In the Company of Others

by Jan Karon

  Cynthia glanced at him, wordless.

  Now the music was no longer the shroud, but comfort to the ones surviving, pleading with their sorrow, ending with promise.

  Their unhindered applause poured into the silence left by the voice of the fiddle. He was moved that anyone so young could interpret wrenching loss, then remembered the child removed to Lough Arrow at the age of four.

  His nerves had come alive, he was fully awake in some hidden place in himself that he hadn't remembered.

  Maureen leaned to him and whispered, ''t will be Bonny Kate comin' up, mebbe, or Dear Irish Boy, if she takes th' notion.'

  He clasped Maureen's hand with its leathered palm, raised it to his cheek. 'Well done,' he said.

  'She's not my own blood, but she's my babby for all that!'

  'Aye,' he said.

  Bella turned her gaze to Maureen. 'Mamo, this is for you.'

  Then, something he could only define as anointed--with her bow, Bella Flaherty called forth music of sweetly fluent temper; tenderness found its opening and was transformed into something akin to yearning, or longing; he heard in the notes the drone of the bagpipe. Maureen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  If they could hear this back home, he thought, where countless Irish had immigrated all those years ago, where the color of the old speech lingered, and the old tunes resonated still . . .

  Applause, then, and Maureen throwing a kiss to the fiddler.

  'Will ye sing with me, Mamo?'

  'Oh,' said Maureen, her breath gone at the idea.

  'Will ye?'

  Maureen flushed, looked at him, at Cynthia. 'Jesus, Mary, an' all th' saints . . . I wasn't expectin' ...'

  'Please,' said Cynthia.

  ''t would be a feirin,' said Anna.

  'Th' Nightingale, then, and God help an' oul' woman.' Maureen rose from the chair and joined Bella.

  William looked disapproving. ''t is a tune of the English.'

  'They borrow from us, we borrow from them,' said Bella. 'Niall plays it.'

  'Niall,' said William, with obvious distaste.

  At the opening notes, Maureen closed her eyes, tilted her head, and joined her dusky voice with the music of the fiddle.

  As I went a-walkin' one mornin' in May

  I met a young couple who fondly did stray

  An' one was a young maid so sweet and so fair

  An' the other a soldier and a brave grenadier.

  An' they kissed so sweet and comfortin' as they clung to each other.

  They went arm in arm along the road like sister and brother.

  They went arm in arm along the road till they came to a stream

  An' they both sat down together to hear the nightingale sing.

  From out of his knapsack he took a fine fiddle

  An' he played her such merry tunes that you ever did hear

  An' he played her such merry tunes that the valley did ring

  An' they both sat down together to hear the nightingale sing.

  Hers was a face which had been fully lived in, he thought, and while he was no fan of aging, it had done a grand work on Maureen McKenna. Bella turned from them to the woman she called grandmother, bending low into the croon of the music.

  ... an' if ever I return again, it'll be in the spring

  An' we'll both sit down together an' hear the nightingale sing.

  An' they kissed so sweet and comfortin' as they clung to each other.

  They went arm in arm along the road like sister and brother.

  They went arm in arm along the road till they came to a stream

  An' they both sat down together to hear the nightingale sing.

  They rose to their feet, even William, applauding, cheering.

  'Give us another!' cried William.

  'Do, Mamo.'

  'Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye!' said William.

  'You know I can't sing it for bawlin' me eyes out. What'll it be, then?' she asked Bella.

  The fiddle answered.

  Maureen laughed, nodded to the fiddler, and sang.

  I'll tell me ma when I go home

  Th' boys won't leave th' girls alone.

  They pull my hair, they stole my comb,

  But that's all right 'til I go home.

  She is handsome, she is pretty,

  She's th' belle of Belfast city.

  She is courtin', one, two, three.

  Please won't you tell me, who is she?

  Albert Mooney says he loves her.

  All th' boys are fightin' for her.

  They rap at th' door an' they ring th' bell

  Sayin', Oh, my true love are ye well?

  Out she comes as white as snow,

  Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes.

  Ol' Jenny Murphy says she'll die

  If she don't get th' fellow with th' rovin' eye.

  Let th' wind an' th' rain an' th' hail blow high

  An' th' snow come shovelin' from th' sky . . .

  Bella tapped her foot, bore down on the tune, and circled back to the opening lines.

  'But that's all right 'til I go home!' The music ended on a high, comic note that gave them all a laugh.

  Maureen stood unmoving for a moment, spent and breathless. Seamus bowed to the fiddler and then to Maureen. William thumped his cane, and all the rest put in their money's worth.

  The concert was over. Bella lowered the fiddle and bow. A smile played at the corners of her mouth.

  'Brava! Brava!' yelled the club, as Bella disappeared along the stair hall and Maureen returned to her chair.

  'Thank you,' he said with feeling. 'Well done.'

  He wanted it all to happen again, the music had flown so quickly. They had been given rage, mourning, hope, laughter--and joy--they had also been given joy.

  Cynthia was embracing Anna, Anna was kissing Maureen, Seamus was slapping William on the back.

  'What did you make of that?' asked his astonished wife.

  'Camp meeting.' The finest half hour of camp meeting he'd ever seen, and he'd seen a few.

  He embraced Anna with great feeling. 'There,' he said.

  'There,' she said, laughing through tears.

  'Will she come back and join us?'

  'She gave us all she had just now.'

  'Rev'rend,' said William, who was dressed to the nines in a sport coat and tie, 'have an Irish whiskey, 't will be good f'r ye.'

  'How good for me do you think it might be?' he asked.

  ''t will give ye a good laugh and a long sleep,' said the old man.

  'A very attractive benefit, but I'm going to hold off. However--before I go home, William, we'll have a shot of the Irish together, just you and me.'

  'At Joe Kennedy's or Broughadoon?'

  'Broughadoon. I'll challenge you to a game of checkers.'

  'Done, sir,' said William.

  Maureen handed around a tray. 'If you won't slake th' thirst, have a sweet, then.'

  'I'll pass, and thank you. God's blessing on you, dear lady, you've helped raise a young genius.'

  'She's not a bad girl a'tall, Rev'rend, not deep down. As for m'self, I was a very bad girl.'

  'I'm not believing that.'

  'You should have seen th' tricks I was up to with th' lads hereabout--there was a Daniel, a James, two Roberts, an' a Paddy--an' all after marryin' me. I turned my mother's hair white as any fleece. A willful scut I was.'

  'I can't imagine ...'

  'Aye, an' save your tryin'; I've done my confessin' an' he's put the all of it as far as th' east is from th' west.'

  'What happened to change things?'

  'My oul' mother prayed for me, and m' grandmother, to boot.'

  'That'll do it,' he said.

  'I lived forty happy years with Tarry, an' niver a bitter word between us.'

  'Now, Maureen,' said Anna.

  'Ah, well, one or two is all. So you see, Rev'rend, there's always hope, for I don't think I came out too badly, thanks to God in 'is mercy.'

  'A
men,' he said. 'You were wonderful tonight. '

  Maureen laughed. ''t wasn't only th' guests got a surprise out of th' evenin'.'

  He glanced up then and saw Liam, standing by the sepia photographs as if dazed, his face wearing the flat, pasty look. They made eye contact; Liam lifted his hand in a gesture which he didn't understand.

  He excused himself and went to him. 'What is it?'

  Liam grasped his arm; they walked along the hall and into the dining room.

  'The Barret,' whispered Liam.

  But there was no Barret.

  Except for the sconces and two empty picture hooks, the wall above the sideboard was bare.

  Seventeen

  7:15 a.m.

  Warm, clear day predicted

  Broughadoon

  Dear Henry,

  Up later than usual--having coffee at our table by the window and taking advantage of the rare quiet moment around this place.

  There's nothing so bad it couldn't be worse, say the Irish, and turns out they're right. After the shock and nuisance of the cupboard business, comes the theft of a valuable painting from the dining room while guests and staff gathered in the library, innocent as babes.

  Appears to have been lifted off the picture hooks and ferried out the side doors to the garden, with no footprints to be found anywhere on the property (due in part to a considerable amount of pea gravel around the lodge). No tire tracks in the lane leading to the main road. It's as if the picture, valued at roughly 350,000 in American dollars and largely uninsured, was taken up in the air.

  The Gardai (or perhaps it is Garda, I can't seem to get it straight) swarmed the place. Photos taken--a rogue's gallery if you ever saw one--four guards, a detective, and a video of all interviews with guests, etc., keeping the lot of us up past one in the morning. I slept so poorly that I rose at the usual time just to have the misery over with, and prayed the Morning Office--you, Peggy, and Sister faithfully in my petitions. Fell asleep in the chair and reduced the deficit by two hours.

  C and I haven't discussed it yet, but I'm all for packing up and getting out of Dodge when W and K, who arrive at eleven this morning, depart tomorrow. They could drive us to Sligo or thereabout and surely we can find a room in a pleasant inn or hotel--I will do some phoning after the breakfast rush clears the kitchen. Another few days and we'll be done with this most recent Long and Unlovely Confinement.

  You and I should learn to fish, Henry, it would give us something to talk about in our dotage. The sport appears to hold its fans in thrall, they can't get enough of it--they've been known to depart this mortal coil promoting fishing with their final breath. All our anglers out this morning at sunrise, ready to go again full throttle.

  Have been adopted by yet another dog--this fellow a Jack Russell of the Pudding variety, long in the tooth like the rest of us, but up for anything. He sleeps under or on our bed, depending on circumstances.

  We plan to read the southern writers again when we get home--Flannery O'Connor for one, to look at what happened to the great Irish literary tradition as it traveled across the Pond and slipped under our Magnolia Curtain. My guess is that it wasn't greatly transformed, which is a good thing.

  A fine library at my fingertips, yet have cracked only two covers on its many shelves--a journal kept by the builder of the house on the hill above, and an old volume in which I found this observation of the Irish by Edmund Campion, martyred 1581:

  'The people are thus inclined: religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with warres, great almes-givers, surpassing in hospitalitie . . . They are sharpe-witted, lovers of lerning, capable of any studie whereunto they bend themselves, constant in travaile, adventurous, intractable, kinde-hearted ...'

  So there you have in a nutshell the Gaelic side of our heritage. Though written in the 16th century, the description isn't much out of fashion would be my guess.

  Never waste a crisis, said Albert Schweitzer (I think it was Al), but what the kind-hearted people here will do with this latest brouhaha is beyond me. I don't know much, but I do know this: I will never open a lodging for guests, it is 24/7 and hell to pay to make a bit of heaven for other people.

  Take care of yourself and do all that the doctors--and Peggy--tell you to do.

  Dhia dhuit, my brother,

  Timothy

  He had glanced at the nearly bare dining room wall and seen the darker rectangle of paint which the Barret protected against fading. He'd chosen to sit with his back to the sideboard while having breakfast and writing the letter, thus hiding from view another sight he didn't care for: a barricade of yellow tape across the doors to the garden.

  He walked to the library, Pud at his heels, dropped the stamped envelope in the box at the sofa, saluted Malone's hat in the entrance hall, and stepped out to a shaft of birdsong. He stood for a moment, imagining glaciers lumbering through these regions, carving out what they pleased--valleys, coastlines, mountains, lakes, the astonishing Ben Bulben.

  Anna was at her flower beds, crouching among the iris with a pruner.

  'Good morning, Anna.'

  'Good morning, Reverend.' She didn't look up.

  'Did you rest a little?'

  'A little,' she said. 'And you?' Not looking up. A rooster crowed beyond the beeches.

  'Well enough. Liam?'

  'He's out with the sheep, the damp has started a bit of foot rot. He likes tending the sheep.' She turned to him, her eyes red with the little sleep. 'It takes his mind off things.'

  She dropped spent blooms into a trug; there was a close scent of catmint and lavender.

  'I believe Dr. Feeney would be prescribing a real day off for you.'

  'With all due respect to Dr. Feeney,' she said, 'he has never managed a guest lodge. One must keep a pleasing front no matter what comes, and be full of smiles into the bargain. There's always a scrap one can pull from the deep.'

  'Always a scrap, yes.' Like the rest of the human horde, he had pulled many a scrap and would doubtless pull more. 'Counting ours, you'll have had nine frys this morning.' He didn't envy her the labor of it.

  'And box lunches for our anglers and ghillies. But I've seen the lean days we were building our business, when there were no frys to be made a'tall at Broughadoon. I'll take th' nine over the none.'

  He wanted to ask if her roses were troubled with black spot and beetles, as were his, but . . . 'If there's anything I can do ...'

  She stood and handed him a stem of iris, the bloom golden in color. 'Thank you for hearing me yesterday; 't is a great gift to be heard. You really listened, and your prayer--I shall always remember it. I felt I was starving unto death, and it fed me.'

  He lifted the curved petals to catch a scent he'd favored since childhood. 'Something from Macbeth came to me in the night--give sorrow words; the grief that doesn't speak whispers o'er the fraught heart and bids it break. Thank you for trusting me.'

  'I feel sad for Liam, 't was the truest link to his da, that painting. Such value can't be appraised nor replaced and the books are small consolation.'

  'Yes.'

  ''t is in a way like losing his father again. And the final blow is that we hadn't insured it properly. Loss upon loss. We had meant to ...'

  They were silent then, looking toward the lake.

  'There's never any privacy, really, in keeping an inn, even when one lies in one's own bed. Personal life and possessions are so blended into the business, there's no telling where one stops and the other begins. One is ever in the company of others.' She looked at him. 'But it's what we love, of course, and one pays a price always for what is loved.'

  'Yes.'

  'In the end, the guest sees everything, it's all so . . . intimate; I wish we could protect you from that.'

  'A pet occupation of the Enemy is to distance us from intimacy. Such intimacy is a sacrifice for you and Liam, but a gift to us.'

  The cloud moved off her face, she nearly laughed. 'You'r
e a very different sort of man.'

  'There,' he said, laughing.

  'There,' she said, somehow relieved.

  'The Mass rock--we read about it in the journal. Is there a chance of seeing it?'

  'Past the fishing hut and into the wood a half kilometer. You'll have a stone wall to climb over. 't is in a grove, hard by a beech with a limb looking like an elephant's head. You'll see the doleful eye and the long trunk.'

  'I saw the anglers going out.' He had no idea why he was forcing conversation on this stricken woman.

  'The club wanted to sleep in, but the ghillies were paid in advance and so they're off to get their money's worth. As for the men, they invited themselves to tag along with the ladies, they'll be leaving us tomorrow.' Anna gave him a half-smile from the deep.

  He saw movement along the lake path--a man with a camera emerged from the bushes.

  'Garda,' she said. 'They're everywhere.'

  He should go about his business and leave Anna about hers. He was glued to the spot, brainless as any eejit.

  'Da wants you to have use of the Vauxhall--if you'll take the use of it. A terrible old thing, the Vauxhall; still and all, 't is safe enough to take you round to see th' beauty.' She drew off her work gloves. 'We're gormless not to have thought of it before.'