The Heather Blazing (12 page)

When he had finished, counsel for the nuns was on his feet immediately, his face flushed with victory. He was looking for costs. There was no choice, he could delay it until the new term, but it would be pointless and he wanted to have done with the case. The costs would be high, he listened to the submission from the other side and the teacher was now unemployed. It would be hard for her to find another job. When he looked over at her he saw that she had a man beside her who was holding her, and both were looking up at him as though afraid. Her counsel begged the court not to award costs against her but, according to the judgment, she was in the wrong, she had taken the case and she had lost. He ruled against her without offering any explanation. He wondered as he gathered up his papers if she would appeal, but he thought not; he had based a great deal of his judgment on matters of fact rather than law, and the Supreme Court could not dispute many of his findings. She would not have much chance of winning an appeal, he felt.

Back in his chambers he went to the telephone immediately.

“I'm ready now,” he said as soon as Carmel answered.

“We're going to pick up Niamh in Rathmines. She's decided to come down with us today. She's taking the carrycot and all the things so we'll need to collect her,” Carmel said.

“I thought she wasn't coming,” he said.

“She's finding it very hard,” Carmel said, as though he had complained about her coming.

“I'll be there in half an hour,” he said. He sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. He could feel the sweat pouring down his back and his heart beating fast. He tried to control his breathing, to breathe calmly through his nose. He tried to relax. He remembered Niamh best when she was fourteen or fifteen, when she was still growing; even then she was tall for her age and interested in sports; hockey, tennis, swimming. They had pushed her too hard, Carmel said, forced her to study when she did not want to. She had studied social science when she failed to get the points for entry to study medicine. She had become a statistician, working on opinion polls and surveys of social change. She had become independent and distant from them until she was pregnant, when she and Carmel became closer, but he did not believe that she had felt any affection for him since she was in her early teens.

He waited there as his heart kept pounding. He wondered if he was going to have a heart attack, and he waited for a dart of pain, or a sudden tightness, but none came and slowly the heartbeat eased.

Niamh was standing at the door of the small house down a side street in Rathmines. She waved when he beeped the horn and shouted that she would not be long.

“I thought she was living in a flat,” he said.

“Yes,” Carmel said, “but there are three flats in the house
and she knows the other people, they're all friends. They're very good to her, they babysit and help out.”

Niamh came out of the front door with the baby. He noticed that she had lost weight and let her hair grow longer. She smiled at them.

“I hope there's loads of space in the boot because I have to take the computer as well as the baby, and that's not forgetting the go-car and the cot.” She handed the baby to Carmel. Eamon went into the hall and helped to carry out the cot and put it in the boot.

“The computer will have to go on the back seat,” he said. “Are you sure you need it?”

She went past him without answering. He carried a suitcase and put it into the boot. He stood there then looking at the baby who looked back at him sullenly and curiously, fixing on him as something new and strange. Suddenly, the baby began to cry, and continued to roar as they arranged the go-car on the roof-rack and set off through Ranelagh and Donnybrook. “He's very big,” he said after a while when the child had quietened down. “He's much bigger than I expected him to be.” He looked behind at the child who began to cry again.

“It's better maybe if you don't look at him when he's like that,” Niamh said.

He knew as they drove past Bray that if they turned on the radio they would get the three o'clock news which would probably report on the judgment. Carmel would want to know about it, she would want to discuss his reasons for ruling in favour of the nuns, she would go away and think about it and want to discuss it further. With Niamh in the house it would be worse. He realized that he would prefer if they never found out about it. It would be difficult to explain.

“Who else is living in the house with you?” he asked Niamh. There had been silence in the car for some time. Both women told him to keep his voice down.

“The baby's asleep,” Niamh said.

At Arklow he took a detour to avoid the traffic in the town. It was close to four o'clock, and it was only now that he became relaxed enough to enjoy the good weather, the clear light over the fields and the heat which he knew would persist for at least two more hours, despite the clouds banked on the horizon. When they passed Gorey, the baby woke and began to make gurgling sounds.

“You should teach him ‘The Croppy Boy,'” he said and laughed to himself as they passed a sign for Oulart. Niamh said that she would have to change his nappy, so they stopped the car and got out. He walked up and down taking in the heat as the two women busied themselves around the child, who had begun to cry again.

When they reached Blackwater Carmel said that she wanted to stop to get some groceries and to order
The Irish Times
for the duration of their stay. The baby was asleep again and he and Niamh sat in the seat without speaking. He closed his eyes and opened them again: in all the years there had hardly been any changes in the view from here up the hill. Each building was a separate entity, put up at a different time. Each roof was different, ran at a different angle, was made of different material: slate, tile, galvanized. He felt that he could be any age watching this scene, and experienced a sudden illusion that nothing in him had changed since he first saw these buildings.

*  *  *

They drove towards the sea at Ballyconnigar and then turned at the hand-ball alley to Cush. There were potholes on the narrow road and he had to drive carefully to avoid them.

“What's for dinner?” he asked.

“I'm not making any more dinners,” Carmel said and laughed.

“I hope you can cook, Niamh,” he said.

“Niamh is an excellent cook,” Carmel said.

“It's time men pulled their weight,” Niamh said drily.

There was always that moment when he saw the sea clearly, when it took up the whole horizon, its blue and green colours frail in the afternoon light. The road was downhill from then on. He drove along the sandy road, saluting a few people as he passed.

“I want to unload really quickly,” he said, as he stopped the car beside the house, “because I want to go for a swim before the sun goes in.”

“I'd love to go for a swim too,” Niamh said.

“I'll take the baby if you both empty the car,” Carmel said.

Niamh had gone to change, and he stood waiting for her. There was a sweet, moist smell from the high grass in front of the house. He was tired and felt the burden of the day in his back muscles and his eyes. Suddenly he looked up and his eye caught the rusty red paint on the galvanized iron of the gate. He liked the colour, and it seemed familiar as he stood there and took in the scene: the rutted lane, the tufts of grass clinging to the sandy soil of the ditch; and the sound of a tractor in the distance. He stood there for a moment fixing on nothing in particular, letting each thing in the landscape seep towards him, as he tried to rid himself of everything that had happened that day.

The light was clear; down on the strand they could see as far as Curracloe. Niamh wore only a light dress over her swimming-suit, so she was already in the water while he was still undressing. When he took off his shoes he felt an instant release as though a weight had been lifted from him. Most of the strand was in shadow. He left his clothes on a boulder of dried marl and walked towards the sunlight on the foreshore, stepping gingerly over the small, sharp stones which studded the sand.

The water was cold; Niamh waved to him from way out. He watched her long, thin arms reach up from the water as she swam parallel to the shore. He was tempted, as usual,
to turn back, but he waded in further, jumping to avoid a wave, and then he dived in and swam hard out, gliding over each swell as it came. He turned and put his head back, letting it rest on the cold, blue water, and opening his eyes to stare up at the sky. He breathed in deeply and floated on the waves, relaxed now and quiet. He curled back towards the water after a while, and swam further out, each movement half instinct, half choice.

He cast his eye down the coast and noticed as he turned that a family was moving slowly up the strand towards the gap, carrying rugs and babies, struggling as they reached the cliff. He watched Niamh wading out and drying herself. She waved to him. No one else would come until the morning, except maybe a tractor using the strand as a short cut. He was tired now; the swimming would be easier the next day and the day after that. He changed to a dog paddle which consumed less energy than the breast stroke. A cloud passed over the sun and left him in shadow so that he could feel a cold wind on his face. He turned again and floated, keeping his eyes closed for as long as he could, not knowing whether the water was taking him in or out. For a few seconds he forgot himself, sustained by the rise and fall of the water and the knowledge that it would carry him as long as he relaxed and remained at peace.

As soon as he arrived back at the house he knew that Carmel and Niamh had been listening to the six-thirty news.

“Well, you were busy this morning,” Niamh said.

“Was it on the news?” he asked, as though it was a routine matter.

“Do you think I should be sacked as well?” she asked.

“Your father's on his holidays, Niamh,” Carmel said.

“That's not what you said before he came in. My father thinks that unmarried mothers shouldn't be allowed work,” she laughed bitterly.

“What exactly is biting you?” he asked.

“That poor woman in Monaghan. How could it be right to sack her?”

“Read the judgment and find out,” he said.

“Did you bring it with you?” she asked.

“Of course I didn't.”

“I think it's a disgrace, that's what I think,” Niamh said. “It's an outrage.”

“But you would think that, wouldn't you?”

“I know about it. I know what it's like to be a woman in this country, and I know what it's like to have a child here.”

“And I suppose you're a legal expert as well.”

They had supper in silence, which was broken only by the whimpering of the baby. He faced the window and noticed the first throbbing rays of the lighthouse glinting in the distance. He wanted to ask Carmel what she had said about him and his judgment before he came in, but he realized that he could gain nothing by doing so.

“Do you want more tea?” Carmel asked him.

“Yes, please,” he said. He tried to make his voice sound neutral, as though he was not annoyed with them. He was too tired now to want any further argument. He sat at the table as they cleared away the dishes.

“We're going to take Michael for a walk,” Carmel said to him. “Are you going to stay here?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you all right?” She put her hand on his shoulder.

“I'm tired,” he said. “I'm glad to be here.”

He stood up and walked into their bedroom, and rummaged through the suitcases until he found a book. He lay down on the bed, but as soon as he opened the book he knew that he was too tired to read. He knew that he would sleep. He took off his jacket and his shoes and rested on his side, facing away from the window.

She woke him when she turned on the bedside lamp. He felt heavy and tired as he turned towards her.

“It's all quiet now,” she said. “You were fast asleep.”

“Is it late?”

“It's after ten. You were on the news again. Not you, but there was a report about you.”

“Nothing that they haven't said before.”

“The Irish Council for Civil Liberties—Niamh says that Donal is a member—have issued a statement.”

“Our son and our daughter,” he said and laughed.

“They're fine people, both of them,” Carmel said.

“I suppose I'm the one who's wrong?”

“No, you're all right too,” she stood over him and smiled. “After a few days here you'll be fine.”

She lay down beside him, not bothering to take off her shoes.

“I'm tired too,” she said, as she turned towards him and put her arms around him. “I don't know why I'm so tired.”

The shock of the alarm clock in the early morning. It was winter. He snuggled up in the warm bed, trying to stay awake, trying to lie on there until the last minute. His father was a light sleeper, the alarm would have woken him in the front room and he would stay awake until he heard some sound. Eamon dreaded the creak of his father's footsteps on the bare boards of the front room; he knew if he did not get out of bed his father would come to rouse him. One more minute: he lay still in the warmth of the bed and waited. The tip of his nose was cold and the bed more comfortable than he had ever imagined. He felt sorry that he did not appreciate it more at night. Then suddenly he braced himself, he jumped out into the freezing air, and walked shivering across the floor to turn on the light.

When he was dressed he felt less sleepy. He went out into the back yard and took the bicycle out of the shed and wheeled it around to the front of the house. There was a vague light over Vinegar Hill and the Turret Rocks. The ground was damp and as he rode down the hill he knew that he would have to watch for ice.

He passed Parkton and Lymington House and the bottom of Pearse Road. He felt afraid as he rode past the dark trees at O'Flaherty's, and the big old house lurking behind. He shivered with relief when he crossed New Street and started to freewheel down Spout Lane to the cathedral.