Apparently it takes all day to go a hundred and fifty miles. I have to change twice. Then a bus from Galway to Kilmuree. But I shall have scenery to look at.’ I tried to sound enthusiastic.
‘I’ve a better idea. For the next few weeks I’m travelling round the country spreading light and hope among my lonely authors. Part business, part holiday. There’s a delightful old boy on my list who lives near Westport. Writes books about geology. Sells about four a year but we like to diversify. He’ll be thrilled to see me a few days early and I can drop you off at your destination.’
‘You’ve got a car?’
‘Picturesque though a high-perch phaeton is, I find it inconvenient. And too exposed to the elements.’
‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to change your arrangements.’
‘But I can insist, truthfully, that I’m happy to do so.’
‘I’m being met at the bus station.’
‘All right. I’ll drop you there.’
‘But not until seven o’clock. In the evening, I mean.’
‘We’ll have a leisurely lunch on the way.’
It was too good an offer to refuse. I descended to collect my things. My cabin-mate was still asleep, lying on her back with her mouth open, snoring like a nest of wasps. The smell of horses had intensified. A wild creature with matted clown triangles of hair and smudged saucer eyes stared at me from the mirror.
‘My word!’ said Kit as I rejoined him on deck half an hour later. ‘I was beginning to worry that you’d jumped ship. But it was worth the wait. You look glorious. That colour is marvellous with your skin and hair.’
I felt a stab of pain then, remembering Burgo saying the same thing, almost word for word, about the pale yellow linen dress I had put on.
‘I don’t want to give the Macchuins the impression that the steamiron and I are unacquainted. My skirt not only bears all the signs of having been slept in but looks as though it might have been used as a picnic tablecloth as well.’
‘I’m not so conceited as to suppose that you put it on for me.’
Kit’s expression was non-committal but there was a slight sharpness in his tone. Had I sounded ungracious, I wondered?
‘There’s the old bus now.’ He leaned over the rail and pointed to a red sports car being driven off the ramp and along the quay. The hood was down so we could see quite clearly a man in overalls behind the wheel, playing with the dashboard and flashing the headlamps. Kit watched with the sort of glazed impassioned look that mothers get when people bend to coo admiringly into the pram.
We were the first passengers to present ourselves at customs and were through it in no time. Kit’s car gave a throaty roar at the first turn of the ignition key. My experience of cars was limited. In London I used buses and the underground. My father’s ancient Austin Princess and my mother’s battered Wolseley were my transport in the country. They rounded bends under protest and were rebellious when it came to starting. Kit’s car seemed barely able to contain itself as we trundled through the streets of Ringaskiddy. It had a gravelly growl and made little menacing rushes at obstacles, like a lion on a leash.
‘All the men are giving you envious looks,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything about cars. Is it something terrifically glamorous?’
‘It’s an Alfa Spider. But it isn’t the car they’re jealous of.’
Some men consider it only polite to keep up a steady trickle of compliments.’ I liked Kit and I was grateful to him, but I had no heart for the game. To flirt successfully you must believe yourself to be desirable. I was near to hating myself. Depression threatened. I pushed it away. I owed it to Kit to be a cheerful passenger.
The urban sprawl at the outskirts of Cork offered nothing particular to admire but the surrounding countryside made up for that. It was at once apparent why Ireland was called the Emerald Isle. It was not just emerald, though. Different tones of green – olive, apple, lime, grass, sage and chartreuse – reflected the sun with a glossy luxuriance. Even the light was green.
‘That’s Blarney,’ said Kit, waving vaguely towards the west. I looked but saw only a church spire. He began to recite:
‘There is a stone there that whoever kisses,
Oh, he never misses to grow eloquent.
’Tis he may clamber to a lady’s chamber
Or become a member of Parliament.
‘I know which I’d rather,’ Kit went on. ‘As Topsy said, I’m mighty wicked and I can’t help it, but I lack the cold-blooded cynicism necessary to be a good politician.’
I glanced quickly at Kit’s profile but it was a picture of perfect innocence.
‘Look over there, to the north-west. The Boggeragh Mountains.’
I saw a series of massive heather-coloured triangles. We purred between stone walls that divided the land into tiny boulder-strewn fields while the trees laid blue and purple bars across the road, empty but for a few wandering sheep. Beside the road ran a sweetly purling river and seconds later we crossed it by means of a small hump-backed bridge.
‘What wonderful names. This really is fairy-land.’
‘Certainly it is. And you must be careful to keep on the right side of the good folk. They can be spiteful if crossed and they never forgive an injury.’
I examined Kit’s face carefully for signs that he was teasing me. He must have felt my eyes upon him for he turned his head briefly and smiled. As we drove north through the small town of Mallow and on towards the Ballyhoura Hills, I watched the landscape unfolding into higher and ever more beautiful curves and angles, marvelling that I had been ignorant all my life of so much beauty lying in wait across a small sea.
I found myself wondering what Burgo would have thought of it. It occurred to me that in the twelve months that I had known him I had not once heard him comment, favourably or adversely, on the works of Nature. Had this been because our meetings had so often been snatched from commitments elsewhere, appointments with other people, and there had not been time to think about our surroundings? No, that wasn’t it. Burgo had often been irritated by the shortcomings of the places we had been obliged to make use of. In fact he was highly conscious of his environment and of the way his presence changed things. Does that make him sound egotistic? Well, he was. Surprisingly, this had not stopped me loving him.
He was not, on the face of it, a vain man. I suppose his clothes must have been made for him because despite his height – he was six feet four inches – they fitted him perfectly. But I never heard him mention his tailor. His hair was straight, silvery fair, untidy. Probably he knew he was attractive to women so he never fussed about what he looked like, never looked in mirrors, was careless about mud and creases, did not seem to possess a comb. It was this confidence which had drawn me to him, which had been the fatal lure, I decided as I slid down in the car seat to escape the wind that whipped my hair into my eyes. Burgo’s attitude was neither aggressive nor defensive. This must have been because his ego was never in danger. Other people’s insecurity amused him. Possibly mine was what first attracted him. Certainly the occasion of our meeting had been unpropitious.
Dangerous though I knew it to be, a sense of ease and restfulness I had not felt for days tempted me to let my mind wander back to those first weeks of knowing him, when I had managed for the most part to live only for the moment; when only to think of him had lifted my despondent mood and made my heart race.
Burgo and I had met five weeks after my return to Sussex to look after my mother. The encounter was preceded by a period of almost unrelieved dreariness. Despite visits from a physiotherapist, my mother had made