by Johanna Lane
On the landing, there was an endless set of doors leading to unseen rooms. The scale of Dulough washed over me completely then; the terraced house I’d grown up in could have fitted into this one many times over. Mrs. Connolly showed me first to my room. It didn’t come as a surprise that John and I wouldn’t be sleeping together, but he looked embarrassed that we were so resolutely being separated. I think now that he was reading too much into it; it would never have occurred to Mrs. Connolly that an unmarried couple would sleep in the same bed.
Anyway, I loved the room she put me in, and after I saw all the others, opening and closing each door secretly over the course of my stay, I came to understand that she’d put me in one of the nicest, one of only two with a view of the gardens, and beyond them the island and the sea. It had a sage-green carpet that had seen better days and lovely rose-gold wallpaper with swirls like the tops of Roman columns repeated again and again. All the furniture was heavy mahogany: the big smooth wardrobe, the bedside table, the writing desk in the bay window. There was a fireplace behind the door, but I could see that there hadn’t been a fire in a long time. I couldn’t wait to unpack my things and get settled. God, I loved it, I loved it straightaway. And I wish I hadn’t stifled that, I wish I hadn’t been too aware of my own background to show them how I felt. It would have done a lot of good in the moment.
“I’ll leave you to get settled,” John said, and disappeared with Mrs. Connolly off down the landing.
I went to the window and looked out. Below was not one garden but a series of gardens, each with its own theme. Some were luscious, almost overgrown, others stark, austere, more like the Jardin du Luxembourg than anything else. I still can’t take in the fact that at the same time as Philip the First was designing those gardens, he was evicting family after family from their homes on the estate. But of course, I didn't find out about them until much later.
After John and I got married, I ordered a statue of the Buddha from India, not so much out of any beliefs of my own, but because of the exoticism of it, and because by then I had learnt more of the man who had built the house; the Buddha’s smiling face seemed the perfect counter to Philip the First’s austere Presbyterianism. I’m embarrassed by that now, at the ostentation of shipping the thing from India all the way to Donegal. But in my defense, I knew nothing of the real state of our finances.
I got my first glimpse of Francis as I stood there, the last of the light drifting out to sea, the sun gathering it back in. Francis has always moved more quickly outside. Whether the indoors saps his energy, or whether it’s deference to the sudden set of codes that descend on us in a house like Dulough, I don’t know. But I remember that evening he moved like a young man, lean, quick, at that point under the trees where day had just turned to night.
I wasn’t to meet him on that visit. I was introduced to him only when John and I were engaged, once Francis knew that I was to be, in his eyes, mistress of Dulough. I remember being insulted by this at the time, as if I wasn’t worth meeting until he knew I was a fixture, but now that I know him well, I appreciate this quality in him, the recognition of permanence. Perhaps it’s because he was brought up here, a place where the landscape is nothing if not that.
In the evening, we had dinner in the dining room. Without my knowing, John had insisted that Mrs. Connolly leave the cold roast chicken and salads on the sideboard, so that he and I could help ourselves when we were ready. It was all part of his plan to ease me into life there. He understood that the house was enough to encounter in one day and that being served dinner by the housekeeper would have been too much. As I ate the food Mrs. Connolly had prepared for us, no part of me guessed that this wasn’t the way things always were. I even insisted on washing up, and John, to his great credit, acquiesced, even though he’d probably never spent any time at that sink in his life. I should have realized, because he didn’t know where anything went once I’d dried it. I like to think the washing-up was one of the things I did right that week, that Mrs. Connolly would have known John only did it under my influence and that I had no intention of getting too big for my boots just because I was going out with the owner of Dulough.
That night I read very late, the stillness of the house settling in around me. At one point, I put the book down and listened. I’d never been completely alone in silence before. I was a little afraid; the only other living being—John—was quite far away; his childhood bedroom was at the other end of the landing. The Connollys had retreated to their cottage, of course, which was something else I hadn’t expected. I must have fallen asleep not long after this realization, but when I woke it was pitch-black and John was climbing into bed beside me, his feet frozen after the trip across the landing. He stayed in my bed until dawn.
I was unrealistic about what it would be like to live here. That first visit was all awe, and the second—just after John and I got engaged—was playacting. It was only when I came to live at Dulough after our honeymoon, during our first night together in John’s parents’ former bedroom, whilst my new husband slept soundly beside me, that I began to consider the enormity of how my life had changed.
He was different when we settled down after the wedding. On my first visits, we had spent all our time together, rambling in the mountains, lolling about in the drawing room. Once we were man and wife, he was up and out before I woke, to where I don’t know, but I didn’t feel I had a right to say anything. I still thought he was doing me a favor by marrying me and bringing me to this place.
I remember my first phone call home. Only a week had passed and I was already lonely, rattling around the house, and John out with Francis tending to what he’d missed while we were away on our honeymoon. “What’s it like living there?” my mum said, and I could still hear the disbelief that I’d married a man from the country.
“It’s beautiful.”
“And what do you do with yourself all day?”
“Oh, there’s lots of work to be done on the estate.” I said “estate” deliberately to impress her, to remind her that I had married into something. But it was hard for me to have anything to do with the upkeep of Dulough; that was what Francis and Mrs. Connolly were for, and they had John to oversee them. The truth was that I hadn’t known what to do with myself, so I’d spent the mornings of my first week in bed. John came back for lunch and never asked what I’d been doing. I was too embarrassed to tell him.
Afternoons, I drove up and down the avenue. Though I had my learner’s permit at seventeen, there hadn’t been much reason to drive in the city; the bus was all I’d needed to shuttle me between home and my life in town. But I realized fast that I’d want a car if I was to survive in Donegal. It was safe careering up and down the avenue; there was no one to meet and, as long as I didn’t drive into the lake, I’d be grand. John was amused by my practicing and took it as a determination to acquire the necessary skills to live at Dulough—which I suppose it was—and this pleased him.
The party he organized for the whole Dublin crowd a year or so after our wedding was meant to cheer me up. He raided the wine cellar, pulled out bottles that his parents had been saving, for nothing, it turned out. When he’d lined them up in the kitchen, I wiped off the dust and sticky cobwebs with a tea towel.
The sound of the first cars arriving carried for miles: the motor slowing on the main road, turning onto the avenue, the crunch of gravel as our college friends parked and spilled out. We had great fun showing them to their rooms, taking them down to the beach and out to the island, which some of them had already seen when they came to our wedding. Later, Mrs. Connolly set out pots of tea in the dining room, which John laced with whiskey when she left, enjoying every second of it all. He’s more social than he thinks. He made sure to tell Mrs. Connolly she had the night off, that we’d be fine making our own dinner—didn’t we have enough food in the freezer to feed an army? She was skeptical, but he put his arm around her and told her not to worry.
Then it was all of us, frying bacon, sausages, tomatoes, br
ead, the place filled with smoke. John was careful not to let them into the drawing room, where greasy fingers or a spill would ruin the furniture, so we sat around the kitchen table. Then we did the washing-up and dried the plates in one big assembly line. I already knew that Mrs. Connolly would be beside herself if she had to deal with that mess when she came up in the morning.
Late that night, we went out to the pool, its blackness and the lake’s one body of water in the darkness. We stripped off our clothes and left them in piles on the drystone wall. John was the first in, jumping high in the air and swearing genteelly when he hit the freezing water. But it was enough to get the others to follow. Looking back, it’s a miracle we didn’t land on each other. I remember meeting him by accident in the corner of the pool; he drew me to him, his body beautifully warm.
The next day, but for the few who stayed in bed to nurse hangovers, John took us into the hills. We walked through the gardens first; he named the plants and told us which countries they were from. Worried they would think he was too much the lord of the manor, I watched their faces to see if I could detect judgment, but I couldn’t. By that point they wouldn’t have shown those sorts of feelings to me; he was my husband now.
We left the garden through a wooden gate, passing foxgloves that were nearly as high as ourselves. “You’ll have to check for ticks when we get back,” John said, and then he added, “everywhere,” and they laughed. There was no discernible path, but suddenly we were out by a lake, at the top of a waterfall, the landscape unraveling below us. John handed out chocolate and leant back against a boulder, face to the sun.
Later that day, my best friend from college, Liesl, and I got some time on our own. It was a rare warm day. I was so relieved our friends had good weather, that we’d been able to spend the weekend outside. Sitting by the fire, cozy, whilst the rain batters off the windowpanes is great for an afternoon, but a whole weekend of it can get depressing, especially if you’re not used to it. The others were all back at the house, around the kitchen table, beginning the drinking again, though it was only three o’clock. When they started back up, Liesl had taken my arm and steered me out to the garden—and I steered her down to the beach.
We sat in silence for a while, looking out to sea. There was no wind; the waves were so small they didn’t make a sound when they broke on the beach.
“It’s gorgeous here,” Liesl said.
I nodded slowly. Though the weekend had really lifted my spirits, the depression that had set in in recent months hovered like a shadow behind me. I had even wondered over the course of the weekend whether it might have been better if they hadn’t come at all; I suspected I would feel worse afterwards.
“So, how’s married life?” Liesl said, nudging me.
Of my friends, I had been the first to get married. In fact, that weekend, we were still the only married couple of the group. Liesl was, by choice, perpetually boyfriendless. This refusal must have made her even more attractive because she’d always had men trailing her. This weekend, she’d brought a guy called Mark who I’d never met before. He was a student at the Royal College of Surgeons. I could see, when Mark shyly told the group what he did, that John was impressed. I had already worked out that, though my husband was convinced Dulough was his fate, he respected people like Mark. John was embarrassed that his standing was inherited; he’d rather have earned it for himself.
“I think my husband quite likes your boyfriend,” I said to Liesl by way of evading her question.
“So I noticed.” She laughed a full-bodied, mischievous laugh. “Maybe you’ll be out of a job soon.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Maybe.”
She looked at me. “You’re different,” she said.
I wasn’t sure whether it was an accusation. I’d been very worried what my friends would think when I married John. They’d all been a little amused by his old-fashioned ways in Dublin, but as soon as they’d seen Dulough at the wedding, I understood that, amongst the girls in particular, there was a certain amount of jealousy at the life I was about to step into. I’d never have to worry about jobs or mortgages or any of the responsibilities they were beginning to face. I was inheriting a ready-made standing in the world, just as John had. Liesl was above that sort of thing, though.
“How do you mean?”
“Well…”
It alarmed me that she was choosing what she said so carefully. I braced myself for criticism.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words.” She hesitated. “You’re older.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No! No, that’s not what I mean. Not looks-wise. You’re more stately or something.”
“In a bad way?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s nice, sort of dignified. You’ve become more like him.”
“You mean ‘old-fashioned’?”
“A little, I suppose.”
I sighed and leant back on my hands.
She went on. “You’re a bit quiet, to be honest.” She turned away from me and looked out to the island. “Are you all right?”
Was I all right? At that moment, remembering how easily we used to talk, how, even when I was engaged, she and I would go out on the town, I realized how little I’d actually spoken since I’d got married, how the number of words that came out of my mouth had probably been halved or quartered since I’d moved to Donegal.
“I’m fine. It’s just a bit of an adjustment.” I forced myself to laugh. It wasn’t a very convincing one.
“It was a bit of an adjustment for us too. It’s a funny thing when your friend becomes a countess or whatever it is you are.”
“John’s family isn’t titled. You know that; I’m not anything.”
“Ah, I know, I’m just teasing you, but it’s more or less the same thing, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got servants, for goodness’ sake.”
“One servant,” I corrected her. “And she’s a lot more say in what goes on around here than I do.”
“What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Living like this.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, I’ll tell you that much.”
“But it’s gorgeous here.”
I nodded.
“And John seems so into you.”
“I think he is.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“No, no, he is. It’s just that he does his own thing a lot of the time and I’m at a bit of a loose end.”
She looked concerned now. “Why don’t you come down to Dublin once or twice a month for a bit of life? You can stay with me.”
It was a good idea, I wanted to, but I couldn’t tell her that I’d have to ask John for the money. And though it was long before I had any idea we were in trouble, I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have given it to me; he’d just never thought that I might need any for myself. I didn’t use money on a daily basis anymore; Mrs. Connolly bought all the food, and when we went into town, John paid for everything. A banknote had barely passed through my hands since we’d got married. It wasn’t embarrassment that stopped me from telling Liesl all this, it was that she’d perceive John as some sort of tyrant, trying to make me into an old-fashioned wife, but that wasn’t it at all. I should have told her the truth, though, because when I didn’t take her up on her offer, I could tell it hurt her, and that it hurt our friendship. She thought I didn’t care about her as much as I had when we were in college, she thought that I had got above myself. But hindsight’s a great thing, isn’t it?
The desolation I felt when they, Liesl in particular, left astounded the both of us, and I think it was only getting pregnant with Kate that pulled me out of it completely. It would have been lovely to have a party every year, but when people started having children, it seemed too much to ask them to make the journey. I just hadn’t expected to find the isolation so difficult; nothing about the city prepares you for this.
It was Kate who got
me into the gardens. When she was little, John gave us a flower bed and we would dig in it for hours, worms turning around our fingers, the soil dark and wet against the back of our hands. When Kate lost interest, the bed became mine and I surprised myself with its success. This gave me something to talk to Francis about. In the early days, he would watch me, smoking one of his cigarettes, but eventually I got up the courage to ask him a question. Of course, he knew everything about the gardens, where each plant was from, whether it demanded light or shade, how much water it could take. He hated the Rhododendron ponticum, which runs wild up here; he was the one with the responsibility of cutting it back. The more time I spent in the gardens, the more I came to disagree with his view of the rhododendron. It isn’t a surprise that Francis and I had a different view of things; for him the gardens were a job; for me, a hobby.
When Philip was born, I was a different person altogether. I had become accustomed to Dulough; I didn’t long to go back to Dublin anymore. In the evenings, we’d sit by the fire, the wind outside, the rain on the windows, the flames smoking when it blew down the chimney. Before the children went to bed, I’d read them stories, and afterwards, when we had the room to ourselves, I’d lie across the couch, my head on John’s lap, with Mrs. Connolly and Francis safely down in their cottage.
By the time I met John, his father was already dead, and his mum was dying up here, and putting a brave face on it, so that when Mrs. Connolly phoned to say she was gone, it came as a terrible shock. I offered to come to the funeral, I admit more out of curiosity to see where he was from than anything else. We’d only been together a few months, but it was enough that it would have seemed normal had I tagged along. That evening he said yes, but the following morning he’d changed his mind. I waved him off and went for a walk along the canal. Now I can imagine him and his brother traipsing out to the island, the men carrying the coffin, wary of their footing at the bottom of the rocks, moving slowly lest they drop it. She was buried in the evening, with the light on the water running down the sand, from cliffs to sea. When we buried Philip, it was in the afternoon, during a particularly low spring tide. It’s amazing that the sea still dictates so much here.
