Nora Webster: A Novel

by Colm Toibin

  She looked through drawers, but there was nothing that she wanted. Only yellow newspaper and bits of twine. Even the crockery and kitchen utensils seemed not worth taking home. In the bedroom, she found some photographs and some books in a locker and she gathered these to take with her. Nothing else. The furniture was worthless, the lightshades were already dingy and worn. She remembered buying them in Woolworth’s in Wexford only a few years earlier. Everything rotted and faded in this house.

  The rain began to pour down. She took a mirror from the bedroom wall, noting how clean the space it covered had remained, compared to the discoloured, dirty wallpaper all around.

  At first she thought the knocking she heard was something banging against the door or the window in the wind. But when it persisted and she heard a voice, she realised that she had a visitor. She was surprised because she had thought that no one had noticed her approach and no one could see the car. Her first instinct was to hide, but she knew that she had already been seen.

  As she opened the latch, the front door blew in towards her. The figure outside was wearing an oversized anorak, the large hood of which was half covering the face.

  “Nora, I heard the car. Are you all right?”

  Once the hood was pulled down, she recognised Mrs. Darcy, whom she had not seen since the funeral. Mrs. Darcy followed her inside as she closed the door.

  “Why didn’t you call in first?” she asked.

  “I’m just here for a few minutes,” Nora said.

  “Get into the car and come on up to the house. You can’t stay here.”

  Once more she noted the hectoring tone, as though she were a child, unable to make proper decisions. She had tried since the funeral to ignore this tone, or tolerate it. She had tried to understand that it was shorthand for kindness.

  Just now, she would have relished taking her few possessions from the house, putting them in the car and driving out of Cush. But it could not be done, she would have to accept Mrs. Darcy’s hospitality.

  Mrs. Darcy would not get into the car with her, insisting that she was too wet. She would walk back to her house, while Nora drove, she said.

  “I’ll be a few more minutes. I’ll follow you up,” Nora said.

  Mrs. Darcy looked at her puzzled. Nora had tried to sound casual, but she had succeeded instead in sounding secretive.

  “I just want to collect a few things to bring home,” she said.

  Her visitor’s eyes lit on the books and photographs and the mirror resting against the wall, then she swiftly took in everything else in the room. And Nora felt that Mrs. Darcy understood immediately what she was doing.

  “Don’t be long now,” she said. “I’ll have the tea ready for you.”

  When Mrs. Darcy had left, Nora closed the door and went back into the house.

  It was done. In her all-embracing glance around the room, Mrs. Darcy had made it seem real. Nora would leave this house and never come back. She would never walk these lanes again and she would let herself feel no regret. It was over. She took up the few things she had collected and put them in the boot of the car.

  Mrs. Darcy’s kitchen was warm. She put fresh scones on a plate with melting butter and poured the tea.

  “We were wondering how you were getting on but Bill Parle told us the night he went in that your house was full of people. Maybe we should have gone in all the same, but we thought we’d leave it until after Christmas when you might like the company more.”

  “There have been a lot of visitors,” Nora said. “But you know you’re welcome any time.”

  “Well, there are a lot of people who are very fond of you,” Mrs. Darcy said. She took off her apron and sat down. “And we were all worried about you, that you wouldn’t come down here anymore. Carmel Redmond, you know, was away when it happened and she was shocked.”

  “I know. She wrote to me,” Nora said, “and then she called in.”

  “So she told us,” Mrs. Darcy said, “and Lily was here that day and she said that we should be looking out for you. And I used to wait for that day when you’d all come down and do up the house. For me, it was the beginning of the fine weather. My heart would lift when I’d see you coming.”

  “I remember one year,” Nora said, “it was raining so hard you took pity on us and made us all come up here for our tea.”

  “And you know,” Mrs. Darcy said, “your children have the best manners. They are so well reared. Aine used to love coming to see us. All of them did, but she was the one we knew best. And Maurice used to come on a Sunday if there was a match on the wireless.”

  Nora looked out at the rain. It was tempting now to mislead Mrs. Darcy, to tell her that they were going to keep coming down here, but she could not do that. And she felt that Mrs. Darcy understood her silence, had been watching for some clue, something said or left unsaid, to confirm her impression that Nora was going to sell the house.

  “Now, what we decided,” Mrs. Darcy said, “was that next year we’d do up the house for you. I was looking at it just now, and it could do with some patching on the galvanise, and we’ll be getting that done on the barn here anyway, and so they might as well go down to you. And we’ll take turns to do the rest of it. I have a key, and we could have surprised you, but Lily said that I was to ask you, and I was going to do that after Christmas. She said it was your house, and we shouldn’t be intruding.”

  Nora knew that she should tell her now, but there was something too effusive and warm in Mrs. Darcy’s tone that stopped her.

  “But I thought it would be nice for you,” Mrs. Darcy went on, “to come down and have it all done. So don’t say anything now, but let me know if you don’t want us to do it. And I’ll hold on to the key unless you want it back.”

  “No. Of course not, Mrs. Darcy. I’d like you to hold on to the key.”

  Maybe, she thought as she drove towards Blackwater, maybe Mrs. Darcy had presumed all along that she was going to sell the house, and realised that cleaning it up would increase its value; or maybe Mrs. Darcy had presumed nothing, maybe Nora herself was watching everyone too closely to see what they thought of her. But she knew she had behaved strangely in closing the gates when she had parked the car in front of the house, in seeming almost furtive when Mrs. Darcy called, and in not instantly accepting or turning down her offer to help with the house.

  She sighed. It had been awkward and difficult, and now it was finished. She would write to Mrs. Darcy and Lily Devereux and Carmel Redmond. Often in the past, when she made a decision like this, she changed her mind the next morning, but this time it was not like that, she would not change her mind.

  On the road back to Enniscorthy, she began to calculate. She did not know how much the house was worth. She would think of a figure and send it to Jack Lacey in a sealed envelope—she did not want to negotiate with May Lacey—and if he offered less than she asked for, she would accept it as long as it was reasonable. She did not want to have to advertise the house in the newspaper.

  The car was taxed and insured until Christmas. She had planned to give it up then, but if she sold the house, she thought, she would keep the car or buy a newer model. The house money would also pay for the black marble gravestone for Maurice that she wanted, and she would be able to rent a caravan in Curracloe for a week or two next summer. What she had left she could use for household expenses and to buy some new clothes for herself and the girls. And then keep something for an emergency.

  The house—she smiled to herself—would become like the two and sixpence a man had given Conor a few summers earlier. She could not remember which summer it was, but it was before his father was sick and it was before he really understood the value of money. Conor had given the two and sixpence to Maurice to mind for him and then all summer, every time they went to Blackwater, he drew on this money, confidently demanding a fresh instalment from his father. When they told him it was all gone, he
had refused to believe them.

  She wrote to May Lacey, enclosing a letter for Jack. Within a short time, she had a letter from him agreeing to the price she had suggested. She replied with the name of a solicitor in the town who would draw up the contract of sale.

  She waited for the right moment to tell the boys about selling the house in Cush, and when she began, she was shocked at how concerned they both seemed, how attentive, as though by listening carefully they might hear something that would have a serious effect on their future. As she spoke to them about how useful the money would be, she learned that they already knew that she had planned to sell the car, although she had not told them this. They did not smile, or even appear relieved, when she said that they were going to keep the car.

  “Will we still be able to go to the university?” Conor asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “What made you think about that?”

  “Who will pay?”

  “I have other money saved up for that.”

  She did not want to say that maybe their uncle Jim and aunt Margaret would pay. They were Maurice’s older brother and sister who had not married and lived together in the old family house in the town. The boys remained absolutely still; they watched her intently. She went out to the kitchen and turned on the kettle and when she came back into the room, they had not moved.

  “We’ll be able to go on holidays to different places,” she said. “We’ll be able to get a caravan in Curracloe or Rosslare. We’ve never stayed in a caravan.”

  “Would we be able to stay in Curracloe the same time as the Mitchells?” Conor asked.

  “If we like. We could find out when they’re going and go at the same time.”

  “Would it be for one week or two weeks?” Conor asked.

  “Or longer if we liked,” she said.

  “Are we going to b-buy a c-caravan?” Donal asked.

  “No, we’ll rent one. Buying one would be too much responsibility.”

  “Who’s going to b-buy the house?” Donal asked.

  “It’s very private now. If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone, but I think that May Lacey’s son is going to buy it. You know, the one who’s in England.”

  “Is that why she came here?”

  “I suppose it is, yes.”

  She made tea and the boys pretended to watch the television. She had, she knew, unsettled them. Conor had become all red-faced and Donal was staring at the floor as if awaiting punishment. She picked up a newspaper and tried to read. She knew it was important to stay in the room, not to leave them, despite an urge to go upstairs and do anything, empty out cupboards, wash her face, clean the windows. Eventually, she felt she would have to say something.

  “We could go to Dublin next week.”

  They looked up.

  “Why?” Donal asked.

  “For a day out, you could take a day off school,” she said.

  “I have d-double science on Wednesday,” Donal said. “I hate it, but I c-can’t miss it, and I have F-french with Madame D-duffy on Monday.”

  “We could go on Thursday.”

  “In the car?”

  “No, we could go on the train. And we could see Fiona, that’s her half-day.”

  “Do we have to go?” Conor asked.

  “No. We’ll only go if we like,” she said.

  “What will we tell the school?”

  “I’ll send in a note saying that you have to go to the doctor.”

  “I d-don’t need a note if it’s j-just one day,” Donal said.

  “We’ll go then. We’ll have a nice day out. I’ll write to Fiona.”

  She had said it to break the silence and to let them know that there would always be outings, things to look forward to. But it made no difference to them. The news that she was selling the house in Cush seemed to bring home something that they had been managing not to think about. In the days that followed, however, they brightened up again, as though nothing had been said.

  For the trip to Dublin she laid their good clothes out for them the night before and made them polish their shoes and leave them on the landing. When she tried to make them go to bed early, they protested that there was something they wanted to watch on the television, and she allowed them to stay up late. Even then, they did not want to go to bed, and when she insisted, they went back and forth to the bathroom and they kept turning on and off the light in their room.

  Finally, she went upstairs and found them fast asleep, the bedroom door wide open, their beds tossed. She tried to make them more comfortable, but when Conor began to wake she withdrew, quietly closing the door.

  In the morning, they were up and dressed before she was. They brought her tea, which was too strong, and toast. When she got up, she managed to throw the tea down the sink in the bathroom without them noticing.

  It was cold. They would drive to the station, she told them, and leave the car in the Railway Square. It would be handy when they came home that night, she said. They both nodded gravely. They already had their coats on.

  The town was almost empty as she drove to the station. It was half dark and some lights in houses were still on.

  “Which side of the train will we sit on?” Conor asked when they got to the station.

  They were twenty minutes early. She had bought the tickets, but Conor refused to sit with her and Donal in the heated waiting room, he wanted to cross over the iron bridge and wave to them from the other side; he wanted to walk down to the signal box. Again and again, he came back to ask when the train would arrive until a man told him to watch the signal arm between the platform and the tunnel, and when it dropped, it would mean that the train was coming.

  “But we know it’s coming,” Conor said impatiently.

  “It’ll drop when the train is in the tunnel,” the man said.

  “If you were in the tunnel and the train came, you’d be mincemeat,” Conor said.

  “Begoboman, you’d be found in little bits all right. And, you know something, all the cups and saucers rattle in the houses when the train goes under,” the man said.

  “They don’t rattle in our house.”

  “That’s because the train doesn’t go under your house.”

  “How do you know?” Conor said.

  “Oh, I know your mammy well.”

  Nora recognised the man, as she did so many others in the town; she thought that he worked in Donoghue’s garage, but she was not sure. Something in his manner irritated her. She hoped that he did not intend to travel to Dublin with them.

  Just before the train came, and the boys had once more gone down to the signal box, the man turned to her.

  “I’d say they miss their daddy all the same,” he said.

  He searched her face for a response and narrowed his eyes with curiosity. She felt that she needed to say something quickly and sharply to prevent him speaking again and, more than anything, to prevent him sitting with them on the journey.

  “That’s the last thing they need to hear at the moment, thank you,” she said.

  “Oh, now I didn’t mean to . . .”

  She moved away from him as the train came and the boys ran excitedly down the platform towards her. She could feel her face reddening, but they noticed nothing as they argued over which were the best seats on the train.

  Once the train started, they wanted everything: to view the toilets, to stand in the precarious space between the carriages where the ground could be seen as they sped along, to go to the restaurant and buy lemonade. By the time the train stopped in Ferns, they had done all of these things, and by the time it reached Camolin, they had fallen asleep.

  Nora did not sleep; she glanced at the newspaper she had bought in the station, and put it down, and watched the two boys slumped back in their seats sleeping. She would love to have known just then what they were dreaming of. In the
se months, she realised, something had changed in the clear, easy connection between her and them, and perhaps, for them, between each other. She felt that she would never be sure about them again.

  Conor woke and looked at her and went back to sleep with his head resting on his folded arms on the table. She reached out and touched his hair, let her hands run through it, tossing it and straightening it again. Donal was watching her, his calm gaze suggesting to her that he understood everything that was happening, that there was nothing he did not fathom.

  “Conor’s fast asleep,” she said and smiled.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “We’re nearly at Arklow.”

  By Wicklow, Conor had woken and gone to the toilet again.

  “What would happen if you flushed the toilet in a station?” he asked.

  “It would all go onto the tracks,” she said.

  “And when the train is moving, where does it go?”

  “We’ll ask the ticket collector,” she said.

  “I b-bet you wouldn’t ask him,” Donal said.

  “What harm would it do to the tracks in a station?” Conor asked.

  “It would be all s-smelly,” Donal said.

  The morning was windless, the clouds on the horizon were grey and the sea beyond Wicklow the colour of steel.

  “When will the tunnels start?” Conor asked.

  “It’s a while now,” she said.

  “After the next station?”

  “Yes, after Greystones.”

  “Will that be long?”

  “Read your comic,” she suggested.

  “The tracks are too bumpy.”

  At the first tunnel, the boys covered their ears against the rushing noise, vying with each other in mock fright. The next tunnel was much longer. Conor wanted Nora to cover her ears as well, and she did it to please him, because she knew how little sleep he had had, and how irritable he could be, and how easy it would be to upset him. Donal was already bored covering his ears, but he moved close to the window when the train came out of the tunnel and there was a sheer drop into the rough waters below. Conor now had moved beside her, making her move so he could be at the window too.