Words for Wednesday

From Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden. This novel takes place in a single day in Ireland as a playwright reflects over her friendship with Molly and Andrew. It is an investigation of the nature of self – the very means with which we define our being.

 

I suppose it goes without saying that I headed for home. That is, I drove over to where my family lived. I went by the most circuitous route and I took my time. I thought about Andrew the whole way there. It seemed an irony that I had rarely seen the north looking lovelier than it was today. The light deepened  and intensified – a rich gold that lit up the landscape, the fading trees and the hedges with their bright berries; the drenched, flooded fields. To me it was a tragic place; to Andrew it had always been simply wretched. Perhaps he was right after all, I thought now, and in taking the view I did I was according it a sad poetry that it not only didn’t merit, but that was a real perversion, romanticizing all that had happened there. ‘Dark feelings can become a habit,’ he’d said to one when we were talking – arguing – about this. ‘And if they’re strong enough, like many strong feelings they can even be enjoyable.’ He said that this is why the peace process wasn’t working, that the whole population was locked in a trance of grief that they didn’t break out of because it defined them, it made them feel real. And in talking about all this, he never once mentioned Billy.