Her Name Is Rose (29 page)

He had Googled “Iris Bowen” and within seconds her garden blog came up. The few photos showed a cottage-style garden and some quirky entries that had made him smile. (He'd posted a message telling her so.) The fact that she was a gardener somehow comforted him.

*   *   *

That night at the hotel in Ennis, he spoke with his brother on the phone.

“I've got to tell you, buddy,” Pierce said, “I'm afraid you've got no rights.”

“I know, I know. The lady in Dublin told me that.”

“So what are you doing, then?”

“I don't know. I'm … I'm … I'm just following the line of the ball.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, Pierce, I'm not going to do anything stupid. I'm not going to butt in where I don't belong.”

“That would be a wise choice. This isn't some Hollywood movie, Ro. This is real.”

“I
know
that. I just … shit. I don't know.” There was a long pause. Rowan stood at the window of his room. Through ancient birch trees in the garden, he saw a sculpture of a pair of giant hands holding nothing but free air in the soft, gray limestone of its open palms. He thought of the statue of Robert Emmet. Although not a religious man, Rowan thought he'd stop into the church on his way out and say a prayer. There was always a first time for everything.

“I just want to see she's all right. Nothing more.” He paused. “Trust me. I'll do the right thing.”

“For whom?”

“Pierce … I said I'll do the right thing.”

Rowan hadn't presumed to have any rights as a birth father, not this many years after the fact, but that didn't stop him from wanting—something. It was as if a hungering had slowly been growing in him for years and only now had he recognized it. He longed for some part of him to be … what? Unspoiled? To know he'd done something good in his life? Something he could be proud of? That whatever goodness was in him, passed down from Burdy, survived? Natural fathers have rights only within the marital family in Ireland, so Pierce said. As far as Irish law was concerned, if the parents aren't married the child has
no
father.
Beloved father
—it stuck into Rowan's heart like a thorn. But he needed to know. Something. He wouldn't just show up and say, “I'm your birth father. I'm your
natural
father.” No. That wasn't how it was going to go. He would do the right thing.

From Ennis the road led west to the Atlantic Ocean about thirty kilometers away. Allen at the hotel had explained that West Clare was rather isolated, but suggested he go to Doonbeg where a golf course, built alongside the sand dunes, had one of the finest views in the west and its hotel was a nice spot to have lunch. (Rowan had Burdy's ashes and planned to drop them casually on one of the greens. He and Burdy would make the golf trip, after all.) He drove westward from the old market town, with its narrow streets and pubs and coffee shops, into an uneven landscape of whitethorn and fuchsia and black-and-white cattle. Twenty minutes later, just shy of Kilrush, there was a turn to the right. According to the directions, it would take him across the western part of the county to the sea.

If he'd had an address for the Bowens he still wouldn't have knocked on their door. He had checked the phone book. There was no listing. As he drove he noticed there were no street names, no road signs.

Point was, he'd lectured himself that he had no real intention of finding where Iris Bowen and Rose actually lived. He just wanted to see that somewhere place in the world, the
whereabouts,
of their home. Where Iris made her garden. Where Rose grew up. That was all.

He wanted a moment of nearness.

*   *   *

As he passed along a stone bridge over a small river, the road forked. A red van was awkwardly parked in a gap where a lone cow was rubbing her head through a farm gate. Beside it a young man was thumbing a lift. Rowan slowed. The guy looked okay to him so he stopped and leaned over to open the door.

“Hey, thanks.” The man held the open door. “Where you going?”

“West, I think. Hop in. I can take you somewhere.”

The young man got in and laid what looked to Rowan like a violin case across his lap. “My van died back there.” He didn't look at Rowan as he spoke. He had some urgency or upset in him and took off his hat and worked his hair roughly with both hands, as if trying to free his head of some unpleasant idea. He then tapped the dashboard and continued. “It survives a journey to London and dies in the locality. What's up with that?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, my van, I mean.”

“That's too bad. Sorry to hear that.”

The passenger turned his head toward Rowan then and said, “You're American?”

“That's right.”

“On holiday?”

Rowan nodded. “From New York,” he said. He wanted to say more. “I'm hoping to play some golf for a couple of days.” Rowan sensed his passenger looking for clubs in the backseat, but it was only his imagination. A delusion he was committing a crime weighed uneasily on his mind.

“Nearest course is Doonbeg. Is that where you're headed now? Doonbeg?”

“I hear it's a good course.”

“Yeah, but even better surf.”

The road quickly came into a small village, and as they passed a pub at the crossroads, Rowan glanced at his passenger, a tall man, probably late twenties. He noted the checked shirt he was wearing was freshly ironed but the look on his face was one of agitation. Rowan entertained the thought of asking him if he wanted to stop into the place called Morrissey's, a yellow pub with an old wooden door. A pint of Guinness in the west of Ireland had been on his bucket list. But, as he admitted to his brother, he was turning over a new leaf. And as his mother had told him, one day at a time. It'd been six days so far. One day he hoped he would be able to stop counting.

“I'm going to try to persuade my girlfriend, if she still
is
my girlfriend, to play with me tonight. If she says yes, we'll run through our piece … not that she needs much practice. Then head over to the festival later. But now, feck it, I have to get a mechanic! And my phone is dead.” He moved in his seat and all his limbs made jerky motions as if he was trying to escape the weight of his own burden.

Rowan passed on by the pub and nodded. After a moment he said, “Festival?”

“Yeah.”

He gestured toward the case on the man's lap. “You play?”

“Fiddle. But my girlfriend … she can play anything. She's the real thing.”

Rowan drove slowly through the village because at any moment he expected the fiddler to ask him to pull over and let him out. But he didn't. A flock of birds transformed into a curling wave blown back against the gray sky. The road, barely wide enough for two cars passing, was dotted into the distance with white bungalows clustering as it turned toward the sea. Low houses were strewn like a bunch of colored blocks in otherwise green fields. Beautiful and all as it was, it seemed a lonesome kind of place. There were dunes off to the right. Rowan eased the car to the side of the narrow road at the edge of the village.

“So how can I help?”

“What?”

“Why not? I'm in no hurry.”

“What about your tee time?”

“That's not until tomorrow,” Rowan said, lying so easily it startled him. “I can't check into the hotel until later, anyway.”

The fiddler's face softened and he relaxed back into the seat. He resettled on his head his yellow wooly hat. “Could you ever drive me back to the garage? I don't want to arrive at her house without my van, without my phone. What class of eejit would I look like then? Not too dependable.”

Rowan laughed. “Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to.” Something about this felt right, but Rowan couldn't put his finger on it. He wasn't old enough to be the age of this guy's father, but the situation had that feel about it. He felt, what? Paternal? Rowan did a three-point turn on the country road and drove back through the one-street village.

At Fitzpatrick's garage, he pulled the car in. As the passenger opened the door to get out, he asked, “Maybe you could drive me? After I speak with a mechanic?”

“Sure.”

“That'd be great. Rose actually lives only three miles from here,” he said, “when she's at home, that is.”

The pit of Rowan's stomach did a somersault and he forced himself a pause and a breath.

“Be right back.”

Rowan's heart pounded. Rose? He quickly reasoned—because he had to, because to think this man's Rose was also his was too much—it must be a common enough name. Rowan got out of the car and leaned against it. He bent over, anchoring his hands on his knees, and breathed. Christ almighty, what were the chances? He straightened up. Across the street was a row of small one-story houses. Outside of a blue bungalow an elderly woman was washing and polishing windows. She was using newspaper. Rowan concentrated on her movements until the man returned.

“All set. The guy knows where Rose lives and said he'd drop up the van. He said it sounded like it was maybe just the fan belt.” He hesitated. “You all right?”

“Um. Yes. Sorry. Jet lag.”

“Listen, I can hang here.”

“No. No. It's all right. You said it isn't far.”

“The thing is we had a bit of a row yesterday,” the man in the wooly hat said as Rowan pulled out of the garage. “Although to be honest, man, I have no idea why. But she mightn't want to see me. It wasn't exactly a row. It wasn't a fight, either. Wasn't any right kind of argument, really. It was … I don't know what it was, but she was cross with me,” he said. “I'm still trying to figure it out.”

Rowan said nothing and drove on, waiting to be directed. His face felt hot, so he lowered the window. A drizzling rain misted in and he concentrated his mind on it and on the narrow country road before him that stretched long and up a hill. Not a house in sight. Not a saint nor a sinner. All the time his heart was beating in a fast, staccato rhythm.
Taa-ta-ta-tut-a-at. Taa-ta-ta-tut-a-ta.

A little farther on, his companion said, “It's this road, up here on the left. The house is about a half mile down.” Rowan turned left onto perhaps the smallest road he'd ever seen. He seemed to be entering into a green kaleidoscope. When he cleared the top of the hill, two horses nosed over the stone wall, facing the sliver of ocean that met the horizon farther to the west. Huge bushes with tiny red flowers whose name escaped him were closing in, and the road had grass growing in the middle of it.

“
Deora Dé.
Tears of God.”

Rowan turned his head, not understanding and somewhat alarmed. Had he spoken? Had he voiced his thoughts? Maybe he should let the guy out here.

“The red flowers. Fuchsia. It's Irish.”

Rowan nodded outwardly, he even smiled, but inwardly he was dissolving, as if all his strength was becoming liquid and leaking from him, joining the rain, and soon his whole being would slip away into the vast river of tears of other lonesome souls. He couldn't help the groan that seeped from him and when his passenger turned in surprise, Rowan coughed. He forced his mind back then to the small road, and as he considered what he would need to do if a car or tractor came toward him, his companion suddenly offered, “Rose is studying in London to be a classical violinist. We met the first time when her parents contacted me to make a violin for her. It was love at first sight for me, but it's taking her some time to feel the same. Seven sights so far.”

Rowan watched the road, his mind rushing through: He'd said “parents,” right?” He breathed a mixed sigh of relief and yet disappointment, too. The
Irish Times
said Rose's father was dead. This Rose was
not
his Rose.

“I wanted to be a musician myself, once,” Rowan said quietly, regaining his composure. “But I was never going to be good enough.”

“Yeah? What do you play?”

“Saxophone. Below par, but available for weddings and funerals,” Rowan said, a self-effacing smile reviving his mood.

“That's cool.” The guy tapped his fingers against his case. “We musicians are one big happy family, right? It's just around the bend. The next house.”

Rowan turned his head slightly toward him. “I'd be happy to wait in case she, I mean Rose, isn't speaking with you.”

“Ha. No. Not to worry. I'll win her back. Beg … if I have to. And then I'll convince her to play with me tonight. And she will. I think.” He smiled. “But thanks.”

Rowan pulled the car into a bit of a driveway alongside a stone building with a faded, black-painted door with a hint of crimson showing in peeled places. A blue clematis arched over the top of a low building on the opposite side of the entrance and draped onto an open wooden gate. (He knew that clematis. It was an Alice Fisk.) Names were coming back to him. Several potted agapanthus, lady of the nile, lined the wall. Something about all this seemed impossibly familiar.

As his passenger was getting ready to open the car door, he stopped, then opened his case and, from underneath the bow, took something. “Here's a ticket,” he said, handing it to Rowan. “You should come tonight. The concert's in the community center.”

Rowan smiled and took the ticket. “Thanks. I'm not sure. But thanks.”

The fiddler got out of the car, but as he was about to close the door, Rowan wanted to prolong the moment and said, “Nice place your Rose has here.”

The young man looked at it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Her mum's a gardener.”

As if a great wind had swept through the car taking all the air, Rowan lost his breath.

*   *   *

Seven hours after Hector sat into row 18, seat C, aisle seat, on the Aer Lingus flight from Boston to Shannon, he arrived in Ireland. It was six in the morning and raining. Talk about shock. He was freezing when he came out onto the concourse. He headed straight for the information desk, where a pretty young lady with a line of tiny earrings adorning her left ear looked like she was expecting him.