The Carnival at Bray (18 page)

Laura walked slowly toward her daughter, kneeled in front of Maggie on the sofa. Maggie reached beneath her sweater and thrust the letter out in front of her like a shield.

“Mags,” Laura said. “Honey. You don't understand.”

“No,” Maggie said. “You stole this from me. He wrote it to
me.
Don't lie to me again.”

Her mother's hands, damp with sweat, gripped Maggie's knees and black mascara tears leaked from her green eyes.

“I didn't want you to think of him that way, honey. I didn't want you to feel like he abandoned you. I didn't want you to admire or—or
romanticize
—what he did. Or to think that doing
that
is a way out when life gets hard. Because life is
always
going to be hard.” Her mother was sobbing now, her shoulders shaking, her breath ragged. Maggie was aware, somewhere in the house, of a door closing. The soft burst of an engine coming to life. Colm shuttling Ronnie off somewhere, to spare at least one daughter from the truth. “Maybe it was wrong to lie to you, but I was trying to protect you. Me and Nanny Ei both. You've got to try and understand that.”

“I want to know how he did it,” Maggie said.

Laura dragged herself up, pushing off Maggie's knees, and sat on the couch. She breathed deeply, gathering herself to tell the story.

“He went to a party that night,” she began, her eyes glued to the cloth bowl of apron in her lap. “He was drinking, he was doing drugs. He left the party and went home—everything that Nanny Ei said about that part of it was true. He went to the bird sanctuary; he saw the full moon. He told Nanny Ei about it and kissed her good night, and she went to bed. But what he did then—” she stopped.

“Tell me.”

“He grabbed his blood thinner meds—you know, the stuff he takes for his heart. He went back to Jeremy's house and he took the whole bottle of pills. The party had mostly broken up by then, so no one was around. He locked himself in the bathroom. Jeremy broke down the door the next day and found him in the bathtub with his wrists cut.”

She put her head in her hands.

“He did it there so Nanny Ei wouldn't have to see. God, there must have been so much blood. I can't think about it. I can't. I didn't want you to have to think about it either.”

A razor. A bathtub full of thinned, watery blood. A small jar of pills meant to help his heart.

“Can you understand?” Laura said softly. “Can you understand why I thought it would be better just to lie?”

Maggie nodded, staring at the panels of the timber floor. She could not look at her mother. Laura kept talking, crying, the words tumbling out, the explanations. But Maggie had stopped listening. Had he already decided to do it when he'd come to Bray for Christmas? Had he joked with her and chatted with her and sang for her, all the while knowing—no,
deciding
—that he would never see her again? No. It wasn't possible. It was one impulsive act, made on an angry whim, fueled by drugs, gasstation champagne, and a whole lifetime of impulsive acts that
had always, somehow, carried him safely into his next waking. That was the only explanation. Maybe he had experienced a moment of clear-headed panic watching the life pour out of his wrists, splashing at the tepid bathwater with weakening legs, just before he slipped away. Maybe he had been thinking,
Reverse this, reverse this. I want to go to shows at the Metro and make love to blond strangers and sing my throat to sandpaper. I want to play the Double Door and start a new band. I want to live. I want to fall in love. I want to see my nieces grow up.

But no. Because he'd thought far enough ahead to write the letter. He'd been clear thinking enough to buy an international stamp and drop it in the mail.

This was what he had wanted.

That night, Maggie let her mother brush her hair and make her a hot chocolate. She didn't ask her why she had chosen to shelter her from this truth when she had never sheltered her from anything else. She let her mother tuck her into bed. She became as passive and blank as she'd been with Paul against the Ferris wheel.

As soon as she heard the shallow snores of her mother and Colm on the other side of the wall, Maggie pulled her duffel bag from under her bed, packed her necessities, propped open the window, and climbed out. She ran up the back hill, feeling the mud ankle deep, squelching into the instep of her Converse. Oh, starless Ireland, there was no way to look up and find her way, but now she knew it by feel, past the dark hulk of Auntie Rosie's house beyond the field, and up to Dan Sean's. She was high enough that the clouds had wisped away and the whole cup of Wicklow was there before her, the basin of the Irish Sea, the lapping shore, the black bulk of Bray Head. She stood for a full minute in front of Dan Sean's door, her hand wavering on the doorknob. She turned it. Locked.

She peeked in the front window. The only light inside was a circle of dying red embers in the huge brick fireplace. Dan Sean's
rocking chair was empty, his blanket folded neatly on the velvet cushion. Even if he were to hear her ring the doorbell, Maggie couldn't bring herself to roust a ninety-nine-year-old man from his sleep.

In the muddy yard behind the house, a small shed stood surrounded by rusty farming equipment and bales of silage. Inside, Dan Sean's gray-spotted goat, Billy, lay sleeping on the straw. The February wind battered Maggie's thin jacket as she approached the shed. She crossed her arms and shivered. Never before had she felt so entirely alone. There was nowhere else for her to go: not home, not Eoin's, not Aíne's, not anywhere.
It can't get any worse than this, can it, Kev?
she prayed.
If you could just help me make it through tonight, I know things will never be this bad again.
She crept into the doorway and Billy swung her head around, the moonlight glancing off her beady eyes. She nickered, a sharp, insulted blast from deep in her throat. Maggie, shushing her, reached out a hand and pet the bristly spine at the ridge of her back.

“I promise I'll be out in the morning,” she whispered. Billy glared at Maggie for another moment. Then, perhaps with an animal's innate sense of things, she swung her head away and snuffled back into the hay, leaving just enough room for Maggie to curl next to her. The shed was thick with the smells of mud and manure. Maggie pulled Kevin's flannel shirt tightly around her shoulders, covered herself with the dry straw, and snuggled into Billy's warm animal stink. The goat's rib cage rose and fell against her cheek, the quick heartbeat quivering beneath the spotted skin. Maggie didn't think she would ever be able to sleep, but as the shed warmed with the heat of their bodies, the sorrow and exhaustion of the night overcame her, and the small space soon fell away into a dream in which her fingers trailed through warm bathwater, searching for the upturned faces of all the people she loved.

Just before dawn, Maggie was awoken by a kick to the back.

“Jesus, Billy,” she said, rolling over. “I get your drift.” The goat responded by stepping on her, its hooves digging into the soft flesh of her stomach, and strutting out of the shed into the morning. It stood directly outside the doorway, glaring at Maggie with beady, malevolent eyes, and issued a forceful stream of urine that splashed off the mud and onto her jeans. Dodging the stream, Maggie climbed out of the shed on all fours and backed away from the resentful goat. Her muscles, clenched against the damp cold all night, were achy and stiff. She reached down to touch her toes, joints cracking, while Billy wandered off to search the yard for bits of garbage to eat.

The morning was cold and foggy, a hanging greenness in the air. The sleep had done Maggie well—she still felt shaken, but resolved. There was no going back. There was only Rome. For a month now, Maggie had been praying to Kevin instead of God, and finding that letter six weeks after his funeral and only four days before the concert made her feel like he had heard her prayers and answered them. She now believed, with an evangelical determination, that he would find a way to get her to Italy, too. She pulled his flannel tight around her shoulders, rubbed a kink at the back of her neck, and stood for a moment watching the sky lighten the peaks of the hills. Then, she unzipped her duffel bag and laid out its contents: the fifty-pound note Nanny Ei had given her at
Christmas, her Discman, her Liz Phair, Nirvana, and Selfish Fetus CDs, a few changes of clothes and underwear, Kevin's compass, a plastic bag containing a toothbrush, concealer, and black eyeliner, and finally, zipped carefully into the inner pocket, the concert tickets.

It was enough.

She went around to the back of Dan Sean's house and found that someone had unlocked the back door. “Dan Sean?” she called, turning the knob. It was early, but she knew he'd be awake. He was on farmers' hours, even now.

He was not in the sitting room, so she went to the metal bucket at the side of the fireplace and stoked the embers with some turf. It caught, and the fire filled the room with its earthy smoke. Maggie sat on the floor in front of the blaze for a while, closing her eyes while the glorious heat burned warmth back into her cheeks. Woody, joyful at her presence, came loping down the stairs on his two front legs, the cat darting past him and out the opened door.

“Mike?” The reedy voice traveled down the narrow staircase. “I'm up here.”

Maggie hesitated. She'd never been up to the second floor of Dan Sean's house before. “Dan Sean? It's me, Maggie!”

She stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened. No response.

“I hope you're decent,” she called, her hand on the railing. “I'm coming up!”

The upstairs was cold, dim, and low ceilinged. Mass cards lined the walls of the narrow hallway, which smelled of dander and stale bedding. A candle flickered inside the bedroom door, where Dan Sean was crouched on a faded velvet church kneeler before a shrine to the Blessed Virgin. Glass votives, their wicks burning high in the still air, lined the altar. In the middle was a statue, nearly four feet tall, of the Virgin Mary in her traditional blue robes, her eyes and palms pointing heavenward. Bunches of dried lavender and rhododendron were stuffed in plastic vases at the corners of the altar, and Dan Sean was halfway through his rosary.
Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.
Maggie hovered at the doorway and waited for him to finish, his mumbled words ticking over the Hail Marys and Our Fathers, the Glory Bes, the Holy Mysteries. For the first time, she saw him without his Cossack's hat. His head was small and thin skinned, with bits of white hair horseshoed around his ears. He wore a pair of old-fashioned pajamas, unbuttoned to reveal a concave chest as brindled with liver spots as a horse's hide.
Hail, Holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
He crossed himself, kissed the rosary, and dropped it back in its little silk pouch. Maggie went over to him. He put his arthritically puffed hands in hers and allowed himself to be helped up, but his eyes were glazed and far away. For the old, Maggie imagined, finishing a rosary was like leaving a concert was for a younger person—it took you a while to adjust back to the normal world. The religion of Dan Sean's generation, it turned out, was still religion.

“Put on the kettle and stoke the fire,” he instructed. “I've got to get dressed.”

She went downstairs and began preparing the tea. When he came down ten minutes later, he was neatly dressed in his suit and hat.

“Dan Sean,” she said, stirring the milk into her cup, “I'm leaving town for a bit today. I wanted to say good-bye.”

“Not back to America, I hope?”

She shook her head. “Rome.”

“Ah!” Dan Sean clapped his hands together. “On a pilgrimage?”

“Well, I've never really thought about it that way, but yeah.” She smiled suddenly. “A pilgrimage.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Dan Sean banged his mug on the little end table next to his chair. “Go into the other room and get me my address book.”

Maggie found the stained leather journal next to a broken rotary telephone. When she handed it to him, he fanned her away.

“Christ above, there's a smell off you!”

“I know, I know,” she said, lifting the dirty cuff of her sweater to her nose. “I slept outside with Billy last night.”

“Well, what'd you do that for? Go in there and take a bath. I'll have this ready when you come out.”

He pointed to the bathroom, and Maggie put down her tea and humbly obeyed, closing the door behind her. The bathtub was a simple corrugated basin, and when she turned on the ancient faucets they moaned, spilling warm water down rusty trails. She took off her clothes, folded them carefully, and huddled into the tub. Dan Sean's small shaving mirror hung from the faucet. In its reflection, her hands reached to the wooden windowsill for the box of Borax soap and poured it into the water. Without being able to see her familiar, teenaged face in the mirror, Maggie was able to admire her body for the first time. It was like watching the private movements of a stranger. The hands cupped the soapy water and washed the white neck, the lightly freckled shoulders, and the two round breasts, entirely formed and entirely hers. Water streamed over her skin as she rubbed Borax into her hair and washed it in the shadowy light from the frosted glass window. The hands then rubbed the belly, the thighs, between the thighs, and down to the toes with their paint-chipped toenails. When she was finished, she pulled the stopper and climbed out of the bath, her skin feeling as shrunken and clean as bleached laundry. She pulled on a clean pair of underwear, letting her hands linger over the drying heat of her own skin, and combed her wet hair with her fingers. When she emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt, Dan Sean was waving a piece of paper at her.