Lake of Sorrows

Perhaps the place was remote and hard to find. And an apiary could be dangerous to someone with no experience of bees. But the alarm in Charlie Brazil’s voice had seemed slightly out of proportion. Was there something at the apiary he didn’t want her to see?

4

“A set dance night?” Cormac’s eyebrows lifted as he repeated the phrase, and Nora understood it might not have been his first preference for something to do that evening. “You’re aware that Gough’s is reputed to be the dirtiest pub in all of Ireland?”

“Well, no, I wasn’t. But now I’ve got to see it. Come on, Niall Dawson is going down with a bunch of his people. He said you could join the session if you were afraid to dance.”

As they walked through the front door of Gough’s, Nora understood the designation, but thought it a bit exaggerated. True, the floor was plain concrete and could do with a good sweeping. But the bar’s reputation was probably due to its bohemian decor—no tidily upholstered tapestry benches and barstools here, but swaybacked antique settees in threadbare brocade, as if the owners made a habit of haunting country-house estate sales and snapping up the worn castoffs of a dwindling aristocracy. Above the bar, an antique pendulum clock advertised Golding’s Manures. Behind the front room and up a few steps lay a modern addition, a large open room with a fireplace and limestone walls lined with benches and tables. The stout pine dance floor was already filled with eight-person sets.

While they waited for drinks at the bar, Nora looked up at the fluttering streamers of green, white, and gold that made a bright pinwheel above the punters’ heads. The championship season was in full swing, and hopes were high this year for the Offaly hurlers. Hurling wasn’t a sport in this part of Offaly, Cormac had explained; it was closer to the local religion. And of all the sports Nora had ever halfheartedly followed, it was one of the most beautiful. It was an ancient game, played since the days of legend—the hero Cuchulain was supposed to have been a great hurler, though in his time the losing team was usually put to death after the match. There was something still very primal in watching lean young men racing down the field, scooping up the small leather ball with flat hurley sticks, balancing it while running at full speed, then batting it over the bar for a point—from a hundred meters out. Set dancing and everything else would be forgotten on Sunday afternoon during the match.

Drinks finally in hand, they headed toward the back room and spotted Niall Dawson and his group at the far side of the dance floor. The crowd was an interesting mix of older and younger people; the musicians sat in one corner near an upright piano, leaning hard into a set of reels, and four couples stood in squares, the ladies lacing their way surefootedly around the gentlemen with a brisk battering step. Then the couples faced one another, and danced around the square, stopping in each place with two emphatic stamps. When they reached home to their original places, the figure was over, and the dancers returned, flushed and perspiring, to their tables, while the musicians started up another set of tunes.

“This will be a Plain set,” shouted the organizer, an energetic white-haired man in shirtsleeves and a loose tie. “Who’s for a Plain set?”

Nora set her drink down on the table in front of Dawson, then took Cormac’s pint and flute case from him and pulled him out onto the floor. “Back in a minute, Niall.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Nora,” Cormac said, hanging back. “It’s been too many years.”

“Don’t fret,” she said. “I’ll pull you along.”

She placed Cormac’s right hand snug against her waist, lifted his left arm and let her hand rest lightly against it. The music began with two thumps on the piano, and they both fell naturally into the subtle toe-heel rhythm of the Clare set. They stepped in tandem, forward and back, then Cormac swung her into ballroom position and around the square. It was clear this wasn’t his first time on a dance floor.

“You’re a man of many surprises,” she said.

Cormac smiled and spoke quietly in her ear. “I gave it up when I started playing music, but it’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget.”

When the dance ended, they headed back to Dawson, who was deep in conversation with the couple at the next table. He waved them over and introduced them to Joe and Margaret Scanlan, an elderly pair who’d been sitting out the set. Joe, silent and barrel-chested, was filling his pipe and barely nodded in greeting, but Margaret Scanlan leaned forward and shook hands, scanning their faces with bright eyes. Dawson said, “Would you ever enlighten these fine people with what you were just telling me, Mrs. Scanlan?”

“We got chatting,” Margaret said, “and when I found Mr. Dawson was working on the excavation over at Loughnabrone, I asked if he’d heard the latest on the murder victim. Everyone around here thinks it’s a fella from these parts, Danny Brazil.”