Part VII

It was a strange, yet joyful thing to waken the next morning with Ronan pressed against my back, his arm curled loosely around my waist. I hated to disturb him, but there were travel plans to make and appointments to book. The sooner I got started, the sooner we could relax and forget about it until the journey actually began. I stirred and nudged him gently.

He made some incoherent waking noises that bore a vague resemblance to speech, and rolled over on his back, pushing the comforter down to his waist. Helping him to dress in the dark the night before, I hadn’t noticed the Guinness logo emblazoned across his t-shirt.

“Don’t you look like an ad for a hangover!” I greeted him.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to you, too,” he returned, sliding his black sleep mask to the top of his head.

His eyes still looked awful: inflamed and oozing, with the lids swollen and irritated.

I winced. “How do your eyes feel?”

“Nasty. Still itching and burning. Would you mind fetching me a cold mask?”

“Not at all.” I got out of bed clumsily, my flannel nightgown tangling in the sheets. It wasn’t hard to imagine how Ronan could have fallen the night before. I kicked free and went out to the kitchen. In the freezer there were several eye-mask shaped gel packs. I wrapped one in a clean towel, then thought he could probably use a wet washcloth, too. I got one from the bathrooom, soaked it with cold water and wrung it out, then returned to the bedroom. I sat down on the bed beside him. “Let’s clean you up a little. Close your eyes.”

He closed them and I washed around them carefully, wiping away as much of the exudate as I could, then laid the cold pack down gently. “How’s that? Better?”

“A bit, yes. Thank you.” He lay still for a time, and finally I stretched out beside him. His graying hair rippled over the pillow, fanning softly around his face like a silvery halo. I took a lock in my fingers and toyed with it, enjoying its texture as I smoothed it over my knuckle and stroked it. His face was heavily shadowed with stubble, since the previous day’s events had distracted him, and he’d forgotten to shave. Certainly, he was not looking his best, and yet—his mouth, curled slightly at the corners in a relaxed smile, was nonetheless inviting. I leaned down and kissed him.

He kissed back for a few moments, then broke away. “That can’t have been very pleasant for you,” he apologized. “I’ve not cleaned my teeth yet.”

“Neither have I, and I don’t care. I just—well, somehow I’ve got to assure myself that I’m not just back home in Boston, having strange and wild dreams.”

He grinned. “I could oblige you with a wake-up pinch.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“All right, then, I suppose I’d best get up and have a shower and all that.”

“Me, too. Do you need help?”

He chuckled. “If I wanted a recreational shower, that would be one thing, but this is purely business, I’m sorry to say.”

I could feel myself blushing and was glad Ronan still had the cold pack over his eyes. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I meant, seriously, with your arm and your eyes—”

“I’d quite forgotten about my arm, lying here not moving it. They gave me some sort of thing at the hospital, didn’t they? Kind of a long, tight glove to keep the water out. I might need some help getting that on and off, but aside from that I should be fine on my own.”

“I’ll see if I can find it.”

***

Later, Ronan came to breakfast wearing an even darker pair of sunglasses than usual. The frames were orange plastic, enormous, outrageous, and ugly, and the lenses were nearly black: a bad throwback to the mid-1970s. “Wow, those shades are really hideous, Ronan. Where’d you get them? A yard sale at Elton John’s?”

“Ha!” he snorted. “That’s a good one! But no, I’d have remembered if I got them at an event like that! What really happened, if I recall correctly, was that I’d misplaced my usual pair when I needed them rather desperately. I was in London with a bad hangover and very little brass in pocket, and I didn’t care what I looked like, so long as the lenses were big and dark. I bought them from a street vendor. They’re probably ladies’ frames for all I know. And come to think of it, I was actually still very drunk and passing into a bad hangover at the time, or I might’ve chosen more wisely. The irony of it all is that the shades I couldn’t find were in the breast pocket of the jacket I was wearing. So I went about in these dreadful things, looking like an idiot for no good reason.”

I laughed as I poured his coffee. “But you kept them.”

“I did, mainly as a reminder to never get that drunk again, and over the years they’ve simply refused to be lost. Without fail, they’ve turned up when I least expected it, today being no exception. But right now I’m grateful to have them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to put those shields and the bandage back on: not with all this oozing and itching. It just can’t be a good thing, to close all that off from the air.”

“Yes, I wondered about that when I got a good look at you this morning. Why not try bathing your eyes in warm saline instead, just for today?”

“Saline? Really? But I have prescription stuff that’s more effective.”

“Yes, but at this point you’ve had so many chemicals put into your eyes, I want to give them a break. Try something simple and natural, and if it hasn’t helped by tomorrow morning, you can go back to your prescriptions.”

“That’s an awfully big risk to take.”

“I know. That’s why I only want to try it for twenty-four hours. Look, Ronan, based on the itching and oozing, I can’t help but wonder—could you possibly be having an allergic reaction?”

He swallowed a bit of his coffee and frowned. “I doubt it. Didn’t I tell you from day one that it’s iritis?"

“I believe you, but you can have iritis and an allergy at the same time.”

“I’ve never had allergies of any kind.”

“That doesn’t matter. They can start up at any time in a person’s life, completely out of the blue, and eyes are so sensitive. Maybe there’s something in one of those prescriptions that isn’t sitting well with you.”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “Well, then, have your way with me today. I’m desperate enough to try anything that might improve the situation. None of these potions and solutions seem to being doing the trick.”

***

Later, using Ronan’s laptop, I started searching for flights. There seemed to be plenty available, but with no clear idea how long it would take to treat his eyes, it was hard to choose a return date.

“Well, how long do you want me to stay? A week? Six months?”

I held back my impulse to blurt out “forever” and concentrated on being practical. “What do you think, Ronan? Do you think three months would give you enough time?”

“If you can abide having me around that long, then yes, that should be good. If worse came to worse I could always pay the fee and change the return flight.”

“You might not have to pay a fee at all if you’re still being treated by then. The doctor could write a note.”

“True. Well, why not cover all the bases and say four months? That gives me September through December, at any rate. Is that all right with you?”

“Fine.” I punched in the dates on the website and waited. When the list of flights came up, I gasped.

“What?”

“It’s no trouble to get you on the same flights as me, but—Jesus! The ticket costs over three grand in New Zealand money!”

He shrugged. “So?”

“I’d have to think long and hard before I spent that kind of money to travel, even if I had more than enough cash on hand.”

“It’s only money,” he said, with the sort of offhand detachment typical of people who don’t have to worry about their finances.

“You want me to go ahead and book it, then?”

“Yeah.” He drew his wallet out of his back pocket. “Use my Mastercard.”

I found the card and looked at it. “So, I should book you as Liam o’Malley, then?”

He nodded.

“And your passport is in that name, too?”

“All my documentation has been changed. Legally. There won’t be any problems with it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’d never have gotten here in the first place if all the ducks weren’t in a proper row.”

“True.” I typed in his information and booked the ticket. “There! All done.”

He let his breath out in a rush.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Oh, nothing, really. I just can’t believe I’m actually going to get on a plane and travel again.”

“It’ll be fine. Now, let me have a look for eye specialists in the Boston area.”

He drew up a chair and sat beside me at the kitchen table. “You’d think after all the time I’ve been online that I’d have gotten jaded about it, but really, I’ve never ceased to marvel at the wonder of the internet. Everything I need is there, readily obtainable, and in most cases I don’t even have to leave the house to get it.”

“You’ve never had any bad experiences, then?”

“Not really. An occasional flame, perhaps, but nothing worse than that. And did I tell you? I still belong to the group we met on, and every now and then I read the messages, but I never write there anymore. I got really sick of all the sniping and backbiting. I stay in touch with the folks I want to stay in touch with—mainly you and a few gear-heads—and I enjoy that. So, the group served a purpose, but once I’d made a few friends, I didn’t need it. But sometimes I get a chuckle, skimming over the posts there. Amazing, really, how some people who never even met me are able to conjure up visions of what my life was all about, and how I lived from moment to moment. For instance, did you know I was married and divorced five times, had my way with untold numbers of women, and left Lord knows how many illegitimate offspring all over Europe and Great Britain?”

I hadn’t known that. “Really?” I asked, my voice squeaking a bit on the last syllable.

“My dear, if I was that much of a sex-crazed maniac, you’d have found out by now, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

“Come, now! Have I taken any liberties you didn’t invite me to take?”

It was true; he had never done anything more than to embrace and kiss me. We had shared his bed last night as close companions, but had not made love. I’d attributed that to his not feeling well after the hospital ordeal, and fully expected that sometime in the next few nights we would enact a very different scenario. “No, you haven’t,” I conceded.

“Right, because Ronan O’Farrell, the man you see before you, has nothing in common with Ronan O’Farrell, the myth. The salacious tales are the least of it. There’s also a lot of speculation about whether I died of natural causes, or by my own hand. That has a little validity, though, because I’ve always had problems with depression and I can’t truthfully say that I never considered suicide. But I didn’t act on it.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you had.”

“I could be. Suicide attempts aren’t always successful.”

“So, you did try it.”

“No, I didn’t. I merely said that not all suicide attempts are successful: a simple observation. And I never acted because I was afraid of what would happen if I failed.”

“Do you still think about it?”

“Not since I came here. I still get pretty blue now and then, but it’s nothing a good sleep and a fresh perspective can’t cure. I told you that when we were out in the Sound.”

“I remember,” I said, nodding. Then I turned back to the computer screen and scrolled through the results Google had provided. I selected a link and waited, then perused the page. “Ronan, this is perfect, and to think I found it on my first hit! Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. It’s not far from my place, and they have an online form you can fill out to request an appointment. They say they’ll get back to you and set a date by e-mail. That’s easier than making a phone call from here, don’t you think?”

“Indeed. We’re sixteen hours ahead of Boston. Let’s fill out the form and see what happens.”

“O.K.”

He dictated all his pertinent information and together we composed a note explaining his condition and travel plans. I proofed it carefully to make sure we were clear and hadn’t left anything out, then clicked to submit it. “There! Now we’ll just wait for their answer.”

“You’re sure they’ll write back?”

“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t. It might take a day or two, but they’ll answer.”

“Oh, I hope so! I want this problem fixed, once and for all.”

“They’ll know what to do, and if there’s any question at all, they have a whole network of other doctors to refer you to.”

He smiled. “So, the first steps have been taken. Put the computer away, and let’s go fire up the stereo.”

***

Ronan settled down on the sofa in the music room, and invited me to browse through the collection on the highest shelves in the furthest corner of the room—“my archives,” he called it. I could reach it only by standing on a tall step-stool that had been placed there. I had failed to notice it before, as Ronan had it carefully hidden behind a wing-chair and ottoman. “Feel free to pick out anything that intrigues you.”

“Really?”

He laughed. “Yes, really! Now that I have no more secrets, you can listen to anything you want.”

So I climbed the steps and browsed to my heart’s content, delighted to find so many unofficial recordings from every era of his long career. It was an astounding collection.

“Where did you get these? Soundboard recordings?”

“Some are, yes, but as for the others, well, let’s just say I’m not immune to the temptations of eBay.”

“You’ve bought copies of your own bootlegs?”

“Occasionally. There’s a wealth of stuff out there, and I can’t help being curious. Reading reviews never gave me a real perspective on how a show sounded, or what I might have done with a particular lead break. I’m a rather compulsive critic of my own work.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. You’d never have gotten as good as you did without that kind of study.”

“Probably not, and I daresay there aren’t too many people who work like that nowadays. You go to a concert and hear all the solos sounding just like they do on the studio record, with no variation whatsoever. Lots of stellar technique, but very little soul.”

“Smaller bands still have it.”

“Yes, due to the nature of playing a small venue. You forge a link between yourself and the audience much more easily when they’re inches away from you.”

I smiled, remembering how Ronan, back in his heyday, sometimes used to leap down into the midst of the crowd, blazing away as he danced among them in an ever-widening circle. “You could never manage that in a big arena, could you?”

“It was more difficult, but it did happen sometimes. I just couldn’t be as interactive. I always played my best, but still felt something was lacking in those situations. There’s a sort of—barrier to the energy exchange. In a club, though, you and the audience are continually feeding off one another. There’s a constant flow going back and forth. D’you know what I mean? ’Cause I don’t think I’m describing it very well.”

“How can you describe the indescribable?” I countered.

“Point taken,” he replied, smiling. “Isn’t it time to do my eyes again?”

***

C.P. Warner
© 8 June 2007

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