Martyn Halsall
That Business in Dublin
She died during the snow, her full, white nightdress
tightening like frost, crumpling to a small thaw.
Her pillow in that last wrestling with pain
spilling its cargo of goose feathers like plucked sky.
The family had moved away. For the hired priest
it was hard to compose the expected valediction.
He tried to trace the woman behind the roles:
magistrate, warden, patron, her insistent work
minuting, chairing; frequently in command
among titles, cats’ homes, donkey sanctuaries,
Friends of the Abbey Theatre, hunt ball committees:
her politics taken for granted and never mentioned.
He kept to the unsigned note: “I trust there will be
no reference to that business in Dublin, (in case
anyone should raise it). She was extremely young,
you will understand. It was all a long time ago.”
The priest ploughed on: ponies, schoolgirl lacrosse,
love of the outdoors, donations of gardening trophies,
a passing reference to shooting, he sensed a spring,
tightening. He added geraniums, chess, brass rubbing,
how she married into molasses. But her one great love,
a grand-daughter confided, was a Dalkey postman
never mentioned today, but whom she imagined
recklessly pedalling to the city with a rabbit gun,
an infectious laugh, a huge fondness for revolution.
tightening like frost, crumpling to a small thaw.
Her pillow in that last wrestling with pain
spilling its cargo of goose feathers like plucked sky.
The family had moved away. For the hired priest
it was hard to compose the expected valediction.
He tried to trace the woman behind the roles:
magistrate, warden, patron, her insistent work
minuting, chairing; frequently in command
among titles, cats’ homes, donkey sanctuaries,
Friends of the Abbey Theatre, hunt ball committees:
her politics taken for granted and never mentioned.
He kept to the unsigned note: “I trust there will be
no reference to that business in Dublin, (in case
anyone should raise it). She was extremely young,
you will understand. It was all a long time ago.”
The priest ploughed on: ponies, schoolgirl lacrosse,
love of the outdoors, donations of gardening trophies,
a passing reference to shooting, he sensed a spring,
tightening. He added geraniums, chess, brass rubbing,
how she married into molasses. But her one great love,
a grand-daughter confided, was a Dalkey postman
never mentioned today, but whom she imagined
recklessly pedalling to the city with a rabbit gun,
an infectious laugh, a huge fondness for revolution.
Page(s) 49
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