A Handful of Pebbles

by Sara Alexi

  ‘You know what he said?’ Frona passes a rose of icing to be placed with the others to harden a little. "I have cured you!" That is what he said! At least, that is what I remember him saying; he might have worded it differently, but it was what he meant, honest to my God.’ She crosses herself three times. ‘I have cured you! Can you imagine the cheek?’

  ‘He was probably joking,’ Sarah ventures.

  ‘Ha, don’t you believe it! It would have shown some humility but no, he declared it was going to his hospital and standing on his doorstep that shocked me out of depression. So I told him.’ She seals her lips and pulls off another piece of icing to be moulded between her crooked fingers. Sarah waits, but Frona seems to have forgotten that she was talking.

  ‘So you told him?’ Sarah prompts.

  ‘Yes, I told him. I say "I have been standing here for ten minutes talking sense to you and in that time, my grieving has not decreased one jot. I still miss my husband, I still have a pain in my heart when I think of him, I still feel alone in my house in New Jersey, I still feel old, and these are the things that make me sad. So nothing has been cured. The only thing that has changed is your perception as you have become a little wiser."‘

  ‘Really, did you say that really?’ Sarah giggles.

  ‘And why not? The man was a fool, creating a career by turning emotions people don’t want into mental conditions by calling them abnormal. Since when is it abnormal to feel loss over the death of your partner, loneliness because your children live far away, sadness because there are millions starving in the world, anger because the politicians are self-serving, and frustration—because it takes my legs half an hour just to get me to the bathroom?’

  Sarah looks out of the window again. The sky is still blue, the sun is still shining, the dark weight inside her has shifted enough that she can feel the beauty—just.

  ‘I tell you, unhappiness is a natural thing. Shouldn’t living a life short of the years you had reckoned on make you feel unhappy? Should not having lived the life you wanted to live also make you so?’ The old woman casts a sideways glance at Sarah, who is wondering if cleaning and tidying and cooking and being at Laurence’s every beck and call is something she has a right to feel unhappy about, considering how she ended up married to him in the first place.

  ‘Hey, how are you doing? Sorry I was so long but ... oh my God, that looks amazing!’ Helena breezes back in. ‘Here, let me put one on. Oh they are so delicate, oh no, arh, oh sorry, it just crumbled. Teach me to make one?’

  Frona is grinning toothlessly. ‘I was the same when I was her age, all energy and no delicacy,’ she says to Sarah.

  ‘Thanks, Yiayia.’ Helena leans in and nudges her, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Oh Sarah, Finn says can you go and help him. He is in the hall. Come on Frona, show me how.’

  Sarah leaves the heat and smells of the kitchen. With so many staying in the house, no wonder it takes a team of them to prepare the food. She wonders, with the family being so well off, why don’t they employ a chef? Although the atmosphere in the kitchen is so companionable, she can see it would be a great way to choose to spend part of the day. She treads lightly as she finds her way to the hall.

  Finn is kneeling by a box by the pool. The sun streams through the ceiling dome, a beam of light just catching his feet. If he were in it centrally, it would make an amazing picture, sort of spiritual, religious even.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ he drawls, reading from a booklet.

  ‘Frona’s something else, isn’t she?’

  ‘They say to look at the mother of the bride to see how your wife is going to turn out. Well, I am looking at the granny and hoping.’ He grins his mischievous, crooked smile.

  ‘I haven’t met her mum or her dad yet.’ She sits beside him.

  ‘Where is Dad anyway?’ Finn asks.

  ‘He went to Mycenae with Neville.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Finn. Sarah can hear so much unsaid in the one sound.

  ‘Don’t, Finn. He loves you and Helena. It’s just he is not one to join in these types of preparations. You know how he is.’

  ‘These types of preparations? How many youngest sons has he got to marry off to have "These types of preparations?"‘ he snaps.

  ‘Don’t get cross with me. I am here.’ Sarah looks him directly in the eyes.

  ‘Sorry Mum, but how personal can you get? It is my wedding!’

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘No, yes, no, sort of. Look, can you figure these out?’ He pushes the whole box towards her.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Floating silk lilies for the pool. I thought they came complete, but it looks like you need to attach the weights underneath.’

  Sarah picks up a pink flower. ‘Oh they are love ...’ But her sentence hangs unfinished, interrupted by a scream that tears through the wall, echoing across the space.

  ‘Is that Pru or Helena?’ Finn is on his feet. Sarah is quick to follow. She had not realised Joss and Pru were here. They run down a corridor to a closed door behind which two people are having a most heated row. Finn flings open the door.

  Helena is screaming at Pru at the top of her voice, arms and hair flying, tears streaming down her face. Pru is trying not to look smug. Joss appears from nowhere and pushes past Sarah and glares at Pru, gripping her by the elbow and pushing her towards the door.

  ‘Do not treat me like a kid,’ Pru snaps at Joss.

  ‘Then don’t behave like one. Walk out or I will carry you.’ Sarah has never seen Joss so angry.

  Chapter 10

  Joss looks like Laurence when he is this angry. Sarah pushes herself back against the open door as the pair marches out. Joss does not even acknowledge that she is there although she strokes his arm to try and soothe him as he passes.

  Helena is sobbing into Finn’s shoulder. People are filling the room: the women from the kitchen and many others she does not recognise. A man who must be Helena’s father pushes through and wraps himself around the other side of his daughter, opposite Finn.

  ‘Ti kanies paidi mou?’ His quiet words are still audible over the clamour in the room, along with Helena’s sobbing.

  ‘Prudence is a ...’ Helena struggles for the words. ‘Poutana,’ she spits, finally.

  ‘Who is this Prudence?’ her father asks. He speaks English fluently, an Australian accent with a twist of American. The relatives around Sarah quieten, their backs straighten, mouths shut. No one wants to answer.

  ‘She is my brother’s wife.’ Finn’s eyebrows arch in the middle, his ‘asking forgiveness’ look that Sarah remembers well from when he was in endless trouble as a boy, from Joss pushing him into things he knew he really shouldn’t be doing. Helena sniffs and takes a big breath to help straighten herself.

  ‘Oh, you mean Pru,’ the father clarifies.

  Sarah watches, waiting for his reaction.

  He nods, and the fatherly arm that was round Helena is now around Finn.

  ‘Ach, I have a brother whose wife is so toxic, they have not been invited to the wedding.’ He releases his hand from his shoulder hug and slaps Finn on his back. Sarah notices she is holding her breath. It seems that the people around her also relax.

  Bloody Pru; whatever possessed Joss to marry her? But she knows the answer. His rush for financial glory, gaining status by the day, and Pru was his boss at the time. She made Joss believe that together, they could do anything. It was a natural coupling

  The uncles and aunts, cousins and in-laws who held back when Helena’s father came in the room now swarm over Helena and Finn, and the pair are lost from sight. Sarah wonders if Joss has left yet. She runs back to the hall only to see their car disappearing down the drive. She takes out her phone and texts.

  ‘You OK? Do you need to talk? Love Mum xxx.’

  The message can sit on his phone; he will see it when he has finished arguing with Pru. She just hopes he drives safely. Back in the room, the mass of people has not subsided and everyone is voicing an opinion or offering a s
uggestion. Finn is being attentive to Helena; someone suggests they go to their room and have some time together. Finn smiles weakly at Sarah as he leaves the room, his arm around his wife-to-be.

  Sarah was having such a nice time in the kitchen with Frona before this. For the first time in, well she cannot even remember how long, she felt ... what had she felt? Connected, part of something, engaged in what she was doing. None of these descriptions is quite right, though. What she felt was a sense of belonging and acceptance, but not to Frona or the family—but rather (and she is aware how ridiculous this thought is), to the world. And Pru snuffed that moment out with her behaviour.

  Do Frona’s opinions on emotions seem suddenly appropriate?

  How can Sarah not be sad about Pru and Helena arguing? The heaviness inside her shifts, a memory nudges at her, trying to be recalled. Sarah focuses, forcing it to take shape, but it will not. It is something to do with her sadness, the hint of a solution.

  Feeling suddenly uncomfortable in the house with Finn and Helena retired to their room, she wanders out into the garden, where the sun’s hot embrace catches her by surprise. Her limbs loosen and grow sluggish and her pace immediately slows. Looking back down the drive, the dogs are visible, locked in large cages tucked behind the garages. One lays panting, half-in, half-out of its kennel. She wonders if dogs become sad, too. They must, if they are caged too long.

  Beyond the dogs’ cage, there is a wall with an open wooden gate, both too tall to see over; besides, there is a single line of trees beyond. Sarah wanders over to it, rubbing the last of the icing from her hands. She hopes the dogs will not bark, and they ignore her. If Finn and Helena stay in their room, lunch could be quite awkward. She knows Frona, but she hasn’t even been introduced to Helena’s parents yet. Maybe today is not the day to meet them. Tomorrow, or even the next day, might be better. The truth is Finn and Helena will marry whether she meets them or not so really, in the scheme of things, it is not important. There is no rush. Maybe Laurence was right. One of the dogs lifts its head and sniffs before returning to its dreams.

  The side gate in the high wall stands ajar, beckoning. Is there a formal garden on the other side, or a tennis court, maybe a vegetable plot? She could see what can grow here. There is no rush in her step as she pulls the gate open and steps beyond.

  It is just rough ground, with hardy, low-lying bushes and tough grass and a single spreading tree growing centrally . A goat pops up, startled, from behind the nearest clump of gorse and gambols away. Such happy creatures. People would be better if they were more like goats.

  Torin was a bit like a goat; jumping about, always eating, always happy. Everything life threw at him became an adventure. Something bad would happen and he would find a positive way to look at it, make it fun. Like when his money fell through a hole in his jeans pocket.

  They had been up to the Cliffs of Moher, walking, the three of them. Torin had been discussing their plans, or rather his plan that they were following. They were to move to the fair city, get proper jobs, and raise the money to move to London, maybe via the Isle of Man, where the jobs paid better than in Dublin. His ideas seemed so big, so great at the time. London was a world away, a place of shiny lights and superstars. But on their return from the cliffs, he put his hand in his pocket to show the wages he had saved for the bus to Dublin and he found the money gone.

  Sarah had felt like crying. She only had enough saved for her own ticket and she wasn’t going without him, but he rebounded with energy.

  ‘Great,’ he said with joy, ‘I’ll hitch, and I reckon I’ll be there before you.’ But the way he said it sounded like such fun that she and Liz decided not to take the bus either, and the three of them said their secret goodbye to County Clare, standing with their thumbs out on the road to Dublin, praying that a stranger would stop to pick them up, rather than someone they knew—or worse, someone who knew their families.

  Sarah lifts her hair from her neck to relieve the heat.

  A figure appears at the top of the field and makes its way steadily toward her until they are close enough to speak.

  ‘We meet again.’ The shepherd is cheerful in his greeting.

  ‘Hello.’ Sarah is not sure if she should be surprised to see him or not.

  ‘Are you happy or sad today?’ His mouth stays firm but his eyes dance.

  ‘Definitely sad just at the moment,’ Sarah confirms. ‘Sad, but not depressed.’

  ‘Hm, you don’t seem so sad.’ He changes hands with his crook.

  ‘Ah, sad, not sad, it’s all part of life.’ She tries the philosophical approach but it sounds ridiculous coming from her mouth and she starts to giggle.

  ‘Yes, very sad today,’ he teases, chuckling in return. Sarah notices his shirt is clean and ironed today, and he looks less like a farmer. His big black boots are polished too.

  ‘You know I think the trouble with being sad—if you were sad, which you are not today,’ he leans his head towards her, looking her in the eyes before straightening again, hands in pockets, crook tucked through his arm resting on the toe of his boot. ‘I think the trouble is when we are low, we make bad decisions and you kind of know you have made a bad decision and so you stay up all night thinking about it, again and again, then the next day you are tired, irritable, and even more unhappy and you make even worse decisions. Someone says something harmless and you take it the wrong way and the bad decisions just pile on top of each other. Know what I mean?’

  ‘It sounds like you are speaking from experience,’ Sarah says.

  The shepherd glances at her quickly but stays silent. Sarah can feel the sun burning her. She crosses her arms across her chest, her palms covering her shoulders. The single, large, central tree not far from where they are standing offers an umbrella of shade, and most of the animals are taking advantage of it. The shepherd follows her gaze, nods his head to one side, and they walk together into the shadow. By the tree trunk is a well-worn stone. Sarah wonders how many other shepherds come here and how often this stone has made someone a seat: for years, maybe centuries.

  ‘You want to sit?’ he asks, rubbing the stubble on his chin, his fingers teasing the new growth under his nose.

  Sarah shakes her head. ‘Are you growing it back?’ He shakes his head, too.

  ‘You think I should?’

  They stand silently, looking out at the view across the tops of the village houses, to the mountains, pale in the distance.

  Sarah ponders the dark weight she battles with inside, sometimes felt so acutely, sometimes shifting so she can feel hope, see beauty. What would life be like without it?

  ‘Trouble is, sometimes we can get unhappy with someone else and because of our ties, we say we cannot leave.’ She is not sure if she says the words aloud and a tear forms on the inner edge of her eye, threatening to fall. ‘Sometimes, someone else’s stress can become our own so although we are not truly unhappy, we are just unhappy with our circumstances.’ Sarah surprises herself with her words. Heat rises up her neck and she is glad no one but the shepherd can hear her. She asks herself if what she is saying is true, but she doesn’t know the answer and the meaning of the words drift, repelled by her internal walls, the ones built to keep her safe from challenging thoughts, keeping everything at a distance so nothing can make impact at all, disturb her numbness.

  The shepherd sighs. ‘That is the way of it,’ he says slowly as if the conversation is about him. It gives Sarah courage to try and make her thoughts concrete, say more, explore a little.

  ‘You know, I think so much is designed to gloss over our unhappiness; television, radio, dinners out, holidays.’ She thinks of Joss and his chase after money blinding him to everything around him, and Laurence’s and his golf. ‘It’s all just a way to take our focus away from what is really going on, that, for some reason, with everything around us removed, we are unhappy,’ she concludes, wishing she could feel her words, but her walls are too thick.

  ‘A big blanket of activity keeping all that sad
ness in,’ the shepherd says. The goats have been eating their way towards them. He picks up a stone and throws it at the feet of the nearest one, with gnarled curling horns and a long beard. It skips away and the others follow.

  ‘The thing is, all these distractions don’t work. The unhappiness we ignore becomes the monster in the cupboard, grown more scary the longer we pretend it is not there. I wonder if I just face up to it, call it unhappiness and really look at it, if it would lose its power.’ She tries hard to connect to her own words.

  He rocks from one foot to the other. ‘But,’ he says loudly, letting out his breath and gaining some energy from his next words. ‘Life is not all unhappy.’

  ‘No, some of it is just ordinary, and even that can leave you feeling cheated.’ These words feel easier to say as Sarah watches a bird hovering some distance away. Licking her lips, she recognises her thirst and then her stomach grumbles. It does not feel appropriate to return to Helena’s for lunch. Better to head home. She will sit by the pool and read her book.

  ‘But doesn’t that give you freedom?’ the shepherd asks.

  ‘Pardon?’ Sarah feels she has lost the thread of what they were saying.

  ‘An ordinary, even a purposeless life. Does that not give us the freedom to go off and do anything we want?’

  Sarah repeats his sentence in her head, but it makes no sense. What would she go off and do?

  ‘Like what?’ She gives a little laugh. Maybe it is obvious and she has missed something.