TransAtlantic (28 page)

The second visit was in 1934, two months after her mother’s death, to clear up her affairs. Lottie couldn’t bring herself to throw away the boxes of Emily’s papers. She packed them in the trunk of a car and drove all the way to northern Missouri. There were no ice farms anymore. She and Ambrose slept in a small roadside motel. She left the boxes on the steps of a local library. She wondered for years what had happened to the papers. Most likely burned, or blown away. When she returned to Belfast she took along her own negatives, watched Alcock climb from a bath of chemicals. She liked the notion of him rising from the dark.

Their last journey was in 1959, on their thirtieth wedding anniversary, when they took a plane from London to Paris, then Paris to Toronto, then Toronto to New York, where Ambrose had business with the linen dealers on White Street. They spent much of their savings on a first-class ticket. They tucked the serviettes at their throats and looked out the window at the shifting cloth of cloud. It amazed Lottie to think that she could get a gin and tonic at twenty thousand feet in the air. She lit a cigarette, nestled close to Ambrose, fell asleep with her head against his shoulder. She took no photographs on that trip. She wanted to see how well it could be put together by memory alone.

THE SKY LIFTS
the hem of Belfast. At the window she looks out over the rooftops. The endless slate and chimneyscape. It’s a dreary city, but there is something about it that charges her in the early morning.

She knots the belt of her dressing gown. Down the stairs towards the kitchen. Cold rises through the linoleum floor. She finds her slippers
at the base of the stove. Lord, but they’re still cold. So much for the last of summer. She opens the front panel of the stove to spread the heat, sits down at the wooden counter that looks out into the rear garden, scoots her feet back and forth to warm them up. The roses are in bloom and there is a spot of dew on the grass. There was a legend long ago that if you rubbed the early morning dew on your face you would stay forever young.

She takes two slices from the loaf in the bread bin, pops them in their new silver toaster, fills the kettle for some instant coffee. Mixes the milk in first and whisks it around. A fine frothy concoction. She is wary of bringing the radio to life. It’s always a temptation to see how the world itself has frothed up during the night: what riot took place across town, what election was rigged, what poor barman had to broom up the bodies. Seldom a week goes by without some calamity or other. Been that way since the days of the Blitz. One of the things she noticed early on about the women of Belfast, even back during the war, was that they all carried a lace handkerchief in the sleeve of their dresses. An odd fashion statement if ever there was one. A glance at the wrist, a little time capsule of grief. She took to carrying one herself, but the fashion has waned now over the years. Less sleeve, more sorrow. The skies, in those days, were a candelabra of violence. She and Ambrose retreated to Strangford where they watched as the planes turned the night sky into a giant orange bloom.

The pop of the toaster startles her: why such an insistent jump? Out hop the slices, like pole vaulters or prison escapees. One of them even reaches the countertop. She rummages around in the fridge, butters both slices, reaches for the marmalade and spreads it thickly. She spoons her coffee and carries it to the counter.

Her favorite moment, this. Perched on the wooden stool, looking out. The small window of silence. The sky lightening. The roses
opening. The dew burning off the grass. The house still cold enough to feel that there is yet a purpose to the day. She has taken to painting watercolors in recent years: a pleasurable pursuit, she rises in the morning, a few strokes of the brush, and soon it is evening. Vast seascapes, the lough, the Causeway, the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede. She has even taken her camera out to Rathlin Island, working afterwards from photographs. There are times she paints herself all the way back to St. John’s, the footnote the town made to the sea, Water Street, Duckworth, Harbour Drive, all the little houses propped on the cliff as if in a last-ditch attempt to remember where they came from.

THE TAP OF
his cane on the floor. The clank of the water pipes. She is wary of making too much of a fuss. Doesn’t want to embarrass him, but he’s certainly slowing up these weathers. What she dreads is a thump on the floor, or a falling against the banisters, or worse still a tumble down the stairs. She climbs the stairs before Ambrose emerges from the bathroom. A quick wrench of worry when there is no sound, but he emerges with a slightly bewildered look on his face. He has left a little shaving foam on the side of his chin, and his shirt is haphazardly buttoned.

She disappears into the bedroom. The worrywart’s dance. Out of her nightdress. Into a pair of slacks and a cardigan. A peek in the mirror. Gray and bosom-burdened. A little bit of weight around the neck now, too.

She peeks her head around the bedroom door to make sure that Ambrose has made it safely down the stairs. His bald head bobs away, around the bottom banisters, towards the kitchen. The ancient days of the Grand Opera House, the Hippodrome, the Curzon, the Albert
Memorial Clock. The two of them out tripping the light fantastic. So young then. The smell of his tweeds. The Turkish tobacco he used to favor. The charity balls in Belfast, her gown rustling on the steps, Ambrose beside her, bow-tied, brillantined, tipsy. The music of the orchestra moving in them both. Good days. When the stars were ceilings, or ceilings were stars. She was treated every now and then to songs about Canada. The Irish had a great penchant for singing and could dredge a song from just about anywhere. Some of them even knew the words of the ballad of the First Newfoundland Regiment, doomed to the Bulge, Beaumont Hamel.

Old soldiers from other wars. Captains and colonels. Pilots and navigators. Oarsmen and show jumpers. Elegant men, all. There were times they got together for a gallop of a foxhunt out beneath the Mournes. Summer lawns. Folding chairs. Tennis tournaments. They used to call her the American, much to her chagrin. She even tried to lose her accent, could never quite manage it. She took to stitching the Red Ensign of Newfoundland on the hem of her skirt. The tournaments stretched until sundown. The dinners in the evening. At the big houses of Belfast. Hours of preparation at the dressing table. Leaning into the small oval mirror. Fixing back a strand of hair. Dabbing on the makeup. Not too much rouge on the cheeks. Light on the mascara, but bright with the lipstick. How do I look, honey? Quite frankly, my dear, you look late. His usual answer, but said with a wink and his arm curled tight around her waist. Afterwards she stood naked in front of a mirror, unplaiting the tress of her hair while his white collar fell onto the bed, and the night was kind to them, always kind.

Down the stairs she goes, a spryness in her step. He is sitting by the window with his tea and toast. She leans across to adjust his shirt buttons and manages to swipe away the small patch of shaving foam from his neck without him noticing. He accordions out yesterday’s newspaper,
folds it down on the table with a sigh. A bomb scare in the city center. Seventeen men rounded up in a sweep. A boy kneecapped in the Peter’s Hill area. An incendiary device found hidden in the bottom of a baby’s pram.

—The great and loyal heroes of Ireland are at it again, says Ambrose.

ON THE WAY
to the lough, the car itself seems to relax. An ancient church, a flock of blackbirds in the eaves, auction notes on stone pillars, sheds bulging with fodder, milk cans at gateways, marshland.

They drive past the heritage site and over the small bridge to the island, then around the red gate in the early morning.

The cottage sits on the edge of the lough, hidden by trees. The thatched roof has long been converted to slate, but the rest still nods to the past. The whitewashed walls, the blue half-door, the old copper flowerpots hanging outside the windows, the faded deckchairs, a dinner bell set on a fence post out the back. How many days has she spent out here, hammering nails and hanging doors and painting walls and puttying window frames? A whole new heating system that never worked in the first place. Pumps and pipe work. Rolls of insulation. Wires and water wells. It began as a two-room cottage and made a gentle spread along the lake. She and Ambrose did most of the work together in the years after the war. Days of calm and quiet. Wind and rain. It weathered their faces. Up on the ladder to fix the slates. Cleaning out the drainpipes. Their summer cottage slid over into winter. All those nights, stunned with simplicity, lying next to him in the back bedroom. Facing east across the water. Watching the light drain.

Tomas swings the car into the driveway. A little too quickly. Ambrose stirs in the backseat, but doesn’t waken. The tires slide in the
soft ground. Several other vehicles are already parked in the long grass near the barn. Her son-in-law, Lawrence, has invited far too many guests. So be it. It’s his weekend. His ritual.

—Leave your grandfather sleep a minute.

Lottie leans over the car seat and tucks the blanket around Ambrose’s neck. He gives the faint hint of a snore. The ground has been turned to mush. Puddles and tire tracks. She has forgotten her Wellington boots and she slops her way towards the back of the car.

—Give me a hand here, Tomas, good lad.

He slouches against the side of the car and stretches out his arms, his hair down over his eyes.

—Buy yourself some windscreen wipers.

He squints at her, perplexed, until she swipes the curls away from his brow. He laughs and Lottie loads him up with bags, books, blankets, directs him towards the house. She watches him drift through the long grass at the side of the cottage, the stalks brushing wet against his jeans. He still wears large elephant flares. His shirt hanging out at the rear. Never a boy for fashion. He struggles under the load, almost slips, but finds his footing in the gravel near the front door, steadies himself.

He slides towards the half-door—the top portion open, the bottom closed—and leans his way into the cottage. Half in, half out. The load he carries propped on the rim of the door. Even from a distance Lottie can hear the high greeting of her daughter from inside. The spill of happiness out the door. An apron. A few strands of hair over Hannah’s blue eyes. A smell of tobacco when they hug.

—Where’s Dad?

—Snoozing. Leave him two minutes.

—Did you roll down the window?

—Of course. Are they at it yet?

—They put out the decoys at five this morning.

—They what?

—They began in the dark.

And, as if on cue, Lottie hears her first gunshot of the weekend. Followed quickly by a second. She turns to see a flock of birds bursting their way over the cottage.

AMBROSE WAS, IN
his time, a good shot, too. A few of the men from the linen business would get together on the autumn weekends. Headlamps pouring down the road in pale shrouds in the early mist. Boots. Duck-hunting hats. Tweeds. Green slickers. Brownings tucked away in rifle bags, slung over their shoulders. They walked out the island road with the dogs trotting behind them, Labradors, yellow and black. She could hear the heeltaps on gravel as they moved away. They returned in the late afternoon, a faint smell of gunpowder from their clothes. Pochard, tufted duck, goldeneye. They made a ritual of dropping brandy in the boiling water to ease the pellets, they said, from the flesh. She could never taste the meat without thinking of flight.

Arthur Brown. God rest him. She still has the unopened letter from her youth. He is dead now these past thirty years. His own son, Buster, smashed out of the clouds on a mission of war. The second savaging of the century. The failed experiment of peace. She recalls Brown at his home in Swansea, standing on the low wall, his body bent backwards, the ball in midflight and an arc of brief joy on his face.

RANDOM GUNFIRE PUNCTUATES
breakfast. She sits in the kitchen, with Hannah at the table, the red-and-white-checked tablecloth spread out in front of them. Tomas perches by the fire, reading, while Ambrose takes a stroll along the shore between naps.

She is happy to spend some time alone with her daughter: it happens less and less these days. The inevitable teapot, the butter, the scones. The lilies leaning in a tabletop vase. The hard whiff of tobacco: Lottie allows it to drift across her face.

On the windowsill stand a bunch of opened letters and a checkbook. Destiny has given her daughter two things—an agile mind, and a gift, or a curse, for giving away money. It has been that way for years: as a child on the Malone Road she would come home shoeless. Even now, there is always a check being dropped in an envelope. Red Cross. Oxfam. Shaftesbury Children’s Home.

—What in the world is Amnesty International?

—Just another bunch of Canadians, Mother.

—Does the postman not hate you?

—I’m on their watch list.

Lottie holds the bundle of letters in the air, flicks through them as if they were a moving cartoon: pound notes disappearing over the hill.

—Everything I know I learned from you, Mum.

Not a lie. She was, in her day, hardly a penny-pincher. Still, always a mother. Impossible to escape. She wraps an elastic band around the checkbook, tries to hide it behind the flowerpot.

They weave the hours away, moving fluidly around one another, swapping spoons, handing off bowls, borrowing dishtowels from one another’s shoulders. The state of the farm. The pulse of the village. The business Hannah has made with the purebred dogs.

Hannah’s hands have aged a little. Thirty-eight years old now, half her life a mother herself. A tilework to her skin. A braid of veins at the base of her wrist. Such a curious thing, to watch your daughter grow older. That odd inheritance.

—Tomas behaving himself up there, is he, then?

—Playing tennis every Wednesday.

—Good on him.

A wistful note in her daughter’s voice: Not driving you mad with that new stereo of his, is he?

—Sure the two of us are deaf anyway.