Shannon (51 page)

Sevovicz would have argued that being a priest is not something you do, it is something you are. To which Dr. Greenberg would have replied, “And what is a man?”

Robert would have had little to say to either of them. If he could have articulated anything— unlikely, because his recovery, whatever his great progress, remained imperfect— he would have put it simply. He would have said that a new and warm place had opened up in his life, a safe haven. Dr. Greenberg would have smiled privately and said a silent prayer to Sigmund Freud— if only for the language.

Vincent sat suspended. He ate and drank like a normal man, but his struggle had well and truly begun. Over and over the same sentences and sentiments strode across his brain.
This is the man I have to eliminate? An officer, and— my God!—a chaplain? Why was this assignment given? Why would His Eminence want one of his priests killed? Jesus, there must be a real good reason.

Whatever his turmoil, he played his part in the evening's conversation.
Distributing his attentions shrewdly, he asked Ellie how she rolled out the pastry and how much salt she put in the flour.

She looked at him as though he had two heads. “I've never been asked a question like that by a man,” she said, and they began to talk about cooking.

Robert listened, delighted, as they traded recipes. Vincent offered fried chicken; she told him about potato cakes with onion.

At one o'clock in the morning Vincent learned that the household had no plans for the next day.

“We might go for a drive,” said Robert.

“Or a walk along the river if it doesn't rain,” said Ellie. “But sleep as long you want. I'll be up around eight.”

He shook hands and said good night in the hall. They stood together and smiled up at him as he climbed the stairs. Vincent smiled back down. He made a strong show of climbing the stairs heavily, then opened and closed his door with similar ostentation. But he stopped on the landing and tiptoed back to the staircase. The couple had not left the hall— he saw them standing close together, Robert's hand on Ellie's hip. Vincent stepped back and, along the landing, checked each door. Only one other room showed signs of two lives.

Hah! So that's it! Immorality. An immoral priest. I can understand that. How that must hurt His Eminence. This man is no longer a priest. And he's no longer an officer either. Yes, I understand now.

In his room he finally unpacked and laid everything out neatly, the first time he had felt like doing this since he started his bicycle travels. Now he felt better; he had retrieved some understanding and therefore some control. He could proceed.

Is this Day One? I've only just arrived. Day One, assess. Then Day Two, reconnoiter. And Day Three, attack. What about a “drowned lovers” scenario? Heroic. She falls into the river and is drowning. He jumps in to save her, hits his head on a rock, and drowns. Nobody then to save her. Easy. But never rule out another option. This might be an excellently clean operation. It can be over swifter than I think. Is tomorrow Day One or Day Two? I think I'll call it Day Two. And nobody knows I'm here.

N
ext morning, the sun rose full of gold. Ellie opened all the windows. Robert went back to sleep and she smiled. It seemed like a day for breakfast alfresco too.

She reflected on the evening and the night. Robert had been so pleased with Vincent Ryan, but her discomfort had grown. A kind of guilt nibbled:
Why so suspicious? This isn't war, is it? Why not see this as a gift? He's a most personable young man, and he's had a very good effect. Here is Robert, opening up as never before, and showing no traces of disturbance. Remember what he was like when he arrived?

She wished she could get a second opinion about Vincent. But people never dropped by. She was rarely home. She had no local social life because everything revolved around the hospital. And her school friends and childhood acquaintances— they had all emigrated.

She next wished she could speak to somebody— anybody— about this Vincent Ryan. When she reviewed what he had said so freely about himself, it amounted to very little.
He said he grew up in South Boston, but you probably couldn't throw a stone in South Boston without hitting a Ryan. He said nothing that could trace him. His stories were clever. The only people he
mentioned by name were dead: other marines, officers. He has— what's the word?—he has a … glide. That's it, a glide.

Deep in these thoughts, she didn't hear Vincent come in. Soft-footed down the stairs, soft along the passageway he came, silent through the open kitchen door. She had her back turned and took her alert from the dog, who stirred and looked up. She turned— and started; Vincent stood right behind her.

“Good morning.” He held out a huge hand; she took it.

“Oh, good morning. Did you sleep all right?”

“Yes, thank you, ma'am. Very lovely room. And you?”

“Very well, thank you. The summer's great, we can have all the windows open.”

“I was worried about mosquitoes.”

“Oh, we have none of them in Ireland. All our bugs are two-legged.” He didn't get the joke.

She sat the stranger at the table. “We'll eat our breakfast in the garden, it's such a lovely morning, so sit here and talk to me until it's ready. Where have you been since you came to Ireland? Where did you travel? What did you see?”

He replied carefully, as though thinking everything out loud, recalling everything.

“Well, I sailed on a wonderful ship. She was brand spanking new, the SS
Antonia.
She took me to London, and I took a boat from London to Belfast. I stayed in Belfast with some cousins, and then I bought the bicycle and made my way down country until I got here.” The trail-covering falsehoods rolled out.

“How long is your vacation?”

“I told you last night, ma'am.”

Just a touch of edge crept in, a “don't annoy me” tone. Ellie caught it.

“Of course you did. You said you were going back in three days. We'll be sorry to see you go.”

Vincent smiled a broad, innocent smile.
Today is the day I watch every step and every move, hear every breath.

Minutes later and sooner than she expected, Robert strode into the kitchen. A knowing person would have read his face— the leftover sleepiness, the faintly ravished air, the comfort of pleasure.

“Hi, Vincent, good morning.”

“Good morning.” And Vincent stood up.
What does he weigh, one hundred and eighty? Ninety? No difficulty taking him. Chaplains had no training.

Robert saw the tray and said, “Are we out-of-doors again? This weather, Vincent, it's like home, isn't it?”

As he picked up the tray, Vincent took it from him, and Robert led the way into the garden while Ellie continued to cook.

“Wonderful garden,” said Vincent. “How big?”

“Look around,” said Robert. “Or— wait a moment. Let me set the table and I'll show you around.”

Vincent stood watching as Robert laid the table for three. Then the two men went down the path and turned left into the garden. This opened up a view to the rear gate of the property, where the car sat outside the garage.

“Great car!” said Vincent, and strolled over to look
. “
Have you driven it yet?”

Robert laughed. “Ellie does all the driving. I sit back and enjoy.”

They walked down through the long garden.

“Here's my favorite spot,” said Robert, and they entered the arbor, where the ten-foot-high beech hedge formed a wide, deep letter U.

“Ellie's grandfather planted this,” said Robert, with some pride. “It's over a hundred years old.”

“Where does the garden meet the river?” asked Vincent.

Robert strode ahead of him. “You're going to love this.”

He opened the tall wooden gate and walked down the rickety steps. Vincent stood at the top, assessing the way in, the way out, the other means of access, the strange little diving board.

“Is it deep?” he called.

“Very. About twenty feet.”

“Do you swim here?”

“I did yesterday,” said Robert. “Look.” He pointed to the little swimming course with its
START
and
FINISH
posts. “It's completely private.”

“Is it safe?” Vincent began to descend the wooden staircase to where Robert stood on the bottom step.
Can it be this simple? Just do it now, go back for her, and it'll look like a drowning?

“Ellie says it's mostly safe. But I wouldn't be surprised at anything I heard about the Shannon.” He turned to Vincent. “She's very much my river, you know. When I was a boy I learned everything I possibly could about her. But I never thought she'd be so wonderful to discover. Do you know she can make waves up to thirty feet high?”

Three feet apart now on the wooden staircase, Vincent stood behind and above Robert's head. To his right, on the steeply dipping grassy bank, a halfhearted attempt had been made years ago to build a rockery. All that had remained were one or two ragged Solomon's seal plants— and the rocks. Vincent picked up a stone bigger than his fist. He surveyed the back and sides of Robert's head
.

In the house, Ellie stacked eggs into a chafing dish with ham and sausage. She took the napkin-covered basket of freshly baked bread and put it with the chafing dish on a tray. As she walked into the passageway, she saw the dog standing in the doorway looking out on the garden.

Ellie Kennedy quickened, like a mother whose child is missing. Quickly she went back, put the tray on the table, hurried from the kitchen, and closed the door behind her. The dog didn't move out of her way. No sign of Vincent and Robert.

Ellie bustled down the path, into the garden, looked around the corner, and saw the car: no sign of them there. She headed to the tall wooden gate.

No birds sang at that moment. The garden's quiet mood caught her attention even though she walked fast. Dew sparkled on the grass; in the underhanging branches of the flowering shrubs she saw the night's jeweled cobwebs.
The plums look almost ready to pick— they broke the branches last year. Where are they? Dear Christ, where are they?

Ellie reached the gate and called, “Robert!”

On the steps Robert turned his head back to the call. He saw the rock in the killer's hand.

“Ha!” he said.

The killer stared at him; Ellie called again.

“Look,” said Robert. “That's sandstone.” He took the rock from Vincent's hand and turned it over like a schoolboy with a find. “Most of the riverbed stone is limestone, but there's some sandstone too. See the red? Like little patches of blood.”

By the time Ellie reached the top of the steps and looked down, the murderous tableau had broken up.

“Breakfast!”

“Terrific!” answered Robert and, seeing Vincent tremble, said, “Do you need a sweater? There's a cold breeze off the river along here.”

He pushed past Vincent and ran up the steps toward Ellie.

“Is everything all right?”

Robert said, “He's feeling the lake breeze.”

“What's that in your hand?”

“A Shannon stone Vincent found.”

By the time— many minutes after Ellie and Robert— that Vincent reached the breakfast table on the gravel in front of the house, Robert had brought him a sweater from upstairs. When Ellie went back inside to fetch the chafing dish, the dog followed her and went back to his sleeping place.

Breakfast dawdled. Robert tired again, and Ellie, recognizing the excitement factor, sent him to bed. When he had gone, she began to explain shell shock to the stranger and told him the story of Robert and his departure from Belleau Wood.

“I saw a lot of men like that,” said Vincent, whose shivering had eased with food
.

The stone sat on the table between them. Ellie looked at it, picked it up, weighed it in her hand, and said, “Do you want this? As a souvenir?”

He shook his head. She rose from her chair and with vehemence hurled the stone into the bushes. The crash startled a blackbird, who screeched indignation.

For the next hour and more they sat there, and she asked question after question. She wanted to raise the subject of the war. She hadn't quite figured a way to get into it. She hoped she could judge what effects he might have suffered from it— if he had suffered any.

As she sat with him, her unease grew.
What is wrong with me? Why am I so on edge? Is he just some man who makes people uncomfortable? But he doesn't make Robert uncomfortable. Here they are, both in their thirties, with similar experiences. One makes me feel as though I'm made of silk, and the other makes my skin crawl.

“How much of the war do you remember?” she asked suddenly.

He looked at her, thrown off guard by the question, and before he could stop himself he said, “I miss it every day.” Realizing what he had just divulged, he amended. “I mean— I miss the marines. The friendships, the routine.”

Ellie looked at him.
He has no difficulty looking me in the eye. Might as well ask him.

“Did it worry you— killing people?”

He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, a machine of bone and muscle.