In her room she pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and neatened her bed, smoothing the sheet. When they came back from the hospital, her mother would be pleased to see her room looking ship-shape. She heard the door of the flat opening and when she went back to the living-room her mother was being carried out on a stretcher, a blanket over her. Elva thought that she would get too warm, wrapped up like that. During the hot days her mother threw open the windows, saying, give me air, I must have air.
A small, balding man had arrived. He pushed the door to and wiped his brow. ‘Hallo’ he said, ‘my name’s Gary. I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Elva, but your mum’s died. We don’t know why yet, they’ll find that out at the hospital. I’m going to take you to be looked after while your mum’s with the doctors.’
She stared at him, wondering how he knew her name. The music blared from above, thudthudthud. The man’s forehead was wet.
‘They’re riff-raff up there,’ she told him and he nodded but she could tell he didn’t understand. Then she said, ‘will I die of it too, what my mum got?’ but she spoke so hesitantly that the man didn’t hear over the drowning music. He was looking around the sparsely furnished flat, thinking that this skinny girl called Elva might never recover from what had happened in this place on this night. He looked down at her small, anxious face, saw the worried frown that would probably cloud her adult features. Chances of happiness, he thought, few.
CHAPTER 1 OF LOST CHILD
Hearts can be broken quickly or slowly, over time. I’ve had friends whose hearts have been gradually splintered, eroded so that the final break is a hushed anguish. Nathan’s heart and mine were broken sharply, at one blow and we turned on each other, separated in our grief.
I sit on the rocks, gazing at the sea, thinking that I should go back and prepare breakfast. I don’t move. I am held by the pale sun and the solitude. The September sea is restless today, grey-green, the waves murmuring. It’s a day for pacing. Spray blows into my face, the salt scratching at my skin. The sky is vast and bleached, the sun high but faint. I had never been to Norfolk before Nathan brought me. When I exclaimed at the expanse of sky he said that he only fully understood what a prison London was when he came here.
That was the day he lay stretched on the sand, arms above his head, his body a long line and said: ‘This is it, I have you and Matt and I want for nothing else.’
This has been nothing like last summer, the season that I will always think of as the summer of fire, when our lives were consumed. There has been little sun and the breeze blowing from the sea is contrary, changing direction, whipping up the sand. Some people despair of it, shaking their heads. I am glad of it, glad of the cooler temperatures and the evening chill and because it keeps the tourists away. It is easier to think when the sky is not a furnace.
I finger the beads in my jeans pocket. My grandfather gave me the mother of pearl rosary when I left Dublin to make a life with Nathan. He must have known that I was a feeble Catholic by then but I’ve been glad of its comfort. It was the rosary that I turned to afterwards in the autumn, solacing myself and praying for Nathan, for all of us as I walked alone through olive groves, fingering the smooth beads. At night I lay with the rosary laced between my fingers. When I woke suddenly before dawn, jolted by a nightmare, reaching for Nathan and finding emptiness, I pressed the cross hard into my palm.
‘Are you sure he’s the one for you, pet?’ my grandfather asked the day I told him I was getting married. ‘Absolutely, he’s the one. We’re meant to be,’ I replied, love making me so certain. Then, it seemed to me that Nathan and I were in a magic circle, untouchable. Our ordinary lives had been transformed by something like grace, that intangible blessing bestowed by faith. I forgot that ordinary lives can also be transformed by naivety, misfortune, and accident, that once you are in a state of grace, you can fall from it.
I didn’t care where I went last autumn. I ended up on a Greek island because it was the first flight available on that evening after I pleaded with Nathan and he replied in a remote, high voice: ‘nothing you say can make any difference to me.’ I felt like a wanderer in my own life. I wrote to Nathan care of Connie. On the veranda of a small guesthouse I used a leaking biro on thin blue airmail paper:
I can’t say anything to help, I know that. It’s terrible to love you and yet not be able to help you. I can hardly help myself. I have always believed that love can heal and yet now I find that all my long-held beliefs are ashes. You loved my optimism, but I think that it had never truly been put to the test; I was just lucky enough never to have walked on the shadowed side of the street. Affection and love aren’t enough and especially if they’re not yours to give. They weren’t enough for Elva; how can temporary love ever be enough? I see that now. We were all perhaps foolish, unthinking, but I was the catalyst and that weighs heavy on me.
I love you so much. You are all I hoped for, all I wanted, all I want.
I walked along the cicada-thronged road to post my letter. I was wearing the sarong that Connie had made. It was creased and smelled faintly of marijuana but I hadn’t washed it because the soft cloth held mine and Nathan’s breath and sweat. I fingered the envelope, wondering that a small, fragile square of paper could hold such feverish, anguished words; there should at least be singe marks at the edges.
There is a boat beached down on the rim of the sea. Matt played in it last summer, pretending to be a pirate. I bought him an eye-patch from a joke shop and a garish felt parrot for his shoulder. Nathan would pick out the tune of Captain Pugwash on a cheap harmonica from the pound shop in Hunstanton. I lay back on the shale, watching them, digging my toes into the heap of sand that Jess and Elva had left when they shaped a huge fort. The boat is holed and uncared for, the wood rotting, another year’s tide and salt damage.
I walk down to the shore, my sandals puffing the sand. Matt scoured this beach for shells to give his mother, filling his bucket, taking them down to the water. He washed them all meticulously, a labour of love, the hem of his smart French shorts dipping in the rock pools. I climb into the boat and sit on the seat, which just holds under my weight. There is the sharp smell of salt water, the smell of love making.
I rock the boat to soothe myself. There are small items of debris drifting in on the tide. I scoop up a shred of seaweed and a crab shell and cradle them in my cupped palms.
I think of Nathan sleeping, his mouth compressed, his hand gripping the pillow. I will leave him for a while longer, safe in the medicated slumber his doctor dispenses in foil packs.
Flotsam and jetsam: that was how Gary referred to Elva. It applied to us all afterwards.
I am a salvager now. That is my job in this chiller summer. I am a salvager of wrecked lives and I must move carefully, cautiously, reclaiming what I can.
* * *
We met at a party at my cousin Cormac’s house in Dublin. I nearly hadn’t gone, thinking of the lesson plans and marking I had to do but I’d roused myself; it was Saturday, I was entitled to a break. There was a brisk wind blowing in from the sea at Dalkey and I bent my head, feeling it whip my hair. Autumn was my season; I always had a surge of energy when the leaves started to turn.
The party was a crowded, smoky affair, full of Cormac’s business friends and people he’d been at Trinity with. Cormac’s circle were generally hearty types, men who liked practical jokes and women who played sports. He and they were riding high on the booming economy; they talked of shares and global markets. Someone had bought a racehorse and Cormac was doing a deal on being a partner in a leisure centre. I blinked through cigarette fug as he introduced me to a man with thick chestnut hair, the colour of polished conkers.
‘This is May; this is Nathan, one of my compadres. He studied much harder than me at Trinity; he can interpret in six languages.’
‘Which ones?’
‘Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Italian and Mandarin,’ Nathan said.
‘And he has a smattering of the Gaelic, of course,’ Cormac adde
d.
‘Oh yes, that too,’ Nathan smiled. He looked exhausted, his creased blue eyes heavy. He was one of those tall men who automatically stoop when speaking. I noticed his mouth, his shapely, symmetrical lips. I’ve always believed that features reflect character and I surmised that he might be contained, centred. I also surmised that he might be one of the many compadres that Cormac slept with.
‘I warn you,’ Cormac told Nathan, waving to a newcomer, ‘May’s my favourite cousin, so look after her. She’s the conscience of the family, the only one of us doing anything really worthwhile.’
‘And what would that be?’ Nathan asked.
‘I suppose he means that I teach children with learning problems. I don’t think it’s more worthwhile than other jobs.’ I looked away, concerned that he might find me self-important. People were frequently over impressed when they discovered that I taught, even if it was children who my grandmother insisted on calling ‘sub-normal’.
We talked and he yawned, apologizing; he’d just come back from conferences in Riga and Tokyo, stopping off in Dublin for Cormac’s birthday. He travelled a lot, he explained, the company he worked for in London provided a service for businesses all over the globe.
‘I’ve not slept properly for over a week,’ he groaned, his voice scratchy. ‘Sometimes I feel as if I leave bits of myself all around the world, you know, mislay pieces — like luggage that gets lost on airport conveyor belts.’
‘Or like a trail in the sky, part of the white vapour we see when we look up.’ I liked that idea, that some of a traveller’s atoms would disperse amongst the clouds as he flew back and forth over continents, ploughing the heavens.
He smiled. ‘Something like that. Then there’s the waking up in the morning and not being able to remember where I am.’
‘We all do that,’ I said, ‘but usually after a skinful.’
He made a shape with his hand around my head. ‘Your hair looks as if it’s been spun.’
‘It was the wind,’ I said, ‘that easterly wind off the sea. My mother would say I look like the wreck of the Hesperus.’
He was tapping with his fingers on the side of his glass. I listened for a moment.
‘“Paper Moon”,’ I said.
He nodded. He tapped again.
‘“Eleanor Rigby”. You made it harder.’
‘Of course, I’d hardly make it simpler.’ He looked into his glass, then at me. ‘Are you married?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Ever been married?’
‘No. You?’
‘Yes, and divorced. I’ve a three-year-old son who lives with me in London.’
‘Oh; I thought you might be gay, as you know Cormac.’
‘Well I could be, even so, I suppose, but I’m not. So that sorts out that agenda. Unless you are?’
‘No.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his long fingers and I startled myself by imagining his touch on my skin. The window behind me was open, letting in the tangy October evening. A chill snaked along the back of my neck but I was glad of it because the house was too warm, thick with the heat of bodies and shouted conversation. There were a few fallen, yellowing leaves stuck to the glass, I could see them from the corner of my eye. I could smell a bonfire, even though I knew that there wasn’t one lit and I realized that my senses were playing tricks, summoning memories of other seasons. I tilted my head, believing that the room was holding its breath. There was an oval mirror on the wall opposite and when I glanced in it and saw our reflected image, our other selves, it was as if I had lived this moment before.
‘I play the saxophone,’ he was saying. ‘I’m playing next weekend in London. Will you come over and listen?’
‘I will, yes.’ I liked the way he came to the point, his directness.
He nodded. ‘That’s good, good.’ He drained his drink, throwing his head back. ‘I’m done in,’ he said, ‘you’re the only thing keeping me on my feet.’
I looked at him, the fading light falling on his face and the wine glass and cocktail olive in my hands seemed things of beauty.
* * *
I said that I would marry Nathan the night I heard him play for the first time, in a smoky basement off Frith Street. There was a stillness about him that invaded my thoughts; in repose, he could look almost severe. When he did his solos he closed his eyes, leaning into his instrument, his shoulders concentrated, as if this was when his energy was released. The sight of him moved me, my breathing tightened. I knew in that moment that I loved him and I thought that if I never felt this again, it would last me until my sight failed and my bones grew brittle. He played April in Paris, Take Five, Fly Me To The Moon and She Moved through the Fair. I listened to the rich tone, the notes that caught like gasps, seeming to echo my own yearning. Watching him, I knew that he had gone into a world of his own, somewhere where he was unreachable and I both envied and admired his withdrawal. I talked to people, trying to hear and be heard above the music and conversation. There were a couple who were teachers like myself and I discussed the differences between the Irish and English education systems; I didn’t say so, but it seemed to me that the Irish valued education more. Looking up from refreshing my wine, I saw that Nathan had returned from wherever he had been and was watching me. I raised my glass to him, aware of his focus.
It was a mild night and we walked back from the tube through the dark streets to his flat, saying little, our steps rhyming. He carried his saxophone, swinging the black case. I was conscious of a shift in the world, as if a veil had been pulled back, as if I had never been quite conscious of my own feet on the ground before. He took my hand and tucked it in his pocket. It seemed to me then that love was simple and fluid, like the stream that flowed by my grandfather’s house.
His garden flat was untidy, strewn with toys and plates with toast crusts on. It smelled of herbs and a fruit I couldn’t pinpoint. Later, I discovered that it was pomegranate, which his son Matt devoured, spooning the tiny seeds as he roamed the rooms. I banged my ankle on a bicycle in the hallway and he bent to look at it, putting one hand firmly on the bone. His touch was sure, almost impersonal.
‘No damage done,’ he said, looking up at me with his weary jet lag eyes.
In his bedroom he kissed my neck. ‘You look like the Spanish lady, with your long dress and your black hair and your combs,’ he told me. ‘As in the song. You know the song?’
‘I do, my grandmother used to sing it:
As I went down to Dublin city
At the hour of twelve at night
Who should I see but the Spanish lady
Combing her hair in the pale moonlight
First she washed it, then she dried it
Over a fire of amber coal
In all my life I ne’er did see
A maid so sweet about the soul.
My mother claims that one of those Spanish sailors from the Armada got friendly with my Connemara ancestors, hence the hair and brown eyes.’
‘Eyes like wood smoke,’ he said, ‘that misty smoke that turf produces.’ He picked up a soapstone figure of an elephant, ran his fingers across its smooth back. ‘I’m eight years older than you; my job takes me away regularly. I smoke marijuana when I’m not working, probably too much, my only excuse being that it helps me sleep and it got me through the last couple of years and my divorce; living with Matt is like having a guerrilla fighter around. I’m not looking for a substitute mother for Matt, it’s important that you understand that. That’s it, that’s all.’
I kissed his hands and the hollow of his throat and drew him down beside me. We lay, reading each other’s faces and when we made love, he looked into my eyes, held my gaze and I thought that he was the first man who had ever done that, the first man who hadn’t found passion somehow embarrassing.
In the early hours he caught my hand, opened his eyes and sat up to light a joint, plumping his pillows. I took a pull when he passed it to me, although I didn’t much care for the bitter taste.
He told me then about his ex-wife, Veronica, his voice cracked and tired in the dark. She was a flight attendant; they’d met on a trip to Sydney. She’d handed him his Pernod, they’d chatted briefly, then during the night at length, whispered while the other passengers slept. A year later they married. Two years later, Veronica had propped a note by the kettle to say that she was leaving him for Michel, a French pilot she’d fallen for in Dubai. She’d doubled back after heading for Heathrow one morning, packed her things and vanished. He collected Matt from nursery and came home to a ransacked flat; at first he thought there had been a burglary. There had, in a way: a burglary of his trust, his life. His bed was wide and deep with a beech headboard, a relic from his marriage and we lay close in the middle of it. Veronica was in Paris now, with Michel. Matt stayed with Nathan, and Veronica didn’t object. Once a month she flew to London and took Matt back for a week. She never explained to Nathan how she could leave her son. He said that he believed that she let him keep Matt through guilt. For months, he agonized over what it was that he did or failed to do that caused her to leave him.
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘there was nothing you could have done. Maybe it was just chance, just bad luck that she met someone else at that time. Events sometimes overtake people.’
He took a deep draw on his joint. ‘I don’t know. My aunt used to say, “If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” Mind you, she was one of life’s pessimists; every cloud had a lead lining. When I got accepted for university she sent me a card saying, “if it was raining soup, you’d have a spoon”.’
OUT OF THE BLUE a gripping novel of love lost and found Page 22