As my tea leaves stood soaking in a mug of boiling water, I finally relaxed. But then a big black Mercedes floated into the driveway
I DREAD REFERENDUMS because they stir up a frenzy of anxiety in me, so I planned a barbecue for June to chill out and cheer myself up. But now I’m worrying all the time about where to position the grill, and how many burgers to buy, and what to do if it rains. Relaxing is not as easy as my therapist claims it is. Even going to the supermarket can be a bit of a nightmare.
On Saturday I was looking for a take-away lunch. I selected curried chicken, got my dish wrapped in tinfoil and went to the checkout, where a young girl was buying a Lotto ticket. The cashier had to go to another counter to run the docket through.
Then she returned. The young girl was stuck in a daydream, and she blushed when the cashier said that she hadn’t filled out enough numbers.
“You need to select another one.” The girl took the pen from the cashier, but she couldn’t seem to get her act together. She fumbled with the pen and the docket for a moment as her sandy hair fell over her eyes, and eventually the cashier took the pen and docket away from her.
“Just think of a number.”
“Thirty,” the girl said.
“Great!” said the cashier, and she went off to the other counter and ran the docket through the machine again, but the machine still rejected it. By now there were four people with chicken curries wrapped in tinfoil waiting to check out. And the cashier decided to call for the manager. I don’t know what happened afterwards because I went to another queue. My dinner was going cold.
Later I tried to relax listening to a woman singing songs by Berlioz on Radio 3 as I sat on the sofa devouring the curry and admiring the beach trees that have finally come into leaf despite the north winds.
Berlioz usually relaxes me. And there’s something about the piano and a female soprano that can soothe any melancholic heart so I turned up the volume and went outside to look at the trees.
My garden is full of memories. I planted a rosebush when the daughter was making her first Holy Communion. The chestnut tree came on the back of a lorry for our wedding, the tree with no name came from Judy Hegarty in France, and the laburnum, I planted in remembrance of happy days in Italy; all sweet memories of times that have passed, but Radio 3 was still blasting sad songs from the speakers in the house and filling the afternoon with such longing and desire that it reminded me of the night the General danced on the patio.
That was a long time ago. He danced with a neighbour’s child, then in her 20s. She was just back from a summer in London, wearing a long cheesecloth skirt. Now she’s married in Bromley with two children who chatter like eastenders whenever they come for holidays and marvel at the way horses in Leitrim come so close to the houses that they can look in the windows at the humans. I suppose time changes everything. Even the General doesn’t dance much any more.
Then Berlioz ended abruptly and I could hear a faraway crowd chanting in Twickenham; someone had turned the television on, and the sporting mob was so agitated that I decided to go for a walk.
I walked as far as the waterfall overlooking the lake, near the house where John McKenna spent his youth, before heading to New York in 1913 where he became a famous flute player.
I walked down the slopes where a French army once camped and I passed a derelict house where two horses were sheltering at the gable; a piebald and a bay. Beyond the house, the mountain raised its head in a clear blue sky. It is always surprising just to see it there, majestic and exposed, after lying hidden in drizzle and fog for most of the winter.
When I returned to the garden, a lone magpie was perched on the laburnum and a cotton wool cloud sat on the ridge of the mountain; the very same cloud that I saw on the day I planted the chestnut tree. I went inside and lit the stove. My tea leaves stood soaking in a mug of boiling water. I was finally relaxed.
And then a big black Mercedes floated into the driveway and I realised that the politicians were coming, with their inscrutable leaflets.