Flustered, he made to pick up her hand, but she pulled it away.
For a moment she looked so uneasy he thought she might take flight, but instead she turned to him and smiled, so that he felt the warmth of it over the heat of the fire.
“You are very patient with me, Vikram – too patient, I think – but these are my troubles and I must learn to live with them. Please, happily divert me: tell me if you are settling into this damp city at all.”
He went along with the shift in conversation and happily began a long story of how everything was so different. He frequently told this story, because Irish people wanted to hear the same drab likes and dislikes. But Grace was different.
“Dr Fernandes, are you on stage with the set ambition to amuse me? I want to hear from the real you, please.”
He faltered, but liked her even more. “You don’t want to hear about the loneliness in my heart for my family and my home. I miss when the coffee estate is heavy with the scent of the coffee plant flowers, how I love to stand on the terraces and breathe in deeply. I swear you can feel it permeate through the body, renewing each cell as it goes.”
Grace leaned forward. “Tell me more.”
“It is the one place in the whole world where my soul is at peace. Nowhere do I feel closer to the sky and the clouds than at Chikmagalur. Somehow the day passes differently there; it has a natural flow. When they are laying out the coffee beans on the drying terraces, I love the hum of activity, the buzz of conversation. As the coffee beans dry and crack, there is a quiet expectancy as the sun beats down hard.
“My favourite time is at twilight, when the plantation is still, the mountains like giant elephants protecting us and the night sky later pushing down the stars to light our way. The wild animals are on the prowl: you can feel they are there, but all you see is a shadow or maybe the frightened squawk of a chicken in its pen or the dog on the veranda suddenly sitting tall, on alert. I miss it all. The bulk of elephants passing by on ancient rights of way.”
She reached over and took his hand. “It is one of the great pleasures in my life to know you, Vikram.”
He looked in her eyes and, at that moment, he knew he was falling in love.
“So why are you a grand doctor, if you love the plantation life so much?”
He laughed. “Indian mothers, don’t you know. My mother had this great ambition for me. My father is a specialist in our city hospital. It was a given that I would also go for medicine, it was not my place to go against it. It is hoped I will get a position in the new Bangalore hospital when I return.”
“You won’t have much time for your coffee estate then. My God, what was I thinking? We should have ordered coffee.”
Her face was so stricken he laughed out loud. “Coffee in this country I will not drink. Some day you must have the coffee from our estate, then you will know what it should taste like.”
“I will hold you to that.”
She was fidgeting, following the rim of the china saucer with her finger, and he asked her what was wrong.
“My husband likes me to be home when he returns from the Four Courts. I had better go.”
He called for the bill and she let him pay.
The doorman jumped in front of them as they left. “Taxi to Parnell Square, Mrs Moran?”
“Yes, Tim, please.” She turned to Vikram. “I so enjoyed hearing you talk of India. Could we maybe meet another day?”
“I would like that. Thank you for defending me on Grafton Street.”
“How about some Sunday? Martin spends all day in his court chambers preparing for his week’s work.”
“I will look forward to it.”
Bowing, he waited until the taxi had pulled out into the city traffic, before he turned away.
*
Rosa was fidgeting, moving her feet across the tiles.
“I have gone on too long, my Rosa.”
“No, Uncle. Maybe I should talk to Anil.”
“A good idea. I am tiring of spouting on anyway.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek and slipped out of the apartment, shouting goodbye to her mother, giving her no time to corner and cross-examine her.
“Why did she leave so early?” said Rhya.
“She has gone home. Maybe it is for the best.”
“I hope she knocks some sense into that husband of hers. People are beginning to chatter, I just know it.”
Vikram closed his eyes and pretended to be snoozing, so Rhya, with a sigh, left him on his own on the balcony.
Grace loved India from the stories he told her. How he wished he could have brought her here. So many places he wished to show her, so many promises he could not keep. His body felt heavy, his head thumping. He closed his eyes to blot out the painful memories, to conjure up when they could walk freely hand in hand. In these moments he liked to think of what it could have been like for them both in India, walking hand in hand, the heat pulsing about them, the air heavy, her hand in his.
*
Grace’s fingers were long and she liked it when he stroked her, like a child would a kitten.
“Can I bring you to Sikandra? It is quiet there and very beautiful. It is not far.” He saw the tears wet her eyes and he brushed his hand gently on her cheek. “You will like Sikandra.”
Sikandra, where deer and squirrels roamed freely in the grass. It was the Great Akbar’s tomb. Vikram had visited this great monument and the tumbledown stone buildings, at the far corner of the compound, before travelling to Ireland.
She fluttered past him, bringing him back to the red sandstone buildings, the pavilions reflected in the water channels, the glistening marble. He felt his body relax. Before them was the front gate adorned in abstract patterns of white marble, with arches, pavilion towers and three-storey minarets. Two children pointed at the monkeys swinging from pavilion roof to pavilion roof, as if it was their private playground.
“Why don’t we walk, follow the water channels, watch the squirrels. Maybe the deer are up close,” he said softly, as he fell into step beside her. They paced up the steps together.
Observing Grace closely, he wished she would stay there, in the shadow of the Great Akbar’s tomb in her turquoise pleated linen dress. When she heard his step, she turned, and he saw her face was soft and happy.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, and he did not answer, because he did not need to. They walked in silence, taking their time to peruse the little details in these cluttered buildings. He sometimes caught her hand, to show her something she had passed by. When she missed the bees’ nests, ten of them hanging in the high point of one ornate arch, he told her to close her eyes and turn her face upwards.
“Now, open your eyes,” he whispered.
Suddenly, becoming acutely aware of the low, consistent hum of the bees, she toppled back in fright. He had to steady her and hold her. He did not let go and she did not pull against him. They stood together watching the bees, unaware that the sweeper women who regularly brushed out the pavilions had stopped their work to watch.
Vikram could smell the sweetness of her perfume. He slipped his hands around her waist and she did not object. Slowly, he tipped her back on her feet, but she swung around to look him in the eye before he could release her. They were so close. He felt the softness of her lips as his glanced against hers.
“We should go,” he said.
“You promised to show me the deer.”
Vikram bowed and they walked on.
*
He must have nodded off. Rhya was beside him, shaking him furiously.
“The boy from the travel agent is here.” Her voice was cross, but her face was soft.
Vikram shook himself awake. The boy handed him an envelope. Vikram nodded, pointing to the kitchen. “Go to the kitchen, get some water,” he told him. The boy bowed in gratitude.
“Vikram, I beg you to reconsider. The boy can take back the tickets.”
“Nonsense, woman, it is all arranged.”
&
nbsp; “It is not fair on Rosa either. And what about me?”
Vikram sat down at the table to open the envelope. “I have to do this, Rhya. Can’t you even try to understand?”
She huffed loudly, marching off to the kitchen to shoo away the boy, who had begun talking loudly to one of the servants.
17
Parnell Square, Dublin, April 1984
Emma had been awake since before dawn. Her feet up on the couch in the first-floor drawing room, she had watched the light creep across the city. If her father had been here, he would have offered his advice in his deliberately slow manner, ready to stop if she indicated he should butt out. She was not sure, but, bleak as it looked here, to stay and start a new life in this city was probably her best option. But first she had to lay to rest the agitated past, by standing at the grave of Grace Moran and saying goodbye.
There was a lot of chat downstairs on the street, the words wafting upwards losing shape and form, broken by the time they reached her. How many times had she stood inside this window in her nightdress trying to listen as her father said goodbye to one of his friends in the dark of the night? If he later heard her scampering back to her bed as he made his way upstairs, he did not say anything
It was Violet’s voice that sent shivers of fear through her. One night she had woken up to hear Violet arguing loudly with her father.
“That young girl needs to be sent away to boarding school, to be among those from whom she can learn how to behave. That one will go wild, mark my words. Just like her mother and grandmother before her.”
Her father’s tone was low and firm, and while she could not make out the words, she knew he would defend her against Violet. He was not to know what fun she had roller skating along the square with the boy from the flats near Sean McDermott Street. They were seven and carefree. She heard Violet guffaw loudly, before banging the library door, sending vibrations shuddering through the house.
The next day, when Emma could not find her roller skates, Violet told her rolling along the streets like an urchin holding on to railings and frightening pedestrians was not the way to behave and she would not be seeing the skates again.
Emma had cried herself to sleep for three nights, but Violet told her to buck up, that she was lucky because her stupid father did not want to send her to boarding school.
“If I had my way, you would be somewhere where the nuns could knock sense into you, but the great judge sees things differently,” she said, thumping her blackthorn stick loudly off the wooden floor.
When the doorbell rang, Emma jumped, but thinking it was children messing she ignored it until it rang again, making her run downstairs.
Andrew Kelly was standing there, an embarrassed look on his face.
“So sorry to disturb you, but a friend of Angie Hannon rang me. She is worried about her. Would you by any chance have seen her in the last two days, or know where she is?”
“Did you call to the house?”
“Not a dicky bird. Did she say if she was going out of town?”
“No. She came around last week, doling out advice about men.”
“Men? Angie?”
“Why?”
“There was only one man in Angie’s life. Hang on, what date is it.”
“April 18, 1984.”
“I bet she has gone back to the old place.” Andrew shook his head. “No doubt she gave you a lot of codswallop about being footloose and fancy-free.”
“Something like that.”
“The truth is Angie was once married and had a boy. He was about eight when he and his father died. Angie had a lovely house in Greystones, beside the sea. She left there and moved into the city. In her worst moments, she goes back there to sit. I bet we will find her there.”
“Maybe she wants some privacy.”
“Maybe she wants somebody to share the burden.”
Emma sighed. “I wouldn’t like to intrude on her grief. I don’t know her very well.”
“I would rather chance a cold shoulder than have her face old ghosts on her own. Come on, it is a nice drive.”
Emma relented, running upstairs to get dressed while Andrew sat at the judge’s desk in the library.
*
Angie Hannon was dressed up. She flattened her skirt with the palms of her hands and straightened the front frill on her blouse. Folding her arms over her chest, she slumped into the seat. The upholstery, roughed by dirt, scraped the back of her legs. A cool breeze from the open window pushed what was left of the net curtain in a whispering billow and she relaxed a little, the sweet smell of the wild young fennel in a front bed curling about her.
She sat in this cold empty shell of a house and remembered.
The two of them were so noisy getting ready for the boating trip, laughing together, making sausage sandwiches, stealing bottles of ginger ale from her hiding place under the sink. It was not a first trip, they did it every week, come hail or shine, and this day was spring-like and sunny.
When they were ready, they both came and kissed her and said to wait until they were out of the harbour to wave the red flag from the top window. She laughed at them, calling them her idiots, but she did not know if she said goodbye. She heard them on the shingle path, the boy skipping ahead, his father stopping to light a cigarette: the snap of his silver tobacco box before he smacked his lips in satisfaction around the cigarette, puffing out small clouds of smoke.
In the kitchen, she threw a teabag in a mug and poured in boiling water. She knew it would be a long time before she had to go upstairs to wave the flag. Her husband, Christopher, was a meticulous man who checked every last detail before they cast off from the small harbour. Stretching her feet under the table, she luxuriated in the quiet of the house, the dog outside digging a hole in the back garden, the cats lying out on a warm windowsill.
When she went upstairs, she tut-tutted that the boy had not made his bed like she had told him to and she would have to pretend to be cross about it later. The sea was blue-grey like the sky. She saw their boat, the sail high to catch the wind, zipping out of the harbour and making for the open seas.
She had her back turned to reach for the red flag when she heard a bang, muffled by the distance, absorbed by the weight of water. Freezing, as dread coasted through her, she turned back to the bay window. Where the boat had been, a ball of fire wheeled across the ocean, debris bobbing up. Ripples caused by the explosion surfed to the shore. Sirens sounded and people ran to look. She did not join them, she could not move, she did not need to know. The expectation, the life, the comfortable familiar had been whipped away, taken by the ball of fire that fought the waves and continued to burn. When they came banging at her door, she did not answer, so they had to come around the back, fighting off the dog and walking past the lazy cats to find her watching the sea, holding her flag, not knowing what to do, not caring what came next.
Angie still liked this sitting room and the kitchen: they were all in the before. But upstairs was tainted by the after, as was the wide view of the harbour and the sea, which only days later yielded up parts of their torn bodies. She trudged up the steps past the boy’s room, where the door had been closed many years ago, and into the big bedroom with the wrap-around bay windows, where the sea rolled into the room, taunting her, causing an explosion in her head. She felt her chest tighten and the tears push up in her eyes. Defiantly, she picked the red flag from the bed and opened the window, wedging the rod of the flag so that it did not fall but was held aloft, signalling to the ghosts that she knew they were there and she loved them, still loved them insanely.
“Always wave it, Mam. I know you are there when you put it out the window.”
She could not look across the wide sea, so instead looked down the hill to where the town went about its business, unaware that another year had passed, making it a decade since her life and their lives had been blown apart.
It didn’t matter that the wrong boat had been blown up by the IRA. How could an apology and an explanation br
ing back their lives, bring back the life settled and happy with her family. She told those who tried to apologise to go to hell, and she meant it.
When she saw the car pull up at the bottom of the driveway, she smiled. It was a lovely late spring day, and even in this dejected state, the house looked well.
The only visitors, if you could call them that, were on sunny holidays, when couples in big cars drove out from the city and saw the dilapidated house on the hill, a beacon in the sunshine. If she was here, she never opened the door but retired upstairs, watching them from behind the heavy brocade curtains in the spare bedroom. She would sit and fan herself cool as they strolled along the driveway, once gravelled and wide, now narrow and blanketed in moss and grass, calling out to each other, building dreams, silly vagaries, in the heat. Often she had to rap on the window and point a finger, to let them know they should not attempt to cross the threshold.
When she saw Andrew and Emma, she wasn’t pleased and neither was she displeased. Emma’s light jacket caught by the briars, ripping a thread, the fuchsia pressing in on her, trepidation on her face as Andrew led the way to the front door. Angie could let them knock and look through the letter box like everybody else, but she didn’t.
Opening the top window, she called out to them. “Go around to the side and push the wooden door. You can come in the back.”
“Are you all right, Angie?” Andrew asked.
“What do you think?”
They disappeared out of view. She sat quietly, waiting.
She wished she could blame the sea than have to always address in her mind the type of person who had watched and celebrated as the waves played with the ball of fire, before it dawned on them that the British ambassador had moved his yacht to Dún Laoghaire three weeks before.
Andrew shouted up the stairs. “Angie, will we come up?”
“Sit in the sitting room. I will be down in a minute.”
Andrew and Emma walked to the front sitting room, a wide room with high ceilings that was permanently in the shade, because the rose bush had climbed over the window and obscured the glass. The only daylight came from a side window that overlooked the front door, the light pooling in a little group of armchairs that looked as if they had been gathered there for that reason. Andrew gestured to Emma to sit down and they did, gingerly. The chairs smelled of damp. Cold had crept into the emptiness of the room, curled now around their ankles, across their shoulders, making them shiver on this warm spring day. Shafts of light danced on layers of dust and mouse droppings. The damp smell of a house left undisturbed through too many sunny summer days invaded their nostrils.
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