by Maeve Binchy
‘You’d end up like the Nazis if you couldn’t make your own decisions,’ Laura consoled him.
‘Sometimes they’re not right, though.’ His face was still troubled.
‘You’d never do anything unless you thought it was right at the time.’
‘And afterwards? What happens afterwards?’
Laura and Alan exchanged glances. Jim was never like this.
Alan spoke eventually. ‘Well at least it’s not like a hanging judge in the old days. You didn’t actually sentence anyone to death.’ It was meant to be reassuring. It didn’t really work.
‘No. No not to death.’
‘Will we take the dogs for a walk?’ Laura said.
They walked, the brother and sister, sprightly and strong through the fields that they had walked since they were children.
‘If I could help?’ she said tentatively.
‘No, Laura, I’m a weak man to be letting you see my black side.’
‘You’re my young brother for all that you’re a grand important priest.’
‘I’m not grand and important. I never got a parish, I never wanted one. I don’t want to take charge.’
‘Why should you, then? People don’t have to.’
‘There are some things they have to take charge of.’
She knew he would talk no more about it, and his brow seemed to clear as they walked home in the fading light.
He knew after that afternoon that if the whole terrible business was to have any value whatsoever he must cease these self-indulgent moods. What was the point of saving them worry on one score only to cause it on another? So, they had been spared from knowing that their son had killed a cyclist while drunk and had failed to stop, that had been peace of mind. Why take that peace away from them again by letting them think that he was cracking up and heading for serious nervous trouble?
In the months that followed he hardened his heart to the doubts and he fought the sense of betrayal when he sat with the only family he ever had or would ever know. He began to laugh easily at his nephew’s jokes, and managed not to wince at some of Gregory’s more insensitive remarks. The priest told himself over and over that to expect a fallible human being to be perfect was to go against the revealed word of God.
He took pleasure in the simple joy that Gregory Black’s parents got from their son. He reminded himself that in all his years of parish work he had never come across a family where there was such peace and genuine accord. Perhaps the price for this might never have to be paid in their lifetime.
He forced his smile not to falter when he saw Gregory helping himself liberally to the gins before dinner, the wines with and the whiskies after. The non-drinking resolution had not lasted very long. Neither had the girlfriend.
‘She’s too determined, Uncle Jim.’ He had laughed as he drove Father Hurley across the country rather too fast for the priest’s liking. ‘You know everything is an absolute with her. No grey area.’
‘It’s admirable in its way,’ Father Hurley said.
‘It’s intolerable, nobody can be that sure, that definite.’
‘Did you love her do you think?’
‘I could have I suppose, but not with all this black and white, honesty or dishonesty, you’re either a saint or devil. That’s not the way it is in the real world.’
Father Hurley looked at the handsome profile of his sister’s son. The boy had forgotten the girl he had killed. The ambiguity and hypocrisy of that night had literally been put out of his mind. He was driving his uncle because Father Hurley’s car was out of action, and Gregory had wanted to come down mid week, wanted to talk to his father about a loan. There was something coming up, he had heard a piece of information, the kind of chance that only comes once in a lifetime. Something he really shouldn’t know, but if he invested now. Boy!
Father Hurley felt sick that he should be allowed to receive this confidence. But then what was he except another grey-area person? Someone prepared to lie when it made sense. It was a strange visit. Gregory’s father seemed apologetic about not being able to raise the money that Gregory needed and a little mystified that he wasn’t being told exactly what it was needed for.
Gregory’s smile didn’t falter but he said he would drive out to be on his own for a while near the lake.
Laura said after he had left that it was very sensible of him to go and work out his annoyance sitting looking at the lake. She said that she wished Alan had just given him the damn money, it would all be his after their time, why couldn’t he have it now?
By ten thirty he hadn’t come back.
Father Hurley knew he was in the pub, the roadhouse out on the lake drive. He said he’d fancy a walk himself, it was a nice night. It was a three-mile walk. He found his nephew in the bar being refused a drink.
‘Come on, I’ll drive you home,’ he said in what he hoped didn’t sound a tone likely to anger his very drunk young nephew.
When they got to the car Gregory pushed him away.
‘I’m perfectly able to drive.’ His voice was steely.
James Hurley had a choice once the boy was behind the wheel – go with him or let him go on his own.
He opened the passenger door.
The corners were legion and the surfaces were not good.
‘I beg you, take it slowly, you don’t know what’s coming round the corner, there’s no way we can see the lights.’
‘Don’t beg me,’ Gregory said, his eyes on the road. ‘I hate people who whine and beg.’
‘Then I ask you …’
They were on top of the donkey and cart before they saw it. The frightened animal ahead reared and was emptying the two old men and their belongings on to the road.
‘Jesus Christ.’
Helpless they watched as the donkey, roaring in pain, dragged the cart over the body of one old man and started to slip down the bank towards the lake.
Father Hurley was running towards the cart where two children were screaming.
‘You’re all right, we’re here, we’re here,’ he called.
Behind him he felt the breath of his nephew.
‘You were driving, Uncle Jim, in the name of Christ I beg you.’
The priest didn’t stop. He had caught the first little tinker child in his arms and pulled her to safety, then the second, and with all the strength in his body he pulled at the braying donkey too.
‘Listen, I beseech you. Think about it, it makes sense. They’ll hit me with everything, they can’t put a finger on you.’
It was as if Father Hurley hadn’t heard him, he had children and cart up to the road where the two dazed old men sat. One was holding his head in his hands and blood was coming through his fingers.
In the moonlight Gregory’s face was white with terror.
‘They’re tinkers, Uncle Jim, they’re not meant to be out here without any signs or warning or lights … nobody could blame you … they heard you saying you were driving me home.’
Father James Hurley knelt beside the old man and forced him to take his hands away so that he could see the wound.
‘It’s all right my friend, it’s all right, when somebody comes we’ll get you to the hospital, it’ll only be a stitch or two.’
‘What are you going to do, Uncle Jim?’
‘Oh Gregory.’
The priest looked up with tears in his eyes at the only son of the two people who would realize tonight that perhaps life wasn’t meant to be all that good on this earth, and that some people had been too lucky.
6
MAUREEN
THE ONE THING Maureen’s mother would have insisted on had she been alive was that the funeral be done right. Maureen knew exactly what that meant. It meant that there be sufficient notice in the paper for everyone to attend, that there be a judicious invitation back to the house, not everyone but the right people. Both on the day she was brought to the church and on the following day after the burial itself.
Maureen arranged it meticulously, a last hom
age to the mother who had given her everything and had made her what she was.
She wore a magnificently cut black coat and asked a hairdresser to come to the house so that she would look immaculately groomed in front of all the people who turned up at the church. Maureen did not consider this vanity, she considered that she was carrying out to the letter her mother’s last wishes: that Sophie Barry go to her rest mourned publicly by her exquisite and devoted daughter Maureen, successful businesswoman, person of standing in Dublin.
Her mother would have approved too of the drinks and canapés served in the big drawing room, and the way that Maureen moved among the guests pale but calm, introducing here and thanking there, and always being able to remember if it was a wreath, a mass card or a letter of sympathy that had to be acknowledged.
She had nodded in total agreement to all who told her that her mother was a wonderful woman, because this was only the truth. She nodded that it was better her mother didn’t have a long illness, she deplored the fact that sixty-eight was too young to die, she was pleased that so many people told her that her mother had been so proud of her only daughter.
‘She never talked about anything else.’
‘She had a scrapbook of all your achievements.’
‘She said that you were more than a daughter, you were her friend.’
Soothing words, gentle touches, graceful gestures. Just as Mother would have liked it. Nobody got drunk and became boisterous but there was the kind of buzz about the whole proceedings that Mother would have thought the mark of a successful gathering. Several times Maureen had found herself planning to talk to her mother about it afterwards.
But then people often said that this was the case. Particularly when you had been close. And there were few mothers and daughters as close as Sophie Barry and her only child Maureen.
Possibly it was because Sophie was a widow and Maureen had been left fatherless for so many years. Possibly because they looked so alike, people read more into their togetherness than there was. Sophie had only become grey late in her fifties, and when she did it was a steel-dark grey as shiny and glamorous as had been the raven-black hair. She had been a size twelve up to the last day and said that she would die rather than wear one of those tent-like creations that so many women seem to sink into after a certain age.
Sophie’s good looks and harsh standards did not always endear her to the more easygoing in her circle. But she had what she wanted from them, their total admiration all of her days.
And Maureen would make sure that it would continue in terms of whatever needed to be done now. The house would not be sold with unseemly haste, the mortuary cards would be simple and black-edged, with some tasteful prayer that could be sent as a memento to Protestant friends too. Not something dripping with indulgence-gaining imprecations, no photograph. Mother would say that’s what maids did. Maureen would know better than to insult her memory.
Friends had offered to help her go through her mother’s things, it can be upsetting they said, it’s often easier if an outsider comes to help. Everything can be divided into categories much less emotionally. But Maureen smiled and thanked them, assuring them that this was something she would like to do herself. She didn’t particularly want to go through things alone, but Mother would never have let a stranger look at private papers in a million years.
Father Hurley who had known them for years offered to help. He said it was often a lonely business and he would be happy even to sit with her as company. He had meant well, and Mother had always liked him, she said he was a credit to the Church, nicely spoken, very cultured, knew everyone who was anyone; high praise from Mother. But still Mother would not have let him become involved in her private papers. A gentle moving sermon yes, exactly the right kind of priest for this parish, but he couldn’t be involved in anything personal. That would be for Maureen alone.
Walter would want to help of course. But it was out of the question, Walter had been kept at arm’s length during the whole proceedings. Maureen had no intention of marrying him, or of being seen to rely on him. Why then should he be allowed to be present at all the funeral ceremonies as her right-hand man? This would be giving a false impression to all those old biddies, friends of her mother, women who had nothing left to talk about in their own lives and speculated instead about each other’s children. Maureen, unmarried at forty-six, must have given them many good years of chat and supposition, she thought with a grim pleasure.
Kind courteous Walter, who was thought to be suitable for her because he too was unmarried, of a good family and had a good practice at the Bar. Maureen knew that if she wanted to she could marry Walter. He didn’t love her, and she felt nothing even remotely like love for him. But Walter was the kind of man who wouldn’t have expected love at this stage in life. Once when he was a younger man, perhaps an unsuitable dalliance or two, maybe even a real affair that didn’t work out.
Walter had his male bonding in the Law Library, he had a busy social life. People always wanted an extra man.
Mother had liked Walter but Mother was far too intelligent to push her towards him. Anyway Mother would have been the last to use the argument about insuring against a lonely old age. Look at her own years as a woman without a man. Her life had been very full.
Once Maureen had made it clear that she had no thoughts about Walter as a life partner her mother had never pushed the notion again. There had been no talk of including Walter in a bridge party, a theatre outing, or in the party made up to go to the Aga Khan Cup at the Horse Show.
Walter was kind, courteous, and could indeed after several glasses of good claret be a little emotional. Sometimes he talked of lonely roads, and sacrificing all else on the altar of one’s career. But Maureen would laugh at him affectionately and ask him to consider what on earth she and he had sacrificed. They had lovely apartments, good cars, hosts of friends and freedom to go where they liked. In Maureen’s case to London and New York buying clothes, in Walter’s to the West of Ireland fishing.
In a Dublin which more and more would have accepted such a state they were not lovers. It had been suggested one evening and rejected, with charm and elegance on each side, and broached once more in case the first refusal had been only a matter of form. But they remained two attractive single people whose eyes often met resignedly over a table, as yet again a hostess had brought them together as an inspired idea for a dinner party.
It was ironic that of all the men who had wandered into Maureen’s life the only one that Mother would have considered suitable was the one who came too late, who came along when Maureen knew she didn’t want to change her ways. If she had met Walter, a young earnest barrister in his twenties when she had been struggling to establish the shops, she might well have settled for him. So many of her friends had settled for men who they could not possibly have loved in any real sense. These were not great loves, the wedding ceremonies that Maureen had attended all through the 1960s, they were alliances, refuges, compromises, arrangements. Deirdre O’Hagan, who defied everyone and married her first love in that long summer when they had all been in London, that might have been real love. Maureen was never sure. Even though she had been Deirdre’s bridesmaid, and they had slept in the same room the night before the wedding, she had not been certain that Deirdre ached for Desmond Doyle and cried out to be with him. As she herself had cried out to be with Frank Quigley.
It was a strange friendship, hers with Deirdre, their mothers wanted them to be friends so desperately that they gave in at the age of fourteen and agreed to go to the same tennis parties, and later the same hops and rugby-club social evenings on Saturday nights.
By the time they got to UCD they were in fact friends of a sort. And they each knew that their salvation lay with the other. If Maureen said she was going anywhere with Deirdre, then Mother would relax. It was the same in the O’Hagan household, Deirdre could always use Sophie Barry’s daughter Maureen as an excuse.
That was why they had been able to go off to London
together that summer. The summer they should have been at home working for their degrees. The summer they met Desmond Doyle and Frank Quigley on the boat to Holyhead.
Maureen wondered what Frank Quigley would say if he knew that Mother had died. She didn’t know how he talked these days, whether his accent had changed, if he spoke as a lot of Irishmen living twenty-five years in London spoke, with two distinct strands in their voices and telltale words of both cultures coming in at the wrong place.
She had read about him; who hadn’t read about Frank Quigley? He was profiled always amongst the Irish who had done well in Britain. Sometimes she saw pictures of him with that sullen-looking young Italian he had married to advance himself still further in the hierarchy of Palazzo.
Frank might be so suave of course nowadays that he would write an elegant note of sympathy on a gilt-edged card. He might be so down to earth and still such a rough diamond that he would say she should have died a quarter of a century earlier.
One thing Maureen knew was that Frank Quigley would not have forgotten her mother, any more than he would have forgotten Maureen.
This was not arrogance on her part, believing that her first love would remember her with the same intensity as she remembered him, when she allowed him into her mind at all. She knew it was true. Still it was irrelevant; he might hear about it from Desmond and Deirdre, but it was hard to say whether they all remained friends still.
Admittedly Desmond still worked in Palazzo, but despite Mrs O’Hagan’s great reports of her son-in-law’s managerial promotions from time to time, Maureen had the feeling that Desmond had stuck somehow low on a scale, and that all the patronage and friendship from his old friend Frank couldn’t pull him any higher.
The day of sorting through Mother’s things could not be put off for ever. Maureen decided to go on the Sunday following the funeral. It would not take long if she put her mind to it and did not allow herself to become emotionally upset by everything she touched.
