The Last Storyteller (29 page)

Not that you need the details—but I can remember what I was wearing next day, where I stood, the expression on my face when I first met the pair of you. That evening outside the Olympia Theatre doesn’t count; in the dark and the mist, I didn’t quite see your faces. Now the resemblance between you left me short of words. And your hair, Louise, cut as short as Ben’s, and how much like my mother you both looked.

I, who prepared every thought in my head lest I be open to the dangers of spontaneity, I had not prepared for seeing you. Oh, yes, I had flirted with the idea, made up little speeches to you both, even practiced smiles and handshakes. But remember: I’d never really allowed myself to believe that a day would come when I would know you both. And I had no idea how you would greet me.

We’ve talked about this moment, all three of us, many, many times, and I think that you were as mystified and bewildered by your feelings as I was by mine. Let me put on the record here and now, for you and your children, and your eventual grandchildren, my account of the meeting.

In my black suit, my white shirt, my black tie, and my big black boots, I stood in the doorway of Marian Killeen’s kitchen as she and Venetia answered the door knocker. I heard no squeals or shouts, just murmurs of concern, safety, and introduction. Each of you embraced your mother, and then shook hands with Marian and thanked her.

And then each of you looked over the shoulders of Venetia and Marian and saw me. The women parted to let you through, and you stepped forward. You reached me first, Louise; you said, without a smile, “I believe that I know who you are,” and you put your arms around my neck and clung to me as though you or I might die.

You had no reason to do so; I was a perfect stranger to you, and you might even have had reason to resent me. Yet there you stood, holding on to me as though you had just found the most important and precious person you had ever known.

Then, Ben, my dear namesake, you came forward, and you said, “We have the same name,” and as your sister moved aside a little, you hugged me from the other side. And with just as much ardor. And with just as much freedom.

As for me—I had no words, none at all. Do you recall how tongue-tied I was? I think I managed to squeeze out a “Well, well.” And then I repeated it: “Well, well.” And then I said, “Here we are.” I was forty-two, and I had not known the emotion of such parental contact before, and in my many imaginings I hadn’t even come close to anticipating the feelings of that moment.

You must take full credit, both of you—but I’ve told you that so often. You were so kind to me. So interested in me. So careful with me. I believe the word “delicate” applies.

And of course I knew—and this was hard to cope with—where your attitudes had been nurtured. How did you manage—it still mystifies me—to express yourselves like that when you met me? I know, I know—you’ve told me often that your mother spoke of me in the dearest and gentlest and kindest of ways.

And she, Venetia? She stood there and watched and fought back tears. She said nothing. She took the hand Marian Killeen offered.

Together they simply observed us, and how we looked at one another. I don’t know if I remembered to tell you this, but Marian said to me, late that night, “You all looked as though you’d won prizes.”

We had drinks, just the four of us, our first time together as a family. Marian stayed a long time in the kitchen, preparing food—chicken and ham and hot soda-bread scones and tea, the inevitable Irish tea, and I saw that both of you had my hungry habits.

You know, to this day (how many years later?) I remain astonished at the same thing that astonished me then: that in an instant we became as
close as though I had raised you in the warmest intimacy. We began to chat like old friends. I asked how you liked Ireland, and you used words that made me smile; you said, for instance, that Dublin was “neat” and that the Irish people were “cute.” You meant that the city was exciting and engaging, whereas in my terms, “neat” meant clean and tidy, which was decidedly not Dublin; she was, in those days, a filthy and unkempt city. As for “cute”: you used the word to denote handsome or pretty; with us, it has always meant ratlike cunning.

The meeting rattled along with a brisk and enjoyable air. I found your openness disconcerting at first—no hanging back with you. Louise, it was you, I think, who went straight in and asked, “Have you kidnapped Mom?” And you, Ben, followed up with “Jack is like a raging beast.” And you both essentially implied the main questions: “What’s happening?” and “What’s going to happen next?”

I felt a strong sense that the two of you had somehow taken over your mother’s life a long time earlier, and that you had a vision of her, and an understanding of her needs and difficulties. All of that now became clear.

Whatever your loyalties—and how strong they were, and how gracious—it became ever clearer that her life had not been easy. As our general bewilderment with one another settled down, a picture of Jack emerged: a quick-tempered cliché of a man, prone to swift violence and then binge drinking. Followed by more violence. It still mystifies me that he took no violence out on the pair of you—yet did, repeatedly and perennially, on your darling mother.

Was that the reason for her almost catatonic state with me? Did she equate me with him and his viciousness? Or was she so unforgiving of my failure to rescue her that she couldn’t speak to me? I never found out.

We began making tentative plans. Both of you seemed certain that a continuing life with Jack Stirling had moved beyond the limits of Venetia’s safety. Your mother shook her head—but said nothing.

All three of us agreed that for the moment Venetia should not go near him. Again she shook her head. And again said nothing. I put forward my ideas: that I would soon have a permanent place to live; that for the present she could travel with me. Marian, naturally, offered us her house anytime we needed it, and I said, “And there’s Miss Fay’s, where I usually stay when I’m in Dublin.”

To all this Venetia neither shook her head nor said anything.

When she did at last speak, she said, “I have to see him, though. No matter what happens.”

Ben, you were the one who said, “Not right now, Mom,” and Louise, you elaborated: “He’s going a little crazy. Drinking and shouting, you know—the usual. And wild fits of weeping.”

I remain fascinated by the way your sentences often end in an inflection, like a query.

Louise, you said, “I’ll smuggle some clothes to you.”

Marian chimed in: “We should at least have some idea of the next steps.”

Which is when, Louise, you said, “My next step is leaving now—I’m standing in for you, Mom, in the show.”

My stomach turned a little.

Dr. Brady spent longer this time with Venetia. Again she looked as though she had been crying. As we were leaving, he called me over and spoke in that quick and vital way by which so much crucial information gets transferred—in a few seconds, in a whisper:

“She’s not being dramatic when she says she’s afraid for her life.”

We drove back to Grove Road. I stopped to buy some newspapers and some milk. When I climbed back into the car, I found Venetia trembling and hunched. She kept looking behind her.

I knew little about nervous states or emotional crises. In Ireland we didn’t allow the existence of such things; prayer solved all. I didn’t need special knowledge to see the grip of this paroxysm—she almost had to be carried from the car. Inside the house, however, she calmed. And addressed a question to me for the first time:

“What did you think of the children?”

“Wonderful. I loved them.”

“So you should.”

“How could I not, Venetia?”

“They’ve been on this earth since 1933, Ben.”

Her words lashed me. All her power as an actress came across. She played bitterness. Deep and true. And she didn’t look at me. Indeed, she had scarcely made eye contact in the four days we had been together.

Once again she went to bed. I sat downstairs. And found new discomfort. The newspapers carried a report that an IRA apartment had been raided. A stash of documents had been found—“a revealing cache,” said the report. It listed the names of “hundreds of activists and a large number of sympathizers, including doctors, lawyers, priests, and civil servants.”

Then came a stinging line: “One employee of a government department, whose job takes him around the country, is believed to carry guns for active service units. A police source would not confirm, however, whether the information that led them to the cache of papers and weaponry in Dublin’s Baggot Street came from this public servant.”

No sleep that night. With Venetia in the same bed but as far away as an island, I had a new kind of “alone” in my life.

Miss Fay spoke the words I needed to hear: “Get out of Dublin.” Followed by “Has she been silent since you found her?” Followed by “Silent and cold when you need communication and warmth? Sounds just like our own beloved country.” She concluded with “Ben, dear, none of this is good.”

I watched their meeting with great attention. Dora Fay now had a telephone, and I called from Marian Killeen’s house to ask for a good visiting time. She invited us for an evening meal—which she always called “supper.” How many legends tell of two women who love the same man not liking each other? I have to say, they looked mutually wary.

In her grave and gracious way, Miss Fay said, “I feel I know you, Ben has told us so much about you.”

Still using “us”—as she would for years; in her soul, James never died. She took Venetia’s hands and said, “We’ve longed to see you in this house. For years and years you’ve been a great topic of our conversation.”

I could see both of their faces clearly. Miss Fay, wearing not black but purple (“the color of emperors for James,” she told me later), struggled with warmth. Later she confided that somehow, and foolishly, she had been expecting a lissome young woman.

Venetia registered shock.

“A great topic?” she asked.

What’s surprising her? Doesn’t she know that I’ve thought of nothing and nobody since the day we parted? But we’d never even said “goodbye,” never had the chance
.

I had been at Goldenfields. We had won a resounding victory. My parents were coming back to the farm they thought they’d lost. Swindled from them by Venetia’s filthy old grandfather, King Kelly.

That drive from Goldenfields—I recall it so well. On a night when the moon was clear-faced and innocent. I remember thinking,
My friend the moon. And tomorrow my friend the kind old sun
.

What did I find in the street outside our house? Venetia’s great prop, the ventriloquy doll Blarney, who topped her bill in the road show, had been decapitated by the kidnappers, and I accidentally kicked his head as I walked to the front door. Venetia knew none of this, knew none of my aftermath—so much to tell her.

Miss Fay began the process that night, filling in for Venetia the blanks of my life. We heard a great deal about James, and how I now wore James’s coat.

“Literally and metaphorically,” said Miss Fay. “James was a major man,” she said. “So is Ben. But how could you know that, my dear? And I can see so clearly the beauty of which Ben spoke. When you met most recently in America, Ben came home saying that if Venetia returned to Ireland, people would think she was Grace Kelly—didn’t you, Ben? And all of Ireland loves Grace Kelly.”

Venetia smiled, actually gave a little giggle.

Had we found a way through? I wondered, I hoped so—although I knew, actress or not, that she wasn’t vain. Not with the mother she’d had, your other grandmother, who used to introduce herself with the words “I’m Sarah Kelly, the great actress.”

The evening went not badly—I’ll put it no higher than that. Venetia thawed, in part because of May, who kept looking at her and then saying, “Oh, missus, I shouldn’t be gawking at you, but I can’t take my eyes off you.”

May, however, also overheard our conversation about the show.

“
Gentleman Jack and His Friend
. Oh, I know you now, miss, you’re the friend. Wasn’t I there last week, my pal Nancy, she had the head hippomatized off of her, and she playing a fiddle, her that hasn’t a note to throw to a dog.”

I felt my gut tighten. Telephone, telegraph, tell May—that was Dublin, where, as in any small city, information, gossip, and talk constituted powerful currency.

Before we left, Venetia excused herself to the bathroom, and Miss Fay grabbed the moment.

“Ben! What is the matter with her?”

“I’m baffled. She doesn’t say a word to me; there’s no connection.”

Miss Fay put a hand on my cheek. “Oh, Ben. I’m so sorry. So different from what you expected.”

“But the children are terrific,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” I looked at her, puzzled by her now. “Well, they’re your children too, my dear. What’s bred in the bone comes out in the blood.” As we heard Venetia approach, she muttered, “Go and start the car; give me a few minutes alone with her.”

When Venetia emerged, huddled again, and hunched against the world, I opened the door, installed her in her seat, and went back to thank Miss Fay.

“Get out of Dublin,” she repeated. “As soon as you can. Change her scene. Get her away. Out on the road that you both used to love. Oh, by the way, a friend of yours called—he’s ready to leave hospital.”

“Any idea what ails her?” I asked.

“Impossible to tell.” She paused. “Ben, it is twenty-five years; people change. But she is frightened.”

As would Miss Fay herself soon be; Gentleman Jack Stirling showed up at her house and beat her senseless with his fists.

Some brief notes: Marian took Venetia shopping the next day. She reported some liveliness, but a desire in Venetia to be furtive and quick. “She asked more than once if anyone was following us,” Marian said. Venetia showed some animation during actual purchases. “But,” Marian noted, “not perhaps enough.”

You, my lovely twins, came around late that night and said that Jack hadn’t subsided. I told you of our plan to drive to Limerick the next morning, if your mother felt fearful. I knew every hotel and boardinghouse in the country and would choose the best. I telephoned the hospital to tell Jimmy Bermingham that I’d collect him.