Part IX

Ronan was so nervous about traveling again, I never knew if he’d really go through with it until the moment he seated himself beside me on the plane. There had been so many arrangements for him to make before he could leave: engaging someone to keep an eye on the house and property, e-mailing his contact information and itinerary to his sister, getting his boat into dry dock, and locking his archives up in a wall-safe in his bedroom.

Packing, at least, was not a complicated issue. He had a mid-sized duffel bag, into which he threw a one-week supply of clothing and underwear.

“That’s all I need if you have laundry facilities. That, and whatever clothes I have on my back when we leave.”

“But our weather will be starting to turn, Ronan. You’ll want something warm for winter.”

“My pullover will do. Feel that,” he said, and handed it to me.

I fingered the heavily-textured garment. He wore it whenever we went outside and never seemed bothered by the cold. “You’re right. That’ll probably do, unless we have a real bad cold snap. Is it handmade?”

“Yes. My Granny was a great knitter. I’ve had this for, oh, thirty years, at least.”

“Thirty years? But it scarcely looks worn!”

“Oh, it’s been worn, all right, but it’s also been cared for well. Granny said she’d come back and haunt me if I didn’t treat it properly. She taught me how to wash it and dry it, and also how to mend it. No woolen pullover survives this long without the occasional moth-hole.” He displayed one of his repairs. “You’re a knitter, or so you’ve said, not that I’ve seen you make a single stitch since you got here. How’s my work?”

I examined the spot in question, inside and out. “You even wove in the ends!”

“Yes. I loved Granny dearly, but I’ve no desire to have her coming ’round here wailing like a bean sì.”

“Looks like it was mended by a pro. Do you knit, too?”

“Well, I know how to, though I haven’t done it in a long time. I spent hours helping with the family socks when I was a boy. Black and navy blue. You can’t imagine the tedium of it. I think I first had the notion to start up with music ’cause none of the men who entertained us ever had to knit on socks of a night. The ladies in the household liked to work to music, you see. It made their fingers and the hours fly, and I knew a good situation when I saw it. Wore my fingers to the bone practicing on a relic of a guitar, and it wasn’t long before I was playing circles around everyone but the fiddler. Sometimes he and I would duel all night long. ’Twas exciting for me—purely set me afire! Mam used to have to pry the guitar away from me, so I’d have to quit and go up to bed and get some sleep. And even at that, I never could sleep like she wanted me to. I’d stay awake and listen, and learn.” He took the sweater back and held it close to his heart, looking a bit misty-eyed. “Ah, sometimes I still get terribly homesick, and I’d love to go back, even if it meant spending the rest of my life knitting black socks!”

“You’d die of boredom. Better you should go back and make music.”

He smiled. “Roving ceili and seisiún musicians were treated like royalty wherever they went. Never mind that most of them looked a hundred years old and didn’t have ten teeth between them. I used to think I wanted to join up with them, until I realized that the oldest one was just fifty. Life was hard on the island, and it showed, though more on the men than the women, I think. Anyway, I liked my teeth and my good looks a little too well, and figured I’d best leave to preserve them.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, fifteen when I decided I’d have to leave, and seventeen when I actually did it. Took the ferry to Galway and never looked back.”

“Never?”

“Well—occasionally I couldn’t help it, and of course every now and then I had to go back for a funeral or a wedding, as my own schedule permitted. And as I get older I long for simpler ways of life, and I look back. To be a roving island musician has its appeal, but I can picture those men in my minds’ eye too vividly, and I still like having decent teeth, and my looks, too, such as they are. I may not be what I once was, but I’m far from grotesque, wouldn’t you say?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and I straddled his knees, and leaned forward to touch my nose to his.

He laughed and flashed his teeth in a broad smile. They were clean and straight, but not so perfect as to lack character. Clearly, no orthodontist had ever laid a hand on him.

We rubbed noses, and I laughed, too.

Already, it was hard for me to remember exactly what Ronan had looked like when I first arrived. All I knew was that there was a distinct difference. Was it his actual physical appearance, or the fact that he had relaxed so much after revealing his secret? Certainly, he seemed more youthful and even looked as if years had dropped away overnight. The hair was still gray, but it shone like polished silver, and overall he was much more energetic.

He lay back on the bed, pulling me down with him, still laughing, and it was good. Very good…

***

By the time we got on the plane, Ronan’s sense of ease and playfulness had all but vanished. Once buckled into his seat, he drew a deep breath and released it slowly as he took in his surroundings. “I never thought to do this again,” he said. “It seems so strange.”

“It’ll be all right,” I assured him. He’d never really explained exactly why he was so fearful, but I doubted it had anything to do with worrying about a plane crash. He was wearing his shades and the tweed fedora again, incognito to the best of his ability. His anxiety increased with every kilometer traveled from Manapouri to Dunedin, and in the airport he had been so jumpy I wished I had some tranquilizers on hand. When the hardware in his ankle did indeed set off the metal detector, I thought he would leap straight out of his skin. But finally we’d made it through all that, and the plane’s door had closed behind us.

“No turning back now,” Ronan murmured, his good hand closing on mine.

“You don’t really want to turn back, do you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I just hope—”

“What?”

“I hope no one recognizes me.”

“I think you’re worrying for nothing. You scarcely bear any resemblance to your old self. I only saw it because I was so attuned to you, even after all those years, and because you wanted me to see it. And in spite of that, it was still hard to believe what I was seeing when you’d kept it hidden so well.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Of course not.”

He relaxed a bit and leaned back in his seat. “Maybe growing older and grayer isn’t such a bad thing after all.”

“No, and if you’re really that eager to disguise yourself, there’s a simple but obvious solution: don’t shave.”

He smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that. By the time we hit Boston, I should have a good head-start, since I’ll not have the inclination to shave in the loo. We’ll get an idea of how I might look, based on the shadow, and if we both like it, I’ll just let it keep growing. Once it’s in full enough, I can think about how I want to trim it.”

“I like the idea. You’d look awfully handsome if you trimmed yours the way Graham Nash did in the mid-sixties,” I mused, recalling the picture sleeve of an old single I had back in the day.

“I seem to remember that vaguely.” Ronan smiled. “Had a thing for Graham Nash, did you?”

“Not since then. I was all of ten years old at the time. But I remember that I thought it might be very nice to be ‘on a carousel’ with him.”

“Ha!” Ronan snorted. “Do you remember what I looked like in that era?”

“Yes, though I didn’t discover your early stuff until I was quite a bit older. You were a heartbreaker.”

“And now?”

“Different,” I said, with a smile.

“Different, how?”

“Beyond the obvious? I really don’t know. Being a heartbreaker is overrated anyway, don’t you think?”

He laughed. “You have a point there! I remember it being rather a pain in the arse. But I wish there was still something of that about me.”

“There is, and there isn’t. You’ve lost that voodoo chile aloofness you used to have, and gotten—well, for lack of a better way to put it—softer around the edges. Mellower. It suits you so well, I do believe you’re handsomer now than you were back in the day.”

“Really? I don’t know. I’ve heard it said so many times, how I was such a beauty, but I never believed anyone meant it. See, I always thought I was rather a leprechaun, with a nice enough face, but too short, and now I’m too heavy as well.”

“No, you’re not. Honestly, just because you can’t cram yourself into drain-pipe Levi’s anymore?”

“I miss my drain-pipes,” he said wistfully. “I’d just buy a bigger size, if I wouldn’t end up looking utterly ridiculous, like just another old man trying desperately to stay young.”

“You’re not an old man and you could never look ridiculous! These black jeans you like to wear now are a good compromise. Dressier. And with a little more meat on your bones, you certainly fill them out nicely. Back in your glory days, you were too skinny, y’know, like you never sat still long enough to eat a good meal. But you’re perfect now.”

He snorted, then smiled at me fondly. “Just ’cause I have a fatter arse?”

“That’s not quite what I meant, and you know it.”

“Och, well, be that as it may, I think you have some strange ideas about perfection, à chuisle.”

***

The flight home seemed to go much faster than the flight over to New Zealand, but I figured that was due to having a companion rather than any significant time difference. Ronan and I both slept a great deal, taking turns resting our heads against each other’s shoulders. Though we had been sharing a bed for the last two weeks, I had not yet ceased to marvel at the miracle of our new-found intimacy. Now I had permission to touch him, and to run my fingers through the thick, soft waves of his hair, and I did so at every possible opportunity.

Likewise, he touched me, holding my hand or stroking my hair, and occasionally stealing kisses. He was my world, and I was his. Little else mattered until we touched down in Boston, and then I broke the news to him, that Emily would be meeting us and taking us back to my apartment.

“That’ll be fine,” he said, “as long as you remember to introduce me as Liam O’Malley. Will you?”

I nodded, knowing that would be best. Emily would surely recognize the name Ronan O’Farrell after having heard me talk about his music so much over the years. But I had grown so accustomed to calling him Ronan now, I wasn’t sure I could go back to saying Liam without a slip.

She met us in the lobby after we’d collected our luggage. As we embraced, she demanded, “So how was it? Did you have a nice time?”

“It was better than mere words can describe, but I did take lots of pictures. I’ll show you when I’ve loaded them into the computer.”

“I can’t wait to see!”

“Emily, I—”

“What?”

“I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Liam O’Malley.” I pulled Ronan forward. “Liam, Emily Carlson. We work together, and we’ve been friends for ages and ages.”

Ronan extended his hand as Emily’s jaw dropped. “Pleased to meet you,” he said politely. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” she responded, shaking his proffered hand. “Maybe you’ve heard a lot about me, but I’ve never heard boo about you. Sarah, when you said you had a surprise for me, I thought you meant you’d brought me a nice present!”

“And I did.”

“Look, honey, I know I said I needed a good man in my life, but really!” She winked at Ronan to let him know she was teasing me.

“Sorry, Em. Liam’s not your present. Like I said, he’s my friend, and he’s come to Boston to have some medical issues taken care of properly.”

“Your arm?” she asked, since it was the most obvious thing.

“No, that’s nothing, just a broken wrist, and it’s mending well on its own. I’m actually here to see about a problem with my eyes. I’ve got an infection of some sort that won’t clear up, and Sarah thought I ought to come over and consult a specialist. She set the appointment up for me before we left New Zealand.”

“Well, that was smart, Sarah. It’s not easy to get an appointment with a specialist these days.”

“I know. That’s why I did it, so Liam could get in as soon as possible. I explained that he would be traveling expressly for the purpose of getting treatment underway as soon as possible, and they managed to fit him into the schedule.”

“How long are you here for?” she asked.

“I don’t know. As long as it takes, I guess. I can’t get proper treatment where I’m living now, and I didn’t want to travel to Auckland or Christchurch alone.”

“Your vision’s bad, then?”

“It’s certainly not ideal at the moment.”

Emily gave me a sidelong glance and I knew she was thinking of Hal. Though Ronan knew the whole story now, the last thing I wanted to do was bring up the subject again. I shook my head at her, hoping she would understand. A conspiratorial glint in her eye told me she’d gotten the message loud and clear, while a slightly raised eyebrow let me know I would have some explaining to do when we had lunch together on Monday. “I hope the doctor can help you,” she said.

“I hope so, too.” Ronan pressed closer to my side as we approached the crossing to the parking garage. Dank, noisy, smelly, and dangerous, this was the worst part of traveling from Logan. I slipped my free arm around his waist and guided him forward as soon as there was a safe break in the traffic. We hurried across on the tail end of a larger group of people and made it safely to the garage.

“Where are you parked, Em?”

“I lucked out,” she replied. “It’s not far at all.”

Before long, we were settled in the car and on the way home. “You guys must be exhausted.”

“Rather,” Ronan replied from the back seat.

“Too tired to stop for a bite?”

I deferred to Ronan. “What do you think?”

“I’d love to, but besides being tired, I’m also not feeling well. Another time, perhaps?”

“Another time would be nice, yes. Maybe when you’re over your jet lag.”

“You aren’t feeling well?” I interjected, concerned.

“It’s just that my eyes are hurting,” he explained. “I’d best take care of them before things get worse.”

***

Emily dropped us off without further questions. I knew she hated the thought of waiting that long to pump me for information about Ronan, but like it or not, that was the way it was going to be. We bid her farewell at the door, and then I brought Ronan upstairs.

My apartment was nowhere near as nice as Ronan’s house in New Zealand, but it was cozy and pleasant, and I was surprised to find that I had missed it. “Make yourself comfortable, Ronan. My home is your home.”

“Thank you.” He looked around admiringly. “Reminds me of a flat I had in London once.”

“Really?”

“Well, yours is neater, of course. I wasn’t very good about keeping house back then. Places to go, things to do, gigs to play. Home was where I slept.” He sank down on the sofa, lay back against the cushions, and took off his sunglasses. “Could I ask you to put the drops in for me?”

“Sure.” I rummaged in the front pocket of his carry-on bag and found the bottle. Leaning over him, I gently held his eyelids open and administered the drops, first in the left eye, and then the right. He flinched and blinked rapdily, then scrunched his eyes shut.

“Don’t think I’ll ever get used to how much this damn stuff burns,” he grumbled.

“Don’t rub,” I cautioned, catching his hand before he could reach his eyes. “You know that won’t help. How about some ice?”

“Please! Anything to stop them itching.”

I went into the kitchen and quickly prepared an ice pack. Thank heaven there was still some ice in the trays!

Ronan accepted it gratefully and laid it across his eyes with a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Sarah. That’s so much better.”

“Good.” I stroked his hair gently. “Are you really tired?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Me, too. I’ll go turn down the bed.”

***

C.P. Warner
© 23 June 2007

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