Midwinter Break

by Bernard Maclaverty

  Some of the construction workers and architects involved in the building were just signing their names with fat felt-tip pens on an area of white-painted wood when the first bomb went off. A thump. It was near enough to make some of the people in hard hats duck. Yet when people looked around nothing of any significance could be seen. The cameramen looked about them but did not photograph anything. Not knowing what else to do, the workers continued their signing. But there was no doubt in people’s minds that a bomb had gone off. This was something Belfast people knew about. After so many years. A big bomb vibrates your diaphragm, makes your chest full, churns your stomach – your ears become strange. But everyone was out in the air, above the explosion, so it was slightly different. It had been preceded by no fire brigade or ambulance sirens – a no-warning bomb – so there would almost certainly be deaths and injuries. Then another one went off. It was hard to tell where – because the shock waves seemed to have no direction – they just focus in the chest, pump the lungs full. After a minute or two a third bomb exploded, this one further away. By this time all pretence at partying had stopped. Everyone on the roof stood looking this way and that. Then Gerry saw a white puff of smoke appear at the foot of the Cave Hill. He pointed to show his friend. They both looked. Then the thud of sound came. Not so much in the chest, because of the distance, but audible. Oh my God, somebody said. People had gone pale. A woman who had decided to wear white gloves for the occasion covered her mouth, staring around waiting for the next explosion. Who’s doing this? What is it? What’s happening?

  What was happening that day, they were later to find out, was that the Provisional IRA exploded more than twenty bombs, killing nine people and injuring one hundred and thirty. On the roof Gerry immediately thought of Stella. Because it was still the school holidays she had gone home on the bus to Dungiven for the weekend. At least she was out of range. But maybe the bombs were everywhere. Another one went off. Black smoke rose into the air. The people on the roof did not know what to do. They stood around the perimeter of the building and stared down at the city laid out before them in the sunshine, afraid to return to ground level. Voices asked where the last bomb had been. The bus station? The Ormeau Road? Somebody else said it was the Albert Clock. Gerry thought of Stella’s friend, the Casualty nurse, who had made the remark about the big scissors. Would she be on duty?

  Now ambulances had begun. Wailing sounds at different distances, their sirens interfering with each other. Later Gerry heard about people crying in the street with fear. Men, women and children herded into public parks – for safety. Away from buildings, away from cars. Away from the traps and atrocities which had been set for them.

  Stella walked the now familiar route from the hotel. Into the passageway, into the Begijnhof garden, into the office. The woman with the glasses was on the telephone speaking in Dutch. Stella stood waiting. She put her hand in her pocket to check she still had the business card she’d been given on her last visit. She had another look at the name on it, tried in her mind to pronounce it.

  Although she could not understand the language she could recognise when the conversation was coming to an end. The repetitions, the nodding. The woman put down the phone and looked up at her – her smile was bleak and without warmth. Stella knew the woman spoke little or no English. She smiled and said without thinking, ‘Good morning.’

  Stella placed the business card on the desk with the name of the person she was to see facing away from herself. The woman looked down at it. Then began to shake her head.

  ‘No – not – no.’ She pointed to a row of red plastic chairs against the wall. ‘Asseyez-vous.’ Stella hesitated, then backed towards the chairs and sat down. This seemed to please the woman, who returned to her papers. There was a smell of polish. Stella looked down at her feet and saw that the boards were the originals – very old, at least. Each one a hand span in width. Polished to a sheen, beautiful in colour.

  There were some framed diplomas with red seals on the wall behind where the woman was working. Too far away even to attempt to read the wording. Which would be meaningless to her anyway.

  Stella was the only girl in Master Ryan’s school to have gone to university. There was a time when she would have been proud of that but now it meant little to her. The green lawns on the day of graduation, the gowns, the red cardboard tube full of certificate. Her father’s pride that day was what she remembered most and his shyness in front of her – trying to avoid being in photographs yet not knowing his way around a camera sufficiently to be the photographer. ‘What do I press?’ He was a farm labourer whose hands were hard with work, whose nails were like horn. How little it all meant now. A thing of the past. Her father in his grave. She included a prayer for him every time she prayed.

  Not knowing a language was such a barrier. You appeared foolish if you couldn’t understand. Not foolish – stupid. You just stood there looking stupid. Such an embarrassment. And she knew she wasn’t stupid. She was proud of the fact that, even to this day, she could say the Hail Mary in any of four different languages. Latin and French and Irish and, of course, English.

  ‘Excusez-moi,’ Stella said. She pointed to the business card and made a universal gesture of not understanding – hands out, mouth turned down, shoulders raised.

  ‘Parlez-vous français?’ said the woman.

  ‘Un peu.’

  ‘Madame est très tard.’ The woman indicated the telephone, mimed making a phone call.

  ‘A quelle heure?’ Stella pointed to her watch. The woman behind the desk raised her shoulders, spread her hands, then went back to her work. Stella had no confidence in her French. She had been taught what little she knew by a nun from Omagh who, by the sound of her, had never been to France in her life. ‘Window’ was pronounced fen-etter. ‘Perhaps’ was poo-tetter.

  She wanted to ask, how long will this woman be? Should I go and do some shopping in the meantime? Will she be here today? What did she say when she phoned?

  The door opened and a woman came in. She was not dressed for outdoors but had a green woollen scarf lapped around her neck and an envelope in her hand. She was dark-haired, in her fifties, wearing a stylish trouser suit. She walked up to the woman at the desk and handed over the envelope. They greeted and smiled and talked in Dutch. Both of them began looking at Stella. The woman with the green scarf smiled over at her. The conversation, half whispered, half spoken, went on in the silence of the office. Then the woman with the scarf walked across.

  ‘Hello – how are you?’ she said.

  ‘You’re Irish?’

  ‘Indeed I am,’ said the woman.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Waterford, originally.’ The woman slid onto the vacant seat beside Stella. She looked over to the desk and smiled.‘Hennie’s English is not so good. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ said Stella.

  ‘Hennie says to tell you that the woman you want to see has been delayed – I don’t know why – and she’ll not be in for some time.’ There was silence between them. ‘My name is Kathleen Walsh and I’m a resident here.’

  ‘I wanted to make an enquiry . . . How would someone go about applying to become . . . a part of this. To live here?’

  ‘You’ve said a mouthful there.’ Kathleen stood and went back to the woman at the desk. They talked quietly. Kathleen returned.

  ‘The best idea is to come with me and I’ll give you a cup of tea – or coffee, if that’s your thing. And you can see where I live. Maybe by that time herself will be here.’

  Stella stood.

  ‘Are you sure? That’s very kind of you.’

  They shook hands. Kathleen spoke over her shoulder in Dutch to Hennie as she guided Stella out of the door.

  ‘And where are you from yourself? I can hear the North in you.’

  ‘County Derry. From a townland nobody’s heard of. From a place nobody knows. Dungiven.’

  They walked slowly along the path.

&nb
sp; ‘This is such a beautiful garden,’ said Stella. ‘So quiet.’

  ‘It’s a metre lower than the outside world. The noise goes over its head somehow. Anywhere’d be quiet after the North.’

  ‘Oh I don’t live in Ireland any more.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Glasgow.’

  Kathleen pointed out the English Reformed Church and the Catholic Church which was camouflaged in the line of buildings.

  ‘I take it you’re Catholic?’ said Kathleen.

  ‘Yes, I am. I was in there for Mass yesterday.’

  ‘Isn’t it great we can ask questions like that once we’re out of Ireland.’ Stella nodded and smiled.

  ‘Around 1600 Catholicism was banned by the City Fathers.’ Kathleen reached out and touched Stella’s elbow. ‘It’s very hard to be a guide and have a reasonable conversation at the same time.’

  ‘Don’t worry – you’re doing great.’

  ‘Catholics were allowed to attend Mass but not in public. To get around it they went to each other’s houses.’

  ‘I like the intimacy of that. It was very popular in the sixties to have a priest say Mass in your home. Even in the North.’

  ‘I wasn’t born till the seventies.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget myself.’

  ‘This place has been here since medieval times. It was an island – a woman’s island – “manned” by Beguines.’

  Stella laughed and nodded her head elaborately. Kathleen went on.

  ‘It all began with women who wanted to live alone – to devote themselves to prayer and . . . this, that and the other. Good works – without taking vows. Thus the first Beguinages. They could hardly be called nuns, because they could go back to the world if they wanted. And marry. There wasn’t a vow of poverty either – no woman renounced her property. If she became broke she neither asked for nor accepted charity but supported herself by getting a job. A lot of them became teachers.’

  Stella stopped and looked over a wrought-iron fence.

  ‘The gardens are so beautifully kept,’ she said. ‘Aww – snowdrops. I thought they were late this year. Then I saw some in Scotland, the day we were leaving for here.’ Stella put her head back and sniffed the air. ‘What’s that divine smell?’

  Then she spotted a pink bush, flowers but no leaves, the flowers growing straight from the bare branch.

  ‘Isn’t that viburnum?’

  Stella pulled a branch towards herself and inhaled, then closed her eyes with pleasure.

  ‘Such a smell in the depths of winter.’

  ‘In the summer this place is beyond belief – especially in the evenings – with the night-scented stock.’

  ‘The garden I have at home is only a street garden. A couple of feet by the length of the building.’

  Kathleen guided Stella into a doorway.

  ‘This is me, here.’

  The entrance hall was small and the staircase resembled a ladder more than anything else. It was immensely high, funnelling upwards.

  ‘A Stairway to Heaven,’ said Stella as she began to climb using, instead of a banister, the white hand-rope which looped upwards. There was no carpet and she heard her own footsteps creak and squeak as she put her weight on each tread. It seemed to go on for ever.

  ‘Can you manage?’ said Kathleen.

  ‘You must be fit – living in such an eyrie.’

  ‘You get used to it. The only disadvantage is when you want a grand piano. Then you have to take it up by sling – on the outside.’

  ‘If it was me I’d learn the violin.’

  Eventually Stella’s hand reached the end of the rope banister. It was tied into an ornate knot.

  ‘Oh, I like that. Very secure. Very decorative.’

  ‘A monkey’s fist, it’s called,’ said Kathleen. Stella was panting, still holding onto the rope.

  ‘The Franciscans have three knots in their cincture. Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.’ She took a breath between each word. Kathleen patted her on the back.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Fine.’

  She edged past Stella, opened the front door and glided in. The door was not locked. She made a little gesture with her hand to invite Stella in.

  ‘This is lovely.’

  ‘Minimalist,’ said Kathleen. It was a bright space of varnished floorboards and white walls. A small dark cross hung in an alcove. There was an infinitesimal smell of flowers. At one end of a sideboard a stone vase of daffodils and at the other end by the window a clear glass container with yellow tulips.

  ‘We have climbed to the light,’ Stella said. ‘Where did you get the flowers?’

  ‘In the supermarket.’

  ‘In January?’

  ‘In Amsterdam.’

  ‘Of course. The tulips are assembly-line perfect.’

  Stella walked to the window and touched one of the flowers as if she did not believe it. She looked down onto the green space, onto the bare tops of trees, the surround of houses with their terracotta roofs.

  ‘How wonderful. Another world.’ There was a bird feeder outside hanging from the lintel, full of nuts and seeds. Stella turned apologetically. ‘When I come into a new place I’m like a dog. I nosy about. Sniff in the corners.’

  ‘Feel free. There is not much to see but at least it’s mine.’

  ‘An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own,’ said Stella.

  ‘Take the weight off your feet first. Get your breath back.’

  ‘I’m not out of breath,’ she panted. ‘Out of sorts, maybe.’ And they both laughed as she half fell, half slumped onto a cream linen sofa. Kathleen stood over her.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea would be nice at this time of day.’ Kathleen turned and left the room. Stella looked around. The place reminded her of a caravan – it had that mixture of utility and economy of space. But it was stylish too. Like something out of a brochure.

  There was knitting in progress at the end of the sofa, part of a white Aran sweater, a mixture of cable and blackberry stitch, with knitting needles plunged into the wool. There was a framed picture on each wall, the frames black and severe against the white. A single shelf of books – she could make out a Bible and a Mass missal. And a fat dictionary. An atlas, judging by its height. She leaned forward and made out several books of prayer-poems by Michel Quoist – she had a translation of Prayers of Life in her own bookcase at home. Stella stood and looked at the pictures. All except one were poster-sized reproductions. Miró, Morandi, Mondrian – all the Ms, but maybe Kathleen hadn’t noticed this. It was the kind of thing somebody who did crosswords noticed. The exception was a small icon of Christ Pantocrator. It was an original, not a reproduction. From the darkness within the frame, the gold of the halo glowed in the light from the window.

  She turned and wandered into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m doing my dog trick,’ she said.

  Kathleen was putting biscuits on a plate. A kettle was coming to the boil. ‘It’s more a galley than a kitchen.’ On the wall above the sink was a board, with tools clipped to it. A hammer, screwdrivers – a pair of pliers, a hacksaw. And other stuff. Each item was outlined carefully in red paint.

  ‘I like your board arrangement,’ said Stella.

  ‘It’s to remind me to put things back. If I don’t, the empty ghost yells at me. So I put things back. And there’s plenty to do – these houses are really old. And odd. If you drop a ball of wool it’ll go on rolling until it hits the next wall. Virtually nothing is eye-sweet.’

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘You could level all the floors.’

  Kathleen laughed, lifted the tray and headed for the other room. There was a movement from outside the window – a flash, almost.

  ‘Oh, would you look.’ She set the tray down and stepped to the window.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Waxwings.’ Kathleen pointed. ‘Aren’t they lovely?’

  Stella stood almost on ti
ptoe with her hands joined behind her back and saw a flock of colourful birds traversing the green space below.

  ‘They came yesterday. Some years they don’t come at all. Bright visitors.’

  ‘I like their Mohican haircuts.’

  ‘And the little bit of yellow. They’re after the berries. It’s the cotoneaster’s attracting them. Oh, I so love birds.’ She turned, a little reluctantly, from the window and began to pour the tea. ‘The Dutch have an unfortunate name for them. Pestvogel. In medieval times they thought they brought the plague with them.’

  ‘Your neighbours wouldn’t be too happy about putting out the bird feeders, then.’

  ‘No indeed.’ Kathleen handed her a china mug of tea. ‘Milk and sugar are there.’

  ‘Thank you. This is very kind of you. To be taking in waifs and strays.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ Kathleen doctored her own tea.

  ‘I love that image of the sparrow flying through the barn,’ said Stella.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘I think it’s the Viking version of waifs and strays – the sparrow who flies in out of the storm through the banqueting hall. In one door and out the other.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘An image of life.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that, surely.’

  ‘It’s just such an elegant summary. The fire, the food, the finite . . . And the older you get the quicker it goes.’

  They both busied themselves with their tea.

  ‘So what can I do for you? How can I help?’ said Kathleen.

  ‘I just wanted to investigate this place, this order. Maybe enquire about the life. I said as much to the woman in the office . . .’

  ‘Hennie.’

  ‘Yes, Hennie. I’m not sure she understood.’

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘No thanks. Just as it is.’ Stella raised the china cup to her lips and blew on its surface. She sipped, half closing her eyes. ‘How difficult is it to join such an organisation?’

  ‘Why would you want to?’

  ‘I was here about thirty years ago – at a teacher conference and somebody told me of the set-up, the Beguines. I was intrigued . . . but at that time there was no urgency.’