Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I haven’t committed anything to memory in quite a while. You’ve inspired me; I’d like to memorize a poem. Maybe Patrick Kav’na. It would be a souvenir we don’t have to pack, and would last us as long as our wits hold out.’

‘Which we pray will be a very long time,’ she said.

Decked in his butler’s garb, Seamus on his night off from Catharmore was standing in for Bella on her own night off.

‘Fresh peach tart this evening, in a rosemary cornmeal crust…’

Seamus paused for effect.

‘… or Blackberry Semifreddo-ripe blackberries blended with fresh mint, verbena, homemade ricotta, and local sweet cream, frozen in a nest of dark chocolate.’

‘Now, that’s poetry,’ he told his wife.

He remembered being seven years old and working along the creek with Peggy in the blazing Mississippi sun. The handles on their tin buckets creaked; heat shimmered off the water.

Pick a berry, slap a chigger, pick a berry…

‘We gon’ be eat up,’ said Peggy.

‘I’m done eat up.’

‘I’m already eat-en up,’ she corrected in the voice that never sounded like Peggy. When he was old enough to know better, he realized she never corrected herself, not one time, it was always him she was after with the English lesson.

‘You gon’ beat me, you keep pickin’ so fast,’ she said.

‘I ain’t gon’ beat you, ’cause I be eatin’ all I pick after I get to right here.’ He tapped the bucket three-fourths of the way to the top.

‘Peoples say don’ eat while you pickin’. If you does, when you eats yo’ cobbler this evenin’, it won’t taste half as good.’

‘How come?’

‘’cause you done spoiled th’ taste in yo’ mouf out here on th’ creek.’

He looked up and rolled his eyeballs as far back in his head as they would go. That’s what he thought about that dumb notion.

Peggy laughed pretty hard; he liked to make Peggy laugh. ‘You know what you is,’ she said.

He did know. He was th’ aggravatin’est little weasel she ever seen…

‘The peach tart,’ said Cynthia.

‘The thing with blackberries,’ he told Seamus.

‘’t is a grand evening you’ll be havin’ in th’ library with your coffee.’

Cynthia adjusted her glasses and peered at their server. ‘You’re looking quite distinguished, I must say.’

‘’t is th’ candlelight-it softens th’ shine on my butler’s oul’ duds. We’ll bury you in it, Seamus, says Mrs. Conor. Aye, says I, for you’ll outlive me and all th’ rest.’

‘What would you know about the Mass rock?’ he asked. ‘Where is it located? O’Donnell speaks of it in the journal.’

‘You’ll have to ask Anna or Liam. I saw it years ago, but can’t remember whether it’s right or left of th’ lake path.’

When Seamus walked away he saw it coming.

‘Cream. Cheese. Chocolate,’ said his wife, reciting a litany of his offenses.

‘Righto. And mint, verbena, and fresh berries. Six of one, half dozen of the other.’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘Now, Kav’na. Look at all the fish I’m having. Very good for the diabetic. And all the fresh vegetables. Locally grown,’ he said, losing the battle.

The anglers’ table was engrossed in recitation of one sort or another.

Tom raised his glass to the room. ‘May the most we wish for be the least we get.’

‘Hear, hear! Slainte!’

‘Oh, give me grace to catch a fish,’ said Pete, ‘so big that even I, when talkin’ of it afterwards, may have no need to lie.’

‘Slainte!’

‘Slainte here, slainte there,’ said his wife, definitely in the spirit of things.

‘To look for a moment on th’ serious side…’ said Debbie.

‘As if there isn’t enough of that in the world,’ said Hugh.

‘… I have a question-what is work? I mean in th’ true philosophical sense.’

‘The true philosophical sense.’ Hugh looked blank. ‘Beats me. I haven’t hit a lick at a snake in three, maybe four weeks.’

He pitched in his two cents’ worth. ‘According to your man Oscar Wilde, work is the curse of the drinking classes.’

‘The answer is simple,’ said Moira. ‘Work is for people who don’t know how to fish.’

Laughter all around.

Pete raised his glass. ‘No offense to you, Tim. In your callin’, you’re fishin’ twenty-four/seven.’

‘Righto,’ said Hugh. ‘You’re off th’ hook in a manner of speaking.’

‘I’ve got a great idea,’ said Pete. ‘How about we all get together again next year, same time, same station? I’ll bring Roscoe.’

The door from the kitchen swung open-Maureen and Anna, flushed from the heat of the Aga, entered with William, who brought up the rear.

‘Hullo, everyone,’ said Anna. ‘We’re just going in to arrange the chairs. Enjoy your dessert, and please come along when you hear the bell.’

‘Need any help with th’ liftin’?’ asked Pete.

‘We’ve three strong backs for ’t,’ said William. ‘’t is your job to lift th’ fork.’

‘Th’ bane of my days,’ he heard Anna say as the trio walked up the hall. ‘I can do nothing with it this evening, nothing at all.’

And there was William saying, ‘’t is beautiful hair ye got from y’r own mother, Anna Conor. Stop aitin’ y’r face about it.’

At the sound of the bell, they left their tables and trooped to the library, happy to see the small fire poked up and lamps gleaming against the dusk.

Maureen patted a couple of wing chairs angled toward the hearth. ‘Your poor ankle wins th’ prize of th’ front row.’

‘You’re a dote,’ said his wife. ‘Will you sit with us?’

‘Aye, with pleasure, and thank you for your comp’ny.’ Before he could give a hand, she drew a chair from the game table and sat next to him. ‘There’ll be fifteen of us this evenin’-like family.’

‘It’s my guess,’ he said, ‘that you had something to do with our surprise.’

‘Aye. For many years now.’

He found the disorder of her teeth compelling, in a way; her smile was more engaging for it.

Anna had disappeared; Liam and Seamus served coffee.

He nosed the dark, fragrant brew, took a sip-full-bore, precisely the way he liked it. At home he played it safe, drank the eunuch decaf every evening; here, he rolled the dice, and so far had slept like a log. He’d been hooked on coffee from an early age; had searched for decades since for anything remotely similar to what his mother perked in a beat-up pot on the woodstove that stood alongside the electric range. Often with a grind of wild chickory root, it had the heedless taste of the campfire, something of backbone and daring that he could never replicate.

The club took the sofa; the anglers nailed favorite wing chairs; William and Seamus assumed their posts at the checkerboard; Liam sat nearby, distracted.

Anna entered from the stair hall as the mantel clock struck a quarter ’til nine, and stood before them on the hearth. Because he was accustomed to seeing her in clogs and work gear, her frank good looks in a green dress gave him a kind of jolt. He saw in her face the softening that follows earnest confession.

‘With the exception of my departed mother, Roisin, I cannot think of anyone I’d rather share this special evening with. All of you here tonight love life and its many possibilities, just as they say my mother did.’

She spoke slowly, measuring her words. ‘’t is a rare gift you’ll be given this evening-a wondrous thing of heart and mind and soul that we can’t completely understand, for it comes of God alone.

‘Ladies and gentlemen…’ Her voice broke; she lowered her eyes briefly, looked up again. ‘’t is with great honor and joy that I give you… my daughter, Bella Flaherty.’