VIII

Aisling did not get the job in Murray’s. In fact her interview lasted three minutes. She had dressed up exactly as they had told the girls to do in the commercial college; neat grey suit, grey short-sleeved jumper and white collar. No jewellery, very little makeup.

With her gloved hand, she handed copies of her typewriting, shorthand and bookkeeping certificates to Mr Meade, who had been running Murray’s since Joannie’s father had died. As long as most people could remember.

Mr Meade had left the room to study the certificates as if there was a possibility they might be forgeries. Aisling looked around the office. It had a high ceiling and a lot of bookshelves and cabinets of different sizes and shapes. Their pigeon-holes were bursting with envelopes and files, with loosely tied together bunches of documents. It was very untidy and dusty, she thought disapprovingly. Even Mam’s little eyrie back in the shop was better than this. At no stage of their secretarial training had anyone told them about an I office which seemed to have no proper filing cabinets, no spacious tables and desks for working at. There was one I corner of the room which had great boxes with hundreds of ; labels spilling on to the floor; many of the labels were stained and probably unusable. Aisling’s fingers itched to get at them.

The room smelled funny too, of spices, or teas or coffees, she wasn’t sure which, because there was another waft coming in on top. A smell of drink … a bit like Maher’s on a Thursday night. This must be from the wine downstairs, she thought. She wondered how they could be so successful when they were so disorganised. At secretarial college they had stressed that an untidy office was an inefficient office. But then Maureen had said that they spent months learning how to make perfect corners on beds when she was training as a nurse, and mainly they never did them unless there was a fear that someone would inspect them.

Mr Meade came back, and to his annoyance and to Aisling’s surprise, Tony Murray followed close behind him. Mr Meade seemed nervous in the presence of Mr Tony. Mr Tony seemed irritated to extremes by Mr Meade. The typing certificates were handed over.

‘These seem to be in order, Mr Tony,’ said Mr Meade. He had examined each piece of paper carefully.

‘Yes, well she’s been there a year, they must have taught her to type,’ said Tony ungraciously. Mr Meade looked put out.

‘What makes you think you would like to work here?’ he asked precisely.

Aisling was ready for that one. ‘I’ve always thought it would be most interesting to work in a company that offers such variety,’ she said, as if reciting lines from a play. ‘Murray’s is an old-established firm with a long history of business with continental Europe. There would be an opportunity for me to know about the wine trade, the tea blending, the whiskey bonding as well as high-class grocery trade.’

‘You would be sitting in an office typing out bills and stock lists. How the hell will you learn the wine business there?’ interrupted Tony.

‘Well I will be close to it, connected with it sort of…” Aisling stammered. Tony had always been nice to her, courteous, even joky she thought. Why had he turned into this kind of hectoring figure?

It seemed to puzzle Mr Meade too. ‘I’m sure that… er, Miss O’Connor, realises …’ he began.

‘Quit talking like a parrot, Aisling, what on earth do you want to work here for? It’s the same work you could do for your mother over in the square. Why aren’t you in there typing bills and stock lists instead of wanting to come here?’ Aisling’s eyes blazed back at him in rage. If he was going to break the rules and make a mockery out of the interview, then

 

so was she. She had played fair, worn gloves, kept her eyes down, answered politely. Now she’d answer him as he wanted.

‘I’ll tell you, Tony Murray,’ she said, conscious of the shock on Mr Meade’s face without even looking. ‘I’ll tell you exactly why I want to work here. Here I work in my own twin-set and skirt, in Mam’s shop I’d wear an overall; here I’d get money from your family and I’d spend it as I bloody pleased, in Ma and Da’s shop they’d be giving me money like pocket money and complaining and saying sit up, and stop fidgeting, and why aren’t these done, like they say to Eamonn. In Murray’s I’d be someone, I’d be that new Miss O’Connor in the accounts office, I’d meet people, I’d have a bit of class because I was good enough to be hired by the great almighty Murrays, and a friend of the family. That’s why I thought I’d like to work here. Now you tell me why you don’t want me… .’

‘Because you’re a friend of Joannie, and we like you coming up to the house, and you’re a splash of colour around the place, and I don’t want to be paying you a wage packet every week. You stupid thick girl. That’s why.’ He slammed out of the room.

Aisling shrugged. ‘Well give me those back, Mr Meade, I gather I haven’t got the job.’ She picked up her certificates, put them back in her envelope, peeled of The gloves and put them into her handbag. ‘Thanks all the same,’ she said shaking hands in a totally over-familiar way for a job applicant.

Mr Meade watched her swinging out through the shop. He had no idea why Mr Tony had behaved in that extraordinary way, but in his heart he was quite relieved. That little O’Connor girl, with her mane of red hair, could have been trouble. She might have been quite a disruptive force in Murray’s, and they didn’t need that.

Mr Worsky was delighted with Elizabeth White. She was exactly the kind of child he would have liked, solemn and alert. His two sons had been interested only in kicking a ball round the yard back in Poland, and wherever they were today they would never have been thoughtful and interested in beautiful things. She was polite and attentive, she had a little notebook where she wrote down what he told her about furniture. Once she had said that it was she who should pay him for his training rather than take money for her Saturday help in the shop. When she left art school she would love to work as a picture restorer, she thought, or an expert adviser on furniture. They spent happy Saturdays and sometimes both of them would sigh with impatience when a customer came in.

Johnny Stone liked the girl too. Mr Worsky could see that. Johnny would speak flirtatiously to her when they were examining porcelain or the inlaid work on some desk. Elizabeth never responded coquettishly, since she had never seen the remarks as admiration. In a kind fatherly way, Mr Worsky made a few tentative efforts to warn Elizabeth about Johnny Stone’s charms and how successful they were.

‘For a boy of barely twenty-one he has amazing success with the ladies.’

‘Oh does he?’ Elizabeth sounded interested, rather than hurt.

Mr Worsky went on then, sure that he was treading on no hurt young love. ‘Oh a proper Prince Charming … that is why he finds such wonderful things when he goes to people’s houses. They let him in, they let him come and rummage in their back rooms and their attics. They let Johnny Stone do what he likes.’

‘Marvellous for us that they do, isn’t it?’ said Elizabeth enthusiastically, and Mr Worsky was touched that she thought herself part of his little shop and relieved that she did not seem to have become a victim of the famous Johnny line of chat.

Elizabeth was too busy to think of romance. She envied other students at college who had less complicated lives to lead. She had to organise the food for the week, she had to balance books like Dora in David Copperfield—except

that she did it swiftly. Father felt that money was trickling down a drain unless he could see neat columns of figures. The cleaning lady sometimes didn’t clean too thoroughly since

 

she felt it was infra-dig to be working for a chit of a girl in a house where the mother had hopped it. Why didn’t the girl do the cleaning herself, she wondered. Elizabeth had to tread the careful path which would ensure a higher standard of work without the cleaning lady’s dignity being offended to the degree of her putting on her coat and leaving them.

Then there was Father. His bridge playing had been so successful it meant that he had to play host to his group every two weeks or so. On these occasions Elizabeth made sandwiches, served tea and emptied ashtrays. She thought it was worth it because it paid dividends. Father was out at other people’s houses almost every second night. She didn’t have to feel guilty about him, she didn’t have to talk to him, except to ask him about his game when he came home. His face would light up as he helped himself to a small tot of ginger wine, and he became almost animated describing how he had finessed a queen, or his partner had gone for a grand slam on no evidence whatsoever.

Father cared nothing about the Saturdays at the antique shop. He had warned her to be sure-to see that Mr Worsky paid her on the nail, foreigners could be very decent but many of them could be highly unreliable. But Father never asked her how much she got, nor did it affect her allowance. Girls need their pin money, he was apt to say from time to time. Father didn’t realise either how well Elizabeth ran his house for him. But by encouraging him earnestly to grow his own vegetables, she saved them a great deal of money, as well as using up Father’s copious spare time at weekends. Elizabeth also gave drawing lessons to two little girls who came to the house and sat with their drawing books at the kitchen table while she did her weekly bake. She made bread, pastry, cake, a casserole and peeled all the potatoes that would be needed for the week, leaving them in water which she changed every day. She topped and tailed fruit, she pressed every left-over into something else. It was a three-hour session; and all the while she overlooked the two children, correcting their perspective, lightening their shading and neatening their calligraphy. Their mother, who had artistic hopes and no money, gave Elizabeth jams, bottled plums, chutneys and even candied peel, for their lessons. It worked very well, and Elizabeth ran Father’s home very comfortably while keeping a good quarter of the money it should have taken, in her own little tin box upstairs. Even Aunt Eileen, with all her religion, could hardly have disapproved, Elizabeth thought… . She really did earn the money and if Father had anyone else, even Mother, it would have been spent in areas where Elizabeth was able to save.

She didn’t know why she was saving. Perhaps it was for flight like Mother, perhaps it was to set herself up in business like Mr Worsky. It might even be for a velvet dress. Johnny Stone had told her about a singer he had seen who wore a rose-coloured velvet dress and it had made her seem like a flower. She had blonde hair and a rose velvet dress; Johnny had said it was like heaven.

Aisling had been mystified by the whole afternoon in Murray’s, when she had gone along confidently expecting to get a job. She was at a loss to explain it to anyone. Mam had been right of course, and so, at long distance, had Elizabeth. Joannie wasn’t there so there was nobody to ask, nobody to discuss it with. From nowhere Aisling remembered a line from one of Elizabeth’s letters saying the hardest thing about growing up is not having anyone to ask. Aisling had thought it was only because the White family had more or less disappeared, leaving Elizabeth on her own; but now she realised that it was more than that. There are some things you can’t just throw on somebody’s else’s life. This was one of them. She decided that since she was all dressed up she would get another job instead.

She called first at the chemist and spoke to Mr Moriarty. She made her voice light and cheerful, she showed him ‘her commercial college certificates, she thought she would enquire around some of the nicer places in town, she said. The Moriartys said that there was hardly any work that they and the young man who worked there couldn’t do. She went to the insurance broker, the solicitor and the jeweller’s. None of them needed anyone. They all complimented Aisling on how well she looked and said she was a sensible girl to want to

 

work in her own town, and that something would turn up. The bank she knew didn’t hire people from the town; they had to come from far away so that they wouldn’t know people’s business and gossip about it. The hotel had a receptionist, the two doctors had receptionists. The grain merchants were Protestants, and it would be too common to work anywhere else. Weary and depressed she came into the shop ten minutes before closing time.

‘Mam can I have a word with you up in the eyrie,’ she called.

‘What is it?’ Eileen lifted her glasses to see Aisling properly. She saw a tired and disappointed-looking child, very different from the bouncy figure who had set out just after lunch. ‘Come on up here,’ she called. Aisling made the little flight of stairs and flopped on to a stool.

‘Mam, I’ve been thinking,’ she said.

‘Yes, and what have you thought?’

‘I’ve been thinking that you’d be nearing the end of your work here.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, a woman of nearly fifty as you were saying. …”

‘A woman of forty-eight so I am… .’

‘Yes, but I’m a woman of eighteen and honestly, if this place is ever to be a success, the whole family had better try to pull together you know and… .’

‘Oh I see___’

‘No, you don’t, you work too hard, everyone says so. When anyone says to you why don’t you get someone to help, you always list the problems. Why can’t I do it Mam? I’m trained, I have all my certificates … what do you think I Mam?’

‘Well, it’s a bit sudden, child, I mean you never wanted to help out here when we were busy, or you never thought of working here before, so far as your father and I ever thought anyway… .’

‘I didn’t want to help out, Mam, that’s the whole point. I wanted to work like a real person. You know, hours and wages and pulling my weight… you know?’

‘Well, I’ll have to talk to your father … it’s a bit of a surprise.’

‘Sure, Da will do what you say Mam, you know he will.’

‘I know nothing of the sort. This is your father’s business, he’s very particular about who he hires. Maybe he might think you’d be a bit… .’

‘A bit what, Mam?’

‘Well, young.’

‘You mean flighty,’ said Aisling mulishly.

‘Yes, I mean flighty,’ said Mam, simply.

‘I’m not flighty any more, not if I’m getting a real salary, and could be sacked and all,’ Aisling said.

‘You changed your mind about Murray’s, then?’ Mam asked quietly.

‘Oh yes, I went and had a chat, it was more of a chat, not a normal interview. Tony Murray and I agreed it wasn’t such a great idea… .’

‘And you wouldn’t rather work, say in the hotel or the chemist where you’d meet more people . . ?’ Mam was gentle.

‘No, the Moriartys would only have a living for themselves and the hotel has Judy Lynch.’

‘And the insurance, or the bank … ?’

‘No, they have their own people. Now what I had in mind was building up this place, Mam, like a real big family business. You know, you and Da and Eamonn and myself all talking about the future, and maybe when Donal gets older, some not too tiring job for him. …”

Mam was smiling. She seemed to find something funny.

‘Well, it’s what people do,’ Aisling said crossly.

Mam reached over and took her hand. ‘And what about , Niamh, will we find her a job in this new enlarged family business?’

‘I think Niamh had better marry some money and get us the cash to expand. Build on out the back,” said Aisling.

‘I’ll suggest it to her at supper,’ said Mam. Aisling snatched back her hand. ‘You’re not taking me seriously,’ she snapped.

 

‘I am, child, I am indeed … I’ll have a word with your Da. If he says yes, when would you like to start?’

Aisling threw her arms around Eileen, knocking off the glasses which had been perched on her forehead. ‘On Monday, Mam, and could I not have to wear a shop-coat like you. Could I wear my own clothes?’

‘They’d get very dirty, love, that’s why we all wear coats, the dust.’

‘But Mam, I’d keep my clothes clean, I promise.’

‘They’d be destroyed, you’d spend your whole salary replacing them. I’m telling you from experience. We’ll get you a nice shop-coat, whatever colour you like.’

‘But Mam, it doesn’t look right, not after all that course and learning all the shorthand and the rest. A shop-coat.’

‘You’d look beautiful in green; suppose we got you a couple of emerald green coats to wear over your clothes?’

‘Would it look … ?’

‘It would look unusual, special, you’d be the most eyecatching woman in Kilgarret. You’re a beautiful-looking girl, Aisling.’

Aisling didn’t know what to say.

‘For goodness sake, go on, Mam,’ she said eventually.

‘You are. Don’t you know it? With all the titivating you do on yourself?’

‘Am I nice-looking?’ Aisling asked shyly.

‘You’re lovely, far too good for that Ned Barrett, but that’s your own choice, I suppose.’

‘Mam, how on earth do you know about Ned Barrett?’ Aisling was stunned. ‘Not that there’s anything to know,’ she added quickly.

‘No, of course not,’ said Mam. ‘But when you’re nearly fifty like me you have to go round imagining things … it passes the time.’

‘I don’t think I’m going to be one of those people who get seriously interested in men. I really don’t.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’re right, Aisling, one has a feeling about that sort of thing.’

‘Mam?’

‘Yes love.’

‘If Da says yes, can people call me Miss O’Connor, can some people call me Miss O’Connor anyway?’ ‘I’ll insist on it… from the start.’

Johnny Stone said that he would be very happy to take Elizabeth up to Preston. He was going to make a journey into the dark north for Mr Worsky anyway with the van, so why not have Elizabeth along for company? She could make calls with him, learn a bit more about the real and the fake, the kind of things that were beautiful and things that only looked good. What did Mr Worsky think?

Mr Worsky thought it was up to Elizabeth and her father. If they had no objection, then he would be delighted of course. To have two staff on the road for him was coming up in the world. He did not foresee any awkward entanglement, where the little solemn face of Elizabeth might become hurt and bewildered. The child was grownup beyond her years already. She could handle a Romeo like Mr Johnny Stone.

Elizabeth did not discuss her transport with Father. She simply told him that she would use the half-term break from college to pay Mother the long-promised visit. Harry had sent money for her; no, she did not need anything extra, just the normal allowance was fine. She carefully arranged that the first night of her absence, Father’s meal would be there. But after that for five days he would have to manage on his own. Then he might appreciate more how smoothly and efficiently she ran his house. She also left that week’s housekeeping money for him in an envelope, knowing that it would not stretch in any way to meet his needs. She did not think that this was cruel. She thought it was sensible. Father was living a strange life between the bank and the bridge table, far far away from reality. It would be no harm to bring him’ down to a few basics.

Dearest Elizabeth,

Harry and I are so pleased, so very pleased that you are really coming. I wake up every morning and I say to myself it’s only nine more days now. Harry wanted to know whether it was like this during the war, whether I counted

 

all the days when you were in Ireland? I don’t think it was the same. I knew you were safe and well and happy. I read those letters every week and I couldn’t think what to write back, there was so little to say about our empty house and about the long, weary hours in the munitions factory.

Here it’s different. I think of you at home in Clarence Gardens. I think of the kitchen, and of your Father … I can’t imagine what it’s like for you there now. I wish … in a foolish sort of way that I was there, because you and I could talk. You could tell me all about Mr Worsky’s shop, and I could go in and see it; I am sure that George doesn’t even know where it is. At least I did buy some fire irons there once.

I hope you like our place. Harry has worked until after midnight for over two weeks ‘to have things right for Elizabeth’. I don’t think I’m telling you this so that you will be prepared to make a lot of admiring noises. But perhaps I am. We never made many admiring noises when you were younger, and I remember that week when you came back from Kilgarret you said that everyone reacted more in the O’Connors’ house and in school. I’m just rambling on darling.

Only eight and a half days.

Love,

Violet

‘Why does she call herself Violet?’ Johnny Stone asked Elizabeth the day they set off. It was to be a two-day journey.

‘When she went away with Harry she started signing Violet. It’s funny but it seemed quite right somehow. I suppose she thought that if she wasn’t doing the job of being mother, then she shouldn’t call herself Mother.’

‘My mother never did the job of being mother but she still calls herself that: ever your loving mother. I think I’ll have to tell her that she should call herself Martha. You’re younger than I am, I’ll use you as an example. Listen, Martha old bean, I’ll say, my friend Elizabeth’s only eighteen and she and her mother use first names. The world’s changing, old dear, I’ll say.’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘It’s not as easy as that. I still think of her as Mother. I’m going to try to feel out the ground a bit when I meet her. She may like to be called Mother still. She may prefer not. I cheat in letters you see. Dear Both. I worked it out, it was affectionate but not specific if you see.’

Johnny saw. The signposts flashed by, the miles disappeared under the wheels of the old van. Elizabeth unpacked a picnic which they had to eat in the car, since April torrents and winds were howling around them.

They had two calls to make that day. Johnny and Elizabeth crawled around a disused summer-house and collected forty old pictures, some cracked, some so gaudy that Elizabeth couldn’t see for the life of her what Mr Worsky would do with them. ‘The frames, you silly,’ hissed Johnny as they pulled wicker chairs and old cricket bats and croquet mallets out in their search.

The lady who owned the frames, and the summer:house, offered them tea and biscuits and was overjoyed at the small sum that Johnny gave her. Before they left she asked Johnny whether his young lady would like to use the bathroom. Elizabeth flushed, not at the mention of bathrooms but at the woman’s mistaking her for Johnny’s young lady.

‘She’s more my colleague than my young lady,’Johnny grinned. ‘But seeing you blush like that, Elizabeth, maybe I’ll change my mind.’

Elizabeth fled to the bathroom and tried to hide her red-cheeks by rubbing in some of the talcum powder that was beside the handbasin.

Back in the van she launched an immediate attack.

‘If those are really mahogany and really silver frames, you didn’t give her nearly enough,’ she complained.

‘Dear girl. She was delighted with what we gave her. Delighted. She pressed my hand in thanks, she’s going to have the roof mended. She’s going to ask a local handyman to come in and paint her living room. Now is that happy or not

 

happy? What do you want me to do, throw poor Stefan’s money down the drain … ?’

‘But Mr Worsky wouldn’t want to cheat… .’ ‘Seriously Elizabeth, that woman had those pictures rotting in her tool shed or whatever it was for years. Her husband had always meant to clean up. He never did. He never came back from the war either. Now what happens? We come down, we spend two hours cleaning up, tidying her old shed. You got a broom for heaven’s sake. She has a tidy place to put her deck-chair, if it’s ever going to stop raining in the next few years, she’s got cash in hand to have a new roof, a new-coloured sitting room and a new hat. Now what’s that but happiness?’

‘It’s tricking her. We’ll get thirty or forty times what you paid. You gave her thirty-three pounds. The big gilt frame alone will fetch that. More even, if we do it up. And there’s twenty-nine others. It’s downright dishonest!’

‘It’s business, you stupid girl, and you look terrific when your face is all red like that. It’s really peaches and cream. Typical English rose, you should do it more often.’

‘Does it really look nice, or is that a cruel joke?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘Of course it’s nice, whole fortunes are spent by women trying to get their faces to look like that,’ said Johnny.

‘I was afraid it looked a bit consumptive, you know, too much contrast,’ Elizabeth said seriously.

Johnny laughed so much he had to pull the van up on the side of the road. ‘You are totally beautiful,’ he said affectionately. ‘I wish the old bird back there was right and you were my young lady.’

‘I’d be no good at being someone’s young lady, I’m not ready for it yet. Life’s too complicated, there are too many things to sort out.’ Elizabeth was utterly sincere. There was no way that she was hoping to be contradicted.

‘When do you imagine things will be sorted out?’ asked Johnny.

‘I expect when I’ve finished college and get a job, and when Father’s learned to live on his own, or have a housekeeper or something … about three years I expect.’

‘I’ll have to come and apply to be your young man then,’ Johnny said. ‘If I’m not too old that is … I’ll be nearly a quarter of a century.’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth consideredly. ‘You’ll probably have given up playing around by then. But I expect I’ll find somebody.’

They stayed in the guesthouse that was owned by Mr Worsky’s cousin outside Liverpool. The second call had been equally contentious. Johnny had offered an old man twenty pounds for three mirrors and a table. According to Elizabeth they would fetch over one hundred pounds in the shop. Johnny had walked down the steps to the van with her before he clinched the deal. The little old man peered anxiously out the window, terrified they would leave without buying the pieces.

‘Once again, Stefan Worsky pays for a shop, he pays me a salary, he pays you something, he puts the petrol in the bloody van, he pays for me to stay with his cousin, he spends hours of his time and his skill -don’t

forget his skill and training, which took years to come by -in

doing up these tables and mirrors. Then, and only then, will he get one hundred pounds for them. Now that’s what the world calls business. It’s not a well-kept secret. It’s what people know happens. Have I your permission to offer this poor bugger twenty pounds before he has a heart attack, or should we cancel the whole thing, break his heart, mine and Stefan’s just because Madam White here thinks she knows how to run the world?’

Elizabeth burst into tears. Johnny paid the perplexed man twenty-five pounds instead of the twenty he had been quite willing to accept. In confusion, they bundled the furniture into the van while Elizabeth sobbed in the front seat. In silence they headed for Mr Worsky’s cousin’s house.

‘Do you think we might have a half pint somewhere while the storms abate?’Johnny asked. It was the first thing he had said in eleven miles. Elizabeth nodded. She wasn’t able to speak.

They sat in a pub and, red-eyed, she drank a brandy and ginger wine which Johnny said might be just the thing.

 

He made no attempt to cheer her up, to apologise for his loss of temper or to enquire why she cried so long and so

deeply.

The brandy warmed her and she had another. Then, in a small voice, she asked him about Liverpool. Was it a big place, suppose she wanted to find a small place called Jubilee Terrace, would that be possible? Was it idiotic? During her second brandy she told Johnny about Sean O’Connor and how Aunt Eileen had always said that if ever she got anywhere near Liverpool could she say hallo to Amy Sparks. It was such ages ago, five years. Of course, Mrs Amy Sparks and her son Gerry might be dead. But just because Aunt Eileen had once said … no, it was silly, Johnny mustn’t listen to her, she was just being silly.

‘We’re far too early for Stefan’s cousin, why don’t we see if we can find it?’ said Johnny.

Gerry Sparks had had a stroke of luck, he said, in that he was good with his hands. He was a watchmaker and he could do a lot of work at home. They fixed a tray on his wheelchair, and he could spread all the bits and bobs out on it and look through his magnifying glass at them. It was a real bit of luck that they discovered his skill in the therapy classes, because the legs hadn’t taken. Not enough for them to grab on to, didn’t manage to use the muscles from the hips like other

fellows did.

Mrs Sparks was now Mrs Benson. She had remarried, as a sensible thing to do; she was able to look after Mr Benson, and cook his meals, keep his shirts nice and clean, he could give her his pension. They had sold his little house and made a tidy profit. They were so pleased to meet Elizabeth and her young man; they knew all about her. Eileen O’Connor, a wonderful woman, wrote a long letter every Christmas and she sent money to the church in Liverpool where they had held this mass for Sean.

They talked about Sean. Gerry said he had been a great mate, he’d never had a mate like Sean before. Elizabeth said he had always been restless when she knew him in Kilgarret. But then she was very young and maybe she hadn’t really been able to talk to him, ‘I never knew a mate like him,’ Gerry Sparks said again. ‘Certainly never knew one since then.’

He looked down at his rug on the wheelchair.

‘Of course, like this it stands to reason I don’t make many mates these days.’

‘Yeah, that’s the trouble when you work on your own,’ Johnny agreed, having deliberately misunderstood him. ‘You don’t have mates at work, you miss that. Of course, there are advantages working on your own. If you feel like knocking off an hour earlier or taking a long lunch you can do it.’

Gerry brightened up. Together they talked about working on your own, piece-work rate for the hour. Johnny even went out to the car and asked Gerry’s advice about an old clock that he had picked up at a sale of work. ‘I only bought it for the face, but I think the insides are like scrambled egg.’ Gerry had his eyeglass out, and in minutes it was ticking. The small kitchen filled with pride until it burst. Elizabeth couldn’t have imagined anything that would have brought more pleasure. Addresses were exchanged, if ever any work came the way of Mr Worsky which needed the touch of a craftsman it would be sent to Gerry Sparks.

In the firelight and under the dim centre-bulb the peaky face and bent back of Gerry Sparks was joined with the handsome young Johnny Stone. If they had met in Italy they might have been mates too. But of course Johnny Stone wasn’t old enough to put on a uniform, and the year that he was just old enough they stopped fighting. Elizabeth and Mr and Mrs Benson seemed to exchange innocent, pleased looks about the conversation at the fire. But it was something that could never have been put into words.

Mr Worsky’s cousin was not at all interested in their visit to a house in Jubilee Terrace, a small, poor little place. She was very interested in Elizabeth, a lovely young woman, just right for Mr Stone, and very right for Mr Stone to settle down, too, no more of the romancing.

‘It’s just as well I’m not your young lady,’ said Elizabeth wearily as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. ‘Since we

 

left London this morning, everyone has assumed I am and that I have a dreadful time with you.’

Could it really only have been this morning that she had said goodbye to Father? She hadn’t given him a thought all day. Perhaps that’s what happened to Mother. But then they were married, which was different. She wondered whether Mother would like to be called Violet tomorrow. She wondered whether Johnny would come in and call like he had at the Sparks’s house. She wondered how Gerry Sparks got out of his wheelchair when he wanted to go to the bathroom, and whether she should try to stay awake and write to Aunt Eileen about the visit… .

There were three more calls on the way to Preston. Elizabeth said nothing about the prices offered to and accepted by a war widow, a clergyman and an elderly doctor. She helped willingly and cooperatively, she wrote things down in her little notebook and she scrambled under a bed in a loft with Johnny where their hands touched over some old silver-backed brushes. When they took them downstairs the old doctor said that he vaguely remembered them from his childhood.

‘I’ll buy them if you like,’Johnny said.

‘Oh, they’re filthy now, and the hair’s all rotting. I’d be ashamed to sell them, I’ll throw them out,’ said the old man.

‘They could be nice if we got them done up, polished you know, and new bristles,’ said Johnny.

He caught Elizabeth’s eye before she looked away.

‘And valuable, Doctor,’ he went on. ‘We might be able to sell them for a lot more than we give you.’

The old doctor smiled.

‘Well, I should hope so my boy,’ he said agreeably. ‘Otherwise what’s the whole business about?’

Johnny celebrated his triumph by avoiding Elizabeth’s eye.

When the signposts said that Preston was only five miles away Elizabeth turned to Johnny almost shyly.

‘I hope you’ll come and stay for supper. … I don’t think they’d have a bed for the night. Not if Harry’s been making all this palaver over doing up the guest room for me, you know. But supper would be super.’

‘Why don’t I just see you in the door, say Hi to Harry and Vi and push off, arrange what time to pick you up on Tuesday and let the family get together as nature intended?’

‘It’s not the family, you know that,’ Elizabeth sounded troubled.

‘I know but it’s enough strain on everyone without having a total stranger there sitting in on it.’

‘But you’re… you’re very good at making chat and sort of helping things along. Please come in and stay.’

‘Listen, I’ll come in and see what I think. If I think it’s better for me to go I’ll toddle off, if I think I’m helping I’ll hang around a bit. Will that do?’

Elizabeth nodded. He took her hand and patted it. ‘You don’t have, you didn’t have any awkwardnesses in your family, you know with your mum who calls herself your-everloving-mother?’

‘Awkwardnesses? No. Not really,’ he negotiated the wet, slippy road. ‘What do you mean exactly?’

‘You know, like them being too loving or not loving enough. You know. Like them being not what you expected or wanted.’

‘Oh no, heavens, no,’Johnny laughed. ‘My mother would like me to live with her and have a small car and drive her to see her friends … but I don’t like that as a way of life so I have no intention of doing it. None at all. My mother’s father wanted her to stay at home and look after him, but she didn’t, she ran away with my father. People do what they want to do. Once you know that and accept it you don’t have any problems.’

‘And your father?’

‘He ran off with someone else, with two someone elses. He ran off with people every ten years or so, my mother was the second. He’s frightfully keen on running off with people… .’

‘And you don’t see him?’

‘Why on earth should I? He doesn’t want to see me. Look, it’s not like your case, these folk have been painting a room for you for ages. They want you to come, you wanted to come

 

… where’s the awkwardness? There’s no lies or demands or emotions.’

‘You hate that sort of thing, don’t you?’ said Elizabeth.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘I think you do more than most, you were very annoyed when I was crying yesterday. I could see it.”

‘No, my dear, honestly, I wasn’t annoyed. It’s just, I don’t know, I don’t want to get involved in dramas and tears and heightened scenes. So I never do.’

‘It’s not a bad philosophy I suppose.’

‘It has its drawbacks. People think I’m a bit cold or selfish or too flippant… but perhaps all these things are true… . Heigh ho, Preston, jewel of the North, here we come.’

‘Do stay to supper,’ she said.

‘If they ask me,’ he promised.

The bedroom almost brought tears to Elizabeth’s eyes. Only the thought of having Johnny see her once more with a red, puffy face held them back. Harry had bought expensive and hideous ornaments which stood on a shelf. ‘Girls like pretty things,’ he said proudly as he looked at them. The utility furniture had all been painted white and so had rather a nice little bookcase which used to have doors. Elizabeth could see the hinges but they were painted over too. The bed had a flouncy blue and white spread; pictures in what she would now think of as the most awful chocolate-box tradition in shiny new frames covered the walls. In those days of shortages Harry had painted everything in sight. The blue carpet went wall to wall and you could see that he had stitched scraps together to get it to fit properly. His face beamed with achievement.

Johnny spoke first. He was marvelling at the things that should be marvelled at, how perfect the paint surface was … were three? three … yes, he had thought there must be three coats. Johnny marvelled too at how cleverly the electricity work had been done, a light over the bed, another over the wash-hand basin. He praised the bright, clear colours which made it look so cheery even in winter. As he spoke, Elizabeth found her tongue to praise and thank and marvel. She left her bag on the bed and looked around her with gratitude that nearly made Harry crack apart, so broad was his smile. Spontaneously she hugged him, and when she saw the delight in Mother’s eyes she hugged Mother too. It had been a peck on the cheek as she had come in the front door of the shabby little corner shop.

‘Oh Mother, this is great,’ she cried. Mother hugged her back. Over Mother’s shoulder she saw Johnny nodding slightly and she knew she had been right to decide not to say Violet.

Johnny stayed to supper, the atmosphere growing more and more cordial. Harry was like a big child, he had grown fatter and more genial in the two years. Mother had become even thinner, if that were possible; she seemed nervy, she smoked a lot and her eyes looked huge in her thin face. She jumped up half a dozen times, nervous, anxious to please.

They both seemed pleased, in a childish and obvious way, that Johnny did not know Father, Elizabeth thought, in fact Harry went so far as to say, ‘That’s good, lad, we’re the first to have a look at you, eh?’ as if Elizabeth had taken Johnny there on some kind of tour of approval.

Elizabeth answered that one without any embarrassment.

‘The reason that Johnny doesn’t know Father is that Johnny is in Mr Worsky’s and Father, as you said in your letter, Mother, hardly knows where the antique shop is.’ She paused and, lest it appear to leave an opportunity for Father to be criticised, she spoke again. ‘You would be amazed at Father really, both of you. He is such a bridge addict now. No worries about what to get him for Christmas, new cards or scoring pads, or little bridge ashtrays. And he meets people all the time. As soon as somebody new comes to the area, if they can play bridge he’s met them in a week.’

‘Fancy George having a whole circle of friends.’ Mother was mildly amazed, as if it were a story about someone she knew a long time ago.

‘They’re not exactly friends,’ Elizabeth was thoughtful.

‘Of course they’re friends,’ interrupted Johnny, ‘if he goes to their houses and they come to Clarence Gardens, what are

 

they? Enemies? Honestly, Elizabeth, you want people to exchange blood from their arms like Red Indians.’

Everyone laughed.

‘We did that in Ireland once, Aisling and I,’ said Elizabeth suddenly. ‘I’d quite forgotten.’

‘Yes, well you see,’ said Harry meaninglessly. He was \ trying to say something that would make that Johnny realise he was on his side.

It worked. Johnny put his arm around Harry’s shoulder. ‘Let the girls talk a bit, Harry, and you show me this workshop of yours, and if you come across any of those old weighing scales on your travels, you know the old-fashioned ones with brass weights… .’

Mother lit another cigarette and leaned across to clutch Elizabeth’s arm.

‘Oh, my dear, he’s so nice; he’s such a nice young man. I’m simply delighted for you. I worried about that too … you know, as well as anything else. I worried that you mightn’t have a boyfriend or a social life. You mention so little about it in your letters.’

Elizabeth sighed. ‘I suppose it’s useless my telling you that he isn’t my boyfriend. Really, until today and yesterday we’ve hardly even had a proper conversation. He’s someone I work with on Saturdays. But I agree, he is very nice, isn’t he? He’s been great company, simply smashing on the trip. The time just flew by.’

‘I know,’ said Mother. ‘That’s what’s wonderful about being with the right person.’

They spoke of him a lot during the weekend, which was a good thing as it kept them off the topic of Father.

Mother felt guilty about Father, she felt guilty about walking out with no proper explanations.

‘I don’t think explanations would have done much good,’ Elizabeth said several times, feeling years older than she had felt the day Mother left Clarence Gardens. ‘Father doesn’t listen much, I’ve come to think.’

Sometimes Harry spoke about Father too, in a worried tone. ‘You’re a grownup young woman, Elizabeth, and I don’t want to sound like an adult talking to a child … but your mother and I worry about you down in that house, it’s not healthy for a child to live alone with a… well with such a remote man as your father. Now Violet won’t hear a word against him, and I wouldn’t speak one word either against a person’s father but you have to agree that he’s an odd fish, a cold person. He has no blood. A real cold fish. There’s an art college in Preston… .’

‘I know, Harry, but… .’

‘And we’d be no interference, I mean you’ve been having your own way, you could have whoever you liked into your own room … that’s a fair offer. We’d give you a key, you could come and go. Violet’s eyes light up now that you’re here… and mine too. I think it’s champion, as they say here, to have you in and out… .’

‘You’re very kind, Harry,’ sighed Elizabeth, and meant it. And she also meant it when she said that Mother was marvellous to her and had been like the kind of elder sister you read about in books. But no, she must really stay where she was. And no, really, she wouldn’t join the general outcry against Father. He had a life to live just like everyone else, and he lived it. If he didn’t have much joy that was bad luck and circumstance.

They eventually stopped trying to change her mind. In her shiny new bedroom, Elizabeth lay awake at night listening to the strange sounds of a different city and wondered whether everyone else had to keep being kind to people and talking down to them. She wished that someone would make all the decisions for her, and consult her views and take her moods into consideration.

In what seemed like a totally separate part of her mind she wondered how Johnny was getting on, and whether he would come back with a rabbit for dinner as he had promised Harry he would.

The rabbit was a great success. Johnny had arrived when the shop was very busy. Mother and Harry were both dealing with children who spent thirty minutes trying to decide how to spend their tuppences and their sweet points. Tired women buying thin slices of pressed meat and packets of

 

semolina, old men shuffling in for tobacco. Elizabeth had been reading in the kitchen when she heard the cries of welcome for Johnny in the shop. Harry rushed back in beaming like an idiot.

‘He’s here, he’s here, and he didn’t forget, he’s got the rabbit. Hurry Elizabeth, there’s a dear, get out the pot. Your mother will be in in a minute… .’

Elizabeth wondered how she could have ever feared Harry, or Mr Elton as she had called him then. How could she have thought him a sophisticated dangerous man, he was a big baby. She wished that he could be more cool, less excited, Johnny might think they were all very simple and overimpressed by him.

But no, Johnny seemed just as excited. ‘I’m going to spend the night here, and we’ll leave early tomorrow. Your mother’s invited me. We’ll have the best rabbit pie ever eaten in this country since before the war.’

It was the best rabbit pie that had been eaten in the country since the war. Elizabeth had made pastry, Johnny had gone to the pub for cider. They set a table and Mother made up her face. Johnny told them about how he had got the rabbit. The farmer who had been clearing out his furniture always offered people the chance to shoot a rabbit, because he was too old and arthritic to shoot himself, but he loved to go with another huntsman. Johnny had shot three, one for the farmer, one for his party and one, all wrapped up in wet grass at the back of the van, for Mr Worsky.

And they sang some songs, and Harry recited ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God’, and Mother did an imitation of how the nuns taught them to curtsey, which was hilarious. Elizabeth was pressed for a party piece. She didn’t have any, she said. Mother said that there were always songs in Ireland, that Elizabeth said people used to sing in Maher’s. With her hands by her side she began:

‘Oh Danny Boy

The pipes, the pipes are calling p>

From o’er the glens

And down the mountain side The summer’s gone and all the leaves are falling

T’is you must go

Must go and I must bide. …”

Then they all joined in:

‘Oh come you back…

When sun shines in the meadow …

And when the fields are hushed and white with snow …

For I’ll be there in sunshine and in shadow …

Oh Danny boy, Oh Danny boy, I love you so.’

Every one of them, including Johnny, had tears in their eyes. Oh God, thought Elizabeth, why do I have to wreck everything? Why couldn’t she have found a cheerful song to sing, something that would have made people laugh like everyone else was able to do? Why did she have to pick the most mournful song in the world? The one party she had been to since she came back from Kilgarret and now she had to close it down by singing a sad song.

They were washing-up and scraping chairs and putting things away. Everyone was saying what a great night it had been. Mother fussed about sheets and blankets for Johnny, Harry said better be on the road tomorrow before six o’clock in order to avoid the worst of the traffic and the big lorries in the narrow streets.

Elizabeth didn’t sleep, she kept jerking awake in the middle of a bad dream where Gerry Sparks from his wheelchair was holding her wrist.

‘Why did you come to see me if you weren’t going to marry me?’ he cried over and over again. Elizabeth felt herself running away while his mother Mrs Benson and Harry shouted after her, ‘You’re always the same, you start things without thinking and you hurt people… .’

After their last afternoon call at an orphanage, where Johnny bought four boxes full of old cutlery, the rain became so heavy that they had to pull in to the side of the road. The

 

windscreen wipers couldn’t cope with the torrents hurtling at them. As they sat waiting for it to ease a policeman with a ‘ flashing torch came to the window.

‘Road’s flooded ahead, you’ll never get past. We’re turning back traffic already. You take your missus back to the town there, only a mile or two, you’ll not get to London tonight.’

‘Well, you’re my witness. I did try to get you home!’ Johnny laughed goodnaturedly as he reversed the car and was waved on by the policeman in the sheets of rain.

‘What will we do?’ Elizabeth asked. She wished she could take everything as casually and cheerfully as Johnny did. Already her mind was racing with problems. What would Father say when she didn’t turn up? Should she telephone him now before he left the bank? What time would she get back tomorrow? How could she explain about missing her lectures? Might Mr Worsky think that she and Johnny were just having a good time flitting about the country in his van?

‘Have a meal and find somewhere to stay I suppose,’ Johnny said.

The small hotel had a fire and a bar. Johnny carried in their two bags and talked to the receptionist while Elizabeth warmed her hands over the flames. He came back and put his arm around her.

‘We’re in luck, they have a room.’

The woman with the large key in her hand looked at Elizabeth’s gloveless and ringless hands.

‘Do you and your wife care to go up now and see the room?’ she asked with a smirk that made Elizabeth feel so angry she didn’t even care about the red flush she felt creeping over her face.

‘No, I’m sure it’s fine,’ Johnny said lightly, ‘we’ll have a drink if we may, seeing that we’re residents, and Elizabeth wants to use the telephone.’

In a few minutes of merciful privacy, Elizabeth got through to the bank. Her father hated being disturbed at work for what he considered trivia. Brusque and irritated, he said that he understood, fine, fine, he’d see her tomorrow then. Goodbye. No regrets, no sympathy at her being caught by flooding, no enquiries about her visit to Preston, no hint that he might have missed her.

No way of knowing that his daughter had one of the major decisions in her life ahead of her in the next few minutes.

She stood longer than she needed, clutching the receiver in the dark little box, wondering what to do now. It must be her own fault, she must have given Johnny the impression that she slept with men and that it would be in order to book them a double room. If she was going to be adamant and refuse his suggestion, then the grownup thing would be to do it immediately … the longer she left it the more awkward it would become.

Johnny was sitting at a table with a beer, and a shandy.

‘I thought this is what you’d like,’ he said, smiling up at her, hoping that he had made the right choice.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said. They were in a corner away from everyone. The chintzy little lounge bar of the hotel might fill up later with local ladies drinking port and lemon; through the door the bar with its dartboard stood dark and empty in the afternoon of winter. Nobody could hear them. There would be no public scene.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said again. ‘A shandy’s fine, but Johnny about the room. I must tell you… .’

‘Oh sweet Elizabeth, I was just going to tell you. It’s got two beds, and it’s half the price of two rooms, and she doesn’t have two rooms. She said she had just one room left before I said anything so… .’

‘Yes, but___’

‘So there wasn’t a chance for me to say “May I consult the lady?”’ He looked not at all upset, just as if he had to explain something that was self-evident. ‘And I’ll turn my back when you’re putting on your nightie and you promise not to peek at me.’

‘But… .’

‘We’ll be yards away from each other — we were only a few yards away from each other last night and neither of us got carried away.’

Elizabeth laughed in spite of herself.

‘No, that’s true,’ she agreed.

 

‘Well.’ The problem was solved for Johnny.

Elizabeth looked into her glass. If she were to make further protests it would appear as if she thought that Johnny was hopelessly besotted by her and was planning to seduce her. Since he said this wasn’t on his mind, it would be arrogant and even pathetic of her to keep up this insistence on a room of her own. But suppose, suppose that there was actually a game involved, and that her agreeing to go to the same room meant agreeing much more… .

Johnny said he had to telephone Mr Worsky, he’d be back in a moment. Did Elizabeth want to change? There was a bathroom at the end of the corridor apparently but if a bath was needed you had to ask the lady at the desk and she would get someone to turn on the geyser.

He was gone.

Elizabeth ran upstairs, and changed her blouse. She gave herself an icy wash and examined her face nervously at the bathroom mirror, which was speckled where the bits of mercury or silver had peeled off. She wasn’t at all pleased with what she saw. Her hair was so straight, and so pale and colourless. It wasn’t blonde like real blondes are blonde yellow-and-gold, it was white, almost as if she were an old woman or an albino. And her face. Oh Lord, why were some people’s faces the same colour all over when her face was patchy with great pools of red and valleys of white?

With her hands on her waist she looked critically at what she could see of her figure. It was very awkwardly shaped, she decided. Her breasts were small and pointy, she didn’t have that nice swell that sort of ‘S’ shape that made people raise their eyebrows at each other. In fact she looked like a tall schoolgirl instead of a woman.

With a mixture of relief and disappointment she realised that Johnny couldn’t possibly have had any designs on her. Thank heavens she hadn’t made a silly fuss.

They had fish and chips in the fish shop up the street. It had looked much more inviting than the hotel dining room even though they did have to run to it through the sheets of rain. They talked about what Mr Worsky would say to each item

they had got, and what Elizabeth would do next Saturday in the shop, and why Harry and Violet didn’t have any nice furniture, why it was all modern and new and cheap. They talked about Johnny’s mother who did have nice furniture, but who wasn’t warm and welcoming. She’d never put herself out to have a visitor to the house, she just expected her son to be there all the time and sniffed disappointedly when he was not.

Elizabeth told him about Monica and her mother, and the complicated lies she had to tell when she went off with chaps. Monica had to keep a small notebook so that she did not get caught out. Johnny said that he thought Monica was very silly; she should tell her mother straight out that she was going to live her own life and she hoped that they could all be friends while she was living it. Then all she would have to put up with was a few sniffs.

‘It’s different for girls, you see,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Yes … so they keep saying,’Johnny agreed. They ran back in the rain, and because they had had an early start decided that they should go to bed. Or go to sleep, as they kept calling it.

‘Do you think we should go back and let you get to sleep, you’ve a long day tomorrow, the drive back, and unpacking, then college?’Johnny said. ‘Yes, I think I will sleep now,’ Elizabeth said. She sat on the side of her bed, the one where she had already put her blue nightdress under the pillow. There was heavy, purple-flocked wallpaper and a huge, ugly dressing table. A small, narrow wardrobe with no room for clothes stood filled with extra blankets and smelling of moth balls. There was one small, white chair; they would both have to put their clothes on that. Elizabeth examined her feet ruefully.

‘They got awfully wet, I’ll have to go and wash them.’ They felt like two little blocks of ice after the cold water, and she had splashed herself all over as well just in case Johnny did … well, it would be awful to smell offish and chips.

She put on her nightie in the bathroom and, peering left and right before she emerged, she decided it was safe to

 

scamper back to their room. Johnny hadn’t used the tactful opportunity to get undressed, he was sitting reading the paper on the ugly white chair.

Elizabeth hopped quickly into bed and held the sheets around her chin in an exaggerated imitation of someone shivering.

‘I knew you’d try to have your way with me and make me come in and warm you up,’ Johnny laughed pleasantly, still turning the pages of the paper.

Elizabeth felt her neck and face go scarlet. ‘No, of course I didn’t, I wasn’t… .’

He stood up and yawned. ‘I’m only teasing you, sweetheart,’ he said. He bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Here, have a look at this and become informed about the world.’

Grateful to have something to do while her embarrassed flushes died down, Elizabeth turned on her side away from him and tried to take in something, anything, on the sports page which was what she had opened… .

She heard the creak of his bed, and again, relief mixed with a curious sense of defeat swept over her. Naturally, of course, it would be ridiculous to want to make love, suppose she became pregnant, suppose it hurt and she were to bleed all over the hotel bed, suppose she wasn’t able to do it, suppose he then turned aside and refused to have anything to do with her, which is what the nuns had told them in Kilgarret? If a man is allowed to have his way with a girl he will not respect her, he will have nothing more to do with her, he would not like his own sisters to behave in this way… .

‘Shall I put the light out or do you want to finish the paper?’

She looked at him and smiled.

‘No, I’m so tired, I can’t really understand it, I think I’ll stop fighting it and go to sleep….’

He put his hand out of his bed and reached for hers. She gave it to him.

‘You’re a great little companion, it’s been a smashing trip. Night love.’ He turned out the light and turned over in his bed. Elizabeth heard eleven o’clock strike, and midnight, on the town hall clock, and some time before one the storm rattled against the windows so much that it woke Johnny from his even sleep.

‘Hey, are you awake?’ he asked. ‘Yes, it’s a horrible storm.’ ‘Are you frightened of it?’ ‘No, not at all. No. Of course not.’

‘Pity,’ he yawned. ‘I hoped you were. I’m terrified of it, of course.’

‘Silly,’ she giggled.

He lit a match to look at his watch. ‘Oh, that’s great, hours more sleep.’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. She could hear him sitting up, and swinging his legs out of bed. He leaned over and held her hand.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ she said in a little squeak. In the dark he stood up; she felt him sit on her bed. Her heart was nearly coming through her rib cage.

‘Give me a little hug,’ he said. She reached up and found him without seeing him. He held her very tightly.

‘I’m very fond of you, you’re a lovely little girl,’ he said. She said nothing. ‘Very fond of you.’ He was stroking her hair and her back, in long strokes. She felt very safe. ‘And you’re very very lovely.’ She clung to him even more tightly, he was moving her gently back on the pillow; soon she would be lying down. ‘I’m not very… .’

‘We won’t do anything unless you want to … if you want to we can do anything….’

‘You see____’

‘You’re very, very lovely,’ he stroked on and on and she couldn’t really find the right words. ‘I’d like to be very, very close to you.’ ‘But you see….’

‘There’ll be no problem about that, I’ll take great care….” ‘But I never… .’ ‘I know, I know, I’ll be very gentle… but only if you want

 

to.’ Silence. He stroked her and held her to him. ‘Do you want to love me, Elizabeth, do you want to be very close to me … ?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

He was gentle, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t know what to do, he knew enough it seemed. It didn’t hurt so much as it was uncomfortable. It wasn’t all those piercing pains you heard about in giggled conversations, and it certainly wasn’t all that soaring joy either, but Johnny seemed very happy. He lay on her, his head on her breasts and his arms around her.

‘You’re a lovely little girl, Elizabeth, you made me very happy.’

She held him in the dark, she pulled the covers over him and she heard the town hall clock strike two. She must have missed three, but she heard it again at four o’clock, and she thought of Aisling and how they had wondered which of them would be the first to Do It, and now Elizabeth had won. Or perhaps she hadn’t won. After all, she didn’t think she was going to write and describe this. It was too important, you couldn’t put it on paper, it would sound disloyal and cheap. Instead of love, which is what it was.