Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 14

  And so they found themselves, in the wee hours of an August morning, loading baby paraphernalia and themselves, plus Patrick, into the car on their way to her funeral.

  Casey and Patrick both looked resplendent in their dark suits, Patrick in navy blue and Casey in a deep charcoal grey lightweight wool. Casey was always twitchy in formal wear, preferring the comfort of his workaday clothes, but today he seemed more agitated than was usual.

  “Whatever is the matter, man?” Pamela asked as they cleared the limits of Belfast and were on the windy road to Ballymena where the majority of the Murphy clan dwelt and his Grandmother Murphy had spent the last sixty years of her life.

  “I’m just a wee bit nervous about the day,” he said, shifting in his seat and cricking his neck as if he was in a deal of discomfort.

  “Why?”

  “Because this side of the family is insane, that’s why,” Casey said grimly, sticking his finger inside the starchy white collar and pulling it like it was choking him. She reached across, loosened the knot of his tie, and undid the top button of his shirt. He sighed with relief.

  “As opposed to the Riordan side? These Murphys must be real corkers.”

  “Ye’ve met Devlin, an’ he’s mild-like compared to the rest.”

  “Surely not?” she said, egging him on.

  He cast a very black look in her direction. “Aye, we’ll see if yer laughin’ after my Aunt Sophy bends yer ear for an hour or two.”

  She cast an eye toward the back seat where Pat sat with his nephew. “Is he exaggerating, Pat?”

  “No,” Pat said matter-of-factly. “They’re a mad bunch to be sure. D’ye mind the time, Casey, that Denny lived in the treehouse for a year?”

  “Aye,” Casey snorted. “I’d live in a tree too were Aunt Sophy my mother.”

  Pamela laughed. “I’m rather looking forward to this funeral.”

  “O-ho,” Casey said, “don’t be after thinkin’ they won’t grill ye mercilessly, Jewel. They’re goin’ to swarm at ye like bees to the honey tree. ‘Twon’t be pleasant at all, I assure ye.”

  “You’re starting to scare me,” she said, only half in jest.

  “Dinna fret woman, ye’ll survive it. Pat an’ I have managed years of it, after all.”

  “Besides, everyone enjoys a good funeral,” Pat said, and Casey nodded in agreement.

  “It sounds like you were close to them,” Pamela said, fascinated by the small threads of information about the brothers’ shared history. It was a glimpse into the world they’d inhabited before their father’s death, their mother’s abandonment, and Casey’s time in prison. Because her own childhood had been so lonely, she loved the tales that Casey and Pat could occasionally be induced to tell about their own relatives.

  “We lived with them for a bit while Da’ was in the Curragh. Split our time between them an’ Granny Riordan.”

  “Your Granny Riordan was still alive then?”

  “Aye, she died shortly before our Da’ did. Otherwise she’d have taken Pat an’ me in after Daddy died, whether we bloody liked it or not. Woman had a fierce will on her.”

  “That’s stating it mildly,” Pat said. “She once put a rifle to a man’s forehead for askin’ the time of day.”

  “Seriously?” Pamela said, twisting round to look at Pat. He looked up from a game of peek-a-boo that had Conor gurgling with delight.

  “He was an old friend of Da’s but he was in the Brotherhood an’ she said that they’d taken her husband and her last son an’ they were not havin’ her grandsons an’ that she’d put a hole in their heads did they come near either of us again. The man backed all the way out of the garden with his hands up above his head. Was comical, really. Our Nan kept the fear of God in yer man as well.” Pat grinned and Casey snorted, while negotiating a hairpin corner that had a lorry pelting around it in completely un-Irish haste.

  Casey slapped the horn a couple of times in a manner that had nothing hostile about it but seemed to Pamela more an exchange of greetings rather than an act of anger. Irish driving was a life and death sport and it was each man for himself on the narrow, twisting roads.

  “Casey Riordan, were you ever not in trouble?” she asked.

  “Well, I’d not like ye to think I was a complete reprobate, but aye, in the general course of things, I did manage to get myself out of one scrape only to find myself in another an hour or so later. Though it’s not like ye were a milk-white choirboy yerself, Paddy.”

  “Aye, well, I did have ye right there ahead of me, leadin’ by example, so what could ye expect?”

  “O-ho, well I’ll not be blamed for the time yerself an’ Denny were caught in the convent then, will I?”

  “In a convent? Patrick, I’m shocked,” she laughed. “Casey, do tell.”

  Pat shot a glare at the back of his brother’s head but Casey, being proof against both looks he could see and particularly against those he could not, ignored his brother.

  “Well, see Jewel, I don’t think I have the real story here, only Pat’s version, which I suspect has been cleaned up like an Easter lily in comparison to what actually happened.”

  “Oh, aye,” Pat rejoined with no little sarcasm, “because in Casey’s version there’s likely a dozen nuns defiled, a priest set drunk on communion wine an’ no sheep safe in the hills.”

  “Oh, I don’t think wakin’ up in the Mother Superior’s bed requires much embroidery, lad,” Casey said, making a pointed gesture at a small car that was meandering on their side of the line. The driver returned the favor and all proceeded happily.

  “A Mother Superior’s bed? Patrick, I’m speechless.”

  “Aye? It’s too bad we can’t say the same for my brother. Besides the story is nowhere near as titillatin’ as he’s makin’ it sound. Denny did have the job of deliverin’ the fresh vegetables to the convent weekly, an’ so we found ourselves there one evenin’ with a bottle of whiskey he’d stolen from Uncle Ned an’ they’d a convenient wee shed on the grounds. We sat out back of it, watchin’ the moon come up an’ drinkin’. I did remember Casey an’ Da’ sayin’ a body should drink as much water as whiskey an’ then ye’d not get sick. Didn’t work.”

  “Well we didn’t mean for ye to drink it from a pig’s trough.”

  “’Twasn’t a pig’s trough,” Pat said with injured dignity. “’Twas a sheep’s bucket.”

  “Aye, so much better, that,” Casey said sarcastically.

  “A sheep’s bucket and a Mother Superior’s bed? This casts an entirely new light on your character, I must say.” Pamela smiled over her shoulder at Pat, who winked in reply.

  “Aye, but all I did was actually sleep in a nun’s bed. I didn’t turn one away from her calling.”

  “What?”

  “Jaysus, Patrick, discretion isn’t yer middle name today, is it?” Casey said, scowling out the windscreen to little effect.

  “So this is true?” Pamela asked, delighted with all the confessions going on about her.

  “Oh aye,” Pat replied, giving his finger to Conor, who promptly champed down on it. “Sister Theresa Mary Francis—also known in her former life as Theresa O’Dell—or the girl who was willing to give up God for Casey Riordan.”

  “Patrick, I swear to God an’ his wee angels when I stop this car I’m takin’ ye out in the field an’ makin’ ye still that tongue of yers.”

  “No, you won’t,” Pamela said practically. “You’ll dirty your suit. Now do tell me about Miss O’Dell, Patrick. Casey, mind the road.”

  “Mind the road, is it?” Casey snorted, but was then distracted by a large lorry loaded down with spilling hay.

  “Theresa O’Dell was his first girlfriend,” Pat said. “He was—what were ye Casey—maybe thirteen at the time?”

  Casey merely raised an eyebrow. “Suit or no, boyo, m
ind what I said about the field.”

  Pamela waved an airy hand in her husband’s direction. “Ignore him, and please continue.”

  “Well, at first she’d not give him the time of day. She was a bit in the way of bein’ a grand one, her daddy was a solicitor an’ all. But then the rumor got round after a dance, told about by Netty Blume, that Casey…”

  “Patrick Brian Riordan—if ye tell this story I swear to ye—”

  “He has to tell it now,” Pamela protested. “I need to hear it.”

  “Oh trust me, Jewel, ye do not need to hear this. Besides, my son is in the car. It’s not an appropriate topic to be discussin’ in front of him.”

  “Nice try, man,” she said, “but we could be having a riveting discussion about the benefits of prunes for all your son knows or cares.”

  “At this point,” Casey sighed in a resigned fashion, “I wish we were.”

  “Pat?” Pamela prompted.

  “Well ye see, he’d the reputation of bein’ a wee bit of a Don Juan with the ladies already, an’ Theresa had heard from Netty that—”

  “I’ll finish tellin’ the story here if ye don’t mind,” Casey said, a tidal surge of red flooding up from his collar. “Now in my defense I have to say that she was a pretty wee thing, an’ I was hormone-addled. My Da’ always said young boys weren’t fit for society between the ages of about twelve an’ twenty an’ I think he may have been onto something there.”

  He smiled, a fleeting nostalgia crossing his face. “Oh ‘twas a desperate time altogether, I tell ye. If I wasn’t playin’ rugby, I was with Theresa, half undressed an’ wholly frustrated. Behind the school, up in my room when Da’ was at work, down by the rugby field. We were doin’ everything but the act itself, an’ to be honest I think I was a wee bit scared on the one hand an’ certain I’d die a virgin on the other.”

  “I doubt that was ever a danger,” Pamela said dryly.

  “His innate charm was still a thing under cultivation back then,” Pat said with a wink.

  “So, did she put you out of your misery eventually?” Pamela asked.

  “Oh aye,” Casey nodded. “Though it left me a little confused to be sure. She cried afterwards, then when I asked her whatever was the matter she slapped my face an’ then not even five minutes later, asked me if we might do it again.”

  “Oh God,” Pamela laughed, “nothing is ever simple with you, is it, man?”

  “I don’t see how any of that was my fault,” Casey said, grinning.

  “So did you oblige her?”

  “I did—though in hindsight, that may have been a wee bit insensitive of me.”

  “Well, you were only—what was it—thirteen?”

  “Fourteen by the time we did the deed,” Casey said.

  “As old as that?” Pamela asked, voice rich with sarcasm.

  Casey gave her a raised brow. “Listen, woman, ‘twasn’t my idea to talk about this.”

  She felt a slight twinge, despite the bantering tone of the conversation. He might have been only fourteen and was now a full grown man as well as legally wedded to her, but still… if she were honest, it made her jealous to think of him with another woman, even if it was years before they had known one another. Which made her, she was aware, a terrible hypocrite.

  “She was a lucky girl to have you for her first,” she said, trying hard for a charitable tone, though judging from the look Casey gave her, she hadn’t succeeded in the least.

  “Are ye goin’ to tell her about Mahri then too?” Pat asked, a look of beatific innocence adorning his features.

  “No, I think we’ve had enough of my confessions today, thank ye all the same. Perhaps though, while we’re at it, we ought to discuss with whom ye lost yer own virginity, man,” Casey said testily, the flush still dying back toward his collar.

  “Janie Bell,” Pat said promptly and entirely without shame.

  “Janie Bell! She’s—she must be about twenty years older than ye, man,” Casey sputtered.

  “She was fifteen years older, but I was always a good learner, as ye know.”

  “Yer shameless.”

  “Now that’s more than a bit of the pot callin’ the kettle names there, is it not?”

  An annoyed hmmph was all the response Pat received to his question.

  “Besides, we were talkin’ about yerself an’ Theresa. If ye don’t want to tell the story, I’ll be forced to.”

  Casey threw a dark look over his shoulder and then capitulated with a sigh, though a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “’Tis true, Jewel, the girl did come to me before takin’ her vows. But by then I’d met you an’ that was that.”

  “This happened after we met?”

  “Aye.” He gave her a dark, slanted look. “Don’t be after scoldin’ me for that, woman. ‘Twas durin’ the first summer I knew ye.”

  “Oh.” She could feel the dreaded flush creeping up from her neckline. That summer she had spent in Scotland with Jamie and though in the end she had returned to Casey, it wasn’t a memory the man enjoyed.

  Casey reached over, patted her knee, and flashed her a smile. “Dinna fret woman. ‘Tis only that life went on even in yer absence that summer.”

  “How far on are we talking about here?” she asked lightly, though she knew her words didn’t come across in as playful a manner as she’d intended.

  “I was waitin’ for ye when ye came home, was I not?” Casey’s tone was no longer so light either. “But aye, I was a little sore an’ angry at ye those weeks as well.”

  “Which means what exactly?” she asked, reminding herself that Pat was in the backseat and had become very quiet in the last few minutes.

  “Which means we’ll talk about this later, woman.”

  “Well then, man, what did she say to you?” Pamela asked, seeing the wisdom of not pursuing the present line of conversation.

  “She said,” Casey cleared his throat, the red flushing from his collar once again, “she said that those times we’d… well she said that was the closest she’d ever felt to God, more so than all the prayin’ she’d been doin’ in preparin’ to take her vows.”

  “Oh,” Pamela replied, feeling quite suddenly sorry for the girl.

  “Aye, well,” Casey said softly, “I think her experience of men after me wasna all that kind perhaps. So it stands to reason that she’d think of me fondly in that respect. She said if I’d marry her, she’d walk away from the church but that if I didn’t care to, she’d stay. She said she knew that there would never be another man for her outside of myself. I felt awful tellin’ her no, but the truth is, I didn’t love her an’ I did love you.”

  “Thank heavens for that,” she said, and leaned over to kiss his already slightly stubbled cheek.

  “So, Patrick,” she turned and smiled at her brother-in-law, “just how did you end up in a Mother Superior’s bed?”

  He smiled ruefully. “Well, ‘twas my misfortune that the Mother Superior herself did come across me prayin’ to God to take me then and there, for I was so sick from the whiskey an’ sheep’s water that dyin’ seemed a good alternative to how I felt. She took pity on me an’ Denny an’ put us up for the night. Aunt Sophy did be havin’ fifty fits an’ makin’ us say ten rounds of the rosary the next day though she never could quite pinpoint which prayer would deliver our wee drunk souls from purgatory.”

  The rest of the drive passed in pleasant chat, with only two stops along the way to change Conor and once to feed him, and for Casey to wander off and have a smoke. Pat merely wandered, to give Pamela time and privacy in which to feed the baby.

  The last twenty minutes before their arrival in Ballymena was slightly less jovial, and the two men grew increasingly quiet as each mile melted away beneath the tires. Pamela knew both of them were aware of the possibility thei
r mother might show up at the funeral, though on the phone last evening Aunt Fee had assured Casey that they’d not heard from her and did not expect to see her.

  Despite that reassurance, the tension was high enough to fly a kite by the time the car pulled down the narrow road to the church.

  “We’re here, then,” Casey said rather abruptly, and immediately began fidgeting with his collar again.

  Pamela reached across and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, feeling a tad nervous herself. Pat was already out of the car, Conor in his arms, and Pamela could hear voices begin to call out his name. She got out of the car and walked around to Casey’s side, determined to hide behind him if at all possible. But all was fine as the aunts converged on them in a rustle of black taffeta and veiled hats, smelling of everything from bread (Aunt Millie) to a wickedly spicy perfume (Aunt Sophy) to a strong draft of whiskey under mints (Aunt Fee).

  There was much fussing and clucking over Conor, hugging of Patrick and Casey to matronly bosoms, and exclamations over how long it had been since the boys had been up for a visit.

  Pamela hung back, waiting for the fluster and furor to die down a bit. Aunt Sophy, a short redhead with sparkling blue eyes, approached her first. Pamela caught a waft of Shalimar on the breeze that preceded the woman, and then she was wrapped tight in a hug that had her face buried in clouds of fragrant red hair. Sophy held her at arm’s length and scrutinized her with a narrowed eye.

  “Well, yer entirely gorgeous, aren’t ye, girl? Fee did say ye were a beauty but her description didn’t quite do ye justice. Dinna bother denyin’ it—no wonder the boyo married ye straight off as he did—without a single relative present, I might add.” This last was said for Casey’s benefit, for he’d come to take his wife’s hand to go into the church. He merely gave his aunt the arm his wife wasn’t on and led the women toward the church door. Pat, in tow with two more of the aunties and a happily squealing Conor, followed behind.

  Sophy laughed a spangled sound that said the woman was possessed of humor on a regular basis. “Ah, yer just like yer Daddy. Ye know when to keep yer tongue quiet.”