Читать книгу The Country of Our Dreams - Mary O'Connell - Страница 15

The text came through from Claudia saying that Vianney had arrived at their place, and like someone in a TV crime drama, Hilary stealthily entered the sunroom/study/junkroom, thrilled by anxiety – Lolly and Claudia’s place was only about ten minutes brisk walk away. They lived, of course, closer to the beach, money paving the way.

Hilary moved her old guitar case out of the way. Surprised to see it there. Had Vianney been playing? She spoke soothingly, in case it was getting excited by her touch, sensing her close presence from inside its battered case. ‘One day, one day, soon,’ she lied.

She lifted the old framed photo of Vianney’s father gently from its position on his desk. Handsome Sean Ryan, forever young, smiled out at her from his yellowy orange Polaroid world, his black hair 70’s long, his strong working hands resting on top of a young Vianney’s shoulders. Xavier was a mop-topped cherub with only the top half of his face showing in the bottom part of the picture, and half of Lolly was glimpsed to the right. Whoever had taken the photo - Kate? - was either a hopeless photographer or had had eyes only for Sean.

Hilary started with the papers piled up around Vianney’s laptop. She could see bits and pieces of Vianney’s own script about the loving but doomed 19th century Ryan brothers. Vianney had been working on it for years. Philip Ryan had come out from County Kilkenny to NSW as a free settler, to support his brother Michael, a convict. Framed, they had declared, ‘a sincere patriot’, and innocent of the charge of murder. Circumstantial evidence, jealous neighbours etc. The brothers had established a small dairy holding, working hard on the land. Stolen land, of course, from the traditional owners, just as it had been in Ireland, but that didn’t concern any of the Irish then. Then the convict brother Michael, clearly a loser, had drowned in a Maitland flash flood in 1859. The whites had not yet come to understand Australia’s ecology.

It was Vianney’s script that was doomed, Claudia had said, privately, (so she thought) to Siena. Irish Australia was no longer TV fodder. They’d had The Sullivans, and Brides of Christ. What more did they want? It was time to move on. There were other voices in Australia now.

‘I hadn’t noticed they’ve asked you Anglo guys to shut up yet.’ Siena claimed she had retorted to Claudia. ‘Personally if I see another program about the fucking Tudors on the ABC, I’ll scream my fucking head off.’

Hilary looked underneath Vianney’s script, and went rifling through a sheaf of papers. Feeling terrible, feeling excited. Realised she was not really breathing.

It was almost too easy in the end. Her eye leapt at the word Davitt, in a pile of papers clipped together. She had found him! Found Xavier bloody Ryan, the wounded child, the youngest brother. The one in all the fairy tales who won the princess. The spoilt brat.

Claudia and Lolly would be thrilled with her. She felt the warmth of their gratitude in advance.

The email address read johannareynolds@optusnet.net.au. Whoever Johanna Reynolds was, the latest Doll she supposed, it was Xavier’s voice that leapt out at Hilary. Enthusiastic, incoherent, close.

Oh how I hate writing. Hope you got my Ilfracombe scene. Poor old Anna Parnell. Still, I don’t think she’d want my pity. She wouldn’t admit she had been broken. Yet she was. Politics is a terrible game. Though I guess our own dear Davitt provided some redemption.

What I’m thinking, as I’m writing, well I’m feeling, really, I’m feeling THEM. All their power. It’s like entering a force field, such a fierce energy, that will for justice. No wonder they thought God was with them. That God who loves the poor. Remember Him? Ha ha. We haven’t seen him around lately.

You say you can sometimes feel the grief of the ancestors, but what I’m feeling is their rage. The rage which built Australia really. And the hope. And the courage. They were so fucking brave. Of course they had a fantasy Ireland to live and work for. I just wish we had a fantasy Australia – something high and beautiful and noble. Enough. I’m tired. Have a look dear bro and tell me what you think.

Hilary knew she was eavesdropping. Xavier was talking to the one who loved and guarded him, shielded him as if he were the jewel in the Ryan crown. Vianney the big brother, protector and defender. A role men were supposed to extend to their women, weren’t they? In some way she’d been fighting Xavier Ryan all her (un)married life. For that special place in Vianney’s heart. And after all these years, she hadn’t been able to dislodge him yet.

She heard footsteps on the stairs outside. Something shot through her. Something sharp and violent, extreme heat, or was it cold? As rapidly as she could, she lifted Xavier’s email out, not bothering to separate it from the whole wad of papers clipped behind it. Her heart was thumping in her mouth. Claudia’s warning text must be still circling the satellite.

Startling William O’Brien out of his cat basket, Hilary leapt out into the living room. Then the neighbour went on upstairs to his flat above. But the false alarm had brought her out of her excited hunting state. I am spying on Vianney, invading his territory.

Vianney’s mother Kate had been both emotionally distant and yet invasive. He had fled her controlling supervision in his late teens. She, Hilary, knew all this and yet here she was herself, invading, trespassing.

Hilary felt deeply ashamed. But could not bring herself to return the papers. She might have enough time tomorrow to get a quick scan done, and a bit of a read.