The Sea and the Silence Page 15

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I was unforgivably rude.’

  ‘You were so angry’, he said, ‘I just couldn’t make out why.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘I thought you were married to Alice. It was myself I was angry at.’

  I expected him to laugh, but he said nothing for a moment. ‘Ah.’

  ‘You must think I’m a fool’.

  ‘Do I look as if I think you’re a fool?’

  My breath was coming fast. ‘The only reason I came down to the dance was to see you.’

  His eyes searched my face. The driver of the car was honking on the horn.

  ‘Do you think it might work? Us?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I think it might.’

  ‘I’m willing to try it if you are,’ he smiled.

  ‘Yes, I’m willing to try,’ I said.

  He climbed back into the car and drove away.

  I said, ‘I love you.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  1944

  Except for Allan, everyone left the day after the funeral and the house found a new routine. Spring cleaning began. When Daddy had been alive, he had been the focus of everyone’s energy; now jobs that had been put off for years were suddenly commissioned. Mother, of course, took no part, for although being married for years to an invalid was a strain from which she was happy to be released, I knew that part of her had gone with him and that grief respects no logic nor is any less no matter how long awaited.

  My joyful mood, inappropriate though it was in the circumstances, carried me like a cork on a flood. Every time I thought of Frank, which was all the time, I smiled, for I was revolving through a galaxy of delight. My happiness was infectious: the girls in the house who were dusting and sweeping were happy too, and sang, as I did, as they brought ancient rugs into the garden and beat out decades of dust. Even as I sang, I knew that nothing but obstacles lay ahead of us, for the obligations in which our family had been reared were clear and, guided above all by the need to retain property, made a grave crime of marrying outside.

  I found Allan sitting on the wall of the fairy mound. He held a match to my cigarette, then lit his own.

  ‘When are you going back?’ I asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you like it? I mean, the army?’

  Allan looked away. ‘I’d never have joined up except for Daddy.’

  ‘Really? I thought you couldn’t wait.’

  ‘You were away at school. I was trying to get this place back on its feet, but every night he’d start on at me, about Ireland’s neutrality and about how I was shirking my duty. My duty, you know. When I told him the war wasn’t Ireland’s, he went purple. I eventually joined up just to get away from him.’

  Allan, I realised, had become idealized in my mind over the years, a distant and absent hero on whom everyone could depend.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know’, I said.

  ‘It’s the past, it’s over now.’

  ‘What will you do, now that he’s no longer here?’

  ‘I have to see it through. I’m an officer, I have obligations to my men. But when it’s over, I’ll come back here and have Longstead humming within a year.’ He smiled. ‘What will you do, Iz?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘With your life.’

  ‘I hate these kind of questions.’

  ‘But you have dreams.’

  I watched crows circling, eyeing their nests. ‘I would like to get away when the war is over. To see a lot more of the world than Longstead.’

  ‘And then? To come home?’

  I looked at him. ‘I don’t think so. It’s different for a woman.’

  He said nothing for a moment.

  ‘I like him, Iz,’ he said softly.

  I stared at my brother, then laughed. ‘How do you know anything?’

  ‘I saw you with him just before he left. The way you were looking at one another. And in the last few days here you’ve been floating on air.’

  ‘Yes, I am happy,’ I said, still laughing. ‘But you don’t know him.’

  ‘I know men, Iz. He and I chatted for nearly twenty minutes the other day. He’s a good lad. A bit hot, maybe, but his heart is in the right place. He’ll go far.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘The war. Like everyone, he wants to know when it will end. About Ireland. Ronnie Shaw’. Allan grinned. ‘He told me that Ronnie wrote and said he’s been beagling in Scotland.’

  Wind swept through the top branches of the bare trees above us.

  ‘Bella will have a fit,’ I said.

  ‘Forget Bella,’ Allan said. ‘Forget this place and all the nonsense. Follow your heart.’

  ‘Do you really mean that?’

  ‘Of course I do. We’ve only got one life. You’ve got to live your dreams. No one else is going to do that for you.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’

  ‘I know. But he’s worth it. I know that,’ Allan said. ‘And so do you.’

  True to his word, Norman Penrose began to show up with men and with horses harnessed to ploughs. Paddocks were turned and fencing was seen to in fields which in spring would graze cattle. Norman could often be seen walking our land with his foreman, pointing to this and that with the blackthorn stick he always carried. Afterwards, he invariably called in and was given tea, but I kept a good eye out and managed to avoid many of these visits.

  Frank had written to me as soon as he got back to Monument. His letters matched my mood — they overflowed. I wrote back and asked him to come up again as soon as he could. I thought of nothing else except of how he would suddenly appear, as he had the last time, and of all the things we would then have to say and do together.

  A letter came from Ronnie in February. It was written with a tone of resignation. It seems that he and Allan had met somewhere in the south of England. I could just imagine poor Ronnie bubbling away about me and Allan gently but firmly putting him in the picture. Although he did not mention Frank, Ronnie wished me whatever my heart desired and asked only that I keep a part of myself, however small, for him to love. I had to smile, for although Ronnie was not the type of man I could have ever imagined myself with, he was, at least, consistent in the advancing of his affections, and he was kind.

  Frank arrived one afternoon as the first green pinheads appeared on the hazel. I saw him from a distance, riding a bicycle up the avenue. I thought later how telling it was that even as a speck so far away, I was sure that it was him. He had taken the train to Kildare and cycled the rest, a journey of nearly forty miles. We went in and I brought him to the little sitting room beside the kitchen where, in winter, seasoned cuts of beech crackled from dawn.

  ‘Mother, this is Frank. A friend from Monument.’

  ‘From Monument? ‘Mother turned from her easel. ‘I have always wanted to paint the quays of Monument.’

  We had tea and hot scones and afterwards Mother showed him her watercolours. Frank said,

  ‘You should exhibit.’

  ‘Oh, I never would. Who would buy them?’

  ‘I would, if I had the money,’ he said.

  We went walking then, and the evening was the first one in which a real stretch of light was evident. Where we had paused by a stile on the day of the funeral, this time we crossed it into the lake field and walked to a derelict shed where once ewes had been brought with their new born lambs out of the harsh weather.

  We were both so happy that words were unimportant. We didn’t even touch, as I recall. It must have been that afternoon that he told me about his family, about his father, a merchant seaman, who, like all in his trade, had been put out of work by the war. Frank had been to school and had read the classics. He liked Milton and Wordsworth. He did not intend to spend his whole life working on the docks in Monument, he said, but could see no alternative until after the war.

  ‘After the war,’ I remember saying to him. ‘The whole world is waiting until after the war.’

  We had supper with Mot
her and, when she went to bed, sat either side of the fire as the silence of the great house in the vast reaches of the echoingly empty countryside seemed to vibrate. I told him about the problems we were having with local land agitators and how only Allan could save Longstead from the Land Commission. Frank was silent for such a long time that I began to wonder if he’d heard what I had said.

  ‘I sometimes think there is no answer,’ he said eventually.

  A log fell out on the hearth and he picked it with the tongs and put it back in place.

  ‘I know people whose minds are filled with nothing but destruction. It’s as if they want to erase the past. You can’t talk to them. They won’t change,’ he said.

  ‘So there is no hope,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes I think the only hope is to get out of Ireland. To get as far away as possible and to love my country from a distance.’

  I didn’t tell him then how I had often felt the same, but as I saw him into Allan’s room that night, then went to my own and got into bed, I was lifted up by this great vision of us together somewhere far away, our hearts filled with love and our backs turned forever on destruction.

  Those were the soaring days. I can tell you that I had never lived before then, nor known my own soul. Frank came up from Monument to Meath almost every weekend, or if he didn’t, it was because the train to Dublin had been cancelled due to lack of fuel. I got John Rafter to teach me to drive our car so that I could collect him from Kildare station, or if the guards were out, scrutinising the roads for cars not entitled to burn precious fuel, I would meet him at a pre-arranged point between Longstead and Kildare and he would load his bicycle into the car and we would drive home. One Saturday morning, John Rafter drove up to see if we wanted anything brought to or collected from Dublin. Five minutes later, Frank and I were in the van with him, heading east.

  After that, Dublin, less than an hour’s drive, was where we most often met. Frank took the train directly and I made my way into the city by means of a lift or the erratic bus service. Mother adapted without demur to our relationship and began to look forward to Frank’s visits to Longstead. He was a very good listener; she told him tales from her Yorkshire childhood that I had never heard before.

  I came to regard Dublin — its grey streets, its newspaper vendors and ponds of ducks and grimed statues — with the utmost affection, for my baptism of love took place among them all. We walked through Saint Stephen’s Green, arm in arm, or by the Liffey bridges, or sometimes took a tram to Sandymount and walked its vast beach, so far out on occasions that I wondered would we ever make it back to shore. I didn’t care. I sensed that I sailed rather than strolled, that the whole world, hitherto a place of mystery and problems, was embellished richly for my benefit. Each night, I took the bus, or, if I was lucky, a lift home, and Frank either came with me or went back directly to Monument.

  As the warm days of May came in, we took picnics down to the woods in Longstead, and lay there on carpets of bluebells. One day, we went for a spin with Mother in her pony-drawn trap, out the gates of Longstead, through Tirmon and in a loop towards the village of Grange. It was a day of endless promise, the grass banks of the narrow roads shining with primroses and the air rich with their scent. Peace lay on the land like a warm, caring hand.

  ‘Shall we call in on the Penroses?’ Mother asked as we approached Grange and the walls of Mount Penrose came into view.

  ‘I don’t think this would be a good time, Mother,’ I said.

  ‘Stanley Penrose is one of the best landlords in Ireland,’ Mother said to Frank.

  ‘Then maybe we should go in and burn the place to the ground,’ said Frank and nudged me.

  ‘Are you a revolutionary?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I just know one or two.’

  ‘I adore revolution,’ Mother said. ‘It must be so exciting!’

  ‘Well, we’re not going to burn Mount Penrose today, Mother, just to amuse you,’ I said.

  ‘It is completely panelled in oak,’ Mother observed, as we made our way home.

  In Longstead that evening I told Frank about Norman Penrose and how my family’s greatest wish was that I would marry him.

  ‘Maybe your family is right,’ he said.

  ‘I would die,’ I replied.

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for security,’ Frank said. ‘For an assured future.’

  ‘Look at me,’ I said, and he did. ‘I would die,’ I repeated, and neither of us smiled.

  The following weekend we met in Dublin and took a tram out as far as Howth. In warm heather, as yachts like toys glided at our feet, we kissed with a new urgency. And when we got back to Dublin, we went not to the place where the bus left from, but to a hotel called The Wicklow. In the back bar, we drank whiskies, then each of us went, at three minute intervals, up the curving stairs to the bedroom Frank had reserved.

  It was that night that I first felt the all-possessing thrill of love. I felt as if my body had been turned inside out. I wanted to keep the moment for all time, indissoluble.

  ‘Was it bad?’ he asked afterwards.

  I rolled into him. ‘They say for girls who’ve ridden horses it’s easier.’

  ‘I might have known,’ he said.

  Bella came home in May with a man in tow. In his mid-thirties, tall and cool, he was called Nick Sinclair and worked in London in some ministry or other, a family tradition, I gathered. He had never been to Ireland before.

  ‘Iz is the backbone of Longstead,’ Bella told him.

  She was radiant and Nick Sinclair could not drag his eyes from her.

  ‘Wonderful old place,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the latest from Rafter?’ Bella enquired.

  ‘His son still says that the Land Commission will hold off until the end of this year’, I replied. To Nick I said, ‘We all hope that the war will end and our brother Allan will come home.’

  Bella described for Nick how Longstead was in peril.

  ‘They just take it?’

  ‘They pay for it with pieces of worthless paper called land bonds. So yes, in effect, they take it,’ I said.

  ‘Nick says we may not have to wait too long for the war to end, don’t you, darling?’

  Nick smiled thinly. ‘Hopefully.’

  ‘Nick knows but cannot say,’ Bella said.

  After supper, Bella announced that she and Nick were to be married. Mother seemed pleased in a glassy-eyed sort of way. I went to the kitchen and found a bottle of the champagne left over from Bella’s party. We sat and drank as Bella described how she adored life in London and Nick made commitments to become better acquainted with Ireland.

  ‘Is there another bottle of fizz?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘I just want to make sure there’s one here when you announce your news,’ said Bella.

  I laughed her off. ‘I have no news.’

  She turned to Nick. ‘There’s this wonderful man who is completely infatuated with our Iz.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Nick.

  ‘You mean, Frank?’ Mother said.

  Bella’s face went into spasm. ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘Frank,’ Mother said, with no idea of the consternation she was causing. ‘That lovely young man from Monument. He is quite the connoisseur of art. He very much admires my birds.’

  Bella put down her glass. ‘Are we talking of the dock worker? I don’t believe this. ‘

  ‘Frank believes in a united Ireland,’ said Mother, ‘and I agree with him.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ cried Bella and closed her eyes. She turned to Nick. ‘The man I was actually referring to is Norman Penrose. He has taken over the running of our farm and transformed it. His uncle is Sir Charles Penrose.’

  ‘Ah,’ Nick said and nodded.

  ‘Iz, Norman Penrose adores you. Are you completely stupid?’ Bella asked.

  I marvelled at my own composure.

  ‘Bella, I am so pleased for your happiness, and for
yours, Nick. But since no one bullied you to come to your decision, I’d be grateful if you could bear that in mind when it comes to me.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Bella said again.

  ‘I may even hold an exhibition,’ Mother said, gazing at the tiny bubbles spiralling up from the bottom of her glass.

  Later, Bella got me on my own.

  ‘By all means have your fling with your handsome dock man, but, for God’s sake, when you come to your senses, marry Norman and save Longstead.’

  ‘How dare you speak like that, Bella! Why should I forsake my happiness to suit you? Or anyone else?’

  ‘Because the happiness you refer to is an illusion. This is the first man who’s managed to lay a hand on you, so of course you like him, but then you have to take a thousand other things into consideration. Such as, who is he? What does he represent? Is his background compatible with our own? Sadly, the answer is no.’

  ‘You are despicable!’

  ‘I’m a pragmatist. It just won’t work and it’s my duty as your older sister to tell you.’

  ‘You are so stuck in the past that it makes me ill!’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Mother,’ Bella said quietly. ‘She told me he’s quite the hothead, your docker. Wants to burn down Mount Penrose, she said.’

  ‘That was a joke!’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t. Nothing would surprise me in this country nowadays. It’s being run by corner boys. And dock hands.’

  I faced her. ‘I used to worship you, Bella. I used to be so proud to watch you and to have such a beautiful older sister. But what you have just said makes me ashamed that I have ever known you.’

  My sister set her face at its sharpest. ‘I’m going to forget that. But believe me when I say this: I have a duty to Daddy and this family that you seem to have decided to ignore and I’m not going to stand to one side and watch my younger sister make a complete fool of herself.’

  One evening as we sat by the fire, Mother suddenly put her book down.

  ‘Iz, I want to go home,’ she said.

  My first thought was, She’s losing her mind.

  ‘You are at home, Mother.’