Immaculate Heart Read online

  “Sure, isn’t that what you said to Colum the last time he was here? And he did come out again, only not the way you meant!”

  Brona stiffened and withdrew her hand, and for once Leo caught himself right away. “Jaysus, Brona. I’m sorry. I ought not to have said that.”

  “No.” It was rare to see Brona less than perfectly cheerful, so the look on her face stunned me into an embarrassed silence. “No, Leo Canavan, you shouldn’t have.”

  Paudie stepped into damage-control mode. “I think Brona and I had better go down to the canteen for a bite. We forgot our lunch in all the excitement. We’ll see you in a while, Leo, all right?” Brona strode out of the room, and Paudie turned in the doorway and looked to me. “Can we get you anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  I nodded and smiled. Leo tried to laugh, to smooth it over, as his friends took their leave. “They don’t envy you, lad.” He smacked his forehead with his palm. “It’s not me heart that’ll do me in,” he sighed. “It’s me tongue.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “We all say the wrong thing sometimes.”

  Leo gave me a wry look. “Sure, she’ll forgive me once she’s had a bite to eat.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked. “Anything I can get you? Do you want a newspaper or something?”

  “No, thank you, lad. I only read the paper at the bookmaker’s.”

  “Nothing I can do for you at all?”

  “Just sit with me a while,” he said. “Help me take my mind off the divil in me chest.”

  “Sure,” I said. “What would you like to talk about?”

  “There is the one thing I’ve been wantin’ to ask you,” he replied hoarsely. “Tell me, now. Didja ever think about gettin’ married?”

  “In general?” I asked.

  “Aye. Or to anyone in particular.”

  “In the most abstract sense, I guess.” It was my turn to attempt a laugh. “What about you? Brona told me you never married.”

  “Aye, and lived to regret it, which is why I’m askin’ ya now. Don’t go makin’ that mistake.”

  “Which mistake?”

  Leo sighed. “Lookin’ beyond what’s right in front’a ya.”

  I listened to his labored breathing. “And who was right in front of you?” I asked finally.

  “Wouldya like to know, or are you just humorin’ an old man?”

  If I were, I’d never admit it. “Go on, Leo. I really want to know.”

  The old man fiddled with the hem of his sterile white blanket. “Your gran,” he said at last. “I don’t suppose she ever toldya.”

  “Wait … you mean you and my grandmother were … you mean you went out?”

  “We did,” he said, and glanced up at me sheepishly.

  “You old rascal!” I laughed. “I should have guessed, from all the questions you were asking about her.”

  “I wish she’d have come back wit’cha,” he said quietly. “I wish I could see her one last time.”

  “Why didn’t you ever come to the States?”

  “John could go, but how could I go with him? I’d come home from England, and if he’d been to Philadelphia, I’d ask him about your gran till he ran out of patience. ‘You had your chance,’ he’d say. Then we wouldn’t speak of her again till the next time he went.”

  “What happened?”

  “Between the two of us?” He sighed. “We were young, and I was an eejit. She wanted to get married and go to America together, and I kept thinkin’ she’d change her mind.”

  “You wanted to stay?”

  The old man shook his head. “But I was afraid to go. I was afraid we’d land in America and I wouldn’t find a good job and she’d be ashamed of me. Sure, I never made much of myself in England, either, but at least I knew I could come home again.” He looked at me intently. “It’s that feelin’, the feelin’ trapped, that gives a man funny notions of the right thing to do. I loved your gran, but I thought maybe there was someone else I could love even better. Someone who wouldn’t ask me to leave.”

  “I take it you never found her.”

  Leo shook his head. “And your gran got tired of waiting. I never doubted she’d go, but even so, it came as a shock when she told me she was takin’ the train to Cork in the morning. ’Twas the longest night of my life.”

  “But you let her go,” I said.

  He gave me a tortured look. “How could I ask her to stay?”

  It occurred to me then that the man in the hospital bed might have been my grandfather. It was a useless line of thought, and yet it was oddly comforting to think back over how he’d advised me since the night of John’s wake. It felt like so much longer than a week ago.

  Leo squirmed beneath the stark white sheet. “So here’s what I’m tryin’ to say to ya. That lass you left in New York. Maybe you’ll go back to her. Maybe you’ve just let all the shite they sell you in the fillums get in the way of somethin’ true.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She deserves better than what I can give her.”

  Leo shot me a sharp look. I’d never seen him so deadly serious. “And just who is it you’re savin’ yer best for?”

  I sighed. “I wish I knew, Leo.” Síle’s face flashed before me, laughing on the beach, but I couldn’t give in to that. I couldn’t have her.

  The old man shook his head. “That’s the trouble with you young ones.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You shrug and throw up yer hands as if you don’t know.”

  I smiled. “And you used to be one of us.”

  He let out a growl of frustration, then clutched at his chest and cringed. “That’s why I’m tellin’ ya, lad,” he managed to say. “Take it where you can find it.”

  “What’s it?” I asked. “Love? Sex?”

  “All of it,” he sighed. “Just take it. Take it from whoever you can, and know then that you’re among the lucky ones.”

  * * *

  Brona drove us back to her house, and Paudie and I watched the Irish news while she defrosted a container of beef stew. “I’d hoped to make a big lovely meal for your last night in Ballymorris, but some things there can be no planning for,” she said as she ladled out our dinner. None of us felt like going to the pub afterward.

  * * *

  I woke sometime past midnight. I wasn’t alone in the room, and this time I knew it was real. A shadow rose from the armchair in the corner and crept toward where I lay in the bed. I caught a flutter of silk as she came into the light from the window, the gleam of an eye—no, not this time, this time it was real—and her dark hair loose and lustrous over her shoulders. She wore a robe, and nothing else.

  “How did you get here?” I asked. “How did you know where—”

  “Hush,” she answered. “No questions.”

  I cast off the covers and made room for her in the bed, and she settled herself in beside me, the springs protesting beneath our weight. “It would be so easy to fall asleep beside you like this,” she said. “Feeling your pulse against my cheek. Ah,” she sighed. “It’s lovely.”

  With an unsteady hand, I followed her waist down to where the sash was tied, undid the knot, and drew the silk off her shoulder. I ran my fingers up and down along the soft valley between hip and breast, pressing my face into her neck to drink in her scent. “You can’t stay?”

  “They’ll be after me,” she said. “And you’ll be the first person they look to.”

  She was right. “As long as you’re here now,” I said. I pressed my erection against her bottom and she arched and purred like a cat. The moon illuminated the little room, making a jewel of every knickknack on the bureau. From his frame above the mirror, miserable Jesus, bleeding forever from his crown of thorns, looked down at us as if to say, I died for this?

  She turned to face me, and I put my lips to her mouth. It didn’t matter now who came looking for her, I’d never let her out of my sight.

 
“Did you want me, then?” she asked.

  I ran my fingers through her hair, my tongue along the curve of her throat, and when I took a breath I caught the scent from under her arms, ripe and rousing. “Want you … when?”

  “Then,” she said. “That summer.”

  I shuddered. “Jesus, Síle! You were eight years old!”

  “And you were twelve.” At first I couldn’t tell if she was teasing. “We grow up, and we forget just how far back we felt the need.”

  I kissed her again to keep her quiet. I’d known all along that she’d wanted this, but even so, a voice at the back of my head kept saying, This can’t be real, she’s too perfect, it can’t be. How did she get here, she came in barefoot, how did she travel forty miles in nothing but a silk robe? “No more thinking,” she whispered. “Only love.”

  Her robe fell away as she mounted me, and I stared at the vivid green tendrils winding up out of her pubic hair to frame her navel. “So that’s why you wouldn’t show me your tattoo on the beach,” I said, and she laughed. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I ran my fingers up the smooth flesh of her belly to cup her breasts, and as she eased me inside her I was afraid at first that I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. She rocked and moaned, rearing up so that she reminded me of a figurehead on an old sailing ship, and with every stroke she cut through a moonlit sea.

  She looked down, smiled, and bent to kiss me, and I knew then that she was drawing something out of me, something that up till now I’d never been willing to give. I moved my thumb across the place where we were joined, and I watched her eyes roll back as she quaked and cried. Some narrow little part of me wanted to whisper, Síle, not so loud, or they’ll hear you, but the better part knew it didn’t matter. I wanted to hear her shriek like this every night for the rest of our lives.

  I came soon after she did, and afterward we clung to each other in the tangled bedclothes. I licked the curve of her breast and took her nipple in my teeth. I could taste her sweat for hours.

  “What’s your plan?”

  She yawned, and I let go. “You can’t ask me that. I don’t know yet.”

  “I have to ask. I’m driving back to Dublin tomorrow, and I want you to come with me.”

  In the darkness I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was smiling. “I can’t think,” she whispered. “You’ve worn me out.”

  Síle nestled her cheek against my shoulder and laid a hand on my chest. I thought of Tess, and it hit me like a crosstown bus: what if that kiss had been the only kiss? Soft but callused, and smelling of Pond’s.…

  “I told you a lie,” Síle murmured, and I started.

  “What?”

  “When I told you about Mallory living in Seattle—or a city just like it. When I said she has a garden flat and two tabby kittens, Sigmund and Ralph, and a boyfriend called Dave who plays bass guitar in a band, and they go to your grandfather’s house at holidays.”

  It was like she was speaking every other word in a made-up language. “You never told me any of those things.”

  “Still,” she replied. “I told you she was there, but she isn’t. I said it because I wanted it to be true.”

  I kissed her forehead. “You’re dreaming,” I said. “It’s okay. Everything will make sense again in the morning.”

  “If you’re right … if she isn’t real…” She pressed herself into me, as if we could be closer than we already were. “Then it doesn’t matter, sure it doesn’t. We can do anything we like.”

  Everything made sense again, my pieces fitting together in a way they never had before. I fell asleep, satisfied with the promise of another round of lovemaking at first light, Jesus Christ still glowering from his place above the mirror. No one else was watching, and this time I was sure of it.

  11

  NOVEMBER 15

  In the morning I was alone. The room was awash in gray light, the sun as reluctant to shine as ever. I lay in the bed for a long time, feeling her absence so acutely it might’ve been more bearable if she’d never come at all.

  There was no way Mrs. Halloran hadn’t heard the noise Síle had made in the night. I put off breakfast as long as I could—spent a good few minutes poring over the little room hoping for any sign of her, her panties crumpled forgotten on the carpet, or a strand of dark hair on the pillow beside me—but there wasn’t anything to prove she’d ever been here.

  Finally I had to go down, and I braced myself for a talking-to. I pretty much expected the landlady to ask me to leave without breakfast, so I was shocked when she greeted me as brightly as she always had.

  “And how’s our intrepid young reporter this morning?” she asked as she delivered the French press and toast rack. “Did you sleep well?”

  I could hardly get the words out. “I slept great, thanks.”

  “It’s today you’ll be leaving Ballymorris, is it?” Mrs. Halloran replied as she hurried back into the kitchen for my eggs. “Will you miss us, when you’re home again in New York City? I was there once, years ago.” The woman shuddered as she laid down my plate. “Give me the pace of this small-town life any day. Most of the time I can do without all the excitement, and when I feel up to it, I go to Dublin for the weekend.”

  “I will miss it,” I conceded, but apart from that, there seemed to be nothing else to say. I brought the fork to my lips, but I hardly tasted the food. I wondered where Síle was now, and if she’d be able to get in touch with me later in the morning.

  Where had she gone? Why hadn’t she left a note? I found it impossible to believe she’d gone to her parents’ house—they’d only drive her straight back to Ardmeen. I had no idea where she could be, and as I finished my breakfast, I felt a coil of anxiety tightening in my gut. Why hadn’t I found any sign of her?

  I packed my bag and shook hands with Mrs. Halloran, waiting until I was in the car to make the phone call. Dr. Kiely didn’t even begin with a perfunctory hello. “Now,” she said, “it’s my understanding that Síle’s family wishes you to have no further contact with her.”

  “Is she there? I don’t need to speak with her,” I said hurriedly. “I just want to know if she’s there.”

  The doctor didn’t answer right away. “And why wouldn’t Síle be here?”

  “Have you checked?” I asked. “Have you seen her yet this morning?” In that second before the doctor replied, I felt certain that what had happened last night was as real as anything else. Síle would contact me soon, and that evening we’d drive together to Dublin.

  “I have, indeed,” said Dr. Kiely, “and she is just where I expected to find her.”

  Yeah, right. “And where is that?”

  “At her easel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve patients to attend to.” She paused. “I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from attempting to contact Síle in the future. It’s the best thing for everyone involved.”

  The doctor was lying, that much was obvious. I got out of the car and turned the corner for the youth center. Tess was surprised to see me, but she seemed pleased.

  “Síle’s left Ardmeen House,” I said.

  “You sound like that’s a good thing,” Tess replied cautiously. “Did she get in touch with you?”

  I nodded. “She came to the B and B last night.”

  Tess averted her eyes, an automatic reaction. “Ah,” she said, and I thought of everything we’d talked about the day before and everything we hadn’t.

  “But I don’t know where she went. If she gets ahold of you, you’ll tell her how to reach me?”

  “She wouldn’t be likely to come to me. I haven’t spoken with her in years.”

  “She’d be even less likely to talk to her family,” I said. “So will you give her my contact info, if you talk to her?”

  “I’ll tell her,” Tess replied. “But sure, you must be all over the Internet. She’ll have no trouble finding you.”

  I gave her a hug in farewell, and she stood in the doorway and watched me as I walked to
the end of the narrow street.

  After our row Orla stopped coming up to the hill, and Declan’s leaving for Australia today. It’s only me and Tess now, but we haven’t seen Her in days.

  At first I thought Tess was just sad about the others, but today she said she didn’t want to come any more. I asked her why and she said—Whatever it is, it isn’t the Blessed Mother.

  I looked at her and it was like I was waiting for her face to change, waiting for her to turn into someone else, because I couldn’t believe the Tess I knew would say what she’d just said.

  —You’re wrong, I said.—What could make you say a thing like that?

  —It’s how She speaks of everyone else. The pilgrims. Father Dowd. Declan. Orla especially. Our Lady would never say such things, she said.—Never.

  I was afraid to ask but I took a deep breath and went for the truth.—And me? What does She say about me, Tess?

  —She never speaks ill of you, Tess said, and it pricked my heart to hear the resentment she was trying to hide in it.—You’re Her pet.

  —But She doesn’t have favourites, I said.—She’s always said God loves us different but equally. Everyone loved in equal measure, that’s how She said it once.

  —That’s what She says. But She doesn’t mean it. I read something in a book once about having a friend with two faces. That one could be smiling but you’d never know what might be coming out her other mouth. I keep thinking about that story.

  —That isn’t fair, I said.—It isn’t fair to speak of Her like that. We have to trust Her.

  —You don’t understand, Síle. If you heard Her talk that way, you’d see why I’m saying this. But She doesn’t talk to you like that—talking against everyone else—because you’re Her favourite.

  God forgive me, but when she said it that time, that I was the favourite, I wanted very badly to believe it. Everyone wants to think they’ve been chosen, that they’ve been set apart for something grander. But what I said was,—I know you’re upset, Tess, and I’m very sorry for it. But whatever She said about Orla or Declan or Father Dowd, surely it must have been true?

  She sighed.—I suppose it’s all true, in a way. But if an ordinary person said those things you’d say ‘she’s not being kind.’ And who is the Mother of God without kindness?