“Same as us all,” the soldier said, and he was gone from Annie Powell.
And the damn money they had in this Republic. A ten-pound note was big as a napkin, and it had a goblin’s face in the back. She didn’t know how to spend such things. Dermott gave her banker’s checks to use, with her name and his printed on the bottom. ANNIE POWELL OR DERMOTT BRIDE. It was like having a company together. You couldn’t cash them at Woolworth’s. You had to take Dermott’s checks into the prouder stores. She bought everything at Switzer’s and Brown Thomas: underwear, peanuts, pajama tops. Cashiers would hold up the checks with their fingers, smile, and shout “Grand!” at Annie. She didn’t need identification, no little card with a signature on it. Dermott’s checks were finer than gold. That’s some man I have, mother dear. The Bank of Ireland sits on his shoulders.
Where was the money flowing from? Dermott took Jamey and her to dinner and lunch. It was a strange kind of eating, more often than not. Dermott might rent out a whole restaurant. He’d reserve twelve tables from seven to nine. O’Toole would be stationed at the door. Busboys and master waiters would hover over them, while Annie stared at empty tablecloths. “Everything to your satisfaction, madam?”
She chugged her head. A sauceboat would arrive on a flaming tray. “Just a dash for you, madam?”
Dermott wore a velvet suit. But she was too miserable to gloat on his handsomeness. Who buys out every chair at a restaurant?
The waiter was a genius. He could slice smoked salmon in front of your eyes. Her man knew all the fancy waiter talk. “Madam would like a bit of toast.” It was like having pet camels in your room to fetch whatever you want. The busboys sidled up to Annie with ten racks of toast. Mercy on the miserable and the poor. Annie could have fed off those racks of toast for a year. But she still couldn’t tease out her man’s line of work.
“Derm, are we ever going home?”
She must have hit on something, because his sockets turned dark.
“We’re gypsies now,” he said. “But I’ll take you to Connemara in a week.”
“Where’s that?”
“Near Galway. In the west.”
You couldn’t talk directions to Annie Powell. West was nowhere to her. West of Dublin? West of what? Ireland was a mystery. An Irish cab took them to Dublin airport, and they got on a plane to Shannon. It was no ordinary rent-a-car that waited for them. Her man had reserved a huge limousine. Jamey did the driving. He sang songs about the Rose of this and the Rose of that. “Yes, she’s the Rose of Castlebar …”
It was a straight road to Galway, a town with one little square, like a pinch on your behind next to Stephen’s Green. The lads didn’t stop in Galway. But that square confused them. They couldn’t decide which turn to make. Dermott growled under his teeth. “The road to Salthill, you dummy.”
Jamey wouldn’t bend. “It’s Clifden we want. And Oughterard.”
“Who’s car is this?” Dermott asked.
“You’re the king and I’m the driver.”
They didn’t take the road to Oughterard. They were near the ocean in a minute, in some kind of bay. Geese flew over their heads, wild birds with long skinny bodies and delicate wings. Annie couldn’t understand their powers of locomotion. How could such tiny wings carry a bird? She was a city girl. Pigeons are what entered her head, not geese that could caw over the knock of an engine.
They hugged a narrow seawall, and Annie was sure the three of them would drop into the bay. The donkey started teasing her. “Look, Annie girl, you can see Manhattan behind them rocks.”
“I’m from Sunnyside,” she said, and she wouldn’t talk to Jamey. He must have been growing delirious. Because he muttered weird stories that went beyond the girl. He used a rough English tongue, as if he weren’t enough of a giant without such a voice. “You hear me, laddies. Neither O nor Mac shall strut nor swagger through the streets of Galway. This is British land. From the ferocious O’Tooles, good Lord, deliver us.”
Dermott laughed. “Jamey, I didn’t know your people were from Galway.”
“Ah, it’s nothing, man. I learned it all from a catechism book. God pity the Irish, at home and abroad. I’m Jamey O’Toole. My people rose out of some pile of shit an Englishman made in Kildare. Show me an Irishman who can trace his ancestry, and you’ll find that same pile of shit.”
“Agreed,” Dermott said.
But Annie took it as an insult. “My granddad dug potatoes. He was a good working man … from Omagh, I think. Or Ballyshannon. So speak for yourselves.”
“Yes, they’d all love to have one father,” Jamey said. “Finn MacCool. Not potatoes, Annie girl. There’s a king in all of us. That’s why our bones crack so easy.”
There was no use arguing with a donkey like him. Her man didn’t say a word to defend the Irish. Who was Jamey to talk of people rising out of shit? Annie couldn’t find a tree out here. Miles and miles of stone. Rock walls twisted over Hills that turned into low, harsh mountains. Yellow flowers grew between the rocks. You saw cows in the hills, bands of sheep, and haystacks with rags on top. The sheep looked odd to Annie when they came up close with their curled horns and black feet and blue markings on their rumps, as if an idiot had gone about stamping sheep’s asses with color. Jamey honked at the beasts. “Get on. Climb on somebody else’s back.”
But they had to sit until different gangs of sheep passed along both sides of the car. Jamey was perturbed. He drove too fast around a bend in the road and struck a cow. It was an awful sight for Annie. The cow lay dead, its hooves in the air, blood running from a shoulder. “Jesus,” the donkey muttered. “I thought a rock hit us.” He didn’t have any mercy for the cow.
“Who’s going to move that fucking thing?”
A farmer and his boy appeared in front of the seawall and approached the car.
“An accident,” Jamey said. “I swear to Christ … I wouldn’t bash a cow on purpose. It just stood there, man, and looked me in the eye … I couldn’t turn …”
The farmer and his boy dragged the cow off the road. The boy was crying. Jamey removed a wad of that Irish paper money from his wallet. “We’re not villains,” he said. “Two hundred quid for a dead cow.”
The farmer wouldn’t take the money. Jamey bundled it in his fist and tried to give it to the boy. But the boy only stared at him out of freckled cheeks. Jamey threw the money on the ground. Then he drove ahead of the farmer and the cow. He was in a fury. “Did you see the fender that animal put on us? It’s lucky we can crawl.”
Annie was waiting for her man to slap the donkey on his ear. To murder a cow and then offer money, and not a word of real regret. But Dermott never scolded the donkey.
“Let me out,” she said.
“What’s that, Annie girl?”
“You heard me, Mr. O’Toole. Stop the car. I’m not riding with cow-killers.”
O’Toole banged on the dashboard with a knuckle; the cushions under Annie trembled from the blow.
“Jesus, it’s a fine day when your own family is against you. Dermott, you think she’ll rat on us?… Annie, didn’t I lay two hundred on that old gizzard for his cow? It was a worthless animal. Dull in the head. A cow that stands in the middle of the road and hogs your lane!… Dermott, ask her to forgive us now. We’ll order up a Requiem for that animal at the next church. We’ll pay for chanters and all … I wouldn’t disappoint Annie Powell.”
Annie hardened against the donkey and her man. “Have your jokes,” she said. “Blaspheme a poor cow that doesn’t have a soul and can’t defend itself against its murderers. But I won’t ride with you.”
Jamey pummeled the dashboard again. Dermott wasn’t amused. “Let her out,” he said. They left Annie on the road to Screeb and Maam Cross. She had her suitcase. She’d strut back to Galway and sleep in that little square, she would. She’d show that donkey and the king. Annie Powell could get along without her man. She had some Irish silver in her bag, coins with a bull on one side and a harp on the other. She’d spend them in Galway, live
on coffee and scones, and the lemony biscuits she liked. Maybe she would buy a mass for that cow. She’d ask the fathers of Galway if such a thing were possible …
Annie brooded and brooded, but she hadn’t gone a step. She already missed the king. Why did her man throw her out of the car? She should have listened to her mama and stayed in Sunnyside. Sure, she could close her eyes and whisper that her man was in real estate. But how many realtors would pay five thousand for the right to bring a girl toDublin?Dermott Bride was a crook. His men liked to murder cows. Here she was, a gangster’s lady.
It could have been an hour before the dust shivered up off the road. She saw spots of brown fur and a glue made of blood inside the big hollow on Jamey’s fender. She was glad the cow had marked the limousine with its own dying. But she didn’t say that to her man. She climbed on Dermott’s lap when the door opened. She curled into his neck. She would never have gotten to Galway by herself.
“Wake up, Annie. Be a good girl now.”
It was Jamey’s hand on her shoulder. She had a blanket under her legs. Her man wasn’t in the cushions with her, and her ankles were cold. “Where are we, Jamey O’Toole?”
“Are you blind?” he said. “Look around you, Annie. It’s Castledermott.”
She poked her head out of the car. Mother Mary, you wouldn’t believe this world! They were parked in front of an old gray castle on a yellow lake. It was just the right castle for Dermott and his man. Part of its stones were chewed up. The turrets were going to rubble. Castledermott had an ambiguous roof. It could have rained debris on your head during windy times. The walls had great lapses in them, thick pockets where Annie would have loved to hide. Some of the windows were humped with cardboard. But it did have a sturdy door. Oak, Annie figured, though she couldn’t tell you much about wood. It wasn’t the kind of door that Jamey could have heaved up on his shoulder, famous as he was for uprooting doors, springing them from their hinges, or smashing their center panels with a fist. She would have bet her last Irish coins that O’Toole couldn’t hurl this door into the yellow lake.
“Where did Dermott go?”
“He’s inside,” Jamey said. “With the Fisherman.”
She took her suitcase out of the car, and Jamey went to knock on that big oak door. “It’s me, O’Toole … and the girl.” The door swung open without the cry of a hinge. An old man with a shotgun let them through. The house was full of old men. They were on the stairs, in the kitchen, coming in and out of the dining rooms. They carried shotguns or pistols in a holster, and they cursed at one another with cigarettes and cigars in their mouths. Strange folks for an Irish castle on a yellow lake. They were as American as Annie Powell. They didn’t seem to care for Jamey, these old men. They spit into their palms when he shuffled between them. “The king’s washing-boy,” they said. Jamey had a temper. Why didn’t he bounce them into the walls? They sneered at Annie. They would move close and sniff her with malice in their eyes. “Does the king get a piece of that?”
But Jamey wouldn’t have them belittle her. “I’ll get a piece of your skull if you don’t watch out.”
The old men converged on him with their shotguns. The donkey wouldn’t back off. Another old man came out of the parlor. He wore funny boots that went up to his crotch. The boots were like jelly. They wobbled with each step he took. “Will you cut it out, for the love of God. Timothy Snell, curb those hounds of yours. We have guests. Be kind to Jamey.”
This was the Fisherman, and these old men were his people. He walked into the parlor with those jelly boots. She had ears on her. Dermott was in the parlor with the old Fisherman. She heard them mutter back and forth. O’Toole could sing and froth on the road, but her man did the talking in Castledermott.
“Coote.” There were tremors in his sweet voice. “Jamey sticks with me.”
“Not a chance,” the old Fisherman said. “The lad goes. He’s needed in New York.”
“Coote, I can get you bigger brains and better muscle.”
“Granted, but he looks the part. That’s what counts. We can’t have an army busting into the streets to hit at merchants and fools. I’ve me own hand to protect.”
“You know his history. He grows violent when I’m not around.”
“We’ll soothe the lad. Don’t you fret.”
Her man said, “Find another boy. Jamey’s not for sale.”
“Who’s been your daddy these eighteen years? Coote McNeill.”
“Then it might be time to change dads …”
One of the old gunmen shooed Annie away from the parlor. She was led up to her room. She walked on stairs that had a wine-colored finish in the wood. Did those gunmen wax the floors? Why did O’Toole say “Castledermott.” The Fisherman owned this house. They put her on the third story. A wind pushed through the halls. She could see out onto the yellow lake from her room. She had glass in her window. Not scummy cardboard. But the room had a narrow bed.
Dermott didn’t come to her at night. The Fisherman’s people mumbled in the hall. They fed her and made rude noises with their tongues, as if such silly old men could devour her body. She would have thrown them down the stairs, shotguns and all, if they tried to touch Annie Powell. She ate bananas and cream and listened to their chatter. It made no sense.
—A yellow lake means salmon, you twit. A blue lake’s for trout.
—If you’re so smart, why do salmon crave yellow water?
—Because they’re a strange fish. Your salmon’s very haughty. Why else would the McNeill bother with them? They won’t lay their eggs in an ordinary lake. It’s got to be yellow.
—Shit, I didn’t come to Ireland to live in a fisherman’s retreat.
—He’ll turn a pretty penny, Coote will. Making this old box into a proper hotel. An angler’s nook, you understand. A sort of paradise. You can’t fish here without paying a fee to Coote.
—Is Dermott going to fish with us?
—Shut your mouth. The walls have ears, you idiot.
And the muttering would stop. Coote, Coote the Fisherman and his salmon lake. She thought she’d go crazy in the dark. She couldn’t sleep on a narrow bed, without her man. She twisted under the blanket, her toes on fire. What a foolish thing it was to have a body. It turned hot and cold. There was a breeze on that yellow lake. She thought of the salmon swimming under there, putting silver streaks in the water with the drive of their fins. It was beautiful at Castledermott. But she’d rather die than be without her man.
He didn’t come to her in the morning to say he was sorry. They let her out of the room. God, someone must have seized the castle. The whole place shook. The Fisherman’s people had turned to carpenters overnight. They were hammering and sawing on the stairs. Annie knew what a carpenter was. Coote had picked funny guys to build a hotel. The saws buckled on these old men. Nails went in crooked. It wasn’t going to be much of a fisherman’s paradise.
They fed her in the kitchen. It was bananas and cream again. Maybe her man had disappeared on her. But she was still a guest. Annie had her own feelings about what she ought to eat. The Fisherman couldn’t run a hotel on bananas and cream. She’d have to tell him that. If he didn’t vary his menu, the hotel would sink.
The old men had gone back to their carpentering, and Annie was in the kitchen alone. She was humming to herself. She sang idle songs about salmon in the water. She began to cry under the breath of her songs. Mama, she dreamt of Dermott’s face in the kitchen window. She wouldn’t open her eyes for fear the dream would slip away from her and she’d be left without the face she loved. Black his hair. Purple lips. She didn’t need to sing about salmon runs in yellow water. Thank God she had the gift to imagine Dermott’s cheeks. She invented a smile on Dermott. Then the window opened, and her man was whispering to her. “Annie darling, get off your lovely ass.”
Who would say such things? Was it magic blowing off the lake? Some salmon god Annie had neglected to mention in her songs? “Girl, are you coming or not?”
He had hands to help her
out the window. She gathered her skirts in one fist and climbed. She felt a little clumsy with her stomach on the windowsill. He was laughing now, and she was angry and confused. He raised her buttocks off the window and carried her like a fish. Then he put her down.
“Derm, why did you have to play the ghost with me? Wasn’t I scared enough? Jesus, you never said good night.”
“I couldn’t. Not in this house. I didn’t want those lads thinking of us under the same blanket.”
“Well, why didn’t you put Jamey outside my door?”
“I’d be jeopardizing him. The boy has to sleep.”
“Are they your enemies, Coote and his old guys?”
“Don’t you ever call him Coote. He’s the Fisherman, and he’s a partner of mine.”
“Coote, Coote, everybody calls him Coote.”
“That’s a dumb habit we have. But you might say ‘Coote’ to the wrong party, and it would do hurt to the old man. He’s been good to me.”
“Dermott, I’ll call him the Fisherman forever and ever, if that’s what you like, but why haven’t you kissed me yet?”
“It’s too close to the house. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“On a picnic, you dope.”
He pointed to the hamper near his legs. A basket it was, for a fisherman’s lunch. He picked it up, and he ran with her around the lake. She must have been giggling too hard.
“Shhh,” he said. “There’s an echo off that fucking water.”
“It’s not a crime to have an echo.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have to advertise. If the Fisherman knows about our picnic, he might try to come along.”
“I’ll stuff his head in the basket if he dares to come.”
But she wouldn’t disobey her man. Annie didn’t giggle anymore. They walked and walked in a kind of brown scrub, her skirts tangling in the midst of low, barren blackberry bushes. It wasn’t the season for berries, you know, Annie muttered to herself. She couldn’t wait to see what was in the hamper. “Love, is this a picnic or a hike?” she said.
Secret Isaac Page 10
