The Silver Boat (17 page)

Dar looked up. A pulley system was in place, attached to thick-hewn rafters, and above them a window overlooking the workplace. She found wooden stairs, the treads worn away in the middle, leading upstairs. She headed up quickly, holding the smooth, round handrail.

She emerged at the top into a single room that ran the width of the building. The space seemed to be out of the nineteenth century: wooden file cabinets along one wall, a grandfather's clock, a brass barometer marked
McCarthy's
behind the dials, one large oak partners desk with only one person seated there.

He appeared to be slightly older than Dar, with short salt-and-pepper hair and wearing an impeccable white shirt and jeans. He was bent over the only modern equipment in the room: a seventeen-inch MacBook Pro just like Dar's, referring to the screen while jotting down notes on an order pad.

“I saw you come in,” he said, without looking up. “What's your business?”

“No business,” she said.

“You're not a tourist, are you? Because this shop isn't on the tour. You could get hurt in here, all the equipment moving around. Or if a boat went off the rails, you'd be in heaven before you'd know what hit you.”

“I'm not a tourist,” she said.

He looked up with piercing blue eyes, waiting for an explanation.

Dar took a breath. “The sign says ‘McCarthy's,'” she said. “Is that your name?”

He nodded. “Been in the family two hundred years. We fought the British in boats we built.”

“My name's McCarthy, too,” she said. “Darrah McCarthy.”

“So you're an American tracing your roots,” he said. “You'd be better off up the hill, at the cathedral. Ask Monsignor if you can go through the records. There are plenty of parish records for all the searching you want.”

“I'm not tracing my roots. I'm looking for this man,” she said, showing him the photo. “It was taken a very long time ago.”

He stared at the picture a long time. “What do you want with him?” he asked.

“You
know
him?” Dar asked.

“I didn't say that. I'm just curious.”

“He sailed his boat transatlantic, a twenty-eight-footer called
Irish Darling
, from Massachusetts to Cobh. He did it solohanded.”

“You sure he made it here?” the man asked.

Dar nodded. “He called home from Kerry, but someone in Kinsale told me he'd sailed on to Cobh.”

“Home?”

It took her a moment, but she got the words out. “He was my father.”

The man continued frowning at the picture, tapping it with his finger. Then he looked up—not at Dar, but somewhere in the middle distance. This went on for several minutes.

“You must have heard of him,” she said, “even if you never met him. People talked about what he did. The dockmaster at Kinsale knew the story. He told me my father worked at the seaport here.”

Silence as the man stared into space.

“What's your name?” she asked, partly to see if he was still awake.

“Tim,” he said.

“Who do you share the partners desk with?”

“No one,” he said. “Used to be my father and uncle, but they're long gone. I run the place myself.”

He glanced up at her, seemed to make up his mind about something. “Michael McCarthy was an intrepid soul.”

“You
did
know him!”

“Knew of what he'd done. It was all the family talked about for a while. Come here,” he said, rising. They walked to the far end of the office. The rough-wood walls were papered with architectural renderings of sailboats, fishing boats, freighters. Tim pointed out the original drawings of the two ships they'd built to fight the British.

There were figureheads of saints and angels, their faces holy, their paint peeling, their wings and scepters worm-eaten; beneath them were wooden transom signs made to hang the width of the sterns of boats, stating the vessel's name and home port, some scrolled, others plain, the boat names deeply scored into the wood, painted gold.

Dar looked up and down the rows, knowing she'd see her father's there. She remembered when he'd worked on the sign himself, as elaborate and fancy as any here, and told her why he was naming the sloop after her. But his transom board wasn't among the others, and she felt her shoulders hunch forward.

“Here,” Tim said, pointing at a four-by-twelve-inch rectangle of oak hanging at the very end of the row.

Dar leaned forward to look. The block was carved in bas-relief: scrolls on either end, curved like a banner, in lettering that read
Irish Darling
. Seeing the words made something come alive inside her, and tears pooled in her eyes.

“You did this?” she asked.

“When I was seventeen,” he said. “I was as enamored as everyone else over your father's feat. When I learned he'd built the boat himself, that sealed it. Suddenly I knew what I had to do. A few spare boards from my grandfather's lumber shed, a hammer and screwdriver, and a few brass fittings from my own tool belt.”

“My father would have been proud to know he'd inspired you,” Dar said.

Tim stared at the block of wood he'd carved. “I'd forgotten this was here until you came in.” He took it down. “I want you to have it.”

Dar held it, looked up at him. “Please, keep it here. It will mean more to me somehow. Did you ever meet him?”

“I apprenticed beside him. When your dockmaster friend said he worked at the seaport, this is what he meant.”

“What was he like? Did he say anything about his family?”

“I was seventeen. All I cared about was boats, making them and sailing them.”

“Is he—is it possible? That he's still alive?”

Tim shrugged. The frown was back, the moment was over. He hung the board back on the wall, but Dar got the feeling he was doing it only to placate her. Perhaps she'd offended him by not accepting the gift.

“I've changed my mind,” she said. “Your carving would mean the world to me. I'd like to take it if you'll let me, so I can show my sisters.”

“Your sisters,” he said.

“I have two. Rory and Delia. They're here with me now. Well, Rory is, and Delia's landing tomorrow morning.”

“Enjoy Ireland,” he said.

“We will, it's beautiful, but . . .”

“Don't just stay in Cork. Visit Kerry and Connemara. Sligo if you make it that far. You driving?”

“Yes.”

“Hard with the left-hand shift, I bet. I had hell trying to drive on the right in America.”

“Where did you visit there?”

“It's yours,” he said, ignoring her and once again removing the carved sign from the hook on the wall. “Now, you'll have to excuse me. I have work to do.”

“Isn't there anything more you can tell me? What happened after he stopped working here? Did he live in town? Did he stay in the area? Did you ever find out if you were related?”

“Different McCarthy,” Tim said. “An entirely separate branch of the clan.”

“But what about the rest? Where he lived, and if—”

“Look,” he said sharply. “There's one person who might know, if she's willing to see you. It's doubtful, I'll be honest. She lives in a nursing home a short ways north, in the Blackwater Valley.” He wrote down the address and directions.

“Who is she?” Dar asked.

“My mother,” Tim said. “Who loved him.”

R
ory and Dar stood stone-faced at the arrivals gate at Cork Airport, waiting for Delia to clear customs. They'd argued last night, with Dar wanting to go to the nursing home right away, and Rory saying they had to wait for Delia.

Dar accused Rory of wanting to spend the night cyber-stalking her ex, and Rory snapped that Dar was obsessed with a dream that had stopped existing the day their father sailed away. Dar had shown her the board and told her what Tim had said about their father, and for a moment Rory felt speechless. Then she came back strong.

“He wasn't some other woman's to love,” Rory had said. “He and Mom never got divorced.”

“I agree with you.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” Rory had asked. Arms folded across her chest, stalwart, deep blue eyes suddenly coal black. “He doesn't know us, and I'll bet he never met Dad.”

“He seemed so convincing, and did carve that sign . . .”

“Well, it's a pretty name for a boat. He could have come up with it on his own.”

“It didn't sound that way,” Dar said. “Why would he lie? I can't believe Dad came here and had a love affair.”

“Think about it, Dar. He was a selfish asshole. He left us for a ridiculous reason. Who cares anymore? Why are we finding it hard to believe he'd get involved with someone else?”

Dar left her alone. They had checked into a harbor guesthouse, seedier than Rory would have liked and nothing like the charming hotel in Kinsale, but with a direct line of sight to McCarthy Manufacturing—obviously so Dar could keep her eye on the place. This time the sisters had adjoining rooms. It was just as well; Rory was losing patience fast.

The flight from Boston was in, and they saw Delia lugging her suitcase behind her. No wheels, no extendable grip, an old Samsonite with a patched handle that looked about ready to give out. Once she came through the gate, Dar and Rory surrounded her in a welcoming hug.

Dar hefted the suitcase. Rory took Delia's shoulder bag. They started off down the hall. Rory kept silent, just waiting for Dar to find the words to start filling Delia in. But to her shock, Delia was the one stammering, trying to get something out. Her face was beet red and her eyes bloodshot, as if she'd been crying or drinking or both all through the flight.

“What is it?” Dar asked, stopping short.

Delia shook her head. “Not here,” she said in a strangled voice.

Now they were really hurrying, hauling ass out the door, down the sidewalk, into the Opel.

Rory handed her a bottle of water. Delia guzzled it down, then clutched the near-empty bottle to her chest.

“Tell us what's going on,” Dar said as they climbed into the car. Silence until she started it up, drove out of the parking lot, and then the floodgates broke.

“Jim and I are separated,” Delia said, her voice still strained, her red face cracking into wrinkles as the tears began to pour down.

“Deel, what happened?” Rory asked.

“I'm so sorry,” Dar said.

“We kept fighting about Pete, and Jim said he's given up on him. He said Pete's acting like an addict! And he accused me of never being home anymore, first the Vineyard, now Ireland, and I tried to tell him this isn't a vacation, it's us trying to find our father, and he just sat there planted in front of
CSI.
Watching someone with tweezers pull broken glass from a dead person's eyelids, and I just lost it. And then he said, ‘
Go
to Ireland then! But don't expect to see me when you get back!'” She put her hands over her face.

Rory and Dar were silent. Just for that moment, Rory didn't hate Dar. She knew they had to come together for Delia.

“Words spoken in anger, right?” Dar said.

“Definitely,” Rory said.

“But he's never like this. We might fight, but we always make up.”

“Maybe he's taking it out on you because he's so frustrated with Pete,” Rory said.

“That's like saying you're on Jim's side,” Delia said.

“I'm not at all,” Rory said.

No one spoke for a while. Rory held the map in her lap, but Dar wasn't asking directions. She seemed to know exactly where she was going.

“At least Jim didn't say ‘divorce,' ” Rory said after a few minutes. “I don't believe in it for our family.
At all.
”

“Jim says Pete's not in our family anymore. He said he took the money we sent him to buy drugs. That he's a druggie!”

“He's not a druggie,” Rory said.

“Jim said he inherited our ‘family problem.' He was referring to you, Dar. Being an alcoholic.”

“He could be right,” Dar said. “Sometimes it's genetic. But at least I'm sober, and last I heard Pete was, too.”

“The way I feel right now, I could join the party,” Delia said. “Let's stop for a pint. We can drink to Jim.”

“It's nine in the morning,” Rory reminded her.

Delia shrugged, the hurt back in her face. “I wasn't being serious.”

“I didn't really think you were,” Rory said, reaching back to pat her on the knee. They exchanged smiles.

“Oh, one good bit of news regarding the broker and buyers,” Delia said.

“Tell us,” Dar said.

“Their title search did come back iffy. Morgan called to tell me because apparently she couldn't reach you on your cell. I also gave her Rory's e-mail address.”

“Iffy?” Dar asked, giving Rory a small smile.

“Let's not get our hopes up yet,” Rory said.

“It's supposed to be pretty straightforward. The land's been in our family since the 1600s. It started off on Grandfather's side of the family, and that never changed until he died and left it all to Grandmother. And then to Mom and the three of us.”

“And you and Mom never found anything else when you went to Town Hall?”

“No,” Dar said. “But maybe they dug deeper.”

“You did say that their expensive team would turn up Dad's land grant if it really existed,” Delia said.

“Now I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But I'm wondering . . . is it possible that this could be a deal breaker?” Rory asked.