by Edna O'Brien
“No problem,” the manager said, and passed on the instructions to the girl in Accounts, a snibby girl, who at that time was planning to leave the place and go to England to work in a health spa. The time came, and Miss Snib, having paid no attention to the instructions she was given, sent the bill for the wining, the dining, the suite, and the Waterford bowl to the English lady—Miss Beale by name. Miss Beale, it seems, was indeed taken aback at receiving it, and doubly taken aback at the huge amount that had accrued. But being a person who prided herself on her dignity—she worked in the City for a company of financiers—she paid the bill, then put pen to paper and sent Mr. Vaughan a letter that was nicely balanced between umbrage and desire. She expressed mild surprise that he should prove to be so lacking in gentlemanly courtesy, but, being a sport, as she reminded him he had often called her, she had decided that the cost was trifling compared with the pleasure, and she went into some very accurate and fulsome detail about his hairy body on the peach cushions of her flesh, and luxuriated on the tussle waged between these two bodies—their all-night combat, and, as she said, his little black thing getting its way in the end, and then morning, which brought them not fatigue but fresh vigour, fortified as they were by a gigantic breakfast. She was glad to have paid for such a romp, she teasingly said in a postscript; she would pay again for it.
“Mon Dieu!” Mr. Conroy said, and looked up at the ceiling, where shoals of balloons were on their happy circuit.
The letter did reach Mr. Vaughan safely, and, once over his shock—having rung the bookkeeper at the hotel and made a complaint—and maybe feeling nostalgic for Miss Beale, he put the letter in his suit pocket and went on a bit of a binge. He was away for several days and nights, seeing friends up and down the country, and returned to his own house and his wife, Eileen, a sickly man who had to spend two days in bed, with porridge and cups of weak tea. Unfortunately, when Mr. Vaughan rose to resume work he was in something of a dither, having express word from his boss in Dublin that unless he got moving and got his act together and sold at least one foreign motorcar down in the windy hills of the Shannon Estuary he would be drawing the dole by the following Monday week. Mr. Vaughan dressed hurriedly and set off with the zealousness of a missioner, even on the way composing a short rhyme that would further the sales of the car. There was going to be a display of these cars in a week, and he knew how to get the public interested. The rhyme he invented was borrowed from “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and went something like:
I will arise and go down to Kinsale,
Agog in my brand-new Ford Fiesta;
I will eat fresh oysters there
And in the afternoon have a siesta.
In his haste, Mr. Vaughan forgot to remove various items from the pockets of his other suit, and he was hardly at the crossroads one mile from his house before his wife, Eileen, was reading a description of his prowess, which, after eighteen years, came as a shock to her. She lost no time. She had the letter copied on the new machine in the post office, making sure that she oversaw the copying herself, and soon after, all of his friends, plus his family, including his sister the nun, plus Eileen’s family, plus his employers, were party to the ill-fated billet-doux.
Mr. Vaughan suffered his first heart attack going down the steps of a hotel where he had presided over a sales conference that had boosted his standing—principally, it was rumoured, because of his versifying.
* * *
WHILE SHE WAS LISTENING, Miss Lawless suffered a slight shock. Before her very eyes there appeared a modern-day Abelard. It was eerie. He was wearing a black dress suit and a cream shirt with frills that reached all the way down the front, like jonquils. The suit seemed to be not of serge or wool but of silk, and the sleeves were wide, like the sleeves of a woman’s kimono. He was blond, with fair skin and blue eyes. The blue was like that glass that has been rinsed again and again and for some reason emanates a private history, a sorrow. He was obviously a man of note, because various people waved, trying to induce him to come and sit at their table, but he just stood and smiled, determined not to be stuck anywhere he did not want to be. “There’s a place here,” Miss Lawless said, but under her breath. She was not usually so flagrant; in fact, she prided herself on her reserve. Betty ran and kissed him, and Miss Lawless experienced a flicker of jealousy as she watched this newcomer squeeze Betty’s cheeks while they laughed over some little private joke they had. Miss Lawless thought that, as he strolled with Betty, he had something of the quality of a panther. She felt that his shoes, which she could not see, were made of suede, or else they were slippers, because he seemed to walk so softly; he padded through that room. Mr. Conroy suddenly referred to him, called him Reggie, and said how he knew him for the pup he was—chasing young girls, his wife hardly cold in the grave. There had been a drowning accident the year before, and this husband was now swanning about in Italian-style clothes, getting sympathy off ladies for his tragedy, leading a game life of it, flying to London twice a week, where, it was rumoured, he had a flat.
Dr. Fitz looked up and was not at all pleased at the attention Betty was giving to this Reggie.
“Too much of a blush in that woman’s cheek,” Dr. Fitz said as he looked after them, and then he turned to Miss Lawless to tell her about the day Betty’s husband had left her and how he, he was the one to hold her hand. A party of them were just getting on the jet to go to Spain when the husband—John was his name—suddenly said to Betty, “You go on ahead. I’ve decided it would be better if we lived apart.” Here Dr. Fitz hesitated in order for Miss Lawless to take in the brutal significance of the remark, which indeed she did. He then painted a picture of Betty, the pretty and ever-cheerful wife who dressed always as her prominent husband liked her to dress, which was smartly; who rode to hounds at her husband’s wish; who rarely complained if he failed to turn up at a theatre or a concert; who organized lunches, dinners, breakfasts for fifty or more at the last minute; and who even overcame her fear of skiing—all for his sake. Betty, suddenly a husbandless, stranded woman. Dr. Fitz dilated further on the pity of it, the shock the poor woman got, and how she went berserk on the little plane en route, going mad up there in the filtered atmosphere, with the pilot wondering whether he should turn back or keep going or what.
“If I’d had an injection with me,” Dr. Fitz said, lamenting even now how he had set out that day without his doctor’s bag—a thing he had never done since. He described again the plane soaring through the cloudless upper atmosphere, having to undo the buttons of her blouse, having to undo her shoes, holding her down, telling her that the whole thing was a bad dream from which she would one day awaken.
“You two are like a pair at confession,” Sinead called across the table rather sneeringly. Dr. Fitz went on talking to Miss Lawless, ignoring the gibe. Sinead, who hoped to marry Dr. Fitz, had thought for a few weeks now that she was pregnant, and knew that if she was she would keep it a secret until it was no longer possible to abort. She would then use every trump card of sentiment and religion to make him ashamed of even the word “abortion.” She believed she was doing good by keeping this pregnancy a secret. Marriage would steady him. He still had the schoolboy notion of winning over every new female, which he was now trying to do with Miss Lawless, for which Sinead could happily wring her white neck with its collar of gold. Yes, a baby would settle him, preferably a boy.
* * *
MISS LAWLESS DID NOT LOOK BACK after Abelard and Betty to see where he was being seated, as that would have been too noticeable. The fact that this stranger was in the room was enough for her and made her think, with a wan smile, how slender, how delicate, people’s dreams are. Suddenly her lips, her fingers, the follicles of her hair began to tingle, and she knew that if she looked into her little tortoiseshell mirror the pupils of her eyes would be dark and glistening. That was how it always was when she admired someone, and she had not seen anyone she admired for a long time. Her excitement was utter.
“Your eyes are like rhinestones,”
Mr. Conroy said to her, but he believed it was the general gaiety that made her look like that. As for himself, he was thinking that, with the help of God, he would take her home, and on the way he would suggest that they have another sea breeze; out there, with the dark sea, the misty emptiness, and the Hill of Howth, with its rhododendrons about to burgeon, who knew? He did not think she would go the whole hog, but he felt she would yield to a kiss, and to kiss Miss Lawless was a lifelong dream. Miss Lawless and Nicola had caused him many a sleepless night. He had a pinup of each of them in his mind, constantly, these opposite girls—Nicola so dazzling, with her veils and her husky voice, Nicola so sophisticated, and Miss Lawless so shy and so awkward, with that big crop of hair and a bosom that swelled under her shabby clothes, the man’s dress scarf with the fringing, which she wore for glamour, and her always spouting snatches of poetry to layabouts and drunkards who had only the one interest in her. To kiss her would be the realization of a dream and, as he thought, maybe a disappointment at that. He well knew that emotions often blur pleasure, especially for a man. He had been married, but had buried his wife some years before. It had not been a happy marriage, and he often thought that an excess of emotions was at the root of it. “Too much love,” he often said to those who sympathized with him on the untimely death.
* * *
SINEAD, NOW QUITE TIPSY, was becoming even more miffed with the doctor for the way he concentrated so utterly on Miss Lawless, and so she piped up and asked him if he loved her.
“Never say soft things to a woman or it will be thrown back at you,” Dr. Fitz shouted. Young Mr. Gogarty had to agree. Mr. Gogarty had his own reason to be disenchanted with the opposite sex. There he was, a divorced man, quite well off, taking women to the theatre, giving them pâté-de-foie-gras picnics on luxury trains, taking them to Glyndebourne to hear opera, and all he got when he brought them home to their front doors at midnight was a peck.
“Jesus, there’s the queer one,” Dot the Florist said, and they all looked up and saw standing in the doorway a strange creature who looked around, gaped, appearing to be deaf, blind, and listless. The newcomer had cropped hair and was wearing a miniskirt and a big woollen sweater. It was clear she had just come through the open front door, and Mr. Gogarty remarked that it was shocking altogether that no member of the staff had impeded her.
All eyes were on this strange girl, some even supposing that maybe she was invited as part of the entertainment. Miss Lawless felt pity for her. There was something so trusting about her, so simple, as she looked around with her big grey sheeplike eyes, mesmerized by the crowd and the balloons and the orchestra and, now, the huge bowls of pink confection that waitresses were carrying about, along with plates of sugared biscuits that were shaped like thumbs and caramelized at the edges. Why not give her one, Miss Lawless thought.
“It’s a damn shame,” Dr. Fitz said, and castigated those outside who had let her in, because in his opinion she had put a kind of shadow on the room, as if she augured some trouble. Mr. Conroy said they shouldn’t worry unduly, because although the girl looked a bit odd she was no trouble at all; she often called at his hotel for a gaze, especially when any notables came to stay and the red carpet was out. She walked the city all day and half the night, but never begged and never said a brazen thing. He went on to say that it was a tragedy, really, because the girl had come from a good family, and that her aunt had been a certain Madame Georgette, who made corsets and had a shop in Dame Street. It seems that the girl had been orphaned and the Sisters of Charity had taken her in, but that her particular quirk was to keep walking, always walking, as if looking for something. This sent a shiver through Miss Lawless. The strange girl stared into the room intensely and then made as if to move forward to join the party. A waiter stopped her. He was joined by two waitresses, who spoke to her quietly. Then the waiter reached up and took down a big silver kidney-shaped balloon and handed it to her, and she clutched it in her arms as if it were a baby as she moved off.
* * *
ONCE AGAIN DR. FITZ ASKED them to consider the pluck and individuality of Betty. He said that nobody would believe it, but that he could assure them that that very afternoon Betty had stood beside her errant husband after his horse won and had accepted the trophy with him. He then leaned across and said that he could tell them something that would shake them. She had not only accepted the trophy with her husband but had gone to the champagne bar with him to have a drink.
“You’re not serious,” Mr. Conroy said.
“God strike me dead. I saw them,” Dr. Fitz said, whereupon Sinead tackled him, said she had not known he had been to the races and asked him in an inflamed manner to account for himself. Then it was why hadn’t he taken her, why had he lied, why had he pretended to be doing his hospital rounds when in fact he was drinking and gallivanting. “I’m not putting up with this,” she said, her voice cracking.
“No one’s asking you to,” he said, but by his expression he was saying much else, such as do not humiliate me in front of these people and do not make a fool of yourself.
She was asking loudly if it was with Betty he went to the races, and now it was dawning on her that maybe Betty’s friendship with her was also to be questioned, was another part of the grand deceit. Suddenly, unable to contain herself, she rooted in her crocodile handbag and flourished the first love letter that he had ever written to her. It was on ruled paper and had been folded over many times. The colour in his face was beetroot as he reached across and tried to grab the letter from her. They grappled for it, Sinead grasping the greater part of it as she rose and ran through the room crying.
“Ah, it’s the hors d’oeuvres that’s at her,” Bill the Barrow Boy said, meaning the nerves. But he was the one to get up and follow her, because he pitied her on account of the story she had told them about losing that baby. He caught up with her at the doorway and dragged her back onto the dance floor, where people were already dancing. Betty waltzed with the Meat Baron, her head lolling on his shoulder, and Dot the Florist feared that, after all, the Meat Baron might not be the one, that she might have to look elsewhere. Dr. Fitz, feeling that it was necessary to apologize somewhat to the people at the table, said that Sinead had a good heart, and that all the beggars in Grafton Street knew her and chased after her, but that she should never touch drink. To himself he was thinking that, yes, admittedly he had befriended her after her husband’s death, and it was true that he had fallen for that soft swaying bottom of hers and the plait of black shiny hair that she sucked on, but it was also true that she had changed and had got possessive, and now, as far as he was concerned, it was two evenings a week in bed and no questions asked.
All this time, Eileen Vaughan kept looking around the table wondering if at any moment someone would throw a word to her. None of them liked her, she knew that. Hard, hard was what they thought she was. Yet the day her world fell apart, the day she lost her last ounce of faith in her husband, what had she done? She had drawn the curtains in her bedroom, the mauve curtains that she had sewn herself; she had lain on the floor and cried out to her Maker, cursing not the errant husband but herself for being the sour, hard fossil of a woman that she was, for never throwing him a word of kindness, and for not being able to express an endearment except through gruffness. She had prayed with all her heart and soul for a seizure to finish her off, but she just grew thinner and thinner, and tighter and tighter, like a bottle brush.
* * *
AT THAT VERY MOMENT, Miss Lawless was picked up from her chair and swept away from her own group. One of the ladies who had picked her up told her that she was asking her to another table to meet an eligible bachelor. In fact, it was this new Abelard. He did not turn to greet Miss Lawless when she sat down, but she saw immediately that she was right about his eyes—they were a washed blue and they conveyed both coldness and hurt. His voice was very low and when he did turn to address her his manner was detached.
“I suppose you know my whole history,” he said, a little c
risply. Miss Lawless lied and said that she did not, and Dublin being Dublin, he disbelieved her but began anyway to tell her how he had lost his wife less than a year before, and while listening to the story and falling a little under his spell Miss Lawless was also wondering if he was not a cold fish indeed. Although there were shades of her first Abelard, he was a more ruthless man, and she could see that he would be at home in any gathering—had sufficient a smile and sufficient a tan and sufficient savoir-faire to belong anywhere. He recounted, with a candidness that made her shudder, the terrible accident and the celebrated funeral that he himself had arranged. It had happened over a year ago. It was winter, and his wife, who was always restless, had decided to go riding. There had been a heavy storm, and the fields were flooded and many boughs had fallen from the trees, but as soon as the storm lifted she had decided on this outing. He had rung her from his office and she had told him that she was about to set out with her friend. She went and, as he said, never came back. Mystery and conjecture naturally clouded the incident but, he was telling Miss Lawless, as far as he was concerned she and her friend had decided to ford a stream that normally would be shallow but owing to the storm had swelled to the proportions of a sea; that the horses had baulked; that one of the riders, her companion, was thrown and his wife had jumped down to try and rescue her. In their heavy gear, both women had been carried away. The horses, meanwhile, crossed the stream and galloped hither and thither over watery fields into other parts of the country and were not traced until nightfall. He said that he knew about it before he was actually told; felt creepy while driving across the wooden bridge that led to his house, going into his house, and finding two of his children watching television with as yet no signs of emergency. Then darkness fell and the groom came into the hallway in a great state to say riderless horses had been seen. It was like a ghost story. He became animated as he described the funeral, the dignitaries that came, a song that a famous singer had composed and sang in the church, and then the fabulous party that he threw afterwards. As he was telling her this, Miss Lawless was thinking two opposite things. She thought about how grief sometimes makes people practical and frenetic arrangements keep them from losing their grip; but she also thought that he had dwelt unduly on the party, the dignitaries, and the newly composed song. He told how he had not lost his composure—not once—and how at three in the morning he and a few close friends sat in the den and reminisced.
