HELLOOOOOO!!

I feel like I’m coming back after being on a long hiatus. Like coming out of anesthesia, or recovering from a hangover. I feel like springtime.

When I initially decided that I wanted to keep the pregnancy news under wraps (mostly) until after our first scan, I thought it would make things easier. I thought it would give me the space to avoid difficult questions and get myself together before presenting this new me to the world. But what ended up happening is that I got so comfortable with it being a secret that I found it hard to let go of when we finally came to the appointed time. Or rather, I wanted to continue hiding under wraps, beneath the blanket of secrecy, which was a rather futile thing to wish for given that I’ll be an enormous, dinosaur-like version of myself in a few months. No amount of secrecy is going to hide that, or the infant that will follow.

But now that the news is out, and all the relevant people have been told, I feel so much lighter, more confident. I’ve come to the conclusion that secrets are unhealthy.

So, yes, I will continue to write about my pregnancy as it unfolds. And I’ll try to write about other things too – I am going to make a concerted effort to ensure that my life does not implode into a single-faceted object. In fact, if you’re interested in reading some of my fiction I’ve included it in this entry – just click on the More at the bottom. It’s a short story that I wrote for my class last week.

It feels good to be back…

It was a dark and stormy night. The windshield wipers beat rhythmically across the windscreen, sending water cascading along the side windows in lines of marching droplets. The headlights lit up just enough of the road ahead for Marion to see the puddles that collected at the sides of the road, shadows that threatened to leap out and leaves driven across the road by the insistent wind. More than once she saw them as little brown mice darting out beneath her tires. Marion exhaled deeply and shrugged her neck and shoulders, hoping to shake out the pain gathering between her shoulderblades. In the distance, cars threaded their way along the hillside, their high beams like luminescent pearls strung one after the other on a necklace.

Marion pulled a cigarette out of the packet beside her and lit it with a snap from her zippo. The world paused for a moment as she inhaled deeply, then trees and houses resumed their movements along the winding ribbon of pavement that wove and curled through the darkness like the smoke escaping in delicate wisps and tendrils from Marion’s nose. She exhaled again with a gusting sigh, and in that exhalation imagined herself sinking into a deep, hot bath. The needle on the speedometer crept a little higher.

Deserted stone cottages and ghostly trees flicked by on either side. Each country pub was as familiar to Marion has her own fingers and toes, each bump in the road like the curvatures of her hips and stomach. She knew where to expect them to be, and they got a little deeper and a little wider as the months and years passed. Whole towns passed one after the other as the minutes and hours ticked by, the appearance and disappearance of each as regular and predictable as the passage of the seasons. Marion stubbed out her cigarette and flicked it out the window.

Just ahead, there on the right, Marion’s headlights shone on a sign hanging beside a dilapidated country pub. The quill and fountain. It hadn’t been open in months, and strong boards were nailed across the windows and doors. The hanging sign had broken loose from one of its hooks and it dangled at a miserable angle. As quickly as Marion noticed all these details, the pub was gone, a rosary bead passed beneath her fingers. Hail Mary, full of grace…

The hot smoky dampness wrapped itself around her bare shoulders as they huddled together in the snug.

“Scuse me, love,” Liam shouted over the din, and Marion leaned to the side to give him space to set down the three pints he was balancing. Kevin sat across from her, his eyes half-closed in either drunkenness or reverie, she could never tell. A handful of musicians has lost themselves in jigs and reels and pints of stout, cheerfully sent over by the bartender. The energy was palpable, and it dripped down the wallpaper in great patches of damp, a steaming sauna of glee to blot out the lashing wind and rain outside. Marion leaned again to give Liam room to ease himself through the mess of stools and table legs, back to his seat beside Kevin.

“You alright there, Kev?” she murmured, leaning forward and brushing his hands with hers. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

“Mmmmm,” Kevin replied, eyes still shut. “I’m grand. I can’t hear it at all. Can’t hear a thing.” At the bar, a plump young woman with a red mouth shrieked with laughter, jiggling her bosoms as the fiddle reeled.

Marion swallowed hard, the taste of the cigarette thick in her mouth and memories restless in her belly. White cats eyes winked at her, lighting up the centre of the road as it disappeared and reappeared as she navigated each bend in the road. Water rushed along the edge of the road, the ditch so full the runoff had escaped its confines and was now streaming along the pavement. Marching droplets still diligently made their way along the window, small drops collecting themselves into larger drops by some kind of magnetic force.

Kevin sat at the kitchen table, in front of the enormous cast iron range, and wrung his hands absentmindedly.

“Cup of tea, love?” Marion asked, balancing the baby on her hip with one hand and holding the kettle beneath the tap with the other.

“No, thanks.” Kevin stared out the window onto the darkening grey fields. The baby began to fuss and Marion bounced him on her hip, cooing a little while she switched on the kettle.

“Any luck today?” she asked, pushing a strand of brown hair out of her eyes.

“Nope.” Kevin blinked, then continued to stare absently out the window. The wind was picking up, and it howled around the corner of the house.

“Mmm, well, I’m sure you’ll find the thread again, Kev, it’s just a matter of time. A season for everything, you know.” The wind continued to blow and a pattering of rain spattered against the windowpane. Beneath the stifling weight of Kevin’s silence, Marion hushed the baby and busily prepared her own tea, carefully lifting the lid off the teapot so it wouldn’t clatter. The wind threw itself against the cottage, prising its fingers beneath the slates on the roof and rattling the gate in the fence.

“It’s all this goddamn noise!” Kevin bellowed, standing up and sending his chair backwards to crash against the range. “I could work properly if I wasn’t surrounded by so much NOISE, it just gets into my head and plugs it up!” Startled, the baby began to cry and Marion carefully set down her tea to comfort him.

“But Kev, we moved out here to get away from the noise of the city. There are no neighbours upstairs anymore. Is it too noisy still?”

“Yes,” he grunted, pacing to and fro in their tiny kitchen. “It’s the baby, and the goddamn wind. I can’t think straight with the wind beating on my head day and night.” Marion looked over at Kevin, his clothes bedraggled and black hair tousled atop his head as if he had indeed been stuck out on a hillside minding a hundred sheep through the winters worst gale, despite the fact that she knew he had been sitting beside the fire in silence for the entire day.

“Well, we’ll just have to find somewhere quieter for you to work,” Marion said.

Fingers tapping gently on the steering wheel, Marion realized she was approaching another town and slowed down. The rain was letting up a little, although by no means stopping, and people dashed out from where they had been sheltering in pub doorways and ran to taxis while hiding beneath their coats or bits of newspaper. The night’s drinking had loosened their limbs and freed toothy grins in rain-soaked faces. They gathered together each week to forget all the little irritations that gathered up like pebbles in a shoe. Then they slipped past as Marion drove, out of sight as quickly as their troubles were forgotten, and Marion sped up into the darkness.

“I’m worried, Liam.” Marion sat at Liam’s kitchen table and smoked one cigarette after another. “I haven’t heard from Kevin in a week.” Liam’s round, kind face looked up from his mug of tea.

“It’s just Kevin’s way,” he said. “He’ll be the death of you if you keep worrying about him like this. He’s always been a bit of a loner, brushing off his friends and family to disappear for a while. Once he gets it out of his system he’ll be back, you’ll see.” Marion sat back in her chair and watched the baby crawling around on the kitchen floor.

“I just can’t shake this feeling, even though I know it’s silly, you you know? I feel like something is about to happen, something bad. He said his writing was going great at first, then he couldn’t concentrate, just like before. Last I talked to him he said he could hear it again.”

“What did he hear?” Liam leaned forward, his brow cloudy.

“Damned if I know.” Marion replied, taking the last drag on her cigarette and stubbing it out in the already overfull ashtray. “He’s brilliant, but your brother is one tormented soul, Liam.”

“That’s what our mam used to say about him.” Liam took a gulp of tea to hide the emotion in his face, and s
et the empty cup down on the table with a bang that surprised the both of them.

“How’s the farm going these days? Are you getting on alright?”

“Ah, sure, it’s grand. Same as it ever was, you know. Same sheep, same cows, same land, same weather. It’s all the same, really, just that mam’s not around anymore. There’s a new hydroelectric scheme gone in on top of that hill there, they reckon they can make a few bob by running water down a pipe and through a yoke at the bottom of the hill. Bunch of crazy old hippies running it, I’d say.”

“Well, it’s some idea if it works. Imagine making money every time it rains and more water goes running through the pipe!” Marion looked out the window at the water beating against the glass, like a wild creature desperate to be let in to warm itself against the fire.

Marion shivered and reached for the knob to turn up the heat in the car. All these memories, all the wind blowing about in the trees, making them waltz along the road while she drove made her feel chilled right through to her bones. The kind of chill that didn’t require any real wind or rain to trigger shivers all through her body.

Drop after drop plopped into the sink as Marion pulled hard on the handle of the cold water tap. “Damn thing,” she muttered, drying her hands on a tea towel and standing back to observe the damage. As she watched, a steady drip fell from the faucet, which gradually increased until it was a continuous flow. She hadn’t noticed the leak worsening, but now it would need someone to repair the washer before the faucet started leaking at a full gush. Mesmerised by the flow of the water, she jumped when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mrs. Marion Murphy?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mrs Murphy. This is Garda O’Sullivan calling.”

Marion couldn’t breathe, and reached out towards the back of the nearest chair, the countertop, desperate grasping hands searching out anything solid she could lean on. Words abandoned her and she made some kind of croaking noise into the phone.

“Your family has been identified as the next of kin to Mr Liam Murphy. He was found dead this morning, drowned in a local lake. There was a hydroelectric scheme there, and it seems he fell into the lake and got trapped beneath the water at the intake. My sincerest condolences to yourself and your family, Mrs Murphy.”

“Are you sure it was Liam, sir? It’s just so unlikely, he was the most solid, dependable man ye’d ever meet. I really just can’t believe that such a thing would happen to him.”

“We are quite certain, Mrs Murphy. His neighbours identified him. And he left a note on his kitchen table which said, ‘I just can’t bear the noise. Please forgive me, Liam.”

At that moment, Kevin walked in the door, hair blown every direction and dripping onto the mat at his soaking feet, beaming triumphantly. “I wrote it, Marion. I wrote that damn book and now I can’t hear it anymore. The silence is glorious!”

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