The Pub Across the Pond

by Mary Carter

  Love you!

  Carlene

  Sally and Ronan were still engaged. Carlene was positive the whole thing would have blown over by now, it would be in the past, a hideous mistake never spoken of again. Had they set a date? Sally probably needed plenty of time to bedazzle all the bridesmaids’ dresses. Luckily, Sally had been taking major time off from the pub, but now that she was back, it was excruciating listening to her yammering on about wedding plans. It was hard for Carlene to listen and simultaneously fight the urge to punch her in the face.

  She couldn’t take it much longer. Carlene was going to have to fire Sally, something she wasn’t looking forward to. Firing someone. It would be so American of her, and once again she felt shame rather than pride. Today Sally was humming as she washed the glasses. Carlene had never heard her hum. Carlene wasn’t going to ask her if they had set a date; she feared she wouldn’t be able to get the words out of her mouth.

  Collin looked at Carlene with a commiserating glance. Carlene gave him a sad smile back. Did Sally even realize how Collin felt about her? Even if she did, Carlene knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Sally was under whatever spell or hormone or chemical it was that inflicted women with love. The kind that made them do crazy things, and when asked why, the answer was always Because I love him.

  Sally probably bullied him into marrying her, and now here she was, humming. And Ronan was a grown man, so no matter what the situation, he was responsible for his half of it. Let them have each other. Carlene poured Collin a shot on the house.

  “I’m taking the next few days off,” Carlene told Sally.

  “You can’t,” Sally said. “I have a ton of things to do to get ready for the wedding.”

  “When’s the big day?” Eoin asked. Carlene braced herself. She didn’t want to hear it, even if it was a year from now.

  “Two weeks from today,” Sally said. Collin choked on his shot. Carlene laughed. She couldn’t be serious. “And no,” Sally said. “I’m not pregnant. We’re just in a hurry.” Carlene walked out of the bar and headed upstairs. “Where are you going?” Sally said.

  “I’m taking a few days off,” Carlene repeated. “And I’m starting right now.”

  The tour bus to the Cliffs of Moher picked up passengers from in front of Nancy’s. The Cliffs of Moher, otherwise known as the Cliffs of Ruin. What a perfect place to symbolically say good-bye to Ronan. Unforgiving cliffs jutting out six hundred feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Carlene would stand at the edge of the cliffs and let him go, let him be with Sally. She didn’t come to Ireland to fall in love, she came to run a pub.

  There were mostly older women on the bus, and Carlene sat back and enjoyed their chatter, and gossip, of which there was plenty. After an exhaustive back-and-forth about the weather, they talked about their children, their houses, and their spouses. They gossiped about who was getting what done to themselves and their homes, and tittered about neighbors and neighbors of neighbors. They spoke in hushed tones about who’d died, and harsh tones about who had yet to send a mass card. No one directly tried to draw Carlene into conversation; she sat in the back of the bus where the only other occupant was a man asleep in the very last seat. He was curled up in the corner with his hood pulled over his head. Most likely a drunk, Carlene thought; he’d probably sleep through the entire trip.

  Carlene opened her book and put on earphones, although it wasn’t music she was listening to, and she hadn’t even started the book, which promised to be a thriller—instead it was the women in the front of the bus who captured her attention. She wanted to eavesdrop without having to be involved. She knew if she hadn’t been on the bus, she would have been the topic of conversation. Or was she just being paranoid? Maybe a steady diet of rain, sheep, Guinness, and chips, and the superfluous use of the word “lad,” had twisted her brain.

  She waited for the conversation to light on Sally and Ronan’s wedding, and it eventually did. She heard about how Sally had been chasing him forever, she heard how Ronan was a loose cannon, a mad gambler, nothing like his father, and never going to change. It seemed they felt sorry for Sally, but with a “careful what you wish for” attitude. They spoke of a woman named Ellen, some farmer’s daughter who was depressed and never came out of her room. One of the ladies insisted the girl wasn’t just depressed, she was “mentally disturbed.” Carlene felt for her, whoever she was. Some days she didn’t want to come out of her room; some days she felt mentally disturbed.

  Carlene wondered if these women knew anything about the Ballybeog Museum or the men in tweed. They certainly seemed to know everything else that was going on in the little walled town. But Carlene refrained from inserting herself into the conversation. Asking too many questions would just swivel the spotlight back on her. That was the problem with walls, Carlene thought as she looked out the window. They kept people out, but they also trapped people in.

  It was a long ride to the cliffs, then a long walk up them, but when Carlene finally arrived, she stood as close to the edge as she dared, opened her arms, á la standing on the bow of the Titanic, and lost herself in sweeping, endless view. The cliffs were staggering in height and depth, and Carlene felt dizzy as she gazed down the jagged rocks to the ocean cresting below. Gazing out, she felt so insignificant, so small, so temporary. The wind kept her hair blown back and stung her eyes with tears. Once she was over her vertigo, she felt invaded by a feeling of peace. All her petty worries, normally so insistent and large, seemed foolish and insignificant. Up here, she could breathe. Up here, nobody cared that she was crying. Of course, she would have preferred not to share the moment with a couple of hundred tourists. Not that anyone was paying any attention to her. They were endlessly posing for pictures, eating chips and sandwiches, kissing, and chattering.

  Children were glued to their cell phones, paying no attention whatsoever, as if they stood at the edge of the world every day. Carlene had an urge to run up to them, one by one, grab their stupid phones that they huddled over protectively as if they were their newborn babies, and hurl them over the cliffs and into the dark depths below. How glorious that would feel! Why didn’t she have the courage to do that? What was the worst that could happen? Would they gang up on her and throw her off the cliffs? Would she even care? Where were their mothers? They should be the ones yanking their phones out of their hands and feeding them to the ocean.

  She decided, standing there, that she was going to insist her father come to Ireland. She would start an all-out campaign if she had to. And she was going to ask Nancy out for a girl’s night, and she was going to find out more about the museum woman, and she was going to crawl all the way into the passage no matter what.

  She should make a will first. Who would she leave the pub to? Joe? Let him turn it into Tan Land? Ronan—let him and Sally run it like some happily married couple united by a common goal? Or raffle it off again? Maybe this time to some lost little French girl who dreamed of running away to Ireland?

  No, it was still hers, she wasn’t leaving it to anyone, which meant she was going to have to make it through that passage without dying. Even though there was every chance that the ground could cave in on her and crush her, or God knows what was waiting at the end, perhaps some wild animal ready to tear into her flesh—what wild flesh-eating animals did they have in this part of Ireland? She didn’t have a clue.

  Yes, this was the perfect place to fall out of love, or a few steps further, to your death. Two weeks? Who planned a wedding in two weeks? Maybe, like Anchor pointed out, when you’d been engaged for fifteen years it didn’t take long to get down to the actual planning.

  Standing there, Carlene also thought of the mother she barely remembered. Would they have been good friends? Would her mother have been the comforting sort? The kind whose shoulders you could cry on when another hopeful romance was dashed? Would she have told Carlene to move on with her life and forget about Ronan, or would she have told her to fight for the man that she—

  Liked, lusted after, was drawn to, c
ouldn’t get out of her mind—anything but loved, because love was a commitment, love was ten plus years of listening to them whine and washing their dirty shorts.

  Her mother had been blond like Carlene, slightly thinner, a tad taller. Her mother’s hair had been naturally curly too, but she always went to great lengths to straighten it. Did that mean she would have hated Carlene leaving hers in curls? Would she have chased after her daughter with a straightening iron? Carlene had too many questions, and the answers were gone for good.

  Would her mother be shocked by the effect her death had on Carlene’s father? If she were still alive, would he still be scrubbing, counting, and pacing? Did he blame himself, like Carlene blamed herself, and über-cleanliness was his punishment?

  Maybe if Carlene brought her father out here, to the cliffs, he too could let it go, let her go. She would have to lead by example.

  “Good-bye, Mom,” she said to the wind.

  “Good-bye?” Ronan answered. She was so startled, he had to grab her to keep from stumbling over the cliffs. He pulled her back a safe distance and pulled off his navy hood. He was the man who’d been sitting at the back of the bus. He looked so beautiful standing in front of her, eyes intent on her, hands shoved in his pocket, dark wavy hair blown back by the wind. Carlene didn’t even think, she just launched herself into his arms. Two weeks from now she wouldn’t be able to do that; two weeks from now he would have a wife. He held her tight, then pulled back. At first he looked as if he was going to say something, and then he simply pulled her in again and crushed his lips over hers. As they kissed, even the magnificent cliffs fell away.

  “Hello,” he said quietly when he pulled back.

  “Hello,” she said. She went to kiss him again. He pulled back.

  “Tell me about your mom,” he said.

  Ronan led her to the visitor’s center at the base of the cliffs. They sat at a small table at the café and had cups of tea. He waited for her to speak.

  “She had a weak heart,” Carlene said. She pulled her hands away from Ronan and wrapped them around her chest.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ronan said.

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean like—I can feel it, sure. I can feel you holding back on me.”

  Carlene opened her mouth to make a joke, but then stopped herself. When she spoke again, the words came tumbling out in one guilty breath. “It was all my fault. I’m responsible for her death.”

  “What do you mean?” Ronan said. She wanted to kiss him for not immediately jumping in to tell her it wasn’t her fault. That’s what everyone else had done the few times she’d dared to confess to anyone: Becca, a teacher at school, and once even her grandma Jane. Before she could even tell them what happened, they would cut her off with “Oh Carlene,” or “Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” or “It certainly was not.” She wanted to hear these things, but they meant nothing if they didn’t know what really happened that day. So Carlene continued to carry the guilt of a six-year-old.

  “Tell me,” Ronan said.

  They were on the bus, on their way home. Carlene jostled into her mother with each lurch, ding, and belch of the bus. Carlene was sitting by the window so she could reach up and pull the cord when they were close to their stop. It was the moment Carlene lived for, the only way her mother ever got her to go on the bus. The sun was beating in Carlene’s eyes, so she covered them with her hands. It was only for a few seconds. Suddenly she heard a ding, and then before she knew what was happening, her mother had grabbed her hand and was lifting her out of the seat.

  It was too late! They were at their stop and somebody else had pulled the cord. Her mother didn’t even tell her; there was no warning, not even a slight squeeze of her hand. Carlene heard the ding, saw the red light come on above the bus driver’s head. Carlene started crying. Her mother had that weary look on her face, the one that meant she was tired and getting a headache, and soon she would tell Carlene to please, please, just let her have a little quiet, just a little quiet. Instead, she told Carlene that six was too old to cry like such a baby and that if she continued to cry like a two-year-old, when she got home she was going to take a nap like a two-year-old.

  Carlene dropped to the floor, in the middle of the bus with people in front of her and behind her, and refused to budge. People started murmuring, then talking about her, then yelling advice. The bus driver honked the horn.

  “We have to move,” he said. Her mother knelt on the floor of the bus, her pretty white linen pants now pressing on dirt and a squashed piece of gum, and she pleaded with Carlene to get up. Carlene didn’t move. Her mother tried to pull her up, but Carlene screamed and grabbed onto a seat leg and clung to it for dear life. Sweat started to drip from her mother’s upper lip.

  “Please,” her mother said. “Do not do this to me in public.”

  Carlene then demanded a peanut butter sandwich, and even though she didn’t know how her mother was going to come up with a peanut butter sandwich on a city bus, she demanded it anyway, yelled for one over and over, all the while crying. She remembered as she started to perspire, her mother smelled like oranges, she remembered the palm of her mother’s hand tight and slick in hers, she remembered the golden flare of her mother’s hair from the sun beating in through the windows of the bus. Her mother put her hand on her heart. “Carlene,” she said, her face pale and almost frightened, her voice cracking from the strain. “You are going to be the death of me.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The Eavesdroppers

  When she was done recounting her tale, Ronan got up from his seat across from her, came around, and sat next to her. He pulled her into him and held her. She felt his lips graze her ear.

  “Do you know,” he said, “how many times I’ve heard my mother say that to me? ‘Ronan Anthony McBride, you’re doing to be the death of me.’ Carly, if I had a euro for every time she’s ever said that to me, clutching her heart like she was going to drop on the spot, I’d be the wealthiest man on the planet. It’s a very Irish thing to say, so I believe your mother had some Irish in her all right. And you’ve only an inkling of an idea of the things I’ve put me poor mam and the estrogen gang through in my thirty-odd years. It’s on a colossal scale, like. Now, I can’t say for sure that you didn’t kill that wee poor hamster with yer pink Slim Fast, but you did not—I repeat, you did not play any part in your mother’s death. It was not your fault.”

  “But she had a weak heart—and I put it under stress—she was sweating and she had to pull me off the floor of the bus, and—”

  “Carly, Carly, Carly, stop.” Ronan took Carlene’s face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “It was her time to go. End of story. Full stop.”

  “But it was one of the last things she ever said to me,” Carlene said. Ronan leaned in and kissed her.

  “You were right to come out here and throw it over the cliffs. It was not your fault. I’ll bet she’s looking down—begging you—begging you to forgive her for that being one of the last things she ever said to you. While it’s been eating you up down here, I bet it’s been eating her up twice as much up there. Do you want that? Do you want her up there where it’s supposed to be all heavenly, only she can’t even enjoy a single cloud, or harp chord, or whatever shite they do up there, because you’re down here blaming yourself?”

  “Really?” Carlene said. “Cloud? Harp chord? Whatever the shite? That’s all you got?”

  “At least you’re smiling now,” Ronan said. They sat silently for a moment, looking at each other. Ronan took her hand again. “Mothers pull screaming children off buses every second of every day. You could have been peaches and cream on that bus and your mother’s heart would have still been weak. But it’s not me you need to talk to—it’s your father.”

  “I don’t want to burden him.”

  “Fuck that shite. It’s not about him. It’s about you. And you ar
e going to tell him what you told me—and you are going to make him listen. And if he doesn’t look you in the eye and tell you it’s not your fault, I’m going to swim across the pond meself, dodging turtles, and sharks, and goldfish and tsunamis, and whatever the fuck, and make him look you in the eye like, and tell you as many times as it takes until the six-year-old in you gets, really and truly gets that it wasn’t your fault.”

  Carlene squeezed his hands, leaned into Ronan, and tried to thank him with all her heart through her lips. When she pulled away, Ronan tapped on his lip again, and once more she leaned forward and kissed him.

  When she pulled away this time, Ronan’s grin covered most of his face. She absolutely loved looking at his face up close. It made her world brighter. She wanted to look at that face for the rest of her life. He winked at her. It was amazing how much better she felt.

  “Tell me you’ll at least think about talking to him,” Ronan said.

  “Okay,” Carlene said. “I’ll think about it.”

  Ronan glanced at his watch. “We’ve still got another bloody hour,” he said. “More tea?”

  “Love some.”

  When he returned with their tea, he once again sat across from her, and they switched to lighter conversation. Carlene soon found herself recounting her time in Ballybeog: learning the ropes at the pub, getting to know the regulars. She told him about the woman from the museum with a black eye, hoping to get just a little closer to telling him about the passageway, but if Ronan knew anything about the woman, he didn’t offer it up. They laughed over Ciaran’s wife falling in love with a fictional vampire, and how the first morning she found Riley at his stool at eight in the morning, and Billy walking the tree like it was a log on the river, and Carlene bursting in on the christening with the same tree branch, then pretending it was a gift for the new baby. They laughed over it all, and it was the best release Carlene could have ever asked for. She forgot all her problems.