Forbidden Fruit (50 page)

He grabbed both my hands and kissed me. “Sit down, please. So good, so good —”

How effortlessly we made the long leap over the years. Sitting opposite one another, smiling broadly all the while, we just
looked at each other for a long time, shaking our heads, biting our lips, trying to clear our eyes.

Then, as if jerking out of a dream, he began to talk about my home in Kinsale and what it was worth. Afterward, we moved on
to Peter’s education. I was so engrossed in Eamonn that I had forgotten about Jim and the camcorder until he appeared over
Eamonn’s shoulder in my line of vision. He was buzzing around us like a bumblebee.

I tried scratching my face as a signal to make him back off.

Eamonn said, “What’s the matter?”

“Just tired. I work really hard at two jobs.”

Jim came still nearer to pick up the sound and I started coughing to stop myself from laughing aloud.

Eamonn said, “You sure you’re not allergic to something?”

I shook my head.

He finally confessed that any attempt on his part to sell my Kinsale house would leave a dynamite trail back to him. What
he did offer out of the blue was three thousand dollars a year toward Peter’s university education.

“It’ll cost almost ten thousand dollars,” I said, “but I can manage.”

“It’ll be tough on me, Annie, but I think that for one year —”

“Please,” I interrupted him. “You drive a BMW that cost seventy thousand pounds and you live on Taylor’s Hill, in the richest
part of Galway, with a beautiful view of Galway Bay. But thanks.”

His cousin, Jacky O’Brien, a retired priest in New Jersey, kept Mary well informed.

With Jim still dive-bombing us, I could not concentrate. Fortunately, at this point he withdrew to get a long shot.

Only now did I realize that as far as Eamonn was concerned, this was not just a social meeting. He had turned warm toward
me. It made me feel wanted, really wanted for the first time in years. I dreaded the thought of our just shaking hands or
kissing on the cheek and saying good-bye.

I suggested we go to the bar.

“Fine by me, Annie. I fancy a beer, what’ll you have?”

“Seven Up.”

“Come on,” he urged, “this is a special occasion.”

“I’ve been in AA for years, Eamonn. You know what booze does to me.”

“One glass of wine for old time’s sake. You’re with me, you’ll be fine.”

With that, he ordered for both of us.

One sip of that wine and it hit me like a brick on the temple. I downed the glass and called for another just as Jim came
into the bar in search of us. Already a little high, I lifted my hair up and with my fingers gave him the sign to go away.
At the entrance to the bar I could hear Peter’s quivery laugh, so like his father’s. He was behind a plant, having a Coke.

“ ’Tis awful queer what you are doing with your hair,” Eamonn said, getting edgy.

As Jim went away to get a shot from above, Peter came out from behind the plant and waved to me. I could have thrashed him.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you, Annie,” Eamonn said. “One night, some while back, an operator was trying to get me from the
States on your behalf.”

“That,” I said, “was the time I had an abortion.”

“An
abor
tion?”

“Now don’t you get on your moral high-horse.”

“Did I say a word?” he said.

“It was wrong of me to get careless, but once I got pregnant I had no choice—we both would have died.”

He murmured something about medical necessity.

“Read me the riot act and… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He laughed. “Pet, you will cause a scene here. You have not changed one bit.”

“Are you sorry?”

He shook his head.

“See how important birth control is?”

He laughed again. “No change, none.”

He took my hand and held it while he asked about my mother. When, after a while, I turned the conversation to Peter and his
plans for the future, Eamonn was not interested.

“Did you ever think, Eamonn, that by avoiding Peter you might be digging your own grave?”

“He would not be vindictive.”

“Don’t count on it. If it comes to a showdown, remember, I go with my son. He is always first and last with me.”

When he offered me another glass of wine, I accepted because I did not want him to leave me.

“Not too fast, Annie, you must not get drunk on me.”

“I’m okay,” I said, feeling instantly unwell.

“Over the years, I really missed you.”

With that, he grabbed me and kissed me passionately. He wanted me to know he had come for me, not for Peter.

I was as surprised at that as at our very first kiss and told him so.

“Why, Annie? You think my feelings have changed?”

I nodded slowly. “I thought they were dead long ago.”

“No, no, no.”

I drained my glass. “Maybe they’ve revived for tonight.”

His face creased in a smile. “No doubt about it.”

I took his smile away by asking, “Why’d you tell Arthur I was a whore?”

His head jerked back. “1 never did.”

“Didn’t you deny you were the father and say it could be one of many men?”

He nodded. “I suppose.”

“And you refused to see Peter.”

“I saw him last year.”

“Because it was sprung on you. Even so, you only gave him four minutes of your precious time.” I drew back at this point.
I did not want to antagonize him, because in his presence long-repressed feelings in me surfaced all over again.

“Annie,” he said, echoing my thoughts, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Why don’t we spend the night together talking? One night in sixteen years.”

Shrugging: “I don’t know.”

“You’ll be safe, my estrogen count is way down.”

“ ‘Tis not
you
I’m thinking of,” he retorted.

W
ITH THE NIGHT ADVANCING, Eamonn grabbed me and held me tight and rubbed my face fondly. I was half gone with a mixture of
drink and love; his gentle hands, his tender voice, made me feel sad and lonely. I said, “I may never see you again. Next
time we meet we’ll both be dead.” Tearfully, I repeated, “We should talk the night away.”

“But where could we stay, Annie?”

I went and inquired at the front desk before running to tell him they could give us a room for $180. I delightedly took his
wallet out of his pocket and plucked out his Visa card.

He was horrified. “I’m already booked into somewhere else. The diocese pays for me. How could I explain I was in two expensive
hotels on the same night?”

“Fine,” I said, giving him back his card, “I’ll stay with you at your hotel.”

“But security is very strict there and they know I’m Bishop Casey. I’d be destroyed.”

“Think about it,” I said, “while I go to the ladies’.” I descended the stairs just as Jim was coming up. He accompanied me
down and when I went into the ladies’ room, he and Peter followed me in.

Jim said, “You’re not staying with
him
tonight?”

“I don’t care a damn what you think of me,” I said. “If I make passionate love to him all night that’s
my
business.”

Peter grabbed me by the shoulders. “Mission accomplished, Mom. You’re coming with us.” Then he softened. “I’ve never seen
you have so much fun with anyone.”

“I never have.”

Relaxing his grip on me, he said softly, “So you really did love each other. It was worth all our efforts just for me to see
that.”

Jim exploded. “Are
you
crazy, too?”

Peter said sadly, “Why couldn’t we have shared our life together?”

Jim chipped in with “Is that a Klonopin pill you just stuck in your mouth, Annie? If you go with that bishop, anything could
happen.”

“What difference does it make?” Peter said with a shrug.

Heading for the bar, I told myself,
My darling son understands me better than I thought
.

Eamonn was jumping up and down. “Who was that big red-haired man I saw you speaking to?”

“Peter’s godfather,” I lied. “He brought Peter here so you could see him if you wanted to. But you didn’t.”

“Peter’s here? Good.”

I was delighted. “Thank God. You mean you’ll see him?”

“No, he can take you home.”

“Too late—he’s just gone home with Jim. Besides,” I said archly, “I told Peter I was spending the night with you. Don’t…
disappoint… him.”

“God
Almighty
, you told your son —”

“Our son.”

“That you are spending the night with a bishop?”

“He does realize I did it before.”

“You shouldn’t put such ideas in young people’s heads.”

“For heaven’s sake,” I spluttered, “he knows more than you ever will.”

“I really would like to speak with him.”

“For another four minutes? No, you only want to use him to get rid of me. You’d break his heart.”

“I am sincere.”

“Prove it. Buy him a hot dog and walk with him round Central Park for a half hour.”

He did not say yes or no.

“Now, Eamonn, kindly walk me to the train station.”

As soon as I said it, I was aware of how passionately he still felt toward me. I knew the signs from long ago: the rapid eye
movements, the shaky chin, the way he jingled the change in his pocket. “No, Annie,” he said tenderly, “you’d be a wreck.
You will have to stay the night with me.”

I wanted that more than I could say.

He took out his cash and counted up sixty dollars. I had fifty. Outside the hotel, I said to a police sergeant, “We’re stranded
in New York. We missed the last train and we only have one hundred and ten dollars.”

Eamonn kept his distance in the shadows. He stuck his hands in his pockets, half pretending he wasn’t with me, determined
not to betray his origin by opening his mouth. He was wise, because the cop was Irish. He was starting to direct us when two
black men told us where the cheapest place around was, only fifty-five dollars.

I could see Eamonn thinking,
Is she trying to get herself stabbed to death
? With him there, I really didn’t care what happened to me. The cop said six blocks away was the Travel Inn. Looking at his
watch: “It’s after one. You should get a room for ninety.”

As we began to walk, I felt very strange. My heart was bumping at around 150. Eamonn was the only person in the world with
whom I could have made it to the motel.

After two blocks I pointed to a seedy-looking hotel. “A whorehouse,” he said, in disgust. “Bedbugs, muggers. We would both
end up lying there in bed with”—a vivid gesture—“our throats
slit
.”

We passed a theater showing X-rated movies. “We could stay in there all night,” I said.

“You are cracked, Annie. You have led me into a hell and no mistake.”

Poor Eve, still getting the blame.

We finally reached the Travel Inn. They had a room in our price range.

I registered with Eamonn in the background shuffling his feet uncomfortably without even a suitcase to hold on to. “Now,”
I told Eamonn, “I have to call Arthur.”

He cringed. The mere mention of the name made him keep his distance from the booth. I called Mary, instead.

“Where are you, Annie?” she shrieked. “Arthur’s been calling me, asking questions.”

“Tell him,” I whispered, “I’m staying with Peter at Jim’s place.”

“Already did. I said he couldn’t check it out because Jim just got an unlisted number. Before you thank me, hear me out.”

“Go ahead.”

“Arthur called the Ridgefield cops.”

“To tell them I’m missing?”

“More. That you’re sleeping with an Irish bishop. Who’s Peter’s father. He said if the Bishop finds out you’re wearing a bugging
device, he’ll have you dumped in the East River.”

“For heaven’s sake, Mary, as if Eamonn would do a thing like that.”

“Where
are
you?”

“Never mind. What did the cops say to Arthur?”

“ ‘Annie Murphy,’ they said, ‘the lady who has panic attacks,
she
is having it off with an Irish bishop in a New York hotel?’ “

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, now who’s crazy? they said.”

After the call, Eamonn said, “What did Arthur say?”

“He trusts me,” I said.

As we went up to our sixth-floor room, he saw there was a swimming pool in the middle of the complex. Scratching his head:
“Oh, no. You are not wanting to throw yourself in? Not tonight, Annie, plea-ease.”

“It’s tempting.”

“After booze and Klonopin, you’ll drown.”

My heart was racing so much I swallowed another Klonopin. Only when I went to the bathroom of our suite did I remember I still
had a recorder taped to me. I whipped it off and put it in my pocketbook.

When I returned to the room, I was staggered to see Eamonn had removed all his clothes except for his showy underpants.

“Hey,” I said. “You used to wear boxers, now you’re in jockey shorts. What does this tell me about your lifestyle?”

“Don’t you trust
anyone
, Annie?”

“What,” I whispered, “if there’s someone on the balcony taking pictures of us?”

He became agitated. “Is that what you were phoning about below?”

“Aren’t I entitled to one family shot, Eamonn?”

“Have you set me up, Annie? Get down on the floor.” Pushing me down, he crawled to the window and, kneeling, peered through
the curtain to the balcony.

“Eamonn,” I said, “don’t you trust anyone?”

He had not changed since we slept together in the Bishop’s Palace in Killarney.

Nor had I.

“No one there, Annie. I knew you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Don’t bank on it,” I said, as I went to lie down wearily on the second double bed.

“You can’t sleep in your clothes, Annie, not if you are going to work in them tomorrow.”

“True,” I said, stripping to my bra and panties.

“Congratulations, Annie.” His eyes glowed as he climbed into bed. “You still have your figure. Take off the rest?”

“No, if I have a panic attack and make for that water —”

From the horizontal, he opened up the covers of his bed to let me in. Tears sprang into my eyes as I remembered the first
time he had invited me to share his bed with a movement like that. Oh, Inch, Inch. How happy we might have been.