An Ark of Light Read online

  Praise for Dermot Bolger

  ‘A fierce and terrifyingly uncompromising talent … serious and provocative’

  Nick Hornby, Sunday Times

  ‘Bolger does it masterfully, as always. He has been prying open the Irish ribcage since he was sixteen years old … Pound for pound, word for word, I’d have Bolger represent us in any literary Olympics.’

  Colum McCann, Irish Independent

  ‘Bolger is a gifted storyteller and prose stylist … a gripping, well-observed examination of the corrosive effects of greed on love, relationships and families.’

  Hot Press

  ‘Bolger is to contemporary Dublin what Dickens was to Victorian London: archivist, reporter, sometimes infuriated lover. Certainly no understanding of Ireland’s capital at the close of the twentieth century is complete without an acquaintance with his magnificent writing.’

  Joseph O’Connor, Books Quarterly

  ‘Joyce, O’Flaherty, Brian Moore, John McGahern, a fistful of O’Brien’s … Dermot Bolger is of the same ilk … an exceptional literary gift.’

  The Independent UK

  ‘Dermot Bolger creates a Dublin, a particular world, like no one else writing can … the urban landscape of the thriller that Bolger has made exclusively his own.’

  Sunday Independent

  ‘A wild, frothing, poetic odyssey … a brilliant and ambitious piece of writing.’

  The Sunday Telegraph

  ‘The writing is so strong, so exact … triumphantly successful – bare, passionate, almost understating the almost unstatable.’

  Financial Times

  Praise for The Family on Paradise Pier

  ‘Bolger has written his finest novel: his portrait of a lost Anglo-Irish world reaching out into every struggle of the twentieth century is fantastically adventurous.’

  Sebastian Barry, The Guardian

  ‘The novel unfolds with the graceful skill for which Bolger is remarkable.’

  The Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Possibly his finest achievement … whether he’s capturing the slums of Dublin or the pain of a missed opportunity in love, Bolger’s writing simply sings.’

  Sunday Business Post

  ‘The Family on Paradise Pier places Bolger on a new level … the writer is a remarkable storyteller.’

  Irish Book Review

  ‘A remarkable novel … The Family on Paradise Pier attests to his being unequivocally one of the best living Irish novelists.’

  Village Magazine

  ‘Bolger has never written better … the richness of Sheila Fitzgerald’s experience and the obvious warmth that developed between them adds a special dimension to this remarkable book.’

  Scottish Sunday Herald

  Praise for Tanglewood

  ‘Tanglewood is an outstanding piece of work by one of our most mature and courageous writers, one who is unafraid to hack his way through the tangles of contemporary Irish life and write a rare thing in Irish fiction: a serious state-of-the-nation novel.’

  The Irish Times

  ‘An absorbing meditation on marriage, masculinity, parenting and the general anxieties of the middle class … Bolger approaches these variegated lives with a wisdom that contrasts sharply with the benightedness of those he depicts. On every page, insight and illumination are found, as might be expected from one of Ireland’s most perceptive writers.’

  The Times Literary Supplement

  ‘Only a writer of Bolger’s precision and suppleness could wade back through the nation’s self-loathing into that mess and mine new truths, treasures to be heeded and learned from … Bolger isn’t meditating on regret, love, moral fibre, greed and carpe diem – he’s setting the record straight on them … This is storytelling that flows deep and soundly, and brims with a hard-earned wisdom … sublime.’

  Sunday Independent

  ‘Well-wrought, considered, layered and evocative.’

  Irish Examiner

  ‘Bolger is a witty and sensitive writer … who has always been attuned to social issues … Bolger writes about love and grief particularly well, and it is refreshing to see such an open portrait of the sexual lives of each of the characters, from menopausal Alice to lesbian Sophie, from sexually shy Chris to sexually rampant Ronan … Tanglewood makes a critical contribution to contemporary Irish fiction of the post-boom period.’

  Sunday Business Post

  ‘Bolger is a gifted storyteller and prose stylist … a gripping, well-observed examination of the corrosive effects of greed on love, relationships and families.’

  Hot Press

  ‘Tanglewood is an impressive feat by an author fearlessly interrogating one of the most traumatic moments in recent Irish history. It’s a mirror to an age when the party ended.’

  The National UAE

  Praise for The Lonely Sea and Sky

  ‘It is a full-bodied barnstormer, a coming-of-age tale of wanderlust ideal for readers aged 12 to 92. It is an ocean-going epic of sacrifice and derring-do against the backdrop of war-torn Europe. It is a paean to a fledgling Ireland trying to find its feet as the ground moves beneath it. It is all these things and yet it releases submerged thematic buoys to the surface in that effortless Bolger manner. You can only do this if your craft has been carved to precision by time.’

  Irish Independent

  ‘Bolger’s rendering of the transformation of ordinary men, who have chosen a risky way of life, into truly heroic figures makes for engaging reading.’

  The Irish Times

  ‘Bolger’s unforced style sings with colour, humour and excitement. But it’s the way he smuggles “the bigger themes” into the narrative hull that grants this historical fiction “modern classic” status.’

  Irish Independent

  ‘An old-fashioned heroic yarn told with spirit and compassion and stoutly made like the characters aboard the voyage.’

  Irish Examiner

  ‘Bolger creates a personal, heartrending and atmospheric tale of the lives of these Irish sailors during a period of great international conflict … Dermot Bolger has done them justice in producing such a finely crafted and extremely readable tale which brings their story to life.’

  Lonesome Reader

  ‘That mother of life, that coffin of death, the ocean will continue to compel writers to their task. The Lonely Sea and Sky is a beautiful novel that will suit all ages.’

  By the Book Reviews

  Also by Dermot Bolger

  Poetry

  The Habit of Flesh

  Finglas Lilies

  No Waiting America

  Internal Exiles

  Leinster Street Ghosts

  Taking My Letters back

  The Chosen Moment

  External Affairs

  The Venice Suite

  That Which is Suddenly Precious

  Novels

  Night Shift

  The Woman’s Daughter

  The Journey Home

  Emily’s Shoes

  A Second Life

  Father’s Music

  Temptation

  The Valparaiso Voyage

  The Family on Paradise Pier

  The Fall of Ireland

  Tanglewood

  The Lonely Sea and Sky

  Young Adult Novel

  New Town Soul

  Collaborative Novels

  Finbar’s Hotel

  Ladies Night at Finbar’s Hotel

  Plays

  The Lament for Arthur Cleary

  Blinded by the Light

  In High Germany

  The Holy Ground

  One Last White Horse

  April Bright

  The Passion of Jerome

  Consenting Adults

  The Ballymun Trilogy

&nbs
p; 1: From These Green Heights

  2: The Townlands of Brazil

  3: The Consequences of Lightning

  Walking the Road

  The Parting Glass

  Tea Chests & Dreams

  Ulysses: a stage adaption of James Joyce’s novel

  Bang Bang

  An Ark of Light

  An Ark of Light

  Dermot Bolger

  An Ark of Light

  First published in 2018 by

  New Island Books

  16 Priory Hall Office Park

  Stillorgan

  County Dublin

  Republic of Ireland

  www.newisland.ie

  Copyright © Dermot Bolger, 2018

  The moral right of Dermot Bolger to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-84840-697-1

  Epub ISBN: 978-1-84840-698-8

  Mobi ISBN: 978-1-84840-699-5

  All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  New Island received financial assistance from The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon), 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland.

  New Island Books is a member of Publishing Ireland.

  In memoriam

  For Sheila and for those whom she loved.

  Prologue

  Tonight I dreamt that I was back in The Ark, my small caravan rocking in the tides of the wind. A scent of turf lingered from the iron stove where I had been toasting bread on the antiquated fork that I could barely still hold between my stiff fingers. The skylight was ajar to allow for secretive nocturnal journeys by my three cats, but Johnny, my collie dog – his bones almost as arthritic as my own – was content to sleep curled on the cushions beside me.

  Mildewed books salvaged from nine decades of my life lined the crammed shelves. Old pictures and paintings hung above the long window, beneath which I sat, bent over a candlelit table littered with folders. So many letters to still write, friends to remember, causes to campaign for. Book reading is best kept for winter when no visitors come and I can let each layer of meaning filter down to the bedrock of my soul. But I had grown so absorbed in re-reading Mother’s ancient copy of Maeterlinck’s The Treasure of the Humble – her favourite chapter about how silence awakened the soul – that I’d forgotten how a last guest was due to call at this late hour. It was someone precious to me, but I could not remember who. The book so distracted me that I was unprepared for any visitor. I desperately tried to recollect his name and if he would mind sleeping on the window seat, with Johnny draping himself companionably against the crook of his knees. I am amazed at the number of people who track me down to this small ark I’ve made for myself and a few stray creatures amid the fields: friends from a half century ago mingling here with young visitors on my wavelength, young people who instinctively grasp truths it took me decades to learn.

  A white cat descended through the skylight to land on the table. She shook herself and stood still, observing me with unblinking eyes. Jumping down onto the rush mat, she affectionately brushed against my brittle leg, then sprang up onto the window seat to ponder the possibilities of my lap. Instead she settled down on my left side, head nestling against my thin hipbone. On my right side Johnny rested his head possessively on my knee. He whined slightly, his eyes trying to convey something. Poor old Johnny. I stroked his head and he settled back, knowing it was not yet time for his last biscuit. Sitting there between the peaceful cat and dog, I knew I could never live with humans again. I have grown to prefer the companionship of animals: they have not lost their way; they know what they want and possess the rare gift of being content when they attain it. A sod collapsed with a soft thud inside the stove. The turf basket was almost empty. If I intended to sit up all night reminiscing with my visitor, I would need to go out and fetch more turf from my store under the concrete blocks that lead up to this caravan.

  I glanced at the photographs above the window. My gentle father: a composer and dreamer who went to church but only to sing. My headstrong daughter, Hazel, gold hair streaming out from beneath her hat as she cleared a jump at the Dublin Horse Show some fifty years ago. My beloved son, Francis, eyes always lit with laughter. Alex, my only grandchild, who inherited Hazel’s golden hair but not her impetuousness. My troubled husband Freddie, happiest when wading alone through a Mayo bog with his Holland ejector 12-bore gun and a retriever dog at his heels.

  The night breeze was cool through the skylight, betraying a foretaste of rain. I patted the dog’s head, then rose slowly to fetch more turf. Normally Johnny stirred if he saw me lift the turf basket, tail wagging at the prospect of a midnight sniff and a last chance to cock his leg. Instead he whined as if he didn’t want me to venture out, his ears going back as they did whenever he heard somebody open the gate into the field. Even the white cat raised her head and, on the far side of the caravan, the old mother cat stirred herself from the comfort of the solitary armchair, which the other animals respected as her domain. All three observing me in the night silence that has been unbroken by any ticking for years – ever since I removed the hands from the last clock I owned and wrote the word ‘NOW’ in black marker across the clock-face.

  The moment was indeed now. The animals could sense it. When I threw open the caravan door my guest would be striding up the starlit path, framed by an arc of light spilling out from the doorway. But I paused – my fingers grasping the door handle – because, suddenly, I could not recall where my caravan was parked. Was I still in the field behind the Round Tower Bar in Mayo, near the remote road that twists across the mountains to Pontoon? Or back at Curracloe Strand in Wexford, where Alex used to joyously visit me for weekends away from boarding school? Or had I been transported back to that apex of grief in which I paid a stranger to tow my caravan up the overgrown avenue through Glanmire Wood and park it in front of the ruined house where my children were raised?

  Or would an ever-changing vista await me once I opened the door? Would I discover my caravan perched amongst carved wooden horses on a fairground merry-go-round swirling in circles through time? Would I find myself briefly peering in through the window of my child art studio in Dublin, where children stood at easels, painting whatever shapes emerged from their imaginations? And then spin past the windows of the White Eagle Lodge where a medium relayed words from the dead, and past the open doorway of a basement flat where I cradled a corpse in my arms? Perhaps the merry-go-round would flicker past the bunk bed in a Spanish hostel in which I lay in grief for days, only surviving by losing myself in the pages of The Glass Bead Game, while hostellers half my age left fruit on my bunk but did not attempt to console me, knowing I was beyond being touched by any words except those by Hermann Hesse. Maybe the numerous places I’ve called home would merge into one blur of colour until the merry-go-round halted, toppling me forward to land as a toddler on my nurse’s lap in my childhood garden in Dunkineely, intoxicated by the scent and colour of the fresh daisies I had picked as I waddled excitedly across the tennis court to share them with her.

  But I reined in my imagination as I tightened my gnarled grip on the door handle. I felt certain I was still parked in the field in Mayo, where – after all my travails – I finally earned the right to be happy. When I opened the door I would see the fence separating my caravan from the adjoining field. What I didn’t know was the identity of the visitor patiently waiting outside.

  ‘Open the caravan door, Eva,’ an inner voice urged me. ‘You do know who he is and he hasn’t come alone. Hundreds are waiting for you out there alongside him: faces stretching back almost a century. They haven’t come to visit; th
ey’ve come to take you with them. Focus, Eva, think hard, regain your senses. Seven years have passed since poor Johnny died. You searched every ditch in Wexford for him, inconsolable with grief. Your cats are long dead too – to your relief. You no longer need to fret about them being neglected after you die in this nursing home where you are trapped.’

  I glanced around my caravan, aware now that everything I was seeing was a dream. But The Ark felt more real than the purgatory of the nursing home I would wake up within. Neither Johnny nor the cats moved as they watched me. Johnny’s eyes cautioned against opening the caravan door. I could sense him trying to say: ‘Wait one more night, Eva. Your love is still holding us firm. Before we disappear from all human memory, remember us just one last time.’

  I couldn’t open the door, although I desperately yearned to. Johnny’s ghost was right: the silent host of faces had gathered outside my caravan not to claim me into their ranks yet, but to be remembered. I was their last link to this earth. When I died their faces would truly disappear. I knew my visitor’s identity, the man at their head; the man with whom I most longed to be reunited. I imagined him climbing the concrete blocks beside my stacked turf. So close to me at last, just the width of an aluminium door away. But he was smiling and I knew he had the patience to wait one night more.

  Chapter One

  The Leave-Taking

  Co. Mayo, Easter Monday, April 1949

  Freddie had entered her bed at some late stage during the night, or entered what might still be referred to as their bed, at least until Eva left this Mayo woodland house for the last time this morning with her two packed suitcases already placed at the hall door. In fairness to Freddie, he must have drawn back the bedclothes quietly so as not to wake her. But the knowledge of this final intimacy perturbed her as she woke and turned over to see his features revealed in a solitary sunbeam shining through a gap where the dilapidated wooden shutters, warped by damp and neglect, could not fully block out the dawn light. Not that any physical intimacy had occurred, no matter how much Skylark whiskey Freddie had consumed before a distant echo of an extinct desire surely caused him to stir from the billet he had made up of old army blankets piled on the stone flags of the kitchen floor, and walk up the bare staircase to this bedroom where – in what seemed like another life – their two children were conceived in love and passionate haste on his part.