Civil & Strange

by Clair Ni Aonghusa

  John swaggered about, deaf to all Beatrice’s entreaties to him to talk, but she suspected that something in him had broken. Because the second youngest in the family was the least capable of her children, she held a special place for him in her heart, always wishing she could put his world to rights.

  John was thirty-three when he killed himself. He had walked out of school on his fifteenth birthday, taken a job in one of the milk processing factories outside Cork, and worked there for more than a decade. His older sisters, Paula and Niamh, qualified as a solicitor and a doctor. They went abroad to find work, and eventually married and settled in England. The youngest, Andy, left home abruptly after a clash with his father escalated into a row and forced the cancellation of a meal to celebrate his graduation from Cork University.

  Following Andy’s departure and Jack’s death after a major stroke, it was left to Beatrice to tell John that the farm was his to work. He attended classes at an agricultural college but never took to farming. He neglected the paperwork and struggled with the day-today organization and upkeep of the farm. For years Beatrice had to witness his failures. Soon after his father’s death he began a steady line with a pretty young nurse whom Beatrice thought might be the making of him, but he dithered over asking her to marry him. The woman gave up on him and married a returned emigrant who owned and managed a highly successful restaurant in a local town. John became even more remote. Beatrice dared not speak to him at times.

  When Lily’s husband, Damien, recommended Simon for the job of farm manager — the deal struck at the kitchen table shortly after John’s death — she knew that she would have to find a way of coexisting with the barn. She has developed a knack of not looking at it by directing her eyes to a point above the structure and ensuring that her gaze never lingers on it.

  The weather is mixed in an Irish fashion. A gentle breeze ruffles her hair. The sun shines. Moistness mists the air. Her gaze follows the contours of the landscape. On days like this, even through a gossamer film of rain, it’s pleasurable to let her eyes run along the rim of the hills, over the sharp incline of the mountain ridges, and deep into the gully of the valley. She can make out faraway houses and cottages nestling in the steep hills. The hazy sun reflects off a distant metal roof. She imagines the buildings peopled by families, although she knows that those farms are probably in as much trouble as the ones on this side of the valley.

  Simon opens a gate to the backyard and herds the cows away from the buildings. Soon it’ll be time for them to winter indoors, but they’re having a remarkable run of mild weather this October. Simon whistles as he runs after them. “Hoo-hup! Hup hup,” he shouts. The collie barks at the cows, and they pick up their pace, cantering into the field, sliding across mud, slithering and skidding into one another.

  She rinses the buckets, scrubs them with disinfectant, and hangs them from hooks on the wall of the shed. Then she hoses her boots and the floor with water, steps into a disinfectant tray, turns off the tap, and all is stilled. She hears the silence. It vibrates along her body. A drip from the tap explodes into a bucket. In the distance a cow lows.

  Simon returns. She hears him flicking switches, followed by the clang of a metal gate. The automatic scraper bursts into action and Simon comes into the shed carrying more buckets. “I’ll finish up here,” he says. She can just about hear him over the noise of the scraper. He’s different when he’s working. No jokes, no winks, no teasing asides, his expression fixed, his eyes absorbed. She likes this serious side.

  “I’ll put supper on,” she says.

  “See you in a while, Bee,” he calls after her. Call me Beatrice she wants to say. Simon’s penchant for abbreviations is almost his only flaw.

  In the porch at the rear of the house, she hauls off her boots, pads across the kitchen in a pair of old woolen socks, and runs upstairs to change out of her work clothes. Back in the kitchen, she pokes and stirs up the range and busies herself setting the table, slicing bread, boiling the kettle, and warming the frying pan. She turns on the radio to listen to the six o’clock news, cracks eggs into a bowl, and chops onion and bacon to cook.

  Twenty minutes later she goes out into the lower yard and rings the old school bell to alert Simon that she’s about to put the meal on the table. He hurries down to the house, removes his boots in the porch, comes into the kitchen, and washes his hands at the sink.

  He sits at the table, snatches a slice of bread from the breadboard, and butters it.

  “I heard Julia Hughes is out of hospital.”

  “I wonder how she is.”

  “Not so good. She’s starting treatment, but I think they don’t hold out much hope.” He takes a mouthful of omelet. “Spot on, Bee. No one can best you in the cooking stakes.”

  She laughs. “It’s nice to have someone about to appreciate it.”

  “I hit the jackpot, Bee, when I landed here. You must be the best cook in the county.”

  “No need to exaggerate.”

  “I’m serious. Lily Traynor is your only rival and, to my way of thinking, you have the edge on her. Your strawberry pavlova is better than hers.”

  “Lily has won awards for her cooking, Simon. I don’t think I’m in the same league.”

  “You never put in for those awards. That’s all.” He gives her a knowing look. “Now, just between us two, old Julia was a disaster in the culinary department. It’d put you in bad form. I don’t understand how her family tolerated it.”

  “God, Simon, where’s your Christian charity? It’s not up to us to judge people. Julia could be dying.”

  “I know, I know. Just an observation.”

  “And less of your ‘old Julia,’ if you don’t mind. She’s younger than me.”

  “Well, she never looked it. Age is just a number, Bee. It’s attitude, attitude and attitude that counts. Some people are never young.”

  “In Julia’s house, when she was growing up, the servants did the cooking. Her mother didn’t know how to boil an egg.”

  “You’d think she’d have picked up some know-how over the years.”

  With a shake of her head, Beatrice asks, “What did Julia ever do to you? You really have it in for her.”

  “She didn’t approve of you taking me on. She made that clear.”

  “Oh, you had words, did you? That’s not surprising. It’s just Julia’s thing about blood and local connections. It’s all family with her. She’s very strong on that.”

  “I hate that primitive stuff about bloodlines. She’s no one to talk. Neither of her sons would touch the farm.”

  To change the subject, Beatrice asks, “Is Angie coming up? Are you two going out?”

  “Not tonight. I’m going out on my own.”

  She collects the dishes, scrapes off surplus food, and stacks them on the draining board as she runs the hot water. “I haven’t seen Angie in a while. Did you have a falling out?”

  Simon throws her an impatient look. “These things run their course,” he says.

  Her heart stutters a beat as she squirts washing liquid into the hot water and begins the washup. “You have! What a shame. I’m very fond of Angie, as you know.”

  “Well, you mightn’t be seeing much of her from now on,” he says in a closed-down fashion.

  “You’re not serious.”

  He says nothing, but the tilt of his jaw is stubborn. There’s a coldness to his manner that she never noticed before. It surprises her. She has always taken him for an easy-going man. Up to this, there has never been a cross word between them.

  She wipes her hands on the kitchen towel and turns to face him. He looks forbidding, hostile almost. “Sorry, Simon. It’s none of my business. I’ll say no more.”

  “No harm done,” he says abruptly. He drums his fingers on the table as if playing a tune on a piano. When he straightens up, he throws her a combative look. She returns the look with a smile. He starts to hum and slams the door after him as he exits the room.

  Four

  ALTHOUGH THE D
AY is bright and the November sunshine looks inviting, it’s no longer possible to sit out in Paula’s back garden. The chilly air and shortening days have forced people to retreat into their houses. Beatrice visualizes Simon clipping hedges about the farm. He will have brought in the cows to winter them, she thinks.

  Paula and Niamh are in the kitchen preparing Sunday dinner. Their husbands are watching one of the sports channels, and the three children have disappeared upstairs, no doubt to torment themselves with a game on the Play Station. She listens for sounds of discord but all is quiet.

  Beatrice is banned from the kitchen-cum-dining room, and she’s flicking through the lifestyle section of one of the English Sunday newspapers. Although the gathering is in her honor, and even though the English sons-in-law are attentive to her needs, she is bored. She would far prefer to be chopping, cooking, and chatting in the kitchen with her daughters, but she understands that this is their idea of giving her a treat.

  Niamh appears at the door. “Here is where you’re hiding,” she says. She joins her mother on the couch and slouches against the backrest. “We’re almost ready to go,” she announces.

  Paula calls the men and rounds up the children. Barry heads for the dining room to sort out the children’s drinks. Niamh’s husband, Rob, wanders into the room where she and Beatrice are ensconced. “How’s the birthday girl?” he asks in his broad Yorkshire accent, rocking on his heels, a grin on his big square face.

  “Bearing up. Keeping the show on the road,” Beatrice answers with a smile. With each daughter’s marriage, she was disappointed that they had chosen to marry Englishmen. It lessened the possibility of either returning to Ireland. It also meant — or so she thought — that she would never be able to talk to these men as she would to Irishmen. However, once she got past the English accents and the different cultural backgrounds, she became fond of her sons-in-law. They are obliging and courteous, and she hasn’t found the gap in understanding between them difficult to bridge. Niamh lives and works in Hull, although the two girls started their careers in London. Were she asked which son-in-law she prefers, she would probably opt for Rob by a short head, because of a more natural affinity between Yorkshire and Irish people. However, she can never forget the support from Barry and Paula at the time of John’s death. When the phone call that brought the news came through, Paula rushed home from work and, shortly afterward, Barry arrived and immediately booked tickets to Cork Airport for all of them. After the funeral, Paula and the children stayed on an extra week. She might not have come through that crisis without them.

  “Okay, Mam, we’re ready for you,” Paula says. The grandchildren, Conor, Sheila, and Robert — Robert delighted to be a part of festivities in his aunt’s house — lead Beatrice into the dining room to her place at the head of the table. Paula ladles out soup, Beatrice’s favorite, red pepper and carrot. The children aren’t fussy eaters except for Conor, Paula’s eight-year-old, but even he picks up his spoon and tucks in.

  Later, when Niamh brings out the birthday cake — a customized Gateau Diane — Beatrice is relieved to see that only six candles have been lit. “One for each decade,” Paula says with a grin. Always a little plump, and quite overweight after the births of her children, a dramatic weight loss transformed Paula after the trauma of her brother’s death. She became better looking and even seemed taller.

  When lunch is over, Barry and Rob load the dishwasher and disappear to watch more football. Beatrice sits at the table with her daughters. Niamh and Rob stayed over the previous night so the house is crowded, but the grandchildren are happily watching videos in the second downstairs reception room, and there is a natural lull after the meal.

  “We should make your birthday an annual event,” Niamh says. “We don’t get together often enough.”

  “See how we feel next year,” Beatrice says. It’s not something she admits to, but she’s always a little glad to get away after a spell in either of her daughter’s houses. She never relaxes enough to fit in properly and suffers a queasy homesickness if parted from the farm for more than a week.

  “Imagine, Dad would be seventy-five if he were still alive,” Paula says.

  “Seventy-five next January,” Beatrice says.

  “Did the age gap matter?”

  “It wasn’t a problem. I would have been considered young to be getting married at the time, but he was about average for a man.”

  “Was it a big romance?” Niamh asks.

  Beatrice laughs. “Not as such, although Jack was quite keen.”

  “And you, were you keen?” Paula asks mischievously.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was like a dream. A lot of my life was like that, took me by surprise.”

  There’s a long silence in the room, and Beatrice realizes that her daughters probably think that she’s referring to John. Or Andy. “Nice surprises, mostly,” she says. “Like my children and grandchildren. I’ve had a good life.”

  “But Dad was difficult. I don’t know how you put up with him,” Niamh says. “He was no help.”

  “He wasn’t any different from most men then. Your husbands are a new breed.”

  “Yeah, part adolescents, part sports fanatics,” Paula says with a laugh.

  “But much more active as parents,” Beatrice says quickly.

  “That’s true. We wouldn’t tolerate what you went through with Dad.”

  “He wasn’t a drunk and he didn’t beat me. By the standards of then that was good going. And he had his moments. You two know that.” She has often thought that Jack was what used to be called a “good enough” person, possible to get around but limited in ways.

  “He was more mean than generous,” Niamh says. “I know you say that’s because money wasn’t plentiful, but he could have been easier on us. And as for what he did to Andy…”

  “Nothing’s perfect,” Beatrice says. “I think you have to try to make the best of what you’ve got.”

  Their reaction surprises her. “Make the best of it!” screeches Paula. “Can you imagine!”

  “That sounds so sad, Mam,” Niamh says. “Who’d want to have to do that!”

  The builders have ceded control of the house to Ellen. She roams about, prowls through rooms, admires the smooth plasterwork on the ceilings and walls, runs a hand along surfaces, opens, closes, locks, and unlocks the new windows and doors, delights in the numerous power points, and marvels at the sanded and varnished floorboards. She plans decorating schemes, jots down colors for the walls, and wonders how to furnish the rooms. On the upstairs landing, now brightened by a new roof window, she pauses. This is her domain.

  She has a bed, a table, and chairs, and some furniture that was worth salvaging from the house. There are four telephone points, each connected and operating. A computer has been ordered. A television has been delivered. It sits in its box in the conservatory. She decides to ring various friends to tell them her news, but the first number she tries is busy and the second connects her to an answering machine. She slams down the phone.

  She paces bare floorboards, clatters up and down the stairs, unable to keep still, incapable of relaxing, powered by energy she can’t contain. She is diverted repeatedly by this or that feature of the renovations, a child in thrall to a plethora of new toys.

  Eventually she finds that she is tired. She is surprised to discover the day’s light is fading. She hasn’t eaten since morning, and still she has no appetite. In the early hours of the following day she finally falls asleep, and wakes much later to discover that she left all the lights in the house on.

  Matt calls — he hasn’t seen the house since the big clear-up — and she shows him about. He’s unimpressed by the details she’s most proud of — the technical aspects of the house — good use of space, maximization of brightness, clever and practical lighting. “What’s the use in getting into a lather about all this stuff — a house is a house, that’s all,” he says dismissively. Almost grudgingly he concedes that the finish on the plasterwork is
excellent. He shows no interest whatsoever in the proposed kitchen, lighting a cigarette and inhaling as she tries to explain the outline sketches, exhaling smoke and waving away the plans and asking her how she could possibly imagine he’d ever care about such niceties. “It’s women who find those things interesting,” he declares. “They’re always buying pricey magazines and watching makeover programs on the telly. Why does the appearance of a place matter? Who gives a damn?”

  “Don’t be a sexist bastard,” she chides, but she knows he isn’t. She’s cast down by his reaction although she tries to make light of it. “I thought you’d be impressed,” she confesses. “A lot of thought went into making the place work.”

  “I can see that it has been well done, but I’ve no curiosity about the finer points. You’re wasting your time trying to stir me up over them,” he says. “I’m more interested in function than appearance. I’d be hard put to tell you the colors of the carpets, curtains, and furnishings in my own house.”

  She’s disappointed but perhaps she should have known. His sense of aesthetics extends no further than the books he enjoys reading, the music he appreciates, and the paintings and sculptures he admires. By the standards of his generation, he’s a cultured man, widely read, politically aware, and sensitive to cultural matters. Taste is an adjunct to prosperity, she reflects. He grew up in a time when money was in short supply, when basic survival and comfort were important, when the look of something was secondary to its cost.