This is the first (and will probably be the only) chapter to my largely unwritten sequel to A YANKEE GIRL IN GALWAY.
Fiona entered the lady’s rest room just off the entrance to her college’s art gallery. Pausing before the full-length mirror, she shook out her auburn hair and tried to pull her dress into some semblance of a proper shape. Shoulda gone home, showered and got changed around, she grumped to herself. But no time! Shite, what a day! She said that out loud, and, then, since no one else was around, she snickered at that particular “Irishism,” one of many she had brought back with her from her summer in Galway. There’s worse than that, she thought, as she carefully checked her profile in the mirror. She patted her tummy. Nothing showing…yet, but it won’t be long, she thought. She exited and walked slowly down the hall toward the exhibit room where Líam’s show was to open in a few hours. None of my friends know, she thought, only Líam, the doctor and, yeah, my mum! How the Hell did she figure out I am pregnant? As she walked, Fiona thought back over the quick weekend visit she had just paid her mother. Kinda had to, she said to herself. Hadn’t seen her since I said goodbye to her at Shannon Airport last May. That had been an interesting a couple of weeks…the two of us tooling around England, Scotland and Ireland together. It was even kinda fun…sometimes.
In fact, it had been the only thing resembling fun she and her mother had shared since her father had died when she was 12. After that everything became very serious, all about “surviving” and “getting on” and “keeping a stiff-upper-lip”—all very natural to English-born Cecily, whose parents had been through the London Blitz during World War Two. To Fiona, however, it had all seemed kind of weird. Yet, a decade later, there she was, shoeing her mum onto the plane at Shannon so that she could pursue her own serious, stiff-upper-lip mission—scattering Séamus’ ashes around his homeland, a plan Fiona had not shared with her mother. No matter how often she tried, she had never been able to explain to her mum’s satisfaction how it was that her daughter had ended up falling in love with a sixty-year old Irish professor of literature at Elmsgrove College. And although Cecily never actually said anything, she didn’t exactly share her daughter’s grief when poor Séamus suddenly died of a heart attack the previous fall. So, Fiona just told her mother she had a special research project to do in Ireland, and she would be back in America in a few weeks…or so…maybe. What Fiona had really hoped for, once she disposed of Séamus’ ashes, was that she would have some sort of “wee adventure.” And did she ever!
Fiona opened the door to the exhibition room. Only a few dim lights were on. It was more than an hour before Líam’s show was to open. Time enough to run over to the Irish Penguin Pub where Líam and some members of the art department were priming themselves with a few pints. But she was so tired. Been running all day. Classes, an exam, a rehearsal. I need a few quiet moments to relax. Plus, I gotta remember I’m still an undergraduate, and Líam will be surrounded by faculty over at the pub.
Fiona looked around. There were some of Líam’s paintings on the walls and a few pieces of sculpture sitting around on pedestals, but in the dim light she couldn’t make out what was what. But she could see the inviting shape of that big sofa in front of the fireplace. I’ll leave the lights down and just plunk myself right down here—maybe take a wee cat nap, she thought. She pulled her scarf over her eyes to block out what little light there was. Jaze, she thought, it’s like the first time I have been able to sit and be absolutely alone and quiet since Líam arrived here a month ago.
She sank into the plush cushions and closed her eyes. Again, her mind went back over her weekend visit with her mum. In spite of all the emails and all the phone calls explaining everything, mum insisted that I repeat the whole story of my summer in Galway—as she stared owl-eyed at me from across the tea tray. So, I explained, once again, about how I met Líam O’Flaherty, this handsome, thirty-year-old artist in Galway, and how I moved into his house, and how we traveled around Ireland, and how he saved her from drowning. Oh yes, and not to forget that bit about how we were kidnapped by a Dublin drug dealer and taken out to a bog where he shot us. And, how, although wounded, I managed to bury the edge of a spade in his skull before he could finish us off. Thanks, mum, for those tennis lessons. Without that serve I developed, I never could have done it!
Cecily, having stared and nodded her way through her daughter’s rapid-fire recitation, was momentarily gripped by a sudden memory of her fourteen-year old daughter in braids and tennis whites, grimacing as she delivered one of her power serves. It sent something of a shiver through her to realize that what had seemed so…innocent and healthy…could also be so lethal. “Well, thank God those lessons were of some use,” she finally said, staring into her cup of tea, “otherwise….”
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” Fiona thought. But she simply nodded and remained silent. She hated having to talk about it, which is why she had tried to push it aside with the half-joke about tennis. The fact was she had killed a man. It was all justified—in self-defense and all that. But still—just thinking about it always left her feeling cold inside.
Cecily broke the silence. “Have a scone, dear, do,” she encouraged her daughter. “These are your favorites. I baked them this morning.” Cecily had many talents, but baking did not shine high on the list. Fiona looked down at the plate full of hockey pucks stuffed with burnt currants and dutifully took one. “Stones,” she and her father had jokingly called them when her mother was out of earshot. Boy, she thought, if I had had a bag full of these, I wouldn’t have needed a spade to finish off Gimpo McGinty in that bog. She carefully bit down on her scone of stone, hoping her newly-installed filling wouldn’t crack. Then she tried dunking it in her tea.
In the meantime, Cecily regarded her daughter carefully. Suddenly, she asked, “You’re pregnant, are you not, Fiona?” Fiona almost chocked on a mouthful of tea and soggy scone. “How did you know?” she sputtered. “I was gonna tell you, honest,” she stammered, somewhat guiltily. “Eventually, …yeah…like tonight… really. But how did you….? Does it show already?” she asked in a half panic, looking down at her tummy.
“It does show, dear, but not where you think,” Cecily said smiling—for the first time that evening. “As soon as I picked you up at the airport this afternoon, I knew that there was something different…very different about you. And, no, it wasn’t because of all of your…what shall we call them? Your…Heaven help us…your adventures! Obviously, with all you have been through you certainly are no longer the girl I sent off to Elmsgrove College. But there is a certain…glow about you that speaks to something more than even love affairs and survival.” Cecily poured more tea and then added. “Besides, yesterday was your birthday, and you didn’t get sick. So, I knew that something very special was going on.”
Her birthday! Fiona had been so busy she had forgotten her own birthday—her twenty-second. Her birthdays coincided with the anniversary of her father’s death a decade earlier. And it was hardly a coincidence that she always came down with some sort of flue or strep throat or stomach thing or other. Since she invariably got sick around that time, she never made plans to celebrate her birthdays. But this year she didn’t get sick, and so she didn’t even remember it. Was it the baby? Was it Líam? Was it the whole crazy summer in Ireland?
Her mother interrupted her train of thought. Giving Fiona a sharp look, Cecily suddenly asked, “You did say that this…new Irishman… this Líam chappy…he did ask you marry him, did he not?” “Yes, mum,” Fiona reassured her. “I told you several times that we are engaged. “See,” she said, holding up her finger with the beautiful Claddagh ring Líam had designed, “It’s official.” She took off the ring and handed it to her mother.
“Well, it is beautiful, dear. And you said he designed this for you? He certainly is a talented artist,” she said admiringly. “I am anxious to meet him, even though he is…well, Irish.” And then she said something Fiona had given up ever expecting to hear from her mother. “I am very happy for you, dear,” and she got up and kissed her daughter. In that instant the sad, aching chasm that had opened up between herself and her mother after her father died began to gently close.
Fiona smiled in the half dark of the art gallery as she recalled that moment. Then she began to wonder: have any of my friends down here at Elmsgrove noticed what my mum saw? Do any of them know I am pregnant? Naw, my mum is a lot sharper than any of them. [Yet. I have begun to notice that they do treat me a bit differently since I returned. Well, sure, I almost died twice in Ireland, and then returned engaged to a wildly handsome Irish artist, who has followed me here to be Artist-in-Residence for the year. That does sort of put me in a class by myself, I guess. She thought for a moment. Or have I set myself a bit apart from them? I mean I love them, love being with them but…lately I’ve noticed that it’s like I am just sitting back, enjoying their company but no longer feeling as if I am really one of them. Mum’s right. I have changed. I am …. ]And Fiona drifted off to sleep.
After a bit, she gradually became aware of voices and, in spite the scarf over eyes, she realized that the lights in the gallery had been turned up. She could hear bits of conversation and some giggles. Oh God, thought Fiona, I musta fallen asleep and now people have started to arrive. Gotta get up…but can’t just stretch and scratch myself like some old bear. Must be some cool way to….. She pulled the scarf off of her face and blinked at the sudden brightness of the light. She could just make out a clutch of her friends standing in front of her, staring up at something on the wall behind her. Some were laughing and pointing; a few appeared a bit shocked.
What the Hell are they looking at, Fiona wondered as she struggled unsteadily to her feet, trying to smile and pretend to be happy to see everyone. While attempting to think of something clever to say, she turned around to see what everyone was gawking and smirking at. She gave a sudden gasp. There on the wall behind the couch on which she had been dozing hung Líam’s large portrait of a Fiona who had apparently mislaid every stitch of her clothing. There she was, sitting jaybird naked in a chair, staring out at the world…which at the moment consisted of most of her closest friends…looking as if to say, “Is there a problem?”
You bet there’s a problem, thought Fiona, as she turned back toward her friends. The interest that was kindling in the eyes of some of the boys was not something they had cultivated in Art Appreciation 101. “Wow, Fiona,” drawled Piggy Wilson. “I never knew you had….” “Shut up, you sexist idiot,” hissed Cynthia, giving him a sharp dig in the ribs. “It’s just a painting, although…Wow, Fiona, I never knew….”
Fiona was rarely ever at a loss for words. And she did have plenty of words this time, but not for the gaping throng assembled before her. “I must speak to ‘the artist,’” she muttered grimly, and, spotting Líam on the other side of the room, she stormed off to confront him. As she hit her Amazon-warrior stride, Fiona began rehearsing the precise words she intended to unload on Galway’s clueless gift to the art world. I had no idea you were going to hang that thing; I didn’t even know you had brought it with you. What do you mean by putting that picture of me right where all my friends and professors can see it? Why didn’t you at least….” As she neared Líam, the tall ginger-haired artist’s face lit up, and he greeted her with a big smile. Oh no you don’t, thought Fiona. I’m not falling for that handsomest-guy-in-all-of-Ireland bit this time. Oh no! You are going to tell me exactly what the H….
But before Fiona could launch into her bill of particulars, Dr. Preston, president of the college, and his wife Agnes, stepped up to greet Líam. They shook hands, and Líam put his arm around the just-arrived Fiona, whose mouth was still frozen around the unspoken “Hell” she had been about to shout at him. “You must know Miss Fiona Mackenzie, my…muse and,” lowering his voice, “my fiancée. We’re going to make the announcement a bit later in the evening. But, here, let me take you around the show. We’ll start with what I consider my best painting. It’s over there just above that sofa.”
Fiona’s mouth was still open, but this time in astonishment. He’s not taking the president and his missus over there is he? Of God, he is! Well, I’m not tagging along. He can hug the damned portrait when he announces the engagement. Hell, he can marry the bloody thing for all I care. I’m going home! And so she would have, had not the president’s wife suddenly hooked her by the arm and dragged along, making cooing noises about engagements. Agnes had just started telling Fiona about the time she and the president had announced their nuptials when she caught sight of the portrait. “Oh,” she said, and dropped Fiona’s arm. Then she whispered, somewhat in awe, “Weren’t you cold? I’ve been to Ireland and, well, of course, I kept my clothes on…I mean, the place always seemed a bit chilly to me.”
Fiona could have assured Agnes that she had been surrounded by banks of electric heaters. However, by this time Líam had launched into an explanation about how the painting demonstrated his use of contours, planes, colors and light. To her slight relief Fiona noticed that everyone, including her friends, were no longer staring at her but were focused on the painting. After a few moments, even Fiona began to look at it…carefully for the first time. And as she listened to Líam’s spiel, she realized that maybe the picture wasn’t about her after all. Maybe it was just a painting. As Líam continued, she began to think that it could just as well be a vase of flowers up there inside the frame. For a moment, in fact, Fiona even began to feel like a vase of flowers—an object that the artist happened to decide to paint. Maybe it was all about contours, plains and color.
But then she studied the expression on the vase’s…on her face—that calm, slightly imperious “Is-there-a-problem?” stare. Jaze, that’s me, Fiona thought to herself. That is me. OK, not me as I usually am but me as I would like to be…at the appropriate moments. And then she recalled that, towards the end of the sittings, she had finally shed the self-consciousness she initially felt about sitting naked in front of Líam while he stared at her, brush in hand. A sense of confidence and naturalness had finally settled in…like…yeah, this is me, world, and I’m comfortable with it. Hope you are, too. Ta-da!
As Líam lead his attentive audience over to the next piece of art, Fiona stayed behind gazing up at her portrait. So, Líam wasn’t just painting a vase of flowers…an object. He was painting me, and he wanted to capture something about me…a part of me that I wasn’t fully aware of…until tonight! He is a bonny man, after all, she sighed. And then, when she thought no one was looking, she took a selfie with her portrait staring down imperiously from over her right shoulder.
Later that evening the portrait provided the backdrop for Fiona’s performance of a set of Irish folk songs, the same ones she had learned from Séamus the year before and the same ones she had song at Líam’s gallery opening in Galway that summer. And then the portrait presided over the couple’s announcement of their engagement. A Champaign toast followed, although, after a compulsory sip, Fiona discretely ditched her glass. No booze for babbys, she had decided as soon as she learned she was pregnant. Besides, she could guess how much Guinness Líam had fortified himself with before the opening. It was going to take a concentrated effort on her part to get him home before he added a bottle of bubbly to the evening’s accumulation of alcohol. But not to worry. That was one department in which she already had considerable experience.