Part XIII

Over lunch the Friday before Columbus Day, Emily let me know I’d been remiss in my duties as a friend. “So, here you are, living with this guy, coming into work like you’ve got little clouds on your feet instead of shoes, and I haven’t seen you after hours since I brought you home from the airport. I thought we were all going to have dinner sometime.”

“We were. I’m sorry I haven’t arranged that yet. Liam’s gotten involved with a group of local musicians, so we’ve been spending a lot of time at sessions lately.”

“Folk sessions?”

“Not exactly. Technically, it’s supposed to be Irish traditional stuff, but Liam and the guy who runs the sessions have been turning it into an acoustic free-for-all. You should see the looks on some of the players’ faces when Sean and Liam go off on a blues riff in the middle of a reel.”

“I bet! Are these sessions open to people who just want to come and listen?”

“Yeah, there’s usually a good-sized audience, mostly a mix of the musicians’ significant others and curious people who wander in for coffee. I’m sure Liam wouldn’t mind if you came along with us. What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing yet. Is there a session?”

“Yeah, at Mary’s Place on Charles Street. You want to come to the house first, or just meet us there?”

“Well, I’ll have to eat first, won’t I?” she hinted.

“Then come to the house and we’ll have dinner. It’s just as easy to cook for three as for two. Liam won’t mind.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Oh, sweet Jesus! He cooks?”

I nodded, smiling. “He also picks up after himself and keeps the house neat. In fact, he’s better about all that than I am.”

“Damn! You have all the luck, Sarah! What time do we eat on Friday?”

“Around six.”

“I’ll be there. This man sounds too good to be true. D’you think he might have a friend for me?”

“I doubt it. At the moment, his only friends are me and Sean.”

“Sean?”

“The session leader.”

“Oh. Sean. Hey, doesn’t he work at Mary’s Place? The tall redhead?”

“That’s the guy, but he’s married to Mary, and—you haven’t seen him in awhile, have you?”

“No. Since the office relocated, Mary’s Place isn’t on the way anymore.”

“Same here, so I guess you haven’t stopped there for a couple of years?”

“Right.”

“Well, Sean’s been very ill since we stopped buying our coffee from him. He’s still connected with Mary’s Place as a musician, and as Mary’s husband, of course, but he’s a producer now.”

“Really! Does his have his own studio?”

“Yeah, upstairs from the restaurant. Real state-of-the-art, or so Liam says. And it’s good work for Sean, especially while he’s trying to get his strength back.”

“I never even knew he was a musician.” Emily picked at her salad. “God, he was a babe, though! Remember?”

I did. Sean had indeed been handsome in an interesting sort of way, tall and lithe as a willow, with a shock of graying copper hair and a bizarre sense of humor. Back when I was regular customer, I’d really enjoyed our daily morning banter. “Sean’s still a good-looking man in a way, Em, but he’s aged so much, and he’s in a wheelchair now. But somehow he’s managed to retain his sense of humor.”

“I’m glad. That was one of the best things about Mary’s Place. You never knew what outrageous thing that man was going to say from one minute to the next. He sure kept me laughing.”

“Me, too. I’m glad to cross paths with him again, but it’s bittersweet. I mean, he’s still lively and funny, but more reserved, and he looks as if a good wind could carry him off. Though he swears he’s finally recovering, I can’t help but wonder.”

“D’you know what was wrong with him?”

“Cancer. Poor guy’s been through it three times now. The last time it hit him in his lower back.”

“Good God! He’s paralyzed?”

“Not exactly. I guess he’s gradually been getting some sensation back, and he can walk a little with crutches, but his rehab’s been going pretty slowly. He’ll probably need to use the chair, at least some of the time, for the rest of his life.”

“Damn! What a shame. But I guess I’m not surprised to hear that he got cancer. I mean, he had that look about him. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” Handsome and vigorous as Sean had been when I first met him, he had always been too thin, and there was a hollow look to his face and an indescribable sort of distance in his twinkling eyes. Now, though he might be a wreck physically, his eyes had a totally different appearance. They said he was here to stay, here to fight for the duration, and any lingering distance marked him as what he was: a bit of a daydreamer, prone to startlingly dead-on insights. I was more thankful for him with each passing day as his friendship with Ronan deepened and strengthened.

“But he seems to be on the mend now?” Emily was asking.

I nodded. “Wait ’til you hear him and Ronan play together.”

Emily stared. “Ronan?” she echoed.

My heart sank as I realized I had finally slipped. “Oh, did I say Ronan?” I asked, feigning innocence and failing miserably

“Yeah, you did. How many boyfriends are you juggling, girl?”

She had handed me a way out, but I knew I couldn’t take it. If I couldn’t maintain the simple Liam/Ronan duality, there was no way I could manage the maze of lies the second boyfriend theory would force me to negotiate. “I’m not,” I answered honestly. “There’s just the one.”

“Liam, right?”

“Right.”

“But you said Ronan.”

“Did I really say Ronan?” I asked again, in a last-ditch attempt to get out of the mess I’d gotten myself into.

“You did, and you know it.” Emily sounded impatient.

“You’re right, I did, but it’s been so hard to remember to watch what I say, and I was never a good liar. I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever. Oh, God, he’s going to be mad as hell when he finds out!”

Emily blinked. “Huh? You lost me. What’s going on, Sarah?”

“I’ll tell you, but—can you take the afternoon off, Em? ’Cause otherwise there’s not enough time to get into it, and besides, I can’t talk about it here, with all these people around.”

“Sounds important. I can take off, all right, ’cause I’m having a slow day, but what’s your schedule looking like?”

“I’m slow, too. It’s always like that on the Friday before a long weekend. Half the people in the office are gone, too. Who’s going to care if we take off?”

“Good point.” She pulled her cell phone out of her messenger bag, flipped it open, and dialed the receptionist. I was amazed at how convincing she could be, in a very professional-sounding way. “Good job, Em,” I said admiringly, once she had turned the phone off.

“Yes, well, now you should wait fifteen or twenty minutes, then say you went home with a migraine or something.”

“You think that’s going to fool anyone? This is what we do every time we decide to take an afternoon off.”

“So? We always make it up, don’t we, when the shit hits the fan?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, with a sigh. “Can we go to your place?”

“Sure, but it’s a mess,” she warned. “Tomorrow is house-cleaning day.”

“I don’t care, just so we can be alone.”

“Not a problem. Let’s blow this clambake.”

***

I hadn’t been to Emily’s house in a really long time. She had a new couch, and the place was nowhere near as much of a mess as she’d said it was. I lounged on the couch in a set of sweats she’d loaned me, my feet tucked under me. The tiny gas fireplace flickered cozily and I watched it, mesmerized, until Emily came in carrying mugs of hot tea.

“Here you go,” she announced, and put one down on the coffee table before me, then settled at the other end of the couch, facing me. “O.K., Sarah. I’m all ears. Spill it.”

I ran my hand over the top of my head, combing through my hair with my fingers: something I tend to do when I’m anxious.

“Well, this must be a pretty big deal. You’re playing with your hair.”

“Yeah, it’s a big deal, all right,” I muttered. Then I looked up at her. “Em, if I tell you the whole story, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone. Ever. And you also have to pretend you don’t know a thing. I won’t have the man I love hurt.”

“Which man?” she asked. “You’ve mentioned Liam, who I met at the airport quite some time ago, and you’ve mentioned Ronan. Sounds to me like you’re juggling, even though you say you’re not. Tell me about this Ronan, and why you see him as such a threat to Liam.”

“Em, there’s really just one man. One.” I got up and went over to the shelf that held her CDs and started browsing. There it was: Ronan’s final studio album, which I’d given her for Christmas a few years ago. Though it wasn’t still in shrink wrap, I doubted she had ever listened to it. I brought it to her and laid it in her lap. The picture was a nice one: Ronan, looking older, but every bit as handsome in middle age as he had been in his glory days.

“Sarah, I don’t know what on earth this has to do with—” She stopped short and turned the jewel case over in her hand, studied it, then flipped it over again. “Where have I seen him before?”

“The screensaver on my computer at work for one, and I also have pictures at the house. But you’ve seen him much more recently than that. He’s calling himself Liam O’Malley now, but he’s really Ronan O’Farrell, and he’s supposed to be dead, but he’s not, and I met him online, and I’m in love with him!” I blurted it all out in a rush, and it was such a relief to finally tell someone, I stared to laugh and cry at the same time.

Emily was quiet, still studying the picture on the CD leaflet. Then something seemed to click all of a sudden. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “It really is him! He’s thinner and grayer, but—how long have you known?”

“He told me after I’d been with him in New Zealand for two weeks.”

“You mean, you never guessed?”

“No. I might have, if he’d been willing to send me a picture or two before I went over to visit.”

“You went over not even knowing what this guy looked like?”

I nodded. “Look, Em, I know it sounds crazy, but—”

“It could’ve been a disaster, y’know. He could’ve turned out to be a psycho and murdered you!”

“I know that, but—I really don’t know how to explain what I felt about him. He was so kind, and I was awfully vulnerable at the time, though he didn’t know that. We had some great correspondence, and he came across as being utterly trustworthy. I don’t know why. Instinct? Intuition?” I shook my head, and said again, “I don’t know.”

“You were very, very lucky, Sarah. I can’t believe you took such a chance! How come you couldn’t tell who he was right from the get-go?”

“Well, he had changed quite a bit, physically, and of course for the first couple of weeks, he had that awful eye infection and had to wear shades all the time.”

“Does he still wear them?”

“Only when we go out.”

“But his eyes are better.”

“Yes, the infection’s cleared up, but he’s still really sensitive to light.”

“He says.”

“No, Em, it’s true. It’s also true that once he let me look him straight in the eye, I knew. And now that he’s been able to play guitar again, and I’ve had opportunities to hear him, I know without a doubt. He is Ronan O’Farrell.”

“He’s very lucky he’s not too well-known over here. Does anyone else know?”

“Just the Phelans.”

“Who?”

“The Phelans. Sean and Mary.”

“Oh.”

“And he wouldn’t have told them if he wasn’t so sure that Sean would figure it out on his own. Once he realized that Sean did know his work very well and recognized his technique, he decided it was pointless to deny it. No one else would guess, but guitarist to guitarist, he couldn’t hide. Sean was suspicious from the very first time they played together at a seisiún. Ronan found out when they were talking afterwards, so he told Sean the truth as soon as we had an opportunity to be alone with him. And of course, since he’s married to Mary, she had to know, too.”

“Wow. But he’s traveling under an alias?”

“He changed his name legally a number of years ago, so officially he is Liam O’Malley, but wants those of us who are close to him to call him Ronan. However, most people can’t do that indefinitely without a slip.”

Emily put the CD down and picked up her tea. She took a sip, swallowed, and made a face. “Yuck, now it’s too cold. I can’t win.” She got up and padded off to the kitchen, and I heard the microwave beeping. In a minute, she returned with the mug and settled back down. She sipped cautiously. “There! That’s better. So. It’s all coming back to me, how much you liked this guy’s music. You met him once, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, years ago, after a concert. He wasn’t well at the time, and his career was definitely on the downslide, but he played brilliantly. I know I’ve showed you the pictures Jesse took that night.”

“Ronan O’Farrell was the run-down has-been in those pictures?”

I winced. “He wasn’t a has-been, and he isn’t now.”

“I don’t know about now, but he sure was then! Wasn’t that the show you told me about, where there were maybe half a dozen people left in the audience by the end of the night?”

“Yeah. It really upset me. I could hear how depressed he was in every note he played.”

“Oh, go on!”

“It’s true. Intuition.”

“Oh, Christ!” Emily muttered. “You and your intuition!”

“In this case it was spot on, Em. He’s told me so. He was ready to throw himself in the nearest river, but something about meeting me and talking with me on the way to the hotel made him change his mind.”

“Right.” Emily shook her head. “Sarah, your naivete frightens me.”

“I am not naïve!” I retorted. “Honestly, Em! Can’t you give me any credit at all for having a brain when it comes to this sort of thing? You talk down at me like an indulgent parent, oh, isn’t she cute, loop-de-loo, off in la-la land, and I’m fucking sick of it!”

“Sarah—”

Emily’s voice held a warning note, but I didn’t care. “You’ve always acted like I haven’t a brain in my head when I tell you about anything I feel that has a spiritual component! I don’t have a problem with your mind working differently from mine. I don’t agree most of the time, but I let you have your say, and I don’t throw you down for it, or try to convert you to my way of thinking. But you—God, Em! It’s like, there, there, pat, pat, now it’s time to grow up and be sensible, just like me. Why can’t you just accept me as I am?”

“I thought I always had,” she said stiffly. “I always thought we balanced each other well. I know I’m relentlessly practical. I can’t help that. Your intuition—I wish I had it, too! Because you know what would have happened to me if I’d taken the kind of chance you did? I’d have met a psycho and gotten myself killed, because I don’t have any sense of intuition! I always hoped some of yours might rub off on me, but it hasn’t. The older I get, the more practical and inflexible I get, and look what I have to show for it!”

I looked around at the beautiful apartment with its lovely skyline view, and thought about how Emily’s job was far more interesting than mine, and earned her a better salary, too. “Are you telling me you’re jealous? You, with all your success and your money and—”

“And solitude, Sarah. Lots and lots of solitude. A bit of a social life, but no real ties to anyone other than you. I wish,” she said, in a deflated-sounding voice, “that I had a little of your intuition, and you had a little of my practicality. Then maybe we’d understand each other better.”

“We never had any serious problems until now.”

“No, because even when you had other guys in your life, there was room for your friends—for me! But with this man, who may or may not be who he says he is, you’re joined at the hip, and no other reality exists!”

“That’s not fair, Em! He won’t be able to stay here forever, y’know. I don’t like to think about it, but he’s going back to New Zealand in January, and if I’m lucky I might get to see him once or twice a year after that. Once or twice a year! And I—I love him!”

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, but tell me one thing.”

“What?”

“Do you love him for who he is now, or for what he was when you had a crush on him? The man, or the myth?”

That kind of directness was the main reason I was never sure if I loved Emily, or hated her. She never backed down from difficult questions, and sometimes that made me damned uncomfortable. Now was no exception.

“Well?” she prompted.

“I’m pretty sure I love him for who he is now, Em. I mean, I did get to know him as Liam O’Malley first, and I had pretty strong feelings for him long before I even set foot on the plane. Good God, when we were out on the boat in Doubtful Sound I came damn close to trying to seduce him! If you could have seen him that night, you’d understand why. And it had nothing to do with music, or who he might have been. When he told me a few days later, it really came as a shock. Here I’d gone and fallen in love with Liam O’Malley, but Liam O’Malley didn’t exist, and I was left wrestling with the notion that I’d actually fallen in love with a man I’d idolized for years. A man I thought had died five years ago. Hearing him make music never entered into it, because he never picked up a guitar in my presence, and then after he broke his wrist, he couldn’t. So, I got to know him without the music, and believe me, he’s just as intense a person without it.”

“I want to see him in action, Sarah. I want to watch the two of you interact.”

“Fine, but only if you promise not to let on that you know.”

“I’ll promise you that for now, for tonight, but if I smell a rat, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to keep my mouth shut.”

“You won’t smell a rat. He’s a wonderful man.”

“Call him and let him know you’re bringing me home for dinner, and let me see how he reacts. That’ll be the first test.”

***

C.P. Warner
© 21 July 2007

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