Irish Lace Read online

  Good solid National Baptist piety. He’d get twenty more dollars when we left.

  “Could you take us to the Leak marker?” I asked.

  “Sure can.”

  At the edge of the grassy plot there was a single marker.

  “It’s the only marker still here. They left it to show where the trenches end,” our Baptist friend observed.

  “James W. Leak, 1st Alabama Infantry, February 10, 1865,” Nuala read. “When did the war end, Derm?”

  “Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse less than two months later.”

  “If he had lived just two more months, he would have gone home to his mother and his wife and children.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Folks tell me that the government got it wrong again,” the custodian said. “Real name was Joseph and he died on February 11. Just like the government to do something like that.”

  We left Oakwood lost in our own thoughts.

  When we turned back on the drive from the niversity, Nuala said, “It was nice of you to give that extra money to the man. He was very nice. Faith, just like me ma.”

  “You disagree with him?”

  “No, Derm,” she sighed. “He’s right. Still, life is an awful mess. Or maybe I’m just growing up.”

  I turned on the car radio. Police were still unable to find the Art Heist gang, as the band of thieves were now being called. However, they had announced that there was no reason to suspect the art dealers themselves of being involved.

  I turned off the radio.

  It began to drizzle. More autumn weather.

  “What could that frigging letter have to with that terrible cemetery?” Nuala Anne demanded suddenly.

  I’d almost forgotten about Prester George’s buried treasure.

  “Probably not much.”

  “I know it has something to do with what I felt out here. I just know it, Dermot Michael!”

  Neither of us said anything more till we pulled into the garage at the Hancock Center and I lifted her dress bag and sports bag out of the trunk.

  “I don’t think I want to swim or eat supper, Derm,” she said slowly. “I hope you’re not offended. I’ll not be much fun.”

  “I’m not offended, Nuala. I understand.”

  “That’s one of the troubles with you, Dermot Michael Coyne. You understand too friggin’ much. You should insist that I swim. Make me have supper with you. Tell me that it will cheer me up.”

  “Wrong young man for that, Nuala.”

  “I know that!” she snapped.

  She grabbed the dress bag.

  “Come on, let’s go swimming.”

  In the elevator, she sighed, as only the Irish can sigh.

  “Why do you put up with a gobshite like me, Derm?”

  “Can’t find another woman!”

  She laughed.

  This time she wore the red bikini that had created a sensation at Grand Beach. It was, as I said, relatively modest. We swam desperately for forty-five minutes.

  Back inside the door of my apartment, something inside my head snapped. I grabbed Nuala, cast aside her robe, and kissed her still-moist body. She was stiff at first, then she melted. I kissed her neck, her shoulders, her chest, her belly, the tops of her breasts. She moaned but did not try to stop me.

  I stopped myself, turned away, and sank into the couch in my parlor.

  “Won’t you get your couch wet with your swimsuit?”

  “So what?”

  I looked up at her. She had drawn the robe around herself and looked thoroughly rumpled.

  “Why didn’t you fuck me, Derm?”

  “Did you want me to?”

  “No. But yes. But really no.”

  “I feel the same way. I’m not going to violate you, Nuala Anne, not till our wedding night. And I won’t do it that way. And if you say ‘That will be as may be,’ I’ll put you over my knee and spank you.”

  “No, you won’t do that, either. Though, mind you, it would be an interesting erotic experience.”

  “I’ll have to try it someday.”

  She kissed the back of my neck.

  “Come on, let’s have supper. I’m in a mood to get slightly fluttered.”

  “All right.”

  This time Nuala appeared from my “mistress” room in a light blue dress with more bodice than the one she had worn the previous night, but less back. She seemed a little uncertain about it, as if she thought it might make more trouble. It didn’t. I was beyond such things—for a while.

  I whistled, she blushed, and we went off to dinner.

  As we crossed Chestnut Street, she said, “The trouble with you, Dermot Michael Coyne, is that you’re such a gentle man, and make it two words, and I trust your gentleness so much, that I put us in situations that are too much for us.”

  “Trust is in the nature of our relationship, Nuala.”

  “Mind you, I won’t say it wasn’t exciting.”

  “And, mind you, I won’t say it won’t happen again.”

  We both laughed.

  “Not very often,” I added.

  At dinner, a special pasta, Nuala turned on her charm, chattered enthusiastically about her work and her singing, and exorcised the demons of death and lust. Most of them, anyway.

  I resolved that there would be no more trysts in my apartment. If the woman wanted to swim, she could join the East Bank Club.

  I drove her home after dinner.

  “We’ve got to keep on this Camp Douglas thing,” she said. “You know that, don’t you Derm, me love?”

  “I know. I’m not sure why, but we have to.”

  Prester George had told me that once—and well into this century—some of the Irish used to make love in the fields outside of a house where there was a wake.

  “Sex defies death, little bro,” he had said. “The life energies are stronger than the death energies. Nice sacramentality in that, isn’t there?”

  “Let’s restore the custom and provide potato fields outside all the funeral homes in the city.”

  “Not a bad idea,” he had agreed.

  Not at all, at all.

  I’d tell Nuala that some other time.

  We arrived at her house.

  “Now, don’t try to climb them friggin’ stairs,” she said, kissing me lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Tricolor.”

  I watched her dash up the steps, waited for her wave, imagined her glorious smile, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the old wooden building.

  I saw no one lurking in the dark. There were, however, so many old trees in the neighborhood that the streetlights illuminated only small patches of sidewalk.

  I didn’t like that.

  The next morning, late spring came back and chased away the rain clouds. Breathing properly from my diaphragm, I walked up to the Chicago Historical Society building at the edge of Lincoln Park and—come to think of it—not far from the site of the old Chicago City Cemetery, from which the bodies of Confederate soldiers were once washed out on the beach and into the lake.

  I worked there till mid-afternoon, brought my notes back to my apartment, and decided that I would write up the second phase of my report the next day and give it to herself when I picked her up for the trip to Grand Beach.

  Then I took a cab over to the East Bank Club and threw myself into a fury of exercise in the fatuous conviction that I would thereby exorcise the hormones from my bloodstream and the fantasies from my imagination.

  As I showered, exhausted, sore, and confused, a man approached me who I vaguely recognized, even without his three-piece dark blue suit and his bifocal glasses, as a senior partner at Arthur Andersen.

  “Do you know anything about Irish girls, uh, women, Coyne?”

  “Them as say they do are ’round the bend altogether,” I replied.

  “We have a new junior accountant at our shop, a young Irish woman, who is an absolute crackerjack.”

  “Oh?”

  Not exactly the word I would
use to describe herself, but I let it pass.

  “A certain Marie McGrail.”

  Marie, is it? And not even pronounced the correct way, as if it were “Moire.”

  “Hmm.”

  “We’re very pleased with her, but she’s as shy as a church mouse. Hardly ever says a word and never speaks above a whisper. Often we have to tell her to speak up so we can hear her.”

  So that was the mask we were wearing at Arthur’s?

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, we’re sky-high on her. Best we’ve had in years. Very attractive, too, in a dowdy sort of way.”

  You should see her in a black dress. Or a swimsuit.

  “You might want to consider the possibility that, like many of her kind, once she starts talking, she’ll never stop.”

  “I think we could live with that. But she has to overcome her shyness to be really effective.”

  “She’s probably very uncertain of herself in an environment that is quite different from anything she’s ever known.”

  “Well, she’s so good that we are really concerned about losing her.”

  “If she’s that good, you might want to give her a big raise. And a promotion.”

  He winced, as accountants do when one talks about their money.

  “Well, there’s a six-month performance review coming up, and an annual one.”

  I turned off my shower and reached for a towel.

  “Yeah. Well, you could think about that. If she’s worth it in six months or a year, she’s probably worth it now. As I say, I’m no expert of this variety of humankind and I never will be, but it’s got a good chance of working.”

  And then, like Dr. Frankenstein, you may find that you have created a monster, a chattering, hoydenish monster.

  “Maybe that’s a good idea.”

  Riding back to the Hancock Center, I wondered if I had been involved in a conflict of interest.

  Hell, he’d asked me, had he not?

  Marie McGrail, indeed!

  The two guys at the Chicago Club had called her “Nuala.” So she was a different person for different people at Arthur’s. Why be surprised at that?

  I’d like to stick it to her about that, but that would have been plain crazy on several counts.

  At the Tricolor herself, the so-called Marie McGrail was wearing the black dress she had worn when we went to the Cape Cod Room. She was rotating her four elegant summer dresses and if anyone at the Tricolor didn’t like it, that was their problem.

  Church mouse indeed!

  She must have been practicing her breathing exercises all day, because her voice more often than not came from her diaphragm and filled the rafters of the dingy pub.

  “Was I singing from me friggin’ diaphragm?” she demanded the instant she sat at my table during her first break.

  “Woman, you were! And didn’t your voice fill the rafters of this frigging club?”

  She then delivered an enthusiastic lecture about the bad things she had been doing when she was singing only from her throat and mouth, as if I had not been with her in Madame’s studio.

  “Do you hear anything about your man?”

  Her face darkened.

  “He’s around talking awfully big, himself and those two gombeen men with him. Me friends and roommates asked me what I think. I tell them that he’s like none of the lads I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’ve met the lads?”

  “Now and again, they’d drop into O’Neill’s; quiet, modest men, they were. Went to Mass every morning. And the more quiet, the more dangerous.”

  “Your roommates?”

  “Aren’t they all excited about something big? They won’t tell me about it because they know I don’t like it. There’s some kind of big meeting tonight, and they didn’t ask me to come.”

  “Stay away from them?”

  “Never fear, Dermot Michael. I may be an eejit but I’m not a frigging amadon. And don’t ask me to explain the difference. You have to be real Irish to understand it.”

  “The guy threatened you, Nuala.”

  “I can take care of meself,” she said, her nose going up into the air. “And, if you happen to be ’round, you can take care of me, too.”

  “As best I can.”

  “As best you can … Now I have to go back and exercise me diaphragm, lest Madame dismiss me.”

  She was wonderful.

  MARRY THE GIRL, YOU FRIGGING AMADON, a familiar voice, with more than a touch of Galway brogue, inside my head shouted at me. SHE’S HOPELESSLY IN LOVE WITH YOU. MARRY HER BY CHRISTMAS.

  The Adversary again.

  “I’ve got to respect her freedom to mature,” I replied. “She’s too young and too new in America to make such decisions.”

  YOU COULD HAVE FUCKED HER THE OTHER NIGHT.

  “I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”

  STILL THE LAST OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC GENTLEMEN?

  “Shut up!”

  DO YOU THINK HER DECISION ABOUT YOU WOULD BE ANY DIFFERENT FIVE YEARS FROM NOW?

  “No.”

  CAN’T SHE MATURE JUST AS WELL AS YOUR WIFE?

  “Maybe.”

  WON’T YOU RESPECT HER FREEDOM BETTER THAN MOST MEN, EVEN IF YOU ARE A FRIGGING AMADON?

  “I don’t know that.”

  MIGHT SHE NOT BE FREER IF SHE HAD ALREADY SETTLED HER DERMOT QUESTION?

  “We met too soon.”

  YOU’RE GOING TO FIGHT GOD’S PLANS? HASN’T PRESTER GEORGE WARNED YOU ABOUT THAT?

  “I don’t know.”

  SHE’S CRAZY ABOUT YOU, YOU EEJIT. CAN’T YOU TELL THAT? SHE WANTS YOU AS MUCH AS YOU WANT HER?

  “Women don’t desire the same way as men.”

  IT’S DIFFERENT, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT AS STRONG. IT MIGHT EVEN BE STRONGER. SHE WANTS YOU AS HER MAN. SHE WANTS YOU IN HER BED AS MUCH AS YOU WANT HER IN YOURS. DON’T TORMENT HER BY MAKING HER WAIT.

  “Leave me alone.”

  The Adversary took his leave.

  Maybe he was right.

  Then he sneaked back.

  YOU’RE AFRAID OF HER; THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

  “Up to a point.”

  TERRIFIED! YOU THINK SHE’S TOO MUCH WOMAN FOR YOU.

  “She’s a shy child.” I used my last-ditch defense.

  THAT MAKES HER ALL THE MORE POWERFUL WOMAN.

  He was speaking in paradoxes. He must be a writer of some sort.

  “She is a lot of woman,” I admitted.

  I’LL TELL YOU ONE THING. SHE’LL GET YOU EVENTUALLY. SHE’LL DRIVE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND TILL YOU MARRY HER.

  “That is altogether possible.”

  YOU’RE AFRAID OF HER AND YOU’RE AFRAID TO MAKE A COMMITMENT, JUST BECAUSE YOU’VE ALREADY LOST TWO WOMEN.

  “Go to hell, you filthy bastard!”

  He left again, this time for good.

  I had engaged in dialogues like that many times before. He was more persuasive now then he had been. Since he was really part of me, I knew the argument was coming up from the depths of my soul. Or the depths of something.

  Perhaps every young man who was enthralled by a young woman had experienced similar arguments.

  But not many would contend that they were simply respecting the young woman’s freedom. Maybe my quoting feminism was like the devil quoting scripture.

  I tabled the discussion for the evening.

  Later, when I was escorting her home, Nuala asked, “How much of Madame’s fee are you paying, Dermot Michael?”

  “What!”

  “Am I such an eejit to think she comes that cheap?”

  “Two-thirds.”

  I expected an explosion. Instead, she squeezed my hand even tighter.

  “You’re a sweet, generous, kind, and loving man, Dermot Michael Coyne. Thank you.”

  “I like taking care of you, Nuala Anne McGrail, as long as you let me.”

  “And haven’t I come to like your taking care of me, even if I am usually too much of a gobshite to admit it?”


  Or maybe too much of a church mouse.

  I didn’t tell her about the cops that were watching us at this very minute.

  “You’ll keep up with Madame?”

  “Don’t I have an extra reason now?”

  Then as if struggling to avoid dependence, she added immediately, “I’ll pay you back out of me recording royalties.”

  “What would your ma say about that remark?”

  I heard a deep breath next to me.

  “She’d say … she’d say that when someone gives you a gift, you should accept it graciously.”

  “So?”

  “So I won’t pay you back out of me royalties! … But I might, mind you, I said might, give you a free disk.”

  We laughed together.

  “It would be this way all our lives together,” I protested to the Adversary. “She’d drive a man out of his mind with her unpredictability.”

  YOU’RE SUCH A NINE-FINGERED SHITE HAWK THAT I WON’T EVEN TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE WOMAN.

  The lights were not on in her apartment.

  “No one home?”

  “They’re probably off at your man’s strategy session.”

  “I’ll walk up the stairs with you.”

  “You’ll fall and break your neck.”

  “Woman, I will not!”

  I took her arm firmly and guided her up the stairs.

  “Well, at least you’re not as clumsy as you were the last time.”

  “Open the door, woman.”

  “You’re NOT coming in!”

  “Yes, I am. I want to make sure there’s no one there.”

  “The place is a frigging mess.”

  “That’s all right. Open it.”

  She opened the door.

  “Turn on the lights.”

  “You’ll embarrass me altogether.”

  “I’ve done that before.”

  “I don’t mean that way.”

  She turned on the light.

  “It’s a pile of shite, isn’t it?”

  “’Tis indeed.”

  The three tiny rooms were certainly a pile of shite, meaning various womanly garments, intimate and less intimate, scattered in chaotic disorder. Since Nuala herself was always scrupulously neat, her friends must have created the mess.

  “Satisfied that there’s no one lurking here?”

  “More or less.”

  “Don’t think you’re going to be staying here.”

  “No way.”