Winterwood

  Apart from being with Casey, there was nothing I really liked better than driving out to winterwood. Trying to explain my predicament to Imogen - and somehow justify my embarrassing behaviour that day in the car. One thing's for sure — I'll never shout at her again. I never meant to, anyway. But the Ribena kept spilling all over the seat. I know it's all over now, and it makes no difference, but more than anyone, it's still Piper Alpha I blame. Even now I can remember the awful fright I got, when I looked up and saw him making his way towards the counter. Clapping me on the back and looking at me in that sickly, ingratiating way.

  —Hey there, Dominic! Are you on your way back tae the hostel?

  —Jesus! I remember crying.

  He towered above me, swinging his shoulder bag. You could see he was feeling real pleased with himself. He wasted no time in informing me why.

  —Are you going back tae the hostel, Dominic? Well, good luck tae ye! For I'm not. I've got everything packed and I've bought my ticket. You won't be seeing me again in a hurry. I don't know why I ever came to this country. Pissing rain all the time. I'm off to South Africa, mate. Pal o'mine says you can pull in a grand a week down there. A grand, no problem, working in construction. That's where you should go, mate. No point, if you ask me, in hanging around here.

  All I could hear was Capetown and Jo 'burg and Jo 'burg and Capetown.

  That's right, I remember thinking, there is no point in hanging around here, Piper Alpha. You're correct. Now will you just get out of my fucking way!

  Later that night, when Imogen and I were crossing the stream, making our approach to the copse of pine, I remember being almost completely overpowered by the thick sickening smell of spearmint. It's disgraceful the way the water has turned pink - a result of the toxic effluent they allow to be pumped into it - and I can't for the life of me think why the environmentalists haven't come down on Rohan's Confectionery like a ton of bricks.

  There wasn't a soul about the place. The squat grey functional building was silent and desolate. All you could hear was the sound of the river flowing. The cloying smell as it wafted on the breeze.

  I ran my fingers through Imogen's hair. I had read reports of dead fish in that river - and looking at the thick glutinous texture of the water, it didn't come as any surprise at all. I felt like rasping into Ned Strange's face:

  —So this is the something dreadful then, is it? Well somehow, I'm afraid, it doesn't seem quite so bad to me!

  As I made my way through the trees, ranged all about me like stern but not unsympathetic guardians, I slowly slid to my knees, the light above me refracting through the branches, as I lifted Immy's soft limp arm, placing it tenderly around my neck, as of old.

  I'll often sit in winterwood for hours, eating pizza or Bacon Doubles, or maybe just humming a few bars of 'Scarlet Ribbons', watching all the little ribbons as they flutter in the breeze.

  In the timeless beauty of our winterwood home.

  2002

  Seven: A Blissful Marriage

  CASEY AND I HAVE lived in Sutton on the north side of the city for over six months now. In a fabulous new apartment block, a gated community with twenty-four-hour security, complete with its own terraced garden and mock-marble fountain. You couldn't ask for pleasanter surroundings. And the neighbours are wonderful — they mind their own business and the only time we ever see them is when we have our quarterly meeting about service charges and various other day-to-day management matters. It cost us a packet — over two million euro, in fact - but it's been well worth it. It really has. So I wasn't sorry, leaving my one-room apartment in Ballsbridge. I don't know what I've done to merit such consistent good fortune. I certainly wouldn't have expected this outside a church on Harold's Cross Road one wild and windswept desolate day when all had seemed well and and truly lost. Before, I suppose, you could say I 'yielded'. And brought myself, as a consequence, untold good fortune and constant opportunity. But love more than anything. Love with Casey, my darling, loving wife.

  I mean, I know I was lucky in the first few years with Catherine — buying Imogen the coat and everything, lifting her up on to the bright, chiming carousel but, despite all that, I never felt loved. Not really - not in the way a man should. It's kind of hard for me to admit that now but it's true. I think for a long time I'd been deluding myself. Certainly up until the day when delusions no longer became sustainable. When I found her in bed with her Maltese friend. And was left with no option but to take her aside and say, to enquire of my somewhat flushed and startled wife:

  —Well then, Catherine, tell us: was he any good?

  You shouldn't have to say things like that. Not to your spouse. And wouldn't — certainly not if you thought you were loved. And living with someone who had made it clear on more than one occasion that they didn't, deep down, have faith in you.

  All I know is I won't ever be put in that position again. And, believe me, that's a rare and pleasant feeling. Why, sometimes Casey and I - we won't even have sex. We'll just lay there and chat and hold hands like a couple of kids. I've never met anyone who knows me so well. And that, I'm convinced, is the secret of true love. Knowing someone especially knowing and accepting their faults - that's the essence of the thing we call love. You don't have to have sex to prove that you're in love. Sometimes I won't feel like it, having worked hard in the office all day. And does Casey say to me:

  —Dominic, if you don't mind - I've been seeing someone behind your back. It's this urge, you see, this irresistible attraction I have to snakes. I'm sorry, of course, but I'm sure you'll understand.

  Nope, that's not what happens. Because Casey Breslin doesn't think like that. Once she loves you she loves you and that's it. That's just the way she happens to be.

  —What of it? she'll say instead, we can always make love tomorrow night, Dominic.

  Before kissing me on the cheek and turning out the light.

  I would use one word to describe our lives together. One single word: blissful. That's the word I'd use to describe it.

  I never thought it possible for two human beings to arrive at such a level of happiness. One as close to complete as any person could dream of.

  To give you an example: one night when I happened to be in the throes of expatiating about - I mean, can you believe it? — Ned Strange!

  I wouldn't blame you if you thought: Oh, no, not him again!

  I'd had more to drink, I suppose, than I ought to and was rambling on at length, I know. But what does Casey do? I couldn't believe it, but there she was, hitting me over the head with a rolled-up magazine. Thumping me repeatedly with a copy of Hello!

  —Oh, you and those old stories! she complained. Sometimes I think you ought to go back to that old mountain you talk so much about! Get over it, why don't you!

  As you can imagine, when I heard her saying that, it would be something of an understatement to say I was taken aback. But she was right, of course. Ned and the mountain were history and shouldn't have been referred to in any capacity at all. I mean, he hadn't entered my thoughts - why, literally - for years.

  Which, of course, tells its own tale.

  Once the stress within me had ended — very mysteriously —not another word from Ned. Not so much as another single whisper. It was clear to me now I'd imagined the whole episode. And the idea of actually having seen him - well, it was worse than embarrassing.

  —If I were to wake up and lay eyes on Ned Strange now, I found myself saying, I almost certainly would burst out laughing.

  As far as I was concerned, Auld Pappie from the valley didn't matter any more. He'd faded, like his so-called ancient lifestyle, into the receding mists of history. I suppose it had taken Casey to make me see that. By making it plain, once and for all. Saying it straight out in the way that she had.

  —He's gone, I laughed, and she swatted me playfully again with the Hello!, the old fucker's gone! Good luck, Auld Neddy!

  All of which gave me a great kick, I have to say, it being, I suppose, so uncompromisingly d
ecisive and final. But Casey really administered the coup de grace. She tossed away the magazine and sighed as she draped herself across the arm of the easy chair: thrusting out her bosom as she fixed me - rather disapprovingly, I have to say - with her gaze.

  —I can't for the life of me think why you ever let him prey on your mind in the first place. I never understood why you carried those stupid cuttings in your wallet. Maybe you were guilty about turning your back on your roots, I don't know. But I'll tell you this: you can forget about that sonofabitch. Forget him now, and forget him good. You got that, honey bun?

  —I got it, I told her. You won't have to say it again. Message received loud and clear.

  —Come here to me, tiger.

  I took her in my arms and kissed her right there. I loved her more than ever now, for being so resolute and talking such sense. Of course, it ought not to have come as any surprise. Casey had been born in upstate New York Albany - and wasn't known for mincing her words.

  —No more about that inbred hillbilly, she said and I laughed. I laughed till I was nearly blue in the face.

  —Call him that again, I pleaded, say it again, Casey!

  I felt so empowered I was almost delirious.

  —Hillbilly! Hillbilly! she laughed and so did I.

  We were just so stimulated after the wine.

  —Fucking inbred! I laughed again, intoxicated by the way she said it, in that strong and confident - but most of all, urban - American accent.

  We spent that whole night making love. It was fantastic. It really was something. Something else entirely, believe me.

  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but before I met her I knew precious little about things like that.

  Catherine and I - well, not to put too fine a point on it — we'd always been somewhat conservative, really. Sexually, I mean.

  So that was another remarkable transformation in my life, and it was gratifying. At that stage of my life, to be so privileged.

  —Aren't you ever going to go to sleep? I remember her saying afterwards.

  I laughed when she said it and kissed her neck, pushing up against her buttocks with my 'raging tallywhacker', as we called it when imitating Strange.

  Then I laughed heartily as I turned out the light.

  It was wonderful, just wonderful, to be living with such a strong woman. If anyone was like two peas in a pod, it was us - me and Casey Breslin, my wife. Because, contrary to what most people might have assumed at the time, when Catherine and I were together, it was old muggins here who had been the dominant partner.

  Until things began slowly to unravel. After the incident with the Maltese. After I'd shouted at Imogen over the paints. I had shouted at Catherine too, occasionally, when we'd started having arguments over having another child. I admit that, and deeply regret it. Once even going so far as to say:

  —You are treading on very thin ice here, my dear.

  Frightening her, I know. I could see it in her eyes. After that, she had always seemed edgy. It must have been the way that I said it or something.

  But I was always sure to make up for it in whatever small way I could. The polly pocket I had bought for Immy - she nearly lost her mind when we opened it. It more than compensated for my intemperate outburst. There were lovely little lights and lanterns inside the small plastic open-out toy, all painted up in these adorable pastel colours. And a tiny reindeer the two of us christened Rudolph.

  —Look at Rudolph, she said, he thinks he's the boss!

  All the other deer were standing around, as Rudolph gazed proudly from his snow-covered outcrop, proudly surveying his almost spectral kingdom, stately and noble in his forest of pine.

  Imogen just loved snuggling up to you when a story was over. We made them up as we went along. Winterwood was the most magical place anyone could imagine — a crystal palace carved out of ice, bounded by rows of stiff-standing pines. All streaked with silver and stamped with lovely patterns of frost. It was there the snow babies would make their beds each night, with no one to care for them but each other.

  She especially loved the bit about the little robin. The children all pointed at him, crying out as he looked down from his branch.

  —Look! Snowboy called, the poor robin is crying!

  Her appealing, beautiful little eyes.

  —Will we love our robin and keep him safe for ever? she pleaded with me.

  —Yes, I reassured her. For ever and ever. Safe for ever in his winterwood home.

  —I love it here, she said, with a luxurious little shiver, I love it and want to stay for ever and ever. It's cold but yet it's warm. It's funny, isn't it? I love it, Daddy.

  I used to love her calling me Daddy. I wish I'd never said anything to Catherine. I wish I'd never mentioned baby Owen. I wish I'd just been happy with what we had. I wish my insecurities hadn't driven her away. I wish I hadn't harped on about baby Owen. I knew it was old-fashioned, being obsessed in that way with the male line. It was like something you'd hear them going on about on the mountain.

  If only I hadn't loved her so much or been so suspicious. Maybe if I'd been able to train myself. Then maybe none of those arguments would ever have happened. And our happy little family would still be in Kilburn.

  Casey and me, we rarely argued at all, I have to say, and when we did it was generally light-hearted. I couldn't believe my luck when I met her. For a start she was a good two inches taller than me, with her long blonde hair streaming down her shoulders. She was tipped for great things inside RTE. The job she'd set her sights on was overall head of the current affairs department. That was what she wanted and I didn't have any doubt that sooner or later she'd end up getting it.

  It came as a surprise to some people that we'd ever got together at all. Not because there was anything particularly wrong with me but because it was well known that for a number of years she'd been conducting an on-off love affair with James Ingram, a foreign-affairs correspondent who was almost legendary in the station. Not least for the reputation he had for seducing women. Maybe that was the reason their relationship in the end had come to nothing. I can't say for sure, though. On the one or two occasions when I had tentatively quizzed her about it, she'd become uncharacteristically irritable and quite snappy.

  —Was James Ingram a philanderer? I'd asked her bluntly.

  —Oh, what of it! I remember her dismissing it. Some men just can't seem to grow up, that's all!

  Whether or not that was supposed to be a compliment indirectly directed at me, I'm afraid that's how I chose to interpret it. It's not every man can boast of a woman as desirable as Casey Breslin selecting them over others. When, in your heart and soul, you know she could have had anybody.

  The great thing about love - if it's the genuine article and not some weak imitation - is that every single piece of you is known. You surrender yourself and just hope that you are loved. In the initial stages I'd found it quite difficult, not having been with anyone to speak of - not really, unless you count prostitutes — since Catherine. For a while, in the very early days, I'd been annoying Casey, pestering her with endless questions.

  Little niggly things like: 'Really? How much?' And: 'Are you still sure that you will always love me?'

  Which really must have been infuriating at times.

  But, gradually, over time, I grew into our relationship, privately and somewhat triumphantly, I admit, accepting that she genuinely meant what she had said.

  There are some things in a marriage that are best left unsaid. It's hard for me to believe now that I told Casey the truth about finding the silver tinfoil in the living room and sensing a definite presence in our bedroom one night. Most of all I find it hard to believe that I told her about the dream, and in such detail. I suppose it was so frightening that I couldn't have prevented myself even if I'd wanted to. It was the most awful dream I think I've ever had. Ned was standing there in that old familar way, but this time he was completely naked. He opened his hand but there was nothing inside. Then he sighed and said so
ftly, almost kindly, in fact:

  —The shop had no chocolate, Redmond.

  When I looked again he was wearing Immy's bag. It was draped across his shoulder and he was fiddling with it, laughing. He opened it and shook out some ants.

  —Naughty! he said, but in Imogen's voice.

  I should never have said anything to Casey about it. However, the fact is I did. Because when you're in love with someone that's what you do. Especially when they're so beautiful and intelligent. I had even shown her the photograph — the one I'd snipped from the Sunday Independent. The sign ROHAN'S CONFECTIONERY was a little bit blurred but you could see the river curving close by the copse of pine. It was only when I mentioned him whispering 'something dreadful' that her manner began to change quite dramatically. She spun away from me and crumpled up the cutting. She was white.

  —People don't come back from the dead, Dominic, she snapped, I mean, for Christ's sake, darling, what on earth are you talking about? I thought that we had cleared this up. I mean, I thought we had been through all this before!

  She took a cigarette from her handbag and lit it with trembling fingers. Then she said:

  —Look, I don't want to go causing any trouble between us.

  I made it clear she didn't have to worry about that. I found myself looking at her and thinking: God, how I love this woman.

  —Look, she continued, I don't understand what kind of pressure you were under when you lived in Portobello. What was going on in your Drumcondra days. All I know is - I don't want to hear you ever mentioning it again.

  For a minute or two afterwards she remained a little annoyed. But not for very long, I'm glad to be able to say. Then she came and sat in my lap, holding her glass as she looked into my eyes. I stared right back into hers. They were a gorgeous polished hazel. I was putty in her hands.

  —You're not offended, she said, with a lovely smile, by my speaking my mind? About you and this - Ned Strange?

  —Of course not, I replied, of course I'm not. Who cares about him?