Four Letters of Love

: All painting, my father said

is a process of seeing.

"At first, there is only light and chaos, Nicholas.

"Colours.

"Shapes.

"Slowly, an emergence.

"And at last...

"you see."

You never met him, my father.

The closest he got to your island

a painting he made

looking toward it.

But because of him...

and because of that painting

I found you

and the meaning of my life.

For the first 17 years of my life

my father was a civil servant.

Until, one empty afternoon

God spoke to him for the first time.

He told my father to be a painter

and said not one word more.

Mr Coughlan?

Mr Coughlan! -

[LAUGHTER AND INDISTINCT CHATTER IN IRISH]

: Just as God entered our life

on a western island on the far side of the country

he left yours.

I imagined that island before I saw it.

You, the poet's daughter

and your brother

on the last day of childhood...

:

Go!

Oi, oi, oi, oi!

:

Seanie?

Seanie...

Dad?

: What's happened?

What's wrong?

Nothing.

Nothing at all is wrong.

Then why are you home?

The dinner's not even ready... - Bette. Bette, come sit down.

Come sit down now, please.

I'm not going back to the office.

I'm finished working there.

What? - I'm going to paint.

You're not serious.

I'm going to sell paintings.

I don't believe you.

William?

William? -

Don't I have some sort of say in this?

People don't just come home from work one day

and say they're not going to go back.

You can't, you can't say that and mean it.

I do mean it.

All this time, I've been living the wrong life.

But now, I have a chance.

I don't know what you're saying.

Am I wrong?

No...

Is Nicholas wrong?

No.

You're the only parts I got right.

Oh, William...

you're frightening me.

I can't... I can't hear this.

I'm making the tea... - Bette.

Bette, come here.

Come here, Bette.

Come here.

I have to.

I have to paint. Do you understand?

It's what I'm supposed to do.

: Why...

I did not ask.

For I was a son who could not speak to his father.

There was love

but no language between us.

:

: It feels like we're banishing her.

We...

we could get her to stay for a year.

I could just... I-I-I could say that...

we... we need her at home.

Mm-hm?

Doesn't feel right, either.

It's only that once she's gone away to school

she'll never be the same.

None of them ever are.

They leave their childhood here

come back only to visit it.

So...

we will keep her, then.

For... for a year.

Hm?

We can't do that.

It's her life.

She's to go then.

Oh, and you're not to give her the talk.

What talk?

That schoolmaster talk you give every child leaving the island.

"Show them how special you are. Show them what an islander is."

You're not to go soppy on her, either.

Be hard enough for her to leave Seanie.

There's... there's fresh scones.

Don't let your father eat them all.

Um...

The ferry won't wait.

:

You're an island girl.

You're not the same as them.

There'll be girls from... from the city there

but you'll show them.

:

I haven't been able to write any poetry since...

Over here.

Make sure that you write to your mother.

You know how she is.

: Mother Superior is my name, girls.

This is Sister Agnes.

If you follow her, she will show you where to go.

This way, girls.

And, uh, this...

this is my daughter, Isabel.

Very good.

: God wanted my father to paint.

But not, it seemed, the small, neat pictures

he had done before.

These were to be his life's work.

Nothing less than sublime expressions of supreme love.

But in a suburban house in Dublin

no such expressions were conceivable.

And one morning, he left us for the mythical west.

There, the paintings would come.

For three months, my mother and I lived

in the shadow of my father's absence

and discovered...

there was no God.

For piece by piece, our lives fell apart.

And so, it seemed, did my mother's mind.

You like him, though, Daddy, don't you?

He wrote me a love letter.

"You must know that I cannot imagine my life without you.

"I see you standing under the street light

"and it seems as if I can hardly breathe.

"Everything of this world

"that is beautiful to me is bound up in you."

: We were lost.

Both of us locked in the prison of a single question.

What if he did not return?

Y'alright there? -

Yeah.

D'you need a hand?

No.

Alright.

Ow!

Well, are you gonna help me or not?

Put your hand on my shoulder, yeah.

Both of them.

Legs go first. Yeah.

Alright.

You sure you don't need a lift?

It's freezing.

I don't mind taking you anywhere you want to go.

Anywhere?

Come on, lads.

Come on, boys. Come on.

Come on. Come on!

Come on...

God help me, boys.

Hello!