In the Company of Others

by Jan Karon

  4 June

  Balfour treats his servants the way slaves are said to be treated in the southlands of America. I doctered a southern slave on two occasions in Philadelphia--a striking figure of a black man with a voice as deep as that of a church organ & attired nearly as well as his Master in a vest of striped satin with a woollen frock coat & dove colored breeches--I recall that he carried a pocket watch & suffered from tumors of the mouth which we were able to address with some success--he oversaw the business dealings of a planter in the Carolinas & had a nobel manner about him.

  Yesterday treated the head wound of a lad who was kicked by a horse while mucking Balfour's stables--I learned that he was badly beaten twice when Balfour was in a drunken rage--He broke down in a fit of sobbing & pled with me not to tell it abroad else he be more fiercely treated & sent off the place. Having come from England with his father, now deceased, he would have no Family to turn to nor any place to lay his head.

  From my experience in America & in my own Country, tis clear that Alcohol has wrought more misery than can be reckoned--it is as merciless as any plague in the taking of both lives & souls.

  The caffeine was wearing thin. He trooped to the bed, Pud at his heels, and crawled beneath the duvet.

  As he punched up his pillow, Pud stared at him, unblinking. Needless to say, there would be no balm in Gilead. None.

  'On or off?' he asked his reading wife.

  'Why don't we just cut to the chase?'

  He patted a spot by his feet; Pud leaped onto the bed, nailed the proffered territory, lay down, sighed.

  'Only one problem,' he said.

  'What's that?'

  'We don't know where this might lead.'

  She turned a page, laughing. 'Since when do we know where anything might lead?'

  'You have a point,' he said.

  Fifteen

  Showered, shaved, and dressed for dinner, he opened the journal to his bookmark.

  Fair

  Having cured a sty on the eye of my own milch cow, the word has spread like brush fire--for everything from cow beetle to the infected teat, they are at me for treatment. No bastes, I tell them, no bastes! Old Rose McFee is determined I should deliver her calf.

  Fair days--the men working at a pace--we shall take occupancy of Catharmore by early August or I'm damned.

  I mark here Keegan's report--that Balfour has twice made foul comments to the men about Aoife.

  'You're all dressed.' She limped from the bathroom on her crutch, steaming like a clam in the Darling Robe.

  'Why don't you go visit in the library? Just come back in a half hour or so and give me a hand down the stairs.' She leaned to him and fussed with the silk handkerchief in his jacket pocket, and he stood for any further improvements.

  'You're looking very sexy,' she said.

  Until she came into his life, such a thing as looking sexy had never occurred to him--the notion would have seemed absurd.

  There he'd been, tied up at the dock for better than sixty years, the waves occasionally swamping his boat, but safe at harbor, nonetheless. Then she'd moved next door and in no time at all he was unmoored completely. He was terrified of being dashed on the rocks, or adrift on the deep with no way to read the stars of his frightening passion--he was the old man 'way out at sea, in the thrall of a woman who found him romantic and clever. St. Matthew had asked, Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Ha. He had grown ten feet tall in the first months of his fumbling courtship.

  'I mean it,' she said, kissing him for a fare-thee-well. She drew away and laughed. 'You're blushing.'

  'Tight collar.'

  'I haven't wanted to say anything, but you're a little out of control with your diet.'

  'I'll watch it.' He hated watching it, but she was right.

  'Thirty minutes, then? Don't forget me.'

  'No chance.'

  Pud accompanied him downstairs, shoe in mouth. On the landing, he peered out to the garden--the rain had ended, thanks be to God.

  In the library, Pete O'Malley, looking sour and wearing a tie patterned with fishing lures.

  'How did it go today at the river?'

  'Was supposed to fair off by noon,' said Pete, 'but not a stir.'

  He sat in a wing chair. 'Where did the poker club do their damage?'

  'Lough Key. Hardly any rain at Key. Caught enough fish to sink a freighter--they could go commercial.'

  'They're that good?'

  'Maniacs, those women. Cast a line, hook a trout, cast a line, hook a salmon ...' Pete swirled his drink, drained the glass. 'I'm havin' th' Irish T-bone this evenin'. Medium rare.'

  'Come on. It's the poker club's night to shine.'

  Pete looked repentent. 'You're right. I'll have th' T-bone tomorrow evenin'.'

  'That's the spirit.'

  Pud sat at his feet, unblinking. 'Give it up, buddy. I'll catch you tomorrow.' Seducing aromas from the kitchen. Gray flakes of burned turf rising in the draft.

  'Maybe I should get a dog,' said Pete.

  'You can tell dogs anything, and they'll still love you.'

  'If I told a dog everything, that dog would be gone in a heartbeat. Guess it's different with clergy, not much to tell.'

  He laughed. 'Guess you don't know much about clergy.'

  Pete adjusted his tie, eyed the stair hall. 'We're out of here Friday before sunup.'

  'Sorry to hear it.'

  'A pretty good life at ol' Broughadoon. Like Ireland used to be. Anyway, I'll be goin' home to a Manx cat my wife left when she moved out, an' a parrot named Roscoe that sings Beatles tunes.'

  'You're kidding.'

  'Serious as a heart attack. Ol' Roscoe lives at the office; my secretary treats him like Michael Collins resurrected. He's been on th' telly three times.'

  'What's his specialty?'

  'Yellow Submarine. Want to see his picture?'

  Pete pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket, glowered at it, fiddled with it, handed it over. 'Roscoe.'

  A photo of a parrot looking grouchy. 'Amazing, ' he said. 'No grandkids?'

  'It's hard to get grandkids these days, have you noticed? My daughter has a pig that sleeps on her bed, my son has a wire-haired terrier--that's all she wrote in that department.'

  'What do you do in Dublin?'

  'Insurance. Family company founded by my great-granddad in nineteen aught nine.'

  'Aught. Haven't heard that in a while.'

  'I've been seein' a lot of it on my bottom line. Too much stress in th' business today--I remember what my dad used to say, he owned a cattle operation on the side--stress toughens th' meat and sours th' milk.'

  'I'll buy that.'

  Pete looked at him intently. 'You're a lucky man.'

  'Can't say I believe in luck, but why do you think so?'

  'Your wife, she's a great lady.'

  'She is. Thanks. Puts up with me.'

  'That's bloody hard to find--somebody to put up with you--in spite of your mess.'

  'Putting up with somebody's mess works both ways.'

  'I couldn't put up with my wife's mess--I don't blame her for walkin' out.'

  A burst of laughter from the dining room; they were finishing the table setups. Something electric was in the air--something to do with Anna's surprise, no doubt.

  'I have bad luck with women. But, hey, if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.' Pete manufactured a laugh.

  He knew the feeling. Balding, overweight, and stuck in a remote parish at the age of forty, he had resigned himself to the fact that it was all over for him in the marriage department. What he couldn't know was that twenty years later, a children's book author with great legs would move next door.

  'You know what it'll take to save my marriage? ' asked Pete.

  'What's that?'

  'A bloody miracle.'

  They heard the poker club coming along the stair hall. He saw the hopeful look on Pete's face, saw him close it down and try the sour look again.
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  'Refill,' said Pete, getting up and heading to the honesty bar.

  In the dining room, newly starched linens; candles and garden roses on tables and sideboard; doors open to the summer evening. A pretty good life at ol' Broughadoon--definitely.

  Though the anglers were full of praise for the club's fishing skills, they were quick to point out that ghillies and decent weather must nonetheless be given their due.

  'Whatever,' said Debbie. 'Slainte!'

  Glasses lifted all around. 'Slainte!'

  He gazed with his wife at the lough, silvered in the gathering dusk. 'Maureen calls this the moth hour,' she said, half dreaming. 'The moth hour ...'

  'I've been thinking,' he said. 'I haven't committed anything to memory in quite a while. You've inspired me; I'd like to memorize a poem. Maybe Patrick Kav'na. It would be a souvenir we don't have to pack, and would last us as long as our wits hold out.'

  'Which we pray will be a very long time,' she said.

  Decked in his butler's garb, Seamus on his night off from Catharmore was standing in for Bella on her own night off.

  'Fresh peach tart this evening, in a rosemary cornmeal crust . . .'

  Seamus paused for effect.

  '. . . or Blackberry Semifreddo--ripe blackberries blended with fresh mint, verbena, homemade ricotta, and local sweet cream, frozen in a nest of dark chocolate.'

  'Now, that's poetry,' he told his wife.

  He remembered being seven years old and working along the creek with Peggy in the blazing Mississippi sun. The handles on their tin buckets creaked; heat shimmered off the water.

  Pick a berry, slap a chigger, pick a berry . . .

  'We gon' be eat up,' said Peggy.

  'I'm done eat up.'

  'I'm already eat-en up,' she corrected in the voice that never sounded like Peggy. When he was old enough to know better, he realized she never corrected herself, not one time, it was always him she was after with the English lesson.

  'You gon' beat me, you keep pickin' so fast,' she said.

  'I ain't gon' beat you, 'cause I be eatin' all I pick after I get to right here.' He tapped the bucket three-fourths of the way to the top.

  'Peoples say don' eat while you pickin'. If you does, when you eats yo' cobbler this evenin', it won't taste half as good.'

  'How come?'

  ''cause you done spoiled th' taste in yo' mouf out here on th' creek.'

  He looked up and rolled his eyeballs as far back in his head as they would go. That's what he thought about that dumb notion.

  Peggy laughed pretty hard; he liked to make Peggy laugh. 'You know what you is,' she said.

  He did know. He was th' aggravatin'est little weasel she ever seen . . .

  'The peach tart,' said Cynthia.

  'The thing with blackberries,' he told Seamus.

  ''t is a grand evening you'll be havin' in th' library with your coffee.'

  Cynthia adjusted her glasses and peered at their server. 'You're looking quite distinguished, I must say.'

  ''t is th' candlelight--it softens th' shine on my butler's oul' duds. We'll bury you in it, Seamus, says Mrs. Conor. Aye, says I, for you'll outlive me and all th' rest.'

  'What would you know about the Mass rock?' he asked. 'Where is it located? O'Donnell speaks of it in the journal.'

  'You'll have to ask Anna or Liam. I saw it years ago, but can't remember whether it's right or left of th' lake path.'

  When Seamus walked away he saw it coming.

  'Cream. Cheese. Chocolate,' said his wife, reciting a litany of his offenses.

  'Righto. And mint, verbena, and fresh berries. Six of one, half dozen of the other.'

  She raised an eyebrow.

  'Now, Kav'na. Look at all the fish I'm having. Very good for the diabetic. And all the fresh vegetables. Locally grown,' he said, losing the battle.

  The anglers' table was engrossed in recitation of one sort or another.

  Tom raised his glass to the room. 'May the most we wish for be the least we get.'

  'Hear, hear! Slainte!'

  'Oh, give me grace to catch a fish,' said Pete, 'so big that even I, when talkin' of it afterwards, may have no need to lie.'

  'Slainte!'

  'Slainte here, slainte there,' said his wife, definitely in the spirit of things.

  'To look for a moment on th' serious side . . .' said Debbie.

  'As if there isn't enough of that in the world,' said Hugh.

  '. . . I have a question--what is work? I mean in th' true philosophical sense.'

  'The true philosophical sense.' Hugh looked blank. 'Beats me. I haven't hit a lick at a snake in three, maybe four weeks.'

  He pitched in his two cents' worth. 'According to your man Oscar Wilde, work is the curse of the drinking classes.'

  'The answer is simple,' said Moira. 'Work is for people who don't know how to fish.'

  Laughter all around.

  Pete raised his glass. 'No offense to you, Tim. In your callin', you're fishin' twenty-four/seven.'

  'Righto,' said Hugh. 'You're off th' hook in a manner of speaking.'

  'I've got a great idea,' said Pete. 'How about we all get together again next year, same time, same station? I'll bring Roscoe.'

  The door from the kitchen swung open--Maureen and Anna, flushed from the heat of the Aga, entered with William, who brought up the rear.

  'Hullo, everyone,' said Anna. 'We're just going in to arrange the chairs. Enjoy your dessert, and please come along when you hear the bell.'

  'Need any help with th' liftin'?' asked Pete.

  'We've three strong backs for 't,' said William. ''t is your job to lift th' fork.'

  'Th' bane of my days,' he heard Anna say as the trio walked up the hall. 'I can do nothing with it this evening, nothing at all.'

  And there was William saying, ''t is beautiful hair ye got from y'r own mother, Anna Conor. Stop aitin' y'r face about it.'

  At the sound of the bell, they left their tables and trooped to the library, happy to see the small fire poked up and lamps gleaming against the dusk.

  Sixteen

  Maureen patted a couple of wing chairs angled toward the hearth. 'Your poor ankle wins th' prize of th' front row.'

  'You're a dote,' said his wife. 'Will you sit with us?'

  'Aye, with pleasure, and thank you for your comp'ny.' Before he could give a hand, she drew a chair from the game table and sat next to him. 'There'll be fifteen of us this evenin'--like family.'

  'It's my guess,' he said, 'that you had something to do with our surprise.'

  'Aye. For many years now.'

  He found the disorder of her teeth compelling, in a way; her smile was more engaging for it.

  Anna had disappeared; Liam and Seamus served coffee.

  He nosed the dark, fragrant brew, took a sip--full-bore, precisely the way he liked it. At home he played it safe, drank the eunuch decaf every evening; here, he rolled the dice, and so far had slept like a log. He'd been hooked on coffee from an early age; had searched for decades since for anything remotely similar to what his mother perked in a beat-up pot on the woodstove that stood alongside the electric range. Often with a grind of wild chickory root, it had the heedless taste of the campfire, something of backbone and daring that he could never replicate.

  The club took the sofa; the anglers nailed favorite wing chairs; William and Seamus assumed their posts at the checkerboard; Liam sat nearby, distracted.

  Anna entered from the stair hall as the mantel clock struck a quarter 'til nine, and stood before them on the hearth. Because he was accustomed to seeing her in clogs and work gear, her frank good looks in a green dress gave him a kind of jolt. He saw in her face the softening that follows earnest confession.

  'With the exception of my departed mother, Roisin, I cannot think of anyone I'd rather share this special evening with. All of you here tonight love life and its many possibilities, just as they say my mother did.'

  She spoke slowly, measuring her words. ''t is a rare gift you'll
be given this evening--a wondrous thing of heart and mind and soul that we can't completely understand, for it comes of God alone.

  'Ladies and gentlemen ...' Her voice broke; she lowered her eyes briefly, looked up again. ''t is with great honor and joy that I give you . . . my daughter, Bella Flaherty.'

  Bella strode from the hall and stood where her mother had stood. She gazed for a moment above the heads of her audience, brought the fiddle up, rested it beneath her chin, poised the bow. Her body was rigid, every energy concentrated.

  She drew the bow across the strings in a single long, piercing note. Lifted the bow, laid it again to the strings, sounded a note that shimmered in the air, fragile as a moth.

  He took Cynthia's hand.

  The music came at them abruptly, and with such raw force that he was rocked back in his chair. Raging, wounded, feverish music, with the volume of a dozen fiddles at work in the room. He looked at his wife, who sat with her mouth slightly agape; glanced at Maureen, who covered her mouth with her hand.

  God above, he thought. The unleashed spirit of the music had something in it of unchecked risk and gamble; perspiration gleamed on Bella's face, half turned from them to her fiddle. He closed his eyes to sharpen his hearing of the music, was astounded again by its flash and intensity, backed by the drumming of William's cane on the floor. It was a wild ride with no roll bars.

  The piece ended suddenly. There was a long, stunned silence--then, an explosion of applause as Bella looked without expression above their heads.

  ''t is th' trad music she plays, like her father,' said Maureen. ''t was a hard one, that, with what they call th' tongued triplets.'

  'Brilliant,' he whispered.

  Bella looked at William. 'Daideo, this is for you.'

  William gave a nod, crossed himself.

  She placed the fiddle under her chin, raised the bow. Then came the grieving music, pouring over them like a vapor, like a shroud. He was standing by the fresh mound in Hill Crest, alone at his mother's grave, wondering how he could go on.