Read Online Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Edna O’Brien
Ads: Link
had never seen a black flower before. Since nobody answered, she went into an adjoining room, where a man had his face so close to the television screen he seemed to be conversing with it and took no notice of her. Two dogs dozed on a torn leather armchair. Presently a girl came, a strapping young girl who could not say for certain if they did or did not do dinners, as the season was not yet in full swing. Nevertheless, she led the way to the gaunt, cheerless dining room.
They had driven so many miles, first to a town with a lake and a round tower, where they had strolled, then sat on dampish rough-hewn picnic stools and noted to each other how strange that others who had driven there had simply sat in their motorcars and stared out at the lake. He liked being with her, she could feel that. She didn't know him very well. She had volunteered to give painting lessons in the prison in the Midlands, where he was serving a long sentence. Though many came for the first few classes, they eventually dropped away and by the end, Shane was the only one. Sitting with his back to her, finishing off a self-portrait, which was in viscous gold and mustard yellows, she had asked him if he had ever seen the paintings of van Gogh, to which he said he hadn't. She was reminded of van Gogh because of the upturned stump of a sneaker on which the dry paint bristled.
Walking in the graveyard beside the round tower, she had asked very quietly, "How do you find the world, Shane?" since he was only out of prison a few short weeks.
"Crowded," he had said, and half smiled.
While he was in prison, his wife had been shot, bathing their child, shot in lieu of him, and not long afterwards the child, who was being reared with relatives, had also died, of meningitis. On the evening that his wife had been shot, he had gone to sleep while it was still bright, and though the warders knocked and pounded on his cell door, to tell him of it, he did not hear them. He reckoned that in sleep he was postponing the news that he could not bear, but would have to learn to bear. How he managed never to crack up was a mystery to Mona.
A few days before Christmas, the governor of the prison had rung her to tell her that there was a parcel left for her in his office. It was the portrait, wrapped in assorted carrier bags, and on the greeting card he had written, "For Mona ... I'm sorry it's so crude." Something about the message seemed unfinished, as if he had wanted to say more, and it was this hesitancy that emboldened her to ask if he would like to meet in Dublin when he was let out. He was due out that spring, but it was kept a secret to avoid a media jamboree. She knew how reserved he was, he having mentioned that, though he ate in the refectory and played tennis three times a week, he kept to himself and the best times were at night in the cell, listening to tapes of Irish music and songs. She imagined that on those nights he would mull on the past and on the future, too, possibly envisaging how the world had changed in the fifteen years since he was captured. It was a hair-raising capture that attracted the attention of the nation and confirmed him as a dangerous outlaw.
It so happened that he was released three days earlier than he had expected and she could scarcely believe it when he telephoned her in her studio in Dublin and said somewhat bashfully, "It's me ... I'm free."
They had made an appointment to meet in a hotel, and standing on the steps on a crisp frosted morning, the winter boughs and branches in the park across the way jeweled in frost, she felt he was not coming, that something had prevented him. After almost an hour, a young boy in a braided outfit came and told her that she was wanted on the phone and brazenly repeated Shane's full name. He was in another hotel a mile away, and she told him, somewhat sternly, to wait there and not to budge.
Sitting with him in a booth of the second hotel, drinking tea, there was a tentativeness. It was strange
They had driven so many miles, first to a town with a lake and a round tower, where they had strolled, then sat on dampish rough-hewn picnic stools and noted to each other how strange that others who had driven there had simply sat in their motorcars and stared out at the lake. He liked being with her, she could feel that. She didn't know him very well. She had volunteered to give painting lessons in the prison in the Midlands, where he was serving a long sentence. Though many came for the first few classes, they eventually dropped away and by the end, Shane was the only one. Sitting with his back to her, finishing off a self-portrait, which was in viscous gold and mustard yellows, she had asked him if he had ever seen the paintings of van Gogh, to which he said he hadn't. She was reminded of van Gogh because of the upturned stump of a sneaker on which the dry paint bristled.
Walking in the graveyard beside the round tower, she had asked very quietly, "How do you find the world, Shane?" since he was only out of prison a few short weeks.
"Crowded," he had said, and half smiled.
While he was in prison, his wife had been shot, bathing their child, shot in lieu of him, and not long afterwards the child, who was being reared with relatives, had also died, of meningitis. On the evening that his wife had been shot, he had gone to sleep while it was still bright, and though the warders knocked and pounded on his cell door, to tell him of it, he did not hear them. He reckoned that in sleep he was postponing the news that he could not bear, but would have to learn to bear. How he managed never to crack up was a mystery to Mona.
A few days before Christmas, the governor of the prison had rung her to tell her that there was a parcel left for her in his office. It was the portrait, wrapped in assorted carrier bags, and on the greeting card he had written, "For Mona ... I'm sorry it's so crude." Something about the message seemed unfinished, as if he had wanted to say more, and it was this hesitancy that emboldened her to ask if he would like to meet in Dublin when he was let out. He was due out that spring, but it was kept a secret to avoid a media jamboree. She knew how reserved he was, he having mentioned that, though he ate in the refectory and played tennis three times a week, he kept to himself and the best times were at night in the cell, listening to tapes of Irish music and songs. She imagined that on those nights he would mull on the past and on the future, too, possibly envisaging how the world had changed in the fifteen years since he was captured. It was a hair-raising capture that attracted the attention of the nation and confirmed him as a dangerous outlaw.
It so happened that he was released three days earlier than he had expected and she could scarcely believe it when he telephoned her in her studio in Dublin and said somewhat bashfully, "It's me ... I'm free."
They had made an appointment to meet in a hotel, and standing on the steps on a crisp frosted morning, the winter boughs and branches in the park across the way jeweled in frost, she felt he was not coming, that something had prevented him. After almost an hour, a young boy in a braided outfit came and told her that she was wanted on the phone and brazenly repeated Shane's full name. He was in another hotel a mile away, and she told him, somewhat sternly, to wait there and not to budge.
Sitting with him in a booth of the second hotel, drinking tea, there was a tentativeness. It was strange
Similar Books
