Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

Liam held the empty tray like a breastplate. ‘I see you’re writing a letter, we’ve stamps.’

‘Thanks, I’ll be using a few.’

‘Do you fish?’

‘Never got the hang of it, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s comin’ on to a grand, soft day. If you need anything at all, there’s a bell on the sideboard. We’re after usin’ bells here.’

‘You may not see my wife until dinner. She’ll be happy enough with the view and the work of one of your good poets. I’ll take her breakfast up, if I may.’

‘The full Irish, you said.’

‘Correct.’

‘I apologize again for the power being off. We usually get quicker service.’ Liam paused. ‘There’s a good deal to apologize for this morning.’

‘It’s quite all right. Really. We’re very happy.’ He poured the steaming coffee into his cup. ‘How do you make blood pudding, anyway? I always wondered.’

‘You begin with a couple liters of blood-’

‘Of course. Sorry I asked.’ He managed a credible laugh.

The Jack Russell sat at the open dining room door, the shoe clenched in his jaws.

‘What’s the little guy’s name?’

‘Pud.’

‘As in pudding?’

‘Just so. Some call them puddin’ dogs. He’s the fourth breed off the early Jack Russell. Shorter legs, longer body. He’s a pest, he is, no manners like the old Labs, but good about stayin’ out of the dining room. Any bother to you?’

‘None at all. We have a dog the size of your sofa.’

‘There’s a law says hostelries can’t have dogs about.’ Liam cleared jam dishes from the fishermen’s table. ‘We’ve always had dogs about. They may haul us to the guillotine for ’t, but they’ll have to catch us first.’

He hammered down on the eggs, sopped bread in the yolks. ‘Was it Irish you were speaking?’

‘’t was. As a child wanderin’ these regions, I heard it often. My mother spoke Irish; my father loved hearing her speak it, except when she was angry; ’t would tear th’ head off a billy goat.’

Liam carried the tray to the kitchen door. ‘Anna is fluent, did a devil of study in it. The last great remnant of our culture, some say.’

‘A very different sound to it, I hope you’ll teach us a phrase or two while we’re here.’

Liam nodded, hesitated, then pushed open the door with his shoulder.

This was the first of only three such breakfasts he would allot himself in Ireland. He savored it to the final crumb.

P. S. I have just had the most satisfactory breakfast since boyhood, when the sausage was new-made in the fall and your mother fried up a panful.

The light is changing over the lake-no pewter now, but platinum tinted with crimson. Something moving out there, I like to think it’s the three fellows who

Liam came into the room, rolling his sleeves down, buttoning the cuffs. ‘I’ll just be goin’ to Riverstown in a bit. Post office, victualler, butcher, that sort of thing. It’s my day off…’

‘Doesn’t sound like a day off.’

‘A day away from th’ oul’ grindstone. I wonder… with no vehicle…’ Liam was tentative. ‘I’d be happy to fetch something for you.’

‘Thank you, very kind, can’t think of anything. ’

‘Would you… be after comin’ with me?’

He was surprised, but pleased. ‘Why, yes. I’d like that.’ Something in the air was released. ‘What time?’

‘I’ll just get your wife’s fry out to you, and we can muddle along in the old Rover in a half hour or so.’

Muddling along in an old Rover was precisely what he’d like to do.

He felt a certain satisfaction toting the tray upstairs. Even as a child, the act of being useful had pleased him.

He balanced the heavy tray along his left arm, turned the knob, eased the door open. ‘Room service,’ he announced, pushing the door shut behind him.

She turned from the window and smiled. She looked happy; it was his favorite of her looks.

He wasn’t surprised to see her in the ancient robe that nobody in their right mind would schlep across the Pond. Chenille. In tatters. Hanging together by threads.

They had been married only a few months when she brought it out of its rightful concealment, and paraded in the thing. He thought it was a joke and roared with laughter-not a good idea. He noticed a spring in her step whenever she wore it; she called it her Darling Robe.

Not that he needed some filmy lace business; no, please, he was an odd duck who thought flannel sexy if his wife wore it, this was another story altogether. Hadn’t Peggy preached him a blizzard of sermons on ‘goin’ ragged’? Hadn’t that been among the worst of sins in those days, to go ragged even if there had been a crucifying Depression and another horrific war and the cotton crops failing?

She was beaming at him. He forgave the robe and set the tray on the footstool by the green chair.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she said.

‘Tell you…?’

‘How beautiful it is here.’ She sat in the chair and pulled the robe about her ankles.

‘I tried. But Ireland requires another language.’

‘I was remembering the trip to Hawaii with my parents, I was nine years old. I wanted to stay inside for long hours. The beauty was so intense and unrelenting, it woke a pain in me.’

‘Let’s don’t be waking any pains here.’

‘I read a poem once-The beauty of the world hath made me sad, This beauty that will pass…’

‘Now, now,’ he said in his pulpit voice.

She looked up, laughing. ‘I think the poem may have been written by an Irishman.’

‘That figures.’ He removed the plate cover with a flourish.

‘How amazing,’ she said. ‘The yolks are the exact color of my favorite crayon in first grade. Thank you, sweetheart.’

‘In the absence of your morning Observer, I bring a report from the outer realms.

‘It’s fairing off to a grand, soft day.

‘The Barret is a beauty.

‘The eggs are laid on-site.

‘The sausage is from a local farm, ditto the butter. And there was a big row in the kitchen.’

‘Who?’

‘Liam and Anna.’

‘About what?’ She thrust down the plunger of the French press.

‘I don’t know. It was all in Irish.’

‘I wish I could have heard it. What does it sound like?’

‘That’s a hard one. Maybe like burning turf smells-strange, powerful, from the gut of prehistory. I understood only one word. Bella.’

‘Italian for beautiful,’ she said, pouring the coffee, ‘and a perfectly good word for this breakfast. I’m in heaven. Which is the blood pudding?’

‘There,’ he said, pointing.

She peered at it. ‘I wonder how it’s made.’

‘First, take two liters of blood.’

She burst into laughter. ‘You can’t scare me.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ he said.

‘What sort of blood?’

‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

‘Do you mind if I stay in the room ’til dinner?’

‘Not at all, I thought you would.’

‘Will you be bereft without me?’

‘Ha! I’ve already received an invitation.’

‘To go fishing?’

‘My dear girl, in a few minutes’ time, I’ll be muddling along in a Rover possibly as old as the megaliths. Off to Riverstown with Liam, back after lunch. Need anything?’

She forked a sausage, waved it in the air. ‘I have it all. Go and be as the butterfly.’

It was their old mantra; he relished hearing it.

In the bathroom mirror, he examined the scruff on his face. Nothing much he could do about it until the power came on. He stood back and ran his hand over the stubble, unable to remember going a day without shaving. Well, maybe once or twice when he had the flu.

He realized he was whistling as he went down the stairs.