Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

He made another feckless go at shoeing his right foot. ‘Always looks that way.’ His earlier foray here had earned him rights to play the old head. ‘Never happens.’

Aengus gave him a shout. ‘I’ve been thinkin’, Rev’rend.’

‘What’s that?’

‘There’s seven or eight them Kav’na families in Easkey.’

‘Good. Wonderful.’

She foraged in her handbag, which did double duty as mobile library and snack hamper. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Eat this. It’s been four hours.’

Raisins. He ate a handful with a kind of simple shame, recalling chocolate with macadamias.

She leaned close, her breath warm in his ear. ‘Do you think he does this for a living? He isn’t wearing a uniform or anything.’

‘Ask him,’ he said. He was sick of yelling.

She unbuckled her seat belt and leaned forward to the hat. ‘Mr. Malone, do you do this for a living?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Drive tourists. Is it what you do… all the time?’

‘’t is the only time. ’t is m’ brother’s oul’ clunker. I mow verges for th’ Council at Sligo.’

She sat back and rebuckled. ‘He mows verges,’ she said, looking straight ahead. ‘It’s the only time he’s done this.’

There was no point in pursuing that line of thought. ‘The sides of the road where weeds grow,’ he said, in case she didn’t know from verges.

Rain drummed the roof. The fan in the dash spewed air smelling of aftershave. They moved at a crawl.

‘Mother of God!’ shouted Aengus.

The sudden slam of brakes jolted them forward. A blinding light… on top of them. His heart pounded into his throat.

Aengus flashed the Volvo’s high beams, scraped the gears in reverse, and squinted into the rearview mirror.

‘Bloody lorry,’ he snapped. ‘We’ll be backin’ up.’

The walls ended; the rain slackened; parting clouds liberated scraps of pale light. The hedges now were merely tumbled stones and August bloom twined with ivy, foxglove, scarlet creeper.

Aengus Malone had learned a certain dexterity on his mower; his skill at locating and backing into the previously overlooked pull-off had been brilliant. The lorry driver had given three blasts of his horn as a thumbs-up.

‘That was some scrape you bailed us out of,’ he said to Aengus. ‘Well done.’

‘It’s m’ lucky hat that done it.’ Aengus reached up and patted the thing. ‘Me oul’ mum give it to me.’

‘If it weren’t so dark,’ said Cynthia, ‘we might see a rainbow.’

‘There’s some as see rainbows at night, but those would be fairies.’

‘You believe in fairies?’

‘Ah, no, not a bit. But they’re there noneth’less.’

‘You’ve never seen one, then?’

‘If it’s fairies ye’re after, they’re said to be very numerous in Mayo.’

On a slope in a grove of ancient beeches, the dusky, formless shape of the lodge appeared, its windows luminous against a starless night.

His wife drew in her breath.

Broughadoon.

‘That would be candles burnin’,’ said Aengus. The Volvo rattled over a cattle grate. ‘Looks like th’ rain’s shut down your power.’

‘Stop,’ said Cynthia. ‘Please.’

Aengus braked; the motor idled.

‘It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.’

She sat for a moment, bound in one of her spells, then opened the door. A pure and solemn air spilled in; his right foot slipped into his loafer.

She got out of the car and stood looking along the slope to the fishing lodge, at fog drifting among the cloistered beeches. ‘Listen,’ she said.

They listened.

‘Nothin’ much t’ hear,’ said Aengus.

Rain dripped from the shadowed trees, pattered on the roof of the car; a breeze stirred.

He watched as she got back in the car and closed the door and looked at him and smiled. Then she leaned to him and kissed him. Her faint scent of wisteria mingled with the Sligo air. He had never been so happy in his life.

As they drew up to the lodge, figures appeared on the stoop, silhouetted against the light from the open front door. Three barking dogs bounded onto the gravel and squared off with the Volvo.

There was a considerable shaking of hands with innkeepers Liam and Anna Conor, as the dogs ganged a-glee about their feet-two Labradors, and a Jack Russell dancing on its hind legs.

Anna, the striking-looking woman he’d known a decade earlier, gave him a hand-wringing that jimmied his teeth. He admired all over again her tousle of copper-colored hair and, without meaning to, blurted the sentiment aloud.

They were joined by a white-haired old man wearing a tie and cardigan and brandishing a walking stick. In the gabble of greetings, he decried their weather as ‘foul and infernal.’

Somewhere, thanks be to God, something was cooking. ‘Lamb,’ he said to his wife. He could devour a table leg.

He recognized the feeling he experienced on his wedding day nearly eight years ago-as if he’d lost the proper sense of things and stepped outside his body. He was a cannonball fired directly from the quiet desperation of a hired car into a domestic muddle of energy and good cheer.

They were herded through an entrance hall, its walls fairly crammed with fish mounted in glass cases, and into a sitting room lit by candles and an open fire. A half-finished jigsaw puzzle was spread on a table among a loose aggregation of sofas and wing chairs.

He felt at once the keen pleasure of the room: its book-lined walls and good pictures, the impression of ease.

In a corner, three men murmured over a card game by the light of a candle. A distinguished-looking fellow sat reading a newspaper by the firelight and stroking his white mustache; upon seeing them, he stood at once and buttoned his jacket.

‘Heads up, gentlemen…’ Anna lifted a small bell from the sofa table and pealed it. ‘Reverend Timothy Kav’na and Mrs. Kav’na of North Carolina, meet our anglers-Tom Snyder of Toronto, Hugh Finnegan of Maryland, and there’s Pete O’Malley. Pete’s a Dub who lived many years in Texas.’

‘O’Malley here.’ O’Malley stood, saluted. ‘Welcome.’ The other two pushed back their chairs, stood, raised a hand.

‘They’re with us every August since 1997,’ said Anna. ‘They’re after catching our dinner tomorrow.’

He gave the trio a thumbs-up. ‘Go, Terps,’ he said to Hugh Finnegan.

‘And there’s Seamus Doyle from up the hill at Catharmore, who visits most evenings with the Labs. Seamus is our master of assorted entertainments, chiefly checkers and jigsaw puzzles.’

Seamus of the white mustache crossed to them for another round of hand-shaking. ‘How long will you be in Ireland, Reverend?’

‘A couple of weeks.’

‘They say a couple of weeks makes a habit.’

‘We wouldn’t be against it. Not a bit.’

‘I spent a lot of years in the States. Always good to see someone from the oul’ country, as I call it.’

He surveyed the room and those in it-a whole universe of life and pluck at the end of a narrow road in the middle of nowhere.

Somehow, the two three-suiters, the umbrella, and the glasses case he’d left on the backseat got toted in by Liam. Then came Aengus, tailed by the two Labs, schlepping the carton of books, their carry-ons, a flashlight, and the box of raisins. Off they went across a sitting room carpet worn to the lining, and along a hall, where the lot of them vanished into the gloom. A young woman with a nose ring and cheek tattoo offered hot towels; the Jack Russell sat at his feet, looking up, a chewed shoe clenched in its jaws.

It was all a dazzle. After years of talking, planning, and idle speculation, they were here. He wanted to sprawl before the open fire like a lizard and lose consciousness.