She needed to stay focused: Dr Viola was due to arrive on the mailboat. Eva was paying for his accommodation in the Royal Hibernian Hotel and had offered to take him for dinner in Jammets of Nassau St. It was Dublin’s most expensive restaurant, but in his letter he fondly recalled eating there once before. Eva took a bus back to Frankfort Avenue to get changed. She sat alone in her bedroom, wearing her dead mother’s rings and praying to her mother’s spirit for guidance. ‘Strive tooth and nail for the right to be happy.’
Esther arrived to take Eva to Dun Laoghaire pier. When his boat docked Dr Viola put them at their ease, expressing admiration for her pioneering work in Ireland. He made her feel valued in a way that held no furtive undertones. She waited in the lobby of his hotel while he freshened up. Two men passed whom she knew to be Freemasons. Freddie attended meetings at the Masonic headquarters in Molesworth Street. But she suspected that he was probably black-beaned from rising too high in the Masons: his fondness for drink going against him.
The exhibition space was already packed when she arrived with Dr Viola. Children ran to greet her, wanting Eva to meet aunts and uncles. Evelyn waved shyly, holding her mother’s hand. Even Donna’s parents were present, her father standing in the furthest corner staring into the distance as if studiously ignoring the vibrant colours on the walls. Then Eva realised that he was gazing across the room at the black-suited figure of Mr Shanahan. This was the first time Eva had seen Mr Shanahan since his wife’s death two months ago. His son stood beside him, a black armband denoting his observance of the appropriate mourning period. The boy no longer attended Eva’s classes: his unmarried aunt who arrived from Clare to mind him had described such classes as nonsense. But Eva had requested Mr Shanahan’s permission to display his son’s paintings, because their dark emotions were an integral part of the work conjured in her studio. She watched Donna’s father hesitate and then cross the gallery to shake Mr Shanahan’s hand in an act of silent condolence. Both men nodded, no words needed or exchanged before Donna’s father returned to his wife.
Eva turned to see Mr Durcan stand beside his eager son, scrutinising each painting with a Jesuitical gaze. Her Quaker friend Victor Bewley was there to show support, with Sean Keating and several other established artists whose presence surprised her. Some newspapers were lured along by the novelty that a professor had travelled all the way from London to talk about these unframed children’s paintings. The room hushed when Dr Viola began to speak, his tone quietening even the smallest child. His words seemed a validation of her struggle and every principle she lived by. A part of her – the generally dormant virago aspect – wanted every neighbour who slyly mocked her hand-to-mouth existence to be transported here and forced to listen. Francis appeared among the latecomers, attracting admiring glances with what Valerie O’Mahony called his Rupert Brooke looks. Hazel had wanted to get time off from the stables, but horses needed to be prepared for a jumping competition in Kildare tomorrow. Dr Viola finished talking and called upon Eva to speak. Freddie always claimed that she rambled too much. It was important to be succinct. Eva noticed a nervous young woman among the crowd who seemed to know nobody there. She aimed her remarks at her.
‘Some of you may wonder, as I did, are you fit to teach if you possess no qualifications or certificates or outward signs of being valued. But what you truly need is love. If you love children and love life and sincerely believe in the unspoiled child, you are fit to be a teacher. Begin with your own child and how you wish to prepare them for life.’
Eva glanced at Francis who smiled back. He would survive this latest heartbreak because she had taught him confidence. He would blossom and leave her behind: the cruel reality of how life should be.
‘Let your child’s inner radiance flow into every task they undertake,’ Eva continued. ‘Equip them with imagination so that, later on, they will handle every difficult situation life throws at them like they solved a problem on a canvas. They will learn to use whatever colours are available, unafraid to make mistakes when mixing them. If you produce a Monet this is a bonus. But the true teacher and parent equips a child for life, for the time when nobody can stand at their shoulder to offer encouragement, so that when they find themselves among strangers they will still be able to hold true to their character and beliefs.’
The warmth of the applause surprised Eva. People surrounded her after the speech, parents anxious to enrol children, one man seeking private lessons for his son. She had to tell him this would be impossible, although the fee he offered was more than she would earn from teaching an entire class. But money was not the point. Her work only made sense when children learned about life by discovering how to share as a group.
Francis’s friend Alan appeared at her elbow and squeezed it slightly. One silent nod was all he needed to convey his delight for her. Then he slipped away as silently as he came and Senator McGuire stood in his place, inquiring if he might bring two additional guests to Jammets and insisting on his department store paying for the meal. Monk Gibbon passed by and smiled, then frowned as the Durcan boy bumped into him in his eagerness to greet Eva. Francis chatted to everyone, holding court. But just then a sudden ache threatened to overwhelm Eva. Someone was missing.
Decades ago, on the night before she left for the Slade Art School in London, her brother Brendan promised to one day stand in a top hat and tails to greet crowds flocking into her first exhibition. But the more that art teachers in London tried to instruct her, the quicker her dream of becoming a painter died. Her intuitive talent withered under the Slade School’s competitive scrutiny, where every night she slept with a sprig of Donegal heather under her pillow to remind her of home. Maybe fate never intended her to be an artist, but to be an evoker of talent within others. This sounded absurdly grandiose, but the thought wouldn’t go away. Because if so then this was Eva’s debut show, even if she hadn’t painted a single picture. She could not prevent a memory of Brendan’s comic expression as he mimed lifting a top hat with mock seriousness to welcome imaginary exhibition goers. She felt a stab of buried pain as she wondered if her youngest brother really did die on a prisoner train or if this was just another lie propagated by the Soviets. It might be wishful thinking but Eva prayed to whatever God she could still believe in that Brendan was alive in some remote gulag, his existence concealed from the outside world. She felt so overcome by the unknowability of Brendan’s fate that she didn’t notice Max until she heard his voice beside her: he had slipped into the gallery unnoticed.
‘Your exhibition is wonderful. Did you like my poem?’
‘Very much.’
‘You’re not annoyed by it?’ Max sounded like an anxious child.
‘No.’
‘Then when can I see you?’
‘I must have dinner with Dr Viola,’ Eva said, buying herself time. ‘Then tomorrow I’ve promised to visit Esther O’Mahony’s cottage in the mountains.’
‘I know the way; I cycled past it once. Beyond Enniskerry, near the waterfall’
‘Max, listen: I need to tell you…’
Max didn’t want to listen. He vanished into the crowd. A sour-faced mother appeared in his place, complaining about her daughter’s paintings being hung too low in the corner. Eva tried to appease the woman but her mind was whirling. She had not invited Max to join her in Wicklow, but had he accidentally or deliberately misunderstood? Eva glanced towards Francis’s friends who were leaving. Francis turned to wave; his companions shouting their congratulations. Only Max kept his back turned, so intent on maintaining their secret that his attitude seemed contemptuous. Valerie O’Mahony obviously thought so and scolded Max who reluctantly granted Eva a curt nod before they disappeared.
So this was his offer. To be cherished in private and snubbed in public; made feel precious when they were alone and worthless in public. It was not a fair choice but perhaps at her age life ceased to be fair. Esther O’Mahony pushed through the throng. She was staying with Eva overnight. Dr Viola congratulated her and as the galle
ry cleared Senator McGuire gathered up his party, giving Eva no more time to torment herself about Max as she was swept up in the huddle of confident men strolling around the corner to Jammets where the doorman respectfully bowed to them.
It was midnight when Eva and Esther reached Frankfurt Avenue. She was exhausted. But images of Max disturbed her sleep. Max as she once saw him unselfconsciously stripped to the waist, when Eva called to his Trinity rooms before the theatre. Max kissing her unexpectedly at the bus stop. Max snubbing her on Grafton Street. Eva woke at three a.m., convinced that any humiliation was worth the chance to seize one moment of love. But when she woke at dawn she knew that, while Max’s youth could explain his naivety, Eva had no excuses for making a fool of herself. After breakfast they drove into the Wicklow hills: Esther remarking on Eva being uncharacteristically quiet. Eva kept imagining Max’s bicycle leaning against Esther’s cottage, with Max awaiting her decision. On the narrow approach to Enniskerry village Esther pulled over to allow a private ambulance speed past in the opposite direction. Esther laughed, watching it disappear.
‘I’d fear for your exhibition,’ she said. ‘That may be the poet Sheila Wingfield from Powerscourt going shopping in Brown Thomas. The doorman told me that she travels there by a private ambulance that must be parked directly outside the store in case she falls ill. If there was a Nobel Prize for hypochondria she’d win it. Maybe if she likes your paintings she’ll buy them all.’
‘They’re not for sale,’ Eva reminded her.
‘She’s the Viscountess of Powerscourt. Do you think such a trifling detail would stop her?’
Esther laughed again and then, more seriously, studied Eva’s face, reaching out to touch her shoulder. ‘I’m jesting, dear heart. She’s unlikely to want to festoon the walls of Powerscourt House with child art. Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I’m just flustered,’ Eva assured her. ‘All the fuss these last few days.’
They drove on in companionable silence. Yet when the car crested the steep lane up to Esther’s cottage the scene was exactly as Eva had dreaded: a black bicycle rested against the whitewashed window ledge. Esther exclaimed in surprise: ‘Whoever can that be?’
‘I think he’s…’ Eva began.
Esther’s laugh cut across her. ‘You truly are flustered if you think it’s a man, dear heart. Even with your rose-tinted glasses surely you can still recognise a lady’s bicycle?’
Eva recognised the bicycle now. It belonged to Hazel. Esther parked the car. They walked around to the side where Hazel lay sunbathing in white cycling shirts and a pristine white top. She smiled up at them.
‘What slow coaches you pair are. I managed to slip away after we got the horses over to the show in Kildare. I thought I’d cycle up and get all your gossip. So, come on, Mummy, tell me everyone who was there last night and everything that happened.’
It was Esther who filled in the details, describing the lavish French menu in Jammets. Hazel noticed how quiet Eva was and, while Esther laid the table, she quizzed her mother about whether anything was wrong. Eva didn’t know how to answer. On the journey here she had dreaded confronting Max, yet now that he wasn’t here she felt oddly deflated. She began to discuss last night, laughing with Hazel as she described the sour-faced mother surreptitiously trying to move her child’s paintings into a more prominent position. Hazel was the best of company at times like this when their true closeness came out. She made Eva forget about Max until they heard footsteps approach, just as they were about to eat. Hazel looked up as Max appeared in the open doorway in a pair of white cycling shorts.
‘I’ve seen you among Francis’s Trinity chums,’ she said. ‘You’re the American chappie whose fingernails are always covered in flecks of paint.’
‘That’s right.’ Max blushed and glanced at Eva. ‘I was out for a cycle and saw the car. I didn’t know if you folks saw the picture in today’s Irish Times. I just wanted to say how good the exhibition was.’
‘It was absolutely smashing from what I’ve heard,’ Hazel said. ‘Well, don’t stand in the doorway like a gasping fish, come in and take a seat.’ Hazel glanced at Esther and laughed. ‘I mean, we had better feed this poor chap in case the crows pick his bones clean if he hasn’t enough strength to cycle back down the mountain.’
Esther joined in the teasing. ‘Oh, I’d say he has energy to burn. Look, at the muscles in his legs and he must have fierce energy stored up inside him because his cheeks are flaming red.’
Max sat down awkwardly between Eva and Hazel. He smiled once at Eva, then looked at Hazel and never looked back. The young American did not mean to be cruel, but he was obviously so mesmerised by her daughter that he had no choice. Eva tried to flatter herself that he saw a younger version of her in Hazel. But within moments she and Esther might not have existed. Hazel seemed equally mesmerised by Max’s American mannerisms, quizzing him about Ohio and about Trinity which for her retained the mystique of the unattainable. Esther indicated to Eva that they leave the young people alone. The two older women carried their tea out into the afternoon air.
‘They make a striking couple,’ Esther remarked. ‘Isn’t he the boy you sometimes go to the Gate Theatre with? It seems strange him just arriving. Do you think he knew that Hazel was planning to come here?’
‘I suspect Hazel told Francis and Francis told him,’ Eva replied.
She hated lies but the truth was too silly. She opened Max’s Irish Times to examine her photograph beside a report on the exhibition. Maybe it was the cruel flashbulb but she looked old in that photograph, standing between Dr Viola and the artist Sean Keating. How could any woman at that age allow herself – even if only momentarily – to get swept up in an illusion? Her thoughts were interrupted by the young couple emerging from the cottage. Hazel and Max announced their plan to keep each other company on the long freewheeling spin back to Dublin. The pattern of Eva’s life was repeating. Her sister had taken her beau from her in Donegal; her son had claimed Harry Bennett in Mayo and now her daughter was taking Max. But Eva knew that Max and Hazel would turn heads for the right reasons, with Max never ashamed to take Hazel’s hand in public. On the cycle to Dublin, Max would ask Hazel if he could see her again and Hazel would agree. The relationship would not last, when Hazel eventually tired of a perceived lack of traits of dangerous machismo to make her feel that she was living life on the edge. But for now, they would feed off each other’s vitality and differences. Hazel went inside to wash her hands. Eva found herself alone with Max.
‘It’s been nice to see you,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s lovely up here.’
‘Yes,’ Eva smiled. ‘I’m glad you came.’
Max smiled back in relief. He had not made a fool of himself or said things that might haunt him. His poem had been coded and so although Eva would treasure it, its implicit plea was unclear to anyone else. They would never attend the theatre together again, but if they met on Grafton Street they could chat without him glancing fearfully over his shoulder. Eva had stolen nothing from him. Nor had she lost her dignity or made an exhibition of herself, even if she was left with the renewed ache of being alone.
Hazel emerged from the cottage. The young people mounted their bicycles, the white cycling shorts emphasising their tanned thighs. Eva kissed her daughter and with a last shout the couple set forth, laughing as they each dared the other to cycle faster, with Hazel’s golden hair blown back. Esther O’Mahony went inside to wash up, leaving Eva to sit alone on the low stone wall and watch their twisting descent until they became two white specks, darting and fluttering down the hillside like a pair of butterflies, veering apart and then coming together as they left her far behind.
Chapter Four
Wedding Bells
Dublin, 1954
Eva had forgotten what it felt like to sleep in the same room as a man. How long was it since she last woke like this to another person’s breathing? Five years – that last morning in Glanmire House when she discovered Freddie in bed with her. Since
then there were temptations, aside from the mercifully averted foolishness with Max. She had grown close to several men more suitable in age: kindred spirits who instinctively understood – like Freddie never could – her belief in another sphere of existence, parallel to our physical world, yet beyond our grasp. Men who recognised how Eva’s moments of contemplative reverie made it difficult for her to always stay immersed in the minutiae of whatever crisis preoccupied Ireland’s latest insipid Inter Party government, comprised of grey men held together only by a shared hatred of de Valera’s Fianna Fáil party.
Eva liked that these male friends were not dogmatic like Freddie or crusaders like Art – both of whom were always convinced they knew every answer, even if their proffered answers would be utterly divergent. Recently Art had mentioned a term to describe the fate of Soviet citizens who fell afoul of their government. Soviet justice was not about retribution but re-education, he assured her: enemies of the people were not sent to jail but into internal exile for periods of reflection and readjustment. Although she loved Art – who had been her great protector when they were small – Eva rarely paid attention to what he said. But his expression, ‘internal exile’ stayed with her because, while unsure what it meant in a Soviet context, it described the covert world in Dublin where she and her friends felt it wise to only converse freely behind closed doors.
Last June one such friend – by day a bookkeeper in the exclusively Protestant management in Dockrells and by night an impassioned devotee of the Austrian-born Jewish philosopher Martin Buber – invited her to his house with such secrecy that Eva suspected him of having seductive intentions. Instead she discovered how he had purchased a television and spent the previous night positioning an aerial on his roof so that, amid snow threatening to overwhelm the screen, they could watch shadowy images of the young Queen’s coronation in London. The man seemed disappointed by her lack of excitement but the ceremony’s pomp grated against her belief in the need to strip away the veneer from every experience to reach the kernel of truth found only in simplicity. Eva was surprised at his decision to stand up during the playing of ‘God Save the Queen’ and by his surprise at her disinclination to do likewise. But Eva never remotely considered herself British, even as a child before independence. She might not fit into this Dublin whose Catholic archbishop could summon a hundred thousand citizens to rally against the imprisonment of a Yugoslavian archbishop for collaborating in Nazi war crimes, but this didn’t mean she would feel more at home elsewhere. Home was wherever somebody needed her and for the past two months this somebody had been Hazel who required her help to meticulously arrange today’s wedding.
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