Remembering Light and Stone

by Deirdre Madden

  He was arrested and charged once for possession of drugs – a bit of marijuana – and once he crashed his motorbike near Brighton and broke his leg. To be honest, I thought that for a black sheep in a family in the mid 1970s he wasn’t up to much, and I told him so. He was really angry with me.

  He didn’t stay in London very long – I think it was just about a year and a half altogether, and then he came back to Ireland and reverted to being completely conservative and conventional. By various contacts he managed to get a job in an insurance company in Dublin, and soon my mother didn’t have to tell lies about him to the neighbours any more. He bought a car, and came home to see us most weekends. There was a woman called Nuala who worked in the same office, and she was also from Clare. Jimmy used to give her a lift home as far as Ballyvaughan when he was going home, and a year or so after they first met, they got engaged.

  If I didn’t have much in common with Jimmy, I had absolutely nothing in common with Nuala. Thinking about it from the safe distance of S. Giorgio, however, I could see how I cultivated the differences, even if only in my own mind, because I was so afraid of being like her. We were from very similar homes in the same part of Ireland, and I think she was the sort of woman my mother would have been had she been born later. It therefore follows that Nuala was the sort of woman my mother would have liked me to be; and that Jimmy was marrying her because she was like my mother. In some ways families appear to be such a complex web of emotions and psychology, but if you look at it carefully, it’s often frighteningly simple. People marry people like their parents. After eighteen years with my father, however, I made a conscious choice that I would never marry a man like him. The catch was, I thought that all men were like my father, even the ones who seemed to be nice, they were only pretending until such time as they had you in their clutches, and then they would let all their nasty side out, and there would be nothing you could do about it. As I got a bit older, in my early twenties, I suspected that this wasn’t the whole story, but I was still frightened. Then I went to Paris and I met Bill and I felt at first that he was concrete evidence that my earlier theory was false. Then he left me, and I swung right in the other direction, and thought that this was a classic proof of what I had believed when I was a girl. There’s something particularly galling about knowing that you had more savvy about men and the ways of the world when you were fourteen than when you were twenty-four. It seemed strange to me now at thirty to have gone through all this and to know what I did, and yet still to be so baffled.

  Anyhow, my relationship with my family began to sour a bit around the time Nuala and Jimmy got married. Our father was dead by then. Inevitably, the wedding itself was a source of dissent. Nuala was going for clear soup, turkey and ham, a three-piece band, and seventy guests in a hotel in Ballyvaughan; it was to be your standard Irish wedding. I am not, however, your standard Irish bridesmaid, but Nuala couldn’t see that, and for some reason she thought that her day wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t go up the aisle behind her in some ridiculous yellow tulle confection. I refused politely, but she persisted until I refused rudely, and then of course I got terrible flak from my mother and Jimmy.

  Jimmy and Nuala were married in spring, and I went up to Dublin to go to university that autumn. To my amazement, everyone took it for granted that I would lodge with them in their new house. That didn’t fit in with my plans at all. For years I had been slogging away at school so that I could get to university and be independent in the city, and I wasn’t going to let that slip from me now. My mother said that it would be such a help to them with their mortgage; I replied that their mortgage was no concern of mine, and if they needed help they could always get a lodger, it didn’t have to be me. I guessed, correctly, that they would probably have a baby within a year, and that if I was living with them, I would get roped in for unpaid babysitting. Nuala and Jimmy still went up and down to Clare most weekends, but I seldom accepted their offer of a lift. I preferred to stay in the city, and for this they said I was selfish and had abandoned my mother. It wasn’t fair: I wrote to her and phoned her very often, but I have to admit, I was ruthless about claiming my own life, and still feel I was right to do so.

  What I resented most of all was the implication that I was up to something nefarious in my tatty little bedsit in Ranelagh, engaged in things which would never have been tolerated in a respectable home like Jimmy’s and Nuala’s. In fact, I was leading a completely innocuous life, and my new pleasures were touchingly simple: cooking and eating what I wanted when I wanted; listening to Bartok until all hours on an old stereo I had bought myself second hand, eating a few chocolates out of a box and then going out, secure in the knowledge that when I came home, the Raspberry Whirl would still be there. That first year in the city was one of the happiest times in my life.

  People get so defensive when they get into their late twenties or early thirties, when they begin to make big choices in life. If they get married then they seem to think that you should be married too, or if they buy a house, they see an implicit criticism in the fact that you’re still renting. I used to feel that sort of pressure a lot with Nuala and Jimmy, and when I left Ireland, I think they took it personally. I haven’t got this particular hang-up myself (one of the few I seemed to have missed out on). I don’t think other people should do what I’m doing just because I’m doing it. I’d have been appalled if Jimmy and Nuala had followed me to Paris.

  Yet the strangest thing of all is that I love Jimmy, and I know that he loves me. I suppose that if, instead of a letter, he’d been right there with me in S. Giorgio, we’d have been scoring points off each other the way we always did. And yet I’d lay down my life for Jimmy, and I know he’d do the same for me. I don’t use the word ‘love’ lightly, and my love is hard to engage. It’s a mysterious thing. People generally don’t like to admit that you can love people you don’t like, but you can. It’s not ideal, in fact it’s confusing and painful, but I suspect that it happens a lot. That’s why unhappy families can hold together for years and years. You can even love people who are cruel to you, and so there are women who love violent men. And a terrible lie grew out of this – that it’s the violence they love, and not the person who inflicts it. Such women love these men in spite of the cruelty, never because of it.

  Of course, the world would be a better place if liking and loving went together. Life would be simpler, and hideous myths, like the one I’ve just mentioned, would have no credence whatsoever. But it’s never an easy thing to bear. I know what it’s like. It’s best if you like the people you love, and I wish I liked Jimmy more, wish I had liked my parents more, although I don’t blame myself for not doing so. I had the best possible reason for not liking my father.

  I had finished eating my lunch, but I decided I’d wash up, and then read the letter over a cup of coffee. As I cleared things away and filled the sink with hot water, I thought of how there was something unusual in the relationship between Jimmy and me. Usually when there’s an age gap of six years it makes a big difference when you’re small and is less important when you’re adults. But with us it worked the other way round: we were good chums when we were children, but grew apart when we grew up.

  Our family home was in an isolated part of the country, and because there were no other children around, we were thrown into each other’s company. The age difference worked well for both of us. It meant that when Jimmy was twelve, he could play childish games with me without loss of face, when he was just that bit too old for them, but still wasn’t ready to give them up. For me, the bonus was that Jimmy was so good at everything because he was bigger. He could draw well, and do complicated jigsaws and he was brilliant at making things. When I was eight, for example, he made a car out of cardboard boxes for my two favourite dolls. It was exactly the right size for them, and it had windows and wheels and everything, even two headlights that really worked. (They were actually two pocket-torches.)

  As I wiped the plates, I was surprised by how many pleasa
nt memories came back to me. When I was six, I wanted a cat more than anything else in the whole world. I used to pray every night that God would send me a cat, and then one day, Jimmy came home from school with a kitten sitting in a box full of straw. One of his friends’ cats had had a litter, and he had asked for one when it was big enough. My parents had never given in to my pleading, but Jimmy knew that if he just showed up at the house with a kitten in a box that he’d probably be able to coax my parents round.

  He was right: I was allowed to keep the kitten. I can still see that cat sitting in its box, as if it was yesterday. I can still see it struggling to its feet on the straw, and opening its pink, frail mouth. It was a female cat, so I called her Nora. She was a black cat with white socks and a white splodge on her face. I loved Nora so much, and I looked after her for years. And then when I was about twelve, my father killed her one night after he’d been drinking. The next day he said it was an accident, and my mother said Nora was an old cat, and maybe she had been going to die anyway, but I didn’t believe either of them.

  Another time, when I was about eight, there was a carnival on near our home, and Jimmy took me there with his friends. There was a stall where you threw darts at little badges pinned to squares of cardboard, and if your dart hit the card, you won. Jimmy and his friends played darts for almost the whole evening, and they gave me all the badges they won. When I went home that night, from neck to waist my coat was completely covered with coloured badges. It was a great feeling.

  Waiting for the coffee, I remembered a day when Jimmy and I went out for a walk, and I got tired on the way back. I got slower and slower until I came to a complete halt, and Jimmy had to give me a piggyback home. I loved that, loved being so high off the ground. I buried my face in the back of his neck, and closed my eyes, then pretended to myself that I was really riding a pony. And then I fell asleep. When I woke up we were in a dark lane, with trees on either side of it. I held on tightly to Jimmy, and flung back my head. It was spring, and the trees were covered in blossom, wild apple, wild cherry. There was a wind, and the wind blew the petals from the trees, and the sunlight was broken by the branches of the trees. I remember feeling mad with happiness, and I wished that we would never go home again, that Jimmy would carry me through the fields and the hills for ever.

  There was nothing else for it now. I lifted the letter down from the shelf where I had earlier propped it against a bottle of wine, and ripped it open.

  Hello Aisling,

  Well, the letters are few and far between, yours and mine both, so you know how it is. It’s hard to find the time and energy after a day’s work, so I keep putting it off, and putting it off. I said I’d do it this weekend, and it’s now ten o’clock on Sunday night, so I suppose if I don’t write now, before I sleep, I’ll never do it.

  Anyway, the main reason I want to write is that I have a bit of news for you. Nuala’s expecting another baby next May. We’re both really happy about it, and Sinead and Michael are all excited about having a new brother or sister. This’ll be the last time. Three’s enough – enough for us, anyway. As it was, the house here was getting too small for us, and we were planning to move. The kids are getting bigger, and soon Sinead’ll need a room of her own. So we’d just put a deposit on a house in Chapelizod – a new house, in one of those new developments that are going up all over the place now, and then we found out there was another baby on the way. So it’s all working out well. We’re trying to sell this place at the minute. We’ll be moving early next year, if all goes well.

  I’m doing OK in work. Got promoted a while back. It means a bit of extra money which is always useful, but particularly so now. I suppose sometimes I do worry a bit about money, but what can you do? I don’t want Nuala to even think of going back to work: maybe in a few years’ time, when all the kids are bigger and at school. We’ve managed OK so far. Nuala’s a real good mother and a good housewife. She knows how to make whatever money we have go as far as possible, and we have lots of baby things left over from Sinead and Michael, so that should be a saving.

  Anyway, I’m sure all of this is boring you. How are you, Aisling? Do you ever think of coming back? I mean, for a holiday. If you’d like to come for Christmas you know you’d be very welcome, or if you come next summer, you could see the new baby and the new house. We’ll have more room to put you up there, but there’s always room for you here.

  I know the kids would love to see you. Sinead’s old enough now to understand about her aunt being in Italy and where Italy is, and that they speak a different language there and all that. She’s a great kid. She reminds me a bit of you when you were that age, although she doesn’t look like you. She looks like Nuala. Michael looks like me.

  We still go back home to Clare some weekends. It’s great having the house there for the holidays. It’s a real saving, and the kids love it. I’d like to take Nuala away sometime on her own for a real holiday, to Spain or somewhere like that. I know she’d love it. Well, maybe someday.

  Anyway, that’s everything. I’ll finish up here. Tomorrow’s Monday morning, back to the grindstone, you know, so I’d better get a good night’s sleep. Nuala was asking for you. The kids send their love. I hope you’re OK. Drop us a line sometime.

  Your fond brother,

  Jimmy

  Well, you’d have to have seen other letters from Jimmy to appreciate the difference between them and this one. This letter wasn’t an olive branch, it was a complete olive tree. When Jimmy wrote, he always asked if I was coining home, but it would be framed more along the lines of, ‘I don’t suppose there’s much chance of your taking the trouble to grace us with your presence this summer, I’m sure there are far more exotic places in Italy where you’d rather go.’ Then I’d write back something like ‘You bet, who wants to spend their time in Glasnevin when they could be in Lucca,’ and then I wouldn’t hear from him again for months.

  I quickly read over the letter again. There was a sort of heroic ordinariness to Jimmy’s life now that I admired so much. ‘I suppose sometimes I do worry a bit about money, but what can you do?’ I imagined the reality behind that, imagined Jimmy lying awake at night beside Nuala, doing endless calculations in his head, which never worked out exactly as he would have wanted them to. He was utterly steeped in suburban domesticity, which in one way was a very straightforward way of life. You could see it mapped out before you for thirty years; though in other ways it was an endless struggle. But what I noticed most of all in the letter was that Jimmy sounded happy. There was the odd wistful overtone, but generally he sounded like a man who had made the right choice for himself in life and was contented with it. He must have mellowed considerably, as he had enough goodwill left over to extend a little to me. I could see how cautious he was, afraid that I was as prickly and difficult as ever.

  And maybe I was. I wouldn’t go home for Christmas. It was too late now anyway, it would be hard to get a flight, and in any case, I had already made plans with Ted for Christmas. But the real reason was that I knew I wouldn’t like Christmas with them, that their way of life wasn’t for me, and it might do more harm than good. I was keen to build on the goodwill Jimmy tentatively offered in the letter, and it made me sad to think that it was still best to do that from a distance. I was the one at fault here, not Jimmy.

  As for visiting them the following year, I would have to think about that. I was keen to go to the States with Ted, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to afford two trips, in terms of both time and money. But I decided to write back to Jimmy at once, a nice letter, and I began to think about what I could send the kids for Christmas. Suddenly I remembered how depressed I’d felt when I saw the letter sitting in the post-box, and to think of it now, I felt ashamed.

  10

  From early November onwards, Franca and Davide were engaged in a yearly exercise which frayed both their nerves and mine. Even up in my apartment I could hear them shouting and bickering about it. In the commercial equivalent of pouring a gallon into a pint
pot, they stocked their shop for Christmas, while retaining a full supply of everyday products. Franca masterminded where the things would go, and bossed Davide around even more than usual.

  Such mundane things as tinned tomatoes and bottled passata, flour, pasta and sugar would be arranged in precarious heaps in odd corners of the shop, and the shelves left free would be crammed with chocolates, pannetone cakes in the shape of stars and bells; and huge bars of nougat. Franca herself put together gift baskets, with packets of dried wild mushrooms, bottles of olive oil infused with truffle, expensive sweets; all liberally padded beneath with shredded crêpe paper, and embellished on top with star-spangled cellophane, and glossy ribbons. There was a degree of ostentation which in the end didn’t really amount to much. The pictures on the cake-boxes did more than justice to the modest, light fruit-cakes within. The image promised more than that, promised happiness, promised Christmas itself for a few thousand lire. Behind all the extravagance was a marked sense of unease. In the past, the local people had had so little that now they were anxious to flaunt their wealth, to prove to themselves as well as to others that their riches were real, and that they could afford luxurious fripperies far beyond the wildest dreams of their grandparents. That there was more show than substance to many of the things did not bother them a whit, but I had been disappointed the preceding Christmas, when I was given a magnificent blue and gold tin of chocolates, only to find that it was craftily lined in such a way that it was only half full, and there was nothing like as many chocolates as I had hoped or imagined there would be.

  Fabiola gave me a huge hamper for Christmas. It wasn’t one of Franca’s confections, it was from a smart café in Perugia. I was embarrassed by the size and splendour of it, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking such a gift from her when I didn’t really like her much. When she called to deliver the hamper, she asked what I would be doing for Christmas. I told her that I would be in S. Giorgio, and then I was going to Venice for a few days at New Year. I asked her what she had planned.