Read Online Yesterday's Weather by Anne Enright - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anne Enright
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Casey, who might live or who might actually die. Between human beings.
And of course she isn’t saying this at all.
I mean, I will still hang out with Natalie. And I know I’ll get to like her in some different way – probably her way, actually. And I know the thing I have for my boyfriend isn’t love, it’s just a stupid kind of bliss. I know all these things – they’re not what woke me up. What woke me was a feeling like a horror film – except really boring.
It was the sheets. When I lay down, just for a second, on Mr and Mrs Casey’s moss-green sheets. Before the dance, when I was all dolled up in my silk skirt, and I pushed my hands along them and put my cheek against the dark cotton, just for a second. It was the smell of those sheets – cool, unwashed; like something I really wanted, going stale.
That is what woke me up.
H ERE’S TO L OVE
I am thirty-nine. My friends tell me that their wives are not happy. My male friends, that is – old boyfriends, some of them. I meet them when I go back home, or they look me up when they come through Paris. It is that time of our lives: they ring, ‘Hello, stranger,’ and we meet for coffee and we catch up on old gossip and new babies and jobs and, late in the conversation, or the next evening when we meet for a quick drink, they tell me that their wives are not happy.
I don’t know what I am supposed to do about it.
I ask how they are and they say that they’re fine, and they might say it in a melancholy sort of way, but mostly I believe them – that they are content, or trying to be content. They work, and love their children, and they are interested in something like hiking or a new house – a second house: they like having this house and being in it at weekends.
‘And how is Maria?’ I say or Annie, or Joyce.
‘Oh. She’s up and down.’
This from my friend Shay, who I hadn’t seen in seven years, and love so much, and not just him, but a little show-off called Peter, whose wife deserves to be miserable, and a guy called Tommy – this odd, impossible boyfriend I had once, who ended up in God knows what sort of nuptial bliss with four ‘fantastic’ kids: even Tommy at the mention of his wife’s name looks vague, as though he can’t remember exactly what she is supposed to be doing with her life just now.
I do feel burdened by it, a little; by the great unhappiness of my male friends’ wives. Even Shay’s wife, Marie, who I never really liked at the time. I do feel burdened by the heigh-ho sadness of his love for her. And I wonder, in a way, why he wants to tell me.
It is easier to say these things to someone you don’t see every day, of course. And I never had children, which makes me a kind of throwback – I am still ‘fun’. I am still the way we used to be.
Well, yes. Though sometimes I also feel my life closing down. My husband is old, and that makes me feel old too, from time to time. He is not rich. He did not leave his wife – his wife died, some years ago. My husband survived terrible historical events, and then he found me.
‘So how are you?’ says Shay. ‘How the hell are you?’ looking me up and down – looking mostly at my breasts, bless him.
‘Good, thanks. Really good.’
Actually, they are usually men I have slept with, these guys from home, the ones with the sad wives. If the truth be told. But that isn’t the important thing about them. I never did get very fussed about sex. It was all the other stuff that did my head in.
‘You’re looking well,’ he says, by which he means I haven’t got fat, or distracted. I am still poised, or I try to be, as I sit at the little table, and engage the waiter in a lot of chat about whether and when we will eat.
Shay looks at me while I do this. He likes it in a way that I find disturbing and nice. He is proud of my expertise. And he heaves a nostalgic sigh when I light a cigarette – the Irish don’t smoke any more – I see his fingertips itch towards the
And of course she isn’t saying this at all.
I mean, I will still hang out with Natalie. And I know I’ll get to like her in some different way – probably her way, actually. And I know the thing I have for my boyfriend isn’t love, it’s just a stupid kind of bliss. I know all these things – they’re not what woke me up. What woke me was a feeling like a horror film – except really boring.
It was the sheets. When I lay down, just for a second, on Mr and Mrs Casey’s moss-green sheets. Before the dance, when I was all dolled up in my silk skirt, and I pushed my hands along them and put my cheek against the dark cotton, just for a second. It was the smell of those sheets – cool, unwashed; like something I really wanted, going stale.
That is what woke me up.
H ERE’S TO L OVE
I am thirty-nine. My friends tell me that their wives are not happy. My male friends, that is – old boyfriends, some of them. I meet them when I go back home, or they look me up when they come through Paris. It is that time of our lives: they ring, ‘Hello, stranger,’ and we meet for coffee and we catch up on old gossip and new babies and jobs and, late in the conversation, or the next evening when we meet for a quick drink, they tell me that their wives are not happy.
I don’t know what I am supposed to do about it.
I ask how they are and they say that they’re fine, and they might say it in a melancholy sort of way, but mostly I believe them – that they are content, or trying to be content. They work, and love their children, and they are interested in something like hiking or a new house – a second house: they like having this house and being in it at weekends.
‘And how is Maria?’ I say or Annie, or Joyce.
‘Oh. She’s up and down.’
This from my friend Shay, who I hadn’t seen in seven years, and love so much, and not just him, but a little show-off called Peter, whose wife deserves to be miserable, and a guy called Tommy – this odd, impossible boyfriend I had once, who ended up in God knows what sort of nuptial bliss with four ‘fantastic’ kids: even Tommy at the mention of his wife’s name looks vague, as though he can’t remember exactly what she is supposed to be doing with her life just now.
I do feel burdened by it, a little; by the great unhappiness of my male friends’ wives. Even Shay’s wife, Marie, who I never really liked at the time. I do feel burdened by the heigh-ho sadness of his love for her. And I wonder, in a way, why he wants to tell me.
It is easier to say these things to someone you don’t see every day, of course. And I never had children, which makes me a kind of throwback – I am still ‘fun’. I am still the way we used to be.
Well, yes. Though sometimes I also feel my life closing down. My husband is old, and that makes me feel old too, from time to time. He is not rich. He did not leave his wife – his wife died, some years ago. My husband survived terrible historical events, and then he found me.
‘So how are you?’ says Shay. ‘How the hell are you?’ looking me up and down – looking mostly at my breasts, bless him.
‘Good, thanks. Really good.’
Actually, they are usually men I have slept with, these guys from home, the ones with the sad wives. If the truth be told. But that isn’t the important thing about them. I never did get very fussed about sex. It was all the other stuff that did my head in.
‘You’re looking well,’ he says, by which he means I haven’t got fat, or distracted. I am still poised, or I try to be, as I sit at the little table, and engage the waiter in a lot of chat about whether and when we will eat.
Shay looks at me while I do this. He likes it in a way that I find disturbing and nice. He is proud of my expertise. And he heaves a nostalgic sigh when I light a cigarette – the Irish don’t smoke any more – I see his fingertips itch towards the
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