Friday, October 26, 2012

4


*
Reggie followed them from the room and along the hallway. Ian held up the lantern, allowing a ball of light to roll up and down the old stone walls as the lantern swung back and forth from the handle. He glanced over his shoulder several times, looking straight at Reggie. “I didn’t realize,” Emily commented, “How cold it could be here. Reggie never did say.”
“A bit of a chill, maybe,” Ian conceded. “I’ve suffered through worse.”
“I suppose you have.” She paused as the hall took a turn and the staircase came into view. “I’ve always kind of envied you and Reggie for your adventures.”
“Oh? I hardly find military life worth envying.”
“It isn’t the military so much, as it is that either of you have traveled all over the world. Now that I do find enviable.”
“Oh, indeed. We’ve certainly been lucky enough to visit one inferno after another. I derived great enjoyment at being shot at in places like Calcutta during the monsoon, or in South Africa when the Boers acted up. And I can’t tell you how truly enjoyable it was to drive the Jerries out of France. Enviable work. All of it.”
“No need for sarcasm. I was only commenting that London can be so boorish at times…”
Reggie pulled up at the staircase and sat, watching as that ball of light bounced down the stairs with them, and splashed against imported mahogany railings, and the steps that creaked beneath their weight. Except for the new coiffure, she really hadn’t changed much at all.
“Ya know something?” Liam O'Brennigan stretched across the upper steps, using his elbows to brace himself against the landing. Amazing how some senses dulled or disappeared, and other were suddenly enhanced. He could not smell her cologne nor feel the warmth of her arms about him, but he could find the light where it never existed before. He could see in the dark, and he could see into his soul and hers. Amazing what one could find in darkened places.
“I used to sit inside that cell downstairs day after day and watch Bridey,” O'Brennigan continued. “Tear m’heart from me chest. I’d see that bastard downstairs trying to make his bargains with her. I’d see him offer her food, and I watched her refuse it. I watched her starve to death. Tore m’heart out, I tell you. I wanted to tell her so much, and I couldn’t. I wanted to wrap m’arms about her again, and hold her. Feel her hair and her skin. I couldn’t do it. And I couldn’t make her eat neither.” O'Brennigan paused, pounded on the top step, and turned aside. “He never did tell her what happened to me. The bastard,” he said with a crack in his voice.
“Emily is concerned about me. She has no idea where I am.” Reggie’s Adam’s apple bobbed as if he swallowed, although no saliva wet his throat. “I can be thankful that she isn’t in danger of starving. I only wish I could tell her of my fate. Encourage her to go on with her life.”
O'Brennigan slipped off as the ball of light lit the way for Emily and Ian. Each carried an armload of wood. “There’s definitely a chill up here,” Emily commented as she passed Reggie. “I felt warmer downstairs.”

Ian lit a twig from the lantern he carried. Emily prattled on and Reggie hung on every word. Then Ian excused himself. Reggie guessed that the Brigadier had discovered that bottle of Scotch he hid in the flue of the kitchen stove.
Quietly, as if afraid of her surroundings, Emily eased onto Reggie's old bed and curled up. She wrapped her coat about her and tried to sleep. The first go round coming from the old lighthouse, lit the room and shone right on her face. She hopped from the bed and the old mattress clanged beneath her weight. She’d cover the window with her coat, only that once she had it off, she shivered. She slipped her arms back into the sleeves and crawled softly back into bed. This time she faced the wall and shut her eyes hard.
Reggie sat beside her. He had no weight and made no impression in the mattress. In the old days his weight would rattle the mattress springs. After a time he had become used to the sound and barely noticed it. Now he missed it. One of those things. He couldn’t touch his wife, feel her softness. He would do almost anything to run his fingers through what was left of her hair. Could he make her understand how much he missed her? She tugged at the collar of her coat without much success. Her movement, though, caused those damnedable springs to rattle. Her eyes popped open. The meager light of the fire blazed across her pupils. It must have sounded as deafening to her as it had that first time he heard it.
He sat quietly, watching, wanting to say so much and not sure what it was he had to say. She remained still, making only small movements, and not daring the wrath of the springs. Time passed and the night at last seemed to be slipping away.
“There was a fish monger, and sure ‘twas no wonder, for so were her father and mother before. She wheeled a wheel barrow, through the streets broad and narrow, calling cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O.” Ian banged against the wall with his fist. “Emily! Emily! Do you really want to be knowing what happened to your husband?”
Reggie groaned and buried his face in his hands. Why should anything change with his passing?
Ian made every effort to be heard as he dragged himself up one step after another, shaking the old house at its foundation. “Emly! Emly!” Damned his bad attempt at a brogue. And damn his irreverence. Emily deserved better than this.
She sat up slowly, shaking her head. “Not again.” She straightened out her coat, and curled her legs beside her. “Ian, if you dare think you’re going to keep me awake all night again with your silliness, you better bring another glass with you. I’ll not sit through this sober.”
Ian stumbled in, completely in his cups, and hanging onto a bottle of Scotch and the lantern. “I come prepared,” he commented, pulling glasses from his coat pockets. He set all three on a dressing table, fumbled a bit, knocked over the glass, which clinked against the bottle. He chuckled as he righted it. “The I.R.A. hasn’t drank every bottle of Scotch in the place.” He attempted to pour, although he splashed as he turned to address her again. “And the thieving little Micks haven’t stolen every glass neither.” Without returning the bottle to an upright position, he passed her her drink as he spilled more Scotch on the carpet.
* * *
Patrick left a half empty skillet for the Brigadier and the Lady. Then he gathered up young Michelene and returned to Killelea before Canon Hanrahan sent for him again. Brendan could at least point out the skillet.

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