The Excursion
The hours of the afternoon were unselfconsciously eventful, absorbing, funny. Calmly, quietly, Oliver found peace in service. If the children were rude he bore it. He bore impatience and ingratitude. A spring of contentment in heart's mountain began to flow. Whatever is right for a person to do is easy to know. The habit of always doing it is harder. Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself. Every mess might be redeemable. When his mother felt a chill in the air he gathered his charges and pushed back up the hill to the gate and the carpark and the parked car, and then he realised Maeve had abandoned his mind. She was back again now, but the old futile complaints refused to stir.
The worst was over. He was living already without her.
The calm lough below them was absolutely blue, The yacht in the distance, in silence, had sailed out of view.
James Simmons
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