Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

‘Of course you didn’t, Daddy!’ Bella said.

Daddy leaned forward in his chair. ‘You know Rafter, our local merchant?’

‘Little fat chap?’ Norman said.

‘He’s not a bad man, all things considered,’ Daddy said, bound up in his own world. ‘His son’s had himself elected to the local council and Rafter tells me he thinks he can get them to hold the line as far as Longstead is concerned. Ah, the belle of the ball!’

Mother looked young in a startling way, just as my father looked old. I recognised the dress as the one last brought out for Lolo’s party — emerald silk, its hem to the floor. She gave her cheek to Norman. The twin Misses Carr hovered behind her, but when Daddy glared at them, they took off.

‘Norman, you made it,’ Mother said. ‘Have you seen Iz?’

‘How could I have missed her?’

‘Isn’t she lovely?’

‘Mother!’

‘Absolutely lovely’, Norman said with huge seriousness and Mother went blind with happiness.

Daddy reached to Mother. ‘Norman’s been telling us that these bloody land agitators were over at Grange last week.’

‘Oh, we mustn’t begin the evening with a recitation of our problems,’ Mother said.

‘Ha! I’ll be a month dead and you’ll wish I was there to recite them for you!’

‘Let Daddy speak, Mother,’ said Bella, who always became assertive when Mother appeared.

‘All I was attempting to say,’ said Daddy grimly, ‘was that Rafter has a feel for what’s going on at a local level. They could be out there at this moment planning to march on Longstead tonight and we wouldn’t know.’

‘I hope they don’t come tonight, we’d scarcely have enough food,’ said Mother blithely.

Daddy was angry. ‘It’s not a laughing matter! We’re not going to give in without a fight!’

‘One of us should get elected on the council.’

A silence gripped the group.

‘For God’s sake, Iz,’ Daddy growled, ‘you’re not going to end up like that dreadful Gore-Booth woman, are you?’

Bella was looking at her hands, shaking her head, as if to say that I could always be relied on to put my foot in it.

Lolo had just come downstairs and heard the conversation.

‘You’d have us end up with our throats cut,’ she said tightly.

‘That’s Iz, all right,’ said Bella.

‘Iz has a point.’

My father closed his eyes in resignation, a reflexive gesture to Mother’s voice whenever it entered an argument.

‘How are we ever going to have a say in our own country if we don’t become involved?’ Mother asked.

I could see that Norman was amused.

‘You have to go out and work to get elected, Mother,’ said Bella with great patience.

Mother frowned. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

I said, ‘Exactly! There’s nothing to stop one of us from being elected. Then we wouldn’t have to rely completely on the likes of Mr Rafter to save our skins.’

‘Rafter’s all right,’ my father growled.

‘I’ll vote for you, Iz,’ said Harry.

‘These people are no different to the IRA.!’ Lolo cried. ‘They’ll stop at nothing until England is driven from Ulster!’

‘Well, I must say, I can’t blame them,’ Mother said. ‘It’s high time Ireland was left to govern itself.’

‘You’ll end up behind bars if you don’t come to your senses!’ Daddy shouted.

Bella drew herself up and raised her chin. ‘Land agitation is a fad. What fools we would look if we jumped onto councils and things and then the fad ended. We would be far worse off than we are now.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said my father and he and Norman raised their glasses.

‘What a load of bloody nonsense,’ Harry said so only I could catch his words.

I wanted to say so much all at once, but Bella’s aura and beauty seemed impregnable. I went though the hall and out to the lawn and crossed it to a wall in which a seat was set. The sound of stringed instruments being tuned crept from the dining room. On the gravelled sweep that circled Longstead, cars were parked, their angled hoods and big headlamps silhouetted against the deepening sky.

‘Do you smoke?’

I jumped. ‘Oh!’

‘I saw you come out.’

Ronnie Shaw snapped open a metal lighter and flame shot up between us. ‘We once lived in a place as nice as this.’

‘What happened?’

‘The Land Commission took it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Gave my father worthless pieces of paper. In one way it’s all quite amusing. I mean, my father was hopeless at managing things, so you could say we’re better off. There’s no more of this wondering what’s going to happen. We sleep soundly. We live our lives.’

‘Where?’

‘In a place called Sibrille, it’s on the sea near Monument. Do you know Monument?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But you’ve heard of it.’

‘Of course I’ve heard of it.’

‘Everyone has heard of Monument, the same way as they’ve heard of Venice.’

‘Come on!’

‘Monument’s built on the loveliest river in the world. It rises from its quays, a town of tiers and terraces. Mediterranean, they say. You can almost smell the olives. You’re Iz.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re very pretty,’ he said, looking directly at me. A gap divided his two front teeth.

‘What did you call the place you live in?’

‘I’m serious. The prettiest girl here by a long shot.’

‘Mr Shaw, do you always go such a headlong gallop?’

‘It’s Ronnie. We live in the lighthouse in Sibrille. On really stormy days we can’t get out.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You don’t believe anything I say.’ He crossed his legs and blew smoke into the air. ‘You must come and see it some day.’

‘We know very little about the sea here,’ I said.

‘It becomes part of you. Lives in your ears and your nose. Like a woman.’

‘Whatever that means.’

‘Means one comes to live for it. Or her. Sailors see the sea as a woman.’ He flicked his cigarette and it sailed away into the bushes in an arc of red sparks. ‘You’re not horsey.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Your sister Lolo told me. She said, “That’s Iz. She hates horses”.’

‘I don’t. She didn’t.’

‘There you go again. She even told me your age.’

‘My age is none of your business.’

‘Twenty.’

‘I’m twenty-one.’

‘Doesn’t matter to me. In fact it’s a novelty to meet someone who’s not half horse. My father and mother do nothing else except hunt in the winter, four days a week, and trek around gymkhanas in summer, trying to flog horses to wealthy English people. You’d like the sea, though, I can tell.’

‘Of course you can’t tell, you’ve barely met me.’

‘It’s not difficult. A pretty girl who prefers the garden on her own to a crowded house. Odds on she’ll like the sea.’

‘I have been to the sea.’

‘Not one like ours, I bet. Different every day. We have waves as tall as your oak trees.’

‘You’re such a liar.’

‘Twice as tall sometimes. They break ships the size of your house to matchwood against the rocks. More than a hundred soldiers and seamen drowned off Sibrille after the Napoleonic wars. There’s a tablet to them. Yet for all that, we still call the sea a woman.’

‘No one owns the sea,’ I said.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Here everything is about what you own. Which means land, I suppose. There are more problems owning than not owning, I think. You said as much yourself. You said you sleep soundly.’

‘Did I?’

‘“We live our lives”, you said.’

‘Not only is she pretty, but she forgets nothing.’

I ground my cigarette out. ‘Do you?’