Silence as everyone views the projected image.
‘Well, let us state the obvious first. A young woman sits at a table in a quiet interior. She is writing a letter. We see a quill moving across a sheet of paper. We do not know what she is writing but her soft smile suggests she is writing to a loved one or perhaps a lover. Her head tilts forward, exposing the elegant curve of her neck …’
While Sam is back in his buggy, drawing circles on paper with his blue crayon, or more likely, banging out dots on the paper, sending wax shrapnel all over his buggy, I produce my own pen and paper from my bag. I take my calligraphy pen in my hand and imagine I’m hearing Justin’s words from across the road. I don’t need to see the work of the Woman Writing a Letter on the canvas for it has been painted in my mind after Justin’s years of intensive study during college and again during research for his book. I begin to write.
As part of a mother/daughter bonding activity when I was seventeen years old, during my goth phase, when I had dyed black hair, a white face and red lips that were victim to a lip-piercing, Mum enrolled us both in a calligraphy class at the local primary school. Every Wednesday at seven p.m.
Mum read in a rather new-age book that Dad didn’t agree with that through partaking in activities with your children they would more easily, and of their own accord, open up and share things about their lives, rather than being forced to in a face-to-face, formal and almost interrogative-style sit-down, which Dad was more accustomed to.
The classes worked and, though I moaned and groaned when learning this uncool task, I opened up and told her all. Well, almost all. The rest she had the intuition to guess. I came away with a deeper love, respect and understanding of my mother as a person, a woman and not just as a mum. I also came away with a skill in calligraphy.
I find that when I put pen to paper and get into the rhythm of quick upward flicks, just as we were taught, it takes me back to those classes, transports me to those classrooms where I sat with my mother.
I hear her voice, I smell her scent and I replay our conversations, sometimes awkward as, because I’m seventeen, we dance around the personal, but we talk about it in our own way, finding a way of getting to the point in spite of that. It was a perfect activity for her to choose for me at seventeen, better than she ever knew. Calligraphy had rhythm, roots in Gothic style, it was written in the vigour of the moment and it had attitude. A uniform style of writing, but one that was unique. A lesson to teach me that conformity may not quite mean what I once thought that it had meant, for there are many ways to express oneself in a world with boundaries, without overstepping them.
Suddenly I look up from my page. ‘Trompe l’oeil,’ I say aloud with a smile.
Sam looks up from his crayon banging and regards me with interest.
‘What does that mean?’ Kate asks.
‘Trompe l’oeil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist, instead of being two-dimensional painting. It’s derived from French, trompe meaning “trick” and l’oeil meaning “eye”,’ Justin tells the room. ‘Trick the eye,’ he repeats, looking around at all the faces in the crowd.
Where are you?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘So how did that go?’ Thomas the driver asks as Justin gets back into the car after his talk.
‘I saw you standing at the back of the room. You tell me.’
‘Well, I don’t know much about art but you certainly knew how to talk a lot about one girl writing a letter.’
Justin smiles and reaches for another free bottle of water. He’s not thirsty but it’s there, and it’s free.
‘Were you looking for somebody?’ Thomas asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘In the crowd. I noticed you looking around a few times. A woman, is it?’ he grins.
Justin smiles, and shakes his head. ‘I have no idea. You’d think I was crazy if I told you.’
‘So, what do you think?’ I ask Kate as we walk around Merrion Square and she fills me in on Justin’s lecture.
‘What do I think?’ she repeats, strolling slowly behind Sam’s buggy. ‘I think that it doesn’t matter if he ate carpaccio and fennel yesterday because he seems like a lovely man anyway. I think that no matter what your reasons are for feeling connected to him or attracted to him, they’re not important. You should stop all this running around and just introduce yourself.’
I shake my head. ‘No can do.’
‘Why not? He seemed to be interested when he was chasing your bus down the road, and when he saw you at the ballet. What’s changed now?’
‘He doesn’t want anything to do with me.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know.’
‘How? And don’t tell me it’s because of some mumbo-jumbo thing you saw in your tea leaves.’
‘I drink coffee now.’
‘You hate coffee.’
‘He obviously doesn’t.’
She does her best not to be negative but looks away.
‘He’s too busy looking for the woman whose life he saved; he’s no longer interested in me. He had my contact details, Kate, and he never called. Not once. In fact, he went so far as to throw them in a skip, and don’t ask me how I know that.’
‘Knowing you, you were probably lying in the bottom of it.’
I keep tight-lipped.
Kate sighs. ‘How long are you going to keep this up?’
I shrug. ‘Not much longer.’
‘What about work? What about Conor?’
‘Conor and I are done. There’s nothing more to say. Four years of separation and then we’ll be divorced. As for work, I’ve already told them I’m going back next week – my diary is already full with appointments – and as for the house – shit!’ I pull up my sleeve to find my watch. ‘I have to get back. I’m showing the house in an hour.’
A quick kiss and I run for the nearest bus home.
‘OK, this is it.’ Justin stares out of the car window and up to the second floor, which houses the blood donor clinic.
‘You’re donating blood?’ Thomas asks.
‘No way. I’m just paying somebody a visit. I shouldn’t be too long. If you see any police cars coming, start the engine.’ He smiles, but it is unconvincing.
He nervously asks for Sarah at reception and is told to wait in the waiting room. Around him men and women on their lunch breaks from work sit in their suits and read the newspapers, waiting to be called for their blood donations.
He inches closer to the woman beside him, who’s flicking through a magazine. He leans over her shoulder and as he whispers, she jumps.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Everyone in the room lowers their papers and magazines to stare at him. He coughs and looks away, pretending somebody else said it. On the walls around him are posters encouraging those in the room to donate, and there are also thank you posters of young children, survivors of leukaemia and other illnesses. He has already waited half an hour and checks his watch every minute, conscious he has a plane to catch. When the last person leaves him alone in the room, Sarah appears at the door.
‘Justin.’ She isn’t icy, she isn’t tough or angry. Quiet. Hurt. That’s worse. He’d rather she was angry.
‘Sarah.’ He stands to greet her, is locked in an awkward half-embrace and a kiss on one cheek, which turns into two, a questionable third but is aborted and almost becomes a kiss on the lips. She pulls away, ending the farcical greeting.
‘I can’t stay long, I have to get to the airport for a flight, but I wanted to call by and see you face to face. Can we talk for a few minutes?’
‘Yes, sure.’ She enters the reception and sits down, arms still folded.
‘Oh.’ He looks around. ‘Don’t you have an office, or something?’
‘This is nice and quiet.’
‘Where is your office?’
Her eyes narrow with suspic
ion and he gives up that particular line of questioning and quickly takes a seat beside her.
‘I’m here, really, to apologise for my behaviour the last time we met. Well, every time we met and every moment after that. I really am sorry.’
She nods, waiting for more.
Damn it, that’s all I had! Think, think. You’re sorry and …
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I got very distracted that day with those crazy Vikings. In fact, you could say I’ve been distracted by crazy Vikings almost every day for the last month or two and, uh …’ Think! ‘Could I go to the men’s room? If you wouldn’t mind. Please.’
She looks a little taken aback but directs him. ‘Sure, it’s straight down the hall at the end.’
Standing outside, which has a newly hammered ‘For Sale’ sign attached to the front wall, Linda and her husband, Joe, are pressing their faces up against the window and gawking into the living room. A protective feeling comes over me. Then as soon as it comes, it vanishes. Home is not a place – not this place, anyway.
‘Joyce? Is that you?’ Linda slowly lowers her sunglasses.
I give them a big wobbly smile, reaching into my pocket for the bunch of keys, which is already minus my car keys and furry ladybird that used to be on Mum’s set. Even the set of keys have lost their heart, their playfulness; all they have now is their function.
‘Your hair, you look so different.’
‘Hi, Linda. Hi, Joe.’ I hold out my hand to greet them.
Linda has other plans and reaches out to offer me a huge, tight hug.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry for you.’ She squeezes me. ‘Poor you.’
A nice gesture, if perhaps I’d known her a bit longer to than show her three houses over a month ago, and even then she’d done the same with her hands on my practically flat stomach on learning I was pregnant. My body suddenly becoming everybody else’s property, I’d found entirely annoying during my only month of being able to talk about it.
She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Did they do that at the hospital?’ She eyes my hair.
‘Eh, no.’ I laugh. ‘They did that at the hair salon,’ I chirp, my usual Lady of Trauma coming back to save the day. I turn the key in the door and allow them to enter first.
‘Oh,’ she breathes excitedly, and her husband smiles and takes her hand. I have a flashback of Conor and me ten years ago, coming to view the house, which had just been deserted by an old lady who had lived alone for the previous twenty years. I follow my younger self and him into the house and suddenly they are real and I am the ghost, remembering what we saw and listening to our conversation, replaying the moment again.
It had reeked inside, had old carpets, creaking floors, rotting windows and wallpaper that was so old it had just gone out of fashion for the third time round. It was disgusting and a money pit, and we loved it as soon as we stood where Linda and her husband stand right now.
We had it all ahead of us back then, when Conor was the Conor I loved and I was the old me; a perfect match. Then Conor became who he is now and I became the Joyce he no longer loved. As the house became more beautiful, our relationship became uglier. We could have lain on a cat-hair-infested rug on our first night in our home back then and would have been happy, but then every minute detail of what was wrong in our marriage we attempted to fix by getting a new couch, repairing the doors, replacing the draughty windows. If only we’d put that much time and concentration into ourselves; self-improvement rather than home improvement. Neither of us thought to fix the draught in our marriage. It whistled through the growing cracks while neither of us was paying attention until we both woke up one morning with cold feet.
‘I’ll show you around downstairs, but, em,’ I look up at the nursery door, no longer vibrating as it had when I first returned home. It is just a door, quiet and still. Doing what a door does. Nothing. ‘I’ll let you wander around upstairs by yourselves.’
‘Are the owners still living here?’ Linda asks.
I look around. ‘No. No, they’re long gone.’
As Justin makes his way down the hall to the toilet, he examines each of the names on the doors, looking for Sarah’s office. He has no idea where to start but maybe if he can find the folder that deals with blood taken from Trinity College in early autumn, then he’ll be closer to finding out.
He sees her name on the door, raps on it gently. When he hears no response he enters and closes it quietly behind him. He looks around quickly, piles of folders on the shelves. He runs immediately to the filing cabinets and starts rifling through them. Moments later the door knob turns. He drops the file back into the cabinet, turns towards the door and freezes. Sarah looks at him, shocked.
‘Justin?’
‘Sarah?’
‘What are you doing in my office?’
You’re an educated man, think of something smart.
‘I took a wrong turn.’
She folds her arms. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth now?’
‘I was on my way back and I saw your name on the door and I thought I’d come in and have a look around, see what your office is like. I have this thing, you see, where I believe that an office really represents what a person is like and I thought that if we’re to have a future tog—’
‘We’re not going to have a future.’
‘Oh. I see. But if we were to—’
‘No.’
He scans her desk and his eyes fall upon a photograph of Sarah with her arms around a young blonde girl and a man. They pose happily together on a beach.
Sarah follows his gaze.
‘That’s my daughter, Molly.’ She tightens her lips then, angry at herself for saying anything.
‘You have a daughter?’ He reaches for the frame, pauses before touching it and looks to her for permission first.
She nods, lips loosening, and he takes it in his hands.
‘She’s beautiful.’
‘She is.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Six.’
‘I didn’t know you had a daughter.’
‘You don’t know a lot of things about me. You never stuck around long enough on our dates to talk about anything that wasn’t about you.’
Justin cringes, his heart falls. ‘Sarah, I’m so sorry.’
‘So you said, so sincerely, right before you came into my office and started rooting around.’
‘I wasn’t rooting—’
Her look is enough to stop himself from telling another lie. She takes the photo frame from his hands, gently. Nothing about her is rough or aggressive. She is filled with disappointment; not for the first time an idiot like Justin has let her down.
‘The man in the photo?’
She looks sad as she studies it and then places it back on the table.
‘I would have been happy to tell you about him before,’ she says softly. ‘In fact, I remember trying to on at least two occasions.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats, feeling so small he almost can’t see over her desk. ‘I’m listening now.’
‘And I’m sure I remember you telling me you had a flight to catch,’ she says.
‘Right,’ he nods, and makes his way to the door. ‘I am so truly, very, very sorry. I am hugely embarrassed and disappointed in myself.’ And he realises he actually means it from the bottom of his heart. ‘I am going through some strange things at the moment.’
‘Find me someone who isn’t. We all have crap to deal with, Justin. Just please do not drag me into yours.’
‘Right.’ He nods again and offers another apologetic, embarrassed smile before exiting her office, rushing down the stairs and into the car, feeling two foot tall.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just give it a wipe.’
‘No, you do.’
‘Have you seen something like that before?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘What do you mean, maybe? You either hav
e or you haven’t.’
‘Don’t get smart with me.’
‘I’m not, I’m just trying to figure it out. Do you think it will come off?’
‘I’ve no idea. Let’s ask Joyce.’
I hear Linda and Joe mumbling together in the hallway. I’ve left them to their own devices and have been standing in the galley kitchen, drinking a black coffee and staring out at my mother’s rose bush at the back of the garden and seeing the ghosts of Joyce and Conor sunbathing on the grass during a hot summer with the radio blaring.
‘Joyce, could we show you something for a moment?’
‘Sure.’
I put the coffee cup down, pass the ghost of Conor making his lasagne specialty in the kitchen, pass the ghost of Joyce sitting in her favourite armchair in her pyjamas, eating a Mars bar, and make my way to the hall. They are on their hands and knees examining the stain by the stairs. My stain.
‘I think it might be wine,’ Joe says, looking up at me. ‘Did the owners say anything about the stain?’
‘Eh …’ My legs wobble slightly and for a moment I think my knees are going to go. I lean out to hold on to the banister and pretend to lean down and look at it more closely. I close my eyes. ‘It’s been cleaned a few times already, as far as I know. Would you be interested in keeping the carpet?’
Linda makes a face while she thinks, looks up and down the stairs, through the house, examining my choice of décor with a ruffled nose. ‘No, I suppose not. I think wooden floors would be lovely. Don’t you?’ she asks Joe.
‘Yeah,’ he nods. ‘A nice pale oak.’
‘Yeah,’ she agrees. ‘No, I don’t think we’d keep this carpet.’ She turns her nose up again.
I haven’t intended to keep the owners’ details from them deliberately – there’s no point as they’ll see it on the contract anyway. I had assumed they knew that the property was mine, but it was their misunderstanding, and as they poked holes in the decorations, the choice of room layout, and funny noises and smells they weren’t used to but that I had stopped noticing by now, I didn’t think it would be necessary to make them uncomfortable by pointing it out now.
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