Quick, quick, they were singing to each other, no time to delay. We have to build our nests, lay our eggs, keep the cycle of life and death turning, now, not tomorrow, this morning, right now.
Uncle Howard had pointed out the different species to Lewis.
‘Can you hear that?’ he’d asked him. ‘Like a squeaky wheel with a puncture.’ Lewis had nodded. ‘That’s a moorhen.’
Thirteen-year-old Lewis had listened to the chaos of sound. The birds were so tiny, like the little wren, yet their songs were loud and urgent, demanding to be heard. He’d wondered if they understood the messages within each other’s songs. Had the moorhen noticed the wren? Had the thrush heard the call of the skylark? He had especially liked the sound of the wood pigeons cooing from across the river – comforting, like a mother calling her children in.
But there had been one birdsong that had always dominated – a persistent chirping call.
‘That’s a blackbird,’ Uncle Howard had told him, chuckling. ‘Oh Lord, he’s desperate for a gal.’
Those distant summer mornings had been so delicious. Sitting in the marshy ground by the side of the river, the mist lifting slowly off the water, curling and burning off in the sunlight. He had smelled the sap of the land rising beneath him, how the river nourished it with her rich cakey bed. He had listened to the birds screaming their hearts out, and then afterwards they had watched the fish begin to wake. The popping of air bubbles on the river’s surface. Lewis would strain his eyes and sometimes see a silver flick beneath the water. If the day was going to be hot, he had known it by the arrival of mayflies striding across the surface of the brown river, the bright blue damselflies flickering to and fro – the odd majestic butterfly and the flare of the dragonflies. It had felt to him as if the River Thames was sacred. Like a god, it had emanated liquid light.
Uncle Howard would unscrew the lid of his Thermos and they would share a cup of hot tea between them. He’d pull a slice of thick white bread from each pocket. Dry bread had never tasted so good. Lewis had dipped it in his tea while Uncle Howard took notes.
They would stay like this, locked in companionable silence, until the day had shaken herself awake and the river was flooded with sunlight. Lewis had seen all the way to the bottom of the bed, the clouds of mud as fish swam by, the strands of riverweed, drifting downstream. Then together, Uncle Howard’s hand on his shoulder, they would walk back up to the house, and as they pulled off their boots, and hung up the binoculars, Uncle Howard would always say the same thing.
‘Remember, Lewis, the darkest hour comes before the dawn.’ He would ruffle his nephew’s hair, but the smile would be gone from his eyes, and Lewis had always wondered exactly what Uncle Howard had meant.
With me, with me, with me.
What would be Uncle Howard’s bird? He had no idea if his uncle was dead or alive. He’d not heard from him since the day they had left in disgrace, the night Lizzie had set fire to the house.
Lewis got up and stood upon the wet wooden slats of the bench, peering up into the branches, ignoring the stares of passers-by. He had to find the singing blackbird. Make sure it wasn’t a symptom of the daze the sedative had put him in. He had to be sure that Lizzie was not gone for good.
He reached up and pulled aside branches, heavy with their new green leaves, and finally he saw the bird, its black oily feathers resplendent in the morning light; its beady eye seeking him out as its beak opened wide. He watched the warble of its song in its throat. The blackbird was singing a requiem for his sister: the final notes of Lizzie’s brief life.
He gripped the branch and shook it, wanting to shoo that bird right out of the tree, but it held on fast, staring him right in the eye, and persisted in calling to him.
Lizzie had died because he’d failed to protect her.
It shouldn’t have happened.
She had been his little sister, his only family – for their mother didn’t count. No one knew him quite like Lizzie. How could he live without her?
Lewis slumped back down onto the bench, put his hands over his ears and tried to shut out the sound of the blackbird.
Marnie had said it wasn’t his fault. He had blamed her, but really whose fault was it that his sister was dead?
He dropped his hands. His head was clear all of a sudden. He knew exactly who he wanted to blame.
The bird had stopped singing. He looked up, catching sight as it took off and flew away, then stood up, dusting down his lap, suddenly calm with purpose. He would not stay here to face his mother. He would abandon her in her hour of need, just like she had abandoned him and Lizzie for their whole childhood. It was exactly what his mother deserved, to lose both her children on the same day.
His body was tight with anger; he felt rigid with it, like a blade. He wanted vengeance.
Thirteen
Synthesis
Mayo to Sligo, Easter Sunday, 26 March 1989
The light was sinking, and the sea was a brooding grey. Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon again. Lewis was driving towards the rain, but he didn’t want to go on. He felt pulled backward, back to Joy. But he couldn’t go back. She had chosen her husband.
And so she should have. What he and Joy had shared were a few random days in the whole of their lives. They would fade away. What was real was love with deep roots, like her marriage with Eddie – like his feelings for Marnie. These were the relationships that they had invested their lives in. They were what counted. He needed to excavate the past and allow himself to come face to face with it.
A crow swooped down in front of the car as Lewis drove. He felt uneasy, the blurred edges of an old memory beginning to push into his mind. He wanted to obliterate it, but it kept surging in front of him. That black crow, those shiny black feathers and Uncle Howard’s black hair; combed and greased with wax into a smooth helmet. That crow was Uncle Howard’s bird.
He saw those sleek crow’s feathers in a shaft of moonlight, in his and Lizzie’s bedroom all those years ago. He had been excited to see Uncle Howard in their room. Had he come to wake him up? Were they going to watch the dawn chorus? Yet his uncle hadn’t come near him, and something had stopped Lewis from letting him know he was awake. Instead he saw his shadowy form leaning over Lizzie’s bed, his hand reaching forward. His uncle had become something other than human.
Lewis suddenly felt overwhelmed with nausea. The gloaming road swam before his eyes and he pulled in, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his heart racing. What was happening? Was he having some kind of panic attack?
He closed his eyes, but the picture was still there. Like that painting ‘The Nightmare’ by Fuseli – Uncle Howard crouching over his sister as the incubus. He had stared at Lewis in his bed without seeing him. It was a piece of horror, fixed forever in his childhood. Why had Lizzie never told him?
He pitched forward over the steering wheel, staring out at the storm clouds about to burst. My God, of course Lizzie had told him, he had just never listened to her. She’d tried to tell him the night she’d set fire to Uncle Howard’s house. She’d tried to tell him the first time she’d got stoned. She’d tried to tell him when she had showed him those awful paintings. Even through Marnie, that last night of her life, Lizzie had tried to tell him. She’d been trying to tell him for the whole of her short life.
And Lizzie must have confided in their mother. That’s why she hadn’t sent them back to Uncle Howard’s. She had tried to protect her daughter, but not enough.
Why hadn’t he acknowledged the truth all those years ago? Why when Marnie had tried to tell him had he rejected her so dramatically?
He rested his head on the steering wheel, tears he had never cried for his sister only now beginning to fall. He began to suspect that he’d always known but wilfully ignored the truth. It had been too much to accept, to see with any clarity. He’d loved Uncle Howard, and that love had made him betray his sister. Her death had been his fault.
He turned off the car, opened the door and got out. He had p
ulled in off the road into a layby full of oily puddles and cracked mud. On either side of the road were lush green fields populated by clouds of sheep, behind which was a wood of majestic beech trees. He could see no houses and no other people. He walked over to the metal gate and leaned on it. He felt the weight of the rain yet to arrive pressing down on him. The air was heavy around him.
How could he have been so blind?
He looked up at the sky with its foreboding blanket of mauve-tinged darkness.
‘I’m sorry, Lizzie,’ he whispered.
He felt a breath of wind upon the back of his neck, a stirring in those beeches as clusters of birds began to take off. The air was filled with their chatter as what seemed like hundreds of birds filled the sky, one moment disparate, the next coming together to create one weaving snake of movement above him. He could see that they were starlings as they wheeled to the left, then to the right, to fly right over him in determined formation. Inside that shouting flock of birds was all the panic, anger, guilt and regret of his relationship with Lizzie. And as he watched the birds fly away from the storm he forced himself to let go. It was far, far too late for any redemption now.
He had the urge to drive back to Ballycastle, believing that just seeing Joy’s face would make him feel so much better. Yet he had to keep moving towards Marnie. He had to stop running away.
Twenty-two years. What could he possibly say to Marnie after all this time? She had been a myth for most of his life. An unattainable dream, yet now she was less than an hour’s drive away. He swiped away the fear that she might not want to know him. It was she who had sent him the postcards he told himself, again and again.
He got back into the car just as the heavens opened. He watched the rain pelt down, like a shout from heaven. The ditch flooded with water within seconds, and the car was shrouded within a watery cocoon.
He saw a tiny picture of London flicker in front of him, like one of those old slow-time photographic boxes; a square of moving image, as small as a postage stamp. He saw himself and Marnie, in black and white, walking through Kensington Square. He had caught hold of her hand and swung her towards him. They kissed, in broad daylight. He remembered the spectacular abandon of this moment quite clearly, as if it had happened yesterday. He had always wanted his old life back. Could he ask Marnie to come to London with him? They weren’t too old to start again. They could set up their design agency together at last. Why not?
Another postage stamp of memory surfaced, this time in colour. It was Joy, that day outside the Botanical Garden in Scottsdale. She was holding the crimson star columbine plant, her eyes the same colour as the violet shirt she was wearing, that delicate blush upon her pale Northern skin. Tiny hummingbirds hovered around her as they drank nectar from the drooping plants.
He shook the image out of his head. He had to forget about Joy.
He turned on the engine again as the rain lightened and pulled out onto the road ahead.
An hour later Lewis was heading along the coast road to Strandhill. Despite the fact he had only been here once, and all those years ago, he had not forgotten this stretch of road. To his right was the distinctive outline of flat-topped Ben Bulben dropping almost at a right angle into the sea, which appeared limitless, daunting, the surf wild and dangerous.
He drove through the town of Strandhill and pulled into the car park overlooking the sea. The rain had stopped, the skies had cleared and the sun was beginning to set, spraying the ocean with fragile pink light so different from the dramatic sunsets of Scottsdale. It was an ungodly light.
He sat in the car watching two brave surfers trying to ride the waves. His mouth was dry, his hands sticky with sweat. He was here at his destination. He took the postcards out of his inside breast pocket and flicked through them again, reminding himself that he was not imagining this. These cards were of Ireland from Ireland and sent to him by Marnie. No other person could have understood the significance of what this hand had written to him in her neat black block capitals.
He got out of the car. He remembered that the house was very close to the sea, just back along the street a little, past the pub, but on the other side of the road.
As he walked towards it, it dawned on him that Marnie might not even live at the house. It had belonged to her parents, and they could be dead now. But he knew the way of Irish towns. It was likely that someone in Strandhill would know where Marnie Regan now lived.
He stopped suddenly, his heart in his mouth. This was it. He remembered the strange palm tree in the front garden, so much bigger now, the latticed bay window in the front of the house and the side alley with the wooden gate. This was the Regans’ home.
He walked up to the front door. He was cold and hot all at the same time. He had never been so nervous in his whole life. What would he say to Marnie when she opened the door?
He rang the doorbell before he had time to change his mind. He heard or saw nothing for a moment. Maybe no one was in. Darkness was gathering in all around him, the sun having sunk below the horizon. He shivered, the wet evening air penetrating his jacket. He remembered that he had never got the blue sweater back off Joy. Why did he wish she was with him now, snug in his warm jumper? The notion was ridiculous.
He was about to back away when through the door’s small glass panel he saw a light go on in the hall, the outline of a figure approaching. He stood to attention, as if he was on trial, and the door opened.
Ballycastle, County Mayo, Easter Sunday,26 March 1989
Eddie had slipped into his charming persona again. Joy marvelled at the confidence of her husband, how easily he could chat away to strangers. She let herself disappear behind his chatter as she became the invisible wife once more.
While Eddie sank his fourth pint of Guinness and cracked jokes with his new Irish pals at the bar, Joy slipped out of the pub on the pretext of calling Heather and ran back to Mrs McIntyre’s B&B. She had to collect her stuff and find somewhere else for them to stay. She couldn’t risk being called Mrs Bell in front of Eddie.
Lewis’s things were gone from the room, of course. She took a breath. He really had left her. She knew that if he and Marnie reunited he would never return to Arizona. She would never see him again.
On the back of the chair by the bed was his blue sweater. She picked it up, brought it to her face and inhaled deeply. She could just detect his scent upon it. She folded it and pushed it into her suitcase. As she did so she noticed three ten-pound notes alongside two folded pieces of paper side by side on the table by the bed. She picked one of them up and unfolded it. On it was an abstract drawing of a hummingbird hovering above her name. Below in block capitals was printed:
hummingbird nurseries
joy sheldon
create your oasis in the desert
She was breathless, could hardly believe her eyes as she stared at the image of the hummingbird. It was perfect. She picked up the second folded piece of paper and opened it. She had never seen Lewis’s handwriting before. It struck her as refined, the writing of an artist – a mannered script. She read the letter, her hands shaking.
Dear Joy,
I meant to give this drawing to you earlier. It’s just a mock design. Nothing too special, and you might not like it at all. But if you do just let Doug know at the gallery and he will get you some business cards made up. It’s all paid for.
I have also left the money for the room to give to Mrs McIntyre.
Thank you for everything. I will miss you.
Lewis
She couldn’t help feeling disappointed that his letter was so formal. No mention of the intimacy they had shared, not even one ‘x’ after his name. But her reason told her that of course he couldn’t leave her a note like that. She was with her husband now.
She picked up Lewis’s design again and read the words Hummingbird Nurseries, and her name in block print. It occurred to her that this was an instance where actions spoke louder than words.
‘I love it,’ she whispered as she traced
the image of the abstracted hummingbird. Her talisman.
It was exactly what she would have wanted. Lewis’s gift showed her that he believed in her – that he knew her.
She sat down on the bed, her heart heavy. For the first time in years Eddie had opened up to her. She had a chance to save her marriage, and yet all she could think of was Lewis driving away in that little red car. He had said he would miss her, and she could barely imagine how much she would miss him.
Unable to face Mrs McIntyre and any awkward explanations Joy left Lewis’s money on the sideboard in the hall, along with a brief note telling her they’d had to leave unexpectedly. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before their hostess heard of another American woman staying with her American husband in a different B&B in town, but Joy had no other choice right now. The main thing was that Eddie never knew.
By the time Joy returned to the pub Eddie was in the middle of a sing-song with his new friends. They were taking it in turns, Irish rebel song followed by Arizonan cowboy song. She sat by the fire, nursing a whisky, and watched Eddie. It had been many years since she’d last heard him sing. All those old songs come flooding back, all the Rex Allen numbers her husband had loved: ‘Riding All Day’ and ‘Arizona Cowboy’. It occurred to her that Eddie lived in the wrong era. He belonged back when the life of a cowboy could be the best in the world. She could see the shadow of the young cowboy she once knew, the boy she had fallen in love with. Maybe Eddie had never really wanted to live the life they had either. What dreams had he given up for her?
As he sang Eddie kept his eyes on her. He was trying to bind her to him, blowing her kisses when the song ended and the gathering applauded. But for all his bravado she could see he was afraid.
The Gravity of Love Page 27