The Parting Glass (17 page)

He wondered if Peggy could understand that. She might be Irish in heritage, but what did she know of a culture that held on so fiercely to what it had nearly lost in centuries of occupation?

“Isn’t it a beautiful evening?” She cocked her head. “You see, if I ask you a direct question, you have to answer.”

He realized he had been staring at her. Not as a man stares at a lovely woman, but as a man stares at his enemy, expecting she who had come in peace to suddenly and fatally wield a butcher knife.

He managed a curt nod. “A perfect evening. Don’t tell me you walked in. I could have come for you.”

“I biked. I need the exercise, sitting all day with Kieran the way I do. I’ll be glad when his legs grow longer and he learns to like the wind. Then at least we can go for walks.”

“He’s afraid of the wind?”

“He’s not an adaptable child.”

It was a classic use of understatement. He realized how much he admired her attitude. She had faced up to the truth about her son, and she was doing everything she could to help him. He wasn’t certain about her methods—indeed, he hadn’t wanted to know that much—but he did know, without having to ask, that she cared enormously. Like the experts and the researchers, he didn’t understand what caused autism, but he did know that this child was luckier than some. He would not be abandoned or abused. Peggy would be certain he had every chance in the world to succeed.

“I didn’t know you could smile.” Her eyes were warm, even compassionate.

“I didn’t know I was smiling,” he said. “I’ll have to be more careful.”

The fiddlers began to tune. Johnny, who had gone down into the crowd before Peggy arrived, came back to meet her. Finn made quick introductions and watched Johnny flush and stammer, consequences he’d never witnessed. When Peggy left, he turned to the old man.

“Have you never been that close to a beautiful woman, Johnny?”

“Not in donkey’s years. And she’s nice, besides. It’s a fatal combination, wouldn’t ye agree?”

Finn was about to shrug, but he thought better of it. For two years he’d lost his hunger for a woman. Any stirrings of interest had been immediately extinguished by memories of his past. But now his past was before him, the vision still intact of his Sheila standing at the platform edge, and yet his body pulsed with longing.

And not for a woman long dead. For the one who actually stood at the platform’s edge, for the one who had spoken to him tonight.

“Fatal,” he agreed.

“Most women as lovely as that one would live in yer ear and grow potatoes in the other, but not that one. There’s more to her, I’ll wager.” Johnny wiggled his brows and picked up his concertina. In a moment the music began, and Finn was able to leave the subject and thoughts of Peggy Donaghue behind.

Peggy couldn’t believe how much she was enjoying herself. She had grown up in a large family, petted and fussed over by people not so different from these. Maybe by some people’s estimation the Donaghues were “plastic paddies,” Americans of Irish extraction who wore too much green and made too much of St. Patrick’s Day, but the real core of her family wasn’t plastic but truly, distinctively Irish. She felt at home here.

“Are you heading back home, Peggy?”

She smiled at a woman who had introduced herself earlier. Tippy—short for Tipperary, she’d confided dolefully—had a daughter Kieran’s age, and they had talked babies with great relish. She was black-haired, black-eyed and cheerfully overweight. Peggy had liked her immediately.

“I suppose I should.” Peggy glanced at her watch and saw it was nearly ten. The sky was dark now, and, inevitably, since this was the West of Ireland, clouds had blown in. The road home was a long one.

“If you stay just a bit longer, they might persuade Finn O’Malley to sing the last song.”

Peggy raised a brow. “He hasn’t sung a note.” Finn had played the tin whistle and the flute most of the evening, though, and played both with finesse and enthusiasm. She had never heard anyone play better.

“He only sings when he’s made to. Too bad, since it’s God’s gift, isn’t it? To be used, not hoarded.”

Peggy suspected the subject of Finn’s gifts was one that was often discussed here. “Maybe I’ll stay.”

“I’ve been thinking we should get our little ones together soon.” Tippy gestured for her husband, who was standing in a line of men drinking behind them. He grinned at her and ignored the summons. Tippy rolled her eyes in frustration.

Peggy hadn’t told her new friend about Kieran’s problems. The time had come. “I would like that very much, but you need to know up front that Kieran’s not going to be a good playmate for your Maeve. He’s autistic.”

She hadn’t been sure that Tippy would understand that diagnosis. Peggy had been through a year of medical school and hardly understood it herself. But Tippy frowned. “Is he? And you’ve already determined it? He’s a lucky lad, isn’t he, to have a mother who’s so aware.”

“You sound like you know something about it.”

“I’m trained to teach special children. I’ve worked with children like your Kieran.”

Peggy had a million questions, but she wasn’t sure she wanted answers. She didn’t want to know more than she already did about what awaited her son, the limitations, the roadblocks. Not now. Not until she needed to.

“I’ll bring Maeve to play whenever you’d like,” Tippy said. “Or you can come to our house. The sooner Kieran begins to play with other children, the better for him, don’t you think?”

Peggy knew that at this age, the term
play
was relative, even for children who weren’t autistic. For a moment she had to blink back tears. She’d come so far and found warmth and acceptance. “I’d be thrilled,” she said. “Thank you.”

Tippy hesitated. “Peggy, I have a sister in Senior Cycle. She wants to go to university, then teach, just the way I did at her age. If you need help, I know she’d be pleased to help you. And it will give her some experience, and help her decide if that’s the right path.”

Peggy nodded, grateful beyond speech. Tippy squeezed her arm. “That’s ‘The King of the Fairies’ they’re playing now. It’s one of my favorites.”

Peggy focused on the stage and saw that someone, a middle-aged woman with a bad perm, had taken Finn’s place. She looked for him and saw him talking to Tippy’s husband and the men beside him. She supposed he deserved a drink and a break after hours of performing.

As she watched, she saw one of the men take a flask from his pocket and hold it out to Finn. Finn seemed to freeze. He did nothing for a moment, just looked at the flask, then the man. The other men were still, as well.

Then Finn walked away. As she watched, a man cuffed the one who had made the offer and said something to him that was obviously not flattering. The man with the flask put it away, shrugging, as if to say, “More fool, he.”

The whole scene had taken place in seconds. She wondered if she had imagined it.

“The King of the Fairies” was followed by “The Green Fields of Ardkiernan” and “Nine Points of Roguery.” Tippy, who was an admirer of all things traditional, kept her informed, even though Peggy had trouble telling when one song ended and another began.

She glanced at her watch again, just as Finn climbed back on the platform. Someone began to applaud, and others took it up. He grimaced, but he went to the microphone.

“We have to save something for tomorrow,” he said.

There was more applause, and feet began to stamp. He grimaced again. “All right, if I sing it, will you go home peacefully?”

Laughter greeted him, and with a sigh of resignation, he cleared his throat. The crowd quieted. He stepped closer to the microphone and began to sing. She had heard the song before, although she couldn’t give it a name.

“‘The Parting Glass,’” Tippy supplied, as if she had read Peggy’s thoughts.

Peggy was mesmerized. Finn had a clear, resonant baritone. He sang unaccompanied, and the evening air was filled with his vibrant voice, the lyrics and the melody. The combination seemed simple enough, yet it was more powerful for its simplicity.

The words began to weave their own spell. It was about saying goodbye, she realized. The final glass at the pub, moving on, acknowledging friendship and mistakes made. The graceful and last farewell at life’s end.

She was profoundly moved. She was always moved by Celtic music, but never more than this. The air was cool and the breeze had stopped. Finn’s baritone seemed to echo off the mountain where St. Patrick had walked. His voice seemed to extend to the shore so close to the place where her ancestors had sailed for America.

“But since it falls unto my lot, that I should go and you should not, I’ll gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all.”

Beside her, Tippy sighed, and Peggy realized Finn had finished. People began to applaud. She joined them, although it seemed too much like applauding in church.

“No one sings it quite the way Finn does,” Tippy said.

Peggy watched the crowds disperse. The sky was even darker, but she thought it made sense not to rush away until what little traffic there was had lessened. Her bicycling skills had improved in the past weeks, but the lanes were narrow, and the crowd had drunk its share. Prudence was called for.

She said goodbye to Tippy and to some of the others she’d met, promising to visit when she could. The crowd was thinner by the time her new friends were gone, and she started for her bicycle. Finn intercepted her.

“It’s about to rain.”

She didn’t doubt it. She was just sorry the rare clear skies hadn’t held. “I’d better get moving, then.”

“I’ll drive you.”

She wasn’t sure why Finn felt she was his responsibility, but she wanted to disabuse him of that notion immediately. “That’s very kind of you, but I won’t melt.” She said it with a smile.

“I’ve got to go out there anyway. Bridie forgot to bring clean clothes for tomorrow.”

“She can wear what she had on today. We didn’t do anything to get dirty. Or you can bring them in the morning.”

“You’re not going to let me help you, are you?”

“Finn, you did enough picking me up at Shannon. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Your friendship means a lot to my daughter. And to Irene. It’s my responsibility not to let you die of pneumonia.” As if his words were a meteorological signal, raindrops began to fall.

“What about my bike?”

“There’s a rack on my car. Come on.”

Arguing seemed foolish. She got her bike and followed him through the street to the place where his car was parked. He lifted the bicycle out of her hands and set it in place on the rack before she could even offer to help. “Get in,” he said. “It’s easier if I do this alone. I’m used to it.”

She did, and he joined her just before the heavens opened and rain pelted the windshield. The car rocked as the wind picked up.

“Just in time,” she said. “I should be used to swiftly moving storms. The day before I left, a tornado touched down and nearly destroyed the family saloon. And everyone in it, besides.”

“You were there?”

“It was my sister’s wedding reception. Everyone had moved to the back to see her cut the cake. If they hadn’t—” She shook her head. She’d had little time to think about her narrow escape, or how lucky Kieran had been that afternoon. The rain and wind brought it all back.

“Do you have tornadoes here?” she asked.

“Not often. But we get storms.”

She heard the tension in his voice. Had he been anyone else, she might have probed. But this being Finn, she knew better than to try.

He didn’t turn the key. She supposed he was waiting to see if the storm lessened before he pulled out. “I enjoyed the music tonight.” She turned a little to face him. “You’re very accomplished.”

He gave a short nod. She expected it to end at that, but perhaps sitting this way in silence seemed too intimate. “You’re not finding your days here too boring?”

“Not at all. I’m busy with Kieran and Irene, and in between, the quiet’s wonderful. I’ve had little quiet in my life. And if I ever go back to medical school, there won’t be much in my future.”

“You still plan on it?”

“Someday, when I’m sure my absence won’t harm my son.”

Finn began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel. She was sorry he’d made this offer. She knew he hadn’t bargained for being locked up with her this way.

Minutes passed, and she tried to start another conversation. “The song you sang was lovely. I’ve heard it, but I’ve never really paid attention to the words.”

“Some of our best songs are drinking songs.”

“The pubs are an important part of daily life, aren’t they? I suppose it makes sense.”

“You’d understand that, with your background.”

“I know a few drinks will do wonders for conversation. A few too many will do wonders for hospital emergency rooms. I notice you’re not a drinking man.”

“Do you?”

“It must be hard to drink too much and play so beautifully. I saw you refuse someone’s whiskey,” she explained.

He was silent so long she thought this conversation had died, too. The rain was still coming down in sheets, but the wind had lessened. He started the car and backed out of the parking place.

“I refused the flask,” he said, once he was on the road, “but I wanted to take it. I wanted to drink it all and everything else I could put my hands on. I can’t drink. Or rather, I can drink, but I can’t stop.”

She hadn’t known, and it surprised her that Irene had kept this hidden. Finn was a recovering alcoholic. The man truly had more than his share of sorrows.

She wanted to know if this was the reason he had stopped practicing medicine. Had he lost his license or been about to? Was he simply taking a hiatus until he was certain his drinking was under control? She didn’t ask. That was much too personal. But she wanted him to know she understood something of his struggle.

“My father is an alcoholic,” she said. “Only in his case it’s more than that, I’m afraid. The alcohol was an attempt to cope with psychosis, although we’ve never been completely sure which came first. It’s been a terrible struggle for him and for everyone in our family. I can appreciate, all too well, what you must have gone through.”