I go back upstairs to dress. I set off for the Waltons’ early, leaving time to drive very slowly, and even to get lost. There is a strong wind, and driving sleet. I can hardly see, with those thirteen-second wipers. I wonder again whether the Waltons are too frail, or perhaps too short of staff, to send someone to get me. I find the Exxon-Toyota station; exactly 1.9 miles later, the bridge, the end of the painted white divider, and the turnoff. Almost immediately, on this little side road, there is a fork. I had thought, and the expression is entirely uncharacteristic of me, that bitch, when Kathleen had sped off and refused to slow down, even when I slowed and she nearly lost me, but I’d also thought, no, maybe with her it’s just high spirits, and she doesn’t see the problem when someone is trying just to follow and to learn the way. But now, the fork, when she had only said, It’s up there, waving vaguely. I thought, well, it wasn’t just high spirits. I chose to bear left. After a long time, with a sense of the sea very close beside me, in that darkness, I approached a high wall, almost a fortification, with, behind it, a small house and one dim light. I wondered why the Waltons, expecting a guest, would not have lighted their place more brightly, decide they would have, pass along the fortification, reach another fork. There are, in addition to the two paved branches, two dirt roads, or driveways, one marked Cul de Sac, the other, perhaps more improbably, Danger Taureaux. I turn around. The sea is now on my left, on the passenger’s side. I enter the drive that leads into the fortification, park, walk to the house with the single lighted window, knock at the door. No answer. From inside, I can hear, muted, a television set. I am now quite loudly knocking. Finally, I try the door. It opens directly into a kitchen, where a man and a small boy are watching television. I apologize, ask for directions to the Waltons’. And the man tells me, in that crazy, unclear Irish way, just to follow the road I have been on and, at the nearest fork, bear the equivalent of straight. I turn in the driveway, which is narrow. The man stands in the doorway, making the sounds, and even the physical gestures, which men of all classes, the world over, seem to make to a woman, who is simply putting her car into reverse to turn or park it, when they say, as if this were a piece of arcane wisdom, never before heard by woman, Cut it, cut it hard. I say thank you. Then, not unlike Kathleen, yes unlike her, but because the car has now entirely lost its second gear, I roar off. A mile or two past the fork, I find a drive which I somehow take to be the Waltons’. This house has two lights, both dim. Since they are widely separated, it is not clear which marks the entrance of the house. I choose one. Again, I am in a kitchen. A woman, in her early forties, with straight blond hair hanging to her shoulders, comes in from a hallway, says, I’m Nicole Walton. Clem’s not ready. You must be Kate. I look at my watch, and realize I’ve left myself too much time. I am ten minutes early. I have recognized Nicole’s accent at once. It is Berlin. She is wearing a dark woolen skirt and sweater. She leads me to a very comfortable drawing room, with shabby pretty furniture and oriental carpets, seats me beside the fireplace. She offers me an Irish whiskey, which I accept. She says, I’ll bring some ice. I say, Thank you, no ice. She asks me where I am from. Before I can reply, she says, The ambassador has told us all about you. Then, she asks me why I’ve come to Cihrbradàn. I say, I was looking for somewhere beautiful and quiet, on the sea. To my surprise, I add, Where I can rest. Captain Walton walks in, very brisk, stocky and hearty, looking at his watch. I was just cutting my toenails, he says, its a very auspicious hour for cutting toenails. I take it this is his form of witticism, small talk, earthiness. We shake hands. Nicole says, Kate and I were just talking about all the places she must visit during the short time she is in Ireland. We had, of course, been talking of nothing of the sort. I say, No, actually, it’s Cihrbradàn I’ve come to, just for the quiet, and to rest. But somehow they do not seem to hear this. They immediately take up their own conversation about places I must visit. They agree that Clem will take me tomorrow, first thing in the morning, to a place he has loved since his boyhood, called, for reasons they now elaborate, Mummy’s beach. I ask Nicole where she is from. She says Chicago, with what is so clearly a German o that I’m taken aback. I just say, Really. She says, Before that Minneapolis. I have now firmly decided that by tomorrow I shall be gone from Ireland. As I wonder exactly what I am going to do about this, the phone rings. Nicole goes into another room to answer it, comes back, says to Clem, that was Judy, from London; and to me, she was going to come this weekend. Judy loves Ireland as much as you and Clem and I do, but with this latest business of the IRA, the silly girl’s afraid to come. Clem says, It’s just the newspapers; Kate knows all about the newspapers. I say, with some interest, But I haven’t read a newspaper in days. We hear footsteps in the hall. Clem calls out, Hello, William, Iris. And another couple come in, Americans. When Clem has introduced us, and brought their drinks, with ice, he also brings me another, very large, whiskey. This one, too, with ice. Nicole says to the couple, We were just discussing where Kate should go, on her Irish tour. She’s going with Clem tomorrow, to Mummy’s beach.
And this matter of the commas. And this matter of the paragraphs. The true comma. The pause comma. The afterthought comma. The hesitation comma. The rhythm comma. The blues. And in this matter of the tenses and the question marks. In this matter of the scandal at the tennis courts. Did he know so little, then, of love that he did not know that the experience he has put me through, all those times, in all those years, is the one I’ve adumbrated, for a few hours, from time to time, just now?
Nicole says, to the American couple, We were just discussing where Kate should go, on her Irish tour; she’s going with Clem tomorrow, to Mummy’s beach. I say, No, it turns out that I must go to London, for just one day. Coming back the same night, or maybe the following morning, and I’m afraid tomorrow will have to be the day. I am now trying to establish with these people my absolute intention not just to leave, but to return, within hours, to Ireland; so I stress it. I want there to be no question, or at least less question, of my attempting to flee the jurisdiction, if I’m caught, the word caught, and my problem, are becoming definite to me, along the way. Clem and Nicole give a little pantomime of despairing fondness, and then become distinctly bullying. I must postpone my trip to London until the last day of my stay in Ireland; under no circumstances can I go as soon as tomorrow. But by this time it has turned out that William, before retiring from his American professorship of physiology, had worked as a consultant to the United Nations. William now mentions that a UN official, a man much in the news, has arrived that day in Paris. As it happens, I know that official very well. I say, with surprising conviction, that the reason I must go tomorrow is that I have to interview him. Since the man in question has considerable chic and power, Clem somehow overlooks the question of why I must go to London to interview an official who has just arrived in Paris. I am not too much worried by this apparent inconsequence. We have all had at least three drinks by now, and as we walk to the dining room, Clem takes my arm. As soon as you get back, then, he says, the day after tomorrow, you and I will go to Mummy’s beach. The ambassador has told us everything about you. Nicole and I, you know, own some property in common. Mummy’s beach, actually. And when he wrote to us, the ambassador said, Kate will know just the sort of people to buy the property. People who would fit in, he says, squeezing my arm. You know, des gens convenables. I think, Good heavens, can I have heard him right? I say, Oh yes, what an interesting idea.