Nora Webster: A Novel

by Colm Toibin

“I don’t know, Donal,” she said. “I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Can we go to Dublin someday in the car?” Conor asked. “And then we can stop where we like.”

  “Of course we can,” she said as she pulled up in front of the house.

  “I’d like to do that,” he said.

  Soon she had the fire lit, and the boys were in their pyjamas and ready for bed. They had become quiet and she knew that they would fall asleep as soon as the light in their room was turned off. She wondered if anyone had called that evening, and she pictured someone approaching the house in darkness, and knocking on the front door and getting no answer, and standing there and waiting a while before walking away.

  She made herself a cup of tea and came and sat in the armchair beside the fire. She turned on the radio but they were reading sports results and she turned it off. On going upstairs, she found that the boys were sound asleep and she stood watching them before closing the door and leaving them to the night. Downstairs, she wondered if there might be something interesting on the television. She went over and turned it on and waited for the picture to appear. How would she fill these hours? Just then she would have given anything to be back on the train, back walking the streets of Dublin. When the television came on it was an American comedy. She watched it for a few moments but the canned laughter irritated her and she turned it off. The house was silent now except for the crackling of wood in the fireplace.

  She thought of the book she had bought in Dublin. She could not remember what had made her buy it. She went out to the kitchen and searched for it in her bag. As soon as she opened the book she put it down again. She closed her eyes. In future, she hoped, fewer people would call. In future, once the boys went to bed, she might have the house to herself more often. She would learn how to spend these hours. In the peace of these winter evenings, she would work out how she was going to live.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Her aunt Josie came to visit without warning on a Saturday in late January. Nora had the fire lighting in the back room and the boys were there, engrossed in a television programme while she was in the kitchen washing up dishes. When she heard the knock she thought she should take her apron off and check herself in the mirror before she answered, but instead she dried her hands casually on the apron and went quickly along the short hall to the front door. She almost knew as she peered through the frosted glass that it was Josie; it was as though there was something about her aunt’s waiting presence at the top of the steps, something sharp, imposing, impatient, that could make itself felt even through wood and glass.

  “I was down in the town, Nora,” Josie said as soon as she opened the door. “And John dropped me up. He has business now to attend to, but he’ll collect me later. And I wanted to see how you were.”

  Nora saw John, Josie’s son, reversing away from the house. She held the door while her aunt walked into the hall.

  “Are the boys here?”

  “They’re watching television, Josie.”

  “Are they well?”

  Nora realised that she could not take her aunt into the front room and turn on the electric fire there. The room was too cold. But she knew also that if Josie came into the back room, she would insist on talking, she could not be quiet, and the boys would have to turn off the television or sit up close to the set trying to hear it. She could not remember what programme they were watching or when it would be over. The boys seldom sat together like this now; she wished that she had fully appreciated the calm of the house and the peace, the contentment, in the time before Josie’s knock had come.

  “Well, you have the room grand and warm, I’ll say that for you,” Josie said.

  As she greeted the boys, they stood up warily. “Oh, taller every time I see them, oh, look at them now, little men. Donal is as tall as I am.”

  Nora saw both Donal and Conor glancing in her direction, and she almost asked Josie not to talk too much until the programme they had been watching was over.

  “And the girls?” Josie asked. “How are they?”

  “Oh, very well,” Nora said quietly.

  “Fiona isn’t home for the weekend?”

  “No, she decided to stay in Dublin.”

  “And Aine?”

  “She’s settling in fine, Josie.”

  “Bunclody is a very good school. I’m glad she’s there.”

  Nora put a few blocks of wood on the fire.

  “I brought you some books,” Josie said, putting the carrier bag she had been holding onto the floor. “I don’t know what you’ll think of them, some novels and the rest are what you might call theology, although they are not as dry as they sound. The book at the top is by Thomas Merton, I mentioned him to you already, just after the funeral, and then there’s Teilhard de Chardin. I spoke to Maurice about him in the hospital. But anyway, see what you think of them.”

  Nora looked over at Donal and Conor. They were staring at the television set. She was almost ready to suggest that they turn the sound up.

  “But it’s good that everyone is so well,” Josie said. “Aine must be studying hard. It’s very tough nowadays, there’s a lot of competition.”

  Nora nodded politely.

  “That programme will be over soon,” she said. “The boys hardly watch any television, but they like this programme.”

  Donal and Conor did not take their eyes from the television set.

  “Oh, when they were staying with me, they were great readers, the two of them. We kept the television for the news. None of those rotten American programmes,” Josie said. “You wouldn’t know what they’d be saying on those American programmes.”

  When Donal turned to speak, Nora noticed that his stammer seemed more pronounced. He was not able to get the first word out; she hadn’t seen him having to make such an effort before and then failing, stammering before he even spoke. His younger brother, she saw, was moving one of his arms towards him as though to offer Donal some assistance. She was trying to guess what he wanted to say and felt for a moment like filling in for him to help him, to stop the blocked, staccato sound he was making, his brow furrowed in effort. Instead, she looked away, hoping that he might relax and be able to utter whatever it was. Eventually, however, when it was clear that he could not manage, he abandoned his effort and, close to tears, he turned back to watch the television.

  Nora found herself wondering if there was somewhere she could go, if there was a town, or a part of Dublin with a house like this one, a modest semi-detached house on a road lined with trees, where no one could visit them and they could be alone there, all three of them. And then she found her mind moving towards the next thought—that the possibility of such a place, such a house, would include the idea that what had happened could be erased, that the burden that was on her now could be lifted, that the past could be restored and could make its way effortlessly into a painless present.

  “Don’t you agree with me, Nora?” Josie was saying, staring at her intently.

  “God, I don’t know, Josie,” she said, standing up then, wondering if the subject had changed and deciding it was best now to offer her aunt tea and a sandwich, or some cake.

  “Don’t go to any trouble now, just a cup in my hand,” Josie said.

  Nora almost smiled to herself in relief as she stood in the kitchen. She knew the boys would not look away from the television unless addressed directly and emphatically by Josie and she knew by the silence coming from the room that Josie was still contemplating the question she could best ask them to gain their full attention. As she boiled the kettle and prepared a tray with cups and saucers, Nora listened but heard only the muffled voices coming from the television. So far, she thought, the boys were winning.

  When the programme finished, and the boys stood up to leave the room, she had never seen them so strange, not merely shy but awkward, almost bad-mannered. Donal’s face was still f
lushed; he could not meet her eyes.

  Josie began to talk then about the work she was planning to do on her garden, the large vegetable patch she was going to create beyond the haggard and then spoke about her neighbours. Once the boys were out of the room and the television turned off, Josie asked her about Christmas.

  “Well, it’s great Christmas is over,” Josie said. “I always say that for the whole month of January. And you can feel the days getting longer.”

  “We had a quiet Christmas,” Nora said. “And I was glad it was over too.”

  “But it must have been nice having the girls home?”

  “Yes, it was nice. But we all had our own thoughts, and it was hard to know what to say sometimes. We did our best, all of us.”

  As soon as she had admired the cardigan that Nora was wearing, Josie began to talk about clothes and fashion, which was not, Nora thought, a subject that normally interested her.

  “Well, there’s a shop in Wexford called Fitzgerald’s,” she said, “and I noticed it when I was passing and the problem I had was that I had two hours to fill in before John was finished whatever business he was doing. So I went in, and there was a very friendly assistant all ready to help. And I began to fit on costumes and then she got all the accessories. You should have seen the prices! Oh, she had me rigged out ten times over and went off to get more things that might suit me better. I was only filling in time. And I got a good hour out of it. She was full of this colour and that shade and this cut and that new fashion and what suited me and didn’t suit me. And then when I was back in my own clothes and ready to depart, didn’t she let out a roar at me, that I was after wasting her time. And she followed me to the door and said to me that I was not to think of coming into her shop again.”

  Nora almost had a pain in her side laughing. Josie remained serious, with just a glint in her eye.

  “So I won’t be going into Fitzgerald’s to buy my spring outfit,” she said sadly and shook her head. “The cheek of that woman! A rip of a one.”

  Josie rummaged in her handbag and produced a large envelope.

  “Now, I was cleaning out a bit of the old house, Nora, which is something I hardly ever do, or I start doing it and then I stop so the place becomes so bad that I think I’ll be divorced from my late husband for untidiness. A divorced widow. In any case, I came across these. I must have always had them, and I thought I’d show you them.”

  Inside the envelope was an old sepia-coloured folder with black-and-white photographs in one pocket and negatives in the other; the spine between the two pockets was badly torn. When Nora pulled the photographs out, she recognised her father instantly and then saw that the child on his lap was herself; the next photograph had her father and her mother standing together and posing proudly, they must have been in their twenties, she thought; they were wearing good clothes. The rest of the photographs showed either or both of her parents, and in some of them she, as a baby, was also in the picture.

  “I never knew these existed,” she said. “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “I think I took them,” Josie said, “but I can’t be sure. I know I had a camera, I was the only one who had a camera then, and I must have had them developed and then forgotten about them.”

  “He was very handsome, wasn’t he?”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, he was. I remember us all telling her that if she didn’t marry him someone else would, and soon.”

  “And you think my father and mother never saw these photographs either?” she asked.

  “Unless these are copies,” Josie said. “I just don’t know. It’s strange that I don’t remember. They could have been taken by someone else, but I don’t know why I would have had them.”

  “It’s funny how little they knew then,” Nora said. “How little any of us knew then. About anything. I was with him when he died.”

  “You were all with him.”

  “No, we weren’t. It was just me. I was fourteen.”

  “Your mother always said that you were all around the bed when he died. Nora, that’s what she always said.”

  “I know she said that, but she made it up. It wasn’t true. She used to say it even in front of me. But I was on my own with him and I waited for a minute or two before I ran down the stairs. I waited for a minute or two, just to spare them all, or spare myself. I sat with him quietly after he died. And then, when I told her, my mother ran out into the street screaming, I never knew why she did that, and nearly the whole town came in while he was still warm in the bed.”

  “They must have said the Rosary or something.”

  “Oh, the Rosary. I hope never to hear another Rosary.”

  “Nora!”

  “It’s true. God knows it’s true. I might as well say it.”

  “They are very comforting sometimes, the old prayers.”

  “Well, they don’t comfort me, Josie. Or not the Rosary anyway.”

  Josie took the photographs again and began to look at them.

  “You were always your father’s favourite, even after the others were born.”

  She handed Nora the photograph of her on her mother’s knee. Nora could see her mother posing for the camera sitting stiffly as though the baby on her knee did not quite belong to her.

  “I don’t think she knew what to do with you,” Josie said. “You knew what you wanted from day one.”

  “It was easier for the other two,” Nora said.

  Josie began to laugh.

  “Do you remember what she said about you? It was my own fault for asking her which of her two sons-in-law she liked best and she said that the more she thought about it the more she came to the view that she liked both her sons-in-law and both her other daughters better than Nora. I hadn’t even asked her about you. I don’t know what you had done on her at the time.”

  “I don’t either. But I’m sure I had done something. Or maybe not. Maybe I hadn’t.”

  Josie laughed again.

  “You bit the nose off me when I told you.”

  “I suppose I believed it was funny too. But maybe I did only when I thought about it afterwards.”

  “Anyway, I found these photographs and I’m sure Pat Crane could make copies of them from the negatives for the others if they wanted them.”

  “They’ll mind of course that they’re not in them.”

  “I think they’d appreciate having a new photograph of your mother when she was a young woman. I don’t think there were many taken of her at that time. They’d enjoy seeing what she was like when she was young.”

  Nora understood the implications of the remark, and the suggestion that she would not. She looked at Josie and smiled.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  The boys came into the room and said good night well before Josie left. Later, Nora went upstairs to look; they were asleep. Having locked the doors and switched off all the lights downstairs, she went to her bedroom and prepared for the night. In bed, she stayed awake for some time reading the opening of the book by Thomas Merton that her aunt had given her. When she found that she was not concentrating, she turned out the light and lay in the dark for a while before slowly falling asleep.

  When she woke she did not know what time it was, but she thought that it must be the middle of the night. One of the boys had screamed. The sound was so loud and piercing that she believed someone must have broken into the house; she wondered if she should open the window of her bedroom and shout out to the neighbours to see if she could wake someone and ask them to call the Guards.

  When the scream came again, she knew it was Donal. The fact that Conor had not also screamed frightened her more and made her wonder again if she should call out for help rather than go straight into their room. As she opened her bedroom door and stood out on the landing, she could hear Donal shouting out some words
and then screaming again. He was having a nightmare. She opened the door of the boys’ room and turned on the light. When Donal saw her now he sat up in the bed and began to scream louder, almost as though it was his mother he was afraid of. When she moved towards him he recoiled and then put his hands out as if to push her away.

  “Donal, it’s a dream, it’s just a dream,” she said.

  Now he was crying rather than screaming and digging his nails into his upper arms in distress.

  “Darling, it’s just a dream. Everyone has bad dreams.”

  She turned and looked at Conor. He was watching her calmly.

  “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  He nodded.

  “Maybe we’ll go downstairs and get him a glass of milk. Would you like a glass of milk, Donal?”

  He was rocking back and forth, sobbing, and did not reply.

  “You’re all right,” she said. “Really, you’re all right.”

  “He isn’t all right,” Conor said quietly.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

  Conor did not reply.

  “Conor, do you know what’s wrong with him?”

  “He moans in his sleep every night.”

  “But not like tonight.”

  Conor shrugged.

  “Donal, what was the dream about?”

  Donal was still rocking back and forth but he was silent now.

  “Will you tell me if I get a glass of milk? Would you like a biscuit?”

  He shook his head.

  She went downstairs and fetched two glasses of milk. In the kitchen, she saw that it was a quarter to four. It was pitch-dark outside. As she went back upstairs and came into the bedroom, she noticed that the boys were looking at each other but they looked away when she appeared.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Was it just a bad dream?”

  Donal nodded.

  “Do you remember what it was about?”

  He began to cry again.

  “Would you like me to leave the light on? And I can leave the door open. Would that be good?”