The Sea and the Silence Page 14

  I had never felt so miserable. The thought of what I had done, of how deliberately rude I had been to him, of how successfully I had ruined what I had set out to accomplish, drove me so deep that I was ill. The day that had begun with such brightness and hope now lay irretrievably broken. I imagined him lying on a bed in his house somewhere in the town above me, his fair hair on the pillows, and the thought made my blood plunge. A knock came to the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘May I come in?’ asked Ronnie.

  I sat on the bed, my feet beneath me, and he sat in the only chair. He looked sterner and somewhat older, perhaps to do with the light, or as if the imminent prospect of enlisting had seasoned him all of a sudden.

  ‘I thought I’d say goodbye,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve said goodbye, Ronnie.’

  ‘We said goodnight,’ he said and lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t mind me being up here?’

  ‘Why should I mind?’

  ‘A girl on her own away from home and so on.’

  ‘I’m quite independent, don’t worry.’

  ‘That’s one of the many thing I like about you.’

  ‘And I’m very tired.’

  ‘May I say one thing?’ He had a way of smiling that was half way between roguish and the embodiment of integrity. ‘May I ask you a question that I sincerely hope you have not been asked before?’

  ‘Which question?’

  ‘Iz, will you marry me?’

  I gaped at him. He had actually gone down on his knees. I began to laugh. ‘Is this some sort of prank?’

  He looked up at me mournfully.

  ‘From the very moment I first saw you in the garden of your home, I wanted you. I cannot get you out of my mind. You have taken root in my imagination. I know this all sounds absurd, but I cannot go away tomorrow to join an army and fight a war without knowing that you will be here for me when I come back.’

  ‘Ronnie,’ I said, ‘I’ve met you twice before. I like you and think you are a fine, brave man, but that is all. Please get up’.

  ‘May I write to you then?’ he asked, remaining on his knees. ‘Please give me something. I’m dying for you. I’m sick of the thought of life without you.’

  He looked so abject that I had to bite my lip to stop myself laughing outright.

  ‘Write by all means, but please don’t expect me to reply. I know you’re going off in the morning and I wish you the very best, but it would be foolish to think that something might await us when you return. We’ll always be friends, of course.’

  ‘Is there someone else?’

  I felt my blood plunge again and suck with it my womanhood.

  ‘No. There is no one else.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Ronnie, beaming, was on his feet. ‘May I then ask one favour? That you write and tell me if there is someone else? That way, I’ll know not to go on hoping.’

  ‘Ronnie, I don’t see why I should agree to do that.’

  ‘At least give me the luxury of self-delusion.’

  I stood up. ‘I will write to you, but like a sister. And now I think it’s time you went home. You’ve got an early start.’

  He kissed my cheek. ‘Please remember, I do love you and always will,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  1943 – 44

  It would be a sombre winter in Longstead. And, yet, when Daddy rallied and sat up in bed, asking for bean soup, Mrs Rainbow spoke of the power of prayer and doubled her rosaries.

  I woke on the first morning of December to a white world. Although the house was piercingly cold, it was worth it just to be able to behold our trees etched in perfection, our normally lumpy paddocks made smooth.

  I trudged out through our temporarily forgiven acres and walked until my legs ached. In the intense silence, looking back on the house, one could imagine that this was not home to a dying man and his penniless family, rather a magic kingdom full of life and plenty.

  In the three months since the dance in Monument, I had received half a dozen letters from Ronnie Shaw: two posted from Belfast and the rest from somewhere in Scotland. I could not but smile as he described fox hunting in the border country, as if fox hunting was what war preparation was all about. I wrote back, for I admired his persistence and, to be honest, felt touched by the fact that he admired me. But that was all. My letters were brief and I took care over them so that Ronnie could not draw any inferences about my feelings. I liked him, I conceded; he was a likeable man. But liking him was an ocean away from what I sought.

  During the weeks following the dance, I had cursed myself every day for my own stupidity. I could see no way back. Frank Waters would see me as an arrogant member of a class that he despised — and he would be entirely justified. I thought about writing to apologise, but it would have been fruitless, because there was no way I could explain how jealousy and disappointment had given rise to my behaviour. I had successfully accomplished what I had set out to do in the heat of my anger — I had demolished any possibility of a relationship between us.

  And then, as winter wore on, I found the weight of my indiscretion lift from me, little by little. I thought of him less. It could not have worked anyway, I told myself; the gaps were too large. Bella was right after all — I was young and I had no experience. Or at least, I now had one experience, however unsatisfactory and incomplete, and I should learn from it.

  Christmas came and went and we burned fires night and day to keep warm. A sense of suspension gripped Longstead, as if everything would remain as it were, however imperfect, for as long as snow lay on the ground. The thaw came with the new year. Leaks abounded. Then in the small hours of one January night, I woke with shouting in my ears. I had been dreaming of Bella and myself, walking together in a city. It was she, I first thought, who was shouting . ‘Iz! Iz! Oh, God, Iz, where are you? IZ!’

  Then I realised it was Mother.

  Daddy had been so long near death that we had all come to believe the situation could continue indefinitely. He had passed away during the night and by the time we drew back the drapes, he no longer looked like anyone I had ever known.

  Lolo and her husband arrived from Fermanagh the next day and the morning after that, from London, Bella, and Harry who had just become engaged to be married to a woman he had met from Somerset. The great excitement was that Allan, on leave in England, was on the mail boat. The kitchen hummed. Rooms we seldom used were opened, fires set and great quantities of ash drawn in to feed them.

  I had forgotten what an impression Allan made: he was big and broad, with blond hair and ink black eyebrows. His eyes were a deep brown. I knew him very little, I realised, since one or the other of us had mostly been away. Of course, I had grown up hearing of his horsemanship and the dedication he had applied to salmon rivers and how he had single-handedly managed Longstead; but now, in the flesh, he looked older than I had imagined. He immediately took on responsibility for all aspects of the funeral, which was just as well, since Mother was more anxious about the looming social obligations than about the event itself. She sat there in formal clothes, clasping and unclasping her hands, and I knew that but for propriety she would be down the fields, painting.

  Mr Rafter came up after supper and spent a long time in discussion with Allan.

  ‘What did he have to say?’ I enquired later.

  ‘Is he owed money?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Mr Rafter is our friend,’ Allan said. ‘He’s on our side’.

  ‘So he should be, all the money he’s made from us over the years,’ Bella said.

  Her clothes were newly bought and wildly sophisticated to our eyes. She had told Mother the night before that she had met someone in England who she hoped to bring home and introduce. Sounds like he’s got money, Mother had whispered to me.

  ‘Listen, I don’t want to hear you say that again,’ said Allan sternly. He had become used to command. ‘Mr Rafter is fighting a rearguard action on our behalf. We’ll be lucky to be left with this roof over our heads, the way thi
ngs are going. All that’s been stopping them up to now has been the fact that Daddy was ill.’

  ‘They think they can just come in and take what they want’, Bella said, ‘but we’re going to stop them.’ She looked to Harry. ‘What are you smiling about? Why don’t you come home and get involved?’

  ‘I don’t even know how to drive a tractor,’ Harry said.

  ‘Isn’t there some legal way we can approach this problem? asked Bella.

  ‘I’m not sure there is,’ Allan said. ‘Thousands of landless men are banging on the doors of this new Land Commission, demanding acres. A place like ours where proper farming hasn’t taken place in twenty years is a ripe prospect.’

  ‘But we have to be given a chance!’ I cried. ‘You have to be given a chance!’

  ‘That’s exactly it, and Rafter agrees,’ Allan said. ‘Once this wretched war is over, I can come back and knuckle down — but that won’t happen tomorrow. However, Rafter thinks his son can persuade the Land Commission to hold off.’

  ‘I’m sure it suits him to do so,’ Bella said with scorn, ‘so that he can go on charging us the earth for everything.’

  ‘So bloody what if it does suit him?’ asked Allan darkly, and strode out.

  We put Daddy’s lead-lined coffin into the vault at Longstead on a day that was warm and bright. When we all returned to the house, it was as if a huge burden had been lifted. In some ways, it was like Bella’s party of the summer before — the Misses Carr arrived with baking and went about together, their hands full of plates; Norman Penrose appeared, this time with his father, whose face sprouted curling whiskers and whose expression was ever midway between contemplation and regret.

  Mother sat in a corner like a lost child, the Misses Carr either side of her, one of them stroking her hand. Most of the people who were drinking tea and chattering loudly were locals, men like Mr Rafter and farmers from round about and a few corn merchants from Dublin. I wondered was this what a long and once bright life had amounted to? Years of decline, and then the day you were coffined and shelved away, all but forgotten within a few of hours?

  ‘Iz, I need you to hear something.’ Bella had arrived inside the door of the drawing room, linking Allan in one arm and Norman Penrose in the other. ‘Norman has just made the most wonderful suggestion. Tell Iz, Norman.’

  ‘It’s very little,’ Norman said.

  ‘It certainly is not’, Bella said. She drew herself up. ‘Norman has come to the rescue. He’s going to send men over to plough and till and generally fix things up here, aren’t you, Norman?’

  ‘Only if you so wish’, Norman said and looked directly at me.

  ‘That’s… very kind,’ Norman, I said.

  ‘Activity will make it far more difficult for the agitators,’ Bella said. ‘Apparently, Norman has offered on umpteen occasions, but Daddy always refused.’

  What to Bella seemed the ideal solution, to me seemed undue haste. She beamed as she said, ‘They’ll see that Mount Penrose is involved. ‘

  ‘Of course, we’ll pay you whatever it costs,’ Allan said.

  Norman made brushing motions in the air. ‘Wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘We can’t allow you to do this for nothing,’ Allan said.

  ‘It’s not as if this is just an ordinary commercial transaction,’ Norman said and looked at me again.

  Bella let go of Allan and linking me with her free arm, drew Norman and me tight to her. ‘Some things are just understood, isn’t that right, Norman?’

  We were all three in this ridiculous little knot of Bella’s making. Then, as one, we all turned to the door. My mouth dropped open, I knew, but I could do nothing about it.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  He said, ‘Sorry I’m late, but the hackney ran out of fuel five miles down the road and I had to walk.’

  I had detached myself from Bella and Norman and we were standing in the hall. I could scarcely speak.

  ‘What… what are you doing here?’

  ‘Ronnie telegrammed when he heard the news and asked me to represent him. He wants you to know how very sorry he is. And I am too.’

  I was dizzy. I knew that Bella and Norman were staring at us.

  I said, ‘I need some air. Come on.’

  We walked down the front avenue and came to the stile into the lake field, so called because in winter water took up most of it. All the feelings for him that I thought I had forgotten returned, not only as if they had never gone away, but with renewed force.

  ‘It’s very kind of you to have made such a long trip.’

  ‘Ronnie’s a good friend,’ Frank said.

  ‘He writes to me.’

  ‘I know. He writes to me too and tells me.’

  ‘Tells you what?’

  ‘Everything. He says he’s going to marry you.’

  ‘I don’t believe he told you that!’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Of course it’s not true.’

  Frank smiled. ‘Ronnie’s impulsive. He’s like his father, not really connected to the world. Maybe the army will sort him out.’

  I looked back to the house and could see that the French windows had been opened and that people were drinking their cups of tea on the lawn. Frank took out cigarettes.

  ‘This is a tough day for you,’ he said quietly.

  It was until you arrived, I wanted to say, but instead I blew smoke from the side of my mouth and asked him, ‘How is your wild friend who tore down the banner that night?’

  ‘Stephen? What did you think of him?’

  ‘I was frightened. He was so… intense.’

  Frank’s eyes sought out something in the distance. ‘Stephen believes that the Brits should be put out of the Six Counties. He thinks Ireland should take advantage of the war and strike hard whilst England’s attention is elsewhere.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous talk?’

  ‘It’s insane. But the funny thing is that just over twenty years ago, it was the talk of heroes.’

  ‘For some,’ I said, despite myself.

  ‘Always, for some,’ he said.

  I thought of the land on which we were standing and the danger posed to it by people like Stephen and maybe even by Frank Waters. So much I didn’t know — of life, of my country, of love.

  ‘Why did you save him?’ I asked.

  ‘Because he’s my friend,’ Frank answered and looked at me. ‘Just as Ronnie is my friend. You do hard things for your friends.’

  I realised with a jolt that he had travelled over a hundred miles and walked the last five to present Ronnie’s condolences to people who represented everything he despised. I said, ‘I’m sorry if coming here has been so hard for you.’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s something about you’, he said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This is not you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how I know this, but somehow I do. The girl I saw at the rugby match and the one I met at the dance were completely different. Which one is you?’

  I wanted to explain so much to him, to tell him that he was right and that it was I who had allowed my own stupidity to sink us before we had ever set sail. But then I saw Bella.

  ‘I think we should go back in now,’ I said.

  Bella stood just inside the hall door, peering out, trying to make out who I was with. Her face clouded as we approached.

  ‘This is my sister, Bella, this is Frank Waters, a friend of Ronnie’s,’ I said as breezily as I could. ‘He’s come up all the way from Monument to be here today.’

  As they shook hands, I could see Bella’s eyes become enlarged with curiosity.

  ‘Ah, the Shaws,’ she said. ‘Do you see much of them?’

  At that moment, Lolo appeared behind Bella and made frantic, jerking motions with her head. I went in.

  ‘The Penroses are leaving!’ Lolo whispered. ‘Mr Penrose asked to see you.’

  I walked through the house and out to the stables, where Mr Penrose and Norman were standing by thei
r chauffeur-driven car, the father looking impatiently at his watch, the son smiling as if the very sight of me always led to his enchantment.

  ‘My dear’, said Stanley Penrose, placing his hands on my shoulders and composing his face in an expression approaching happiness. ‘I have admired you since you were a baby. I know you as if you were my own. Before I leave now, I just want to say that from this sad day on, whatever we have is yours. All of it. Want for nothing. Your days of wanting are over.’

  And so saying, as Norman fixed me with a look of utter knowing, they swept out.

  I went upstairs and lay on my bed and shivered. Conversation bubbled from the rooms below. Everything and one seemed to be conspiring in my future, their own needs uppermost and mine of no consequence. I was being steered away from my own feelings, just as now, lying on my bed at a moment when the man I wanted most was downstairs, wondering if I might reappear.

  I lay there for a good while, then I heard cars starting and footsteps on the gravel. I sat up and looked out the window. He was getting into someone’s car. My heart raced so much that I almost couldn’t hear. I had one chance and I was going to take it.

  ‘Iz?’ I had raced down the stairs and passed Bella in the hall. She caught me. ‘Where on earth did he come from?’ she hissed.

  ‘You were introduced to him.’

  ‘He’s a dock worker,’ she said incredulously.

  ‘Let go of me!’

  I ran out. The car was nosing away. It belonged to some of Daddy’s corn merchant friends and they were giving him a lift.

  ‘Frank!’

  The car stopped and he climbed out of the back.

  ‘I tried to find you to say goodbye,’ he said.

  ‘I wanted to write to you after the dance and apologise for my behaviour, but I didn’t know what to say,’ I blurted.

  He stared at me. I said, ‘The real me was the me at the rugby match.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’