At a Time Like This

by Catherine Dunne

  I looked. Claire, Nora, Robbie, me, Maggie. The photo had captured an instant I no longer remembered, illuminated a feeling I’d refused to recognize, then or later. I was caught in the act of trying to pull away from him, trying to pull back. I look stricken, unsmiling.

  ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘It’s a photograph. It proves nothing . . . I often feel uncomfortable in your mother’s presence.’

  He grinned and tucked the photograph back into his pocket. ‘Well, now at least you have good reason.’

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

  Tomorrow, I told myself, I’d be sensible. Tomorrow, I’d deal with it.

  For three weeks after that meeting in an ordinary café on an unremarkable June evening, I tried to resist. Despite what I was feeling, despite the discovery that I was becoming a whole new person, I resisted. I fought him daily with duty and with logic. We had twenty-one more days of phone calls, texts, even letters posted to the shop. If Maggie noticed, she never said. In all of these communications, Robbie was very measured and there was no sense of panic. He was simply persistent in the face of what he called the inevitable. Finally, I agreed to meet him somewhere private, so that we could talk. The novelty was thrilling.

  We met in the flat of a friend of his. A small, clean and orderly flat above a motorcycle shop in Castleknock. It was the first of many such meetings. I was nervous, but exhilarated too. I remember I’d dressed with care and to make a point: a white linen suit, elegant, sophisticated, something that I hoped would emphasize the differences between us, make Robbie realize that I was no longer a girl. Make me realize that I was no longer a girl. That first day, though, one bit of me thought, why the hell not? I could use some excitement in my life, and Robbie’ll get over it soon enough. I have to confess that I took even greater care with what I wore underneath my white linen suit. And that made an altogether different point. I’d splurged on silk, on lace, in shades and styles that were way more daring than anything I was used to. So yes, I knew.

  He had arrived at the flat well before me, by arrangement. When he opened the door, he swung me off my feet, kissed me and handed me a glass of champagne. I was so taken aback at the businesslike way he did it, that I was speechless. It was as though to say, ‘There, let’s get that bit out of the way’ And it worked – instead of feeling awkward, we both laughed. He pulled out a kitchen chair for me.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I asked. The kitchen was full of bowls, dishes, platters, all filled with bite-size portions of brightly coloured food. An ice bucket stood at one corner of the tiny table, beautifully folded napkins at the other. In between were wine glasses – none of which matched, each of which dazzled in the sunlight from the open window.

  This is not real, I had to tell myself. But it was. It was authentic in a way so few things had been for so long. He caught me looking at the glasses.

  ‘Victorian crystal,’ he said, pulling something out of the fridge. ‘One of my mate’s – Hugh’s – passions. He’s been collecting it for three years now. Says it’s amazing the bargains you can pick up at junk sales and auction rooms.’

  I nodded. What possible answer could there be to that? I felt more and more like Alice in Wonderland. This rabbit-hole was filled with young men, antique crystal and motorcycle repairs. As if I didn’t have enough to grapple with already.

  ‘I’m in my Greek phase at the moment,’ he continued. His voice was cheerful, relaxed. I wondered how he could be so completely himself, so much without jagged edges. ‘I like to cook,’ he said. Then he glanced at me. ‘Didn’t lick it up off the stones, wouldn’t you say?’

  I couldn’t answer. At the oblique reference to Nora, to my other life, I felt all at once filled with the panic of uncertainty. The loss of everything I had built loomed in front of my eyes, filling this small and spartan kitchen. What was I doing here? I wanted to flee, needed to clamber out of this tunnel before I did something that would make my old life disappear from view for ever. I tried to stand, but only succeeded in scraping the chair legs across the wooden floor.

  Are you okay?’ he asked. The tenderness in his voice brought a lump to my throat.

  To my horror, I could feel my eyes begin to fill. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t think I’m okay at all.’

  He wiped his hands very matter-of-factly and walked around to my side of the table. Without a word, he pulled me to my feet and put his arms around me. I could feel myself beginning to get drunk on the scents I already associated with him – sun, skin, maleness. We stood for what seemed like a lifetime, holding on to each other. My head rested comfortably against his chest. I was terrified that it felt so good there. The pressure I recalled from his embrace on the night of his birthday now became transformed into solidity. Gradually, I felt myself being grounded by it. That surprised me most of all. I had not expected him to sustain me.

  He stroked my hair. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I know how strange this has to be for you. I’m sorry the way I sprang it on you – but I’m not sorry you’re here. I’m in love with you, Georgie, and you’re going to have to deal with that.’ He kissed me. ‘Because I’m not going to let you go.’

  He pulled away and looked at me, his gaze unwavering. And then I kissed him back.

  We’ve spoken many times since about that afternoon. About how in the end we each took the other to bed, about how we made love for hours until we were both exhausted, but still couldn’t leave the other alone. Three times I got dressed to go home, promising that yes, yes, we would meet again, of course we would meet again. How could we not?

  And each time, he undressed me once more, luring me back to bed. It was an irresistible combination of his hands on my skin, his words in my ear, the warmth of his laughter. Sometimes he teases me still, telling me what a pushover I was. All he had to do was cook one meal, he said, and he had me hooked. He made me laugh then, and he makes me laugh still. Somehow, the world became a lighter, kinder place that afternoon. And the strangest thing of all is, that instead of the strangeness I had feared, there was nothing but familiarity between us. Lying there in bed together, I felt as if I had come home, as if I had just woken from a long and dreamless sleep.

  ‘“I wonder by my troth, what thou and I / Did, till we loved?”’ Robbie was lying on his side, one hand on my thigh.

  I had been about to say that now I must go, I really must. I couldn’t delay any longer.

  ‘“Were we not wean’d till then?”’ he said, and kissed me.

  I looked at him in astonishment. ‘What on earth are you doing quoting John Donne?’

  Then he grinned. ‘Too much of a peasant, am I? No place for the arts and the architect to meet?’ I tried to protest, but he silenced me. ‘I’ve done my homework. My mother said you were a metaphysical poetry nut. You see, I’m prepared to go to any lengths to snare you. Aren’t you impressed?’

  I don’t think impressed was the word I was searching for. I pulled him to me again, feeling the first forty years of my life sheer away from me for ever.

  And so we have been, for all of three years now.

  Am I selfish and irresponsible, shedding a proper, orderly existence for one that offers nothing but delight and danger? Absolutely. Insane? Probably. And yet it feels nothing like insanity should. Instead, it’s all the old cliches of Maggie’s songs. Soulmates, other halves. I’ve never found that sort of concept easy to understand before.

  Robbie is a torrent of speech. I remember Claire telling me once, recently, that Ray had managed to seduce her with kindness. It struck me then, although of course I didn’t tell Claire, that Robbie had seduced me with talk. Even in the most ordinary situations, he created intimacy where before I had only experienced proximity.

  The first time he came to see me in Volterra, I was anxious. With nobody to hide from, with none of the thrill of imminent discovery to heighten our senses, how would we fare together? We talked, we walked. He saw Volterra with a different eye from mine. A trained eye. Where I was taken with
the general, he was enthused by the specific. We spent the time quietly.

  One night, we were in my kitchen together. He had cooked for us, while I read to him about the Madonna of Montenero at Livorno. We were due to visit the town the following day. He poured the last of the wine into our glasses.

  ‘You going to ask her blessing on this accident of ours, or what?’ His expression was serious, but his tone was gentle, mocking.

  ‘Why not?’ I said. Sitting there, across the table from him, I was conscious of the fragility of things in a way that the young cannot fathom.

  ‘To continued happiness,’ he said, raising his glass.

  ‘To happiness,’ I answered, hoping I could hold on to it for a little longer.

  Because no matter what, I am a realist. Am I heading for disaster in ten years’ time when I am fifty-four? Robbie will then, most likely, be an even more handsome thirty-four-year-old man in his prime. He teases me about this, says that as the years go on, I will no longer be almost twice his age. He performed some mathematical conundrum that showed the gap between us narrowing as we get older. Sleight of hand, I told him. You don’t convince me. So, yes, disaster is probably where I’ll take up residence in a decade or so, picking up the pieces of several lives.

  But that’s the future. I’m not worried about the future. It was the present I worried about as it galloped away from me, through one unchanging day after another. I am here. This is now, and I await his arrival. Full of expectation and with no regrets.

  Tomorrow, I shall make my way into Volterra again. I like wandering through the shady, medieval streets, stopping for a coffee under the umbrellas of the piazza. I like the silence here at this time of year, before the tourists come. San Gimignano looms in the distance, towering out of the morning mist like a child’s fairy-tale castle. I might wander into the workshops of the artisani again and watch the forms they have imagined begin to emerge as the alabaster is chipped away. I have always liked that idea: that in art as well as life the shape of something beautiful already exists and all you have to do is take away the excess. Discarding that which is no longer important.

  My favourite part of Volterra, though, apart from the majesty of the Etruscan gates, is Le Balze. The first time I saw the way these cliffs had fallen away, clay crumbling under the pressure of sandstone, I was assaulted by vertigo. Their collapse left churches, monasteries and homes vulnerable to plunging into nothingness. Now, I feel instead a sense of companionship, of familiarity in the starkness of their presence. Robbie says it is because I, too, have discovered the joys of life on the edge. That what I have becomes more precious precisely because it can, at any time, slide away from me into the abyss.

  Perhaps. All I know is it makes me feel exhilarated and present in the now.

  The day after tomorrow, I’ll drive to Florence to pick him up. He has solved the dilemma of Megan’s arrival, he tells me. She will come and spend some time with him in Florence instead. Nora is less than pleased.

  I couldn’t help smiling when he told me, but I made no comment. There may be a time in the future when Nora is even less pleased than she is at present – but I’m not going to worry about that, not now.

  Robbie will arrive and we’ll live our idyll for a few weeks, a few months, and after that, we’ll see. Whatever happens, we’ll share the moment.

  After all, it’s the only one we have.

  Acknowledgements

  The author gratefully acknowledges the travel and mobility grant awarded by An Chomhairle Ealaíon, the Arts Council. Such practical support made possible the acceptance of a residency in an artists’ retreat in the village of Mojácar, Almería, Spain.

  Sincere thanks, too, to the Paul Beckett foundation - Fundación Valparaíso - in Mojácar. The kindness of Beatrice Beckett and the staff and residents at Valparaíso meant that parts of this novel were written in the most memorable and magical of circumstances.

  To the members of Novelshop, without whom this book would never have been written in the first place: Lia Mills, Celia de Fréine, Mary Rose Callaghan and Ivy Bannister. For the careful reading of many drafts, for critical insight and practical support and, above all, for friendship. Thank you all.

  To my friends, Antonio Gomis Noguera and Beatriz Gómez Ygual - heartfelt thanks for providing a place of light and space and peace in which to work. Happy memories are anchored beneath the blue skies and purple shadows of the mighty Ifach.

  To all the team at Macmillan: Imogen Taylor, Trisha Jackson, Emma Grey, and the unbeatable duo of Davy Adamson and Cormac Kinsella. Many thanks for that special combination of professionalism and enthusiasm that both cheers and sustains.

  Thanks to Shirley Stewart, Literary Agent, for just about everything.

  And finally, to my father, whose support remains constant and unwavering throughout all.

  CATHERINE DUNNE is the author of five previous novels (In the Beginning, A Name for Himself The Walled Garden, Another Kind of Life and Something Like Love). She has also written about Irish immigration in An Unconsidered People. All of her work has been published to both critical and popular acclaim. The novels have struck a chord in several countries and have now been translated into many languages and optioned for film. Catherine Dunne lives in Dublin.

  Acclaim for Catherine Dunne

  A wonderful and utterly convincing evocation of friendship over the years’

  Irish Examiner

  ‘Elegant, lucid prose . . . with depth, intelligence, and a few surprises’

  Irish Times

  ‘Dunne’s Dublin dialogue is deft, her writing sings’

  She

  ‘Warm, funny, persistent, poignant and feisty . . .

  [Catherine Dunne] is a fine story-teller’

  Irish Independent

  ‘From page one the reader is won over . . .

  Brimming with raw emotion’

  Bookseller

  An outrageously good read’

  Irish Post

  ALSO BY CATHERINE DUNNE

  In the Beginning

  A Name for Himself

  The Walled Garden

  An Unconsidered People

  Another Kind of Life

  Something Like Love

  First published 2007 by Macmillan

  This edition published 2008 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-53961-6 EPUB

  Copyright © Catherine Dunne 2007

  The right of Catherine Dunne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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