announcement of this too-young engagement. It is very difficult to see one’s son choose a woman like Carlotta. Your own choice of Veronika brought for a time the deepest joy to us both. I will not go further. I am not a sadist. While Heinrich is a constant source of worry, I am at ease with him. With you, Thomas, I have always experienced a certain tension. It existed even before the estrangement that followed Frederick’s death and Veronika’s collapse, and later, of course, her death. Poor Frederick. Poor Veronika.
You should marry again. You should have another child. Perhaps you will regard this advice with contempt. Perhaps you will interpret it as an encouragement to predatory love. You have deeper knowledge of this subject than many men. Ethics and love? Are there ethics in love, Thomas? Again, a question to which you are perhaps best equipped to give an answer, having destroyed your family for Mrs. Calder, as she calls herself now. Legitimately, I know. Though not in my eyes. I remain bitter. Forgive me. I have again into your current unmarried state obtruded. The siege is over I assume? You have admitted defeat? Mrs. Calder is reluctant to take possession of her territory? Perhaps I am wrong in this. No? Again, forgive me. The cry of the father through time.
Your father,
Erik
On re-reading this letter I note its lack of warmth. Not a surprise to either of us. As a gesture I gift you my first edition of A. M. Sullivan’s 1868 Speeches from the Dock . It will be sent separately to you. Only in Ireland could a book with such a title become a bestseller. It may help you understand the essence of their “holy hatred”—John Mitchel’s phrase. He was exiled in shackles. Holy hatred: start from there. Erik
FIVE
My monthly chess game with Bishop Fullerton presents not only an intellectual but a philosophical challenge to him. Since over 90 per cent of the population is Roman Catholic, and thus his spiritual authority is rarely challenged, he relishes the occasional doubter. His little “Doubting Thomas” joke, however, has been dropped, to our mutual relief.
I check the fire and then the supper arrangements. Linen napkins, to the laundering of which Bridget pays such attention, cover in their starched perfection two plates of sandwiches and one large silver platter on which rests a ginger cake that Bridget has baked for the bishop especially. This minor feast has been carefully set out on a side table, “in case the bishop gets hungry after the game.” Which he always does. He is, I think, a permanently hungry man and souls alone do not satisfy him. We start at nine-thirty. He has dined earlier, as have I, yet the sandwiches and cake remain essential. Bridget has today made her own brown bread and soda bread. Some time ago she had been informed by the bishop’s housekeeper that he regards country butter with particular favour. I loathe it. The guest’s desires, how ever, are paramount. So after my monthly chess game with the bishop I will eat, for politeness’ sake, at least one cold-meat sandwich made with Bridget’s soda bread—the thin-slicing of which she has informed me is difficult—and I will watch the bishop devour the rest.
I see the lights of a car. Our evening is about to begin. Bishop Fullerton will have been driven from the Bishop’s Palace, as it is known, to Lake House at no doubt excessive speed by Eamonn McNamara. Eamonn, who has acquired a reputation for “foot-on-the-accelerator madness,” pulls up with a flourish, his arrival signalled by the screech of brakes. He leaps from the car and with a slight incline of his head, not exactly a bow, he opens his passenger’s door and guides the bishop out of his jet-black, newest-model Mercedes.
“Good evening Thomas! How I look forward to tonight’s challenge. I must warn you, Thomas, I’m geared up. Isn’t that right, Eamonn? I’m geared up for victory.”
“You are, Bishop, you are indeed. Oh yes, Mr. Middlehoff,
You should marry again. You should have another child. Perhaps you will regard this advice with contempt. Perhaps you will interpret it as an encouragement to predatory love. You have deeper knowledge of this subject than many men. Ethics and love? Are there ethics in love, Thomas? Again, a question to which you are perhaps best equipped to give an answer, having destroyed your family for Mrs. Calder, as she calls herself now. Legitimately, I know. Though not in my eyes. I remain bitter. Forgive me. I have again into your current unmarried state obtruded. The siege is over I assume? You have admitted defeat? Mrs. Calder is reluctant to take possession of her territory? Perhaps I am wrong in this. No? Again, forgive me. The cry of the father through time.
Your father,
Erik
On re-reading this letter I note its lack of warmth. Not a surprise to either of us. As a gesture I gift you my first edition of A. M. Sullivan’s 1868 Speeches from the Dock . It will be sent separately to you. Only in Ireland could a book with such a title become a bestseller. It may help you understand the essence of their “holy hatred”—John Mitchel’s phrase. He was exiled in shackles. Holy hatred: start from there. Erik
FIVE
My monthly chess game with Bishop Fullerton presents not only an intellectual but a philosophical challenge to him. Since over 90 per cent of the population is Roman Catholic, and thus his spiritual authority is rarely challenged, he relishes the occasional doubter. His little “Doubting Thomas” joke, however, has been dropped, to our mutual relief.
I check the fire and then the supper arrangements. Linen napkins, to the laundering of which Bridget pays such attention, cover in their starched perfection two plates of sandwiches and one large silver platter on which rests a ginger cake that Bridget has baked for the bishop especially. This minor feast has been carefully set out on a side table, “in case the bishop gets hungry after the game.” Which he always does. He is, I think, a permanently hungry man and souls alone do not satisfy him. We start at nine-thirty. He has dined earlier, as have I, yet the sandwiches and cake remain essential. Bridget has today made her own brown bread and soda bread. Some time ago she had been informed by the bishop’s housekeeper that he regards country butter with particular favour. I loathe it. The guest’s desires, how ever, are paramount. So after my monthly chess game with the bishop I will eat, for politeness’ sake, at least one cold-meat sandwich made with Bridget’s soda bread—the thin-slicing of which she has informed me is difficult—and I will watch the bishop devour the rest.
I see the lights of a car. Our evening is about to begin. Bishop Fullerton will have been driven from the Bishop’s Palace, as it is known, to Lake House at no doubt excessive speed by Eamonn McNamara. Eamonn, who has acquired a reputation for “foot-on-the-accelerator madness,” pulls up with a flourish, his arrival signalled by the screech of brakes. He leaps from the car and with a slight incline of his head, not exactly a bow, he opens his passenger’s door and guides the bishop out of his jet-black, newest-model Mercedes.
“Good evening Thomas! How I look forward to tonight’s challenge. I must warn you, Thomas, I’m geared up. Isn’t that right, Eamonn? I’m geared up for victory.”
“You are, Bishop, you are indeed. Oh yes, Mr. Middlehoff,
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