Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

‘Will she come back and join us?’

‘She gave us all she had just now.’

‘Rev’rend,’ said William, who was dressed to the nines in a sport coat and tie, ‘have an Irish whiskey, ’t will be good f’r ye.’

‘How good for me do you think it might be?’ he asked.

‘’t will give ye a good laugh and a long sleep,’ said the old man.

‘A very attractive benefit, but I’m going to hold off. However-before I go home, William, we’ll have a shot of the Irish together, just you and me.’

‘At Joe Kennedy’s or Broughadoon?’

‘Broughadoon. I’ll challenge you to a game of checkers.’

‘Done, sir,’ said William.

Maureen handed around a tray. ‘If you won’t slake th’ thirst, have a sweet, then.’

‘I’ll pass, and thank you. God’s blessing on you, dear lady, you’ve helped raise a young genius.’

‘She’s not a bad girl a’tall, Rev’rend, not deep down. As for m’self, I was a very bad girl.’

‘I’m not believing that.’

‘You should have seen th’ tricks I was up to with th’ lads hereabout-there was a Daniel, a James, two Roberts, an’ a Paddy-an’ all after marryin’ me. I turned my mother’s hair white as any fleece. A willful scut I was.’

‘I can’t imagine…’

‘Aye, an’ save your tryin’; I’ve done my confessin’ an’ he’s put the all of it as far as th’ east is from th’ west.’

‘What happened to change things?’

‘My oul’ mother prayed for me, and m’ grandmother, to boot.’

‘That’ll do it,’ he said.

‘I lived forty happy years with Tarry, an’ niver a bitter word between us.’

‘Now, Maureen,’ said Anna.

‘Ah, well, one or two is all. So you see, Rev’rend, there’s always hope, for I don’t think I came out too badly, thanks to God in ’is mercy.’

‘Amen,’ he said. ‘You were wonderful tonight. ’

Maureen laughed. ‘’t wasn’t only th’ guests got a surprise out of th’ evenin’.’

He glanced up then and saw Liam, standing by the sepia photographs as if dazed, his face wearing the flat, pasty look. They made eye contact; Liam lifted his hand in a gesture which he didn’t understand.

He excused himself and went to him. ‘What is it?’

Liam grasped his arm; they walked along the hall and into the dining room.

‘The Barret,’ whispered Liam.

But there was no Barret.

Except for the sconces and two empty picture hooks, the wall above the sideboard was bare.

7:15 a.m.

Warm, clear day predicted

Broughadoon

Dear Henry,

Up later than usual-having coffee at our table by the window and taking advantage of the rare quiet moment around this place.

There’s nothing so bad it couldn’t be worse, say the Irish, and turns out they’re right. After the shock and nuisance of the cupboard business, comes the theft of a valuable painting from the dining room while guests and staff gathered in the library, innocent as babes.

Appears to have been lifted off the picture hooks and ferried out the side doors to the garden, with no footprints to be found anywhere on the property (due in part to a considerable amount of pea gravel around the lodge). No tire tracks in the lane leading to the main road. It’s as if the picture, valued at roughly 350,000 in American dollars and largely uninsured, was taken up in the air.

The Gardai (or perhaps it is Garda, I can’t seem to get it straight) swarmed the place. Photos taken-a rogue’s gallery if you ever saw one-four guards, a detective, and a video of all interviews with guests, etc., keeping the lot of us up past one in the morning. I slept so poorly that I rose at the usual time just to have the misery over with, and prayed the Morning Office-you, Peggy, and Sister faithfully in my petitions. Fell asleep in the chair and reduced the deficit by two hours.

C and I haven’t discussed it yet, but I’m all for packing up and getting out of Dodge when W and K, who arrive at eleven this morning, depart tomorrow. They could drive us to Sligo or thereabout and surely we can find a room in a pleasant inn or hotel-I will do some phoning after the breakfast rush clears the kitchen. Another few days and we’ll be done with this most recent Long and Unlovely Confinement.

You and I should learn to fish, Henry, it would give us something to talk about in our dotage. The sport appears to hold its fans in thrall, they can’t get enough of it-they’ve been known to depart this mortal coil promoting fishing with their final breath. All our anglers out this morning at sunrise, ready to go again full throttle.

Have been adopted by yet another dog-this fellow a Jack Russell of the Pudding variety, long in the tooth like the rest of us, but up for anything. He sleeps under or on our bed, depending on circumstances.

We plan to read the southern writers again when we get home-Flannery O’Connor for one, to look at what happened to the great Irish literary tradition as it traveled across the Pond and slipped under our Magnolia Curtain. My guess is that it wasn’t greatly transformed, which is a good thing.

A fine library at my fingertips, yet have cracked only two covers on its many shelves-a journal kept by the builder of the house on the hill above, and an old volume in which I found this observation of the Irish by Edmund Campion, martyred 1581:

‘The people are thus inclined: religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with warres, great almes-givers, surpassing in hospitalitie… They are sharpe-witted, lovers of lerning, capable of any studie whereunto they bend themselves, constant in travaile, adventurous, intractable, kinde-hearted…’

So there you have in a nutshell the Gaelic side of our heritage. Though written in the 16th century, the description isn’t much out of fashion would be my guess.

Never waste a crisis, said Albert Schweitzer (I think it was Al), but what the kind-hearted people here will do with this latest brouhaha is beyond me. I don’t know much, but I do know this: I will never open a lodging for guests, it is 24/7 and hell to pay to make a bit of heaven for other people.

Take care of yourself and do all that the doctors-and Peggy-tell you to do.

Dhia dhuit, my brother,

Timothy

He had glanced at the nearly bare dining room wall and seen the darker rectangle of paint which the Barret protected against fading. He’d chosen to sit with his back to the sideboard while having breakfast and writing the letter, thus hiding from view another sight he didn’t care for: a barricade of yellow tape across the doors to the garden.

He walked to the library, Pud at his heels, dropped the stamped envelope in the box at the sofa, saluted Malone’s hat in the entrance hall, and stepped out to a shaft of birdsong. He stood for a moment, imagining glaciers lumbering through these regions, carving out what they pleased-valleys, coastlines, mountains, lakes, the astonishing Ben Bulben.

Anna was at her flower beds, crouching among the iris with a pruner.

‘Good morning, Anna.’

‘Good morning, Reverend.’ She didn’t look up.

‘Did you rest a little?’

‘A little,’ she said. ‘And you?’ Not looking up. A rooster crowed beyond the beeches.

‘Well enough. Liam?’

‘He’s out with the sheep, the damp has started a bit of foot rot. He likes tending the sheep.’ She turned to him, her eyes red with the little sleep. ‘It takes his mind off things.’

She dropped spent blooms into a trug; there was a close scent of catmint and lavender.

‘I believe Dr. Feeney would be prescribing a real day off for you.’

‘With all due respect to Dr. Feeney,’ she said, ‘he has never managed a guest lodge. One must keep a pleasing front no matter what comes, and be full of smiles into the bargain. There’s always a scrap one can pull from the deep.’