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He had known this house all his life: the Cullens lived there until
the Land Commission gave them a better holding outside Enniscorthy.
Himself and his father had gone there as paying guests, and each of
the daughters had been what he imagined his mother would have been
had she not died when he was born. He remembered each of their faces
smiling at him, the wide sweep of their summer dresses as they picked
him up, each of them different in their colouring and hair-style, in
the lives they went on to live. In his memory, they remained full
of warmth, he could not remember them being serious or cross.
He turned off Palmerston Road and pulled up outside the house. He
left the keys in the ignition as he went in. The rain had stopped now
and the sun was out. He found Carmel sitting in the conservatory at
the back of the house with the door open on to the garden. She was
wearing a summer dress. She looked up.
"I don't know what I'm going to do about the plants. I really can't
ask Niamh to come in every day," she said. "I won't be happy unless
I can bring some of them with me. We could put them in the boot."
"Have you picked any records?" he asked.
"I have all the cassettes in a box. We didn't use the record player
at all at Easter."
She stood up and brought over a chair for him. The sky was blue now
with white billowy clouds in patches here and there.
"Come and sit beside me," she said. "I hate this preparation for
moving. I don't know why. I dread it. I hate leaving. I feel a terrible
urge to smoke. It's the only time when I miss cigarettes."
"We should just get into the car and drive off," he said and held
her hand.
"And before Bray you'd want to know if I had packed the records, and
I would start to worry about the plants and if I'd left the iron on."
"Have you left the iron on?" he laughed.
"No, I haven't, I promise that we won't have to turn back."
"What about the plants then?"
"Eamon, I want to take some of them. I know that it sounds silly."
The sky had darkened once more; they heard the wind rustling through
the bushes in the garden and then the drops of rain hitting against
the glass of the conservatory. He carried their bags and suitcases
out and put them on the back seat where Carmel had already placed the
bed-clothes they would need. He left the boot empty, and when he went
inside again, he found that she had put some of her flowering plants,
including the sweet smelling lilies, on trays.
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