Page 2 of The Elements
It doesn’t take long for the people of the island to become intrigued by the stranger who has appeared in their midst. I suppose they rarely encounter outsiders, except during the summer months when the tourists arrive, a prospect I’m already dreading.
Holidaymakers from Dublin, after all, might recognize me, so I will need to keep my wits about me then.
I’m conscious of my arrogance in assuming that no one on this small atoll could possibly identify me, but I feel reasonably confident that they won’t.
A rumor spreads that a woman from the mainland, which usually means Galway, Mayo, or Clare, has rented Peader Dooley’s cottage and, in each shop I enter, I am asked to confirm that I am the refugee in question.
When I do, I’m greeted with a mixture of excitement, alarm, and, above all, concern for my safety.
The general feeling is that my new home is not sufficiently insulated and that, if I remain there, I will surely die from hypothermia.
“It’s actually quite warm,” I tell the fifth or sixth islander to prophesy my demise, and my Cassandra is preparing to contradict me, to assure me that I’ll be dead within the month, when her husband interrupts to say that no, the Dooley cottage was constructed with good bricks.
“Most aren’t,” he observes, scratching his stubbly chin.
There is more hair growing from his ears, nose, and eyebrows than from his head, and it’s a disconcerting sight.
“Not anymore. And cheap blocks will let the cold in every time. But a cottage with good bricks? They’ll protect you. Do you know himself at all?”
“Who?” I ask.
“Your man Dooley.”
“No,” I tell him, shaking my head. “We conducted our business over email. He doesn’t live here, I believe.”
“Away across,” he replies, nodding in the general direction of the mainland. “’Twas his father, Shay Dooley, built that cottage. Put it together with his own hands. People did, back then. Now, they wouldn’t know how. Sure, the old skills are long gone.”
I’m trying to imagine the work that must have gone into the construction. Where did the bricks even come from? Or the mortar? How deep are the foundations? And, while he was about it, would it have killed him to have installed a shower?
“You’re a writer, I bet,” says the woman, with a confident smile on her face. “I’d put a pound to a penny that you are.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“It’s the sort of thing writers do, isn’t it?
” she says. “They rent some oul’ cottage in the middle of nowhere when they’re working on a book, and then off they feck when the thing is finished and go on Pat Kenny or Ryan Tubridy to tell everyone listening how the place changed them. I’m right, amn’t I?”
“I’m afraid not,” I say, amused by the idea. I have a story to tell, it’s true, but I lack the inclination to tell it.
She seems disappointed, as if she had hoped that I was importing a little celebrity to island life and I have thwarted her. Perhaps she envisioned lectures or workshops. A reading in the church. A book group. Anything that would alter the monotony of her daily existence.
“Then what is it you do?” she asks, irritated now, as if I’m being deliberately obtuse by not being a writer.
“I don’t do anything,” I tell her.
“But before you came here? You must have done something.”
“No, nothing at all,” I reply, and I hear how ridiculous this sounds, but, after all, it’s the truth. I did nothing. I’m an able-bodied, intellectually curious woman of fifty-two years who hasn’t drawn a paycheck in almost three decades. What a thing to admit.
Still, for all their prying, I enjoy talking to the islanders.
They are, for the most part, a friendly group.
And, whatever curiosity they feel, they have the decency not to ask too many questions about why I have exchanged a city of around one and a half million people for an island of four hundred.
I had expected more of an inquisition. One or two extract the information that I am from Dublin, and they wrap their arms around themselves then, shaking their heads in wariness, as if they’ve heard nothing but bad about that place and would no more visit it than journey to the moon.
I develop a routine to my days. I wake at seven and take a long walk along the cliffs, enjoying the feeling of the early-morning wind in my face, before returning to the cottage, where I eat a light breakfast and check when Rebecca was last online.
I feel a sense of relief when I see that it was relatively early—say around eleven p.m.—but much later than that and I start to worry.
On the rare occasions when I see that she is still using her phone at three or four o’clock in the morning, I grow concerned and wonder what she might be doing.
Is there a boy, perhaps, keeping her awake?
She’s never liked to confide in me about her romantic life but, aged twenty-four, it would be perverse if she hadn’t had some experiences in that area.
I’ve only met one who might have been considered a suitor, and that was the young man who took her to her Debs six years ago.
Colm, or Colin, or Colum. Something like that.
A face still troubled by acne, with a mop of shiny red hair and an air of uncertainty about him.
Thin, bony fingers. Brendan behaved as if he was Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride , all gruff and authoritative, but the part didn’t suit him.
Colm, or Colin, or Colum told me that he wanted to be an entomologist and I think I surprised him, disappointed him even, when I knew what that word meant and he didn’t have the pleasure of explaining it to me.
It was a job, I thought, that would suit him.
Anyway, I never saw him again after the Debs, and if I raised his name, Rebecca would pretend she didn’t know who I was talking about.
I have occasionally wondered whether she might be more interested in girls than boys, but no, on reflection, I don’t think that’s the case.
I’ve noticed her, in unguarded moments, casting glances toward handsome men in shops or restaurants and, anyway, she’s not the type to hide a marginal sexuality, as if it was something shameful.
If anything, she would revel in it. And she knows it wouldn’t matter to me in the slightest who she brought home, although, if I’m honest, I’d prefer it was a boy, just to keep things simple.
I’m aware that expressing a sentiment like that can get a person in trouble these days, but life, I feel, is hard enough without adding another layer of difficulty.
And to be fair to Brendan, I think he would have felt the same way.
Although, whatever she is, he won’t be the one walking her up the aisle, should such a day ever come.
And Emma, of course, died before she could fall in love with anyone, so there are no stories there.
The mornings pass quickly. I take a bath, washing my head by submerging myself in the water and blocking out the silence.
I clean things that I cleaned the day before.
I talk to the cat, who has grudgingly accepted my presence but will not be denied her armchair.
I read. I look out the window. I think about the morning when the Gardaí arrived at our front door in Terenure.
I tell myself not to think about the morning when the Gardaí arrived at our front door in Terenure.
And, in this way, the hours pass and, before I know it, it’s almost lunchtime and I can walk down to the village.
There’s not much to do there, but it’s important to get out and speak to people, not to be seen as the mad Dublin woman hiding out in the cottage above.
Also, I have a fear that if I am seen as a recluse, some well-meaning but pushy neighbor will invite me for dinner and then I’ll be passed from house to house till they strip the past out of me and I’ll have no choice but to up sticks and move again.
No, better to be seen as available but standoffish.
Whenever I notice one of the islanders looking in my direction, I smile and engage them in conversation.
The weather, of course, for where would we all be without conversations about it?
The longer stretch in the evenings. The possibility of a storm.
They talk of the tides, of their unpredictable ways, but I know little of this subject, even if it does fascinate me.
I go to the new pub for lunch—a sandwich and a bowl of soup—and keep the old pub for when I drop down at night, on the occasions when the isolation gets to me and I need some alcohol in my bloodstream to stop me from slitting my wrists, or to give me the courage to do so.
I don’t buy any drink for the cottage. That’s a slippery slope.
The old pub and the new pub are alike in most respects and are officially named after their owners, but everyone refers to them in this way.
The old pub has been serving liquor on the island since 1873 and the current owner is the great-grandson or great-great-grandson of the original publican.
The new pub, on the other hand, has only been in operation since 1956 and has changed hands several times in the intervening decades.
The current proprietor is a man in his fifties who looks as if he would like to talk to me, but I make sure to carry a book to defend my privacy and this seems to put him off.
He’s not unattractive, but I have not come to the island in search of romance, and I don’t want to encourage him by being too friendly.
There’s a ring on his finger anyway. I looked, despite myself.