The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(49)
He’d take it as progress; anything was better than standing still. He looked back up the hill towards the village. It was the middle of the week and life was trundling on as normal for the people of Ballycove. Rising high up into the rock, he could hear the occasional car wind its way through the streets. Chimneys puffed out their blue grey smoke into the woollen grey sky and somewhere, across the way, a dog barked loudly, its demand to break free an unending chorus into the resolute sunshine. Dora was jumping energetically to catch a glimpse of life beyond the narrow boundary wall that was just a fraction too high to permit her unfettered liberty. She was ready for a walk and he was glad of the company. With everything else, he knew Lucy hardly had time to bless herself at the moment and a spaniel; well they are energetic little things, aren’t they?
Dan wondered about the scruples of walking to the spot where he knew he could settle himself comfortably for an hour to listen to the voices that were swiftly filling up his manuscript. It wasn’t as if he was watching them; actually, he did everything he could to make a comfortable spot with his back to the ladies so he never laid eyes on them after that first embarrassing time. But it was their voices, their stories, their gay abandon, which was what drew him here each night. Night fell quickly here, but over the last few evenings, he had seen the daylight stretch out a little longer across the uneven water.
Someone had told him that the sun set fifteen minutes later here than it did in London. He wondered what he’d do when the evenings became so bright there was no hiding in the cave. He was not a voyeur. There was nothing lurid in his desire to sit and listen to the giddy and sometimes poignant conversations of the Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club. There had been nights when he had wept, hearing of Elizabeth’s life and the truth of what it was to be so naively trapped into a marriage that never had even the glimmer of a chance at fulfilment. He cried too when he heard Jo, whose only fear of dying was leaving the people she loved so much behind to fend for themselves. He’d written down her words, but on the page, they didn’t carry the same poignancy – how can a woman die, when there is so much more to be done? she’d railed, her tears only too obvious on her cracking voice.
‘They won’t be alone; they’ll never be alone. I know it’s not the same, but I’ll be here, watching out for them,’ Elizabeth said with a steely determination that seemed at odds with the little woman he knew who favoured twinsets and pearls when she wasn’t diving into the wild Atlantic Ocean.
‘Shall I tell Eric that you’ve become a complete harlot, throwing off your clothes at every opportunity?’ Jo said, breaking the sadness with her own brand of humour.
‘Oh God no,’ Elizabeth shrieked. ‘Not a word until I’m there to see his jaw drop.’
That was why Dan came here every evening, to listen to women whose friendship had sustained them through the unthinkable and was continuing to sustain them. That was what his book would be about – the indomitable spirit of friendship.
*
The following morning blushed pink across the sky, falling into a deep blue as the ocean crept up towards the horizon. Shards of tawny, rosy light cut in through the half-opened curtains on Dan’s bedroom window– plenty of time for a walk and to gather his thoughts. The sea breeze seemed even fresher today, if that was possible, and Dan enjoyed its coldness pressing on his face and then on his return journey pushing him along against his back. But it wasn’t the sea or the breeze, or the soft sand beneath his feet that was making him smile today. Rather, the reason he felt this unaccustomed lightness inside had nothing to do with any of those things and at the same time had everything to do with how life was unfolding.
Late the previous night, he’d taken his courage in his hands and contacted Harry. He’d sent a sample of the novel and been rewarded by an early morning return email. The writing he’d already pinged off to his agent was developing further in his mind. Harry had sat up all night reading through it and he felt exactly as Dan had. This had the potential to be a decent book – this was the idea they’d talked about so many times late into the night.
‘This is a movie in the making, if the sets are half as good as you make them sound on the page,’ Harry said when he rang later that day.
‘Let’s see if we can’t make it into a book first,’ Dan said softly; he’d had his fill of scripts to last him a lifetime. But he knew that was the secret to Harry’s success, this notion that there were always bigger mountains to climb. Of course, for Harry, it would be the royalties too – there was no denying that there was a big difference between a decent movie royalty and a successful book.
When he’d rung earlier in the morning, Harry had been excited, taken up in the sort of enthusiasm that Dan knew could not be thwarted. He replayed their conversation over in his mind again as he walked along the beach. He was excited at the prospect of climbing back into the book again, with fresh eyes and yes, maybe with movie camera eyes this time. This was the kind of challenge he’d needed, but perhaps he just hadn’t realised it until it presented itself. He was ready to grow, as a writer, ready to push into a new territory and there was no question: he’d assured Harry that the only place this book could possibly be written was right here in Ballycove.
20
Niall
They’d spent the day in Dublin, gathering up belongings, because perhaps they both knew that they would not be coming back here until his grandmother had passed away. School was out, his mother’s job at the hospital had been filled by some young eager doctor and no-one was going to miss them particularly from their previous lives if they never came back again. His mother was driving but a million miles away in her thoughts, so she hardly noticed the profusion of flowers along the main road into the village, nor did she comment on the fact that the foliage was abundant with the trees constructing light green canopies across the road. As summer heightened, these would become heavier and darker until they threatened to upend and bend down so low, it felt as if you could touch them.