Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (12 page)

He’d taken her home, dropped a kiss on her head and left her there on the porch, alone with the smell of dying, bleeding gold honeysuckle clinging to the air like a lover. Too much she didn’t understand and not enough language to put it into words. Someday, she’d vowed to herself, someday I will know what to do, what to say and then I will make magic for him. Jamie was gone in the morning and she didn’t hear from him again, though he’d left the copy of ‘Les Miserables,’ behind for her, inscribed with the words ‘To island summers, broken ankles and youth that is far too fleeting.’ And then from Wordsworth, he had borrowed the lines, ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.’

She’d pondered, analyzed and deconstructed brick by brick those words over the years but could never quite make of them what she wanted. What was left of her youth was hardly bliss and came nowhere near approaching heaven. Her father was still worried, still drawn, still tired and only seemed to get more so as time went on. Staff got smaller, so did houses, horses were sold and finally, though he’d hung onto it for as long as he could, the island house went to a family from California. She didn’t care by that point, she couldn’t be on the island anymore; the island had become Jamie for her. Other people had their bibles—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but she had the gospel of James, Stuart, Kirkpatrick.

Her father died when she was sixteen, Rose had passed away the previous spring of lung cancer and that left herself and the dog. With no money. Her father, once a tough thirteen year old that had disembarked off a ship from Ireland and fought his way up in the New York business world, had died broke. Hit by a car in the street. She’d been numbed by the news, furious at her father’s carelessness and so awash in grief that she hadn’t considered the full ramifications of her situation. Sixteen and alone made her a ward of the state. Vulnerable and by this time beautiful enough to make middle aged men sing to her in the street made her open to all sorts of problems. So she took her clothes, her face and what little chutzpah she could summon up and went to Hugh Mulligan. He gave her a job and one room over the bar. It was enough at the time. She danced with customers at night and learned to defend herself firmly but in such a way that no one got belligerent. Days she taught dance to senior citizens and bored society matrons. Her partner was a Spanish boy named Carlos and together they made a pretty enough sight for people to sign up for several sessions.

What time she had to herself was spent finishing her schooling, not in any formal manner but with books taken out by the armload from the New York Public Library.

Birthdays and Christmases were spent alone, though Carlos brought her a cake on her eighteenth birthday and offered to relieve her of her virginity. She’d refused and he’d shrugged and said she didn’t know what she was missing.

Every penny she saved, eating the least amount of food, taking the produce that stores generally threw out. Accepting the occasional greasy fry-up from Hugh Mulligan. Never wavering from her goal. To get to Ireland and find Jamie. She only hoped it wasn’t too difficult or that he hadn’t left years ago, because if he had she’d no idea where to find him. She didn’t know if he was rich or poor, married or single, with or without children. She only knew that she had to find out for herself. Shortly before her nineteenth birthday in the spring of 1968, she’d paid her way and caught the plane to Ireland.

The angel had begun it, the dance had sealed it. She would find Jamie and know her fate when she saw it in his eyes.

Did you know that a male elephant’s penis weighs sixty pounds?” Pamela asked sliding her bare-naked and impossibly perfect bottom across a sheet of blue silk.

“Would you quit twitching,” Pat said for what seemed, to both artist and model, the thousandth time that hour, “and put down the copy of ‘National Geographic’, as I don’t want it in the picture.”

“You’re too literal,” she retorted flinging the magazine down and resuming her pose. She was seated in one-quarter profile, facing away from Pat, head turned just enough to present him with the shadow of her features. A half-naked Psyche catching Cupid’s eye for the first time.

“Do not move, I’m working on the fabric now and the folds are just perfect,” Pat said focusing, in a way that wasn’t particularly flattering, on a ripple of material two inches below her left breast. Whatever had possessed her to think being an artist’s model was the height of exoticism had fled in the all too present realities of cramp, chill and unmitigated boredom. Pat was working on the sketches for a surreal variation on Frederic Leighton’s famous milk-breasted Psyche. The results thus far, in Pamela’s view, did little for a woman’s ego.

“Are ye comin’ to hear Dev Murphy sing with the rest of us?” Pat asked, stopping briefly to exchange a dull pencil for a sharp one, “There’s a rumor runnin’ about that Jack Stuart may be there an’ read from his latest work.”

Pamela rolled her eyes, if she had learned one thing since coming to Ireland; it was that Jack Stuart, famed Republican poet, much like God, was always rumored to be everywhere and never did show his face.

“It’s more likely that Christ will descend on a cloud and hand out revisions for the Sermon on the Mount.”

“Blasphemer,” Pat muttered, completely intent now on a milky fold over her ribs.

“Against Christ or Jack Stuart? Both seem to have equal standing in this country.”

Pat gave her a quick, black look. “Not everyone subscribes to that point of view.”

“I know, Republicans tend to place him a little closer to God’s right hand than Christ and those of the Orange persuasion lump him in with a dark gentleman who resides much further south.”

“If ye’d read his work before passin’ judgment—”

“I have,” Pamela said and leaned over to dig in a bag, producing a small black bound, gilt lettered book, “and I liked it.” The cloth fell off her shoulder as she handed the book to Pat, who glared and set his pencil down with a thump. Just then with no warning a head, sublime with short black curls and dark sparkling eyes, popped around the corner. “Lucy I’m home,” it sang and then taking in the situation before it, blinked twice and grinning in a most irreverent manner looked at Pat and said, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin to do.”

“Pamela,” said Pat grinning just as irreverently back, “meet my brother, Casey.”

“Milk? Sugar?” asked Pat’s brother, holding a pitcher and bowl of the respective items in either hand.

“Neither, thank you,” Pamela said, eyeing the door with great longing.

“As it suits ye,” he said easily and helped himself to a generous portion of both. “Ah that’s grand. I haven’t had a decent cup of tea in five years.”

“Been abroad have you?” Pamela asked inanely, wishing she’d the courage to look down and see if her shirt was right side out and the buttons done up properly.

He cleared his throat and gave Pat an odd look. Pat in turn shook his head almost imperceptibly. “In a manner of speakin’ I suppose ye could say that.”

There was some joke she was missing here and she devoutly wished she’d not let their innate hospitality coerce her into staying for tea.

They could not stop grinning at each other like two very silly Cheshire cats. Brothers obviously, unmistakably in size and color but at this close proximity one could not help but see the differences. Casey was bigger, hewn from harder rock than his brother, it showed in his face, he was granite to Pat’s mica. Limbs, from years or experience, were tighter, harder. Pat still retained some of the loose-jointedness of boyhood, his face still dreamed, his brother’s did not.

Casey turned, dark eyes friendly yet guarded and she realized she’d been staring and he’d felt the stamp of her eyes on his face.

“Welcome home,” she said, the words slipping from her mouth before she even heard them in her head.

“Thank ye,” he held her gaze until she, completely flustered, jumped up from the table and announced in a voice that seemed too loud and foreign to her own ears that she really must be going.

“I’ll see ye tomorrow then,” Pat said helping her on with her coat and looping her bag over her shoulder.

“Nice to have met ye,” his brother’s voice was polite but nothing more.

She walked all the way home, too hot to be confined to a bus, pausing halfway up the tree-lined drive of Jamie’s house to watch in wonderment the moon sitting like a Christmas angel on top of a cypress, a silver crayon cutout against the pale evening sky. Without warning, it looped upside down and she had to step back to avoid falling. She blinked trying to fend dizziness off and put one hot hand to her forehead. She’d best go straight to bed as she seemed to be developing a raging fever.

“Well,” said Casey Riordan to his little brother.

“Well,” said his little brother back.

Casey let out a long, shaky breath and grabbed his brother in a ferocious hug. “Goddamn it’s good to see ye, Pat.” He held him for as long as comfort would allow, closed his eyes and breathed in. It was strange to hold a man in your arms when you’d been expecting a skinny kid who always smelled of dirt and sunshine even when it had rained for weeks. This entity smelled of wood and charcoal, of water and something sweet. It was in this sweetness he found a vestige of the little boy he’d left behind, not knowing it was the scent of a man falling in love. He would regret the oversight later but by then it would be too late.

‘My brother,’
he thought in his heart, though aloud all he said was, “When did ye cut the hair off?”

“Two days ago,” Pat said laughing, “I must have felt ye crossin’ the water.”

“Look at ye,” Casey brushed the pad of one thumb down his brother’s face, smoothing the eyebrow, touching the bone below the eye. It was a gesture so replete with tenderness that Pat turned away, uncomfortable. “When did ye go an’ grow up Paddyboy?” he asked reverting to his brother’s childhood nickname.

“Five years will be a long time,” Pat said eyes turned down and away from Casey’s searching gaze as he collected cups and spoons off the table. “In more ways than one.”

“Aye, it will be,” Casey rejoined quietly and helped his brother clear away the table. “Are ye goin’ te tell me about the girl?”

“Her name is Pamela.” Pat said stiffly.

“Alright then, Pamela.”

“I’ve known her for a couple of months,” Pat said taking two apples from the counter and throwing one to Casey who caught it neatly in his open palm. “She’s at Queens an’ we have a class together.”

“Two months an’ she’s naked in the kitchen? Yer obviously not as shy as ye used to be.”

“She agreed to pose for me; it’s a project I’m workin’ on for art class. We’re friends,” Pat said defensively.

“Aye an’ then what?” Casey asked folding his arms.

“An’ then nothin’. Look ye can’t come back here an’ play big brother like ye were only gone out to get the milk. Ye’ve been gone five years an’ a boy will grow into a man whether there’s bars in front of his face or not.”

Casey nodded, feeling quite weary, the adrenaline rush of being home flooding away and leaving him awkward and feeling too large and cumbersome here in the neat little kitchen that belonged to his brother.

“I expect ye’ll be angry at me Patrick an’ ye’ve a right to it but can we leave it for another day? It’s only that,” he pressed his fingers into the hollows at the top of his nose, shocked that he could still feel tears after all this time, “I’m a wee bit tired.”

“Aye, we can leave it.”

“Thanks,” Casey said, wanting suddenly to be behind a closed and locked door, away from eyes that had always seen too much. It was terrifying not to have eight steel doors, barred and locked, between you and the world. It made him feel tired and much younger than his brother.

“Yer room is ready; it’s the one on the right at the top of the stairs.”

Casey nodded, vocal chords knotting around his throat, desperate to escape the too bright light of the kitchen. It seemed to sear right into his brain, it was that strong. Only later would he realize it had only been the last of the sun coming in through the window.