Tonight, he drove for just under three hours, arrived at her apartment block at exactly ten past three in the morning.
Some people might call that the middle of the night.
Looking back, he had no real recollection of the journey. He focused on the destination. The mindfulness people would be up in arms. He grinned when he thought that. It was such a Martha thought.
He wasn’t sure what would happen when he got there. He just knew he would get there. Whatever happened next would happen and he would not stand accused of doing nothing.
He would regret nothing.
The buzzer wasn’t working. He hesitated – only momentarily – before heading to the patch of landscaped grass at the front of the building. He scanned the apartments on the third floor. They were all in darkness. Had he been a different kind of person, he might have taken that as a sign.
He wasn’t sure which window might be hers but on the third windowsill from the left there was a kitchen roll holder, except instead of a kitchen roll it held a vast array of hair scrunchies in many, many colours apart from red.
Cillian threw a stone at that window.
Nothing happened.
He threw another. Then another.
A window opened. It was not the third one from the left.
While Cillian didn’t know this at the time, it was, in fact, Robert-Call-Me-Rob from apartment thirty-seven. ‘Not again,’ he wailed into the night sky.
Another window opened, this time on the ground floor. ‘Is that buzzer still on the fritz?’
Cillian ignored them, gathered another handful of pebbles.
A window yanked open. The third window. From the left.
‘If that’s you again, Mathilde, I swear I’ll blacken your eye.’
And there she was. Martha. Martha Wilder. Her red hair stormed around her face like a platoon of angry troops and she wore a faded, threadbare T-shirt with ...
‘Is that my Kurt Cobain T-shirt?’
‘Cillian?’
‘Yes.’
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘I read your article today. Well, yesterday, I suppose. I ...’
‘It’s three o’clock in the morning.’
‘It’s thirteen minutes past three, actually.’
‘I could have rung the talking clock if I needed that kind of detail.’
Cillian took a breath. ‘Was that me you were referring to? When you said “love of my life”?’
‘I can’t believe the editor let that bit go to print.’
‘Was it?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Answer the bloody question.’
‘Fine then. Yes, it bloody well was.’
There was a pause while Cillian let that sink in.
‘That’s handy so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you happen to be the love of my life.’
‘What?’
‘I SAID, YOU’RE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE.’ He shouted the words and in the gentle still of the night, lit by a sliver of moon, barely there, the words sounded between them as clear as the ringing of a bell. They reached the dark facade of the building, pushed against the brick and hung in the air, suspended on a thread of night itself, like a messenger, bearing glad tidings.
‘For fuck sake.’ An apartment dweller on the second floor pushed his head out of his bedroom window.
Cillian said, ‘Maybe I should come up,’ at the same time as Martha said, ‘I’ll come down.’ They met somewhere in the middle, on the stairwell. She hesitated when she saw him. Cillian, who had run out of lines since the love of my life declaration, came up with, ‘Is this an inconvenient time?’ which made Martha smile.
‘Well, it’s three o’clock in the morning.’
‘Three sixteen actually. But you haven’t answered my question.’
She was beside him now. He saw the gap between her front teeth, the fleshy red of her bottom lip. A muscle jumped against the pale skin of her neck.
‘What was your question?’ she said.
‘Is now a good time?’ Cillian said again.
She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. Now is a good time.’
Epilogue
There is something in the air.
On a day like today, one wonders if perhaps it is always there and it is we – scurrying about the world like lines of ants – who fail to notice. The something that is in the air.
No matter. We notice it today.
It is difficult to put a name on it, the something that is in the air. To define it in a way that allows us to understand what it is.
Excitement? Anticipation? A sense of possibility? Happiness even?
Whatever it is, it is there and the people who are gathered feel it as surely as a warm breeze against their faces as they look at the sky that is end-of-term blue with occasional wisps of pale cloud, trailing on the breeze like ribbons in a child’s hair.
A string quartet begins to play.
Heads turn to look at the musicians. To wonder how the hairs of a bow against a string can produce such a beautiful sound. The music soars and people are reminded of a bird, perhaps, spreading its wings for the first time, teetering on the edge of a branch, high in a tree. The music swells and the bird is airborne, looks down at the ground below, wonders why it ever felt afraid.
Three of the musicians are men, in black tuxedos and crisp white shirts. The violin player is a woman. Her long neck tilts against the mellowing wood of the instrument where cracks are visible. This instrument has been damaged and repaired. The violinist’s red hair – drawn across her shoulder – flows like a tide down her body towards her waist, glinting gold in places as if the sun itself has become entangled in its length.
When the music finishes, she stands and the expression in her bright green eyes is one of surprise, as if she has arrived at a destination she never expected to reach.
Perhaps she has.
We are in a garden behind a cottage. A large garden, almost a field. Raised hedgerows mark the boundary. The hedgerows are threaded through with the colours of summer, bursting with ragwort, bluebells, cow parsley, fuchsia, wild garlic, mint.
The flow of water nearby over smooth, flat stones is like another kind of music.
Another kind of something, that is in the air.
In the centre of the garden, rows of chairs have been set, separated in the middle to form a grassy aisle across which crimson rose petals have been scattered. The chairs face a table, covered with a linen cloth. Rose petals are scattered here too and a woman and a boy put the finishing touches on two bouquets of wild flowers that sit in metal watering cans on either end of the table. The boy has the gangly build of a teenager who has recently grown taller than he ever thought he would be.
They are mother and son. There is no way to be certain and yet the people gathered know this to be true. It is perhaps in the way she glances at the boy as if she knows things about him that he does not yet know. Good things. He stands, studies his arrangement and looks at her and there is a question in his look and when she smiles, her dark grey eyes lighten and now we can see a trace of blue in them. We see her beauty there. Her strength.
And now the music begins again and two women appear at the bottom of the grassy aisle, both in dresses that seem to float around them, as if the delicate fabric is melting with the warmth of the sun. They each hold a posy of pink roses and the fingers of their free hands are wrapped loosely around each other’s, like a promise made. A promise about to be made.
Everyone in the garden that day smiles when they see the faces of these two women.
Perhaps it is because of the something that is in the air.
They begin to walk. At the top, there is a man with a book, open in the palms of his hands. He would look officious were it not for his attire – a lime-green short-sleeved shirt, patterned with strawberries, the flushed colour of lips that have been kissed at length, a pair of white linen shorts to the knee. Short legs ending in lon
g feet that are accommodated in thick-strapped brown sandals.
‘Are you sure you’re qualified for this, Dan?’ one of the brides – Tara – had enquired at the rehearsal earlier in the week.
‘I can assure you that I am a fully approved solemniser,’ Dan had said, drawing himself up to his full height, which wasn’t very high. ‘That’s Sol-emn-iser, by the way.’ He winked.
‘You are the first professional solemniser I’ve met,’ said the other bride, Mathilde.
Dan beamed. ‘Nobody’s ever accused me of being professional before.’
‘Why you do this job?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘I think, if I am to be thwarted in love, I may as well be instrumental in encouraging the love of others to flourish.’
The mother and son take their leave of the garden. They pile into a van, the sides of which are painted with wild roses that sweep and weave around a single word.
Rosa’s.
‘Wait.’ It is the owner of the cottage that could be described as being in the middle of nowhere, one supposes, but which in fact is halfway between Ashbourne and Finglas.
‘Did you get sorted?’ he asks. He is a tall man with metal grey hair. Rosa – the owner of the van and indeed the flower shop of the same name – shakes her head. She can’t help smiling at the man in an almost-flirtatious manner. When they pull away, her son will tell her of her almost-flirtatious smile and she will deny this. She is not a woman who smiles almost-flirtatiously at anyone. She is a business woman.
Still, she smiles in this uncharacteristic way, albeit unbeknownst to her. It is perhaps his height, the way he must bend at the waist to speak to her. The studious nature of his eyes, the length of his lashes, the softness of his Donegal accent. She knows he is not a classically handsome man. But, she acknowledges, there is something about him. Something that she cannot quite put her finger on.
She tells him she has been paid and she says, yes, she and her son would be delighted to come for dinner next Sunday – so long as Martha is not cooking. She laughs when she says this, so he will know it is her version of a joke, although her observation is a true one. Martha can do many things, Rosa knows. Cooking is not one of them.
‘Are you going to the grave?’ he asks.
She nods.
She goes every Saturday, after work. She has planted a rose bush there. She needs to spray the leaves – the greenfly are ravenous at this time of the year. She pulls weeds and keeps the moss at bay. Regular visitors sometimes ask her if she is related to Tobias Hartmann.
She always says the same thing.
Mr Hartmann is my friend.
She brings her son, Roman.
Encased in glass and set in the stone of the gravestone is a print of one of Mr Hartmann’s earliest drawings. The nurse – always the nurse – washing the filth of war from the face of the young soldier. The boy looks at her. The nurse’s face is in shadow but there is tenderness in the length of her fingers.
Always tenderness.
It has no title but, privately, Rosa calls it Love.
Rosa believes that Martha Wilder has done him justice. In the second novel she is writing now, which Rosa is reading as Martha is writing. For Mr Hartmann is in it, as surely as he was in the library on Thursday nights, teaching Rosa English. In spite of all the research Martha has done, the facts she has uncovered about Mr Hartmann’s life, Rosa feels that the man in the novel is still hers. The one she knew. The one she knows still.
The grave is covered in flowers and coins. Ribbons and balloons are tethered to the rails that skirt the plot. Some people leave their sketches, in plastic folders, as if hoping for a critique from the great man himself. The anonymous artist who has been revealed to the world.
Rosa is certain that Mr Hartmann is unconcerned with these efforts. She hopes he is at peace. She wishes that for him. It is the least she can wish, since he has given that to her. Peace. Given that to her and her son.
While he left most of his vast wealth to Médicins Sans Frontières – perhaps his final tribute to the nurse that Mary Murphy had been – he had left one drawing, Meeting, to Rosa. Malachy Hemingway told her it would fetch a princely sum at auction and he was right. Enough to set up the flower shop. Buy the apartment with the balcony with a chair where she sometimes sits, watches the sun set. Her son has his own bedroom. Roman and his friends – Meadhbh and Adam, who remain friends despite their brief dalliance – listen to their music there. It is a gift, Rosa thinks. To give such a space to your son.
The something that is in the air lingers, even when the last of the guests have gone.
Two people remain. They stand near the bottom of the garden, drops of dew trembling along the stalks of the long grasses that brush against their legs, falling to splash on their bare feet. Their feet move in tandem and, looking up, we see that these two people are dancing. Waltzing. In the long grasses, the light of a full moon shimmering against their bodies, making her red hair glisten, making his dark eyes shine. It is one of those moments where happiness rings at your door, calls out, ‘I’m Here,’ in a brightly coloured, singsong voice, lets itself in, makes itself at home. She feels full with it. Sometimes it worries her, all this happiness. But not tonight. Tonight, she is an alcoholic who hasn’t drunk in two years, six months, two weeks, four days.
Seamus, her sponsor, is right. Every day is an achievement.
Tonight, happiness nudges her and, in her head, she moves over. Makes room for it.
She has been doing that a lot. Making room. It is not something that you can take for granted, happiness. She knows that now. You have to allow for it.
She has been allowing for it since that night he arrived at her apartment block, threw stones against her bedroom window.
Now, they look at each other as they dance.
His arm tightens around her waist. He bends, whispers into the soft mesh of her hair.
She stops dancing. ‘Don’t say that.’ Her voice is low. Hesitant. ‘Unless you mean it.’
He looks at her and we don’t know what he’s thinking but we know it’s something good because of the way he looks at her. There is a knowledge in his look. Of things to come. Good things.
‘I do mean it.’
‘Oh.’
‘I just thought you should know.’
A pause. Then, her voice again, quieter now. ‘Well, I ...’ She stops. Looks at him.
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘Do I have to spell it out?’
‘Yes.’
She reaches up, pushes her fingers through his fringe that is already beginning to hang into his eyes, despite the fierce cut she subjected it to the week before. She turns his head and whispers the words into his ear and he takes her face in his hands, catches her mouth with his and they begin to dance again, dance and kiss, the murmur of the river beyond like the soundtrack of the dance. The soundtrack of the kiss.
It goes on and on.
Acknowledgements
This is my sixth novel. When I began writing – a youngster of thirty-four – I thought that writing books would become easier over time, much like assembling flatpack furniture or coaxing a sponge cake to rise. And no, I haven’t successfully achieved either of those but I imagine, if you attempt it often enough, it would become second nature and there you’d be, eating wedges of elevated cake, sitting on a stool you’ve cobbled together using a few bits of wood and a forty-five-page instruction manual. Sadly, this has not been my experience with the writing life and, despite the many, many words I have written, and deleted, and written again, writing remains a challenge; a solitary one-step-forward-two-steps-back maze through which I run, every day, from my inner critic.
BUT I keep doing it. I keep writing. I think it has something to do with passion which is quite the stimulant; it makes me feel alive in a nerve-jangling, blood pounding, slightly alarming way. And I like it. Feeling like that. Actually, I love it. And I’m thankful for it.
Thanks to my family. My children, Sadhbh, Nei
l and Grace, my husband, Frank, my sister, Niamh, my parents, Breda and Don. Your faithful support and love are things I can count on, every day. I am steeped in great fortune, to have such a tribe.
Thanks also to my extended family, especially my brother-in-law, Neil MacLochlainn, who reads my books and doesn’t care who knows it, to Eamon MacLochlainn, for information on the banking world, and to Auntie Antje (Trainor), for helping me with my research on juvenile detention centres.
Thanks to my editor, Ciara Doorley, who wields her red pen with great sensitivity and expertise. Thanks also to Emma Dunne, for meticulous copy and line-editing.
Thanks to my agent, Ger Nichol, for her unwavering support of me and my stories.
Thanks to the detectives (they asked not to be named and they may be armed ... ) in a Dublin city garda station who gave me ideas about how my fictional detective, Cillian Larkin, might crack the case in this story, as well as a tour of the station and updating my knowledge of general police-type stuff (my only previous source came from weekly fixes of Starsky and Hutch).
Thanks to the readers of various drafts of this novel; Niamh Geraghty, Yvonne Cassidy and Dominic Bennett. Thank you for your time, your insight and your encouragement.
Thanks to Gráinne Folan, Anna Maria Tuckett and Magdalena Bowler for help with Polish matters.
A huge rush of affection and gratitude goes to my readers; you know who you are. It still feels a little surreal, that there are people in the world who read my books, who are not my mother or my sister. Surreal but lovely. Really lovely. Like a turf fire in a stone cottage in Connemara. That kind of lovely. Thank you readers. You make this writer very happy.
8 January 2016
Ciara Geraghty
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