Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

‘Always a scrap, yes.’ Like the rest of the human horde, he had pulled many a scrap and would doubtless pull more. ‘Counting ours, you’ll have had nine frys this morning.’ He didn’t envy her the labor of it.

‘And box lunches for our anglers and ghillies. But I’ve seen the lean days we were building our business, when there were no frys to be made a’tall at Broughadoon. I’ll take th’ nine over the none.’

He wanted to ask if her roses were troubled with black spot and beetles, as were his, but… ‘If there’s anything I can do…’

She stood and handed him a stem of iris, the bloom golden in color. ‘Thank you for hearing me yesterday; ’t is a great gift to be heard. You really listened, and your prayer-I shall always remember it. I felt I was starving unto death, and it fed me.’

He lifted the curved petals to catch a scent he’d favored since childhood. ‘Something from Macbeth came to me in the night-give sorrow words; the grief that doesn’t speak whispers o’er the fraught heart and bids it break. Thank you for trusting me.’

‘I feel sad for Liam, ’t was the truest link to his da, that painting. Such value can’t be appraised nor replaced and the books are small consolation.’

‘Yes.’

‘’t is in a way like losing his father again. And the final blow is that we hadn’t insured it properly. Loss upon loss. We had meant to…’

They were silent then, looking toward the lake.

‘There’s never any privacy, really, in keeping an inn, even when one lies in one’s own bed. Personal life and possessions are so blended into the business, there’s no telling where one stops and the other begins. One is ever in the company of others.’ She looked at him. ‘But it’s what we love, of course, and one pays a price always for what is loved.’

‘Yes.’

‘In the end, the guest sees everything, it’s all so… intimate; I wish we could protect you from that.’

‘A pet occupation of the Enemy is to distance us from intimacy. Such intimacy is a sacrifice for you and Liam, but a gift to us.’

The cloud moved off her face, she nearly laughed. ‘You’re a very different sort of man.’

‘There,’ he said, laughing.

‘There,’ she said, somehow relieved.

‘The Mass rock-we read about it in the journal. Is there a chance of seeing it?’

‘Past the fishing hut and into the wood a half kilometer. You’ll have a stone wall to climb over. ’t is in a grove, hard by a beech with a limb looking like an elephant’s head. You’ll see the doleful eye and the long trunk.’

‘I saw the anglers going out.’ He had no idea why he was forcing conversation on this stricken woman.

‘The club wanted to sleep in, but the ghillies were paid in advance and so they’re off to get their money’s worth. As for the men, they invited themselves to tag along with the ladies, they’ll be leaving us tomorrow.’ Anna gave him a half-smile from the deep.

He saw movement along the lake path-a man with a camera emerged from the bushes.

‘Garda,’ she said. ‘They’re everywhere.’

He should go about his business and leave Anna about hers. He was glued to the spot, brainless as any eejit.

‘Da wants you to have use of the Vauxhall-if you’ll take the use of it. A terrible old thing, the Vauxhall; still and all, ’t is safe enough to take you round to see th’ beauty.’ She drew off her work gloves. ‘We’re gormless not to have thought of it before.’

‘You’re kind. Thank you.’ He didn’t want to say that the anglers weren’t the only ones having their last day. ‘I regret that the uproar took some of the shine off what Bella did for us. It was a great privilege to hear her.’

‘Her day off yesterday was spent practicing, so I’m giving her today. We’re going busking tonight at the Tubbercurry Fair.’

‘Busking.’

‘Playing the old music for whoever walks by or will listen. Setting out the hat. A lot of musicians do it.’

‘How far away?’

‘Thirty-five kilometers. Bella is isolated here, she needs to be among friends, other musicians. She’s after going alone, but I’m going with her. ’t will give us time together.’

‘Always a good thing.’

‘Seamus and Maureen will stand in with Liam at dinner. Seamus has many holiday hours due him by law. He’ll spend a few with us over the next days, though Lady Agnew will not approve.’

‘Lady Agnew.’

‘Sorry. It’s what Paddy calls his mother, after the original painting by Mr. Sargent.’

‘If I know my cousin, he’ll sleep the day away, Cynthia and Katherine are going off to Sligo for hair appointments, and I’ll be no trouble. Perhaps you can get a break.’

There would be no good time to tell her; he should do it now. ‘I haven’t talked with Cynthia about this, Anna, but I think we should…’ He hesitated.

‘Move on?’

‘Yes.’

‘’t is what I would do in your place.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Please don’t be sorry, you’ll get me started on all the apologies you’re owed, and we’ll be at it a fortnight.’

He was wilted cabbage. If he sat on that bench, he would not get up.

‘Would you like your fry now, Reverend? Cynthia says your diabetes…’

‘I would, yes. Thank you.’

She walked toward the kitchen door, leaving her trug among the iris.

‘Anna,’ he said.

She turned. He saw the exhaustion in her face, in the slump of her shoulders.

‘I believe there’s a silver lining in this.’

She made no response and went in.

Why couldn’t he keep his trap shut? He did believe that, but there was no proper solace in him-why did he strive to dredge up the skills of priestly consolation which he’d apparently lost or never had?

He sat on the bench, weighted by all that had happened. And why had it happened, anyway? He’d gone on maybe five vacations in his life. The very word had for decades been foreign to him. There’d been a couple of summers at Walter’s in Oxford, an occasional summer in Pass Christian as a boy, the long-ago trip to England, and of course the initial visit to Broughadoon. That was it, unless his honeymoon counted as a vacation. But why this upheaval in what should be a refreshment? And, Lord, why the ankle business into the bargain? This was, after all, Cynthia’s birthday gift. And what about Anna and Liam, who had most to suffer in this monstrous snare? They were good people…

He realized he was whining; that these were the very questions put to him unceasingly during his years as a priest. Why me? Why her? Why us? Why them? Why now? Why then? Endless.

It was nearly eleven when he woke from a nap and found his wife sitting beneath the open window in her green chair, dressed and reading the journal. He sat up on the side of the bed. ‘I think we should leave tomorrow with Walter and Katherine.’

There was a long silence. His heart beat dully; his legs felt like a couple of pine logs.

‘A terrible thing has happened,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘In the journal, I mean. I saw your bookmark, it’s just ahead.’

‘Don’t tell me.’ He had zero interest in another terrible thing. ‘They offered us the Vauxhall, I could have taken you around a bit, driven you by a castle or two. I hear there’s a car park close to Yeats’s grave, you could have made it over without any trouble.’ She didn’t appear to be listening. ‘Lunch at a pub, even-we might have done that.’

She was staring at the wall above the bed, at the print of sedge warblers in a thicket of reeds.

‘Did you rest?’ he asked.

‘Sort of. Ready to get something done with my hair-I’m tired of standing in the shower on one leg like a heron.’

He left the bed and dressed quickly. ‘Coming down?’