In the Company of Others (32 page)

I shall be your Christmas Goose, he says.

Keegan has shoveled a path to the carriage house where we now keep our fire in a pit beneath the wash pot. He measures six feet & ten inches fallen upon what will be our kitchen garden.

Christmas Eve

Snow abated. A final measurement of seven feet four inches altogether.

The lad very ill.

We do not succeed in lowering his temperature, but seek to fortify the heart so that it may stand against the strain. On my knees, I recall what I can of Mother’s native wisdom. I am at once given the memory of Lobelia, much recommended for the oppressed pulse & labored breathing.

Fr Dominic prays over the lad untiringly—this evening he said Mass & we received Holy Eucharist by the kitchen hearth. All seemed to find the greater heat & Christian fellowship consoling. I believe we felt a moment of happiness in wishing one another
Nollaig shona dhuit!

A child is born for us, a son given to us . . . The darkness that covered the earth has given way to the bright dawn of your Word made flesh.

On his evening call, Feeney brought a moon boot. A once-despised thing of no beauty whatever, such a boot now seemed to possess a good-humored cachet.

‘I had a suspicion,’ said the doctor, ‘that the time had come, and indeed it has. Well done!’

He turned away from the sight of his overjoyed wife, wiped his eyes.

Thirty-four

Evelyn Conor appraised his wife, eyes narrowed. ‘Crutches.’

‘Yes. But we don’t talk about it.’

‘You’re an attractive woman.’

‘You’re the one for that,’ said Cynthia. ‘The lovely portrait after Sargent . . .’

‘The artist painted the truth. You must paint the truth.’

‘I’d find no satisfaction in doing otherwise.’

‘The ring is on the table. The white gold setting was designed by a jeweler in Belfast. The pearl is from the Pacific and good enough for evening. ’Tis all I have to offer.’

‘I’d like to paint you for pleasure only, Mrs. Conor. I hardly wear jewelry.’

‘Call me Evelyn. When profit is in it, one does one’s best. You must take the ring.’ The tremoring of the fingers, the sweat.

‘Profit isn’t interesting to me,’ said Cynthia. ‘You are.’ Emptying the hamper, setting out the jar of water, the paints, the brushes. He sat quiet in the corner, the dunce.

I washed her poor face, Fletcher had said, and did up her hair but I’m no beauty parlor, for all that. She had a desperate tongue this morning and no wonder, with her diet nothin’ but air.

‘What do you want me to
do
, Missus Kav’na?’ Impatient.

‘Please call me Cynthia. You needn’t do anything at all. I’m sketching a quick impression as an exercise, we’ll see where it leads.’ The ferrule making its music against the water jar. ‘You have a splendid nose, Mrs. Conor. Where does such a nose come from?’

‘Do you mean from which marauding horde? Africans, Vikings, Mongols—Huns, perhaps?’

‘Exactly.’

‘It comes from the fairies.’ Her jaw set, eyes distant.

‘The fairies! Have you seen one, then?’

‘Of course I’ve seen one. I’ve seen many.’

‘What do they look like?’

‘No one who sees fairies tells what they look like. When someone tells what they look like, you may rest assured they have not seen fairies.’

His wife was smiling. Her cup of tea.

‘May I ask where you were educated, Mrs. Conor? You have a grand way of expressing yourself.’

‘I read my husband’s library. It’s unfortunate that the son who inherited his father’s books does not read.’

‘I imagine he has no strength left to read, Mrs. Conor, what with keeping his guests happy.’

A very civil remark, he thought.

‘Are you a woman of faith, Missus Kav’na?’

‘I am.’

‘Your husband presses it upon people.’

‘Does he? I’ve never noticed him pressing it—not very much, anyway.’

‘Do you believe as he does?’

‘I do.’

‘Have you no mind of your own, then?’

Cynthia laughed. ‘Too much a mind of my own, some say.’

He reached down to Cuch and gave a scratch behind the ears.

‘How is your impression coming?’ asked Evelyn.

‘Very well but for the mouth.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘A certain . . . something there, I can’t say what. Hard to grasp with the brush. Subtle.’

‘My teeth are quite ruined. I take trouble to hide them.’

‘You wish to be painted at your worst; you may as well grant the poor things freedom to be seen.’

‘I’m an oul’ hag, it’s come to that.’

‘A beautiful old hag, I think. God showed great favor when he cobbled you together.’

‘It’s been my undoing.’

‘Yes, well, they do say beauty has its curses. I wouldn’t know.’

‘False modesty is unbecoming.’

‘So be it,’ said his wife. ‘The silver streak in your hair—very handsome.’

‘It came in after the death of my mother and sisters; I was but a girl.’

‘There. That’s all that can be done. Let’s have a go at the real thing. Water?’

‘Yes.’

The bent straw, the slightest raising of the head.

‘May I see it?’

‘I don’t show the impression, it’s for myself alone.’ The tearing of the painted page from the sketchbook.

‘You can be hard like your husband.’

The chime of the ferrule. ‘Keep looking beyond me, as you’re doing. Yes, he’s a hard old thing.’ She glanced over at him, sly as a ferret.

‘What favor has God shown you?’

‘Every favor,’ said his wife.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Companionship in loneliness, peace amid chaos, hope against desperation. Among other things.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘He loves me. Your eyes, yes, keep looking just there. He loves me desperately.’

‘Desperately. A childish thing to say.’

‘It’s okay. I’m his child.’

‘I don’t understand you people.’

An actual giggle from his wife; the true music for him.

Panting, now. ‘You’ve been good all your days, I suppose.’

‘Good?
Me?
Hardly. I once tried to kill myself. It was the greatest impertinence of my life. But he gave me beauty for ashes, Evelyn. He unbound me and opened my prison.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘Because I asked him to. I cried out to him with everything in me, I gave my old self to him, and he gave me a new self in return.’

‘Were you frightened to do such a thing?’

‘Frightened to do it, frightened not to do it. Yes.’

‘My heart is gall,’ said Evelyn Conor. ‘I realized that while lying here alone. I cannot imagine living with nothing to soften the blow of such knowledge, the loneliness of it. The drink was my friend. Do you understand that?’

‘I do, yes,’ said Cynthia. ‘Completely.’

A long silence; his wife visibly moved. ‘Friends can deceive us,’ she said, ‘even the best of them. God does not deceive.’

Evelyn gasped, closed her eyes against the pain.

‘Do you want Fletcher?’

‘No. Paint me.’

‘I had thought he might be deceiving, that he might even be fierce and churlish. But I found him gentle. I couldn’t have known that until I gave myself to him. I had gone to live in the country after failing to put an end to my misery, and it was there that it happened, that he came into my heart and spirit and changed everything. Of course, it had been happening all along, his coming to me and I to him, but I hadn’t seen it. All my life, I’d felt a famishing void, the thing Pascal talked about. There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, he said, and it can’t be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God—made known through Jesus Christ.’

‘You gave yourself to him, you say. All your control surrendered. I can’t imagine it. If he gives us the free will everyone seems so excited about, why would you give it back? That alone is an impertinence.’

‘Good question. What would you say to that, Timothy?’

‘Do not ask your husband to speak for you.’

‘Well, then, I gave it back not because I despised it but because I had no idea how to use it.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

Cynthia smiled. ‘You’re a difficult woman.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘You’re doing a very hard thing here, and you’re doing it alone. Fletcher, Seamus, Dr. Feeney—in this, no one else counts, really. You’re doing it alone and proud of that, I suppose.’

‘I’ve always been proud to do something alone, without assistance from the weak and cowardly.’

‘I found doing it alone too great for me to bear. It was disabling. I was Atlas with the world on my shoulders, I was Sisyphus—my heart the stone.’

‘I cannot fathom that kind of talk. Leave off, now! Leave
off
.’

The buzz of a bee marked the runes of his prayer.

‘Do you know what happened to my mother and sisters?’

‘I do.’

‘I have spent these many years trying to keep them alive. Thinking of what they would be doing, where they would be sleeping—sometimes in summer, Ailish slept on the roof. Would you sleep on a roof, Cynthia?’

‘I would not!’

‘So many crawlers in the thatch, I could never understand why she did it, she was peculiar, Ailish. Day after day and night after night, I have forced myself to think what they talked about and had for supper, about the dresses and aprons they wore—I have tried to remember the colors, the patterns in the cloth. I have tried to keep their smells alive—Aileen smelled of garden peas when the shell is opened, and Ailish, always of sweat, no matter how she washed off in the pond. My mother had a sour smell, she was a sour woman with sour thoughts.’

‘And Tommy?’

‘We adored him. Tommy smelled of tobacco and all the things men are to smell of, except in a young, bold, laughing way.’ She was quiet for a time, then said, plaintive, ‘It is very hard to keep the dead alive.’

Cynthia put down her brush. ‘It’s very wrong to keep the dead alive, for it keeps us from living truly. You must forgive yourself, Evelyn.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You must forgive God.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You cannot have peace without forgiveness.’

‘I do not deserve peace.’

‘It’s what God wants us to have.’

‘Does God ask me what I want him to have? I want him to have pity, to have mercy, and the common decency to give us a life without struggle and disgrace.’

Cynthia laughed. ‘Oh, my. We can forget that last notion. He is formed, himself, of the greatest pity and mercy, but without struggle and even disgrace, how would we ever know him, run to him, seek his refuge? We would not.’

The panting again. ‘I see no reason, anymore, to live beyond this agony. I had thought to be courageous, but courage doesn’t matter now, not by half.’

Cynthia laid her hand on Evelyn’s head, silent. Evelyn’s tears, wet on her face.

There was a long stillness in the room. The tears he had witnessed in his life as a priest might plenish a river.

‘Have you ever seen a rainbow over the lough, Evelyn?’

‘Often.’

‘I’m hoping to see a rainbow. Timothy hopes to see swans fly.’

‘One hopes all sorts of things in this life.’

Fletcher at the door.

‘There’s duck broth for you, Missus.’

‘Broth.’ A long pause. Then, ‘Give me something I can get my teeth into,’ she said, fierce.

The tearing of the sheet from the sketchbook. ‘There now, it’s done. I hope you like it.’

He knew Cynthia was anxious to please both Evelyn and herself.

‘Shall I sign it?’

‘Sign it, of course. They tell me you’re famous.’

‘Not terribly. Mostly with small children.’

‘Small children,’ said Evelyn, oddly wistful.

Cynthia showed the portrait to her subject, who studied it a long time. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Yes. Take the ring.’

‘Not yet. I’d like to paint you again, if I may, but we’re leaving soon.’

‘I find this taxing, but come tomorrow, then.’

‘What time?’

‘Call first. You’ll want to make certain I’m not lunatic and raving, as I’ve heard them say.’

They left the bedroom at half-past twelve and went across the hall to the kitchen. He carried the hamper and the tablet of heavy paper with its cunning textures, and the flashlight Seamus was borrowing from Broughadoon. His wife was spent, but encouraged by the morning’s work.

‘There you are!’ said Seamus, wracking his mustache with the comb.

‘She liked it,’ said Cynthia.

‘God bless ye! I’m hopin’ she’ll take a soft egg with toast now.’ The erstwhile butler of Catharmore was beaming, a schoolboy.

‘She’s a wonderful, frightening, courageous woman—it will be good to have another chance tomorrow.’

‘Strong tea,’ said Seamus, pouring. ‘And quiche, just out of the oven. Real men are no longer afraid to eat it, isn’t that so, Rev’rend?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Sit up to the counter, then, an’ tuck in. I’ve made fries for us.’

‘Fries!’ said Cynthia. ‘I love fries. And you’re good to take us to the basement afterward.’

‘We’ll go out th’ back with no steps, and down th’ bank with its easy grade to th’ lower quarters.’

‘We’re wanting to see Dr. O’Donnell’s surgery, ’ she said, ‘and where he kept his medical library, and of course the concealed room, as he calls it, which he set aside for quarantine. You really must read the journal, Seamus, it’s all about this place and the terrors of the old days.’

Seamus served the plates. ‘I don’t know of a concealed room, an’ God knows, we’ve terrors enough
these
days.’

They laughed, and blessed the food and asked God’s peace upon all life within the borders of Catharmore and Broughadoon, and Fletcher called for the egg and toast, and they felt the small triumph, and a certain peace.

Then, out the back way and down the slope to a badly neglected basement door, swollen with age and damp. He carried the Broughadoon flashlight; Seamus carried a ring heavy with keys.

‘Since th’ painting went missin’, we’ve been keen to lock up.’ The rasp of the latch; Seamus tugged at the door, tugged again—it opened to the smell of all basements situated near water.

‘Not a pretty sight,’ said Seamus. ‘Keep your eyes skinned an’ watch your step.’

Cynthia peered into the chiaroscuro of moldering plaster and limestone. ‘This is the only door to the basement?’

‘’t is.’ Seamus switched on the overhead bulb.

‘Then the patients would have come into the waiting room here . . .’ She stepped inside. ‘But what a very small room. What do you think, Timothy? Could Edema and Goiter and all the rest have squeezed in here?’

‘Owners change; walls get knocked down, new ones put up.’

‘I think this may be it, it feels right,’ she said. A narrow window, the sill crusted with dead flies; walls blackened by damp.

‘That door should open to the surgery,’ she said.

Seamus moved ahead and opened it, and ha! the old fireplace—still there after so many years, and the two windows ‘always kept open in summer.’

‘Here would be the examining table,’ she said, ‘with the little stool beneath, and there would be the table where he kept the skull that Aoife tricked out with the nurse’s cap.’

His wife was entranced, jubilant, the cheapest of dates.

A stash of windows with broken panes, an open box of men’s dress shoes gone green, wooden crates, a headboard with peeling veneer. Heaven knows what bacillus festered here. He covered his nose with his handkerchief, a wimp in the face of venture and discovery, while she explored cracks in the plaster, the cold hearth, the wasted hole of the fireplace.