Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

‘Saints above, Jack, you’re exaggeratin’ th’ truth.’

‘Th’ truth, William, cannot be exaggerated.’

‘’t is savin’ lives, if you read th’ papers. We’ll live longer to cheat th’ devil.’

Jack laughed. ‘You’ve a point, William, you’ve a point. An’ never let it be said Jack Kennedy has th’ tight fist. Your drinks are on th’ house.’

‘Ye never stood me a drink in me life.’

‘You never came in with a rev’rend before, nor a man havin’ a Diet Coke when he could have himself a pint.’

They were pulling out of the car park when he saw the bicycle moving along the highway at considerable speed. He braked for the bike to pass. Orange pullover, hood up. Rider sitting tall on the seat. Dark glasses. He waited for a time, staring after the southbound cyclist, then pulled onto the highway, confused for a moment about the side of the road he should occupy.

A couple of miles out, it dawned on him that this contraption would fly if you gave it its head. ‘Where’s the speedometer?’ he shouted.

William pointed.

He whistled. ‘Eighty miles an hour?’

‘’t is broke,’ said William. ‘More like forty.’

‘You said your father spoke Latin?’

‘Aye, a bit, and proud of it. My grandfather was a pupil in th’ last of th’ hedge schools where a lad got a proper education in th’ classics. Of course, ’t wasn’t in th’ hedges by then-’t was in a cow barn with th’ stalls mucked out. Many a potato farmer in th’ oul’ days could quote your man Virgil. As a lad, I knew off a line or two, m’self.’

‘Can you recite any of it?’

‘Don’t know as I can, but let me see, now.’ William closed his eyes, bowed his head, thumped his cane in a long meditation. ‘For th’ love of God, ’t is like scourin’ for a needle in a haystack.’

‘Don’t fret yourself,’ he said. ‘I can read Virgil in Broughadoon’s own library.’

‘Here it comes!’ shouted William. He threw his head back, eyes still closed.

‘In th’ dawnin’ spring,’ he orated over the clamor of the engine, ‘when icy streams trickle from snowy mountains, and crumblin’ clod breaks at th’ Zephyr’s touch, even then would I have my bull groan o’er th’ deep-driven plough, and th’ share glisten when rubbed by th’ furrow.’ William looked at him, nodded in triumph.

‘Well done, sir, very well done. The deep-driven plough. The glistening share. Very fine.’

‘An’ that’s th’ end of it. ’t would be squeezin’ water from a stone to give ye another word. Are ye poet-minded, then?’

‘Since I was a boy. I like the old fellows who wandered over hill and dale with their knapsacks. John Clare, Wordsworth, Cowper. My brother’s a poet.’ Speaking of Henry gave him an unexpected rush of pride, something like happiness.

He turned off the highway, into the long lane to Broughadoon.

‘Where does your brother keep ’imself?’

‘Outside Holly Springs, Mississippi. He’s retired from the railroad.’

‘I was after goin’ to America as a lad an’ ridin’ your railroad. I had a mind to see Texas, but too late now.’

‘Can’t do everything, William.’

‘Aye.’

‘Were you at Broughadoon when I was here ten years ago?’

‘Anna says I was off to visit my oul’ brother, John, who passed two years back. I’m th’ last of five, so.’

They were hitting the rain puddles pretty hard.

‘You were saying you met a woman in Collooney. ’

‘Th’ most beautiful woman you could imagine, if you was to imagine a woman.’

William was sullen for a time, gazing ahead.

‘I promised her I’d come back an’ marry her, ’t was what I wanted above all else, an’ she wanted it, too-so she said. But I was makin’ a name for m’self, an’ they were callin’ for me in Dublin an’ Wicklow an’ Waterford an’ all th’ rest.

‘’t was th’ agent after th’ Enniskillen chancer had th’ big dream, said he’d fashion me as th’ modern Gentleman Jim Corbett. So he takes me an’ m’ swelled head an’ we make th’ crossin’ from Dún Laoghaire to Angelsea, an’ board th’ train to London. I was feelin’ royal by then, struttin’ th’ streets in me first pair of dacent shoes and money janglin’ in every pocket.

‘But I should’ve stuck where I was, Rev’rend, for then they ran me up to Scotland for a full two yares, which is where I got th’ lovely nose I’m wearin’ an’ th’ scar on me forehead. Mother of God, th’ Scots were a brutal lot.

‘I was niver much of a drinker, I’d like ye to know. Love of th’ drink is th’ curse of th’ land-makes a man shoot at ’is landlord, an’ makes you miss ’im.

‘Instead of leakin’ me money away, I was savin’ for a cottage-on a hillock proud of a little bogland, where a man might raise a family. I remember I could see it plain as day-a bench by the door an’ a byre to th’ side, and a clock with weights an’ chains.

‘Wherever I was, I would go out in th’ night and look up at th’ great swarm of th’ Milky Way an’ talk to th’ heart of th’ girl in Collooney. Aye, an’ she would talk to me-not in a voice you could hear outright, but I felt th’ sweetness of it in my blood, an’ I’d tell her to wait for William Donavan. Wait for me, lass, I’d say, I’m comin’ back.’

‘And did you get back?’

‘Ah, no, not for seven yares.’ William gave him a fierce look. ‘She was married to another.’

They passed the cow barn with its single blue shutter.

‘I don’t know much, William, but I do know this: Talking to the stars will not get the job done with a woman. I can personally vouch for it.’

William’s face was dark with memory. ‘The oul’ termagant,’ he said.

‘Didn’t know if it was worth mentioning,’ he said, ‘but there you have it.’

‘Tall, you say?’ Liam’s blue eyes had the gray look.

‘Yes.’

‘And thin.’

‘Very.’ Ichabod Crane personified.

‘Riding a black bike.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would there have been a basket at the rear?’

‘There was, actually.’

‘God help us.’

‘Someone you know, then.’

‘Jack Slade. Th’ blaggard I booted off th’ job. He worked up at Paddy’s a few times, that’s how I found him. I had a hunch about him, figured he was using drugs of some sort, but there’s a lot of that in th’ trade.’ Liam rubbed his forehead. ‘I turned a blind eye to ’t because he was a star at th’ coping.’

‘He was wearing sunglasses, if that means anything.’

‘He worked in sunglasses, almost never took them off. I’ll call th’ Garda, see what they think. Which direction was he headed?’

‘South.’

‘He has a place a few kilometers south. Did he see you, look your way? He would have recognized the vehicle.’

‘He may have seen us as he topped the hill, but no, he didn’t turn his head our way. O’Malley’s shirt is still missing, I take it.’

‘We tore the place apart this morning. Nowhere to be found.’

He wouldn’t mention his cell phone yet-he wasn’t absolutely certain he brought it. ‘Any word on the fingerprints?’

‘They said it could be a while-a lot of latent fingerprints from previous guests. I know a detective at the Garda station in Riverstown, a fellow named Corrigan. I’ll give him a call with this.’

‘Another piece of bad news,’ he said, handing over the keys and hating the remorse. ‘I drove too close to the wall and ruined the driver’s-side mirror. I’ll replace it. I’m sorry.’ He couldn’t remember so many regrets being exchanged in such a short span of time.

‘If that was all the bad news to be had around here, I’d be dancin’ at th’ crossroads. How did it go?’