Over the Water

Early summer evening, I stand in the garden overlooking the ever changing view of the Channel, minutes before the guests are due. My friend Martine is the first to arrive, we hug, then she hands me a rolled-up document.

“It’s your astrological chart, I had it made specially. Born under the sign of Cancer, the crab, well, on the cusp really seeing as how you’re July 22. It’s all explained, but you’ll see, this is where you’re supposed to be: by the water. We’ll go over it another time.”

My husband Bruno comes up and places a shawl over my shoulders as we move to greet a family of guests at the gate; there are exclamations, kisses, laughter. A friend from Paris arrives and parks opposite, almost hidden by the large plant she removes from her car. She says, “Remember when you hesitated about buying this place 10 years ago? It seemed like such a big change from Paris for the two of you.”

Our house, where we decided to retire, stands on a small hill near Dieppe, with a view of the sea, and a private wood behind. It was Bruno who recognized the potential on our first visit to the Bois de Cise: big enough to house family and friends on visits, with its two studios and converted attic. Living here is a far cry from my busy, intense years in Paris and at first I missed the possibilities of the city, but bit by bit I started to appreciate living in the country again, nature, the simple life, the quiet pace.

My Irish cousin, Michael, who arrived last night, his first visit, is rapturous about the place.

“We’re looking west, right? There must be a beautiful sunset. The view is superb.”

“Yes,” I reply. “Did you know that if you stare long enough at the sun as it starts to disappear under the horizon, you can perhaps see the green ray? Some say it’s just an optical illusion, but I’ve seen it twice, unexpectedly.”

My daughters have gone to a lot of effort to prepare this important birthday for me, my 70^th. I watch as drinks are served on a garden table and the party gets under way. I smile and wave at a new arrival, then help people get their badges with their name and the date they met me, of my youngest daughter’s ideas as a way for people to mingle. Laughing, I pin one on Martin, 1973,on an old colleague from Paris I had worked with in television. I hand one to Christina, 1961, my first school pal in England, and another to Erika, 2002, met on the Eurostar.

Sheila, my eldest, claps her hands now and announces: “Right guys, this won’t take very long but we’ve prepared a little surprise in Mum’s honor, I’d like you all to come through to the living room.” Sitting down in front of the screen, I see my daughters have produced a photo montage.

The screening opens with some recent photos of us all at the beach here on the coast. My granddaughter’s birthday picnic, my grandson Abe dressed to go surfing, several friends with us in the boat we rented last summer. Then it flashes back to old black and white photos of my childhood. The girls must have been quietly rooting around in that box I keep meaning to put into an album.

There are the inevitable baby photos, and some of me with my sisters in the garden at Clareville Meadow, our whitewashed cottage in the background with its thatched roof and the front lawn where we played out childhood games, with the meadow behind leading down to the brook.

The brook was a place where we spent a lot of time in the short Irish summers, looking at tadpoles swimming along in the clear, fast-flowing water. We were allowed to paddle in the shallow part with small bamboo-handled fishing nets, proudly carrying back our catch in jam jars, the fish inevitably found upturned, dead, a few days later.

There were a few of us taken at the Spanish Point seaside resort, in swimsuits, playing on the sand, the long golden beaches and the huge Atlantic waves crashing behind us on the rare occasions when one of the parents had the time to drive us there for a day out at the sea. In one picture, we three sisters are holding up ice cream cones, our a treat at the end of the day.

We ran free in the holidays, staying at the farm, putting on disguises and setting off up the Rocky Road to invent a play which we would perform for neighbors a few days later. I see photos of us on the front lawn; it must have been my middle sister’s birthday party; there are several familiar faces whose names I don’t recall. Perched on a garden bench I recognize the battered brown suitcase that I played with so often, stuffing it with small treasures when I pretended to be heading off to live in an imaginary country. In my mind that other country was always there, at the end of our field, on the other side of the brook waiting for me, over the water.

Had there been a quarrel with my sisters, or did Mother tell me off?, because I particularly remember one dark winter’s evening, when I seized the suitcase and a pocket lamp and disappeared down to the water’s edge, declaring that I was running away, and never coming back. I sat on the ground beside the rushes, listening to the eternal gushing of the water. In the distance I can hear my mother calling me. Our collie Scout, appeared, wagging his tail, and jumping up to lick my face. After a while, I walked back up for supper.

Another photo shows my mother’s vegetable garden, dug by my father, which fed us through the seasons. There’s the chicken coop in the background.

Then there’s another black-and-white photo I’ve never seen before. There are my parents, with me a gawky 13-year-old, and my two little sisters holding hands, standing by the dock at Dun Laoghaire Port, outside Dublin. May 1961: We’re about to board the ship that will take us to Liverpool then on to Leicester in the booming Midlands, heading for a new life in England.

It must have been around March that late one evening when, while lying in bed, I heard our parents discussing plans in living room. I knew they were worried. I crept out of bed and listened through my bedroom door. It had been a difficult winter, the price of livestock had dropped dramatically. That last autumn our father had killed a pig, and we seemed to be having some sort of pork dish every day. I found it too salty, but we weren’t allowed to complain. The bacon with cabbage, turnips and potatoes seemed to have become our staple dinner diet.

That last evening in Ireland, on the docks, our favorite aunt, Molly, and her husband, Bill, came to see us off, hugging us as we were about to board the ship. The water—grey and choppy despite it being May—slapped against the edge of the wharf. The dock was noisy with pre-departure bustle. In the photo, the parents are dressed in their finest clothes. My mother is wearing the new hat she’d bought for Easter that year. I stand beside them, the battered brown suitcase at my feet, which will now finally travel with me, to a real destination.  

I was much older when I realized what a brave choice our parents had made, when, both in their late forties, they decided to undertake such a huge life change, leaving our small farm on the West Coast of Ireland to settle in an industrial city in the English Midlands, with three young children. I would attend secondary school, make friends, discover how much I enjoyed the theater, cinema and painting. I was soon determined to work in the arts. What would my life have been like had we stayed in Ireland?

I’d like to linger longer with that photo on the docks, but now other periods of my life appear on the screen, this time in color, including my early years in France, where I’d originally come to spend two months before going to university. There’s one of me clad in a turquoise bikini, standing by the Mediterranean that first glorious summer when I worked as an au pair. I remember feeling immediately at home in France, despite not yet speaking the language, and happy, and already thinking that I needed to find a way to stay longer.

Then we see my girls as babies, and in various stages of growing up, their father, our trips abroad in the good years, friends from a long time ago, some forgotten, then the more recent years and my grandchildren.

Though I smile and laugh with the others, I’m still full of the memory of that last evening in Dublin. I’m the only family member who will never live in Ireland again, but of course I don’t know that then, and am looking forward to the big adventure of changing countries.

When the lights go on, Sheila comes over to me and murmurs “For you, Mum, may your travels continue,” as she plants an affectionate kiss on my cheek.

“Where did you get that photo?” I ask.

“Which one”?

“At the dock”.

“Aunt Molly sent it. Aunt Molly said how much she would have loved to be here but the journey was too difficult at her age. She told me how she missed you all when you went over the water. She was surprised you were the only one who never came back, but you always were adventurous, apparently”.

Bruno is busy serving some excellent wines. After the delicious dinner where I let myself be served and have time to chat to various friends, we all go outside as the sun starts to disappear in the horizon. The guests exclaim at the sight of the huge red sunset over the Channel. It’s a promise of fine weather tomorrow, when we’ve organized a boat trip for everyone. In the distance, we can see the twinkling lights of a ferry, heading home to Dieppe.

© 2022, Elizabeth Neylon