by Martin Roper
—Is Lily in?
I expect a question, a rebuff, but he smiles and turns calling her name in a strong Welsh accent. She comes out and suddenly it’s happening too quickly. I expect her to be wiping her hands on her apron, the smell of cooking behind her. She’s wearing jeans and a jumper, hair still red, and she is smoking and this startles me more than anything. I never remember her smoking and the cigarette, more than the years on her face and in her movements, alienates me. She smiles, frowns, smiles again, then recognises me. She looks back at him walking down the hall into what must be the kitchen. She walks towards me, puts her hand on the edge of the hall door and tells me to come in, the accent tinted with Welsh. She closes the door and we are standing close to each other, close enough for me to breathe her in. She walks ahead of me into the sitting room. Thickened with age.
—I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll just get him to put the kettle on.
She leaves, closes the door behind her. I look around the room, glad I dislike their taste in gold-lined wallpaper, heavy oak furniture, and floral carpeting. Cream embroidered doilies on the arms of the sofa. They deserve ugly taste. I imagine her telling him who I am and his worry. She comes back and sits on the sofa, facing me.
—How are you?
It’s as if the minute outside has given her enough time to recall exactly how she planned to handle this if it ever happened.
—Grand. Daddy died last year. Ruth two years before that.
I didn’t mean it to come out as badly as that and suddenly the obvious hits me, that we are the last two and I want to rush on and tell her that I am no orphan returned but I bite my lip. I suspect she must have heard. She looks away to the door and back at me.
—I just wanted you to know. I don’t know why. Just so that you’d know. She had cancer. I just wanted to tell you so you’d know. I’ve no bad intentions. And I wanted to see you and ask you why you left. That’s all.
—You’ve got an American accent.
—You’ve got a Welsh one.
—I left because he bored me. He was a good man. It’s not a very nice reason but it’s the truth. There’s more than that but if you want the short answer that’s it. I couldn’t have handled raising the two of you on my own. I knew he’d do a better job, that he’d meet someone else.
I nod, deciding not to tell her, prefer my knowledge of him over her ignorance, prefer that to flattening her with the guilt of the truth. She didn’t deserve him.
—So what about you? Did you marry? Have you children?
I shake my head, want to tell her nothing; in my desire to lie to her I realise I haven’t the strength to make the effort. I feel too much disgust. A phone rings softly and is picked up. His voice is quiet as if he is talking in a morgue. I abhor this other lived life. She has had two simultaneous existences, the absent presence that lived in our home, and this one here across the water with this Welshman talking quietly on the phone. It’s all so pedestrian, so banal. Tedious details that add up to nothing. I stand up as he walks in with a tray, she looks at him, says nothing and he, in return, is silent. He steps further into the room, enough for me to pass him. I walk out into the hall, walk across their tiled hall floor, open the door and turn to them both.
—All the best, Lily.
—Goodbye son.
—Goodbye mother.
Walking up the street I resist the urge to turn around, and as soon as I reach the corner I turn sharply and walk quickly. I walk for about twenty minutes until I find the city centre.
* * *
The ferry back to Dublin is quiet. Standing at the back on the viewing deck I stare at the ferocious wake churning in the sea. Son. Son she said. Bit late in the day for that. I search for a cigarette, jostle the keys in my pocket. Evenings when she lit a cigarette and perhaps wondered about us. I look at the keys, remembering each one: Bath Avenue, An Tigh Bocht, Gansevoort Street, Lone Tree, my father’s house. Homes everywhere and nowhere. Already hot in my palm I finger the silver fish on the key ring. Lobbing the keys grenade-high into the air I wait to see them splash on the surface, but they disappear in the widening sea furrow, too quick for the eye to catch. I imagine the metal cooling on impact and sinking slowly through defiant waves, sinking, settling on the seabed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the late Brother McNally for his encouragement during my secondary school education, Brendan Ward for his advice in Monaghan and his support in New York, Kathleen O’Malley and Alan Bergeron for their kindness and friendship, Will Irwin for his wise counsel and unstinting generosity, Dr. Susan Lohafer, the most gifted teacher I know, whose commanding intellect is matched only by her gentle nature, and Jennifer Barth at Henry Holt for her careful editing and gracious manner. Finally to my agent, Beth Vesel for the maybe—Mazel Tov.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Dublin, Martin Roper received an MFA from the University of Iowa. He teaches writing at the University of Iowa’s “Irish Writing Program” at Trinity College, Dublin, and at University College Dublin. Gone is his first novel.
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Copyright © 2002 by Martin Roper
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First Edition 2002
eISBN 9781466870857
First eBook edition: April 2014
