It was impossible to explain what triggered the problem with my teeth. There was no logic, each episode was accompanied by great fatigue, the wish to sleep and never wake up. Any kind of sound was enough to set it off, cornflakes, silver paper, leaves rustling, the news on TV. All the noise of the world in the papers. Should I maybe not listen to what was going on, not take things to heart? Did it have to do with remembering too much? All those things I could not forget? Something I had not yet remembered? Should I be more big-hearted? See the glass in my mouth as atonement? Reparation? I thought of the German statesman going down on one knee in Warsaw?
Medically, there was nothing wrong with me. The doctor said it was an inflammation of the nerve endings, not something you could do much about. He referred to it as neuralgia. Not life-threatening. He said it could have to do with house-dust mites, get a good hoover. Pollutants, was I doing work to the house, fumes, sawdust, cement, he spotted some hardened chunks of expanding foam on my hands.
He suggested acupuncture. Twice a week I had needles hanging from my face and hands, some in my kneecaps, it made no difference.
One afternoon it flared up while I was doing nothing but standing by the window, looking at the light changing, the first drops of rain inaudible on the glass. It had nothing to do with the mood of the day, nothing to do with money, it broke out with furious retaliation while I was calm, thinking only of the coming baby. I found myself walking in circles, running down the stairs, out onto the street, the hall door left open behind me and the sound of printing machines in my head. I lay on the golf course and tried to bite into the soft grass. They stood over me with their golf clubs, asking if I was alive, they assumed I was homeless. I made my way back. My eyes were bouncing in my head. I didn’t even slow down on the street that looks like Canada with their lives on view. I reached the bathroom, my face against the cool floor, Helen’s voice around me.
There was a lot of talk about healing. New words were being drafted for reconciliation – entente, rapprochement, meeting of minds, dialogue, talk about talk, taking steps, moving positions, conflict resolution, accommodation.
Talk about a new healing method where somebody could sit in a room with you and think you better. They said I should be going for help, hypnosis, past-life regression therapy. They suggested going on retreat, somewhere silent, they mentioned a monastery where I had once recorded a Christmas album in the native language, a woman with long shining hair accompanied by twenty monks, it was called the Virgin’s Lament. They told me to eat melons. Fistfuls of garlic. They said I should drink yeast, sour cherry juice, fennel tea, eat more fish. I was told to love life, hum every morning, beat my chest, be a man, take up swimming, seaweed baths. Somebody suggested I should be drinking my own urine.
Martina was in the front room with Helen, the door was closed. I was in the kitchen with Rosie and Essie and Martina’s son, José. He was wearing a sailor’s outfit. They were having a tea party, trying to speak in Spanish to him, they wanted the curtains closed and the lights on. I had the sick bowl out, making a cherry cake, my mother told me that you drop the cherries in last, so they don’t sink.
By then, the investor had found a new apartment, with a view over the water. He wanted Martina to move in with him. He was beginning a new life. He was still going back home from time to time to get some of his things, his favourite jacket with the silver buttons, his train set under the bed, personal bits that were important to him. His wife was distraught. At times she had no idea how to put cornflakes into a bowl, where the fridge was, she left the keys in the door, she lost her handbag, she was getting therapy.
One day, Marie Delaney changed.
She had regained her self-esteem. She invited her husband to a mid-morning breakfast meeting at the Shelbourne Hotel. She mentioned the word truce, asked him to bring Martina, so the whole thing could be talked out rationally. She was there early. Her brother Laurence came down from Belfast to give her support. They had the table in the bay window, the sun coming in across the room. She ordered a tiered serving of croissants and toast, marmalade, fresh scones, tea, a pot of coffee. She was herself again. She wore gold stud earrings, a necklace that looked like polished bits of coal, she had been to the hairdresser.
When Maurice Delaney came in with Martina, they were blinded by the sun at first. Marie stood up. The two women shook hands, her brother Laurence was introduced. The investor kissed his wife, grabbed her brother’s upper arm in a boyish way, they all sat down. There was a pause before anyone said anything. The investor made a joke about landing an aircraft in Stephen’s Green, the ducks would freak out, nobody laughed but himself. Martina and Marie sat facing each other, not making eye contact. They took it in turns to examine one another – the fingernails, hair colour, the sniff of perfume, a plaster on the heel. Martina looked less casual, she wore ordinary shoes, Mass shoes, she called them. There was a moment when the two women might have got into conversation and forgotten what brought them here and what turned them into contestants. In different circumstances, they might have been friends, they could have sung – My Lagan Love – together. Each of them born into a different faith. Marie had grown up in Belfast with co-education. Martina had the tight rules of an all-girl convent education down south, looking at the floor, seeing nothing, custody of the eyes.
I believe you were in a folk band, Marie said.
Sort of, Martina said.
Like Joan Baez?
More Patti Smith.
Marie ordered more tea and coffee, politely asked Martina if she would like a boiled egg. Martina smiled and said, no thank you. Nobody was eating a thing only Marie, she was having a scone, the napkin held underneath, her fingernails hovering like a hummingbird to get the crumbs off. She got straight down to business, addressed herself mostly to her husband. There was nothing she could do to stop this affair with Martina, it was not her intention to stand in the way of love and happiness, she said. All she wanted to do at this meeting was to make her husband aware of where he stood.
She didn’t mention the family, the home, the children, herself, the life they had built together. Nothing about their combined memory, the photo album of the wedding in Lisbon. Nothing about their honeymoon in the Alps, the romantic things he said to her, she thought he had altitude sickness. She spoke only of practical things, the business arrangements. She placed her hand on her brother’s arm. Laurence was the majority shareholder in every one of her husband’s enterprises, the building projects, an office block on the river which was in the planning stages. Laurence pulled the strings, there was no reason for him to speak, he put his hands in the air.
Fair play, that’s all he said.
The investor was faced with a choice. He could either come home to Marie or carry on his relationship with Martina. If he walked out on his family, he would be stripped of everything he owned. It was time to make up his mind. There was a softness in Marie’s Belfast accent that made everything sound reasonable. The only thing she needed to add was the business with the Fitness Café. Helen was not mentioned by name, but Marie made it clear that if the investor did decide to come home and end, as she put it, this dirty little fling with a folk singer, he would need to walk away from the yoga enterprise.
Wipe your hands, she said.
A man on trial. It reminded me of how Kafka came across the idea for his book in the foyer of a hotel in Berlin where he was placed on trial by two women. His fiancée had brought another woman to act as an intermediary. They were demanding to know why he was such a hopeless prevaricator, what kind of a man was he, could he not decide one way or the other whether he was going to marry? On the train journey to Berlin he changed his mind at least a dozen times. A cup of coffee might have helped him to make his decision, but he never drank the stuff. He did eventually manage to bring his fiancée on a brief honeymoon to a spa resort, but no wedding, no ring.
Maurice Delaney was facing the decision of his life. The wor
ld seemed to be ruled by women, he was nothing more than a tragic flotilla being sent back and forth across the sea between them. He sat in the main lounge at the Shelbourne Hotel, glancing from his wife to his lover and back, they were waiting for his answer. His eyebrows were arched in the shape of self-pity, a boy being told he could not have everything in life. He was close to tears, forced into a rational corner, weighing up his commercial interests against his human instincts, the choice between his pocket and his heart.
There was doomed tranquillity in the room.
A static group, sitting at the table by the window as though they had been there since the Easter Rising, the best part of a century gone by. It was Martina who finally made the decision. She looked him in the eye. She stood up. Without a word, she picked up her embroidered handbag and straightened up, turned and began walking away across the wide room towards the door. The distance was vast. Endless tables to get around, people pulling in their chairs to make way.
There was still time for him to follow.
She continued making her way out into the foyer, past the stairs leading up to the rooms, the chandeliers, the menu for the restaurant like a precious exhibit on a stand, people gathering for lunch. The pinpoint clack of her shoes along the marble floor made an unbearable exit. She managed to smile at the porter on her way out. She went through the revolving door, hardly needed to push because it was set in motion by other people coming in, a shuffle of her feet and she was exhaled onto the street. She stood outside on the pavement for a minute or two, tall, straight, no coat, a light red cardigan loose around her shoulders. She had the confidence not to turn around. Refused to give in to the temptation of looking back to see them sitting motionless in the window, staring out as she put up her hand, getting into the back of a taxi.
I had the cherry cake ready, out of the oven, cooling on a baking grid. The cherries sank after all. Helen came rushing out of the front room. She left the door open and I saw Martina with her head in her hands. Helen got a glass of water, she picked up a box of tissues, the sick bowl was not needed. It was turned upside down on the draining board like the round back of a stainless-steel creature that moved only very slowly, a couple of centimetres every year.
It was spring. The cherry blossoms were out early. For some reason that morning, I got the impression people were waving at us. I could see nobody. It was a false perception. Unseen people at the windows, unseen people in the street, waving as we made our way down to the courthouse. It gave me the feeling we were going away.
Helen was wearing her blue coat, not closing it over her belly, her back was giving her trouble. She changed her shoes at the last minute before leaving the house.
We stood in the alleyway by the wall of the courthouse, an old redbrick building, the side door was the main entrance. People were gathered outside in small groups, men smoking, nervous family members, guards in uniform with their hats off. A woman with dark rims around the eyes shouted up the alleyway at a man going off to get cigarettes – a Mars bar, I’m starving – her voice left an echo, she had a bad cough. There was a pushchair outside the door with no baby in it.
Two guards made their way down the alley, a man was handcuffed to one of them, his arm was in plaster, his face was scarred. He looked at me with threatening eyes and I looked away instantly, they disappeared inside.
Bardon was standing a couple of metres away from us with his lawyer. His Crombie coat was left open, he wore a striped shirt with a candy cane design, a dark wine-coloured tie. He seemed out of place among the other people waiting in the alley, he made the door of the court look more like the entrance to a theatre, the opening of a new play.
Our solicitor went to have a word with them, to see if they could reach a last-minute settlement, but there was no progress to be made and he came back to stand with us again. Then everyone went inside.
Our case was called.
Bardon spoke well, his voice was steady, his words made him seem like a completely reasonable man who regrettably found himself in this situation. Nothing he hated more than taking anyone to court, he had been very patient, again and again he had given his former tenant grace to settle the debt, but there was nothing forthcoming. He was under financial strain, doing his best to conduct his business in a fair manner, he wished she had made some attempt, some gesture of goodwill, he might have found some way of coming to an accommodation with her. He had done everything to facilitate her business, he had put in a new carpet, he had made sure the heating got fixed promptly, he attended to every request, she broke the lease without any consultation, when it suited her.
With respect, he kept saying.
His appearance was that of a statesman. Somebody in the service of the nation who had been forced to take time off important duties to deal with this unpleasant matter, not of his own choosing. It was his grey hair, the white eyebrows, his good name. He addressed the judge with great courtesy. He said he had been threatened, an attempt had been made on his life, he no longer felt safe.
Our solicitor put forward the arguments for Helen. The premises had become wholly unsuitable, the conditions were appalling. His client, he said, had been forced to abandon her yoga classes, she had lost business, she had no option but to break the lease and find alternative premises.
I wanted to add more details – what about the spores in the carpet, the pools of water, the women came out with their feet wet. What about the smell of the place, the rubbery stench, we had to spray deodorant before every class.
There was no need to expand on every flaw, our lawyer made the more forceful point that the place, meant for well-being, had become a serious health hazard.
The judge asked if there was any written evidence of complaints about the conditions, any communication to relevant health authorities, there was none available.
Our solicitor concluded with a strong argument that the terms of the lease had been broken by the landlord. His dereliction had forced Helen into moving her business at great cost to herself.
I saw Helen in the witness box, it might have been only a couple of minutes, for me it was a lifetime. She looked small, holding onto the wooden structure as though she might lose her balance, even while sitting down. This was no place to smile. No place to be herself. The baby she was carrying took up all her concentration.
The judge read out the address of the premises, naming the parties to the agreement, along with the dates, he held out the lease as an exhibit, passed over by the court clerk for Helen to look at.
Is that your signature?
Yes, Helen said.
Did you sign this agreement in good faith?
Yes, she said.
What else could she say? After a moment, she spoke out. She spoke with force, without shame or culpability, she didn’t use any adjectives or make any exaggerated statements. She was not accusing anyone, it was not her intention to put anybody down, she was merely defending herself and her family. She told the judge that she was doing her best, she had two children, one on the way. This man had no right to come after her for money. He may be justified in law, she said, but he has no moral right to demand anything. What he is doing is not honourable. It is wrong. I would not want my children to take a penny that is not legitimate, she said.
Helen looked around, at Bardon, at the guards, at the public gallery, at the judge. There was a pause while everybody waited to see if she had finished.
Thank you, the judge said.
He had no further questions. In the moment he took to deliberate, perhaps no more than ten seconds, it appeared to me that it was not the legal parameters that mattered but our right to be happy. The baby she was expecting. The family entity we had come here to defend. The question to be determined was not the principal sum due under the terms of the lease but what we owed the world for being alive. The air. The water. The share of luck we extracted from the earth.
Helen Boyce – judgment
against her.
I saw the Irish harp, the symbol of the state, floating above the head of the judge. I cursed him and his harp like a convicted man. He gave her no chance. How unfair, how one-sided the law is, confined to the ideals of property.
I stood up.
My mouth was open. A soundless voice. It was a shock to me when the real, audible words finally flew out like a scattered bird, a crow flying across the court.
Helen, I shouted – you were great, I love you with all my heart.
My flare-up was embarrassing, hopelessly out of context and irrelevant. People turned to stare at me. The judge glanced up for an instant, then he began moving documents around. The next case was called.
It was hard to watch her coming back. As if the court had been turned around and she could no longer remember how she came in, where was the exit? She didn’t see me. She walked right past, failed to recognise me waiting at the door, she looked around at the faces of the people standing outside in the alleyway smoking.
Bardon stood watching us. He held his hands out in a gesture of cheap compassion, as if to say – look what you put her through.
There was nothing to talk about in the car on the way back, nothing to say as we got home, the house was silent, as though we had come from a funeral. I collected the children from school, they must have sensed something, they were fighting. Rosie went into the front room and started screaming. Essie slammed the door of the kitchen and sat on the floor in a sulk. Helen was in bed. I spent the afternoon trying to fix a cable running under the floorboards, some disconnection, only one of the speakers working. I brought Helen up some cherry cake, but it was still there on the plate that evening, getting a crust. I offered to read to her out loud from a book, but she said she would be fine – thanks.
The news around the world was no better than ours. A solicitor was murdered in Belfast for representing Catholics. A bounty was placed on the head of an author who wrote a book blaspheming the prophet Muhammad. A tanker ran aground in Alaska spilling thousands of tons of oil.
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