The South

by Colm Toibin

  “Can Rupert come?”

  * * *

  “I must compliment you on what you’ve done to the kitchen,” she said to Deirdre.

  “I thought it needed a bit of modernising all right.” Deirdre looked away as she spoke. Katherine thought that she was nervous.

  “Do you cook much?”

  “Oh I do yes,” Deirdre said. “I was going to send you up your breakfast.”

  “I’m much happier having my breakfast down here. Have you had yours?”

  “I had mine with Richard before he went out. We’re thinking of going off early. Did he ask if it was all right with you?”

  “No, he didn’t say anything,” Katherine replied.

  “We booked seats for a concert in Wexford, you know, the festival is on. We were going to go to an opera but we thought you’d prefer to see Wexford in the afternoon, and maybe do a bit of shopping.”

  Nothing was further from Katherine’s mind than shopping, but if they wanted her to go she would. On this October day all she wanted to do was walk by the river or across the fields until the light faded.

  “Maybe you don’t want to? We could cancel the tickets. I don’t know what concert it is, but Richard does—it’s part of the festival.”

  “No, I’d love to go. I’d love to go to Wexford.”

  After her breakfast Katherine went to the hall to fetch her coat, and walked out alone, down the drive to the road. It had rained during the night and the grass was soaking. There were new fences up. The house had been repainted a different shade of yellow. She was glad it was still yellow. That had always been part of her father’s plan. A big solid, yellow house by the river. There was a white light coming in from between the trees and she could watch the October sun between the clouds. The ditches on either side of the road were still overgrown with weeds and ferns and grass. This damp growth, these small roads unfolding into the countryside with trees and ditches on either side. Larch, beech, oak, ash, chestnut, birch. It was just as she had remembered: the sogginess, the constant rain, the soaking grass.

  She turned off the road and went down a lane leading to the river. She was wearing the wrong shoes and they soon became wet and muddy. The river was flowing fast and full. New trees had been planted opposite where the fields sloped up to the Bunclody road. Down-river she could see the yellow house standing in the open meadow and the huge beech trees beside it. The sky darkened—the green of the grass, the river and the trees changed too, darkened. She walked as fast as she could through the wet grass by the side of the river to avoid the rain. Just as she scaled the fence to enter the grounds of the house proper the rain came. She could hear it bounce against the river and then hit the grass, then it reached her. She ran back to the house and found Deirdre in the kitchen.

  “We’re nearly ready to go to Wexford. We were going to have lunch in the Talbot. Richard wondered if you might prefer to stay here,” Deirdre said.

  “No, no,” Katherine replied, “I do want to go. Can you wait just for a while?”

  * * *

  They insisted Katherine sit in the front seat. They had left Clare with the house-keeper. They drove by the river as far as Edermine and then along the cement road to Oylgate. They were silent apart from a few comments on the weather—it had stopped raining. They reached Ferrycarrig.

  “Have you ever thought of coming down here to paint?” Deirdre asked her.

  “No, it’s a bit too pretty for me really. I’ve never done beauty spots, round towers, that sort of thing.”

  They were driving into Wexford.

  “This is the only town in Ireland I actually like,” Katherine said.

  “Don’t you like Enniscorthy?” Deirdre asked.

  “I suppose that too and for the same reasons as Wexford, the stone buildings and the narrow streets, but Enniscorthy doesn’t have the sea like Wexford although I suppose it has hills to make up for it. Still, I think I prefer Wexford. I love all that water.”

  Richard parked in the car park opposite the Talbot Hotel and they went in for lunch.

  “What is the concert?” Katherine asked him.

  “A quartet,” he said. “I read in the Irish Times it’s meant to be a very good one. I think it’s Beethoven.”

  “Richard says you like music,” Deirdre said.

  “Yes,” Katherine replied.

  They walked up to the Main Street.

  “It’s very busy of course. Friday’s the big shopping day,” Deirdre said. Katherine nodded. The main street was indeed crowded, the shops all had special offers for the Opera Festival.

  “Do you enjoy opera?” Deirdre asked.

  “Yes,” Katherine said. “Do you?”

  “I find it a bit heavy,” Deirdre said.

  They turned off the Main Street and walked up the hill towards the Theatre Royal. There was a crowd at the door when they arrived.

  “Quite a few people here are from Enniscorthy,” Deirdre said. “They must be down for the day, like us.”

  As they walked in, Deirdre began to greet people in the foyer. She then led two women over to Katherine and Richard. “This is my mother-in-law.” Both women looked at Katherine who shook hands and nodded.

  “It must be great to be home,” one of the women said and they both looked at her intently to see what she would say.

  “Yes, lovely, thank you,” Katherine said.

  “Let’s go in,” she turned to Richard. Deirdre was still talking to the two women.

  “Let’s just wait a minute,” he said.

  “Do you know these quartets?” she asked him.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much time for music.”

  “I thought you were a gentleman farmer.”

  “I am a gentleman who is out of my bed at seven o’clock every morning.”

  “What sort of farming are you doing now?”

  “We still have a good dairy herd and we do a bit of tillage.”

  “I went for a walk this morning and I didn’t see any cows.”

  “They’re in the fields around the house but you wouldn’t have seen them this morning.”

  “When I ran the farm they were everywhere,” she said. She smiled at him. They took their seats.

  Deirdre came in and sat beside Katherine.

  “There’s a whole gang of them down from Enniscorthy.” She looked around the Theatre Royal. “God, it’s small, isn’t it? How many would this place hold?”

  “I don’t know,” Katherine said, “two or three hundred?”

  The lights went down and the quartet came on. The first piece was bright and airy. The quartet seemed good-humoured playing it. It was easy in the small theatre to concentrate on the music. The second quartet was more sombre, the violins returning again and again to a series of shivering notes.

  “Do you not find it a bit dull?” Deirdre asked Katherine at the interval.

  “No, I’m enjoying it immensely. What do you think of it, Richard?” Katherine turned to her son.

  “I wish I could do this every Saturday afternoon.” Richard smiled.

  “Well, I just wondered,” Deirdre said, “if you were bored, maybe we could go and look around the shops.”

  “Let’s go out in the air for a moment anyway,” Richard said.

  They went into the foyer.

  “Do you like Dublin?” Deirdre asked.

  “The city itself—no. But I like the area I live in. It suits me for the moment.”

  “I love going up to Dublin for the day,” Deirdre said.

  Katherine wished she would stop talking.

  Richard lit a cigarette and stood at the door. He stood there until a bell sounded for the second half of the concert.

  “I think I’ll slip off now and do a bit of shopping, does anyone mind?” Deirdre said. “I’ll meet you back in the Talbot. Or what about White’s?”

  Richard said they would meet her in White’s.

  Katherine and Richard went back to their seats in silence. The third quartet was sadder, jerkier, m
ore complex. She could sense that Richard responded to the music. His father had never been interested in classical music; listening to the music, she regretted she had not contacted Richard when Tom died. She put her head down and her hands over her face.

  A slow movement began. She looked up at the four players, the lighted stage. The music was intense and purposeful. For one moment when she changed position her hand brushed Richard’s. He caught her hand and held it. She looked at him but the expression on his face did not change. He continued to listen to the music. He held her hand until the slow movement ended.

  * * *

  The following day Katherine walked about Enniscorthy while Deirdre shopped. In ways Enniscorthy reminded her of a Catalan town, Llavorsi, maybe, or Poble de Segur, all hills with a river flowing through. And the cold too reminded her of there, the crisp, bracing cold. She crossed the bridge and walked down by the river. There were no boats now on the river, the cotmen who were there when she was young had long disappeared, but there were still warehouses at the bottom of the Abbey Square. She tried to find the old coffee house on the Turret Rocks above the town but it seemed to have gone.

  All the things she remembered. How still and unchanged it was. How the road out from Doherty’s Garage to the graveyard was overhung with trees. The stones on the bridge at Scarawalsh. The ruined Tower on Vinegar Hill. How the lights came on in the shops at half four or five in November, and there was a sense of busy warmth in the Market Square in Enniscorthy. The steps that went up the bare rock behind Bennett’s Hotel.

  After dinner back at the house she fell asleep by the fire to be woken by the television which Richard turned on. She went to her room and tried to make out the river as it flowed past. It was very tiring being home.

  The next morning she could find nobody when she searched the house. Finally, she found the housekeeper in the kitchen. “Where are Deirdre and Clare?”

  “Ah, they’ve gone to mass in the town, ma’am,” the woman said. “They went in the car with Mr. Proctor.”

  “Richard has gone too?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he’s gone in to mass in the town as well.”

  “You mean he’s gone into service.”

  “No, ma’am, he’s gone into mass. They always go to mass together, the three of them,” the woman said.

  “I see,” Katherine said, “thank you.”

  She returned upstairs. Richard went to mass, this was news; no one had told her. She should not have left Richard on his own when Tom died; she should have come back sooner than this. She was surprised at how upset she was about him going to mass; she did not know she had prejudices left like that. Had he left the Church of Ireland altogether?

  She went back down to the kitchen and waited for them to return. She noticed the prayer book in Deirdre’s hand when she came in the door. The child also had a prayer book but Richard had none.

  “My parents are coming for Sunday dinner. They are looking forward to meeting you,” Deirdre said.

  Katherine waited until Richard left the room to go upstairs and she followed him to his bedroom.

  “I didn’t know that you had become an RC,” she said to Richard as he stood beside the door.

  “Yes, I should have told you.”

  “Why?” she said, “why did you do it?” She knew she sounded irritated.

  “I don’t want to talk about it now,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You seem hostile.”

  “I’m not hostile, I’m puzzled,” she said, “or maybe I am hostile.”

  He sighed.

  “Also, do you mind if I don’t have dinner. Deirdre says her parents are coming and I just don’t feel up to meeting them. I just couldn’t bear it—all that talking. They seem to chatter on about nothing.”

  “You’ve never met her parents.”

  “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t sit with you for dinner, that’s all I have to say.”

  He was staring at something behind her and she knew as she turned that it was Deirdre.

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” Deirdre asked.

  “I’m just not up to meeting people. I’m sorry,” Katherine said.

  “Would you like dinner in your room?” Deirdre asked.

  “Yes, I would if it’s not any trouble.”

  “It’s just that my parents were looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Tell them I’m really very sorry.”

  * * *

  She would leave first thing in the morning and she would not come back. Money was still a problem but it would have to be sorted out some other way. She would not come back. This would be her last day in this room. It was pouring outside. The housekeeper brought in a tray of roast beef, vegetables and a glass of wine.

  The sky brightened in the early afternoon. Katherine wondered if she could creep out of the house without anybody noticing. She put on a raincoat she found in the wardrobe and some wellingtons which Deirdre had given her and went down the stairs. No sound. As she reached the front door she heard a voice behind a door on the right. She fled into the porch and closed the door behind her.

  She walked around towards the back of the house, and then to the river. The rain had almost stopped, yet there were still heavy clouds in the sky. She paused to listen: a slight murmur of water. It was strange how flat the banks of the river were, and yet how it never seemed to overflow. She walked up along the river as far as she could. The rain held out as she retraced her steps and watched the evening falling in over the fields, the darkness coming in from Mount Leinster; she tried to keep everything else out of her mind and concentrate on what she could see.

  As she approached the house she could make out a few figures standing around in front of the porch; they were waiting for her and had seen her. She moved in their direction and saw it was Richard, Deirdre and Clare, with two other people who she presumed were Deirdre’s parents.

  “How do you do? I’m Deirdre’s mother. I’ve heard all about you. We’re really pleased to meet you.” The woman smiled at Katherine. “This is my husband,” she continued, pointing at the man who had gone over to the car. “We’re sorry you weren’t feeling well. I was going to hop up and make sure you were all right but Deirdre said maybe it would be better to leave you alone, didn’t you Dee?” She looked at her daughter. “Isn’t it great the way the weather has kept up?” she said. “Did you have a nice walk? We were going to go for a walk ourselves but we thought it was a bit wet. Maybe you’ll get used to it now and stay for a while. Isn’t it nice down here?”

  “I’m going back tomorrow, actually.” Katherine looked at Richard but his head was bent down.

  “Isn’t it a nice house all the same?” the woman continued. “We often used to look at it from the road when we’d be out for a drive and we’d admire it and there we were today having our dinner in it. Isn’t it great the way things change?”

  “It is indeed,” Katherine said. “I’d really better go inside and change these wellingtons. Delighted to meet you both.”

  She was sitting in an armchair by the bedroom window when Clare came to the door.

  “Are you really my granny from Spain?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re much younger than my other granny.”

  “Yes that’s true,” Katherine said, “some grannies can be younger than others.”

  “And you know my great-granny in London, is she your mummy?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “We’re going to see her in London.”

  “Are you?”

  Deirdre came into the room.

  “I was looking for Clare. Come with me now, Clare, you’re not to be disturbing your grandmother.”

  “She’s not disturbing me,” Katherine said.

  “It’s her bedtime anyway.”

  Richard was reading one of the Sunday papers. Several lamps were alight in the sitting-room and a log fire was burning in the grate.

  “How comfortable this house has become,” Kath
erine said. “You live very well now, don’t you? Tell me, do you love Deirdre?”

  He looked up and faced her for a moment. “It’s not a question I want to answer. But yes, yes I do. And I don’t want any trouble about that, I really don’t.”

  “Do you think I would make trouble?”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Do they come here often, her parents?”

  “I’m not going to talk about them.”

  “They seem very friendly anyhow,” Katherine said.

  “Yes, they’re very nice.”

  “The mother talks non-stop, doesn’t she?”

  Richard folded his newspaper.

  “Could you get me a drink?” Katherine asked him.

  “What would you like?”

  “Anything.”

  “What?”

  “A gin and tonic?”

  He went out to the kitchen and came back with her drink. Deirdre came downstairs after putting Clare to bed.

  “Deirdre,” Richard said, “would you mind if we talk on our own for a while.” Deirdre went out. He stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece first but then sighed and sat down opposite Katherine.

  “What do you want to say to me?” she asked.

  “This. You are going to be in Ireland for a while. You are short of money. No, don’t interrupt me, your mother tells me you are short of money. You are unhappy in some ways and we want to see something of you, and to help you if we can. There’s one thing you need to know for this to happen. You might have guessed but I’m telling you anyway. Until I was ten years old I lived with two people who hardly spoke to each other or to anyone else, and who had no friends. From the time I was ten until I was thirteen and after that during the holidays, I had a father who hardly spoke and who had no friends. When I came back here to the farm it was to night after night of silence, of isolation. My father died from isolation and loneliness and I didn’t enjoy watching that. And I don’t like the cold rooms I was brought up in. I hate everything about the way I was brought up. I like this house now, I like my wife, my daughter, and my wife’s family. Will you please not sneer at them?” He looked at her directly. He seemed close to tears.

  “I don’t know if you remember what happened here. When the house was burned to the ground. These people, the locals . . .”