swaying from side to side, a devil-may-care feeling reminiscent of being in the bumper cars at a carnival. Bugler had given her a rug, which kept slipping off her knees. She could have sat beside him, but she declined and instead chose the wooden trailer fixed to the back, and lay there bumping and dipping as the tractor either lurched in mossy ground or reared up when the wheels snagged in another freakish growth. The place smelt of dank, of leaf mould, of fungus, a place where none had ventured in years. He drove slowly and with a tremendous concentration. She could tell by his rigid back, the set of his shoulders, and the way his head kept swivelling from side to side to be prepared. Now and then he turned to look at her with the broad sweep of a smile, but she could not hear what he had said.
It had come about by chance, her painting a gate, painting it silver because she was sick of how rusted it looked, and his going by and asking if she was having a party.
“I wish I was” was what she had said and what prompted him to say, “Get in . . . We’ll go for a spin.”
As they climbed higher, they could hear the sound of a river. It came as if from afar, wild and vigorous and whizzing, then the sight of it so thrilling up there in the emptiness, a deep amethyst-coloured, plashing river, clean and icy cold.
They had got out and stood on the humped bridge to watch it, to marvel at the way it rushed along, so carefree.
“I always thought rivers were green or brown,” he said.
Through a lattice of trees there was the remains of a house, a cabin, weeds and grass sprouting from the roof, fruit trees and rose trees gone wild, entwined, disfigured, everything mutated, mutating, except for one little birch tree so spindly it looked like a lonesome ballerina.
“My mother used to tell me about this place,” he said, amazement in his voice at having come on it. He went on to tell her how his mother used to walk up on a Sunday, all by herself, to get a biscuit, and one day when she went the woman was washing her hair in a basin and when she lifted her head up the long black stream of hair gave her a witchlike look. His mother thought the woman was going to a dance, but it was to the asylum she was sent.
“What was her name?”
“I’m ashamed to say I forget.”
They looked at the little ruin, absorbed into and dwarfed by the brooding wilderness, and at the wild garden, the only testament to a woman whose name nobody remembered.
In the river below, a salmon rose up out of the water, bowed like a bright sword thrust up into the air, then down in the water again and up again, glinting, playful.
“That salmon has been all around the world,” he said.
“Like you,” she said.
The summit had the emptiness of desert, no trees, no birds, no shelter, a vista of dun brown, the two of them standing so close as if they had coalesced and his voice quiet, ruminative, telling her how he had always wanted to come back because his mother had kept the memory of it alive for them and had instilled in him the certainty that one day he must go home.
“Some of this was her dowry,” he said, and wished that he could have brought her back before she died.
“What was she like?”
“Lovely . . . She had a beautiful voice. There was a song she used to sing about a young girl in the grounds of a castle. . . ‘The Castle of Dromore.’ Maybe you know it.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll try and find it for you,” he said.
“Do you feel you have come home?”
“I do now, here . . . With you . . . But not otherwise. I’m not liked . . . They say I’m bad news. I don’t know why.”
Without asking, he took off his jacket and draped it around her. “You’re freezing,” he said. A quick shiver passed between them, lonesome in its wake. Bending, he broke off a stalk of tough grass, ocherish in colour, and gave it to her. A braided keepsake.
R EENA IS IRONING HER HAIR , her cheek almost resting on
It had come about by chance, her painting a gate, painting it silver because she was sick of how rusted it looked, and his going by and asking if she was having a party.
“I wish I was” was what she had said and what prompted him to say, “Get in . . . We’ll go for a spin.”
As they climbed higher, they could hear the sound of a river. It came as if from afar, wild and vigorous and whizzing, then the sight of it so thrilling up there in the emptiness, a deep amethyst-coloured, plashing river, clean and icy cold.
They had got out and stood on the humped bridge to watch it, to marvel at the way it rushed along, so carefree.
“I always thought rivers were green or brown,” he said.
Through a lattice of trees there was the remains of a house, a cabin, weeds and grass sprouting from the roof, fruit trees and rose trees gone wild, entwined, disfigured, everything mutated, mutating, except for one little birch tree so spindly it looked like a lonesome ballerina.
“My mother used to tell me about this place,” he said, amazement in his voice at having come on it. He went on to tell her how his mother used to walk up on a Sunday, all by herself, to get a biscuit, and one day when she went the woman was washing her hair in a basin and when she lifted her head up the long black stream of hair gave her a witchlike look. His mother thought the woman was going to a dance, but it was to the asylum she was sent.
“What was her name?”
“I’m ashamed to say I forget.”
They looked at the little ruin, absorbed into and dwarfed by the brooding wilderness, and at the wild garden, the only testament to a woman whose name nobody remembered.
In the river below, a salmon rose up out of the water, bowed like a bright sword thrust up into the air, then down in the water again and up again, glinting, playful.
“That salmon has been all around the world,” he said.
“Like you,” she said.
The summit had the emptiness of desert, no trees, no birds, no shelter, a vista of dun brown, the two of them standing so close as if they had coalesced and his voice quiet, ruminative, telling her how he had always wanted to come back because his mother had kept the memory of it alive for them and had instilled in him the certainty that one day he must go home.
“Some of this was her dowry,” he said, and wished that he could have brought her back before she died.
“What was she like?”
“Lovely . . . She had a beautiful voice. There was a song she used to sing about a young girl in the grounds of a castle. . . ‘The Castle of Dromore.’ Maybe you know it.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll try and find it for you,” he said.
“Do you feel you have come home?”
“I do now, here . . . With you . . . But not otherwise. I’m not liked . . . They say I’m bad news. I don’t know why.”
Without asking, he took off his jacket and draped it around her. “You’re freezing,” he said. A quick shiver passed between them, lonesome in its wake. Bending, he broke off a stalk of tough grass, ocherish in colour, and gave it to her. A braided keepsake.
R EENA IS IRONING HER HAIR , her cheek almost resting on
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