A Week in Summer: A Short Story (3 page)

As for Brian Merriman himself—they all talked about him so familiarly that I would not have been surprised to hear that he was up at the Roadside Inn, singing songs, and that we should hurry, in case we missed him. It was a mystery. At home we didn’t have gatherings like this. Or maybe we did, and Brian and I had never come across them. These people had come from all over the country, and even farther afield, for this celebration. Their conversation was full of “Do you remember?”s and “Aren’t you looking like a two-year-old?”s. I forgot all about looking for my roots. There wasn’t time, anyway. The Collins family tree would have to wait for another visit.

The man who ran the summer school was actually called Collins—Bob Collins—a very nice man, approachable when he was free. But he was always talking to someone very important, like a former prime minister of Ireland or an ex-president who had a vacation house down the road. If the social climbers I make carrot cake for back at home only knew the high society we were mixing with, they’d be pea green with envy.

I did get to talk to Bob Collins once. I told him that I was a Collins, too, and was wondering where I should start to research the clan. (He gave me all kinds of tips, but, of course, there wasn’t one moment left to do any of it.) “Kathleen
Collins?” he said. “You have the same name as Brian Merriman’s wife.” I don’t really believe any of this fate or coincidence thing, though you’d be surprised how many of my clients back home consult psychics. They’re always talking about them.

That evening Brian suggested we go out for an hour and watch the sunset. I wish I could tell you how unusual this was in our lives. If ever I suggested a sunset, he would say bleakly: “So the sun goes down and it comes up again. That’s what happens.” But now he’d heard of a place where you might see dolphins and porpoises or some such, and this other poet he had met told him it was a great place for the soul. It was called Fanore, and he pointed it out to me on a map, the same map he hadn’t had the interest or energy to pick up from his lap just a few short days ago. Of course I agreed to go, so we went.

At Fanore I looked at Brian and saw that there were no lines in his face. He was relaxed and happy. If he’d been wearing a tuxedo and leaning against the rail of a cruise ship he wouldn’t have looked better. I decided not to tell him about having the same name as Brian Merriman’s wife, in case he thought I was being fancy or trying to justify the holiday or something like that. It’s usually my instinct to prattle on, but this time I just patted his hand and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean.

“You’re very restful, Kathy,” he said. “I feel I could tell you anything, even something so crazy you won’t believe it.”

“Tell me,” I said, without the faintest idea of what he was going to say.

“I think we were led here in some way,” he said. “I think I am the reincarnation of Brian Merriman.”

My heart sank. I thought he was getting better, the depression was lifting, the clouds were parting, and instead he was coming out as clinically insane. “The what?” I asked.

“You know, Kathy, the way they say things don’t really die, they come back again. I have come back again. It’s as simple as that.” He beamed at me like a complete madman.

“How, exactly, a reincarnation?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too much like Nurse Ratched in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
.

“Well, don’t you see?” he said, his eyes blazing happily in the sunset. “My name is Brian Merman; his wife was Kathleen Collins; we have had exactly the same careers, married at the same age as he did; they had two daughters, like we do; he was a flax farmer and won prizes for growing it; I did, too, in Dakota, remember? And, of course, he was a teacher, like me, and, most of all—and here’s the whole heart of it—he was a poet.”

I nodded dumbly. Was this the time to tell him that when his grandfather had come to the United States from Russia,
Merman was as near as Americans could come to pronouncing the family name? No, it was probably not the time. Anyway, I wouldn’t have got a word in. He was going on and on: they were born exactly two hundred years apart yet had followed the same path; the first Brian Merriman had been impatient about clergy and the Establishment, just as my Brian had been. It had to mean something. Something amazing. Something very significant.

I had thought it was terrible when he seemed to be suffering from depression, but why hadn’t I just left him the way he was? Now he was hallucinating he was a long dead poet who wrote in a different language, a person he had never heard of before last Saturday. And it got worse.

Brian Merriman had died two hundred years ago this very year. That’s what this gathering was all about. Did my poor Brian now think this was his fate, too? Had he actually given up on his life on account of all these coincidences? Had he brought me to this beautiful place to say good-bye? Was this the result of all my scheming and plotting and planning with Chester, Chief Vacation Buddy of the Snappy Seniors’ Travel Agency? I hadn’t helped him at all; I’d only managed to rot his mind.

“Well, Brian,” I said with a heavy heart, “you know there are a lot of ways of looking at things.”

“Of course there are,” he eagerly agreed. “And if we hadn’t come here I never would have known it. When he died, the first Brian Merriman that is, there were only a few short lines in the
newspaper about him, and he might well have thought that he didn’t amount to much. But think,
think
, Kathy, two centuries later there are hundreds and hundreds of us celebrating him, reading his poetry, debating his ideas, studying his life and times.”

He hadn’t looked so young and hopeful for as long as I could remember. He said that he was going to show people his poetry, that he wasn’t going to keep it hidden. It had been the sign he needed, something to prove he wasn’t worthless. His arm was around my shoulders, his face nuzzling my cheek in a way it hadn’t done for some considerable time. The coy look of a Merriman was in his eye. What the hell, I thought. I know what’s changed him: he met a marvelous band of good-natured people who live life to the fullest. If he thinks he’s the reincarnation of some guy who walked these roads two hundred years ago, then I’m going to let him think it.

I would write a postcard to Chester before we left. I would tell him that the Snappy Seniors’ record is unbroken. He would have our repeat business; we would indeed come back here next year. Of course we would.

I know only four figures of one Clare set. There is much still to learn. Brian has read only one translation of
Cúirt an Mheán Oíche
. We have only skimmed the surface of Clare music and got the barest essentials of dolmens, holy wells and the lunar landscape of the Burren. Imagine leaving all these people and
not knowing how their lives turned out. It’s more than flesh and blood could bear.

Anyway, this coming back as a butterfly or something else is a perfectly decent theory. Buddhists believe it, and they are gentle people. And, just as there are strong women in the famous poem, I have met many strong women this week. Surely one of them will get a summer school going on Mrs. Merriman, on Kathleen Collins—quite possibly my ancestor. I might be her reincarnation, too. And if she makes me as happy as her husband has made Brian, then we won’t be doing badly at all.

Michael Lionstar

Maeve Binchy is the author of numerous best-selling books, including her most recent novel,
Minding Frankie
, in addition to
Heart and Soul, Whitethorn Woods, Night of Rain and Stars, Quentin, Scarlet Feather, Circle of Friends
, and
Tara Road
, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. She has written for
Gourmet; O, The Oprah Magazine; Modern Maturity;
and
Good Housekeeping
, among other publications. She and her husband, Gordon Snell, live in Dalkey, Ireland.

www.maevebinchy.com

FICTION

Light a Penny Candle

Echoes

London Transports

The Lilac Bus

Firefly Summer

Silver Wedding

Circle of Friends

The Copper Beech

The Glass Lake

This Year It Will Be Different

Evening Class

The Return Journey

Tara Road

Scarlet Feather

Quentins

Nights of Rain and Stars

Whitethorn Woods

Heart and Soul

Minding Frankie

NONFICTION

Aches & Pains

The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club

“Maeve Binchy has done it again [with] yet another warm tale of individual growth and human community … There’s a good chance that many readers, like this one, will consider
Minding Frankie
one of Binchy’s best novels yet.” —Maude McDaniel,
BookPage

“Joyful, quintessential Binchy.” —Karen Holt,
O, The Oprah Magazine

“Binchy is a national treasure in her homeland of Ireland, and her latest novel is a perfect illustration of why … Your heart will have no trouble recognizing the landscape [of this] touching saga.”
—Publishers Weekly

Maeve is back with a new tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a baby girl raised by a close-knit Dublin neighborhood.

When Noel learns that he is the father of a motherless infant, he agrees to take guardianship of little Frankie despite still struggling with his personal demons. Fortunately, he has a caring network of friends and family who are more than up to the challenge.

However, not everyone is pleased with this unconventional arrangement, especially a nosy social worker who’s convinced that Frankie would be better off in a foster home. Now it’s Noel’s job to convince her that everyone in the community has something special to offer when it comes to minding Frankie.