Somehow they got onto the subject of border crossings. Jael's worst had been in Seattle. "This balding prick takes a glance at my well-stamped passport and grunts, 'How come you can afford to travel so much?' So I look him in the eye and say, 'Because I have a better job than you.'"
Síle squealed.
"What a prime bitch!" murmured Anton to Jude appreciatively. "Isn't she just the most almighty bitch you ever met?"
"Uh—" Jude began.
"It's all right to say yes," put in Síle. "He likes her that way."
"What do you mean, likes?" demanded Jael, changing lanes too fast. "Adores!"
Yseult pushed back her headphones. "I'm going to be a prime bitch when I grow up."
"Of course you are, pet," Jael told the child, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. "The primest."
"But Ys, remember our little chat about only using words like that at home?" Anton asked his daughter.
"Duh," groaned Yseult, and pulled her headphones back on.
"So what did the immigration guy say to that?" Síle asked Jael.
"Not a word."
"But he must have punished her by scrawling something mysterious on our customs form," said Anton. "We got pulled over and they went through our dirty underpants."
"Which must have been worse for them than for us," said Jael magnanimously.
Jude spoke up in her husky voice. "My friend Gwen grew up in Windsor where you drive over the bridge just to go to the Detroit malls, but her mom escaped from the Nazis as a child, so whenever she had to cross the border she had a panic attack."
"No!" said Anton.
"So of course the Americans would get suspicious, yank her out of line to interrogate her in a back room..."
"Borders are a bugger," said Síle. "I think they should all be done away with."
"It'll never happen," said Jude. "The human mind needs boundaries. Without them it would fall in on itself, like a crushed honeycomb."
There was a brief Silence.
"Jaysus, that's a bit fucking deep for nine in the morning on the N3," murmured Jael.
They all roared with laughter, including Jude. "Sorry, blame the jet lag."
"No no. You have to remember, at twenty-five you have about twice as many brain cells left as the rest of us," Anton told her.
Yseult yanked her headphones down again. "Haven't I the most, though, Dad? Haven't I about ten millions of times as many brain cells as you and Mum?"
"Oh, go on, rub it in."
"No, Jude's right about boundaries, though," Jael muttered as she sped up to get around an ailing truck. "Take the whole straight-slash-queer thing."
"Yeah," said Jude, "society tries to bully everyone into one camp or another."
"Who slashed who?" Yseult wanted to know.
"It's just a punctuation mark," her father told her. "Are you watching that film or not?"
"And god help you if you fancy a trip across that border," Jael complained, grinning at Jude, "with a few duty-free goods in your bag!"
After Cavan the roads were bad, but the views got better. They reached Marcus's by noon. The yard was full of cars already, so Jael parked behind the old pigpen with a rattle of gravel. "It's even worse than the photos."
"I think it's gorgeous, in a mouldering-pile sort of way," Síle told her.
Yseult writhed and plucked at her seat belt. "Off, off!" Jude pressed the button for her, but the girl said "No, I'll do it," shoving the €anadian's hand out of the way, and clicked the seat belt back into place so she could open it again.
Brat, Síle mouthed with a Silent grin.
"I see no balloons," remarked Anton.
Jael had a quick cigarette while applying more brownish lipstick in the mirror. "Maybe there's been a lovers' tiff and it's all off."
"Balloons wouldn't be very pagan, would they?" Síle pointed out.
Jude came back and opened Síle's door for her. "There's a big bonfire in the field behind the house, and people in rainbow robes."
"Spare us," hissed Jael, taking two long drags on her cigarette before grinding it into the gravel. "The champagne better be excellent."
There was only mead, passed around in big horns. Síle managed to splash some on the collar of her orange silk tunic, and had to nip into the house to rinse it out before it attracted wasps. "I thought you were luring me away for nefarious purposes," murmured Jude, "not to help with your laundry."
"Oh, I wish," said Síle, relaxing into her arms. "I just don't buy this."
Jude frowned in puzzlement.
"The notion that Marcus and Pedro will stay together a day longer because they've exchanged garlands and vows. It's bollocks, the whole till-death-do-us-part thing."
Jude shrugged. "The Petersons next door to me have been happily married for nearly sixty years."
"Of course it sometimes happens to happen," conceded Síle, "though who can tell from the outside who's really happy? But what I mean is, it's not the wedding that glues you together."
"That's true. It sure didn't work for me and Rizla," Jude admitted.
Síle grinned at her. "I'd rather a lover than a wife."
"Why, because the word has a better ring to it?"
"Because then it's a choice, not a promise. One day at a time, as the alcos say," she added drily.
The afternoon had that end-of-summer tint, and the ceremony was oddly moving, despite the fact that men in robes always made Síle think of Monty Python's Life of Brian. Pedro and Marcus looked stunning in matching white linen as they jumped the broom together. Síle got to throw a basket of mint leaves and rose petals over their heads.
"What are Quaker weddings like?" she whispered to Jude.
"Guess."
"Silent?" Somehow they started giggling and couldn't stop; Síle blamed the mead, which had quite a kick to it.
By the time the banquet was served—by girls in garlands, on unsteady trestles set up in the meadow—the guests were raucous. A small black sheep wandered past, bleating. Síle and Jude got talking to the neighbours who ran an organic farm; Síle couldn't for the life of her remember their names. They had a daughter who was studying economics in Galway.
"Is she one of these lovely damsels in daisy chains?"
"Oh no, they're from an agency," Mr. Organic assured her. "We're the only locals here. No, Marcus gets on grand in this community, but nothing's spelled out, you know?"
"You mean—"
Mrs. Organic's laugh had a drunken edge to it. "Everyone knows he and Pedro are bent as forks, and that's no bother, but they'd rather not receive a wedding invitation!"
Jude was nodding. "Some bits of rural Canada can be like that."
The husband talked about two men he knew who'd been holding hands on a beach in Sligo when some teenagers threw stones at them. "Like something out of Leviticus!"
Síle gave a theatrical shudder. "It all goes to show that queers should head for the biggest city they know and stay there."
"Oh come on, that's such a cliché. Bad things happen in cities too." Jude spoke sharply. "To me it's more important to be able to see the sun rise without a hundred skyscrapers in the way than to be able to buy a skim-double-latte from some tattooed transman."
"Different strokes," said Síle with a little laugh that sounded affected even to her.
"What's a transman?" Mrs. Organic wanted to know.
Marcus had been hovering on the edge of the group, and now he stepped in. "Dublin should suit you, then, Jude. Nary a skyscraper and very few tattooed transmen, either."
"Ah, but could she afford the skim-double-lattes, at Dublin prices?" asked Mr. Organic.
"Who can!" said Síle pleasantly, her eyes searching for her lover's. Why had she been so stupid as to bring up their perpetual argument?
Mrs. Organic was congratulating the bridegroom.
"Apart from a slight mead headache, I'm having a ball," Marcus assured her.
Later on there was dancing under the full moon: to Latin rhythms, rather than pan pipes,
which was a relief to most of the guests. Jude insisted Síle dance one slow number with her, holding her very tight and moving Síle's hips on the beat. Jael drove her lot off to stay in the most luxurious B&B in County Leitrim, but Síle and Jude ended up on a single mattress in Pedro's office, a barely renovated hen house. Saying good night, he kept kissing Jude on both cheeks and exclaiming over the present she'd brought them, a photo of two bachelor farmers in Waterloo County, Ontario, in a frame she'd made herself out of a cedar shake. "Circa 1873, maybe as late as '76," she said scrupulously. "I liked the way they're leaning on the same pitchfork."
"Which shoved my overpriced glass fruit bowl rather into the shade," complained Síle as they were going to sleep.
Jude set her teeth against Síle's nape and breathed hotly.
"Are we all right, then? I really must stop being rude about rural life."
"You never will," said Jude, kissing each vertebra in her neck. "I guess it's good that we can quarrel; it shows we're not on best behaviour anymore."
"Oh, great. Next we'll be cutting our toenails in bed and farting in the bath."
They shook with laughter.
The next morning, Síle asked Jael if they could take the N4 because Jude wanted to see the bit of Roscommon that Síle's branch of the O'Shaughnessys were from. Jael and family stayed in the car, which pleased Síle. She and Jude walked up to the small lake and stared at its glassy darkness. Clouds scuttled off, and the sky was suddenly the blue of a baby's vein. The clover smelled sweet where their feet had bruised it. "My great-granda used to earn his living rowing Yanks round this lake," Síle told her, "till one night he took a big boatful out and they all drowned."
"No!"
"Apparently he was stocious—drunk," she glossed. "That's the house where Da grew up, the one behind that big granite erratic," she said, pointing down toward the village.
"So he's a hick like me, then."
Síle laughed. "We came down to see Granny and Granda every month or so. We were here the weekend our Amma died."
Jude slid her hand into Síle's. "I was telling Gwen about it, she wanted to know: Was it hypo or hyper?"
"Hypo," Síle told her. "They never found out why she slipped into a coma, but low blood sugar can come on really fast—confusion, tremors, convulsions ... I found one site that said sometimes if you've had diabetes for years you stop noticing the danger signs. That's the real tragedy of it—if she'd drunk a glass of orange juice it would have saved her. Or an injection of glucose might have, if we'd even got home a bit earlier that Sunday and rung an ambulance in time."
"Oh, lord. I hope your dad doesn't blame himself?" Jude added after a minute.
Síle shrugged. "No idea. He's happy to talk about her, but not about the death. I think it took ten days till he switched off her lifesupport. Anyway!" She pointed down the hill again. "The rock's known as Diarmaid and Gráinne's Bed, but I should warn you, so is every flat-topped stone or dolmen from here to Kerry."
"Who are Diarmaid—"
"Oh, this is a good story for a wedding weekend! Remember Fionn Mac Cumhaill?"
"Oisín's dad?" said Jude.
"Very good. Well, Gráinne the High King's daughter was supposed to marry old Fionn, but during the bridal feast at the Hill of Tara she ran away with one of his young followers, Diarmaid. So he rounded up the Fianna, and they hunted the pair all over Ireland. Diarmaid and Gráinne could never sleep two nights in the same place."
Jude smiled. "Rechabites! So did it end in disaster?"
"Ah, they had a good run of it—sixteen years," Síle told her, "then Diarmaid got gored by a wild boar and she had to marry Fionn after all."
They turned down the hill toward the car.
"Come for a fortnight, next time, and we can do a proper Magical History Tour."
"I'd love that."
Síle's pulse was thumping in her throat. "Better yet, come for good."
Jude didn't answer. She turned her light eyes on Síle's.
Síle forced a smile. "I know you imagine it'd choke you to move townships, let alone continents."
"It's not that," said Jude carefully. "But I don't think I'd know myself in Dublin."
"Stoneybatter's a sort of village—"
"Inside a city. And I'd be an unemployed, disoriented foreigner, waiting four days at a stretch for you to come home."
No you wouldn't, Síle protested in her head, but what was the point?
"I'm flattered. And touched."
This didn't mollify Síle. Damn, damn, why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut till she had a strong case prepared? Now there was a big, raw crack in the ground that they'd have to edge around for the rest of the visit.
Yseult was lying down on the backseat. "I'm bored, is there anything to eat?" she asked, rising with a yawn as they climbed in.
"Did you know snails sleep for up to three years?" Jude asked her.
A cold look. "You can't fool me, I'm eight now."
Heavy Weather
The heart may think it knows better: the
senses know that absence blots people
out. We have really no absent friends.
—ELIZABETH BOWEN
Re: Diarmaid and Gráinne
Only early October, and all the leaves have fallen off the cherry tree in front of my house.
In my nephews' Treasury of Irish Legends I was checking out the tale of the lovers on the run, Jude, and I'd forgotten this great piece of advice someone gives them:
Never enter a cave that has only one opening; and never land on an island that has only one harbour; and where you cook your food there eat it not; and where you eat, sleep not there; and where you sleep tonight, sleep not there tomorrow night.
Ring me today?
Re: cave
My cave has got several openings, lovely Síle, and you can take your pick.
I think I'm in withdrawal. I can't sleep, not hungry, sit in the museum breathing in dust and talking to you in my head. It seems to get harder after each visit, curiously enough. This is definitely worse than giving up the smokes...
Re: dating
I know, I know, after we say good-bye it's like some awful lurching gear change, and then as the weeks go by the car gradually grinds to a halt. The ground staff coordinator mentioned she'd heard I was "dating some woman in Canada." It struck me not only as one of the many Americanisms sneaking into Hiberno-English (Da would say "doing a line with," I grew up with "going out with"), but what a strange concept, "dating," like something they do to Phoenician ruins...
Re: re: dating
Maybe it's the right word for it, though, Síle, because don't we live by dates these days? I know without having to check my "Black Ontario History" calendar that it's been thirty-four days since you waved at the cab taking me away down Stoneybatter. What I don't know is how long it'll be till your next flying visit to my side of the world.
Hm, that's a glum opener, let's try again...
I guess your sister may be right that we're making--what's that great phrase she used?--"heavy weather" of the distance between us. We're certainly luckier than many couples. Gwen works with a care assistant from Uzbekistan who only gets to see her husband about every two years. I keep reminding myself that in the days before cheap(ish) air travel, you and I would have been sunk. This thing between us depends entirely on those big noisy tin tubes in the sky I so dislike. In the old days, letters were the only lifeline, and they were always going astray. My archive is full of migrant workers who rarely saw their families, wives emigrating to join husbands but dying on the ship, men who went off to the Gold Rush and lost touch...
This was certainly the oddest year of Jude's life. It was hard to pace herself, that was all. She didn't know when she'd be able to climb into Síle's nut-brown arms again, dropping the rock of absence. Between trainings and meetings, chiropractic appointments and kids' birthday parties, the two of them couldn't seem to find three days when their schedules allowed for a visit. Their next reunion shifted li
ke an oasis on the horizon, and Jude couldn't plot her course. She trudged through her days, haunted by the feeling that real life was happening five thousand kilometres away.
Doing the time zone tango, that's what Síle called it, and you know how awful a dancer I am! Jude pictured the two of them thumping across a vast ballroom, joined at the shoulders and hands, heads cricked to the side. It was a peculiar dance, the tango; a desperate yoking.
"That must be such fun," people said when Jude told them she was seeing a woman on the other side of the Atlantic, and she never knew what to say: Sort of? Sometimes? Less fun, now the gaiety of the first few months was sobering, but more necessary. What stratagems and devices, what compromises and deals would it take for her and Síle to last? The thought of another year of e-mailing, phoning, and waiting—let alone twenty—made Jude queasy.
Every time she went over it again in her head, she felt bad about the curt way she'd rejected Síle's suggestion on that hillside in Roscommon. Yet what else could she have said, without misleading the woman? Something Jude had always known about herself was that she wasn't the emigrating kind, not like her schoolfriends who'd ended up in Ohio, Amsterdam, or the United Arab Emirates. And for all the good times she'd had in Dublin on both her visits, the noisy capital of a foreign country wasn't somewhere Jude could ever feel at home. Trips were different, she argued in her head; the whole point of a vacation was that it was an exception to the rules. Jude could snort cocaine or Síle could snooze in a porch swing: They were just playing at sharing each other's lifestyles.
Jude had fantasized about Síle moving to Canada, of course she had, though to ask it aloud would only be to embarrass herself. Atleast Dublin had a certain slapdash glamour; what could Ireland, Ontario, hold for Síle Sunita O'Shaughnessy? Jude let herself imagine Síle in the house on Main Street only briefly. Like the way some women dreamed about being pregnant, she supposed. It was just the contrary heart wondering if it could have it both ways, live more lives than one.
"I guess you and I are just rooted kind of people," she said to Gwen as they pushed their way along the forest path through the lush overgrowth of early fall.
Gwen snorted.