So Late in the Day: Stories of Men and Women

by Claire Keegan

‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ he’d said – and immediately felt the long shadow of his father’s language crossing over his life, on what should have been a good day, if not one of his happiest.

‘So what is wrong?’ ‘There’s nothing.’ ‘Tell me.’ She’d insisted. ‘I just don’t know about this stuff, that’s all.’ ‘Which stuff? My stuff?’ ‘These things. All your things. All this.’ He was looking around: at the blue throw, the two extra pillows, pairs of shoes and sandals, most of which he’d never seen her wearing, poking out from under his chest of drawers. He himself owned Nikes and just one pair of shoes. ‘Did you think I would come with nothing?’ ‘It’s just a lot.’ He’d tried to explain. ‘A lot? I do not have so very much.’ ‘Just a lot to deal with.’

‘I just didn’t think it would be like this, is all,’ he said. ‘I just thought about your being here and having dinner, waking up with you. Maybe it’s just too much reality.’

‘She said things may now be changing, but that a good half of men your age just want us to shut up and give you what you want, that you’re spoiled and turn contemptible when things don’t go your way.’

That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you.

‘You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said. ‘Whether it’s believing you should not give us the vote or not give help with the dishes – it’s all clitched onto the same wagon.’

Then a line from something he’d read somewhere came to him, to do with endings: about how, if things have not ended badly, that they have not ended.

when he closed his eyes he could see more clearly the white cuff of his wedding shirt poking out through the wardrobe door, the stack of unopened, congratulatory cards and letters on the hallstand, the wedding dress she had insisted on showing him, the sons he would never have and the non-refundable diamond ring, which he couldn’t return, shining inside its box on the bedside table, and could hear her saying, yet again, and very clearly, and so late in the day, that she’d changed her mind and had no wish to marry him after all.

‘Do you think it’s possible for poor people to be content?’

He lifted his shoulders and let them fall, a child’s response. He could neither create conversation nor respond nor be content to have none. She thought the least he could do was chat, which, in her opinion, was where all fine conversations began. She wondered if he really was ill and if he would soon die. She thought of him lying on his death-bed and felt no sympathy.

There was earth and fire and water on these pages; there was a man and a woman and human loneliness, disappointment. Something about the work was elemental and plain.