Sean
stood at the door to the old cottage. The white walls were crumbling
and the light breeze rattled the loose slates on the roof. He knew it
had deteriorated, they had told him, he had tried to prepare himself and
yet it was hard to see the house that had held him, raised him and kept
him safe falling to ruin. He knew better than to knock on the front
door. No one would hear him, no one would come. The one person who would
answer the door with a hug and smile was long gone.
He
knew that if he went around the side the gate would be open, if it was
still standing. They had never owned cows, or sheep or pigs, or any of
the other things that make the land profitable. They had only ever had
the land. He turned from the door and the dusty windows moving to the
side of the house, his hand tracing the edges as if finding his way out
of a maze. His italian shoes sunk in the mud at the side of the house,
as he lifted each foot he heard a sucking sound, as if the land was
trying to keep him, trying to get him to put down roots. But not in
these shoes he thought, maybe in wellingtons, maybe in boots, but not in
these flat, leather, Italian loafers, certainly not.
When
he had done the circuit of the house, finding himself standing at the
back door looking at the twelve acres of land that was his inheritance,
the carefully manicured lawns, the rows of produce, he could barely
understand the juxtaposition of the crumbling home and the gleaming
lands. Standing there, in his suit and long coat he felt like an idiot.
He should have worn something better, some jeans maybe, a jumper, with a
hole in it. Yet, he had woken up this morning in the full knowledge of
where he would end up today and had chosen the expensive suit, the long
coat, the stupid Italian shoes. He couldn’t say why. To impress the one
person who would be impressed by such things? Even though she hadn’t
been here for years, she hadn’t been impressed by anything in years.
Still he remembered the look on her face as he stood in the kitchen in
his suit for his graduation. The first of the clann to go to Leaving
Cert, to get enough points to go to college, any college, never mind
Trinity. She wiped a smudge of muck of his face with a teatowel, licking
the tip and rubbing it as if he had been a five year old playing in the
muck and not a graduate, heading to begin a new life.
He
shook the memory off and surveyed the land. In the blistering sun and
light breeze the land looked like postcard that tourists send across the
continent assuring those at home that they are getting the ‘real Irish’
experience. He took off the coat, it now seemed too heavy and long to
be walking through the crops wearing it. He left it on a rusted chair
sitting outside the backdoor, a pile of fag ends sitting beside it, and
yesterdays ‘Farmers Journal’ with drops of ash on it. He started walking
down the fields, looking at the rows of crops. He could identify them
all, something written into his DNA or perhaps, left over from the hours
spent chasing the farmer down the lands, asking him questions that
would only sometimes get him an answer and most of the time a clip
around the ear.
He
had stopped to examine the carrots, wondering what sort of soil was
being used, wondering if he could still remember how to tell if they
were ready to pull. It was buried in his memory somewhere. Before he
could retrieve it a motion on the horizon made him lift his head. There,
at the boundary of the land marked by a row of trees stood a man who
had once been a giant. Sean froze and crouched down lower. He was afraid
suddenly. He stood, but not too his full height. He wasn’t ready to be
noticed yet as he moved to the tree line. When he reached the edge, he
had an unobstructed view of the giant. The only problem he was no longer
a giant. The man in front of him was just a man. An elderly man at
that. He was hunched over and Sean couldn’t tell if he was bending
purposely or if the weight of his age and burden had curved his back and
weighed him in a way Sean had never envisioned.
He
felt like weeping, the emotion overtook him, in the same way the image
of the crumbling house had filled him with sadness, seeing the giant
crumbling in front of him was just as jarring. The giant finally
realised he was being watched, he stood, straightening himself as best
he could, and shielding himself from the sun, looked directly at Sean.
‘This here’s private land.’ He shouted over to Sean, his gruff voice, which had only gotten gruffer with age.
Sean
wondered what he looked like the the giant. Some property developer?
Here to offer him a pittance to buy the farm and tear down the house? Or
a solicitor maybe? Here to tell him an inheritance had come through? Or
a member of the Irish Farmers Association? Here to ask him to get
involved with some political battle?
He thought about lying, but instead he said ‘The carrots look well.’ i
The
giant eyed him suspiciously. ‘They do aye. But what does a city boy
know about carrots?’ He snorted in derision and for the first time Sean
noticed that he had lost his accent.
‘I’m actually from around here.’ He still wasn’t being honest, but at least he wasn’t lying.
‘Aye?’ The giant was looking at him directly now, slowly pacing towards him. ‘And where did you get that accent from then?’
‘I haven’t been back in a while.’ He paused, more honesty, ‘I was only home briefly in the last twenty years. For a funeral.’
‘Is that so?’ The giant was coming closer, standing no more than a few feet from Sean. ‘Who’s funeral?’
Sean
wanted to run. Now that he saw the giant up close he saw the frailty of
the last twenty years etched on to the man's face. Sean watched as the
man's hand shook slightly as he wrested them on his walking stick.
Underneath his bulky farm clothes Sean could tell that the man was
physically just a shadow of the giant he had once been.
‘My Mother’ Sean said to him. Looking the man dead in the eye. ‘My Mother. She died twenty years ago, today actually.’
The
man seemed to crumple even further, shrinking to nothing, his body
shaking as he put his entire weight on the stick. Sean moved closer to
the man, until there was hardly any space between him. Sean reached his
hand out to the man's shoulder, awkwardly patting him.
The
man slowly raised his head, as Sean met his gaze again he could see his
own eyes looking back at them. The exact same, the deep brown of a peat
bog flecked with green. Sean wanted to say something, he wanted to
explain that it had been too hard to return to the house without her
waiting for him, but as he studied the face of the man in front of him,
he knew the hardship it caused him was nothing compared to this man's
loss.
‘I loved her you know.’ Sean said. Whispering it almost.
‘Aye.’ The man nodded, agreeing, a small tear slid down his face. ‘Me too.’
Suddenly the man turned away, moving back to the wheelbarrow, he proffered Sean a shovel.
‘Welcome home son.’ He said.
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