‘Why are humans driven to seek love all the time?’ Constance frowned as she rubbed. ‘It would be so much better if we concentrated all our strength of mind and body on producing great art and nurturing the state of our souls. Of course we could love one another in a friendly way. But how much better it would be if sex were as unimportant as brushing one’s teeth. Simply a mechanical process for engendering children, if you were certain you really wanted them. It would solve so many problems.’
‘Is everyone capable of great art, do you think?’
‘Well, perhaps not. But at least we could improve our characters. Instead of fussing about whether someone has noticed the sparkling of our eyes and bothering about the liquidity of theirs we could devote ourselves to the attainment of spiritual perfection. It’s got to be more worthwhile.’
‘Like being a monk or a nun, you mean?’
‘Well, yes. But with less emphasis on mortifying the flesh. At school the nuns whipped our hands so hard for the smallest offences we couldn’t straighten our fingers for days afterwards. My knees have never recovered from hours of praying on damp stone floors.’ Constance paused in the process of wiping away the bleach with a sponge and looked pensive, her grey eyes reflecting the light from the misted windows. ‘The worst thing of all was we went to the lavatory after breakfast and weren’t allowed to go again until before lunch. My bladder’s always been temperamental. I was so frightened of Mother Superior that one glance from her mean little eyes made me desperate to go. Golly!’ Constance rolled her eyes. ‘Those hours of torture, unable to concentrate on anything but keeping my legs pressed together until finally the agony became unbearable and I wet myself.’ Constance closed her eyes and shuddered. ‘We weren’t allowed in the dormitories until bedtime so I had to walk around the rest of the day slowly drying out, the elastic of my knicker legs rubbing my thighs raw, smelling of pee. The other girls used to bribe each other with sweets to get out of sitting next to me. I was known as the Stink Bomb.’
‘Oh, Con!’ I was inexpressibly moved by this confession. Now I understood why she too was terrified of rejection. ‘How dreadfully children suffer and how helpless they are to help themselves! Surely the anguish we feel as adults is light by comparison? Mostly we can take action, and even if we can’t we have, or ought to have, some command of our minds.’
‘As for my mind, I hope I can manage to put on a cheerful face, if that’s what you mean. And I tell myself not to be such a dolt, every hour of every day, almost. But as to taking action, that’s just what I can’t do.’ Constance’s face became gloomy. ‘Eugene hasn’t said a word to me about Larkie but he’s stopped writing about love and betrayal and is working on a prose-poem about Wolfe Tone and the seventeen ninety-eight rebellion. I’ve never seen him so cheerful. He asked me yesterday if I thought he ought to move back to Kilmuree. He was worried that he might have outstayed his welcome.’
‘And you said?’
‘I muttered something polite. He offered to stay until the opening if I thought he could be useful. Then, when my mind was doing a double somersault wondering what the hell I could say to stop him going, he said perhaps he’d better give his tenants notice to quit by the beginning of May. I’m a fool! Because I couldn’t bring myself to risk rejection and humiliation he’s going to go away and it’s all my fault!’
Mindful of Constance’s painful condition of suspenseful love I tried to be positive. ‘I think that’s only good news, really. That he’s stopped thinking of himself as a victim. As to moving away, well, it might bring things to a head.’
‘I suppose it might. Anyway, that’s enough maundering for now.’ Constance stretched her limbs and exhaled noisily. ‘Let’s have a drink. You can’t think what a luxury it is, having someone to talk to. Granny was the only other person I’ve ever dared to tell about the peeing problem. She said I should pray. So I did. But apparently God was too busy absolving sinners and beatifying saints to bother to send me a larger bladder. I’ve never had a close female friend of my own age before. You know how I feel about Eugene’ – she blushed – ‘and I’d cut off my right hand if it would do Finn or the children any good, but you’re the only person I feel I can say absolutely anything to.’
Dear Constance. I felt conscience-stricken, knowing how much I was concealing from her. ‘I’ll open a bottle of Dicky Dooley’s special-offer champagne,’ I said. ‘Its comparative nastiness will mean we can drink to friendship without feeling guilty.’ I fetched a bottle from the fridge, popped the cork and poured two glasses. ‘Here’s to the resolution of all our difficulties.’
‘And to the power of the mind to resist becoming an enfeebled, man-oriented cipher,’ Constance declared robustly. ‘There are so many other things in life worth thinking about.’
She was quite right. It was pathetic to moon about, like green-sick girls, dreaming of love fulfilled. We drank to that.
‘If only’ – some of the vigour departed from Constance’s tone – ‘something would happen to change our lives, something from outside that would make us stand in a different relation to each other. Eugene and me, I mean. But nothing ever happens at Curraghcourt so it’s no use wishing for it.’
As it happened, she was shortly to be proved wrong.
FORTY-FOUR
We had broadcast the opening of Curraghcourt as widely as we could among newspapers, magazines and Heritage pamphlets. According to these publications the tourist season began officially at the beginning of April. For three weeks beforehand shrieking winds and fierce rain hurled themselves against the walls. Beside every water-logged sheep lay a tiny sodden lamb. Birdsong was drowned out. Bog myrtle and cotton grass bent their buds beneath the onslaught. Only the gorse came bravely into bloom.
In the walled garden there was no sign of the lettuce, onion, carrot, broad bean and pea seeds I had sown four weeks earlier. The potatoes lay in a sludge as viscid as melted chocolate. The asparagus crowns I had ordered from Dublin had been washed out of the soil. Lashed by rain that flowed like glass ropes from my knees, elbows and nose, I had replanted them. This resulted in a heavy cold that ran round the entire family.
The day of the opening came. After a night of coughing myself into a feverish headache I dragged myself from my bed to face a blushing dawn. I opened the window. Puddles lay on the roof, smooth but for the occasional ruffling from a light breeze. The rain had stopped. The extraordinary beauty of the forests and mountains thrilled me as much, perhaps more than the first time I had seen them, for they were now familiar and dear to me. My fever cooled; the headache began to ease.
I picked my way across the floor among a sea of cats, all of whom had moved into my bedroom in protest at the unrelenting weather. The new canopy above my bed heaved with bodies. Alexander, Paudeen and Dervla, the most domesticated of the tribe, worked their giant paws in ecstasy as I rubbed their bronze-coloured ears and striped fur. Reproduction had been brought to a standstill and good homes had been found for some of the kittens but fifteen cats were still too many for a smallish room. I had caught more than one squatting in a corner when the weather howled inhospitably beyond the improvised cardboard cat-flap.
Osgar was now the chief obstacle to their living downstairs. These days he roamed the demesne terrorizing, by a lift of his lip and a resonant growl, rats, squirrels, sheep and even the Cockatoo. Some people – probably most – would blame my foolish sentimentality for this unsatisfactory situation. Anyway, I had to sort it out before I left.
By a quarter to two, the hour of our debut, the dogs had been shut up in the boot room, the signs for the tea-room and lavatory were in place and the areas not open to the public had been roped off. Each of us was poised, strung with anticipation, at his or her appointed post. I took a last glance, trying to see the house with the critical eyes of a stranger. It looked, perhaps, a little shabby and dilapidated but undeniably well loved. It smelt of furniture polish and flowers, mostly daffodils with a good deal of mahonia and skimmia. My heart swelled with affectionate p
ride as I swept turf ash from the side table with my sleeve.
I took my place in the niche of the gatehouse where in feudal times servants had spent long days training their eyes upon the road that snaked down the distant hill, in expectation of English soldiers coming to lay siege to the castle or of local squireens coming to dance and dine. I had a rickety table before me, a book of cloakroom tickets and a bowl of loose change. Constance was stationed by the front door on the other side of the courtyard, ready to embark with the first-comers on the tour. There had been some argument about this. Constance thought that as I knew more about the furniture, paintings and decoration I would be the better guide. But I was positive that the visitors would prefer the cachet of being shown round by a true daughter of the house to details about veneers, giltbronze and hard paste porcelain.
Pegeen and Katty, in clean aprons, were waiting in the granary – that is, tea-room – behind the piping-hot urn we had bought, second-hand, from Turlough McGurn. The children were at school, furious to be missing the excitement. Maud and Violet were closeted upstairs in their rooms with an electric kettle, the television on and the blinds down. Maud was apprehensive of the tramp of proletarian feet but Violet was disappointed to be shut away. Timsy was harnessing the Cockatoo. We hoped visitors would be charmed to be taken down to the walled garden in an authentic horse-drawn Irish car. Timsy had been forbidden to drink on pain of instant dismissal. Of course we all knew this was an empty threat.
Only the previous day Eugene had been visited by inspiration. Weeks before we had discovered in one of the attics a collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century silhouettes, bust-length, full-length and groups with lithographed backgrounds, consigned there by Constance’s grandmother when such things had gone out of fashion. They were all of good quality and three were signed by Augustin Edouart, the most famous ‘scissorgraphist’. Together they made a striking group in a corner of the drawing room where the mildew on the yellow damask was particularly bad.
Eugene had offered to set himself up with easel, paper, pen and black ink, to dash off a head-and-shoulders silhouette of anyone willing to pay five pounds for the privilege of sitting. He had practised on the children and we had been impressed by the result. He was able to produce a good likeness in about fifteen minutes. Only experience would tell whether this would be a profitable exercise but if nothing else it was a welcome sign that Eugene was prepared to see himself once more as a contributing member of the human race.
I sharpened my pencil in case teething troubles needed to be taken note of, tidied the change in my bowl, placed my book of tickets at a neat right-angle to my jotting pad and again fixed my eyes on the (almost) blue horizon. After a long hour during which I had written out my grocery order for the week, made a list of repair jobs indoors and sketched out a cutting border for the walled garden, I went indoors.
‘I suppose we were expecting too much.’ Constance was sprawled in one of the hall chairs with Castle Rackrent in her hand. ‘Perhaps there aren’t any tourists this far west so early in the year.’
‘Or not enough other kinds of entertainment nearby,’ I said gloomily. ‘Probably they can’t be bothered to come this far just for one castle.’
‘There’s Clerenshill and Glassenough within sixty miles of us. They both open at Easter. I wonder what these beastly trippers want,’ she added, bitter in her disappointment. ‘A funfair and lions, I suppose.’
‘Oh, Constance, I can’t bear it to be a failure! We’ve worked so hard!’
‘It’s only the first day. Come on, Bobbie. It’s not like you to be downhearted.’
It was true that my nature was generally optimistic. But it had been my idea to open Curraghcourt. We had spent something like two hundred and fifty pounds on paint, specialist cleaning things, ingredients for the tea-room and, most expensive of all, two signs directing people here: one for the centre of Kilmuree and the other to indicate the road that led to the demesne. The total of man-hours put in was incalculable.
Constance flexed her arms above her head. ‘Perhaps the Heritage people will give us some money regardless of how many people do or don’t come to see us.’
I shook my head. ‘They won’t. These boards are run by hard-headed accountants. If they give money to us why not to every large house with a leaking roof and rising damp? Of which there must be thousands in Ireland. We have to prove to them that we’re an asset to tourism. But, as you say, it’s only the first day. Perhaps the word hasn’t got around yet. Where’s Eugene?’
‘Lying down in the library. He says he hardly slept last night for excitement. I promised to call him if anyone came.’
‘It’s a miserable anticlimax. We’d better check on the others.’
Timsy was stretched along the seat of the outside car, his eyes closed, reeking of whiskey while the Cockatoo pulled him slowly about the courtyard in search of the stunted grass that grew between the cobblestones. In the tea-room Pegeen and Katty were huddled together over a pot of tea and a game of noughts and crosses. Their aprons were not looking quite so clean. Katty whisked something out of sight as soon as she saw us. I had no doubt it was a black bottle. I lacked the spirit to protest.
‘Now look.’ Constance threw back her shoulders and put on her bossiest voice. ‘What sort of impression will this make? Someone might come at any moment. We must continue to hold ourselves in readiness.’
Pegeen grinned up at her with bleary eyes. She had lost another tooth.
Half an hour later Constance and I let the dogs out and joined Pegeen and Katty at their table which now looked as though a family of ten had wiped their hands and faces on the tablecloth every day for a week. To cheer ourselves up we had a glass of poteen and some chocolate biscuits. Constance of course was familiar with the taste but I had to hold my nose to get it down. It must be admitted, things looked much more cheerful afterwards. I taught the others how to play Hangman and for some reason this simple game was a smash hit. Pegeen and Katty, by now hiccuping and periodically slipping from their chairs, screamed with excitement whenever they hanged anyone or were hanged themselves. They winked and cackled and nudged me with their elbows and for the first time I felt they had forgiven me for being English and were willing to include me in the sisterhood, so it was not an entirely wasted half-hour. At four o’clock I went back to the house to fetch the lunch trays from Maud’s room. My foot was on the bottom stair when I heard the tooting of a car horn. I raced towards the gatehouse.
‘Ho there, postern-keeper! This is a slack outfit and no mistake.’
‘Kit!’
He emerged from the shadow of the archway. ‘Hello, my darling Bobbie.’ He drew me to him and kissed me soundly. ‘You’re looking marvellous. If a trifle flurried. Is that chocolate on your chin?’
I rubbed my forearm across my face and tried to pull myself together. The effects of the poteen were long-lasting. In the context of a day spent idling away hours that felt like years, Kit looked bright-eyed, dynamic and fit, like an advertisement for vitamins. His elegantly waving hair was streaked almost white at the front and he was sporting a tan that made his teeth gleam.
‘It’s our first day open. Did you remember? If so, you’re a friend in a million. Not a soul’s been near us. It’s discouraging, to say the least.’
‘Of course I remembered. That hideous Dutch pink is burned on my retina. Every time I close my eyes I think of Curraghcourt and the smell of paint. And you. Not necessarily in that order.’
‘It’s wonderful to see you. Why are you so brown?’
‘I got back from three weeks in Gstaad yesterday. Lovely weather, excellent snow.’
‘Being a literary agent has other rewards than the merely cultural, evidently.’ After I said this I thought it sounded rather grudging so I added, ‘You mustn’t mind if we’re all a little flat. We’ve slaved to get things ready and I quite thought we’d have some customers our first day.’ I sighed. ‘Another of life’s cruel lessons.’
‘What would you s
ay if I told you there was a bus-load of eager culture-vultures cresting the hill at this moment,’ asked Kit. ‘And another not far behind?’
I stared at him wonderingly. ‘Are you teasing me? Because if so I think it’s a rotten joke.’
‘Look!’ Kit pulled me through the archway and pointed to the hillside. Rolling down it, at this distance about the size of a liquorice comfit, was a bright red single-decker coach. ‘Some of the Kilmuree wits thought it would be amusing to redirect your signs. The roads of West Connemara are congested with disgruntled pleasure-seekers, thoroughly lost. I happened to meet the two buses on my way over. I set them on the right path and I’ve turned both signs round. Then I put my foot down to get here in time to warn you.’
‘Kit! You’re an angel!’ I hugged him. ‘Oh, you excellent man! Words can’t express my heartfelt gratitude—’
‘It’s not words I’m particularly interested in.’ Kit put his arms round my waist but I was too distracted to respond.
‘Oh, no! Pegeen and Katty! And Timsy!’
FORTY-FIVE
At half past five Constance and I stood by the front door to watch the last vehicle lurch away over the ruts. I felt as though my eyes had contracted to pinholes with weariness.
Constance rubbed her hands over her face and fastened back with a kirby-grip the strands of her hair that had worked loose. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to have a big, big glass of something wholly intoxicating.’
‘Come on, you two.’ Kit appeared in the hall with a bottle and several glasses on a tray. ‘Time to unwind. Oh, Constance, I’ve got something for you.’ He gave me the tray and felt in the pocket of his jacket. He brought out a thin booklet and handed it to her. ‘Page five.’
Looking bemused Constance turned the pages as directed. Then her face became fiery and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘My poem! Oh, Kit! How did you … It isn’t nearly good enough. I feel overwhelmed … Did you have to pay somebody?’
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