Free Agyar by Steven Brust Page B

events.
    I slowly began to get the feeling I would like to leave England—an idea that grew stronger and stronger over the course of about a week. Then the feeling became
more specific, in that I was taken by a wish to see Ireland. I realized what was going on, and allowed it to happen because there was nothing I could do, and I never minded seeing Laura anyway.
    So I went to her, where she was living in a small house, almost like a cottage, outside of the town of Ballina, in the province of Connaught in the west of the Republic of Ireland. It was beautiful country, full of broken, craggy rocks and seacoast, but I saw little of it. I was guided to her doorstep, which fact was unusual in itself, and then she let me in. While she was not living in complete squalor, I don’t think the floor had been swept for months, nor had anything been dusted. She seemed very, very old; I would have taken her for an eighty- or ninety-year old woman, and it seemed that the effort of walking to the door and back to her chair was almost too much for her; the fire had all but gone out of her eyes.
    I said, “What’s happened to you, Kellem?” But I could see what had happened: lethargy, self-neglect, weakness.
    When she spoke, I could barely hear her. She said, “Jack, help me.”
    So I did. I cleaned up the place, which took a couple of days, and then I went to the local pub and got acquainted with a few residents. Eventually I found a fine, strong-looking young man with a booming laugh and pearly-white teeth who was willing to follow me home and keep drinking after the pub closed. I introduced him to my “grandmother,” and fed him Scotch whisky, his secret passion, until he burbled, hiccuped, and passed out in his chair.
    Of course, Laura became drunk too, which I’d never seen before, and I think that did as much good as anything else. She began breaking up the place, after which she slept for two days, by which time the constabulary were nosing around us and we had to leave the vicinity.
    Kellem went on to Dublin, while I, at her suggestion, returned once more to America, and so we went our separate ways, but when we parted she seemed a changed woman—her fire was back, and she had learned how to laugh once more, as if she had drawn it out of the young man.
    Her train left first, and I stood with her at the station and waited for it. She squeezed my hand, and for just a moment things were again as they had been so many years before. One part of me realized that it was a facade, because by then I knew her, but I think, experienced as I was, I wanted to believe there still remained some trace of affection for me.
    I guess I continued to think so until last night.
     
    I went for nice little walk around the area, and met our neighbor across the road, although he doesn’t know we are neighbors, and I didn’t see fit to enlighten him. He was walking his dog, a little brown and white terrier. I was returning to the house and he was approaching me, and the dog suddenly went into a frenzy, barking at me, bristling, and growling, until I nearly lost patience with it.
    The owner, a nice old gentleman in his early sixties, seemed quite embarrassed by the dog’s behavior and apologized profusely, all the while trying to calm the annoying beast. I bent down and held out my hand for the dog to sniff, at which time the animal suddenly backed away and started whimpering, which made the old man even more apologetic.
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Animals often don’t like me.”
    “He doesn’t usually behave this way—”
    “As I said, not to worry.”
    “Well, thanks. I’m Bill Kowalsky.”
    “Jack Agyar.”
    “How d’you do, Jack. Live nearby?”
    “Back that way,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “I was just taking a walk.”
    “You must be new around here.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I always take Pepper out after supper, and I haven’t seen you before.”
    “Well, it’s a pleasure.” Our gloves shook