‘Anna says Paddy had no patience for it and turned it over to Liam for the library. She’s never read it, the ink is too faded. Of course, the doctor’s handwriting isn’t the best, either, but now that I’ve got the hang of it, it’s flying along.’
She stepped out of her jeans. ‘What does his house look like, Timothy? Is it beautiful?’
He heard the hope in her voice.
She slipped in beside him, and he turned to her and touched her cheek.
‘In its own way,’ he said. ‘In its own way.’
Six
Dinner progressed with several toasts to the anglers’ skill and good fortune. Slainte, meaning good health and pronounced slawn-cha, sounded in the room more than a few times.
‘By the way,’ Cynthia said to Bella Flaherty, who was taking dessert orders, ‘who cleaned all those fish? I cleaned a fish once, it was a terrible job.’
‘I cleaned the fish. Fileted them as well. ’t is nothing. There are two desserts this evening: Moroccan figs poached in a syrup of ginger and honey, with Anna’s lemon verbena ice cream-’
‘I love figs,’ said Cynthia. ‘I’ll have the figs, thank you.’
‘You haven’t heard the option.’
He liked it when his wife raised one eyebrow.
‘Anna’s rhubarb tart with raspberry purée and crème fraîche.’
‘I’ll have the figs,’ said Cynthia.
While he’d lodged here with Walter and Katherine, Anna had sent them off on a day trip with a rhubarb tart, still warm in its swaddle of white napkin. The fragrance of brandied fruit and baked crust had filled the car, touching him with a grave longing for something he couldn’t name.
They’d driven as far as the highway when Katherine braked the car, turned to the backseat, and snatched up the basket which rode next to him. No one spoke as she unwrapped the tart, broke it into three pieces, passed out their portions, ate her own in roughly two enormous bites, wiped her mouth on the hem of her skirt, and declared: ‘There. That’s the way I want to live for the rest of my life.’
Hooting with laughter, they were truant children on the run from authority.
Speaking above the throb of the generator, he gave Bella his order. ‘I’ll have the tart, please.’ Then, hopeful, ‘Is it served warm?’
She looked at him with hooded eyes. ‘Anna’s tarts are always served warm.’
The kitchen door swung shut. ‘Who does Bella remind you of?’
‘I was just thinking that,’ he said. The thrown-away boy at age eleven, when he landed on the doorstep of the rectory-their adopted son, Dooley.
In the library before dinner, he and Cynthia had exchanged introductions with the Atlanta contingent, who were seated now at the next table.
‘We hear you’re a travel club,’ said his wife.
‘We started as a book club,’ said Moira. ‘But we never got around to discussin’ books.’
‘We drank wine and talked about men,’ said Debbie.
Laughter at the club table.
‘I still cannot believe,’ said Lisa, ‘that I took th’ trouble to read War and Peace cover to cover, even the epilogue, and never once got a chance to discuss it.’
‘That’s when I was havin’ work done,’ said Moira. ‘I did not feel like readin’ a book that weighed more than my firstborn.’
‘So, anyway,’ said Lisa, ‘we switched over to a poker club, with all winnings goin’ to charity.’
‘Great idea,’ he said.
‘We played every other Wednesday night, and everybody brought a covered dish.’
‘It was just way too much,’ said Tammy, ‘to, you know, every other Wednesday come up with a new dish.’
‘Takeout,’ said Cynthia.
Debbie lifted her glass to Moira. ‘So Moira reorganized us as a travel club, she is very good at travel plannin’.’
‘We’ve been friends for forty years,’ said Tammy. ‘We met in a Scrabble club. We’re crazy about Scrabble.’
He noticed Tammy wore bracelets which did a good bit of jangling.
‘So, y’all like to fish?’ asked Pete.
‘All our husbands trout-fished,’ said Lisa. ‘We never did, we were too busy raisin’ kids. While Johnny could still talk, it was throat cancer, he said, Lisa, honey, learn to trout-fish.’
‘Good advice,’ said Pete.
‘He said it was great for th’ central nervous system.’
Tammy put on a swipe of lipstick without looking in a mirror. ‘Moira’s husband, bless ’is heart, had fishin’ on th’ brain ’til th’ minute he passed.’
‘Check out Lough Arrow, he said, plain as day.’ Moira dabbed her eyes with her napkin. ‘Those were practically his last words.’
‘His last words,’ Pete said, reverent.
‘His parents brought him here as a boy and he came twice after college. We had fishin’ husbands in common, for sure.’
‘Had,’ said Pete.
‘We’re all widows,’ said Lisa.
‘Sorry,’ said Pete.
‘Right,’ said Tom. ‘Real sorry.’
Hugh nodded, respectful.
‘Another thing we have in common,’ said Lisa, ‘is… guess what.’
‘They’ll never guess,’ said Debbie.
‘You’re all Irish,’ said Cynthia.
Debbie shrieked. ‘How did you know?’
‘A hunch.’
‘Third generation,’ said Moira. ‘County Tyrone.’
‘Fifth generation,’ said Debbie. ‘County Mayo.’
‘Maybe fourth, maybe Sligo,’ said Lisa. ‘I’m not totally sure.’
Tammy sighed. ‘I have no clue, but my great-grandmother was named O’Leary-not th’ one with th’ cow.’
Hugh raised his glass. ‘Limerick. Fourth generation.’
Tom raised his. ‘Sligo. Third.’
‘All my connections are pretty much Sligo,’ said Pete, ‘except for a crowd on my mother’s side that moved up to Tyrone. Okay, here’s one for you. What’s th’ connection between us lads that has nothin’ to do with fishin’?’
‘You’re all losin’ your hair?’ asked Debbie.
‘Cousins!’ Cynthia and Moira chorused.
‘Slainte!’ said Pete.
There ensued a discussion of emigration dates, the sprawl of kin over counties and continents, the Kavanagh bloodline, fife-playing in general.
‘I’m wonderin’ why y’all turned up here,’ said Pete. ‘Out in th’ sticks an’ all.’
‘We took the advice of a dyin’ man,’ said Tammy. ‘Googled World’s Best Trout Fishin’, then Googled Lough Arrow and found Broughadoon. Liam and Anna were great to work with, and ta-da’-Tammy’s bracelets jangled-‘here we are.’
‘Ready to fish like maniacs,’ said Debbie.
Pete turned his chair to face the club table. ‘Where do you fish back home? New England? Colorado? Montana?’
Moira looked Pete in the eye. ‘Th’ country club lake.’
‘Catch a lot of golf balls that way,’ said Hugh.
Dessert was served amid a bombast of lectures by the anglers-Spent-gnat, Sooty Olive, Connemara Black, Invicta, Green Peter, feeder streams, buzzer hatches, Bibio, murroughs…
‘What are they talking about?’ whispered Cynthia.
‘We don’t need to know,’ he said.
‘So,’ Pete inquired of the club table, ‘how about some help with your gear in the morning?’
‘We have ghillies coming, thank you.’
‘Well, then, ladies’-Pete hoisted his glass-‘may it be yourselves bringin’ home our dinner tomorrow evenin’. We’ll just be sleepin’ in, if you don’t mind.’
Laughter at the fishermen’s table.
‘By the way,’ said Tom, ‘when we registered our catch in the fishing log, we saw Tim Kavanagh’s name, but no record of your catch.’
‘Fishing log?’
‘The fishing log by the dining room door. What was it, now, a fifteen-pound salmon?’
He felt the heat in his face. ‘Good Lord! I thought I was signing the guest register.’
Laughter all around; he was laughing himself.
‘Reverend,’ said Liam, ‘may I speak with you a moment?’
‘Of course.’
‘Excuse us, Mrs. Kav’na. Only a moment.’