To this gatelodge I repaired, having solved nothing except the disposition of an hour, and sixty-nine pence on lager and lime.
I tried to stimulate the sense of pleasure I usually have when I see my pleasant abode, framed by a stand of magnificent beeches and the estate wall. The gatelodge is a gem, complete with an enclosed garden of about a half acre. I was extraordinarily lucky to have acquired its lease, a fringe benefit of being an author. With Gothic wooden trim on its peaked roofs, the lodge was also like a Gothic L-cross, the leg being a new addition with a modern kitchen and bath-room. The top cross piece contained the hall and two small bedrooms, the living room was the shaft. There was a lovely big fireplace in the living room which, in theory, heated the house. The wall to the left of the fireplace was covered with shelves for my books and record collection with a special drawer for the hi-fi and tape recorder. The stairs to the single upstairs room were on the wall opposite the fireplace. My garret, which had a more modest fireplace, was the only one in the attic and took up the whole gable area. The vaulted ceiling gave me a glorious feeling of having more space than I actually did. Two windows gave views of meadows and mountains, pleasant for unfocused looking-at during moments of inspirational gazing.
The kitchen was small but, as the landlord had been remodelling it (I hate to think what it had been for my first glimpse had been bare walls and floor) when I took the lease so I had a chance to make it more efficient, adding a few things at my own expense when Mr. Hengarty muttered darkly about costs. We were both pleased with the result. I had a counter-top range, for one thing, space for an almost American size fridge/freezer, an under-the-counter washing machine, good working and shelf space. The bathroom was also small but had a bathtub with shower attachments and the hot water heater was topped by a good linen press. Irish houses do not run to American-style closets so I connived with Mr. Hengarty's carpenter to build me some in both the small bedrooms and my office-bedroom. We were right and tight in my little houseen, on a long lease. Mr. Hengarty could brag about his American author tenant and I generally paid the rent on time.
Tim had cut me a vegetable garden the first year so we had fresh produce and the original tenant's fruit trees were mature and bore generously. Right now, everything in the garden was bare, including my response to it all as I parked my Peugeot on the blacktop beside my empty house.
I sat for a long time in the car, in a limbo of sorts, like Christopher Robin, half way up the stairs. I've often felt that a car is that sort of mid-point. I do a lot of good thinking while I drive, suspended between point A and point B, especially when I don't want to stand on either point. I could think about my problem - loneliness - more objectively in the car than I could in the house where the absence of someone to care for, namely my son Tim, would be palpable. I had missed him last year, but I had been enjoying an amusing affair with Peter Neville, one which I'd hoped would mature into a lasting relationship. Peter had been my plane seatmate from New York to Dublin on my return from a lecture tour I'd done after winning a young adult fiction award for one of my 'Timmy' books. Peter was employed as a film editor for RTE though he never seemed to spend much time editing anything, except his funny stories. He'd been very good company, amusing, witty, inventive, charming… most of the time. When 'drink taken,' as the phrase goes, he underwent an alarming metamorphosis. Admittedly, he could hold enormous quantities of drink before the switch occurred. It was during one of those infrequent episodes that I broke off our relationship, at the top of my lungs, afterwards regretting far more that he had goaded me into losing my temper than that he had departed.
Tim had come home soon afterward for the summer and his presence had satisfied that home-making instinct in me that defies the independence of mind and discipline of the body.
Mairead can tease me unmercifully about my maternal instinct, my deplorable (her adjective) need to succour the friendless, hungry and selfish. Fond as I am of Mairead, I could not be as hard and cynical as she, however much that would protect me from my impulses and trusting nature.
I didn't want another entanglement like the one I'd had with Peter Neville which had posed more problems than it solved. Mairead had accused me of having a distorted recollection of my married life with Ray before he took ilclass="underline" she said I couldn't compare all men with an idealised Ray.
'No man could be as nice as that Raymond of yours,' she'd said in disgust one night when I'd tried valiantly to explain the respect we'd shared, the gentleness and kindness of the man. 'Furthermore, once you'd rubbed together a few years longer, you'd have rubbed against each other, too. He died before you lost him.'
She could be right, I'd thought privately, having seen other 'ideal' marriages disintegrate. But Ray had been different. My memories of our brief years together could not be tarnished by the wisp of any doubt.
Memory is, unfortunately, cold comfort in bed, or cold company in a lonely house.
Circumstance, in the form of a letter from my publisher outlining another lecture tour for March and April, raised its charming head. I welcomed the opportunity because it solved so many problems and laid to rest all current doubts. I'd be visiting 24 cities in six weeks - rather a stiff program, but I'd have weekends clear and generally at the publisher's expense. I'd be able to stay with my sister in New York and visit Ray's sister in Berkeley, and that marvellous children's librarian in Pittsburgh. There were other people I could visit but sometimes, on such a busy schedule, it was wiser to retire gratefully to the impersonal room of a hotel and regroup one's energies. The letter asked many questions about my wishes on the tour.
I phoned Mairead to tell her I was taking her advice about travelling.
'Weaseled out of it again, have you?' she replied. 'Mind now, I still won't take another Arran off you.'
'I won't have time. I've got letters and lectures to write and this novel to finish.'
And I didn't have time to knit again until March when I took off for New York. To relieve the tedium of 7 hours flying time, I cast on the border of a size 44 Arran pullover.
Chapter 02
In New York City, I generally put up with my sister, Suzanne. And I use the term 'put up' advisedly. Her apartment, a pleasant one between Amsterdam and Columbus in the mid-eighties, is convenient even if I do have to share a bedroom with my niece. Veronica is a very pretty child who is unfortunately afflicted with adenoids. Suzie has a 'thing' about American hospitals and wouldn't dream of subjecting her precious daughter to their brutalities. I make no comment. My nephew, James, at sixteen is far more streetwise than Suzie realises, and is very supercilious about anything except money. He has been trying for the past three years to find out how much money I earn. I like my brother-in-law, Tom. He's a courteous man, a considerate father and a conscientious husband and nowhere near the dolt Suzie makes him out. I marvel at his fortitude for I have never seen him flinch nor ever heard him respond to Suzie's steady stream of derogatory remarks and reproaches. On those few occasions when Suzie has been out at one of her meetings, Tom and I have enjoyed our conversations for I have never found him limited to accountancy and high finance as Suzie complains.
Fortunately, with legitimate business engagements, I don't have to spend much time in the apartment, though this causes Suzie to whinge about the fact that I never seem to spend any time with my only blood relatives. If Tom who has to live with her can endure her bitching, I remind myself firmly that Suzie and I were extremely close as sisters, growing up with loving, concerned parents, in a home as secure as only Mid-West America can make one. I do privately wonder where the metamorphosis in her took place.