Free Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor

city.
    When they see one another at rehearsal in the theatre during the week, he does not like them to converse privately. People might be eavesdropping. ‘You must not mind,’ he writes to her, ‘if I seem a little distant. We can have our talk on green hills that are better than all the greenrooms in the world.’ Her sister and the priest in Confession advise great caution: when a man is not willing to be seen in public with a girl, there is something deeply the matter, or his word is not true. And never to have a child? How could any woman agree? It’s a diversion he’s after, an escapade with a wild native colleen, before marrying a filly of his own inbred sort, some Henrietta with her eyes just a tad too close together, webbed toes and a dowry of diamond mines. But she won’t be counselled: they don’t understand. She is not yet nineteen; she knows this is love. What matter if he’s a little odd? Writers often are.
    There are weeks when he disappears, journeying alone into Wicklow, where he roams the hills and glens like a hermit. Few know where he lodges, when he plans to return, how his mountain days are filled, if they are permitted to be empty. If she has a rival, it is Wicklow, the motherland of his solitudes; he vanishes when she calls to him, roves her byways, craves her emptiness – yet avoids her in the everyday and unimportant conversations, as a husband deflecting attention from an infidelity. There will always be Wicklow. It must be accepted in silence. Some men bring a lost love, no matter where.
    In the ladies’ lavatories at the theatre, one rainy Friday morning, as she approaches the sink to bathe her face after a nosebleed, she sees words traced in the condensation that has fogged the splintered mirror. JMS HAS SIFILIS.

    ‘Mister John, you are welcome home, sir,’ the elderly housekeeper says quietly. ‘Will I help you off with your coat and the haversack?’
    ‘Thank you, Alice. I am bushed. Supper almost ready?’
    ‘It is, sir. I’ll tell the girls. You had good walking down beyond?’
    ‘What? Oh yes. All shipshape here? Holy Moses, look at the muck on these boots.’
    ‘Your mother is … not in the best, sir. She’s been out of sorts while you were gone. Above in the room half the day and barely the pick itself of food. I thought I should tell you, sir. I hope I amn’t speaking out of turn.’
    ‘No no. Thank you, Alice. Been particularly bad, has it?’
    ‘Dr Haughton was up to us the Tuesday, and again yesterday morning. She swore me not to tell you, sir, I don’t rightly know why. But I felt, in all conscience …’
    ‘Quite. You acted correctly. You appear worried, Alice. Not yourself.’
    With dread, he now sees that the housekeeper is weeping. The woman turns away briefly, the back of her neck reddening. ‘Mister John,’ she begins, but then pauses, dabbing her eyes with her apron, and when she speaks again her voice is controlled. ‘I don’t know, Mister John, if she’ll be with us long more. That’s the God’s living truth, sir. Thank God you’re come home. There’s a light after going out of her, sir, I seen it happen before, when your father Lord have mercy on him was taken.’
    ‘Alice – oh my dear Alice – I’m so sorry you have been distressed. Please won’t you sit down a moment? Would you take a small sherry with me, perhaps?’
    ‘I’d rather not do that, sir; I’ve the girls in the kitchen to think about.’
    ‘If we stepped into the library a moment, I don’t think anarchy would result.’
    ‘All the same, sir, I’d prefer not. But will you go and talk to her, Mister John? We’re all frighted half to death. She’s been so good to us down the years. If there’s anything we can do, sir.
Anything at all. I’ve the girls offering the rosary for her this night.’
    ‘She’s a game old bird, Alice. She’ll see us all down. Come on now, there’s the good scout, buck up.’
    ‘You don’t understand me, sir – begging your pardon,