A Second Life by Dermot Bolger

Author:Dermot Bolger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Island Books
Published: 2022-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

In late March I decided to visit my parents’ grave. They were buried beyond the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, near the side gate for De Courcy Square. As a youth I often drank in Kavanagh’s pub there, with its hatch in the wall where gravediggers once knocked for porter. I arranged my flowers on the grave and stood beside their headstone, unsure of what to say to them in my mind.

A hundred yards beyond their grave, the eerie wilderness that constituted the oldest part of the graveyard began. Ancient capsized headstones were arrayed around family vaults with stone angels untouched for a century. These were the tombs of the rich. Elsewhere there was just stumps of wooden crosses or no trace of graves beyond indents in the grass to hint that bodies lay there. This most eerie part of the cemetery was only separated from the Botanic Gardens by ivy-clad railings, and through these railings I could glimpse people strolling there.

A gardener with a wheelbarrow of cuttings entered a walled enclosure where smoke rose from a bonfire. A young girl knelt to weed a display bed of vegetables. Watching her, I felt like a voyeur from this city of the dead, feeling that even if she turned to stare towards me I would still be invisible, standing amid those slumped headstones. I raised the Pentax and clicked until I heard the finished film rewind itself.

These moments of feeling lost among the living were occurring less frequently now, but my doctor was still advising therapy. Many people who endured near-death experiences suffered a similar sense of dislocation, she’d explained. Professional counselling would help me to overcome my malaise. But for me it was not that simple. There were things I felt I should be able to remember, memories I had blocked out that I needed to confront before I could hope to move on.

Returning to my car I drove around to the entrance of the Botanic Gardens and deliberately parked opposite where the crash had occurred. A hired limousine decked out with ribbons was parked at the gates, the chauffeur enjoying a cigarette while a photographer arranged a bride and groom in poses among the flower beds inside. Construction work was in progress on rebuilding the old Victorian glasshouses. I entered the gardens and descended steps towards the river, passing the sluice gates of the mill race, the hanging willows and rhododendrons, to reach the small bridge that led onto the rose garden.

I stopped, irrationally perturbed as I remembered Aunt Cassie’s remarks. Had I really caused my mother anxiety in this rose garden by talking about imaginary people just like Benedict babbled about his illusory world with Gary the Goat? I crossed the bridge. A sundial occupied a plinth in the centre of the small area. There was a high wall in front of me. The river cut off two other sides of the rose garden, with the fourth side blocked by the gable end of the Tolka House pub.

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