Green Shadows, White Whales

“She was riding sidesaddle,” said Tom evenly. “She should not have been riding sidesaddle, damn her.”

“Now, who would that be?” asked John, with that oiled and easy polite but false voice of his. “What woman is that!”

At noon the next day, Mike and I drove John out to Kilcock. He had practiced some great healthy crutch bounds and was apishly exuberant at his prowess, and when we reached Courtown he was out of the car ahead of us and half across the bricks when Ricki came running down the steps.

“My God! Where were you! Be careful! What happened?”

At which point John dropped his crutches and fell writhing in the drive.

Which, of course, shut Ricki up.

We all half-lifted, half-carried John into the house.

Ricki opened her trembling mouth, but John lifted his great glovelike hand and, eyes shut, husked:

“Only brandy will kill the pain!”

She brought the brandy, and over her shoulder he spied Tom’s champagne cases in the corridor.

“Is that crud still here?” he said. “Where’s the Dom Perignon?”

“Where’s Tom?” Ricki countered.

The wedding was delayed for more than a week out of respect for the lady, who, as it turned out, had not ridden sidesaddle but whose misfortune it was to be a small object under a more than substantial burden.

On the day of her memorial service, Tom spoke seriously of going home.

A fight ensued.

When Lisa finally convinced Tom to stay, she fell into a depression and warned of a similar trip, because Tom insisted on not ordering a fresh wedding cake and on keeping the old one as a dust-catcher for more than a full week of mourning.

Only John’s intervention stopped the fights. Only a long and inebriated dinner at Jammet’s, the best French restaurant in Ireland, restored their humor.

“Quiet!” said John as we dined. “The kitchen door as it opens and shuts, opens, shuts! Listen!”

We listened.

As the door squealed wide on its hinges, the voice of the chef could be heard shrieking in frenzies at his cooks.

Open:

A shriek!

Shut:

Silence.

Open:

A scream!

Shut:

Silence.

“You hear that?” whispered John.

Open. Shriek!

“That’s you, Tom.”

Shut, silence. Open, scream.

“That’s you, Lisa.”

Open, shut, open, shut.

Scream, shriek, shriek, scream.

“Tom, Lisa, Lisa, Tom!”

“My God!” cried Lisa.

“Dear Jesus!” said Tom.

Scream, silence, scream.

“Is that us?” both said.

“Or an approximation,” said John, his cigarillo smoking in his languid mouth. “Give or take a decibel. Champagne?”

John refilled our glasses and ordered more.

Tom and Lisa laughed so much they had to grab each other, and then their heads fell to each other’s shoulders, choking and breathless.

Very late, John called the chef out to stand in the kitchen door.

Wild applause greeted him. Amazed, he shrugged, nodded, and vanished.

As John paid the bill, Tom said, very slowly, “Okay. She was not riding sidesaddle.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, Tom.” John exhaled a long slow stream of cigarillo smoke, laying out the tip. “I was hoping you would.”

Mike and I picked up the Unitarian minister, the Reverend Mr. Hicks, the night before the great hunt wedding and drove him to Kilcock.

On his way to the car he had something fine to say about Dublin. As we drove from Dublin he had something truly excellent to say about the outskirts and the River Liffey, and when we hit the green countryside he was most effusive of all. It seemed there was no speck or seam visible on, in, or through this county or the next. Or if flaws were there, he chose to ignore them for the virtues. Given time, he would speak the list. Meanwhile, the hunt wedding lay like white lace on the morning shore ahead and he focused on it, with his pursed mouth, his red pointy nose, and his flushed eyeballs.

As we churned gravel in the yard, he gasped, “Thank God, there’s no moon! The less seen of me arriving, the better!”