Beyond the glass wall, Conor was cheerfully shelving books in the library. It occurred to Hanna that Henry VIII must have been like Malcolm, a man so determined to have his own way that the destruction of other people’s lives would be seen as collateral damage. She wondered how the abbot had felt when the house he’d ruled was sold off, and the book was taken away. How had he survived the sense that he ought to have done more to protect it? How had he borne the knowledge that he’d never see it again? She herself knew the joy and responsibility that went with being the psalter’s current custodian, and the thrilling sense of being in touch with the hands that had made it, and those that had kept it safe for a thousand years.
Across the top of this double-page spread was a painted frieze of doves with golden feathers, outlined in cobalt blue and set against a curling lattice. Green leaves and purple grapes trailed down the margins, interspersed with other birds feeding on the fruit. Among them, precisely observed and painted, were goldfinches, robins and blue tits, sparrow hawks and wrens. Across the lower margins, men and women strolled in a golden landscape dotted with sheep and tiny jewel-coloured flowers. Behind the figures, black and edged with purple, was an immediately recognisable mountain range. The monk who had painted the scene had set it in the foothills of Knockinver, hardly a mile from where Brian had built his house.
The poster outside the exhibition told visitors that one page of the psalter was turned each month. Tomorrow, before she opened the library, Hanna would unlock the case and reveal the next psalm. Though she’d studied the psalter, and been part of its digitisation process, the moments when she turned the pages always felt like discovery.
It was nonsense to think that they changed between each viewing, but perhaps she herself had changed in the passage of time since she’d last seen them. One way or the other, they always offered a different angle to her view. Some previously unseen bird or grotesque face would look out through fantastic foliage, a line of text would wander down a page, like the steps of a celestial staircase, or a city on a hill would appear within the curves of a gorgeous illuminated letter.
Mike had been filming the current double-page spread the other day. He’d interviewed Hanna standing beside the psalter, and she’d said that, while the mountain could still be seen as the monk saw it, the scene was probably meant as an image of Heaven. She’d explained to the camera that the lore of place names was a whole branch of medieval learning. Then, repeating what Brian had told her, she’d laughed and mentioned ‘the meadow of desire’. ‘It’s an old name for a valley in those foothills, and a perfect example of how Irish place names can be confusing for tourists. Because it could equally well mean “the rough grassland of yearning”. Or “the poor place of need”.’
She’d been rather proud of remembering that, and of giving Mike such a neat snippet of colour for his film. He’d been delighted and thanked her, saying if he sold it he’d come back and stand her a massive celebratory drink. Jazz had recently told her that Mike was great company. He reminded her of Brian, she’d said, because he was unlike Malcolm.
‘You know what I mean, Mum? Brian’s so straightforward. What you see is what you get.’
Now the irony of that earnest statement tore at Hanna’s throat.
The guide was ushering the tourist to the far end of the room. Now was the time to move away in the hope that Brian wouldn’t make a fuss in front of strangers. But he began to speak in a monotone, so quietly that even Hanna could hardly hear his voice.
‘Sandra was breastfeeding when we found out she had cancer. Mike had to be weaned when they started the chemo. My sister Kate took him because, pretty soon, Sandra and I couldn’t cope. We couldn’t cope with anything. It was exactly like a nightmare. A chasm opening at our feet. Kate didn’t even bring Mike to visit. It distressed Sandra too much. Me too. I’d wanted a son desperately, and we’d been so happy. It didn’t seem strange to me when he wasn’t there, though. It just felt like part of the same nightmare. And when she died it somehow seemed right that he was gone as well.’
The dove’s golden feathers shimmered through the tears that filled Hanna’s eyes.
‘I didn’t see Mike again till he was three. Kate and her husband made brilliant parents. You could tell he was happy, and they were happy to keep him. They didn’t have kids of their own and we decided they’d adopt him formally. It made sense, and what would have been the point of my uprooting him? They lived in London, where he had cousins of his own age, and he’d just settled down in a kindergarten. I had a stupid bachelor flat over here.’
‘Didn’t you visit?’
‘Sometimes. I doubt if he remembers. Back then I was just a relation passing through. I stopped after a while. Kate wanted to wait till he’d left school before she explained things to him. That was her choice and she had the right to make it. And everything was pretty straightforward when I eventually saw him again. Effectively, I’m still just a relation on the periphery of his life.’
‘So why keep it a secret?’
Brian raised his clenched hand in a gesture of hopeless frustration. ‘Oh, God, Hanna, how can you not understand? It was never a secret. Never. Why should it be? It all just belonged to a different time and place.’
Chapter Forty-Two
The group that gathered to discuss Brooklyn at the film club was big. As well as the core members who always turned up for discussions, there were newcomers Hanna didn’t even know by sight. As soon as the doors were opened and people had congregated by the tea urn, Saira approached with two awkward-looking lads.
‘This is Adam Rashid, Hanna, and his friend Bogdan Vidraru. I invited them along.’
The boy called Adam had a broad Dublin accent while the other lad, who seemed a little older, had good, though slightly eccentric, English, and rather formal manners. Saira explained that they both worked in Carrick at The Royal Vic.
‘Bogdan is doing kitchen work to subsidise his visit to Ireland, and Adam is planning a future as a chef. They’ve both offered to volunteer in the garden over the summer. Bogdan’s only here for the next month or two. And at the end of the season Adam’s going back to Dublin, aren’t you, Adam?’
‘Yeah. For a while. I’ll probably spend some time there with my mum. I looked up some stuff online too. I might enrol on a course.’
Bogdan thanked Hanna gravely for allowing them to attend the film.
‘Not at all. You’re both very welcome. Have you read Brooklyn?’
The lads shuffled and Saira intervened: ‘I’m afraid I raised the subject too late for them to get hold of Brooklyn. I’ve explained that we’ll be discussing that first and then watching The Revenant.’
Hanna smiled and said that if they wanted to borrow either book, they’d only to drop to the library and ask. It was something she’d said dozens of times on former film nights, but now she was aware of mouthing it without her usual warmth. Irritated to find she was thinking of Brian when she should be doing her job, she tried again. ‘It really is great that you came along. Enjoy the evening!’
Having done her best, she moved on to greet another arrival, shaking hands and ushering people to seats. One group was gathered around an elderly lady from Ballyfin, who’d arrived with two tiny kittens asleep in a covered basket. She hoped Hanna wouldn’t mind, she explained, but she’d thought the club was the perfect place to find someone who might like to adopt them.
‘It’s that ginger tom across the way, Miss Casey. He’s back and forth all the time bothering my girls up in the cowshed. Last time it was poor Fluffy and now, lookut, Fang’s after having a litter of six. I have four placed already and these two are the last of them.’
Tactfully suggesting that the kitchen might be a better place for the kittens to nap in peace and quiet, Hanna removed the basket and found its owner a chair. Mr Maguire was already ensconced in the front row, with a cup of tea and a fistful of Bourbon biscuits. With a handkerchief placed over his knees as a napkin, he was lecturing the beady-eyed lady with the clawlike c
lutch. He was flanked by Aideen’s aunt Carol, looking sceptical, and Darina Kelly, in a crushed velvet top and Lycra leggings.
At the other side of the room, Ann Flood was edging towards the KitKats, and Conor, who should have been serving teas, was swiping through photos on his phone for a group of friends. Aideen was laughing with Bríd over the teacups, and showing off the twist of red gold she now wore next to her engagement ring. Conor had explained to Hanna that they’d bought it in a shop in Florence.
‘I think your man just made them up out of fuse wire, Miss Casey. Still, Aideen loves it, and we managed to haggle the price down to something sane.’
Looking at Aideen’s radiant face, Hanna reached into her own pocket. Her fingers touched the heavy gold band that Brian had thrust at her before he’d turned on his heel and walked away. It had been a ridiculous moment, freighted with echoes of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with Brian and herself as improbable middle-aged casting for Laurie and Jo.
Having told her the story of why Mike had been raised in London, he’d opened his clenched hand. ‘The Divil found this in the river. I’ve been carrying it round like a fool for the last few weeks.’
‘What do you mean, The Divil found it in the river?’
‘Like magic gold. Like treasure carried down from the mountain and caught in a golden fleece.’
‘But surely not. Is it old?’
‘It’s yours.’ Taking her hand, he’d placed the ring on her palm and closed her fingers around it. ‘I was going to talk to you, Hanna. About Mike. About everything. I tried to lots of times but I couldn’t find words. I know I left it too long but I had to find the perfect time. Because I want you to marry me.’ Releasing her hand, he’d stepped back, looking defeated. ‘Fury said I was an eejit not to have spoken out sooner.’
‘Fury knew about Mike?’
‘No, of course not! I said there was stuff I needed to say before I could mention marriage, and he told me I should piss or get off the pot.’
That sounded authentic. Though the thought of Fury as an agony aunt seemed unlikely. But later, when Hanna had come to examine it, the assumption that men didn’t talk about weddings had seemed shamefully trite. At the time, she’d simply stared at the ring on her palm. ‘If this is a proposal, your timing is really bad.’
‘I know. But nothing’s changed. I want us to marry. I want you to live with me and be my love.’ Then he’d turned and walked away, leaving The Divil’s ring in her hand.
Now, shoving it deeper into her pocket, Hanna went to the front of the room and began the discussion of Brooklyn, though most of what was happening was just a blur. She was aware of being a painfully ineffective facilitator, but Saira Khan was sketching the plot for the benefit of the newcomers, with various contradictory interpolations from the group. Soon Jazz and Mr Maguire had formed an aggressive alliance on the subject of revisionist screenplays, and Bríd was declaring that she hated indecisive people in books.
Pat Fitz, who was crocheting, remarked that a mother in mourning for her child now seldom wore black. ‘And that’s a bit of a shame, you know, because people aren’t mind readers. Though the funny thing is that, when people did wear mourning, we knew each other’s stories already because, back then, we lived in each other’s laps. So you might say there was no need for a black coat or a cardigan. It was a nice custom, though. I don’t know why we gave it up.’
One of the lads from the council offices asked if the Korean War hadn’t been on in the 1950s. ‘Wouldn’t the American guy she went back to have had to cope with the draft?’
Mr Maguire had begun to pronounce on artistic licence when Ann Flood interrupted to say that reading the end of the book had made her cry. ‘It didn’t end happily, not the way the film did. I don’t think people make choices in life, anyway. All kinds of things happen to us that we can’t control at all.’
‘Yeah, but you can’t just do nothing for fear of what might happen.’
‘I know, but the thing is you can’t control what’s going to happen next.’
When Conor dimmed the lights to show The Revenant, Hanna’s mind was miles and years away. A bouquet of expensive flowers had arrived at her door that morning, wrapped in crackling cellophane and accompanied by a note: Thank you for brunch by the Atlantic. I enjoyed it. Here’s to many more beside the Thames.
With no vase in the house that was large enough to hold them, she had dumped the flowers in a half-full sink of water, aware that their musky scent would fill the kitchen when she came home. It was typical of Malcolm to choose a gesture that asserted his presence even when he wasn’t there. Still, his arrogance had always been balanced by a keen sense of humour, and Hanna knew he’d be the first to laugh if she pointed out what he’d done.
Even when the lie that lay at the heart of their marriage had been exposed, the intimate knowledge of each other’s quirks and foibles had remained true. Malcolm was the devil she knew, with all the charm and power to open doors and make life easy. Perhaps at this stage of their lives she could find comfort and companionship rooted in what was true and real in their past. Love of their daughter. Memories of triumphs and failures in a career that they’d built together. And that continued awareness of William, which she shared with no one else.
As Leonardo DiCaprio struggled through the snow, Hanna suddenly realised that she’d never told Brian about William. She, too, had kept silent about a son. Biting her lip, she told herself that, of course, there was no comparison. None at all. But was that true? To her, William wasn’t a miscarried baby, a potential child that had never really existed because he had never lived outside her womb. He was her son, just as Mike was Brian’s. And there hadn’t been a day since she and Malcolm had lost him when William hadn’t lived on in her mind.
Yet the thought of talking to Brian about him had never entered her head. As Brian himself had said, when he’d spoken of Mike and Sandra, some things just belonged to a different time and place.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jazz stood in front of the sink and looked out at the garden. The sky was still faintly gilded by the sunset, and feathery grass between the potato ridges moved in a salt-laden breeze. Once again, she and Mum had left the film club together and driven to the house in convoy for a meal. It was a glorious evening of pearly skies after soft rain, and the catkins on the oak trees by the road were heavy with golden pollen.
On the way they’d passed the ditch where, this time last month, she’d seen the two badgers cross the road at midnight. Jazz sighed, remembered how she’d gone home that night to a flat full of Sam’s presence: his papers piled on the bed and the floor, and his washing-up in the sink. When she’d slid under the duvet, she’d found his foot and tickled it, and afterwards they’d made love half the night. She still missed him dreadfully.
Not having to think about Eileen’s wedding had been a big relief, but now she had far too much time to spend alone. Her flat was so small that it took no time to clean; the furniture only fitted if laid out exactly as she’d found it; and the lease stipulated that she couldn’t paint the walls or even hang a picture. The only thing there that belonged to her was the narrow console table on which she kept her laptop, and to fit that in she’d had to move out another, provided by the landlord, and pay him to keep it in store.
Getting to the office early and working there until late wasn’t an option. Not under Louisa’s watchful eye. And hanging out in clubs and pubs to get away from her own four walls would be horrid. Everyone out on the town was either one of a couple or on the pull. Wearily, Jazz wondered how long it would be before she was back having tedious one-night stands. Or even falling for someone inappropriate. Last year there’d been a dangerous few months when she’d almost begun an affair with a married man.
Now she leaned over Mum’s kitchen sink and threw open the window. ‘God, this scent is intense!’ She looked round as Mum came through from the bedroom. ‘Who sent the flowers?’
‘How do you know I didn’t buy them myself?
’
‘I bet you didn’t. That’s about fifty euros’ worth. Was it Dad?’
‘Yep. And now I’m going to have to find somewhere to put them.’
‘If I were you I’d stick them out on the step.’ Jazz went and sat in a fireside chair. ‘You know, I arrived home with exactly those lilies the night that Sam left. I didn’t rise to the musk roses, though. Trust Dad to go over the top.’
Mum poured two glasses of wine and came to sit by the fire. She’d lit a twist of dry grass and a pine cone under a couple of sods of turf when they’d come in. Normally the scent of the rising turf smoke would have filled the room by now, but Dad’s lilies and roses were winning the battle.
Restlessly, Jazz got up and went to look down the garden, where midges drifting in swarms were being feasted on by swifts. The salty air outside was delicious, and the smell of the wet earth after the recent shower of rain made her smile. ‘So what’s Dad after?’
‘Don’t be cynical, love. He was thanking me for brunch.’
‘Hmm. At least you’ve got space here, and a garden. My lilies ended up on the communal staircase outside the flat, and the neighbours knocked them over and complained.’
Mum sipped her wine and said nothing, possibly feeling that, while the subject of Sam was no longer off-limits, it wouldn’t be wise to start asking too many questions. Jazz was never sure how she felt about Mum’s tact. It certainly beat getting endless advice in a stream of texts from Nan. On the other hand, there were times when she wished that Mum wouldn’t always treat her with kid gloves.
The Month of Borrowed Dreams Page 27