Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

The love I had known both buoyed and drowned me, for there were times when I knew I had lived rarely. We had been wonderful together. We had infused one another. I saw the silent people and pitied them.

A form arrived in late April from the Land Commission, requesting it be filled in and returned. A statement of the activities they knew did not exist on the acres they were poised to grab. I threw it to one side.

On the first day of May, as I got up from bed and saw the rain but did not care about it, and heard the dull drone of defeat, an awful nausea broke me out sweating all over and I stumbled to the enamel basin. I needed to lie down. I was drained and sick. Perhaps I was dying. Perhaps the flame we had kindled together was now going out and me with it. Good , I thought, and curled up and went to sleep. I ate nothing that day and was sick again that evening and the next morning. I could think then only of the financial burden of a long-term illness, of the length of time it had taken Daddy to die and of his final degradation.

The doctor who had come to Daddy lived in Trim; I went down to the village one day and asked John Rafter to drive me to him.

‘You look well, Iz,’ he remarked.

It was all glib charity, I thought, no one could bear to face me with truth any more. John left me out in Trim; I went and sat for an hour before I was seen. The doctor’s warm hands probed and pressed. He looked into my eyes.

‘A little sample, if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Seston,’ he said and handed me a kidney bowl before going discreetly behind a screen and turning on the taps of his wash hand basin.

He took the results of my performance and returned behind his screen. He came back out, a wry look on his face.

‘You probably know already,’ he said.

‘Know what?’

He looked at me sceptically. ‘You’re pregnant, Miss Seston.’

John Rafter was waiting for me in the middle of the town.

‘Are you all right, Iz?’ he asked, frowning.

I smiled. ‘I’m better now, thank you.’

I made him drop me by our gates and walked up the avenue, feeling the wisdom of nature. Rooks flapped high in the trees and I was happy for them, for I was back at the beginning and time lay before me in abundance. As I neared the house, Mother waved to me from her place in the sun house. Inside, I sat at the desk in our little used drawing-room, opened the middle drawer of it and took out a sheet of notepaper. I was both crying and laughing as I wrote, for I knew this would work. My words spilled across the page with fond purpose. The silent world would be outraged when it learned of my decision, but I did not care. There were worse outcomes than this, far worse. I signed the letter, put it in an envelope and addressed it to Ronnie Shaw Esq., Sibrille, Monument.

The taxi made its way along Thomas Street, past the Dublin Guinness brewery, then swung down by Christchurch and on to South Circular Road. Over Leeson Street Bridge and past the Burlington, it made the turn into Ballsbridge.

The pace of change bewildered Dick Coad. Even by the standards of a country solicitor, his understanding of global economics was limited, yet he deplored the daily erosion of history, the charge to transform by erasure. The house, on a quiet road near the embassy, came into view. It had changed little from the day he had come up with her in 1957. The same solidity, the same front garden, and back. The same chestnut tree — now it had changed, had grown, its leaves already yellowing in early September, reaching to the bay windows of the first floor where she had slept.

Dick paid the taxi, pushed in the gate and walked up the path. He had been in love with her, he knew, but so too he was sure had every man who had ever met her.

‘Good morning, Mr Coad.’

‘Miss Toms.’

He followed her in and, by habit, sat in his usual chair before leaping up again.

‘I’m sorry, I normally…’

‘Oh, sit, sit,’ said Bibs Toms, ‘and I have Earl Grey ready, because I know you and she always took it.’

He watched her bring over the tray. She was still a big woman, although bent now and with much of the bulk gone from her.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Bibs said, putting down the tea. ‘I never imagined this would happen. I don’t deserve it.’

‘It is a wonderful outcome and one on which her heart was fixed,’ Dick said and savoured the fragrant tea. ‘You were very good to her.’

‘She was my friend.’

‘You nursed her. You allowed her to die here, at home.’

‘Oh, stop that. Now, you will have to advise me about leases and tenants and whatnot. Do you know, I’m nearly seventy-five and this will be the first time that I will ever have had money.’

Dick flared alight a cigarette, then looked at her in fresh consternation, batting the smoke away with his hand. ‘I do apologise, I should have asked.’

‘ Pas de problème ,’ Bibs said and lit one herself. ‘Another bad habit she got me into. Smoked to the very end, you know.’

‘I’m glad,’ Dick said and they beheld each other with shining defiance.

He took out documents to do with probate and the transfer of property from his briefcase. Bibs signed for five minutes and Dick witnessed.

‘Some fresh tea?’ she asked when they had finished.

Dick declined, looked at his watch. ‘I wonder if I might see the garden before I go?’

Together they walked out the back and down the long garden of burgeoning plum and apple trees. The air was fragrant with summer’s heat. The gardens of these houses extended all the way to a lane at the back; the properties either side had been chopped and mews houses built with entrances from the lane. Dick and Bibs came to a slated shed, an old apple house.

‘Her pride,’ Bibs said and opened the door.

Dick peered into the dimness. On slatted shelves either side stood last year’s apples, or what remained of them, each one to its space, separate from its neighbour. The smell was deep, almost like that of cider. All the boards of the roof sat snug and even. Although the space in here was small, it exuded a feeling of contentment.

‘She spent most afternoons down here,’ Bibs said. ‘It was where she felt happiest.’

‘I may, you know,’ said Dick as they walked back, ‘take some notes from the pages she left, purely for historical reasons, of course, because I’m sure she would not have wished that part of what she put down to be destroyed.’

‘Quite,’ Bibs said. ‘Of course.’

‘I mean, I don’t think it would be going against the spirit of her instructions were I to jot down a few things, perhaps even copy some parts with a view to later expanding them. I’m quite used to this sort of thing. I’ve published a history of Monument, you know.’

‘Have you, really? I didn’t know.’

‘Oh yes. A History of Monument and District . You can buy it in the tourist office. In fact, you can buy it in the bookshop in WiseMart now.’

‘And did you write it under your own name?’ asked Bibs.

‘Indeed I did. Richard Coad.’

‘I must remember that,’ said Bibs.

She walked with him to the front gate and stood there as he made his way to Ballsbridge to find a taxi. Nice man, but a dreadful squint. His father had hunted and she had kept his mare and brought it to the meets. Now his son was her solicitor. Her solicitor! Bibs giggled. The thought of it. She climbed the granite steps to the front door. The garden flat had a separate entrance and was let to people from the embassy for £600 a month. Bibs had gone weak when she had heard. She had not really believed it until today. £600 a month! She’d lived on a fraction of it all her life. Of course, some people might not know what to do with so much money, but Bibs did. Out near Bray was a woman with some land who took in stray horses. Dozens of the poor things, all shapes and sizes. Feed and bedding had to be purchased, vets bills had to be paid. Bibs had stood for hours outside freezing church gates with a collection box until her hands had all but fallen off. No need for that any more. She took the tea things to the kitchen sink and began to wash them, whistling.