XV

Maureen said several times to Mam that it was unusual for Aisling to be so long in getting pregnant. ‘It’s not as if she had any reason to wait about, Mam.’ No indeed, Eileen had agreed. ‘And, Lord knows, there’s plenty of money in that house, a nurse could come home with her for three months like the Grays have whenever a child is born. It can’t be the money or anything.’ She found Mam unresponsive. ‘Not of course that it’s my business or anything. It’s not the sort of thing you feel you should bring up talking to someone … even your own sister. You know, you never like to say anything.’

‘Oh I’m glad to hear that,’ Mam had said,

‘It’s just that Brendan’s mother was asking me yesterday was there no sign of a baby and I didn’t know what to say to her.’

Mam had looked up suddenly and with a flash of bad temper she had shouted, ‘Why don’t you tell old Ma Daly to go and take a running jump at herself all the way down the road to the lake and right into it!’

‘Mam!’ Maureen had cried in shock.

‘I’m sorry, it’s the time of life. I’m going through the menopause. Why don’t you go past your mother-in-law’s house and discuss that with her too?’

Maureen had looked shocked. ‘Well, I must say Mam, I don’t know what I said to bring all that on me.’

Mam had relented. ‘I know you don’t. As I said, I’m becoming a bad-tempered old woman. Will you have a cup of tea or would you be afraid that I might pour it over your head?’

Maureen laughed, relieved. ‘Oh Mam, you’re an awful eejit at times. You’re worse than Niamh with your antics.’

Niamh was delighted when the parcel arrived from Elizabeth. It had been waiting on the hall table and she snatched it away and ran up to her bedroom to check the contents. There it was, boned and firm, standing proudly as if it were a part of a woman’s body, a waist-length strapless bra in white satin. And with it a lemon chiffon blouse. The letter said nothing about the bra at all, it was the kind of a letter you could show to Mam easily. Wasn’t Elizabeth cunning, she must have been accustomed to doing all this kind of thing for years with Aisling, of course. There was a book on the reproductive organs which Aisling had among her other books but with a different cover on it. Perhaps Elizabeth had sent that in the old days. She tried on the bra: it made her stick out very naturally. Now she could wear that dress with the little bootlace straps, as they were called. She had told Mam that the dress was worn with a bolero and Mam had said that was fine. But she had no intention of wearing the bolero. Anna Barry and her brother were going to have a party at the hotel at the end of August. Everyone had been looking forward to it. Niamh had washed her hair every four days with Sta-Blond shampoo. She had this feeling that if she went to quite a lot of trouble secretly she would burst upon an unsuspecting world. That’s what Aisling had done at her wedding last year. Nobody had known how good-looking Aisling was until that day, and now even if she hadn’t combed her hair and just wore her old gaberdine raincoat streeling open, she still had the name of being beautiful. It was odd but true. Once people decided you were beautiful then you remained beautiful for the rest of your life.

Niamh was going to wear a pony-tail at the start of the evening with a plastic clip on it, and then as the night went on she was going to take off the bolero and let her hair fall loose and when she was dancing people would notice her suddenly. She had thought of nothing else but the party since the school holidays began. She was waiting for the results of her Leaving Certificate and if she got three Honours Dad was going to let her go to university. The first of the O’Connors to go to college. She had prayed herself into a near coma for a while.

 

Mam had wanted her to work in the shop, but Niamh had been very unwilling. She was afraid that if she once got into O’Connor’s she might never get out. She saw herself sitting for years in the little glass office that used to be Aisling’s and had been empty for a year since neither of the new assistants had worked out well. She thought that if her Leaving Certificate results were not good she would do typing and bookkeeping in the morning in the secretarial college and work in O’Connor’s during the afternoon. Aisling had said she would have no need for shorthand in the shop. How dare Aisling interfere, why couldn’t she live her own life now and be grateful for it? It was what she had wanted wasn’t it? Why was she always down with Mam and filling Mam up with stupid ideas like Niamh working in the shop? What was she going for walks with Donal for? Why couldn’t she let Donal find friends of his own? Niamh thought that Aisling was just as mournful as Maureen in a way. God, the whole business would put you off marriage forever.

Donal was disappointed not to get any letters or postcards from Rome. ‘Aisling wrote three letters the first time she went,’ he complained.

‘Ah but she has the whole family out there now and the ordination and everything, she’s on her toes,’ said Sean. ‘The girl can’t be rushing off every minute to write letters home.’

‘You’d think she’d send even one, to let us know how she’s getting on,’ Donal grumbled. ‘The place is very dead without her anyway.’

Eamonn was finishing his supper hastily, he thought he saw his mother looking round for rosary beads and the suggestion that since they were all gathered they might say it early tonight.

‘Isn’t it amazing that she doesn’t seem to be gone, not like Maureen? I mean we see as much of her as we ever did. She’s getting no value out of being married at all.’

The return from Rome was fretful and exhausting. Father John was full of names of priests in this order and that order, and of those who had come to the ordination and those who hadn’t. Aisling thought he sounded like an old woman. Mrs Murray sounded like a very old woman indeed. She seemed twenty years older than when they had left Ireland, the noise and the heat and the crowds had been very wearing. Aisling had felt sorry for her and had fanned her in the evenings beside an open window while Tony and Joannie went out on their regular four-hour search for a restaurant, coming back plastered both of them with the intelligence that the restaurant in the hotel was as good as anything they had seen in their travels.

By the time they arrived in Dublin Aisling had decided that enough was enough and made a clear announcement as they were collecting their luggage. ‘Tony and I are staying in Dublin tonight, we’ll come down tomorrow.’

‘Oh, I’ll stay with you and the three of us will go down in the morning,’Joannie said eagerly.

‘No, we’re getting a lift with friends,’ Aisling said firmly.

‘You haven’t got any friends,’Joannie said.

‘Don’t be childish,’ Aisling snapped. ‘Mrs Murray, we’ll help you into the car and see you off all three of you. We’ll be home tomorrow night, and ready for the first mass on Sunday.’

‘Well yes, the least you could do.” John was huffy and annoyed at being taken by surprise. They moved awkwardly towards the car, as disparate a group of five people as ever you saw. Aisling wondered what other people made of them.

Tony, who had slept the whole way home, was now awake and ready for an evening on the town. He went along smoothly with the notion that they had business to do, people to see, arrangements to make, and brushed aside the irritated squeakings of disbelief about why it hadn’t been mentioned before, and who they could be meeting on a Saturday morning.…

‘Where are you staying then?’ Joannie asked, hoping to

catch them out.

‘With my relations in Dunlaoghaire,’ Aisling rattled back. ‘Tony hasn’t met them yet, it will be a nice opportunity.’

‘That’s right, looking forward to meeting them,’ said Tony, and Aisling threw him a grateful look.

‘Well then, we can drive you there, no point in leaving you

 

to get taxis ten miles into town from here, ten miles out of Dunlaoghaire, is there?’ Joannie’s voice was silky. She felt sure she had trapped them somehow.

‘That’s a great idea,’ Aisling said sunnily, and somehow the hour and three quarters through rush-hour traffic was endured.

Then they were at the guesthouse. Aisling jumped out first and ran to the door; in case there was going to be confusion she wanted to try to have a head start in sorting it out.

‘Aisling child, how grand to see you,’ Mam’s cousin Gretta Ross greeted her. ‘Did you bring your fine husband for me to have a look at?’

‘I brought him to stay for a night if that’s all right,’ she said quickly.

‘Honoured we are, and delighted … where is he … ?’

Gretta went out to the car and shook hands with everyone while Tony was unloading the boot.

‘Isn’t he as handsome as they all said?’ she said. ‘I’m delighted you were able to come to me at last.’

The rest of the Murrays went unwillingly, having refused a cup of tea because John said he must drive on and get them home at a reasonable hour. He gave Gretta Ross his blessing which she asked for and Aisling noticed with a vicious delight that Joannie seemed quite put out to find her suspicions unfounded.

‘You’re very good Gretta, I just wanted to get away from them all for a bit and have an evening on our own, if you get me.’

‘I’m delighted to see you child, and very pleased you thought of coming here. Come on now, we’ll shift these bags up to the room on the right of the stairs up here, it’s nice, it looks out at the harbour. Yes, and have a bit of a wash or a lie down and please yourselves, I’ve a lot of things to busy me. You might like to go out and have a nice walk, go off up Killiney hill or somewhere and look down at the view. When you get back there’ll be a plate of cold chicken — help yourselves. It’ll all be there in the dining room for you. I have about twelve in for supper tonight so I’ll not be able to entertain you anyway!’

‘God, that’s great isn’t it?’ said Tony when he’d shaken out a clean shirt for himself and given himself a wash. ‘That was sheer genius on your part getting rid of them all like that. I’d had all I could take and you probably had too.’

‘Yes, I was afraid if we went back to Kilgarret we might never get away tonight.’

‘You’re a genius I say, I can’t say it too often. Now will you put on your clothes like a good girl and come on and we’ll head off somewhere and have a drink. I’m parched.’

Aisling put on a clean dress and combed her hair. ‘I want to talk to you Tony, which is why I kidnapped you.’

He looked hunted. ‘All right, all right. We’ll talk in the bar.’

‘No. It’s not about anything that can be talked about in a bar. Take your choice. Here or we’ll go for a walk.’ ‘What is it, what are you playing at?’ ‘Just what I said. I want to talk to you. We have to talk.’ ‘Oh God, not now Aisling, not now when we’re knackered from the journey … huh?’ he looked at her appealingly. She said nothing.

‘Well if it’s quick say it here, and then we’ll go out. Isn’t that fair enough?’

‘It’s not quick,’ she said.

‘Can’t we find a nice quiet bar like two normal human beings and sit in it in a corner and you can tell me then? Wouldn’t that do?’ ‘No.’

‘Why in God’s name not?’

‘Because it’s about sitting in bars that I want to talk.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Of course you know what I mean Tony. I want to talk about how drunk you’ve been all the time we were in Rome. There wasn’t a day that you didn’t get maggoty.’

‘Oh, you don’t want to talk, you just want to nag. I knew there’d be a catch to it. Now why didn’t you say I want to have a nice nag at you, Tony, instead of pretending you want to talk?’

He seemed pleased that he had identified the problem. He even gave a little smile, a nervous smile.

 

Aisling’s lip trembled. She seemed to have difficulty in keeping calm. But if she wasn’t careful the whole thing would slip away as it had slipped away before. She forced a smile on to her face.

‘No, honestly, it’s talk, really.’ She smiled brightly, hoping to get some kind of a response. She didn’t.

‘No, seriously it’s talk, you know, me saying something, and you saying something and neither of us shouting … so that we can. …”

‘So that you can nag me,’ he repeated triumphantly.

‘I don’t nag you.’

‘You don’t hell.’

‘I don’t. When did I last nag at you?’

‘You’re always nagging at me, sighing and groaning and throwing your eyes up to heaven. If that’s not nagging I’d like to know what on earth is.’

‘Please Tony, just tonight, just this one night. Not a bar, not a night on the jar, just a conversation. I swear I’ll not say one word more about your being jarred. Honestly.’

‘Well what do you want to talk about drink for if you’re not going to mention getting jarred?’ he was puzzled.

‘I was going to talk about why you drink so much, and whether this has anything to do with… well with us… and what we don’t have… and what we don’t do.’

‘Ah ha, that’s it. Psychology. Analysis. A psychiatrist’s couch. Lie down on this bed Tony, and tell me all your deep feelings. Why do you need a pint? I need a pint because I godamn want a pint and I’m going to go out and have one, now are you coming with me or are you not?’

‘An hour. I’ll reduce it to an hour. Please.’

‘All right. After we’ve been to the pub.’

‘No, before. Once we get to the pub, you’ll start us talking to old hangers-on and fools and there won’t be any chance to talk.’

‘I won’t I promise, I won’t draw anyone on us.’ ‘No. Because when you do it will be too late. The night will begone.’

‘I can’t talk in here, it’s choking me… .’ Tony ran his finger around under his collar. ‘Come on Aisling, stop playing about like a child.’

‘Suppose I were to go and get us some whiskey? Could you talk here then?’ She looked pleading.

‘What do you want to say? One hour, mind. It’s seven o’clock now. By eight we’re to be in a bar.’

Aisling slipped downstairs and out the door. She remembered that there was a bar around the corner from when she had last stayed here. Her sense of direction was good. In no time, with the half bottle of Jameson carefully wrapped by a mildly curious barman she was back in the bedroom. Tony had lain down on the bed again. She poured two large amounts into the toothmugs that stood on the handbasin.

‘Your health,’ he said, almost draining his.

‘We are afraid to talk to each other about what’s worrying both of us,’ she said.

‘Go on,’ Tony said with a mock wave, as if giving her the

floor.

‘We’ve been married for fifteen months and we haven’t consummated this marriage. That’s what we don’t talk about.’

‘Oh.’ Tony looked stricken.

‘Now, I don’t know anything about anything, really. But I think it’s the kind of thing we might have to go and see a specialist or somebody about, and I wanted to discuss it with

you.’

‘A specialist… .’ Tony was amazed at the word. ‘A specialist in what might we ask? In ramming himself into people? Is that what we’re to look for? Would one of those leery Italian waiters have done? Why didn’t we think of it then? Wouldn’t that have been a great one to ask? He might even have been a free specialist. We mightn’t have had to pay him a penny. In fact he might even have paid you… .’

‘It’s very hard for us to talk about this anyway, but, God Almighty, you’re not going to make it any easier by shouting and mocking at me before we even begin… .’

‘No, I’m very sorry, let me go back, a specialist, have you found one? Is he perhaps waiting outside the door?’

 

Tony.’

‘No, go on. Go on, let me not interrupt you. You wanted to talk. Talk on.’

‘It’s not easy for me to talk, it’s a hard thing to talk about,’ ‘Ah yes, but it’s a very easy one for me to listen to….’ ‘We can’t go on ignoring it, we’ve ignored it for months now. It doesn’t work for us, I don’t know why, maybe it’s something I’m not doing right that’s

what I mean about advice. I thought all I had to do was lie there. There must be more I should be doing and I don’t know. Please can’t you see how awful all this is … ?’

‘But it’s you who want to talk about it, my dear Aisling.’ ‘And I’m trying to. I was wondering was it the drink?’ ‘Was what the drink?’

‘Could it be because we both drink so much that we don’t manage to do it right, that it doesn’t happen for us… .’

Tony’s voice was cold. ‘But how could that be a serious suggestion, my dear Aisling, you hardly drink at all?’

‘You’re making me say it, aren’t you? Listen, before we were married, you were mad to … you couldn’t stop yourself, you said. You told me that it was cruel to you not to let you. Remember? Remember? In the car. In the orchard. Remember? You seemed to think that it was easy… like… and nothing to it… .’ There was a silence.

‘And because you used to want to so much in those days and everything… I was wondering, I was wondering could it be because you drink a lot more now than you used to then? Perhaps that’s what is complicating things and making it all so difficult.’

‘Is that your own conclusion or have you discussed it with assorted people and come to this view as a result of a conference … ?’

‘Oh Tony, may God forgive you … who could I have spoken to about it?’

‘I don’t know, you spend a great deal of time out of the house, how do I know where you are and what you’re discussing?’

‘I only go out when you go out drinking. If you’re going to be home I’m always there, and then I only go down to Mam’s or over to Maureen’s. I’d prefer to be at home with you… but you’re never there… .’

‘I thought you weren’t going to nag, I remember you saying something about this not being a nagging session.’ Tony reached over and filled his tumbler with whiskey.

‘Well, what do you think we should do? I mean this seriously, please take it seriously. Do you think we should go along like this trying to pretend it doesn’t matter? Isn’t it better to face it and discuss it? We’re meant to be great friends, you and I, we used to be. Now we can’t discuss anything. I feel if we could discuss the bed thing … we’d go back to being able to talk about everything else and you wouldn’t run off on me down to Shay and the fellows, and I wouldn’t be left alone… .’ She stopped and looked at him, his lower lip was trembling. He said nothing so she went on. ‘Because you know how much I like you and love you, and how you’re the one I want, and you’re my Tony … and it’s just ridiculous our pretending that nothing’s wrong and that it doesn’t matter. …” She got up and sat down on the floor and laid her head in his lap. He patted her hair and twisted it in his fingers.

‘You always say it doesn’t matter … you know when it happens … when it doesn’t happen … you often tell me that it’s not the most important thing in the world … so I thought it didn’t matter all that much to you, now you say you’ve been pretending, that it does… .’

‘Of course it’s not the most important thing in the world … but, not being able to talk about it… that’s what’s so dreadful, and I feel sure that there’s something simple we don’t know. If we read books, say, together… .’

‘I’ve read books,’ Tony said.

She raised her head. ‘And what do they say?’ she asked.

‘They say it’s nervousness and inexperience, and that people get over it.’

‘Well,’ she tried to smile.

‘And they say that the partner should be nice and consoling and say it doesn’t matter. I thought maybe you’d read books too.’

 

‘No I hadn’t. I meant it, it doesn’t matter.’ ‘Then why are we sitting here agonising over it?’ ‘Because it matters in a different sense. It doesn’t matter in the night at that minute when it matters to you … but it matters in long term… my not being able to give you all that pleasure, you know, and children …” she stopped. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Well I suppose we might talk about whether there is any

way of making it work … and if we decide there isn’t, then

there’s a possibility that we might both be happier if we

didn’t try, seeing as it upsets us. And we might adopt a baby.”

‘Are you serious?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes. If you’re not feeling deprived and missing that whole side of life, and if I didn’t feel that we kept on failing to do something then we might both be much happier and we could choose a boy or a girl and carry on from there?’ She was kneeling now on the floor smiling up at him, as if she were suggesting they make just trivial plans.

Tony stood up. ‘You can’t expect this to be a serious discussion can you, when you come up with preposterous ideas like that?’ ‘But why is it?’

‘Utterly ludicrous … didn’t you hear what I said? If you want the whole thing spelled out, which a more sensitive person might not want, then let’s spell it out. I told you the book said it was temporary, get it? And normal? See? And nothing to be ashamed of? Right? And it passes. And it’s due to inexperience … because unlike all these fast people and sophisticated people you obviously admire so much I am inexperienced. I didn’t sleep around with the whole world. I only slept with you… .’

He stopped for a swig from the glass. ‘And, if I might add, words from your own mouth, there’s not much for the woman to do, is there? I mean you said it yourself, just lie there and wait. So I think we’ve covered most angles now, don’t you … or would you like to announce in tomorrow’s paper that. …”

‘Please____’

‘No, you had your talk, I can have mine… you have told me you didn’t mind, then you told me you did, now you tell me you don’t care if we never do it.…’

‘Tony… .’

‘Listen to me … you have told me you have read nothing at all on the subject, but you think a specialist might help us; you think that you are doing everything such as there is to do correctly and that I am not; you tell me you would like to abandon the whole purpose for which marriage was invented so that I can bring up some other man’s son. There’s only one thing you said which is right… only one thing. …”

‘What’s that?’ she whispered.

‘That you’re not going to be drunk tonight, and I am. I am going to be very drunk indeed.’ He poured the last grain of whisky into the mug and drained it. He turned the bottle upside down in the wastepaper basket. He smiled at her, a very forced, unreal smile.

‘So, would you like to join me, Madam? You are my wife after all, and a wife’s place is beside her husband … as well as underneath him.’

Aisling stood up. ‘I suppose this was our only chance of talking about it ever … wasn’t it? And we messed it up.’

‘So shall we sally forth then?’ Tony asked.

Aisling decided in two seconds’ reflection that it would be less worrying to go with him than to lie there in terror of his lurching home and waking Gretta Ross and her twelve house-guests.

‘Let’s sally,’ she said.

‘That’s better,’ said Tony, and he looked quite happy again.

Simon and Henry had behaved like a parody of the Western Brothers where one would begin a sentence and the other would finish it. Elizabeth thought that they were great company, when they took her to the smart French restaurant. They had even brought her an orchid to wear on her dress. Simon said that Henry knew a great deal about wine so they would have to sit back and listen to a lengthy discussion with the waiter. Henry laughed. ‘Simon is so ignorant about wine that once

 

someone asked him would he like red or white and he said, ‘Yes please.’

When Henry laughed he looked younger, Elizabeth thought, less stooped, less conscious of himself, less awkward. He was really at his ease tonight… mocking himself, letting Simon mock him. Sometimes he had looked rather anxious and … yes, awkward. Perhaps it was because he was so tall, his elbows and his knees seemed to stick out a bit at angles. You felt that if he fell he might break into small pieces. Or if he stood up suddenly that he might knock everything over. And yet that was unfair, he wasn’t at all clumsy, he only looked as if he might be.

Tonight his fair or light brown hair looked well. He must have washed it before he came out. It was soft and shiny. His sandy face looked eager and enthusiastic. He had pale eyebrows and his eyelashes were very light too. If he had been a girl he would have darkened them, Elizabeth thought. Wasn’t it silly the way girls always felt they had to change their faces, and men didn’t?

There was nothing wrong with Henry Mason’s face, nothing that he should change. It wasn’t very definite, that was all, you had to look hard at it to remember it.

They complimented Elizabeth on everything, on the success of the course, on her knowledge of paintings, on the marvellous party. They complimented her on what a nice house Clarence Gardens was, and they both said they liked her hair pulled up in that little pony-tail effect.

‘I think it’s rather mutton-dressed-as-lamb, I’m much too old to get away with that teenage hair-style,’ she had said deliberately.

It worked. They both cried out that she was not too old, she was very young, and it suited her perfectly.

Elizabeth thought that it was all great fun and rather silly and wondered whether other people went on like this all the time.

‘I had a postcard from Grace Miller, you know …’ remarked Simon, ‘she’s in Bangor. Apparently you’re quite a matchmaker, Elizabeth, she met that chap at your party. You know Johnny … from the antique shop … and he suggested they motor up there. Quite the love of her life he is now, apparently.’

‘Yes, fast mover, Grace, isn’t she?’ Henry said admiringly.

‘And so is Johnny Stone,’ said Elizabeth. She felt the food sticking in her throat. Motoring up to Bangor with Grace, or turning up out of the blue — which was true? Was Johnny lying … he never needed to? Was Grace lying … why should she bother to?

Henry was saying something. ‘Oh I say, I’m pleased to hear you say that. I was afraid that he was your chap. Something your stepfather said that evening….’

Damn Harry to the bottom of hell, how dare he let any information about Johnny out of the net? He should have known it was something you didn’t talk about. ‘Oh, what on earth did he say?’ she asked lightly.

‘Nothing specific, I just thought that he was — you know… .’

‘Oh heavens, everyone loves Johnny… it’s like loving fine weather … it would be churlish not to be delighted with it, or him. Now enough about that Romeo … tell me how you two Romeos escaped all these predatory female clients who must be stalking you through the Inns of Court… .’

They both laughed hugely at this and things were back on course. Elizabeth allowed herself a small excursion in her mind back to Johnny. It must be Grace who had told the lie. Johnny did not need to lie, or if he had then it was serious with Grace and that’s why the first real untruth had been told.

Mother died in November. She had a massive heart attack, they told Elizabeth on the telephone, very quick and in many ways a merciful relief. It had happened during the night and Mother had known no terror or anxiety about it. The kind voice said it must be thought of as the best solution.

Elizabeth stood in the cold hall of Clarence Gardens. It was Father’s bridge night, she had answered the phone. It rarely ever rang for Father anyway. She had been thinking about Mother at the very moment the bell had sounded in the hall, because she had been in the middle of making a

 

Christmas present list. She had paused to think about Mother and how sad it was that all she could now do for Mother was to send a gift to other people in the same hospital. It was very anonymous, it was like sending money for the black babies when they were in the convent back in Kilgarret you

wished you could see the black baby getting a present.

Now there was never going to be any kind of a present for Mother again. Harry had been told apparently and was very emotional but he would telephone later. Perhaps Elizabeth and Harry or one of them could telephone the hospital again in the morning to discuss the funeral arrangements. They were sorry to have to tell her such sad news but hoped she would see it as a very happy release for Mrs Elton.

From the front room came the sound of laughter; she even heard Father’s tone in it. Father who had laughed so rarely in that room where his wife had sat at a little desk and written letters was laughing over a game of cards with people that he hardly knew while Mother was lying dead in a mortuary chapel in the North of England. Elizabeth would not now rush into the room and throw herself into Father’s arms and they would not weep for her. Once they must have wept or been near to tears over Elizabeth… when they knew she was expected, when she was born, when she said something endearing as a toddler. They must have looked at each other and smiled or held hands then. What had happened to make it end up like this?

She thought of Mother that day at Euston. She thought of her with her eyes searching through all that grey crowd trying to find her child, and the slow look of disbelief when she saw the grownup daughter. She thought of Mother throwing her head back laughing that time when Johnny had brought the rabbit to Preston for dinner, she thought of pinning the violets on her cardigan, she remembered Mother shaking her head dismissively about Miss James back in the first school. She remembered Mother crying outside this door the day she went off with Harry, big tears falling down her face as she had said that she wished things were different… those were her words… she wished things were different.

The Hardcastles had agreed when she asked them not to bring Harry to the telephone. ‘Tell him I’ll come up overnight. It doesn’t matter what time the train gets in, I’ll take a taxi to your house. Can you leave the key somewhere for me, I won’t want to wake the whole house?’

‘Well love, just put your hand in the letter box, it’s on a string.’ There’ll be a flask of tea for you, and rugs and you turn on the electric fire as soon as you get in. You’re a good lass to come so quickly.’

‘Tell him that Mother would like him looking smart and well and he’s not to have red eyes when we go up to that hospital tomorrow,’ she said. She rang the station. Dear God would something good happen sometimes at Euston? She wrote a note to Henry Mason to explain why she wouldn’t be able to meet him the following day. She also asked him to let Stefan, the art college and the school know. Henry was very reliable, he would do that efficiently for her.

Then she wrote a note to Father … she left it in his bedroom in case some of the bridge people might help him to wash up. She didn’t want him to have to get the news in front of strangers, and she certainly did not want to be there herself when he reacted. She carefully mentioned the name of the hospital again, just in case he wanted to send flowers. She said that she would be gone for a few days. Finally she went into the bridge room and waited courteously until the hand was played.

‘Ah, tea?’ Father was pleased and surprised.

‘No, not yet, it’s all ready in the kitchen of course, but, sorry to interrupt you, I have to go away suddenly. It’s all a bit complicated. I won’t delay everyone here now explaining. I left you a note upstairs… .’ She smiled brightly around at the four people and left briskly. At the end of Clarence Gardens she saw a taxi and hailed it. She dropped the letter to Henry through the letter-box of the big house where he had a flat. It was a methodical house, like Henry himself. They would sort out the letters for the various tenants and

 

leave them in neat rows on a large hall table. He would make all those other calls for her. She had listed the telephone numbers.

She thought she saw him at the window upstairs as she leaped back into the taxi, but it would take too long to explain everything, and the letter did it better. She would see him next week.

She slept in fits and starts on the train, her head lolling awkwardly so that she woke up with an ache in her neck twice. She rubbed it, trying to ease the cramp.

‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ said a man opposite her. He had been eyeing her since she got into the compartment. Elizabeth was glad that two other men sat in the far corner. She would not like to have been alone with him.

‘No thank you,’ she replied crisply without any hint of amusement at his suggestion.

A little later the extra coat, the black coat she had brought with her for warmth as well as for mourning, fell from her knees to the floor. The man picked it up and settled it around her lap with a lot of unnecessary patting and fondling.

She opened her eyes coldly and looked at him. ‘Get back to your seat and take your hands off me,’ she said.

He laughed.

She looked for support to the other end of the carriage. The other passengers were gone. They must have got out when she was asleep.

‘Come on now, the way you were sitting, I thought you’d like a little company,’ he said. He was confident. He was really awful, Elizabeth thought, a full face and thick lips … she could barely look at him he revolted her so much.

‘I do not want company,’ she stated. ‘And if you believe I do you are wrong, and you are attacking me and I shall pull this cord.’ She had stood up and placed her hand on the communication cord… .

He looked alarmed. ‘Don’t be such a fool. Sit down. I didn’t mean any harm.’

‘Get away from me. Go over to the other side of the carriage. Now.’

Fumbling and picking up his attache case he moved.

‘Now stay there. One more move and I’ll pull the cord, and you can make your explanations to the train guard and the police.’

‘Don’t be such a bloody idiot … I wasn’t doing anything… .’

‘And you won’t do any more,’ she retorted.

He picked up his newspaper and in the dim light of the compartment pretended to read. Elizabeth sat down, fixed her clothes around her, so that the coat kept her legs both hidden and warm.

‘Are you the nervous type then?’ the man asked, relieved to see Elizabeth’s hand at a safe distance from the communication cord.

‘Will you shut up?’ she shouted at him.

‘I certainly will, crackpot. Cracked prim and prissy old maid.’

‘That’s it,’ Elizabeth said, pleased.

The week passed in a blur. There were only ten people at Mother’s funeral, and that meant only seven apart from Harry and Elizabeth and the nice Nurse Flowers. Elizabeth had taken a small bag with Mother’s Effects, as the hospital had called them. She thought that they would upset Harry too much, and even she felt she wouldn’t be able to look at them yet. The chaplain had been kind, his words were all about Going Home, and Laying Down One’s Head, and Peace. Harry snuffled beside her.

‘Violet wouldn’t want peace, she hated peace, she wanted a bit of a good time,’ he whispered to Elizabeth.

‘I think these padres have it all wrong,’ Elizabeth whispered back to him. ‘Perhaps heaven is full of good times, and Mother’s having the time of her life.’

‘Not yet,’ said Harry, picking holes in this idea. ‘Not until after the resurrection and all.’

‘Sorry,’ Elizabeth apologised, ‘I keep getting confused with the Catholics, I think they go there immediately, or maybe I’ve got it mixed up.’

‘Poor Violet,’ Harry sobbed. ‘Poor little Violet. She

 

wanted so little, she wanted so bloody little… and she never even got that.’

Elizabeth stood in the rain under Mr Hardcastle’s umbrella and wondered about love. Mother had wanted a great deal, she had wanted much more than anyone else of her time had got. It had been impossible to please Mother. Yet when you boiled it all down all she had ever wanted was Harry. He hadn’t given her any great wealth or good times, he had given her a hard life in a small shop. And while she still had her mind she had been happy there. No wonder Harry saw her as simple and easy to please. Father saw her as totally selfish and demanding … and people like Monica Furlong’s mother had always thought that Violet had to have twice what everyone else in the world had, and that included two bites at the cherry in terms of marriage. Aunt Eileen had said that Mother had been such fun at school. Oh Lord, in all the fuss she hadn’t written to Aunt Eileen. She must do that as soon as possible. Perhaps Aunt Eileen might even write a letter to Harry. Though strictly speaking she might prefer to write to Father. What the hell, let Aunt Eileen decide.

There were endless cups of tea with the Hardcastles. There were assurances that Harry’s allowances and the rent he got from the little shop were more than enough to cover his board. There were plans made for Harry’s next visit to London, and telegrams of sympathy from Stefan Worsky, and Anna, from the art college, from the school, from Henry Mason and Simon Burke, from one or two other people on the art course, whom Henry must have alerted. There was no message from George White and there was no message from Johnny Stone.

The night before she went back to London Elizabeth and Harry went out to have a meal. The restaurant was starting to decorate itself for Christmas and it looked far more festive than either of them felt.

‘I say it over to myself that it’s no different than it has been. But you know I always thought she’d get better, I thought one morning she’d wake up and say, “Harry, how ridiculous,” and it would all be all right. Now I can’t think that any more. Did you feel that?’

‘Yes,’ lied Elizabeth. ‘Yes, I did.’ She wondered why she had explained Mother’s illness to Harry so carefully, she marvelled at his inability to accept what he couldn’t bear.

‘So you’re not to worry about me down there in Fun City,’ Harry said.

‘No, I won’t worry. I’ll think of you a lot… between your visits.’

‘And how’s my mate Johnny?’

‘He’s fine. Fine,’ she said. They were both subdued anyway, her tone was not out of character with the way they were talking, but he caught the slightest hint.

‘I don’t want to pry …’ he began.

‘You don’t ever pry, Harry,’ she said.

‘But I was wondering like … when he didn’t come with you … whether anything … if it was all like it always was… .’

‘No, it’s not like it always was. You’re quite right.’ She looked at the table cloth for a long time. Harry said nothing. ‘Well, I mean he’s like he always was, and always will be. But I don’t feel the same.’

‘Ah, you’ve not gone off a fellow like Johnny? One in a million, that Johnny.’

‘It’s hard to explain. You see he doesn’t have any really special feeling towards me … you know, like you had for Mother … he doesn’t see him and me as any sort of unit. I didn’t understand it for a long time… .’

‘But you always said he wasn’t the marrying type … you knew that… .’ Harry was clearly very disappointed to see the end of Johnny in his life.

‘Yes, but I didn’t understand how light his hold on me was. I’ve been going out for the past few months with that chap Henry, you remember you met him at the party, the solicitor.’

‘Oh yes, he made the sort of speech,’ said Harry without enthusiasm.

‘Yes, he and his friend Simon Burke, they’ve been very kind to me … and I’ve grown quite fond of Henry actually… and we go to the theatre… and we go to art galleries, and oh, I don’t know where else… he’s cooked me supper in

 

his flat, and I’ve even had him to supper in Clarence Gardens when Father’s out, and once when he was there … and do you see —Johnny doesn’t mind a bit. Not a bit. …’

‘Well, are you only doing it so that Johnny will get jealous? That’s a bit silly isn’t it… ?’

‘No, that’s not it, it’s just that it would never have gone so far if Johnny had showed the slightest annoyance, he hasn’t. He’s quite happy if I say I can’t meet him on Saturday because I’m going to the Old Vic with Henry.’

‘What did you expect him to say?’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t expect him to be so indifferent… I asked him straight out… .’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said, “You know me pussy cat, I don’t tie people down,” and of course he pointed out to me that I didn’t make a fuss when he took other ladies out so he certainly wasn’t going to come the jealous lover bit. I told him that I hated him going out with other women and that I wanted him to come the jealous lover bit with me. He said I’d picked the wrong man for those kind of antics.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, nonplussed. ‘He spoke fair and honest, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, but that’s all there is to it, all there’ll ever be. The love … the hope and all that. It’s all on my side, don’t you see? There’s nothing giving on his … he doesn’t need me.’

‘So do you see him still?’ Harry looked fearful in case his friend Johnny was being mislaid in a welter of confused female attitudes.

‘Oh, I see him, I see him at Stefan’s, I see him sometimes on a Sunday morning … we go and get the papers and go to bed for the morning — I’ve always thought of that as our time… .’

‘And Henry … doesn’t he think … ?’

‘I don’t go to bed with Henry. But I’m very fond of him, he’s afraid to tell me that he’s serious about me in case I tell him I prefer Johnny. I know it sounds ludicrous, but that’s the way it is. So we’re all walking on tightropes … except Johnny.’

‘I’m sure it will turn out for the best.’ Harry patted her hand.

‘Oh yes, I’m sure it will,’ Elizabeth said thoughtfully. ‘But as in almost every walk of life, it will have to be Elizabeth White who makes the decision, what is for the best. Nobody else will.’

As it happened Aunt Eileen had heard about Mother because Aisling had telephoned Clarence Gardens one night for a chat and Father had told her why Elizabeth was away. Father had not wanted to hear about the funeral. Elizabeth said she would tell him about it if he liked, but he said no, that Mother had died for him a long time ago.

‘I got a nice note from our Mother’s friend, Aisling’s mother,’ he said in a surprised tone. ‘Very sensible and to the point. There’s one there with an Irish stamp for you too, she must have written to us both. Nice note really, not a lot of nonsense.’

Elizabeth wondered what Aunt Eileen had said that had pleased Father, because she knew it could be nothing like the great outpouring which she had received herself. Eileen remembered all the good bits of when Mother was young, and how Mother had written when Elizabeth was born and said they had never seen such a perfect baby in the hospital, and how Eileen had laughed because they had never seen such perfect babies as Sean and Maureen in Kilgarret either. Eileen begged her to remember the good bits of Mother and put aside the sad bits: that’s what she did with Sean, she always remembered him laughing and enthusiastic and giving her flowers for a birthday, and being absorbed in a book. She never remembered him fighting with his father, sulking, or worst of all being blown to bits by a mine. Try to think of her mother as someone very like Elizabeth herself, half earnest and practical and half flighty not

as a figure in a mental home. Not that.

Eileen added that Aisling had seemed in very poor form these days, just between themselves. And if there was any possible chance of Elizabeth rushing over for a visit, then it might be a wonderful time to do it. It would cheer Elizabeth

 

up after all the sadness, and certainly Aisling’s face was never known to be long when her friend was round. But Elizabeth would be very discreet and not mention this, wouldn’t

she?

It was tempting but it wasn’t possible. Time to make up at the school, at the college, at the shop. No, there was no way that Elizabeth could go to Ireland. As she was thinking that she might telephone Kilgarret the telephone rang. It was

Johnny.

Would she like to go and hear a bit of skiffle or was that too loud and cheery after all she’d been through? Elizabeth said she’d love it. She’d meet him at the skiffle club, it would be just what she’d need, take her mind off things. ‘Was it dreadful, funny-face?’ he asked. ‘Very bleak. Yes,’ she said.

‘I know. I didn’t write or send a wire, meaningless really. Just prefer to remember her as a very glamorous doll. That’s what she was when I saw her.’ ‘Right. True,’ she said.

‘Old Harry all right? Must have been a bit of a relief in the end for him? Seeing as she wasn’t going to get better?’ ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ ‘Well, I’ll see you at nine.’ ‘Great,’ she said.

The telephone rang again. It was Henry. ‘I know you won’t want to go out and be jolly and cheerful, but if you liked I could cook you a meal, and we could just sit and talk about it,’ he offered.

‘No,’ Elizabeth said slowly, ‘no, it’s lovely of you but there’s something I have to do.’

Henry was apologetic at once. He should have realised it was too soon to intrude. He would give her a couple of days. ‘I’d like to come tomorrow if you’re free,’ she asked. He was delighted, he would come and pick her up. Call for her. That was nice. Johnny didn’t call for her. She said she was looking forward to it.

She had a slight headache when she met Johnny at the club. He said he knew how to cure that and he asked for a coffee with some rum and a stick of cinnamon in it. Oddly, her head did feel a little better.

‘How does it work?’ she asked.

‘It burns the headache away,’Johnny said, taking her cold hand and leading her over to a group of people at a table. He seemed to know them all. She was introduced to them by first names and she wondered which woman he fancied now. It was possibly the small giggly one but she was married to the man beside her, surely. He had his hand on her shoulder and she wore a wedding ring. What difference did it make being married? Anyway the romance, if it was one, would not last long. Johnny held her and she leaned against him as she drank her spicy coffee.

‘It’s nice that you’re back, pussy cat,’ he said stroking her neck. ‘Are we going back to the flat later?’

‘Yes, definitely,’ she said. She must have imagined the speaking glances between them, Johnny and the small giggly woman.

She lay in his arms, and he sighed happily. She realised that this was the only reference to her sad pilgrimage to Preston — vanishing off to the other end of the country — no soothings, no sorrow, no consolations. Johnny didn’t like thinking about sad things, so he never thought of them. He had told her that years and years ago. Simple, wasn’t it?

She had a slight headache again the next night when Henry called for her, but she didn’t mention it. She was afraid he might want to call off the evening, or that he would suggest an aspirin and some hot milk, which would be so dull compared to what Johnny had thought up. He had come in and talked to Father for five minutes. Just enough to include Father, but not involve him. As Elizabeth fetched her coat she heard Henry saying, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the form, Mr White, about extending condolences on the death of an ex-wife but

I’m very sorry that Elizabeth’s mother has passed away.’

Father seemed able to deal with formal kinds of conversation like this, he probably had a lot of it in the bank. ‘Thank you, Henry,’ he said. ‘Elizabeth’s mother had a very uneasy

 

and disturbed life. It is to be hoped that she has found peace

at last.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ Henry said respectfully. Elizabeth allowed them a few seconds of silence before she came in.

‘Well, we’re off now, I won’t keep her out too late, Mr White,’ Henry said. Elizabeth felt that this is what other girls must have had, ten years ago. She had missed out on it. She never knew any courtship, boys coming to the house, dates and having to be home at certain times — it made her feel very young and happy for some silly reason.

Henry had everything ready for the meal: a tin of tomato soup in one saucepan, and four scrubbed potatoes in another; on a grill-pan he had two small lamb chops and four halves of tomato. A tray was set with a little jug of mint sauce and bread and butter already arranged on a plate.

‘It’s just simple, but I thought it would be nice for you not

to have to cook for yourself,’ he said. He looked innocent and

almost afraid that she wouldn’t approve of his preparations.

Elizabeth’s face broke into a great smile of delight. ‘How

marvellous to be waited on like this. You are thoughtful and

kind.’

Henry flushed with pleasure. ‘I just wanted you to sit back, after all you’ve been through. Tell me about it.’ He poured her a glass of wine and sat her down in front of his gas fire in the sitting room. He sat on the floor opposite her.

‘Tell me what happened… you left here on the train….’ He looked at her, interested in her and what she had been through. The sympathy on his face was genuine. He really did want to know all about it. Slowly she began to tell him… and when she told him how small Mother was, like a little shrivelled doll, and how much Harry had cried, Henry’s eyes filled with tears… and then Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears and she wept on Henry’s chest beside the gas fire for a long long time. They they both blew their noses loudly and Elizabeth went into the bathroom to dab her eyes with cold water and Henry began his laborious preparations in the kitchen and guarded the lamb chops against burning with furious concentration.

Henry had a married sister, Jean, who lived in Liverpool, that was where he was heading for Christmas. His parents had died when he was still young. His father had died the night before he was to join up in 1940 and Henry had been only fourteen. His mother had lived a life of terror and constant anxiety over the war. And then, just after WE day, she too had died suddenly. Henry always remembered the war as taking both his parents away he

could never understand why people looked back half-affectionately to all the solidarity and matinees during those years. He had no nostalgia, a schoolboy with a mother whose nerves were on the point of snapping; it was by no standard the best time of his life.

Yes, he was very fond of Jean, she was a nurse and she had been wonderful to him when he was starting to study law, she had helped support him and given him money for his fees and indenture costs, and she had tided him over until they had sold the family house and had some money of their own. Jean had married Derek and they had one small son. He was called Henry too. Henry was going to get him a train for Christmas.

It all sounded very safe. Henry would take the train to Liverpool and Derek would come to meet him: then they would collect the Christmas tree together and take it home. Young Henry would be asleep; the three adults would decorate the tree. Henry didn’t seem to know whether he got on very well with his sister and brother-in-law or not. He didn’t even understand the question. Jean was his sister, he went there for Christmas. That was that. Elizabeth felt a little foolish about her questions … they sounded like an interrogation. She had hoped that he might say that he and Jean had always been great friends, that they had laughed at the same things, and that he liked Derek enormously. Elizabeth had wanted to hear that at Christmas they sat, Jean and Henry, and remembered the good things about their mother and father, that they told each other everything and caught up on the year’s happenings as easily as if they had only been separated a week.

If she had brushed with a Christmas like this, it would

 

somehow make her own a little better. She and Father had weathered many a festive season together since Mother had left home, but it was never easy. Father would grow more and more morose as the build-up to Christmas Day continued, and by the time she carved the chicken he would be positively sepulchral. Elizabeth had learned how to cope with this: she just chattered pleasantly and inconsequentially as if she hadn’t noticed any gloom or lack of reciprocal chatter. Then the dishes were washed, and they built up the fire and listened to the radio. She did not even know what Johnny had planned for Christmas; it had never included helping her to enjoy herself, and it never would. Johnny had no family -many people might think it normal that he should come for his Christmas feast to Elizabeth and her Father. But Johnny didn’t do things that depressed him. He would let her know casually; it might be Scotland like it was last year. Six of them had rented an old crofter’s cottage and had spent four glorious days, walking and exploring the Highlands, and eating and drinking in front of a log fire. Elizabeth was wan with envy when she heard about it.

As it turned out Johnny went nowhere for Christmas because he got a bad attack of flu; it coincided with one of his little dalliances, and an Italian girl, who fancied herself as a Florence Nightingale, patted his brow and handed him drinks of water. Elizabeth called at the flat on Christmas Eve. In no way did she let the bewildered Francesca know that she was a longstanding love of Johnny’s. She behaved calmly and kindly as if she were visiting a friend. She ignored the long white dressing-gown on the back of the bedroom door, she never let her eyes fall on the clothes thrown over the bedroom chair, the make-up on the dressing table or the look of embarrassment on Johnny’s face.

‘I just came to wish you Happy Christmas, and Stefan said you were in bad shape so I did what they do in books I’ve

brought you some beef tea… .’ She laughed happily. And after a moment, Francesca laughed too. Johnny managed a smile. ‘So, Francesca can you perhaps heat this up … it’s meant to do magic things … but let’s not question what. If it’s an old wives’ tale, let’s just believe it.’

Francesca scampered into the kitchen happily to find a saucepan.

From his fevered face Johnny’s smile still looked good. ‘I didn’t know you’d come over, I thought… I thought.…’

‘I know, you thought I’d be discreet. It doesn’t matter.’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I think the worst has passed now, it will get better after this.’

Johnny reached out for her hand. ‘It will change, I promise you, it won’t always be like this.’

She patted his hand and stood up. She was very good at misunderstanding conversations, she had been doing it deliberately for years. She insisted on believing they were talking about his bout of flu. ‘You’re absolutely right, it will change, tomorrow even, it will have lessened. Of course it won’t always be like this… .’ She blew him a kiss from the door. ‘Happy Christmas, Johnny, oh, and Francesca… ?’

The tousled head appeared from the kitchen. ‘Oh … you go Eleezabett. So soon?’

‘Yes. I just wanted to say Buon Natale. That’s it, isn’t it?’ ‘Si, Buon Natale.’ Francesca was delighted. As Elizabeth walked down the familiar stairs she could imagine Francesca sitting on Johnny’s bed spooning him the beef tea, saying how nice Eleezabett was. And she could imagine Johnny impatiently changing the subject.

Henry came back three days after Christmas. It had been very pleasant, very quiet, very seasonal. Why had he come back so soon, Elizabeth wanted to know? If it was so nice there why had he not stayed until the weekend, until New Year’s Eve?

‘Because I missed you,’ Henry said simply. ‘I wanted to

see you again.’

Henry wondered if Elizabeth would like to go to dinner with him on New Year’s Eve.

‘Let me cook a dinner for you instead?’ she suggested. ‘Father will be away, there’s a New Year bridge gathering, he’s very excited about it.’

 

Henry had brought a bottle of champagne and Elizabeth had one already cooling, so they decided not to wait until midnight. They could drink one now and one then.

‘You know I’m very fond of you, I’ve become so very, very fond of you,’ Henry said at one stage.

‘I’m very fond of you too,’ Elizabeth said.

‘The problem is I don’t know quite … where I stand…

you know.’

Elizabeth looked at him, puzzled.

‘You know I’m aware, of course, that you are very friendly with Johnny Stone … but I don’t know how… .’ Elizabeth still looked at him and said nothing. ‘You see, I don’t want to be foolish and hope that you might be interested in me, if this chap, if there’s something … so I hoped you might tell me what you think.’ He looked so hopeful and eager, and almost dreading her reply. Elizabeth had never known .such a sense of power in her life, but she did not get any enjoyment from it. ‘It’s a long story …’ she began.

‘Oh, I don’t want to know about the past… that’s got nothing to do with me … heavens, no. It’s just about what you feel now … what you want.’

‘I don’t love Johnny Stone any more,’ she said. Her voice echoed in her head. It was true. Henry’s face faded from her, she just thought of that fact. She did not love Johnny. It had happened without her knowing, for the love she always carried around for him had gone and she hadn’t noticed it disappearing, it was only now that someone asked her where it was that she became aware that it was missing. She smiled at Henry as his face came back into focus. ‘That’s true,’ she

said simply.

‘Well, is it possible that you might in time love me?’ He was hesitant, unsure still. ‘I don’t want you to feel I’m rushing you or demanding you give me an answer, but if you thought

that… .’

‘But I do love you already,’ she said.

Henry was so delighted he looked like a big child. He pushed his fair hair until it stood up around his head like a halo. Up to now he had kissed her lightly on the lips when he was leaving her, now he pulled her towards him and kissed her for a long time.

‘I think you are the most wonderful person in the whole world. You are such a beautiful girl… I can’t believe you might love me,’ he said happily as he looked at her proudly.

‘You’re very good to me … no wonder I love you,’ she said.

‘Will you marry me? Can we get married some time in the New Year?’

She sat up from his arms, startled. To Henry love meant marriage, to most people love meant marriage. Henry was anxious to give up all his other chances, close down any alternative options and live with her, Elizabeth White, for the rest of his life. That’s what he was aching to do. And she wanted it too. She wanted to be safe and happy and to look after him. She wanted the two of them to be together and plan things and share things. Yes, she would love to marry Henry Mason.

‘I’d love to marry you, Henry Mason. Of course I will,’ she said.

Sean had never found conversation with Ethel Murray easy: she was one of those women who spoke so firmly that there seemed nothing to add after any of her statements. He would have escaped her this time, only Eileen was in bed. She hadn’t been herself over Christmas — she said it was all the rich food. And there had been too much work in the shop coming up to Christmas. She had determined that they would find a good girl in the New Year and pay her a proper wage. Sean had agreed, had said he would enquire around immediately after the break.

Ethel Murray called unannounced. She wore gloves which she fiddled with and she seemed very ill at ease. They talked politely about how they had all got over Christmas, the nice new priest and what a grand voice he had, just what the choir needed. They remarked that the world had come to a bad state when the poor Pope had to spend his Christmas broadcast on the wireless talking about the danger of atom bombs.

 

Finally Ethel Murray managed to get to the point. She wondered whether Sean and Eileen might have any … well, any information about how Tony and Aisling were getting on. It was as simple as that.

Sean was astounded. Weren’t they getting on fine? Had there been any trouble? He had heard nothing what

was she talking about? Had there been an incident? Ethel Murray’s face revealed that she had talked to the wrong person. She tried to back-track but now Sean was even more upset than she was. Let her say it straight out what was in her mind.

What was in Ethel Murray’s mind was Aisling’s announcement during the Christmas lunch that she intended to ask her father for a full-time job back in O’Connor’s in the New Year. Her Mam was tired and overworked and a woman in her mid-fifties who should have a rest, and Aisling had nothing to do all day so she might as well fill in the time somehow. Tony had said nothing, but then poor Tony had been a bit under the weather. There must be something wrong, and hard though it was for Ethel to broach this to Sean and Eileen she thought she would do so in confidence… and ask their advice.

Sean was moved by her distress, and even more so by her bewilderment. It was not often that you found Ethel Murray not knowing what to do. He calmed her down, he insisted they both have a seasonal nip of whiskey, he said he wouldn’t disturb Eileen now, but they would talk about it in the near future. He apologised for his own short temper, and she patted him on the knee with her gloved hand. He thought to himself that in her day she mightn’t have been a. bad-looking woman at all.

Eileen was back on her feet and up at nine o’clock mass on New Year’s Day. She met Aisling just as they were coming out the door. Aisling’s eyes lit up.

‘Oh Mam, isn’t that great that you’re well again, come on, get into the car and I’ll give you a spin back home or

better still, come up to me?’

‘I’d like that, give me a bit of peace but

hold on, let me tell one of them where I’m going or they’ll have a search party out for me.’ Her eyes went through the crowd coming out into the cold morning, calling Happy New Year at each other. She saw Donal, well wrapped up. ‘Tell them I’ve gone up to Mrs Murray’s house for breakfast. Let them eat their own without me,’ she called.

‘Fat lot you’ll get to eat up in the Murrays’ house, I’ll tell them to put yours in the oven,’ Donal called back goodnaturedly.

‘He’s only making a joke of you Aisling,’ said Eileen, tucking herself into the car.

‘He’s not far wrong,’ Aisling said and she revved up and headed for the bungalow.

Eileen was shocked to the core by the state of things. The sitting room was filled with dirty dishes, there were glasses on the table, crumbs on the floor. The gleaming kitchen which had been such a cause of envy to poor Maureen was a sorry sight. The oven was thick with grease, saucepans half rinsed but not cleaned stood around, cornflakes were scattered, the sink had not been emptied. It looked filthy and uncared for.

‘Child, you’re mistress in your own house, but in the name of the Lord would you not make an effort to keep the place a bit better?’ Eileen was aghast, she had to move a dirty dishcloth from a chair before she could even sit down.

‘Oh Mam, sure what’s the point, what in God’s name is the point?’ Aisling looked not the slightest bit contrite. ‘If I tidy it all up and clean it, he’ll only destroy it again.’

‘But Aisling … you can’t live like this … you can’t possibly. Where’s Tony now, is he still in bed?’ Eileen had lowered her voice.

‘He didn’t come home, Mam, he’ll be home around lunchtime, to change his clothes and go off down to the hotel___’

‘But where on earth is he? On New Year’s Eve, were you all alone here? What happened to him?’

‘Oh, I suppose he slept where he fell, in Shay Ferguson’s, or one of those places. He sometimes sleeps in the hotel too, I’d have thought you’d have heard… .’

‘No, I heard nothing. Nothing.’

‘So I sat here last night by myself. And I boiled some

 

potatoes that’s

that saucepan he

often feels like a few potatoes when he comes in with a feed of drink… then it got later, and I thought, well, he’s not coming home, so I’ll cook something for myself. … So there was some bacon there and I began to fry it with onions and it burned, and that accounts for that pan. And that’s yesterday morning’s scrambled eggs which he didn’t touch, and that… I don’t know, I think it’s milk for something.’

Eileen felt a wave of nausea flow over her. ‘How long have things been like this … ?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Let me see, I’ve been married for one year and seven months… or is it seven years and one month .…? About that long… .’

It was this dreamy self-parodying behaviour that snapped

Eileen out of her shock.

‘Do you have hot water in the taps?’ she asked crisply.

‘What?’ Aisling was surprised.

‘Is the immersion on? They’ll expect me back in the square in an hour’s time or an hour and a half. This place is to look

right by then.’

‘Oh Mam, it’s not worth the… .’ ‘Shut up whining and complaining get

started….’ ‘Mam, I’m not going to do it, neither are you.’ ‘You’re not crossing the door of my house again, you little slut, unless you get up off your backside this minute and get your place into order.’

‘It’s my place Mam, you said so.’

‘My God Almighty it is, and when you think of all the people who would love it, would make it into a little palace, but no, Miss High-and-Mighty-Aisling always has to know better than anyone else in the world. What your sister Maureen would give for a kitchen like this — I saw her face, you know. Think of Peggy out in a bothan on the mountain. What would she give for a house like this? But God didn’t see fit to give it to people who would appreciate it, he gave it to a self-pitying snivelling slut — yes, Aisling, that’s what you

are… .’

Aisling was shocked. Not a word about Tony, not a speck of comfort, not a motherly arm around her shoulder about

the terrible nature of men. Instead a lecture worse than any she had got when she was fourteen. Almost as a reflex action she stood up. Mam had taken off her coat.

‘Hang that up somewhere it won’t get covered in filth, and get me an apron or an overall… oh all right, get me one of your rags of dresses that cost pounds in Grafton Street, and I’ll put that on over my good outfit. Hurry up!’ She had found trays hidden away somewhere. ‘Keep clearing the sitting room, go on, keep them coming.’

‘Mam, I don’t want you to wear yourself out… .’

‘I’m not letting any outside person know the way I brought my daughter up. Do you hear me? Move!’

With a hysterical giggle Aisling thought that they must look like one of those old speeded-up films where the cops and robbers were running jerkily in and out doors.

‘The sitting room’s clear, Mam,’ she called.

‘I didn’t hear the Hoover,’ Mam shouted back.

They had it done in an hour and a half. Mam had opened all the windows to air the place.

‘We’ll get pneumonia,’ complained Aisling.

‘Better than diphtheria from the dirt there was in the place,’ Mam said.

Bins had been filled, floors had been cleaned. Mam had left five saucepans soaking in soap powder, with instructions that they were to be scoured in a few hours’ time. She had opened the door of the bedroom and closed it with a bang.

‘You have about an hour or two before you expect your husband home. Get in there and clean up that room, take the sheets off the bed and make it properly, I’m coming back this afternoon to see you and I want to see the place perfect. Open those windows if you want to before you drive me back home, it might clear the place up a bit.’

‘You’re coming back, Mam?’ Aisling said fearfully.

‘Certainly I am, you invited me for a cup of tea, and, I don’t know whether you noticed or not, we never had it. So I’m coming for it this afternoon. And I wouldn’t like to drink it from a teapot that’s all tarnished either. I got no silver teapots for my wedding, but if I had they’d be shining.’

 

‘Tony may not be here Mam, I don’t think you realise how bad it is.’

‘I don’t think you realise how bad it is,’ Mam said grimly and put on her coat to leave. Tony came in at midday. He looked terrible, Aisling thought. His suit was crumpled and had stains all over it as if he had vomited and it had been only superficially cleaned. His eyes were swollen and puffy. He smelled of drink even across the room with the draughts coming through the open windows. ‘Happy New Year,’ she said.

‘Oh Jesus, I knew you’d be sitting here waiting to nag me,’ he said.

‘No, I’m not actually, I just said Happy New Year, and I’ve tidied the place up. Did you notice?’

He looked around suspiciously. ‘Yes, yes, it’s grand,’ he said uncertainly. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’d have given you a hand… .’

‘No, it’s fine. And look,’ she led him to the kitchen, ‘shining isn’t it?’

‘Yes, great.’ He was worried.

‘Now look at the bedroom, that’s all tidied too.’

‘Oh, Ash, you’ve done a grand job. Is someone coming?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Well, Mam may come in for an hour this afternoon, that’s all.’

‘Ah yes … well, that’s grand for you. I may not be back actually. Shay and a couple of the others… .’

‘I’d like you to be back, Tony.’

‘Now, what’s this, what is all this? Some kind of court? Is Tony to be paraded in front of the O’Connors and put on trial? Is that it?’

‘On trial for what, Tony?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me?’

‘No, you tell me. I mentioned no trials, I just said I’d like you to be here when my mother comes to tea, that’s all.’

‘She hasn’t bothered herself to come up here for a good bit, why should I be at her beck and call?’

‘She’s been sick in bed for one thing, and she was here this morning for another.’

Tony’s eyes narrowed. ‘Here already? Did you tell her where I was?’

‘How could I have done that, Tony, since I didn’t know and still don’t know where you were … ?’

‘There was a session in the hotel, it wasn’t sensible to drive back, a few of us stayed… .’

‘Yes.’

‘It was New Year’s Eve … you know, excuse for a bit of a celebration.’

‘Yes I know, I heard the bells in Christ Church, they played them on Radio Eireann at midnight. It was lovely. Smashing celebration, I thought to myself.’

‘Oh Ash, I should have … but you know, you’re not all that keen on the crowd … listen, I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Good, be here at teatime. Around four o’clock.’

‘No, that’s not fair, stop tricking me. Stop it. I’ve made my arrangements. I’ve got to go out. Are there clean shirts?’

‘There are nine clean shirts.’

‘What do you mean, nine? What are you playing at?’

‘You asked me, I’m answering. The laundry comes every Wednesday. I give him seven shirts, he gives me seven shirts, that’s the way we work it. It’s called the miracle of having money.’

‘I really don’t know what’s wrong with you, Ash, I don’t. You have everything you want here … why are you always so bitter?’

‘I don’t know, I really don’t. It must have been part of my nature.”

‘So now it’s sardonic is it? Sarcasm.’

‘Mam isn’t well. She’s not looking well at all. I’d like to go back to the shop and work there to help for a while.’

‘Is this what the confrontation was going to be about? I don’t want it. I don’t want my wife working back in her parents’ shop.’

‘I don’t want my husband drunk as a fool, falling around the town making eejits of us both. I don’t want to live here alone as if I were a widow. Your mother has more company

 

than I do. There are a lot of things I don’t want, Tony Murray, and I put up with them.’

‘Now, I’m putting my foot down. I’m a married man and I won’t be made little of by my wife going back to her job. Through pig-headed stupidity.’

Aisling stood up. ‘And I’m a married woman and I won’t then be made little of by my husband saying that there’s nothing wrong with us. There is plenty wrong with us. We have not managed to have sexual intercourse yet. After a year and seven months, that is not normal, Tony. And for the last six months we haven’t even made the effort. It is not acceptable to me that I sit here and take orders from someone who is pig-headedly stupid enough to maintain that everything’s fine.’

Tony looked at her, his fists clenched.

‘So what about a bargain?’

‘What kind of a bargain?’

‘You get your way over my job. I’ll agree not to go back to work. And I get my way over the other business. We go to Dublin and see a specialist. There are specialists. We can be helped.’

‘A crowd of Americans, most likely, or worse, Irish fellows who’ve been in America, asking a lot of personal questions, getting their kicks that way … telling you to lay off the drink for a year… telling you to describe this and that. You’re not getting me up there. I’m telling you that flat.’

Aisling looked cold. ‘So, I go back to work in O’Connor’s.”

‘Yes, you win, you get your way as usual.’ Tony looked at her with his face curled into a scornful look. ‘That’s right. Play dirty. Get your way at all cost. Do what you like.’

Aisling didn’t even bother to argue. Her shoulders slumped and she said almost to herself, ‘Oh that’s totally wrong, I haven’t got my own way. I haven’t won at all. But I don’t suppose anyone on earth will believe that.’

Dearest, dearest Elizabeth,

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with your news. You must have thought that Mam and I were drunk yesterday when you phoned, we’d been sitting here talking and it had got dark … and when the phone rang it sort of brought us back to reality with a bump. I hope we sounded as happy for you as we are.

I know I was crass when I thought you meant that you were going to marry Johnny. You see I hadn’t really heard of Henry, except very briefly. Now you must sit down and write me a long letter about him, give yourself headings like we did at English class back at school no

I’ll give them to you: a) why you like him so much; b) what you talk about; c) what you laugh about; d) where you are going to live; e) what kind of wedding and where; f) do you sleep with him and if so is it nice; g) what did Johnny say?

Love from us all, Aisling