“What do I do?” he asked her at last. “How can I walk away from this responsibility?”
She had smiled at him and pointed to the lighted spire of the monument.
“George set the example, didn’t he?” she said. “His greatness was teaching us by example that principles would guide and protect this nation when the politics of the moment had been long forgotten.”
He remembered the weight that had lifted from his shoulders then, and the ease of making the announcement that shocked the nation and made him an outcast in his own party.
The job was still undone, he reminded himself. There was still no single six-year term. Perhaps living to keep fighting that battle justified turning tail and running. Perhaps not.
But there was one thing that loomed always in his mind, accepted and unquestioned and unquenchable: how empty the world was without her.
I miss you, honey! he thought, almost losing the battle to fight back the tears.
FORTY-ONE
The sun was hanging low in the western sky when Jay Reinhart emerged from Seamus Dunham’s building with the others close behind. He forced himself to be aware of the beauty before him: the diffused red hues of the angled sunlight igniting the glow of reddish masonry, firing the reflective street signs, and forcing the hapless westbound drivers to navigate with hands held tenuously before their eyes. The city was shifting from the lethargy of a lazy afternoon to the energy of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, its people charging about to various purposes with an infectious optimism that seemed wholly undampered by the inherent knowledge that not every human circumstance within Dublin’s fair city was positive. There was to be a grand and lengthy fireworks display after dark at the east end of the city where the River Liffey empties into the bay, and the traffic in the heart of Dublin was already building.
Jay loved sunsets, but there was a limit to what one could enjoy when the thunderheads of circumstance loomed large on the horizon. Yet the ruddy resonance of a city at sunset somehow demanded appreciation, even if it was an item of faith to be stored and valued later in the hoped-for absence of challenge and peril.
The President turned down Garrity’s invitation to watch the fireworks, electing to return to the airport hotel to order a sandwich through room service, while a relieved Matt Ward feigned delight in doing the same thing as he continued his vigil over the man.
Seamus Dunham had a wife and child to attend to, which left Sherry and Jay in the effusively resilient hands of Michael Garrity, for whom the word “no” apparently held little meaning.
“Nonsense!” he had replied heartily when Jay tried to beg off what was increasingly sounding like an impending pub crawl. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow, there’s a local law requiring me to show you some of Dublin, and I shan’t be cited for contempt of tourism.”
“Really, Michael, I appreciate it but…”
“I’ll hear no objections,” he roared, “and that goes for you, too, young lady!” he said, nodding to Sherry.
The protests were obviously in vain, so they had reluctantly agreed to a quick swing around the city, with a quick bite at one of Michael’s favorite watering holes.
But that was all, Jay had cautioned. Neither of them was in a celebratory mood.
Michael Garrity’s car proved to be a trial in itself. The car was an expensive model, but too small for Jay to be comfortable in front or back, so he tried to be gallant and take the rear seat. But he ended up sitting sideways, his legs too long to fit in the miniature space behind the front seat, even when Sherry moved the front passenger seat fully forward.
She insisted on switching at their first stop and he agreed, reluctantly. Michael stopped the car and Sherry relocated, catching Jay’s appreciative eyes before he slid into the front seat. Michael accelerated away again with the verve of a Mario Andretti blowing the pace car off the track.
“Do you folks always drive like this?” Jay managed after a close encounter with a passing truck had raised his heart rate.
“Like what, Jay?” Michael asked with complete innocence, prompting Jay to drop the subject.
The Four Courts was a required stop on any tour, though the front doors were closed. “You’ll be seeing enough of it tomorrow,” Michael intoned, as if the prospect was joyous instead of ominous. He catapulted the car into motion again for a high-speed pass at Trinity College, Dublin Castle, and O’Connell Street, “named for the patriot, not our bloody judge,” he said, negotiating another turn at several times the force of gravity, by Jay’s calculation.
“Now, see that bronze statue there?” he asked, wagging an index finger a dangerous distance out of the driver’s window as he whizzed past the oversized figure of a comely mermaid sans clothing, lying blissfully in a cascading fountain.
“Most Dubliners won’t show visitors the touristy sights like this, but I think they’re a part of our culture. That’s supposed to be the goddess of the Liffey, Dublin’s central river, or somesuch nonsense. I can never remember the full story. We just call her the ‘Floozy in the Jacuzzi.’ ”
He reversed course with the subtlety of a fighter pilot pulling 7 G’s and shot south toward the center of the city again, diverting to the right along the south bank of the river and rocketing past a railway station with his arm and index finger once again waving in the breeze.
“That would be more or less a Mecca for us Dubliners,” he said, pointing to the Guinness brewery. “They don’t give tours of the main brewery anymore,” he said sadly, “but they’ll still give you a taste for free at their little store. And you know, it really does taste better right near the gates of the place than anywhere else on earth.”
“I’ve heard that,” Jay managed, holding onto the armrest with a death grip as he looked back to see Sherry doing the same, her eyes one dimension wider than normal.
“Well, it’s true. I’ve had that elixir just about everywhere, and I swear you could navigate back to Dublin by following the trail of the ever-sweeter pints.”
Michael turned for a moment to make sure they’d been listening.
“Is it true, Michael,” Jay asked in response, “that they used to run ads alleging Guinness was as good as a medicine?”
Michael turned to grin at him. “What do you mean ‘alleging,’ my boy? It is good for you. Doctors here in Ireland even prescribe it for lactating mothers.”
“What,” Sherry laughed, “feed your newborn a pint a day?”
“No, no, Sherry. Feed yourself a pint a day and you’ll give better milk.”
“Only in Ireland,” she laughed.
They zoomed into a garage west of the Temple Bar district and Jay unfolded himself from the front and helped Sherry from the back before following Michael to a pub called the Brazer Head, across the Liffey from the Four Courts. Smoky, loud, and small inside, the pub was filled with members of the legal profession. Michael turned before pushing open the door and proclaimed it one of the oldest pubs in Dublin and the alternate “library” for Dublin’s barristers. “This old establishment has been plying its trade since the seventeenth century,” he said.
“Library?”
“Oh, I didn’t mention the Library before, did I? Our office at the Four Courts is really the main law library. I’ll show you tomorrow. It’s very historic. Only barristers are allowed inside, and you can stand outside and look in, watching us trying to keep our wigs on as the solicitors call for us at the front desk.”
They found a small table toward the back, and Michael ordered a round of Guinness Stout, proclaiming it the national drink as the three pints arrived bearing perfect heads of tan foam.