Peter Cunningham - The Sea and the Silence

He grinned and the gap between his front teeth appeared and made me laugh out loud. Perhaps it was the moustache, but he seemed older and in the process more dignified. I wanted to ask what had become of Frank, but Bella and Nick were hovering. Then I saw Ronnie’s cufflinks in the shape of rugby balls and the thought of the evening on which he had been presented with them made me plunge.

Except for the beginning of war, nothing is headier than the prospect of its ending: people spoke of curtailments being suspended in a month, of travel restrictions being abolished and of sons coming home. As the band struck up, Stanley Penrose swung me around the floor of his hall, his white whiskers tickling my chin, and confidently predicted that I would give him at least four grandchildren. He pressed me on the date for the wedding, but when I was evasive showed a flash of the steel with which he had made his fortune.

‘You’re not going to go on playing the monkey with the poor lad, are ye now?’ he asked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You know what I mean, Miss.’

I excused myself and went and locked myself into the Penrose’s toilet. I saw myself in the gilt-framed mirror, my lovely dress and my anxious face. I will do this, I told myself, and went back out.

I danced with twenty men and each one vied with his predecessor to assure me of my destined happiness. I was terrified: of Stanley Penrose, of these people, this house. I looked around for Ronnie, but each time I saw him, I was grabbed anew and steered for the music.

Norman and I sat down with Bella and Nick for supper. My future husband, although he would never entirely shed his solemn demeanour, even on an evening such as this, nonetheless was lighter than I had ever seen him. I tried to let go and to imagine the fine life that awaited me here, the wealth and the certainty. Norman’s father called the party to order and proposed our toast, which involved him making a long and serious speech about land agitation, during which everyone shouted Hear! Hear! and nodded their heads grimly as their host spoke of the shortcomings of the government, the injustice of the law and the brink of anarchy on which he assured us we were all poised. Norman replied briefly and then everyone stood up and applauded me. Led by Norman to the centre of the floor, we danced for them in the house of which I would soon be mistress and all I could think of was the dance in the hotel in Monument.

‘I have had a room made up here for you tonight,’ Norman said with great weight.

‘Here?’

‘In your new home.’

‘Oh.’

‘It will be the first time a woman has slept here since my mother died. You will be taking her place,’ he said.

Hot and a little dizzy, I went outside and lit a cigarette. The storm had suddenly died and a moon had come out. I could see John Rafter, also smoking, standing in the field beside his van.

‘John?’

‘How’s it going, Iz?’

‘I’d like you to drive me home.’

Feral eyes floated from hedgerows as the van weaved the lanes between Grange and Tirmon. I was chilled although I had done little else but dance.

‘Are you all right?’ John asked.

‘I’m just a little tired.’

‘You’re shivering’, he said and reached into the back and handed me over a jacket which I put around my shoulders. When he dropped me at Longstead, he said: ‘I’ll go back and wait for Bella and her old fella.’

The house was already asleep. How I relished its softness and disorder, its lack of purpose or ambition. I went in and put on the lights in the hall and found a pair of outdoor shoes and a coat, then went outside to the wall beyond the lawn and lit up a last cigarette. How many times I had observed Longstead from that spot, seeing but unseen. My smoke eddied in the night air and I batted it away. Bella and Nick would be home soon and if they found me up, Bella would be full of awkward questions about my leaving my own party so early. There was a noise. I turned. As I did, I was clamped at the mouth and around my waist.

We fell back and I saw the stars reeling. I tried to shout for help. I was pinned, and could feel the strength of my attacker and hear him grunting as he held me. I kicked and bit. I could think only of the land agitators, the dispossessed, now come to remove their last remaining obstacle to Longstead. My throat cut. I bit again. Hard.

‘Iz!’

He had released me.

‘Jesus, but you can put up a fight!’ Frank gasped.

1945

His face flitted in and out of shadow as clouds ran across the moon. He was unshaven and his clothes were wet and bedraggled. My first thought was that Bella and Nick would return at any moment.

‘Quickly,’ I said and caught his arm.

I led him down the avenue, across the stile and into the lake field. I took off my shoes, hoisted my dress and ran, my legs drenched from the dew. The moonlight was eerie and erratic and each time it shone I kept thinking it was the lights of the van. Inside the old lambing shed, the floor was covered with the musty hay of former seasons.

‘Why..?’ I began, but I couldn’t finish the question, nor did I need to.

He shook his head and I could see in a beam of moonlight how thin he was.

‘It was Alice,’ he said softly. ‘Had to be.’

‘She told me… she told me that you’d said you didn’t want both our lives to be ruined,’ I said.

Frank’s eyes closed. ‘I sent her to Dublin to bring you back down with her. I thought it would be safer to cross to England from Monument. She came home and said that you had broken it off with me, that you’d decided it was for the best.’

My chest hurt where my breath was caught. ‘Why?’

‘Because she was crazy, which is a terrible thing to say about your own sister when she’s dead. Because she thought I was betraying what she stood for.’

His head was down and his hair fell forward.

‘Are you on the run from the guards?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘And yet you came back for me,’ I said.

‘Tom sent me the notice of your engagement,’ he said. ‘I knew that wasn’t what you wanted, because you told me. I knew then that Alice had told me lies.’

We kissed in that damp little shed, although I didn’t care if the heavens opened.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I will die if I can’t be with you.’

He unbuttoned my dress, then kissed my shoulders and gently pulled down each strap of my white slip. Unclipping my hair, he smoothed it out with his fingers. I undid his shirt and saw bruising on his shoulder. His chest hairs were darker than those on his head, spreading out before diving in an ever darkening line. I could feel blood I had forgotten surging powerfully, my ears humming and my whole head resonating. Afterwards, I stroked his back and tasted his skin.

‘What will become of us?’ I asked.

‘We will become like the stars in the sky,’ he said.

‘The ancient Greeks used to think the stars were their gods.’

‘Then I want to be Hector, son of Apollo,’ he said.

‘Hector, the great warrior, the greatest in Troy,’ I said and hugged him close. ‘My Hector.’

Frank said, ‘I want to do this for the rest of our lives.’

I came down to breakfast, my feet barely touching the ground. All night in bed, or what part of it I spent there, I could inhale his skin from mine.

‘What on earth came over you last night?’ Bella asked. ‘Poor Norman was crestfallen. I had to make your excuses.’

‘I was feeling ill.’

‘Perhaps you should see a doctor,’ said Nick, and as always when he spoke, I felt a chill on my neck.

‘I’m perfectly well now, thank you,’ I said and cut myself a slice of soda bread.

‘Stanley Penrose took me aside last night,’ said Bella, eyeing me. ‘He thinks it’s only reasonable that you give Norman a firm date for your wedding.’

‘Did he indeed?’

‘I must say I do think the poor man has a point.’

He’s far from poor, I wanted to say; but instead I said, ‘I know. It was unfair of me. I’ll decide a date with Norman before the end of this week.’

‘Well, at least that’s something’, Bella said and she and Nick exchanged a look.

As if the storms had swept away the final traces of winter, heat poured from the sun, birds sang and darkness and menace were forgotten. Light was exquisite in the garden, illuminating the heads of snowdrops. The love that ran through me, that was my blood, made me want to shout for joy and tell everyone what I was doing. Fifty yards from the house, under a monkey puzzle tree, I sat and made myself remember all the good that had unfolded here, the fine lives that had had this place at their beginning, the great hopes that Longstead had given rise to.

‘You’re singing.’

I whirled. Nick had materialised behind me.

‘Oh!’

‘It was lovely,’ he said. ‘Sorry, did I startle you?’

‘No. I mean, a bit. I was miles away.’

‘Anywhere in particular?’ He seemed to radiate a power that threatened everything I wanted. ‘Bella and I are taking a picnic down the fields and were wondering if you’d like to join us?’

He was smiling, but his eyes were too knowing, as if my mind could conceal none of its plans.

‘I… I can’t today, thanks, but maybe another day.’

‘What’s happening today?’

‘I thought… that I would go and see Norman… and plan the date for our wedding.’

‘Now there’s a good idea,’ Nick said and strode away down the lawn, hands behind his back.

I would have liked to have had Mother to myself for the morning, but Bella and Nick were always in the room.

‘I must get a photograph of you girls,’ Nick said.

We stood at the front door, Mother in her black straw hat, Bella in the centre, and me. Nick peered down into his box camera.

‘Lovely,’ he said and I heard the clock in the hall strike noon.

Bella went to the kitchen to see what had become of their picnic and Mother took her easel and pallet to the lawn. I helped her carry her paints and her chair. We went to a spot to the right of the avenue, from which the shining lake could be seen in the distance. Nick and Bella were making their way down to the stile. Even this far away, I could hear Bella’s voice.

‘You’re very good to me,’ Mother said as I put the chair down.

‘It’s not difficult when you love someone very much,’ I said.

‘Oh, I do understand how you must go, Iz, but I wish you didn’t have to,’ Mother said.

I stared at her, as if she too, and perhaps all the world, knew my mind.

‘Go?’

‘To live in Mount Penrose,’ Mother said. ‘Longstead is so much prettier.’

I put my cheek to hers and my arms around her neck. ‘I will always love you, wherever I am,’ I said and made my way back inside.

At half past twelve, I walked down the avenue with only the clothes on my back. I could never have foreseen that I would be leaving Longstead without a solitary possession, but that too felt good and uplifting in the way I imagined pilgrims or hermits must feel uplifted as they cast off all in pursuit of a higher goal. I waved to Mother, but she didn’t see me. I called,

‘Goodbye.’

When I reached the gates, I was out of breath, although I had made a point of not hurrying. The village of Tirmon, whether on mornings of icy sleet or as now, when the sun bathed it in almost beatific light, showed few signs that people lived there. I passed Mr Rafter’s shop. The clock inside showed ten to one. Scents of coffee and jute sacking followed me along the footpath. I began to sink, unaccountably, as if scents alone could unlock the responsible part of my reasoning process. Turning back, I ran into the shop.

Bells chimed and faces looked up from behind counters. It was one of the small miracles of life that Mr Rafter, despite all his business interests and the need to be in so many different places at once, was nonetheless always in his shop when he was needed.

‘Miss,’ he said. ‘Have you heard the news?’

I felt the familiar internal plunge as dismay overcame hope.

‘Oh God, what?’

‘The Ruskies are heading for Berlin,’ Mr Rafter grinned. ‘It’s as good as over.’

I closed my eyes with relief. ‘I didn’t know what you were going to tell me.’

Mr Rafter’s girth, so often derided and sniggered at, was all at once so very replete and comforting. I said,