The Poets' Wives (32 page)

There was nothing more to do and after a final check in the mirror and giving herself a modest approval she took one last look round the room before she headed for the car. It was true the station was only five minutes away and easily walkable but they would have overnight luggage at least and might welcome the chance to finish the final part of their journey in comfort. So she parked close by the station exit, saying good morning to those who recognised her and once receiving sympathy from a woman whose name she didn’t know but who was familiar to her from her visits to the local Costcutter. As she waited for the train to arrive it suddenly felt like a scene from
The Railway Children
except it was her two daughters who would step on to the platform and not some falsely incarcerated husband. He had his own confinement now even if in the morning they were to release whatever of his spirit still existed. At least then it would finally be over and they could all return to their private places and make what they might of their lives. She wondered if her daughters would now be more forthcoming with their invitations to stay although in their defence she conceded that both inhabited tiny flats for which they paid exorbitant rents. Perhaps the sale of the cottage might be used to help them find the deposits that would allow them to clamber on to the bottom of the housing ladder.

It was Francesca she saw first, hurrying towards her in the slightly childlike manner that still characterised some of her movements, her case bouncing along the uneven concrete. Perhaps her wealthy London clientele found it endearing or perhaps she was able to suppress it in her business dealings. But for the moment at least she looked like a young girl on the first day of her holiday and the affection with which she hugged her seemed sincere and heartfelt.

‘Francesca, thanks for coming. It’s good of you to come all this way.’

‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Are you all right?’

‘I’m doing fine but where’s Anna?’

‘She’s coming. She was filing some copy on her laptop. Here she is now.’

Anna’s embrace was hampered by her laptop case but her daughter’s kiss on her cheek felt affectionate. As always she wore some indefinable London style that marked her as a temporary visitor rather than a resident. It wasn’t that her clothes were particularly modish or sophisticated but rather that she seemed at a slight distance from everything, was constantly evaluating it and perhaps secretly unfavourably.

‘I just had to email some stuff,’ she said as she sought to strike a working balance between her overnight bag and her laptop case. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, thinking that her daughter didn’t trust her to know what ‘copy’ was. ‘Good flight?’

‘A little bumpy in places,’ Anna said as they walked towards the car with the wheels of Francesca’s case squeaking in time to their steps.

When their bags were loaded and they had taken their seats silence settled for a moment and she searched for something to say before she started the engine.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said, suddenly embarrassed by the fact that she had requested their presence. ‘It’s what he wanted. I know it’s inconvenient after being here so recently for the funeral.’

‘And expensive,’ Anna said as she struggled beside her with the seat belt.

‘Perhaps you’ll let me help with that,’ she said. ‘The money, I mean.’

‘It’s OK, Mum, Anna and I wouldn’t let you do it on your own. And I’m looking forward to staying in the cottage again – it’s been so long.’

‘You always hated the cottage,’ Anna said, glancing over her shoulder at her sister. ‘You used to complain about all the things you were missing at home.’

‘Only when I was an older teenager and a bit bored. It was good when we were younger children.’

‘What do you plan to do with it?’ Anna asked.

‘It’s probably a bit early to make big decisions,’ Francesca offered.

‘I haven’t finally decided but I’ll probably sell it.’

‘You should wait until the market picks up again,’ Anna advised. ‘The fact that it’s sea front should mean it’s worth a good price. Don’t be giving it away.’

‘We can talk about it later when everything else is out of the way.’

In the cottage she poured the coffee while they deposited their things in the front room. The sound of their feet above her head made her think of all the summers when they had scampered around the place and if their tread was slower and heavier now it still was able to remind herself that these were her children. So it pleased her when they sat at the kitchen table with her and cupped their coffee and helped themselves to the croissants and allowed her time and space to observe them. Francesca seemed restored since the days of the funeral and although she knew it was only in her imagination she liked to think that already something of the sea and the light had coloured her blue eyes brighter and that her customary pallor was less severe. Anna had a new reddish tint through her hair and the recent cut was a little short and functional for her tastes. It would have been pleasurable to believe that her daughters loved to come home but she knew it wasn’t true and so she must content herself with what the short time offered. She was surprised when she belatedly remembered that Francesca no longer took milk in her coffee, was interested by Anna’s new rings and bracelet, interested above all in the timbre and cadences of their voices, alert to the different inflections of their accents that while not renouncing their origins entirely had learned to accommodate their new home. She thought it incredibly strange but beautiful to have these two young women as her daughters and at intervals almost felt the need to convince herself that they were really hers despite their self-contained differences of personality and appearance and the remoteness of their lives. There were times as they chatted about inconsequential things and sipped their coffee when she felt a surge of emotion and wanted to reach across the table and pull them into her embrace but she knew it would be an embarrassment to them all and confined herself to recording carefully every aspect of them as if their departure might erase the memory.

‘So, Mum, talk us through the Don’s wishes for his ashes,’ Anna said. ‘I didn’t quite take it all in on the phone. All sounds a bit weird.’

Anna always referred to her father by his first name, frequently adding the definite article to make him sound like the head of a Mafia family. She knew it asserted the absence of deference, her independence, but it always jarred a little. She would rather have put off the detailed explanation of her husband’s wishes, sensed that it would spoil the ease that had settled so quickly between them, but knew Anna would persist until everything was fully revealed. So there was little prospect of postponing it until later and she poured them more coffee as a distraction while she considered the best way to go about it before deciding that it was best simply to state the facts and let them make of it what they would.

‘In his will, a will I didn’t even know existed, your father expressed his wish to have his ashes spread here in the sea. He wanted you both to be present.’ She paused as she raised the cup to her lips. ‘He wants it done at the end of the stone pier, wants his ashes to go into the sea early in the morning. And there’s one other request – he wants us to do it to the music of “Lark Ascending”.’

There was silence for a second and then Anna made a noise that sounded like a snigger. ‘ “Lark Ascending” – that’s a bit of a cliché. You’d have thought he would’ve recognised a cliché when he thought of that.’

‘It was the most popular request on
Desert Island Discs
or something like that,’ Francesca added and she was unsure whether her daughter was justifying it or confirming its status of cliché.

‘ “Lark Ascending”?’ Anna continued as she rolled her eyes. ‘Did the Don really see himself as a lark, do you think?’

She said nothing because it made her uncomfortable when they were critical of their father in front of her, told herself that she had never revealed her own feelings to them. So why had it been so important to do that? To protect them, she supposed. But had it really protected them by pretending things were different to the way they were and wasn’t the truth that she had done it because she was embarrassed for her children to know of their parents’ failure?

‘So even though he’s had his funeral and his tributes – the whole shooting match in fact – he still wants one more epilogue,’ Anna said and there was enough irritation in her voice to suggest that she might just take herself back to London on the next plane.

She nodded but said nothing and hoped she wouldn’t have to take her daughter’s blame for what she clearly considered was an unreasonable imposition. Francesca took her cup in both hands and shuffled a little in the face of her sister’s aggression before she said quietly, ‘We couldn’t let Mum do it on her own so we’ll do it for her and when it’s done it’s done.’

Anna looked at her as if she had just noticed her presence at the table. ‘I don’t know about you, Francesca, but I’m in the middle of an investigation – an important piece of work that I need to complete on time – so I couldn’t really afford to be here right now.’

‘I’ve work on too,’ her sister said. ‘But it’s just two days and we’ll be back.’

‘It’s not just the time. It annoys me that he’s thinking of no one but himself. Still pulling the strings even after he’s gone and we’re all supposed to dance.’

She let the silence settle and when she couldn’t bear it any more heard herself say, ‘You’re right. But when it’s done it’s done and we can get on with our lives.’ They were both looking at her and under the scrutiny of their gaze she told herself that she owed them something, so she said in a voice that she knew sounded tremulous, ‘It’s the last time any of us will have to dance at his command.’

They stared at her in silence for a few seconds and when Francesca laid a consoling hand on her shoulder she gripped the edge of the table in an effort to stop herself crying. Her daughter’s touch was welcome but it made her think of Rory.

‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Anna said, ‘we’ll do it just as he wants. I’m sorry if I upset you.’

‘I’m not upset,’ she said, forcing a little lightness into her voice. ‘I’m just glad to see you and glad you’re here in the cottage even though it might be for the last time.’

‘Do you need help packing up his stuff?’ Francesca asked as she lifted her arm away.

‘It’s mostly done, thanks, but when we’re going back I’ll take these boxes of books – if there’s anything you want please just say. I’m getting rid of most of them.’

‘Do you remember when he used to read to us from the Narnia books?’ Francesca asked.

‘And he thought he was Aslan,’ Anna added before she drained the last of her coffee then looked at them and grinned. ‘Now he thinks he’s a lark,’ and encouraged by their smiles, ‘more like a bloody cuckoo.’

‘Do you remember that interview he did with the paper when he claimed he went swimming every day in the sea?’ Francesca asked. Her sister and mother both laughed. ‘Swimming? I’ve never seen him swim in his life.’

‘That’s because he couldn’t swim,’ she told them.

‘He couldn’t?’ they echoed.

‘Not a single stroke. Never did more in the sea than paddle.’

‘So I wonder why he wants his ashes in the sea?’ Francesca asked.

She knew that she could say she thought it was about his attempted escape from death, about releasing himself to the sea’s endless motion, about giving himself back to light and air rather than the shadows of the Underworld. But she knew if she tried her words would fall hopelessly short and she wouldn’t be able to make them understand it as she did, so it was just another part of those things she would never be able to reveal. Instead she said, ‘I suppose he just likes the poetry of it.’

‘I still think it’s all a bit of a cliché,’ Anna said after a few moments. ‘I thought at least he’d come up with something more original. I’d love a glass of wine, Mum – is there any in the kitchen?’

She produced a bottle of white and poured them both a drink but declined her daughters’ invitation to join them by saying it was possible she might have to drive later.

‘I’m not sure how original his work is,’ Anna added. ‘Perhaps that’s why he never made it into the big time.’

‘He wasn’t hugely successful,’ Francesca said. ‘But he was respected.’

‘Yes respected but not really thought of as top of the tree, not in the same league as the others. What do you think, Mum?’

‘I think Don was a very fine poet who did some very good work.’

‘You don’t have to say that any more, so tell us true,’ Anna insisted, pointing at her with the wine glass.

‘I’m telling you the truth,’ she said. ‘I think your father has written some very good poems that will endure and that he has a place in the canon of Irish poetry.’

‘There must have been times when you’d like to have fired him out of a cannon,’ Francesca said, smiling when she saw that she’d made them both laugh.

She wanted a glass of the wine but the day stretched long in front of them and she knew that it was probable that she’d have to drive so she poured herself more coffee. It was good to sit at the table with her children and be included in their conversation, even though it felt like a growing conspiracy against their father.

‘Anna, I remember how you really enjoyed winding him up.’

‘He was good value for it,’ Anna replied. ‘He was such a snob. Do you remember he went to school parents’ night and asked my English teacher Miss Andrews who was just five minutes out of college what her policy on grammar was and had she ever considered reading Virgil with the class? When he asked her who her favourite writer was she got all flustered and couldn’t think of one. It was awful and the next day she told me to tell him that her favourite writer was?. . .?someone I can’t remember and when I told him after school he just made this kind of snorting noise.’