Текст книги "Her Name Is Rose: A Novel"

Автор книги: Christine Breen

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Seventeen

Rowan drove westward from Dublin under an iron-gray sky. It was a Friday in the middle of June. The countryside was oddly lit, as if all the forty shades of green Johnny Cash sang about were rolled into one long expanse of vegetation. Asparagus green, Hooker’s green, lime green, Dartmouth green. He tried to pick the colors, like crayons from a box, and remembered Burdy withdrawing his hand from his overcoat pocket one Christmas and presenting a pack of Crayolas. “And it’s okay to draw outside the lines,” Burdy whispered.

County Laois brought a sudden release of rain. The weighty sky darkened swiftly and the wipers slashed back and forth in a blind flash. And then, just as suddenly, in the afterrain, sparkling sunlight glimmered on the road. That’s how it must be in this country, Rowan thought, light and dark in dramatic play between sunshine and shadow. He drove on, past the city of Limerick and over the Shannon into the west of Ireland. Swans clustered under the bridge. The radio didn’t hold stations and so he drove in silence and fell in and out of memory. And hope. And doubt.

Passing a craggy field he heard Burdy’s voice in his head, “When you hit a wild shot you know it right away. You swing through and connect with the ball but it flies off, and you know. You know the shot is hooked or sliced and the ball disappears into the rough. You know that you’ll never find it. You know it’s lost. But you still look. You still drag your bag up there into the long grass and you start hacking around with your club at the place you last lost sight of the ball. That’s it. That’s what you do.”

Before Rowan had left Dublin he’d met briefly again with Sonia McGowan and signed the official Register for Adoption Contact. He’d filled in the form, giving his address. He’d ticked the box: Natural Father, and farther down: Willing to Meet.

“I hope at least you know you’ve done all you can—to open the door from your side—by stating your preference for contact. Your birth daughter will have the information … if she ever comes looking for it.”

Rowan took her offered hand and shook it, warmly, and thanked her. “I just want to do the right thing.”

She seemed more at ease with herself. Lighter somehow, her dark eyes restful, he thought. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Blake, this has all come as quite a shock to you.”

“If she ever comes looking for me, please tell her she has nothing to fear. I will be glad of whatever level of contact she requests.”

“And if she never requests it? How will you feel?”

“It’s still hard to lose something, or someone, you never had.”

*   *   *

Rowan arrived in the town of Ennis, half an hour after crossing the Shannon, and booked into a hotel. The hotel’s owner, a man named Allen, bright blue eyes and an easy smile, greeted him, and after remarking on the hotel’s garden, Rowan was enthusiastically shown into a room that overlooked it, and beyond which, across the street, stood the town’s cathedral.

Tracking down Iris and Luke Bowen on the Internet had been easy, although the manner in which he’d discovered them was still troubling him. Any person with even the skimpiest of profiles could be traced these days. He’d found out that all Irish birth records (adoptions included) were open to the public, and with just a few facts (a name and a date of birth) and a little detective work, he’d been able to apply for Rose’s birth certificate, which arrived at the Merrion Hotel through the Irish postal system two days later. If it wasn’t in his own interests, he’d have objected. It was too easy. Her adoptive parents were named on Rose’s birth certificate. Iris and Luke. (Not as adoptive parents.) Rowan searched for a “Luke Bowen,” and from a link to the Irish Times archives learned that Luke Bowen, solicitor, beloved father of Rose and husband of Iris, had died after a short illness two years previously. Sad. Uncomfortable and all as it was, Rowan forced himself to take it in: beloved father. Poor Rose.

He had Googled “Iris Bowen” and within seconds her garden blog came up. The few photos showed a cottage-style garden and some quirky entries that had made him smile. (He’d posted a message telling her so.) The fact that she was a gardener somehow comforted him.

*   *   *

That night at the hotel in Ennis, he spoke with his brother on the phone.

“I’ve got to tell you, buddy,” Pierce said, “I’m afraid you’ve got no rights.”

“I know, I know. The lady in Dublin told me that.”

“So what are you doing, then?”

“I don’t know. I’m … I’m … I’m just following the line of the ball.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, Pierce, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m not going to butt in where I don’t belong.”

“That would be a wise choice. This isn’t some Hollywood movie, Ro. This is real.”

“I know that. I just … shit. I don’t know.” There was a long pause. Rowan stood at the window of his room. Through ancient birch trees in the garden, he saw a sculpture of a pair of giant hands holding nothing but free air in the soft, gray limestone of its open palms. He thought of the statue of Robert Emmet. Although not a religious man, Rowan thought he’d stop into the church on his way out and say a prayer. There was always a first time for everything.

“I just want to see she’s all right. Nothing more.” He paused. “Trust me. I’ll do the right thing.”

“For whom?”

“Pierce … I said I’ll do the right thing.”

Rowan hadn’t presumed to have any rights as a birth father, not this many years after the fact, but that didn’t stop him from wanting—something. It was as if a hungering had slowly been growing in him for years and only now had he recognized it. He longed for some part of him to be … what? Unspoiled? To know he’d done something good in his life? Something he could be proud of? That whatever goodness was in him, passed down from Burdy, survived? Natural fathers have rights only within the marital family in Ireland, so Pierce said. As far as Irish law was concerned, if the parents aren’t married the child has no father. Beloved father—it stuck into Rowan’s heart like a thorn. But he needed to know. Something. He wouldn’t just show up and say, “I’m your birth father. I’m your natural father.” No. That wasn’t how it was going to go. He would do the right thing.

From Ennis the road led west to the Atlantic Ocean about thirty kilometers away. Allen at the hotel had explained that West Clare was rather isolated, but suggested he go to Doonbeg where a golf course, built alongside the sand dunes, had one of the finest views in the west and its hotel was a nice spot to have lunch. (Rowan had Burdy’s ashes and planned to drop them casually on one of the greens. He and Burdy would make the golf trip, after all.) He drove westward from the old market town, with its narrow streets and pubs and coffee shops, into an uneven landscape of whitethorn and fuchsia and black-and-white cattle. Twenty minutes later, just shy of Kilrush, there was a turn to the right. According to the directions, it would take him across the western part of the county to the sea.

If he’d had an address for the Bowens he still wouldn’t have knocked on their door. He had checked the phone book. There was no listing. As he drove he noticed there were no street names, no road signs.

Point was, he’d lectured himself that he had no real intention of finding where Iris Bowen and Rose actually lived. He just wanted to see that somewhere place in the world, the whereabouts, of their home. Where Iris made her garden. Where Rose grew up. That was all.

He wanted a moment of nearness.

*   *   *

As he passed along a stone bridge over a small river, the road forked. A red van was awkwardly parked in a gap where a lone cow was rubbing her head through a farm gate. Beside it a young man was thumbing a lift. Rowan slowed. The guy looked okay to him so he stopped and leaned over to open the door.

“Hey, thanks.” The man held the open door. “Where you going?”

“West, I think. Hop in. I can take you somewhere.”

The young man got in and laid what looked to Rowan like a violin case across his lap. “My van died back there.” He didn’t look at Rowan as he spoke. He had some urgency or upset in him and took off his hat and worked his hair roughly with both hands, as if trying to free his head of some unpleasant idea. He then tapped the dashboard and continued. “It survives a journey to London and dies in the locality. What’s up with that?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, my van, I mean.”

“That’s too bad. Sorry to hear that.”

The passenger turned his head toward Rowan then and said, “You’re American?”

“That’s right.”

“On holiday?”

Rowan nodded. “From New York,” he said. He wanted to say more. “I’m hoping to play some golf for a couple of days.” Rowan sensed his passenger looking for clubs in the backseat, but it was only his imagination. A delusion he was committing a crime weighed uneasily on his mind.

“Nearest course is Doonbeg. Is that where you’re headed now? Doonbeg?”

“I hear it’s a good course.”

“Yeah, but even better surf.”

The road quickly came into a small village, and as they passed a pub at the crossroads, Rowan glanced at his passenger, a tall man, probably late twenties. He noted the checked shirt he was wearing was freshly ironed but the look on his face was one of agitation. Rowan entertained the thought of asking him if he wanted to stop into the place called Morrissey’s, a yellow pub with an old wooden door. A pint of Guinness in the west of Ireland had been on his bucket list. But, as he admitted to his brother, he was turning over a new leaf. And as his mother had told him, one day at a time. It’d been six days so far. One day he hoped he would be able to stop counting.

“I’m going to try to persuade my girlfriend, if she still is my girlfriend, to play with me tonight. If she says yes, we’ll run through our piece … not that she needs much practice. Then head over to the festival later. But now, feck it, I have to get a mechanic! And my phone is dead.” He moved in his seat and all his limbs made jerky motions as if he was trying to escape the weight of his own burden.

Rowan passed on by the pub and nodded. After a moment he said, “Festival?”

“Yeah.”

He gestured toward the case on the man’s lap. “You play?”

“Fiddle. But my girlfriend … she can play anything. She’s the real thing.”

Rowan drove slowly through the village because at any moment he expected the fiddler to ask him to pull over and let him out. But he didn’t. A flock of birds transformed into a curling wave blown back against the gray sky. The road, barely wide enough for two cars passing, was dotted into the distance with white bungalows clustering as it turned toward the sea. Low houses were strewn like a bunch of colored blocks in otherwise green fields. Beautiful and all as it was, it seemed a lonesome kind of place. There were dunes off to the right. Rowan eased the car to the side of the narrow road at the edge of the village.

“So how can I help?”

“What?”

“Why not? I’m in no hurry.”

“What about your tee time?”

“That’s not until tomorrow,” Rowan said, lying so easily it startled him. “I can’t check into the hotel until later, anyway.”

The fiddler’s face softened and he relaxed back into the seat. He resettled on his head his yellow wooly hat. “Could you ever drive me back to the garage? I don’t want to arrive at her house without my van, without my phone. What class of eejit would I look like then? Not too dependable.”

Rowan laughed. “Yeah, sure. I’d be happy to.” Something about this felt right, but Rowan couldn’t put his finger on it. He wasn’t old enough to be the age of this guy’s father, but the situation had that feel about it. He felt, what? Paternal? Rowan did a three-point turn on the country road and drove back through the one-street village.

At Fitzpatrick’s garage, he pulled the car in. As the passenger opened the door to get out, he asked, “Maybe you could drive me? After I speak with a mechanic?”

“Sure.”

“That’d be great. Rose actually lives only three miles from here,” he said, “when she’s at home, that is.”

The pit of Rowan’s stomach did a somersault and he forced himself a pause and a breath.

“Be right back.”

Rowan’s heart pounded. Rose? He quickly reasoned—because he had to, because to think this man’s Rose was also his was too much—it must be a common enough name. Rowan got out of the car and leaned against it. He bent over, anchoring his hands on his knees, and breathed. Christ almighty, what were the chances? He straightened up. Across the street was a row of small one-story houses. Outside of a blue bungalow an elderly woman was washing and polishing windows. She was using newspaper. Rowan concentrated on her movements until the man returned.

“All set. The guy knows where Rose lives and said he’d drop up the van. He said it sounded like it was maybe just the fan belt.” He hesitated. “You all right?”

“Um. Yes. Sorry. Jet lag.”

“Listen, I can hang here.”

“No. No. It’s all right. You said it isn’t far.”

“The thing is we had a bit of a row yesterday,” the man in the wooly hat said as Rowan pulled out of the garage. “Although to be honest, man, I have no idea why. But she mightn’t want to see me. It wasn’t exactly a row. It wasn’t a fight, either. Wasn’t any right kind of argument, really. It was … I don’t know what it was, but she was cross with me,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Rowan said nothing and drove on, waiting to be directed. His face felt hot, so he lowered the window. A drizzling rain misted in and he concentrated his mind on it and on the narrow country road before him that stretched long and up a hill. Not a house in sight. Not a saint nor a sinner. All the time his heart was beating in a fast, staccato rhythm. Taa-ta-ta-tut-a-at. Taa-ta-ta-tut-a-ta.

A little farther on, his companion said, “It’s this road, up here on the left. The house is about a half mile down.” Rowan turned left onto perhaps the smallest road he’d ever seen. He seemed to be entering into a green kaleidoscope. When he cleared the top of the hill, two horses nosed over the stone wall, facing the sliver of ocean that met the horizon farther to the west. Huge bushes with tiny red flowers whose name escaped him were closing in, and the road had grass growing in the middle of it.

“Deora Dé. Tears of God.”

Rowan turned his head, not understanding and somewhat alarmed. Had he spoken? Had he voiced his thoughts? Maybe he should let the guy out here.

“The red flowers. Fuchsia. It’s Irish.”

Rowan nodded outwardly, he even smiled, but inwardly he was dissolving, as if all his strength was becoming liquid and leaking from him, joining the rain, and soon his whole being would slip away into the vast river of tears of other lonesome souls. He couldn’t help the groan that seeped from him and when his passenger turned in surprise, Rowan coughed. He forced his mind back then to the small road, and as he considered what he would need to do if a car or tractor came toward him, his companion suddenly offered, “Rose is studying in London to be a classical violinist. We met the first time when her parents contacted me to make a violin for her. It was love at first sight for me, but it’s taking her some time to feel the same. Seven sights so far.”

Rowan watched the road, his mind rushing through: He’d said “parents,” right?” He breathed a mixed sigh of relief and yet disappointment, too. The Irish Times said Rose’s father was dead. This Rose was not his Rose.

“I wanted to be a musician myself, once,” Rowan said quietly, regaining his composure. “But I was never going to be good enough.”

“Yeah? What do you play?”

“Saxophone. Below par, but available for weddings and funerals,” Rowan said, a self-effacing smile reviving his mood.

“That’s cool.” The guy tapped his fingers against his case. “We musicians are one big happy family, right? It’s just around the bend. The next house.”

Rowan turned his head slightly toward him. “I’d be happy to wait in case she, I mean Rose, isn’t speaking with you.”

“Ha. No. Not to worry. I’ll win her back. Beg … if I have to. And then I’ll convince her to play with me tonight. And she will. I think.” He smiled. “But thanks.”

Rowan pulled the car into a bit of a driveway alongside a stone building with a faded, black-painted door with a hint of crimson showing in peeled places. A blue clematis arched over the top of a low building on the opposite side of the entrance and draped onto an open wooden gate. (He knew that clematis. It was an Alice Fisk.) Names were coming back to him. Several potted agapanthus, lady of the nile, lined the wall. Something about all this seemed impossibly familiar.

As his passenger was getting ready to open the car door, he stopped, then opened his case and, from underneath the bow, took something. “Here’s a ticket,” he said, handing it to Rowan. “You should come tonight. The concert’s in the community center.”

Rowan smiled and took the ticket. “Thanks. I’m not sure. But thanks.”

The fiddler got out of the car, but as he was about to close the door, Rowan wanted to prolong the moment and said, “Nice place your Rose has here.”

The young man looked at it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Her mum’s a gardener.”

As if a great wind had swept through the car taking all the air, Rowan lost his breath.

*   *   *

Seven hours after Hector sat into row 18, seat C, aisle seat, on the Aer Lingus flight from Boston to Shannon, he arrived in Ireland. It was six in the morning and raining. Talk about shock. He was freezing when he came out onto the concourse. He headed straight for the information desk, where a pretty young lady with a line of tiny earrings adorning her left ear looked like she was expecting him.

“Welcome to Ireland,” she said and smiled at his shirt and his general goose bumps. “Not Hawaii out there.” The talons of the eagle tattooed on his arm were showing beneath his short sleeve.

“This is summer, right?”

“Be lovely in a little while,” she said. “How can I help?”

“I need to rent a car. Get a hotel room. Find a place called Ashwood.” He gave her the slip of paper on which Grace had written Iris’s address.

“I see.” She pointed to the car rental desks. “When you’re done there, come back to me and I’ll sort you out with a room and a map.” She smiled again. The girl was sweet.

When he returned with the rental keys she showed him where Ashwood was on the map. “It’s a townland in West Clare,” she said. “Here’s the route. It’s about an hour. But I’m afraid all the B and Bs nearby are booked solid because of the festival this weekend.” She looked at Hector from across the counter. “I can book you a room at a really nice hotel, though.”

“Festival?”

“There’s a jazz festival. It happens every year.”

“What do you know.” And he rembered then Iris had mentioned it.

“Sorry?”

“Jazz … it’s my thing.”

“Oh,” she said. “The Lodge so. You’ll like it. And they’ll take you right away.”

“And the rain?”

“Five more minutes.”

*   *   *

Rain was gone in ten. He could barely keep his eyes open as he drove, but from what he could see it was farming country with cattle and horses and a medley of small green and yellow fields separated by stone walls and some savagely shaped bushes. He’d gone the extra mile and hired a car with SatNav, thank God, because there was barely a street sign to be seen. The SatNav lady spoke with a kind of motherly affect. “At the next crossroads, turn left” and “On the next roundabout, take the second exit.” She was like the Spirit of Grace commanding him not to screw up and to get there. The landscape got country. Real quick. Talk about rural. It was a strange thing, but the nearer Hector got to the part of the world where Iris lived, the more he wanted her.

The Lodge, as the lovely earringed girl had called it, turned out to be a rather grand five-star hotel perched on the edge of a long stretch of sand dunes. Awesome, but to Hector oddly discomforting. From his room, the Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly, melting into a leaden sky on the horizon. Rain fell in the distance. He thought about the lovely Julia and how all those years ago he’d first heard the phrase “aggressive Stage 3 breast cancer.” Fuck. He hoped to God he would never hear those words again. He hoped to God that wasn’t what Iris was facing. Poor, sweet, gentle Iris. He had to know. He remembered her promise to her husband and now guessed that was why she had wanted to find Hilary. For Rose.

A few hours later, after a nap and some lunch, Hector showed the concierge his map, in case Lady SatNav didn’t know the way, and was told it was only fifteen minutes inland. So, at four in the afternoon, Hector Sherr left the coast behind and set out for Ashwood. There was no rain, but he took the road slowly because it was narrow and windy. Low houses were strewn like a bunch of colored marbles in otherwise green fields. He turned right at the bottom of a curving hill when directed, but that was the end of the line as far as SatNav was concerned. She spoke no more.

Without directions now, he drove up the hill before him. Huge bushes with tiny red flowers closed in on the thin road. Grass was growing in the middle. Wild, he thought. He hoped Spirit of Grace knew where she had taken him because he seemed to be disappearing into the thickest greenness he’d ever seen. Even the air he breathed seemed green, and smelled of hay. When he cleared the top of the hill, two horses, a speckled gray and a chestnut mare, nosed over the stone wall. They faced toward the sliver of ocean that crossed the horizon about ten miles back to the west. He stopped the car and got out. The road evened out ahead but there was no house in sight. The horses came toward him. He saw his reflection in the eye of the mare and he thought she spoke to him. He shrugged and got back in the car, feeling giddy.

Another quarter of a mile farther, at a bend in the road, a driveway appeared, huddled between two stone buildings, one with a black door. A blue flowering vinelike plant spilled over a lower building on the other side of the entrance and fell onto an open wooden gate. Several potted plants were lined up against the wall.

This had to be the place. It said Iris all over.

He parked the car at the gate. His heart felt five sizes too big for his chest. It was thumping a big drum rhythm full of ache and regret and hope, ba-bam ba-bam ba-bam, drying up his throat. She’s in here.

“Come on now, Hector, keep going, man.” He hopped in over the stone stile and followed the line of potted flowers that led through a gap in a high hedge. A jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, breathtaking garden materialized. He stood a few moments as if in a trance. I’ve arrived in Emerald City where the blue Iris lives, he thought.

“Um … hello? Can I help you?”

It was a young woman with long brown hair who came out from the house.

“I’m looking for Iris. Iris Bowen?”

The young woman considered the stranger a moment and got up. “She’s not here.”

“Is she all right?” He spoke with a little too much urgency and a little too quickly and he knew he’d surprised her.

“Yeeesss. She’s fine,” she said cautiously. “Um … does she know you?”

“You must be Rose…” he said then, and walked a little nearer. “I met your mom when she was in Boston last week.”

“O … kay…” Rose paused. “She didn’t mention meeting anyone except the lady at the guesthouse.”

“That’d be Grace Hale. Another nice lady … like Iris … I mean, your mother.” He took another step closer and held out his hand. “I’m Hector Sherr.” They shook hands. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Rose.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Hector shifted his weight, but Rose stood still. “Your mom talked a lot about you. You’re a musician, right?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

“Oh. Nice … um … was Mum expecting you?”

“Actually, no. It was a sort of a spur of the moment thing. I just wanted to see how she was. I mean—”

“I don’t know when she’ll be back, but I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

“Yes. Please … I’d really like to—”

“Where are you staying?”

She was a tough marker, Hector thought. How could he blame her? A stranger walks into your mother’s garden, out of the blue, and starts nosing around. “In a place called Done Beg.”

“Doonbeg.” She smiled. “I’ll tell her so.”

“I hear there’s a music festival on this weekend?” Still, she didn’t say anything. Hector wanted her to say, Yes, there’s a festival and we’ll be there and I’ll bring my mother and we’ll all have a nice time. But this girl didn’t give anything away. And she wasn’t going to. She wasn’t going to tell him what he wanted to know: Is Iris all right? Hector, man, he thought, be cool. What if the news wasn’t good? She wasn’t going to tell him. It was none of his damn business.

“I’ll get going then.” But he didn’t move. He waited, still hoping Rose would give him some encouragement. “Nice to meet you, Rose,” he said at last, then he turned and walked back along the line of potted plants, through the gap in the high hedge, and out. He got in the car and headed west.

He would return there the next day.

And the day after that.

And all the days after until he saw Iris Bowen again.

*   *   *

The small village of Doonbeg was an unlikely setting for an international music festival and, except for its position so near the sea, it might have gone unnoticed in the calendar of Irish summer festivals. It was a thing the Irish did to counter the often-compromising weather, organize and attend festivals. Every year since the turn of the millennium a group of local people orchestrated the event that brought semiprofessional musicians from all over the world to play. One of their tenets was to make the festival free to all, so volunteers came from all walks of life from the West Clare community to lend support. Tess’s husband, Sean, was on the development committee and Tess took tickets for the raffle at the door on Saturday night. For her part, Iris contributed a floral arrangement. The festival was a boon for local hotels and guesthouses that helped sponsor it. Before Luke died he, too, had volunteered, ferrying musicians from the airport and coordinating their accommodations.

*   *   *

The day of the opening concert Iris met Tess for lunch in the garden of the hotel in Ennis. They were lucky to find a bright spell in an otherwise gray day and sat in the sunshine filtering through an old copper beech. Gardeners were trimming the boxwood hedge. She would have preferred to be in her own garden as gardening had a way of helping her work things out—and she did have some things to work out, like the surprising appearance of a young man in her daughter’s life, and what was she going to do with herself now that she wasn’t going to die—but she was anxious to confide in someone about Hector. Her garden could wait. The more she thought about Hector, the more she believed perhaps she’d been too hasty in her judgment to leave without saying good-bye. He’d been a breath of fresh air and, to be quite honest, she missed the attention. Keeping him a secret made her feel as if she’d done something wrong.

But still. She wanted someone to know there had been sparks. That there was some life left in her. Just when she was about to tell her friend, Tess’s phoned buzzed. She read the text: Boys to be collected from football training, then I have to get to the community center. She sighed and, as she stood, she asked, “What were you going to say?”

“Oh, nothing. Tell you later.” Iris waved a hand and smiled and Tess dashed away. Iris sat a while longer in the garden.

*   *   *

Now, shortly after four, Iris arrived back home with groceries. She could hear music playing when she stepped from the car. She paused, listening, stilled by the rising melody that leapt up above the trills of the fiddle. It was “Over the Rainbow.” So Rose is going to play at the concert, she thought. With Conor. She was glad because her daughter’s account of the stroppy Mr. Ballantyne made her wonder if she should suggest Rose take a break from her studies in London. Maybe she would be better off back home in Ireland. Take one of those gap years and travel. Or something. Rose had never had a job, maybe she’d like that. They’d put down two very demanding years and now that Iris had been given the all clear, now that her architectural distortion was just some calcification, maybe the two of them should travel. But it was all conjecture. There was someone new in Rose’s life now. And for a moment Iris was happy-sad thinking about it, the way only mothers know.

More petals dropped from the clematis, leaving behind feathery heads with silver threads. The summer was already transitioning toward autumn. She stood listening a few moments longer before entering the house.

“Hey, Mum!” Rose laid down her violin. “Nice lunch?”

“Yes. Lovely. I stayed until the rain threatened.” Iris put her shopping on the counter. “The piece sounds really great. I can’t wait to hear your duet.”

“Rose Bowen is an actual star,” Conor said. “Festival crowd won’t know what hit them when this classy violinist starts playing jazz—with the fiddler from Kinvara, Conor Flynn.”

Rose smiled and Iris began to unpack. “So … Mum?” Rose glanced to Conor and then back at her mother. “Do you know someone named Hector?”

Iris froze. She turned to Rose and stared but said nothing.

“Wasn’t that the name I told you, Conor?” said Rose, keeping her eyes on her mother.

“Tall guy, you said, and friendly, American. Hawaiian shirt.”

“Hector?” was all Iris could manage.

“He said he met you in Boston,” Rose said.

Iris looked away and continued unpacking. She couldn’t believe it. Hector? Here? It made no sense. Hector? She lined up the sugar and raisins and buttermilk and tomato sauce. Incongruous and mad, and yet … she turned away her blushing face.

“Mum?”

“What?”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. Not … I can’t. No. I’m too busy now. I have to … I have to post on my blog. And I promised Tess I’d make an arrangement for tonight.” She opened the refrigerator and stood, shielded behind the door.

“He seemed pretty nice,” Rose finally said. “Maybe a bit loopy, but in a nice way.”

“Shouldn’t you be practicing?”

“Details, Mum.”