Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

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.

Tapes of the River Delta

Theo Shortcourse has always been overshadowed by his charismatic nephew, Bain Cross, who is three years older than him and the favorite of Theo’s beautiful, manipulative mother, Sparrow. Now the corrupt Bain is the most powerful figure in the Irish Government, and Theo is sought for murder. As he hides from his pursuers in the river delta, he reflects on his life and his childhood in the small town of Monument. There his fate became entwined with Bain, Pax Sheehy – to Theo the moral guardian of his time – and the dark secrets that govern all the characters in his damaged life, from generation to generation.

Wrought in exquisite, ravishing detail, Tapes of the River Delta’s themes of blood and tribe, politics, church and law, desire, betrayal, violence and guilt reflect the “blasted hopes of twentieth century Ireland.”

Consequences of the Heart

D-Day on a Normandy beach. A flip of a coin seals the destinies of two men in love and war. From one of Ireland’s finest writers, Consequences of the Heart is a glorious and epic story of passion and fate, of cowardice and bravery, of adultery and of murder.

Chud Conduit, wild grandson of the most powerful businesswoman in Monument, and Jack Santry, gentle Anglo-Irish heir to the estate on the hill, are the most unlikely of friends. United by their love for Rosa, beautiful daughter of the town bookmaker, they are bound by a sudden catastrophe that flings all three adolescents from their Garden of Eden. Chud and Jack meet again on the beach at Normandy, where actions determine the course of the rest of their lives in ways that none of them can escape. One wins Rosa’s hand in marriage, the other her eternal affection, sealing their destinies together over six decades, tangled in a triangle of love that is stronger than social convention and well beyond the law.

Love in One Edition

When Jasmine joins the staff of the Monument Gazette, she finds herself falling in love with Kaiser, a man whose childhood is shrouded in mystery. She resolves to learn the truth about his origins. But as she delves into the history of Monument and the three generations of Pender family who have owned and run the Gazette, she uncovers not only Kaiser’s violent past, but also an appalling secret that threatens to shatter many lives, not least their own.‎ Love in One Edition is part of Peter Cunningham’s acclaimed Monument series‎. ‎Set in ‎the fictionalized landscape of the author’s native city of Waterford, these stories describe Irish ‎people and their lives and loves from the late nineteenth century to the present day‎. ‎The ‎novels have been widely praised in Ireland, the UK and US, and in translation‎.‎

Peter Cunningham is an award winning Irish novelist.

He is best known for the historical novels The Sea and the Silence, Tapes of the River Delta, Consequences of the Heart and Love in One Edition, which chronicle the lives of local families during the twentieth century, in Monument, the fictional version of Waterford in south-east Ireland, where Cunningham grew up. His novel, The Taoiseach, which was based on the life of former Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles J. Haughey was a controversial bestseller. Capital Sins, a satirical novel, dealt with the collapse of the Irish economy during the financial crisis that began in 2008.

Cunningham’s work has attracted a significant amount of critical attention and praise. The Sea and the Silence (translated into French as La Mer Et La Silence) was awarded the Prix de l’Europe in 2013. This novel was also short-listed for the Prix des Lecteurs du Telégramme and the Prix Caillou. Consequences Of The Heart was short-listed for the Kerry Listowel Writer’s Prize. In 2011 Cunningham won the Cecil Day Lewis Bursary Award.

His fiction is distinguished by its fusing of political material with psychological realism and a lyrical sensitivity to place and people.

Peter Cunningham is a member of Aosdána, (the Irish Academy for Arts and Letters). He has judged the Glen Dimplex Literary Awards and the Bantry Festival Writer’s Prize.

Under the pseudonym Peter Wilben, he has published the Joe Grace mystery thrillers series available here in ebook.

He is married to Carol, a Jungian analyst, with whom he has six children. He lives in County Kildare, Ireland.