ONE NIGHT I give up steering the car one way or the other and let it go where it wants, which is north, as always, this time past the hump of Howth Head and on to the Swords road, all the way to Portrane.
I make my way past the asylum and turn down to the sea, then I stop at the gate of the small field, in the middle of whose rubbish is my uncle’s mathematical head. More than five thousand people are buried here, according to Ernest, who knows the local priest. I am not surprised. A cube of panic rises out of these walls. The air at the gates has the same hum as you find under high-voltage wires.
I stand for a while, and feel my hair stand to.
The moon is up. In the distance a line of white wave unfurls itself along the strand, and makes no sound. The sea slaps at the rocks below me, upset by cross-currents and by some distant storm. There is no wind.
I stand there and think that there is no worse place for me to go. This is the worst place there is.
In which case, it is not too bad. If this is as mad as I get then it is not too mad. My children will not be harmed by it; though I may have to change my life a little; get out more, trade in the Saab.
This week’s property supplement-Tom’s little offering on the kitchen table-had a house for sale on Ada’s street. It is not Ada’s house, or not yet; but everyone is selling and moving, it might come up any time. I could stalk it, Ada’s house. I could buy this house up the road, and make it over, and sell on, until the day comes-not too far away, I feel sure-when I am standing in Ada’s front room, pulling up a corner of the wallpaper, talking to some nice architect about gutting the place. I will wear a sober trouser suit and incredibly silly heels and click-clack my way across the bare boards, while telling him to rip out the yellow ceiling and the clammy walls; to knock down the doorway to the front room, but save the Belfast sink in the little kitchen, over which, looking out the back window, I learned how to imagine things. We will exclaim together, my architect and I, over the little ceiling rose, and the pretty fireplace where things were burnt: letters, bookies’ dockets, pork fat, the hair from Ada’s hairbrush going in with a sizzle. I will ask him to get the place cleaned out with something really strong, I don’t want a woman with a mop, I will say, I want a team of men in boiler suits with tanks on their backs and those high-pressure steel rods.
And the garage-we will turn the garage into a studio space, with skylights and white walls, and I will put wide plank flooring over the old cement. Oak.
‘What do you think about oak?’ I will say.
I will rent the house out for a while. And I will be nice to the tenants. And when I am finished. When I am good and finished. When I have beaten the shit out of the place and made it smell, in a wonderfully clean but old-fashioned way, of wood soap and peonies, I will sell it on for twice the price.
Is that all right, Liam?
There he is. Standing at the water’s edge, looking out over the waves.
Is that all right?
He looks like an extra in a film. He is wearing a baggy brown suit, that he would never wear in real life, and a Paddy cap over his young curly black hair. His eyes of Irish blue crinkle at the corners as he looks out into the night. He is not alone. There is another man further up, there is a boy standing on a headland; at each peak and promontory these watchers stand, looking out to sea.
It is like a Guinness ad, but no one moves.
Overhead, a huge plane comes in to land. The first of the day, trailing Arctic frost. New York, Newfoundland, Greenland, Portrane. It is six a.m. Time for me to turn home.
I get in the car, and reach for the key, gone cold in the ignition. It is March. It is nearly five months since Liam died. Ciara’s baby, who met him coming in the door, is now one month old. My own last child, the one I might have with Tom, is getting tired waiting. I turn the key and start the car.
Liam turns to watch me as I go. He does not know who I am, or what the sea is, or what sort of a place Broadstone might be. He is full of his own death. His death fills him as a plum fills its own skin. Even his eyes are full. It is a serious business, being dead. He would like to do it well. He turns from the confusing lights of the car, and sets his face towards the sea.
I drive back up to the main road, but the car does not turn for home. I go to the airport instead and, after a little while, I get on a plane.