To the Sea Read online

  He knew that Eva shared his thoughts and he could feel her tense and warm in his arms as they danced. He paced himself so he would be ready. He didn’t want to be drunk or tired. He wanted to be awake all night with Eva. As the dance floor filled with happy guests, John started counting down the hours and then the minutes until he and Eva would be alone.

  The pleasure of being alone with his new wife overwhelmed John. He had never known such joy. John could only get a week off from the hospital and they spent it at Rosetta. They hardly left the house in that week and he could not get enough of Eva. His happiness was boundless as he discovered how much she also wanted him and gave of herself. They came back to his little flat in town filled with excitement at the new life they faced together. Neither had known that a shared life could offer so much.

  John would rush home from work to Eva and they would race to bed. He had to drag himself away from her in the mornings. Eva was still working three mornings a week in the library at her old school so they would walk together to Sandy Bay Road where Eva would drop in for breakfast with her mother and grandfather, while John ran across St David’s Park to get to the hospital in time for his early rounds. Eva would be home waiting for him at the end of the day.

  John had offered from the very first night to use contraception. Eva was still only nineteen and he didn’t want her trapped into children and family life until she was ready. He would wait. He would do anything for her. But she had gently pushed away his attempts at family planning. It would only be a matter of time before a baby arrived. If they were going to have a family, they needed a family home, so they began to spend their weekends at open homes.

  For five happy months, John’s new life and marriage continued to be one perfect hour after another. He was even enjoying his work at the hospital. His marriage had made every aspect of his life exciting and pleasurable.

  And then one Saturday he was shaken from his state of bliss. He and Eva returned to the flat after house hunting to find Tom waiting for them on the little wooden porch. John had barely seen him since the wedding and felt a flush of guilt at his thoughtlessness. Tom was older and much thinner than John remembered. But Tom barely noticed John. He looked only at Eva. He had been crying. John knew what Tom had come to tell them but he remained quiet and waited for Tom to say the words.

  Branna was dead.

  Eva fell into Tom’s arms. She clutched at her grandfather’s neck and he consoled her with quiet words of their own language. It stung John sharply that in her moment of greatest despair, Eva had turned to Tom for comfort and not to her husband.

  As she mourned her mother, Eva moved into a world where John could not find her. She spent all her waking hours with Tom. They prepared for Branna’s funeral and John realised for the first time since his wedding that he was not a part of their little family. John didn’t know if they didn’t want him involved or if they simply didn’t think of him. Branna’s death was not announced in the newspaper and Tom wanted no one present at her funeral. John heard Tom talking on the phone to his sons in Ireland, but the talk was in Irish and John was not meant to understand what was said.

  A funeral service was held at the nearby Holy Spirit Catholic Church five days after Branna’s death and only Tom and Eva attended. John’s Protestantism and Eva’s Catholicism had become a barrier between them again, just as it had before their wedding. But this time, they could not avoid a church. Branna’s funeral was held in the church of her family and her homeland and John was excluded. He walked to the church with Eva. He held her hand as they walked but she would not speak. She was wearing a small black pillbox hat with black netting over her face. She would not respond to his questions or his gentle attempts at conversation. Tom was waiting for them on the church steps. As they walked up, Eva withdrew her hand from John’s and walked into the outstretched arms of her grandfather. John hoped the priest would ignore the dogma of Rome on this one sad day and he clumsily tried to follow Eva and Tom into the church, but the door was slammed on him. Eva was unaware of her husband. No smile, no quiet word of love, no reassurance. John stood outside the closed church feeling foolish and unnecessary. The service was long and he could only guess at what was going on inside.

  When the church doors finally opened and Tom and Eva emerged, the three of them waited in silence while the undertakers entered the church to get Branna’s coffin. John tried to move close to Eva but he could not. She leaned on her grandfather. Her back was hard against his advances. He stood alone and watched Branna’s coffin being taken away in the hearse. Branna was to be cremated. Another practice outside John’s experience. Catholic, he guessed wrongly.

  There were no after-funeral niceties. No gathering at Tom’s of friends and family. John had thought there might be an Irish wake, but there was nothing. In silence, Tom drove them home to their flat and he left them. John watched as Tom drove away and, for the first time since meeting Eva, John was reluctant to be alone with her.

  Eva remained distant in the weeks after the funeral. She looked at John from time to time but she rarely spoke to him. She was grieving, John understood that, but he was alarmed at how far away her grief had taken her. He could not find the words that would bring her back. He would look over at her sometimes as they sat together in the evening and he could not imagine what she was thinking. At night, she lay still and awake, sometimes crying, but never reaching for John to comfort her. He held her anyway and tried his best. He knew he was drifting out of her reach. She had become a stranger to him and he was afraid of his own loneliness.

  He clumsily performed the little rituals of lovers, hoping they would spark the intimacy he had once shared with her. She accepted his flowers, his cooked meals and she smiled and thanked him when he bought her favourite little neenish tarts, but he later found them untouched in the bottom of the kitchen tidy. John did not know what else to do. She might find him pathetic, but he could not stop trying to please her and find his way back into her heart. He belonged nowhere else.

  More than his fear of her grief, another fear had crept up on him in the long nights of despair. Eva was Branna’s daughter. Tom had told John that there was a time when Branna was well, a happy little girl running and laughing with her brothers, a bright and excitable young woman ready to enjoy all that life had to offer. Something had happened. She had lost her happiness and her will to live. She had lost her mind.

  So John kept a close and fearful eye on Eva. He became quietly frantic when she sat for hours in the armchair in their bedroom looking out the window at the light filtering through the tall yellow robinia tree filling the view. The golden sunlight playing across her face was the only movement in her pale, taut body.

  As a doctor, he felt her grief was too much. How could she ever crawl out of it? Is this what had happened to Branna when her husband died? John resolved that he would not let the same thing happen to Eva. He would hold her here. He would make her love him and love the life they had just started to make together. He couldn’t imagine grabbing Eva, holding her down, forcing her to see him and feel him, but the longer she remained lost in her own terrible grief, the closer John felt he was getting to doing whatever needed doing. He would make her come back to this world.

  Four weeks after the funeral, Eva said that she and Tom were going down to Rosetta with Branna’s ashes. She did not ask John to accompany them but he went nonetheless. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight for a day for fear she would enter that other world that had trapped Branna.

  They went down to Rosetta early on a Saturday morning. John and Tom sat in the front seat and talked most of the way down. John spoke of everyday things and told funny stories from work, trying to remind his shadowy and silent wife of the real world and that he was in it. Tom joined in. John thought that he too looked worried for Eva, although he did not share his thoughts with John. Eva sat in the back seat holding the small brass urn containing Branna’s ashes.

  At Rosetta, Tom and Eva walked around the west side of the house and
headed straight down to the boatsheds. John followed. Tom and Eva worked with purpose to winch a small wooden sailboat down the rails into the water. Eva climbed on board with a nimbleness and grace which John had not seen in her since Branna’s death. Tom handed her a large canvas bag he had brought out from the shed. Eva unwrapped it and unfolded a black sail, which she began threading onto the mast. John sat on the jetty, mesmerised by Eva’s skill and sure-footedness on the little boat as she jumped from side to side and deftly raised the tall mast now draped in black sail.

  The wind flapped the sail and the little boat shrunk under the spreading fabric. Tom pushed the boat out from the jetty and the sail filled with wind in one quick billowing movement. Tom stood on the jetty watching the little boat move away but he remained some distance from John. Eva had one hand on the rudder as she sat at the back of the boat. Her other hand was wrapped in rope as she manoeuvred the black sail into the rising wind. The westerly was strong and for the first time John noticed that there was a swell and the waves were white-tipped and moving fast against the shore. The little boat moved with incredible speed out towards the channel.

  Once again he didn’t know what was happening but he knew he had no role in it. And he knew better than to ask Tom. Eva’s black-sailed boat dipped and lifted across the face of the white-capped waves until it hit the deep water channel. Then it straightened up and sped down the channel out towards Storm Bay and the open ocean of the south. Surely she would not go so far.

  John stood on the jetty for a very long time. He tried to talk to Tom but he was perfunctory with his replies and clearly wanted to be alone. John obliged. He walked to the end of the jetty and sat with his legs hanging down over the edge. The sun was warm, despite the rising sea breeze. He watched as Eva’s boat became a distant dark smudge and then as it disappeared beyond the horizon. The day wore on.

  Anger began to stir deep within John. Tom and Eva had treated him badly today. In fact, they had treated him badly ever since Branna’s death. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know how to help them. He wanted to be involved. Was it always going to be like this for him in this family? His anger lay quiet and tightly folded in the pit of his being. He knew he must not poke it to discover its true heat. Or its size. Not so soon after Branna’s death. Not while Eva was still so consumed by her grief. But he would not sit outside his wife’s life and her family forever. They would let him come in to them or Eva would have to come out to him. He would not spend his life alone.

  Sometime late in the day, the black sail came back into focus. John left his anger untouched where it could cool and shrivel. Now that she was coming towards him across the shallow water of Driving Sound, John could feel only his familiar tenderness for Eva. When she reached the jetty, she and Tom dismantled the sail and returned the boat to the boatshed. John noticed that Eva’s hair was wet and dripping down her back. Surely Eva had not gone into the water way out in Storm Bay or left the boat unanchored with a set sail in such dangerous waters? Maybe a wave had swamped her. But the boat was dry, and John was afraid when he thought of what Eva might have done out there.

  No one said anything about Eva’s journey. They didn’t say anything at all. John tried to remember how long it had been since he had last heard his wife’s voice. But the purpose of the trip had been achieved. The urn which Eva had taken with her was gone. Branna was gone.

  Soon after that long day down at Rosetta, Eva told John that she wanted them to move into the house on Sandy Bay Road with Tom. John didn’t want to. How could John touch Eva, stroke her, kiss her whenever he wanted in Tom’s house? How could they make love anywhere, as they had done when their marriage was new and Branna was not dead? The intensity of their desire and the abandon with which they lived their evenings within their little flat had been the greatest joy in John’s life and he would not give it up.

  Eva seemed surprised by John’s refusal: he had never denied her anything. John believed that she had accepted his views and the matter was resolved. They visited Tom often, having dinner with him a few times each week. They invited him house hunting and they sometimes went out together to a restaurant. Then Eva started staying at Tom’s later in the afternoons. She would ask John to come by Tom’s for dinner. They stayed later and later, often walking home only after Tom had retired for the night. One night, as they were sitting in the big lounge room, each of them reading, John noticed that Eva had fallen asleep in the armchair near the window.

  ‘Take her up to bed, John,’ said Tom gently.

  John was furious. He tried to wake Eva but she was groggy with sleep. He tried to get her to stand but she fell limply into his arms. He was making a fool of himself in front of Tom so he lifted Eva into his arms and carried her upstairs to her old room. The single bed he remembered from previous visits was gone and there was a large white iron and brass bed in its place. He didn’t recognise it. John was certain that Tom and Eva had planned this. He would stay tonight but he wouldn’t stay forever. He wasn’t going to be duped into living as the third wheel in this house. He and Eva would have their first sharp words tomorrow.

  John undressed his comatose wife, who he had not previously known to sleep so deeply, and placed her roughly in the bed. He hoped she would wake. He was ready for the fight and he didn’t care if Tom heard it. He rather hoped he would. He knew his relationship with Eva was uneven. He accepted that he was the lesser partner, dependent on her moods and how and when she would apportion her love. But it galled him. He and Eva had not made love or so much as kissed in months. Really kissed. John had lost everything that was important to him, and now he was supposed to roll over and give up his independence and his own home, even if it was just a small rented flat.

  As he lay there in the dark with his anger and confusion building, he felt his body harden along with his heart. Maybe tonight. Maybe now he would take her. She would wake to that. He would make damn sure she did. Feel this, Eva, he would say. Feel me taking you back. Feel me telling you that I am not to be played with. Feel this and know who I am. I am the man in your life, the man in you. You will put my needs first, not your grandfather’s.

  It came as no surprise to John that he didn’t act on his anger, which was already dissipating in the dark. His violent thoughts were fleeting and fell apart before they were fully formed. In a way, he wished he could be that man, but he could not. He lay awake for hours tracking conflicting emotions around the dark room until he fell asleep.

  Sometime in the night, Eva came to him. There were no words of regret or reproach and no apology for her past cruel treatment, but she came to him. The house was just a shell, he realised. He had nothing to fear from it. This was what was real. Here between them, husband and wife, in this strange bed in this dark night. Just as Eva had given in to John’s need of her, so he would give in to her need to include her grandfather in their future lives. Where they lived was not important. Only this was important.

  Others would come and go in their lives and hover on the periphery, but this would remain. It was enough for John.

  And so John and Eva moved into the house on Sandy Bay Road with Tom. It wasn’t as difficult as John had feared. Eva had come back to him and Tom didn’t infringe too much upon them. It was a big house and Tom had his own life. He was frequently out at dinners or in his upstairs office with the door closed. He was working on a book, he said, about the Irish wars in which he’d fought. John hadn’t known that there had been any Irish wars and he was more surprised than he could say that Tom had fought in them.

  Tom planned to return to Ireland to spend some time with his sisters and sons and to conduct some research for his book. He hadn’t been back to Ireland for some years and he was looking forward to it. He suggested John and Eva come with him. Eva hadn’t been back since she was a girl, and Tom would enjoy showing John his homeland.

  John couldn’t. He’d taken a lot of time off work after Branna’s death to be with Eva, and it was too soon to take another six months for an overseas holiday.
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  But John was afraid that Eva would want to go to Ireland without him. He knew that if she asked, he would reluctantly agree. He could say that he wanted her to stay here with him, but he wanted her to want to stay with him without his asking. He wanted her need of him and her love of him to outshine his, for once. But if she asked to go, he would assent and say of course she must go.

  His most fervent hope was that Eva would soon fall pregnant. He was surprised that she hadn’t already. For the first few months of their marriage he was glad each month when Eva’s period arrived on time. He wanted some time for just the two of them and a pregnancy and a baby so quickly would have intruded on their new shared life. But they’d been married for a year now and he was ready. Sometimes he worried but as Eva hadn’t spoken to him about it or shown any concern, he had decided to wait until she did. He would wait and hope it happened this month. If she became pregnant she wouldn’t go to Ireland and the awkward discussion of John’s need of her could be avoided completely.

  One Friday morning a month before Tom was due to leave, Eva suggested that she and John go down to Rosetta for the weekend. John was keen. Eva was always somehow different at Rosetta, not as silent and aloof. She would swim, no matter the weather, and they would sail together and make love. She would be tender and attentive and John would be happy.

  They pulled into the driveway between the big old wooden gates of Rosetta late that night. They sat at the kitchen table eating the cold chicken and potato salad Eva had packed for them. They drank a full bottle of cold white wine while they talked and planned their weekend. While his body was still full of the wine’s energetic drunkenness, he lifted Eva into his arms as he had on their wedding night and carried her up to their bed.

  They were late to rise on Saturday. The weather had turned cold overnight. There was a southerly blowing and it was raining. John went downstairs late and made the toast and tea which they shared sitting up in bed watching the grey sky lower itself down upon the white-capped waves of the deep channel. The rain was driving hard into the window panes and the wind was picking up, howling through the pine trees. After breakfast John and Eva drowsily made love before falling back asleep. They did not finally get up for the day until hunger drove them downstairs to prepare a very late lunch.