Shortlisted: ‘The Retreat’ by Brid Connolly

A scream pierces the haze. I look at the two strangers beside me. Then, we all laugh.

‘Ah, she’s at it again,’ I say. ‘Hey, Rosy,’ I shout, ‘quiet out there, you’re ruining the harmony.’

‘It’s your turn now,’ Rosy shouts back. ‘This very minute, Ali. NOW.’

‘Ooooh, nooooo, I can’t.’ But I know that I must. The cold pool in the open air is just a few steps away from the sauna. I tug the timber door open, into the grasp of the chilly air.

‘Come on, come on,’ Rosy says, her voice shivering. I throw off my towel and jump in, shrieking as she had a few moments before.

She and I are detoxing for our birthdays. We’re both sixty-one this November, and she is, as usual, ahead of me, a mermaid in the icy water.

Sweltering in the sauna, the two other women laugh.

‘Hey, girls, keep it down,’ one of them yells.

We stay for a few more gasps in the icy water, and then, lever ourselves out into the sapphire night.

Suddenly, something swoops out of the sky towards us. I grab Rosy’s arm, squawking.

A white owl. With a big wide face. At the very last moment, it swerves and pounces at the perimeter of the cold pool. It lifts, with a huge flap, an animal clutched in his talons. We dash back to the sauna.

‘Jaysss-sus,’ I gasp.
‘What was that?’ one of the women asks.
‘Wow. A bloody beautiful ghost-white owl.’ Rosy says.

‘An owl catching a mouse,’ I say, settling on the slats in the thick heat, ‘no sign of

the cat or the pea green boat.’ They laugh
‘Good one,’ the first woman says.
‘Bit too close to nature here,’ Rosy purses her lips.

This is the kind of retreat that the word pamper is banned in all the bumph. Grown- up. Self-care. Not babying. Earnest therapists and practitioners. No undertone of indulgence about their work. And that’s the way we like it.

We found this place when we were fifty-one. Then, we decided to celebrate every birthday, not just the decade ones. There was something about being fifty, so very conscious of the turning point: more years behind us than in front. No going back. This place turned out to be perfect. Not too far from Dublin. Comfortable beds, soft sheets, good food, generous wine. In the wild countryside.

The main building, more like a steward’s lodge, rather than a Big House, stood beside the converted farmyard. The therapy rooms occupied former cow stalls, pig sties, hen houses, hay lofts, revealing their past lives with wooden plaques hanging on the doors. The retreat centre, with its wide, green Georgian door, teemed with ethnic rugs and hand- crafted furniture from bespoke workshops. All the walls painted and decorated with muted colours like orchard blush, hedgerow damson. A couple of Tony O’Malley paintings lit up the hallway. Etchings and woodcuts hung over the dining room tables and sideboards. I would have loved to have my own place done like it, instead of the unbroken wooden floors and white fittings. If only. Too late, I suppose.

Rosy and I met in college. Philosophy and English. The blessings of a liberal education. At seventeen, I know now that we were mature enough to leave innocence behind but, but not really mature, by any means. And, as for the future, we had absolutely no interest in what we were going to be. When we drank too much, which happened often enough, and delved into those deep, earnest conversations, we sneered at the narrow- minded, tight, scaredy-cats who worried about careers. And, besides, we loved the Students’ Union. When unions stirred up the sediments of the changing world. The overthrow of an old order.

That’s what we thought in those halcyon times.

She won the election for SU President, the first woman to do so, beating a chap who went on to become a Fine Gael minister. I stayed in the background, channelling my philosophical ideas into UniNews, as the first female editor. Intoxicating days.

‘Mmm, Ali,’ she said one morning in the early 1970s, ‘do you think you could write something about female solidarity? Loads of women say that they would not vote for women in case they’re seen as too feminist?’

‘What? Is that said out loud now?’

‘Yeah. And at the L&D thing last night, one of the third years said something like that to the speaker.’

‘Oh?’

I should have been at the debate myself. But a gorgeous man soaked up all my attention. And I couldn’t get enough of him.

‘Yes, he stood up at the back of the theatre. “Have ye women gone too far now, Miss Murphy? Aren’t ye ruining the lives of ordinary, natural Irish women?” Something like that.’

‘Oh, heavens above. To Mary Murphy.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Something alone the lines of ‘Well, it’s more likely that rape, and violence, and subservience ruins the lives of ordinary, natural women, Sir, rather than a feeling of being in control over their own bodies and lives.’

‘Good on her. Wasn’t she on the Contraception Train last year?’

‘Yeah, she’s totally terrific, full of rage and fireworks. Some of the crowd cheered and clapped.’ Rosy smiled ruefully. ‘But the usual suspects were there in force, with the usual stuff. Women are becoming more like men. Women are losing their feminity.’ The senior men were very confident in their heckles. My gorgeous guy was a post-grad student in the English Department. He wasn’t there either, though. He was with me.

‘What about something like: Is women’s liberation bad for women?’ I suggested. Rosy raised her eyebrows. ‘I could write a “compare and contrast” with other social revolutions?’ I explained. I consumed the The Second Sex during my second-year

philosophy. ‘Like the civil rights movement?’ She nodded and smiled.

‘Great stuff, Ali, absolutely fabulous.’

Rosy and Ali. Our names were all about our times. She was plain old Rosemary until Ryan’s Daughter. Meanwhile, I had been Alice, one of the worst twee names. But Ali, that was completely different. Ali McGraw, my hero, Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

We named ourselves. We could do that in those years. Those years shaped our lives and our lives intertwined like honeysuckle and ivy. She was the honeysuckle. After we graduated, Rosy went on to establish a women’s crisis centre, powerful and influential. Meanwhile, a newspaper editor who wanted a different type of women’s page, fewer recipes and more discussions on second-class status spoke to me. A byline. Found out afterwards that the pay was nearly half of the men’s. But hey, blessings.

I breath the hot air in the sauna.

‘You know, when we’re lying down, we’re as beautiful as ever,’ one of the women says. I look over at her, with all the corpulence and cellulite drawn downwards, so that her flesh is smooth and flawless.

‘Yes, lying down we’re in our prime,’ I say and we all laugh.
‘Anyway, it’s nearly time for dinner,’ the other woman says.
‘Will we all eat together?’ Rosy asks.
‘Oh, oh,’ the first woman begins, ‘of course, yes, yes, great idea, of course.’

‘Oh, we’d like that,’ the second woman says. She pauses. ‘You know, we know you,’ she holds out her hand. I stretch over to shake it, ‘we were in college the same time as ye,’ she says. I peer at her. Gradually, the years melt away. Her face becomes familiar, and, out of nowhere, a name comes.

‘Joyce?’

‘Yeah, yeah, Joyce. But everyone calls me Joy. We were first years when ye were

in the Students’ Union.’

The second woman stands up and wraps her towel around her. ‘And I’m Marti, although it used to be Martina, naturally. There was something about names in those days, weren’t there? Religion and tradition, which we wanted to escape from.’ She pauses and purses her lips. ‘All the same, it would be lovely to reminisce about those college days.’

‘Yeah, for sure,’ Rosy nods. ‘What do ye do? Did you use your excellent university education?’ she laughs.

‘Oh, just the usual,’ Joy says, ‘I got my HDip, and taught French and history. Still love history, especially looking back on the 1970s. That was a truly historic decade, from the liberation in the early 70s, to the complete opposite by the end.’

‘Aaaaah, yeah, you’re so right, Joy, complete backlash against women. And what did you do, Marti?’

‘I did English and history, and that’s been my, as they say these days, my passion, teaching in the new Dublin university, where the students think we’re aliens and feminism is a very bad word,’ she laughs. I sit up and pull my towel around my flabby belly.

‘We’ll recognise each other when we’re decent,’ Rosy says. She has a warm way of speaking, endearing, and disarming at the same time. This means that when she speaks about domestic violence and coercion, her words convey an empathic message.

This came into its own in her latest interview on the radio, with one of the newish presenters who had made his name with a variation on the shock-jock style. She concluded:

‘I know it’s difficult for men who are NOT violent and domineering. But they ought to support women. Instead of wasting time defending themselves, with the NOT ALL MEN mantra. We know it’s not all men. We have partners, friends, colleagues. For heaven’s sake, we have been raised by some wonderful fathers. We have wonderful husbands, so many of us. We have raised some wonderful sons. We know that.’

‘I heard your interview with your man last weekend,’ Joy says. ‘Oh, did you? What did you think?’

‘Look, I think you convinced him, even if it’s just for the moment.’ Joy stands at the timber door. The sauna smells of resiny pine and the lights fade from green to blue. ‘He’s so macho. And he usually harasses and harangues the people he interviews.’ She snorts. ‘All he knew was that he couldn’t do his usual histrionics.’

‘Histrionics,’ I laugh. ‘That’s a good way of describing him.’ I nod. These women are as interested in the same issues as us. This seldom happens. Usually, it’s what we call Ultimate Eye-Rolling.

We all take another plunge into the icy water under the velvet sky before we go back to our rooms, promising to meet for dinner when we’re ‘decent’ again.

Rosy and I always booked separate rooms. She snored, I maintained; I farted, she claimed. In any case, we liked our own space on our detox retreats. In real life, I lived on my own, no partner, no children. Not even a cat. On the other hand, Rosy shared her bed, her bedroom, bathroom, her whole house, with her husband.

My gorgeous guy. The same man that I couldn’t get enough of when we were students.

‘Oh, Ali, if only I met you before I met Rosy,’ he said to me in bed, during that L&D debate when Rosy was chairing, and the Mary Murphy spoke about female solidarity.

I thought the same myself. I betrayed her, I knew that. I tormented myself but I couldn’t help it. I adored him, I loved his body, his hair, his words, his breath, his smell, his hands, even his beautiful toes.

And so talented. Once, Seamus Heaney came to his poetry reading. And the New Irish Writing man had phoned him when he sent in a short story. Called him on the phone in the hall, while I lay, tangled in bedsheets, loose, flowing. To Rosy, he was a nice boyfriend, handsome, sensitive. But to me, he was my one and only soulmate. I wanted to consume him, to absorb him into my body like the praying mantis all men feared.

He wasn’t consumable though.

After seventeen clandestine yearnings, beddings, kissings, words, whispers, smellings, deepest, deepest desirings, he declared his loyalty to Rosy. I had to acquiesce, of course. He met her first.

Incontrovertible.

I can’t remember much about the aftermath, I was in such a fug, Some kind of parallel reality or fantasy, I suppose, wishing, oh, just wishing, hoping, dreaming, that he met me first.

I never told her. He never told her. We never mentioned it again even though our paths crossed constantly. But it sat in my belly for forty years.

The dining room is dim with shaded light fittings dotted around the walls, and scented tea- lights sparkling in stained glass bowls. We’re all dressed up in glittering tops, hoping to reel in the years. The menu’s a triumph, with main courses and desserts like something from Nigella.

‘Mmmmm, what sounds indulgent and unhealthy?’ Joy asks. When we toast one another, I say,

‘May we all be alive and fucking this time next year! As the old Irish blessing goes.’

‘Let’s drink to that,’ Joy says, sipping her wine. She turned to me. ‘By the way, Ali, what happened to the gorgeous guy you were with that time?’

‘What gorgeous guy?’ I ask, suddenly cold.

‘The chap who wrote poetry, I remember Seamus Heaney was at one of those readings,’ she says.

‘That wasn’t my boyfriend,’ I say.

‘Oh? I’m sure he was, d’you not remember?’ I can feel a flush starting from my navel. Marti is looking at me, too.

‘Joy and I were at that Seamus Heaney reading. The first time we heard Heaney. Your boyfriend read at that too. We remember that he dedicated one of his poems to you.

He said something like, to my queen of hearts, or something like that, you know, from the

Patrick Kavanagh poem?’
‘Wasn’t me,’ I say, shaking my head, ‘that was Rosy.’ Can feel a spasm rising in my guts.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Rosy says. ‘In fact, now that I think of it, he always said that he had a first love, some kid, he said, a mere child. He realised that she was... superficial, I think, my god.’ Rosy looks around the dining room. It is stone cold. ‘But he said that I was his last love,’ Rosy laughed. ‘I’m still with him, Joy, we’re together all these years.’ She takes a mouthful of her wine. ‘But he’s more of a drama queen now, rather than the queen of hearts, always complaining about his health and staring at the sea.’

Joy says, ‘That’s, what, over forty years? Wow!’

My stomach twists again and I need to get to the loo.

‘Cuse me,’ I say. I push myself from the table, my chair falling over. I dash to the Ladies. Barely make it to the handbasin. Vomit yellow bile. Tears roll down my cheeks. Next thing, Rosy’s face appears in the mirror. She holds my hair and rubs my back.

‘What’s wrong, Ali?’ she asks. ‘What’s wrong? Ali, Ali, you look so pale. Have you... has something upset you?'

I rest my head on the mirror over the handbasin and close my eyes.