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Kathleen Rose

I don’t like the sea! No, I don’t like it at all. It’s so, so cold.
“Are you for real, Shannon? What is there not to like?”
John sat down on the grass beside her. She fascinated him just as much today as she did when he met her three years ago in Manhatten. It had been a frosty February morning and her long dark brown hair, pale skin and amber eyes all added up to give her a sort of mystical quality. She was his Irish rose. But these days she was in a strange mood. He couldn’t put his finger on it but she just wasn’t her old self.
He looked out over the Atlantic and drew a long sigh. The view from Glen Head cliffs was pretty spectacular. The blue spread on forever and got lost as the horizon met the sky. It was a bright summer morning and the waves were teasing the Donegal coastline enthusiastically. Rocky outcrops poked fun defiantly at this mighty ocean with its notions of its own omnipotence. Behind them, far below in the treeless valley the smoke was beginning to rise almost in sequence from the houses in Glencolmcille. Decades of repeated daily routines and you could nearly guess which household was going to stir next.
A single dog barking from across the wide panoramic valley sounded as though it was within a stone’s throw. The soothing putt–putt of a Massey tractor along the coast road was comforting and in harmony with the callings of seagulls and the relentless orchestrations of the sea. Below them a fishing vessel was returning laden from a night at sea.
“It’s beautiful,” he protested. “Oh, I know it is and I can see all the beauty out there. The colours and sounds and the freshness of the breeze on my face should add up to something more than they do for me. But, lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I know now that I will never like the sea. Please, John, I don’t mean to spoil your day but can we please go now. I’ll try and explain it all to you later. I want to go now”. John shrugged his shoulders and rose to go. She’d been very preoccupied for the last few days and he didn’t like it one little bit. She was everything to him and he had a feeling that something had happened that was going to change their world. He put it out of his mind and they went home. They’d been living now in Meenaneary for a year and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. Not even early memories of growing up in Boston could compete with what he and Shannon had. “The hotel is booked for eight,” he called to her from the shower. And that was another thing she hardly ever wanted to make love these days. Not surprisingly his fragile male ego was beginning to totter.
“Good I’ll get changed,” Shannon called from the bedroom.” I have something I want to talk to you about”.
He could hear her searching for something in the bedroom. The cottage was tiny – one bedroom, but the low ceilings and thick walls meant it was cosy and inviting even on the stormiest winter nights. He wondered how anyone had managed to raise 8 children within these walls all those years ago.
Shannon got what she was looking for and slipped it into her velvet purse. She slipped into her little black dress and smiled appreciatively at her figure in the mirror. Her Louis Vuitton necklace accentuated the milky hollows of her shoulders and neckline. The make up must be applied carefully tonight. She’d need all the Dutch courage she could muster. She hadn’t had much call for her glad rags of late. But tonight, she might as well. She wouldn’t be wearing them too much longer.

The trip to Dr. Mc Mahon’s surgery had thrown her and the past few days had been stomach wrenching to say the least. She knew she couldn’t keep it from him much longer and she wasn’t so sure how he’d take it. She didn’t feel in the least bit brave.
“Come on, Slow Coach, hurry up!” John called from the car.
She slipped on her Jimmy Choo sling backs and snuggled into her pashini. They drove along the Lofties at a speed consistent with the Donegal road surface. A sheep was sitting in the middle of the road and took it’s time to hoist itself up and waddle slowly into the bog. After the hectic life of New York, things like that used to annoy her but now she relished these unpaid traffic controllers and savoured the placid way her days unfolded now. Despite this she still managed to get her work done and deadlines met. The table would wait for them. It wasn’t a dead fancy hotel, the owners had very few of the ‘five star ‘airs and graces she’d thought so indispensable before.
She picked at her chicken fricassee as John tucked into his fillet steak. The large side orders of mashed potato and vegetables almost turned her stomach. The soft piped Phil Coulter music and the dimmed lighting relaxed her and she began to feel quite tired.

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