Portobello Notebook by Adrian Kenny

combing their hair, reclining on their scaled fish tails. She went on talking as she prepared the dinner. She had been back to Paris. Her mother wasn’t well. Her sister was abroad, married to a diplomat. Their father didn’t keep in touch. She lit a candle on the table, and they sat down.
    She wore a patchwork jacket, beautifully stitched squares of red, yellow, green. There was a buttercup leaf on the butter, a basilleaf in the tomato soup … every detail was just right. He felt her waiting for some remark or sign that would show as precisely what his intentions were with her. He had no intentions. There were only so many times you could fall in love before the heart said Lies and refused to play the game any more. But when she looked at him across the candle flame, he smiled.
    ‘You’re good at living alone.’
    ‘It’s an acquired taste.’ Her smile opened a little, like a door, revealing a little of the loneliness inside.
    Gently leaning forward, he asked if she had met any Irishmen she liked. Yes, she had met someone, but he had been so vague. The last time she had seen him he was still aimless, drifting about. She took a single glass of wine from the bottle he had brought. From that and the candle and the intimacy of their talk, her face took on colour and grew bright. He leaned a little closer, but her voice began to rise. Her book on mermaids could have made a good film for television. And that man she had met, who hesitated about everything – what was wrong with him? What was wrong with Irishmen? Were they afraid of their priests? Of their mothers? Of themselves? Had they any minds of their own? All her French friends here said the same. You got so far, then the Irish withdrew …
    He sat back from the table as her voice rose higher still. It was almost a cry. ‘I haven’t felt like a woman since I came here. In Paris, when a man asked me out, he made me feel … like a woman!’
    She stopped, as if suddenly aware of her outburst. The wind was still blowing; he heard a peacock’s scream. He offered to help with the washing up, and then with the drying. He glanced at an old timber-cased kitchen clock, and said casually, ‘Is it that time?’ She showed him to a guest room, on the ground floor.
    There was delicate scented soap in a china dish, a white fleecy towel, even a bedside book. He turned out the light. All he wantedwas the peaceful dark. But as he lay in bed he heard her moving about upstairs. Her room was above his. He heard her bed creak, then heard her get out and walk the floor again. She was upset? Her damaged back was hurting her? Or was she trying to tell him that she was awake, waiting for him? The pacing and creaking went on for almost an hour. At last there was silence. Exhausted, he fell asleep.
    The wind had gone next morning, and the rain. She said she was going into town, shopping, but didn’t invite him to come. She was still embarrassed by the previous night’s outburst, he thought. He said he’d enjoy a stroll about the place. He felt pure relief as her car wheels cut through pools of rainwater down the lane. Walking about the yard, he saw her attempt at gardening: a bed of cream and dark-blue pansies beaten to the clay by the storm. Ripe apples rotted amongst nettles growing tall under a tree. The sun came out, and following the sound of a river he walked along the lane.
    An old woman sitting outside a cottage greeted him Good-morning , and he stood for a moment to chat. He said he was staying with Madeleine, but the old woman didn’t seem to know who he meant. She patted the bench, inviting him to sit. From her voice, she wasn’t local. No, she was from Eastern Europe, she said. She talked about her life’s adventures, the suffering she had seen in the war, how she had met her husband, the paths that had led to their coming together, and to settling in this corner of Ireland at last. In easy silence then they watched a spider appear in a web strung between two Michaelmas