Memories 2

One of my most precious memories is of a photograph. I was not present at the event it portrayed and it intrigued me greatly as a young child. It showed two young people,  a beautiful woman and a dashing young man dancing, holding each other close atop a small wooden table in a country setting.

When I was about ten years old the picture fell and the glass protecting it broke. A sudden gust of wind was to blame. I was sitting in the living room struggling with homework when the crashing and splintering of the glass made me start and rise to my feet. Turning to see what had happened I saw my mother on her feet too. Bending slowly, picking the photograph from among the shards of glass, holding it tenderly, Ma blew away the dust it had gathered from the linoleum floor. Moving towards her I saw her raise the photograph to her cheek, hold it there for a moment, then lower it smiling, nodding twice.

As I had never known the provenance of this photograph I decided now was the time to put the question which had often occurred to me as I realised there would never be a better time to ask.

“Who is that Ma,” I asked, “the beautiful woman in the photograph...and that man?”

“Why Martin, that’s me,” she said, and I could swear the colour in her cheeks was a rosier pink.

“And your father, Martin, that’s your Da.” Her tone suggested surprise that I needed to ask such a question.

“God, Ma. You were beautiful. And Da...he’s like an actor in the pictures,” I gushed.

“But why are you on a table Ma? You’re dancing on the table.”

Holding  the photograph to her with both hands my mother turned to me and smiling brightly explained that the photograph was taken in Carna, in Connemara. She and my father were on their honeymoon.

“It was the loveliest place, Martin” my mother assured me, “and the happiest week of my life.”

“There was an American man there and he had the latest camera. He took pictures of everything,” my mother went on.

The American man it seems, just like me, thought they were a stunning couple and cajoled them into posing for the photograph. The pose on the table he told them had featured in some Hollywood film or other. The photograph had duly arrived as promised by post about a month later. The postmark said Paterson, New Jersey.

The moment lost and the story finished my mother turned to me and said, “Martin. Get me the sweeping brush like good little man.”