Shannon (55 page)

Robert's improvement had been remarkable— most significantly and rapidly since he had come to Ellie Kennedy's house, where he felt safe and invulnerable. On his best days he had all his old intellectual sharpness. In one of those prolonged flashes of clarity, he now spoke.

“There's a reason, Your Grace, why I can tell you nothing. It's a reason you will completely understand.”

“Robert, my dear boy it will have to be a very grave reason.”

“Oh, it is, Your Grace.”

“What could be so grave?” Sevovicz hit the table with a knuckle; his nerve wasn't holding.

“Your Grace, you must know, from your own experience. You must have seen it. It is the Seal of Confession.”

“What do you mean?”

Robert explained patiently. “Do you recall the day we went to see His Eminence for him to become my Confessor?”

“You were so ill afterward.” Sevovicz clapped his hands together. “I was so worried. I shall never forget it. When you emerged from His Eminence's study, you were so pale, so white, you were close to collapsing. Did he rebuke you so much in Confession? I asked you, and you did not reply.”

“Well, I had good reason. His Eminence did not hear my confession. I heard his.”

“What?”
Sevovicz's one-word question sounded not so much like a pistol shot as an artillery shell— a
boom!
with a
crack!

“Yes. He made me
his
Confessor. As he had every right to do. And in that Confession he told me everything.”

Sevovicz clapped his hands again. “Because he thought that you would forget!”

“As I did. But now I remember.”

“But you knew things long before he made his confession to you?”

“I did. But I don't know which things I knew, and in any case he covered everything. That is why it took so long that day. He made a General Confession.”

Sevovicz turned to Ellie. “A General Confession, miss, is when a penitent wishes to renounce all the sins of his life.”

“I know what a General Confession is,” she said. “Have you ever made one, Your Grace?”

“I have no need. Have you?”

“There isn't a priest in the world who'd have enough time,” she said.

After that, the Archbishop of Elk sat with his huge head held low and his eyes down, sighing all the while.

When a last cup of tea had been downed, he said, “I will pay a courtesy call upon the bishop of this diocese.”

Ellie said, “Of course. Do you know where to find him?”

“I do.”

Ellie recognized the subtext:
He's letting me know that he's reporting this situation.

“We thought,” she said, “since Robert now has only a few days before the boat at Limerick, that we'd continue his search for his ancestors.”

Sevovicz said, “There isn't time.”

Robert said, “I know where to go.”

They looked at him in astonishment.

He turned to Ellie. “The man, the storyteller, Dominic? He said it: How do we find the traces of a mud hut? But the name
Shannon
may be much older, as Dominic also said. And I've seen where the legend began.”

Ellie said, “So where do you want to go?”

“There's another possibility, one I like very much. I heard about a monk named Senan. He founded a monastery on an island in the mouth of the Shannon, Scattery Island.”

Ellie said to Sevovicz, “And then we can meet you at Limerick.”

“I have to go to Cork also,” Sevovicz said. “My luggage is there. And I have to sell my motorcycle.”

They drank more tea.

Sevovicz said, “Robert, I understand about the Confession. And I praise you for having told me, for preserving the Seal of Confession. But please tell me about your vocation. Do you still have a vocation?”

Robert said quickly, “Oh, yes, I do, Your Grace.”

Sevovicz rose and held out his arms like a statesman embracing a crowd. Ellie turned away so that neither man could see her face.

S
evovicz left the house as a ship leaves port— with bells and boomings and a drama of farewells. Wanting to pull rank on the local bishop, he had dressed, in part, as a dignitary. His black stock beneath his round collar had the prelate's impressive flash of purple piping.

As he went, Ellie said, “Perhaps you would call this gentleman in town.” She handed him a name and address. “My car needs to be fixed.”

“I will fix your car,” said Sevovicz. “I have learned about engines.”

And he did fix the car and then revved away on his motorcycle.

When he had gone, Robert said to Ellie, “What will we do?”

Ellie said, “We don't have to do anything.” She hugged him. “But what are your plans for—” She stopped. “No, let's not discuss anything now. We should leave the house. And leave immediately.”

Robert said, “Why?”

“In case our bloody bishop comes around. He'll try and get you to go to his house and stay there.”

They raced, tidying and putting things away. Upstairs Ellie packed. “Enough for four days,” she said. “Where will we go before Scattery Island?”

“There were some people— who were very kind to me.”

“Why don't we go back down the river?” she said. “And meet as many of those people as we can.”

They loaded the car. Ellie had to figure out how many cans of gasoline to stow and how to manage the trip according to where she could buy fuel en route. Limerick provided certainty other towns less so. The dog climbed in. With the sun high in the sky they headed south. Anticipating Sevovicz's route, she took the opposite bank.

“This is wonderful!” shouted Robert above the noise of the wind. “I can truly tell my father, when I go home, that I traveled the Shannon from the source to the sea and— almost— both banks.”

Ellie said nothing, but she registered Robert's talk of home.

On narrow roads, at a top speed of twenty-five miles an hour, they reached Banagher. Robert had made a list of all the towns where he wished to stop. They drove into the center and he directed Ellie to the far side of the river.

“We stop here,” Robert said, outside a fine house. Mr. Reddan's great and lovely motor truck stood outside the door.

Ellie stayed in the car and Robert knocked. A woman opened, an inquiring look on her face.

“May I speak to Fergus?” said Robert.

She looked at him calculatingly Then, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, she said, “You may indeed. I know who you are.” Leaving the door wide open, she disappeared and came back a moment later, followed by Fergus. “Here he is.”

“Oh, hello,” said Fergus. “This is my mam.”

Robert smiled and beckoned to Ellie, who stepped out of the car. He introduced her, and Fergus's mother took over the conversation.

“This man,” she said to Ellie, indicating Robert, “he stayed in this house several weeks ago. I wasn't living here then at all. But whatever he said to Fergus, everything got better.”

Robert said, “I didn't say anything. Did I, Fergus?”

Fergus just smiled.

Back in the car, they drove down the western bank of Lough Derg. Sometimes they could see the lake, sometimes not. At Mountshannon they stopped on a height with a wonderful view and ate their sandwiches
and drank their milk. Robert told Ellie the legend of the eye and the red lake. If they hurried, they could make Limerick by nightfall.

They stayed at Cruise's Hotel. At dinner in the hotel dining room he told her all about Chopper Shannon, Maeve MacNulty— and the soldiers.

“And the soldiers are still here,” she said. “Look.”

A troop of six uniformed men, rifles at the ready, marched into the hotel and arrested a young man in the dining room; they ushered him out with a gun in his back. Robert shuddered.

“I hate it,” she said. “I never want to see another gun or uniform as long as I live.” When she spoke the words, she saw Robert relax.
This is good. Talking about it helps. Maybe the fact that I feel the same— maybe that's a real help. But— but what? Why have I all of a sudden grown fearful? Oh, Jesus God, this comes from a part of me that I know. This is the part that told me Michael was dead, that Mama was dying.

They finished dining at seven and Robert, now increasingly in command of his steps and movements, asked the hall porter for directions to Pery Square, was it within walking distance, and was it safe? The answer was yes to both questions.

“As luck would have it,” said Sheila Neary “my bridge game was canceled.”

She regretted that they had eaten, and over massive drinks she began to talk to Ellie about Robert— in Robert's presence.

“He came here with a friend of mine. D'you remember Maeve?” Robert smiled. “Well, Maeve fell in love with Robert. Yes, she knew he was a priest. Anyhow, we all fell in love with him. D'you know what? This house was never so peaceful. And the peace has never left it since. And”—she turned to Robert—”you'll be pleased to know that Maeve got her man. Her widower is going to marry her.” To Ellie: “She does a bit of matchmaking and she met this man. He has no teeth but she loves him. There's a place here in Limerick, she tells me, where she can hire teeth for the wedding.”

That night, in their hotel room, Robert said, “There's something you never asked me.”

“Which means that there's something you never told me.”

“Well, I've been thinking. I invaded your house one morning at dawn.”

“And I was out walking the dog down the fields. Before going to work.”

“You never asked me,” said Robert, “how it was that I came back. Or why.”

“You never told me,” said Ellie. “But I reckoned that you would one day.”

Robert sat up in bed. “I had slept the night in a wood. There were soldiers. I think I told you about that. All along my journey I had been afraid to ask for food. But people were so hospitable that I never went hungry. Part of the reason I came to your front door was— I think— to ask for food.”

“And you'd have got some,” said Ellie.

“I sure would.” He laughed. “But when I opened the door and looked in— and I've never done that in my life— I began to think of you. As I walked farther and farther in, I kept seeing your face. And I remember standing in the kitchen and thinking that this was the kind of house Nurse Kennedy would have.”

“Why did you think that?”

“I don't know,” Robert said. “I don't know. And then I got nervous and was afraid somebody would see me and I ran out. And on the way out I caught a glimpse— but I didn't know it until later— of the Currier and Ives.”

Ellie said, “It always reminded me of you.”

“So,” concluded Robert, “I went on up the river, but the image of that house wouldn't leave me. And it rained and rained and when the rain stopped and I went out and looked at the river, I said to myself, ‘That
is
Nurse Kennedy's house.’ And boy did I race back down the banks of the Shannon. How many miles did I ride in that day?”

“About a thousand,” she said.

The drive next day thrilled Robert. He made Ellie stop the car at several points to look and recall how he had walked or stopped or sat— and he recalled his own state of mind.

“It was like— it was as if I would see something, remember something, and then it would go blank. Disappear.”

She said, in bittersweet voice, “It will so help your parents to hear this. And your doctor.”

If Sheila Neary in Limerick had been delighted, her joy paled beside Miranda's in Glin. She turned cartwheels on the grass in front of the castle. Silently, she took Ellie by the hand and showed her everything— the massive gunnera; the soft brown wrinkles of the Jersey cows; the crow, Henry.

Her father said to Robert, “Bloody gunmen still out and about. Thought when Collins was killed they'd stop. Well, they bloody haven't. Bloody peasants. Just be careful.”

They had lunch in the castle. Ellie's knowledge of old furniture enchanted Miranda's father. Mrs. Harty appeared and blushed red to see Robert.

“Oh, sir, oh, sir,” she said, and managed not another word.

Lunch ended at two o'clock.

“If you need a bed for the night,” said Miranda's father, “we're easy to find with our big white walls.”

Miranda, who had been almost sitting in Robert's lap all through lunch, climbed into the car onto his knee and threw her arms round his neck. She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Come back soon. And bring
her
with you.”

A few miles away both O'Sullivans happened to be at home. Almost two months had passed since they saw Robert walk away from their house in that bizarre determined walk.

“Well, well, well,” said Joe.

“You still looking for Jesse James?” said Molly.

With tea and hot soda bread, they sat and talked and looked at the river and talked some more. They marveled that Robert had known Ellie in France and had found her again.

Joe managed to cut Ellie out of the herd and, when alone, asked, “How is he?”

“You can see. He's just— well, getting better all the time.”

“You shoulda seen him when he got here. He was in bits. Mind you, he had a bit of a tantery-ra the day he landed.”

He told Ellie about the Dargan boy and how the Irregulars had hijacked Robert, hoping for the Last Rites.

Ellie, when she calmed down, said, “He told me some of it. Well, thank God all that nonsense is nearly over.”