‘Less of the “we”, please,’ he’d replied. ‘Don’t try to offload your Catholic guilt on to me. Go to Mass if you feel like it, I won’t stop you.’
‘It’s not that I want to, I just feel I ought to,’ she’d said. Kevin had put down his paper. ‘Nuala, if I had a fiver for every time I’d heard you say you ought to do something or other, I could close the restaurant tomorrow and retire to the south of France. If you really ought to be doing these things you talk about, then go and do them. Otherwise put them out of your mind and stop tormenting yourself. And me.’
It was all very well for Kevin to say that. About a month after her mother died, Nuala was coming out of the Powerscourt Centre when she noticed the Carmelite church in the street beside it. She had gone into it to say a prayer for her mother, because she wanted to, but also because she felt that she should do so. She thought about her mother constantly, but she never prayed for her. Perhaps by now she had forgotten how to pray, it was such a long time since she had tried, or had given it any serious attention. When she went into the church and knelt down, she was disconcerted to find how difficult it was for her to focus her mind, and dismiss all the stray thoughts that crowded in, as persistent as they were trivial. She felt self-conscious kneeling there with her eyes squeezed shut, and after a few moments she gave up. She sat down, and just thought about her mother. She didn’t know what she believed about what had happened to her. The idea that she had been completely annihilated was as impossible for Nuala to believe as the thought of her being in some cotton-wool-clouded heaven. The only thing she knew for sure was that she missed her more than she would have ever thought possible.
‘I like these country churches,’ Anna said, glancing around her. ‘I like the sentimentality, the kitsch. There’s a simplicity of thought behind them that you don’t see anywhere else. Yes, I like them a lot, but if I am to be honest, I must say that I also despise them a little bit too.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they do enormous harm to people. Catholicism can break people’s spirits like nothing else. People cannot abide the idea of purity, you know. Complete purity, physical and mental, is impossible for any human being, and for most, it is so far above them that it angers them. It is showing people something, telling them that this is the highest good and that they ought to strive for it, but of course it’s impossible, they will never manage it. And so they grow angry and bitter, as is only to be expected. It’s particularly dangerous for women, because it’s aimed more at them, to keep them in their place, and then women have such scrupulous minds, I always think. The image the church presents of women is bad because it is incomplete. Do you know anything about the ancient religions, Nuala? No? They are good, they are very wise,’ said Anna, who was choosing her words carefully. ‘These religions are mentally sound, not like Christianity which is fundamentally neurotic, and so the end is neurosis. The ancient religions are more complete, their gods and goddesses are more psychologically true, more complex, more in the image of humanity than is the case with Christianity. And yet you know, there is something very strange in this: that Ireland isn’t a Christian country at all. What I like about Ireland is that just below this crust of Catholicism it is pure paganism, not like where I come from, where it is Protestantism crusting over nihilism. And so you have the priests telling the women to be like Mary and some of them are trying, some of them are pretending, and some of them just don’t give a damn, because they are in touch with their own reality, they understand their own selves in a very deep, real way. They are free.’ She pointed up at the statue.
‘Some people think that the worst thing about Catholicism is that it sees women only in terms of their reproductive capacity, sees them only as mothers. But that is only part of it. The real problem is that they portray mothers as being only good, as being only like Mary: pure and long-suffering and selfless. But deep down, every woman knows that it’s not the whole story. Mothers have their dark side too.’ Her voice was full of derision. ‘Why, everyone knows that, even little children reading their fairy stories, where the cruel mother is a stepmother to make it a little more bearable for them. Everybody knows it, everybody who’s had a mother or been one, and yet this lie is maintained, no one wants to talk about it out loud. Mothers can be good and bad. That’s why I don’t like this religion.’ She looked across at Nuala, but Nuala wasn’t shocked, as Anna had thought she would be. She was looking hard at her, trying to work out what was at the back of all this. For a moment, she thought Nuala was going to ask her what was wrong, but she evidently thought better of it. Nuala looked grave and thoughtful, but she said nothing.
Anna wished she were weaker, wished that she would break down and tell her friend what was troubling her. It wasn’t that she thought Nuala could help, she just wanted to talk to another person about it. Others confided in her, why couldn’t she do the same? No, she was too ashamed. Too proud. But then, wasn’t that what Lili had always said about her, that she was too proud?
When they were outside the church again, Nuala took another hard look at Anna. She could well believe that she had missed a night’s sleep. She looked haggard and older than Nuala had seen her looking before, older than she probably was. ‘Are you sure you feel all right?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Is anything troubling you?’
At first Anna did not reply, then she said, ‘What difference has it made to you, having your baby? If your mother had still been alive, do you think it would have brought you closer?’
Nuala’s reply to this was to turn her back on the other woman. ‘Why do you want to hurt me?’ she said eventually.
How must it be to be vulnerable like this? Anna thought. Why was she cursed with what seemed like strength, but which was really such a handicap, such a stupid thing. She wanted to tell Nuala why she was upset, but she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t make herself say the necessary words.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, although I can see that I have. Please forgive me.’ Nuala turned to her, and put her arms round her. She hugged the older woman tightly, and was kind enough to pretend not to see the tears that this brought to her eyes.
15
EVELIEN, THE WOMAN with whom Anna had first visited Ireland, was her oldest and best friend. They had been to school together, and during the winter, when Anna was back in Holland, they saw each other frequently. Neither woman was a good correspondent: in the course of the summer a postcard was usually as much communication as there would be between them. The day before Anna went to the stone circle with Nuala, however, she had a letter from Evelien.
As she picked up the envelope in the hall, Anna’s pleasure when she recognized the handwriting quickly changed to unease. A letter from her friend was such an unusual event that Anna felt sure it must contain bad news. She ripped the envelope open and scanned the letter impatiently. It was a long, rambling missive, but Anna quickly got to the hard, bald fact around which it was constructed. Then she went to the sitting-room cupboard, poured a shot of whiskey and knocked it straight back. She waited a few moments and then repeated this with a larger measure of whiskey. It was half past nine in the morning. She sat still and quiet for some time. Then she picked up the letter again, and this time she read it slowly and carefully, paying attention to every word.
Evelien had written to tell Anna that Lili had had a baby. She was clearly embarrassed to be doing so, and therefore the letter was full of generalities, this main piece of news treated in an almost throwaway fashion. Evelien was tactful enough to pretend that of course Anna knew all about this, but kind enough to include such details as anyone in Anna’s position would want to know. The baby was a girl, now aged about four months. Evelien had been sitting in a café when Lili came in with another woman, and sat at a nearby table. She didn’t notice Evelien, and Evelien confessed that she hadn’t drawn attention to herself. On the contrary: she’d hidden behind a newspaper and peeped around it at the young woman, catching the odd fragment of her con
versation. Because of the rift between Lili and Anna, Evelien would have felt hypocritical approaching Lili. In any case, she would probably have been snubbed. Evelien thought Lili was being unfair to her mother and she’d once gone so far as to tell her so, and of course it had ended in a quarrel. But with quiet insistence, Evelien left Anna in no doubt about the circumstances. From things she’d overheard, it was absolutely clear that the baby was Lili’s own, not a friend’s child she was looking after. She also remarked that it was a long time since she’d seen anyone looking so contented and happy.
Anna folded up the letter, and carefully put it back into the envelope. She went to the kitchen and made a pot of strong coffee.
Well, she’d thought this might happen. Tell the truth, hadn’t she even hoped it might happen? But not like this. No, never like this. If Lili became a mother, Anna had always thought, it would ease Anna’s conscience, by proving that she hadn’t turned her daughter off the idea of families completely. Did she feel that relief now? Yes, to some extent. But she’d also hoped that it would bring a change of heart, that when Lili was a mother herself she would understand why Anna had behaved as she did, and then they would be reconciled. But Lili hadn’t bothered to let Anna know that she was pregnant. She’d had the baby and told her mother nothing, and this cut Anna to the heart. She thought of Evelien, who knew how much Anna wanted to be on better terms with her daughter. Once, Anna had even suggested to Evelien, ‘I could pretend to be sick, couldn’t I? I mean if I were really sick she would have to know, and she might see things differently then.’
‘But you aren’t ill,’ Evelien had said sharply. ‘And if you lied to her about that, just as a way of getting close to her again, she would never forgive you when she found out.’ Evelien was the only person who knew the lengths to which Anna was prepared to go in this matter. That was why she had written, and why she had been so tactful. She alone knew how deeply hurt Anna would be. Hurt and ashamed.
She brooded on this news for the rest of the day, and that night she couldn’t sleep. The trip with Nuala had been arranged for the following morning, and they set out as planned, but it all went badly. Nuala appeared bored by the places they visited, and this annoyed Anna, who felt tense and short tempered. She knew she tended to take things out on Nuala sometimes because she reminded her of Lili. She was also aware of how unfair this was, but today she didn’t care, because it was foolish to expect fairness in life. Was it fair that her husband had left her and wrecked their marriage? That she could become a grandmother without her daughter bothering to tell her about it? That Nuala’s mother had died before Nuala’s baby had been born? Where was the fairness in any of that? But she pushed Nuala too far that day, and regretted it afterwards when it was too late, and Nuala was clearly upset.
At the end of that week Claire also received a letter, which she opened at breakfast. ‘It’s from Mammy,’ she said to Nuala, laughing.
‘What’s the joke?’
Claire passed to Nuala a photograph which her mother had enclosed with the letter, and Nuala began to laugh too.
‘Look at us! What are we like? I’ve never seen this photo before, have you?’
‘Yes, but I’d forgotten all about it. I can even remember the day it was taken. It was Granny’s seventieth birthday, and there was a little family party. You came up from Dublin with your parents and stayed with us, do you remember?’
‘I can barely remember that, although I know we did it. We were very small then. How old, four? Five?’
‘About that. It was summer, and we were both going to start school in the autumn, and you already knew all the alphabet and could count much higher than I could.’ Nuala passed the photograph back to her, and Claire studied it. Her memories of the visit were much more vivid and complete than she was prepared to tell Nuala, for she didn’t remember her cousin in a particularly flattering light. She’d looked forward to seeing her relatives from Dublin, and how disappointed she’d been. Her parents wanted her to play with Nuala, but Nuala was aloof, and wanted only to stay with her mother the whole time. Auntie Kate had indulged her in this, hugging Nuala and saying of course she didn’t have to go outside if she didn’t want to. Even as a child Claire could see how much this annoyed her own mother, who hated children sitting listening in to adult conversation.
‘I’ll take you out and show you the farmyard,’ Claire had offered. ‘I’ll show you the pigs.’
Nuala shook her head, and buried her face in her mother’s side.
‘See the pigs, indeed,’ said Auntie Kate, as though this were the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. Nuala preferred to show off her superior learning. Twenty-five,’ she said slowly. ‘Twenty-six. Twenty-seven.’
Claire didn’t like Auntie Kate. She pretended to be nice to you, but Claire knew it was all put on. ‘You don’t like her either, do you Mammy?’ she’d said, and was surprised when her mother said, ‘Why, what gave you that idea? I like Auntie Kate very much, don’t ever let me hear you say things like that again.’ She’d overheard her father saying to her mother on the way home from Granny’s party, ‘That Nuala one’s as old-fashioned as a field,’ and, remembering this over thirty years later, Claire smiled as she glanced up from the photograph to Nuala, innocently buttering toast on the other side of the table.
The Christmas after the party Auntie Kate had sent Claire a pound note, and for the first time ever Claire didn’t have that warm contented feeling you usually got when someone gave you money. She’d put the pound in her purse, but looking at it had made her feel uneasy. It wasn’t like when Granny gave you a half crown when it was as good just to have it as to spend it. She didn’t realize that she was experiencing for the first time the difference between a thing itself and its emotional connection. She just knew she wanted to spend the money on sweets that she could eat and then forget. She didn’t want to use the money to buy something lasting, that would sit around reminding her unpleasantly of Auntie Kate every time she looked at it.
Claire would have been surprised to realize just how much Nuala also remembered of that visit: far more than she was prepared to admit. She could even recall the journey up to Donegal, and how her mother had kept pulling at her fingers to make the bones crack, until Nuala’s father asked her to stop, and she did, for a while but then started it again. They’d stopped somewhere to have a meal in a hotel, and Nuala and her mother had gone off to the toilet together. ‘Stand by that basin and wait for me,’ her mother commanded, before darting into a cubicle. Nuala heard the bolt click, then the unmistakable sound of someone being sick. Her mother came out, her eyes unusually bright. ‘Don’t tell Daddy, Nuala. He’d only be cross with me.’ Nuala nodded, and felt her own tummy tighten. She didn’t know what all this was about, but she knew she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like the farm either when she got there. It wasn’t how she had imagined it would be from picture books about farms. There was a strange, sourish smell in the dark kitchen. They’d sat down on a sofa, and she’d clung to her mother. She could see Auntie Pat didn’t like her much, which was a shock: no one had ever not liked Nuala before in her life. She clung more tightly to her mother in hurt and defiance, refusing to be wooed out to the farmyard to see the animals. They’d wanted her to play with Claire until her mother defended her, and said Nuala didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do.
On the journey back to Dublin they stopped off again in the same hotel. This time Nuala stood by the basin and watched her mother putting on some vivid lipstick. She smiled indulgently when she noticed her daughter’s fixed gaze, and, bending down, put some lipstick on her too. Nothing held a greater fascination for Nuala than her mother’s make-up bag, and her mother only allowed her access to it when she was in an exceptionally good mood. She tried to imagine being grown up and having a bag like that of her own, but it was beyond her. ‘Here, look.’ Her mother fished out a little pot of rouge and offered it to Nuala. ‘Yes, you can keep it. It’s yours now. When we get back to Dublin
I’ll have a look and see what else I have that you might like. We’ll do something nice tomorrow, too, something special. I know! We’ll go to the zoo! Just the two of us, would you like that?’
Nuala gazed up at her. She would never in all her life love anyone as she loved her mother in that moment.
16
FOR ABOUT AN HOUR NOW, Claire had been sitting on a hard kitchen chair in her studio, smoking cigarettes and looking at the paintings she had done over the course of the summer. First she arranged them all around the studio in careful sequence, and then simply sat looking at them. She stared at each one in turn, and then considered it first in relation to the pictures on either side of it, and then to the whole cycle of paintings. Occasionally she would stand up and rearrange the sequence slightly, then sit down again to consider the effect of this change. Once she got up and removed a canvas completely from the arrangement, propping it behind her chair, with the image facing the wall.
The longer she looked at the paintings, the more uncertain she became about their merits and failings. It was not just possible but necessary to look at them in different ways. At first, she tried to evaluate them in terms of their being her own work. How did they compare with paintings she had done in the past? Did they fulfil the intentions she had had when she embarked on the project? If not, did that matter? Was she satisfied with the work?
Of course not. She was never satisfied. Only dissatisfaction could drive her on, keep her painting in the hope that the next time would be better, while knowing always that it would never be good enough.
The paintings were based on a series of anatomical drawings she had made two years earlier. For a long time her work had been heavily emotional, and the drawings, red chalk on paper, had been an attempt to change direction. Before assessing the pictures today, she had looked again at the slides of the drawings, remembering how fascinated she had become by pure form, while still knowing that it wasn’t enough. She’d looked at the spine then as though it weren’t a spine, just an extraordinarily complex and beautiful structure. She’d drawn fans of muscle and the joints of fingers as though they had nothing at all to do with the human body. Then one day, while out walking, she came across a magnificent escarpment of fissured rock. Slabs of stone had fallen cleanly away, leaving a series of flat planes. She’d wanted to paint it immediately, but without reference to the surrounding landscape or the sky. No, just the rocks themselves, their colour and texture and form. Then she’d laid her hand upon the stone, her warm, living hand upon the cold inanimate stone, and suddenly knew the drawings were a blind alley.
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