The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

Author:Jessie Ann Foley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Elephant Rock Productions, Inc.
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

In February, the eastern coast of Ireland experienced a rare event: a snowstorm. There were dire, apocalyptic warnings from the weathermen, people rushing off to buy canned goods, nervous talk on the streets. What ended up falling was a slushy four inches—mild, by Chicago standards, but the town council still closed the schools for three days. Maggie spent most of the unexpected vacation in her room. On the first day, she daydreamed about Eoin and listened to every single CD in her collection while the snow fell on the hills outside her window. On the second day, she daydreamed about Eoin and made progress on Kevin’s list of Excellent Books with Excellent Sex Scenes: which is to say, she foraged through Ragtime and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, looking for the juicy parts. On the third day, she daydreamed about Eoin and leafed through Kevin’s copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which she’d taken from his room on the night of his funeral. There, underlined lightly in pencil, she found the following passage: “He put his face down and rubbed his cheek against her belly and against her thighs again and again.” The memory of Eoin’s kiss came to her for the thousandth time, the feeling of his hand at the small of her back, and she began wondering what it would be like if Eoin were to kiss her belly and her thighs again and again. But then she remembered that this was Kevin’s book, marked by Kevin’s hand, and she slammed it shut, cheeks flushing, because those wavy pencil marks made her feel like he was in the room with her, listening to her secret thoughts and watching in affectionate disapproval: Mags, you’re supposed to read the whole book, not just the sexy parts, ya little perv!

It was all too much—the grief for Kevin, the longing for Eoin, the overwhelming power of words. She needed air. She threw Lady Chatterley’s Lover aside, pulled on her Wellingtons, and went out the back door to pay a visit to Dan Sean.

After three days of wet, heavy storms, the ground beneath her boots felt runny. Little rivers had appeared in the rocky hills and ditches, and even though it wasn’t raining, Maggie’s pants were saturated up to the thigh by the time she made it up Dan Sean’s hill. He greeted her, as always, by motioning her into the high-backed chair next to the fire and hobbling over to the sink to put on the kettle. Woody, the dog, settled his dingy warmth across Maggie’s wet lap while Dan Sean poured the tea and handed her a cup. Then, he humphed back into his chair.

“Some weather,” he said, bringing his trembling cup to his lips. By now, Maggie understood the farmer’s custom, and they spent ten minutes or so discussing the temperature, the cloud cover, the levels of precipitation, and whether cattle could be let out in this rain, before moving on to their real conversation.

“So,” Dan Sean said, “how’s your beau? The Brennan boy from up the road?”

“I need your help,” Maggie said.

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