Night (13 page)

The good is oft interred with the bones . . . Example, Flaggler, who is no longer on my social register, and sundry people with whom I meant to make walking expeditions, to whom I promised devotion. Oh shadows of love, inebriations of love, foretastes of love, trickles of love, but never yet the one true love.

“Begone, begone,” everything seems to be saying it, shrieking it, the mirrors, the ingots, the silver cockatoos, and the beautiful brass Portuguese chandelier that I meant to swing out of, but didn't. Even old Instant Humility is in a grump. Begone, begone. Or maybe it's me that's saying it. Already I have such a dislike for the place, such a loathing, an aversion, vengeance for the roof under which all the auspices were tawdry. Oh life's crucible, oh strange latitudes, oh golden birds, heady drinks, poisons, elixirs, let me partake of you yet again. Au revoir Tig, au revoir Jonathan, au revoir Boss and Lil and all soulmates, go fuck yourselves. I have been saddled long enough. It is time for memory to expire.

Gladly, too gladly I go. I refuse to touch my favourite surfaces, or to say anything in the way of a bardic farewell. The harp that once through
Tara's halls is silenced, mute. No doubt the time will come when I will think of here with liking, the big pantry, the excitement over visitors, the evenings summoned up by lamps, the spare rooms that I so faithfully aired, the one little room where I sat and heard the impending silence, the tiniest stirs, and lived, though marginally, most sweet, most wholesome hours.

Since her debut novel
The Country Girls
, Edna O’Brien has written over twenty works of fiction, along with a biography of James Joyce and Lord Byron. She is the recipient of many awards including the Irish Pen Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Art’s Gold Medal and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland she has lived in London for many years.

FICTION
The Country Girls
The Lonely Girl
Girls in Their Married Bliss
August Is a Wicked Month
Casualties of Peace
The Love Object and Other Stories
A Pagan Place
Zee and Co.
Night
A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories
A Rose in the Heart
Returning
A Fanatic Heart
The High Road
Lantern Slides
House of Splendid Isolation
Down by the River
Wild Decembers
In the Forest
The Light of the Evening
Saints and Sinners
The Love Object

NON-FICTION
Mother Ireland
James Joyce (biography)
Byron in Love
Country Girl

DRAMA
A Pagan Place
Virginia (The Life of Virginia Woolf)
Family Butchers
Triptych
Haunted
The Country Girls