Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Marian squirmed, trying to think of something to say. She felt terrible, and she didn’t want to tell a lie. Should she admit to Sylvia that she was the one who spoke to Sean?
‘The family is growing and it’s difficult not to let something slip in conversation,’ Sylvia said with a little sigh.
‘It only takes a hint or two and the story is out there, getting more and more fantastic with time. Then, if the person listening is an author or maybe even a friend of one, it’s so inspiring they have to put it into a book.
Then people begin to wonder where the author got this story from and start to make connections.
A feather becomes a whole hen and then there’s no stopping the tales that are told by people who like to gossip. ’
‘I’m sorry?’ Marian said, staring at Sylvia in confusion.
Sylvia laughed. ‘Now you’ll think I’ve gone completely bonkers.
I was referring to a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen that we read as children.
A hen loses a feather and jokes that she did it to make herself more beautiful.
Then another hen tells another hen about it, then more and more hens talk about it, and every time the story is told, it’s embroidered to make it more interesting.
And the hen who had lost the little loose feather naturally doesn’t recognise her own story when it comes back to her because it is now the story of five hens who have plucked out all of their feathers in vanity, and then pecked each other to death.
As she was a respectable hen, she says, “I despise such hens, but there are many of that kind! Such stories should not be hushed up, and I’ll do my best to get the story into the newspapers.
Then it will be known all over the country; that will serve those hens right, and their families, too.
” And it gets to the newspapers, and it is printed.
And that’s how rumours begin and are told over and over again, growing each time.
One little feather grows until it becomes five hens.
’ Sylvia drew breath and looked at Marian.
‘That’s a brilliant story,’ Marian said, smiling. ‘Very true to what happens once gossip starts.’
‘Yes. That book might be a result of just one little lost feather,’ Sylvia said. ‘It will, in time, become a whole hen once the gossipmongers get hold of it. But what can we do about it other than ignore it and look as if we don’t care?’
‘Is that what we should do?’ Marian asked.
‘That’s what I’m going to do anyway,’ Sylvia said. She sipped her coffee, looking at Marian over the rim of her mug. ‘You have to decide for yourself.’
‘Oh, I won’t comment at all,’ Marian said.
‘Even if they ask. I’ll just say it’s a work of fiction and as such it’s all made up.
’ She took another bite of the barmbrack as she tried to gather up enough courage to ask Sylvia a question she had wanted to ask ever since she saw the description of that novel.
‘You seem to have had quite an exciting time way back in the early nineteen sixties,’ she said, hoping it would make Sylvia say something about what she had been up to before she was married.
‘Oh yes, I did,’ Sylvia said with a wistful smile. ‘I managed to escape oppression for a while and have fun without anyone knowing about it.’
‘Oppression?’ Marian asked.
Sylvia nodded, running a finger around the rim of her mug.
‘That’s how it felt anyway. Ireland, I mean.
My generation of women were brought up to be wives and mothers, you see.
I was lucky to go to a school where women were taught to be independent and opinionated.
Coláiste íde was a wonderful place of learning and the women who taught us so inspirational.
But out there in the real world, it was a different story.
The Catholic church, the nuns and priests, were strict and forbidding.
There were so many rules about behaviour and what a young girl should and shouldn’t do.
I was expected to perhaps go to college but then, after that, I was to marry someone suitable and become a housewife. So I…’
‘You ran away?’ Marian asked, excited at the thought.
‘No, not quite,’ Sylvia said, shaking her head and smiling.
‘I asked if I could go abroad for a year instead of going to college. I wasn’t really interested in studying at university anyway.
I wasn’t very academic. So my parents agreed to let me go to France to work as an au pair for a year, which was a new concept then.
They thought I would be safe living with a family minding children and going to French classes on my days off. ’
‘So you went to Paris?’ Marian suggested. ‘For a whole year?’
‘Yes,’ Sylvia said. ‘That year changed my life in so many ways. I met young women who had taken charge of their lives and done amazing things. One woman in particular.’
‘Such a contrast to life in Kerry in those days, I’m sure,’ Marian remarked.
‘It certainly was,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘Just as much of a contrast to Ireland as Australia, I can imagine. A different world.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Marian agreed, amazed at how Sylvia had so elegantly turned the spotlight away from herself.
‘You must have thought you had landed on another planet,’ Sylvia suggested.
‘Oh yes,’ Marian said. ‘That’s exactly how it felt. Everything was upside-down: the seasons, the constellations of the stars, and the flora and fauna so strange and new. I never got used to the intense heat either. And I was more and more homesick as time wore on.’
‘Was that why you left?’ Sylvia asked with great sympathy in her eyes. ‘I’m assuming you don’t want to go back.’
‘No, I don’t, actually,’ Marian confessed.
‘But it wasn’t only that. It was also…’ She stopped, wondering if she should reveal the troubles of her marriage.
It would feel so good to confide in someone wise and kind like Sylvia.
Marian felt a sudden urge to unload everything on the old lady, but then changed her mind.
It wouldn’t be fair to burden Sylvia right now, when she might be worried about what was going to be in that book.
‘It was also about your husband?’ Sylvia asked gently.
‘Well, yes,’ Marian said, tears welling up as the memory of their parting caused a wave of sadness. ‘We were having problems. He didn’t understand why I was so homesick. He thought I’d snap out of it but I never did.’
‘Snap out of it?’ Sylvia asked. ‘How can you snap out of missing your home country? That’s in your heart and soul.
I could never leave Ireland and settle somewhere else, despite how women were treated when I was young.
I went abroad for a break from all of that.
But I never felt that I wanted to stay away for good. ’
‘I didn’t think it was going to be for good,’ Marian said. ‘I thought we’d live half the year in Ireland and the other half in Australia. That’s what I thought we had agreed, anyway.’
‘But he had other ideas?’ Sylvia said disapprovingly.
‘I think he was hoping I’d come around to liking it.
’ Marian sighed deeply. ‘But I never did. Oh, it wasn’t the fault of the people I met; they were all so nice to me.
The Aussies are lovely and it’s a beautiful country, if you like constant sunshine and practically living on the beach.
That’s what Theo loves anyway. I did enjoy working in the shop that sells surfboards and sporting equipment.
That was fun and I was good at marketing.
But we drifted apart. I was very unhappy in the end. ’
‘So you left and now he’s over there trying to cope without you?’ Sylvia looked at Marian as if she couldn’t quite decide if she approved.
‘No, not quite,’ Marian said quietly. ‘He is actually on his way here. I’ll arrange to meet him tomorrow.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ Sylvia said. ‘It’ll give you a chance to talk. Maybe he’ll come around and you can start again, living in both places like you originally planned.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’ Marian’s shoulders slumped.
‘Do you still love him?’ Sylvia asked.
Marian sighed. ‘Sometimes I think I love him so much I might burst into flames. But I’ve suppressed so much of myself for so long. And he hasn’t been honest with me. I don’t know if I can trust him the same way again. If the relationship we had in the early days will ever come back.’
‘It might,’ Sylvia suggested. ‘If you both want it to.’ She put a hand on Marian’s arm. ‘You’ve lost the joy of loving, of being together, that “us against the world” that is so important. If you want it again, you have to fight for it. Both of you. I hope you get it back, I really do.’
‘Thank you, Sylvia,’ Marian said. ‘I’ll remember that.’
Sylvia patted Marian’s hand. ‘Good. You know there is no such thing as a blissfully happy marriage, not all the time, I mean. There are happy moments and then there is contentment and harmony. But there are also differences and wishes and dreams that clash with each other.’
‘But you and Liam were very happy, weren’t you?’ Marian asked.
‘Most of the time,’ Sylvia said with a sad little smile.
‘But he didn’t completely understand that I sometimes felt stuck in this role of housewife running this big house.
That I’d like to go off on my own and maybe see my old friends, the ones I met in Paris.
That little bit of freedom I had was gone forever when we got married.
’ She looked across the garden with faraway expression.
‘Arnaud understands it. But French men have different attitudes to women. They’re closer to their feminine side, I think. ’
‘Arnaud is a lovely man,’ Marian said. ‘Everyone is so fond of him.’
‘I know. That makes me so happy.’ Sylvia started to gather up the mugs. ‘But now I have to go. I have a meeting with the Tidy Towns committee at five thirty, so I have to change.’
‘But what about the book and what it might say about you?’ Marian asked. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
Sylvia got up. ‘Nothing for the moment. I need to think about all of this for a while. The secrets, the scandal, the betrayal. Who could have shared all this?’
Marian shivered. Should she admit it was her? But before she could consider it properly, Sylvia picked up her basket, waved and left, gliding across the terrace in the graceful way Marian found so amazing.
Marian sat there for a while feeling slightly shellshocked after her conversation with Sylvia.
She had given Marian much to think about, especially concerning Theo and their relationship.
But then, when she went through everything from start to finish, she began to wonder if all that might have been a smokescreen to cover up Sylvia’s youthful misdemeanours.
She had cleverly turned the conversation to Marian and her marriage and there had been no more mention of what she had done in Paris all those years ago.
Sylvia said that what happened in the past should stay in the past, Marian thought. But I have a feeling it won’t.