A Christmas Wedding

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “That’s a good way of looking at it.” Rosemarie was working on some sort of schedule on the desk as we talked. What was she planning for me now? “Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, I invited her for dinner tomorrow night. Poor kid needs some friends.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “I always liked her, even when she was sort of chasing you.”

  “I thought it was the other way, but I won’t argue.”

  “And I asked Ed Murray too.”

  “Rosemarie! They’re oil and water. He’s a big lug and a political lawyer and he’s from Little Flower”—the most South Side of South Side Irish parishes. “She’s an aristocratic doll, an artist, a rich kid from the North Shore. That’s crazy.”

  “Poor Ed. I can’t believe that dumb girl jilted him the night before her wedding.”

  “Ran off with another guy. He was lucky to be rid of her.”

  “But all those months in Korea dreaming about her…”

  “Regardless, as you would say, he’s well rid of her.”

  “They’re both lonely. I’m sure they’d always be good to one another.”

  “They’re both good people, Rosemarie, but they just don’t match.”

  So it turned out that they matched perfectly. Rosemarie’s aloof smile at me was a happy I-told-you-so.

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Cordelia,” I pleaded. “First of all, he hit me first Secondly, he hit me so hard that I lost all consciousness of what I was doing. Thirdly, the reports of my hitting him back were made up by those who knew I couldn’t remember the last few seconds of the game. I don’t really credit them.”

  “The story was in the paper, Delia. And the clipping is downstairs with all the papers Chucky saves, including his idea notebooks.”

  “I’m fascinated,” Cordelia said, drinking Ed in with her eyes like he was a mug of hot chocolate on this winter night. “Tell me more.”

  “Well,” I rushed in to give my version, “the first three string quarterbacks were out because of sickness or injuries, so the coach sent me in to call the plays. He told me to call anything but my own number. There was no danger of that because I didn’t want to get hurt by the big lugs in the Carmel line, like him!”

  “And he marched them straight down the field,” Ed took up the story, “on fourth down at the twelve-yard line. His current brother-in-law threw a pass. I blocked it and somehow it fell into his hands.”

  “Need I say I was terrified? My only thought was to run as fast as I could to escape the ten-foot-tall Carmel giants who were chasing me.”

  “He escaped toward the coffin corner—”

  “Where I would have run out of bounds, if this ape had not tried to tackle me. Alas for the Caravan, his impact not only knocked me out and the ball out of my hands, it also propelled me across the goal line. After that I remember nothing.”

  “Then, Delia”—Rosemarie had been waiting for her chance—“Chucky held the ball for the point after, something he’d been afraid to do all season. But they didn’t have anyone else because all the other quarterbacks were out. Anyway, Chucky held the ball perfectly and we were ahead by one point. There was twenty seconds left, so Fenwick had to kick off with Chuck holding again. We were all cheering like crazy.”

  “Chucky! Chucky!” I imitated the shrieking voices of teenage girls.

  “And he blocked me so hard”—Ed was laughing as though it were the greatest joke in the world—“on the run-back that I was knocked out.”

  “Unnecessary roughness,” I murmured. “Could have cost us the game.”

  “That’s Charles Cronin O’Malley the street fighter,” Rosemarie crowed.

  All three of them were laughing.

  “It wasn’t that funny.”

  “That’s how friendships are born among men,” Rosemarie sniffed.

  “I’m sorry we never met at Notre Dame,” Ed said gently to Cordelia. “I guess I didn’t read much then. I’m trying to make up for it now. … You were studying piano in New York?”

  “Yes, I was, Ed.” She winced. “I thought I was good enough to be a concert pianist. I guess I’m not.”

  Ed’s wide face melted with compassion.

  “Still, Delia”—Rosemarie took over the conversation—“you’re probably better than ninety-nine percent of the pianists in the country. You can enjoy your music and make others happy with it for the rest of your life. Like Chucky’s mother does with her harp. Think of your parish and your school and the family you’ll have. It might even be a blessing in disguise for you.”

  My lines, the bitch had stolen my lines.

  “My head tells me that, Rosemarie. And it’s good to hear someone else say it. Thank you. I’ll be all right, I’m sure. It will just take time.”

  “Would you play for us tonight?” Ed asked impulsively.

  In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, that would have been a dumb question. In the chemistry of our dining room it was the perfect question.

  She did play that night—Chopin, and with more feeling than I thought she had. She must have missed the concert trail by a hair’s breath.

  Or maybe she was playing for Ed.

  “I could listen to music like that all day,” the big lug sighed.

  Rosemarie and I peeked through the drapes as they left our house. Halfway down the walk, Ed put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him.

  “Done.” Rosemary clapped her hands.

  “If it doesn’t work, you’ll be responsible.”

  “Oh, it will work all right.”

  Later as she was combing her hair, she said casually, “Would you like to spend a few days in Connemara?”

  “Connemara? Where’s that? In Africa?”

  “The West of Ireland, silly.”

  “You think it’s time to drag Timmy back?”

  “To give it a try. … Jenny Collins doesn’t date anyone any more.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-four. A year older than me.”

  “You’ve bought the tickets?”

  “Naturally … but I can take them back.”

  “Don’t do that!” I sat up in bed. “I’ll never refuse a few days alone with my wife.”

  “We won’t be alone.”

  “The kids?”

  “Peg and our nanny will watch them.”

  “Who’s coming with us?”

  “Your parents.”

  “Mom and Dad?” I could hardly believe my ears.

  She was brushing her hair now in rapid motions, and talking with equally rapid speed. I was distracted from her words by how lovely she looked in bra and panty—always a new and wonderful sight for me no matter how often I’d seen it.

  “The war has been over for ten years and they’ve never gone abroad together. Your dad travels on business. The good April watches the office. I think they’re a little afraid of a vacation just with each other. They’re still young, Chuck. They still love each other like two crazy kids—”

  “Two crazy O’Malleys.”

  “Regardless.” She waved off my interruption. “They wouldn’t think of flying off to Ireland unless we push them into it. Then when we get them there, we’ll sort of drift off and let them get to know one another again.”

  “You astonish me, woman.”

  “I don’t think it’s astonishing.” She jabbed at an un-cooperative strand of hair. “I think it’s common sense. Will you do it?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Nonetheless, I was uneasy when we finally settled into the Royal Hibernian, Mom and Dad on one floor and Rosemarie and I on another. They were awkward and uneasy for the first day, and then they drifted away from us on the second day before we had a chance to drift away from them.

  At breakfast the third day, Mom, glowing complacently, remarked, “You know, dear, I think we ought to do this every winter.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Rosemarie winked at me.

  Right, you go to Ireland in
the winter, to a poor, desperate, rain-soaked country. Ireland should not have been poor; before the Easter Rising in 1916 its standard of living was high, almost as high as that of England. The ravages of the next seven years of war and then the reactionary government of Eamon De Valera curtailed economic growth. Ireland had become a backward peasant country again, which is what Dev wanted.

  We told Mom and Dad that we wanted to go out to the West of Ireland to see if we could find Tim Boylan. They thought that was a wonderful idea.

  We came across on an Aer Lingus 707. I was sleepy from the Marezine I had gobbled down. However, there was no turbulence. I was still groggy when we left for Galway in a run-down and bumpy train.

  “This country,” I told my bride, “is awful. It’s down-at-the-heels. Everything and everybody is worn out.”

  “The people are wonderful and the pub conversation is sensational.”

  “You say that because they like your singing.”

  “Our singing.”

  Our reservations were at the Railroad Hotel, above the dank, smelly station in the center of the town. The hotel had been elegant once. Now it was damp and threadbare. The chairs in our room creaked and groaned when we tried to sit on them. The bed was lumpy and it sloped to one side. The mist outside obscured Eyre Square.

  I must add that everything about Ireland and Galway has changed completely in the last forty years.

  “Are you going to sleep right away, Chucky Ducky?” Rosemarie asked as we huddled under the covers.

  “Not if there is something better to do.”

  “I need someone to keep me warm.”

  I obliged, assuming that it was one of the carefully calculated times that it was safe to do so.

  That evening we wandered around the Eyre Square and its fringes looking for Brandon’s Pub. We learned that it had closed six months earlier.

  “Times are hard,” we were told repeatedly.

  Rosemarie, using all her charm, asked in each of the other pubs if they knew a Tim Boylan. Lots of publicans and their patrons knew a Jim Boylan, a Joe Boylan, a Mick Boylan, and even a Tommy Boylan. None of them remembered Tim Boylan.

  “He worked at Brandon’s before it closed,” Rosemarie would say patiently. “A big, dark American with scars on his arms. He was learning to speak Irish.”

  They also knew many big, dark Americans, but they weren’t sure about the scars on his arms. And why would a Yank want to learn to speak Irish?

  Fair question.

  We learned nothing.

  “Did you have the impression they were covering up?” I asked.

  “No, they were just being Irish—offering help when they didn’t have any.”

  The next morning after breakfast—which was astonishingly good—we walked out the door of the hotel into bright sunlight.

  “Lovely day,” the doorman said.

  “It won’t last,” I replied.

  “Sure, shouldn’t we thank the good Lord for what little of a lovely day we have?”

  Rosemarie agreed with a charming smile. The man agreed to let me take his picture.

  Then my wife bounded back into the hotel and struck up a conversation with the blond young woman at Reception.

  “I don’t suppose there’s many Americans living here, are there now?”

  “Why would a Yank want to live in this gloomy place, and there not being enough jobs for those who were born here?”

  She sighed, and Rosemarie sighed in sympathy.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t remember a big Yank who worked at Brandon’s Pub across the square before it closed?”

  “Timmy, is it?”

  “The very same.”

  “A grand man. Scars on his arms. Sang a lot, like he was trying to be happy but couldn’t quite make it. But always very nice and respectful. Never touched the creature either.”

  “Isn’t that the man we’re looking for, Charles?”

  “Isn’t it just?”

  I could imitate the local style of speech as well as she could.

  “And why would you be looking for him?”

  “Isn’t there a young woman back home in America who gave us a message for him?”

  “Does she love him, now?”

  “Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

  They both sighed again.

  “Is it a message he’d like to hear?”

  “Won’t he be delighted?” I chimed in.

  The young woman sighed again. “Well, he’s a real gentleman and himself so sad and doesn’t he deserve good news?”

  “He does,” my wife and I said in unison.

  “Well”—she looked both ways to see if anyone was listening—“if you take the coast road beyond Salt Hill and on to Clifden and look for a small hotel called the Clifden, you wouldn’t be far from wrong, would you?”

  “We wouldn’t, would we?”

  “Isn’t it Gaeltacht, Irish-speaking, if you take me meaning … course, don’t they speak English too?”

  “American,” I said.

  For the first time the young woman smiled.

  “I don’t suppose you would be able to find us a car?” Rosemarie asked.

  Certainly she could.

  “God go with you,” the young woman blessed us as we entered our very old Morris.

  “And may Mary remain with you all this day,” Rosemarie blessed her in return.

  We sang “Galway Bay” all the way out to Clifden. Rosemarie naturally did the driving. I was told that I was bad enough when I drove on the right side of the road. We’d be taking no chances on the left side.

  The sky and the bay were breathtaking. The poverty on either side of the road was depressing. Misery under glory. We had no trouble finding the Clifden Hotel. It was a neat, freshly whitewashed little place with a brightly painted sign.

  “Lets go in singing,” Rosemarie urged.

  So we charged in, still singing “Galway Bay.” Behind the Reception, Tim, who had been working over some papers, froze.

  “May God and Mary be with this house,” Rosemarie announced brightly, and then added, “Dia’s Muire dhuit.”

  Tim said something in Irish. Rosemarie would later tell me that it was “Dia’s Muire dhuit’s Padraig.” Then, with big grin, he translated for us: “May Jesus and Mary and Patrick be with those who come into this house.”

  He swept Rosemarie up in his arms and then shook my hand vigorously.

  “‘Tis yourselves!”

  “‘Tis!”

  “Would youse ever like a pot of tea and some scones?”

  “We would.”

  We were ushered into the tiny dining room, clean, neat, and smelling of fresh bread.

  “Granne, me girl, these are friends of mine from across the sea, would you ever be able to find them a pot of tea and a plate of fresh scones?”

  The child—thirteen at the most and scared of her shadow—admitted she could and dashed off.

  “You didn’t bring Jenny, did you?”

  “We did not.”

  Timmy sighed.

  “Sad or glad?” I asked.

  “Both, I guess.” He shrugged. “She should forget about me.”

  “She never will,” Rosemarie insisted.

  “That’s not my fault, Rosemarie H.”

  “It is too.”

  “Maybe it is. … Does she know where I am?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t tell my family?”

  “No.”

  He sighed again.

  “I can’t go back home. I can’t. Out here the horrors kind of fade away most of the time.”

  “You should go home to Jenny and Dr. Berman,” Rosemarie said flatly.

  “Maybe someday,” he said sadly. “Not yet and probably never.”

  “You’ll come back someday,” Rosemarie said confidently. “I know that.”

  He laughed genially, a much warmer laugh than what I used to hear in the Magic Tap on Division Street.

  “So what’s going on in th
e neighborhood? How many kids you guys have?

  Rosemarie showed him the pictures of April Rosemary and Kevin Paddy.

  “I see gossons and colleens like them out there every day … not quite so healthy-looking or as well dressed, sad to say.”

  We filled him in on the events of the neighborhood. Granne brought us another pot of tea and a second plate of scones. With a saucy tilt of her head in my direction, she said something in Irish.

  “She was making fun of me.”

  “Ah now. All she said was that the cute little redhead could eat all the scones in Connemara.

  “Try me!” I shouted after her.

  We continued our conversation.

  “We should be going now, Timmy,” my wife said, “not to overstay our time, if you take me meaning? But we won’t forget about you and we won’t let you get away.”

  “I won’t even ask if that’s a promise. … Hey, Charles C., put away your wallet. It’s on the house!”

  “‘Tis for herself, even if she is fresh.”

  I put a five-pound note on the table.

  “Would you want to be taking her picture?”

  “I would!”

  “We’ll take it first and then I’ll give her this after you leave, so we won’t embarrass her altogether.”

  I got a marvelous roll of her, including a shot that I flatter myself is a bit of a masterpiece. Despite my wife, I entitled it “West of Ireland Matriarch in Training.”

  “Go dte tu slan,” Tim said as he helped Rosemarie into the car.

  “Beir dua’s beannacht!” she replied.

  Where did she learn Irish greetings? I had given up asking those questions of my wild Irish Rosemarie.

  “He’ll never come,” I predicted as we bumped back to Galway Town.

  “Oh yes he will, Chucky. He still loves Jenny. He’s just afraid of what he’ll have to work out with Dr. Berman.”

  While we were in Ireland, probably when we were in Galway, Rosemarie conceived our third child and second son, James Michael (Jimmy Mike) O’Malley.

  The rhythm method of birth control is not suitable when you are feeling chilled in a damp and threadbare hotel.

  23

  “As a card-carrying member of the Pepsi Generation”—my wife sipped her Pepsi blissfully—“husband mine, I could get used to this life.”

  The P.A. finished the soothing and suggestive sounds of “Hernando’s Hideaway.” The next song was the appropriately romantic “Three Coins in a Fountain.”