The Last Killiney

by J. Jay Kamp

  * * *

  Flickering lamplight greeted them outside. The Strand was empty but for an occasional coach taking some gentleman home from his cards.

  He took her hand. He tucked it deep in the pocket of his coat, asked, “Have you ever been in love before?”

  Yes, she wanted to say, a thousand times yes, with you, when we were children at Disneyland…but she didn’t. “You know the answer.”

  “I do, but tell me anyway.” And despite that melancholy glint to his eye, he smiled a little; to ease her nerves, she thought. Could he feel her trembling with the turn this night had suddenly taken?

  “I’ve loved other people,” she said, “but never the ones who’ve loved me back.”

  “I reckon that’s the way of the world.”

  She glanced at him. “It’s not as simple as just saying it, you know.”

  “Saying what?”

  “That you don’t want to go with Vancouver. Tonight you may be convinced you don’t love her anymore, that if you go on the voyage, you’ll die and leave me stranded here alone, but a year from now…You’ll be wishing you were on that boat, Paul, and I don’t want to be blamed because you stayed here for my sake. I don’t want to spend every minute knowing you resent me for what you gave up in protecting me.”

  “But it’s my decision t’make, isn’t it? How could I blame you?”

  “If you end up homesick in the next four years, believe me, you’ll find some way to blame me.”

  “And if I don’t ever get homesick?” He gave her a measured stare. “If I don’t ever wake up someday and say t’myself ‘I might be shaggin’ the woman right now instead of yer girl’?” Paul shook his head. “It’s never gonna happen. So instead of having me to yourself free and clear for four years, and safe, I might add, you’d have me risk getting killed?”

  “You won’t die. You do have free choice, you know. It’s not like everything is completely spelled out for you.”

  Paul shot her an angry glance. “I’m sorry, but my faith is in God’s plans for me, not in any choices I’m likely t’make.”

  “But this is history, not God’s plan. Human beings write history. They make mistakes just like everybody else, and maybe somebody got it wrong, like Columbus being the first to discover America. Maybe you don’t die at all, and no one’s bothered to really find out.”

  “That’s a mighty tall maybe.” His eyes were uncomfortably sharp, and even when he didn’t look at her, he stared down the shop fronts and paving stones instead, his attitude worsening the further they walked.

  “Don’t you have any faith in yourself?” she asked at last. “Or do you leave everything in your life up to God?”

  “Look, right now this is all theoretical, what you’re saying, so it doesn’t seem like such a big deal t’you, but to me…” His voice trailed off as he slowed.

  Ravenna leaned into him. “What is it?”

  “It’s just that,” and he paused, gathering his words, “it won’t be such an easy thing if I really do die. You don’t understand, but I do. How will you survive? Who’s gonna look after you if I’m not here?”

  “James will take care of me.”

  “Is James going to talk you out of feelin’ responsible when you think of how you told me I wouldn’t be killed? Is James gonna be with you night and day, holdin’ back the darkness, keepin’ you from topping yourself? Can he take the place of me, make you feel like I make you feel?”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Because I know how it feels, Sweetheart. I know you love me. And apart from him being my friend, I loved Aidan just as much, every bit as much, and look what messin’ about with me did for him?”

  “He died, didn’t he?”

  “He did. I persuaded him to go somewhere we shouldn’t have gone. I did that. And you talk about me dying as if it’s nothing, as if you think we’re here forever, but the last time I saw Aidan, I would’ve never, ever thought something could happen, and that it’d be my fault. And he did die. And it was my fault.”

  She remembered his rueful face at the hotel. “This was just before we came here, wasn’t it?”

  “I was sixteen when Aidan and I went to Belfast for the weekend.” Paul hesitated, and there was a choke to his voice when he finally went on. “Now you tell me, what business have a couple of sixteen-year-olds in the Republican Markets area of Belfast?”

  “With the troubles, you mean?”

  Paul didn’t answer. He didn’t even glance at her as they walked, so that when she looked up into his face, she was aware of how upset he really was. There was that dread again, that fathomless ache shining in his eyes. “Whatever happened to Aidan,” she said carefully, “you still have to go back to your wife. You said that’s what you wanted, that it was the right thing to do. How else are you going to make sure you couldn’t have worked it out? That you don’t still love her, or—”

  Abruptly, Paul stopped. The smoldering glare he gave her then sent a shiver up her spine. “I think I’m old enough t’know who I’m in love with.” As his fingers moved around hers in his pocket, he lowered his eyes self-consciously before continuing on up the rain-slicked street.

  Ahead of them she saw a domed building, a church spire rising high above the city. As they neared it, she realized it was St. Paul’s Cathedral. He led her up the steps to its tall wooden doors, and under the shelter of its portico, Ravenna removed her woolen hood, wiped the rain from under her eyes. “You have a thing for churches at night, don’t you?”

  Paul said nothing, merely opened the door.

  In an instant, she forgot his moodiness. The place was magical, bathed in candlelight. Above them, the ceilings rose so high that where the darkness took over and the light couldn’t reach there appeared to be no ceiling at all. Cold and breathless, the great stone building seemed to go on forever, but Paul knew where he was going. He led Ravenna to a staircase and soon they were climbing step after step, making hollow wooden echoes and stony returns with the sound of their shoes on the spiral risers. Worrying about the noise they made, Ravenna followed him as quietly as she could, higher and further up into the dome, through corridors and into more stairs that rose and zigzagged until finally, after a lot of panting and several minutes, they arrived at a humble, unremarkable door.

  On the other side of that door was London, all of it, like a flickering blanket spread out before them.

  Together, they stood for a moment in silence. Paul seemed as transfixed as she, taking in the twinkling lights, the church spires. Yet when she heard him speak again, she knew he’d not forgotten their subject.

  “There’s a reason for everything,” he said, turning back to her, “and I’ve a feeling in my gut tellin’ me that’s why we’re here, why God’s put us in this mess with each other.”

  She dared to step nearer to him. “Why is that?”

  “Because,” and it surprised her how swiftly, how easily his arms encircled her, “because neither of us were gettin’ where we should’ve been in the other time.” He drew her up close, so intimate and personal that she gasped despite herself. “And because I needed to break with the woman,” he went on, resting his forehead against hers, “and you’ve been living alone on that island of yours for far too long.”

  “And what about Aidan?” she asked. “Maybe James is meant to fill the space Aidan left when he died in Belfast?”

  “Look,” Paul said, sterner now, “I’m going to make you promise that if something happens to me, you’ll carry on, business as usual, all right? You won’t top yourself, you won’t live out your life in a mental ward or whatever, yeah?”

  “I don’t think they have straitjackets in this time.”

  He pulled back an inch or two and fixed her with warning eyes. “Promise me, Ravenna. I’ll not leave the house, I’ll not set foot on that boat until you’ve promised as much.”

  Knowing he was serious, that she had no choice but to do as he asked, she nodded grudgingly.

  “So y
ou’ll get on with your life?” he said. “Flirt an’ marry an’ all that?”

  “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  “Never said you had to.” And working his hands under her cloak, feeling along the seam between her bodice and skirts, he lowered his hands slowly, awkwardly down the curve of her until she thought she would faint with wanting to kiss him. What should I do? she wondered. Lean closer? Kiss him first?

  Yet even as she deliberated, she could feel it—he was shaking. It wasn’t just his hands that seemed to tremble at her hips, but his whole body pressed tightly to hers. She risked stirring then. Lifting her fingers to his jaw, caressing him, feeling the scratch of his whiskers beneath her touch, she marveled at the vulnerability she saw in his gaze. “Are you really that scared?” she asked.

  There was the barest hint of a smile on his lips. He laughed a little. “The last time I kissed a woman that wasn’t Fiona, I think I was sixteen.”

  And then, before the happiness faded from his eyes, she felt it: The warmth of his kiss came soft and clumsy, breathing life into her, pressing her with a gentleness that wet her lips with an appetite she’d never known she’d possessed. It didn’t occur to her that she didn’t know how to kiss him back. She just did, and when they parted, for several minutes afterward she was amazed at how the fluttering ache persisted in her belly and the taste of him remained sharp in her mouth.

  Overwhelmed by the excitement of being in his arms, she, too was shaking at this point. Seeing that she was, he released her. He took a step back, gave her room to recover. “Hey, if I’m to get through this voyage,” he said, scooping up her hand, “you’ve a lot to teach me about Indians, yeah? Can you tell me about powwows and teepees?”

  “Potlatches and longhouses,” she said, looking down at where he worked his fingers into hers, interlocking their hands in a snug, intimate fit. How strange this is, she thought. Does he know I’ve never done this before?

  Glancing down, Paul followed her gaze. “Potlatches, that’s right,” he said distractedly, “but em, I guess I’ve a few months t’learn the difference. Otherwise I’ll never make it home to give the wife what she wants.”

  “So you’ll go on the voyage?”

  He hesitated, and immediately she sensed the deluge that threatened him, the need so strong in him to avoid the fate he’d seen in his dream. Still he nodded, his eyes a haze of bitter devotion. “For you, Ravenna. I’ll go because you asked me to, and because maybe…maybe this is what God’s got in mind, pittin’ me against death, makin’ me look it in the face, y’know? And besides, like my Da used t’tell me, the woman’s always right.”

  “And that’s what you’ve decided about Fiona? You’re going to get a divorce like she wanted?”

  “A divorce and a plane ticket, as soon as I get home.”

  “Plane ticket? To America, you mean? But you won’t need one, I’ll be at Wolvesfield, or wherever Elizabeth has taken my—”

  “Then we’ll fly to Las Vegas together,” he said.

  “Las Vegas?” She smiled.

  “Would you rather we do it on your island?” he asked. “With all the Federal Government fellahs protesting and threatening to take us off to prison?”

  Holding her breath, her heart hammering wildly, Ravenna managed to squeak out the question as she looked at his perfectly serious face. “Do what?” she asked. “You mean you want to…you want to make love? In front of all the game wardens?”

  But even before she’d finished the question, he’d melted in a grin. “That might be interesting,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “No, I meant marry, I want to marry you in front o’ the wardens. We could stand on the beach with the waves lappin’ at our feet, saying our vows under the seagulls and the open sky while yer fellahs start up their motor boats to take us away in handcuffs for trespassing…Or we could be married by an Elvis impersonator. Which is better, d’ya think?”

  Ravenna stared at him, rendered insensible by the tide of emotion washing over her. This was a dream, it had to be, for as she tried in vain to force her lips into an answer, Paul let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her tight. He put his face down close to hers, and the memory of his kiss ached inside her when he drew her nearer still.

  “That is, if you’ll have me,” he said. “Will you, Ravenna? Do you want me the way you said you did?” His eyes were shot through with needing; his voice was a whisper of husky breath that made her senses careen.

  Gazing at him, feeling his hands run up and down her back, she heard the words tumble from her lips before she’d even thought to contain them. “Of course I do. I’ve wanted you since I was twelve, since I—” She caught herself, realizing her mistake.

  Paul didn’t notice. He bent close and took her mouth in a kiss, moving his lips over hers, brushing her with promise, teasing her until it seemed there was nothing in the world but the sound of his pledge.

  “Then you’ll have me,” he said, murmuring in a breath against her open mouth. “I’ll be yours, my Mary of the river, ’til death do us part.”