A hot, damp gust of wind rattled the half-open window. Barney absently pulled the sticky shirt away from his chest. Meggie McCorly, he thought suddenly, a smile coming to his lined face. She had been a vision of beauty in simple cotton, the taut fabric stretched across ripe, swaying hips and ample breasts as she walked home from school each day. For a moment he was struck by a rush of memories so vivid he felt an echo of lust rising in his old loins. Barney took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. He savoured the spring scents, the hot muggy night smells, so much like those that blew through the orchards and across the fields of County Wexford. Barney thought of the night he and Meggie had fled from the dance, from the crowded, stuffy hall, slipping away unnoticed as the town celebrated Paddy O’Shea and Mary McMannah’s wedding. The sultry memories caused Barney to dab again at his forehead as a stirring visited his groin. Chuckling to himself, Barney thought there’s some life yet in this old boyo.
Barney stayed lost in memories of half-forgotten passions for long minutes, then discovered he was still running the sharpener over a blade on Andersen’s mower and had brought the edge to a silvery gleam. He set the sharpener down, wondering what had come over him. He hadn’t thought of Meggie McCorly since he’d immigrated to America, back in ’38. Last he’d heard, she’d married one of the Cammack lads over in Enniscorthy. He couldn’t remember which one, and that made him feel sad.
Barney caught a flicker of movement through the small window of his work shed. He put down the sharpener and went to peer out into the evening’s fading light. Not making out what it was that had caught his attention, Barney moved back towards his workbench. Just as his field of vision left the window, he again glimpsed something from the corner of his eye. Barney opened the door to his work shed and took a single step outside. Then he stopped.
Old images, half-remembered tales, and songs from his boyhood rushed forward to overwhelm him as he slowly stepped backward into his shed. Feelings of joy and terror so beautiful they brought tears to his eyes flowed through Barney, breaking past every rational barrier. The implements of society left for his ministrations, broken toasters, the mower, the blender with the burned-out motor, his little television for the baseball games, all were vanquished in an instant as a heritage so ancient it predated man’s society appeared just outside Barney’s shed. Not taking his eyes from what he beheld beyond the door, he retreated slowly, half stumbling, until his back was against the workbench. Reaching up and back, Barney pulled a dusty bottle off the shelf. Twenty-two years before, when he had taken the pledge, Barney had placed the bottle of Jameson’s whisky atop the shelf as a reminder and a challenge. In twenty-two years he had come to ignore the presence of the bottle, had come to shut out its siren call, until it had become simply another feature of the little shed where he worked.
Slowly he pulled the cork, breaking the brittle paper of the old federal tax stamp. Without moving his head, without taking his gaze from the door, Barney lifted the bottle to the side of his mouth and began to drink.
‘Stop it, you two!’
Gloria Hastings stood with hands on hips, delivering the Look. Sean and Patrick stopped their bickering over who was entitled to the baseball bat. Their large blue eyes regarded their mother for a moment before, as one, they judged it close to the point of no return where her patience was concerned. They reached an accord with their peculiar, silent communication. Sean conceded custody of the bat to Patrick and led the escape outside.
‘Don’t wander too far off!’ Gloria shouted after them. She listened to the sounds of eight-year-olds dashing down the ancient front steps and for a moment considered the almost preternatural bond between her boys. The old stories of twins and their empathy in likes and looks had seemed folktales to her before giving birth, but now she conceded that there was something there out of the ordinary, a closeness beyond what was expected of siblings.
Putting aside her musing, she looked at the mess the movers had left and considered, not for the first time, the wisdom of all this. She wandered aimlessly among the opened crates of personal belongings and felt nearly overwhelmed by the simple demands of sorting out the hundreds of small things they had brought with them from California. Just deciding where each item should go seemed a Sisyphean task.
She glanced around the room, as if expecting it to have somehow changed since her last inspection. Deep-grained hardwood floors, freshly polished – which would need polishing again as soon as the crates and boxes were hauled outside – hinted at a style of living alien to Gloria. She regarded the huge fireplace with its ancient hand-carved façade as something from another planet, a stark contrast to the rough brick and stone ranch-house-style hearths of her California childhood. The stairs in the hallway, with their polished maple banisters, and the sliding doors to the den and dining room were relics of another era, conjuring up images of William Powell as Clarence Day or Clifton Webb in Cheaper by the Dozen. This house called for – no, demanded, she amended – high starched collars in an age of designer jeans. Gloria absently brushed back an errant strand of blonde hair attempting an escape from under the red kerchief tied about her head, and fought back a nearly overwhelming homesickness. Casting about for a place to start in the seemingly endless mess, she threw her hands up in resignation. ‘This is not what Oscar winners are supposed to be doing! Phil!’
When no answer was forthcoming, she left the large living room and shouted her husband’s name up the stairs. Again no reply. She walked back along the narrow hallway to the kitchen and pushed open the swing door. The old house presented its kitchen to the east, with hinged windows over the sink and drainboard admitting the morning light. It would be hot in the mornings, come July, but it would be a pleasant place to sit in the evenings, with the windows and large door to the screened-in back porch left open, letting in the evening breeze. At least, she hoped so. Southern California days might be blast-furnace-hot at times, but it was dry heat and the evenings were impossibly beautiful. God, she wished to herself, what I’d give for an honest patio, and about half this humidity. Fighting off a sudden bout of regret over the move, she pulled her sticky blouse away from herself and let some air cool her while she hollered for her husband again.
An answering scrabbling sound under the table made her jump, and she turned and uttered her favourite oath, ‘Goddamnitall!’ Under the kitchen table crouched Bad Luck, the family’s black Labrador retriever, a guilty expression on his visage as he hunkered down before a ten-pound bag of Ken-L-Ration he had plundered. Crunchy kernels rolled around the floor. ‘You!’ she commanded. ‘Out!’
Bad Luck knew the rules of the game as well as the boys and at once bolted from under the table. He skidded about the floor looking for a way out, suddenly confounded by discovering himself in new territory. Having arrived only the day before, he hadn’t yet learned the local escape routes. He turned first one way, then another, his tail half wagging, half lowered between his legs, until Gloria held open the swing door to the hallway. Bad Luck bolted down the hall towards the front door. She followed and opened it for him and, as he dashed outside, she shouted, ‘Go find the boys!’
Turning, she spied the family’s large, smoky tomcat preening himself on the stairs. Philip had named the cat Hemingway, but everyone else called him Ernie. Feeling set upon, Gloria reached over, picked him up, and deposited him outside. ‘You too!’ she snapped, slamming the door behind him.
Ernie was a scarred veteran of such family eruptions and took it all with an unassailable dignity attained only by British ambassadors, Episcopal bishops, and tomcats. He glanced about the porch, decided upon a sunny patch, turned about twice, and settled down for a nap.
Gloria returned to the kitchen, calling