Forbidden Fruit (8 page)

The shadow of that incident, the sour smell in my nostrils, followed me, maimed me, ruined many precious moments of my life.

No, I did not mind at all that Eamonn had not entered me. In my marriage, I had experienced the lust of my husband but not
a love like this. Sex can be the most humiliating of all hurts.

Had Eamonn only realized the terrible things done to my body in the past, he would have known that what he did to me in his
fumbling way was marvelous. He had loved me with his whole being, found me worthy, and I was content.

Unbarnacling, he dropped off to sleep without a word.

As he cat-purred, I had hours to think. For the first time I had the impression that a man loved me; and a man had loved me
without reserve. If this was so, maybe one day I would be able to look closely at myself in the mirror again and shower in
the light.

Of course, I could hear a voice telling me this love was doomed. But doomed or not, damned or not, this love, I sensed, would
have a beauty in it that would endure.

My gentle, kindly, amusing Eamonn now lay quietly, trustingly, beside me, this man whose whole life was a restless sunlike
dance.

But—moments later—had I truly won him? Did he love me, really love me, I mean, to the exclusion of all others and all
other concerns unto death? Was this possible for one who had so much more to lose than I who was a nothing person? Would he,
when he awoke, also abuse me in his own spiritual way?

The doubts persisted. I had so little regard for myself. Would he even remember the solace he had found in me? Would he ask
me when he awoke how I had tricked him into my bed?

Against the background roaring of wind and sea, I watched the rippling movements of his face. Even in sleep his mood had changed.
He seemed now to be thinking, scheming, making deals, preparing for action. I wanted to stroke him all over, to soothe his
disquiets, but I feared to wake him.

He awoke about three. He asked no questions. His smile seemed to say that he was in the right place with the right woman.

I whispered, “We did things earlier, Eamonn, you and I.”

“I remember some of it. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh my God,” I said, “that makes me feel horrible.”

Anticipating the question I most dearly wanted to ask, he said, “ ‘Twasn’t the drugs, Annie. ‘Twas bound to happen because
I feel for you as I know you feel for me.”

Once more a kind of adolescent passion took control of him. His blind, twitching hands raced again all over the Braille of
my body. His hands gripped me low from behind and drew me to him, twisting, grinding, while he whispered, “You are like silk
and, oh, the heat of you.”

I said nothing, content to be the fountain that quenched his desert thirst. A wrong word from me and he might lose concentration,
maybe think badly of himself.

When he tried to consummate his love, again the fiery foreplay exhausted all the sexual capacities he then possessed.

No matter. I reveled in the feel on my equally desiring flesh of his magnificent hands and his moist expressive lips.

Afterward, he nestled up to me and tickled my face with his growth of beard; and I gazed into his hazel eyes that seemed to
turn bright green. His were the only eyes I had ever been able to look right into. Yes, I was right from the start, I was
in his eyes, I belonged there.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is between you and me. We’ll keep it like that.”

He went back to sleep again.

The storm had somewhat abated and, when the first hint of the sun pierced my burgundy velvet curtains, I reluctantly nudged
him awake.

“What time is it, Annie?”

“Five o’clock.”

“I suppose —”

“Yes, you’d better go back to your room,” I said, smiling. “Don’t want Mary to find you here when she gets up.”

He wearily left the bed and got dressed. He blew me a kiss before quietly letting himself out.

I immediately got out of bed, threw back the bed covers, and raised both windows to lessen the musky smell.

I went into the small dark bathroom and turned on the shower at low pressure so no one else could hear it. Afterward, I partly
dried myself with a towel before standing at the window to let the Atlantic breeze, scented by honeysuckle, complete the job.

In the tall wardrobe mirror that reflected the big white smile of the moon, I surveyed my body that Eamonn had delighted in.
The tanned and radiant face and sparkling eyes, the young firm breasts, small waist, flared hips, long bronzed legs. I no
longer wholly despised myself and the way I looked. Love was binding up my wounds.

The muscled, salt sea wind had freshened the room but I dabbed myself with cologne to drive away the last vestiges of the
odors that so disturbed me. Then, getting back into my flowery nightgown, happier than I had ever been, I climbed into bed.

That was when the torment began.

Was this a one-night stand brought about by his illness and the drugs or the beginning of a long romance? Was he mine or wasn’t
he? Had I won his heart or lost him for good? What would the future bring to him, to me, to us? Did he already hate me for
making him hate himself? Would he have such guilt that he would ask me to leave Ireland for the sake of his soul?

Strange, how after passionate lovemaking, I could not answer any of the big questions. Later that morning, he would dress
as a bishop. Where would I stand then?

Apart from the fact that the inert sex-odor in the room still made me want to flee, there was only one thing that would put
my mind at ease. I rose, slid out of my room, closing the door quietly behind me, and, after only a few paces, just as quietly
opened Eamonn’s door.

This was the first time I had seen his bedroom. It was far bigger than mine, with two heavily draped french windows leading
onto the patio, a whole wall with windows onto the sea. The noise of the sea was louder, more evocative here.

I took in the two double beds with Eamonn lying in the first of them under an exquisite laced eiderdown of apricot silk. I
saw the raised yellow velvety wallpaper, the olive-gold drapes, a chaise longue, an old Turkish rug, black with reds and oranges
and other warm colors threaded through it. And Eamonn’s black uniform so redolent of death: the gold ring and pectoral cross
on the antique mahogany dresser; the black stock, the shirt, surprisingly multicolored in reds, grays, and greens, the starched
collar, the pants, folded neatly on a high-backed chair with his polished shoes beneath and a red sock of ambition inside
each of them.

He heard me come in. Maybe he was expecting me. But the next few seconds were critical. This was his space. I had dared to
cross his threshold. It must have been obvious to him that this was territorial. This was the bitch seeing if she had the
same rights as the dog. What would he do?

Leaning on one elbow, his eyes completely clear, he said, “What on earth are you doing
there
?”

I felt I would die. I had made the most terrible mistake of my life by confusing love with the effect of drugs. Like Eamonn,
I had climaxed too soon.

I tried to think of some excuse. I had come to say sorry or to check that he was feeling better.

Giving a typical scowly smile, he flipped the covers over. “Just come on in, Annie.”

Lifting my nightdress over my head, I rushed across and jumped naked into bed with him and removed his pajamas. I had rights.
I belonged here.

As my head hit the down pillow, I knew he loved not just my body but me, Annie Murphy. He could, as some men do, have rejected
me because he had no immediate urge on him and needed sleep. But he didn’t. He cared for me.

This was
our
room. I no longer hated or felt threatened by those clerical clothes. So much harness. My body fitted him much better. Womanly
pink was his proper color, not black.

We lay together relaxed and possessive in one another’s arms. His temperature was back to normal.

After a while, he began to stir and stormed my body again. His lips brushed my nipples, which surprised him by the change
of texture; he felt with wonder the wiriness of my pubic hair, my flesh smoother than a petal pressed between thumb and forefinger.

Once more, he disappointed himself for not being the perfect lover he had perhaps always been in his fantasies.

“I have a problem here,” he sighed, expecting too much of himself. “I’ve mastered so many things but this has me beat.”

“It’s all right, Eamonn,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”

He kept apologizing, as he stroked my body. “It’s not fair on you, Chicky Licky. You deserve better.”

“It will come,” I assured him, “don’t try to force it,” and I stroked him back to sleep like a young boy in my arms. We were
one spirit if not yet one flesh. My cheeks, my breasts, my thighs smelled of him.

I, too, must have drifted off because I woke with a start. The storm was past. It was a morning of penetrating stillness;
birds out-sang the sea. Through the thick closed drapes, the sun was flooding the room with blue-gold light.

Oh my God, what time was it? The bedside clock showed seven o’clock. Mary would be up within the hour to get his breakfast.
I had to go, but he had given me the guarantee that there would be other nights.

Entwined in one another’s arms like eels, we kissed for a long moment. Finally, with reluctance on both our parts, I dressed
and returned, without a glance at the Stations of the Cross, to my room, where I slept dreamlessly.

H
E WAS IN MY ROOM AT ELEVEN, inviting me to spend the day with him in Killarney. Minutes after I said yes, Mary brought me
tea and toast.

“These new drugs are marvelous,” she said. “I never saw him looking so well after a bout of colitis.”

I joined in praising the wonders of modern medicine.

“He ate two lamb chops for breakfast. Imagine that.”

We set off at about midday. I was not in the least bit tired, and Eamonn seemed to have an additional bounce in his walk and
a wide-eyed expression on his face.

His inability to bring me to orgasm had told in my favor. Sex, like mountain roads, challenged his abilities. He needed to
find out how to drive my body so it thrilled to his touch.

“I knew it would happen the first moment I saw you. You, too, Annie?”

“I guess so.”

“I had no idea,” he admitted, “that I would find someone as beautiful and fresh as you.”

“Fresh?”

“You started attacking me as soon as you saw me. My God, you were worse than Larry.”

“Who’s Larry?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

I touched his arm. “If you keep driving like this, one day you’re going to run into someone and his face and yours are going
to make one.”

Maybe that image suggested the intermingling of bodies in the act of sex for, laughing, he proceeded to tell me how much our
relationship fascinated him.

“It seems to me, Annie, that sex is far more complex than I thought.”

He meditated aloud on it being multilayered.

“You teach me, Annie, and I have things to teach you.”

I was more than willing.

After lunch in the Palace, I helped Pat in the office. Deadpan in expression, she knew how to get things done. I think she
sensed the energy between Eamonn and me and it excited her because she wanted love in her life.

I took charge of her dog. Larry, a black French poodle, ruled the Palace with teeth of iron. Pat was crazy about him. He slept
with her and loved her, hating the rest of the world.

It was some measure of Pat’s usefulness that Eamonn put up with Larry. Between man and dog there was an undying enmity. They
went for each other like an old-fashioned Catholic and Protestant. The first thing Eamonn did on entering the Palace was roll
up a newspaper ready to swat the dog with it.

I whispered to Eamonn, “I remind you of
him
?”

“Ruff-ruff-ruff,” he said.

I took Larry for a walk. He confirmed all my fears. Nothing in Killarney pleased him. I realized why Eamonn hated and admired
him: the dog did not obey him and he liked a good fight. It was worth keeping in mind.

Back in the Palace, I took Larry into Eamonn’s office. He was catnapping, but Larry immediately stirred him into life. It
was instantly ruff-ruff-ruff from Larry and an even more vicious ruff-ruff-ruff from Eamonn. There they were, Bishop and poodle,
eyeball to eyeball, trying to outbark each other.

Finally: “For God’s sake, get him out of here, Annie.”

Larry knew an enemy when he smelled one and, not liking Eamonn’s tone, went for his foot.

Eamonn tried kicking him and when that failed, he put his feet up on the desk.

I said, “If you’re not careful, he’s going to bite your backside and how would Pat feel about that?”

I left the two of them to enjoy one another’s company and went to chat with Justin. He was in the garden, which I loved because
it had such neat rows of flowers and vegetables.

After that, I did some shopping, especially for eau de cologne, and explored Killarney. I liked its atmosphere, the sense
that so much had happened there over the centuries.

That evening, Eamonn drank a large cocktail, and at dinner a bottle of Beaujolais, followed by a big Napoleon brandy. Not
once did he mention our night together, not even when we sat for three hours by the fire in the living room. His policy was
to give away as little as possible. Maybe he himself did not know what he would do. But a strange thing happened.

Without warning, he left the room and returned with a picture. He had been speaking of his mother and I assumed he wanted
to show me what she looked like. It was, in fact, the photograph of a curly-haired boy about two to three years old. He merely
let me glance at it as the prelude to telling me the child’s story.

When working in London during the sixties, he had met a pregnant, unwed young woman.

“She wanted to keep her baby, Annie, and I warned her she could never cope. After six months, she realized it was better for
Johnny—that’s his name—if she had him adopted.”