On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (10 page)

With no sign of the girl settling, he called to a pair of young boys in the adjoining field, sent them down to the O’Riain farmhouse with a note. Within minutes Peggy O’Riain arrived, shoulders shawled, her sandy hair rolled in pink plastic curlers. Soon she had Leonora comforted and in peaceful sleep.

In the kitchen, Pope John XXIII and John Fitzgerald Kennedy shared the mantle with the Blessed Virgin, below which a smouldering turf fire sent earthy odours through the cottage. Leo plodded about in his boots, a heavy mood over him. Peggy entered, reflective, knelt with her palms to the pulsing turf.

‘What in God’s holy name is bothering the poor soul?’ she said. ‘That’s three times this week. Whatever’s the matter I pray she’s over it for Róisín getting home.’

‘Something’s not right, nightmares like that,’ Leo said. ‘Never before seen her that way.’

‘Has to be Róisín’s nieces. I’d nearly swear to it. They can be a right pair. I hope they didn’t say something in front of the poor lamb, those couple of times they minded her. More than once it was that I caught them yapping about things – you know what I’m saying – after me giving them a right telling off.’ Peggy’s face changed. ‘Leo Reffo, will you stop wearing out the lino; stop troubling yourself like that. Are you hearing me at all, man – stop!’

He halted beside her, his half-bare arms outstretched to the mantle. ‘Something’s turned the little angel; that’s all I know. It might be what you say, them nieces. Or something else.’

‘Listen to me now: There’s no good getting yourself upset. We don’t know a thing for sure, whether it’s the nieces or not. She’ll surely snap out of it as quick as it came on. Childer are like that, the younger ones especially.’

‘I never was. At five or any other age.’

‘Not at all what I heard.’ Peggy rose in the glow of the fire and began uncoiling her rollers. ‘Never told a lie or chased a chicken or set fire to a haystack. We all did them things. Anyhow, it’s thirty years since you were five; you couldn’t remember right. And don’t you still go on like you’re five when you don’t get your way.’

Barely containing her amusement, she crossed the kitchen and stood before him. ‘
A stóir,
stop letting it trouble you. Things’ll be grand when Róisín’s here.’ She snuggled against him. ‘Between this and that you can’t rightly relax, I know, no more than me. Few more days, that’s all, then you’re spoken for, for good; your bachelor days are over.’ His arms clutched tighter around her; he kissed her on the lips, then kissed her again, a kiss that migrated along her neck as his hands dropped to her hips. She quickly freed herself and knelt back at the fire.

‘You can dampen that look, Mr Reffo. You know the rules.’ She set three sods of turf in the hearth and glanced back at his quietness. ‘The day can’t come soon enough for me either. Isn’t it an odd woman you’ll be making of me, getting me to give up the grand O’Riain name for a silly Italian one. I can hear them in the village, what they’ll be calling me, the old ones: Peggy Mary Dolores O’Riain Reffo. Maybe I should just be Peggy O. What do you think of that?’

Leo approached her, his dourness all but gone.

‘Only the good Lord knows,’ she said, back in his arms. ‘Please God soon we’ll have a wee one of our own. A little Leo Reffo, Lord save us from all harm.’

‘I’m worried, Peg.’ Leo walked to the window, stared out. ‘What if the wee nieces told her? It started a week and a half ago, first time they minded her.’

‘Whisht, will you. We don’t know they said a thing. And even if they did there’s nothing to do now. Could be she heard them telling their secrets, the way young girls are at that age. Anyway, Róisín’ll be home tomorrow, and with the help of God back to her old self in no time. And Leonora too.’

Leo turned from the window, found Peggy’s troubled regard still on him. He threw his cap on the table and made for her, open-armed. ‘You’re a wise woman,’ he said into her de-curlered hair. That’s why I’m marrying you. One reason anyhow. The other one’s the thing you won’t be saying no to after next Saturday.’

Her look of mock disgust was followed by a parting kiss. Then suddenly her hands sprang to her hair, picking and pulling. ‘The state of me. God almighty. A head full of rats’ tails the night of me own hens’ party; it’ll be over if I don’t gallop now, without the bride-to-be.’

‘I heard the word in the village,’ he called after her, ‘that I’m the luckiest man in Aranroe to be marrying Peggy O.’

‘Don’t be falling for that old gossip,’ she shouted back. ‘You’re only a big ruffian. Even so, I might love you.
Slán, mo mhile stór.
’

6

Outside the Beehive they lingered as linked couples stole away under twinkling stars and the ocean beat in all the little streets.

‘Well?’ Lenny asked again, her hands tucked inside her jacket. ‘What will we do?’

‘Great night. How about I walk you up to your place? Then I’ll head back down to where I’m staying.’

‘Fine,’ she said curtly. ‘Up the hill together, half an hour. That’s it?’

No right response came to him, so he said nothing. What was she suggesting? Without the clues of experience he had nothing to tell him. Except fantasy. ‘We can do whatever you want,’ he said. His words hung in the air.

They walked on under moonlight, out beyond the edge of the village, with no agreed destination. Lenny moved purposelessly, gazing up frequently into the whispering sycamores. Tony halted their advance, coaxed her to look at him.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Tell me you don’t feel it!’ she said, as though discarding the politeness of new friendship. ‘Is it just me? Is that it?’

‘Is what you? What? Tell me what’s on your mind, Lenny.’

‘On my mind? Well, for one, the Abbey’s just ahead. And notice I don’t call it home.’

For the next minute they walked in separateness and silence. When they reached Claire Abbey’s gates her mood seemed less troubled. She led him in under the perimeter trees and leaned against the castle wall.

‘Too nice a day to end. I want to stay out. Stay out and play. For a long, long, long time. I know, you don’t have to say it: I’m thirty-five sounding fifteen. Whatever that says about me.’ She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed. ‘Tony, know what I’d like? I want to go back with you, to your place.’

His averted gaze was pulled back by her closeness. ‘Lenny, it’s, it’s – ’

Out of the black bogland a spear of light shot across them. The white Mercedes had turned in off Aranroe Hill and now rumbled to a halt just feet away. For a moment nothing stirred but the glimmering of the light beams. Then a door clicked open. A dark figure stepped out, glared across the car roof at their partly hidden outlines.

‘Leonora?’ the man called and waited for a response. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Everything’s fine!’

‘You’re certain? You know it’s getting quite – ’

‘I’m fine, I said. Fine.’

The man remained motionless.

‘Quite fine! Thank you.’ Her articulated words pierced the ether.

The man said no more; his car continued along the weaving stretch toward the castle.

‘My dutiful father. Now can we go?’

‘I remember the car. At the station last year.’

‘Can we go?’

‘Sure. Where can we – ’

‘Anywhere! That’s where. Any damn where. This has been one of the best days of my life. Can you understand that, can you?’ She turned away then quickly back, and held him. ‘I’m sorry; I don’t want this to end, a kiss against a cold wall. I don’t want to be alone tonight.’ Their embrace intensified. ‘I want you to love me, Tony. I want to love you.’

* * *

In the bare room Lenny perched on the edge of a worn sofa. Tony flitted with distractions, certain of nothing but what joining her would mean, before his head was right. In the sanctuary of the bathroom he cursed his hesitancy. Was it fear or street sense or insanity? At twenty-eight, what stopped him? What was wrong with him? With being here? He allowed himself one minute, no more, to get control.

Nine years of incarcerated fantasies, all his dreams of this. And now it wasn’t as he envisaged. He wasn’t. It wasn’t simple or fearless. His unease felt asinine, given how he felt about her. Fuck his crazy mind, he cursed. Fantastic woman, waiting for him, a woman who wanted him as he was: flawed, shaking. And he was dishonouring the moment, and her. He didn’t deserve this freedom.

Since he’d laid eyes on her this morning he had not stopped picturing her naked. Hadn’t been able to nor wanted to. Nor stopped imagining her next to him, her scent, the feel of her. Through all those hours the body and spirit of this woman had tortured his senses. For a whole year, in fact. A lifetime. Now he had to deal with it.

Through the slightly-ajar door he stole her reflection from the mirror: half-reclining on the double bed, long legs, cotton dress, bare shoulders, her neat rounded breasts high up and distinct. His imaginings put tremors into him, forced him out of hiding. Just then her expression caught him, a face kind, bearing sureness, wiser than he would ever be.

‘Tony,’ she said, jolting him into the actuality of the moment. ‘Come beside me.’

He sat on the edge of the bed, close to her.

‘I want to tell you something,’ she said.

‘No, no, no, you have to tell me nothing.’ He stood up. ‘Nothing. No.’

She placed a finger to her lips and looked at him with need. Her hand brought him back to her.

‘I want to say this; please allow me. I’ll be thirty-six in March. I’ve been in love before, one time. Just in case all this seems some other way to you, I want you to know you are very, very special to me. Being here like this, it’s not something I do. I haven’t made love with anyone in close to four years.’

‘No, you don’t have to explain to me. Nothing. Not to me. I wasn’t thinking anything – ’

‘Shhhhh. Darling, no more talk . . . Make love to me.’

His eyes climbed her slim, bare legs and over her curving form, then his hands, delicately, tentatively, and he kissed her sea-fragrant flesh, her shoulders, her chest, her trembling mouth, and a shared glance told that each was pledged, in abandon.

‘We can turn out the light,’ she whispered, ‘if you’d prefer.’

‘Can’t imagine not seeing you.’

She unloosed both shoulder strings, slipped out of her clothing. ‘Then see me, Tony. Love me. Never stop.’

Her smooth, pale flesh, warm to his hands, pushed his throbbing to the edge.

‘I want you so much,’ she whispered in a whisper full of dreams. ‘I love you.’

7

1964

Aranroe Village

In the icy air rang the chant of carols. And from overhead a shining angel and strings of bulbs gave life to the dark street.

Child tightly by the hand, the gaunt woman hurried past tinselled shop fronts, avoiding passing faces. Her bulky overcoat, buttoned high, lent substance to her slightness. Outside McCann’s Village Hardware her hurry halted. She glared down once again at the wild-haired young girl wrapped in a scarlet raincoat, then struggled in against the weight of the shop door.

‘There y’are, Róisín Doyle,’ Paddy called out. ‘Bit under the weather? Something the matter?’

‘Not too bad, Paddy,’ she said in a tired voice.

‘And how’s the wee lassie? Didn’t get her mammy’s flaming hair.’

‘Sure red’s a curse, Paddy. Anyway, she’s grand. Six in March, wild as a vixen.’

Paddy’s big apron-draped frame leaned across the bare-board counter. He poked his thumbs into his ears, stuck out his tongue, and flapped his fingers at the child. Instantly, she mimicked his tease, expelling a blare of spit and air until her breath ran out.

‘God in heaven bless us and save us,’ he said with alarm. ‘Wasn’t me that taught you that. I never do things that bold.’ He picked a bulls-eye from a big glass jar and dropped it into the girl’s waiting palms. Then he turned back to the woman.

‘What can I do for you, Róisín?’

‘Do you mind if I ask you a sort of a personal question?’ she said, leaning closer to him. ‘When you were setting up the new shop, did you have to get a solicitor?’

‘I did. Sean Breathnach, up the road. If you don’t mind me asking: you wouldn’t be going into business against me?’

‘Don’t be silly, Paddy. Nothing like that. Is he a decent sort, Mr Breathnach?’

Paddy brightened. ‘Grand lad. I still owe him a few quid and he never says a word.’ He drew back his shoulders, assumed an affectation: ‘“A pound or two, Patrick, in your own good time”, that’s it, all he says. Be sure you tell him it was me that sent him the business. Say you’re on the best of terms with meself and he’ll see you right.’

‘I’ll do that so.’

‘I’ve one shilling off the new artificial Christmas trees, just in from Germany. For yourself, one-and-sixpence off; how’s that?’

‘Not this year, Paddy. All I need is one of them plastic clothes lines.’

‘A line, a line,’ he said, searching the shelves behind him, and in a moment slapped two on the counter. ‘The twenty-foot’s one-and-eleven pence, the thirty-foot’s two-and-six pence. And I have the wire ones in the back, thruppence a yard.’

‘The cheapest one’ll do, with the plastic.’

‘Twenty-foot: what if it’s not long enough?’

‘It’ll do.’

‘Look, take the longer one. I won’t be charging you. Wee Christmas present. If it’s too long just snip the end off with a pliers. Now is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘You’re a good ould soul, Paddy.’

He glanced to both sides then leaned over the counter. ‘Y’know what, Róisín Doyle, like I told you before, and I hope you won’t take offence at me saying it again; I’ve often said to meself: if you weren’t a married woman I’d be – ’

The brass bell over the shop door clanged. He straightened up.

Róisín gave a weak smile, picked up her straw bag, and departed.

On the footpath, the child tugged at her mother’s coat. ‘Mammy, I want to light another candle, to the Blessed Virgin. Can we? Just one more. I want to.’

‘Tomorrow, pet, not today. You have to be very very good today. For mammy, okay?’

‘The doctor didn’t give me a sweet. Remember you said? And he didn’t. And I – ’

‘Stop it! Stop it! He forgot, Leonora. He forgot.’ She yanked the child forward and said nothing for a while. ‘I’ll buy you sweeties. But you have to promise to be the best girl today, you hear?’ Just then a car pulled up beside them.