by Dorien Kelly
Vi’s answer was immediate. “I’d love to.” She’d had little chance for female companionship as of late.
Nora put a mug of tea in front of Vi, then sat opposite her, a speculative expression lighting those eyes so much like her brother’s.
“So,” she said, “all these years gone and within days you and Liam are back to where you last left off.”
Vi tipped a fat spoonful of sugar into her tea and began to stir. “I wouldn’t say that.” At least not aloud.
“But you’re living in his house,” Catherine pointed out.
“More nearby since she came in from the carriage house,” Nora corrected. “Still, the point’s the same. He had you to dinner, and he’s not done that before.”
“Except with Beth,” Catherine said.
“True,” agreed Nora, “but they were married and he could hardly have left her on the curb.”
“What’s she like?” Vi asked, then wished back the question. Beth should be none of her concern.
“Nervous and kind of sharp-like,” Catherine said. “But Mam adores her.”
Nora nodded. “I think she’d trade the whole lot of us for Beth.”
“Well,” Vi said, “you’re safe enough from trade when I’m about.”
“And will you be…about, that is?” Nora asked.
Vi sipped her tea. “A few more days, at least.”
“So you have no plans with Liam?”
“Plans? Such as what?”
“Finally marrying him?” Nora suggested.
Vi nearly choked on her tea. “Marriage? We’ve been fifteen years apart and six days back in each other’s company.”
“Six days is time enough. I knew I’d marry Tadgh the day I met him,” Catherine said, setting toast and preserves in front of Vi.
Nora laughed. “And it didn’t hurt that you turned up pregnant ten weeks later.”
“Now don’t be sharing with Vi just how easy I was for the man.”
Vi nibbled at her toast thinking this was how family should be—adversities conquered seen as positives, not creating anger simmered to a bitter brew.
“So has Liam improved with age?” Nora asked, a bold smile lighting her face.
It was Vi’s turn to laugh. “Improved? Are you suggesting that I might have means of comparison?”
“Ah, well, there was the night years ago I went to borrow Liam’s car. Coming closer, I noted that it was otherwise occupied. It didn’t look very comfortable, the two of you being so tall.”
“You watched?”
“Only for moment, and then only out of an interest in space-planning.”
“Grand,” Vi said, then finished off a triangle of toast.
“And as for now,” Nora said, “I saw the two of you at dinner the other night.”
Catherine nodded in agreement. “I was surprised Mam didn’t try to cover Annie’s virgin eyes, the way Liam was looking at you. And if he hadn’t had you by now, he’d be up in flames.”
And Vi, who scarcely ever blushed, wondered if her face wasn’t much the same.
Liam came through his front door, distracted with thoughts of telephones and time zones—three hours later than Duncarraig where Beth was and five hours earlier at his attorney’s Boston office. He pulled up short at the sound of a female voice coming from his kitchen.
“Aren’t you overstating things?”
Liam smiled. That, he knew was Vi.
“Not at all. Vi, did you ever think about why there are so many Raffertys?”
He gave a resigned sigh, for those had been Catherine’s dry tones. Extraneous Raffertys were in residence.
“Catherine’s belly being case in point,” Nora said. “We’re all flat-out wild for sex.”
Vi’s laughter rang out, and Liam lost all thoughts of clocks.
“You’re telling me it’s genetic, then?” she asked.
“Our fatal flaw…or best aspect, depending on how one views it,” Catherine said.
“So don’t be trying to tell us that you two haven’t found a private corner,” Nora added, laughter in her voice.
Liam pushed through the kitchen door and came to stand behind Vi. “A private corner? Impossible. I can’t seem to get one even in my own house.”
“Or car,” Vi said.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you later.” She smiled up at him so gloriously that he had to drop a kiss on her cheek, despite his prying sisters.
“I’m understanding it now,” Liam said to Nora after she reached over and took a piece of toast from a plate sitting in front of Vi. “You raid my food so that I’m forced to go buy more at your store, is that it?”
She snorted. “Right. I’ll conquer the town one empty kitchen at a time. We came to see Vi, you fool. Mam told us she’d seen her car out back.”
Liam preferred not to consider why his mother might have been lurking behind his house. “Right, then. Now you’ve seen Vi and shared the family’s dark and awful secret…such as it is,” he said with a shake of his head. “How about being on your way and giving us that private moment?”
Catherine held a hand to her heart. “You’d not put a pregnant woman on the street, would you?”
“Not most,” he replied, “but you for certain.”
Nora filched another piece of toast for the road, leaving Vi with an empty plate and a hungry look about her.
“You don’t have a bit of Rafferty hospitality about you,” Nora said to him. “Come, Catherine, we’ll stop to see Jamie at the pub. He’s always been the nicest brother.”
Liam waited until his sister had cleared the door to draw Vi to her feet and kiss her properly. Her lips were sweet with a hint of strawberry, and her feel was wonderfully solid in his arms.
“Better this morning?” he asked.
She nodded her head. “Much, though both Rog and I could use a full meal.”
“I’ve some eggs if my sisters didn’t steal them.”
She smiled at him. “That would be perfect. And I’ve got Rog’s kibble yet out in my car.”
“You feed the beast and I’ll get your eggs cooking. Is fried all right? You should be warned that I can’t poach or do anything else too grand.”
“You have your hereditary compensating talents,” she said, then kissed him quickly before dancing out of his grip when he would have held her longer. “Fried is fine, and I’ll be right back.”
Liam pulled a pan from the cabinet next to the stove, then butter and two eggs from the fridge. He had the pan on and the butter was beginning to melt when the telephone rang.
“Don’t burn,” he ordered the butter, then strode to the front room and the phone. He grabbed the handset and headed back to his butter.
“Hello?” he said as he entered the kitchen.
“Liam? It’s Beth.”
If nothing else, this saved him the call he’d planned to make later. Along with daily e-mail, he’d also been trying to check in with Beth by phone at least once a week.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “I’d just been planning to ring you up.”
Silence reigned, and it wasn’t the comfortable sort, either.
“Meghan e-mailed me,” Beth finally said. “And I don’t know how to approach this, except just to say it…. Do you have some woman living with the two of you?”
Quick at the keyboard, his daughter was. She must have gotten off a message just after breakfast, when she’d quizzed him about Vi’s car and the voices she’d heard the prior evening, no doubt at approximately the same time she’d feigned sleep for his benefit. Liam turned down the heat beneath the pan and rocked it to spread the melted butter.
“A friend staying in the carriage house is all.”
“A female friend, though?”
He answered with as much patience as he could find. “Yes, Beth, a female friend.”
“Meghan’s at a sensitive age, Liam,” Beth was saying as he propped the phone between shoulder and ear and began to crack two eggs. “You can’t have a str
eam of women—”
“It’s one woman, for god’s sake. One old friend. No orgies in the living room or…or…” Flaming dog’s bollix but he led a dull life. He couldn’t even think of an image lurid enough to set off his ex-wife. “One woman, Beth. Have you not dated since our divorce?”
“Only when Meghan is at a friend’s for the night, and I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same,” she said primly.
Just then, Vi came in the back door. When she spotted him on the phone, she pointed outdoors and pantomimed the question, should she leave? Liam shook his head an emphatic no.
“So what you’re saying is having her parents sneak about is healthier for Meghan than having her see respect and admiration between a man and woman?” he asked Beth.
“I’m saying she’s upset. She wouldn’t have told me about this if she weren’t.”
Liam dug through the utensil drawer for a spatula. “Of course she’s upset. Her whole life has gone arse over elbows in the past month, and it has nothing to do with my guest. She’s just an easier target for blame than we are.”
Beth sighed. “This whole situation is so hard. I knew it would be bad, being away from her, but I can’t stop worrying. I know you’re right about this dating thing, but—”
“Then keep doing your work, and trust me to do right by Meghan. Everything is going as well as it can, given the circumstances.”
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“Careful with my ego, if you please. I wasn’t the best of husbands, but I was an honest one, right?”
He smiled at the sound of her soft laugh. “It was your sole saving grace, Liam,” she said.
He felt a lucky man to have had at least one. “Will you be by your phone later today?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll have herself call you when she’s home from school and tell you that the house has been tidy and orgy-free.”
Vi looked up from the bag of dog kibble at that. He sent a smile her way.
“That would be nice.” Beth was silent for a moment, then added, “So this woman friend…is it serious?”
Liam didn’t know how to answer that. It was joyful, hot, confusing, and impermanent. He would return to America and salvage his life, and Vi would no sooner leave Ireland than become a nun.
“Complex,” he said. “It’s complex.”
“I see,” Beth replied, and he thought it an amusing thing that someone could voice understanding when he had none.
He glanced over at Vi, who had fixed her attention on Roger snuffling about in his kibble. Roses of color blossomed on her cheeks, markers of understanding that she was the conversation’s topic.
Liam said goodbye to Beth, then set the phone aside and worked the edge of the spatula beneath Vi’s eggs.
“More bad reviews for me on the kiddie front?” she asked when she’d joined him at the stove.
“I wouldn’t be taking it personally.”
“Oh, I’m not,” she said with a serenity that raised her even higher in his estimation. “Now what’s this bit about orgies?”
He scooped her eggs one by one onto a plate. “Nothing. Just trying to get a rise from Beth.”
Vi brushed a kiss against his mouth, then took the plate from him. “Pity,” she said. “And I’d had such hopes for the Rafferty profound appreciation of sex. Could be that you’re past your prime, all right.”
Liam laughed, digging out a fork from a drawer for Vi’s eggs. “We’ll see if you’re singing the same song tonight, once I’ve gotten Nora to keep an eye on Meghan.”
She took the fork. “Oh, I’ll be singing, but not quite the notes you’re thinking. It’s sessiun night at the pub, and I’m Nora’s date.”
Sessiun night, complete with the O’Gormans, and he’d nearly forgotten! The woman at his table eating eggs as though she’d best do it before they ate her was proving a distraction from a distraction. Liam smiled. Aye, she was complex, indeed.
At nearly two-thirty that afternoon, Vi hit her “I can clean Nan’s no more” limit. After three-and-a-half hours of nonstop toil, the house was nearly presentable, and Vi was a dirt-smudged mess. All that could be dumped in the rubbish tip was there, and the rest of the house was orderly, if not precisely the perfection she craved.
After cleaning her hands and face with the bottle of non-rusty water and bit of soap she’d brought from Liam’s house, Vi looked out the back bedroom window to see what man and hound were about. Liam was still trekking over the field, GPR rig in place, as he’d been since soon after they’d arrived this morning. Rog strolled behind him, likely glad to have finally found a human whose pace matched his stumpy legs. Vi shook her head at the sight—odd and even more oddly poignant.
Since it seemed that she’d be at the house a while longer, Vi sought reading materials. Three boxes remained next to Nan’s little desk. In them were more journals and some ancient art supplies that Vi couldn’t bring herself to pitch. She sorted through the journals and chose one simply because she liked the sketch of a wee bird on its cover. Vi was more abstract in style than Nan had been, but still she could see whispers of her grandmother in her own work. When she did any, that was.
Vi took the bird-journal to Nan’s painted desk, then sat. With her eyes closed, she thought of Nan. She didn’t picture her as she’d been near the end of her life, but as she’d been when Vi was small. Nan had never sat still, moving from one task to the next, and Vi had trailed after her…watching, learning, and in time, helping.
Vi let her hand hover over the journal for a moment, then chose a spot at which to open it, and began to read.
07 September 1964
Mam’s got it in her head to die soon. There’s no talking her back and I’d be doing her no service in any case. Her pain grows daily. I’ve promised to take her to Castle Duneen for one last look. This, at least, has calmed her.
Throat tight with emotion, Vi paged forward.
10 September 1964
It was Duneen today, and lucky for us the weather cooperated. Mam could see what had been there before, while I could see only what is now. She told me of dancing parties, women in fine French dresses, the food, the laughter, and the sweet smell of beeswax from the polished wood. It’s a damp place now, stone mostly, with a few charred timbers above…blackened bones, they looked to me.
I remember the night of the burning, its orange glow lighting the sky. How excited the men were, frenzied almost, laughing and drinking to their grand success. Mam sent me to bed, telling me that there were things on earth best not seen. Our whole world changed that night. The Dunhills left and never came back.
I would have worked at Duneen as a maid, too, had it still stood. Mam, both of my nans, they did, and seem to have mostly liked it, too. I don’t suppose I would have spat on the money, but I’ve been content to have my time with my herbs and my cures.
Riveted by what she was reading, Vi paged on. There was chat of what Michael, Vi’s da, was doing, and even a few words about young James Rafferty taking over the town’s pub.
And on Vi read:
23 November 1964
I will miss Mam always. Some will say that it’s wrong to be so relieved for her, that I should be tearing my clothes and weeping, but the hell with them. She lived well, Mam did, and every day I will do the same. That is how she wanted to be honored, and one day I shall ask the same.
Vi turned the page looking for more, but Nan’s words had come to an end. The last third of the book was nothing but blank yellowed paper. She closed the thick cardboard cover and said, “So it was time for a new book, was it?”
After a glance out the window to see if Liam and her hound were closer to the house, Vi let her hand hover over the stack of journals and clipped papers in front of her, then plucked out the one that most drew her.
This one’s cover was of faded yet thick green felt-like material with a detailed concentric circular design worked in orange and yellow thread. After running her fingertip gently around the outermost
circle, and feeling nearly a hum vibrate up her arm, Vi opened the book. The pages were so worn that a bit of one crumbled between her fingers, drawing a gasp of dismay from her.
“Careful, now,” she warned herself, then began reading Nan’s notes.
Teas—willow for fever, mint for stomach ill, and oak leaf and juniper berry when a man won’t rise.
Vi smiled at the last, knowing it was the woman and not the man who would have approached out-spoken Nan for the cure. She turned the page and stilled. Or perhaps they weren’t after Nan at all, but Nan’s mother, instead, for the page held a note dated 1905. That this book could have survived one hundred years of damp, dust, and chill was nearly a miracle.
Vi gingerly turned the pages, reading bits about births, deaths, and illnesses in the village. Matters as simple as the number of chickens brought to market or how much Nan’s mother had saved from her wages at the castle took up most of the text, but to Vi it was a link to an era she was sure would have far better suited her…well, except for the washing of the Dunhills’ linens and the toting of their fuel. She expected that she’d have been far too uppity for that, even if born in a more female-subservient time.
“What have you there?” asked a male voice from directly behind her.
When she’d recovered from nearly leaping from her chair, Vi said, “Most who’ve snuck up on me haven’t lived to tell the tale.”
Liam kissed the top of her head. “Then I’ll count myself lucky.”
Vi’s answering smile was involuntary yet most heartfelt.
“So what are you reading?” he asked.
“Bits of life, really. Notes from my nan and her mother. I can tell you the price of a chicken at market and the silver pattern at Castle Duneen.”
“The silver pattern?”
