by Edna O'Brien
No sooner has she finished the first glass of wine than the tears start up and the owner, who until then has disliked her, comes over to the table to enquire what the matter is.
“Mòrto” she says as she looks up at him, and now he becomes solicitous and asks her in broken English to explain to him what the matter is.
“Il mare,” she says, and he nods and describes the fury of the storm by puffing out his cheeks and making awesome gulping sounds. Upon hearing her story, he pushes away the wine bottle and tells his daughter, Aurora, to bring cognac. Eileen realizes that it must be grave indeed, because of his ordering the cognac. He recalls drownings in their little village, the grief and horror, the darkness that descended, and although she cannot understand everything that he is saying, she gets the gist of it and wrings her hands in terror. He crosses to the counter and quickly dials the phone, all the time looking in her direction in case she does injury to herself. Then as soon as the phone is picked up at the other end, he turns away and talks hurriedly, leaving her to assume the worst. He comes back proudly twirling his moustache and in halting English tells her that no news of a sailing accident has been reported to the lifeboat people.
“Courage, courage, courage,” he says, confident that the anguish will turn to laughter before long. By about nine she decides to go back to the house and he assures her that a table will be kept for the hungry ones. Then he dashes to the counter and takes from a jug two roses, which he gallantly gives her, along with his card.
* * *
THE VILLA is dark, dark as a tomb, and she runs in and switches on all the lights.
“They’ll come in the next five minutes,” she says, quite convinced, and even dares to stare up at the wall clock with its spiderlike hands. They do not come. They will not come. The patron of the restaurant is her one friend. He will help her with the formalities, he will talk to the police for her, he will see to it that the divers go down. But what then? What then? she asks, her voice quivering. With each fresh admission she feels that the measure of her delirium is heaped full and that she cannot bear it, yet mind and body dart to the next awful minute. She walks all around the table touching its surface, then into the bathroom and out again, and back and around the table, and then into the two bedrooms, first her own, then theirs, and draws back the covers as if for a honeymoon couple. The clock and woodcuts on the wall are askew and she sets about straightening them. Then she commences a letter to the owner of the villa, who lives in Madrid, explaining why she has had to leave sooner than expected. By doing this she is admitting the worst. She is very calm now and her handwriting clear as a child’s. She thinks of Penny’s parents, whom she has never met, foresees their grief, their shock, their rage, their disbelief. How could they lose such a daughter, Penny, Penelope, the embodiment of cheer and sunniness? Her father, being an army man, will probably take it better, but what of her mother, the overweight woman whom Penny described as being psychic? Maybe she already knows, has seen her daughter in the depths of the ocean among the preying fishes. Then, with a grief too awful to countenance, she sees Mark with his bloodshot eyes and recalls his renunciation of her.
There is a beam of headlights in her drive and immediately she rallies, concluding that it is the police, but as she rises she hears the small friendly hoot that is their signal. All of a sudden she feels ridiculous. They come in, bright, tousled, and brimming with news. They tell how they met an Englishman with a metal detector who took them on a tour of the island, showed them old ruins and burial grounds, and how later they went to a hotel and swam in the pool but had to hide underwater each time a waiter went by. They are giddy with happiness.
“Did you sail?” she asks Mark.
“We did, but it got a bit dangerous,” Mark says, guessing how she must have panicked. Together he and Penny tell her of a beautiful restaurant where they have been; the tables tucked away in corners, the cloths, the flowers, the music, and above all, the scrumptious food—sweet mutton, zucchini, and potatoes cooked with mint and butter.
“We’re going to take you tomorrow night,” Penny says with a smile. It is the first time they have looked at each other since the outburst and Eileen now feels that she is the younger of the two and by far the more insecure. Penny has forgiven her, has forgotten it. The day has brought her closer to Mark and she is all agog.
“We’ve booked a table,” Mark says, and wags a finger at Eileen to indicate that it is to be their treat.
“I think I should go home,” she says, lamentably.
“Don’t be silly,” he says, and the look that he gives her is full of both pity and dread. She is on the point of telling him about the day, the scrubland, the youths, the storm, her frenzy, but his eyes, now grave and moist, beg her not to. His eyes ask her to keep this pain, this alarm, to herself.
“What did you do?” he asks nevertheless.
“Oh, lots of jolly things,” she says, and the lie has for her, as well as for him, all the sweetness and freshness of truth. For the remainder of the vacation they will behave as if nothing has happened, but of course, something has. They have each looked into the abyss and drawn back, frightened of the primitive forces that lurk there.
“Tomorrow…” he says, and smiles his old smile.
“Tomorrow…” she says, as if there were no storm, no rift, as if the sea outside were a cradle gently lulling the world to a sweet, guileless sleep.
ANOTHER TIME
IT HAPPENS to one and all. It is given many names, but those who have it know it for what it is—the canker that sets in and makes one crabbed, finding fault with things, complaining, full of secret and not-so-secret spleen. Nelly knew it. She knew she was in trouble after that dream. She dreamed that one of her children had stripped her of everything, even her teeth, and when she wakened she decided that it was time to get away. “Get away, get away,” she said several times to herself as she hurried up the street to a travel agent’s to look at brochures. In a small, unprepossessing office she saw posters of walled cities, all of which were gold-coloured; she saw churches, canals, castles; and each one filled her not with expectations but with doom. It was as bad as that. Suddenly it came to her. She would go home—not to her own people but to a small seaside town about twenty miles from there, a place she had always yearned to go to as a child, a resort where some of the richer people had cottages. It was remote and primitive, on the edge of the Atlantic, the white houses laid out like kerchiefs. She had seen photos of it, and it had for her a touch of mystery, a hidden magic; it was a place where people went when they were happy—newlyweds and those who got legacies. There was a jetty across, so although an island it was not cut off completely, and she was glad of that. The ocean could pound or lap on three sides and yet she had a link with the land, she could get away. Getting away preoccupied her, as if it would lead to redemption.
* * *
AS SHE CROSSED THE THRESHOLD of the bedroom in her hotel, she saw that it did not bode well. It was a tiny room, with a tiny sagging bed, bits and pieces of tasteless furniture, and a washbasin in one corner with a vein of rust running down from one of the taps. The coat hangers were of metal, and either they were buckled or their hooks were so attenuated that they looked like skewers. A view of the ocean, yes, but it was not an expanse, more a sliver of grey-green sulky sea.
It will get better, she thought, fearing that it wouldn’t. She could hear the man in the next room as she hung her clothes. He was coughing. He’s lonely, she thought, that’s why he’s coughing. After she had hung her clothes, she put on a bit of makeup before going down to have a drink with the owners. The owners had welcomed her and asked her to have an early drink before dinner. On impulse, she gave them the bottle of champagne that she had bought at the airport, and now she wished she hadn’t. They seemed so taken aback by it—it was too patrician—and it was not chilled.
Opening the champagne took quite a while, because the husband was more interested in telling her about some of his more exotic travels than in wheed
ling the cork out. The wife was a bit heavy and had a sleepy, sad face with big spaniel eyes. They seemed to have no children, as children were not mentioned. The husband held forth about jobs he had held in Borneo or Karachi or wherever—that was when he was in oil. Then at length he had decided to settle down, and he found himself a wife, and they came back to Ireland, to their roots, and bought this hotel, which was something of a legend. The previous owner was an eccentric and made people do morris dancing and drink mead.
No morris dancing now, Nelly thought as they lifted their glasses. They were tiny glasses—sherry glasses, really—and the champagne was tepid. Just as the cork flew out, a tall boy had come in from the kitchen and stared. He was a simpleton and had to be told by the wife to go back in to mind the cabbage.
“Go in, Caimin,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, coveting the green cork, with its dun-gold paper. The husband was telling Nelly that she had picked a most unfortunate evening for her first dinner. They were overbooked, jam-packed. A party of twelve at one table alone. He himself had not taken the booking; a silly young girl had taken it over the phone. He apologized in advance. Nelly looked around the dismal room, with its checked tablecloths and kitchen chairs, and was not regaled by what she saw. There were empty wine bottles above the sideboard and all along the wall ledge. They were green and dusty and served no purpose whatsoever, and she supposed that the champagne bottle would go up there somewhere and be just as useless. He wasn’t pouring fast enough for her. She wanted to drink in great gulps, to forget her surroundings, to be removed from them, to forget the impulse for her coming, and to blot out the admission that she had made a mistake.
“We reserved you that table,” he said, pointing to a table in the corner, close to the window, with a view of the road outside. The road was covered with mist and the summer evening could easily pass for October or November. Suddenly radio music and loud voices came from the kitchen, and then a buxom girl emerged followed by another girl with long plaits. They had come to lay the tables. They were big, strapping girls, and they more or less slung the plates and the cruets onto the tables and made a great clatter with the cutlery box. They eyed Nelly sitting there with the boss and the Mrs., and one of them whispered something to the other—probably about her being a big shot, maybe even someone from the Tourist Board. Occasionally they would laugh, and the simpleton would rush from the kitchen, holding a ladle or a saucepan in his hand, to join in the levity. Soon the wife rose, put her hands to her chest, and said very formally, “Duty calls.” Then the husband picked up the bottle of champagne and said, “We’ll chill the rest of this for you. You can have it with your meal.”
* * *
AS SHE TURNED the key in her bedroom door, Nelly met her neighbour. He wore a suit and a cap, and it was clear that he was not accustomed to being on holiday. His first remark was how beautiful the hotel was—a palace. A palace! A bit of dark landing with linoleum and off-white doors, like hospital doors, leading to the rooms; a sickly maidenhair fern in a big brass jardiniere. He spoke with a clipped Northern accent as he enlarged on the glories of the place, the seashore where he had just been walking, the peace and quiet, and the big feeds. He was on his way to the public house for a few jars before dinner. Would she care to join him? She realized that he had been waiting to pounce, that he must have heard of her arrival—a woman on her own—and that he had assumed they would become friends. She declined. He asked again, thinking she said no only out of courtesy. She declined more firmly. She saw the smile leave his face. She saw the scowl. He could hardly endure this rebuff. His anger was rising. He pulled his key from his pocket and, for no reason, proceeded to open his door again. Anything to withhold his rage. They were from the same country, goddamn it; just because she lived abroad was no reason to snub him. She could read his inner thoughts and guess his outrage by the obsequiousness of what he then said.
“Aah, thanks a lot,” he said, and repeated it twice over, when in fact he wanted to strike her. He had reverted to some shaming moment when he had thanked a superior whom he really hated.
I have made an enemy she thought as she entered her room. She went straight to the washbasin and splashed her face fiercely with douches of cold water.
* * *
DINNER WAS INDEED a boisterous affair. The party of twelve was mostly children, ranging from teenagers to a baby in a high chair. The mother addressed each child by name, over and over, sometimes admonishing, sometimes approving, so that Nelly soon knew that the baby was called Troy, short for Troilus, and would have to eat those mashed potatoes before he got his mashed banana. The mother was a strong, bossy woman, and without these hordes of children to address she would have been lost; she would have had no part to play.
“Eat that stew, Kathleen,” she would call, backing it up with a glare. It was mutton stew, with potatoes and onions floating in the thickened parsley sauce. Big helpings were on the plates, and the extra vegetables were piled in white enamelled dishes, like soap dishes. The champagne on Nelly’s table seemed absurd. Each time she poured, she looked away, so as not to be seen, and surveyed the road in the rain. Most of the other guests drank soft drinks and milk, but one quiet couple had a bottle of wine. The man who had invited her to the public house ate alone and never once looked in her direction. In fact, when he entered the room he made a show of saluting one or two other people and deliberately ignored her. He drank tumbler after tumbler of milk with his stew. The waitresses, in some show of bravura, had put flowers in their hair, bits of fuchsia, and it was clear by the way they giggled that they thought this to be very scandalous. All the guests resented the interlopers who made such a fuss and such demands—asking for more napkins and for orangeade, some begging to be let down from the table, others slapping their food into plump pancakes, others simply whinging. A German au pair, who sat among the children, occasionally poured from a water jug but otherwise did not pay much attention to their needs. The waitresses dashed about with second helpings and then brought big slabs of rhubarb pie, each decorated with a whorl of cream so whipped that it seemed like an imitation chef’s hat. The owner came into the room and went from table to table—except, of course, to the rowdy table—apologizing to his guests for the invasion, asuring them that it would not happen again. “End of story … end of story,” he kept saying, giving the intruders a stern look. The irate mother, sensing rebuff, ordered a pot of tea and a pot of coffee while telling some of her children to go out and play in the grounds. Meanwhile the whipped cream was leaking into the rectangles of rhubarb pie.
All the guests were given a complimentary glass of port wine, and by the time Nelly had finished hers she was the only one left. The room was almost in darkness and it was dark outside. She kept waiting for the candle stump to sputter out, as if that were to be the signal to go upstairs. Already she was thinking that she had only five more dinners to endure and that she would be going home Saturday. Home now seemed like a nest, with its lamps and its warmth. The simpleton gave her a start as he appeared over her, a big clumsy figure in a skeepskin jacket.
“Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked. He had a muffled voice, and there was a stoppage in his speech. It was as if he had too much saliva.
“I’m afraid I will,” she said, and hoped she didn’t sound too peeved.
“I’m glad you’ll be here. You’re a nice lady,” he said as he shuffled out, and rising, she picked her way between the tables, certain that she was about to break down.
* * *
IN THE MORNING things seemed quite different—sparkling. The sea was bright, like a mirror with the sun dancing on it, and there was nothing to stop her going down there and spending the whole day walking and breathing—getting rid of the cobwebs, as she put it. She would pack a basket and bring down her things. She would write cards to her sons and her friends; she would read, reread, and, after the few days, she would be something of her former self—cheerful, buoyant, outgoing.
The sand was a pale, biscui
t colour that stretched way ahead of her—to the horizon, it seemed. The people dotted here and there were like figures in a primitive painting. Those in red stood out, both the toddlers and the grownups; red was the one splash of colour in this pale-gold, luminous universe. The sea was a baby blue and barely lapped. It seemed so gentle, not like the sea that roared and lashed, but like an infinite and glassy terrain that one might scud over. There were dogs too—the local dogs resenting the dogs that had come with the newcomers, snarling until they got to know them. Some people had erected little tents, obviously intending to settle for the day. Some walked far out to sea, and a few stalwarts were bathing or paddling. Although sunny, it was not yet a hot day. She would walk forever; she would gulp the air with her mouth and her whole being; she would resuscitate herself. Here and there, as she looked down at the sand, she would see empty cans, or seaweed, or little bits of sea holly in clumps—shivering but tenacious.
“I am walking all my bad temper away … I am walking my bad temper away,” she said, and thought, How perfect the isolation, the sense of being alone. She loved it—the near-empty seashore, the stretch of sand, the clouds racing so purposefully, and now the sea itself, which had changed colour as if an intemperate painter had just added blue and green and potent violet. The colors were in pockets, they were in patches, and even as she looked there were transmutations—actual rainbows in the water, shifting, then dissolving. She would walk forever. There wasn’t a boat or a steamer in sight. As she looked back at the town, its cluster of white cottages seemed like little rafts on a sea, on the sea of life, receding. People she met smiled or nodded, to compliment her on her stride, and the good thing was that she always saw them as they came towards her, so that she was not taken by surprise. Yet it was a jolt when a woman ran up to her and took her hand. She recognized Nelly from the short time when she had been a television announcer.