Secret Isaac (14 page)

“Wake up, Annie. Be a good girl now.”

It was Jamey's hand on her shoulder. She had a blanket under her legs. Her man wasn't in the cushions with her, and her ankles were cold. “Where are we, Jamey O'Toole?”

“Are you blind?” he said. “Look around you, Annie. It's Castledermott.”

She poked her head out of the car. Mother Mary, you wouldn't believe this world! They were parked in front of an old gray castle on a yellow lake. It was just the right castle for Dermott and his man. Part of its stones were chewed up. The turrets were going to rubble. Castledermott had an ambiguous roof. It could have rained debris on your head during windy times. The walls had great lapses in them, thick pockets where Annie would have loved to hide. Some of the windows were humped with cardboard. But it did have a sturdy door. Oak, Annie figured, though she couldn't tell you much about wood. It wasn't the kind of door that Jamey could have heaved up on his shoulder, famous as he was for uprooting doors, springing them from their hinges, or smashing their center panels with a fist. She would have bet her last Irish coins that O'Toole couldn't hurl this door into the yellow lake.

“Where did Dermott go?”

“He's inside,” Jamey said. “With the Fisherman.”

She took her suitcase out of the car, and Jamey went to knock on that big oak door. “It's me, O'Toole … and the girl.” The door swung open without the cry of a hinge. An old man with a shotgun let them through. The house was full of old men. They were on the stairs, in the kitchen, coming in and out of the dining rooms. They carried shotguns or pistols in a holster, and they cursed at one another with cigarettes and cigars in their mouths. Strange folks for an Irish castle on a yellow lake. They were as American as Annie Powell. They didn't seem to care for Jamey, these old men. They spit into their palms when he shuffled between them. “The king's washing-boy,” they said. Jamey had a temper. Why didn't he bounce them into the walls? They sneered at Annie. They would move close and sniff her with malice in their eyes. “Does the king get a piece of that?”

But Jamey wouldn't have them belittle her. “I'll get a piece of your skull if you don't watch out.”

The old men converged on him with their shotguns. The donkey wouldn't back off. Another old man came out of the parlor. He wore funny boots that went up to his crotch. The boots were like jelly. They wobbled with each step he took. “Will you cut it out, for the love of God. Timothy Snell, curb those hounds of yours. We have guests. Be kind to Jamey.”

This was the Fisherman, and these old men were his people. He walked into the parlor with those jelly boots. She had ears on her. Dermott was in the parlor with the old Fisherman. She heard them mutter back and forth. O'Toole could sing and froth on the road, but her man did the talking in Castledermott.

“Coote.” There were tremors in his sweet voice. “Jamey sticks with me.”

“Not a chance,” the old Fisherman said. “The lad goes. He's needed in New York.”

“Coote, I can get you bigger brains and better muscle.”

“Granted, but he looks the part. That's what counts. We can't have an army busting into the streets to hit at merchants and fools. I've me own hand to protect.”

“You know his history. He grows violent when I'm not around.”

“We'll soothe the lad. Don't you fret.”

Her man said, “Find another boy. Jamey's not for sale.”

“Who's been your daddy these eighteen years? Coote McNeill.”

“Then it might be time to change dads …”

One of the old gunmen shooed Annie away from the parlor. She was led up to her room. She walked on stairs that had a wine-colored finish in the wood. Did those gunmen wax the floors? Why did O'Toole say “Castledermott.” The Fisherman owned this house. They put her on the third story. A wind pushed through the halls. She could see out onto the yellow lake from her room. She had glass in her window. Not scummy cardboard. But the room had a narrow bed.

Dermott didn't come to her at night. The Fisherman's people mumbled in the hall. They fed her and made rude noises with their tongues, as if such silly old men could devour her body. She would have thrown them down the stairs, shotguns and all, if they tried to touch Annie Powell. She ate bananas and cream and listened to their chatter. It made no sense.

—A yellow lake means salmon, you twit. A blue lake's for trout.

—If you're so smart, why do salmon crave yellow water?

—Because they're a strange fish. Your salmon's very haughty. Why else would the McNeill bother with them? They won't lay their eggs in an ordinary lake. It's got to be yellow.

—Shit, I didn't come to Ireland to live in a fisherman's retreat.

—He'll turn a pretty penny, Coote will. Making this old box into a proper hotel. An angler's nook, you understand. A sort of paradise. You can't fish here without paying a fee to Coote.

—Is Dermott going to fish with us?

—Shut your mouth. The walls have ears, you idiot.

And the muttering would stop. Coote, Coote the Fisherman and his salmon lake. She thought she'd go crazy in the dark. She couldn't sleep on a narrow bed, without her man. She twisted under the blanket, her toes on fire. What a foolish thing it was to have a body. It turned hot and cold. There was a breeze on that yellow lake. She thought of the salmon swimming under there, putting silver streaks in the water with the drive of their fins. It was beautiful at Castledermott. But she'd rather die than be without her man.

He didn't come to her in the morning to say he was sorry. They let her out of the room. God, someone must have seized the castle. The whole place shook. The Fisherman's people had turned to carpenters overnight. They were hammering and sawing on the stairs. Annie knew what a carpenter was. Coote had picked funny guys to build a hotel. The saws buckled on these old men. Nails went in crooked. It wasn't going to be much of a fisherman's paradise.

They fed her in the kitchen. It was bananas and cream again. Maybe her man had disappeared on her. But she was still a guest. Annie had her own feelings about what she ought to eat. The Fisherman couldn't run a hotel on bananas and cream. She'd have to tell him that. If he didn't vary his menu, the hotel would sink.

The old men had gone back to their carpentering, and Annie was in the kitchen alone. She was humming to herself. She sang idle songs about salmon in the water. She began to cry under the breath of her songs. Mama, she dreamt of Dermott's face in the kitchen window. She wouldn't open her eyes for fear the dream would slip away from her and she'd be left without the face she loved. Black his hair. Purple lips. She didn't need to sing about salmon runs in yellow water. Thank God she had the gift to imagine Dermott's cheeks. She invented a smile on Dermott. Then the window opened, and her man was whispering to her. “Annie darling, get off your lovely ass.”

Who would say such things? Was it magic blowing off the lake? Some salmon god Annie had neglected to mention in her songs? “Girl, are you coming or not?”

He had hands to help her out the window. She gathered her skirts in one fist and climbed. She felt a little clumsy with her stomach on the windowsill. He was laughing now, and she was angry and confused. He raised her buttocks off the window and carried her like a fish. Then he put her down.

“Derm, why did you have to play the ghost with me? Wasn't I scared enough? Jesus, you never said good night.”

“I couldn't. Not in this house. I didn't want those lads thinking of us under the same blanket.”

“Well, why didn't you put Jamey outside my door?”

“I'd be jeopardizing him. The boy has to sleep.”

“Are they your enemies, Coote and his old guys?”

“Don't you ever call him Coote. He's the Fisherman, and he's a partner of mine.”

“Coote, Coote, everybody calls him Coote.”

“That's a dumb habit we have. But you might say ‘Coote' to the wrong party, and it would do hurt to the old man. He's been good to me.”

“Dermott, I'll call him the Fisherman forever and ever, if that's what you like, but why haven't you kissed me yet?”

“It's too close to the house. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“On a picnic, you dope.”

He pointed to the hamper near his legs. A basket it was, for a fisherman's lunch. He picked it up, and he ran with her around the lake. She must have been giggling too hard.

“Shhh,” he said. “There's an echo off that fucking water.”

“It's not a crime to have an echo.”

“Yeah, but we don't have to advertise. If the Fisherman knows about our picnic, he might try to come along.”

“I'll stuff his head in the basket if he dares to come.”

But she wouldn't disobey her man. Annie didn't giggle anymore. They walked and walked in a kind of brown scrub, her skirts tangling in the midst of low, barren blackberry bushes. It wasn't the season for berries, you know, Annie muttered to herself. She couldn't wait to see what was in the hamper. “Love, is this a picnic or a hike?” she said.

“Both. Come on.”

She wished now that Jamey had driven them in the car. But could you drive across rocks and fields? Cows blinked at them. And Annie remembered the dead cow in the road. A bull glared at Dermott. The animal had balls that hung below its knees. Dermott wouldn't curtsy to a bull. He didn't let go of the hamper. “Come on.”

He must have dragged her for miles. They reached a wire fence, and Dermott separated the wires for her, so Annie could squeeze through. He gave the hamper to her for half a minute and hopped over the fence. They were at the bottom of a mountain. Annie was convinced of that. She could see the crisp, bottle-green waters of a tiny bay. “Are we still on the Fisherman's land?” she said.

“No. Come on. We'll have our picnic on Cashel Hill.”

You couldn't tell how many ridges a mountain had. They'd reach one, then find they weren't any closer to the top. There was always another ridge. It was like a magical game for them. The elves were taking over. But you had to watch your feet. Cashel Hill was crusted with goat droppings. Those hard little pellets were on every single rock. A million sheep, or billy goats, must have shit on Cashel Hill.

Oh, God, the skirts on Annie had begun to rip. But she wouldn't let her man climb without her. And always, always she was tricked into believing the next ridge would be the last, the final one. She had a pair of lungs inherited from her mama. She could breathe in and out, and move into Dermott's tracks. She was the Rose of Connemara, the Queen of Cashel Hill, escaping from the Fisherman's house with her man. He hadn't done more than grab her by the hand. But you couldn't lie down in goat shit.

Her thighs were growing sore. She didn't care how many faces a cliff had. It was better than chewing bananas and cream. She'd crawl behind her man if she had to. The air got thick on the mountain, thick and purple-gray, and she'd lose parts of Dermott's back and shoulders for a second, and she wouldn't have any trail to follow. “What's that?” she said, growling into the purple stuff, thick enough to eat.

“It's fog,” Dermott said. “Don't think about it, Anne. You can outrun any fog if you hurry.”

Annie appealed to her favorite saint to bring them out of the fog. Jude it was, the protector of travelers, idiots, unmarried girls, and desperate people. What a man Jude had given her! King Dermott, of Dublin and the Bronx. They did climb over the fog, with Jude's help. The mountain didn't have any more faces to mock them with. The elves could jeer. The king had dragged her to the top of Cashel Hill. She didn't think of the cliffs that went down to the sea, or the winding stone walls, the fields, the dots of water that could have been a salmon lake. Her belly was making pitiful grumbling sounds. “Will you give a girl some food, for Christ's sake?”

Dermott crouched on a rock that was relatively free of goat shit and unbuckled the hamper's leather straps. The king understood her hunger. They had a soft red cheese and brown bread and coffee in a great mug. He'd brought milk in a tonic water bottle. Thank God he forgot to bring a banana, or she might have puked. They had oranges, a misshapen yellow pear, biscuits in a wrapper, and Irish fruit cake. Annie looked for napkins and forks from Castledermott. The hamper was empty of that. Dermott packed food like any man. He only brought what came into his head. “How can we spread the cheese, love?”

Dermott reached into his pocket. He had a push-button knife with marvelous ruts in the handle. The blade opened with a noise that could have been the gentle smack of two lips. He cut the humpbacked pear and spread the cheese, and then he honed the blade on the edge of the hamper.

“You have to exercise a knife,” he said. “It can decay like a tooth and fall apart in your hand. I've seen that happen.”

“Who gave the knife to you?”