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Authors: Sebastian Barry
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untoward.
While her father lived, the only times I was in the house of late were when he was out, and her mother would let me in, either not being of the same mind as her husband on the subject of the buveur of Sligo, or not wanting to go against her daughter.
But in the deep winter following, her good mother withered in the empty house, and also died, and the mason chiselled out under her husband’s inscription the accustomed words, And of his wife, Mary .
After this second funeral, in the parlour, and after the mourners had gone home, and only her brother Jack remained, sitting in a chair at the top of the landing with his long legs stretched on the window-sill, out of earshot, gazing at the grey expanse of the sea, dark and mildewed, like one of those great mirrors whose silver backing is failing, not much inclined, as was usual for him, to speak, I sat alone with Mai. She was weakened and vulnerable. She looked like a wealthy person from whom everything, lands, houses, money, has been snatched away in a financial cataclysm, sitting there humbly and quietly, her white hands holding her black gloves, her face down, looking at those hands and gloves, as if they might hold the clue to the next thing she should do. I felt oddly like a doctor, and knew instinctively that she was going to trust in my diagnosis. Just for a moment I thought I should show her the mercy of silence, and say nothing. That could have been the loving thing to do. This was a simplified Mai. She was without question the child of those two vanished people, the absolute child, and I do not know if she had the wherewithal in the upshot to be anything else.
‘He really was a fine old gentleman,’ I said. She raised her face to me when I said it, as if weighing secret things up in a hidden scales. There was a long pause.
‘You are gentleman enough, in your own way,’ she said, not quite trying to flatter me, and maybe even believing it in that moment. Then she let her gaze fall again, as if the conversation was over.
‘We can be married in the spring,’ I said, ‘if you wanted.’
She raised her eyes from gazing at her lap and gazed at me as if I were for a strange moment just as inanimate as the gloves.
‘I do love you so,’ I said.
Her brow creased in a frown and her mouth tightened as though someone had pulled on a little hidden string somewhere in her cheeks. She didn’t speak for a full minute. It was one of those times when I was entirely relaxed with her. She was there before me, our knees nearly touching, the black mourning cloth of my trousers nearly joining with the dark, rich brocade of her dress, as if our clothing was marrying first. How can I talk about her now without praising her? Something keeps clearing, clarifying, so that I keep arriving at her without judgement as it were, as now, when I think about her there, and see her in my mind’s eye, long ago, when she was young, and her parents had deserted her. And what I see is an essence which is in itself solo and isolated, but still a woman replete, laden with gifts, musical, athletic, clever as a general, and seems to sit before me, even now, when she is gone, gone for ever, as real as though I could reach forward and touch her, so powerful, so completely present, and so lovely.
‘But it’s spring now,’ she said, as if this had been the sum of her difficulty in speaking.
‘It’s early spring,’ I said. ‘We could be married in April.’
I had no idea what she was thinking then. She certainly didn’t say. Had she intended to go back to England and resume her teaching? Or join her brother in his practice in Roscommon?
I suddenly felt this was a hand I could not win. I could see the horses massing at the starting gates, they were under starter’s orders, they were off, and my poor nag was surely that broken-backed creature toiling at the rear, falling away at every stride, the loser not only of the race but of every furlong of it. A pit of misery opened its trap
While her father lived, the only times I was in the house of late were when he was out, and her mother would let me in, either not being of the same mind as her husband on the subject of the buveur of Sligo, or not wanting to go against her daughter.
But in the deep winter following, her good mother withered in the empty house, and also died, and the mason chiselled out under her husband’s inscription the accustomed words, And of his wife, Mary .
After this second funeral, in the parlour, and after the mourners had gone home, and only her brother Jack remained, sitting in a chair at the top of the landing with his long legs stretched on the window-sill, out of earshot, gazing at the grey expanse of the sea, dark and mildewed, like one of those great mirrors whose silver backing is failing, not much inclined, as was usual for him, to speak, I sat alone with Mai. She was weakened and vulnerable. She looked like a wealthy person from whom everything, lands, houses, money, has been snatched away in a financial cataclysm, sitting there humbly and quietly, her white hands holding her black gloves, her face down, looking at those hands and gloves, as if they might hold the clue to the next thing she should do. I felt oddly like a doctor, and knew instinctively that she was going to trust in my diagnosis. Just for a moment I thought I should show her the mercy of silence, and say nothing. That could have been the loving thing to do. This was a simplified Mai. She was without question the child of those two vanished people, the absolute child, and I do not know if she had the wherewithal in the upshot to be anything else.
‘He really was a fine old gentleman,’ I said. She raised her face to me when I said it, as if weighing secret things up in a hidden scales. There was a long pause.
‘You are gentleman enough, in your own way,’ she said, not quite trying to flatter me, and maybe even believing it in that moment. Then she let her gaze fall again, as if the conversation was over.
‘We can be married in the spring,’ I said, ‘if you wanted.’
She raised her eyes from gazing at her lap and gazed at me as if I were for a strange moment just as inanimate as the gloves.
‘I do love you so,’ I said.
Her brow creased in a frown and her mouth tightened as though someone had pulled on a little hidden string somewhere in her cheeks. She didn’t speak for a full minute. It was one of those times when I was entirely relaxed with her. She was there before me, our knees nearly touching, the black mourning cloth of my trousers nearly joining with the dark, rich brocade of her dress, as if our clothing was marrying first. How can I talk about her now without praising her? Something keeps clearing, clarifying, so that I keep arriving at her without judgement as it were, as now, when I think about her there, and see her in my mind’s eye, long ago, when she was young, and her parents had deserted her. And what I see is an essence which is in itself solo and isolated, but still a woman replete, laden with gifts, musical, athletic, clever as a general, and seems to sit before me, even now, when she is gone, gone for ever, as real as though I could reach forward and touch her, so powerful, so completely present, and so lovely.
‘But it’s spring now,’ she said, as if this had been the sum of her difficulty in speaking.
‘It’s early spring,’ I said. ‘We could be married in April.’
I had no idea what she was thinking then. She certainly didn’t say. Had she intended to go back to England and resume her teaching? Or join her brother in his practice in Roscommon?
I suddenly felt this was a hand I could not win. I could see the horses massing at the starting gates, they were under starter’s orders, they were off, and my poor nag was surely that broken-backed creature toiling at the rear, falling away at every stride, the loser not only of the race but of every furlong of it. A pit of misery opened its trap
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