by Edna O'Brien
That night, when I was going to bed, Cynthia kissed me on the landing. She kissed me every night after that. We would have been killed if we were caught.
Baba saw us and she was hurt. She hurried into the dormitory, and when I went to whisper her good night, she looked at me with a sort of despondent look.
“All that talk about old Mr. Gentleman was a joke,” she said.
She was begging me to exclude Cynthia from our walks and our little chats together. I think I stopped being afraid of Baba that night, and I went to bed quite happily.
The girl whose bed backed onto mine was munching under the covers. I could hear her. For a long time I expected something from her, because I’d brought my seed cake over to the refectory and divided it out among the whole table. I didn’t do this to be generous; I did it because I was afraid. Afraid of being caught and afraid of drawing mice into my press. Hickey said that girls who were afraid of mice were afraid of men, too.
She was eating for hours. In the end I got desperate. I was going to ask her for a bit, but finally I remembered the Vicks Vapo-rub in my toilet bag. I often tasted it at home and I knew it had a sickening taste. So I reached out, got it from under my washstand, and put a small blob on the back of my tongue. It killed the hunger at once.
I went to sleep wondering if I should write to him, and wondering if Mrs. Gentleman read his letters.
10
The days passed. Days made different only by the fact that it was raining outside, or the leaves were falling, or our algebra nun got a new crocheted shawl. Her old black one was gone green and had frayed at the edges. She was proud of the new one, and whenever she took it off she shook the rain out of it and spread it carefully over the radiator. The central heating was on, but the radiators were only faintly warm. In between classes we warmed our hands on the one that was close to our desk. Baba said we’d get chilblains, and we did.
Baba had got very quiet and she was not a favorite with the nuns. She was put standing for three hours in the chapel, because Sister Margaret overheard her saying the Holy Name. She was stupid at lessons, although she was so smart in her conversation otherwise. I came first in the weekly tests and the strain of this nearly killed me. Always worrying in case I shouldn’t come first the following week. So I used to study at night in bed with a flashlight.
“Jesus, you’ll get cross-eyed, and it serves you right,” Baba said when she saw me reading a book under the covers, but I told her that I liked studying. It kept my mind off other things.
One Saturday a few weeks later Sister Margaret gave us our letters. She had already opened them.
“Who are these gentlemen?” she asked as she handed me two envelopes: one from Hickey and the other from Jack Holland. There was a third letter, from my father. It was like a letter to a stranger. He said that he had moved to the gate lodge and was happy there. He added that the big house was too much anyhow, now that Mama had gone. I made a tour in my mind of all the rooms; I saw the patchwork quilts, the homemade crinoline fire screens edged with red piping, and the damp walls painted with flat green oil paint. I could even open drawers and see the things Mama had laid into them—old Christmas decorations, empty perfume bottles, silk underwear in case she ever had to go to hospital, spare sets of curtains, and everywhere white balls of camphor.
Bull’s-Eye misses you, and so do I. With these words he concluded the short letter, and I crumpled it up in my hand because I didn’t want to read it again.
Jack Holland’s note was as flowery as I had expected. His handwriting was spidery and he wrote on ruled copybook pages. He talked of the clemency of the weather, and two lines later he said he was taking precautions against the downpours. Which meant that he was putting basins in the upstairs rooms to catch the water, and if there were not enough basins he would put old dishcloths there to soak up the drips from the ceilings. One paragraph of his letter puzzled me. It read:
And, my dear Caithleen, who is the image and continuation of her mother, I see no reason why you shall not return and inherit your mother’s home and carry on her admirable domestic tradition.
I wondered if he was going to give the place back to me; but another thought flitted across my mind and I laughed to myself. He said that he and his invalid mother were not living in our house but that he had an attractive offer from an order of nuns who wished to rent it as a novitiate. French nuns, he said. Nice for Mr. Gentleman, I thought acidly. He hadn’t written and I was disappointed.
A photograph fell out of Hickey’s letter, a passport photograph of himself that he had got taken for his journey to England. There he was, beaming and happy and very self-conscious; exactly like himself, except that he had a collar and tie on in the picture, whereas at home he wore his shirt open and you could see the short black hairs on his chest. His spelling was all wrong. He said Birmingham was sooty, with droves of people everywhere and porter twice the price. He had a job as a night watchman in a factory, so he was able to sleep all day. He sent me a postal order for five shillings and I thanked him several times over, hoping that if I said it often enough he would divine it over there in black Birmingham. I kept it for the Halloween party.
October dragged on. The leaves fell and there were piles of leaves under the trees, piles of brown, withered leaves that had curled up at the edges. Then one day a man came and gathered them into a heap and made a bonfire in the corner of the front garden. That night when we were going up to the Rosary, the fire was still smoking and the grounds had the wistful smell of leaf smoke. After the Rosary we talked about the Halloween party.
“Get the one with the nits,” Baba said to me. She meant the girl in the bed next to mine.
“Why?” I knew Baba hated her.
“Because her damn mother has a shop and the reception room is bursting with parcels for her.” The parcels for the Halloween party were coming every day. I couldn’t ask my father for one because a man is not able to do these things, so I wrote to him for money instead and a day girl bought me a barmbrack, apples, and monkey-nuts.
When the day came for the party, we carried small tables from the convent down to the recreation hall; we sat in groups of five or six and shared the contents of our parcels. Cynthia and Baba and the girl with the nits, whose name was Una, and I shared the same table. Una got four boxes of chocolates and three shop cakes and heaps of sweets and nuts.
“Have a sweet, Cynthia?” Baba said, opening Una’s chocolates, but Una didn’t mind. No one liked her and she was always bribing people to be her friend. Cynthia got lovely homemade oatcakes; when you ate them, the coarse grains of oats stuck in your teeth.
“Have one, Sister,” Cynthia said to Sister Margaret, who was walking in and out among the tables. She was smiling that day. She even smiled at Baba. She took two oatcakes but she didn’t eat them. She put them into her side pocket, and when she moved away, Baba said, “They starve themselves.” I think she was right.
“You got a hell of a stingy parcel,” Baba noted, leaning over to look into the cardboard box of mine that had the barmbrack and the few things in it. I blushed and Cynthia squeezed my hand under the table. Baba had mixed her own things with Una’s, so that I wasn’t sure what she had got. But I know that Martha told her to share with me. We ate until we were full, and afterward we cleared off the tables and the floor was littered with nutshells, apple cores, and toffee papers. Nearly every girl was wearing a barmbrack ring. Then we went up to the chapel to pray for the Holy Souls, and Cynthia had her arm around my waist.
“Don’t mind Baba,” she said to me tenderly. But I had minded. Baba walked behind with Una. Una gave her an unopened box of chocolates and some tangerines. The tangerine skin had an exotic smell and I brought some in my pocket so that I could smell it in the chapel.
“See you tonight,” Cynthia said. We put on our berets and went in. The chapel was almost dark, except for the light from the sanctuary lamp up near the altar. We prayed for the souls in Purgatory. I thought of Mama and cried for a while. I pu
t my face in my hands so that the girls next to me would think I was praying or meditating or something. I was trying to recall how many sins she had committed from the time she was at confession to the time she died. I knew that we had been given too much change in one of the shops and I said I’d bring it back.
“You will not, they have more than that out of us,” she said, and she put the change into the cracked jug on the pantry shelf. And she told a lie, too. Mrs. Stevens from the cottages came up to borrow the donkey and Mama said the donkey was in the bog with Hickey, when all the time the donkey was above in the kitchen garden, asleep under the pear tree with his knees bent. I saw him there because Mama had sent me to look for the black hen who was laying out. Every year the black hen laid out and hatched her chickens in the ditch. It was a miracle to see her wander back to the hen house with a clutch of lovely little furry yellow chickens behind her. When I stopped crying my face was red and my eyelids hot.
“What are you dripping about?” Baba asked me when we came out.
“Purgatory,” I said.
“Purgatory. What about hell, burning forever and ever?” I could see flames and I could smell clothes scorching.
“You’d never guess who wrote to me,” she said. Her voice was perky and she had a mint in her mouth.
“Who?” I asked.
“Old Mr. Gentleman.” She turned toward me as she said it.
“Show it to me,” I said anxiously.
“What in the hell do you take me for?” she said, and she went on ahead, skipping lightly in her black patent-leather shoes.
“I’ll ask him at Christmas,” I called after her, but Christmas seemed years away.
And yet it came.
One day in the middle of December we prepared for the holidays. Cynthia gave me a hanky sachet for a present, and I was awarded a statue of St. Jude for coming in first place in the Christmas examination. We looked out through the window all evening, expecting Mr. Brennan’s car. He came just after six o’clock, and we put on our coats and followed him out to the car. The three of us sat in front and Mr. Brennan lit himself a cigarette before we set off. The cigarette smelled lovely, and it was nice to sit there while he started the car and turned on lights and then drove slowly down the avenue. Soon we were out of the town and driving between the stone walls that skirted the road on both sides. The darkness was delicious. We could almost smell it. We talked all the time, and I talked more than Baba. There were milk tanks on wooden stands outside the farm gates that we drove past.
A rabbit ran out from the wall and darted across the road in the glare of the headlights.
“Got ‘im,” Mr. Brennen said as he slowed down. He got out and walked back forty or fifty yards. He left the door open and the cold air came into the car. It was nice to feel the cold air. The convent was prison. He flung the rabbit in the back. It was stretched out along the length of the black leather seat. I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I knew how it looked and I knew there was blood everywhere on its soft dun-colored fur.
When we stepped out of the car outside Brennans’, there were lights in all the front windows and there was excitement behind the lights. We ran in ahead of Mr. Brennan and Martha kissed us in the hall. Molly and Declan kissed us, too, and we went into the drawing room. My father sat in front of the big blazing fire with his feet inside the oak curb.
“Welcome home,” he said, and he stood up and kissed us both. The room was warm and happy. The curtains were different. They were red hand-woven ones and there were cushions to match on the leather armchairs. The table was set for tea, and I could smell the delicious odor of hot mince pies. A spark flew out onto the sheepskin rug and Martha rushed across to step on it. She wore a black dress, and I hated to admit to myself that she had got older. Somehow in the few months she had passed over into middle age and her face was not quite so defiantly beautiful.
“Marvelous fire,” I said, warming my hands and enjoying the smell of the turf.
“I provide that,” my father said proudly. At once, I felt the old antagonism which I had toward him.
“I keep them supplied in turf and timber,” he said a second time. I thought of saying, How in God’s name can you do that, when you don’t own a cabbage garden? but it was my first night home and I said nothing. Anyhow, I supposed that he had kept some turf banks and perhaps a wood or two at the very far boundary where the farm degenerated in wild birch woods.
“You got tall,” he said to me ominously, as if it were abnormal for a girl of fourteen to grow.
“Tomorrow’s dinner, Mammy,” Mr. Brennan said as he carried in the slaughter. He had it held by the two hind legs and it was a very long rabbit.
“Oh no,” Martha said wearily, and she put her hands across her eyes.
“That man has never gone out but he’s brought something back for tomorrow’s dinner,” she said to my father, when Mr. Brennan went down to the scullery to wash his hands and to hang the rabbit in the meat safe.
“A good complaint,” my father replied. He had no insight into the small irritations that could drive people mad.
Before supper we went upstairs to change our clothes. Molly carried the brass candlestick and Martha called after her not to spill grease all over the stair carpet. The thought of getting into a colored dress and silk stockings after months of black clothes lifted my heart. I felt sorry for the poor nuns, who never changed at all. Molly had our clothes airing in the hot press and she carried them into the bedroom.
“That’s yours,” she said, pointing to a parcel on the bed. I opened it and found a pair of brown, high-heeled, suede shoes. I put them on and walked unsteadily across the floor, for Molly’s approval.
“They’re massive,” she said. They were. Nothing I had ever got before gave me such immense pleasure. I looked in the wardrobe mirror at myself and admired my legs a thousand times. My calves had got fatter and my legs were nicely shaped. I was grown-up.
“Where did they come from?” I said at last. In the excitement I had forgotten to ask.
“Your dad got them for you, for Christmas,” she said. She liked my father and gave him a cup of tea every time he called at the house. A twinge of guilt overtook me and lowered my spirits for a second. I found it difficult to come downstairs and thank him. And even when I did thank him, he had no idea that the shoes gave me such secret pleasure. All through supper I was lifting up the big white tablecloth to look at my feet under the table. Finally I sat sideways, so that I could look at them constantly and admire my legs in the golden nylon stockings. The stockings were a present from Martha.
We had ham and pickles for supper, and homemade fruit cake that Martha had made specially for us.
“ ‘Tis reeking with nutmeg,” Baba said. Cooking was her best subject at school. She looked pretty in her white overall, rolling pastry, and her face was always coyly flushed as she stood near the oven waiting to take out an apple pie or to test a Madeira cake with a knitting needle.
“How much nutmeg d’you use?” Baba asked her mother.
“Just a ball,” said Martha innocently, and Baba laughed so much that the crumbs went down her windpipe and we had to thump her on the back. Declan ran off for a glass of water. She drank some and finally she was calm again. Declan was wearing long gray-flannel trousers, and Baba said that his bottom looked like two eggs tied in a handkerchief. He was trying to catch my eye all the time through supper, and he was winking at me furiously.
The doorbell rang, and after a second Molly tapped on the drawing-room door and said, “Mr. Gentleman, mam. He’s come to see the girls.”
When he walked into the room I knew that I loved him more than life itself.
“Good night, Mr. Gentleman,” we all said. Baba was nearest the door, and he kissed the top of her head and patted her hair for a minute. Then he came around the side of the table, and my knees began to quake at the prospect of his kissing me.
“Caithleen,” he said. He kissed me on the lips. A quick dry kiss, and he shook hands with
me. He was shy and strangely nervous. But when I looked into his eyes they were saying the sweet things which they had said before.
“No kiss for me?” Martha said, as she stood behind him with a tumbler of whiskey in her hand. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and took the whiskey. Mr. Brennan said that as it was Christmastime he’d have a drink himself, and we all sat around the fire. I wanted to clear off the table but Martha said to leave it. My father filled himself several cups of cold tea from the teapot and Baba went off with Martha to put hot-water bottles in our bed. Mr. Gentleman and Mr. Brennan were talking about foot-and-mouth disease. My father coughed a little to let them know that he was there, and he passed them cigarettes two or three times, but they did not include him in the conversation because he was in the habit of saying stupid things. Finally, he played Ludo with Declan, and I was sorry for him.
I just sat there on the high-backed chair, admiring the colors in the turf flames. Every few seconds Mr. Gentleman gave me a look that was at once sly and loving and full of promises. When at last he noticed my new shoes and my legs flattered in the new nylons, his eyes dwelt on them for a while as if he were planning something in his mind, and he took a long drink of whiskey and said it was time to go.
“See you tomorrow,” he said directly to me.
“Are you going my way, sir?” my father asked him, knowing that of course he was. He offered my father a seat in the car and they both left.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you here again,” Mr. Brennan said, as he put his arms around me. He was always a little maudlin after a few drinks. He was sleepy, too, and his eyes kept closing.
“You should go to bed,” Martha said to him. He opened the buttons of his waistcoat and said good night to all of us and went off to bed.
“Go to bed, Declan,” Martha said.
“Ah, Mammy,” he pleaded. But Martha insisted. When they were gone she filled three glasses of sherry and gave us a glass each. We sat, huddled over the fire, and talked, the way women who like each other can talk once the men are out of sight.
