After She Left

by Penelope Hanley

  ‘Season followed season and, as the baby grew, the child always had a pencil or piece of charcoal in her hand and could draw vivid likenesses on a whitewashed wall or a scrap of schoolhouse paper. Brigit did not want to see that talent wasted. Even though it involved a long journey – crossing the Sound in a naomhóg, then being driven in a horse and cart to her aunt Ettie’s house in Ballybunion, or catching the train from Tralee to her aunt Maeve in Dublin, Brigit insisted that Deirdre see wider horizons than island life.

  ‘Maeve had studied at the Royal College of Art in Dublin and had nearly gone to Paris but married a publican instead. God had not blessed them with children, and Maeve took a particular interest in Deirdre. Sometimes Deirdre would spend a few days with her and Maeve would give her watercolours and paper to take back to the Blaskets so she could practise.

  ‘The year Deirdre turned eighteen Maeve paid for her to have a few lessons from an art teacher who lectured at the Royal College of Art.

  ‘But the luck o’ the world wasn’t with her. When she returned to the Great Blasket it gradually became clear to Brigit that she was in trouble. Maeve felt responsible for introducing Deirdre to the bohemian world where she could be preyed upon by Protestant types with no morals and no restraint.’

  Keira put her empty cup on the floor, wiped some crumbs from the soda bread from her mouth and stared at the bright bars of the heater as if into the flames of a fire, while Seamus continued his story.

  ‘Brigit wrote to Maeve and told her to tell the one responsible that if he should buy Deirdre a boat ticket to Australia he would not hear of the matter again, but if he did not, he would be hearin’ about it, an’ his wife too.

  ‘Brigit would make the sacrifice of probably not seeing her daughter again in order to save her reputation and that of the family, to give her a new start, and also the chance of a life that was more than labouring every day of her life.

  ‘At the same time Deirdre was having her trouble, I’d met Bernadette and wanted to see her in Australia, so Deirdre’s parents and her aunt asked me to go with Deirdre an’ to look out for her.’

  ‘Such a drastic step, though,’ said Keira, looking up from the heater to Seamus, ‘for her to go twelve thousand miles away and probably never see her family again – I understand how things used to be, but …’

  ‘With respect, I don’t think you do.’ He walked over and looked out the window. ‘Still raining.

  ‘Illegitimacy was a terrible thing then. ’Tis better now, with film stars – “fillum stars”, he pronounced it – giving birth without bein’ married and never caring what people think. But then, and until recently, it was a thing with terrible consequences.

  ‘When I was thirteen, there was an unmarried girl – Nell O’Sullivan – who had a baby in Dunquin. I was at Mass with my grandfather and Father O’Malley denounced the baby’s father from the pulpit for ruining Nell’s life. He cursed the dances that were the road to Hell an’ said the good name o’ the parish was tarnished.

  ‘After Mass, I asked my grandfather why everyone thought it was a crime when a baby was born like that. He said it was because it ruined a girl’s life, that nobody would marry her and everyone would look down on her and her family ever after.’ He paused. ‘Nell lived on the mainland, in Dunquin, but if you think it was any different on the Blaskets, it was not. It was self-government we had there, but if you did something wrong, people would not be content to let it pass. You had to keep to the straight path, otherwise people would intervene an’ correct you.’

  ‘But who was the father of Deirdre’s child? All I know is a name. What was he like?’ asked Keira. That was her maternal grandfather. She needed to know. But Seamus shook his big head and said, ‘It’s herself you’ll have to ask that question.’ He went to the window and peered out.

  ‘Who? My mum? I don’t think she knows any more than just his name.’

  ‘Not Maureen.’

  ‘Deirdre?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Keira frowned. His voice sounded certain but at the same time casual, as if to ask her would be the easiest thing in the world, instead of the frustrating, elusive and impossible thing it was proving to be.

  ‘Well, you know, I can’t actually ask her, that’s the whole point of interviewing people like you. She has disappeared. She never answers my letters.’

  ‘You can meet her.’

  ‘What? When?’

  He stepped over to the door, opened it and yelled, ‘Deirdre!’

  Keira jumped. Seamus had gone crazy. It was theatrical, his big head and short, stocky form silhouetted against the cold, whitish exterior light, a madman trying to summon a ghost.

  Keira was not naive enough to expect dramatic events in life to be presented the way they were in Hollywood movies, but when something momentous happened, she wanted it accompanied by a degree of dignity and some sort of aesthetic panache.

  She did not expect to see her long-lost grandmother looking skinny and wet, tramping though Seamus’s soggy yard in jeans, an oversized navy jumper and gumboots. Nor holding up a black umbrella with two of its ribs broken by the wind. Nor arriving unannounced in a damp, dark Balmain boatshed.

  Seamus opened the door wider and she bustled in like some madwoman with hair like rats’ tails, closed the wrecked umbrella and leant it dripping against the wall.

  ‘Here’s your dolphin, Keira,’ said Seamus.

  Deirdre looked puzzled. Keira thought, This is an imposter, this is Seamus’s idea of a joke, this is not …

  Deirdre looked across at her and broke into a big smile. Keira recognised her fine, high-cheek-boned face and her dark eyes, undimmed. Even at her age, she had kohl round them and she kept her hair long, a few silvery strands mixed in with the black and brown. Gold hoop earrings pierced her earlobes.

  ‘Ah, Keira,’ she said, ‘so good to see you.’

  And then Deirdre was hugging her, smelling like cheap perfume and feeling thin but strong, not nearly as fragile as she looked. She stood back, beaming at Keira. ‘Look at you,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Just look at you!’

  She put a hand up and caressed Keira’s long hair. ‘Such soft, glossy hair – oh, what I wouldn’t give for young hair again!’

  Then she grabbed Keira’s hands in her own and squeezed them, a wondering smile on her face and sudden fine crow’s feet at the corners of her bright eyes.

  Seamus was filling the kettle. Deirdre released Keira’s hands, and sat down on one of the Van Gogh chairs.

  ‘You were meant to be out sailing,’ she said in her lilting Irish voice, ‘and then I’d have greeted you in the house when you returned. I went to the milkbar and got caught in the rain so I waited it out there with cup after cup of tea. Eventually I walked back and I still got awfully wet! That brolly’s on its last legs.’

  Seamus threw her a towel and she wiped her hair with it. ‘Thank you. Now, Seamus, you were supposed to be preparing Keira for meeting me, but by the look on her face, you’ve not done a good job of it. No more tea for me, thanks, but Keira needs one – Keira, you look as white as the wall – I know this must be a shock. I hope ’tis a good one, not bad.’

  Was she fishing for compliments? ‘No, no,’ said Keira, ‘I’m just … very … surprised.’ Her eyes filled with tears. In an instant Deirdre was at her side, one arm around her heaving shoulders, the other around her ribs.

  ‘My boyfriend,’ said Keira, between sobs, her face nestled in Deirdre’s sweet-smelling neck. ‘He’s broken it off!’

  Deirdre made a soothing sound and started rocking Keira’s body gently, just as Maureen had. Deirdre said, ‘His ears were not ready for your music.’

  Although Keira recognised it for the metaphor it was, Deirdre’s lyrical turn of phrase almost made her smile. Deirdre had uncannily referred to the part of the anatomy Keira was oversensitive about. His ears were not ready for my music! Somehow, that made her feel better.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Keira, ‘I don’t know what …’ she shrugged and
took the ironed hankie Seamus was proffering. He set her mug of tea on the floor near her.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Deirdre. ‘There’s not much that’s more painful than that sort of thing, isn’t that true, Seamus?’

  ‘It is,’ he said, and drank his tea. He had buttered more pieces of soda bread. He offered them some and Deirdre took a piece. Then he went over to his naomhóg and started working on it.

  ‘It was really unexpected,’ said Keira. ‘Alan – Alan Bovingdon, that’s his name – had invited me round for breakfast at his place and we’d been getting along so well.’

  ‘When did it happen?’ asked Deirdre.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Good God, so recent! No wonder you’re upset. I’m sorry, this surprise of mine was ill-timed.’ She patted Keira’s forearm.

  ‘No, no. I feel like an idiot, going on and on about my personal problems when my long-lost grandmother turns up and I should be … I don’t know. But I wrote to you and never got an answer.’ She blew her nose. She looked into Deirdre’s eyes, unfathomable dark pools.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I didn’t know about your letters till later. Janet Bell visited, and persuaded me to stay a bit with her, after Owen left me –’

  ‘Your husband left?’

  ‘Not my husband. We’d been living together for over twenty years, though. Owen went off with our yoga teacher. My old friend Janet visited me and saw my pitiable condition and said that I should stay with her for a bit.’ She finished off her soda bread. ‘Mmmmm … good soda bread, Seamus!’

  Seamus made an encouraging noise.

  ‘Janet was house-minding in Hampstead. I said yes. Before I went I sent Stephen Field my favourite painting to give to you. Don’t ask me why, I just had an impulse.

  ‘It was good to talk with Janet and I’m sure I talked her poor ears off. It was grand to be in new surroundings and in a big white house with a pond. We walked on Hampstead Heath, saw films and plays, drank too much, did some sketching, went to the Courtauld and the Tate and the other galleries.

  ‘And then one day your letters arrived! They’d been forwarded from all the places I’d lived in the past year. I was stunned. I thought of Maureen. I thought of you and your brothers.’ She pushed a silvery black strand of hair behind an ear. ‘I thought: what will I do now? I have some time left before my life is spent as a candle …’

  ‘Oh-ho, spent as a candle!’ said Seamus, laughing, looking up from his sandpapering. ‘You look not so bad for an old girl, about ten years younger than you are, and it’s to ninety you’ll get before you’re spent as a candle!’

  ‘Be that as it may, I …’ Deirdre reached for Keira’s hand to hold and continued in a lower voice. ‘I sat in that house with your lovely letters in my hand, and thought about what I had. A few bits of furniture, clothes, some books, my painting gear … I know that life isn’t measured by possessions, but my life started to look pathetic. Owen was gone and my only daughter twelve thousand miles away.’

  Keira glanced over at Seamus, absorbed in his boat. Deirdre didn’t seem to be worried by his presence.

  ‘I wasn’t one for writing many letters.’

  ‘But you wrote lots to Mum!’

  ‘Not when you think how much time they cover. But yes, lots – for me. I know it’s late in the piece, but I wanted to make amends for past mistakes and there was nothing holding me overseas. And I thought that maybe your photographic essay could be a way to break down the wall between your mother and me.’

  ‘But how did you know about that?’

  ‘Janet Bell. Geoffrey Pettifer wrote to her about your project. Instead of writing back to him, she came straight to me with it. An’ it seemed like an ideal time to visit again – to help you with your project and try to work things out with Maureen.’

  Deirdre talked on about Maureen’s childhood in a meandering, convoluted way for ten or so minutes until Keira looked out the window and noticed the sun shining.

  ‘The rain’s stopped,’ she said.

  ‘The rain stopped ages ago,’ said Seamus.

  They walked up to the house, breathing the crisp sea air deeply into their lungs and looking about them at a world washed clean. They went into the neat, clean two-storey house with hardwood floors and nautically inspired decor. Deirdre suggested they not go sailing that afternoon, but visit Alfred Foote instead.

  ‘I’ve already seen him,’ said Keira. ‘He told me about the rent-collectors taking the Blasket boats. I’ve got all the information I need from him. He smells like mothballs and stale paper.’

  Deirdre laughed. They sat on blue-and-white-striped calico-covered armchairs. ‘You need to see him again. Seamus and I will come with you. Alfred Foote wrote notebooks about the times we lived through, Olivia and me. I’ve already telephoned him about going there this afternoon.’

  Keira said, ‘Well … okay. I’m seeing Olivia on Tuesday.’

  ‘Good. You can prepare for it by reading some of Alfred’s scrapbooks about her life, events that affected us both.’ She looked from Keira to Seamus and back. Keira was confused.

  ‘What she’s telling you,’ said Seamus, ‘is that she’d rather you hear some of these things from Alfred and his notebooks than upset Olivia by asking her about them.’ Seamus went upstairs.

  Keira turned to Deirdre and asked, ‘What things?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  37

  DEIRDRE

  August 1973

  When Keira asked Deirdre why she had left and stayed away so long, she gazed out the window of the blue and white living room and fiddled with an unravelling thread on the cuff of her jumper.

  ‘The timing … the timing might seem unfortunate. To Maureen it was.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Keira stared at her.

  ‘You’ll have to ask herself. I can’t say anymore.’

  ‘My mum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what –’

  Deirdre hurried on. ‘When Owen went to fight in the International Brigade in Spain and I didn’t hear from him for years, I assumed he was dead. Then at the end of the war, I got a letter from him asking me to join him. And your mother had already met the amazing Jim. I knew she was in good hands. I went to town straight away and booked a passage to Spain.’ She looked at Keira with a pleading expression.

  Keira looked puzzled. ‘But why were you gone so long?’ she asked.

  Eventually Deirdre looked from the window back to Keira and said, ‘Places take you over, and ways of living take over, and before you know it, years and even decades have passed.’

  ‘But why were you and my mother estranged?’

  Deirdre hesitated. ‘Your mother blames me for putting her at risk from nasty, immoral types.’ She looked out the window again before turning her face back to Keira. She shook her head slowly. ‘You will have to ask your mother about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  Deirdre changed tack, looking out the window again. ‘Anyway, I didn’t have much money to keep going back and forth. Owen couldn’t risk coming back because he was a Communist. When I did return – remember, in nineteen fifty-seven – your mother had become so conservative. The country was. I just felt: I can’t live here.’

  She paused. The only sound was the gentle tick-tocking of the blue clock on the white wall. ‘And now I must change.’ With a feeling of relief, she escaped upstairs, did her hair in a loose plait and got changed into a close-fitting blue jumper and short black boots to go with her jeans.

  When she returned downstairs she went to the white kitchen and with quick, energetic movements, put a loaf of bread in a string bag with a package of butter and a bottle of red wine.

  ‘Alfred’s expecting us. Cooking was never his thing.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘Oh, it’s a bit early to go yet.’

  She put the string bag on the wooden floor and sat down near Keira. They could see more dark clouds through the windows. Soon it would be raining again. But neither one thought to turn on a lig
ht. Seamus pottered about upstairs while Deirdre talked about her life in Europe, living in Majorca, San Sebastian and other places in Spain and in Collioure and Carcassonne and Brittany in the 1940s and ’50s, her painting and exhibitions, Owen’s journalism, their life in London and Devon, their discovery of yoga and meditation and travelling to India in 1967 and 1968. Keira sat at her side, looking mesmerised.

  *

  Alfred looked pale. His white hair trimmed to just below the ears, he wore an old-fashioned black suit with a grey turtle-neck underneath. Hygiene had not been high on his list of priorities when Deirdre knew him but today his soap and aftershave fragrance almost overpowered the house’s musty, moth-bally smell.

  He and Deirdre hugged. ‘My dearest Deirdre, how wonderful to see you again!’ he said.

  ‘So good to see you, too, dear Alfred. You know Seamus, and you’ve met my granddaughter before, yes?’

  ‘We have,’ he said. He shook hands with Seamus and took Keira’s hand in his gentle paw and patted it.

  ‘Welcome, welcome!’ he said. ‘Wine and bread – how kind. Come in!’

  He took their coats and ushered them to the dining room. Almost every surface was piled high with yellowing newspapers, writing pads and notebooks.

  On the oak dining table were four white plates, each with a hillock of grated carrot, tinned pineapple slices, a pile of three-bean mix, and a chopped tomato. A hunk of cheddar cheese rested on a blue willow saucer and a pyramid of sausage rolls dominated a blue willow dinner plate. The Rosella tomato sauce bottle stood on the table alongside a jam jar of orange nasturtiums in water.

  Alfred took a corkscrew off the table and put Deirdre’s bottle of burgundy between his knees to extract the cork. After some moments of effort, out it came with a happy, celebratory Thock! sound. He poured the wine and they clinked their glasses with the clear sounds that come from crystal. They drank, their glasses gleaming and winking in the light.

  ‘Oh, these beautiful glasses!’ said Deirdre. ‘I remember these! They were your mother’s – inherited from her mother, weren’t they?’