Unforgotten

The best short story ever written? I’ve heard pundits push for “A Lady with a Lap Dog” by Anton Chekov. Now that was brilliant but Chekov is some sort of genius with short stories. As an amateur punter I quite fancied two of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories as show-stoppers. Either “The Garden Party” or “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” or both. But now I’m not so sure.

I’m talking about a short story that I had read only once before and entirely misremembered. It’s “The Dead” by James Joyce.

I remembered a story of a sparkling and witty Irish dance party. Outside the weather was unexpected cold with widespread snow. Inside was an opulent gathering hosted by two elderly sisters and throughly enjoyed by everyone who attended. I was right, of course, but I was wrong. There was more.

We had rented a cottage on the Darling Downs and we may as well have been the only people on earth. The low hills were dotted with trees and the surrounding plains were multicoloured patchworks of various grains. Dirt roads divided up the farms and each farm had its own little settlement of buildings and machinery and, presumably, people. But we didn’t see anyone. Very occasionally a pickup would rattle by but mostly the real visitors were boisterous storms that rolled in with diluvian rain then rolled on. When they came the noise on the tin roof was deafening and the outside world suddenly closed in, a white haze of falling rain. Perhaps this unusual isolation subconsciously led me back to reread Joyce’s short story.

What I had forgotten, embarrassingly, was a tender ending and the point of the story. A quiet telling moment between husband and wife after a joyful night. The party was witty and lively. Probably like parties we have all been to where we have felt safe among friends, full of clever joy and full of ourselves. But why not? Dressing up, looking good, eating, drinking, dancing, being at our charming best, brushing off and perhaps polishing somewhat the social veneer that recommends us to our fellows and counteracts inner doubt.

But, when the couple have returned home through the falling snow things change. A song sung at the party triggers memories for the wife. Sad memories. A young death in her early years. Her first love. She is overcome with the grief. The glittering party forgotten. She cries.

Her husband had returned from the party feeling most chipper. Full of confidence and zest having had the honour of carving the goose and being heard and enjoyed by everyone. His hopes for the rest of the evening had been amorous but now he is quiet as his wife tells her story of unforeseen and unexpected loss. He holds her hand. He listens to her. He hears her.

When his wife is fast asleep, her husband lies beside her, breathing quietly, resolving the issues that have been raised for him. He hears the snow beating against the window and drifts off to sleep imagining the snow slowly and gently covering buildings and farms, roads and lanes, fences and fields, lychgates and gravestones, the living and the dead across a slumbering Ireland.

It is this closing paragraph of the story that has the softest voice and like all gentle touches makes the deepest cut.