The Coast Road, page 6
Chapter 7
Colette checked the flowers in the rearview mirror. An extravagant arrangement of yellow roses and eucalyptus and baby’s breath, it rocked back and forth with the motion of the car. She’d driven to Donegal Town to purchase them that morning, and to visit the off-licence there. Her not infrequent trips to restock on wine at the supermarket in Ardglas had been registered by Mrs Doherty. Often dour and reserved, on her previous visit, Mrs Doherty had taken her money with such slow and studied seriousness that Colette thought the great weight of her conscience might forbid her from completing the transaction. But of course she had, and Colette had decided there were better places to spend what little money she still possessed.
She refocused her attention on the road ahead as she approached the main street of Ardglas. Up on her left, a group of lads in the navy St Joseph’s uniform sauntered along the pavement. They moved with such synchronicity – shoulders rounded, hands stuffed in pockets, sliding along like a shoal of fish. It was only when she drew closer that she could distinguish her son as the centre of the group. She checked the clock on the dashboard – lunchtime wasn’t for at least half an hour. They were probably headed for the lane near the chip shop where lads from the school went to smoke. She drove past them and pulled up at the curb and almost didn’t recognise her son’s face in the mirror. A smile slung ear to ear, but so taut, so sly.
The group passed her and she rolled down her window. ‘Barry,’ she called, but not loudly enough. She started to move the car so that it hovered alongside them. She shouted again. ‘Barry Crowley, I know you saw me.’ One of the boys elbowed him and nodded in her direction and Barry careened off towards the car.
‘What do you want?’ he said.
He had a new haircut – grown out and choppy and the fringe almost down over his eyes. He looked like one of those Gallagher brothers from that band everyone was listening to.
She pulled the handbrake. ‘Barry, what are you doing out here at this time?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Barry – get back to school now or I’ll ring your father and tell him where you are.’
‘As if he’d listen to you.’
‘Barry, what did you do to your hair?’
He leaned in very close then, almost poking his head through the window, spittle collected in the corners of his mouth. He laid his hands on the window frame and she could see that each of his fingernails was rimmed with a little crescent of dirt. ‘Fuck off, you old slapper,’ he said, and walked away.
‘Barry, don’t think that you can talk to me like that and get away with it.’ She edged the car along the pavement. ‘Come back here now!’ But just as she said that, Charlie McGeehan stepped out of Doherty’s with a bag of shopping hanging from each arm and almost collided with the gang. Reeling, he swung in one direction then the other before raising his eyebrows at the departing group, and then at Colette. She put her foot to the accelerator and was on the far side of the town before she remembered where she was going. Checking the flowers again, she saw their little yellow heads peeping out above the fringe of brown paper.
She nosed the car over a narrow bridge and the road opened up before her onto a view of the bay, the lighthouse sitting squarely at its centre. Pulling up at Izzy’s house, she admired her view, which took in the entire length of the coastline to where it dropped off at the horizon. Across the bay she thought she could make out the chimney of the cottage, just visible beyond the brow of a hill. She took a moment to collect herself, determined to put this incident with Barry behind her. As a politician’s wife, Izzy would be used to people looking for favours, and it would require the full force of her charm to gloss over the strangeness of just showing up unannounced.
When Izzy opened the door, she took the flowers into her arms and admired them but Colette recognised the confusion in Izzy’s eyes, smiling and trying to pretend she wasn’t surprised by her arrival.
‘Come in, Colette,’ she said. ‘Go in there to the good sitting room and I’ll make the tea.’
Izzy went off down the hall and Colette walked into a long room that ran from the front to the back of the house. The room had a window at either end but it didn’t seem to get much light. There were two sofas and she seated herself on the one facing the door. The other was flanked by floor lamps with long tassels trimming the shades. An enormous glass-fronted cabinet took up a whole wall, one side filled with crystal vases and bowls and the other with colourful figurines – little boys in lederhosen and cherubic girls in headscarves. The side tables were covered with lace doilies where porcelain ballerinas jetéd and pliéd. On the table next to her a tall, slender girl in a pink skirt reached up as though to pluck a leaf from an invisible tree.
‘Ah, you’re admiring my Lladró,’ said Izzy.
Colette looked up and watched Izzy carrying a tea tray into the room. She knew the Spanish word was pronounced with a y but she thought better than to correct her. ‘I’m admiring this woman anyway,’ Colette said.
‘She’s my pride and joy.’ Izzy laid the tray on the coffee table. ‘God, it’s nearly dark already,’ she said, and went to turn on the main light. ‘There aren’t many hours in the day this time of year, Colette.’
‘Oh no, blink and you’d miss it,’ Colette said, and after so many hours alone in the cottage not speaking to anyone the shapes of the words felt strange in her mouth.
Izzy sat on the sofa opposite. ‘Thank you so much for the beautiful flowers. Such a treat. It does your heart good to have a bit of colour on a day like today. I don’t suppose you remember the flower shop I used to have up on the main street.’
‘Indeed I do. It was a great thing to have in the town.’
‘Oh, it was a lot of work too. And when kids come along, they change everything.’ Izzy lifted the teapot. ‘Do you like a strong or a weak cup?’
So much energy, Colette thought. ‘I’m not fussy.’
Izzy poured a pale stream into a cup and handed it to her on a saucer covered in colourful little petals.
‘You have so many lovely things, Izzy.’
‘Oh, I won a lot of them at golf. The Waterford Crystal, those are all golfing prizes. James won a few as well. Then the rest are gifts, but you know James can’t accept gifts over a certain amount and he’s fierce honest about that sort of thing. So people try to say thank you in different ways. We have more china than I know what to do with – we’re coming down with all the Belleek. And people know that I collect Hummels so they keep arriving.’ She stood and Colette watched her cross the room. Such a petite woman on top, it was like the two halves of her body moved independently, her wide hips swayed and her arse wagged as she walked to the cabinet. She flicked a switch so that the figurines lit up. ‘That’s Little Boy with Flute, and that’s Little Girl in Tree, and that’s my favourite, Little Boy with Sheep.’ She was pointing in an exaggerated way so that Colette could not help but smile, and despite the gaudiness of the figurines she was charmed by Izzy’s fondness for them. ‘I won’t even tell you how much they cost,’ Izzy said. ‘It’s a sin.’ She sat down on the sofa again and smoothed her hands over her knees. ‘Are you settling back in?’ she asked.
‘Oh, well enough. I’ve made a little home for myself up in the cottage. It’s starting to get cold but sure I’ll manage.’
‘Well, stay warm anyway, there’s nothing more miserable than the cold. Have you plenty of blankets and that sort of thing?’
‘Oh. I’m made of strong stuff.’
Izzy nodded and smiled. ‘And what about your job at the university?’
‘That was just a fellowship, a six-month thing. I had to apply for it and all of that, but the funding only lasts six months. It’s grand anyway, it means I can get on with my own work now.’
‘And how’s that going?’
‘Oh, as well as can be expected. Work is work. People think that when you’re a writer you love writing so much you skip to the desk every morning, but there can be days when it’s a struggle, when you’d rather do anything else.’
‘Oh God! It’s hard for you too? And you’re a professional. There are days I sit down at that table to try and do my homework and I feel completely blank.’
‘Well, it happens to the best of us.’
‘I don’t suppose much has changed around the town since you left. You always think when you go away you won’t recognise a place when you come back and then it’s the same as ever.’ Izzy was staring down into her cup. ‘But we have a new priest. Who I know you’ve met. Father Brian. He’s a breath of fresh air. A great addition to the town. Just what we needed really. The last fellow was too sweet to be wholesome.’ Izzy gave Colette a knowing look. ‘He used to be a Guard.’
‘Who?’
‘Father Brian. He was a Guard up in Dublin for years and then one day he got the Call and that was it.’
‘He must have some stories.’
‘Yeah – but he doesn’t talk that much about it.’
Colette watched Izzy’s gaze wander off around the room.
‘What part of Dublin are you from again?’ Izzy asked.
‘Terenure.’
‘Oh no,’ Izzy said, ‘he’s from somewhere over on the Northside – Drumcondra, I think.’
‘Well, he seems to be kind anyway, easy going.’
‘Ah yeah, he’s a bit of craic. Even James likes him. And that’s saying something.’
‘How is he?’
‘He’s fine. Finding it difficult to settle in to a new parish, I think, but he says the people in the town are welcoming and try to—’
‘No. I meant James – how is he?’
‘Oh, he’s grand. Same as ever – busy, busy, busy. On the road the whole time. But he never seems to switch off – he’s obsessed with it.’
‘With politics?’
‘With the town, the community, the area. You’d swear he was running the country, he puts that much into it. And there’s always something.’ Izzy tapped her fingernails against her cup. ‘You might be able to get a divorce soon,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I heard there’s going to be another referendum next year. Depending on what way it goes – you could get divorced.’
‘Who said I want a divorce?’
‘Ah yeah, I know, but if you did want to you could.’
‘It seems an odd thing to me that a load of strangers can get together and make a collective decision about my marriage.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Colette. Don’t mind me. I have a terrible habit of saying the first thing that comes into my head.’
Colette looked down at her wedding ring and began to turn it on her finger. She knew that Izzy smoked but she couldn’t see an ashtray anywhere or smell cigarettes. She thought about taking her tobacco from her handbag and placing it on the table to prompt her, but there would have been something almost shameful about smoking in this fussy little room.
‘How are your boys?’ Izzy asked.
It was like someone had walked up behind her and laid two heavy hands on her shoulders. She lifted her head and tried to focus on Izzy. The light coming through the window behind her had already begun to fade. It had reached that time of day when she started to bargain with herself, and she knew that as soon as she was done with this conversation she’d drive straight back to the cottage and pour herself a drink.
She placed her cup and saucer on the table. ‘Ronan is fine. He’s at Trinity now. Studying business. We’ve told him a thousand times he can go off and do whatever the hell he wants but I suppose Shaun would like him to take an interest in the factory so that one day he might at least consider taking it on. And he’s compliant, Ronan. That’s one thing about him; he’s never given us one bit of bother. It was nice when I was in Dublin because I got to see a bit more of him. We’d meet up for lunch in town. And he never blamed me for anything that happened. Unlike Barry, who hates me with every fibre of his being.’
‘Oh, teenagers!’ Izzy said. ‘They’re the worst! Our Orla only comes home from boarding school at the weekends to fight with me.’
Colette felt defeated by Izzy’s performance, this attempt to make it seem like their situations were one and the same.
‘But Carl,’ Colette said, ‘I’ve barely spoken to Carl for the past six months and for the past six weeks I’ve been living less than three miles from him. I’ve tried reasoning with his father. I’ve phoned, I’ve written letters. I’ve tried everything bar going out to the house and lying down in the driveway. I need to see my son. And I’m not going to start hanging around the school gates like a mad woman. He’s been through enough.’
‘Have you seen a solicitor?’
‘I don’t want to go down that road yet.’
‘But if Shaun is stopping you from seeing your sons, then—’
‘I need your help.’
Izzy stared back at her in silence.
‘Carl and Niall are friends,’ Colette said. ‘I thought that maybe—’
‘Not like they used to be.’
‘What?’
‘Honestly, that’s why I thought you were here. When I saw the flowers, I thought they were some kind of peace offering.’
‘Did Carl do something?’
‘They’ve been fighting. They had an unmerciful scrap in the schoolyard. Niall was brought home by Una Mallon with a cut eye.’
‘And Carl started it?’
‘No, there was a pair of them in it, but it’s very unlike Niall.’
‘Well, it’s not like Carl.’
‘Niall said that Carl has been off with him for the past few months, and when I asked him what they were fighting about, he said you.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, Carl teased Niall and Niall said something about you and the whole thing kicked off.’
‘But how would Niall know anything about me?’ Colette asked.
‘Oh, he must have heard something from one of the other kids.’
‘But kids . . . what would they know about . . .’
She watched something change in Izzy’s expression then, like she was really seeing her for the first time.
‘Well, Colette, aren’t you a naïve woman if you think you haven’t been discussed in every house in the parish.’
An old slapper – that’s what Barry had called her.
‘I have been naïve about a lot of things. But I’m ready to put them right. I need an hour with my son, to talk to him and explain my side of the story. You could take the boys away for a drive, somewhere there’s less chance of bumping into anyone we know. Tell me what time to meet you and I’ll just appear as if by coincidence. I’ll go off with Carl and talk to him and bring him back within the hour. Izzy, you don’t know what it’s been like up in that cottage night after night, knowing that your family are so close by.’
‘Then why did you leave in the first place?’
‘I have got so many things wrong. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of mistakes I’ve made. For a start, I took up with a man who turned out to be the most useless, cowardly eejit I’ve ever met. And I thought I was going to go off and take Carl with me and start a new life with that man and Shaun would just step aside and allow that to happen, and it would make us both happier. And when that all fell apart, I spent two months sleeping in my mother’s spare room when the very first thing I should have done was get in the car and drive home to my sons – and I misjudged everything.’
‘Colette, do you really think that I can go driving around the country facilitating clandestine meetings for you? And what do you think is going to happen afterwards? A child can’t keep a secret – he’s going to go straight home and tell his father that he saw you and then where will you be?’
‘You don’t know Carl like I do. And anyway, even if he does say something then at least Shaun might communicate with me, something will have happened. But the way things are at the moment, I feel like I might never see him again. And you would not be facilitating “clandestine meetings”, as you put it. You would be facilitating a meeting between a mother and her son. Do you think I’m going to run off with him or something?’
‘No, I don’t think you’d touch a hair on his head.’
‘What if James tried to stop you from seeing Niall?’
‘And what if James got wind of this? Yours wouldn’t be the only marriage in trouble.’
‘Ah, I see – that’s it.’ She rose from the sofa. ‘You’re trying to keep the peace.’
Izzy clasped her hands at her knee and stared down at the coffee table.
‘Right,’ Colette said, taking her car keys from the pocket of her cardigan, ‘if you’re not going to help me, that’s fine, but I had to ask. I won’t mention it again. And I don’t want things to be strange between us at the workshop or for you to feel like you can’t come anymore. I enjoy having you there. I mean that. I can forget about this if you can.’
Izzy nodded but she kept staring at the tea tray, and Colette felt herself to be very tall, looming over her on the sofa. She glanced at the figurines in the cabinet – their fat little faces, the weird pastoral scene they made, laid out on the shelves. She turned her gaze back on Izzy, sitting there so primly, with her legs crossed and her back straight. And Colette had to bite her tongue not to say that she knew someone who wanted a divorce, but it wasn’t her.
Chapter 8
That Friday the fleet came in laden down with fish and by midnight every pub in the town was full. When closing time came at the Reel Inn the landlord locked the doors and extinguished the neon sign outside to allow a contingent of heavy drinkers to carry on without arousing the suspicions of the Guards. Among them was Michael Breslin, the local butcher. At forty-five years old Michael still lived at home with his mother and joked that he was unlikely now to give up his bachelor ways. Most days, as soon as he got out of his blood-stained smock, he went home to give himself a rudimentary wash at the bathroom sink, changed into a shirt and blazer, and headed for the pub.
