Selected Stories

Eilis Ni Dhuibhne

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781943150311
• eBook ISBN:
  9781628972658
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

This volume collects new short stories from one of Ireland's leading writers in both the Irish and English languages. Eilis Ni Dhuibhne's stories are widely acclaimed for their acute perception of Irish women's lives, the power of her verbal economy, and her skillful and unique use of both humor and the fantastic.

The Coast of Wales

OPPOSITE THE FLOWERBED, WHICH dazzles the eye with crimson primroses and tulips the precise pink of dentures, a woman in a yellow anorak is bent over a tap. As she fills her blue watering can, her small dog waits—he’s a Yorkie or a Scottie, one of those shaggy little ‘ie’ dogs. He is silent, which is good because dogs aren’t allowed in here. Patiently he stares at the tap.

It’s attached to a slim silver post and is almost invisible against the background of stone and milky misty sky. That’s why I never noticed it before. Now this woman with the black dog illuminates it for me with that yellow anorak of hers. There’s something new to learn every time I come here. For instance, I’ve found out that the potted plants I place carefully on the clay dry up very quickly, even when it rains. You need to come and water them every few days. Some people know this and they’ve rigged up clever permanent contraptions: containers like stone windowboxes, which they place on the concrete plinth, and fill with plants in season. It would be easier if you could sow something directly into the soil, but that’s against the regulations.

The reason is that this is a lawn cemetery. That’s another thing I’ve learnt: the term ‘lawn cemetery’, and what it means, which is that grass grows on the graves. And that men from the County Council cut this grass. They’ve been mowing regularly ever since spring got going, six weeks ago. These grass cutters also remove any unpermitted decorations—for example, teddy bears and plastic angels, Santa Clauses—from the graves, and throw them into the big skip by the gate. They also throw away withered flowers. You have to keep a close watch on your plants to make sure they don’t decide to consign them to the skip before they’re dead. All this cutting and throwing away, however, means the place is well kept. On sunny days it can look almost nice, at least after you get used to it.

I brought water in a bottle in my rucksack. And now I find out there’s no need to carry water all the way from home. Water is heavier than it looks when it comes dancing out of the tap, light as stars.

This is what the graveyard looks like: an enormous housing estate, bisected by a thoroughfare. You can drive on this, and some people do, but I think that’s inappropriate, like driving on a beach. Off this central artery are the cul-de-sacs, about twenty on each side. Hundreds of straight lines of graves, arranged symmetrically like boxy houses, with pocket-handkerchief lawns in front of each one. True, there is a certain amount of variation in the headstones, as there is in houses on estates, but, as with them, diversity is limited by planning restrictions. The headstones must not be higher than four feet and so they all measure exactly four feet—naturally everyone goes for as much height as they can get. Apart from this, some choice is permitted, although all headstone designs and inscriptions have to be vetted by the authorities. They’re obviously tolerant; there are some pretty unusual headstones around. You hesitate to use the words ‘bad taste’ in connection with death—another thing I’ve learnt. Don’t be judgmental about trivial things (and everything is trivial, by comparison with what’s going on in this place.) But I can’t warm to the shiny slabs with gold inscriptions and smug angels on top. The white marble is nicer, even when it comes with expressions of profound sentiments in lines apparently plagiarized from country and western songs, or the ‘Funny Stories’ page of some ancient schoolboy magazine.

His Life a Beautiful Memory, His Absence a Silent Grief.

Or:

Take care of Tom, Lord, as he Did Us, With Lots of Love and Little Fuss.

My favourites are the simple stones, plain gray, which have become more common, I’m pleased to report, over the past four or five years. (It’s easy to date fashions in a graveyard.)

That’s what I ordered for you. The style called ‘boulder’, the natural look that suits a man who wore tweed and spoke correct Irish, Welsh and Scots Gaelic. I thought it was a personal choice but I’ve discovered that most of the poets and writers, teachers and academics, in the graveyard are buried under similar stones. There’s only one unique monument in the entire place: a wide slab of pinkish granite, thin as butterfly’s wing. Only a name and a date inscribed on it in tiny Times New Roman.

The architect who designed Belfield.

Of course.

To tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind one of those. A high modernist headstone that looks a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Blood and Water
• The Flowering
• Night of the Fox
• Summer Pudding
• The Woman With the Fish
• The Pale Gold of Alaska
• The Day Elvis Presley Died
• The Banana Boat
• Illumination
• Literary Lunch
• City of Literature
• The Coast of Wales