“Can I stay with you?” he asks.
“There’s not much to do around here. You’d be bored.”
“I like Shep, the cows and stuff, and feeding the calves.”
“Do you really?” she asks. This little grandson is reserved, self-contained almost. The language they have in common connects them tentatively. If he speaks quickly, she finds it difficult to follow him. If she uses colloquialisms, he’s lost. They cling to the shared parts of the English language.
Before Andy and Kerry drive off, Beatrice hears raised voices in the car. Andy steps out from the driver’s seat. “Scott’s being difficult,” he complains. “Says he wants to stay here with you.”
“He’s more than welcome,” she says without thinking. All of a sudden her mind is full of speculation. How would they fill up the days together? Would he, like her other grandchildren, be enthralled by bread-making and cooking, getting eggs from the few hens she keeps, feeding the dog, and exploring old farm machinery in the sheds? Would he instead pronounce himself bored with everything and demand to be entertained with videos, toys, and games? She thinks not. She’s noticed a stillness in him, a quietness that is given to listening.
“Don’t tell him he can stay,” Andy says, alarmed. “Kerry wants him to come with us. Would you have a word with him?”
“Of course.” She sits into the rear seat of the car beside Scott. “When you come back, Scott, we’ll walk all the fields with Shep and feed the calves. You can watch the cows being milked and, if he has the time, Simon might let you sit up on the tractor.”
His voice is tremulous. “I want to stay with you.” Beatrice’s chest spasms and tightens.
Kerry shakes her head vehemently, her lips thinned. Behind her sunglasses, her expression is unreadable.
“Wouldn’t you hate to miss all the interesting places you’re going to see?” urges Beatrice. “You can go home to the States and tell them all the attractions you’ve been to. Come on, give us a hug,” she urges. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
His little body launches itself at her as if in a fury. She braces herself for an assault but registers his twig arms embracing her and his hot breath on her neck. He doesn’t speak, then breaks away to huddle into himself, his eyes averted.
“That’s my boy,” she says, getting out. “You’re the best in the world.”
“Bye, Mam. Thanks,” Andy says.
“See you soon, Beatrice,” Kerry shouts, sounding resolutely cheerful.
“Have a great time!” She waves after them as the car drives off.
Scott’s hand waves from the rolled-down back window until the car disappears around the bend in the driveway.
That pressure of his little head burrowing into her. The imprint of his embrace on her neck. The sudden gift of his tenderness. Years of expecting nothing, a life managed rather than lived, and now this child.
“So,” says Andy, when the waitress brings dessert to their table, “there’s this Irishwoman on a trip to New York with her husband. It’s her first time. She’s heard all these stories about people being robbed in the Big Apple and she’s a nervous wreck, expecting an attack at any moment. In restaurants she insists on sitting with her back against the wall so she’ll be able to duck down under the table if gunmen come in to shoot up the place. She feels she has to do some shopping so they tour the shops. She’s really jumpy, not sleeping well at nights.
“The hotel, though, is nice and the staff is friendly. The couple spend a lot of time in their room or venture into the hotel bar to drink coffee.
“Anyway, Eddie Murphy, the movie star, the comedian, is staying in the same hotel. One day they meet in the elevator, or lift as we’d call it. He’s with an entourage but he’s really friendly, making small talk. She’s frozen with fear. She’s not up to date with movies and has no idea who he is. To her, this is a black man. He may be in an expensive suit, he may look rich, but he’s a black man. She’s seen too many television series where the baddies are always the black guys. They belong to a criminal class. They mug you. This is what she thinks. The lift is stalled, door open, because she hasn’t pressed the button. She’s frozen with fear.
“Eddie Murphy says, ‘Hit the floor, lady,’ meaning, press the ground-floor button. She misunderstands, thinks this is it, the moment she has dreaded. In desperation, she throws her bag at him and flings herself to the floor, hoping he won’t shoot her or knife her.
“There’s a silence, then uproarious laughter. She looks up. Eddie Murphy helps her to her feet and hands her bag back to her. Her husband explains who he is. Eddie is convulsed with laughter. His entourage, with their expensive watches and clothes, smirk. Her husband chuckles. She feels a fool.
“The next morning she insists that they check out. When they go to pay the bill, they discover that Eddie Murphy has already paid. The receptionist mentions that he said to tell her he hadn’t laughed so hard in a while.”
“Is this true?” Beatrice asks.
“Absolutely,” Andy says.
“Ridiculous. Silly woman.”
“I’m sure Eddie Murphy got a gag out of it.”
“How’d you hear about it?”
“I know someone who knew the couple.”
“Well, well, well, would you look at who we have here! Welcome home, stranger,” Lily Traynor’s voice cuts in. She has appeared suddenly out of the restaurant’s lunchtime crowd, all smiles and excitement. “I didn’t notice the two of you till I was at the counter paying my bill.”
Andy drops his napkin to the floor as he gets to his feet. “Lily!” he exclaims. He kisses her on the cheek. “We never saw you. We were engrossed in conversation.”
“Give us a good old squeeze,” she says. “Don’t be shy!” She tuttuts at Beatrice. “We’ve been sending out search parties ever since we heard he was home but there have been precious few sightings. May I join you?”
He draws up a chair. “Sit down! Sit down, Lily,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”
“They’ve been sightseeing,” Beatrice explains.
“We’ve been baking and laying in stores of booze in expectations of a visit, but ne’er a twinkle,” complains Lily. “You’ll have to arrange one of your card evenings, Beatrice, so we can all meet him.”
“Don’t tell me that’s still going on!”
“To tell the truth, that practice snuffed it long ago, more’s the pity,” Lily says. “Still, I thought the custom could be resurrected in your honor.”
“Not a hope of that, Lily. They’re flying back tomorrow,” Beatrice says.
“That’s a big letdown, Beatrice. You’re no good at all. Don’t you know all our eyes were out on stalks trying to catch a glimpse of him! I have to hand it to you, though. You’ve been very evenhanded, very democratic. You’ve spurned everybody equally.”
“It wasn’t intended that way, Lily. You know that. Andy was keen to show his family the sights. There wasn’t enough time to pack in visits.”
“You should ring round a few people and ask them over tonight. It’d be no trouble to rustle up a few sandwiches. The disappointment will be mighty if they don’t meet with the royalty. That way nobody’s nose will be out of joint.”
“Too short notice,” Beatrice says.
“Who cares about notice? ‘Come up tonight for an hour’ is good enough for anyone. None of us has appointment diaries, now do we? We’re not exactly living in the fast lane. What do you say, Andy?”
Andy laughs. “You’re a terrible woman, Lily. Sure, why not?”
“There’s no point in being backward about being forward,” gloats Lily. “This will be mighty. It’s going to be a real treat.”
“It’s difficult to turn you down,” Andy says.
“’Tis, isn’t it?” she replies with a grin.
“I don’t know how Kerry will react,” Beatrice says when Lily has gone.
“She’ll cope. She hasn’t much choice. Word will soon be out.”
“I’m sorry,
Andy. We couldn’t refuse her.”
“It’ll be a bit of an education for Kerry and Scott,” he says as he pays the bill. “I hope they’re up to it.”
“Lunch was delicious. Thanks very much, Andy.”
“I should have taken you to some remote outpost,” he says ruefully.
“We might have got our comeuppance there too.”
He laughs. “Could just as well.”
Fifteen
I HEAR THAT congratulations are in order, Simon,” Beatrice says as she clears away the dinner things.
“What?” A reddening of the skin at his throat confirms that she has struck home.
“The news is that you’re getting hitched pretty soon. I’m worried now that I won’t receive an invitation.”
“I was going to tell you, Beatrice. Really I was. I was working up to it.”
“Sure, what’s to tell? Congratulations.” She pulls open the dishwasher and begins to stack the plates.
“There’s something else,” he says, his hand swatting an imaginary fly. “It means…”
“It means the finish of you here.”
“Exactly,” he says miserably.
“Ah sure, things change, people move on.”
“You’re not mad?” He looks at her for the first time.
“What’s the point? Would it change anything?”
“No. No, it wouldn’t.”
“You’ve been here more than two years now, and that has been a great bonus.”
“Look, I just couldn’t bear letting you down, but the wedding date is set, and Celia and her mother have sniffed out a hotel.”
“Do you think her parents will sign over the farm to the two of you?”
“They’ll hold on to that. They won’t want me selling it off. But you know I’d never willingly sell.”
“I know the lure of the land for you, how much it means. You know you’re one in a million, don’t you, Simon?” she says. He raises his head. “Most young people wouldn’t touch a farm with a forty-foot pole, but there you go running back to the land. It must go very deep for you.”
“It does,” he says fervently.
“Well, I hope it’s worth it,” she says. “It’s a small holding. There isn’t a full-time living to be had from it. You’ll be a part-time farmer.”
“That’s a given with farming nowadays. I’ve lined up work as a driver with the factory, and I’ll get other bits and pieces.”
“You’re a good worker. If anybody’s to make a go of it, it’ll be you.” She pauses. “I’m worried about one or two things, Simon. When it’s time to introduce the calves to outdoors, for one, and the day of the silage cutting.”
“Put those things out of your head, Bee. I’ll be around for a while yet. The wedding is mid-May. I’ll definitely be here for the changeover with the calves, and I’ll bring along my brothers, same as last time.”
“They get so jazzed up, I’d never manage them.”
“You need manpower for those fellows. Remember the puck one of them gave me last year? Consider it taken care of, Bee. We’ll be there to keep them in order. And just give me a shout the day before the silage cutters are due. There’s no problem.”
“Thanks, Simon. I appreciate that.”
“My pleasure,” he says gruffly. He stands up and makes for the back door. “I’ll just check the yard before I go.”
Silly man, she thinks. Stitched up for a lifetime, and all for forty acres. She doesn’t understand what compels him. It’s stronger than his feelings for any person, stronger than rationality. Now, when only big farms are likely to survive, what makes him scorn everything in order to scrabble about on a few acres?
She inverts the kitchen chairs on the table, squirts cleaning fluid into a bucket, fills it with hot water, and mops the kitchen floor. Unexpectedly, her technique lets her down. The water is too sudsy, the mop too wet. The tiles will take an age to dry. What’ll she do when he’s gone? It’s a lot of trouble to keep the whole enterprise going. She’s never had the interest. The house and the garden are her domain.
If only John hadn’t… None of that allowed. She must put the head down and get on with it, even if it feels that the dark cloud hovering over her could swallow her with one gulp.
She finds herself on the half-landing on the stairs, looking through the window at her vegetable and fruit garden. Simon clatters past her on his way down to the kitchen. “’Night, Bee,” he says as he passes.
“See you later,” she calls after him. She never even noticed him go upstairs.
Tonight she doesn’t feel whatever it is you’re supposed to feel when you’re alive. She feels transparent, ethereal to the point of being almost her own ghost. It’s hard to convince herself that she exists.
Their fortnightly lunch together. Originally, it was Lily’s way of getting Beatrice out and about after John’s death and it has become something of a ritual. Today they’re trying out a new restaurant in a big old house that has been converted into a hotel. They are the only two left in the dining room. “Do you miss the Yanks?” Lily asks.
“I miss Andy. I was just getting used to him when they left. The little fellow, Scott, was great, not at all what I expected. But they phone about once a week, usually after the late night news, so that’s nice.”
“And how’d you get on with the daughter-in-law?”
“She’s hard to get to know, but then some people take time. Plus, she’s the one who made Andy get in touch, so I have to hand her that.”
“What did she make of the last evening?”
“I think she was bemused. She couldn’t get over people’s curiosity, and some of the questions stunned her.”
“I’d say she was never such a focus of attention before!”
“All in all, I think the visit went well. Andy got a lot out of it, and it made me feel whole again. It was nice to recover part of my family.”
“What is it they work at?”
“Andy’s in IT. She works for a bank, in taxes. She travels around to rich people’s houses and works out their tax for them. She was telling me she goes into these places where the people who made the money have grown old. And the children are still living at home — forty- and fifty-year-olds — and never did a day’s work in their lives. Like parasites, feeding off the money. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
“There’s no doubt, money’s a great corrupter. Now, do you feel up to doing a tour of the grounds?” Lily asks as they finish coffee. “I think they’ll throw us out if we don’t move soon.”
Beatrice signals the waitress to bring the bill. “The very thing to clear the head and walk off that meal.”
“It’s my turn to pay.”
Beatrice brushes aside her protests. “Won’t allow that. I haven’t paid since I don’t know when, so I insist.” She hands a card to the girl. “You’ve no idea what a comfort these lunches are, Lily. A great idea.”
Lily puts a hand to her mouth. Her brick-red lips contort into a grimace.
“What is it, Lily? What’s wrong?”
“Ah, sure I’m heart-scalded, Beatrice, thinking of that poor boy. I’m still not the better of that news. You could have knocked me down with a feather when Terry told me this morning. And I felt sorry for her. She was so cut up about it. Seems she and the boy’s mother are second cousins. They haven’t seen much of each other in recent years, but the bond is strong.”
Beatrice sighs. Terry’s story concerned the suicide of a twenty-two-year-old man in the next parish. He had been out with friends on the previous Friday night, had gone missing, was looked for on Saturday, and the alarm was raised that night. The following Monday a forester discovered the body miles away in the next county. Apparently, the boy drove into the heart of the woods on one of the access roads, hid the car in a clump of bushes, walked the winding pathway to the lake, propped himself up against one of the trees overlooking the lake — as if admiring the view — and swallowed rat poison washed down with whiskey. The contents of the note found
in his pocket are not known.
“He was only a young fellow, finished university last year, and he was earning good money with that computer outfit outside Cork. He was talking of buying an apartment in the city to save the trek into work every day,” Lily says, as they begin their walk. “Why he did it is an absolute mystery, Beatrice, an utter and absolute mystery.”
Beatrice says nothing. She is taken over by contemplation of what the boy’s family must be going through — the wakefulness, the exhaustion, the disbelief, the despair, the reproaches, the grief, the maddening thoughts, their turmoil. And if they were to dwell on the signs they must have missed. And their anger at “how could he?” And how could anybody be so selfish, so self-obsessed? To think he had planned it down to the last detail. And what in the name of God was so terrifying, so unspeakable, so unbearable, so utterly unmanageable that he had decided this was the only way out? And what did he think he was doing by writing that letter? And if they had succeeded in thwarting him, would that have solved it? And so on, until their brains feel frazzled, and their bodies are numbed, or switched off, as they contemplate the astonishing abyss that has opened up in their lives.
And then she’s aware of Lily holding her arm, her voice high with anxiety. “God, Beatrice, I’m such a fool! You’ll be giving me ten out of ten for insensitivity. This is the last thing you want to talk about.”
“No, no. I’m all right. It’s okay, Lily,” she says, though her heart feels congested, as if too much blood is trying to pump through. “Not to worry. I’m grand. Really I am. It’s just that there are so many young men doing away with themselves.”
“Scarifying, isn’t it?”
“You’d wonder what, at the age of twenty-two, would be severe enough to make someone consider ending it all,” muses Beatrice. “Disappointment, depression, inadequacy?” She needs to watch where she’s walking. Pools of water from recent rain lie on the paths, and the fringes are covered in mud.
“They say he was a popular young fellow, not at all on the edge of things.”
“Not like my John, you mean?” It’s great to be on the move, thinks Beatrice. Movement is therapeutic.
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