Two

Anna saw him as soon as she crossed the street but Alex did not see her because he was busily consulting his diary, a frown on his face. He was always consulting something; he never allowed himself a moment’s idleness, unless it had been preordained – an hour at the gym three times a week, a half an hour with the newspapers on Sunday morning, that sort of thing. Since he had studied for the Leaving Certificate and discovered that by using his time wisely he would get maximum points, he had never wasted a minute of his time. It was the key to success and to a morally justifiable existence, in his opinion. Some people, those who did not know him, believed that Alex’s only motivation in life was to make as much money as he could. But Anna was aware that, unlike her, he was driven by a conscious personal ethic, which was to use every minute of his time on earth to achieve something. Once, he had achieved high grades, and now he achieved high figures in bank accounts. But he did not discount the possibility of other ways of measuring his success, in the future.

Trained as an actuary, he was now a successful property developer. Mainly thanks to his marriage to Anna, who had a minor reputation as a minor writer of books for children, he had managed to acquire a reputation as a man with an interest in the arts, and consequently – unlike Anna – sat on the boards of several cultural organisations, all of which hoped to benefit from his financial expertise and, at some stage, from his money. The meetings were, on the whole, excruciatingly boring; he put up with them because he liked being on the boards. Anna did not know why. They paid him a stipend, which accumulated – he earned about fifty thousand euro in expenses, in return for attending meetings. But he did not need the money, so his motives were not mercenary. So why did he do it? He did not really know himself. She had asked him and his answer was: ‘Because they ask me, I suppose.’ Once he said yes to membership, being diligent and active became a duty.

As a result of a rigorous regime of physical fitness, Alex did not look like a man who rested often. His body was trim and neat; he was slightly small, for a modern man, about five foot nine, but that was still taller than Anna. His skin was rather sallow, which made him look suntanned and healthy all the year round. His only flaw was his dark hair, or lack of it. It was getting quite thin, revealing very large ears, which no plastic surgeon could repair – not that any had been asked to do so. Alex did not worry about his ears. It was his balding head that bothered him – in winter he had taken to wearing a hat, but it was not winter yet so his bare patch was visible and gleamed in the last rays of the evening sun.

He was dressed in his working clothes, a dark navy suit and snow white shirt. His tie was a dark blue. How neat he looks! Anna thought, as she approached him, walking down the small, cobbled street, a strange street, going nowhere. But other people looked at him and admired his smartness, wondering how any man could have such a sparkling white shirt at this hour of the day. (Alex’s secret was this: he put on a fresh shirt every morning at home and every evening at five in his office. On Friday evening he sent fourteen shirts to the dry-cleaners and got them back, cleaned and ironed, on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday and Sunday he wore a T-shirt and an old jumper with sleeves that had shrunk about ten years ago, to indicate to himself that he was not at work.)

Alex smiled cheerfully when he saw his wife and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek. She warmed to him momentarily. His manners were impeccable, she had to hand it to him. ‘Of courtesy, it is much less than courage of heart or holiness’ was a line that often came to her mind when she was pleased by Alex’s pretty ways. Hilaire Belloc. She thought. She’d learned it in school.

‘And how are you?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘How about you? Had a good day?’

‘Yes,’ he said. He never told her much about his days at work, considering them not worth talking about. She didn’t know what exactly he was doing all the time; whenever she visited him in his office, he was talking on the phone. That seemed to be what his work consisted of. Talking on the phone, and attending meetings. Where he also talked, she presumed (wrongly; he said very little, which was generally taken as a sign of his superior intelligence). ‘Will we go in? There’s a crush, as you might expect.’

They made their way through a few lobbies and into the big old hall, with high painted ceilings, where Grattan’s parliament used to assemble before the Act of Union ended the Irish parliament and brought them all over the water to Westminster, resulting in the decline of the status of Dublin as the second capital of the empire. From this decline the city had now, two hundred years on, recovered so completely that Dubliners believed there was not on earth a more desirable place in which to live, at least in the winter months (all successful Dubliners now had a place in France or Spain for the summer).

The hall was hot and smelt of wine and sweat. It was packed with people, many of whom Anna knew personally and several others whom she recognised because anyone who ever read a weekend newspaper would know their faces.

‘The President hasn’t arrived yet,’ said Alex crossly. That had been one of his main reasons for coming, that the President would be in attendance. He liked to meet her casually at cultural events of this kind, to let her see that even though he was rich, he had a cultural dimension to his personality and deserved his places on all those boards. Apart from her, he had no interest in anyone at this party. He disliked writers in general, although he had not analysed the reason for this antipathy. Alex occasionally analysed his thoughts but never his feelings, unlike Anna, who devoted half her waking hours to this activity.

‘No, but Seamus Heaney and Marie have!’ said Anna, waving at the famous poetic couple, and pleased that he waved back and Marie flashed her a beaming smile. They were kind; they waved back to most people.

‘Hello, Anna.’ Lilian Meaney, one of her personal friends, a novelist, came up to her. ‘How are you? Do you know Christine Goodman?’ She introduced her, although Anna had met Christine several times before at events of this kind, since the same people attended all of them.

Anna liked Lilian best of all the writers she knew. She had a special charm, a gift of intimacy, and she was never petty or malicious, like Anna or most of her friends. In addition, she loved literature and was rather serious about her reading and her writing, and about the way she lived her life. Lilian had published three novels and a few collections of short stories, as well as non-fiction. Her works were respected and two were taught on university courses, she had let it be known, but discreetly, so as not to annoy too many of her friends. Nevertheless most of her books were out of print and she had made very little money from her writing, just like almost all the writers in Anna’s circle. At the moment, Lilian was working on a novel about Irish participation in the First World War. This book had occupied her for years, involving much research, and she had confessed to Anna that she was finding the writing of it very difficult. Now someone else had published a novel about Irish participation in the First World War, which was on the Booker short list.

‘It’s a big subject.’ Lilian shrugged. ‘I don’t think it matters that he did it. My treatment is bound to be different. Anyway, my book may never get finished.’

That she could be so philosophical and resilient was something Anna admired. Much later she would recall this comment and ponder its significance. But now she let it glide off into the ether, with all the other comments that were being made at the launch. The slightly resigned, sad look Lilian’s face sometimes wore when she talked about her writing moved Anna, however, and struck a tiny chord of terror in her heart. It was a look that many of her women writer friends wore, a look that suggested they had accepted that they were not going to make it, that they were not going, ever, to enter the golden circle where fiction was big business and writers were surrounded by phalanxes of well-wishing agents and editors and publishers, all anxious to protect and nurture the talent that earned them their living. Anna, however, although she had enjoyed the most modest success so far, still believed she could and would break into one of those circles.

Christine had an absent-minded expression that told Anna she was one of the lucky souls who never worried about worldly things. These people were often poets, never fiction writers, or playwrights, the most mercenary of the lot. Christine was the typical poet, the poet who looked poetic and no doubt lived a poetic life. Her looks were pre-Raphaelite and she wore something commensurate – a flowing dark blue dress, printed all over with some generic, apple-blossomy-looking flower; it was rather like the garments in Brown Thomas’s window, but probably bought at an Oxfam shop, which was where most poets shopped, Anna knew. And most of the novelists she knew as well. She herself was exceptional in having money, but it was Alex who earned it, not her.

‘We were talking about the drag production of The Importance of Being Earnest,’ Lilian said. ‘Did you see it?’

‘No,’ said Anna. ‘I didn’t get around to it.’ Typically. Although she went to a good many plays and films, she never seemed to have seen the ones people were talking about. Why hadn’t she gone to The Importance of Being Earnest, in drag? Because she had seen it about a dozen times before, not in drag, that was why. It had seemed like a good reason for not going at the time, but now it seemed stupid.

‘I wasn’t sure about going,’ said Lilian. ‘I had reservations, about the all-male cast and everything. I mean, there are not enough parts for women as it is, etcetera, etcetera.’

‘Or plays by women!’ intercepted Anita, a would-be playwright who had joined them suddenly. She was one of the large loose circle of women writers to which Anna had belonged for years, who bumped into one another every couple of weeks at a launch or a reading. ‘No plays by women, no parts for women, and they spend the whole summer doing a classic play by a man using an all-male cast! Phew!’

Anita Harkin was plump and forthright. She was always smiling, but her smile was mischievous. She dressed in bright colours, to spite all those who insisted on wearing black, she said, and to give the finger to people who thought fat women should dress down. Tonight she was togged out in an orange tent with black dots down the front. Anna thought her somewhat naive, but she was wary of her also and often avoided her.

‘Yes, I agree with all that,’ said Lilian. ‘But even so, it was … well, just wonderful!’

‘I’m sure Alan Stanford was hilarious,’ said Anna. He had played Lady Bracknell.

‘They were all hilarious.’ Lilian nodded, smiling at the memory.

So the conversation meandered on, like a wandering dog, taking odd twists and turns that made no sense. This could become boring but mostly Anna found it soothing. The content of the conversation didn’t matter much, what she liked was being with her friends.

They started to talk about the forthcoming theatre festival, but most people could not remember what was on the programme, so they moved on to the novels on the Booker short list. This worked better. Anna had read four of the books and Lilian had read one, otherwise nobody had read any of them but they nevertheless had strong views as to who should win. Two of the short-listed writers were at the launch, and they all peered around discreetly, trying to locate them in the crowd. John Marvell, who had written a nostalgic novel about a country childhood, was secluded behind a pillar, looking shy and aloof. He was renowned for his reserve and was often said to be a genius. Jonathan Bewley, author of the novel about the First World War that Lilian hoped would not spoil her novel’s chances, seemed to be chatting amiably to Seamus Heaney and the Director General of rté.

‘It would be nice to see one of them win,’ said Lilian, referring to Jonathan and John, with at least a very convincing imitation of sincerity.

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Anna, without enthusiasm. She didn’t care if they won or not. The only Irish author she really wanted to win the Booker Prize, ever, was herself, Anna Kelly Sweeney. But of course she would never admit that. And the Booker Prize had taken on the characteristics of the Cheltenham Gold Cup; you were expected to support the Irish horses, even though everyone knew they were so good because their owners got outrageously unfair tax breaks. And it always was uplifting to see the Irish horse romp home, as Lilian said. Unlike the horses, however, which often took the cup, an Irish book hardly ever won the prize. Recently, only Roddy Doyle had. And the snobbish critics still looked down their noses at him and pretended it had never happened.

‘So why doesn’t an Irish woman ever get on that short list?’ Anita asked angrily. ‘It’s always those guys!’

Anna shrugged. She knew the correct answer. Jennifer Johnston had been on it, and Iris Murdoch had actually won the Booker, in 1978. Probably there had been others as well. But people forgot these things very quickly.

‘Those guys are not any better than the Irish women novelists,’ Anita went on. ‘But they get all the attention. Nothing’s changed.’

‘Who are the Irish women novelists?’ Anna ventured. She could hardly think of any apart from herself and Lilian, and they didn’t count. ‘So many of us write chick lit.’

‘Apart from Edna O’Brien, Jennifer Johnston, Clare Boylan, Evelyn Conlon, Deirdre Madden, Anne Enright, Anne Haverty …’ Anita frowned, trying to remember other novelists called Anne. There must be more … Anne Brontë was the only name that came to mind. ‘I could go on!’ she announced breezily.

‘Is there a conspiracy?’ Lilian frowned too, because she found it hard to believe there could be. Lilian believed the best of people.

‘It’s called patriarchy,’ said Anita, laughing. ‘The guys are seen as more heavyweight. But when you read the books, you see that they are not in the least more heavyweight than the women. Still, they earn the big bucks and get on the short lists and are on the tip of everyone’s tongue.’

‘I don’t know,’ Anna said. Feminist ideology unnerved her. She did not know where she stood on it. When someone like Anita reeled off the names and numbers, it all sounded very convincing. But, like Lilian, she did not believe there was a conspiracy against women in Ireland. This wasn’t Bloomsbury in 1895, which Anita seemed to forget. It was College Green in the twenty-first century. Apart from anything else, who would be bothered conspiring against women, or anyone, or anything, these days? Conspiring in that way implied a sense of purpose, energy, belief: like religion, conspiracies against women must belong to a past, in which one half of the population was sure of its beliefs and diligent enough to do something about them.

Anita didn’t think so. ‘They network,’ she was saying; meaning, men network.

Anna gazed around the room wondering who she could find to talk to next. She wanted to network too.

‘They create golden circles. Look at the acknowledgement lists at the front of their books – the same names on all of them. Important guys, publishers and famous male writers. Not their aunts and children and fellow writers’ group members. They never belong to writers’ groups, like us girls, but, boy, are they all in some sort of a group. Chaps who help them get along. Men are loyal to one another, it’s some sort of atavistic thing, so they won’t betray their mates when the Germans capture them and try to make them talk.’

Anna glided off in the middle of the tirade, looking for Alex. She couldn’t see him in the sea of bodies, but found herself face to face suddenly with Jonathan Bewley. Since she knew him faintly, she said hello and ‘Congratulations, Jonathan!’ with her warmest, most hypocritical, smile.

‘Thank you,’ he said, in a friendly voice, but clearly he hadn’t a clue who she was. He immediately turned to talk to someone else.

She turned on her heel, humiliated. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Now she found herself facing Carl Thompson, one of the Irish writers whom she would rather not meet, ever. Many years ago, she had reviewed his first novel in Blackbird, a college magazine. The review had not been favourable. Although she realised that the chances of Carl Thompson having seen that review were slim – the periodical had had a lifetime of six weeks, during which it appeared twice – everything about him indicated that yes, he had read it. Probably he had a very efficient clipping agent. He had never forgiven her.

As usual, he looked right past Anna. Damn him! she thought. What do I care? He had a reputation for being calculating. That’s what Anita said. He was one of Anita’s main bugbears. Anita said that she knew for a fact that Carl Thompson only talked to people who could further his career. Somebody who was a friend of Carl’s had passed on this nugget of information to a friend of Anita’s, and Anita had duly relayed it to everyone she knew. She added that Carl did not like women, although this was her own theory.

Another woman came along, and Carl welcomed her with open arms, literally, giving the lie to one of Anita’s prejudices. He fell upon this woman, hugging her and kissing her. Katherine Molyneux. She was one of the few women novelists under the age of eighty of any repute in the entire country. ‘Quirky’ was the word most often applied to her and her work. That and ‘intelligent’. She could be funny, and she delighted in mildly shocking tactics. Her clothes were always black, and loose – like so many others’ clothes – but she might wear a bright pink headband, or carry a ridiculous handbag, to offset the dullness and emphasise the quirkiness. She was wearing a luminous pink headband now, with antennae, for some odd reason, the kind of thing children wore at parties. She looked like a benign beetle with pink horns. Anna would have liked to get to know this woman but she felt shut out from her world, the world of Jonathan Bewley and Carl Thompson. Whenever Anna had met them, they had been locked in a cliquish conversation, dropping names, talking about conferences they had been to and gigs they had done in Australia and America, and generally ensuring that people like Anna felt insignificant and unwanted.

The woman novelist nodded at Anna; she was friendlier than her male companions, but nevertheless there was an impatient moue on her face. Anna scanned the room looking for someone who could further her career. And who could be guaranteed not to look the other way when she approached them. There must be at least one in this gathering of hundreds.

She caught sight of Kate Murphy, the sister of her sister-in-law, Olwen, and moved as fast as she could in her direction. Kate was a useful contact, as well as being a relation.

‘Anna! How lovely to see-ee you!’ She beamed and kissed Anna on the cheeks, and looked wildly excited, although they had in fact met only two days ago. Kate worked in arts administration and often attended the same events as Anna. ‘Do you know Vincy Erikson?’

‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ Anna smiled at him. ‘Hi, I’m Anna Kelly Sweeney. Your name is unusual. Is it Scandinavian?’

‘My father is Swedish,’ said Vincy. His hair was fair, curly, and quite long; it looked as if he hadn’t combed it for some time. His clothes were careless, too, for an occasion such as this – no tie, and the jacket hung loosely on him, as if it belonged to someone else. But he was saved from looking scruffy by his skin. It was clean and pale, like a piece of polished pine. Anna had to suppress an urge to touch his face, to see how that strange skin felt.

‘My sister is married to Anna’s brother,’ Kate said, laughing as if this were a joke.

‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ said Vincy. He had a mildly formal style of delivery, and this made him sound bright.

‘Have you read the new book?’ Kate nodded in the direction of Seamus Heaney.

‘No, I haven’t had a chance as yet,’ said Anna, lying. She had had plenty of chances but hadn’t bothered and probably never would. Tonight she would buy a copy and get it signed and stick it on the shelf where she put all the inscribed first editions she had collected over the years. In brighter moments she regarded them as an investment, rather than, more realistically, as dust traps. Seamus Heaney himself it was who had said that an unsigned book by him was now probably rarer than an inscribed copy, and he was probably right.

They were joined by Leo Kavanagh, someone they all vaguely knew, but whose name nobody could remember.

‘Hi. Leo,’ he said, apologetically, when he joined them, as if he were used to people not remembering his name.

‘Oh Leo!’ said Kate, beaming. ‘How lovely to see you!’

It emerged that Leo lived in the country, in Kerry, where he ran a small poetry publishing house and was known for something else was well; Anna could not remember what it was just now. He had a bushy beard, and was bulky and short in a healthy-looking way. Anna guessed he was a vegetarian. He looked as if he ate a lot of carbohydrates. He seemed to be very interested in Kate.

‘You’re staying in Dublin for a few days?’ she asked kindly. She would have liked to see Kate paired off with a good man like Leo. The talented, lovely girls she met all the time who were getting older and not settling down disturbed her. They never indicated in any way whatsoever that they wanted to settle down, but Anna, who had married when she was twenty-five, firmly believed that under the glossy, ever-cheerful exteriors they concealed this old-fashioned desire.

‘Yes. I came up for a meeting of Killing Roads and a few other things, and now this.’

‘Killing Roads?’ That was what she had forgotten. Leo had founded a protest group some time ago, to heighten awareness of the dangerous state of Irish roads. And he was known to belong to other protest groups; he was a professional crank. But he was nice anyway. Solid.

‘That’s what we call it for short. The Enemies of the Killing Roads is its full, official, ridiculous title!’ Leo said, in a deadpan voice. ‘If you can think of a better one, let me know.’

‘Hm, I will indeed,’ said Anna.

But he wasn’t listening to her. He was staring at Kate. She was looking very attractive tonight, Anna thought – she wore her hair in a strange, distracting style, most of it pulled across her forehead in a sort of coracle-shaped arc, which gave her a childish, gamine look. And she was lucky with her eyes: they were big saucers, enhanced by plenty of dark eye shadow and mascara.

But Kate was not returning Leo’s gaze. She was much more interested in Vincy Erikson, who, with his fair hair, his slightly exotic accent, and a sort of energy he exuded, had a definite edge. Leo was, you had to acknowledge, a tiny bit dull. And then, he lived down there in the back of beyond and would be inaccessible most of the time. Kate might feel he was not worth taking an interest in. Anna felt sorry for him, as she observed this little unspoken drama. She was about to distract the unfortunate Leo, to ask him what it was like, living in the country in the winter, not because she cared but in order to pull him back into the conversation. But just then the speeches started.

They lasted for almost an hour: the President, resplendent in a lilac suit, the publisher, the chairman of the bank, a professor of Anglo-Irish literature, and Seamus Heaney, all went through their paces. Anna listened patiently for a while, trying to enjoy their words, their ideas. But soon her mind wandered. She tried to concentrate by comparing the different ways in which the speakers each pronounced basic words, like ‘book’ or ‘poem’. Buck, bewk; puem, powem, pom, pome … It was intriguing that someone who came from Belfast, like the President, could sound so different from someone who came from County Derry, like Seamus Heaney. It was intriguing that they both sounded so completely different from someone who came from Dublin, like the chairman of the bank, and from the publisher, who came from London, although they all spoke the same language and lived in the same place – right here, in Dublin.

Her mind wandered more. She looked around the vast room, at the sea of faces assembled under the elaborately plastered ceiling, to see how other people were responding. Most of them looked fascinated, and happy, to her surprise. She felt a stab of guilt. Was she the only person who got bored by worthy speeches? Suddenly she caught sight of Vincy Erikson. He was standing with his back to a pale yellow pillar. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep. But as she stared, amused at the sight, he opened his eyes and looked back at her. They exchanged an understanding smile.

At that moment the last syllables of the last speech were uttered and the chamber exploded with an avalanche of grateful applause. Having slipped through the excited crowd, like a silent shadow, Alex appeared abruptly at her side. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, under cover of the claps. ‘As soon as she leaves.’ He nodded impatiently in the direction of the President.

All around them, already, the crowd was breaking up into new formations, like cream breaking on the top of milk; some people used the opportunity of the speech end to move away from the company they were with and seek more congenial companions; many made a beeline for the door; the profligates settled in for an evening’s chatter and drinking as close to the bar as they could be.

John Marvell and Carl Thompson were on their way out, together, no doubt going on to somewhere more exclusive and exciting. Katherine Molyneux was slipping around the walls, furtively, also making an exit. The successful people always left early. These were not even waiting for the President to go first.

‘ok.’ Anna would have liked to stay longer because so far nothing had really happened. She was still young enough to hope that a party, even a book launch, could offer something new and exciting. She had no idea what that could be. A laugh, a friend, an insight. A surprise.

‘Hi, are you still here?’ It was Anita the brash.

‘We’re just waiting for the President to leave,’ said Anna.

‘Oh is that protocol?’ Anita asked. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to bother some folks!’ She looked around with a laugh. ‘There’s your brother over there. He’s not one of the ones who’s in a hurry to sneak out before the President, though, is he?’ She made the gesture that mimics drinking.

Anna smiled uneasily and Alex snorted. ‘You know my brother?’ She blushed. Her brother was a part-time painter of portraits, but not as successful as she would have wished a brother of hers to be. He had a reputation for being a drinker, so he would be close to the drinks table, sucking up the wine.

‘Yeah, I’ve known him for yonks. We had a good chat. He told me he was thinking of moving into town.’

‘Let’s go, Anna,’ said Alex, paying no attention to Anita. His good manners wore thin very quickly when people impeded his wishes.

Anita scowled at Alex, which disconcerted him. ‘Well, it’s none of my business,’ she said. ‘Sorry I spoke. You better ask him about it.’

‘Who is that woman?’ asked Alex crossly, as they moved through the throng towards the door.

‘Nobody,’ said Anna carelessly, looking around for Gerry.

‘Let’s go now,’ said Alex. ‘She’s left.’ He was referring to the President, whose lilac suit could no longer be seen.

‘I should talk to Gerry,’ she said anxiously.

‘He’ll be drunk. Leave it. Whatever he’s doing is his affair, he’s a grown man,’ said Alex.

Anna knew immediately that he knew something she did not know. What on earth did he mean, ‘Whatever he’s doing is his affair’?

‘ok,’ she said, knowing she would find out what the problem was sooner rather than later. ‘I’ll telephone him when I get home.’

At the exit, they bumped into Vincy Erikson and Kate.

Kate was getting her coat from the cloakroom. Vincy was standing by a marble pillar that supported the doorway, completely at ease. When Anna passed close to him, he looked up. It was as if he had suddenly awoken from a deep sleep. Again. His eyes met hers briefly. He had not seen Alex, but somehow she felt he had instinctively realised that Alex was with her and that she was not a hundred per cent happy about that. She nodded at him but did not smile.

Then she was on Foster Place, in the dark.