Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (62 page)

“Why did you never marry?” Pamela asked.

Peg shook her head and sighed.

“Because he up and went back to Derry and married a girl there. I like to think he left because he loved me enough to know that living with him would have broke me like a butterfly caught in a fan. But perhaps he loved her more an’ sure Marie was suited to his way of life, she was part of the movement herself, politicized, while I was still worried about dancing and havin’ meself a fine time.” Peg smiled tiredly. “Sentimental old fool I am seein’ his grandson tonight only made me think that he might have been my grandson as well but then p’raps it’s best he isn’t.”

“And the man you did marry?”

“I’m thinkin’ that the story of Arthur is best saved fer another time, it seems wrong to me to think of him and Brendan at the same time. Most men seem a bit washed out after a Riordan an’ I’ll not do Arthur the disservice in death that I did him in life of comparin’ him to Brendan.” She tapped her cane lightly on the floor, “We’d best be gettin’ some sleep, havin’ bedded down with a Riordan meself I’m knowin’ that sleep’ll be a rare commodity in yer life fer awhile.”

Peg stood and thumped her way down the hall then, without so much as a backwards glance, leaving Pamela almost sorry that she’d asked about Brendan.

She went herself only moments later to the lavender bedroom and undressed, washed in the small basin Peg had provided and then feeling anything but tired slid between worn white linen sheets. She was surprised to hear a soft knock at her door and bid a quiet ‘come in’ to Peg.

“I’m sorry to disturb ye child but I’d forgotten I meant to give ye this as well,” she handed Pamela the green box that had come down with the wedding dress from the top of her closet. “Brendan gave it to me, he’d been in Paris on Brotherhood business, an’ he saw this in a shop window, said it was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen an’ he knew I had to have it. I niver got a chance to wear it; Brendan left me shortly after. Seems only fittin’ somehow that you should wear it for his grandson. “

“Oh,” was all Pamela could manage, tears having gained a chokehold on her throat for all this woman had lost and missed in her life. “It’s breathtaking.” She lifted it out of the box and yards of pink silk fluttered out pale as pearls, sinuous as a waterfall, a garment intended purely for seduction. “But redheads I thought are not supposed to wear pink,” Pamela said smiling through her tears.

“Ah well,” Peg lifted a corner of the material, “sometimes it’s not so much the color as the cut of the cloth, if ye’ll be mindin’ what I mean.”

Pamela rubbed the silk against her face, fine as swansdown, empty of the memories it should have held within its weft and thought that God had not made man to understand the heart of a woman.

“I’m sorry, Peg.” she impulsively took the woman’s hand and pressed it to her face.

“Ah darlin’ child don’t shed tears for me, havin’ the love of Brendan for a bit was better than niver havin’ it at all.” She stroked Pamela’s hair gently, “Ye’d best sleep now an’ shed no more tears, it’s ill to do so on the eve of yer weddin’.” She bent down to kiss Pamela’s forehead gently, a benediction a mother might have placed upon her daughter the night before her wedding and then turned to go. It seemed to Pamela suddenly that there was nothing very outrageous or crazy about this woman but rather just a personage worn and washed old with years of pain and regret. But still the story was not done and Pamela for one hated loose ends.

“What happened to him, Casey’s grandfather, what was his end?” she asked half afraid of knowing, for what if Casey truly did carry some sort of family curse?

Peg turned back and leaned tiredly in the doorsill.

“He was the head of the IRA for some years, me darlin’ and like all Riordans he did his bit in the Republican university of choice, his own bein’ Portlaoise Jail. He and a number of others went on the blanket, refusin’ to be treated as common criminals. It was a very bad time they say. The men could hardly go to mass naked an’ they were not allowed books or conversation even. They sat out the war and time beyond in solitary confinement wid the lights switched on an’ burnin’ in their faces twenty-four hours a day. Once a week they were allowed out to bathe, barely more than animals were they treated as, truly it was a wonder they didn’t go mad, though one might suppose the Riordans are born in that particular condition anyway and hardly need help maintainin’ their madness.

“He went on hunger strike to protest their treatment and received a terrible beating as a result. It did little to him though; the Riordans count beatings and floggings merely as a matter of course. Fifteen days into his fast three of his men broke him out, rumor was that one of the guards inside had come under the spell of Brendan’s charm and helped to free him. Was hardly worth the effort in the end though,” Peg closed her eyes and Pamela knew she was seeing the events of forty some years ago as if they unfurled frame by agonized frame on a screen in front of her. “Wasn’t so many years later that he was shot in the street in front of his house, four times in the heart. They’d killed his sons too, the two younger, Brian was the oldest an’ survived only by not bein’ present at the time. He was just only eighteen. Marie, thank the Virgin, was down in Dublin visitin’ her sick mother, otherwise, Lord knows what they might of done to her.

“Brendan never intended that Brian should be part of the family legacy, Brian was quiet, a scholar, a man perhaps meant to lead through thought and word not violence but after havin’ his father and brothers slaughtered, he’d little choice on what path to follow. But then it seems the Riordans never do, theirs is a long and bloody story, goin’ back to the time of the O’Neills and goin’ forward in chapters yet unwritten. Likely the best thing ye can do girl is never bear Casey a son.” She slumped tiredly on her cane, “If I thought ye’d pay me any mind I’d tell ye to run like the very devil was chasing ye with his pitchfork, but I see the looks ye two shared and know there is no sense that will intrude upon such feelins’,” she smiled wryly, “that much I do understand. Now sleep girl, I’ve spoken too long and freely but as Arthur said I niver did know how to be still an’ that surely went twice over for me tongue.”

Pamela to her own surprise did sleep eventually but not until long after the image of Casey bright with blood and cool with death faded from her mind.

“Ye’d not believe that Kandinsky once asked to paint me, would ye?” Peg asked throwing a baleful look over Pamela’s shoulder into the mirror as she carefully arranged pale waxen white roses in amongst Pamela’s bath damp curls. “Me hair, he said, was the color of Russian earth, red with the blood of her people. He was rather given to melodrama, but in the end he didna’ paint me for Madame, his wife forbid it. Ah well, ‘twould have been nice to have seen me mug in the hand of a Master and all me other bits as well but Arthur was a bit in the way of bein’ a painter and daubed me down in oils and water more than once. ‘Twas the village scandal I tell ye, me posin’ in the altogether, five months gone with Siddy, but Arthur insisted the light was right in the garden by the poppies an’ I did so love stirrin’ things up. There now,” she said giving Pamela’s hair a final pat, “ it’s like an angel that could lure a man to his death that yer lookin’. Though it’s a rare man I’m thinkin’ that wouldn’t view it as a fine way to go.”

Peg herself was looking resplendent on this morning in violet taffeta with a silk gardenia tucked amidst the violent and glimmering red of her hair.

Peg gave her a few moments alone as she went to collect her wrap and Pamela took the time to say farewell to the woman, young though she may be, who today was taking an irrevocable step forward into a future that held anything but certainty. She was afraid. She supposed she’d be a fool not to be, but she also knew she wanted this, to be Casey’s wife, to be a part of another and not alone in the wilderness of her own self. That in itself was infinitesimally more frightening that the prospect of pledging her life to Casey’s.

Peg returned with her wrap and rubber boots in hand and Pamela was confronted with the unromantic proposition of having to wear black Wellingtons under her beautiful gown.

“Tis’ hardly the most delicate of accessories but it’s the only practical one, we had a hard rain last night an’ the ground is a bit on the squadgy side.”

They set out, in velvet and silk, black Wellies and green Macintoshes, skirts rucked up most indelicately above the knees, looking rather like two exotic and very misplaced birds from a distance thought Father Terry as he came up behind with a surrey and horse. Pamela and Peg gratefully clambered aboard with his help and the procession continued to where Casey stood smoking in the garden, with a small weather-beaten soul who turned out to be Bertie Small, the all-important second witness. Casey’d scarce time to crush the cigarette under his heel and send a thin column of blue smoke wafting up from amongst the winter jonquils when Peg let out a screech that Father Terry was certain pierced the heart of the gannets far out on little Skellig.

“Turn yer face man, ye musn’t see the bride!” Casey accordingly did so and Peg alit with relief from the brown surrey. “Well then that was a bit too close of a shave for my likin’, skedaddle yer rear end into the house before the sky falls in on us,” she directed Pamela who wasted no time in obeying her.

The sky however did not fall in, the sun that had been making himself rather scarce that morning did indeed deign to show his face and the bride, having discovered she’d no fit shoes, found her way barefooted to the dark-eyed man who awaited her.

“Nervous boyo?” Father Terry whispered as Pamela, perfectly, wildly beautiful as the soul of Ireland herself came into view.

“As a three-legged, blind mouse in a cat house, “ Casey replied without his usual jocularity.

And then it was easy somehow as their hands fitted together and Father Terry, clearing his throat, began the ceremony. Peg sniffed occasionally from her position as matron of honor and a seagull wheeled overhead screeling its heart out. The vows old and time-honored were repeated, the silver bands exchanged and then before the kiss that sealed all that had been said, Casey and Pamela exchanged their own words.

Pamela began, her voice trembling with the emotion this man stirred within her, “For even as night comes to ease the weariness of day, so shall I come unto you.”

And then Casey took up the ribbon and spoke clearly and certainly, “I will be the candle flame that guides you forth from your darkness.”

And then Pamela again, “I will be water to your earth, food to your hunger, shore to your sea.”

Casey winked at her his black eyes twinkling. “I shall be the salt on yer potatoes.” They all laughed then and Father Terry said the groom could go ahead and kiss the woman for after all she was his wife. Peg wept openly with a smile on her face that would have brought the sun out had he not already obliged, Bertie Small nodded in approval, and Casey delivered a kiss that left his bride blushing and the good Father applauding.

Then there were congratulations all round and Peg hugged them both wishing them enough happiness for ten lifetimes and Father Terry, with a grin, produced a bottle of champagne that had a duck on the label. Lunch was a simple affair, though the bride, being fed by her new husband hardly noticed the taste of anything so submerged was she in the perfection of the day. It was in general and in detail, in ways large and small, a dream of a day.

Father Terry told stories, strange and amusing, Casey was induced to sing and Peg watched it all with a tenderness in her blue eyes that seemed to pour a blanket of warmth and light over the entire day. It would remain so in Pamela’s memory always, a day filled with golden light, distilled by time, scented with roses and threaded through with the wildness of her first love and so she danced with light and joyful feet when it turned out that Father Terry could play a fiddle like Old Scratch himself, as Peg astutely said. Danced with a pure abandon that sent rose petals tumbling and catching down the cascade of her hair, danced until Father Terry found he had to look away for the pain of seeing such beauty, danced until her husband caught her up in his arms and she tumbled dizzy with cheap champagne and unfettered love into his lap. His eyes caught her own and she trembled to see the burning there, the absolute searing heat that was reserved for her and her alone.

Father Terry, Bertie and Peg bid them quiet good-byes and set off in the little brown cart, feeling suddenly old and too far distanced from the passion of youth.

And then it was only the two of them, husband and wife, strangely nervous. Casey took her hand and led her into the cottage where a peat fire he’d slipped off to build warmed the smoke smudged walls and gave off a glow that was comforting. He poured them each a finger of whiskey though he showed no inclination to drink his own but rather sat on the bed and loosened his collar, undoing the top two buttons. His jacket, having been long ago abandoned was now followed by shoes and socks, cufflinks and suspenders.

He looked suddenly more largely and ferally male than Pamela could ever remember him being, she gulped her whiskey nervously, gasping as it tore a raw strip down to her belly.