On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (13 page)

‘A few days, Tony. Three, maybe. I’ll be back on Sunday. That’s the – ’

‘What? That’s what? Where are you going? I want to know. I care about you; can you understand that, can you?’

‘I understand. But this is not the time. We’ll be together very soon. Sunday, I promise. Have to go now.’

‘Lenny, wait! Is this about the train, you waiting at the station? Or that guy Boxer?’

‘Nothing like that. I’m going now. I’ll see you on Sunday. Believe in me, please. I believe in you.’

‘Wait! Lenny! Where on Sunday? Lenny! Lenny!’

* * *

During the next two hours he called her private number repeatedly with no response. And each time he dialled the front desk he recognised the voice of the brusque woman from last year, whose badge he could still see: Ms C VanSant, Manager, and hung up.

What would he do now? Even asking the question needled him. This was a strange loneliness, not like what he’d known. He flopped back against the door through which he had watched her leave, and slid to the floor. Aranroe was outside, he thought, the mountains and ocean, the meadows over Silver Strand. But such felt beyond him now. Maybe she too was beyond him, gone, with her secrets.

The morning passed, eventually. He’d go to the Beehive, he decided. No, he’d stay in the room in which she was a ghost in scented space.

The whole day passed, and evening into twilight. After a long night and fitful sleep, hunger forced him out, careworn, unshaven, to the Beehive, where close to midday he ordered coffee and a sandwich at the same table where life had come good forty-eight hours earlier. The street was busier now, but with no cause for awe.

Then he sensed he was being watched by two girls standing close by, one in her early twenties, the other a late teenager. The older girl appeared to wave. He looked around; no one was responding. He returned a half smile. Both girls started toward him, smiling. The older one, shorter and more attractive, in denim jacket and jeans, reached him first.

‘Hello, sorry for disturbing you,’ she said in a perfectly articulated country accent, ‘but would your name be Tony?’

He caught himself, in spite of his gloom, admiring her pale complexion and black curls. The younger girl, with a rosy complexion and plum-streaked mane, just watched.

‘I met you once before but you probably wouldn’t remember, up at the Abbey,’ the first girl said. ‘I’m Cilla, Cilla deBurca, and this is Magdalena McCann.’

Then his memory clicked. He straightened up. She was the girl from behind the hotel desk, with the angelic face, when he went in search of Lenny, the girl who had acted like she wanted to tell him something but couldn’t.

He got to his feet, stretched out his hand. ‘One year ago. I do remember. You haven’t changed. Would you like to sit down, have something: coffee, tea?’

‘Hope you don’t think I’m being nosey. Sure we’re not bothering you?’

‘No, no, sit down, both of you, please.’

‘Maggie – Magdalena, I mean – she has to go; she’s got to be home. Today’s my day off.’

They bade the younger girl farewell. In conversation with Cilla he detected a manner he found puzzling. An Irish country-girl’s way of flirting, he imagined. Whether that or not, he needed to be cautious given the trouble of last year. These were his people, he reminded himself, but this was not his turf.

‘Sure I’m not disturbing you? I think Americans are really interesting.’

‘I’m as Irish as you. A Dubliner.’

‘You’re one of us so. That’s even better. I remember how you stormed into the Abbey. I was trying to warn you to watch out for Mr Quin. He doesn’t like anybody calling in to see Lenny. And that Boxer fella floats around the place; I heard you bumped into him; he’s a right eejit, an
amadán
.’ Her hand jumped to her mouth. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be cursing.’

‘Curse away,’ he said. ‘I knew you were trying to tell me something, that day at the Abbey, but I was running for a train.’

‘Nothing really. Except to warn you that it wouldn’t be smart for a nice fella like yourself to be getting into trouble with that big fat bucko Boxer Dunne.’

He caught his internal smirk, turned it into a smile of thanks. Minutes later he wondered again about what he was detecting in her; was it infatuation? ‘How did you know I was back in Aranroe?’ he asked.

‘You serious? Everyone here knows everyone’s secrets. That’s why part of me’d love to move to Dublin. See, Magdalena’s da – his name’s Paddy, he drives a taxi – he told her you were here, then she told me, and crazy Mairead at the station told Leo – Leo Reffo, he’s the manager at the Abbey – and then Leo told me too, so everybody knows by now, nearly. That’s Aranroe for you; it’s like a living room. No harm in it, I suppose.’

‘You know where Lenny is now?’ His tone cut against her easy demeanour.

She stared out toward the street then back at him. ‘I know she goes away now and then, that’s all. But not where. Magdalena’s da probably knows but he’d never tell you, one of the few that doesn’t go on with the gossip.’

‘You and Lenny are good friends?’

‘Wouldn’t say best friends. I know her three years, since 1991. She’s very nice. And can I tell you something else?’

‘I won’t say a thing to anyone.’

‘It’s just that she’s not like ordinary country people, or city people. She’s kind of a special woman, in a good way. She was out in America for a long while. I heard she was a really famous photographer over there. But I heard America didn’t do her any good.’

The more Cilla talked, the more her unadorned nature intrigued him. In an endearing way she seemed blessed with unselfconsciousness, despite seeming also to be holding back when answering some of his questions. Nonetheless, she caused him to recall the girls in Dublin, when he was thirteen and just awakening to female graces. But there was even another quality about her, an aura, something inexpressible. In her fresh, un-made-up face resided the earthiness of the West, probably fused with Spanish genes. She might lead him, he thought, to things he needed to learn.

When they’d finished eating she offered to show him around the locale. She could drive him to spots, she said, known to few humans, and some to none but her. Her talky charm and high spirits, which had already granted him escape from his melancholy, ordained his acceptance.

Her command of her forest green Ford Escort made him feel like he was strapped into a fighter jet, which, he imagined, she’d handle with equal confidence. Around narrow twisting roads the Escort sped, up and down stone-walled boreens and into the purple-patched Sheffrey Hills, then on to Aasleagh Falls on the swirling Erriff river, where they left the car and hiked along the water, over-looked all the way by Mweelrea and Croagh Patrick. Along the trail, Cilla’s knowledge of the natural environment poured out. She identified plants and birds, and talked about the builders of lairs and nests. She distinguished lichens from mosses and fungi, and described great glacial flows. And in pointing out hard-to-see curiosities she pulled him into her personal perspective.

They crossed on stones above the falls, adjourned briefly to record the river’s babbling rush and swirl, its sweep through space to a foamy moss-green pool. And soon they too began descending, this time along the northern bank, dense with ferns and rushes and here and there riverbed boulders rising up out of the shallows. To his continuing amusement, she handled the rugged terrain with ease.

Later, driving back to the village they detoured to the eastern edge of Doolough Valley and the lake – Loch Doog, as an old stone marker identified it – then stopped along the twisting boreen. From there they hiked through scrub to the water’s edge, where giant, swaying reeds whispered like crickets in a mirror loch.

These were sacred waters, the waters of the
caointe
, she told him, said to hold the souls of the dead of tens of thousands of years, since man first walked on Ireland. Bottomless waters that turned coal-black in winter, waters that some said were heard to wail, like spirits weeping for all the suffering of Ireland, often frightening livestock and visitors.

He listened.

To the west, outside the loch’s pincer headlands, the whitecaps of the Atlantic raged. Still keeping his thoughts to himself, he imprinted this scene on his mind, savoured the balm of woods and meadow and ocean. Meanwhile, Cilla stared out, wide-eyed, as though absorbing everything.

Despite the wonders of the countryside and the distractions of the loch and ocean, the absence of Lenny began to press harder in his mind. At times, he retreated so deeply into thought that he missed whole chunks of Cilla’s commentary. He imagined Lenny at his side, the sky in her eyes, hair tumbling, her smile. Every scene that had captured him, every castle ruin and curiosity, each solitary horse in a thistled field, he saved for her.

Still, he could not deny that Cilla’s laughter and wit provided respite. Being with her was effortless. He could be himself, without concern. Haggard and unshaven as he was, she appeared not even to notice. Her joy seemed to spring from her being precisely and only who she was. And her moments all seemed happy. His hours with her, he realised, had been more pleasant than he had anticipated.

Back in Aranroe, Friday night activity was winding down. They strolled past the closed-up shops and sat on the sea wall, picking vinegary chips out of a paper wrapper. An hour later they headed back to the Escort and were soon driving again, this time to Old Head, where they watched the gradual purpling of water and sky, and Inishturk and the islands fade.

‘You must be tired,’ Tony said on the way back to Aranroe, after a period of mutual quiet.

‘Me? Not at all.’ The definiteness in her tone returned him to silence, which went on until the village lights appeared.

‘Up ahead is Aranroe Hill,’ she said. ‘We go left. Where you’re staying is just a couple of fields past my place.’

He broke into laughter. ‘Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard that expression – fields past.’

With no acknowledgement of him, she revved the engine, down-shifted the gears, then sped out onto the hill.

‘I really had a good time,’ he said. ‘I had fun, thanks to you. I really appreciate – ’

‘Why are you thanking me? Don’t be doing that. Alright for a Friday night, I suppose.’

She whirled the Escort off the road and braked to a stop. ‘My house, number 9.’ She gestured to a small strip of modern cottages. ‘Coming in? Nice cup of tea? It’s just me there, no one else, except Duke. Wouldn’t worry about him though; he’s a dog.’ A smile filled her face. ‘Oh no, I’m telling a lie. He’s not there, I keep forgetting, he’s away till Sunday, over at the kennels in Castlebar, trying to, you know; he’s on his honeymoon, you could say.’ She tried to contain her amusement. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m mad. I laugh at meself all the time. So c’mon, you coming in?’

Her invitation assumed his compliance, and her stare did not veer from him.

‘I think I’m just now feeling the jet lag, I’m drained,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘But listen, thanks, I mean that. I had a really good time.’

‘C’mon out of that; a cup of tea won’t kill you. And I promise I won’t either. Safe enough?’

He dug a second time for the least hurtful words, which didn’t arrive quickly enough.

‘You wouldn’t have to go back to the B&B later, if you’re tired,’ she said, ‘unless you wanted to. I’ve tons of room. You could stay in bed in the morning, sleep off your jet lag, go whatever time you want. I’ll be gone at seven; I’m on breakfast, but I’ll be home at half-ten then back in at half-eleven then off at two. And tomorrow night they’re having a big céili in the hall; we could go, if you like céilis. Great craic. C’mon, you’re coming in.’

‘I don’t think I will, Cilla. But thanks. I can walk to the B&B. I can see it from here; you don’t have to pull out again.’

‘Stay in,’ she said without charm. ‘Takes a minute, no more.’

He laboured to breathe life into their nearness but all that happened was disconnected small talk. Then to his surprise he discovered himself deep in imagination. Her closeness had lulled him from admiration of her into fantasies he was indulging.

She slung a glance his way and in that instant her smile exposed him. ‘I knew you were staring at me!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Is it because you think I’m nice looking?’

He scrambled mentally for a way out. Before he could utter a word she caught him with a look of reproof. ‘Or is it that you take to all girls who aren’t afraid to drive fast or climb rocks?’

‘I’m really sorry . . . I didn’t mean to – ’

‘Sorry and thanks, thanks and sorry and thanks. Will you stop! What are you sorry for? Don’t be a silly man; it doesn’t bother me. The woman that doesn’t want to be admired wasn’t born.’

Outside his B&B she turned to him with an air of softness. ‘All I was wondering was, was, if you thought I’m, you know, if I’m pretty, that’s all.’ She drew in a loud breath and left him alone in silence, for a moment. ‘Ah listen, don’t pay me any mind. That wasn’t a fair question.’

‘No, no, I do. It was fair. I mean I think you are, definitely you’re pretty, very.’

‘Would you, would you say I’m beautiful? Gorgeous like? Not just ordinary pretty? Would you?’ Her face waited; eyes watching him twitch and strain. Then her hands shot to her face, she erupted with laughter, her cheeks blushing. It took just a second for him to join her for her glee was a gigantic release from the fix she had put him in. Their convulsions fed off each other, rising and subsiding and rising again, until eventually they settled into calmer merriment.

‘You poor thing. I’m really, really a messer. God’ll never forgive me. You shouldn’t pay me any mind, I’m a silly person.’

‘Yes, you are, you’re a messer. But I didn’t tell a lie.’

‘You didn’t? You mean you think I am nice looking?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thanks. And thanks for being a good sport. Fellas around here would never tell girls things like that. You know, I never forgot you from last year, that day at the Abbey, you were drenched, dripping rain all over the place, and Charity Van Sant was fuming. But she didn’t frighten you one bit.’

‘Oh yes, she did! I was trying not to show it. I remember you too.’