by Colm Toibin
No one else was on this stretch of strand. Eilis understood now why George had chosen this lonely place. He and Jim, and perhaps Nancy too, had planned a perfect day in which she and Jim would be just as much a couple as Nancy and George. She realized, as they turned back and Jim began talking to her again, letting the other two go ahead, that she liked his bulky, easygoing presence and the tone in his voice, which came so naturally from the streets of the town. He had clear blue eyes, she thought, that saw no harm in anything. And she was fully aware that these blue eyes of his lingered on her now with an interest that was unmistakable.
She smiled at the thought that she would go along with most of it. She was on her holidays and it was harmless, but she would not go into the sea with him as though she were his girlfriend. She would, she reasoned, like to be able to face Tony knowing that she had not done that. She and Jim stood and watched George and Nancy playing in the shallow water and moving together towards the waves. When Jim suggested that they follow, she shook her head and walked on ahead of him. She wondered for a second, as he caught up with her, how she would feel if she learned that Tony had gone to Coney Island on a day like today with a friend and two young women, one of whom he spent time alone with walking by the sea. It was impossible, she thought, something he would never do. And he would suffer at even the slightest hint of what she was doing now as they arrived back at where they had left their belongings and Jim smoothed out the rug for her and, still wearing only his togs, smiled and settled himself down beside her under the warm sun.
“My father says that this part of the coast is being badly eroded,” he said as though they were in the middle of a conversation.
“We used to stay here years ago for a week or two in the hut that Michael Webster and Nora bought. I can’t remember who owned it when we rented it. You would notice the change every summer when you came down,” she said.
“My father says that he remembers your father here years ago.”
“They all used to come on bicycles from the town.”
“Are there beaches near Brooklyn?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “and in the summer they’re always crowded at the weekend.”
“I’d say you’d get every type of person there,” he said as though he approved of the idea.
“Every type,” she said.
They did not speak for a while as Eilis sat up and watched Nancy floating on the water with George swimming close to her. Jim sat up and watched them too.
Quietly, he spoke: “Will we go and try the water?”
Eilis was waiting for this and had already planned to say no. If he had insisted too much she had even planned to say that she had someone special in Brooklyn, a man to whom she would be returning soon. But his tone, when he spoke, was unexpected in its humility. Jim spoke like someone who could be easily hurt. She wondered if it was an act, but he was looking at her with an expression so vulnerable that she, for a second, could not make her mind up what to do. She realized that, if she refused, he might walk alone down to the water like someone defeated; somehow she did not want to have to witness that.
“Okay,” she said.
For a second as they waded into the water he caught her hand. But as a wave approached she moved away from him and without hesitating any further swam directly out. She did not turn to see if he was following her but kept swimming, alert to where Nancy and George were kissing and holding each other in a firm embrace and trying to avoid them as much as Jim Farrell.
She appreciated how Jim, despite being a strong swimmer himself, did not seek to follow her at first; instead he did a backstroke parallel to the beach and left her alone. She was enjoying the water, having forgotten its purity and calmness. And as she wallowed there, staring at the blue sky, kicking her feet to keep herself afloat, Jim approached her but was careful not to touch her or come too close. When he caught her eye, he smiled. Everything he did now, every word he said and every move he made, seemed deliberate, restrained and well thought out, done so as not to irritate her or appear to be moving too fast. And almost as an aspect of this care, he made his interest in her totally clear.
She understood that she should not have let things move so quickly, that she should have told Nancy after their first outing that her duty lay in being at home with her mother, or accompanying her mother on outings, and that she could not go out again with Nancy and George and Jim Farrell. She thought for a second of confiding in Nancy, not telling her the whole truth but telling her that she would soon be engaged when she returned to Brooklyn. But she realized that it was best to do nothing. She would, in any case, be going back soon.
When she got out of the water with Jim, George had a camera ready. As Nancy watched, Jim stood behind Eilis with his arms around her; she could feel the heat from him, his torso pressing against her as George took several more pictures of them before Jim took shots of George and Nancy in the same pose. Soon, as they saw a lone walker coming north from Keating’s, they waited and George, having shown the outsider how the camera worked, asked him to take shots of all four of them. Jim moved as though casually, but nothing he did was casual, Eilis thought, as she felt the weight of his body once more behind her. He was careful, however, not to move as close to her as George moved to Nancy. Not once did she feel his crotch pushing against her. It would be too much and she believed he had decided not to risk it. When the photographs were taken she went back to the rug and changed and lay in the sunshine until the others were ready to go.
On the way back to Enniscorthy it was decided that they would have tea in the grill of the Courtown Hotel, which George thought was open until nine, and they would go to the dance afterwards. George teased Nancy about how long she would take to get ready, Nancy insisting that both she and Eilis would have to wash their hair after the sea water.
“Quick wash, then,” George said.
“It can’t be quick,” Nancy replied.
Jim looked at Eilis and smiled. “God, they’re not even married yet and they are bickering.”
“It’s for a good cause,” Nancy said.
“She’s right,” Eilis said.
Jim reached over affectionately and squeezed her hand. “I’m sure you’re both right,” he said with enough sarcasm and self-mockery to prevent himself sounding as though he were trying to win favour with her.
They agreed to be ready by seven thirty. Eilis’s mother went through all her dresses and shoes while she washed her hair. She had the iron and the ironing board prepared in case there were creases in the dress they chose. When Eilis appeared with a towel over her head, she saw that her mother had selected a blue dress with a floral pattern, one that was Tony’s favourite, and a pair of blue shoes. Eilis was almost going to tell her that she could not wear this, but she realized that any explanation she invented would cause unnecessary tension so she went ahead and put it on. Her mother, who seemed not to resent being left alone for the rest of the evening but rather excited by Eilis’s dressing up to go out again, set about ironing it while Eilis put curlers in her hair, and turned on the electric drier that had belonged to Rose.
George and Jim both knew the owner of the Courtown Hotel from rugby and they had arranged a special table with candles and wine and a special menu with champagne afterwards. Eilis observed other diners glancing over at them as though they were the most important people in the restaurant. George and Jim were both wearing sports jackets and ties and flannel trousers. As Eilis watched Nancy perusing the menu and ordering her food, she noticed something new about her: she was more refined than before, taking the solemnity of the waiter’s manners seriously, whereas a few years earlier she would have raised her eyes to heaven at his pomposity, or said something casual and friendly to him. Soon, Eilis thought, she would be Mrs. George Sheridan and that would count for something in the town. She was beginning to play the role with relish.
Later in the bar of the hotel George and Jim and the owner of the hotel looked handsome and smooth as they spoke about the rugby se
ason that had ended. It was strange, Eilis thought, that George and Jim were not in Courtown with the sisters of their friends. Everyone in the town, she knew, had been surprised when George began going out with Nancy, whose brothers would never have played rugby in their lives, and presumed it was because Nancy was so good-looking and had such good manners. And two years ago, Eilis remembered, when Jim Farrell had been openly rude to her, she thought it was because she came from a family that did not own anything in the town. Now that she was back from America, she believed, she carried something with her, something close to glamour, which made all the difference to her as she sat with Nancy watching the men talk.
She did not expect to see so many people from Enniscorthy in the dancehall. Many of the dancers seemed to know that Nancy and George were soon to be married and they were congratulated as they moved around the hall. Jim, Eilis noticed, had a way of nodding at people, acknowledging simply that he recognized them. It was not unfriendly, nor was it an invitation to approach him. He seemed to her more severe than George, who was all smiles, and she wondered if that came from running a pub, knowing who many people were and managing at the same time to stand apart from them.
She danced with Jim all night except when George and Jim switched partners and then only briefly. She knew that she was being watched and commented on by people from the town, especially when the tempo of the music was fast and it was clear that she and Jim were good dancers, but also later, when the lights went down and the music was slow and they danced close to each other.
Outside, when the dance was over, the night was still warm. Jim and she let George and Nancy walk ahead of them towards the car and told them they would join them soon. All day Jim had behaved impeccably: he had not bored or irritated her, or pressed himself too much on her; he seemed immensely considerate, funny at times, willing to be silent, polite as well. He also stood out in the dancehall, where some were drunk or others were too old or looked as though they had travelled to Courtown on tractors. He was handsome, graceful, smart, and, as the night wore on, she was proud to be with him. Now, they found a space in between a guest house and a new bungalow and began to kiss. Jim moved slowly; at intervals he held her head in his hands so that he could look at her eyes in the semi-darkness and kiss her passionately. The feel of his tongue in her mouth made her respond to him with ease at first and then with something close to real excitement.
In the car on the way back to Enniscorthy, as they sat together in the back seat, they tried to disguise what they were doing but eventually gave up, causing much laughter on the part of Nancy and George.
On Monday morning, when there was a message for Eilis to come down to Davis’s, she presumed that it meant they wanted to pay her. When she turned up, she found Maria Gethings waiting for her once more.
“Mr. Brown wants to see you,” Maria said. “I’ll check if he has anyone with him now.”
Mr. Brown had been Rose’s boss and was one of the owners of the mill. Eilis knew he came from Scotland and had often seen him driving in a very large and shiny car. She had noticed the awe in Maria’s voice when she mentioned his name. After a short time, Maria returned and said that he would see Eilis immediately. She ushered Eilis down a corridor and into a room at the end. Mr. Brown was sitting in a high leather chair behind a long desk.
“Miss Lacey,” he said, standing up and leaning across the desk to shake Eilis’s hand. “I wrote to your mother when poor Rose died and we were very cut up and I wondered if I should have called as well. And I am told you are home from America and Maria tells me that you have a certificate in bookkeeping. Is it American bookkeeping?”
Eilis explained that she did not think there was any great difference between the two systems.
“I don’t suppose there is,” Mr. Brown said. “Anyway, Maria was very happy with how you did the wages last week, but we were not surprised, of course, you being Rose’s sister. Rose was the essence of efficiency and is much missed.”
“Rose was a great example to me,” Eilis said.
“Until the busy season is over,” Mr. Brown went on, “it will be hard for us to know how we are fixed in the office, but we may certainly need a bookkeeper and someone familiar with how the wages are paid in the long term. But we would like you to continue with the wages on a part-time basis and then we can speak to you in a while.”
“I will be going back to the United States,” Eilis said.
“Well, yes, of course,” Mr. Brown said. “But you and I will speak again before you make any firm decisions.”
Eilis was about to say that she had already made a firm decision, but since Mr. Brown’s tone suggested that he did not need just now to have any further discussion on the matter, she realized that she was not expected to reply. Instead, she stood up, and Mr. Brown did too, accompanying her to the door and sending his regards to her mother before he saw her out to the care of Maria Gethings, who had an envelope for her ready with cash inside.
That evening Eilis had promised to go to Nancy’s house to look at the list of people invited to the wedding breakfast and work out with her where they should be seated. She recounted her interview with Mr. Brown with puzzlement.
“Two years ago,” she said, “he wouldn’t even see me. I know that Rose asked him if there was any possibility of a job for me and he just said no. Just no.”
“Well, things have changed.”
“And two years ago Jim Farrell seemed to think it was his duty to ignore me in the Athenaeum even though George had practically asked him to dance with me.”
“You have changed,” Nancy said. “You look different. Everything about you is different, not for those who know you, but for people in the town who only know you to see.”
“What’s changed?”
“You seem more grown up and serious. And in your American clothes you look different. You have an air about you. Jim can’t stop trying to get us to find more excuses to go out together.”
Later, as Eilis had a cup of tea with her mother before they went to bed, her mother reminded her that she knew the Farrells, although she had not been in the house, which was over the pub, for years.
“You don’t notice it much from outside,” she said, “but it is one of the nicest houses in the town. The two rooms upstairs have double doors between them and I remember even years ago people used to comment on how large it was. And I hear that the parents are moving out to Glenbrien where she’s from, to a house that her aunt left her. The father loves horses, he’s a great man for the races, and he is going to have horses out there, or so I heard. And Jim is getting the whole place.”
“He’ll miss them so,” Eilis said. “Because they run the pub when he wants to go out.”
“Oh, it’ll be all very gradual, I’d say,” her mother replied.
Upstairs on the bed Eilis found two letters from Tony and she realized, almost with a start, that she had not written to him as she had intended. She looked at the two envelopes, at his handwriting, and she stood in the room with the door closed wondering how strange it was that everything about him seemed remote. And not only that, but everything else that had happened in Brooklyn seemed as though it had almost dissolved and was no longer richly present for her—her room in Mrs. Kehoe’s, for example, or her exams, or the trolley-car from Brooklyn College back home, or the dancehall, or the apartment where Tony lived with his parents and his three brothers, or the shop floor at Bartocci’s. She went through all of it as though she were trying to recover what had seemed so filled with detail, so solid, just a few weeks before.
She put the letters on the chest of drawers and decided that she would reply when she returned from Dublin the following evening. She would tell Tony about all the preparations for Nancy’s wedding, the outfits that she and her mother had bought. She might even tell him about her interview with Mr. Brown and how she had informed him that she would be returning to Brooklyn. She would write as though she had not yet received these two letters and she would not open them now, s
he thought, but wait until she had written her own letter.
The idea that she would leave all of this—the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting—and go back to Brooklyn and not return for a long time again frightened her now. She knew as she sat on the edge of the bed and took her shoes off and then lay back with her arms behind her head that she had spent every day putting off all thought of her departure and what she would meet on her arrival.
Sometimes it came as sharp reminder, but much of the time it did not come at all. She had to make an effort now to remember that she really was married to Tony, that she would face into the sweltering heat of Brooklyn and the daily boredom of the shop floor at Bartocci’s and her room at Mrs. Kehoe’s. She would face into a life that seemed now an ordeal, with strange people, strange accents, strange streets. She tried to think of Tony now as a loving and comforting presence, but she saw instead someone she was allied with whether she liked it or not, someone who was, she thought, unlikely to allow her to forget the nature of the alliance and his need for her to return.
A few days before the wedding, when Eilis had been working a half-day at Davis’s office and Jim Farrell had collected her there and they had gone for a meal in Wexford and then to the pictures and were now on the way home, he asked her when she planned to go back to Brooklyn. She had received a letter from the shipping company suggesting that she contact them by telephone when she wished to arrange her return passage, but she had not been in touch with them.
“I still have to phone the shipping company, but it will probably be the week after next.”
“You are going to be missed here,” he said.
“It’s very hard leaving my mother on her own,” she replied.
He said nothing for a while until they were passing through Oylegate.
