The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [92]
Muire put down the fork. She looked at her watch and spoke more quickly.
“When I heard about the crash, I tried to reach my brother. I was frantic. How could they have done that to Jack? Had they lost their minds? And politically, it was insane. To blow up an American plane? For what purpose? It was guaranteed to turn the entire world against them.”
She put her fingers to her forehead and sighed.
“Which was, of course, the point.”
She fell silent.
Kathryn had the anxious sense of receiving important messages in code, a code that needed immediate deciphering.
“Because it wasn’t them,” Robert said, slowly understanding. “It wasn’t the IRA who planted the bomb.”
“No, of course not,” Muire said.
“It was intended to discredit the IRA,” Robert said, nodding slowly.
“When I couldn’t reach my brother,” Muire added, “I thought they’d killed him, too. And then I couldn’t reach anyone.”
Kathryn wondered where Muire’s children were right this very minute. With A?
“My brother finally called last night. He’s been in hiding. He thought my phone . . .” She gestured with her hands.
Around her, Kathryn was vaguely aware that other diners were eating toast and drinking coffee, perhaps conducting business.
“Jack didn’t know what he was carrying,” Robert said almost to himself, putting it together for the first time.
Muire shook her head. “Jack never carried explosive material. He was very clear about that. It was understood.”
In her mind, Kathryn saw the scuffle on the plane.
“That’s why Jack doesn’t say anything on the tape,” Robert added suddenly. “He’s just as shocked as the engineer.”
And Kathryn thought then: Jack, too, was betrayed.
“It’s all coming apart,” Muire said and stood up. “You should go home as soon as you can.”
She put a hand on the table, leaned down close toward Kathryn, who caught a brief scent of stale breath, unwashed clothing.
“I came here,” Muire said, “because your daughter and my children are related. They have the same blood.”
Did Muire Boland mean for an understanding to pass between the two women, a elemental understanding? Kathryn wondered. But then, almost simultaneously, she realized that of course the two women were linked, however much Kathryn might wish it not true. By children, certainly, half-sisters and half-brothers, but also by Jack. Through Jack.
Muire straightened, clearly about to leave. Panicky, Kathryn realized she might never see the woman again.
“Tell me about Jack’s mother,” Kathryn blurted in a rush. An admission.
“He didn’t tell you, then?” Muire asked.
Kathryn shook her head.
“I thought he hadn’t,” Muire said thoughtfully. “Yesterday, when you were there . . .”
Muire paused.
“His mother ran away with another man when he was nine,” she said.
“Jack always maintained she was dead,” Kathryn said.
“He was ashamed he’d been left. But, oddly, he didn’t blame his mother. He blamed his father, his father’s brutality. Actually, it’s only been recently that Jack could acknowledge his mother at all.”
Kathryn looked away, embarrassed for having had to ask.
“I absolutely must go now,” Muire said. “I’m putting you both at risk just by being here.”
The accent might have done it, Kathryn thought. Acted as a trigger. Or was she simply searching for a reason for the inexplicable: why a man fell in love?
Robert glanced quickly from Muire to Kathryn and back again. He had an expression on his face Kathryn had never seen before — anguished.
“What?” Kathryn asked him.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, as if he would say something but then had thought better of it. He picked up a knife and began to flip it back and forth between his fingers, the way she had seen him do with a pen.
“What?” Kathryn repeated.
“Good-bye,” Muire said to Kathryn. “I am sorry.”
Kathryn felt dizzy. How long had it been since Muire Boland had walked through the doorway?