Rowan shifted and looked toward Pierce. Who was this woman? But his brother was deep in conversation with some people Rowan didn’t know. He looked to his mother, but she was surrounded by a group of women, members of her yoga class or creative writing group, or something. They had that intimate posture about them—a posture women of a certain age have who know each other from a “shared experience.” There was no one to help him recall the name of the woman before him. So he went with it, took another sip from his glass, and smiled, hearing Burdy’s voice in his ear saying, This woman is a flibbertigibbet. Rowan watched her thin, disappearing lips move sideways as they opened and closed and made sounds. For a few moments he just watched them. How sweet the soundless, he thought, and laughed. He’d had three martinis and was just beginning to float. He motioned to a waiter.

“Oh, I know. One does tend to drink too much on these sad occasions. But this isn’t really that sad. Is it, do you think? Mr. Emmet’s was a full life, God bless him and save him, and may he rest in peace.”

At the mention of “Mr. Emmet,” Rowan suddenly remembered. “Mrs. Dillon! A full life. Yes. You’re absolutely right. Forgive me for not recognizing you.”

“I was wondering if you had forgotten me.” She sipped her drink rather coyly.

“Momentarily.” He smiled. “Momentarily. But a laugh as jolly as yours is hard to forget. I am sorry. How have you been?”

“Not too bad. Although I was sad to hear of my dear Mr. Emmet. Will you miss him terribly?” Subtlety was not her forte.

“Yes.” What more could he say?

Burdy had schooled him: always be a gentleman when speaking with your elders. Suddenly he felt like a twelve-year-old again and then he recalled Mrs. Dillon had been Burdy’s secretary. When Burdy retired twenty years ago, so had she. Originally from Ireland, she was interested in, what was it? Something? What? Reading the tea leaves! When he visited Burdy in his office, occasionally Mrs. Dillon would make him a cup of tea and then “read” the leaves. Afterward, she’d say something enormously positive about the loose leaves left in the cup. “You’re going to grow up to be an astronaut. Or maybe an architect. Something that begins with an A. And you’re going to be rich and famous. Oh yes, and of course one day you’ll go to Ireland and find a nice girl. And it will change your life.” It took a long time, but Rowan eventually figured out that her fortune-telling was always the flowering of some seed Burdy had planted earlier.

“It’s been years since I saw you, dear. I didn’t really expect you to remember me, although I hoped you would.”

“I do remember. Of course. You were Burdy’s ‘Galway Gal Friday.’ Isn’t that what he called you? And, I remember you were at my graduation.” Rowan was pleased; his memory had returned and the moment unveiled like a curtain drawn back upon a stage.

“That’s right. But that was a long time ago.” She finished her drink. “I think that was the last time I saw you.”

Across the putting green in blackness a bank of trees was silhouetted against the sky like a ship harbored in a dark sea.

Peggy Dillon licked the remnants of the gin and Limoncello on her lips and seemed to drift away in thought, but then her eyes returned to anchor on Rowan’s face. “Whatever became of the child?”

Rowan stared at her.

Her eyes widened and squeezed, closed briefly, as if she were having a dialogue in her mind.

Rowan took her arm. “What child?”

She saw the shock on his face and spoke quietly. “You know I saw her. That time in Dublin. I was there with the Friends of St. Patrick. For the parade. We were in Trinity to see the Book of Kells and I saw her passing. I waved. But she didn’t see me. I said to my friends, ‘There goes that sweet girl young Rowan Blake is engaged to.’”

“You must be wrong. She didn’t have a child.”

“Nooo…” she replied slowly. “She didn’t. Not then. But … I mean … she was pregnant. You could see, I mean there was no doubt she—”

Rowan was no longer listening. He was getting around the canapes table, pushing his way past the Wilsons and the Morgans, getting to the French doors and, watched by Pierce, bolting across the terrace onto the golf course, so he didn’t hear the Joyces asking Louise if he would play again and he didn’t hear her say he’s going to miss Burdy so, and he didn’t hear Peggy Dillon turn to the memorial picture of Burdoch Emmet on the table and say, “All right, Burdy? I told him.”

Nine

Rose is woken by the seagulls, or is it her phone squawking? She gets up quickly. What time is it? What day is it? Her head hurts. Pages of sheet music on the music stand turn, others on the floor scurry, stirred by the wind as she opens the curtains and the door to a bright blue noon. Her phone beeps. She’s had several missed calls from Roger. Feck. She doesn’t want to speak to him.

Rose steps out to the balcony and her phone rings again. She lets it, considers letting it ring out, then snaps it on.

“Rose! I’d tried to reach you all day yesterday! Are you all right?” She hears Roger’s exasperated breath. “I was about to phone your mother, but I didn’t have her number. Where have you been? I need to explain. I need to apologize…”

The sun is bright in her eyes and she winces, then thinks of the lyric about the sun and lemon drops.

“Rose? Rose, are you there?”

Her eyes drink in the trees and redbrick buildings in front of her. A barge cuts along through the film of silken green algae on the canal. “I’m here,” she says quietly.

“The master class. It’s important that we straighten this out.”

Rose doesn’t say anything. She watches the wake of the barge, the ruffled silk return to smooth.

“It’s my daughter. Victoria. She came to see me in London. Her mother and I, we’re divorced. Victoria’s a musician, too … in New York. She came to tell me she’s quitting. Quitting! I tried to talk her out of it, yesterday. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She says it’s too fucking hard. After all that work, she wants to toss it away. She’s not like you, she has to work for her talent. You’ve got heaps of talent. A gift that can’t be taught.”

Rose listens but says nothing. A gift that can’t be taught.

“Rose? Are you hearing me?”

“Yes.” The canal is sour this morning. It happens in the heat. Effluent waves lap at the brickwork.

“I was hard on you, I admit. I’m sorry, Rose. Really sorry, hey? It wasn’t you. I was thinking of Victoria,” he says. “Listen, I’m taking a cab to Primrose Hill. Meet me at The Engineer in an hour and we’ll have a proper chat about it. Okay?”

“Okay, Roger. Maybe.”

On her small smartphone, Rose presses “End.” The phone in her hand feels heavy and she wants to drop it. She lowers her arm over the balcony but as she does, just seconds later, the phone rings again and she speaks, “Roger, I said I’ll think about it, o—”

“Rose … Rose Bowen?”

Rose doesn’t recognize the man’s voice.

“This is Conor. Conor Flynn.”

Her chin tucked, her eyes closed, Rose loses her concentration. “Conor?”

“Yeah. How are you?”

“Um … not great actually. I can’t talk now.”

“I thought not. I had an idea you might be feeling … well, pretty shit—”

“What?”

“Because, like, maybe, you lost something?”

“Oh God…!”

“Only you didn’t exactly lose it, is how I heard—”

“Conor, tell me.” Rose spins around on her balcony, loses her balance, and nearly drops the phone. Her left hand comes to join the right one holding it. She’s trembling.

“I got a call from this guy. A really nice guy, apparently, who saw you on the tube Tuesday night. He said you left your violin case on the seat and walked off. He said you stood watching as the train pulled away. He got off at the next station and went back to your stop. And—”