I tried to look intelligent and concentrate on what Constance was telling me but I could not manage to forget that I was the object of fierce scrutiny.
‘Maeve was, I’m sorry to say, ah-hum … faithless. A Paphian,’ said Eugene.
‘What’s that?’ asked Flavia.
Eugene’s eyes popped with disapproval. ‘It means, dear child, a woman who enjoys the attentions of men – in their less cerebral moods.’
‘A whore, you mean?’ asked Sissy. ‘Well, what of it? You’re always so hard on us girls, Eugene. You want us to be locked up and put to hemming pinafores. What’s wrong with a little bit of fun?’
‘How well I remember when we had that frightful poetry festival.’ Maud’s eyes were shimmering with malice. ‘You blacked that woman’s eye because she asked Finn if he’d mind holding her book of lays while she took off her cardigan. Where was your sense of fun?’
‘The dirty cow!’ muttered Sissy.
This mention of his favourite subject jolted Michael from his reverie. ‘Polled Shorthorns, now,’ he mused. ‘It’s a breed for milking that can’t be bettered, only by the Kerries.’ As this remark seemed to be addressed to me I gave him a quick half-smile of acknowledgement. Perhaps encouraged by this Michael leaned sideways to put his face near mine and said in a confidential tone, ‘We’ll be putting the new bull in with the cows any moment, Miss Norton. He’s bellowing fit to bust in the shed. There isn’t an animal in Galway that has such stamina.’
I pretended to be listening to Eugene who was talking about dithyrambs to Flavia, who was reading a book. Michael took to chewing the ends of his moustache while he brooded on my face. Sissy sent me an angry glance. Surely she could not imagine that I was enjoying Michael’s attentions?
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ I announced, getting up. Again I caught Mr Macchuin’s eye. I was almost certain that there was in it something annoyingly like amusement.
I was washing up peacefully to the snores of Katty and Pegeen when a shadow fell across the soapsuds in the bowl. Michael’s shaggy head blocked out the light as he rocked gently in his boots. He thrust a letter into my rubber-gloved hand and bolted from the kitchen.
Dear Miss Norton [it said],
Hoping this finds you, etc. Would you do me the honour of stepping out with me Wednesday next? It is said you cannot do better than Connemara women for eyes and figure but I admire your yellow hair more than I can express in words.
Yours sincerely, M. McOstrich
P.S. I shall wait for your answer.
I sat down at the kitchen table to scrawl an immediate reply.
Dear Mr McOstrich,
Thank you so much for your invitation but my duties here prevent me from accepting it. Could you let me have ten [I crossed this out] fifteen tons of cow manure? I should be very grateful.
Yours sincerely, Bobbie Norton
I took the coffee into the empty drawing room, propped my answer on the tray and went to bed before the others came in.
‘Poor Michael,’ said Constance, absent-mindedly watering the path, Maria and the trug full of red- and blackcurrants as she reflected on the previous evening. ‘He looked so crestfallen after dinner. He asked me if I ever let you have the evening off.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said the terms of our agreement strictly prohibited time off except to go to church on Sundays. But I don’t know whether even that will discourage him. He’s used to having his own way.’
‘He’s not the only one.’ I was thinking of Mr Macchuin.
‘You mean my brother,’ said Constance with that quickness of understanding for which I so often failed to give her credit. ‘Ah, but I was meaning to tell you. While you were making breakfast this morning Finn gave Timsy a terrific ticking off for not walking Osgar. He was so severe I was quite taken aback. And I’m to make an appointment at the vet’s to have Maria spayed. Sissy’s out walking Osgar at this moment on Finn’s instructions.’
I felt a sense of gratification. It was enough to be acknowledged right. I would not expect anything so magnanimous as an apology.
‘Have you made the appointment? At the vet’s, I mean. Because we ought to take some of the cats at the same time.’
Constance looked surprised. ‘Cats? You mean the ones that live on the roof?’
‘There was a litter born yesterday. Two tabbies and a black-and-white. Adorable.’
I did not say that I had made a bed for their mother to give birth in in the bottom drawer of my dressing table, in case Constance thought I had taken leave of my senses. She was a poor old sack of bones – the cat, that is – with a running nose and gummy eyes, but we had put her on extra rations and she purred ecstatically most of the time. Flavia was now dividing herself between Violet’s bedroom and mine, reading The Phoenix and the Carpet to her mother (which I had recommended, knowing it to be a cheerful story) and worshipping the kittens.
‘It’s such a pity that the drive runs through this garden.’ I surveyed the potholed track with disfavour. ‘It ruins the symmetry.’
‘Until a few years ago everyone used the road through the woods. I still do, sometimes. I like driving through the tunnel of trees. It’s just a bit longer that way.’
‘But perfectly usable?’
‘Oh yes. Actually in winter it’s better because its surface has been stoned. This track’s nothing but a bohireen.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It means a path rather than a proper road.’
‘Suppose we shut those gates at the far end? Then everyone would have to follow the old road.’
‘What a good idea. But you’ll never get Timsy to go all the way round. It was he who took to driving through the walled garden in the first place.’
‘We could put a chain and padlock on them. And hide the key. And for now we can fasten them with twine.’
The gates were wedged open with tussocks of grass, stones and accumulated mud. It took us some time to dig it all away so we could close them.
‘Look at that.’ I pulled at a strand of ivy to expose the stone face of a man to the right of the gates. ‘This is a fine bit of carving. Much too good to be hidden.’
We cleared away the rest of the ivy. The face belonged to a robed figure, roughly three feet high, standing in an arched niche in the wall. Carved in the smooth semi-circle of stones above were the letters S-T-F-I-A-C. The rest had been worn away.
‘I never knew it was here,’ exclaimed Constance. ‘It’s been hidden for at least thirty years.’ She ran her fingers inside a circular hollow at the statue’s feet. ‘This is a stoop for holy water.’
‘Perhaps it’s a good omen for our project.’
‘It can’t do any harm anyway.’ Constance bent to pick the flowers of the cinquefoil that grew by the wall. She placed them at the saint’s feet, then laughed apologetically. ‘Of course it’s just superstitious nonsense but old habits die hard.’
I added some pink-splashed trumpets of bindweed. ‘And we need all the help we can get.’
After tying up the gates with an elaborate system of knots we returned to the serious business of cultivation.
‘When we go back I mustn’t forget I promised Eugene I’d order him some books from Dublin about Queen Maeve.’ Constance sprayed water on to the seed packets by mistake. ‘I daren’t ask Finn if he has anything in the library. There was what’s known as an “ugly scene” a while ago when Eugene took some of Finn’s books into the garden and forgot to bring them in. Of course it rained. Finn doesn’t always understand what it means to have so much of one’s psychic space taken up by the demands of creative composition.’
This reminded me that I still had in my possession the gardening book which must be returned at a suitable moment; that is, when its owner was elsewhere. I could rearrange the bottom shelf so that the absence of the cookery book, which I intended to hang on to, would not be noticed.
‘You were going to tell me about Eugene; how he comes to be living here. If you think
he won’t mind?’
‘Oh dear, no. He has the most open, transparent nature. And he writes poems about it all the time. Besides, he’s so fond of you.’
‘Is he?’
‘He said only this morning what a delightful addition to our circle you are.’
‘How kind of him.’ I felt guilty immediately that I generally found Eugene either absurdly pretentious or annoyingly self-centred. But now I knew he liked me I was prepared to acknowledge that there was a gentle chivalry about him that was pleasing. He stood up when I came in even if he had until that second been fast asleep. He treated me to his views on life and literature and listened respectfully to my replies. Altogether he treated me with a careful courtesy that must rarely be a housekeeper’s lot. He never shouted, raved, looked black or clenched his fists.
‘He said – what was it exactly? – yes, he perceives that you have some secret sorrow. He’s terribly sensitive to the pain of others, which is rare in a man, don’t you think?’
‘Certainly.’ I smiled but secretly I was mortified to discover that my unhappiness had been so plainly written on my face that even a complete id—someone as introspective and disengaged from the world as Eugene had detected it. I thought I had been hiding it rather well.
‘It makes it worse that a man of such rare qualities should have been so let down.’ Constance gazed into the middle distance, inadvertently watering my boots as she talked. I turned off the tap. ‘Two years ago he fell in love with a pretty young girl called Larkie Lynch. She was Miss Potato Marketing Board of West Galway and all the boys of Kilmuree were after her. Eugene asked her to marry him, although he was quite a bit older and really they had nothing in common. It’s clear now she wasn’t at all in love with him. I don’t like to think badly of people but I’m afraid’ – Constance lowered her voice though there was no one to hear us – ‘she was marrying Eugene for his money.’
‘I didn’t know he had any.’
‘Well, it isn’t much, just a cottage and a small allowance left him by an aunt a few years ago. It meant he could give up being a schoolmaster which he hated and survive financially by giving a few private lessons. The rest of the time he could concentrate on his poetry. I suppose it must have seemed like affluence to a girl like Larkie whose family has always been poor. Anyway, she agreed to marry him. The day was fixed and Eugene bought a new feather bed and had the kitchen redecorated.’
‘Making no secret of his priorities.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Go on.’
‘He planted his garden with love-in-a-mist and made a little house with his own hands for a pair of doves. He ordered a trap and a white pony to take Larkie to the church and had it garlanded with flowers.’ Constance’s eyes were full as she related these details. ‘When the day came he put on the wedding clothes he’d had made specially, copying them from a painting of Aubrey de Vere, and walked down to the church. He waited by the altar for three hours but the bride never came.’
‘That was cruel of her!’ I made an inner resolve to be kinder about Eugene in my thoughts from now on.
‘I knew you’d feel for him. When I told Finn he said what did Eugene think he was doing trying to marry a girl half his age who had no education and would bore him to death in a week. He said it was obvious that Eugene had his own libido to thank for getting him into such a mess and he’d had a lucky escape. You see, it’s what we were saying, most men are incredibly unsympathetic.’
Certainly Mr Macchuin seemed to me the most unsympathetic man I had ever met but naturally I did not say this to his sister. ‘So what did Eugene do then?’
‘He made a little speech of apology to the congregation, half of whom had already got tired of waiting and gone away. It didn’t help to have been jilted in front of everyone he’d ever known.’
‘I’m sure it didn’t.’
‘Then he went home and stopped the clocks at the hour when the marriage should have taken place. He refused to see anyone and shut himself up alone with his grief. Every day since then he’s put on his wedding clothes.’ This explained Eugene’s strange smell. ‘It’s to remind himself of the duplicitous nature of Eve. The wedding breakfast was left on the table until it was eaten by mice, down to the last currant.’
I wondered if Eugene had got the idea from reading Great Expectations.
‘Did he ever find out what happened to the treacherous Larkie?’
‘It’s common knowledge that she went to America with the money Eugene gave her for her trousseau. With Sam O’Kelly, the blacksmith’s son. Apparently he and Larkie were sweethearts from childhood. I don’t know if Eugene knows. Naturally I haven’t mentioned it.’
‘So what put a period to his solitary existence?’
‘It was Father Deglan’s idea. He thought Eugene might accept an invitation from Finn. We’re still shockingly feudal in these parts and dreadful though the food here is – was, before you came – some people still consider … You know, they like to be asked to the castle.’ Of course she was not going to admit, even to herself, that pure snobbery had brought Eugene from his hermit’s cell. ‘Eugene came to dinner last November. There was a bad storm that evening and several trees came down across the drive. We were completely cut off so he stayed a few days. And somehow he never went back.’ I thought I had kept my expression entirely neutral but Constance added, a little defensively, ‘It’s so convenient for us to have another man about the place with Finn away so much. We’re so remote. Even in Connemara there’s sometimes trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Oh, you know.’
‘You mean, the IRA?’
‘We don’t really like talking about it. But there are strong feelings. These days it’s as much about territory and political power as religion and nationalism. I hate it! It’s all wrong, so much killing and misery. But it’s in the blood of the Irish. I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever stop fighting. What would the lads do if they didn’t have secret armies to belong to and guns to smuggle and ambushes and bombs to make? They wouldn’t want to be clerks and bus drivers and insurance salesmen after all that swaggering. Ezra Pound wrote a very good poem about it.’ Constance began to recite:
‘The problem after any revolution is what to do with
your gunmen
as old Billyum found out in Oireland
in the Senate, Bedad! Or before then
Your gunmen thread on moi drreams …’
As I stood listening I tried to imagine Eugene protecting us against men in masks, with guns and evil intentions. It was not easy.
‘“I’ve got the world on a string, I’m sitting on a rainbow,”’ Liddy sang along with Frank Sinatra. We had brought the gramophone and a selection of records up to Violet’s room. ‘Mummy used to love this song.’
‘What else did she like?’ Flavia was sitting beside Violet, giving her spoonfuls of pureed strawberries.
Flavia remembered little about her mother. Though she had been four at the time of Violet’s stroke she seemed to have blotted out most memories of her childhood before then. Her mother’s sudden departure into an unreachable world must have been hard to bear.
‘I don’t know.’ Liddy lifted her thin shoulders in a shrug. ‘Cigarettes. Racing. Clothes. She had lovely things. I remember one particular dress: black lace, a tiny waist and a full skirt. It’s still in her cupboard. I’ll go and get it.’
She rushed away. Though her conscience forced her to spend time in her mother’s room, even occasionally to tend to her physical needs, Liddy was an unwilling nurse and was reluctant to talk about the time before Violet’s illness.
A sunbeam was falling directly on to Violet’s face. Because of the washing and moisturizing her skin had lost its flakiness. Her hair, formerly lank and mousey, was shampooed frequently these days and was a shining chestnut, exactly the colour of Flavia’s. I went to the window to pull the curtain across to shield Violet from the glare. Glancing idly at the view, my attention was caught by two men walki
ng in the park far below. There was nothing to wonder at in this except that their behaviour was shifty. They looked about them and seemed to be keeping as much as possible to the shadows of the trees. But when I asked Flavia to come and see if she recognized them, they had disappeared.
‘She likes this pink stuff.’ Flavia had returned to the bedside and was watching her mother’s face intently as she spooned in more strawberries. ‘When she’s keen on something she makes a special noise. Like ga-ga. Listen.’
I stood still for some time trying to detect it but could distinguish nothing particular from the usual groans, sighs and inarticulate cries. Again I had deep misgivings about the course we had embarked on. Violet had put on weight and as a result was more difficult to lift. But she must be more comfortable – if she was capable of feeling discomfort. When in the care of Katty and Pegeen she had been left in the same position, always on her back, arms crossed on her chest. Now we turned her from one side to the other every two hours during the day. The bedsores on her bottom, heels and elbows were washed and dried carefully and protected with a barrier cream. They were already looking a little less raw. I had bought bags of disposable incontinence knickers from the chemist. Instead of disinfectant we used rose water and baby oil.
All this had to be an improvement. But the day might come when we had to concede that Violet would never be any better than she was now and that our efforts to stimulate her were in vain. Liddy, I suspected, might be secretly relieved that she need no longer spend dull hours in the sickroom. Flurry rarely came anyway, preferring to work on his railway. But Flavia … I felt a sensation of dread as I tried to imagine Flavia’s reaction to such a crushing disappointment.
‘Mummy.’ Flavia bent over the bed. ‘See if you can move your fingers in time to the song. Then we’ll know you can hear it.’
Moonshine Page 42
