Her Name Is Rose Read online

  “Oh, I know. One does tend to drink too much on these sad occasions. But this isn’t really that sad. Is it, do you think? Mr. Emmet’s was a full life, God bless him and save him, and may he rest in peace.”

  At the mention of “Mr. Emmet,” Rowan suddenly remembered. “Mrs. Dillon! A full life. Yes. You’re absolutely right. Forgive me for not recognizing you.”

  “I was wondering if you had forgotten me.” She sipped her drink rather coyly.

  “Momentarily.” He smiled. “Momentarily. But a laugh as jolly as yours is hard to forget. I am sorry. How have you been?”

  “Not too bad. Although I was sad to hear of my dear Mr. Emmet. Will you miss him terribly?” Subtlety was not her forte.

  “Yes.” What more could he say?

  Burdy had schooled him: always be a gentleman when speaking with your elders. Suddenly he felt like a twelve-year-old again and then he recalled Mrs. Dillon had been Burdy’s secretary. When Burdy retired twenty years ago, so had she. Originally from Ireland, she was interested in, what was it? Something? What? Reading the tea leaves! When he visited Burdy in his office, occasionally Mrs. Dillon would make him a cup of tea and then “read” the leaves. Afterward, she’d say something enormously positive about the loose leaves left in the cup. “You’re going to grow up to be an astronaut. Or maybe an architect. Something that begins with an A. And you’re going to be rich and famous. Oh yes, and of course one day you’ll go to Ireland and find a nice girl. And it will change your life.” It took a long time, but Rowan eventually figured out that her fortune-telling was always the flowering of some seed Burdy had planted earlier.

  “It’s been years since I saw you, dear. I didn’t really expect you to remember me, although I hoped you would.”

  “I do remember. Of course. You were Burdy’s ‘Galway Gal Friday.’ Isn’t that what he called you? And, I remember you were at my graduation.” Rowan was pleased; his memory had returned and the moment unveiled like a curtain drawn back upon a stage.

  “That’s right. But that was a long time ago.” She finished her drink. “I think that was the last time I saw you.”

  Across the putting green in blackness a bank of trees was silhouetted against the sky like a ship harbored in a dark sea.

  Peggy Dillon licked the remnants of the gin and Limoncello on her lips and seemed to drift away in thought, but then her eyes returned to anchor on Rowan’s face. “Whatever became of the child?”

  Rowan stared at her.

  Her eyes widened and squeezed, closed briefly, as if she were having a dialogue in her mind.

  Rowan took her arm. “What child?”

  She saw the shock on his face and spoke quietly. “You know I saw her. That time in Dublin. I was there with the Friends of St. Patrick. For the parade. We were in Trinity to see the Book of Kells and I saw her passing. I waved. But she didn’t see me. I said to my friends, ‘There goes that sweet girl young Rowan Blake is engaged to.’”

  “You must be wrong. She didn’t have a child.”

  “Nooo…” she replied slowly. “She didn’t. Not then. But … I mean … she was pregnant. You could see, I mean there was no doubt she—”

  Rowan was no longer listening. He was getting around the canapes table, pushing his way past the Wilsons and the Morgans, getting to the French doors and, watched by Pierce, bolting across the terrace onto the golf course, so he didn’t hear the Joyces asking Louise if he would play again and he didn’t hear her say he’s going to miss Burdy so, and he didn’t hear Peggy Dillon turn to the memorial picture of Burdoch Emmet on the table and say, “All right, Burdy? I told him.”

  Nine

  Rose is woken by the seagulls, or is it her phone squawking? She gets up quickly. What time is it? What day is it? Her head hurts. Pages of sheet music on the music stand turn, others on the floor scurry, stirred by the wind as she opens the curtains and the door to a bright blue noon. Her phone beeps. She’s had several missed calls from Roger. Feck. She doesn’t want to speak to him.

  Rose steps out to the balcony and her phone rings again. She lets it, considers letting it ring out, then snaps it on.

  “Rose! I’d tried to reach you all day yesterday! Are you all right?” She hears Roger’s exasperated breath. “I was about to phone your mother, but I didn’t have her number. Where have you been? I need to explain. I need to apologize…”

  The sun is bright in her eyes and she winces, then thinks of the lyric about the sun and lemon drops.

  “Rose? Rose, are you there?”

  Her eyes drink in the trees and redbrick buildings in front of her. A barge cuts along through the film of silken green algae on the canal. “I’m here,” she says quietly.

  “The master class. It’s important that we straighten this out.”

  Rose doesn’t say anything. She watches the wake of the barge, the ruffled silk return to smooth.

  “It’s my daughter. Victoria. She came to see me in London. Her mother and I, we’re divorced. Victoria’s a musician, too … in New York. She came to tell me she’s quitting. Quitting! I tried to talk her out of it, yesterday. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She says it’s too fucking hard. After all that work, she wants to toss it away. She’s not like you, she has to work for her talent. You’ve got heaps of talent. A gift that can’t be taught.”

  Rose listens but says nothing. A gift that can’t be taught.

  “Rose? Are you hearing me?”

  “Yes.” The canal is sour this morning. It happens in the heat. Effluent waves lap at the brickwork.

  “I was hard on you, I admit. I’m sorry, Rose. Really sorry, hey? It wasn’t you. I was thinking of Victoria,” he says. “Listen, I’m taking a cab to Primrose Hill. Meet me at The Engineer in an hour and we’ll have a proper chat about it. Okay?”

  “Okay, Roger. Maybe.”

  On her small smartphone, Rose presses “End.” The phone in her hand feels heavy and she wants to drop it. She lowers her arm over the balcony but as she does, just seconds later, the phone rings again and she speaks, “Roger, I said I’ll think about it, o—”

  “Rose … Rose Bowen?”

  Rose doesn’t recognize the man’s voice.

  “This is Conor. Conor Flynn.”

  Her chin tucked, her eyes closed, Rose loses her concentration. “Conor?”

  “Yeah. How are you?”

  “Um … not great actually. I can’t talk now.”

  “I thought not. I had an idea you might be feeling … well, pretty shit—”

  “What?”

  “Because, like, maybe, you lost something?”

  “Oh God…!”

  “Only you didn’t exactly lose it, is how I heard—”

  “Conor, tell me.” Rose spins around on her balcony, loses her balance, and nearly drops the phone. Her left hand comes to join the right one holding it. She’s trembling.

  “I got a call from this guy. A really nice guy, apparently, who saw you on the tube Tuesday night. He said you left your violin case on the seat and walked off. He said you stood watching as the train pulled away. He got off at the next station and went back to your stop. And—”

  “Conor!”

  “It’s all right … he’s got it. Or he did have it, I mean.”

  “What…?” Rose’s voice skirls an octave higher.

  “Easy … It’s all right, Rosie.”

  He calls her Rosie. It registers like harmonics in her head. Rosie.

  “What do you mean … he had it?”

  “Well … he had it, and now…” Conor pauses. “It’s like this, if you want it, you have to come back to Clare. It’s on its way home. I asked him to courier it back, back to the wesshhtt, as we say. Like an Irish boomerang. It should arrive by Friday.”

  Rose is silent. Tears fall down her cheeks, slipping down her chin. She slumps to a chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Conor says, feeling her upset, “it’s not funny.”

  For a long moment neither of them speaks. Finally Conor asks, “Rosie, w
hat’s going on?”

  She can just about get the words out. “I’ll come home.” She falls silent then. The Canal Club below at the Pirate Castle is setting up for the trip to Little Venice farther down the canal. Life jackets adjusted, the group assembles and slips into colored canoes. As they paddle away, Rose thinks about the man who saved her violin. He’d have found Conor’s cards inside the velvet box in her case.

  She whispers his name. “Conor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  On Saturday, Rose is in Heathrow about to board the midday flight to Shannon. She rings her mother, again, for the third time that day, but doesn’t get her. She leaves Iris two messages, on cell and home phones, then she texts her mother’s friend.

  Hi Tess, Can’t reach Mum. Pls, PLS, can u pick me up @ SNN 4 2day? :-) xx Rosie

  She briefly thinks of how she had stood Roger up, sees him sitting in The Engineer waiting for her. One part of her would have liked to have left him there forever, but in the end she had done the right thing and texted him to say she’d gone home to Ireland and she’d be in touch next week.

  And PS … good luck with Victoria. And PPS … Trust in the universe, Roger.

  She’d left him a smiley face. :)

  When Rose walks through the arrival doors, Tess is there waiting. Two of her boys are with her, but the smile on Tess’s face isn’t in sync with her eyes.

  “There’s Rosie! Hey, Rosie!” The boys run when they see her and she greets them each by bending to their height, letting go her bag, and hugging them gently. She says, “Thanks for picking me up!” Then, standing to face Tess with her back to the boys, who scramble to take her bag, she says, “Where’s Mum?”

  “A bit of a mystery that, but listen, pet, don’t worry. I’m certain she’s fine.”

  “What do you mean? Fine? Is she not at home?”

  “No.”

  Rose stops. “I don’t get it. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.” Tess puts her hand on Rose’s back and guides her forward. “But knowing your mother, she could be off visiting some garden in Dublin or up north for a few days, and has forgot her phone.”

  Rose isn’t convinced.

  “Don’t worry. I saw her on Monday night. She was fine.” They walk out into the windy parking lot of the airport. “Was she expecting you home?”

  “No. She thinks I’ve been preparing for a master class with my tutor.”

  “Oh. Right.” Tess gives her a doubtful look. “Well, then, I hope it’s going well.”

  Rose precludes further conversation on the subject by turning to the boys and asking how their soccer training is going.

  They reach the car and load up, boys in the back, suitcase in between, Rose in front. In a panic, Tess shouts, “Where’s your fiddle? Oh God, did you leave it on the plane?”

  “No, no. I didn’t. It’s all right.”

  Tess glances at Rose, her eyebrows raise, her mouth opens about to say something more but then stops. “O … kay.”

  “It’s a long story,” Rose says.

  “Fab. I love long stories. So, will I take you home, or do you want to stay with us?”

  “Home, please. Okay?”

  * * *

  Driving from Shannon to Ashwood under the ceiling of the western sky, violet blue and cloudless, Rose looks to the hills, green and rolling and dotted white with sheep and brown with cattle. They’re all moving in one direction, like followers congregating. Clare is a place Rose realizes she misses only when she returns. Then it hits her. Home. She carries it deep inside and, like a singing bowl, it rings in her whole being once the western wind strokes her face.

  When they pull into the drive, Cicero meets them. The cat seems hungry and meows loudly. Tess retrieves the hidden key under the blue pot and lets them all in. The boys run into the kitchen and out again and Tess switches on the heat. Even though it’s summer, a two-hundred-year-old cottage with three-foot-thick walls is cold when it’s been vacant for more than a day. Rose opens the window to feed the cat on the outside sill. The flowers in pots along the front of the house are wilting. What the hell? She’s looks with fear to Tess, who’s listening to a message from a missed call on her cell phone.

  “A client, Rose, not your mum. Sorry, pet.”

  “Tess?”

  “I know … I know how it looks, but—”

  “But nothing! She should have rung by now. I’ve left her half a dozen messages since Thursday.”

  Rose walks toward the doors that lead to the garden.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Check the post. See how many days she’s been gone.”

  In less than a minute Rose returns. “What’s this?” she asks. It’s an envelope with a Breast Clinic logo. “What’s going on, Tess?”

  Tess is skilled at therapeutics and doesn’t rattle easily but now, as Rose watches, the face of her mother’s best friend reveals concern. In a firm voice, Tess tells her sons to get back into the car and wait for her there. “I’ll be along in a minute.” They obey and the women watch from the window as the boys run to the car, chasing but without fuss.

  “It’s probably nothing. Probably just a routine letter suggesting your mum make an appointment for a mammogram.”

  “Will we open it?”

  “Um … I don’t know, really. It’s … it’s addressed to your mum—”

  Rose tears the envelope and reads:

  Dear Mrs. Bowen,

  We would like to remind you of your follow-up appointment at Breast Clinic on 12 June. We were unable to reach you by telephone or e-mail to confirm. Please contact the department to reschedule if you were unable to attend. As stated in the previous letter, in the majority of cases, women have nothing to fear, but it is vital you undergo an ultrasound, results of which the consultant will discuss with you on the day. But nevertheless, it is important you attend in the event you need a biopsy procedure …

  Rose stops reading and looks to Tess. “Did you know about this? Is Mum all right? The appointment was for yesterday. Look at the date.”

  “I see.” Tess shakes her head. “The truth is, I don’t know. I mean, I did know she had a follow-up appointment.” Tess takes Rose by the arm and leads her to the sofa, the one that faces the back garden where an iron table and two chairs cast shadows in the fading light. “Sit down. Let’s talk this through.”

  “Just tell me.” Rose’s lips tremble.

  “Two weeks ago, Iris went for a routine mammogram.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s it. She was called back for a follow-up. They sometimes do that. That’s all. From that letter it seems she didn’t confirm her follow-up—”

  “Confirm her appointment? She missed her appointment!”

  “I know. She missed it. But I trust her. Really, I don’t think there is anything to worry about. Something must have come up. I know your mum won’t ignore it.”

  “Then, where is she?”

  Tess looks backward through the kitchen window to where the boys are chasing the cat around the car. “Listen, pet, I’ll pop over home quickly and drop the boys. Then I’ll be straight back. I’ll bring some groceries.” Tess rises and places her hand on Rose’s and kisses the top of her head. “You’ll be all right till then?” Tess gives Rose one long look. “Okay?”

  Rose wants to believe everything is all right. It must be. If not, that would be too cruel. God isn’t like that. Tess is right, her mum probably forgot her phone. Right? And the follow-up is routine. That’s it. It’s so like Iris to neglect herself, she thinks. Ever since her father died. She walks into her mother’s garden, intense with twilight. She’s almost forgotten how bright it is in the evenings in the west of Ireland. She gets the hose and traipses across the front of the house to water the flowerpots for something to do while she waits. Iris’s garden is aglow with color. Names escape her, but there are blue, star-shaped flowers and red, pokerlike flowers and flat discs of yellow on silvery sta
lks. Cicero paces across the uncut lawn and nudges her. Rose picks him up and they watch the swallows dart in and out of the stone cabin’s doorless doorway. She sits at the wooden table under the porch for a while.

  Then from a distance the sound of a motor rumbles on the narrow lane that runs in front of the garden. That was quick. She’s dying for a cup of tea and something to eat. And maybe Tess has news. Wherever Iris has gone, she’s taken the car. A blur of red breezes past the gaps in the hedgerow. A motor stops, a door clunks open and closes, and in the cabin’s dark doorway a figure stands.

  Conor Flynn is carrying a violin case. He walks straight toward her, holding the violin over his head. “It arrived yesterday, safe and sound, Rosie girl.”

  Rose reaches for it. Her hair brushes his face. He holds it a moment higher, then lowers it a bit over her head as if he’s about to embrace her but loses confidence at the last moment and gives it to her.

  “Thank you,” Rose says and holds the case against her chest like it’s a baby.

  He seems different, she thinks. He’s grown older, but still wearing that funny wooly hat. Then she realizes. “You cut your hair?”

  “Yeah, too many bad hair days. Always bringing too much sea home with me. The wood didn’t like it.”

  Rose doesn’t understand.

  “Surfing was playing havoc with my hair and my workshop.” He laughs, big and open and musical like a major C.

  Rose sighs.

  “What?” Conor asks. “Tell me you don’t like surfers.”

  “I’ve only met one and the jury’s not totally in on him yet.”

  “A heartbreaker?”

  “Something like that.”

  The sun has sunk below the tree line and half the garden is in cool shadow. Midges emerge from the grass. Rose and Conor stand like strangers on a train waiting for that moment when a jolt will throw them together or apart. It’s Rose’s move. It’s her house. It’s her violin. The least she can do is invite him in.