The Lace Makers of Glenmara

by Heather Barbieri

  “They lie close to the skin,” Colleen said. “They’re called intimates for a reason.”

  “You deserve better. We can do so much better than this,” Bernie said, looking to Kate for confirmation.

  Kate nodded and squeezed Oona’s hand.

  “So you think you could,” Oona’s voice broke. “So you think you could make me something lovely?”

  “I know we can, and we will.” Kate took out her measuring tape.

  Later, the members of the lace society sat back and admired their handwork. “They’re too pretty to keep to ourselves,” Bernie said. “Maybe we should make more and sell them in town at the Saturday market. There might be some money in it.”

  “No one came last time, remember?” Aileen said.

  “Kate did,” Bernie said.

  “She’s just one person, isn’t she?”

  Kate shot a glance at Aileen. What an unhappy woman she seemed to be.

  “Kate’s worth ten people—and we weren’t selling these, were we?” Bernie insisted.

  “The lace is gorgeous,” Colleen agreed. “Surely other women will think so too. We’ll get extra supplies. It won’t take any time. There’s the sewing shop in Kinnabegs. They should have everything we need.”

  “We can make samples, take orders,” Oona said. “That’s what the professionals do, don’t they?”

  “Isn’t anyone listening to me?” Aileen tried to break in, but they paid no attention. “No one came last time.”

  “I’ll send another release,” Bernie said. “Stir up interest.”

  “For all the good the last one did,” Aileen said. “A waste of time and paper. Why don’t you just—”

  “Let’s try the Internet. Send a—what do you call it?—an e-mail blast.”

  “Sounds like a terrorist act.”

  “We could take pictures of the pieces. Kate has a digital camera.”

  “You planning on modeling them?”

  “I just might!”

  “One problem: no one has Internet around here.”

  “Sullivan Dean has a computer. He takes it into the bar in Kinnabegs, doesn’t he? They have Wi-Fi there for the tourists. We could ask him.”

  Kate had met several of the villagers, but he wasn’t among them. Perhaps he lived on the outskirts of town.

  “Fine idea. Thank God he moved back to Glenmara. Staying at the old family home, he is.”

  “Shame about what happened in London. Devastating for him.”

  Colleen crossed herself. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “No, he never speaks of it, except once at the pub, when he got drunk and the Guinness loosened his tongue. Couldn’t bear being in England any longer. Let his partner buy him out and moved here. Been making pottery ever since.”

  “Not much of a way to make a living.”

  “He’s got plenty of money. Set for life, I hear.”

  “But not happiness.”

  “No.”

  “You’d never know to look at him. He looks right enough.”

  “Don’t they all?”

  Kate wondered what had happened to him but didn’t feel it was her place to ask.

  “Remember Eamon Greene? He was never the same after that bombing in the North. Caught on the border. Just up to work on that construction job for his cousin. Bad business.”

  “Eamon’s still in that home, isn’t he? Near Galway.”

  “His poor mother. She moved there, to be near him.”

  “He was going to be married, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. The girl left him. But who could blame her? He wasn’t the same. Looked right enough on the surface, but broken inside. Doesn’t speak a word.”

  They fell silent for a moment.

  “Do you really think people will buy the lace?” Moira asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Colleen said.

  “What if the pieces don’t sell?” Aileen asked.

  “No matter.” Bernie shrugged. “All the more for us. Besides, we’re only going to make a few samples, aren’t we?”

  “What do you want to call yourselves?” Kate asked.

  “Call ourselves? We’re the lace society. And you’re one of us now,” Bernie replied.

  “I mean for a business name.”

  “Are we in business?” Aileen asked. “With a few pairs of knickers to our name?”

  “You could be,” Kate said. If nothing else, the lace could give the women some extra income, help make ends truly meet. “People love things that are unique and handmade, especially these days.”

  “We need something catchy,” Colleen mused.

  “Catchy,” they echoed.

  “Sweet Nothings?” Oona said.

  “Bare Necessities?” Moira offered.

  “I think those have been used,” Kate said.

  “What about Sheer Delights?” Bernie suggested.

  They considered. “That’s good. Yes, that might do. Sheer Delights.”

  “How about a slogan?” Colleen said. “We need some sort of a catchphrase, don’t we?”

  “A slogan?” Aileen said. “Are we running for office?”

  “No, but we’re trying to get people’s attention,” Colleen replied.

  “You’re right. Marketing is everything. That’s what my son says,” Oona said.

  “And he knows a thing or two about that. Top of his class at Trinity.”

  “You’ll be taken care of in your old age, that’s for sure.”

  “Except I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He’s getting on with his life. Out in the great wide world, far from here.”

  “He won’t forget you. Give him time.”

  “He has to, at least for a while. They all do. Otherwise they’d be with us forever, wouldn’t they, and where would they be then?” She wound a piece of thread around her finger. “What about that slogan?”

  “I know: Lingerie for Every Body,” Bernie said.

  “Brilliant, that is.”

  “The priest will say we’re going to hell,” Aileen pointed out.

  “What difference will one more sin make?” Oona said. “I’m still mad about the way he spoke to me after my surgery. ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ Easy for him to say. I closed my eyes and pretended to fall asleep, hands clenched under the blankets, so I wouldn’t reach up and slap him.”

  “What commandment are we breaking exactly?” Moira asked.

  “Thou shalt not expose thy underwear?” Kate said.

  They laughed, Colleen adding, “If we want to pull ourselves up by our bra straps, what business is it of Father Byrne?”

  When Oona got home that night, her father was already upstairs in bed, asleep. (He was an early riser, couldn’t stay awake past 9:00 p.m.) The accordion sat on the chair by the back door. She shook her head in exasperation. He’d been playing for the chickens again. She’d told him to stop, that he was frightening the birds, putting them off laying, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “They like to dance,” he said. “Why deny them a little fun? The wrens and the larks and the rooks sit on the line too, coming from miles around to listen.”

  “Sure,” she said, “you’ll have a gold record on the avian music charts. Before you know it, they’ll be starting a fan club. What will they call you: Fowl Man?”

  “I have a gift.”

  “For driving me crazy,” she said, adding, “Don’t come crying to me if there aren’t any eggs for breakfast.”

  “Not me who’s bothering the hens. It’s the Cluricans, isn’t it, sneaking in in the middle of the night, stealing the eggs.”

  “Don’t blame it on the leprechauns, Da. They won’t take it kindly.”

  “Know them better than you, don’t I? You don’t believe in anything anymore, my girl.”

  Didn’t she? Had the years and the cancer changed her, made her cynical and hard?

  She’d reinforced the henhouses, because a fox had gotten in the previous week. Perhaps the fox had a taste for accordion music as
well as chicken. She took a quick glance to make sure all was well before going inside. Her husband, Padraig, sat by the fire, reading the Irish Times. Jars of last year’s honey gleamed on the kitchen shelves. This summer, he’d bottle the next batches. “Gaelic gold,” he called it. He spent hours among his bees whenever he could, a space-suited figure moving among the white boxes, dispensing smoke like incense from a censer, the bees his choir, buzzing, buzzing. That he could make something so sweet gave her hope and made her sad too. They’d been mad for each other once, before the children, before the tide of years rose between them. She still glimpsed the young man he’d once been in the lope of his walk; he’d always been rangy, loose-limbed, even now, with the arthritis setting in; even now, in the jut of his chin, the wildness of his hair, gone silver; in his voice, so deep she felt it near her breastbone when he spoke to her in the soft tones she loved so well. It was easy to forget these things as life rushed by, forget how much she’d loved him in the beginning, loved him still, if she only paused long enough to think about it, to page through the old anniversary cards she’d kept in the corner desk, years of greeting-card sentiments and the addition of a few personal words that still brought tears to her eyes when she read them, because he was such a reserved man: “You are the most precious thing in the world to me, you are my pearl of the sea.”

  She didn’t halloo like she usually did when she came in the door. She entered quietly. She wanted him to know something was different. That she was different.

  He glanced up, his eyes, his blue eyes, gorgeous still, regarding her over the banner at the top of the paper, the day’s headlines trumpeting an oil spill in the North Sea, a march in Belfast, another bombing in the Middle East, battles and strife, but not there, not in that room. Not if she could help it.

  The shyness, the fear, would stop her if she let them. She had to be brave, see it through.

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Colleen had asked her.

  Oona hadn’t answered, but she thought, That he will close himself off from me, as I’ve closed myself off from him. That when I reach out, he won’t take my hand.

  She carried her clothes in a canvas bag, the same one she took to the market, a scattering of dried parsley at the bottom. She’d worn the new bra and knickers home from the lace society meeting under her balmacaan coat. That was all. She shivered, not so much from cold as from anticipation. She’d never done anything like that before, not since she skinny-dipped in the bay on a dare as a girl when she had beauty and youth on her side, when she had her breasts. She hadn’t known Padraig then. She met him shortly thereafter, at a dance, when she was sixteen, him staring at her across the room with those blue, blue eyes, everything else receding into the background. He was all she could see, all she wanted.

  She’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon, their first, a girl, now living in Galway with three children of her own. Six babies she and Padraig had, gone now. Padraig had been away fishing much of the time. He didn’t go now, but the money was running low and he might have to, like Colleen’s husband, Finn, still at sea, Colleen beside herself with worry. Padraig had almost gone with him. Next time he might, even though they were both too old for such business. Padraig preferred being with his bees. If only more people knew about the honey and the lace, he might not have to consider sailing again.

  Oona had spent years of praying to Saint Christopher for his safe return, years watching for the hull of his boat to round the cape and steam toward the shingle beach where she waited, a thermos of coffee and a tin of biscuits clutched in her gloved hands. She didn’t want to do that anymore, didn’t want to risk losing him.

  She could tell from his face that he thought something was wrong, that she’d had word from the doctor the cancer had returned. He’d been with her through it all—the surgery, the chemotherapy, holding her hand, his face set with the same calm, penetrating expression with which he watched the horizon, reading the weather for what would come.

  A drop of honey glistened on his lip. He liked to lick the spoon after putting a drop or two in his tea.

  She crossed the sitting room where they’d spent so many hours of their lives, with the children, then just the two of them, this room with its accumulation of belongings, the braided rug, brass fire tools, framed pictures on the console where their youngest son, Paul, once cut open his head and had to be taken to hospital, the stacks of history books and novels, spindled tables and lamps, candlesticks dripping with old wax.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  She wiped the drop of honey from his lip and sucked on her finger. “This,” she said.

  She took the paper from him, folded it neatly in two places and set it on the hassock, then opened her coat. “And this.”

  She stood before him, threads of lace shining, golden as the honey he’d made, the first time she’d undressed for him, let him see her in the light, in so very long.

  “Oh, love.” He pulled her toward him, pressing his face against her chest. “Love.”

  Chapter 14

  Sullivan Deane

  Bernie had been awake since 5:00 a.m., thinking. Kate needed another reason to stay in Glenmara. The lace was a start, a thread tying her to the community, but she could snap it any moment and walk away, up the road down which she’d come. Had it only been days she’d been in the village? It seemed as if Kate had been with them longer, with Bernie longer.

  Bernie looked for clues each day as she straightened the guest room—she didn’t snoop, no, of course not, that wouldn’t have been right, but she looked for hints in the arrangement of things: the rumpled sheets at the foot of the bed (restless sleeper, something on her mind, nightmares? About what?), the markers in the novels (thank goodness she wasn’t one of those people who turned down corners; Bernie couldn’t abide that)—the girl had gone for Edna O’Brien’s latest novel, no great surprise, and the William Trevor collection. Hmm, interesting. As Bernie emptied the wastebin, a crumpled scrap of paper tumbled out, a single letter on the lined page: E.

  A lover perhaps? Had it gone wrong?

  The girl needed someone new, Bernie decided, not necessarily a permanent attachment, but to take her mind off whatever it was, whoever it was, that haunted her from across the sea. Not that there were many candidates in Glenmara. Most of the men were middle-aged and married or elderly and widowed, not for the likes of Kate.

  Bernie stared at the ceiling. The light fixture looked like an angel from one angle, a devil from the other, her eyes playing tricks on her. Hmm. Sullivan Deane. Sullivan Deane might do. He’d suffered a loss of his own, could use the company too (though he probably found enough in the neighboring villages, he wouldn’t have met anyone like Kate). How could she get them together? She’d already had Kate deliver the week’s Gaelic Voice. She could hardly put out a special edition. Wait. There was something one of the women had said the night before about Sullivan Deane. What was it again? Yes: Sullivan Deane’s laptop computer. She’d send Kate to see about it. So much could be accomplished with a little thought. She lay in bed as the sky brightened in the east, the sun rising through a break in the clouds, light spreading into the room. She let it envelop her in the possibilities before turning back the covers and hopping out of bed, one foot into a slipper, then the other, her robe next, a magician putting on her cloak. She’d make scones. The British occupation had its good points, scones being first among them. She loved scones and clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. That’s what she’d serve that morning. And bangers and eggs. Juice too. Orange? Americans liked orange juice; everyone knew that. She lit the stove. What first? A handful of fresh flowers for the vase on the table. The peonies were in bloom, early this year. She walked out into the dew. A squadron of swallows circled her in tight loops. Pure joy, it was, joy. A sign that anything could happen. She was sure of that now.

  “I’d do it myself, but I’ve got to run these down to the printer. I’m behind this week—and I never miss a deadline. So you’ll be doing me
a favor, you see, asking Sullivan about the computer.”

  “I’d be happy to help,” Kate said. “As you said, the Gaelic Voice must be heard.”

  “Yes!” Bernie waved a proof of the next newsletter for emphasis. The latest crime headlines ran across the top:

  Man calls Garda, says neighbor’s bull is remodeling his house. Garda asks if he’s putting in a new kitchen. No, he says, the bull is taking it down.

  Woman calls Garda, says neighbor won’t stop gardening in the nude. Garda asks if he’s good-looking. No, she says, he has a potbelly and skinny legs. Well, Garda says, the weather’s changing and he’ll have to put on a raincoat on the morrow. That should improve the view.

  Fergus sat by Bernie, whining for a scone. Bernie shook her head. “I’m sorry. You know the vet said they’re bad for your health. You have to eat your senior dog food now.”

  Fergus sighed and shambled over to his bowl, giving her a backward glance filled with reproach.

  “He dreams of burgers and scones,” she told Kate. “My husband spoiled him something awful.” Her gaze settled on his picture on the mantel, a brief yearning in her eyes, before she looked away again. “Take the car if you want,” she added. “Can be tricky to start, though.”

  “The bike’s fine. I like the exercise,” Kate said. “Where does Sullivan Deane live?”

  “Take the west road out of town, then left at the blue farm. It’s a stone house. He spent summers there with his grandparents when he was growing up. Holidays too. Been in the family for generations. Only place of any size around here that didn’t get taken over by the English. The Deanes were fighters. Always were, always will be.”

  “He’s not going to shoot me, is he?” Kate laughed.

  “No, that was long ago.” Bernie winked. “You’ll be safe enough.”