The Past (33 page)

FATHER BEAUSANG BROUGHT a cup to his ageing lips. The messages were cryptic, he said. But how they spoke to me. I thought of James, his need for words diminishing. Of the talks we could have had. I pursued my researches into that exquisite system. Logos, the Word made Flesh, the aural connotations of the Virgin Birth. I made notes, hoping for lengthy discussions on his return.

DE VALERA COMES to the sister pools. He compares the motive powers of water with the combustible powers of turf. He lowers his lips to one, then the other. He sees his own face reflected, his spectacles like pools themselves. The curve of his mouth loses its strictness in the water's ripple. He sucks with extraordinary power.

W
E WALKED BACK the long road from the spa to the square of hotels. The light was fading and from the hedges the fuschias gave their last musky exhalation. I walked between her and Father Beausang through the scent on each side until the bushes gave way to the first few houses and the hotels began. Night was then down, amorous night. All the coloured bulbs swinging from the rooftops now came into their own. They glowed against the dark blue sky and obscured the stars. They caught the bare outline of the fingers of rock behind. They swung back and forwards, faintly moving orange shadows across us as if in time to the thin music that came from some hotel ballroom. Lili led us across the square to the hall of the last performance and the lilt grew louder. There was a small queue of people waiting to get in.

DO I HAVE to tell you, she said, how packed it was? You could hear the silence and the held breaths and the close stiff bodies. The lights in the house went down. The curtain came back and the amber lights came up. Rene began her Rosalind. She said each line with an extreme quietude as if the time were there just for her. She moved from
left to right in a series of still poses that were hardly movement at all. We were terrified, offstage and on. How could they not notice—

I PAID FOR all three of us and we walked inside. There was a shabby corridor with a lady taking coats. I gave her Lili's coat and got a ticket for it. Father Beausang kept his dark jacket. We walked towards the hall and the music got louder. I recognised the tune. Do you know it? I asked Father Beausang. He squeezed my elbow and whispered, the Anniversary Waltz.

NEED I TELL you, said Lili, that they didn't notice? They became one single eye, staring. I saw Luke behind the flat with the ducal pillars. He was reaching forward through the darkness as if always on the point of walking on stage. I saw James on the other side. He had to stoop to keep his head below the canvas. I could see the smoke of MacAllister's cigarettes. I kept thinking of the end and the nuptial dance. I was waiting for it to come and hoping it wouldn't come. It was all a dance.

WE WALKED THROUGH a pair of swing doors and the hall spread out before us. There was a band on the stage playing the chorus of the Anniversary Waltz. Couples swept in stiff and formal quarter-circles
round the floor, mainly in one direction. They wore dark suits and white collars, navy skirts and patterned blouses, orange flowers on some bosoms, grey threads in hair. Some danced, some stood around the walls. The bachelors who stood around the walls waited for the dance to end. I excused myself from Father Beausang, took Lili in my arms and swept her out on the floor. Her hand clutched mine with a thin, brittle strength and the fluidity of her steps far outdid me. I trod on her toes. I apologised. My generation, I told her, has forgotten so much.

WE WERE QUITE bare, you see, on that stage. But there was a magic up here that disguised us. Her figure, as adaptable as always. Who would have known? I can remember a murmur down the hall then.

FATHER BEAUSANG SWEPT by me with a woman in blue. His small legs in their dark creases stretched upwards to accommodate her height. He was sharing some joke with her. She laughed out loud as she danced. He looked years younger, his face near hers.

I WAS AFRAID of that murmur. But it was just de Valera, I found out later. He came in late, with his driver chap.

LILI'S FACE WITH its multitude of creases and its fine down of hair. It was close to mine, her eyes were closed and her mouth had that smile of neither laughter nor pleasure but of remembered things.

You bring me back, she whispered. He was so like you.

Which of them? I asked her.

Both, she said.

I swept her up a small incline and on to the stage. The band were surprised but they kept on playing. The Emerald Ceilidh Band, said the lettering on the bass drum. We danced up there, while the hall danced below. The rhythm was 3/4, simple, eternal.