A Keeper by Graham Norton
For Jono
BEFORE
He longed for silence. The roar of the wind churned with the rasping rhythm of the waves and filled his head. Every morning Edward woke to these sounds and when his aching arms pulled the blankets up at night the same wall of noise filled his dreams. When would he find peace?
Edward Foley was hunched on the small promontory of rocks that marked the border between the front paddock and the sea. Clouds had robbed the night sky of stars or a moon, which made the dark hood of sounds feel even thicker. His tears had dried but now his face was wet once more with the salty mist of spray from the pounding surf. Behind him he heard occasional voices and the thin slam of a car door.
If only he could think. He had to consider the future. What to do next? He wasn’t what anyone would have called young, but still, at forty-one you couldn’t declare your life was over. He thought of his brother James, claimed long ago by the waves. He didn’t have the luxury of giving up, but that was precisely what Edward wanted to do. To sit and hug his knees till the tide came to take him.
Through the wet crackle of the wind and waves he heard an engine start and the damp grass around him glowed red, then blue. He turned his head and watched the ambulance making its way slowly down the lane, past the orchard towards the road. He felt so foolish. What right had he to expect happiness? This suddenly seemed like the ending of the story that had been written for him all along.
He stood and looked back towards the house. Every light was burning, or so it seemed. A boat out at sea might have thought they were having a party. Behind the bright grid of windows, he could just make out the looming shadow of the castle ruins that gave the house its name. The countless decades of Foleys that had lived on this land. All that history, now hanging on to the future by a thread.
He knew he should go back, but he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his mother. He pictured her sitting at the kitchen table. A cup and saucer in front of her. His mug of tea on the opposite side. Her endless stream of words would fill the silence, but it would be her face that told him what she really thought. Somehow this was all his fault. It would be the same look she had given him when James had died. An expression that told him that she still loved him but that she could never forgive him.
His mother was not the sort of woman to bounce you on her knee or pull you into the comfort of her breast when everything seemed too much, but she was strong, resourceful and determined. He knew that if he was to get through this he would need her. He lifted his collar against the howl of the night and started across the field towards the lights of the house. Of one thing, he was certain.
His mother would have a plan.
NOW
1
Two strands of Christmas lights sagged across the main street. Some red, some green, mostly spent, they swayed forlornly in the driving rain.
Elizabeth Keane sighed as she drove her small rental car over the bridge into the town. Partly because she was weary from her overnight flight from New York to Dublin, but mostly due to the memories conjured up by the sight of Buncarragh on a wet afternoon in the first week of January. The shiny gifts long forgotten, the last few unwanted Quality Street sweets being poked listlessly around the bottom of the tin, the novelty of films being on the television in the afternoon well and truly over, each house was just a waiting room for school to reopen. She wondered if anything had changed in the twenty years since she’d lived here. Probably not. The kids were no doubt stabbing at their phones, and though they had hundreds of television stations she could almost feel the overheated boredom oozing from the terraced houses leading down from Bridge Street.
She was surprised by how fast her journey had been. Growing up here, Dublin had seemed like some distant metropolis, but now with the gleaming new motorway, Buncarragh was just a couple of exits north of Kilkenny. Had the country shrunk or had America changed her sense of distance? The crisp blue road signs, with their bright reflective lettering and kilometres, seemed at odds somehow with the places they led to. Sleepy grey market towns that remained rooted in the past.
Would this be the last time she ever made this trip? Now her mother was gone she had no real ties to the place. Of course, there were a few cousins and her uncle and aunt but they had never been close, and once the house was sold what reason would she have to return? Ahead of her on the left just past the railings of the small Methodist church, she could see the family shop: ‘Keane and Sons’. The name was picked out in ornate plaster on the fa?ade that had been painted, for as long as Elizabeth could remember, in an insipid colour that reminded her of uncooked chicken. She slowed down to look in the windows. To the left of the doors was a copse of artificial Christmas trees, while the display on the right consisted of some flat-screen televisions and a trio of gleaming black and chrome baby buggies.
Her car was just passing the doors when they opened and an incongruously glamorous woman stepped out. Shit. It was Noelle, her cousin Paul’s wife. They ran the shop now. Had she seen her? Elizabeth glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw a long thin arm waving. Christ, she must have the eyes of a hawk. Elizabeth groaned. She had hoped to make it all the way to Convent Hill unobserved, but knew she would have to stop now. That whole side of the family already thought she was a stuck-up bitch. She put the car into reverse and pulled up alongside Noelle who was holding a plastic Keane and Sons bag aloft to protect her bright blonde hair from the rain. Elizabeth took in Noelle’s skin-tight jeans and short padded jacket that allowed people to fully appreciate her trim figure. How was it possible that this woman had produced three babies? Elizabeth considered her own forgivingly loose hooded sweatshirt and her cropped dark hair with streaks of grey which her son Zach delighted in telling her was less of a hairstyle and more of a haircut. She prodded ineffectually at some buttons till the passenger window went down. Bravely trying to banish her concerns about just how bad her make-up-free, sleep-deprived face might look, she leaned across and called out.