The Last Storyteller

  “Think of it as a play,” I said. “How would Shakespeare have written it?”

  This engaged her. She half-smiled. “By now he’d have poisoned somebody. And stabbed somebody else.”

  “We can change the ending of the legend,” I said.

  She sighed and yawned. “Take me to your castle, Sir Ben.”

  More humor? This might be good. Don’t push your luck; keep it light.

  The hours of wakefulness had given me my plans for the next three days. My confusion had abated. At last I knew where I was going and at what pace.

  We stopped at a village shop for supplies, enough to keep us going for a night.

  107

  The gate to the castle estate stood open.

  “What’s the name of this place?” Venetia asked.

  “Kilshane,” I answered, and I told her the story—the not unusual family argument, with one member of the family keeping the place in some kind of order and the others fighting over who should pay for it and, ultimately, inherit it.

  “None of them wants to give it up, but they refuse to meet the full upkeep. It has a hundred and thirty acres, though most of it needs to be cleared.”

  At the steps to the terrace, two bicycles stood together, interlinked like lovers.

  “Wait here,” I said, and parked at the edge of the overgrown lawn. I tiptoed up the high steps to the open front door. In the hallway stood two teenagers kissing. I coughed, and they jumped.

  Neither tried to run away; both came forward. Fifteen, I guessed, and tall for their ages, she dark-haired, he with fair curls and green eyes.

  “Hallo,” he said. Local accent, but well-spoken. “Are you lost?”

  “Are you staying here?”

  The girl blushed, and the boy answered: “No, this is where we meet. To be private.”

  I said, “I understand.”

  The boy said, “Do you know this place? It used to belong to the O’Connor family. They were descended from the high kings.”

  “I’ve stayed here once or twice.”

  “The roof is all caved in.” He beckoned me, and I followed them. The pair had impressive composure. “Look,” he said. “Isn’t that awful?”

  Most of the roof’s rear slope had collapsed. We looked up through the jagged rafters at the clear blue sky. “It has affected the whole house,” he said.

  “What did it?”

  She answered: “We’d like to think it was a mighty creature. But it was a huge branch that fell in a storm.”

  The boy said, “Well, that was a kind of a mighty creature, in a way.”

  I said, “Where are you from?”

  She answered for both: “I’m from the town; he’s from over the hill.”

  He added, “That’s right. I’m the boy from over the hill.”

  The girl asked, “Are you by yourself?”

  “No, the car is over there at the top of the avenue.”

  She darted away, and in a moment I heard voices.

  “I’d be getting lonely out there if it was me,” said the girl returning.

  Venetia followed the girl to where we stood in the desolate rear of the building. Part of a bird’s nest from last year lay on the floor. The main shank of the fallen branch stuck up outside the door like a broken limb.

  Venetia said to me, “You found your woodland creatures.”

  The boy, quick and bright, said, “That’s what we are, Bea, isn’t it?”

  “We wear clothes made from leaves,” she said, and they laughed. Impossible not to laugh with them.

  “So you’re escaping,” I said.

  “From prying eyes,” said the girl.

  “We’re allowing ourselves to flourish,” said the boy.

  “And we’re intruding,” said Venetia.

  I couldn’t resist the tease. “They were kissing,” I told Venetia.

  She defended them: “I hope so.”

  The girl blushed, but the boy, self-possessed and relaxed, said, “It was practicing, really. We both want to get good at it.”

  Venetia laughed—my heart strengthened.

  We said goodbye to them. The boy apologized.

  “I’m sorry you can’t stay here,” he said, as though he owned the place. “But it’d be uncomfortable for your wife.”

  As we drove away Venetia said, “What charming children.” After a moment, she added, “Are you sorry that we won’t have birds and squirrels and badgers serve us berries, nuts, fruits, and mead?”

  108

  Padlocks on the front gate kept us out. But I had read someplace that bringing a distressed person face-to-face with a deep and important memory can help. Time to try it. We drove through Mr. Treacy’s gateway and down his farm lane to the front of the house.

  With all the windows shuttered, Goldenfields looked like a huge blind person, its face turned to the sun. Someone had been cutting the grass under the great beech tree. The irrelevant white fence that runs up through the field had a new coat of paint. Maybe the new owners had already retained Billy Moloney?

  Venetia sat up, alert. “You and I—we came up that way.” She pointed. “From the well and the trees, from Miss Fay’s cottage. Has that been sold, too?” When I nodded, she said, “And didn’t we sit in that room?” She pointed to a window.

  We’d always had a hiding place for the key, under a slate outside the back door. No reason to think the new owners might not have followed suit—and they weren’t expected to move in for another two months.

  It has an echo! The house in which I grew up has an echo. Am I charmed or hurt? Both.

  Nothing in the kitchen—no cups on the hooks, no plates flashing from the shelves, no great black pots on the stove, no smell of what my father called “You-you-your mother’s eternal soup.”

  In the hallway, Venetia paused and pointed to one of the central motifs of my life: the colored leaves thrown onto the floor of the porch by the sun through the stained glass.

  “If I’d grown up in this house,” she said, “I’d have that picture in my head every day.”

  Children, the two of you never have to stop and think about your closeness to each other. You were born with it. I had by now been validating, over and over, my feelings toward your mother. Looking for confirmation. Waiting for proof that my choice had ever been accurate. That I had been right to have let nobody else into my soul.

  She hadn’t affirmed it, and my need for her to do something, say something was getting more frantic. She had looked, as you know, like a different person. But that moment, that remark about the porch—it washed over me like a healing tide. A small thing, yes. But I clutched at it. I had little else.

  And she went on to make similar connecting remarks. In the drawing room, she stood before the dank and empty fireplace.

  “Now. Let me think.” Hand to chin. “Your chair was there.” She pointed. “Which means that I sat here. With my head against your legs. Stand over here.”

  She’s retelling herself the story. She’s rebuilding the story of Ben and Venetia.

  I stood. She dropped to the floor and arranged herself against my legs.

  “And I sat like this, didn’t I?”

  “You told me the story of my father and you,” I said.

  Silence.

  “I had gone down to the cottage by the river. You walked up to meet me in the wood and you kissed me,” I said.

  Silence.

  “I had never been kissed before,” I said.

  Silence.

  “You told me that you wouldn’t let me down,” I said.

  Silence.

  We remained like that until I said, “I’m sorry, but I have to move; my leg is gone dead.”

  Venetia leaned forward to let me ease away. She put her hands on the floor to either side of herself and stared into the empty fireplace.

  We couldn’t stay at Goldenfields. Too painful. Too empty now, and nowhere to lay our heads and not a warm scrap of cloth to cover us. I’d have managed—God knows I had enough experience
of rough nights—but I wouldn’t have put Venetia through it. And, an hour or so distant, we had options. Or so I thought.

  109

  As we left from Mr. Treacy’s farmyard gate, I looked back down the road. A black car sat outside Goldenfields. Facing away from us. Never saw us—whoever they were. I drove off in low gear so as not to rev the engine, and I had a blinding, tear-making a fit of coughing. When I had finished, Venetia spoke. “Do you know why I allowed your father to get close to me?”

  I said, “You told me that it was because he spoke so lovingly of me.”

  “He had red hair,” she said. “When I was a little girl I had a toy called—you won’t believe this—‘Harry.’ It was a stuffed fox with a bushy tail. I believed it was real, that it chatted to me. Then I lost it. I suspect that my mother stole it. Because I was so attached to it. And I believed that one day the fox would come back. And he did.”

  After that, the silence of the house took over the car.

  I reviewed the day. I’d done the right thing by getting Venetia out of George Williamson’s clutches—literally. She’d gone to sleep at ten o’clock, so I’d felt it all right to wake her at seven. I’d found a way of easing her up from these deep, buried slumbers: I sat on the edge of the bed, foraged with a cat’s-paw touch until I found one of her hands, held it and stroked it. Sometimes it took five minutes; sometimes she awoke at once.

  As she’d done that morning. Which surprised me. Her waking had deep absence in it; her eyes held a generation of troubled feelings. And the repeated “Oh, my God.” And the fear. But no sign that George’s attentions might have hurt her spirit somewhere.

  On the road we’d made poor time. Stopped twice for Venetia to be ill. Stopped a third time for her to get out and walk into a field and sit on the grass. Stopped for lunch, which she ate. Stopped after lunch for her to throw it all up.

  110

  Does it always rain at Randall’s? Tell Venetia about the lily pads on Randall’s lake.

  “In August one year, hundreds of lily pads. I wanted to think of them as stepping-stones.”

  No reaction. And in Randall’s house, no lights anywhere. That’s strange.

  I walked around the side, through the doorway that led to the almost secret backyard. The studio blazed with lights from the big windows. I rapped on the glass. Not a person could I see—and then Randall appeared, his great head angled, his beak nose shadowed, shading his eyes with his hand to look out into the dark.

  “Randall, it’s me, Ben. I have Venetia with me.”

  He heard me. I knew it. He turned his back and walked away, back to the part of the studio I couldn’t see. I rapped again. And again.

  Randall didn’t appear that night. Nor did anybody—not Annette, or Elma, or Jimmy. I tried the front door, hauled on that bellpull. We know, don’t we, when we’re not wanted somewhere. We drove away and we drove through the night, skirting Dublin, heading north. I knew more than one road across the border. Venetia slept again. No surprise.

  111

  We stopped at Jonesborough. I knew a house where we could get a late meal. Its anomalies also made me feel that we had some protection, because Jonesborough didn’t know on which side of the Irish border it stood, and the police on both sides liked to stay uncertain about it.

  Venetia ate: no matter what her emotional state, she always ate. I tried to entertain her by describing how ludicrous the border could be.

  “The preacher is in the north, and his congregation is in the south. The border runs just underneath the pulpit.”

  “You told me that years ago,” she said, in a voice so neutral that I couldn’t judge her thoughts.

  Conversation didn’t take place, not even chatter. There did come a moment when she seemed apologetic.

  “I think I must be very tired,” she said.

  “We’ll rest when we get there.” I took her hand, but she didn’t respond. “Not long now. I’m sorry about all this; I never expected any of it. It’s not how I live.”

  She took back her hand, though not in a harsh way.

  “We both need sleep.”

  I said, “Let me get us close to the airport.”

  Which didn’t happen. The woman of the house came to the table and said, “If youse are going to Belfast, the airport’s closed.”

  As she walked away, Venetia looked at me, her eyes asking, “Now what?”

  I said, “We’re as near to Dublin Airport as to Belfast.”

  “But I thought you said they’d be watching for us.”

  “I know. We’ll have to take a chance.”

  She pursed her lips and looked away. “This is ridiculous. And, anyway, I’m an American citizen.”

  “Won’t make much difference.”

  We drove back the way we’d come. In an even deeper silence. After midnight, I pulled off the road and drove to the beach. I knew every lane around here; some outstanding storytellers lived north of Dublin, and I’d visited all their houses.

  “We’re half an hour from the airport,” I said. “We’ll take the first flight to anywhere. But now we’ll sleep.”

  From the back seat I took the heavy Foxford rug, climbed out of the car, went around to the passenger side, and tucked Venetia in. To the murmur of the sea, fifty yards away, we fell asleep, both exhausted.

  Dawn’s rosy fingers woke me. It takes a few seconds, doesn’t it, to wake up in strange surroundings? But—I was alone in the car.

  The shot of panic stopped, though—because I saw, far, far away, a distant figure in a dark coat on the beach, near the water.

  Such a benign morning. I eased myself into the world, strolled toward the shoreline. History’s repeating itself, I thought, and this time I won’t get it wrong, like I did on the beach in Florida. Don’t rush her. Give her some space. Let her enjoy the water, the air, the sky.

  A freighter inched across the horizon. Nearer, a dredger hauled mud up into its huge mouth. Indignant gulls scrawed and cawked. The water lapped my shoes, and I pranced back. Too cold.

  Taking my own sweet time, I began to saunter in the opposite direction. After a few hundred yards I turned back.

  Still there. Far distant. Standing. Looking out to sea. What’s she thinking? Leave her alone.

  I turned again, the same exercise, and when I turned back she had begun to walk in the opposite direction. The distance shrank her almost out of sight. Soon I’ll have to remind her that we have a plane to catch.

  As slow as Jimmy Bermingham’s encyclopedia-salesman snail, I began to follow. She continued to walk. I hustled a little. She’s not looking back, so I can walk faster. And still she walked. I’m not closing the gap. Better hurry it up.

  I stepped out, long strides. The distance grew tighter.

  We pass each other face-to-face at the sum of our speeds; we overtake at the difference between them. In this case, what? Two miles per hour. Go faster.

  Instinct. Dreaded, bloody instinct. She continued to walk—so why my panic? She was walking normally; this wasn’t someone trying to get away from me. I ran.

  “Venetia!” Okay. Take it easy. Don’t show her any agitation. “We should go.”

  I sprinted, and called again, a lower shout.

  “Venetia!”

  Fifty yards from me she turned—a wrinkled woman, puzzled. What’s happened to her?

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” The woman showed no anxiety. “Did you see anybody—” I began. “You didn’t by any chance see somebody wearing a navy blue coat like yours, ma’am?”

  “I’ve this old coat thirty years,” she said in a surging local accent. “My daughter’s always at me to get a new one, sure isn’t this fine? I’ll get a few more years out if it yet.”

  “Sorry to trouble you,” I said. “You didn’t see anyone, did you? I mean, earlier?”

  “There was a car up there,” she said, pointing.

  “Up where?” I turned to find her direction. Two hundred yards down the beach from where we’d pa
rked.

  She got into a car? With a stranger? She wouldn’t have done that; she must have known him. Christ! No! But how? How? He can’t have followed us, can he? No. He’d have had to have been to the border and back. Unless she’d had some contact—but no, that’s ridiculous and impossible. But she’s gone.

  I thanked the woman and raced back, going first to where she said the car had been. Sure enough—fresh tire tracks on the sand. And, a few yards in, wet tracks on the lane: he had driven close to the waves across this firm shore, and he must have done so before I woke up.

  Two cottages sat side by side, shuttered and curtained—summer places. Along the lane a small farmhouse: no sign of life yet. I walked and half-ran to the main road but found not a trace. From there I cut back to the mouth of the lane where I had parked—in case she had chosen to stroll. I saw nothing more than a derelict house to my left, my own car just ahead, and beyond that the endless sea.

  A thought—awful of me—took me to the water’s edge. Filled her pockets with stones and just walked? Call it an exaggerated response. Who knew, though, how Venetia’s mind was changing? I scanned the waves. Nothing.

  Time to think. Get a handle on the timing. Does she have any money? Is she now at the airport?

  I drove two miles each way, up and down the road, hoping maybe she had simply decided to go for a walk. No trace. My focus changed. To her state of mind. Not good. And, of course, it hadn’t been. Only in flashes had I seen the old Venetia, the laughing and thoughtful young woman of the carefree past. Accusation seemed her strongest suit: I hadn’t come to find her; I had now brought her into dangerous living; I had misjudged her needs; I had never considered what had happened to her.

  Guilty as charged? Or not? I couldn’t make sense anymore. How ludicrous could it all get? Police and gunmen on my trail, and I, now, on Venetia’s. It had to stop. But first I had to find her.

  No police at the airport. You can’t visualize how different air travel was in those days. We even had a classy restaurant, from whose windows you could watch the planes take off and land. People came there for a day out. As to a resort.