My Buried Life

by Doreen Finn

  The stairs creak as I ascend. I step on the edges, mindful of the dilapidated wood. Upstairs is much the same. The taps in the single bathroom, which rattled and shook each morning as they suffered to bring us water, now run dry. Rusty water marks disfigure the once-white sink. The window has slipped from its frame, and cold April air courses in through the cracks. I call to mind how my mother had complained more about the bathroom than any other aspect of the house. Too young to comprehend her frustration, I hadn’t understood, but now I can empathise. Vaguely I recollect her attempts at gentility, the fancy little towels, the perfumed soap, the embroidered cushions she’d put on the couch, the tiny watercolours she framed and hung along the stairs.

  The house is a farmhouse, built at the turn of the century for a modest farmer with no knowledge of, or interest in, the world beyond his fields. It was suited to just such a person, his life revolving around crops and animals. Soap and matching wallpapers would remain forever outside his sphere of reference. My grandparents and their parents had been such people, uninfluenced by, and unaware of, city culture. Decades meant nothing to them. Trends didn’t change. Worrying about what clothes to wear would have seemed trivial, insignificant preoccupations for a mind with nothing else to focus on.

  I trace my fingers down the moist wall in the bedroom I shared with my brother. His Airfix models still hang suspended from fishing line, testament to the durability of the nylon line and the hooks our father screwed into the ceiling. Water drips from a leak in the roof, the sound hollow, echoing in the deserted landing.

  An epiphany of sorts creeps over me, standing in that damp bedroom, with its mouldy bedclothes disintegrated into the rotting mattresses, the child-sized clothes in fragments in the wardrobe, the smell of fungus filling my senses. I feel my mother’s frustration. How angry she must have been with her life, with the shitty deal she’d been apportioned. A house she couldn’t keep clean or refined, regardless of her efforts. A daughter she never bonded with, who clearly preferred her father. A social life that revolved around two stations on the television that she insisted my father buy, and Mass on Sundays among people she considered peasants.

  Instead of discarding it all when she left, instead of praising herself for the courage she summoned to escape, she allowed herself to sink into bitterness, holding on to her rage until it became the blueprint for her life. She hated me because I wasn’t her. I was different, the unmouldable daughter. Her cast could not contain my form.

  I cannot forgive her for flinging me aside, but standing in the cold little house, a city girl to my bones, I find a measure of understanding for my mother. It is only a miniscule amount, less, perhaps, than a teaspoon, but it is there, and I acknowledge it. The Pears soap, the cushions, the watercolours, the vases of wildflowers. She’d tried. The other things, all that came after we moved, I’ll deal with eventually. I have no choice, not if I want to keep my sanity and refrain from following the prints her feet have so carefully outlined.

  Poetry helped, and who knows, maybe it will again. I’ve learned not to rely too heavily on anything or anyone. In the end, all I have is myself. And for now, I am enough.

  Bloodied light percolates through another hole in the roof. The sun has emerged and begun its descent. I untie my cashmere cardigan from around my waist and slip it on. Evening is falling, and the cooling air will chill me. The softness of the wool glides over my bare arms. This is the cardigan Isaac gifted me that terrible weekend in LA. I’d put it in a bag for donating, but retrieved it. Why bother? I still like beautiful things. Isaac doesn’t have to haunt everything I own.

  I consider opening drawers, sifting through the rest of the abandoned stuff, but it is mostly beyond recognition. My father had turned the key and left it all behind him. Other than his records and the clothes he wore, he’d brought little with him to his new life. How great his hurry must have been if he didn’t even drink his tea. Peter had probably issued him with an ultimatum, leave with me tonight or you’ll never see me again. My father, grasping at the straws of freedom, had turned off the kettle, put his records and a toothbrush in a bag, and shut the door firmly on the life he chose not to live.

  I hope he was happy, that the shackles of his secrets had been blasted away by a world that cared little about whom he chose to love. What saddens me, though, is that he kept it from me. I wouldn’t have cared. Just having him in my life would have sufficed.

  By leaving me the farm, he knew I’d uncover what he’d buried. Secrets never stay unrevealed. They may hide their faces for years, but they eventually float to the surface, shocking us with their revelations. My father had known that, and he chose to disclose his from a place where I couldn’t find him. Maybe bringing me back to the place of my birth was his way of telling me his truth.

  Careful not to damage it, I drag the suitcase record player out to Adam’s car. I relocate the drum of doughnut oil to the boot and wedge the case into the back seat.

  Standing on the gravel, I turn on my heels, breathing in the fragrant oxygen, no hint on the air of the decaying heap that is the house.

  The quiet is religious. It stretches infinitesimally around me. This is a safe place, holding the stillness like an ebony lake shelters its shimmering fish. It grips the scent of spring in its hands, new buds and fresh grass. Did my father miss it at all? In the midst of the insanity of New York City, did he ever pause to think of the flat land, or the way the heaped haystacks in summer must have looked like scenes from a Monet painting? Did he yearn for the hushed nights or their perfect darkness?

  I imagine myself, pen in hand, dispelling poetry in this place, with nothing and no one to distract me. Would the ghosts of my family allow me the peace, or would they be forever knocking at my subconscious, demanding to be examined? Yet without my history, who am I? I can’t wipe my slate clean, but I can begin again.

  I start the car, giving it a minute to garner itself for the drive home. The day is fading fast. The house has taken on an ethereal aspect, its flaws dissolving as twilight purples the sky. The ancient Mercedes carries me back down the narrow lane to the road, the tall grass brushing off the windows. I wind down the window to throw the key out into the old well near the gate. It is useless to me. I examine it, just another brass key, nothing special. It doesn’t open any doors I need to go through. Not any more.

  But in the end, instead of discarding it, I drop it in my bag. Another souvenir of a life not lived.

  CHAPTER 32

  I resign my job in the boys’ school after the Easter holidays, giving Jim Collins two weeks to replace me. It’s a short term, only six weeks long. There won’t be a problem. I must leave before my bump is noticeable, before Adam feels compelled to propose to me, to stand by his actions. It might be his, but it might not, and I would rather not know. That way it will be my child, and mine alone.

  Aelita will move into this house. She and Seamus will occupy the rooms, bring new light into all the dusty corners. In return for keeping a close eye on Maude, they can stay as long as they wish. Forever, if that is their desire. Maybe Aelita will have more children, and the house will heave to their energy, their laughter. Old ghosts will be displaced, and new stories, new lives and histories set in motion. The house too deserves a fresh start.

  Writing a letter to Adam explaining my departure is something I consider, but I decide not to. If I tell him, I’ll never be free. He may feel obliged to stay with me out of duty, or some misguided sense of doing the right thing. I’d always be the abandoned girl he has to mind. I couldn’t bear that level of deference. Like a disease, it would eventually consume us whole. Besides, Adam has his own life, his own child to take care of. I can’t bring him his maybe-child, the possible cuckoo in the domestic nest.

  In time I will work something out. When my child has grown somewhat, and paternity is clearer, I will reach out, make contact, tell the story. My mother’s choices are being repeated by me
, of that I am aware, but I won’t withhold my child, will not deny it its father. Unlike my mother, I won’t blame my baby for existing, for reminding me of this period in my life. It’s been good, in all. I want to keep it that way. In time, things will be clearer, easier. I have come a long way. A short few years is little over the span of a life. In time. I will give it time.

  That golden day in late April, the day my foot touches American soil in Kennedy Airport, all I’m aware of is the huge airiness within me and all around me. The sunlight bounces off the glass buildings ahead as the cab slides over the 59th Street Bridge. Below me, the East River shimmers in all its polluted glory. In front is the city I’ve called home for so long, this damaged, fractured, sooty city, harbourer of dreams, wishes, nightmares, brokenness. It stretches, a phosphorescent sprawl, as far as I can see, and farther still, and I love it. For now, this is all I need.

  I book a room for a week in a boutique hotel in midtown. Next morning, I take the subway to the offices on Lexington that house my father’s lawyers. My father has left me more money that I would earn in twenty years. The sum is unreal to me, a number with many zeroes, but it doesn’t seem rooted in anything familiar. After the lawyers, in their Paul Smith suits and glass-filled offices, leave me alone for a few moments, I trace the numbers on the bank accounts with my fingers. Slants of light hit the pages. A phone trills outside. A copy machine clicks out sheets in a corner of the room. I rub my expanding bump, then return to the numbers again. So many of them. My father did this for me.

  When they return, these two men, wearing suits that cost more than I earn in a month, I take the proffered pen, sign on the lines, shake hands with them. It is a pleasure doing business with you, they assure me. Ms Perry. A pleasure to have met you.

  Outside, the city continues unabated. Yellow cabs clog the avenues, one-way traffic sitting at a standstill. Hot dog vendors hawk their wares, grease and onions smoking the air around them. A man selling pretzels in a Jets shirt sits in the shade of a crab apple tree. A garbage truck grinds past. Car horns splatter the late morning with their noise, invasive and unwelcome.

  I sit at a pavement café, a mint tea cooling in a tall mug beside me. A book I started on the plane rests on the mosaic table, but I cannot read just now. Summer has arrived early in New York, and it cloaks the city in hot folds. Sweat beads my forehead and the sides of my nose. I dab my skin with a paper napkin. My eyes seek out the scenes I’ve missed for so long, the people, the purpose, the bustle of life.

  Sitting at that table, I devour the city as it races by, fast-forwarding itself into a blur of frenzied activity. I watch a couple fighting over who will pay the bill, a child rummaging in her mother’s handbag, a dog owner tying his charge to a lamp post. A girl in heels slips on the cobblestones. A homeless woman pushes her shopping trolley past. A waiter obliges me by erecting the large umbrella over my table. I’ve been in Ireland for eight months, and this heat is intense. Above me, the skyscrapers battle for height and space, reaching up and up, their glass windows winking in the saffron light. Down here, it always seems a shade darker, the buildings stealing so much of the glare. The city’s sirens wail, and far beneath me the subway shudders the earth. A few blocks away is a dive bar I infrequently patronised with some colleagues from NYU. The worst kind of workingman’s hovel, the floor sticky with spills, lifelong drunks slumped over their glasses at all times of day, but a place with friendly bartenders and cheap drinks. I have no urge to be there. I don’t want to run into anyone, or feel the need to explain my expanding waistline. Mint tea is sufficient, and I’m proud of myself.

  I check my watch. Peter should be here soon. This place was his suggestion, only two blocks from the attorneys’ offices. Actually, I’m looking forward to seeing him, this man who occupied such a huge portion of my father’s life. The connection is tenuous at best, but at least it’s there. A good starting point.

  The city air is blurred with heat. I adjust my dark glasses, rub my bump. A flash of blue linen, the scrape of a chair being pulled out. A kiss on my cheek.

  ‘Eva. It’s so good to see you.’ His hand, firm on my arm.

  I will stay here, in America. More than that I cannot say. Tiny steps, I remind myself. They’re all that is needed. No need to hurry. The clock still ticks, the sand still seeps through the hourglass. No rushing required.

  I don’t know it now, but I will resign my post at NYU this summer and accept another job, in UCLA, where I did a semester’s work before Isaac and I broke up. They will make me a professor of modern poetry by the end of my first year. A book I will write, on women and power in literature, will be published to acclaim, and will win me two awards.

  I don’t know that I will take evening walks along the ocean’s edge each day, a short stroll from the pretty two-bedroomed house in Santa Monica that I will buy with part of my inheritance, or that settling into California life is something I’ll achieve with ease. In that house near the edge of the ocean I will raise my son, my beautiful boy, and each night I will hold him till he sleeps as the Pacific crashes before us. From the moment this bundle of perfection is born, I’ll wonder how it is possible that a baby could look so much like his father. One theory claims an evolutionary explanation, but whatever it is, this bewitching child has so much of his father in his face that it makes me cry. I don’t know it now, but before this year has ended, at my desk in this house, by the enormous picture window with an unobstructed view of the ocean, I will sit down and I will pen a letter. Dear Adam, I will write. I owe you an explanation.

  I may not know it now, sitting at this pavement café in New York with this lovely man who will be a huge part of my life, of my son’s life, but I will be successful at shedding my past. Not denying it, but shrugging it off, stepping aside and moving on. No one has so far told me how easy it will be to do it, and it will be easy. After my gorgeous boy, it will be the easiest thing I’ll have done. I will think of my brother, and he won’t seal up the valves in my soul. I’ll remember my mother, not with bitterness and rancour but with something approaching pity. And I’ll thank my father for giving me this chance to move on with my life.

  There will be days when a drink seems like the only thing that will get me through, but I’ll manage. I’ll manage very well. Adam will help, of course. How I’d imagined this journey without him is something I’ll never quite understand.

  When my son is still very small, I will rock with him on our porch each evening, the scent of lemons heavy as the twilight draws itself around us. And behind the dying light of day will be the hint of the one yet to come, and the one after that and after that again, and of all the tomorrows that will reveal themselves, one by one. Who knows, maybe occasionally I’ll picture the other life, that buried life, and be grateful for what it has led me to.

  The first of the stars will push through the pale purple sky, Jupiter maybe, or Saturn, the moon only a thumbnail, the tiniest curve of silver in the striped firmament. Not enough to see its cracked face or its vast arid oceans. The palm trees will rattle their fronds. Lizards will click their tongues. The Pacific, huge and dark at the magic hour, will glimmer all the way to the horizon, and my child and I will close our eyes and rock ourselves to sleep.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book has been a long time in the making. Many people have helped me out in various ways, and I wish now to convey my sincere gratitude.

  For reading (and printing!) early drafts and for cheering me on, Vanessa Doherty, Tracy Fung, Heather Dawson, Darren Lenton, Brid Brogan, Nessa Doyle, Liz Houchin.

  For clearing the water and raising the Titanic, as well as for friendship, Janet Fitch.

  For constant support, a place to stay and a lot of fun along the way, my brother, Alan Finn.

  For answering my questions about academia and the world of the university, Bettina Knipschild and Jamal Ouhalla.

  For taking a chance on an unknown, my
agent, Caroline Montgomery.

  Justin, Mariel, Edwin, Eoin and everyone at New Island for seeing potential in my book.

  Mary Stanley, for her incredible editing skills and for all the laughter and coffee.

  My parents, Ted and Yvonne Finn, without whom none of this would have been possible, for a lifetime of love, support, help and everything else in between.

  My husband, Mark Schrier, for all his faith and help and for giving me the space to write.

  My beautiful children, Emily and David, who make everything worthwhile.