Laertes

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.