the miracle, the stuff of the sacrament, and he walks briskly into the tiny sacristy, the locker room for the performance, as he likes to say, and as he disrobes he ponders the five people he saw this afternoon whom he never saw before in his church: Rachel and Timmy and Grace and Owen and the youngish man who might be a trucker or something passing through town.

Rachel and Timmy leave the church and hand in hand walk downhill past the school and as they cut through the schoolyard they stop in the dark lee of the building where the gym overlaps the auditorium, there is a little half-alley there where the older schoolchildren smoke cigarettes and make out sometimes carefully not knowing quite yet whether or not to take your glasses off when you kiss intensely or where to put your hands exactly or whether to keep your eyes closed all the time or not and there in that little half-alley russet-shadowed in the bright blinking young afternoon Rachel leans back against the brick wall and lifts her skirt and stares at Timmy and Timmy slides into her gently and they rock gently against the wall for a while staring at each other their eyes locked their loins locked her fingers locked in his hair.

Grace leaves the church hurriedly by the side door and puts her head down so no one can see her face and starts to walk as fast as she can but she walks bang! right into the shoulder-bone of the youngish man who might be a trucker or such who has paused outside the church to light a cigarette.

Hey now, he says, smiling.

Sorry, sorry, says Grace, walking on.

No need to be sorry, he says, falling into stride with her. What’s your name?

None of your business.

People call me Denny.

Do they?

But you can call me Dennis.

Okay, Dennis: piss off.

I need coffee. Been driving all night. There a shop near here?

I don’t know.

Bet you do.

Grace stops walking and rounds on him and says angrily, Leave me alone! Walk somewhere else! There’s a coffee shop down the hill!

You’re a wild one, he says calmly. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?

What do you want? says Grace angrily. You want me? You don’t want coffee. You want me naked. Someone told you I was easy. Isn’t that so? Someone told you that. Didn’t he? Didn’t he?

Well, he says, staring at her.

Not today, pal. Kitchen’s closed.

Whatever, he says, and he walks away, turning to look at her when he gets far enough away that he thinks she doesn’t see him but she does.

Owen leaves the church and starts to walk home but on a hunch he tacks south toward the Department of Public Works and indeed as he walks toward the shaggy green building he hears music from Nora’s studio. On impulse he swings himself up and over the porch railing and knocks gently on the porch window shaped like a woman. She’s so intent on gouging the wooden man on the table that she doesn’t hear his knock and for a second he stands there fist poised to knock again but he lets the second drag a little so he can savor her at work, her hair half wild and half hurriedly caught up in a red rubber band, her blue work shirt sprawling over a chair, her tight black jersey with a soak of sweat between her breasts, her brown bare shoulders flexing as she leans both arms and all her weight into the gouge. He knocks again and this time she hears him and turns and he smiles and she half smiles and opens the door.

Hey now, he says.

Hey, she says, wiping her brow.

Just came by to say hey, he says. And to see if there’s any wood left.

I think I finally got it, Owen, she says.

That’s great, love.

I think so anyway.

I trust your eye, Nora.

I don’t. I’ve been so off lately. All that wood.

Yeh. The guys were getting sore.

Sorry.

It’s okay.

Let’s go see Daniel.

Sure? If the work’s going well …

This is a good place to stop. I was just working on his …

I see what you were working on, you lusty thing.

She grins.

His is … I feel so inadequate, he says, smiling.

Don’t, she says, smiling.

And to think of you alone in here all day with him.

He can’t touch me though, she says smiling. No hands yet.

Ah, now,
I
can do that, he says smiling. I’ve been told by a woman I trust that I have good hands.

So touch me, she says.

Hey now, hey, he says.

Lock the door, she says.

8.

Michael the cop and his wife Sara and their two girls, three if you count the girl inside Sara, are driving to the beach in the police car, it being a beautiful day, one of those days washed clean by yesterday’s thorough rain. It’s lunchtime and on a lark Michael swung by the house in the cruiser and laughing carried Sara in his arms into the car the girls giggling behind them and the girls are in the back seat now eating french fries and slurping milkshakes and being Extra Careful not to spill in daddy’s car although in about four minutes the younger girl will indeed do so.

This is fun, says Sara.

Just seemed like the thing to do,
mia sirena
.

Sirena
?

My beauty, my love. From
Tosca
.

Loud slurping and giggling from the back seat.

Michael.

Sara.

Why … why do you like Puccini so much?

Are you serious? he says.

Yes, she says, annoyed.

Well. First for his music.

But there’s other great music and you don’t listen to that.

That’s true.

So why Puccini?

Well, his music means the most to me, I guess. I’d like to be much more open to other music but it just doesn’t get to me in the same way. I mean, I like all music, you know, but when I choose which music I want to really lift me it’s always
Tosca
. I know it seems crazy but there it is.

I didn’t say it was crazy.

I know you didn’t, Sara. It must seem crazy, though. One opera over and over.

You can listen to whatever you want.

And there’s something about Puccini the guy that appeals to me too.

What?

He’s a genius and an idiot.

That appeals to you?

I find it fascinating. That a man could be so stupid and greedy sometimes but make such wonderful music, that’s really interesting. I don’t understand it.

So why listen?

Sara, what’s the matter?

Nothing’s the matter. I didn’t say anything was the matter.

You seem …

The younger daughter, leaning over the front seat to ask her mother if she could have the rest of the french fries, spills all of the rest of her milkshake on Sara’s shoulder, the cold shock of which makes Sara shout, which frightens the girl, who leaps back into her seat but bangs her sister’s shoulder, which makes the sister punch her angrily in the shoulder too, and the younger daughter bursts into tears, and Michael yells at the older daughter, who yells back quick as lightning quick as a snake’s tongue
You can’t yell at me! You’re not my father!

They drive along in steaming silence.

Well, says Michael, trying to get things calm again, I listen to Puccini because somehow the music always gets to me. Of all the music I have ever heard,
Tosca
means the most to me. I’ve thought a lot about it. Maybe I am obsessive or something. But I figure you are attracted to some things and not to others. Some things matter to you and not others. Something about Puccini’s opera just gets to me and I’d rather go really deeply into one thing than enjoy a lot of things lightly. It’s like being married to you. I’d rather go deeply into you than anyone else.

Anyone else like who? says Sara.

Well, other women.

You think about other women?

No, Sara, I don’t think about other women.

They drive along in tense silence again. The girls hold their breaths.

Michael, why do you love me? says Sara.

Sara, the girls, he says.

But why? Tell me.

He turns and looks at her.

Because I do, he says. I just do. There’s something about you that attracts me very much. And the more I know you the more attractive you are.

You married me because of the baby, she says quietly enough for the girls not to hear.

No I didn’t, he says just as quietly.

You had to marry me.

No, Sara, I didn’t have to. I wanted to. I asked you, remember?

You were just trying to do what an honorable guy would do.

Another tense silence.

You want me not to love you at all? he says, trying to make her smile.

Do whatever you want.

Michael pulls the cruiser into the beach parking lot and they all get out and the girls, sun-struck, surf-addled, float like gulls to the water. Michael and Sara mop up the milkshake silently with the girls’ beach towels.

Sara, says Michael.

I’m sorry, says Sara.

What’s the matter? he says gently.

We can’t afford this baby, she says.

Sure we can.

I don’t have any money.

We have enough money for another baby, Sara.

You
have money.

No, Sara,
we
have money.