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The Narrow Land
WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
Christine Dwyer Hickey
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eBook - ePub
The Narrow Land
WINNER of the Walter Scott Historical Prize for Fiction 2020
Christine Dwyer Hickey
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About This Book
WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT HISTORICAL PRIZE FOR FICTION, 2020 WINNER OF THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARD FOR NOVEL OF THE YEAR, 2020 SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS, 2019 An Irish Independent and Irish Times Book of the Year, 2019 From the author of Tatty, the Dublin: One City One Book 2020 choice
________________________ 'It is a long time since I have read such a fine novel or one that I have enjoyed quite so much.' Irish Times 1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged.She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream. ' A brilliant portrait... With a beguiling grace and a deceptive simplicity, Christine Dwyer Hickey reminds us that the past is never far away - rather, it constantly surrounds us, suspends us, haunts us. ' Colum McCann
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1
SHE IS WALKING THROUGH an art gallery. A typical city gallery of doorless rooms, one leading into the next. The rooms square, light-washed, high ceilinged. There is no one else in the gallery, which seems a little odd â not even a guard standing at a wall. And something else that seems odd â there are no paintings. Yet the rooms seem prepared for paintings; there are hooks along the walls and here and there a picture-light cradles an empty space. The hooks are unusual, she notes in passing; double-barred and the colour of old ivory, they are set right into the wall.
At first the light dazzles. But as she walks further into the gallery, it begins to dim. The rooms too are becoming smaller. She only notices this when she happens to turn and look back the way she has come. The gradual shift in size is apparent then, as if the rooms are nesting into one another. She can see all the way back to the first room and, beyond that, across a black and white tiled floor to the large double doors that divide the gallery from the street outside. There is a glimpse of the street through the doorsâ glass panels: part of a sign on the side of a truck, the top knot of a fire hydrant, a nunâs veiled head gliding by. She knows the street somehow â the nun, the fire hydrant, the large red & Sons sign on the truck â yet canât recall standing out on the street, nor coming to the door, pushing it open and walking across the chessboard floor. But anyhow, here she is.
She almost misses the last room. Much smaller than the others, the entrance is narrow and low in the wall like the door of a cupboard. She has to bend her head and turn sideways to get through. When she looks in, there is complete darkness, but when she steps down into the room, a column of light breaks open and points itself into the far corner where a painting hangs. She knows this at once: it is her painting, from seed to completion â she was the one who brought it into being. She covers her mouth with one hand and with the other her heart. A small gush of tears comes into her eyes. It is the most beautiful painting she has ever seen. Oh joy, she whispers into her hand, oh joy, oh life.
To think that, after all these years, it has been here all along, trapped in the dark of a secluded room, waiting, just waiting for her to come find it.
She dries her tears with her hands, then dries her hands in her skirt before carefully placing them on the sides of the frame. She tries to ease it away from the wall, but the picture resists. She begins to tug at it. She tugs harder and harder. She stops pulling then and attempts to look behind the picture. But the picture is tight to the wall, and now there is a low growling noise coming from behind it.
The light in the room snaps off. There is a strange smell, an animal smell. In the dark the growling noise deepens. The sound of an animal that is angry and, at the same time, frightened. She hears the thud of a heart, feels something wet and slick on her neck and chest. For a terrifying moment she thinks the animal is slobbering on her, getting ready to attack. But then she wakes and finds that both the smell and the noise, they are coming from her, and that the sweat on her skin is her own.
She lies in the dark, her mind running over the dream, each detail vivid, apart from the one detail that really matters â the painting itself. She can remember the weight of it when she first tried to ease it away from the wall and how solid and cool the frame had felt in her hands. She can still feel the rush of love that had come over her when she first looked upon it. The sense of achievement. And, oh, the pride! But as to what was inside the frame â subject matter, paint, colour, light â all that has now gone from her.
She turns on her side and studies her husbandâs long, broad back, the pyjama stripes like broken bars in this light. She brings the flat of her hand close to his back and wonders if she will tell him about her dream in the morning. Her hand hovers for a moment, the heat that comes out of him like smouldering coal.
She imagines herself explaining it to him (And what do you know but⊠And then? And my heart so full of whenâŠ), the little grunts he would allow across the breakfast table until finally she asks, âWhat do you make of all that?â A shrugged one-liner as he pushes his plate away: âIt was only a dreamâ or âI donât see that it had to mean anything in par-tic-u-lar.â
Before returning to his newspaper or his book or his post at the north window for his usual morning scrutiny of all the thin air in South Truro.
She sits up in bed, pulls her pillow up behind her and sips water from a glass on the bedside table. He shifts his shoulder then, glancing over it, asks in a mumble if she is all right.
âYes, yes, itâs nothing,â she says, âyou go on back to sleep.â
She stares into the room. The closet doors, the chair, the bureau beyond the fog of darkness like land ahoy. The hulk of his coat hanging from an unseen hook, as though itâs standing up on its own.
âDo you remember the bears in Yellowstone Park?â she says aloud. But already heâs gone back to sleep.
She continues to sip on the water and, as she does so, comes to a decision: tomorrow she will pay a visit to Mrs Sultz. For weeks, she has been toying with the notion, and now it is final. Mrs Sultz, tomorrow â a Sunday visit â what could be nicer? And she will go alone, even if he offers to drive her there. He will be surprised by her refusal, pleased too â an uninterrupted afternoon is just what he needs right now, a chance to do some work on that Orleans picture. She will ask him to drive her only as far as the bus. At the other end, she can call a cab to take her the rest of the way.
Or she could drive herself there â and why in hell not? Itâs her automobile too â she has just as much right to use it as he does. He will object â that much is certain â and when he does she will neither fight nor reason with him. She will wait for him to go for a walk or to become immersed in his painting and beyond noticing. Then she will simply take it (leaving a note pinned to the garage door, of course, in case he gets it into his head to go calling the police).
For a moment she sees herself driving along the Old County Road. No one beside or behind her to bark out criticism or unnecessary directions (not so close to the ditch; not so middle of the road; truck coming up! Kid on a bicycle! Watch out for the bridge at the next bend). As if she were driving with her eyes shut tight. To be all alone on the open road, maybe a little radio music to keep her company â how invigorating would that be? Fields and trees and wildflowers flickering by, and the window rolled down to three-quarter mast, the taste of salt air coming over it. And Mrs Sultz â she would be so proud of her.
âYou drove here? All by yourself â you?â she would tut before saying, as she always does when utterly astonished, âWell, now, isnât that something?â
All the way there on her own. How many miles to Hyannis â how many after that to reach the sanatorium, along how many back roads? And then all the way home again. The highway busy with day trippers at the fall of evening and the light fading before her on the road. And supposing the visit doesnât go so well? Driving home alone and upset â how many miles from the sanatorium to Hyannis, how many from Hyannis to homeâŠ?
And now she sees herself clinging to the wheel, waiting at an intersection to cross over the highway, twilight slipping into darkness and the Sunday evening traffic at this time of the year, headlights cat-swiping her eyes. Swipe after swipe while she waits and she waitsâŠ
She will ask him to drive her to the bus.
The important thing is to get there. To make it up with Mrs Sultz, spend an afternoon with her best, and only, truly honest friend. It is certain to be a nice sanatorium â Mrs Sultz is not poorly off. They will sit outside; garden furniture on a smooth green lawn. Iced coffee under a tree. She could tell her all about the dream. Mrs Sultz has always been interested in that sort of thing: the psychological slant, as she calls it.
She would tell her other things too: about the women on the beach, the boy who gave her his cookies, the invitations to the Kaplan parties â one of which is already past, the other yet to come. And how she had intended going to that first one, yes, even on her own â because she hadnât bothered telling him, knowing only too well what he would say. She had bought a whole basket of peaches to take along, had put on her lipstick, ironed her best dress. Sheâd been about to put the dress on, then go out and ask him to drive her there. At the same time, she had been prepared to walk should he fail to show willing. And then, at the very last minute, she had sat down on the side of the bed and couldnât seem to bring herself to stand up again.
But why? Mrs Sultz would ask her. Why on earth didnât you go? And she would be able to explain it somehow and know that Mrs Sultz would understand. She simply hadnât been able to face it. She was too tired: too tired to fight with him to come along, and too tired to go it alone.
She had always been able to speak frankly to Mrs Sultz â say things she wouldnât dream of saying to another soul on...