Previously: Encouraged by the Teacher, Marguerite has left glitzy Biarritz to live on solitary retreat in rural Ireland. In this scene, she lands in her new home and meets its eccentric owners.
IRELAND, DECEMBER 2020
Our arrival in the small Dublin airport is blissfully uneventful. Having landed from Cambridge a couple of hours earlier, Ben saunters over in his casual way and we all embrace. The drama of the past year feels distant. We are in a towering semicircle of luggage, laughing at one of Sacha’s typically inappropriate jokes when a text from Sebastian arrives: ‘apologies. small fire. 5 min delay.’ Seconds later, the revolving door swirls and releases a tornado of concentrated energy in an oversized jacket.
The man immediately spots us, skips to attention, and, lowering a battered fedora to his heart, bows deeply in our direction. Surely not austere Sebastian from the video call? As I’m glancing at the boys, whose surprised eyebrows are nearly in their hairline, he bounds across the masked meet-and-greet area and stops millimetres short of my toes. Again, he bows from the waist, and thrusts a hand at me, ‘Bash Calderwood, what-a-joy.’
Before us stands a Technicolor version of the worn-out Zoom character from a few weeks ago. His handshake is warm and firm, his aqua eyes, clear. Though he smells of fancy soap up close, I also notice that his wool-and-corduroy outfit is in fact a hundred times patched over in multiple shades of thread. The shirt collar is but a frayed memory, the shoes, scuffed beyond salvage, and the laces not just undone, but seemingly loosened on purpose. But there is no lingering, the whirlwind has already grabbed our two largest suitcases and started tottering toward the car park. Though he seems to be favouring the sides of his feet, his speed suggests someone accustomed to ploughing through discomfort.
‘Come along, boys,’ he directs, ‘Help your mother. Straight on.’ Then, sizing up the bulk of our belongings in relation to his minuscule boot, he pulls some matches from his pocket, tucks them in his fist, and turns to Sacha. ‘Whoever gets the shortest one will have to walk. You decide.’
Sacha laughs nervously and starts reaching for a match, but Sebastian’s upper body promptly disappears into the boot. I linger by his side, tempted to do up his laces as he wrestles cases in various configurations, repeatedly stubbing his toe and yelping.
‘Can I do something?’ I ask in a tiny voice, but oblivious to my presence, he moves as if cramming so many things into a small space is a personal challenge. I stand around, looking away from his patched-up backside, until he registers that I am still hovering. There is a muffled, ‘Won’t be a minute. I’ve called for a caravan and extra camels. I suggest you sit down.’
Okay then… Soon enough, Sebastian swings his legs into the driver’s seat. From the front, I turn to wink at the boys, but can only see Ben, now separated from his brother by a wall of dufflebags. He doesn’t seem amused. Neela’s mournful meow rises from the carrier at my feet, but I can’t reassure him with two bags pinning me to the seat. Every minor bump makes a scraping sound beneath us as we leave the airport, the Toyota so loaded down that Sebastian has to sit on a backpack to see over the bonnet.
We reach the motorway. Sebastian is lost in his thoughts; not a peep from the boys.
‘So there has been a fire?’ I venture as a conversation starter.
‘Under control, thank you very much. There may be a bit of a mess,’ Sebastian replies, with a wave. Craning his neck over the steering wheel, he wonders about the rain. Then, as if a mute button has been deactivated, he switches to a one-man show. Flicking indifferently from English to French, he darts from Georgian architecture to a quiz about my ancestors and the vicissitudes of the Common Agricultural Policy to… crows?
‘Who knows how long Corvid will keep the world at a standstill…’
‘Corvid?’ I ask.
‘A silly affectation. I initially thought it might be yet another bird flu. How are they doing, back there?’ he asks. ‘Alive?’
No reaction from the boys, and turning around is pointless, with all these bags. Asleep, probably.
Sebastian jerks his head around, and the car swerves in and out of the hard shoulder. ‘Stop being so stupid, Bash,’ he mutters to himself, smacking his forehead.
About an hour in, remembering that it was supposed to be delivered today, I ask if our bed has arrived. I’m zapped with the same emphatic double take he gave Bryony on Zoom, except there is a twinkle in his eyes.
‘Our bed? I know you’re French, but we’ve only just met!’ he exclaims as we leave the motorway. Mortified by the Anglo-Saxon cliché, I start rephrasing my question, but he has already launched into the next tirade about hideous bungalows blighting the countryside, which I can’t actually see, since I also learn that night falls at 3 o’clock in December.
At last, we take a turn off the last public road and the car slows to a gravelly crawl. In the back, the boys are yawning back to life. As we reach a gate, Sebastian stops, engine idling, and rolls down his window. The air is heavy with salt and moisture, the opaque night sky seems to stretch on forever. Following his gaze to the right, I catch a glint of silver on a patch of ripples far below and the low rumble of waves. Our journey skips a beat, and we are enveloped in thick silence. An owl hoots, and Sebastian puts the car back into gear. We slide on beneath tall shadows, the unhurried crackling of tyres marking our pace beneath us. Now there is a stone pier, and a couple of bated breaths later, another gate. I soften into a sense of sheltered spaciousness. Though it’s my first time here, it feels somehow familiar, and I am surprised by tears pricking the corners of my eyes. We creep past a hulking structure to the left and come to a low garden wall.
Sebastian lets out an ominous, ‘Ahhh…’ but I’m still feeling into this odd sense of home… the ocean and seaweed air, maybe? The night is layered with a hundred mysterious sounds, and a homely glow seeps through the shuttered seams of the large house to our left. I peer through the car windows, hoping to find the cascading lawns and sea vistas from the brochure he sent me, but instead, two massive fire engines are camped on the lawn, ablaze with red strobe lights.
‘Right,’ says Sebastian, lurching the car into reverse round a bend and parking in a crumbling stableyard complex. Bolting out of the car, he continues, ‘Access through your front door is still engaged by the firemen. We’ll have to go through the cellar. Not quite the plan, but no bother. Boys, we will lead your mother through to her side, you will help me unload, and then I must speak to those firemen.’
We walk down to an inner courtyard, where I slip on something squishy and have to catch myself on Sacha’s arm.
‘Ah, and watch out for the moss. Treacherous stuff,’ warns Sebastian, as if he has eyes on the back of his head.
He fiddles with a latch, then shoulders the door open, and we enter a cavernous cellar. He flicks the light switch and a bulb explodes in a shower of glass.
‘Bother,’ he grumbles, turning on a light farther down a hall.
We follow on, ducking giant meat hooks. I suppress a yelp as we pass a sinister fox head and more hunting trophies. The walls are oozing dampness, it smells of mould; every few yards, flakes of paint or plaster form heaps on the stone floor.
We go up more steps and Sebastian lets out, ‘There we are. Now you can have the nice supper we laid out for you.’
Before any of us can take a step further, four burly firemen brush past us in a fluster of talkie-walkies. Everything reeks of oil. Then from farther away, steps, and a voice.
‘They’re here! Svetlana, the kettle, the kettle! They’re here.’
A tall door swings open, and I recognise Bryony. She takes a step back to appraise me, then with an ‘Ah, Mah-ga-weet,’ opens her arms wide, cocks her head to one side, and pulls me in like a long-lost friend. Just as swiftly, she releases me, turns on her heels, and marches me down a long hall, pushing frizz out of her face with the back of her Marigold-gloved hand. As they head back for our luggage, I hear Sacha asking Sebastian about the “dead animals.”
‘Oh yes, my great-grandparents loved nature,’ he replies, and I wonder if that’s his brand of humour or if he truly sees big-game hunters as nature enthusiasts.
‘Come this way,’ says Bryony. ‘I’ll take you to the kitchen, and you’ll see… You must be ex-haaauusted! What a day I’ve had…! I spent the entiiiiiire afternoon cleaning, it was perfect and then Sebastian…’ There is a dramatic sigh. ‘Never mind…’
An acrid stench hits me halfway to the fluorescent glow of the kitchen, and there is no ignoring the 'small fire.' Smoke and extinguisher dust hangs in the air, stinging my eyes. The walls, painted magnolia in the photos Sebastian sent me, are now lost beneath a thick coat of soot, and a dirty yellow powder covers most of the faux wood floor. Glaring from the back of the room sits a cooker—the enamelled lump I wondered about in the photographs, now licked by huge black smears. Suppressing a cough, I am suddenly very cold and wonder if the cooker was the only source of heat.
‘Gosh, this looks serious, what happened?’ I ask.
Bryony swivels her torso around like an articulated mannequin, arms at a straight angle, hands in a fist.
‘Didn’t he tell you? We had an atrocious fire. I had cleaned everything, it was all looking so smart, and then Sebastian lit the cooker and thank goodness, had not left to collect you yet, and was able to put the fire out. I had to start all over again. A nightmare. Thankfully, poor Svetlana helped me.’
I spot someone in the far corner, wiping down cabinets in a resigned stupor. She shrugs at us, and carries on.
‘Hey ho… Supper plans ruined, but you’re here now,’ Bryony sighs, looking contrite. Then, pulling herself together, she is like an excited schoolgirl, clasping her hands together, ‘But I did make my lemon drizzle! We must have a cup of tea and you will tell me all about your lovely boys. I want to know everything.’
We crunch our way out of the kitchen, and I am herded into a long dining room.
‘Now you go in there, and I will be with you shortly,’ says Bryony, pushing me through and closing the door firmly behind herself.
Unloading was efficient, because Sebastian has made it to the room before us. On his hands and knees at the far end of the room, he is drawing long breaths into the fireplace. More smoke, I think, but the promise of warmth, at least. Ben is also here—staring up at the empty walls as if to appraise long-gone artwork, he looks utterly dejected. Sebastian and Bryony must have Zoom called from another dining room on their side of the house when we first spoke: these walls are painted in ubiquitous magnolia, not in the red I remember. Drab light from a naked overhead bulb spills onto a creaky table which has been covered in a yellow and brown chequered tablecloth ravaged by moth holes. At the bottom of a glass jar decorated with an ornate B, a sputtering flame wavers in dredges of molten wax, not contributing much in the way of mood lighting or warmth. A fireman pops his head through and shouts for Mickie, then turns around, leaving the door open.
Bryony comes bustling back holding a loaf pocked with whitish icing.
‘Door, Brie,’ says Sebastian, his face now blotched with coal.
She sighs, shuts it with her hip, and lays the cake on the table ceremoniously, hands cupping the oblong dish as if laying baby Jesus down in the manger. Then she stands back, head tilted, admiring her work, before rushing back into the kitchen. She reappears with a large tray of clinking china that echoes like a sinking Titanic in the nearly empty room.
‘Sebastian,’ she says loudly, ‘Sebastian lovey, you must come now. We are ready for our tea.’ She then busies herself with a pot-bellied teapot, filling steaming amber liquid into pretty floral cups.
‘Sugar? Milk?’ she asks.
From the corner of the room, I overhear Sebastian apologising to Ben about the fire not being lit before our arrival.
‘Now, placement,’ Bryony continues, as she whacks slices of cake onto dainty plates, ‘Mah-ga-weet, you may sit here, and…’ turning around, with a benign smile, ‘Ben, is that your name?’
Though the eldest, Ben feels social awkwardness most acutely. Cheeks a deep red, he nods and musters a faint clearing of his throat.
‘Ben, why don’t you sit there, and…’ Bryony jerks her head around, as if blind to Sebastian, who is tending the fire again. ‘Now where has Sebastian gone? Sebastian, Sebastian darling, Sebastian, you will chat to Ben about history. Mah-ga-weet, more tea?’
The door bangs open, prompting a ‘For goodness’ sake’ from the fireplace.
‘Youse won’t be minding us. Mickie here. We’ll be checking your flue now, you know?’ says a fireman who can’t be much older than Ben.
‘Surely not this one? You must mean the one in the kitchen?’ asks Sebastian.
Mickie the fireman disappears, and the door creaks open again.
‘Lemon drizzle? Tea?’ Bryony whirls like a dervish with a cake stand. It’s all starting to feel faintly Chekhovian.
Clapping ash from his hands, Sebastian comes to shut the door in a pondered stride, then walks to the table. We have all been standing around, so I hadn’t noticed that the chairs are in fact all wine crates; they scrape against the bare wood floors as we shuffle into place. Without a word, he hovers by his appointed place for a few seconds, before pulling a crate to a corner by the window and sitting down. A far cry from the ultra-sleek, trendy décor and underfloor heating I gave up in Biarritz, but our belongings will be arriving soon. A nasty draught slips in from under the door, making the curtain billow behind Sebastian. He is sitting so still he could be a wax figurine.
At last, Bryony lets out a contented sigh and drops onto a cushioned chair. Her voice lifts as if celebrating the discovery of flint, before descending into a low laugh.
‘And I shall sit here, hohoho. Benjamin—may I call you Benjamin? It’s more appropriate, at your age. Tell me, Benjamin, what have you been reading at Cambridge? What is your favourite Marlowe play?’
Ben has opinions about his first name, but keeps them to himself. We have unwittingly inched closer together for a semblance of warmth, cupping our now lukewarm brew like hot water bottles. He also has lots to say about Elizabethan theatre, and clears his throat again to speak.
‘Mrs Vines…’
‘Do call me Bryony. Another cup of tea, perhaps?’
‘Bryony, do you know where my brother is?’
Crap! We’ve been so distracted by all this tea that I’ve lost track of Sacha.
Registering the empty seat, Bryony bolts upright and wears an air of panic.
‘Oh yes, there were two boys! Sebastian, what have you done with the smaller one?’
On cue, the door swings open again, and it is Sacha, looking shell-shocked.
‘The door!’ we all shout at him in unison.
‘Oh yeah, sorry guys. It’s really big in here,’ he slurs.
He’s always been a daydreamer, but he wouldn’t have helped himself to a drink from the cellar, surely? But then I see his lips are blue, too cold to speak properly. He is still wearing his linens and Crocs and has left his jacket somewhere, preferring “cool” over warm, like any teen.
Sebastian takes it as a cue to leave his frozen corner.
‘We shall let you get bedded in. I’m afraid the central heating will be out of order until it is safe to be turned back on, so pile on the eiderdowns. I’ve left some wine on the table.’
I don’t have the heart to tell him that I don’t drink.
‘Ni-night,’ says Bryony, collecting her china. ‘No time to make supper, sadly, but there are a few goodies in the fridge,’ she smiles beatifically. ‘I’ll take you shopping tomorrow.’
Sebastian flashes her an outraged look and is about to say something, but she looks away, picks up her tray, and thrusts it at him.
‘What a day, what. a. day! I must get some rest.’
I thank them profusely for their welcome and wave them good night. Back in our hideous kitchen, the boys are staring into the fridge.
‘Goodies, huh? Potatoes, frozen peas, milk, and oats,’ lists Sacha mournfully. ‘Oh and some Lidl granola. Score. Kinda.’
‘So, what do you think, boys?’ I ask, making my voice more cheerful than I feel.
‘Did you notice how Bryony plopped herself onto the only real chair?’ asks Ben, making the kitchen echo with the opening and closing of cupboards as he rummages for more food.
‘Yeah, we all had to sit on crates!’ adds Sacha. ‘But at least you got some cake, Benjamin. She took it away just after I came in! I thought I was going to die down there in the dark, while you guys were getting all cosy and warm.’
‘I hate it when posh people know my name better than I do,’ mutters Ben. ‘And we hardly got warm—she was the only one with her back to the fire.’
‘Be fair, guys. She put a lot of effort into make everything nice for us,’ I say. ‘And you enjoyed chatting about literature…’
‘I think you mean the cleaning lady worked hard, Mom. I don’t think Mrs Vines knows how to operate a sponge. Hey—are you going to be okay here, after we leave?’
‘Yeah mom, they’re a bit weird, and all that dead stuff is cool, but kinda creepy, too…’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say firmly, smiling at Sacha. A peacemaker at heart, he picks up on my cue to prevent his brother’s mood from souring any further, and replies brightly.
‘Yo, what about that bottle Sebastian mentioned?’
‘Not great if it’s going to slosh on top of all that cereal you’ve just wolfed,’ I reason, jumping on any distraction from grumpiness.
‘Ooooh, nice,’ says Ben, suddenly cheerful. ‘Guys, it’s a 1982 Cheval Blanc! That’s classy! Cereal’s all yours. Can we open it, Mom?’
Faye’s Wing is a serialised quantum memoir about a woman who reclaims her spiritual sovereignty as she grapples with fear and cultural taboos during the pandemic.
It unfolds in musical seasons:
Bristol Winter prelude
Biarritz Spring to Autumn sonata
Irish seasonal dances