And then she heard it: the sound of the horn, hailing her from the mouth of the bay. He was there, no more than a speck at first, rounding the cape where the currents were treacherous, the waves clawing each other to spume, her heart catching at the buck and pitch of the stern, but he held firm as he always did, guiding the vessel through the worst of the trouble. He sailed past the buoys and neared the shore, the moon shining on the water, making a path on which she might walk without sinking, or so it seemed, lighting his way home, lighting his way back to her. She ran down the gangway, feet clattering on the boards, scarf flying, and she jumped, yes, jumped that small distance between the dock and the boat and threw herself into his arms as if she were a girl again.
“What’s all this, then?” he asked.
She couldn’t speak. She took him down to the narrow bed where he slept on the nights at sea, and she lay with him there, his sea witch, as the fish tossed in the hold below, scales shining silver and green.
“I thought you were gone.” She kissed his weathered cheek. He tasted of salt.
She closed her eyes in thanks. He didn’t know how close they’d come to being separated from one another for good, the ocean taking him at last, collecting him, as she would a shell from the shore. She held him tighter as the water shifted beneath them, the currents teasing the boat. She would not let him go.
“This is new, isn’t it?” He touched the lace. “You’re a mermaid now for sure.”
She buried her face in his neck.
“You missed me, did you?” He laughed. “Me, your crazy old man.”
All they’d ever been, all they were now, all they would be, together, in that rocking vessel.
“More than you know,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Chapter 18
Hail the Long-Lost Mariner
Balloons dangled from the gatepost at the foot of the drive, signs posted at intervals along the lane to mark the way to the McGreevys’ cottage. The villagers came on foot and bicycle, a few by car, to celebrate Finn’s return. Colleen had called the lace makers the day before, told them to spread the word. It was a last-minute gathering, a casual potluck that made up for its simplicity with good cheer and fine weather, the sky clear all day, for once.
“Sure, now it’s fair, isn’t it, now that I’m not at sea,” Finn joked late that morning, kissing Colleen’s cheek and pulling her toward him.
“Stop, I have to get things ready.” She gave him a playful shove.
“We have time,” he said. “All the time in the world.” He waltzed her around the room.
“What has gotten into you?” She laughed, breaking away. “If you have so much energy, why don’t you help me blow up a few more balloons?”
“That’s not quite what I had in mind…”
“Everyone will be here soon—”
And indeed, that afternoon, the house and garden overflowed with guests, Denny and Niall among them. The two men stationed themselves next to the makeshift bar near the back door, their faces red from the sun and, more to the point, the Guinness. How they loved their Guinness.
“To Finn,” Denny said, raising his glass in a toast.
“Finn!” the others echoed. There was Niall, Oona, Padraig, Aileen, Rourke, Bernie, Kate, and the rest, even Father Byrne, reserved as ever.
“He didn’t show up with communion wafers, did he?” Oona whispered to Colleen as they pulled the bread from the oven.
“No, berry muffins. Mrs. Flynn said he made them himself. They’re rather good.”
“Who knew he had a sweet side?”
“Don’t let it fool you.”
Denny and Niall’s voices carried through the window. “Did you hear on the news that Guinness is considered an old man’s drink now?” Denny asked.
“We know best, don’t we?” Niall took a sip and smiled in satisfaction. “The wisdom of the elders—”
“Yes, but it’s more serious than that: the sales are falling off for the first time. Can you believe it? I never thought I’d live to see the day. I mean, they’re buying more Guinness in Nigeria than they are in Ireland, for feck’s sake.”
“Language, Da,” Oona warned as she passed by with a tray of crudités and dip.
“Nigeria?” Niall looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“The young Irishmen aren’t drinking it the way they used to. Their commutes are too long; they don’t have time to pop out to the pub with the boys for a pint anymore, and when they do, they like the lighter stuff. Designer ales. Sacrilegious, it is. The whole country is beginning to fall apart.”
“Not here.”
“Not yet. We should launch a campaign. I can see the T-shirts now: ‘Save the Guinness’ on one side, ‘Don’t Go to Ale’ on the other.”
“I’d wear one. Size XXL on account of my belly.” Niall patted his stomach. “I’d walk up and down the center of town getting the word out.”
“What are you two cooking up now?” Oona asked as she handed them each a bowl of beef stew and bread, so they wouldn’t have to stand in line.
“We’re having an important meeting about saving the Guinness,” Denny told her.
“The Guinness won’t be in danger as long as you two are around.” She laughed.
Kate found herself next to Father Byrne in the buffet line, near the kettle of stew. Stew, another word for trouble, her grandmother used to say—at least with him nearby. “Good afternoon, Father Byrne,” she said to be polite. She couldn’t bring herself to refer to him in the shortened form. Father. It sounded too paternal, too familiar, especially when he looked at her with such accusing eyes.
“Good afternoon, Miss Robinson.” He kept to the formal mode of address as well. Everyone else in the village called her Kate. Not him. “Still soaking up the local sights, are you?”
“Yes. There’s a lot to see.” She ladled stew onto her plate, dripping some over the side, fumbling to wipe it up, him watching her every move. At least she hadn’t spilled it on her clothes—she’d worn a dress she’d found at a vintage shop in Dublin in honor of the occasion (and the possibility of seeing Sullivan—she hoped he could make it; he was leaving town that day, but said he’d try to stop by). Her heart was beating faster than usual thanks to the proximity of the priest, his cold eyes, his disapproving mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was engage in a conversation with him, and yet he’d drawn her into one, like a spider to its web, and she could see no way out.
Why was she so nervous around him? It wasn’t as if she had anything to be afraid of, and yet to her frustration, he continued to intimidate her.
“I wouldn’t have thought we had enough to keep you here. We have so few tourist attractions.” He served himself some stew with a firm hand.
“It’s a beautiful place—and the people have been so friendly.” Except for you.
“They’re trusting souls.” He set a hard roll on the edge of his plate.
She served herself salad, keeping her movements slow and steady. “They’ve been very kind to me.”
“The lace makers most of all. You’ve been studying with them quite extensively, I hear.”
“They’ve been patient teachers.” She poured herself a glass of lemonade, the ice tinkling, her hands shaking now. She hoped he didn’t notice. She didn’t want him to know how much he unnerved her. He’d probably consider it confirmation that she had something to hide.
“Surely, your apprenticeship must be almost complete.”
“It’s only beginning.” She had no intention of leaving—certainly not on account of him. “There’s much to learn.”
“And they’re learning from you as well, though it might not be all to the good. Some traditions shouldn’t be tampered with.”
“That’s not what—,” she protested, feeling as if she’d walked directly into a trap he’d laid for her.
“Kate, there you are,” a familiar voice called out. She turned to see Sullivan Deane walking toward
her. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“I didn’t think you’d make it,” she said, pressing his hand.
“Just making a brief appearance before I have to go out of town.” He turned to greet Father Byrne, before leading Kate away.
She felt the priest’s eyes on her back. “Thank God you showed up,” she said as they strolled through the old orchard at the edge of the property, the fruit just beginning to form, larks flitting from branch to branch.
“It looked like you needed rescuing.”
“Was it so obvious?”
“Only to someone who knows you well.” He put an arm around her waist.
Across the lawn, Declan Moore’s band struck up a tune, and the partygoers lined up for a reel, clapping and shouting, the oldest and the youngest, too, Father Byrne on the sidelines, watching from the shade of a beech tree, his arms folded across his chest.
“To Finn,” they cheered. “Finn, home at last!”
“And to my fair Colleen,” he said, kissing his wife in front of everyone, her cheeks pink with embarrassment, and pleasure too.
“Aren’t you going to play?” Kate asked Sullivan.
Father Byrne continued to glower from his position beneath the tree. She made a point of not looking in his direction. She refused to let him spoil the afternoon.
“Not today,” he said. “I have better things to do.”
He took her hand and led her onto the green to join the rest of the dancers, Father Byrne’s eyes upon them as if he were counting every step.
Chapter 19
All Ye Sinners Bow Your Heads and Pray
The bell sounded, a cry against the wind. The gulls circled, taking up the call. They liked to sit along the roofline, taunting him. God’s creatures indeed. They thought they could get away with anything, begging, shitting. Didn’t they know it was an important day? That he’d stayed up all night, writing the sermon, getting the words right, in the thrall of inspiration that could only have been divine. Yes, Father Byrne had weighed the evidence, and now he was convinced. He knew the girl would bring trouble from the moment he’d set eyes on her. He’d bided his time, waited for his chance, and now she’d given him a reason to drive her from the village: corrupting a decent, moral craft. Corrupting their simple way of life. The lace being made into lingerie. Lingerie. He could barely speak the word.
“Mrs. Flynn, have you heard about this?” he demanded over breakfast, unable to contain himself any longer.
“Heard what, Father?”
She knew perfectly well what he meant. “About the lace.”
“The lace?”
“What they’re doing with it.”
“Doing?”
“Knickers!” He choked on his tea.
“Pretty, aren’t they? I bought some for my daughter.” She moved on to the furniture now, shaking her head, as if to say, Bachelor living. Doesn’t matter if it’s a priest or a fisherman. “Sent them off a couple of days ago.”
“You did what?” He felt a vein pulse near his temple.
“Well, a girl can’t very well go without knickers, can she?” She snapped the cloth out the window, releasing clouds of dust into the garden.
“It’s not the sort of thing we do here. It’s not part of God’s plan.”
“Did you have a vision about the knickers?” She paused, a hand on her hip. She wore a dark-colored shirtdress, cotton for ease of cleaning. It had a white collar and looked almost ecclesiastical. She saved her brighter things—the exuberant Liberty floral scarves and even, yes, the leopard jacket her daughter had bought for her sixtieth birthday, the one she didn’t think he knew about—for other occasions, when she wouldn’t get dirty or be under his eye.
“Yes,” he said, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. “Yes. God said they must be stopped.”
“The knickers? What did they do? Launch a coup in a lingerie drawer?” She didn’t laugh. Didn’t dare.
“No, the women. The women must be stopped from making them.” He dropped his napkin, bent down to retrieve it.
“Careful—if you stoop too low, you might find it difficult to get up.” She polished the brass lamps. She could put a shine on anything.
He frowned at her. She had a ready wit, that Mrs. Flynn. She smiled her benign little smile, adept at sidestepping arguments, setting things right. “That girl—That girl—,” he sputtered.
“What if her coming here was part of God’s plan?” Mrs. Flynn swept away a cobweb. She’d put an old T-shirt on the end of a broom—she found a second life for almost anything—and swiped it along the corners of the ceiling. “What if He sent her to us?”
“Impossible.” Father Byrne ground his teeth on a piece of toast, blackened crumbs scattering over the plate like ashes. He preferred it burned just short of a crisp. “Impossible. The only solace I can take in the matter is that she’ll be moving on soon.”
“I don’t think so. First, she stayed because she missed the bus. But now I think she likes it here.”
“A ride could be arranged if she’s lacking transportation.”
Mrs. Flynn gave him a sharp look.
He raised his eyebrows at her. What?
“She’s good for Bernie,” Mrs. Flynn said. “She’s had it hard, what with John passing on. And Oona too, with the cancer.”
“Her faith has seen her through,” he said, referring to Oona.
“That and chemo. It’s a hard thing, losing your breasts, Father. It’s not something a man can understand.” She was a plain speaker, was Mrs. Flynn.
His face felt hot. He dabbed his forehead with his napkin, muttering, “I suppose not, though Bernie hardly needs the strain of a houseguest, does she? The presumption of that girl—”
“It was the other way ’round. Bernie invited her, Father. She’d been thinking about letting the room anyway—and she likes the company.”
“Taking advantage,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Does she expect a mention in her will?”
“Will? Heavens, Father. Bernie’s not going to die any time soon, and it’s not as if she’s an heiress.”
“People are always taking advantage of widows, aren’t they?” He thought of his own mother, scammed out of her retirement, in her late nineties now, living with one of his brothers in London, far from everything she knew.
“God will watch over her, Father. He will watch over them both. Besides, Bernie’s doing fine.”
“So she says.” The members of his flock didn’t know what was good for them. He would guide them back to the proper path. Only he knew the way.
“There are those among us who would undermine the community we have taken such care to build.” Father Byrne paused for effect, his eyes seeking theirs for emphasis, but the parishioners were looking down at their laps or out the windows, marking time before they could take communion and escape. “Evil is at our door.” He lowered his voice. He had their attention now. He was a warrior for God, leading them into battle. If only he had a sword, like the Archangel Gabriel. “We must drive out this contaminating influence before it is too late, before the innocence of our children, the morality of us all, is irreparably damaged.”
Bernie had never seen the priest in such a state. At first she almost found it entertaining, then she began to worry.
Outside, the sun pierced the canopy of clouds for the first time that morning, shone through the stained glass windows and lit Father Byrne from above, his robes aglow, as if he were one of the anointed. His voice filled the church, built to a roar, reverberated against the ears of the congregants, the flickering candles, the Virgin Mary and Jesus himself, traveled out the windows—cracked open, because the church could become too warm during mass—where the sound caused even the wrens and sparrows to stop their chatter, a quiet falling over the hills, as if God let the priest control nature itself, so powerful was his message.
The church had stood for over a hundred years, rebuilt after the fires and the Famine, with a special shrine for lost sou
ls near the entrance. The church stood for something.
So did Father Byrne. This was, apparently, the moment he’d been waiting for.
Bernie remembered what her grandmother had said years before, a saying passed down from the days of hunger and revolution when men came into the villages on horseback and set everything aflame. There is none so dangerous as a righteous man. She watched the priest, fascinated and wary. How far would he go?
“The only thing we should be sharing with the world is our faith,” he boomed. He seemed larger than life, up on the altar, above them all, hands slicing the air.
“What’s he talking about?” Kate whispered in her ear, alarmed.
Bernie shook her head, waiting for more. She wanted to see where this was going, though she had a feeling…
“Some of you have already opened the door, unwittingly, perhaps, but you have done it. You have started this thing, and it must be finished.” His bloodshot eyes locked on Bernie and Kate.
There it was. The first salvo.
She blinked, sat taller. He’d singled her out. If she’d been less well liked, the villagers might have taken a certain satisfaction in her shame. As it was, they seemed to be as surprised as she was, waiting to see what would happen next.
Bernie stared straight ahead. She refused to be cowed by Father Byrne and his misguided attempt at saving their souls. It was laughable, making a crusade of banishing their fledgling lingerie business—what, would he have women go braless? He clearly hadn’t thought the thing through. Well, if he didn’t know how determined she was, he was about to find out. She’d been a member of this parish her entire life, long before Father Byrne came on the scene, her ancestors and her husband resting in the cemetery outside, and yet her cheeks felt hot all the same with the humiliation of it, his condemning her like this in front of everyone, making her a sacrifice to the greater good. Oona and Colleen gave her nods of support. Pious Aileen faced straight forward. Just as well Moira stayed home, nursing Sorcha, who was ill.
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