Fiona

by Gemma Whelan

  For the child Fiona, the magic of her father’s words as he read to her was connected to the comforting tobacco smell which clung to his woolen pullover. She recalled the sound of his beating heart, the wondrous tale unfurling and a sweet sense of safety. Fiona smiled and hoped her Dad had thoroughly enjoyed a long and languorous last pipe.

  Her smile released Fiona from a frozen posture. She finally put down her suitcase and let her eyes rest on the figure on the bed. The black, highly polished shoes, Irish size 12 (about 14 in the U.S.), the carefully pressed gray suit, white shirt and blue-gray tie, the shiny black rosary beads in his joined hands. The very same hands that had tilled the fields and coaxed beautiful melodies from his violin. Finally, the face, still strong and handsome, weather-beaten from a life of farming, much of the hair still red and thick except for the gray at the temples. He looked fit and sturdy, younger than his sixty-four years. Far too young to die.

  Fiona knew that she should step over the threshold and go to him, but her feet were rooted to the spot. She wanted to think he was just asleep, and she wondered if his spirit had left his body yet. Then, as she stared harder at the still face, she noticed the creeping pallor and was hit with the certainty that she was in the presence of death. A pounding cramp spiked her abdomen as she doubled over and sank to her hunkers. It was the same sickening hurt in the pit of her stomach that she had felt crouched in the corner of the bedroom she shared with Orla, all those years ago, after the storm. The bedroom that was just on the other side of this wall.

  They were all around the bed. Mama, the Doctor dressed in black, Dada in the background, and Declan like a good elder son beside his Mam. Orla’s fever-wetted, golden curls were flung out on the snow-white pillow, and she looked pale and lifeless. The doctor crouched over her and put the stethoscope to her chest to listen to the labored breathing. He whispered something to Mam and started to put away the instruments in his rumpled black bag.

  Nine-year-old Fiona watched it all, everyone moving as in a dream, and she hoped she was invisible. She saw Mama pull the covers gently up to Orla’s chin and then begin to show the doctor out. The doctor left, and Mama followed him, but not before she turned to Fiona and gave her a look that said, “You should have known better, she’s your little sister and you should have known better.” Declan, standing close to his mother, also looked at Fiona and echoed the accusing look. “Stupid girl,” he seemed to say—his favorite taunt. “Silly, stupid girl.”

  In twenty-five years, Fiona had never managed to rid herself of her feelings of terror, guilt, and shame. A lifetime later, as she crouched in the doorway of another chamber of death, those accusing eyes were still boring into her.

  Fiona thought that if she just stayed on course and navigated her way through the crowded room that she could avoid both Declan and Frank. The latter was nowhere in sight, but she could see her brother out of the corner of her eye. Why was he always so cocksure of himself, while she could never manage to be gracious even on the surface—to put on the face to meet the faces that you meet? He seemed so natural and relaxed out there, so skillful working the crowd, and he just off a plane from Los Angeles. He would have made a great actor or politician, if he hadn’t become a shrink. Fiona felt pulled down by the blackness of her proper black dress and hoped that she was invisible. She had managed a few hours of fitful sleep before Nellie had knocked gently on the door to tell her it was time. Now, she pushed her sorrow and terror to the back of her consciousness and forged ahead.

  The sounds of the room ebbed and flowed as Irish accents rose up and floated and shimmered and then descended. Fiona could make out the distinctively confident tones of her brother and, somewhere behind her now, Uncle Frank’s lilting voice. She also heard the rising notes of a fiddle which played one of her Dad’s favorite, old-time, Irish tunes, “The Minstrel Boy.” A singer began the familiar opening lines—“The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone. In the ranks of death you will find him. His father’s sword he has girded on. His wild harp strung behind him.” It must be coincidence, she thought, that the fiddler chose this Thomas Moore song, seeing as her Dad hadn’t picked up a violin himself since Orla died. Unless Declan had remembered. The whiskey was flowing, and baked ham and brown bread and fresh apple tarts were piled onto people’s plates. A proper Irish wake.

  Fiona had almost made it past the overflowing oak table and round the curve to the kitchen when she and her brother were trapped simultaneously by a neighbor.

  “My condolences Declan, but thank God it was fast—we have that to be thankful for.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Cusack,” Declan replied simply, and before he could continue Mr. Cusack turned to her. “And is this your lovely wife, Declan? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Fiona turned beet red.

  “This is my sister, Fiona,” Declan explained. “You must remember Fiona—she lives in the States, too.”

  “Well, glory be! Little Fiona! I think you were in knee socks the last time I saw you.”

  Fiona felt her color deepen.

  “I was home two years ago, 1988, for Mother’s funeral,” she said.

  “Oh, aye. God rest her soul. Grand woman, your mother. Your father was lost without her.” He made the sign of the cross in respect for the dead.

  “And is your wife here at all then, Declan?”

  “She’s in the early stages of pregnancy and feeling a bit off-color. Her doctor advised her not to make the long trip.” Fiona detected the concern in Declan’s voice.

  “Well, I hope she’ll be better, now, God bless her. But, isn’t it grand for the two of yous, Declan and Fiona, to be living in America.” Mr. Cusack droned on, and Fiona knew that he probably had a notion of them living nice and cozy, side by side, as if America were a little place like Cregora.

  “I live with my family on the West Coast,” Declan explained. “My sister lives in New York, on the East Coast.”

  “Oh, aye, aye, to be sure,” Mr. Cusack nodded. “It’s a grand big country over there, isn’t it!”

  “It’s big all right.” Declan agreed.

  “You’d fit our little country into it many times over now, wouldn’t you!”

  And he slipped away leaving them alone in the midst of the crowded room.

  Her brother hadn’t changed much in the two years since their mother’s funeral. He was almost six feet tall and solidly built with perfect carriage. His hair was a toned down version of the orange mop he sported as a child, and the close cut and California tan accentuated his strong chin and deep gray-blue eyes. He dressed with a casual elegance; his dark gray sports jacket and tailored pants perfectly suited the occasion. Fiona felt frumpy and pale by comparison.

  “Nellie has done us proud.” He broke the ice.

  Fiona nodded.

  “And everyone turned out for Dad.”

  Fiona quickly surveyed the room. “I hardly know anyone anymore. Where are they all from?”

  “Around. The village. Dad was well liked, even if we weren’t the most social of families—at least after . . . ”

  Orla, name unspoken, presence felt. Fiona felt the pushed-back fear tickling her insides, threatening to break loose.

  “Stanley is here.” Declan changed the subject. “He said tomorrow afternoon after the funeral would work for him to read the will. He knows we both have to go back, so we need to attend to business.”

  Fiona nodded. It seemed a bit indecent to have to deal with inheritance issues so soon, but there didn’t seem to be a choice.

  “And you still think you want to keep the house? Hold on to it?”

  “It’s our heritage, Fiona. Dad’s family has been here since 1850—just after the Famine.”

  “I always thought you wanted to get away—you went farther even than me—all the way west.”

  “Well, maybe I’ve changed. Having a daughter . . . I’d like Una to know where she came from.”

  “But we weren’t happy here.” Fiona spoke sotto voce. “It’s not like we had a blissful childhood. Wh
y would you want to revisit bad memories?”

  “Isn’t that what you did in Eye of the Storm? Plough over that old territory?”

  “Everything isn’t therapy, Declan! My novel is just that, a novel!” She looked around uneasily to see if anyone had noticed her slightly raised voice, but the room buzzed with conversation—everyone engaged in their own chatter. The band launched into a rendition of “Fiddler’s Green.”

  “At any rate,” Declan continued, seemingly unruffled, “maybe I can buy you out. I couldn’t do it right away. I’d have to figure something out, but eventually I could pay you your share.”

  “But you’d still be here. As long as you’re still here, there’ll be ties.” She paused. “Knots.” Her heart was racing.

  “And we did have happy times here, Fiona. It wasn’t all gloom and doom.”

  Before Fiona could respond, a tiny, white-haired woman, chin thrust forward, propelled herself like a dynamo into her path with outstretched hand.

  “You must be Fiona,” she announced, more a statement than a question. “I’m Mrs. Connelly from the far end of the village. I knew your father well, God rest his soul.”

  Fiona extended her hand as she reached back in her memory to find a match for this neighbor. “Thanks, Mrs. Connelly, thanks for coming.”

  “Lord, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, child. Your father was a grand man, one of the best. He always talked about you two.” Mrs. Connelly continued in a gushing stream, not pausing even for breath. “Every time I’d see him he’d give me the news from America.”

  Fiona was taken aback. “I didn’t write as often as—” she started to blurt, but Mrs. Connelly was on a roll.

  “He’d tell me about the stories you wrote and the things you published—he was proud as punch to have a daughter who was a writer—seeing as he always wanted to be a writer himself but didn’t get the chance, like.”

  Fiona was dumbfounded by this information, completely new to her.

  “I run the little bookshop down there, you know, next to the chemist. I bought out Miss O’ Shaughnessy when she got a bit long in the tooth. Your father and I had great chats about books.”

  Now Fiona was starting to make sense of the picture, and she had just opened her mouth to fashion a reply when Mrs. Connelly interjected.

  “And this must be your brother, Declan!” She swiveled to face him. “Still handsome as ever—Lord, but you were a beautiful baby!”

  Fiona concocted an excuse about checking on the food and made a beeline for the kitchen. She was reeling from the encounter with Declan and also from Mrs. Connelly’s monologue. Here was a neighbor from the other end of the village who knew things about her father that she herself did not even have an inkling of. He had never mentioned any desire to write or expressed any pride in her chosen profession or her tiny amount of success. As far as Fiona could remember, he had always been generally disapproving of the writer’s life. He thought it was irresponsible for a grown woman to spend her time scribbling away, supporting herself mostly from cleaning offices, with nothing to show for it but a few stories and one book. A waste of a fine university education, is what he used to say.

  Fiona unnecessarily shifted plates around and rearranged scones on serving dishes. Declan had always been the pretty boy, good in school, and now successful and well established. He had trained in a solid and lucrative profession and had a good job working in the psychiatric unit of a hospital. He lived in Marina del Rey, owned his own home and had apparently a nice settled family life. The American Dream. By comparison, she herself still felt adrift, cut off from family and ties, struggling to get a firm foothold in her career, raw and unsettled in her emotions. She could more or less control it all in New York. Everything had been going along fine in her safe haven, stashed away in the hugeness of the city, and now she was back in the thick of it, both Mam and Dad gone, leaving only herself and Declan. Her heart pounded with the heaviness of their shared grief, but the barrier was too wide. She could not extend herself to him. It was too confusing, too overwhelming. Her country, her family, drowned her.

  The final words of the song emanated into the kitchen, “I’ll see you someday on Fiddlers’ Green,” and Fiona recalled that the Fiddlers’ Green of the title was where fiddlers went to die, a kind of heaven—a fitting place for her father to go. She choked back the tears and wondered why he hadn’t kept up with the violin when he loved it so much. Fiona associated her reading to Orla in the hideout with her Dad’s faraway melodies. “The Gypsy Rover” was one of her favorites, and when he played the melody she would sing the words in her head. “The whistling gypsy came over the hill, down by the valley so gaily. He whistled and he sang ‘til the green woods rang, and he won the heart of a lady.” And in her mind’s eye she pictured the colorful gypsy, romantic and carefree, able to win the heart of a beautiful girl with his whistling, as her Dad was able to win hers from afar with his magical playing.

  At about one in the morning, as they put the finishing touches to the clean-up, the house was eerily quiet. Emptied of its visitors, the stories and praises and songs seemed to linger, still, in the rose pattern on the heavy wallpaper, the strong lines in the dark wood floor, the family photographs which graced the walls. The old house was filled with the lived life of her parents and drove home to Fiona the sad finality of their passing. As she returned the china to its place in the dresser, she was conscious of her brother and her uncle moving around behind her, putting things away. She worked in silence, breath held, as Frank and Declan exchanged the occasional pleasantry. She hoped that she would not be left alone with Frank and would escape with the small talk they had exchanged during the course of the wake.

  Her tasks completed, Nellie bustled out of the kitchen, removing her many stringed apron, just as Declan opened the Jameson and brought out some whiskey glasses.

  “Will we have a night cap? Frank, Nellie, Fiona? In Dad’s honor.”

  He was already pouring in anticipation. Frank eagerly reached out and claimed a glass, Declan poured one for himself, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Fiona said yes.

  “Nellie, a wee dram?”

  Nellie laughed. “No thanks, Declan. I think I’ll head off home—tomorrow maybe, before you go, I’ll raise a glass to your Da.”

  “I’ll walk you home, then, Nell.” Declan set his glass aside, and Fiona’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Not at all pet, shur’ it’s only down the way a bit. I’ll be grand.”

  “Arra, I’m not letting you out there on your own—never know who might run away with you!” Declan replied jokingly.

  “A cow or stray sheep maybe!” Nellie laughed. “Sit there and enjoy your uisce beatha.”

  But Declan had made up his mind. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Come on, I’ll get your coat.”

  Fiona felt her tears well up again as she hugged Nellie goodbye out in the hallway.

  “Hush, hush, macoushla.” Nellie soothed as she rubbed Fiona’s back. “He’s gone to a better place, by the grace of God.”

  When the outside door banged shut, it hit Fiona that she was now alone with the person she hated most in the world. Maybe the only person she truly hated.

  She and Frank sipped their whiskeys in silence for a while. Frank’s resemblance to their father was uncanny, unsettling. He was slighter in build, but had the same strong jaw line and the same red hair, though Frank still had his moustache. Fiona thought his dark green eyes were harder, colder.

  “And I believe the writing is going well then, Fiona? Any more novels?”

  Fiona winced. Not having a second novel in the pipeline was a sore point.

  “Not yet. A few stories. I’m mostly working on reviews at the moment.”

  She noticed that Frank had already made a dent in the whiskey.

  “I read your novel, you know. Very good it was. A fine read.”

  Fiona nodded. They sipped in silence. She knew that Frank was not much of a reader of fiction—here he differed hug
ely from her dad who loved to read. Frank had read the local newspaper every day of his life and was always well informed about current events. Fiona recalled walking by his bakery and waving to him on her way to school. He would smile broadly and wave back as he turned the pages of the paper. He had never shown the slightest bit of interest in fiction.

  “Nice characters. All nice people.”

  “It’s all . . . well, I based it on what I know of course, but . . . ”

  She stared at him and then immediately averted her gaze.

  “A nice story of growing up on a farm, in Ireland.”

  Fiona wanted to scream. She wanted him to stop using the word nice. She knew he had only read the book to see if there was a character based on him, and if so, if he was “nice.” And there was. And he was.

  Silence.

  “Your father made me the executor, you know.”

  She nodded.

  “Declan said you wanted to sell the house.”

  “Yes.”

  “But he wants to keep it.”

  “Right.”

  Frank cleared his throat and partook of another sip of whiskey. “Well, that could be a sticking point, you see.”

  Fiona was puzzled. Her old fear of Frank came coursing back. Frank looked at her and fingered his mustache, as if he were contemplating a problem.

  “It’s like this. Your father put in a stipulation that the two of yous need to agree on what to do about the house and the land. He didn’t want you split on the issue.”

  Fiona made a supreme effort to try and keep calm. She looked at Frank.