Edith, page 26
‘I’m greedy for life. I make no apologies for it.’
Edith sighs. She offers an olive branch. ‘Why not spend Easter in Castletownshend? You can criticize my organ-playing in St Barrahane’s. It’ll be warm enough for boating, and we can walk together in the blue-bell woods. The bluebells won’t mend your ears, but they’ll raise your spirits, I promise. Say you’ll come and stay in Drishane.’
‘Draft-ridden, ramshackle barn! I’d rather die in a ditch!’
‘In that case, I shan’t ever invite you again.’
‘Oh, don’t sulk.You know I don’t mean it.’
‘Why say it?’
‘Because you keep on retreating into your Irish world where I can’t follow you.’
‘I’ve just asked you to stay.’
‘You know precisely what I mean. You’re unavailable to me there, somehow, surrounded by your Irish mists and bogs. I know Castle- townshend is Shangri-La to you, but I’ve had enough of the place. I want to be with you – but elsewhere. With no distractions. How about New Zealand? What an odyssey that would be! I’ve always had a hankering to go. You haven’t really travelled until you’ve been on another continent. Won’t you consider it? For my sake?’
‘No, Boney, and you must stop pushing me. It’s tiresome. I haven’t the money for such a trip. And before you offer, I don’t want to borrow it from you. My mind is made up. I spoke to Martin last night and she agrees it’s time I went home.’
Boney says nothing.
Edith rises, gathering her umbrella and bag.
A dam burst explodes in her path.
‘Your automatic writing is muddle-headed tosh! You use it to suit yourself!’
‘You don’t have a psychic bone in your body. How would you know?’
‘I know codology when I see it. Martin’s dead, Edith, dead and gone. But I’m here. Living and breathing. And loving. You can have me if you want me.’
Shocked to the core, Edith chooses to disregard the second part of what she’s just heard.‘Martin is as real to me now as she ever was. Death changes nothing.’
‘She’s a figment of your imagination. That automatic writing comes from your consciousness, not hers.’
Edith covers her ears. ‘Enough! I won’t listen to another word!’
Boney tugs away her hands. ‘I’ll make you hear this if it’s the last thing I do. No wonder you can’t write for the stage – every ounce of your imaginative power is bound up in the spirit world. An artist must mean what they’re doing. But you’re too busy pretending.’
‘Goodbye, Boney. I’m off to Fortnum & Mason’s now. I shan’t have time to see you before I leave. Good luck at the Albert Hall.’
‘You don’t know what to do with my love, Edith Somerville. That’s your misfortune. And one day you’ll regret it.’
twenty-one
Ireland’s morning skies are brooding, like a forehead wrinkled in thought. Edith disembarks in the prosperous port town of Kingstown, just outside Dublin, and transfers by train to the city’s Westland Row railway station. Under its glass dome, a troop train is preparing to depart. So the newspapers are right – the regiments are being called back to England. The men are boisterous, and she listens to their banter while a porter collects her luggage.
‘I’ll miss the black stuff,’ shouts one.
‘Won’t miss the Micks,’ yells another.
‘Apart from the girls, Nigel,’ cries a third. ‘Bet you’ve left a little Nigel or two behind.’
The porter trundles up from the platform with her bags and crooks his eyebrows in their direction. ‘Can you imagine the havoc those boyos would have wreaked, day after tomorrow, if they had the chance?’
‘Why the day after tomorrow?’
‘St Patrick’s Day, ma’am. Soldiers always drink the pubs dry then.’
Mid-March already. ‘I suppose the natives give them a run for their money.’
‘Not them boys. The Lancashires. They’d drink the eye out of a cat.’
Edith doubles his tip in honour of that dash of local colour, but not before instructing him to wheel her luggage down the ramp to the street and hire a hackney cab for her.
It carries her along Dublin’s noisy, smelly quays to Kingsbridge station, from where she travels on a series of stop-start trains towards Cork. None of them with a restaurant car. Good job she saved some of Mabel’s provisions. The landscape unspools through the centre of Ireland, magic-lantern fashion – from the flat plains of Kildare to the lush meadows of Tipperary. She sees churches with weathervanes, a bridge across a river, a round tower. What a pre-Industrial Revolution world this is, compared with London’s chimney stacks.The further south-west she advances, the less substantial England becomes in her mind. The engine’s rhythmic drone lulls her into a state of quiet joy – she knows it’s no Eden, yet the landscape fills her with a sense of the divine.
Sometimes, the tracks run so close to the road that she catches glimpses of people going about their daily business. Motor cars are less commonplace here. She spots a messenger boy fiddling with his bicycle wheel, perhaps patching the tyre, and notices a farmer’s cart stop to give a lift to some children on the roadside. Sheep and cattle freckle the hillsides. A brindled greyhound lopes alongside the train for a few minutes, before dropping back.
At Limerick Junction, where the train crawls into the station, people emerge from their whitewashed cottages to watch its arrival. They are picturesque, with their thatches and half-doors, often with a horseshoe nailed on for luck. Low hedges have clothes draped over for drying. When the train whistles, the occupants of the cottages wave, as if greeting old friends. Edith has visited enough of those cabins to imagine what lies inside: a smoke-blackened kitchen with low súgan chairs and stools, a wooden settle which doubles as a bed, a spinning wheel in the corner, a kettle hanging from a metal crane over the glowing turf. She’s eaten their bread baked in a pot under woody ash, which lends it a distinctive flavour, and drunk their sweet, stewed tea, sometimes with a splash of poitín in it. The crathur, they call it.They have holy pictures on their walls – tasteless art, she thinks of it – and prints of Robert Emmet and Daniel O’Connell, or maybe Lord Edward Fitzgerald. She supposes de Valera and Collins will be added to the repertoire, in time.
‘Change here for Limerick or Waterford,’ carols the train guard.
She beckons to him. ‘I have bags in the luggage car that need to be transferred onto the Skibbereen train in Cork city. Somerville, three pieces.’
‘No bother, ma’am.’
‘You won’t forget? You look young to be a train guard.’
‘Me, is it? Sure, I’m as old as a pot of last week’s tea.’
Whooping with most unladylike laughter, she slips him a coin.
The train idles as passengers disembark and embark. Two men in homespun tweed pass along the corridor, engrossed in conversation.
‘Act for ourselves … give the people a chance … an end to inherited privilege,’ she overhears.
All this talk of Ireland’s independence makes her impatient. What difference will a change of regime make to the people? Their cottages will still be overcrowded, their children will still emigrate. It’s just how it is in Ireland. The train shrills its departure. Wheels grind and screech. Automatically, Edith waves at the country people raising their hands shoulder high, faces wreathed in smiles. She used to believe that if they didn’t own much, yet they never seemed to want much. Were they deceiving her – or was she deceiving herself?
She considers this world through the train window – there is a sense of fixed places within it. Just as the patchwork fields are fixed into place by the stone walls separating them. But she knows that unchanging quality is no longer the case. Three years of war in Ireland have shaken something loose. Come what may, we’ll always have Drishane and its lands, or at least most of them. But is that another of her fictions? Her thoughts, chug-chugging to the engine’s beat, make her uneasy. She fidgets at the cuff of her new, grey suede gloves.
The train’s approach to Cork city distracts her. Here, single cottages give way to a straggle of terraces and then to tall houses and warehouses, placed so tightly they catch one another at the heels. Amid clanging doors, puffs of steam and bellowing porters, she steps onto the platform at Glanmire Road railway station. As if on a signal, a small, white missile anoints the back of her right glove. She looks up. Pigeons are fluttering about the station roof’s metal fretwork. That dropping is meant to be a sign of luck. It means she’s been singled out. Dashed inconvenient, though.
She hurries into the public convenience to dab at it, before crossing over to another platform.There, she joins a smaller train waiting to carry passengers to Bandon, Clonakilty and Skibbereen. On board, passengers mill about, blocking the aisles and carriages, arranging themselves and their belongings – mostly secured with leather belts and lengths of string – to their satisfaction. The train releases a series of authoritative blasts. Metal heaves out a groan, the engine jolts and they are shunted forward to the accompaniment of slamming doors. Advertising hoard- ings for health tonics, ladies’ fashions and a music hall production swim past. As they exit the station, the door to her second-class carriage opens. A figure in clerical black enters, nods at his fellow travellers and takes a seat next to Edith. He removes a book and spectacles from his bag, and places it in the overhead luggage rack. From habit, she looks at his reading matter, expecting it to be his breviary. It’s Whitaker’s Almanack – the only book Flurry Knox reads.
Edith wonders what Flurry will make of her failure to place Flurry’s Wedding. She half-expects to see him reading the yearbook over the priest’s shoulder – he’s addicted to its information about postage rates, cab fares, government salaries, the opening hours of the British Museum, Easter, Passover and Ramadan dates, and miscellaneous anniversaries including the death date of Napoleon III. She met the emperor’s descendants in Sicily with Boney. A refined little bandbox duke, with a sister in pearls the size of hen’s eggs. Poor Boney, she’s her own worst enemy. Things will never be the same between them.
‘Excuse me, Father. I’ve been away for a while. Are we out of the woods yet, do you suppose? Is the country settled? It’s just that I saw a regiment evacuating from Dublin.’
‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘But please God we’re getting there. The generals are pulling out their men very slowly, to be on the safe side – still plenty of boots on the ground in Dublin, Cork and the Curragh.’
‘The barbed wire has come down in Dublin.’
‘Do you say so? That’s a good start.’
‘It would be lovely if the peace held. The country people have suffered dreadfully.’
‘Indeed and they have. Mankind has an extraordinary capacity for war. But peace always breaks through, regular as the tides.’
She returns to the passing scenery, wilder now, the fields irregular and separated by gorse bushes, the horizon a purple blur. The sea isn’t far away. If she rolled down the window she could inhale its saltiness, but soot smuts from the engine are liable to blow in.The glass is grimed with it. How clear the terrain is beyond this train. Some of that clarity seeps into her thoughts. London wasn’t real life – this is reality. Ireland is where she belongs. And nothing will dislodge her.
—
Mike Hurley meets her at Skibbereen station, Tara in the trap. He tips his hat – ‘Miss Edith. Your telegram arrived this morning. You’ve been missed’ – before collecting her luggage from the porter.
Tara neighs, pawing the ground with front hooves until attention is paid to her.While Mike fastens Edith’s bags into place with rope, the mare nudges her palm for sugar, and Edith conjures up a lump saved from her cup of tea at Kingsbridge. A donkey and cart clops up, the driver’s feet dangling either side of its tail, his wife sitting on a sack behind and facing in the opposite direction. Daylight is nearly leeched from the sky, but Edith recognizes Barney and Lil Egan, who farm a few acres near the famine graveyard. They had a son who ran the holding with them, but he was executed in Cork jail a year ago. She wonders how they manage on their own.The younger boy was said to be willing to come home from Boston, but his father wouldn’t have it – said he couldn’t risk losing a second son.
‘Grand, soft evening, Barney, Lil,’ Hurley calls out.
‘Miss Somerville, Mike.The rain’s held off, thank God,’ answers Egan.
‘Good evening, Barney. Good evening, Mrs Egan. I trust you’re keeping well?’ says Edith.
Egan mutters a few words, but his wife neither looks at Edith nor speaks – it’s said not a word has passed her lips since her son was hanged.
Edith and Hurley watch them recede into the distance.
Hurley sighs. ‘A hard fate.’ He laces his hands, palms outward, to give Edith a footrest.
She clambers aboard and sits side-on to him in the back of the trap, drawing comfort from his stable-yard smell. She’s content for him to take the reins. He’s a natural-born horseman.
Beyond the town, a dash of light rain tickles her face, but the shower is over almost before it began. They jingle along, her eyes rested by the raindrops glinting on the foliage, caught in the arc of their passing lights.
‘How are things in Drishane, Mike?’
‘No complaints.’
‘And in the village? Are they for Dev or Collins?’
‘The Treaty doesn’t please all. And them that’s not pleased is a contrary bunch. Father Lambe reads them the riot act in his sermons.’
‘How do the people take it?’
‘There’s some mutter “Up the rebels!” but not so loud he can hear them. Father Lambe runs a tight ship.’
‘I had a letter from the colonel in Switzerland. He’s planning to come home soon.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Don’t you think he’s been gone long enough?’
‘No harm for him to sit it out a wheen longer. ’Til he sees what way the wind blows.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if Michael Collins is in charge of his own men.’
‘There’s anti-Treaty boyos the length and breadth of the country not too fond of him. Particularly here, in his home county of Cork. They’re calling him a sell-out. Trouble’s coming, Miss Edith. Things’ll be a sight worse before they’re better.’
Edith’s mind sheers away from images she prefers not to dwell on.
‘How’s your comrade? The one that’s powerful fond of music?’ asks Hurley. ‘Sorry to see you go, I dare say.’
Comrade? That’s the best description she’s heard yet of her relationship with Boney. ‘I suppose she was sorry. But she’s a busy person. Plenty to occupy her. I meant to say, I found a buyer for Pilot and Trumpeter in England. Friends of the George Bernard Shaws. Didn’t get what I’d hoped for them, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll be asking you to travel over to Oxford with the horses, as soon as we can pin down the arrangements. They’re still with your friend in Leap, I take it?’
‘Still there, Miss Edith.’
Tara pricks her ears, rounding the bend towards Castletownshend. Without waiting for Mike to direct her with a click of his tongue, the mare veers to the right, carrying them through granite gateposts and along a shady, tree-lined avenue.
In the minute or so it takes them pass along the driveway, Edith resolves to write a letter to Boney before bedtime. She rehearses it in her mind:
You must make arrangements to see thatViennese ear specialist you mentioned. He may have a cure. I’d like to go with you if you’re willing to have company. I should be able to get away again after Easter. Meanwhile, you mustn’t play golf or tennis in the rain. And thank you, dear, for putting up with my vagaries. I cannot change friends as readily as my gown – and so you remain stuck with me, if you’ll have me, as a comrade.
They swing right again, towards the front door, which lies ajar despite the night air, lamps lit in welcome either side of it. Loulou bolts out, yapping up a storm. Poor Dooley, there’ll never be another like him. He was always first to greet her. Still, this salutation from Loulou is gratifying. Mike Hurley jumps off and extends a hand, and she is forced to admit she needs his help to guide her down from the trap. The Irish Sea crossing has multiplied her aches and pains. She has some mustard plasters in her overnight bag. By and by, she’ll put hot poultices on her back and neck.
Loulou darts about like a fish, tail quivering, before making a flying leap and landing in Edith’s arms. Lavish with saliva, she licks Edith’s entire face including both ears, displacing her hat. This excess of affection charms Edith into forgetting her stiff joints.
‘What a little kangaroo you are. Clearly, absence makes the heart grow fonder.’
For a few moments, she stands and looks at the house. In an unpredictable world it remains unchanged. Drishane restores her to herself. A half-remembered Bible quote drifts through her mind. Something about the peace which passeth all understanding.
On a whim, she goes around the house to the kitchen window and looks in. Philomena is in her favourite armchair, smoothing buttermilk over her eczema, while Mrs O’Shea is kneading dough at the table. Tiger is poised on the tabletop, vigilant for whatever can be hijacked.The cat’s ears prick up and she turns her poisonous, pond-green eyes on Edith. Edith gazes her fill. How satisfying it is to reach journey’s end.
She raps on the window and Philomena and Mrs O’Shea’s faces light up. But Tiger’s triangular face registers alarm and she flits away.
Edith and Philomena meet in the outer hallway, each hurrying towards the other.
‘You’re as welcome as the flowers in May, Miss Edith!’
‘Each time I make it over and back to London, it feels as if I’ve accomplished something as difficult as Hannibal crossing the Alps. Any chance of a pot of tea?’
‘Of course, Miss Edith. You’ll have it in jig time. Sure, the kettle’s always boiling. We’ve supper ready for you, whenever you’ve a mind to take it. How was London town?’
