So Late in the Day: Stories of Men and Women

by Claire Keegan

That was part of the trouble: the fact that she would not listen, and wanted to do a good half of things her own way.

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.’ ‘Is that so?’ He wanted to deny it, but it felt uncomfortably close to a truth he had not once considered. It occurred to him that he would not have minded her shutting up right then, and giving him what he wanted.

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.

‘She also said that to some of you, we are just cunts,’ she went on, ‘that she often hears Irish men referring to women in this way, and calling us whores and bitches.

‘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.’ ‘Hitched,’ Cathal said. ‘What?’ ‘It’s not “clitched”,’ he said. ‘It’s “hitched”.’ ‘You see?’ she said. ‘Is not this just more of it? You knew exactly what I meant – but you cannot even give me this much.’

‘Cunt,’ he said. Although he couldn’t accurately attach this word to what she was, it was something he could say, something he could call her.

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.

now that she had fixed a time, the day in some way was obliged to proceed in the direction of the German’s visit.

Something about this story now put the woman in mind of how she had been at another point in her life, when she was falling out of love with a separated man who had said he wanted her to live with him, a man who often said the opposite of what he felt, as though the saying of it would make it true, or hide the fact that it was not.

At seven o’clock, she felt a strong urge to write but told herself it was not something she could do, because of the German professor. She would be starting, just getting warmed up when he would come and then her work would be disrupted and she would have to stop. She did not like stopping, once she had started.

‘What trouble you have made,’ the man said, looking at the cake. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, and wondered, at that moment, how he would respond if she gave him none.

‘You are making a lot of trouble.’ ‘It is no trouble at all.’ She felt tired of the word, of saying it, of having him say it.

He could neither create conversation nor respond nor be content to have none.

She thought of him lying on his death-bed and felt no sympathy.

She looked at what cake was left and thought about how much time she had spent going to the Sound, and out for berries, and making it.

‘They must give it to the good-looking applicants so,’ she said and laughed. ‘Do you think so?’ He frowned and looked at her face. He examined her face closely then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You should have seen my wife. My wife was beautiful.’

What an awful man! What an awful, angry man, she thought as she locked the door. Had he no sense? And to think of all the trouble she had gone to

Our system breeds fear and loathing in separated couples, writes Jeanne Sheridan. Just this week, 80 per cent of Irish farmers said they would be in favour of legal, pre-nuptial agreements which would prevent their wives having any rights to their land.

All she had needed, tonight, was what every woman sometimes needs: a compliment – a barefaced lie would have sufficed. And she had made the stupid mistake of asking for the compliment, a woman of her age.

She had just given him a name, and cancer, and was working through his illness. As she worked, the sun rose. It was a fine thing to sit there describing a sick man and to feel the sun rising.

Already, she had made the incision in place and time, and infused it with a climate, and longing. There was earth and fire and water on these pages; there was a man and a woman and human loneliness, disappointment.

As she put the kettle on to boil and reached for the cake at the back of the fridge, she stretched herself and knew she was preparing for his long and painful death.

Every time the happily married woman went away, she wondered how it would feel to sleep with another man. That weekend she was determined to find out. It was December; she felt a curtain closing on another year. She wanted to do this before she got too old. She was sure she would be disappointed.

She would return to untidy, cluttered rooms, dirty floors, cut knees, a hall with mountain bikes and roller skates. Questions.