iii

When Jim dropped Nancy at her car at the railway station in Gorey after their day in Dublin, he almost hoped that they would be spotted by someone who would spread the news that would have forced them into the open. They could then have announced their engagement. Miriam might be disconcerted at first, but she would get used to it. Jim could explain to her that her mother would need him to accompany her to the wedding and that it would be hard for her to be alone on a day like that. Miriam probably would not mind at all.

His impatience had been prompted by a remark in passing which Nancy had made about a wedding in Rome in the spring.

‘Which spring?' he had asked.

‘Next spring.'

‘But that's almost a year away.'

‘Well, if we get engaged in September, then it would be six months after the engagement.'

‘Why don't we get engaged now and get married in October?'

‘We need to plan.'

‘Plan what?'

‘The wedding. And you know we can't draw attention away from Miriam's.'

He wanted to say that he would like to be settled by Christmas but he saw that he would not be able to change her mind. It was best to leave it for the moment.

He had let more than twenty years go by so he wondered why he minded being alone so much now. But once the possibility of being married to Nancy arose, he began to dream about it, the dreams coming in more enticing detail as time went on.

It was the journey to Dublin that confirmed his opinion of her. Before, he had enjoyed driving to Dublin on his own and always hoped that no one would ask him for a lift. He found making conversation awkward and sometimes the silences could be awkward too.

Nancy could also be silent, he noticed, but there was no strain in the car when she didn't talk. When she did begin a conversation, however, what she said was interesting, even her worries about the wedding were interesting. But it was the tone of her voice and how engaged she became when she spoke, that he loved most.

Sometimes, when the pub was busy, Jim forgot about the question of when his marriage might take place. He was beginning to enjoy the company of Andy who took him through local rugby, soccer and hurling matches score by score, with elaborate commentary on the players. On Saturdays and Sundays, Andy arrived fresh from some game or training session. If he had to serve a customer in the middle of a story, he would remember the precise point at which he had been interrupted and resume his description at a moment when they were not busy.

‘There was never going to be a goal. Anyone who expected a goal from Mick Scallan knows nothing. But there are eejits everywhere and why should this town be free of them? All he had to do was go for a point and do it again and then one more time over the bar. And then they would be equal. He's sound, Mick. But I don't know what came over him. There is talk that a girl let him down, but I hate that sort of talk. Do you know what happened?'

Jim told him that he did not.

‘He hesitated. That's all. And that's fatal. And that's how the Raparees lost the game. There's a fucker called Breen, Mogue Breen, and he took a run at Scallan in that second. Jesus, you should have seen it. And that was Waterloo for the Raparees. There'll be some of them in here later. Don't mention the match to them or they'll go to Billy Stamps and drink there.'

‘You'd better serve them yourself,' Jim said. ‘I'll avoid them completely.'

‘Pretend you know nothing about it. It was ignominious. That's all I have to say.'

On Mondays, Jim looked forward to the appearance of Shane Nolan, on the dot of four o'clock. Shane, too, might have been at one of the weekend matches with his sons. His views could be more analytical than Andy's. To Andy's annoyance, he always insisted that he only wanted to see a good, fair game and he never minded who lost or won.

Because the bar was never crowded on Mondays or Tuesdays, men often came in alone to talk sport with Shane, who would keep the conversation going while also serving drinks. He argued about scores and tactics but he would never bother Jim with talk about sport. What he really wanted to discuss, and Jim would watch him waiting for his chance, was what his children had done or said over the weekend.

‘Geraldine got a star for singing. I don't think she can sing at all, not compared to Maeve, but Colette says she has a great voice, if only she would relax it. The nuns love girls who can sing but they have them singing all sorts of stuff you wouldn't be caught dead listening to. And I'd like Maeve and Geraldine to learn the guitar, but the nuns want them to study piano. I can't afford one and there's no room in the house for all of us, let alone a piano.'

Shane, Jim knew, came home every night and gave Colette an account of who had been in the pub and what had been said.

One day, Colette came in, not having visited for a while. As he sat and had tea with her upstairs, she asked him if there was any reason why he was so moody.

‘Did Shane say I was moody? Who isn't moody? When it comes near closing time Shane gets moody himself.'

‘Well, I'm just checking you're all right.'

For a second, he was tempted to confide in her. If she knew about the engagement, then he could ask for her advice about how to hasten the date of the actual wedding. But his father had told him as soon as he was old enough to stand behind the bar and serve a customer that if he ever felt an urge to tell anybody anything, he was to stop and say nothing. No one appreciated a barman who talked too much. In his pub, his father added, he would learn much more than he needed to know and his job was to keep it all to himself.

He was sure his father did not have the question of his marriage in mind when he gave him the advice, but it was not his natural inclination, in any case, to share what he thought was private. Even though he trusted Colette, he could not be sure that she would not take her mother or one of her sisters into her confidence. This was how news got spread.

She must, he thought, have her suspicions. Shane had answered the phone a few evenings when Nancy had called. He had merely told Jim the call was for him and handed him the receiver. But Andy, one night near closing time, had come down the bar towards Jim and said, ‘Your girlfriend's on the phone looking for you.' As Jim spoke to Nancy, keeping the conversation as brief as he could, he could not stop himself blushing.

‘She sounds in good form anyway,' Andy had said when he put down the phone.

‘You should clean those tables over there,' Jim said, ‘instead of passing remarks about your betters.'

Colette, he guessed, must have heard something from Shane about Nancy's calls. Previously, when she had advised him to think more about Nancy, he had not demurred. She must be curious, but she was, like her husband, more than tactful. Jim was sure that she would say nothing until he did. She would not even ask him if he had put any more thought into what they had discussed in their earlier conversation. All they could do was circle around it.

‘I think this room is lovely,' she said. ‘Especially this time of the year when you can have the windows open. I love the high ceilings. You should get that curtain rail fixed. Does that curtain not close?'

‘I must get it fixed.'

‘I didn't say this to Shane,' she went on, ‘but I thought you should get Andy to work one extra evening. I know he'd love the money. And you could take things a bit easier. For instance, if it was a Thursday and you were in Dublin, you wouldn't have to rush back.'

He thought of what would happen if he told her he had been in Dublin with Nancy just the previous Thursday.

‘I think you need to relax more. But you're looking very well. It's just that Shane was a bit worried about you. But don't tell him I said a word.'

When Nancy came to visit late the following night, he could see how happy she was. Every detail of Miriam's wedding was now in place. On Saturday, Nancy would drive to Dublin to go into Switzers for the final fitting.

She had begun to behave more casually when she visited him, washing up some cups and saucers that were in the sink, throwing out some milk that was sour and getting a second drink for them both without waiting for him to ask.

He wondered if she might be happier going on like this, more content with the prospect of their living together than the actual life itself that would come after marriage. She spoke about her daughters and their different ways of handling money, Miriam watching every penny and Laura far too extravagant. And, while Jim was listening, he was also wondering what would happen if he asked her directly to give him one good reason why they should delay their wedding until the spring.

In reply, she could ask him why he could not let this matter rest. It would be hard to explain to her how lonely he felt when he came into these rooms after closing time and how that feeling became more intense if he woke in the night or in the morning. He had not felt like this before the possibility of being with her arose. Now that it was there as something that would happen, it made his solitary state almost unbearable, at least some of the time.

—

When it was still dark outside, Jim lay in bed with his hands behind his head watching Nancy dressing herself. Soon he would put on some clothes and accompany her to the front door.

‘Do you know what I'm looking forward to?' he asked.

‘What?'

‘Mornings like this when I wake and I can curl up with you beside me and stay in bed until it's breakfast time. It would be great if we could do that now.'

He felt a longing again for everything between them to be settled, but she was not listening.

‘I'm ready,' she said, having checked herself in the mirror.

She held out her hand and he stayed close to her as they walked down the stairs. He kissed her in the hallway before opening the front door and checking there was no one on the street.

—

The bar was quiet for the first hour after opening. Shane would arrive at four, Andy had the day off, so Jim would be on his own for a while dealing with a few customers.

Usually, when Martin Lacey came in, Shane or Andy served him and Jim avoided him. Martin was always alone, having been in some other pubs, and he was garrulous and in need of company. When he had come home from England first, he would join anyone whom he knew even slightly. But he seemed to have learned not to do that.

When he entered, the bar was empty. Jim served him a bottle of Guinness then went into the stockroom at the back, pretending he was busy, hoping that Martin would leave when he had finished his drink. When he returned to the bar, however, Martin was still there.

‘The sister is back from America,' he said. ‘I suppose someone told you.'

‘I heard all right.'

‘You used to do a line with her. It's a pity that didn't work out. I'd have free drink for life.'

Jim did not reply.

‘Her and the mother aren't getting on at all. They're like a pair of cats. I don't know what's got into the two of them. So Eilis has gone down to Cush, to my little shack, on her own, to get away.'

‘To Cush?'

Jim knew that Martin had bought the house from Nora Webster after Maurice died.

‘Yes, she's down there on her own. I didn't even get the chance to clean the place up before she went there. She'd be a stickler for tidiness. She must be going mad down there. But she has her own car and she can come home if she doesn't like it.'

As soon as Martin left, Jim found himself feeling almost as sad about losing Eilis as he had felt twenty years ago. Even when he reassured himself with the thought that he had Nancy now, the sense of loss stayed with him as he sat behind the bar on his own. The sadness that had lingered for six months or so after she left returned at odd times, often on a Saturday night when he went up the stairs after the pub had shut.

The idea that she was now back in the town had been on his mind since he had seen her that night. It seemed so wrong to him that they would not meet, that she would not get in contact. She might depart once more without his catching even another glimpse of her, as though they were strangers.

In the silence, and with nothing to do, Jim decided that he would drive to Cush as soon as Shane arrived. He would tell Eilis, if he managed to see her, that he believed it was a shame they couldn't meet and all he wanted was to speak to her after all the years. But the idea of a firm encounter with her made him stop for a moment. How would he explain his decision to drive down to Cush and find her?

It would be simple, he thought; he would tell her the truth. He would recount to her Martin's visit to the pub. He would not stay long; he would assure her of that. It was really just to see her. Would that explanation be enough?

He could hardly have asked Martin precisely where the house was. All he knew was that it was near the cliff. Years before, he had gone to a party in one of the summer houses in Cush and was sure he had passed the house belonging to the Websters. And when Martin bought it from Nora, several customers had remarked to him that the price had been low, and that had stayed in his mind. But he still wasn't certain of the precise location.

—

In Cush, he parked the car at the top of a lane that led down to the sea. He passed a mobile home and a single-decker bus that had been cemented into the ground, and then a few modern huts, all reserved, he thought, for summer use. The smell was of clover and grass, and in the distance he could hear the sound of a tractor. When he turned down the next lane, he found two houses on the left-hand side but no sign of life, no parked car or clothes hanging out to dry. If the tractor sound were not there, this could easily feel like a place abandoned.

At the end of the lane, there was a low ditch, but no set of steps leading to the strand. He stood on the ditch and looked down at the calm sea and the deserted shore. Perhaps Eilis had just driven down here and gone for a walk and was now back in her mother's house. He was almost relieved at the thought that he might not now have to meet her. It would be too much to appear like this, out of nowhere. The stillness, the calm waves, the thin white clouds in the eastern sky, the empty houses, emphasised how settled and hidden this place was, and how inhospitable to an outsider, someone who did not even know what house he was looking for.

As he walked back to the car, a woman standing in the gateway of the second house was studying him closely.

‘You look like a man who is lost,' she said.

‘I was looking for Martin Lacey's house.'

‘Martin's not there. I heard his car blasting off early this morning and I haven't heard him coming back. He has to do something about the car.'

Jim hesitated. He wanted to ask her if Eilis was in Martin's house.

‘Now, you are the man that has that pub in Enniscorthy,' she said.

He could not think who she was.

‘I am Lily Devereux's mother. She used to talk about you. I remembered you because I had seen your name over the pub.'

‘That's my father's name.'

‘And I knew him too, at least to see, and your mother. But that's your name too.'

Jim still saw Lily Devereux sometimes in the town. She had been on the board of the Credit Union with him. News would spread that he had been seen in Cush. He would have to be careful what he said.

‘Well, I was looking for Martin. But I'll find him in the town.'

‘His sister is there now in the house, one of the neighbours told me. She has a rented car with a Dublin registration. I don't think I know her at all.'

If he did not move away quickly, he thought, she would surely ask him why he was looking for Martin and he would not be able to come up with a credible reply.

‘Do you know which house is Martin's?' he asked.

‘It's beyond the judge's house,' she replied, ‘below the marl pond.'

Jim made clear that he did not know what she was talking about.

‘It's the other lane,' she said. ‘I always call it the good lane, although this lane is good too.'

Jim nodded.

‘And is your wife well?'

‘I'm not actually . . .'

‘Well, there's plenty of time. And you would be a great catch. A fine-looking man with a nice business. I'd go for you myself if I was a year or two younger.'

‘I'll tell Lily I met you.'

‘Don't tell her what I just said. She'd murder me!'

‘I'll say nothing.'

—

He had the keys in his hand, ready to open the door of the car, when he stopped. There was another noise in the distance, the sharp, piercing sound of a chainsaw. It was coming from over the hill, cutting through the thick silence that seemed to seep up from the strand. He sighed and put the keys in his pocket. He would walk down ‘the good lane', as Mrs Devereux had called it. If he saw a car with a Dublin registration, he would know Eilis was there.

The car, parked to the side of a small house that was in need of repair, stood out in the landscape, louder than any noise. A model he had never seen before, it was new in a way that nothing down here was new. He wondered if Eilis might see him from one of the small windows of the house and if she would come to the door without his having to knock. He stood and waited. She would be surprised if she found him on her doorstep. Perhaps she had indeed seen him and decided to retreat into one of the back rooms.

It occurred to him that he might shout her name. He wondered if she would recognise his voice. Maybe he would not recognise hers after all this time.

He would go down to the strand, he thought, and walk by the sea. On his way back, he would stop again, and he might be lucky, she might emerge or appear at a window. He would have to let her know that he was not going to make a nuisance of himself. That would be important, but it might be hard to do that were he to appear without warning at her door.

—

When he saw her walking towards him on the strand, he realised she would be alarmed at the sight of him, no matter what. He was an intruder on her solitude. But she had seen him; he could not turn around. Her hair was wet from the water. She was wearing a blue dress and had a towel under her arm. As he was trying to work out what to say, a wave came rushing in towards him and he had to dart quickly away from it.

He felt for a moment a sense of pure disbelief that this was happening. He looked down at the sand, and when he lifted his head she was there, the expression on her face not angry or fearful but puzzled, almost amused.

‘How did you know I was here?'

‘Martin was in the bar. He told me.'

‘And you drove down immediately?'

‘I saw you on the street a while ago and I worried we might never get a chance –'

‘How are you?'

‘Good. I'm glad to see you.'

‘Will you walk back with me?' she asked.

If anyone were to meet them now, he thought, they might be a local couple taking a walk, but when he stole a glance at her, he saw that this could not be true: she did not look like a local woman. Her dress could not have been bought in Ireland. And the natural way her hair was cut, accentuated by the wetness, set her apart, as did the smoothness of her skin. But more than anything, it was the ease and confidence she had.

Her face was thinner; he could see some wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. But her eyes were bright and alert and her gaze was focused as she turned to him and spoke decisively.

‘I'm told that you are doing a strong line with a woman in Dublin.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘Everyone knows it.'

‘Except me.'

‘Is that why you're blushing?'

He could think of nothing to say in reply. He wasn't sure if she had really heard such a thing or if she had made it up in order to break the silence.

‘And you?' he asked.

‘I'm a married woman and a mother.'

‘How long are you staying?'

‘Four or five weeks more. My children are coming at the beginning of August.'

He noticed that she did not say her husband was coming too and was glad. He would not relish seeing Eilis with her American husband in the streets of the town.

‘How is your mother?'

‘Well. She's well.'

He wanted to ask her the reason she was here alone, but every question he thought of seemed wrong. It occurred to him that he really wanted to ask if she had thought about him much over the years and if she had ever regretted not staying with him.

‘Do you like it down here?' he asked.

‘It's so calm, so empty.'

When they came to the steps that led to the cliff, she found her sandals. He helped her climb the loose sand to the first step. As he took her hand, he thought this might have been what he came down here for, to touch her once, to have her smile as she leaned on him. And then to walk slowly behind her up to the edge of the cliff.

‘My hair still feels wet,' she said. ‘It takes so long for anything to dry in this air.'

In the lane, he saw what she was doing. She was somehow making this encounter natural, uncomplicated. He would get no chance to ask her anything. As the early evening sunlight caught her face, her smile was a mask. But there was no strain in her voice.

‘Your accent hasn't changed much,' he said.

‘Sometimes I try to sound more American but the kids say I just sound even more Irish.'

‘Have they been to Ireland before?'

‘Never.'

‘Nor you, since you left?'

‘This is my first time since then.'

Neither of them, he knew, would have any trouble remembering what ‘then' meant. He wished he had been with her all the years, but there was nothing could be done about it now. For a second, he also wished that she knew about him and Nancy. He did not want her to think that he had no life.

It struck him that since this was probably the last time he would see her, he should say something. But then he thought it would be best to leave it. There was nothing to say, or nothing that was easy or simple, nothing that he could find words for now.

‘You look so sad,' she said.

‘I feel sad seeing you.'

‘Don't be sad about that. It was the way it had to be.'

‘And do you ever . . . ?'

‘Ever?'

‘I don't know. Do you ever think about me?'

As soon as he had said it, he knew how wrong it sounded. It was as if he was looking for pity or needing her to say something comforting to him. He watched her thinking; she had decided, he saw, not to respond. When he had known her, she was softer. She would have made it easier for him. Now, as they stood by her car, it was clear that she wanted him to go. She put out her hand. That was as much as she would do. She did not want to embrace him. He would say nothing more to embarrass her or himself.

‘I hope I didn't surprise you too much.'

‘Not at all,' she said.

‘I thought we should see each other, and it would be hard to do that in the town.'

When she did not answer, he reached out and shook her hand. He walked up the lane to his car, noticing that the noise of the chainsaw persisted, cutting through the air with the same sharpness as before. He stood and inspected the horizon before taking out his keys and opening the car and turning it so that he could go back to Enniscorthy.