‘You were at a bachelor party that weekend, if I remember correctly,’ Robinson said, and Mark looked at him, startled. Had he spoken aloud? Was Robinson responding to what he had said? But he knew he had been silent. Robinson was just doing what Mark wanted him, after all, to do: putting together the pieces of the day. But it was painful to be reminded of how he had spent that last weekend, of how he had wasted it: getting pissed in Wicklow for two days on Nagle’s stag party. Joanne had encouraged him to go; it didn’t matter how he felt about Nagle, she said. Nagle had invited him, and Mossy would be there, and it would be fun, and he should go, she said. She could look after Aoife by herself for one weekend. You need the break, she had said to him. Just go.
‘In Glendalough,’ Mark said. ‘A friend of mine from college.’
‘Beautiful spot,’ Robinson said. ‘Once you get away from the business end of it. High up in the valley, you could forget you were part of this life at all. Though I doubt the bachelor party was spent in the quiet of the valley?’
Mark managed a laugh. ‘It wasn’t exactly monastic,’ he said, and that hurt as well, because as soon as he said it he was back in the kitchen with her that first night she had cooked him dinner, that first night she had led him up to her room, and he thought now it had been a mistake, after all, to have come looking for details of her that were new to him, when he was barely able to manage the details he already had.
‘And your research?’ Robinson said, out of the silence. ‘Joanne mentioned that you were working on Scott? I know only what Bertrand Russell said of him, I’m afraid, which is only the painfully obvious. “Scott is the author of Waverley.” Which is not the same as Scott being Scott.’
Mark felt at once panic at not understanding whatever it was that Robinson was talking about — could he be raving? — and relief at being able to close it down with an entirely different subject. ‘It’s actually Edgeworth I’m working on,’ he said. ‘Though she and Scott were very good friends.’
‘Ah,’ said Robinson. ‘Castle Rackrent. I think old Thady Quirk is one of the most memorable of characters, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Mark said, without enthusiasm. He did not want to talk about Thady Quirk. He wanted to talk about Joanne. Or at least he had thought he did until a minute ago. ‘Thady’s a gas man,’ he said, and immediately cringed.
But Robinson nodded. ‘An utter cliché, but like so many clichés, an absolute truth.’
‘Right,’ Mark said uncertainly.
‘I mean, they’re still everywhere in this country, really, aren’t they?’ Robinson said airily. ‘I believe they’re referred to as local characters.’ He looked at Mark more closely. ‘You’re from the country, aren’t you?’
‘I’m from the same place Joanne was from,’ Mark said.
‘Really?’ Robinson looked surprised.
‘Yeah. Longford.’
‘Oh, well,’ Robinson said, ‘I don’t mean to suggest you have them only in Longford. Or in the country, for that matter.’
Mark frowned. ‘Have who?’
‘Oh. .’ Robinson waved a hand. ‘Ignore me. I ramble. My children tell me that all the time. Their mother did too.’
He looked at Mark suddenly, a flutter of panic on his face. ‘God!’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve completely neglected to tell you how sorry I am about your mother. I do apologize.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Mark.
‘Indeed, it’s quite unforgivable.’ Robinson shook his head. ‘Not even in the card, if I remember?’
‘Really, it’s not a problem,’ Mark said. ‘Thank you.’
Robinson weighed this for a moment. ‘And your father?’
‘My father’s fine,’ said Mark. ‘As fine as can be expected. He’s busy.’
‘The only way,’ Robinson said. ‘Partly because it’s the only way to get other people to leave you alone. That’s what I found.’
‘This is it,’ Mark said. He wanted, now, very much to leave. The conversation had seemed never to go beyond an awkward and useless skimming of facts. Robinson had told him nothing, given him nothing that he could take home and add to the store of kept traces. It had been a wasted journey. He made a move to stand, to announce that it was time for him to go, but then Robinson sighed deeply and looked over to him, nodding slowly.
‘I’m afraid it’s just a matter of forward equilibrum, you see,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Mark said carefully.
‘Time marches on, and you’re best to go along with it.’
‘You are.’
Now Robinson stood. Leaving his unfinished mug of coffee on the floor beneath the armchair, Mark did the same. ‘Thanks for seeing me,’ he said.
‘I’m very glad you came,’ said Robinson. ‘Though I’m afraid I haven’t been very good company for you.’
‘No, no.’ Mark shook his head energetically. ‘I mean, you have. Of course you have.’
‘I’m always like this when I’m working, I’m afraid,’ Robinson said. ‘And now more so than ever, because I don’t think that what I’m working on is going anywhere. I always think that, but this time I’m sure.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Mark said. ‘I know the feeling.’
‘To feel it at my age is infinitely worse,’ Robinson said, seeming sharper suddenly, and he led Mark to the hall.
‘What’s it about?’ Mark said.
‘It’s nothing I really want to talk about,’ Robinson said, as they reached the front door. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I remember telling Joanne about it, actually, that day I bumped into her.’ He frowned. ‘Or maybe it was another day.’
‘I’d love to hear about it,’ Mark said.
‘I just think it’s something I’m going to have to abandon,’ Robinson said, reaching to the latch. ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘Little point in talking about what’s already lost.’
Mark opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He walked through the front door to the path outside. He turned and offered his hand. They shook.
‘Thank you again for coming,’ Robinson said. ‘I’m so sorry about what has happened.’
‘Don’t give up,’ Mark managed to say. ‘On the idea, I mean. I’d like to read it eventually.’
Robinson looked at him oddly. Giving Mark the slightest of nods, he closed the door.
Chapter Twenty-one
All that week, a fist of frost held the land in mute submission. The low fields, and the bog they sank into; the bushes of berries and the brittle trees that lined the laneway to the house; the trimmed hedges of the garden and the livid briars of the yard — all stood stiffened as in a spell. When Tom hauled open the high iron door of the hayshed, the machinery within glinted, seemed to quiver, in the sudden icy shaft of light from the moon. He pushed out a sigh, and the shape of his breath hung white for a moment in the blind air.