Marble Heart

“So left, two three,

So left, two three,

To the task that we must do;

March on in the Workers’ United Front

For you are a worker too.”

‘I could hear the thump of your ankle boot as you kept time on the ancient carpet, dislodging years of dust: left, two three, left, two three. The march would go on and on, resounding along the years.

‘Sometimes I would be awake for three hours, sometimes four; on a very bad night, five. I learned the different qualities of darkness, from the impenetrable blackness of two AM through the thinning greyness that preceded dawn and finally the pale, lemony light that illuminated the striped curtains. In the summer months I regularly heard the day stealing in. A feeling of panic would take over as the first birds whistled or a milk float whined along the street; another episode of my life was about to begin and I had had no respite from the previous one. All order, all balance had vanished. Then I might cry from sheer frustration, tears of tension and self-pity, but very quiet tears so that Martin wouldn’t wake. My poor Martin. God knows what he made of it all, watching me mutate into a semi-zombie. He must have thought the woman he’d married was cursed with a schizoid personality.

‘On campus each day I would lock my office door at lunchtime and doze in my chair, the kind of sleep where you are half alert to voices and noises, where you twitch and jitter. My watch alarm would warn me when my time was up and I would come to, dazed and hot, eyes pricking. I took to not eating in the middle of the day because food made me more sluggish. My afternoons were spent sleep walking. I delivered lectures through an obscuring haze. It was as if I was inside a tank and my students were sitting on the other side of the scummy glass. I have no idea how I managed to keep going for so long. The students were kind and long-suffering. It is just as well that I had to resign when I did. No doubt in these days of mission statements and quality monitoring one of them would eventually have complained about me and I would have been inspected and found wanting, perhaps dismissed.

‘I have separated from Martin. I left him some months ago. I was mistaken if I hoped that giving him up would mean that I could sleep again. Deep down I believed that if I denied myself my husband, made a conscious sacrifice, some pity might be afforded me. My gesture of self-denial might be taken into account, weighed on unseen scales and go some way towards restoring the order I had helped to disrupt. But of course there is no unseen dispenser or order and justice – the responsibility for that lies within ourselves. And so I continue to wake at two. I suppose that the habit of fifteen years is hard to break. Returning to a single, friendless bed made no difference. It simply meant that I had no one to watch but myself, no breathing to listen to but my own.

‘I lied to the woman you will hear more about, Joan Douglas. She asked if I had tried sleeping tablets and I said I had. I knew that if I told the truth she would have encouraged me to get some; I would have had to listen to advice about breaking the pattern of insomnia. I’m sure that at some point she would have said, “You won’t know yourself once you’ve had a couple of unbroken nights”. Joan is one of those people who needs to think that every problem has a solution. I won’t allow myself sleeping tablets because I don’t deserve them. I deserve to lie awake and contemplate shadowy demons.

‘As the clock ticked this morning I imagined Joan lying asleep in her bed, snugly lulled by her own medication. She confessed that she is sometimes wakeful. Any wakefulness you experience will have skulking in its depths our shared memory, that icy hammer that shatters the warm layers of unconsciousness. I have no idea how the passage of time might have assisted you in reshaping that memory. I know that when I turn on my computer I will find exactly what I committed to it previously but the mind shifts and transforms, illuminating the past with the light of present experience. I only know that I can describe what happened in a certain place at a certain time.

‘We last saw each other in 1972. The annual letters we have exchanged since then have been paltry things, lists of domestic trivia. We have been unable to let each other go but we never allude to what we did. Our short notes have summarised the passing years; my teaching and marriage, my ill health, your involvement in crop planning and health promotion. Neither of us ever mentioned Finn until 1994 when you wrote that you’d heard from a cousin that he had been shot with two other men by a Protestant paramilitary. It was a pub shooting and that phenomenon all too familiar in Northern Ireland, a case of mistaken identity, the drinkers taken for IRA activists. That was all; one stark sentence sandwiched between paragraphs about the orphanage you were working in. “Peter said he was sure he heard the name Butler on the radio report.” When I read it I felt a gentle lift of the heart; he had, after all, been the instigator of what we did. He had presented us with the idea, urged us on, set up the plan. Then, as I re-read the news I thought, that deals with him, that settles part of the account. Now, what about us? His going was like a crack of light entering a dark room; the knowledge that he was dead allowed me seriously to consider what I should do to resolve my own unchallenged guilt. And so I pondered and recognised that no amount of charitable work or self punishment would do. I came to the decision that has prompted this letter and will unravel the past.

‘Joan, my new paid helper, will maintain me while I marshal my energy to write. She will be here again in the morning with her exhaustingly breezy manner and skirt that is just a little too short, making her plump knees look oddly naked. She will say how nice the bookshelves are looking now or aren’t the roses in the conservatory coming on a treat or I’ll feel better once I’ve got a nice breakfast down me. I will smile at her and when she’s bustled to the kitchen I will sink my head onto my chest and breathe deeply.

‘When she arrived the first time, wearing an awful apron, I was amazed at what I had let myself in for. I hid my feelings behind a businesslike mask. Cowardly, I almost told her that I had changed my mind or that we wouldn’t suit each other. I nearly cried out when she said that she’d have to be careful with her grammar now that she knew that I had been a teacher. Joan is the kind of person I would normally avoid, one of life’s surface optimists and lover of shallow wisdoms. When she touches her cheek and says that she speaks as she finds or you have to put your best foot forward, I want to run and hide.

‘But I won’t run, because I need Joan, I am no longer able to function alone. The days are too onerous without someone to do all those time-consuming tasks that can easily take hours when one moves at a snail’s speed. I am willing to endure recitals of the dreadful poet she likes, one Grace Ashley. Joan informed me that she has six teddy bears on her bed and in the early hours of today I pictured them watching her, open-eyed, just as I used to watch Martin. Then I reached into the drawer under my bed and took out this lap-top computer, a leaving present from my fellow lecturers. It wasn’t a surprise gift, I had told the head of languages what I wanted. As the parcel was handed to me I surveyed the uneasy figures in the room, standing awkwardly with their paper cups of cheap wine. I thought how horror-struck they would be if they had an inkling of the story that was going to be typed on their token of farewell, how their embarrassed sympathy would turn to outrage. An echo of the kinds of comments often uttered to reporters when a neighbour has been discovered in a crime came to me: “She always seemed a nice, quiet sort of person, kept herself to herself. Nobody round here would have thought she’d been involved in anything like that.”

‘As I waited for the blue glow of my computer screen to appear I propped my pillows higher, then took a couple of sips of brandy from my flask. It doesn’t stop the constant ache in my joints but it helps me bear it. Since this illness took hold I am always hot when I wake at night, chilled during the day. I had left the window open as usual and I turned my head towards the sharp air before I started writing.

‘The record that I am confiding to this screen, this long, painful series of letters, will serve several purposes. It is primarily for you, Majella. I want, I need you to have my account, my version of what happened. I want to say those things that could not be said then, when life raced away with us and words had to be so carefully chosen. Martin will receive his own personally tailored copy, a coward’s gift. I can summon up courage for many things but not for him; his reproachful eyes sear me. This is also a general confession for a wider audience, a purging of shadows and demons, a mapping of a blight that fell from the Belfast air. My frailty means that it will be in instalments but I will wait until I have completed it to send it to you, a small package bearing love and agony in equal proportions.

‘I am convinced that you confessed to a priest somewhere in Africa. You made a point of writing that you had returned to the church. I pictured you in a simple confession box in a tin-roofed chapel, a dusty village of thin people and animals around you. An ebony-skinned priest or perhaps a sandy-haired Irish missionary would have listened, his shocked breath freezing despite the heat before he raised his hand to bless you. What penance could he have given? What would the tariff be? I envied you your confession, your unburdening. My jealousy of it has grown with time. I wished that I could believe in a God who listened and forgave through human mediums. I have had to find another way of unburdening, lacking divine channels.

‘I find that I have addressed you in Italian, the language that we both excelled in, that we often talked in, that Finn didn’t speak and that first brought us together on an October morning in 1969.

‘You are going to have to forgive me, Majella, for the plan I am going to execute. I have taken a decision to clear the decks. I feel like a person who has been meaning to sort out a cluttered attic for years and finally gets down to it. Your mother didn’t like Finn, she thought he was a bad influence on you. I think that one of the reasons she was so kind to me was that she saw me as a polite, well-brought-up girl who would counteract Finn’s dogmatism. She once said to me in the cow shed that Finn was a cold, unfeeling character, that he had a marble heart. You will recall that I used to wear my emotions on my sleeve; when I loved I loved without reservation, hungry for affection. The cold clutch of guilt has made me guarded and watchful. Over the years it has frozen my spontaneity, slowly icing over my feelings. I have fashioned myself a marble heart in order to effect my plan. I have deliberately reduced my life to a small flat and a single purpose, abandoning Martin in order to concentrate on my task. Finn would have applauded my single-mindedness: “There is only one goal, comrades,” was his constant refrain.

‘I realise that I am addressing a Majella from another time. I don’t know the woman who inhabits an Ethiopian hostel and who has written that her skin is parched by the sun. I was familiar with a fresh, milky complexion, one that glowed with a rich bloom when you became fervent, which was often. That is how I visualise you, untouched by the years, no wrinkles or crow’s feet. You would joke that you’d have preferred the faded, wan look that was popular in the late sixties but your mother had given you too much buttermilk during childhood. The person you are now may hardly recognise the young woman then. When I glance back and see myself I feel an anguished fondness for the needy, uncertain person I was. That Nina bears little resemblance to the woman I am now, a grey-haired, crab-like creature. Finn would have been amazed at my apparent confidence in middle age and the certainty with which I run my days. “Nina Town Mouse” he used to call me in that teasing blend of comradeship and affection, or “Nina-mina-mina-mo”. My own secret name for myself now, stemming from my illness, is Wolf-woman. Finn would have had little time for my sticks and physical weakness. He was intolerant of sickness. When you had tonsillitis he bullied you from bed, saying that it was a question of mind over matter. He prescribed a long walk or a strenuous swim as antidotes for any ailment.

‘You see, Majella, I’m determined to say Finn’s name, to bring him in to this story at the earliest opportunity. We have been so coy about him over the years, leaving his name out but he is there, always a presence around us. Sometimes he used to stand between us and place a hand on our heads as if he was anointing us. I can still feel his palm with the chewed nails resting on my skull.

‘What is it you Catholics say when you enter the confessional? “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” I think I remember you telling me that the first autumn we met. You were an atheist at the time and you were explaining the superstitious rituals of the church to me, its rigid dogma and controls, the way priests ordered the lives of women, subjugating them. Finn came in as you were speaking and lightly ran his finger over the back of your hand. You turned to him with that eager love he always drew from you. He was holding a leather-bound copy of Trotsky’s writings to his chest. He looked like our very own cleric that day, dressed as he often was in a grey polo neck and black jacket. He may even have read an improving paragraph of Leon’s thoughts to us in your kitchen, a homily for the true believers.

‘I clearly recall the first time I saw you. I walked into the lecture theatre on an October Tuesday in 1969 and there was a woman in a frilly, fussy smock bending down from her seat. Your red hair foamed around your dipped head, tendrils spreading across the floor as you retrieved the pen you’d dropped. I had been paralysed with nerves since arriving in Belfast the previous week. My only image of Ireland was the one I’d seen on a flickering TV screen. News bulletins delivered pictures of a savage, reckless place where blood flowed and neighbours freely murdered each other because of complex and, to the English, baffling ancient divisions. I was convinced that I could be shot or blown up at any time, especially if I opened my mouth revealing a home counties accent. I’d hardly spoken because of my fears; it seemed to me that my tongue was becoming swollen and dry, pressing against my teeth. I’d heard somewhere that a shock to the nervous system could cause muteness and I was genuinely fearful that next time I tried to speak, no sound would issue. I had sat alone in my room, looking at the bags I couldn’t bring myself to unpack and listening to the thud of feet in the corridors outside. From my window I saw students hurrying to join societies and heard them calling to each other. Even their accents, harsh and unfamiliar, unnerved me. The sounds they made were like snarls. I’d had difficulty understanding people in the few words of conversation I had been forced to exchange. I would have turned and fled, heading for home but there was little to go back to. I knew that my mother would already have stripped my bed and aired my room, shutting the door firmly, relieved that I would only return for brief holidays.

‘I had steeled myself to attend that first lecture in Italian. I held my books against my chest for security and to conceal my trembling arms. My legs were weak from lack of food. You swept up the pen and threw your hair back as you settled in your seat. I was aware of bows at your shoulders and down the front of your smock. I thought you looked like a sturdy countrywoman in an eighteenth-century painting, fresh from milking or hay-stacking.

‘You watched me hovering and pointed at the empty chair next to you. “D’you want this?” you asked. “You look as if you’re going to faint.”

‘I sank down next to you, overwhelmed with gratitude because I had been able to understand you. Your speech was slower and more measured than the other accents I had struggled with. You introduced yourself as Majella O’Hare and I told you my name.

‘“Nina,” you said, “that’s attractive, musical. I hate my name. I think it sounds like a sweet preserve: ‘a full-fruit Majella confiture flavoured with cognac’.”

‘I thought of marmellata, the Italian for jam. “I’ve never heard it before,” I confessed. It sounded exotic to me.

‘“That’s because you’re a Brit and your unfamiliarity with it is refreshing. My name doesn’t tell you what it would shout at someone from Ulster; that I’m a Taig, a papist, a left-footer, a Fenian and a feckless member of an underclass.” You gave me a friendly smile as you offered me my first lesson in the intricacies of Irish identity.

‘You asked me if I’d read the set text and I said that I had. In the original or in translation? you enquired. The original, I said, replying in Italian. Then you asked in Italian where I was from and I told you Maidstone, becoming articulate in the shared language and accent that provided us with a mutual territory. You hailed from a place called Pettigoe, which you added sounded like a skin disease.

‘“I’ve not seen you around,” you said. “Did you arrive late?” There was something about you that made me feel less fearful. Your voice was rich and amused, your eyes sparked with interest.

‘“I’ve been in hiding,” I admitted, “starving in my room because I was frightened at being in Belfast. I’ve been living on a scant supply of chocolate bars and canned drinks. I feel sick but starving.”

‘“God almighty,” you laughed, “no wonder you look like a wraith.”

‘After the lecture you took me to the canteen and we ate huge plates of spaghetti. Why, you asked, had I come to Belfast if the place was so terrifying? I’d not got the exam grades I needed, I said; this course had been offered through clearing, they were being kind because it was a new degree.

‘“Why did you do so badly in your exams? You don’t strike me as thick.”

‘“My father died last spring. I lost my concentration.”

‘“That’s tough all right,” you said. “It’s not so awful here, you know, we get a bad press.”

‘Strange that you should have used that phrase during our first meeting, “a bad press”. That type of press, the one we considered prejudiced, was our motivation and justification for what we did on that other October day when the rain fell and kept falling until dawn. But on that afternoon in the canteen, with the autumn sun still warm, the comforting clatter of dishes and my famished stomach contented, I was reassured by your presence. I was like a lost child bonding with the first person to offer affection. In saying that, I am not trying to diminish our friendship. I simply wish to record it honestly. I was always a moth to your candle, Majella. You didn’t set out to have me fluttering around you, but that is what happened.

‘I was fascinated by you as I sped through my spaghetti. Your clothes were crumpled and none too clean; under the blue smock you wore several bright vests in mustards and purples, teamed with one of those layered and fringed Indian cotton skirts that had glass beads sewn into the seams. You ate carelessly, gesturing as you talked, unaware of tomato sauce spattering your chest. On your feet you wore clumpy ankle boots. I never saw you in any other footwear, not even in high summer. You were big boned without seeming heavy and you had a clarity that I was attracted to. A strong tobacco aroma clung to you, especially noticeable when you shook your hair and I was puzzled because you didn’t seem to be a smoker. When I met Finn I realised that it was the odour of his French cigarettes that adhered to you like an invisible gauze. I was entranced by your easy laugh and the way you accepted me. As weeks went by I flourished in the affection you offered, an easy friendship that was new and wonderful. And your family romanced me with their noise and boisterousness. They eased the memory of the formality and chill silences I had been used to in my home. I envied you the wholesome, happy childhood I heard tales of when I visited Pettigoe, the kind I had only read about. In my imagination I made it mine, too; the lambings, the shared labours of potato harvesting, the battles to protect the hens from marauding foxes. I pictured lush, bucolic scenes, placing myself in them, filching glimpses of your past contentment for myself.

‘When I met you I emerged from a long, bleak hibernation. In your glow I uncurled, stretched, and stepped into a new life. I grew to see you and the straightforward, honest people you came from as my bedrock. Lacking strong ties and beliefs of my own, I believed in you. When your glow dimmed and I was deprived of your affection I suffered terribly. For some years I hated Finn more for sundering our friendship than for the path down which he led us. Of course, in my blinkered enthusiasm for our cause I didn’t see that our transgression would inevitably mean our losing each other. I was too naive and inexperienced to understand that there are no pure actions in life, that everything has consequences and pay-offs. I don’t think I saw or understood anything. When we set out in the car that night to carry out our mission as comrades we might as well have been wearing blindfolds, so completely oblivious were we to humanity.’

4 (#ulink_2b1ef288-04c5-56e9-9848-7ad0f0ad9150)

NINA (#ulink_2b1ef288-04c5-56e9-9848-7ad0f0ad9150)

‘Cara Majella,

‘Before I go any further, sifting through memories and years, I must tell you about the letter cards. The first one arrived a fortnight ago, the second this morning. I have them in front of me now. If I hadn’t already made the decision to open up the past they would frighten me more. Even so, they are alarming enough. I feel as if I’m being watched, my reactions monitored. When I received the first I sat frozen in my chair most of the day. As the sun faded I stared into the shadows and saw myself standing in a country lane, my feet mired in mud.

‘The cards are glossy productions, the kind that you fold over and seal. The photographs on the front feature views of phoney azure skies and intense landscape colours that rarely occur in Ireland. The peaceful rural scenes and wide stretches of picturesque strand flanked by hazy blue hills contrast oddly with the information inside. Both cards are a little creased because they have been typed. The first depicts panoramas of County Cork and I have read it so many times I could repeat it from memory:

‘I am stretched on your grave and you’ll find me there always; if I had the bounty of your arms I should never leave you. It is time for me to lie with you; there is the cold smell of the clay on me, the tan of the sun and the wind.’

It is no wonder that there are so many Irish laments and elegies, that so much keening has gone on here. You find it impossible to escape the past in Ireland. Everywhere you turn it surrounds you. You see it in the very shape of the country. You cannot go far here without stumbling over ruins and graves from previous times. Burial sites from prehistory stand silently on hills, watching the solitary walker. Graves hide under the vast boglands, waiting to be discovered by turfcutters. Passage graves, cairns, gallery graves, dolmens, wedge graves, killeens, court graves, portal graves, entrance graves, famine burials in cemeteries or under grass by the side of the road; the land is etched with random and ritual burials. The whole country is a series of catacombs. In the midst of life we are in death; that sentiment rings particularly true in this land where the dead keep close company with the living.

So many secretive graves, concealing the bones of those who died natural deaths as well as the many who were finished off by hunger or their foes.

In the view of Cork harbour, the second photograph, you can see Curraghbinny. It is a hill-top cairn, probably bronze-age. A clay platform inside it would have cradled the deceased but the body had disintegrated by the time the cairn was excavated. High up here, under a steely sky, it seems that the breeze carries cries of grief from that other time.