by Colm Toibin
“Maurice, stay a while.”
He shook his head.
“Maurice, is it the music? If I play the music, will you come another time?”
“No, not the music.”
“Maurice, tell me about Conor. Is there something . . . ?”
“There is one other.”
“Maurice, there is no one else. Tell me a name.”
He faded again, and she heard a low gasp from him.
“Maurice, will you be there when I come?”
“No one knows,” he said. “No one.”
She heard the sound then of a car horn beeping on the street. She was lying across the bed with all her clothes on. When she sat up the room was empty. When she crossed the room and touched the rocking chair it rocked gently back and forth on the old springs. She put her hand where he had been sitting but there was no heat from it, nor any sign that anyone had been there.
Downstairs, she found the keys to the house and the keys to the car. She put a coat over her arm and walked out, closing the door behind her. As she started the car, she wondered where she would go, but it hardly mattered. It was only when she found herself veering off the Dublin Road towards Bunclody that she knew she was going towards her aunt Josie’s. She concentrated hard on the road ahead, forcing herself to stay awake. As she turned away from the river up the steep hill towards Josie’s, she wondered what she should say, how she could explain why she was here. There was a gateway on the left with space for a car or a tractor to pull in. She parked the car there and switched off the engine. She put her head back and closed her eyes. She wondered if she should turn now and drive back into the town, but she felt that she would not be able to concentrate enough on the driving. She would rest here for a while, she thought, hope that Josie or John or John’s wife would not pass and see her. She would sleep for a while and then drive somewhere else. She did not know where.
When she woke, John was rapping on the window. She started in fright when she saw him and then pulled down the window of the car.
“I couldn’t think who it was for a minute,” he said and smiled. He had left the engine of his tractor running.
“I was having a rest,” she said, although she knew that this would make no sense to him.
“My mother’s in the garden,” he said.
“Are you going up to the house?” she asked.
“I am,” he said.
“I’ll follow you then.”
Once she was sitting in Josie’s kitchen, John put on the kettle and went in search of his mother. Nora moved from being sharply awake, noticing colours in the room and hearing sounds outside, to feeling drowsy and then feeling the desire to sleep, to lie down anywhere and sleep.
When John and Josie came into the room, she could see the looks of concern on their faces. John stood at the door for a moment and then withdrew. Josie was wearing her work-clothes and began to pull off her gardening gloves.
“Has something happened?”
“Maurice came back. He was in the room upstairs, our bedroom.”
“What?”
“He spoke to me, Josie. He said things.”
As the kettle boiled, Josie moved to turn it off.
“Nora, what is wrong with you?”
“I can’t sleep, and then when I sleep . . .”
“Are you on some medication?”
“Yes, I strained my arm and the muscles in my chest. I’m on painkillers.”
“How long is it since you have slept?”
“More than a week. Sometimes I can fall into the deepest sleep but it never lasts.”
“Have you told the doctor this?”
“Yes, and Fiona is collecting sleeping-pills for me on her way home from school.”
Josie filled the teapot with hot water.
“Maurice was in the room and he spoke,” Nora said.
“Did you tell this to anyone else?”
“No, I came out here. I have nowhere else to go.”
“John says that you were fast asleep in the car.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Nora said. “And he said, Maurice said, when I asked him if Conor would be all right . . . he told me not to ask. What did that mean?”
“You were dreaming, Nora. No one appeared.”
“He was in the room,” Nora said. “I know what a dream is, but he was in the room. And he said—”
“He was not in the room.”
“He was, he was, he was.” She began to rock back and forth, crying. “If I could be with him—”
“What did you say?”
“If I could be with him, that’s what I said.”
Josie and John led her to the bedroom upstairs and gave her a nightdress. Josie came in a minute later with a glass of water.
“Now, this pill is going to put you fast asleep, and when you wake you’ll feel groggy for a while, but I’ll be here and just call out and don’t try and walk. These are the most powerful sleeping-pills you can get, so we use them carefully. And I need the key to your house.”
Nora handed it to her.
“Now, I am going into the town to settle some things and John will check on you.”
“And Conor?”
“You don’t worry about Conor or anyone. Your job is to sleep.”
When she woke she felt a heaviness in her limbs. She tried to move her arms but they were sore and her chest was sore. She wondered where the painkillers were. She thought she had them in the drawer in the table beside the bed but she was not sure. When she reached for the table, she found nothing. It was not her own room. It was dark and there was a faint sound coming from somewhere but she could not think what it was. And then she remembered Josie and the pill and the feel of the sheets and the big pillow and the soft mattress. She wondered if there was a lamp and reached out in case there was a bedside table further away from the bed but there did not seem to be one.
She called out and Josie came, turning on a lamp that was near the window.
“I came and looked at you earlier,” Josie said, “and you were fast asleep.”
“What day is it?”
“Friday.”
“What time?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“I have to go. Conor . . . and Donal tomorrow.”
“You are going nowhere. Conor is fine. I told him that you were staying out with us for the weekend and I called in on Margaret and he is going to spend the day there working on his photographs. And Una is going to visit Donal tomorrow and maybe Fiona will go with her. And Una and Seamus will also make sure that Conor is all right and maybe Conor will come out here on Sunday if you are well enough. And I phoned Sister Thomas, you know I often talk to her if I am worried about you, and she’ll talk to the Gibneys and tell them that you will be back as soon as you’re better. And I have the sleeping tablets that Dr. Cudigan prescribed and the other pills that Fiona was able to find. They are very strong painkillers. You wouldn’t give them to a horse. But maybe you needed them. So everything is taken care of. All you have to do is sleep, that’s all you have to do. And, in return, when I get sick, you can come out and look after me when the others get fed up of me. That’s what we are all for.”
Josie took the dressing-gown from the back of the door.
“You must get up now. I am going to run a bath for you and I’ll put on music so you don’t fall asleep in the bath and it would be best if you leave the bathroom door open. And then we’ll have something nice to eat and you can go back to bed and see if you can sleep naturally, and if you can’t I’ll leave a pill out for you.”
“Please don’t put on any music,” Nora said.
“All right, but don’t fall asleep in the bath.”
“I won’t.”
Nora sat in the room downstairs as Josie made spaghetti with a tomato sauce.
She opened a bottle of wine.
“I bought that bottle in Dublin,” she said. “We’ll have a glass or two tonight. They say you shouldn’t drink alcohol with sleeping-pills, but I often find the opposite is the case.”
“You don’t believe me about Maurice,” Nora said.
“No, I don’t.”
“It was him all right, everything about him.”
“We barely manage, all of us,” Josie said, “to see what’s there. That’s the hardest thing, although no one would tell you that. If we could just look at what’s there!”
“You don’t believe in anything . . . ?”
“I get through the day, Nora. That’s all I do. And I leave everything else to itself.”
“Conor, he said—”
“He said nothing, Nora. Conor is perfect now, but he has an eye and ear for trouble so don’t trouble him.”
Nora suddenly felt trapped. She wondered where the car keys were and the keys of the house and thought that, if she could find them, as soon as Josie went away, she would leave the house and drive home.
“Oh and make sure you take the painkillers before you go asleep,” Josie said. “Poor Fiona was very worried about you, and she’s glad you are out here. Those two girls are a credit to you. And Aine is gone all political. She got that from the Webster side. Our side had none of that. And Fiona showed me the back room and it’s beautiful. It will be a lovely room for you.”
“Maurice asked if there was not one other, but I couldn’t think of anyone else. I don’t know what he meant. But you believe I dreamed it all?”
“I do.”
“But it was real. I mean, he was real.”
“Of course he was. But he is gone. You have to make yourself understand that he is gone and he will not be back.”
The wine made her drowsy again and, as she settled back into the bed, she could not imagine that she would ever return to normal and not want to sleep all the time. She took the sleeping-pill and the painkiller before she turned out the lamp.
When she woke again the room was bright and she could hear the sound of a radio and dishes clattering and crows battling around one of the old trees. She looked at the bedside table but there was no clock. She lay back and sighed.
All day she moved between the sitting-room and the bedroom. Josie came and went; since it was a fine day she wanted to do some planting in her garden. In the afternoon, John and his wife came but they did not stay long. Josie had brought fresh clothes for her from the house in case she wanted to dress but she stayed in the nightgown and the dressing-gown and her bare feet.
As the light began to wane Josie came and sat with her.
“I know this is none of my business,” she said, “but yesterday when I was looking for clothes for you I was shocked to see that the wardrobe is full of Maurice’s clothes. Jackets and trousers and suits and ties and shirts, and even his shoes.”
“I didn’t have the heart to throw them out. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Nora, he is more than three years dead. You will have to do it soon.”
“That will be the end then, will it?”
“Do the children know his clothes are still there?”
“The children don’t snoop in my wardrobe, Josie.”
“Your mother would smile now if she heard you.”
“My mother?”
“An ungrateful child is like a serpent’s tooth, that’s what she used to say.”
“And that was on a good day,” Nora laughed.
Nora lay on the sofa and slept. When she woke it was dark. She went downstairs and found that Josie was setting the table for four.
“Who else is coming?” she asked.
“I asked Catherine to come. She should be here soon.”
“I don’t want to see Catherine.”
“Well, what you want or don’t want doesn’t matter. Do something to your hair and put on fresh clothes because I invited your friend Phyllis as well. You can’t sleep all the time.”
When the four of them had finished their main course, another car pulled up outside. Nora went to the window and saw Una.
“It’s Una. She’s meant to be with Conor,” she said.
“She said she would leave Conor with Fiona so as not to worry him,” Josie said. She poured more wine when Una joined them at the table.
Nora moved to one of the armchairs and began to doze, comforted by the animated sounds of the voices around her. When she woke, she found that they were talking about her.
“She was a demon,” Catherine said. “That’s all I have to say about her.”
“Was she?” Phyllis asked.
“And then she met Maurice. From the first time she went out with him she was a new person. I mean, she didn’t exactly become meek and mild. But she changed.”
“I suppose she was happy,” Una said.
“Maurice was the love of her life,” Catherine said.
“Oh, that’s true all right,” Josie interjected.
“She could still be a demon, though,” Una said. “Do you remember the time she wouldn’t speak to my mother? We all lived in the house and she wouldn’t speak to her or look at her.”
“Oh, I remember it well,” Josie said. “Myself and your aunt Mary, God rest her, were at our wits’ end about it.”
“And why wouldn’t she speak to her?” Phyllis asked.
“Maurice had a brother who died of TB,” Catherine said. “He was a lovely boy and it was a very sad thing and I don’t know who our mother said it to, but she said to someone when Nora started going out with Maurice that she was afraid that Maurice might have TB as well. Or something anyway about Maurice and TB. And then the person told someone who told Nora. And she got it into her head that our mother was going around the town talking about Maurice and his family and TB and she just stopped talking to her.”
“Nothing would bring her down from her high horse,” Catherine said.
“And then,” Una went on, “Father Quaid found out. He was very friendly with our mother because she was in the choir and often sang in the cathedral. And he asked her about it and she confirmed it. So he waylaid Nora one day when it was coming up to Christmas and he instructed her to stop all the nonsense and they agreed that she would wish her mother a happy Christmas on Christmas Day and that would be the end of it.”
“We were relieved,” Una said. “I think the whole town was relieved, or the ones who knew us.”
“And what happened?” Phyllis asked.
“She waited,” Catherine said, “until my mother was bending over to take the turkey out of the oven and she leaned over and wished her a happy Christmas, but it looked as though she was wishing a happy Christmas to her backside.”
“I remember I nearly burst,” Una said.
Nora began to laugh.
“Look, she’s awake,” Phyllis said.
“We were just talking about you,” Catherine said.
“I heard every word,” Nora replied.
Once she went back to work, Nora began to sleep through the night. Slowly, the pains went away. She told no one else what had happened in the bedroom. She supposed that it had been, as Josie said, a dream. But it seemed stronger than a dream. At night, when she turned off the light, it comforted her to think that Maurice had recently been in this room, and vividly so. She tried not to whisper to him, but she could not stop herself and this, she felt, made her sleep more easily and got her through the night.
At work, she looked forward to going home and spending time alone in the room she had decorated. She borrowed books from the library and, with the fire lit and the lamps all on in the evening, she read or left her mind empty. She liked it when Fiona went out and she was alone in the house, with Conor in the front room doing his homework until he would come in and sit on the sofa in the back room and look through his photog
raphs or read the magazines and manuals that Donal had let him have. Unlike Fiona, who often found the music irritating, Conor barely noticed it. She felt that he associated it with ease or comfort or lack of tension, but sometimes she found that he was studying her, and his look was still worried and unsettled. He would always be like this, she thought; he would become a man who worried about things, who watched the world for signs that something would go wrong.
In Dublin one day, she found there was a sale in May’s record shop on Stephen’s Green; a large collection of Deutsche Grammophon had been reduced to less than a pound each. She bought as many as she could carry. When she met Aine and Fiona in the National Gallery, they selected prints from the gift shop that she could hang in the back room. When she went home she sent them to be framed. Someone else could hammer in the nail and hang them when they came back, she thought.
Josie arranged that Catherine and Una would come with boxes and empty out the wardrobe where she kept Maurice’s clothes. She waited until a weekend when Fiona was gone to Dublin with Paul and she was sure that Aine was not coming home. She arranged with Margaret that Conor would have his tea with her and stay late. In the early afternoon, she drove to Wexford. She had written to Donal to say that she would be early. She bought him chicken and chips in the chip shop closest to the school and also a few bottles of Miranda lemon, which was his favourite. He preferred, she knew, if she came with Conor or Fiona or Aine, so they would talk and argue among themselves when he wanted to be silent. When he was on his own with her, there was always a strain. He resented it if she gave him advice.
“D-do you know about the p-paradox of f-faith?” he asked her when he was finished eating.
“I’m not sure I do,” she said.
“F-father Moorehouse gave us a sermon on it. J-just a s-small g-group who are d-doing special re-re-religious s-studies.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“In order to b-believe, you have to b-believe,” he said. “Once you have faith, then you can b-believe more, but you c-can’t b-believe until you b-begin to b-believe. That f-first b-belief is a mystery. It is like a g-gift. And then the r-rest is r-rational, or it c-can be.”