Desire Line (49 page)

So another return to Westport. Eurwen and Henri would fly in together and separate from me. I made sure I outdid them to be able to play the host in the cobalt blue house, to have a fire lit and the stale air replaced— though when it came to the sense of desertion, there wasn't much to be done. It'd been noticeable when Josh was still alive and rehearsing his moves with all the courage and professionalism of Officer Meredith. For a natural exit. This knowledge meant the blaze of cut gorse stems (all dried and stacked ready in the hearth), and the Windsor chairs pushed back as if Josh and I had just stood up, and the two books on the shelf where there'd been three, all failed to get to me. But with everything sorted and only the tea to set out, it was his kitchen reduced me to tears. The chipped enamelled sink I'd once disturbed a live spider crab in, (‘Fisherman I natter to down the quay gave it me but it can go back tonight—') still had a chalky deposit from its final scour. The counter-tops were cleared apart from A Present from Somewhere that held no fruit left to rot. Cupboards emptied as well, which sort of fitted with his request for ‘burial, no fuss or service of any type'. That's Josh for you. Actually cremation would have been no or least fuss. Only Meg with her local connections had enabled me to wheedle and grease my way to getting him a grave – not simple or cheap in modern County Mayo – while she'd picked the simpler job of organising the hearse to ferry him to it.

She also brought the two women from Shannon. They were late and rushed, Meg apologising though it wasn't her fault. ‘No wonder flying's the new smoking,' Henri said. She was, as ever, very bright, busy and irritating, her look jumping around Josh's home which she'd never entered before. My mother on the other hand was gypsum pale, almost trancelike in her movements, didn't join in the chat but still succeeded in giving off impatience. All wore casual clothes. Meg, who'd put on weight over the years, was padded out further in one of those past-the-knees, thermal cylinders Libby took to in winter. Henri seemed to be dressed for messy maintenance work of some sort in a navy onepiece with matching skull-cap that turned out to be her new dye-job on a severe buzz cut. Eurwen's signature charcoal shade was at least lifted by acid green wool gloves and snood that made loose coils of her hair even hotter by contrast. They didn't stay to warm themselves at my fire, late as we were, but formed a line in the hall ready for the undertakers' knock. I felt stupid in my special purchase, a black Crombie coat.

It was an afternoon burial in the cemetery at Aughavale (the locals say it
Urr-vul
) where Protestants and Catholics can go in alike. Space not sectarianism had been the problem trying to gain entry for Josh. A couple of kilometres from Westport by funeral car, our route was mainly rural but along the fast coastal road. So unwalkable. But I'd have preferred even a dangerous walk to follow my grandfather under a January sky with the white sun up there somewhere. Now you see it; now it's gone. Even if the fields on either side were desiccated to khaki and salt-lashed, anything would've been better than cooped up in the artificial warmth of the funeral wagon across from an Eurwen who'd erected a cordon around herself neither Meg nor Henri, let alone me, dared cross. When our eyes met accidentally— a tortuous journey, continually being overtaken by every sort of vehicle including farm machinery— my mother didn't blink.
Just the four of us
,
Meg has whispered to the driver, dark-suited like a film extra. Now her words seem to clear up any late curiosity over Josh's life here. Or so I assumed. But there was a minor surprise in store for us, and very welcome it was. Creating confusion, it helped break the journey's spell. We found our arrival at the bleak, walled cemetery being watched by a dozen strangers in a tight group, ready assembled on site, muffled up in layers of clothes and still having to huddle together against the chill. Henri, always needing to know what was going on before it went, asked Meg, ‘What's this? What's happening?' Meg shook her head. It took a moment for any of us to understand why they were here. They marked the spot the coffin-pushers were leading us to, the lines of sight being obstructed. Aughavale, very old and Irish was exactly as I'd researched, packed full of crumbling pillars, simple crosses on plinths, Celtic crosses of man-height but leaning, and massive wedgestones and heavy, raised structures that had also tilted. And fancy ironwork fences topped by vicious finials, half-rusted away. Images that had seemed picturesque in reality suggested they had trouble keeping the dead down.

The reserve mourners took advantage of being home side. Mostly short, quite old-looking, more males than females, they were pre-installed and ready. I wasn't. I'd only ever witnessed cremations and on-screen burials, so for a start I was expecting a decorous green-swathed, putting-the-corpse-to-bed type of thing. Not this hand dug hole with the severed roots on show down the sides and moisture blackening the bottom. You had to stare down at it, at its simple wicked utility. My mother did. Eurwen was probably also getting an education re: burials but kept herself well in check. The Irish observed the lowering of the plain wooden coffin as if they'd only come to ensure everything was done right, and then they paid really close attention to Eurwen and me dropping handfuls of earth on top. Which I'm glad to say we managed without making a sound. No one was officiating and neither of us spoke. Then I was aware the locals had started glancing over their shoulders. Expecting what? Gatecrashers? A band? Apart from Meg's sobbing, it was soon obvious nothing else would happen and the undertakers/drivers, both women, had stood well back, heads bowed and stayed that way. No help there. A humiliating interval (for the family) ended with the oldest man among the strangers coming around and whispering a few words to Eurwen in that soft Connemara way with them. There was a quick pat for her acid-green glove. There was nothing for me. But with my façade who could take offence? He nodded once into the hole and this was the signal for them to leave, all together, exactly like the quiz team or hobby club they probably were. Car doors slammed beyond the cemetery wall with some calling out and what could've been a snort, a choke or a laugh. We, the official party lurked till they'd gone and during the wait I realised that on the subject of façades and what was behind, I'd have given anything, I'd have ripped the Egon Schiele out of its vault and out of its frame to trade for an afternoon in Clew Bay again with Josh. Me and him, counting its islands. A good man, my grandfather. Someone should say that out loud. But Henri's eyes were darting from Eurwen to grave to Eurwen again, her only concern. Meg had aged extra years with cold and was shivering inside her padded coat. Eurwen stood straight, stylus-thin and quiet, her lips slightly apart tasting the sea on the breeze, like me. Her fine-textured skin had been pinked up and was flawless and
harmfully beautiful
,
came into my mind also how the wild west of Ireland was just the perfect setting for her— you could see how in the past women like this started fierce tribal wars and I couldn't help wondering what difference it would've made if her personality had been slotted into a snub-nosed Henri, say.
She
wouldn't have stopped Tomiko in his tracks that day by the Lake— so end of Yori because end of story before it begins. So not harmful. Life giving. (Or Meg, say, only ever pretty and quite plain now, not looking as if she'd bounce when dropped.)

Henri fidgeted, Meg snuffled into her tissues, Eurwen seemed petrified. I'd got no real insight into what anybody was experiencing except my own self-disgust at the months spent puzzling over Sara when Josh that I respected, had taken pride in and still loved, was killing himself. That's you, Yori. And now here's you, the Primary Male Relative present and not even speaking when—

‘I ought to have thanked those people,' came from Eurwen suddenly but she was already dismissing them. She seemed drawn to the next field where a mass of small twittering birds rose and came low over our heads, buffeted by the wind. Finding us beneath, they struggled to gain height and Eurwen saw the flock safely on its way till just a foxing of the eastern sky. ‘We can go as well.'

‘Absolutely!' Henri said.

There weren't any wreaths to lay or bunches of flowers because for obvious reasons he could never stand either but as we left, the diggers were starting to backfill so we had the damp clay smell clinging in our nostrils instead. Among the Durkins, the Gills, the Stauntons and even, bizarrely, a smattering of Murcotts, Joshua Meredith, who died January 22
nd
2041, Aged 76, would have Croagh Patrick in his sights for the foreseeable future, the best finish Meg and I had been able to give him.

Back at Josh's pub, The Jester, we sat in outdoor clothes, waiting for our order, needing to thaw out. My new coat had been a specially bad choice, absorbing damp. It was obvious Henri was now more anxious than ever about Eurwen, which I resented. She kept worrying with her fingers at a piece of hair behind her own ears. Then she had to push the sugar forward for Eurwen's immediate use after almost snatching it from the waitress. ‘I think I'll get you a brandy,' she said.

Eurwen wouldn't even glance up. ‘No.'

‘It might do you good.'

‘In what way, exactly?'

Meg shared a warning expression with me, then an attempt at a smile. ‘I bet you came in here, Yori, him and you, when you were over?'

‘Once or twice.'

‘He'll have loved that. He was— I mean he had people he knew, they were there, weren't they? That was nice, I thought. But, well, you know—' Poor Meg.

Scented with cinnamon and coffee and chocolate, the vapours coming up from cups and pots and jugs still threatened to freeze. Henri had the good sense to leave me and my mother as soon as it was decent to. She took Meg off to help her ‘forage for tomorrow's breakfast' as she put it since Meg's offer of a room had been refused by Eurwen. Before the keys were returned to Josh's landlord we'd sleep over at the cottage which would be a first for his daughter. In no mood to spare herself or the rest of us, she and Henri would share Josh's bed. ‘Goodbye Megs,' she said now. There was an awkward moment. Did Eurwen intend standing up to be hugged by her ex-father's ex-partner? She didn't and I realised they'd barely exchanged a couple of sentences all afternoon. What had Meg really known all those years ago that made her and Eurwen behave like partners in crime today? ‘And thank you, Megs.' It was properly done but I thought she sounded shakier than at the graveside, as though inside her, things had worked loose. After watching Meg and Henri out the door – Henri's backward look and, ‘OK?' weren't answered – she said, ‘Damon Williams sent me a nice message. You won't remember the name, even— So that's the end, isn't it? First Mum, then Geoffrey, Fleur. Now Dad. The world goes on.'

‘Yes.'

‘And it's a
much worse
world. You would think I'd be used to being robbed.' Was the reference to her parents' history deliberate? No way of telling. ‘But
him
.' She exhaled, shut her eyes and threw both long arms out, clasping her own wrist, somehow missing the dirty crockery and plate of uneaten biscuits. It seemed she might be going to let her head fall down there with them and let the hair spread over, not caring. The Jester is one of those narrow Westport bars that seem to go back forever from the street and we'd chosen the near empty mid-section between noisy drinkers in the window and the rear screens and pool table. It was four-ish by now and the few customers in had probably been drinking since midday. So who'd notice a redheaded woman crying into a pub tabletop? But at the last second she straightened up, scraping her wooden chair over the floorboards. They noticed
that
and winced. ‘Sorry. It's not— I can't quite—' Mystifying herself, she tried again. ‘You don't believe in anything I suppose? Do you? It is late to be asking, I know. I was watching the coffin and I said to it, So Dad, you in there, what now? Or am I talking to nothing? Just because I can say So Dad, it doesn't mean any communication's going on. I'm fooling myself is more likely. When you stare at the light and then the bulb bursts, you can see it still. Even through closed lids. But the bulb's shattered and you
are
in the dark. Does that about sum things up?'

Thankfully, the background hubbub and glasses clinking and the stutter of the games feedback seemed to relegate this to small talk. ‘Probably.'

She wasn't satisfied. ‘Tomiko wouldn't agree. He was into the lingering dead. He used to tell you stories. We had massive fallings out over the stories. I didn't want it to take in you, all that wackiness.'

There went two thousand years of Shinto! I could've told her there was never any danger of it ‘taking'. But I didn't. I could've said the only ghost I had reply to me was Gramps Geoffrey's and it said, There's no such thing as ghosts, Yori. It's the living you have to watch out for! But I didn't. Henri and Meg had been an annoyance to have around— that's what she was demonstrating now,
being with me
and talking, whatever this was about. And I wanted to come up to standard and not displease even though I couldn't help thinking Have you forgotten those Pryorsfield Christmases and Easters we joined in with Fleur? You helped with the flowers at St Peter's then went to evening carols. We had to sing
Little Donkey
at home, your favourite, but not included in the service. Why single out Tomiko?