The Shortest Way Home (40 page)

Kevin had never been on a plane before, and was completely enthralled by the spaciousness of the terminal and the cacophony of color pulsing from the shops and food stalls. But once they were on board, he started to get that irritated look.

“I can’t sit here,” he murmured to Sean. “It’s too squished.” He was wedged between Sean in the aisle seat and Da by the window. Sean switched with him. But when people started brushing by him he didn’t like that, either. The flight attendant’s cart was the last straw. They switched again, putting him by the window and Sean in the middle.

It was an overnight flight, and Sean hoped the boy would fall asleep, but he was too distracted. “It smells so bad in here,” he kept telling Sean. “Like plastic and metal and old rugs.”

“Well, basically, that’s what it is.” This did not help matters.

When someone nearby began to eat something that smelled like a dead animal—Sean guessed liverwurst—Kevin panicked. “I have to get out!” he muttered furtively. Sean grabbed a bag of honeyed peanuts the flight attendants had delivered. “Smell these,” he said.

“I’m not gonna stick my nose in a snack bag for the whole trip!”

They took walks, which helped, but neither of them got any sleep. After watching the sun rise through the tiny window of one of the hatches, they returned to see that Da had taken the window seat. “I want to see my home from the air,” he said. A skirmish ensued.

“Da,” Sean said wearily, “please just give me a break here.” With thirty minutes left to the flight, the boy finally fell asleep, his grandfather leaning across him to look out the window.

Da was teary, Kevin was cranky, and Sean was wondering what the hell he’d been thinking as they went to find their rental car. But once they’d left the airport and made their way past Limerick and onto the N-21, Kevin conked out again and Da busied himself with serving as navigator. He marveled at the spread of the towns and the wind turbines that now spiked the ridges of Stack’s Mountains. As they passed on to the Dingle Peninsula, there was a shift in Da, a skittishness as he neared the land of his boyhood. He muttered things Sean couldn’t understand. Then he let out a groan. “I’ve lost it,” he said.

“What?”

“The Irish. I can read it—there, that one?” He pointed to a road sign that said
TÓG GO BOG É
.
“That says ‘Take it easy.’ Not a bad suggestion, by the way. You’re driving awful fast.” He sighed. “But I don’t know if I can make conversation.”

Da had chosen the Beiginis Bed & Breakfast in Dunquin for its proximity to the Blasket Ferry and for a note on its Web site:
Fáilte faoi Leith roimh Gaeilgeóirí.
He’d proudly translated this for Sean: “Irish speakers particularly welcome.” But now he wasn’t so certain he qualified.

“Well, I’m sure you don’t
have
to speak Irish,” Sean reassured him.

“It’s a matter of pride!”

For Sean it was only a matter of not driving off the side of the narrow mountainous road. He didn’t care if they spoke Martian when he got there, as long as he could sleep for a couple of hours. He was just grateful to keep his wits about him and remember to drive on the left.

Da had fully given up on navigating by the time they hit Ventry. He couldn’t take his eyes off the landscape, head swinging back and forth like a metronome, trying to absorb every detail. “All so different,” he mumbled intermittently with, “That’s just as I remember it.”

Mount Eagle rose brown and bare on their left as they traveled down into the town of Dunquin. A twinkle of light, like a flash from a signal mirror, made Da cry out, “Stop!” Sean hit the brakes. With no cars in sight, there was no reason not to stop right there in the middle of the road. Then he realized that what he saw was the sunlight glinting off water in the distance.

“There!” said Da. “That’s the island.”

Sean squinted his sleep-starved eyes. “Oh, yes,” he said, only because he knew the old man so desperately needed him to. He let the car move forward again. Kevin stirred in the back.

“Are we there?” he yawned.

“Very soon,
cuisle mo chroí
.”

“What’s ‘cushla macree’?”

“Just an endearment,” Da explained. He pointed things out to them: that shuttered building had been a pub; the small house over there had been a store.

“A
store
?” said Kevin.

“Well, not a Stop and Shop, lad. It was just a place for supplies.”

“Like a convenience store?”

“Exactly like!” Da laughed. “Except it only carried about ten items—and from the island, wasn’t terribly convenient!”

In another minute they were pulling onto a smaller uphill road and then into a driveway. The house was a mustard yellow in color, tidily kept with flower boxes adorning the front windows. When they got out of the car and turned to look downhill, their eyes followed squares of pastures in differing shades of green out to the glinting iron blue of the sea. They stared at the several islands that rose out of the waves. Kevin murmured, “Which one?”

“The biggest,” said Da. “That’s where I was born.”

“There was a hospital out there?”

“Not even a doctor. That was the way of it.”

“Are you coming in, at all?” asked a voice with a smile in it. They turned to see a woman in the doorway, dark hair striated with gray, extra padding under the chin. “You’re the Dorans?”

They assured her that they were and hauled their bags out of the car. Orla Dunleavy introduced herself as the proprietress and showed them in.

“Dunleavy?” said Da. “Are you an islander?”

“Oh, yes,” said Orla. “Well, I never lived there, of course. By the time I came along, my people had moved here to Dunquin.” Sean could sense his father’s disappointment immediately. “Were your people islanders?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I am. We were evacuated in fifty-three.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, opening a door to a room with a twin bed and a set of bunks. A soft stream of words came out of her mouth, none of which made the least bit of sense to Sean. All that made sense to him was the horizontal surface of the lower bunk. The bags were dropped and he mumbled something about taking a little rest. The door closed and he was asleep in moments.

* * *

W
hen Sean woke it was late afternoon, and the three of them strolled down to the Blasket Island Ferry. There was a little wooden shed with times posted for crossings. They walked down toward the boat landing, to where the steep cement walkway took a hairpin turn, and from there the view of the islands was panoramic, the tiny village on Great Blasket Island just visible in the waning light. Then the clouds on the horizon churned closer, cloaking it in shadow.

“Ah, the rain.” Da chuckled to himself. “Sweet Mary, I’d almost forgotten.”

They went to Kruger’s Pub on Orla’s advice. “It’s the furthest west you can go in Europe to get a meal and a pint. You shouldn’t miss it.” There were several families and couples eating at the polished wooden tables. One loud bunch was clearly American. New York, Sean guessed.

“Oh, my gawd, Jimmy, just
eat
it,” said the mother to one of the boys. “We’re not stopping again for you.”

“I want a Happy Meal,” he said sulkily.

“Here’s your meal,” she said, nudging the plate closer to him. “Be happy, already.”

At the bar, three or four older men nursed their pints while a young couple smiled secret smiles, their faces close, murmuring to each other. It hit Sean like an anvil. Rebecca had smiled up at him in just that way, reflecting back his own contentment, her face telling his story.

He looked away. “Here’s a table,” he said, and took the seat facing the window.

The waitress came over. Da greeted her with
“Dia dhuit,”
and Kevin echoed a sloppy but well-meaning “Dee-a wit.”

“Nicely done!” she told him. “You’ll soon be speaking Irish as well as your older brother here!” Da let out a guffaw and slapped the table.

Kevin looked confused. “He’s my grandfather.”

“You don’t say!” She murmured something to Da, and he nodded, though his smile dimmed just a little. They ordered their drinks, ginger ale all around.

“What did she say?” Sean asked.

“Something about teaching the next generation, I think.” He shook his head. “It’s not coming back as I thought it would. Bits and pieces, but not the whole pie.”

“Be patient,” Sean told him. “In a month you’ll be having pie à la mode.”

Da shrugged, not completely convinced. He tipped his head toward the bar. “You could have a pint of something, you know. It won’t bother me.”

“Soda’s good for now,” Sean said. “I’m still pretty tired.”

Da studied him for a moment. “I’m glad you don’t seem to have my . . . proclivity.”

“I think Hugh may have had that department covered for both of us.”

At his father’s name, Kevin’s gaze broke away from the Gaelic football match on the television over the bar. “What department?” he said.

Sean couldn’t think of an answer quickly enough. Da came in for the save. “The department of fun,” he said. “Your da was the laughingest little boy I ever did see.”

“He was?”

“Oh, yes. He was a wiggler and a giggler.”

Kevin digested this for a moment. “I’m not like that.”

“Not so much,” conceded Da. “But you do have an excellent sense of humor, and you’ll learn to speak Irish before your uncle here, I can guarantee it.”

“Guh rou mah a-gut!” Kevin said proudly.

Da slapped the table again,
“Tá fáilte romhat!”
he crowed. “You are very welcome!” He jerked a thumb at Sean and told Kevin, “See, he hasn’t a clue what we’ve said.”

Sean feigned annoyance. “Apparently there was an Irish lesson while I was sleeping.”

“That’s right,” Kevin teased. “And you’re miles behind.”

* * *

S
ean woke in the morning to the sound of rain tap-dancing on the patio stones. He got dressed and found his family in the dining room, eating their “Full Irish” breakfast—eggs, baked beans, fried tomatoes, toasted brown bread, black and white “pudding,” a rasher of Irish bacon, and a couple of sausages. “I’ve been a lot of places,” Sean said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “But Ireland’s the only place I know that serves four kinds of meat with breakfast.”

“Four?” said Kevin. “There’s only sausage and bacon.”

“The pudding isn’t the kind you’re used to,” said Da. “More like a meat muffin.”

Soon Orla had a Full Irish in front of Sean, too. “So,” he said. “I guess we should make our ferry reservations.”

“They won’t go this morning,” said Da. “Too stormy.”

“It’s just a little sprinkle.”

“The water’ll be rough,” said Da. “That current is a bully even on a good day.”

“Let’s just call,” said Sean. “We’re not going in a canoe.”

“It’s called a
naomhóg,
smarty,” Da chided. “But go on and call if it suits you.”

“Too rough,” the ferry operator told Sean after breakfast. “Maybe tomorrow.”

So they set out to do “a bit of looking around,” as Da put it. They drove south toward Slea Head and stopped at Dunbeg Fort, a stronghold built on the cliff’s edge more than a thousand years ago. Kevin scrambled around the thick stone walls, worrying his uncle and grandfather for a moment when he crawled into a small cavern and disappeared. When he poked his head out again, Da said, “Come out of there.”

“I can’t, I’m a prisoner!”

Da looked past him into the dark. “Snakes!” he said, and Kevin was out like a rocket.

They continued on toward Dingle. “The Big City.” Da chuckled. “I only went once, after we’d moved off the island. We were living with my aunt in Dunquin, but the place was small. I was soon sent to an uncle in Springfield, Mass. And that’s how I came to America.”

“How old were you then?”

“Sixteen. Just five years older than this one.” He poked his thumb to the backseat. “I never saw my parents again, God rest them. My mother died of cancer, and my father went soon after. I always thought I’d be back, but they passed before I had the chance.” He was quiet then, looking out over the sea, whitecaps playing tag with each other across the chop. “They were never sick on the island,” he added. “Never once, in my memory.”

“Did they want to leave?”

“They were of two minds,” Da explained. “They were island people so they loved the place. But that life requires people to work together—the young rising up to take the place of their elders. Our lives stayed the same as they had been for hundreds of years, while the rest of the world was changing so fast. Electricity and television and new opportunities no one had dreamed of! The young people started leaving, and there weren’t enough strong backs to do the work anymore.” He looked down at his hands. “So the government moved us off. And that was supposed to be a good thing.” He glanced over to Sean. “But think how much was lost.”

* * *

I
n Dingle, they parked the car and walked along the harbor, past brightly painted storefronts. There was a small carnival set up in a lot by the harbor, and they let Kevin ride the rides and play games in the arcade. Da placed a call at a payphone. “I’ll leave you to yourselves for a bit,” he said. Sean and Kevin walked up the hill to the sports field and watched a rugby match.

“Where’d he go?” asked Kevin.

“To a meeting, I’m guessing.” This, of course, prompted a litany of questions about where and with whom, and why anyone would drink so much alcohol if it made them do dumb stuff.

“There are a whole lot of things people do that just don’t make a ton of sense to the rest of us,” Sean said finally. “Like you don’t like to be bumped, but look at these guys.” He indicated the mud-spattered men in striped shirts, tangled into a tight scrum.

“What about you?” Kevin asked. “What do you do that doesn’t make sense?”

Sean chuckled. “What I do makes sense to
me
, at least while I’m doing it. Maybe I should ask what
you
think I do that doesn’t make sense.”

The comment was meant rhetorically, but Kevin clearly didn’t get that part. “That’s easy,” he said. “You go far away to help people you don’t even know.”