“All right.”
“Ellen...”
“There are people around.”
“Do you care?”
“I should, shouldn’t I?” She looked at him, then let her eyelids drop shut. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t care.”
He kissed her. She snuggled up close to him and let her arms slide around his neck. He was so tall, she thought, and so strong, and his mouth was on hers and his arms around her and...
“I’d better go.”
“If you don’t go now I won’t want to let you go at all.”
“And I won’t want to. Oh, David...”
He kissed her gently, then released her. “Tomorrow morning, after breakfast. Good night, Ellen.”
“Good night.”
He loves me, she thought, floating deliriously up the stairs. I love him and he loves me. She wanted to burst into song, wanted to shout her news from the rooftops.
I won’t be able to sleep, she thought, slipping out of her clothes and into her bed. I won’t be able to sleep, because I am in love and the thought will keep me awake all night and...
She closed her eyes and slept like a lamb.
Nine
When she awoke the sunlight was streaming in through her window. She blinked at it and rubbed sleep from her eyes. The sky was cloudless, the day ideal for the beach. She dressed quickly and went downstairs for breakfast, sharing a table with Sara Trevelyan.
The Cornish schoolteacher was filled with plans of her own. There was a shop in town where bicycles could be rented, she told Ellen, and she intended to hire a cycle for the day and cycle north and west, exploring the remnants of prehistoric Ireland, the old earthen forts that stood as relics of ages long past.
“And I do want to see this,” she said, passing her guidebook to Ellen. “Gallarus Oratory. One of the most perfect and best preserved early-Christian church buildings in Ireland, unless this booklet is telling me lies. See how perfectly shaped it is? Like a boat turned topside-down. And there’s not a drop of mortar holding those stones in place, or so says the book. ‘Carefully fitted together and completely watertight after more than a thousand years.’ Can you imagine that?”
“It sounds remarkable.”
“I’d like to see it.” The older woman smiled. “I don’t suppose you’d care to keep an old lady company, would you?”
“Oh...”
“It might be a pleasant trip for two. And it doesn’t look as though it’s about to rain, although I certainly don’t trust this country in that respect. Do you like to cycle?”
“I haven’t in years. I’d love to go, but—”
“You have other plans.”
She nodded. “A young man I met in Dublin. He turned up in Dingle last night. It was quite unexpected. He asked me to go to the beach with him today.”
“How grand! I’m sure that will be more enjoyable than a trip through the countryside with an old lady who talks too much. An Irish boy?”
“American.”
“Ah. And he chased all across the country after you, did he? I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourselves. I’d ask you to bring back a few pretty shells for me, but I suspect you’ll have better things on your mind. Oh, you’re blushing! Quite becoming, I assure you. I didn’t know young ladies blushed in this modern age. I’m happy to see that they still do. I hope your young gentleman is worthy of you, Ellen.”
A few tables away, the Koenigs were methodically working their way through a breakfast of eggs and sausages. The doctor’s wife was a plump woman with dyed blond hair and a vacant, faintly bovine expression. The two children, both boys, showed no great resemblance to either parent. They were ten or twelve years old, Ellen guessed, and she wondered if children that age were capable of appreciating the greater delights of foreign travel. At the moment they seemed totally preoccupied with their food.
She wondered again where she might have seen Koenig. He did look familiar, there was no getting around it. Probably, as he had suggested, she had passed him in the street once in New York or Philadelphia. And yet she couldn’t avoid the feeling that she had seen him more recently than that, in Tralee or Dublin...
She finished her breakfast, then went outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for David. He appeared just a few minutes after ten, a large paper sack in one hand, a blanket folded over his arm.
“A glorious day,” he announced. “The beach beckons.”
“It does indeed.”
“I hope you like ham sandwiches.”
“I’m mad for ham sandwiches.”
“And I had them fill a Thermos bottle with coffee. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a Thermos bottle in Dingle. They seem to call them something else here, and storekeepers gave me the blankest of stares. So I had to explain just what it was that I wanted. Something to keep coffee hot, I said. One man presented me with a portable gas stove. Communication became impossible. I persisted. At last I triumphed. See what I go through for your sake, sweet Ellen?”
“You’re a wonderful madman.”
“I’m David the Rambler from Clare. I’m Kelly the Boy from Kilann. I’m taking a beautiful young lady to the beach. Ready?”
“Ready when you are, C. B.”
“Onward!”
She sat on the blanket, her knees tucked beneath her. David was at the water’s edge, his arm curved to send a flat stone skipping over the surface of the sea. He turned and walked to join her.
“Overcast already,” he said. “I think it’s going to rain.”
“It does look that way.”
“At least we had a few hours of sunshine. Is there any of that coffee left?”
She poured him a cup. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Yes.”
“I love the shore. There’s something positively hypnotic about the waves rolling in. Like a campfire. I can sit and stare at a campfire for hours and never say a word. David?”
“What?”
“I was thinking.”
“Will a penny buy your thoughts this time?”
“You can have them free of charge. I was thinking that I don’t really have to go to Berlin.” He looked at her, puzzled, and she averted her eyes and rushed on. “It’s not really a very important festival,” she said. “It’s an honor to be chosen, and I don’t suppose the State Department would be elated if I failed to show up, but they’d barely miss me. I don’t have a very important part in the proceedings. They could get along without me.”
“But I thought you were so excited about it...”
“I was.” She fumbled for a cigarette, and he scratched a match, cupping his hands to shield the flame from the wind. She drew on the cigarette, hoping she could find the right words, hoping she would not sound forward to him. “I was very excited about Berlin,” she said. “But since then I’ve had enough folk music to last me awhile. I don’t think I’m up to the rush and bustle of another festival. It would be a whole new country to get used to, and tons of people, and no sleep and all that singing, and I don’t really feel equal to it.”
“What would you do? Go back to New York?”
“No.”
“Then...”
She took a deep breath. “I thought I might ...oh, I thought maybe I could come to Connemara with you.” She paused, and the silence was overpowering. “There’s just no way to say this without sounding dreadful, is there? I don’t want to leave Ireland. I’m enjoying myself too much. And I’d love to see Connemara. The things you’ve told me about the area make it sound magnificent. Maybe I could even learn Irish myself. I know I’d be able to pick up an enormous amount of Gaelic music. I could buy more tape and come back with some really exciting material. Stuff no one’s even touched so far. And...”