Izzy had struggled with her homework. Since starting the workshop she’d written a few poems and short pieces. She thought them to be among the stronger work in the class, and Colette’s comments reflected that. But this particular challenge required something more from her, and several times she’d sat down at her kitchen table to attempt the task and then abandoned it.
Orla’s comments hadn’t helped. Orla came home from boarding school in Sligo every Friday evening, unless she went off to one of her friends’ houses. It was rare for a weekend to pass without some argument, and often that had to do with Izzy sharing her opinion on Orla’s appearance. She did not want to hurt her daughter’s feelings but she felt that if she said nothing Orla might not realise how fat she was getting. And so her concerns expressed themselves in sideways swipes that she chastised herself for as soon as she’d said them. ‘That pocket money we give you is for stationery, not junk food,’ was how she’d responded when Orla complained that her jeans no longer fitted. Orla had returned to school that Sunday with the avowed promise that she’d never speak to her mother again.
Getting her to think seriously about her future was another challenge, and Izzy loved to threaten her within earshot of James – ‘Do you want to be stuck in this town for the rest of your life married to some eejit?’ She was bright and could do what she wanted, within reason. She probably wouldn’t get the points for medicine or veterinary or any of the really big courses but she could be a solicitor or an accountant or one of those nice, clean jobs.
But where Orla lacked opinions about her career, she was full of chat about everything else. Izzy had hidden her workshop notebook in a drawer in the kitchen but Orla had gone rooting for something and found it.
‘What’s that?’ Orla asked.
‘That’s my homework,’ Izzy had said with a note of forced preciousness in her voice.
‘Your homework? Are you doing another one of those classes? How many is that now? Oil painting, watercolours, yoga, tai chi, knitting—’
‘Ah, will ya mind your own business. It’s my writing workshop, if you must know.’
‘A writing workshop?’
‘Yeah – have you never heard of one of those? You’d want to get a life, Orla.’
Orla laughed. She opened a tiny yoghurt pot and licked the foil lid then began to eat it with the handle of a dessertspoon. There was a little spot of yoghurt on the tip of her nose.
‘What did Daddy say about that?’
‘Oh, he doesn’t mind as long as I don’t write anything about him.’
‘And what do you write about?’
Izzy crossed her arms on her chest and gripped her shoulders. She closed her eyes. ‘We write about nights of wild passion and abandon, when in the first throes of romance we ripped off our clothes and—’
‘Mammy, stop!’
Izzy’s eyes flew open and she flashed a smile at her daughter.
‘Seriously, what do you write about?’ Orla asked.
‘We write about anything and everything. It can be ordinary enough. Thomas Patterson writes love poems to his wife – quite sexy stuff, actually. Fionnuala Dunleavy writes about doing the dishes, when she bothers to write anything. Eithne Lynch writes about auras. Just what you’d expect, I suppose. Colette sets us writing exercises and we have to respond to them.’
‘Colette Crowley?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Crazy Colette Crowley – poet laureate of Ardglas?’
‘Why do you say it like that?’
‘Ah, the state of her – going around in those big wool skirts and Aran sweaters, and the head on her – she looks like she cuts her own hair.’
‘Ah, will you stop – she’s a very attractive woman, Colette – that’s just what those bohemian types are like.’
‘And what kind of homework does she give you?’
Izzy hesitated. ‘Well, this week, she’s asked us to write a eulogy – it can be for ourselves or for a fictional character—’
Orla’s eyes widened as she withdrew the end of the spoon from her mouth.
‘Or if that’s too much of a challenge we have to imagine what would be written on our gravestone.’
‘Fuck off!’ Orla said. She gave each word its own emphasis.
‘Orla, I warned you, if you use language like that again, I’ll give you a slap in the mouth.’
‘She’s asked you to write a poem about your own death?’
‘Well, we can respond to it in whatever way we want but—’
‘Jesus, I thought it’d be all writing about flowers and sunsets and my heart is low because I have to make the dinner – that sort of thing!’ She placed the yoghurt pot on the counter. ‘Ugh!’ she said. ‘Housewives sitting around writing poems about their funerals . . . and then you all have to read them to each other?’
And later in bed when she’d relayed this conversation to James, in a tone of mock affront, he’d only laughed. When she’d put out the light, he’d turned to her and slid his hand over her stomach and said, ‘Shall we do what poets do?’ in a silly sing-song voice. She’d roared with laughter and rolled over on top of him.
Sitting in that airless hall now, with her blouse sticking to her, and Thomas Patterson reading a story about finding a tombstone with his name engraved on it, she could see why her daughter thought her to be ridiculous. It was an exercise in vanity, the whole thing – the clever, sophisticated lady had told her she was interesting and so she’d kept doing her homework, showing up, performing. Until the day Colette had stood in her sitting room, listening to her showing off about her ornaments and her golf trophies and Izzy had felt herself to be empty and exposed and not up to the task. Still, she could not relinquish this new version of herself Colette had presented her with, so she was back to make another attempt, to prove to a woman she barely knew that she had been right in bestowing her praise and favour upon her.
‘I’ll have to stop you there, Thomas.’ Colette held up her hand and smiled at him. ‘We have to keep it to no more than ten minutes for everyone or else we’ll run out of time.’
Thomas muttered something and folded over the pages he’d been reading from.
‘Now,’ Colette said, ‘does anyone have any initial thoughts on Thomas’s piece?’
Izzy had been so bored she’d stopped listening after a couple of minutes. ‘I mean, it was very descriptive,’ she said. ‘The bit about the crow leading him to the gravestone and landing on it was very—’
