JG Farrell in His Own Words : Selected Letters and Diaries

Life is Bliss Here: May–August 1979

356 Life is Bliss Here Ireland May–August 1979 To Claude and Anna Simha Saltwater House 1 Letter Kilcrohane Bantry Co. Cork 7 May 1979 My dear friends, I did want to write before this, but there has been a postal strike here since we last met in Paris. And it is still going on! The Irish don’t give in, do they? I’m having this letter posted in England by a friend who came for the weekend to visit poor old uncle Jim in retirement. ... To make a house work in which no one has lived for twenty years takes a lot of time and can be tedious to boot ... Apart from all that, I still believe that one day it’s going to be really nice and I’m not discouraged. I’ve even begun to plant some trees, including a comice pear ... The countryside is just beautiful. I haven’t had a chance so far to go fishing, but the locals say you can catch mackerel right beside me here. Thanks again for your hospitality during my stopover in Paris. Love to the children. Regards, Jim 357 Life is Bliss Here To Robert and Kathie Parrish Saltwater House 8 May 1979 Dear Bob and Kathie, 2 This is a very rapid scrawl to let you know I’m still in business – and even about to begin writing my novel in my very own study, not to mention house. However, my path has not been strewn with roses and there’s still a lot to be done. Only a complete innocent could have thought, as I did, that I’d unpack my suitcase and settle down to my novel without more ado. The electricity still wasn’t connected when I arrived and though Jerry 3 (who’s a brick incidentally, not to say a reinforced concrete block) asserted that the ESB 4 people were about to arrive at any moment, a month passed by candlelight. Things take time here! Then there’s the absence of post,5 a petrol shortage (now over) and various other disasters ... e.g. if someone pisses in the bathroom it makes such a noise that people downstairs flinch involuntarily and run for cover. Kathie’s idea for a second loo is highly necessary anyway. The worst outstanding problem is the fact that the water does not taste or smell good so I’m going to have to have a well sunk. I’m waiting philosophically for the well-borer to arrive. However, on the plus side I’m still keen on the house which is really nice and I haven’t yet felt in the least homesick for Egerton Gardens – quite the opposite, I wonder what took me so long to decide to leave (this may not last, I hasten to add). I’ve been digging like a fiend in the garden planting trees and vegetables. I’ve had Jerry Daly’s brother, Michael, over here digging too. Jerry O’Mahony gave me a whole lot of cabbage seedlings so I am undoubtedly in the forefront when it comes to cabbage-owning novelists. The lettuces which I planted myself are coming up nicely though I’ve had to put a net over them to keep them out of the clutches of the birds and of an old grandfather hare that lives across the road. Altogether, it still seems fun. I’ve seen Mrs Cronin only once. When I appeared in her shop she did a double-take that would have done credit to Laurel and Hardy in their prime. However, I won’t hear a word against her. She gave me a full tank of gas at the height of the petrol strike, nodding and winking and saying she’d said nothing ... As for Wolfie-poo,6 he’s been through a bad time. While on holiday in Portugal in January he was taken ill and collapsed at Heath Row [sic] with a perforated ulcer on the way back. He has spent the 358 J.G. Farrell in his Own Words last few weeks in hospital and has only just reappeared on the Ahakista scene. Did you know incidentally that the beautiful house next to him belongs to Warren of the Warren Commission. Ann Colville (who has been over here for the weekend and will transport this letter) and I went to have tea with them yesterday – with Wolf...