Robert
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And mine to dispose with now she's gone. Instead of silver and Victorian lace, The exonerating, exonerated stone.
Polished linoleum shone there. Brass taps shone.
25 The china cups were very white and big? An unchipped set with sugar bowl and jug. The kettle whistled. Sandwich and teascone Were present and correct. In case it run, The butter must be kept out of the sun.
30 And don't be dropping crumbs. Don't tilt your chair. Don't reach. Don't point. Don't make noise when you
It is Number 5, New Row, Land of the Dead, Where grandfather is rising from his place With spectacles pushed back on a clean bald head
35 To welcome a bewildered homing daughter Before she even knocks. 'What's this? What's this?' And they sit down in the shining room together.
When all the others were away at Mass I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
40 They broke the silence, let fall one by one Like solder weeping off the soldering iron: Cold comforts set between us, things to share Gleaming in a bucket of clean water. And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
45 From each other's work would bring us to our senses.
So while the parish priest at her bedside Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying And some were responding and some crying I remembered her head bent towards my head,
50 Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives?Never closer the whole rest of our lives.
4
Fear of affectation made her affect Inadequacy whenever it came to Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek.5
55 She'd manage something hampered and askew Every time, as if she might betray The hampered and inadequate by too Well-adjusted a vocabulary. With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You
Bcrtolt Brecht (1898-1956), German playwright.
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60 Know all them things.' So I governed my tongue In front of her, a genuinely well- adjusted adequate betrayal Of what I knew better. I'd now and aye And decently relapse into the wrong
65 Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.
5
The cool that came off sheets just off the line Made me think the damp must still be in them But when I took my corners of the linen And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
70 And then diagonally, then flapped and shook The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind, They made a dried-out undulating thwack. So we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand For a split second as if nothing had happened
75 For nothing had that had not always happened Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go, Coming close again by holding back In moves where I was x and she was o Inscribed in sheets she'd sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.
so In the first flush of the Easter holidays The ceremonies during Holy Week Were highpoints of our Sons and Lovers6 phase. The midnight fire. The paschal candlestick.7 Elbow to elbow, glad to be kneeling next
85 To each other up there near the front Of the packed church, we would follow the text And rubrics0 for the blessing of the font.8 rides As the hind longs for the streams, so my sold . . ,9
Dippings. Towellings. The water breathed on.
90 The water mixed with chrism1 and with oil. Cruet2 tinkle. Formal incensation And the psalmist's outcry taken up with pride:
Day and night my tears have heen my hread.3
7
In the last minutes he said more to her
95 Almost than in all their life together. 'You'll be in New Row on Monday night And I'll come up for you and you'll be glad When I walk in the door . . . Isn't that right?'
6. Novel (1913) by the English writer D. H. 8. Receptacle for holy water. Lawrence (1885?1930) that largely centers on the 9. Psalms 42.1. oedipal relationship between a mother and son. 1. Mixture of olive oil and balsam. 7. Large candle lit during a ceremony on Holy Sat-2. Small vessel for wine or water. urday, which precedes Easter. 3. Psalms 42.3.
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His head was bent down to her propped-up head.
100 She could not hear but we were overjoyed. He called her good and girl. Then she was dead, The
