by Jack Dylan
On Thursday they met at Lavinia’s book group, and again were blatantly pleased to see each other, but pointedly avoided any physical contact. Despite separate resolutions made by each of them, they simply couldn’t avoid looking at each other and smiling, as if there was a special bond of communication that was as exciting as it was resistant to being hidden. Lavinia didn’t need to be told that her plotting had worked. She was unselfishly delighted for them and was so focused on the signs and signals between them that she was oblivious to the amount of attention William tended to give her. This wasn’t surprising, as she took the lead in the discussions and kept an eye on the time, so people naturally looked to her more than anyone else. But she had been missing the soft wistful air that came over William when he watched her and daydreamed.
Chapter 27
Turkey May 2006
Maggie writing
“I hear a gentle sound of water lapping against rocks, which sounds quite different from water lapping on sand or on shingle. I hear the high-pitched singing and chirruping of birds high above me. There are distant male voices in a language I don’t understand, but they sound matter-of-fact rather than argumentative or emotional. I hear the gentle rhythmic creaking noise of ropes taking the strain and relaxing; taking the strain and relaxing, as the slightest swell rocks the boat and pulls then relaxes; pulls then relaxes, on the iron rings on the jetty. I hear the distant but increasing beat of a simple engine on a local boat. How do I know it is a simple engine on a local boat? It has the noisily discernible separate percussions of a single cylinder engine rather than the smoother sound of a multiple cylinder engine. It is poorly silenced, in fact it is making a terrible racket, which means it is a local open boat rather than a more expensive and probably foreign-owned motor boat or yacht.”
Maggie was exercising her writing brain just as she had been taught to do years before. She was examining her senses one by one and using the experience to enrich the descriptions of the scenes she was writing about.
“What do I feel? I feel the heat of the sun on my ankles and feet, as the low morning sun cuts its path under the shade of the bimini and under the cockpit table. I feel the hardness of the seat pressing through the thin cushion on the backs of my thighs, and the squishy give of the cushion round my bum as I move slightly from side to side. I feel the hairs on my head moving slightly as a breeze from my left-hand side ruffles the water and disturbs my hair. I feel the cooling effect of the breeze on my left shoulder and arm as I sit writing here.
“What do I smell? I smell smoke. I smell two kinds of smoke. There is a prickly-smelling wood-smoke from the oven, not harsh enough to be termed acrid, but pungent enough to be identified as coming from the pine-wood gathered in the hills behind the taverna. More superficial and temporary is the tobacco smoke wafting over from a nearby yacht, where the teenager seems to have been banished from the cockpit to the bow to indulge, if not enjoy, his rebellious morning cigarette. I smell a faint aroma of fish. It comes and goes so much that I can’t be sure if it is there at all. Perhaps it is because I know the little fishing boat is at the end of the jetty that I think I can smell it. There is a freshness in the air of the breeze that is wafting in from my left, a freshness that isn’t quite an absence of smell yet can’t really be defined. Is it fresh pine-needle smell, is it ozone? That’s no good – that’s me projecting what it might be rather than simply reporting on my senses. I can smell a faint perfumed smell from the sun cream that I used earlier. Perfumed isn’t good enough – if I had used the old coconut oil it would have been easier to describe. I’d need to be a perfumier to identify the clean, hygienic-smelling and deliberately inoffensive scent.
“What do I taste? That’s harder. I taste the after-effect of coffee in my mouth. It is still bitter but pleasant, solid tasting in contact with my tongue, still discernible on the roof and back of my mouth. I think I can still taste the combination of butter and honey on the crisp-edged bread, and the oily sponginess of the bread itself – I can remember a hint of saltiness in it but I can’t still taste that. What I can’t taste is toothpaste – forgotten to do my teeth again – too keen to get started with my writing.
“OK, nearly finished. What do I see? Always the easy one to do, except there is so much. I see distant hills and mountains, still hazy with morning mist, gradually emerging as mostly green, but higher up grey, in the slanting morning sunshine. I see sea, not just a single entity, but a series of patterns differentiated by the breeze and the reflections of land. Close by it is a series of little parallel ripples corresponding with the breeze that I feel on my skin. The ripples disrupt the reflections of the other yachts nearby, and of the trees that seem to be growing out of rocks on the curving shore of the bay. I see a less-rippled, mottled band of water further out. The early morning breeze convected by the heating of the land isn’t affecting the surface out there yet. It looks to be a lighter blue than the rippled water, catching the reflection of the sky and in places the reflection of the green, grey, brown hills in the distance. I see the nearby trees, some impossibly fresh lime-green; others darker pine; some the very darkly saturated green of the mulberry and other bushy growths. In between there are occasional olive trees. Not the regimented and orderly planting on the distant hills, but the random scattering of olive green between the pines. I wonder is that the remains of a more orderly planting, or the self-seeded, bird-dropped pattern of nature? I’m sure birds don’t eat olives so they couldn’t be seeded through bird-droppings – bloody big birds they’d need to be.
“I see the jetty, wood planks whitened by the sun, smoothed by countless feet and deck shoes, hammered into place with now-rusty nails that leave their pattern of spreading brown stains on the bleaching wood. The iron rings on the edge of the jetty look like the work of the village smith. They have the ribbed surface you see on the steel reinforcements before concrete is poured – probably a cheap source of off-cuts of steel, fashioned by the smith into hoops for the jetties, and secured by similarly village-fashioned little iron strips, a raised section forged in the flat to allow the ring to fit in place. The whole assembly is seemingly held in place by nails rather than bolts, but rusting securely into place so that the grip is probably nearly as good.”
“You still scribbling away?” interrupted Alex rudely.
“Just about to finish I think,” came the mild reply. The mood of satisfaction and pleasure was too good to be dissipated by the unwelcome interruption. “In fact I think I might just stop there. It’s really just some limbering up exercises rather than carrying on with the story.”
“How on earth do you do limbering up exercises when you are writing?” asked an unsympathetic Alex.
“Oh I’ll explain sometime,” said Maggie, in such a calm and satisfied mood that she wouldn’t rise to Alex’s usual taunts.
“I’ve been trying to describe this place – you know – a bit like a verbal photograph. Sometimes I think it is the sensations other than sight that really bring a place to life again. When you’re sitting in grey old Clapham in the winter it isn’t just the sights you need to recall, it’s the sounds, smells, and feel of the place. Photographs only do the visual bit.”
OK I’ll admit that given current technology there isn’t much point in smelling a photograph, but surely the photograph acts as the prompt for all those other memories?”
“Yes, you’re right. A good photograph will really do that for me. But the average holiday snap gets looked at for about two seconds before being passed on to the next person. That isn’t long enough for all the associations to come back to life. I want to have words that I can savour, chew, and enjoy again later. Each description fills in another dimension in my little mental reconstruction, and it engages more of my brain than just looking at a photograph.”
“OK, we’ll test it in darkest January in Clapham. A nice bottle of wine, some mezes from the deli, and I’ll happily test your theory.”
“I look forward to it. You can show me your photographs and I’l
l make you lie back with your eyes closed and listen to my descriptions.”
“Mmnn,” said Alex with a mischievous grin.
“You know exactly what I mean.” Maggie closed her notepad, picked up her pencil and glasses, and pretended to huff down the companionway to the saloon below. The smile on her face betrayed the fake huff, and belied the stern tone of voice. She too could imagine just how that evening in darkest January in Clapham might work out. And she liked the idea very much indeed.
It was late May. They were moored in a little bay in Skopea Limani about ten miles from their base in Gocek. Alex had completed his rendezvous a couple of nights previously, and they were now preparing to take their paying guests back to Gocek for their flights home. Apart from the nagging worry of his illicit cargo Alex was happy. The fact that he could be totally, blissfully, uncomplicatedly and almost solvently happy made the underlying worry all the more annoying. He cursed and fumed internally when he thought of the extent to which Katharos was screwing up his perfect enjoyment of life. He had Maggie, whom he appreciated, loved, adored and enjoyed. Physically, mentally and in some vague way that he supposed people labelled ‘spiritually’, he felt relaxed and in tune with her. An involuntary sigh escaped as he thought again of how good life could be after Katharos: the summers on the yacht pottering around Turkey and Greece; the winters picking and choosing the consultancy work that he did. He planned to earn enough to keep them ticking over, but not being driven so much that he resented the work. It sounded ideal. Too ideal.
Chapter 28
Alex: August 2006
London – A letter from Dublin
The winter season in England had gone as well as Alex could have hoped. He had managed to maintain a steady stream of work except for the long gap from mid December to mid January. Maggie had settled into her fairly undemanding role as part-time secretary, and helped Alex organise himself and his work. She fielded phone-calls when he was away from Clapham, and took over all the bookings of hotels and equipment. More significantly, she picked up the threads of her own writing and happily devoted about three hours each morning to her laptop in the kitchen.
“No, you’re not going to see a word of it till it’s finished,” was how she rebuffed every inquisitive enquiry from Alex.
“Chicklit, then, is it?” didn’t go down too well as a taunt, but he knew only that she was enjoying the process and was generally in a humour that related directly to the number of words completed each morning. He teased her about her addiction, and about the negative affect of any failure to meet her self-imposed targets.
All was calm until the third week of April, when Maggie answered the phone and heard the unmistakable torture of consonants that announced Katharos the Greek. He seemed to hang on to his Greek identity through the caricature of Greek-accented English. Maggie suspected that he enjoyed the play-acting that had become an engrained part of his personality since his days probably as an apparently obsequious waiter in the West End taverna. He apologised for disturbing her and asked when he might speak to Alex. Maggie found herself telling him that Alex would be home that evening, and cursed herself for failing to confront the man who was the main threat to their happiness and well-being. However her failure – her realisation of the impossibility of confronting this politely threatening ogre, left her less strident in her complaints to Alex as he complied again with the rendezvous, collection and delivery arrangements dictated by Katharos in May and in July.
The periods in Turkey were the same mixture of delight with the surroundings, mingled with annoyance and anxiety at the illicit activities on behalf of the Greek. Alex developed a comforting theory that the packets he collected were in fact innocuous, and that Katharos was engaged in a subtle game that rendered Alex trapped but in fact in no danger when he carried the packages. This unconvincing hypothesis did not bear scrutiny. He did not allow himself to test it by slitting open one of the elaborately sealed parcels. But the comforting mental escape route sometimes gave him an illogical and disproportionate relief from the otherwise oppressive anxiety.
The chartering business was healthy that year, so without the pressure of guests every week, Alex and Maggie entertained enough groups to make the venture seem worthwhile. They were covering their costs, making a modest profit, and enjoying an enviable life-style.
They arrived back in the heat of London at the end of July, feeling pleased with themselves and full of optimism about their partnership and the business.
But in August an envelope arrived at the Clapham flat. It was belatedly forwarded from Alex’s old office and it contained an artistic and innocent bombshell.
Chapter 29
August 2006: London
Alex opens Lavinia’s letter
Alex picked up the envelope and examined it carefully, rather than opening the inviting tear-off strip. It had a Dublin postmark, which was unusual in itself, and it was one of the high quality data-post envelopes that kept the contents safe from damage in transit, even through the ordinary mail. He hadn’t ordered anything from Dublin – perhaps Maggie had – but it was addressed to him – a present perhaps?
Maggie walked in.
“What have you there?” she wondered aloud.
“Don’t know. It’s come from Dublin. You order anything?”
“No, nothing. What a pity we can’t open it to see what it is.”
“What? Oh very clever. I’m just enjoying speculating for a minute, savouring the expectation, making the most of the mystery. Thought you’d be quite into that sort of thing.”
“Oh stop teasing and open the thing will you.”
“No, I think I’ll wait until tomorrow,” he laughed.
Maggie deftly whisked it from his unresisting fingers, enjoying the tease and the childish fun. She turned her back to him and protected the prize with bent back and jutting elbows as she tore the perforated strip and extracted the contents.
“Oh, I knew she fancied you! You didn’t tell me you had been in touch.”
“Who, for goodness sake?”
“Luscious Lavinia, your Molly Malone, she of the dark hair, dark eyes, and adoring gaze.”
“Yes I did mean to tell you about our steamy affair conducted exclusively through mail packages. What is it?”
“Here’s the letter – I’ll read it.
Dear Alex,
This is a belated letter to thank you for the spectacular holiday last October. In every way it was the holiday of a lifetime I had promised myself. You and (Maggie?) were so good to me. So patient with my incompetence and so good at teaching.
You will probably remember that I took millions of photographs. “How could we forget?” I hear you saying. Well it wasn’t a total waste of time. Some of them were picked for an exhibition – I must admit my sister’s assistance in publishing one in the Irish Times may have helped - but the good news is that they are going to be featured in one of the UK national Sunday papers. Five of them are going into a section on the “magic of monochrome”. They are all from that magic trip with you. I can’t thank you enough.
I enclose a print of my favourite shot – from Kapi Creek I think. It is my thank-you to you for creating the possibility of the photographs.
Please do look me up if you are ever in Dublin.
Very best wishes
Lavinia.”
“Please look me up indeed! I told you she fancied you.”
“Let’s see the photo then. Maybe it will test your theory about words being better than just visual images.”
Maggie slipped the glossy photograph from its protective sleeve and held it up to Alex.
The effect on Alex would have gratified her if she had showered him with a thousand of her elegantly emotive descriptions of Kapi. He reached out a hand to steady himself on a kitchen chair. His complexion paled and his mouth opened, but no sound emerged. His eyes eventually closed and he unsteadily lowered himself to sit on the chair.
Chapter 30
Dublin 2006
Sin
ead and James
Sinead was having many positive effects on James. He was a man more relaxed, positive and confident than he thought he had ever been in his adult life. The years in the bank seemed in retrospect like a long-drawn-out nightmare. He had always known that he was used as a properly spoken low-cost front man with a certain type of customer. He had no real authority, so he wasn’t allowed near the really important clients, but there were many of the bank’s personal customers who liked to deal with Mr Findlater, impressed by the manner, accent and name of this ever-polite and obliging official. More perceptive customers quickly realised that he had virtually no authority and preferred to deal with a senior person, but for years it had suited the bank to continue to employ people like James who personified the old style and ethos of the institution. It had become increasingly clear that he was tolerated as an anachronism by senior managers, but the slights, the put-downs, and the impatience of the younger breed had damaged James in a cruel and stressful way. It was just what he needed now to have a warm, supportive, loving woman to start to rebuild his self-confidence and instil in him the belief that he had something other than a once-useful accent and demeanour to offer the world.
Sinead started to help him to think about what he was going to do with the rest of his potential working life. He was subsisting on the paltry interest from his redundancy money on top of the basic State benefit, and it wasn’t going to last.
“You’re intelligent, polite, well-dressed, well-connected and able to do loads of things,” Sinead reassured him.
“But I don’t want to go back to a job where I’m laughed at behind my back, and go home feeling generally useless.”
“You don’t have to, James. I’ll help you think about the sorts of work you’d like to do and I know someone who’d help you with applications. I just know you’ll feel better when you’re back in a job, and this time one that you enjoy.”