Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

Moira O’Connor, mother of four living & two deceased. May God rest her Soul.

She turned pages, searching passages.

20 September 1860

The people of these Parts take great pride in the building of the House. Caitlin & I recently met a lad down the shore who held his hat over his heart as we passed-twas not ourselves he saluted, but the Irish house that rises in his view.

As we went by Canoe yesterday to O’Leary the Shoemaker, Keegan & I looked up and saw the bold silhouette against the mackerel sky-as Months have passed since I viewed it from such a vantage point I was surprised to find the new Garden walls giving the look of a Fortification. Even in its yet skeletal form, the house appears defensible & mighty on its high prominence & gives the People a sense of being protected by their own. I admit that seeing it thus has warmed me with pleasure.

Though the worst years of Famine have recently passed, we are Haunted yet by the devastation which appears to have no end. Mark this. It is not merely a well-made house by the Lough, but a Proclamation to the Irish people that it is an Irish house built by Irish resolve-on Irish soil sanctified by Irish blood.

May it proclaim that day when our Bonds be thrown off & our people free to govern our Destinies.

‘You’re fading, sweetheart. Get in bed; we’ll do this later.’

He hauled himself up and undressed and did as he was told, eager for the consolation of the pillow. ‘Get in with me,’ he said, patting the blanket.

‘I’m right behind you.’

She sneezed, blew her nose, pulled off her sweater.

‘Very sad to think of those times, though heaven knows, what had passed and what was coming was fearful in the extreme. Anna says Liam read a few pages when Paddy’s work crew found it; it was stashed behind a wall.’

‘It belongs to Catharmore, then?’

‘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.’

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.