Nothing is Black

by Deirdre Madden

  She crossed to the window. Too much was made of the sun. The weak northern light had its own beauty; she liked its failure to dominate. She had spent sufficient time on the Continent to know the essence of the south, and the power of the sun, to know that the sun brings death as well as life. She remembered white towns full of hard shadows, and preferred the complexity of the soft light she found in Ireland. It allowed the land, the sky, the ocean to each have their own place. She would never live far from the sea again, its vastness a comfort, its anonymous ancient waves crashing over the detritus of centuries: broken ships, coins, bones, weapons. She would never have believed that it would be possible to feel so much at home.

  13

  THEY DROVE BACK from Sligo to Donegal on a magnificent summer evening. It had rained earlier in the day, but now the sun had broken through the heavy clouds, blazing fierce gold on the ocean and the rinsed landscape. Everything was radiant, as though the rain had strengthened the essence of the trees and the stones. The sun threw long shadows on the road ahead of them.

  Kevin was glad he had come up to see Nuala, and that they had made the trip to Sligo together. He felt something had been resolved between them over the weekend, although he’d have been hard pressed to say exactly what it was, or how the change had been effected. When Claire told him Nuala had turned up safely following her overnight disappearance, he resolved to confront her: to ‘have things out’ was how he’d phrased it in his own mind. Wasn’t that why he had continued on to Donegal? And wasn’t that why they had gone to Sligo together, to have the privacy such a discussion demands? And wasn’t it typical that ‘having it out’ was just what they hadn’t done?

  Evading the issue had been surprisingly easy. Nuala was in an apparently relaxed and amiable frame of mind, and the moment to open a discussion never presented itself. In retrospect, Kevin was amazed at simply how enjoyable the weekend had been. On the Saturday they’d done nothing more strenuous than look around some antique shops (in one of which they bought a clock in a porcelain case), and eat a couple of exceptionally good meals.

  But Kevin had lain awake far into Sunday morning, wondering which it was, cowardice or commonsense, that had allowed them to drift through the day without asking the questions which, in the small hours, formed themselves effortlessly (but painfully) in his mind. ‘Do you want to leave me? Why did you go away the other night? Why won’t you come back to Dublin with me? Did you love your mother more than you love me?’

  He felt sure now that they had done the right thing. What had to be said was best said on the level of the remark Nuala made now as she leaned forward to change the cassette in the car stereo.

  ‘I’m ever so glad we got that clock. I wanted to buy something over this summer, something nice that we’ll have twenty years from now.’

  ‘You think you’ll want to be reminded?’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll do any harm,’ she said. ‘I must show it to Anna, I know she’ll love it.’

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘You know, the Dutch woman who lives beside Claire. I told you about her.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, I forgot. What’s she like, this Anna?’

  ‘She’s the loneliest person I’ve ever met,’ Nuala said decisively. ‘And the worst thing of all is that she doesn’t even know it. She likes to think she’s a solitary type, but it just isn’t true. Claire, now, Claire’s a genuine loner. Anna isn’t like that, she needs company.’

  ‘You should be careful of her, then,’ Kevin said. ‘Lame ducks can do more harm than you’d ever believe.’

  ‘But it isn’t like that. I feel sorry for her sometimes, but that isn’t why I go to see her. She’s good company. You wouldn’t believe how much she knows about Irish culture and history. Sometimes it embarrasses me, she knows so much more about it than I do.’

  Kevin laughed. ‘I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over that,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s true,’ Nuala said. ‘She knows Donegal so well too, and I ought to know it better, what with Mammy being from there.’

  ‘Is she really?’ Kevin asked, with fake amazement. ‘Now if you hadn’t told me that, I’d never have guessed.’

  ‘Kevin! Don’t be so mean!’

  ‘Ah, I’m only teasing you, Nuala, but you know what I’m getting at. It didn’t matter a damn to your mother that she was from Donegal. She got out of it as fast as she could, and hated going back, even for short visits.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s part of my background, whether I like it or not, so maybe it would be good for me to get to know it,’ Nuala persisted. Kevin sighed, and this time he wearily agreed with her. He suggested that she make some trips around the county during the remainder of her time there. ‘Ask Anna to go with you.’ Nuala brightened at this idea, and said she would do that.

  ‘But what about you, Kevin,’ she went on. ‘Wouldn’t you like to get to know Ireland better?’

  ‘No I wouldn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘I know it well enough as it is.’

  ‘But you haven’t been back to Tipperary since your granny died, have you?’

  By now, Kevin was exasperated. ‘Look, Nuala, just be careful. Don’t get some false idea stuck in your head about what Ireland is; don’t get hung up on some sort of tourist board version of the place. This,’ he gestured at the fuschia hedges on either side of the road, ‘is Ireland, but so is Dublin. I’m not going to whip myself into some false fervour for the west, and pretend it’s somehow more “real” or more wonderful than where we live, and I’d advise you not to do it either.’

  There was a pause in the conversation, and he was afraid that he had said too much and soured the atmosphere. ‘While you’ve been away,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about holidays. Maybe we’ll go somewhere nice in September when you’re back home: Paris, Venice even. What do you say?’

  ‘I’d much rather we rented a horse-drawn caravan and did the Ring of Kerry.’

  He looked over at her in amazement, and she stared back for a moment, then started to laugh.

  ‘I wish you could see your own face, Kevin, it’s a study.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder what I’m ever going to do with you,’ Kevin said, but he was laughing too.

  They listened to the music as they drove on through the langorous dusk, and Kevin found himself remembering a conversation he’d had with Nuala’s doctor around the time she decided to go to Donegal for the summer. They’d been talking about her, and Kevin was surprised when the doctor abruptly asked him, ‘Have you ever had a crisis in your life?’

  ‘I’m not sure. What do you mean by “crisis”?’

  The doctor laughed. ‘Then it’s clear that you haven’t. I mean losing everything. Oh, not material things, but perhaps everything else: all your self-confidence gone, all your faith in everything you ever believed, everything you felt sure you could count on. Nothing makes sense any more, and you can’t understand why.’

  Kevin thought about it. No, nothing like that had ever happened to him, and he found it hard to imagine what it must be like.

  ‘What causes it?’

  Again the doctor laughed, but this time more gently. ‘Life, Kevin, that’s what causes it. Past a certain point people begin to take stock of their lives, and sometimes they don’t feel good about what they’ve done. When you’re young, you really do think you’re immortal. Then one day you realize that it’s not true, you aren’t going to live for ever. You’re born alone and you die alone and everything that comes in between can be pretty lonely too.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Doctor, I think what you’re saying sounds completely banal.’

  ‘But it is!’ cried the doctor. ‘That’s what makes it so hard to bear. The idea of being a martyr, of noble suffering, has a certain dignified appeal to it, but this …! Oh yes, you’re right, Kevin: what could be more banal than realizing that you’re a human being like any other, and that this is the central tragedy of your life?’

  Nuala was humming along with the music now, tapping out the rhythm
with her fingertips.

  ‘For how long have you been married now, Kevin?’

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘My wife and I have been together for twenty years. It’s a good thing, marriage. It’s different every year, I’m sure you’ve found that too. Sometimes people come into the surgery and I wish I could write on the prescription pad “Marriage”, because it’s clear that that’s exactly what they need.’ He paused a moment. ‘Mind you, I must admit I also see some patients for whom I’d like to prescribe a speedy divorce. Still,’ he said briskly, ‘that’s not the case here. Nuala’ll be fine, it’ll just take time, and perhaps quite a long time too. Look after her, Kevin. She’ll be a support to you, I know, when your turn comes.’

  ‘My turn?’

  The doctor shook his head and laughed again. ‘It doesn’t matter. Goodbye, Kevin, and good luck! I’ll talk to you again soon.’

  ‘Perhaps New Year would be better,’ Nuala said suddenly, and Kevin looked at her blankly. ‘To go away,’ she said. ‘To go to Venice or somewhere.’

  ‘Oh yes, sure, whatever you think.’

  Nuala smiled and shook her head.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

  The cassette came to an end, and they switched on the radio. They listened to the news first, and then as night fell they listened to the weather forecast, then the shipping forecast. After that there was music again, and they listened to that too, let it wash over them in the blackness as they drove on through the night, until they arrived at last at Claire’s house.

  14

  ANNA WAS DELIGHTED when Nuala suggested that they visit the surrounding area together, and immediately took out her maps and guide books. ‘I love this place so much,’ she said, ‘and it will give me great pleasure to share it with someone else.’ They planned a trip for the end of that week to visit a dolmen and a ring of standing stones about an hour’s drive away.

  But standing in the middle of the stone circle that Friday afternoon, Nuala wondered why she was so disappointed. Was it the old pattern Kevin had pointed out in her so often: expecting too much from things so that disappointment inevitably followed? Perhaps. She knew that was a fault of hers, and a hard habit to break. But this time she wasn’t even clear what she had expected from this excursion. Anna too, she thought, was responsible to some degree for Nuala’s failure to enjoy the day, for she was in a foul temper. Nuala had never before seen her so tense and irritable. They had gone first to the dolmen. Nuala stood looking blankly at it, as if staring at the stone formation would force it to yield up its secret. ‘How old did you say this was?’ she asked, and was taken aback when Anna snapped, ‘I’ve already told you at least four times. Why don’t you listen? Do you want to tell me to tell you four more?’

  Nuala turned her stare from the dolmen to her companion, but said nothing. Anna looked away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I feel wretched. I just couldn’t get to sleep at all last night, but there’s no reason for me to be taking it out on you.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Nuala said. ‘I know how you feel, I’m like a bear if I miss a night’s sleep. It can’t be helped.’ She turned back to the strange stone formation, the flat slab on top perched in what seemed to be a precarious position on the lower stones. It looked like you could push the whole construction to the ground with one hand, which was absurd when you considered how solid a thing it actually was. The dolmen had been there for – how many thousands of years? She genuinely couldn’t remember, and she didn’t dare ask Anna again.

  Claire had been surprisingly enthusiastic when Nuala told her where they were going. ‘You should have a great day, those are marvellous things to see,’ she said. She’d gone on to talk about the spirit of the places, how powerful it was, and the beauty of the stones, their colour and texture. But Nuala felt nothing either at the dolmen or the standing stone circle, nothing but wet and cold and disappointed. The stones were too abstract. The ruins of a church or a weathered statue would perhaps have meant something to her. Some form, some image was necessary for her to connect imaginatively with the distant past. She tried to imagine the ancient people who had placed these stones here, but the stones themselves prevented her from doing so. ‘I can’t get back to the … the simplicity of it,’ she said to Anna.

  ‘But what makes you so sure they were simple?’ came the immediate response. ‘There was probably a complexity there, a sophistication of mind that we can only begin to imagine.’

  Anna was beginning to develop an Irish accent, Nuala noted with mild irritation. Her own culture must have been pretty bland if she was able to slough it off like that and effortlessly absorb another. Nuala felt she ought to like the landscape around her. She ought to know more about it and find it as fascinating as Anna did, but she had to admit that it just wasn’t the case. The Donegal landscape bored Nuala, just as it had bored her mother, and suddenly she realized how foolish it was to try to connect with her in this way. She closed her eyes and tried to summon up a picture of her mother. She saw her sitting under the hood of a drier at the hairdressers. She could picture her standing in Buckleys debating on equal terms with the butcher about the number of dinners you could reasonably expect to get from the leg of lamb on the slab before them, and she could see her enjoying a gin and tonic before Sunday lunch. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t see her standing in a damp field in Donegal getting any sort of interest from looking at a few old lumps of stone.

  Anna pulled a silver hip flask from her pocket, drank from it, then silently offered it to Nuala. The brandy scorched down her throat, making her even more aware of how much the damp cold had seeped into her. They went back to the car and ate the sandwiches and cake they had brought with them. Anna drank more of the brandy. ‘I need this,’ she said. ‘I really need this today.’ Nuala offered to drive afterwards, and Anna, thanking her, willingly handed over the keys.

  They had only gone a few miles when they came to a small church. Anna insisted that they stop to visit it. Nuala wasn’t so keen. ‘Maybe it won’t be open,’ she said.

  ‘Of course it will,’ said Anna. ‘Churches in the country in Ireland are always open, that’s one of the things I like about them.’ As they walked from the car, Anna started to explain why Catholic churches in Ireland were often so far from centres of population, when Nuala interrupted her, and said she already knew about that. Did the woman think she was completely ignorant of her own country and religion?

  The church was a low, solid building without a spire. As Anna had predicted, it was unlocked. It was also empty, and unremarkable. Nuala had seen many churches like this in the past, and it was evidently familiar territory for Anna, too. Like all old churches, it reminded Nuala of her childhood. The altar rails had been taken away and the altar itself had been moved out from the wall as a token gesture to the reforms of Vatican Two, but otherwise nothing had changed: the plaster statues, the simple posies of wallflowers, the candles, the smell of wax and incense, the powerful silence.

  Anna settled herself comfortably in a pew at the back of the church, and gestured to Nuala to come and sit beside her.

  ‘Isn’t it nice the way they keep the churches unlocked here, so that anyone can go into them,’ Anna said companionably, in her normal tone of voice. This unnerved Nuala, who had been brought up to whisper in church, and still felt uncomfortable to do otherwise, or even to hear anyone else speak aloud. But she didn’t dare tell Anna to speak lower, so she listened miserably as her friend continued. ‘On the Continent, apart from cathedrals in the cities that are open for the tourists, they keep all the churches locked. If God existed, he would die of loneliness.’ She laughed, and Nuala felt even more uncomfortable. ‘It has to be like that, of course, or people would go in and steal things, or desecrate the place.

  ‘A couple went into a church a few years ago, I forget where, I think it was in Spain, and had sex on a side altar. Just imagine. They were caught, of course, and severely punished. I suppose the cour
ts thought that if they let them off lightly it would have become a craze amongst the young. They’d all have been doing it, and then other people would have got upset.’

  Nuala didn’t say anything. ‘What do you believe in?’ Anna asked her a few moments later. Nuala’s reply, when it came, was mumbled so low that Anna asked her to repeat it.

  ‘I said, I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you don’t, how can anyone know?’ said Anna. ‘Then again, there are people who think that they know. Take Rita, for instance. Rita fascinates me. She has blind faith. I find that quite extraordinary. I can’t begin to understand it, and I told her so too. I said her religion was a mystery to me. She said it was a mystery to her. She went to Lourdes last summer. I wanted to ask her, “Can you honestly tell me that you believe all this … this nonsense?” Yes, I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t dare. I knew she would be offended, and I didn’t want that because I like Rita. I genuinely like and respect her. She’s a good woman.’

  No, Nuala didn’t know what she believed any longer, and she rarely gave it any thought. She hardly ever went to Mass and when she did, she felt vaguely uneasy, as though there were something false about her being there. But then again, she also felt guilty not going. ‘We ought to go to Mass more often,’ she said to Kevin one Sunday morning over the usual late breakfast and pile of newspapers.