by Anne Enright
There was a pause then, as she considered what she had just done.
‘Your sister’s baby. How is your sister’s baby?’ she said.
‘The baby is very well, thank you.’
She’s here, Emmet texted to them all, and could not think what else to say. His mother was exerting the full of her charm on a Kenyan, in his kitchen.
‘You’re here,’ he said.
‘Yes!’ she said, and there was a slight manic gleam to her eye. ‘I came to see you.’
She looked at her son, she looked him straight in the eye, and for a moment, Emmet felt himself to be known. Just a glimmer and then it was gone.
‘And it is such a nice house. Such a nice road. I didn’t realise there were houses like this, just off the motorway. You never know what is behind the trees.’
‘I am sorry we only have tea,’ said Denholm.
‘Oh. Sorry. Yes,’ said Emmet, turning to the shopping bags. ‘Biscuits! We’re not really a biscuit house except for Denholm, he is addicted to those Belgian things with the chocolate.’
‘Not for me! I never had a sweet tooth.’ She put her hand on Denholm’s forearm again and this time, as though surprised, she let it rest there. The veins of her old hand were purple under the thin white skin, and the surface of Denholm’s arm very opaque by comparison. Rosaleen reached for Denholm’s hand, quite slowly. She held it up off the table and ran a curious finger along the side of it, where the dark brown of his skin gave way, in a line, to the lighter shade of his palm.
Emmet nearly died, he said later. I nearly died.
‘Oh,’ said Rosaleen.
Denholm pulled his hand gently away, and curled it into a loose fist on the tabletop.
‘Why have I not seen it before?’
‘Rosaleen,’ said Emmet.
‘Why have I not seen that before?’ she said. She was quite fretful now. ‘Why do you think that is?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Emmet.
And Denholm, in a rush of compassion, held both his hands out to her and turned them palm up and then palm down.
‘Please don’t listen to my mother,’ said Emmet.
Rosaleen gathered herself then and glanced down at her lap.
Her car keys were on the table in front of her and she picked them up, in a decisive way. Emmet thought she was about to leave again and he started forward from his place at the counter, but she just clicked the remote. An electronic squawk came from the car outside.
‘My bag is in the boot,’ she said.
Emmet stopped where he was.
‘Right,’ he said.
And his mother reached for her cup of tea.
‘Everyone is looking for you, Rosaleen. Constance is beside herself.’
‘Oh Constance,’ she said, in a tone of great exasperation.
And it occurred to Emmet that Constance had not, in fact, phoned.
‘What do you mean, Constance?’
His mother looked terrible, suddenly. There were shadows like bruises under her eyes, and the eyes themselves all pupil; black as black glass. Tears came. She leaned in to Denholm.
‘Constance threw me out,’ she said.
And Denholm said, ‘Your daughter? Oh no. Oh no. That is pretty bad.’
For a long and amazing moment, Emmet thought it was true.
Later, he rang his sister’s phone in Aughavanna, and Dessie picked up. She could not be disturbed, he said. She was in bed.
‘OK,’ said Emmet, moving into the living room, pacing about.
Constance wasn’t well.
‘Right.’
Dessie’s voice trembled a little. She’s had a diagnosis, he said. They would operate pretty much immediately and get the lot of it in one go, but it was major – Dessie paused at the word – major surgery, and when she told Rosaleen this morning, Rosaleen took it all the wrong way. She lit out the road and Constance was frantic, she was more concerned about her mother than she was for herself. She was under the doctor now, pumped full of Ativan. And it was typical of Rosaleen, Emmet could hear a slur in his voice, whiskey perhaps – chypical – to cause the maximum bother at just the wrong time.
‘It’s all about her,’ he said, as though he had a right to say such a thing. ‘It’s all about her.’
Emmet had a sharp urge to defend his mother.
Dessie fucking McGrath.
‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Oh, Constance. Oh, no.’
‘Can you hang on to her?’ said Dessie. As if Emmet had an option.
‘Of course. Of course,’ as he rolled his eyes and walked the living room, wondering what he had to cancel at work – the hundred thousand people on the side of a road in Aceh, perhaps – and if there was a set of clean sheets to be had. His mother sleeping in his bed. It was an odd thought.
But please come down, Dessie went on. Please come. When Constance is up and about again. There were plenty of beds in the house God knows, they were coming down with bedrooms. Stay a while, when you bring her back home.
But that was yet to come. For the moment, Emmet looked at his mother sitting in his pathetic, chipboard kitchen and he was strangely pleased to see her there.
‘I don’t know where I am to sleep tonight,’ she told Denholm. ‘Though I don’t sleep much, you know. Not any more.’
‘No.’
She sat there, very small.
‘I am sorry I touched your hand.’
‘Oh. Please,’ said Denholm.
‘No really,’ she said.
And, in all fairness, Emmet thought, she looked pretty bad.
‘I have paid too little attention,’ she said. ‘I think that’s the problem. I should have paid more attention to things.’
Ballynahown – Bray – Sandycove
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THANKS FOR INFORMATION used and cheerfully misused in this book are due to: Seamas Collins, Mary Healy, Barbara O’Shea and Catherine Ginty of Trócaire; Rohan Spong and Trent Duffy; Fintan O’Toole, Tom Conway and Gary Hynes of Druid Theatre Company; Sinead Dunwoody, Paul Gallagher, Louise Canavan and Tom McGuinn of the Pharmaceutical Society Ireland, and Alan Carr, Leader of the Galway Mountain Rescue Team. Thanks also to Declan Meade, Fawad Qurashi, John Stack – and to Siddharth Shanghvi, for afterwards.
A NOTE ABOUT PLACE-NAMES
The green road of the title is a real road that runs through the Burren in County Clare. I have used some of the actual place-names along that beautiful coastline and these are spelt according to various maps, old and new. I have also made some names up or stolen them from other townlands – especially for places associated with the Madigans, the Considines and the McGraths. The town where they live is not named. This is to underline the fact that this is a work of fiction, populated by fictional characters. Any resemblance to the good people of West Clare, or to anyone else for that matter, is entirely coincidental.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FICTION
The Portable Virgin
The Wig My Father Wore
What Are You Like?
The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch
The Gathering
Taking Pictures
Yesterday’s Weather
The Forgotten Waltz
NON-FICTION
Making Babies
Copyright © 2015 by greengirl limited
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Enright, Anne, 1962–
The Green Road / Anne Enright. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN: 978-0-393-24821-0 (hardcover)
1. D
omestic fiction. I. Title.
PR6055.N73G74 2015
823'.914—dc23
2015004414
ISBN 978-0-393-24822-7 (e-book)
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