Scarlett (63 page)

The evenings had a different pattern. The men worked hard and were tired when they got home. They wanted a good meal and a pipe and a drink. And they always got it. After that the evening evolved by itself. Often the whole family ended up at Matt’s house, because he had five young children asleep upstairs. Maureen and Jamie could leave Jacky and Helen in Mary Kate’s care, and Patricia could bring her sleeping two-year-old and three-year-old without waking them. Before too long the music would begin. Later, when Colum came in, he would be the leader.

The first time Scarlett saw the
bodhran
, she thought it was an outsize tambourine. The metal-framed circle of stretched leather was more than two feet across, but it was shallow, like a tambourine, and Gerald was holding it in his hand, like a tambourine. Then he sat down, braced it on his knee and tapped on it with a wooden stick that he held in the middle, rocking it to strike one end, then the other, against the skin, and she saw that it was really a drum.

Not much of a drum, she thought. Until Colum picked it up. His left hand spread against the underside of the taut leather as if caressing it, and his right wrist was suddenly as fluid as water. His arm moved from top to bottom to top to center of the drum while his right hand made a curious, careless-looking motion that pounded the stick with a steady, blood-stirring rhythm. The tone and volume differed, but the hypnotic, demanding beat never varied, as fiddle, then whistle, then concertina joined in. Maureen held the bones lifeless in her hand, too caught up in the music to remember them.

Scarlett gave herself over to the drumbeat. It made her laugh, it made her cry, it made her dance as she’d never dreamed she could dance. It was only when Colum laid the
bodhran
down on the floor beside him and demanded a drink, saying “I’ve drummed myself dry,” that she saw that everyone else was as transported as she was.

She looked at the short, smiling pug-nosed figure with a shiver of awestruck wonder. This man was not like other men.

“Scarlett darling, you understand oysters better than I do,” said Maureen when they entered the City Market. “Will you find us the best of them? I want to make a grand oyster stew for Colum’s tea today.”

“For tea? Oyster stew’s rich enough for a meal.”

“And isn’t that the reason for it? He’s speaking at a meeting tonight, and he’ll need the strength of it.”

“What kind of meeting, Maureen? Will we all go?”

“It’s at the Jasper Greens, the American Irish volunteer soldiering group, so there’ll be no women. We wouldn’t be welcome.”

“What does Colum do?”

“Ah, well, first he reminds them they’re Irish, no matter how long they’ve been Americans, then he brings them to tears with longing and love for the Old Country, then he gets them to empty their pockets for the aid of the poor in Ireland. He’s a mighty speech-maker, says Jamie.”

“I can imagine. There’s something magic about Colum.”

“So you’ll find us some magical oysters, then.”

Scarlett laughed. “They’ll not have pearls,” she said, mimicking Maureen’s brogue, “but they’ll make a glory of a broth.”

Colum looked down at the steaming, brimming bowl, and his eyebrows rose. “Maureen, this is a hearty tea you serve.”

“The oysters looked particularly fat today at Market,” she said with a grin.

“Do they not print calendars in the United States of America?”

“Whist, Colum, eat your stew before it’s cold.”

“It’s Lent, Maureen, you know the rules for fasting. One meal a day, and that one we took at midday.”

So her aunts had been right! Scarlett slowly put her spoon down on the table. She looked at Maureen with sympathy. This good meal wasted. She’d have to do a terrible penance and she must feel miserably guilty. Why did Colum have to be a priest?

She was astonished to see Maureen smiling and dipping in her spoon to capture an oyster. “I’m not worried about Hell, Colum,” she said. “I have the O’Hara dispensation. You’re an O’Hara, too, so eat your oysters and enjoy them.”

Scarlett was bewildered. “What’s the O’Hara dispensation?” she asked Maureen.

Colum answered her, but without Maureen’s good humor. “Thirty years or so gone by,” he said, “Ireland was struck with famine. One year and again the next people starved. There was no food, so they ate grass, and then there was not even grass. It was a terrible thing, terrible. So many died, and there was no way to help them. Those that lived through it were granted dispensation from future hungers by priests in some parishes. The O’Haras lived in such a parish. They need not fast, save for forsaking meat.” He was staring down into the thick butter-flecked liquid in his bowl.

Maureen caught Scarlett’s eye. She put her finger to her lips for silence, then gestured with her spoon, urging Scarlett to eat.

After a long while Colum picked up his spoon. He did not look up while he ate the succulent oysters, and his thanks were perfunctory. Then he left to go to Patricia’s, where he shared a room with Stephen.

Scarlett looked at Maureen with curiosity. “Were you there in the Famine?” she asked cautiously.

Maureen nodded. “I was there. My father owned a bar, so we didn’t fare as bad as some. People will always find money for drink, and we could buy bread and milk. It was the poor farmers got the worst of it. Ah, it was terrible.” She put her arms across her breasts and shuddered. Her eyes were full of tears, and her voice broke when she tried to talk. “They only had potatoes, you see how it was. The corn they grew and the cows they raised and the milk and butter they got from them were always sold so they could pay the rent for their farms. For themselves they had a bit of butter and the skimmed milk and maybe a few chickens so that there was sometimes an egg for Sunday. But mostly they had potatoes to eat, only potatoes, and they made that enough. Then the potatoes turned to rot under the earth, and they had nothing.” She was silent, rocking back and forth holding herself. Her mouth was trembling. It became a shaking circle, and she gave a harsh, tormented cry, remembering.

Scarlett jumped up and put her arms around Maureen’s heaving shoulders.

Maureen wept against Scarlett’s breast. “You cannot imagine what it is to have no food.”

Scarlett looked at the smouldering coals on the hearth. “I know what it’s like,” she said. She held Maureen close, and she told about going home to Tara from burning Atlanta. There were no tears in Scarlett’s eyes or in her voice when she talked about the desolation and the long months of relentless gnawing hunger and near starvation. But when she spoke about finding her mother dead when she reached Tara, and her father’s pitiful broken mind, Scarlett broke down.

Then Maureen held her while she wept.

I
t seemed that the dogwood trees came into bloom overnight. Suddenly one morning, when Scarlett and Maureen were walking to the Market, there were clouds of blossoms above the grassy median in the avenue outside the house.

“Ah, isn’t it a lovely sight?” Maureen sighed gustily. “The morning light shining through the tender petals making them almost pink. By noon they’ll be white as a swan’s breast. It’s a grand thing, this city that plants flowering beauty for all to see!” She drew in a deep breath. “We’ll have a picnic in the park, Scarlett. To taste the spring green in the air. Come quickly, there’s a grand shopping to do. I’ll bake this afternoon, and after Mass tomorrow we’ll spend the day at the park.”

Was it Saturday already? Scarlett’s mind raced, calculating and remembering. Why, she’d been in Savannah almost a full month! A vise squeezed her heart. Why hadn’t Rhett come? Where was he? His business in Boston couldn’t have taken this long.

“… Boston,” said Maureen, and Scarlett stopped short. She grabbed Maureen’s arm and glared at her suspiciously. How could Maureen have known Rhett was in Boston? How could she know anything about him? I haven’t said a word to her.

“What’s the matter, Scarlett, darling? Have you turned your ankle?”

“What were you saying about Boston?”

“I said ’tis a shame Stephen won’t be with us for the picnic. He’s leaving today for Boston. There’ll be no trees flowering there, I’m bound. Still, he’ll have a chance to see Thomas and his family and bring back news of them. That’ll please Old James. To think of all the brothers scattering through America, it’s a wonderful thing…”

Scarlett walked quietly at Maureen’s side. She was ashamed of herself. How could I have been so horrid? Maureen’s my friend, the closest friend I ever had. She wouldn’t spy on me, pry into my private life. It’s just that it’s been so long, and I hadn’t even noticed. That’s why I’m so jumpy, probably, why I barked at Maureen like that. Because it’s been so long, and Rhett hasn’t come.

She murmured unthinking agreement to Maureen’s suggestions about food for the picnic while questions battered against the walls of her mind like birds trapped in a cage. Had she made a mistake not going back to Charleston with her aunts? Had she been wrong to leave in the first place?

This is driving me crazy. I can’t think about it or I’ll scream!

But her mind would not stop questioning.

Maybe she should talk to Maureen about it. Maureen was so comforting, and she was smart, really, about so many things. She’d understand. Maybe she could help.

No, I’ll talk to Colum! Tomorrow, at the picnic, there’ll be lots of time. I’ll tell him I want to talk, ask him to go for a walk. Colum will know what to do. In his own way, Colum was like Rhett. He was complete in himself, like Rhett, and everyone else looked unimportant next to him, just the way men seem somehow to become only boys, and Rhett the only man in the room. Colum got things done, too, just like Rhett, and laughed about the doing, just like Rhett.

Scarlett laughed to herself at the memory of Colum talking about Polly’s father. “Aye, he’s a grand, bold man, the mighty builder MacMahon. Arms like sledgehammers he has, fairly popping the seams of his costly coat, doubtless chosen by Mrs. MacMahon to match her parlor suite, else why would it be such a plushy object? A Godly man, too, with proper reverence for the shine it gives his soul to build God’s own house here in Savannah, America. I blessed him for it, in my own humble way. ‘Faith!’ I said. ‘It’s my belief you’re such a religious that you’re not taking a penny more than forty percent profit from the parish.’ Then didn’t his eyes flash and his muscles swell like a bull’s and his plushy sleeves make pretty little popping sounds along their silk-sewn seams? ‘Sure it is, Master Builder,’ says I, ‘that any other man would have made it fifty, seeing that the Bishop’s not an Irishman?’

“And then the good man showed his merit. ‘Gross!’ he roared, till I feared the windows would fly out into the street. ‘What manner of name is that for a Catholic?’ Then he told me stories about the iniquities of the Bishop that my collar forbids me to credit. I shared his sorrows and a glass or two with him, then I told him about the suffering of my poor little cousin. Righteous wrath he showed, the good man. It was all I could do to stop him tearing down the steeple with his own strong hands. It’s my belief he won’t call all the men out on strike, but I cannot be altogether certain. He will, he tells me, express to the Bishop his concern for Scarlett’s easiness of mind in terms the nervous little man cannot fail to understand, and as often as may be necessary to convince him of the gravity of the problem.”

Maureen said, “And why are you smiling at the cabbages, I’d like to know?”

Scarlett turned the smile onto her friend. “Because I’m happy that it’s spring and we’re going to have a picnic,” she said. And because she was going to have Tara, she was sure.

Scarlett had never seen Forsyth Park. Hodgson Hall was just across the street from it, but it had been dark when she went to the dedication ceremony. It caught her unaware, and it took her breath away. A pair of stone sphinxes flanked the entrance. The children looked longingly at the beasts they were forbidden to climb, then ran at full speed along the central path. They had to run around Scarlett. She was stopped in the middle of the path, staring ahead.

The fountain was two blocks from the entrance, but it was so enormous that it looked very close. Arcs and jets of water lifted and fell like showering diamonds from every direction. Scarlett was spellbound; she’d never seen anything so spectacular.

“Come along now,” said Jamie, “it gets better as you get closer.”

And it did. There was a bright sun that made rainbows in the dancing waters; they flashed, vanished, reappeared with every step Scarlett took. The whitewashed trunks of the trees that lined the path glimmered in the dappled shade from their leaves, leading to the sparkling dazzle of the fountain. When she reached the iron fence that circled the fountain’s basin, she had to tilt her head back to near dizziness to look at the nymph atop its third tier, a statue bigger than she was, the arm held high, grasping a staff that threw a plume of water high, high toward the brilliant blue sky.

“I like the serpent-men myself,” Maureen commented. “They always look to me like they’re enjoying themselves.” Scarlett looked where Maureen was pointing. The bronze mermen knelt in the huge basin on their elegantly coiled scaly tails with one hand on hip, the other holding a horn to the lips.

The men spread rugs under the oak tree Maureen selected, and the women put down their baskets. Mary Kate and Kathleen deposited Patricia’s little girl and Katie’s smallest boy on the grass to crawl. The older children were running and jumping in some game of their own design.