21
I called the aqua park the day after Ari’s disappearing act. They couldn’t understand why I was looking for a fish and told me, with considerable condescension, to get in touch with the aquarium. I explained that Margaret was Ari’s doudou and the tone of the woman on the phone immediately softened. (The French aren’t known for their customer service, but they do appreciate the importance of childhood comforters.) She instructed her team to do a thorough search of the park. Margaret was nowhere to be found.
Ari took a couple of days to process the blow, his spirits lifting after Leonard suggested a funeral. I pointed out that we had no body to bury. It’ll be more of a memorial, Leonard said, to honour Margaret’s life. I’m not sure mourning an inanimate object is what Ari’s teacher had in mind when she insisted I broach the subject of mortality with my son, but in the absence of an expired human, pet or bee, a stuffed toy fish will have to suffice.
~
We gather at the bottom of the garden at sunset. Leonard, wearing a white tunic, welcomes us and says a few words about the Japanese culture of treating objects with respect. In Shintoism, all things have a soul, and should be thanked for their service. What did Margaret mean to us all? ‘Let’s start with you, kiddo.’ He tilts his chin towards Ari.
‘I loved Margaret because she listened to me when I was sad,’ says Ari.
Myriam says she appreciated Margaret’s discretion, while I acknowledge her role in raising the profile of the California golden trout. Sabrina, who, touchingly, closed up shop early to attend the service, dismisses Leonard’s request for her contribution with a wave of the hand. ‘ Non. ’ Leonard waxes philosophical on the Tibetan Buddhist interpretation of life and death as a continuum, before reading Seamus Heaney’s ‘Limbo’, a nod to our Irish friends here, he says, with a wink. It was hard to find a Gaelic poem that mentioned both trout and death, but there’s a salmon in this one. (The poem is about a woman who drowns her child in a river. Thankfully, no one else seems to notice.) I’m hoping we’re about to wrap it up when Sabrina starts singing an unsolicited rendition of ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’, her eyes closed, lost in the popular French song about a man who has been abandoned by his lover and isn’t taking it all too well.
I drift off, Sabrina’s voice surprisingly hypnotic, and remember. I remember the coffin at the front of the church, draped in his GAA jersey. His photo in a gilt frame on the altar. The air thick with incense and old-lady perfume. She was there, standing in the front row, still as anything, her fingers clutching the delicate gold crucifix around her neck. I remember my cheeks burning when I saw Dad, making a big show of genuflecting before the altar. I excused myself and pushed my way out of the pew, clamouring over knees and handbags as I searched for the exit. And then I was outside, and I could breathe again.
‘Fiadh?’
‘What’s that?’
Leonard is holding out his palm. ‘The candle,’ he says in a stage whisper.
‘Oh right. Sorry.’ I hand Leonard the white tapered candle I was instructed to bring along. Leonard lights it and says, ‘ God saw that the light was good.’ (I guess we’ve reached the Christian part of this multi-faith ceremony.)
‘Sorry I’m late.’ Jack is walking briskly towards us, tucking his shirt into his trousers, his hair endearingly messy. ‘Work call I couldn’t get out of.’ He smiles at Ari with a warmth that makes my heart somersault.
I wasn ’ t expecting Jack to join us. He doesn’t seem like the sort to stand in a circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’ over the loss of a toy mass-produced in a Taiwanese factory. (Although, are any of us really – Leonard excluded – the sort?)
‘Just in time, my man,’ says Leonard, joining his hands in prayer and giving Jack a little bow. ‘We’re about to let it all out.’
‘Let what out?’ says Jack cautiously.
‘The pain we’ve been holding onto.’
‘The pain at … losing Margaret?’ Jack looks slightly terrified.
‘Margaret, a lover, a job, anyone or anything that ever meant something to you. We’re going to unleash it all. The hurt, the rage. We’re going to scream from the bowels of our being.’
‘I have dyspepsia. You do not want me screaming from my bowels,’ says Sabrina, who, it would appear, has been a fluent English speaker this whole time.
‘Come on, you’ll feel amazing afterwards. Watch me,’ instructs Leonard.
He stretches his arms towards the sky and lets out a guttural roar, his whole body vibrating with energy.
‘Man, that felt good. Who else wants to give it a try? Ari?’
‘Waaaaaaaaah,’ squeals Ari, bursting into peals of laughter.
‘Now that’s what I’m talking about. Put it there, little guy,’ Leonard says, extending his fist. ‘Who’s next?’
‘ Et puis merde ,’ shouts Myriam, cupping her hands over her mouth and howling into the wind. ‘You are right,’ she says, with an air of satisfaction. ‘I do feel better.’
‘Alright!’ cries Leonard, beaming. ‘Jack? Fiadh? Care to unleash that pain?’
‘I’m not holding onto any pain,’ says Jack, looking like he’d like to crawl into the hole in the ground that Leonard has dug for the spirit of Margaret.
I snort reflexively.
‘What?’ says Jack.
‘Nothing.’
‘No, please go on. You obviously have something to say.’
‘It’s just, I mean, clearly you have some pain.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Ummm, you could end up losing your job. And you’re always getting death threats on social media. And your wife has left you and might be moving to America with your son.’
I hadn’t intended on giving Jack a running tally of his recent misfortunes and immediately regret opening my mouth.
‘Alright, Murphy. What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Any pain you’d care to unleash?’
‘Nope. I’m a pain-free zone. My demons have long been exorcised.’
‘I’d say someone who dated a man who starts his correspondence with, “Greetings, wisdom warriors” is not okay.’
I glare at Jack and wonder when he started subscribing to Cillian’s newsletter.
‘Fine,’ I say. I’ll scream if you will.’
It’s childish, I know. I face Jack, chin raised. He accepts the challenge and holds my gaze. Neither of us will be the first to break.
‘Okay,’ he says.
‘Grand,’ I reply.
‘Well? Are you going to scream?’
‘Are you?’
‘Folks, please,’ Leonard interjects. ‘Let’s not lose sight of why we’re here. We want to celebrate Margaret’s short life and help Ari process her passing.’
‘Sorry,’ Jack and I mumble at the same time, suitably chastened, our eyes briefly locking again and I swear I’m not imagining it this time – something passes between us, an exchange of energy, a spark I haven’t felt in God knows how long.
‘I’ll count to three and you’ll unburden yourselves together, alright?’ Leonard says. ‘One, two, three!’
We scream, self-consciously at first and then competitively and then it feels like the most natural thing in the world, bellowing into the wind like there’s no one watching.
In Ireland, back in the day, it was common practice to have keeners at funerals. Women, often paid with a glass of whiskey, who would flank the body for days, singing laments, vocalising the grief of a family, a community. The tradition eventually died out, the Catholic Church condemning it as a pagan ritual. It wasn’t just the church. Over time, a shame developed around keening. It was considered old-fashioned, an embarrassment to wear your sorrow so openly. You still see displays of public mourning in other parts of the world. Women wailing and tearing at their breasts over lost husbands, sons, daughters. Their sisters and neighbours holding onto them, equally unrestrained in their emotions, refusing to contain their pain. To them, grief is communal, the burden of loss shared out, so no one has to endure it alone.
Leonard asks Ari for his contribution to the shoebox he’s about to lower into the ground. Ari hands him a photo of himself and Margaret, taken on a day trip to Sandycove, and a half-eaten chocolate heart. Leonard places them in the box and lowers it gently into the hole. He invites us to hold hands for the final part of the ceremony. Sabrina rolls her eyes, then looking at Ari exhales loudly and grabs Myriam and Leonard’s hands. Standing beside me, Jack catches my eye, a sheepish expression on his face. He reaches for Ari and then me, the pleasure centre in my brain lighting up like a Bastille Day fireworks display as his palm touches mine.
The circle closed, Leonard rummages for his phone in his pocket. Retrieving it, he scrolls until he finds what he’s looking for and closes his eyes. After a few seconds, ‘Hallelujah’ starts to play. Surprisingly, it’s the Jeff Buckley arrangement of the song and not Leonard Cohen’s original. ‘No offence to the master, I just feel Buckley takes it to a more ethereal place,’ says Leonard, and the rest of us nod in agreement.
As we stand there, watching Leonard toss soil on top of a shoebox (sorry – watching the spirit of Margaret be laid to rest), I feel a shift, a stirring. A knowing . Like that time in Aix-en-Provence, when I was pregnant with Ari, when I felt in the core of my being that I’d be raising my son by myself. Only this time, I can’t figure out what it is I’m supposed to know.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
We take it in turns to throw soil over the box. I feel an unexpected lightness, like something deep within me is being slowly excavated, dusted off and held up to the light. The shoebox gradually disappears, swallowed up by the earth, except for a small, unsullied corner of the lid poking out of the ground, refusing to be buried .