The Carnival at Bray

by Jessie Ann Foley

  At first, she could not go look at him. Nanny Ei and Laura went up to the coffin together. They crouched on the velvet kneeler, held hands, and cried. They prayed. They whispered to him. Nanny Ei reached out and stroked his hair and put a rosary in his interlaced fingers.

  When they were finished, Uncle Dave and Marjorie approached the coffin, and Maggie stared at the clean bottoms of Marjorie’s ugly shoes. Then the daughters went up, all three together. They squeezed together on the kneeler, leaning over to stare at Kevin’s face. Taylor, the youngest, whispered something and Caelynn and Kimberly snorted with sudden laughter. They crossed themselves hastily and scurried back toward their seats, while Maggie cracked her knuckles and glared at them, daring them to smile or laugh just one more time.

  Before the doors opened for the public viewing, Nanny Ei came over and sat next to Maggie on one of the vinyl chairs near the back of the room.

  “If you want to go up and say good-bye to him, I can come with you,” she said.

  Maggie nodded and let Nanny Ei take her hand and lead her up to the coffin. She felt like a very small child—frightened, weepy, everything in the world both new and strange.

  He was there. It was really him. Maggie felt vaguely surprised—had she not really believed he was dead until now? She felt lightheaded, sick, and her legs crumpled into kneeling position. Next to her, Nanny Ei began to cry again, but Maggie couldn’t. A blackness had filled her throat and chest, corking up every feeling. His long hair had been combed and tied into a ponytail. His face was as skinny as she’d seen it at Christmas, and the thick layer of makeup seemed to heighten that hollowness. He wore a ridiculous gray mock turtleneck—Maggie could not imagine why Nanny Ei would have chosen it, or where in his closet she’d even found it—under a black wool sport coat, also an unrecognizable garment that Kevin would never have worn. In his hands was the red Saint Theresa’s rosary Nanny Ei had placed there. Maggie reached into the pocket of her dress and fished for the guitar pick she’d found on the carpet in his bedroom. She slipped it in the breast pocket of his sport coat.

  I can’t play the guitar, Mags, she imagined him saying to her. I’m dead, remember? No need to be superstitious.

  But she wanted him to have it. The ancient Romans buried their beloved with offerings and objects, and Kevin had always loved the idea of Rome. He’d wanted her to see Nirvana at the Palaghiaccio di Marino. Had he known, in some elemental way, that he himself never would?

  People began trickling in to pay their respects. There were the regulars from Oinker’s, the ladies from Nanny Ei’s Altar and Rosary society, and strange distant cousins whom Maggie had never met. There was a steady stream of young grunge heads, a gauntlet of cigarette smokers out in the front. Maggie stood in the receiving line next to her mother and Uncle Dave and Nanny Ei and shook hand after hand. Rockhead came, and Jeremy, and Taco, and even Sonia, the woman from the Smashing Pumpkins show, her hair blunt cut and platinum, black smudges around her eyes. Most of them were crying. They all said the same things, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” but Nanny Ei was stony faced and hurried them along, managing, somehow, to hug them while still barely touching them.

  After several hours of this, Maggie wandered off to the basement, where a linoleum kitchen hummed with refrigerated pop machines and mayonnaise congealed on a tray of drooping sandwiches. Her cousin, Kimberly, sat down next to her and took a roast beef.

  “So,” she said brightly, “how are things in Ireland?”

  Maggie looked at the girl’s placid, griefless face. She knew it was unfair to hate this cousin. How close, really, are most people with their uncles? But knowing this didn’t make Maggie hate her any less.

  “Things are shitty,” she said. “Nice headband, by the way.” She threw down the rind of her turkey sandwich, then pushed her chair away and walked up the stairs, satisfied at the insulted, open-mouthed look she’d conjured on Kimberly’s face.

  After the wake, Uncle Dave and Marjorie and the three cousins went back to their hotel and Laura and Maggie went back to the two-flat. Nanny Ei pulled out the bed for Maggie, and Laura poured herself a huge glass of wine. The two of them were up late into the night, smoking and drinking, and Maggie heard the bedrooms door close when the sun was nearly up, and in the morning when Laura emerged from her bedroom to get ready for the funeral, there was no trace of the sad beauty in her face from the wake the day before. She looked exhausted, hungover, defeated, and, for the first time, old.

  A graveside burial in a Chicago January was not possible. The ground was frozen solid and would have required a crew of pickaxes to break the soil. Instead, after mass, they held a burial ceremony in a small chapel at the cemetery. The priest swung the thurible and the small room was filled with the heavy, sweet smell of frankincense. Maggie thought she might choke on it. And then it was over, and they were off to the luncheon in their long procession, and they left Kevin’s body behind in the chapel to be buried when the ground thawed.

  Kevin’s body. That’s all he was now—a thing. And soon enough he would be even less than that, a skeleton with a rosary entwined it its finger bones and a guitar pick stuck in its rotting sport coat. Why didn’t they just cremate him? Maggie wondered. Did they really think he’d rather be dressed up and stuck in a box? Sitting in the backseat of Nanny Ei’s Oldsmobile, she remembered the poem they’d studied in English class before Christmas break:

  I dreamed that one had died in a strange place

  Near no accustomed hand,

  And they had nailed the boards above her face,

  The peasants of that land …

  And left her to the indifferent stars above

  Until I carved these words:

  She was more beautiful than thy first love,

  But now lies under boards.

  Reading it aloud to the class, Sister Geneve’s eyes had begun to water. After she finished the poem, there was a heavy silence in the classroom while the girls exchanged glances, and the nun apologized, removing her reading glasses to wipe at her eyes. “I lost my mother when I was just around your age,” she’d said. “This poem, it still gets me every time.”

  Remembering the anguished face of the old nun, Maggie marveled at the lifespan of grief. Sister Geneve had to be at least sixty-five. That meant that her mother had been dead for fifty years. Half a century! And still, a poem could make her cry. She thought of Dan Sean, holed up tenaciously in his little hilltop house, refusing to leave the place where he’d lost his wife and infant daughter. Maggie had joined the company of Sister Geneve and Dan Sean: she was now a person who had to imagine a body she had known, a face she had loved, buried under boards, while over at the Montrose bird sanctuary, indifferent seagulls and winter birds gathered in the trees, and life continued for most things on the earth as it always had.

  On the Saturday morning after she returned from Chicago, Maggie was just digging into her cereal in front of the television when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Ronnie said, leaping off the back of the couch and disappearing down the hall. A minute later, she came charging back into the sitting room.

  “It’s for you,” she whispered excitedly. “Annnnd …” she arched her shoulders and began moonwalking enthusiastically back and forth across in front of the TV. “It’s a boy!”

  Please let it be Eoin and not Paul. The thought began repeating itself in Maggie’s head as she abandoned her spoon into her cereal and left Ronnie to her goofy dancing. She smoothed her hair behind her ears and headed, heart thumping, down the woodpaneled hallway to the front door. Please let it be Eoin and not Paul please let it be Eoin and not Paul please—

  Eoin was leaning on the doorframe, his short buzzed hair backlit by the morning sun. His hands were stuffed in his tracksuit pants pockets.

  “Hiya, Maggie.”

  Maggie suddenly remembered that she was dressed in a pair of pink pajama pants and that there were still white crusts of Clearasil all over her chin.

  “I would’ve r
ang you,” he said, “but we haven’t got a phone at my Auntie Rosie’s. She’s got one at the bar, and she says that’s enough.”

  “That’s okay,” Maggie said. She cupped her chin in her hand to cover up the zit cream.

  Ronnie peeked around the doorframe of the sitting room, smiling apishly. She began gesturing toward the door in a manner that could only be described as humping, and Maggie furiously waved her away.

  “Anyway. I heard about your uncle, the one who I met on Christmas … just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” There was a silence, as if Eoin was expecting her to say more. “It sucks.”

  “So I was thinking of heading into Dublin today. I’ve got a few bits and pieces to take care of. D’you want to get out of the house for a while? There’s a bus that leaves in an hour.”

  “Today? I mean, I was hanging out with my sister now but—”

  “That’s grand,” he said quickly, stepping out of the doorway and turning to leave. “No bother at all. I guess I’ll talk to you some other time.”

  “No!” Maggie nearly shrieked. “What I meant was, I just have to check with my mom, that’s all. And maybe take a quick shower. Would you mind waiting? My crazy sister can keep you company.”

  As if on cue, Ronnie appeared at the front door and curtsied. She grabbed Eoin’s hand and dragged him toward the sitting room.

  “What’s your favorite Saturday morning show? Do you want some cereal? Aren’t you the boy from the Quayside? Do you always wear the same outfit?” As she led him away, Eoin turned back and winked at Maggie. She bit her lip and smiled, and one of Nanny Ei’s cheesy sayings floated into her mind: That boy could charm the pepperoni off a pizza.

  She knocked on her mother’s bedroom door. “Yeah,” came Colm’s gravelly voice from the other side. Maggie opened it gingerly, hating to intrude on the sexual den of her mother and stepdad. But this morning, there was none of the usual languid spooning, of naked shoulders poking out from under the covers. Laura was lying puffy eyed and alone in the middle of the big bed, while Colm was stretched on the floor in a makeshift nest of blankets and pillows. By the looks of it, both had slept with their clothes on.

  “So, I’m taking the bus into Dublin with some friends,” Maggie said, leaning on the doorframe. Laura looked up sleepily.

  “That’s great, honey!” she said with creaky enthusiasm. “Your pal Aíne?”

  “No, just some other kids from school.”

  “Wonderful! Well, if you need money there’s a ten-pound note in my wallet.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Always give your parents only the most vital information, Kevin’s advice had been. The more you tell them, the more they ask. Maggie plucked the tenner from her mom’s wallet and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She shampooed, conditioned, tore a razor across her armpits and legs, and scrubbed her face with Laura’s fancy facial exfoliator. In record time she was clean, scented, and stubble free. She toweled off and stopped for a moment to rub the condensation off the mirror and examine the face reflecting back at her. Why does he like me? She leaned in closer to scrutinize herself. Sometimes she just got so sick of her own face: the green eyes she’d inherited from her mother that people sometimes complimented; the half smile and snub nose and pimply chin that people never did. He can’t actually think I’m pretty. Because if I’m pretty, then why have boys been ignoring me all my life? She squirted some Colgate on her toothbrush. Down the short hallway to the sitting room, she could hear Eoin laughing at one of Ronnie’s dumb jokes.

  She spit out the toothpaste, combed her dark hair, and rummaged through her mom’s makeup bag. She dotted some concealer on her chin, swiped blush across her cheeks and a mascara wand through her lashes, then blew her hair straight, so it fell to her shoulders in a smooth wave. She dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a black shirt, and the patent leather Doc Martens that Nanny Ei had bought her for Christmas.

  “You ready to go?” she said, stepping into the sitting room.

  “Yep,” Eoin said, putting down the half-eaten bowl of Weetabix Ronnie had poured for him. Ronnie climbed over the arm of the couch and squinted up at Maggie.

  “Why are you wearing makeup?”

  Maggie silenced her sister with a murderous glare and wiped at the blush with the heels of her palms.

  “Tell Mom I’ll be home by dinner.”

  They sat next to each other on the bus and spent most of the forty-minute ride trying not to accidentally bump knees or arms. The electricity that had flown between them on the dance floor at the Quayside was now, in the daylight, just another reason for shyness. The bus stopped in the city center, where the streets were crowded with throngs of office workers and tourists, buskers and hustlers and gypsy women with hoop earrings and flashing gold teeth. They walked down the wide sidewalks of O’Connell Street, passing under the green hulk of Clery’s clock. The air was fresh and cool, and as they headed toward Grafton Street they stopped at the O’Connell Street Bridge and peered over the edge as crowds of Dubliners rushed behind them. The Liffey was black and rushing, ever moving. Eoin reached out and took Maggie’s hand. She realized, as she looked down at the water, that he was the only person in Dublin who knew her name.

  They walked on, getting used to the feel and temperature of each other’s hands, crossing rutted cobblestone paths and sidestepping small piles of trash, hunks of spat-out gum. People streamed by, dressed in every manner of clothing, from ripped tights and flannel shirts to power suits to multicolored soccer jerseys. Finally, when they’d reached the gates of Trinity College, Eoin stopped and looked up.

  “The Campanile,” he said, pointing up at the tower that sliced through the scudding clouds above them. “My mom used to take me to Trinity every summer when I was small.” They headed through the iron gates and into the central square of the college, under the Campanile and up the steps to the Old Library, where a short, pear-shaped man in a navy-blue suit was taking ticket stubs from a small group of Spanish students.

  “Well, there’s a sight for sore eyes!” The ticket taker, delighted to see them, gave Eoin’s hand a vigorous shake. He had a small, strawberry-colored birthmark on his cheek and when he smiled, it crinkled into a small slit beneath his eye.

  “How are things, Donie?” Eoin gestured in Maggie’s direction. “This is my friend, Maggie Lynch.”

  Donie bowed. “How do you do, young lady?”

  “Hi,” Maggie smiled.

  “How’s your mother keepin’ these days? I haven’t seen her in—oh now, about three years. Lovely woman, Mary. Lovely, lovely woman. I pray for her every day, even though she broke my heart.” He put his fat, purplish hands to his chest and squeezed his face into a wink, the birthmark disappearing altogether in the folds of his face.

  “She’s good as can be expected, Donie,” said Eoin. “Some days are better than others, I suppose.”

  “Well, send her my undying love and devotion, next time you see her,” said Donie, dropping the Spanish students’ ticket stubs into a box. “I assume you’ve come today to show this lovely young American the treasures of our cultural past?”

  “Yep. Am I still eligible for the friends and family discount?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of accepting a cent from the great Mary Brennan’s son.” He winked again and waved them through, calling, “Enjoy, now!” as they stepped into a cool, dimly lit room.

  “Who was that?” Maggie asked.

  “Oh,” Eoin shrugged, “that’s just Donie. Old friend of my mother’s.”

  Inside the exhibit, tourists outfitted in rain jackets and hiking boots crept around glass displays while a security guard stood watch to stop anyone from taking pictures.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked.

  “The Book of Kells,” Eoin said proudly. “The most beautiful book in the world.”

  They waited for the clump of tourists to move away and stepped up to the lit manuscript. The pages were thick, made of stretched animal skin and
decorated with intricate, gold-ringed paintings of saints, their pious eyes rolling up toward heaven. A metal plaque next to the exhibit read:

  THE BOOK OF KELLS IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN APPROXIMATELY 1,200 YEARS AGO AT THE MONASTERY ON IONA, AN ISLAND OFF THE WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND. IN 806, VIKINGS RAIDED THE ISLAND, KILLING 68, AND THE SURVIVING MONKS FLED TO A NEW MONASTERY AT KELLS, COUNTY MEATH. OVER THE CENTURIES, THIRTY OF THE FOLIOS HAVE GONE MISSING, AS HAS THE JEWEL-ENCRUSTED FRONT COVER, LEAVING THE 680 PAGES THAT REMAIN TODAY.

  Maggie squinted closer at the fine-brushed colors, painted with such painstaking love. An energy seemed to glow from the book. She imagined these monks, toothless and starved, bent over vellum by the light of a flickering candle, possessed by a wild faith that was beyond the understanding of the brutish Vikings. Why did they do it? Why spend all those countless hours making art when they certainly would have had their hands full keeping themselves fed and warm and clothed? Was it their religion that drove the monks on Iona? Or did art itself become their religion during those isolated years on that lonely outcropping?

  “Maggie?”

  She turned around at Eoin’s voice. An impatient crowd of tourists had gathered behind her. She mumbled an apology and moved away.

  “So,” he said, “what do you think?”

  “I love it,” she said softly.

  “I wish I was more like those monks. If I could dedicate myself to football the way they dedicated themselves to this book, I’d be playing for Wicklow before my eighteenth birthday.”

  “I wish I had that kind of faith,” Maggie said. “But I don’t.”

  Eoin shrugged. “It’s 1994,” he said. “Nobody has that kind of faith anymore.”

  They left the Book of Kells room through a pair of broad doors and stepped into a massive library that smelled of dust and wood polish, the papery oldness of a long-closed book. The ceiling was church high, and Maggie imagined men, centuries dead, splayed on ropes and pulleys, polishing the mahogany arches hundreds of feet above them. And the books. God, there had to be a million of them. And they weren’t the kind of books you’d find in an American library—they were bound in muted tones of leather and aligned neatly in rows as high as the ceiling. Spindly wooden ladders leaned against the shelves at forty-five-degree angles; a plump librarian in pantyhose and flat rubber shoes had scaled one of them with the effortlessness of a Nepalese mountaineer. She was leaning forward, peering over her reading glasses, to pluck a book from a shelf nearly two stories high. Maggie loved that someone knew exactly where to find each book, and had the dedication to risk her safety to acquire it.