We rose early, in the dark. I was bringing Padraig to the train in Tralee. He had a meeting in Dublin. It had rained all night, a westerly lashing against the exposed windows of our house above the town.
It rained still as we drove east along the road past Lispole and Annascaul and Camp and into Tralee. It rained when I dropped Pad at the station and turned the car around. It rained when I parked in Tralee to get a good coffee.
I sneaked into Easons across the road to see if they were stocking my book. Pathetic, I know and I don’t go out of my way to do it, but if I’m passing a bookshop, I’ll do it. Ashamedly.
Anyway, the good news is that they had 3 copies in the general A-Z fiction so I moved aside Tana French’s book from the Number 1 spot and I spread out my three books there. No, I really didn’t do that. Honestly.
Rain back the road, tripping against the windscreen – I don’t listen to the radio any more. Rain when I parked back at the house and went to my makeshift desk at the kitchen window. Rain as I wrote for the day, pouring some of my sorrow out on the pages – what I could of what I felt for that beautiful family in that awful place.
Rain as I walked into Benner’s for a chowder for lunch and read Emily Pine – that cheered me up, NOT. But it’s brilliant too, and I hoped I learned something from it. Rain as I walked back up the hill, unceasing, my jeans soaked, my shoes soaked. Fucking pelting it was, all day – some of the sheep that had broken into the rich grass around the houses huddled by a lee wall and one of them looked pityingly at me. I resented that look.
There’s rain and there’s rain – and this was rain. Driving with purpose, spite you’d think if you didn’t know better. Almost horizontal with the gale behind it so it can get into places ordinary rain can’t go. Dense, forceful, persistent, making the day bunched, as my father used to say.
Back the desk for the afternoon. I think I made progress with something. At least I tried. Sent some emails. Did some work.
The rain comes here and sometimes it stays and sometimes it passes over. This was a stay day. It’s not that rain revels in our misery when it stays – the bored children in the hotel reminded me that it’s mid-term and that bored children don’t like being bored. It’s like the Kerry Gaelic football team hammering Cork in Fitzgerald Stadium – it’s just their essence, it’s what they do – often. Rain is just rain. Often.
No point in complaining, or letting it get to you. They sell a candle down here called Dingle rain.
I drove down (fool me once…) to Garveys to get some beer and something for dinner. I cooked it, drink some beer, ate some dinner, wrote some more and read some more.
The rain fell, just being rain.
