Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

‘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.

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 things 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.