by Anne Doughty
‘Are you taking me to the sea?’ I asked quietly.
He looked surprised as he glanced across at me. He had been deep in thought, but now a smile flickered briefly. He seemed relieved I’d said something.
‘Would that be a good idea?’
‘Yes, I think so. If anything is.’
The moon was high in the sky. Ahead of us the road lay like a white swathe cut through the dark shadows of trees and hedgerows. Suddenly, I recognised the worn and weathered stump of a tree, snapped off in the gales of 1953 and grown more silvery with each passing year. As when you meet an old friend in an unfamiliar setting and a stream of happy memories flows back to you, I had a sudden sense of wellbeing.
‘I don’t know when I was last on this road, Alan. Could we stop on Windmill Hill?’
Windmill Hill had what my father always called ‘an outlook’. Over the years, on an ancient ordnance map coming apart at the creases, he had marked all the places he knew that had outlooks. In the school holidays, when he was ‘doing his calls’, visiting all his farmer clients scattered around the countryside, I had gone with him. There was hardly a road, lane, or farm track, in Down or Armagh, we had not travelled together at some time, sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and tea in a flask. And lunch always had to be eaten somewhere ‘with an outlook’.
Alan slowed right down and then edged cautiously off the road at the highest point of the low hill where the remains of the old mill still stood. Beyond the low hedge that straggled along the edge of the wide grassy verge, the whole of the southern Ards lay spread out in the moonlight, the deep silence of the sea a palpable presence where the shadowy carpet of tiny fields dissolved into darkness.
‘What happened back at the house, Jenny?’
‘I’m not sure. Alwyn McPherson made a grab at me. Nothing new about that. But this time I couldn’t cope. Nausea. Panic. Suddenly I just felt my whole life falling apart.’ I heard myself speak as coolly as if I were describing the symptoms of some everyday ailment, the kind of thing some doctors prescribe for without raising their eyes from their prescription pad. I took a deep breath, clutched the rug more firmly around me, and tried again.
‘Three years ago, I married someone I believed I loved. I set out to make a home and a life and a future. The home I have is the hand-me-down he accepted to keep his parents happy, and the life I have is the same. It’s all about people we have to see and dinners we have to attend. Friends we haven’t time for and things we never do. And the future? The future is what I saw in that room tonight. Alwyn gropes me to remind me what the rules permit in “our crowd”. Colin has it off in London, a one-night stand, like any proper lad, without prejudice to the show back home. I am free to amuse myself likewise, should I so wish, but mark you, only with one of “our” crowd. There are even rules about that,’ I spat out bitterly.
‘And the women, Alan,’ I went on, catching my breath. ‘Those hideous women, stuffing themselves silly while they talk about their diets. Having babies to justify their good opinion of themselves. So self-satisfied they’ve got it all worked out just the way they want it. I don’t know which is worse, their indifference to the men or the men’s indifference to them. And the men are just as bad, swigging their beer and telling smutty jokes. Treating each other as objects. Treating everyone as objects, like Alwyn treated me. But that’s Colin’s world, Alan, that’s where he feels comfortable, at ease, at home . . . and I can’t stand it. I can’t live like that . . . I can’t . . .’
As I tried to get the words out, the pain in my throat broke in a great sob and tears poured down my face.
For a moment, he stared out at the moonlit landscape as if he were searching among the remote farms, the tiny, bright starflowers scattered in the darkness, for a particular one that he knew. Then he said, very quietly and very coolly, ‘You don’t have to live that life, Jenny. There are options, you know.’
‘What options, Alan?’ I hissed angrily. ‘What options? You’re not going to suggest Colin and I could do a Val and Bob, are you? Move out into the country? Break away from our crowd?’
‘It is one option,’ he replied steadily.
‘Oh no, Alan. It isn’t. Not for Colin and me. Colin’s mummy wouldn’t like it. It wouldn’t help her dear son in his career. Too far away from the right people. And what about the grandchildren? She’d want them near her, so she could pop in often. And Colin would agree. After all, why not, with Jenny at home being a fulltime wife and mother. No, Alan, doing a Val and Bob wouldn’t please Mummy at all. And as Colin has done everything Mummy has wanted since we drove off the Liverpool ferry, I don’t think it’s likely he’ll change now.’
My voice packed up as I saw the enormity of what I’d spelled out. The sobs broke over me again and I had to gasp for breath. I couldn’t do anything whatever to stop them and they were even noisier than my chattering teeth.
Alan’s hand brushed mine and I saw he was offering me something. Blurred, but very white. An extraordinary object, gleaming in the moonlight. I stared at it for ages before I saw what it was. A clean and folded handkerchief. Quite unexpectedly, the sobs stopped, though tears went on pouring down my cheeks. I took it and blew my nose.
‘I thought all men used their handkerchiefs to clean their cars with,’ I said weakly, as I looked across at him.
‘No, not all of them,’ he said, turning away distractedly.
‘Alan,’ I began cautiously, afraid the sobs might jump up and suffocate me, ‘I can’t see any options at all.’
He took in his breath so sharply, I wondered what he’d been thinking about while I’d been sobbing.
‘Well, if you can’t, I can at least lay out the possibilities for you. And I mean possibilities,’ he said firmly. ‘Only you can say which of them might become options,’ he went on matter-of-factly, as if he were anxious to keep the record straight. ‘Firstly, you can tell Colin how you feel, spell out the problems as you see them, and work out how you can change things. Second, you can make a life of your own while remaining married to Colin.’
‘And third, Alan?’ I said quickly.
He seemed almost reluctant to reply, stared out again at the wide landscape, but then went on as steadily as before. ‘You can make a life on your own, Jenny. It’s not easy, but you don’t lack courage. You have your job. Friends. Things that are important to you.’
Each word dropped into place like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Blue pieces to finish the sky and dappled bits to fill in the shade of a tree. Not the most important pieces in the puzzle, or even the most difficult ones, simply the last. I felt a stillness come over me; a strange composure took the place of all the agitation.
‘Alan, do you ever imagine you’re standing outside yourself, watching something happening to you and feeling that it must be happening to someone else?’
He nodded wryly. ‘I know it well, but only in the bad moments. Never the good. What about you?’
I looked down and saw I’d been twisting my engagement ring, round and round, till it was quite loose.
‘There don’t seem to have been many good moments to test it on,’ I said honestly. ‘Not for a long, long time, anyway.’
The tears began again and I mopped them up patiently. At least they flowed quietly now and didn’t shake my shoulders and tear at my throat. I looked at the handkerchief in my hand. The fresh white linen was reduced to a limp, sodden rag, streaked with eye make-up. I giggled.
Alan looked alarmed. It occurred to me he might think I was hysterical, so I reassured him.
‘It’s all right, Alan. I’m laughing at a bad joke.’ I dried off my tears again and held up his handkerchief by the corners. ‘Behold, a massacred handkerchief.’
He looked so puzzled I began to wonder if he was right. Perhaps I was hysterical.
‘Mascara. Val and I always call it “massacre”. Hence a massacred handkerchief,’ I explained. ‘I told you it was a bad joke. Like my life at the moment,’ I ended.
My snuffles ha
d cleared and my mind seemed to be working again, but a deep silence had settled upon me. It made me uneasy, for I was afraid I couldn’t speak again without weeping.
I looked out over the quiet countryside, my eyes moving from one spark of light to another. Each spark, a home. Each home, a person, or a family, sitting by the embers of a fire, reading, or talking, or drinking a cup of tea. Here were people whose lives were going on day by day, week by week, lives shaped by work and relationships, by the small fields, the bumpy lanes, the narrow roads, the links to hamlet, village, town or city. I felt myself as remote from the ordinary everyday events of my own life as I was from the lives of these unknown people out in the darkness. Except for the dear friend beside me, I was totally alone in a dark world where there was no spark of light to welcome me.
I shivered again and twisted the damp handkerchief in my hands. Alan was staring into the distance, his eyes following the headlamps of two cars driving slowly in convoy along the deserted coast road.
Time passed. The second hand of the luminous clock on the dashboard clicked rhythmically. Say something, Jenny. Don’t go silent. How can anyone help you if you don’t offer something, admonished myself.
‘How did I get it wrong, Alan?’ I asked, looking across at him. ‘What did I do? Or not do? I thought it was real enough, three years ago. Not just vague notions of living together happily ever after. We did talk. We had plans and projects. We were happy in Birmingham. At least, I thought I was. Where did I go wrong?’
‘What makes you assume it was you who did the going wrong?’
‘I always do blame myself, I suppose, if things go wrong. Don’t you?’
‘Yes, actually I do,’ he answered ruefully. ‘But blaming oneself is not a good idea. I’m trying to give it up. There’s no logical reason to assume that it’s you who’s got it wrong just because things don’t work out the way you hoped they would. There are always elements in any situation that only the future can reveal.’
‘But surely there’s always something you can do. You can’t just let events dictate to you. You have to struggle for what you want. Don’t you?’
‘Oh yes, you do have to struggle,’ he agreed readily. ‘But you have to be sure you’re struggling against the right thing. Ultimately, the only thing you can really have any command over is yourself. You may be able to do precious little about events, but you can still act upon yourself. When you do that, all manner of things become possible.’
‘So you’re saying, if I change me, I can change the way I see the situation I’m in?’
‘Up to a point, yes, you can. But you must also accept what you can’t change in others. And even then, there are still situations that will resist all your attempts to see them in a different light. That’s why you must never blame yourself for a failure that isn’t yours.’ He paused, and then continued very softly, as if he’d got to the heart of what he wanted to say. ‘The only real failure, Jenny, is to disengage from your life. “Slipping the clutch” is what one of my tutors used to call it. Going into neutral and letting events do your living for you. Like your Paul Jones. That’s what you saw at the party tonight, wasn’t it? People letting the Paul Jones live life for them. And you know it’s not your style.’
I looked out again at the scatter of lights. Some individuals were just like those bright points in the darkness. Only the ones who struggled to engage with life produced light. But it was an effort. Far easier to remain lost in the unlit background.
‘So, if I get me right,’ I said cautiously, ‘then I won’t go struggling in the wrong place, is that it?’
‘I’d put it even more strongly. If you don’t get you right, you can’t get anything right for anyone, whatever your relationship with them.’
I laughed softly.
‘You know Alan, that really cheers me. It’s just what my father said to me last night when I told him I’d been offered the head of department and I was afraid I’d be selfish to take it. I got the gist of what he was saying then, but it all seems so much clearer now.’
He looked across at me and smiled, looking easier for the first time since we’d stopped the car. He nodded vigorously. ‘It’s what I call the K1 to K2 effect. Where K1 equals what you know, and K2 is what K1 will come to mean after time has passed and the future has added its egg. Awareness always grows by what it feeds on. And what your father said on Friday night has had quite a lot to feed on since.’
I laughed in spite of myself, delighted by his enthusiastic response and amused that he should have invented an equation to work out his insight. ‘That’s all a long way from treating loomstate and developing Easicare linen,’ I said doubtfully.
He shook his head. ‘Not as far as you might think, Jenny. Even ordinary everyday problems can look quite different when you live inside the skin you’ve chosen for yourself and not one people have forced upon you. ‘
If anyone had a right to say something like that, it was Alan. From the moment he’d lost his mother, he’d had to fight every inch of the way for his right to be himself. And even when he had succeeded academically and landed a well-paid job with excellent prospects, he’d still had his battles.
After two years with the big chemical company in Cheshire he’d felt compelled to leave because the project he had been asked to work on was exploitive, designed to boost sales instead of getting inexpensive medicines into the hands of people who needed them. He’d moved to Scotland, to a small textile plant desperately trying to survive in a hostile economic climate. He’d reviewed all their traditional methods of bleaching and dyeing, created a new treatment for the finishing of cotton, and helped them get back on their feet. Already at work on similar processes for the treatment of linen, he had turned down the seat on the board so that he could go on working on something he felt was worthwhile.
I smiled and fell silent, so grateful I didn’t need to say anything in reply. I shivered again, but more with relief than cold. What he said next came as a complete surprise to me.
‘Look, Jenny, would you like to see my new home? It’s only about five minutes up the road.’
‘What? Out here?’ I was so amazed, my voice came out as a squeak. If I’d ever had to describe Alan’s ideal home I’d almost certainly have plumped for a modern flat with the latest in Scandinavian furniture and a kitchen designed by a time-and-motion expert.
‘Mmm, I’ve bought a fisherman’s cottage down at Drinsallagh,’ he admitted shyly. ‘If there was a light on, you might just be able to see it over there,’ he went on, waving a hand vaguely towards the south-east.
‘But how marvellous! Of course I want to see it. Village of, or townland of?’
‘Townland,’ he answered as he manoeuvred the car carefully back on to the road. ‘You’ll recognise the lane down when we get to it. It’s just before the turn to your favourite harbour, Ballydrumard, where you did those studies of the old breakwater. Remember?’
I had forgotten completely. Apart from the odd family group and some studies of Susie when she’d stayed with me in the summer, I hadn’t touched a camera since before we came back. All my pictures of pieces of wood, ploughed fields, stonewalls and wildflowers were in a portfolio under the studio couch in my study. When we moved in, I’d had a couple of my favourites framed to hang on the wall by my desk, but since then I hadn’t even got round to looking at the others.
A few minutes later and we were bumping down a rutted lane between overgrown stonewalls and windshaped hawthorns. We turned round a whitewashed gable and stopped on a wide, flagged area opposite the front door.
‘Alan, I don’t believe it,’ I said, as I got out of the car and stood looking up at the gnarled branches of a climbing rose which half smothered the whole front of the low dwelling. ‘I’m green with envy,’ I went on. ‘This is just what I used to dream about when I was a child. I was going to be a famous writer and live in a cottage by the sea, with roses round the windows and hollyhocks by the front door. I’d never seen a real hollyhock, but all my storybook
s had them, so they were obligatory. My fantasies were always quite specific,’ I added thoughtfully, as I watched him unhook a large key from behind a piece of drainpipe. It was at least six inches long and quite extraordinary in shape.
‘I hope your fantasy allowed for rising damp, a leak in the roof and a complete lack of services,’ he said, breaking into a broad grin.
‘Good heavens, no. You can’t go spoiling a good fantasy with boring facts like that,’ I retorted.
He opened the door. ‘Sorry about the smell. It’s been shut up for nearly three years, so it’s not surprising. Val says it’s the wallpaper and I need to strip it off and emulsion the walls so they can breathe,’ he went on as I stood taking in every detail of the room, which was still furnished as it must have been at the end of the last century.
‘You’ve even got a salt box!’ I exclaimed.
‘And there’s salt in it too. Along with the spiders.’
The cottage had been offered to the Ulster Folk Museum by the executors of the old lady who had been born there in 1880, he explained. After a long delay, they’d had to turn it down. Bob heard about it from a fellow architect, thought it might make a studio for Val, and took Alan to see it when he came for his job interview.
‘Why on earth didn’t the Folk Museum have it?’ I asked, as I examined the three-legged pots on the hearth.
‘Too difficult to move and re-erect on their site, apparently. It’s built of a crumbly mix with a lot of shingle.’
We went through the house together, and Alan outlined his plans for each room. While I listened, I opened cupboards and looked in drawers. Some of them were still full of delph and ancient kitchenware, while upstairs there were clothes and bed and table linens. I had never seen Alan so animated before.
‘I didn’t know you were a do-it-yourself expert.’
