by Anita Shreve
She stood up and walked to the mirror-fronted wardrobe and opened the doors.
The clothes were Muire’s, not Jack’s. Long black pants, wool skirts. Cotton shirts, linen blouses. A fur coat. Her hand felt, in her search, what she thought was a silk blouse. Parting the hangers, she discovered that it was not a blouse but a robe, an ankle-length silk robe with a tasseled sash. An exceptional garment of deep sapphire. Trembling slightly, she lifted the neck of the robe away from the hanger and looked at the label.
Bergdorf Goodman.
She had known that it would be.
She moved through the bedroom to the bathroom, noting everything, as if this were a house she might one day buy.
On the hook by the tub was a man’s maroon flannel robe. Jack had not worn a robe at home. Inside the medicine cabinet, she found a razor and a hairbrush. There was a bottle of English cologne that was not familiar to her. Inspecting the brush, Kathryn found short black hairs.
She stared for a long time at the brush.
She had seen enough.
She wanted to get out of the house now. She shut the door to the master bedroom. Downstairs, she could still hear Muire Boland on the phone, the voice somewhat louder now, as though she might be arguing. Kathryn passed the open door of the girl’s room. Dierdre lay on the bed on her stomach, her chin in her hands, the same remarkably solemn expression on her face. She wore a long-sleeved blue T-shirt and a pair of overalls. Blue ankle socks. So absorbed was the child in her program that at first she did not notice the stranger in her doorway.
“Hello,” Kathryn said.
The girl glanced in her direction, then turned on her side to contemplate this new person.
“What are you watching?” Kathryn asked.
“Danger Mouse.”
“I’ve seen that. They used to show it in America. My daughter used to like Road Runner. But she’s bigger now. She’s almost as tall as I am.”
“What’s her name?” The girl sat up, more interested in the stranger.
“Mattie.”
Dierdre considered the name.
Kathryn took a step forward and glanced around the room. She noted the Paddington bear, almost identical to one that had once been Mattie’s. A photograph of Jack in a baseball cap and a white T-shirt. A child’s drawing of an adult man and a little girl with dark curls, which might have been done recently. A small white desk covered with scribbles of Magic Marker, blue sky that had gone off the page. What had the girl been told? Did she know her daddy was dead?
Kathryn remembered a basketball dinner of Mattie’s when she was eight, and both Kathryn and Jack had wept to see their daughter’s nearly uncontainable pride in the dinky little trophy.
“You talk funny,” Dierdre said.
“I do?”
The girl had a British accent — no Irish in it, no American. “You talk like my daddy,” the girl said.
Kathryn nodded slowly.
“Do you want to see my Samantha doll?” Dierdre asked. “Yes,” Kathryn said, clearing her throat. “I’d love to.” “You’ll have to come over here,” Dierdre said, gesturing. She hopped off the bed and walked to a corner of the room. Kathryn recognized the doll’s wardrobe and trunk from the popular American Girl series. “My daddy gave this to me for Christmas,” Dierdre said, handing the doll to Kathryn.
“I like her glasses,” Kathryn said.
“Want to see her wardrobe?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, let’s sit on the bed, and you can look at all my stuff.” Dierdre brought out dresses, a school desk, a red plastic pocketbook, a blue and red sweater. A minuscule pencil. An Indian Head penny.
“Did your daddy give you all of this for Christmas?”
The girl pursed her lips and thought. “Saint Nicholas left me some of it,” she said.
“I like her hair,” Kathryn said. “Mattie used to have a doll that was like this, but she cut her hair. You know that with a doll the hair doesn’t grow back, and so you shouldn’t cut it off. Mattie was always sad that she had done that.”
Kathryn had another memory. Mattie, at six years of age, setting off down a hill on a new bike, the bicycle wobbling beneath her as if it were made of jelly, Jack and Kathryn watching helplessly. Mattie, returning, telling her parents with pride, Well, I’ve got this handled.
And another: Mattie falling asleep one night in a pair of glasses with a funny nose attached.
And another: the Thanksgiving that Mattie, who was only four, announced to her father that Mommy had finished cooking the Turkish delight.
Where was Kathryn to put these memories now? She was, she thought, like a woman after a divorce looking at a wedding dress. Could the dress no longer be cherished if the marriage itself had disintegrated?
“I won’t cut her hair,” Dierdre promised.
“Good. Was your daddy here at Christmas? Sometimes daddies have to work at Christmas.”
“He was here,” Dierdre said. “I made him a bookmark. It had a picture of me and Daddy on it. I wanted it back, so he said we could share it. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes, I do.”
Dierdre looked under the bed for the shared treasure. She brought up a picture book Kathryn did not recognize. The bookmark inside was a strip of colored paper that had been laminated. The photograph was of Jack with Dierdre on his lap. He was craning his neck to see her face.
Kathryn heard footsteps on the stairs.
In the attic at Fortune’s Rocks was a box of American Girl doll clothes. Briefly, insanely, Kathryn toyed with the idea of sending the box to Dierdre.
Muire stood protectively in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest.
“I like your doll very much,” Kathryn said, standing.
“Do you have to go?” Dierdre asked.
“I’m afraid I must,” Kathryn said.
Dierdre watched her leave. Muire moved to one side to allow Kathryn to pass. Kathryn walked quickly down the stairs, aware that the other woman was behind her. Kathryn reached for her suit jacket. “Dierdre mentioned that Jack was here for Christmas,” she said, slipping her arms into her jacket.
“We celebrated early,” Muire said. “We had to.”
Kathryn knew all about having to celebrate holidays early.
Curious now, she crossed to the bookcase and scanned the titles there. Lies of Silence, by Brian Moore; Cal, by Bernard McLaverty; Rebel Hearts, by Kevin Toolis; The Great Hunger, by Cecil Woodham-Smith. A title she couldn’t read. She took the book off the shelf.
“Is this Gaelic?” Kathryn asked.
“Yes.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Queens. In Belfast.”
“Really. And you became . . .”
“A flight attendant. Yes, I know. The most educated work-force in Europe: the Irish.”
“Does your daughter know about Jack?” Kathryn asked, returning the book to the shelf and picking up her coat.
“She knows,” Muire said from the doorway, “but I’m not sure she understands. Her father was away so often. I think this just seems like another trip to her.”
Her father.
“And Jack’s mother,” Kathryn said coolly. “Did Dierdre know about her grandmother Matigan?”
“Yes, of course.”
Kathryn was silent. Shaken by her own question as much as by its answer.
“But, as you know, his mother has Alzheimer’s,” Muire added, “and Dierdre has never really been able to talk to her.”
“Yes, I know,” Kathryn lied.
If Jack hadn’t died, she wondered, would he have been in this house right now? Would Kathryn ever have discovered the other family? For how many years might this affair — this marriage — have gone on?
The two women stood on the parquet floor. Kathryn glanced at the walls, the ceiling, the woman in front of her. She wanted to take in the whole of the house, to remember everything she had seen. She knew she would never be back.
She thought about
the impossibility of ever knowing another person. About the fragility of the constructs people make. A marriage, for example. A family.
“There are things . . . ,” Muire began. She stopped. “I wish . . .” Kathryn waited.
Muire turned her palms upward, seemingly in resignation. “There are things I can’t . . .” She sighed deeply, put her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I’m not sorry for having had him,” Muire said finally. “I’m just sorry for having hurt you.”
Kathryn wouldn’t say good-bye; it didn’t seem necessary. Although there was something Kathryn wanted to know — despite her pride, had to ask.
“The robe,” she said. “The blue silk robe. In your closet.” Kathryn heard a quick intake of breath, but the face gave nothing away.
“It came after he died,” Muire said. “It was my Christmas present.”
“I thought it might be,” Kathryn said.
She reached out and put her hand on the doorknob, as if reaching out for a life ring.
“You should go home,” Muire said as Kathryn stepped outside into the rain, and Kathryn thought it an odd and presumptuous command.
“It was worse for me,” Muire said, and Kathryn turned, drawn by the slightly plaintive note, a rent in the cool facade.
“I knew about you,” Muire Boland said. “You never had to know about me.”
IT WAS POSSIBLE SHE WAS CRYING. LATER, SHE WOULD not be able to say when it had started. She had forgotten her umbrella, and the rain soaked her hair, glued it to her head. It ran down her neck, her back, the front of her blouse. She was too exhausted to put her collar up or to wind her scarf around her neck. Passersby raised their umbrellas, glanced at her and then at each other. She breathed through her open mouth.
She had no destination, no idea where she was walking. Coherent thoughts refused to form or to take shape. She remembered the name of the hotel, but she did not want to go there, did not want to be inside with other people. Did not want to be alone in a room.
Briefly, she considered a movie theater as a refuge.
She stepped off a curb and, by habit, looked the wrong way. A taxi squealed. Kathryn stood still, expecting the driver to lean out the window and yell at her. Instead, he waited patiently for her to cross the road.
She knew that she wasn’t well and grew nervous, afraid that she might inadvertently walk into a construction hole, might step off a curb again, might be hit by a red bus. She slipped into a telephone booth to put herself momentarily into a safe box. She appreciated being out of the wet, the dryness of the phone booth. She took her coat off and wiped her face with the lining, but the gesture reminded her of something she did not want to think about. A headache claimed her, twisted at the back of her neck, and she wondered if she had any Advil in her pocketbook.
A man stood impatiently outside the phone box, then tapped on the glass. He needed to use the phone, he mouthed. Kathryn put her coat back on and went out again into the rain. She walked along a busy street that seemed as if it might go on forever. Traffic made sprays of water on the sidewalks, hissed along the street. Heads bent against the rain, people passed beside her. Without a hat or umbrella, she had trouble seeing clearly. She thought about finding a department store, buying an umbrella, possibly a raincoat.
At a corner, she saw two men in overcoats laughing. They held black umbrellas and brown leather briefcases. They went inside a doorway. There was a glow behind the door, frosted glass, the sound of communal laughter. It was dark already, night now, and it might be safer to go inside.
Inside the pub, the scent of wet wool rose to her nostrils. She liked the warmth of this interior space. The glasses of the man just in front of her steamed, and he laughed with his companion. A man behind the bar handed her a towel. Someone else had used it before her; it was damp and limp and smelled of aftershave. She toweled her hair as she would do after a shower, and she saw that men were staring at her. They had pints of ale in front of them, which made her thirsty. The men parted slowly, gave her a stool. Across the bar, two women in nearly identical blue suits were chatting animatedly. Everyone was talking to someone else. It could have been a party, except that the people here seemed happier than they normally did at parties.
When the bartender took the towel from her, she pointed to a tap. The ale was bronze colored when it came. Light sparkled from polished surfaces, and men had cigarettes. At the ceiling there was a blue haze of smoke.
She was thirsty and drank the ale like water. She felt it burn in her stomach, which was pleasant. She slipped her shoes, squishy with the wet, off her feet and onto the floor. She glanced down, saw that her blouse was nearly transparent with the soaking, and drew her coat around her for modesty. The bartender turned in her direction and raised an eyebrow. She nodded in answer, and he gave her another glass of ale. Already the warmth, which she decided she had needed, was spreading through her arms and legs to her fingers and toes.
Occasionally, around her, she could make out words, bits of conversation. Business was being conducted. Flirtations.
Her headache tightened, moved toward her temples. She asked the bartender for an aspirin. A man with a mustache glanced sideways at her. Over the bar there was a Guinness sign, and she recognized the black drink in glasses on the bar. Jack had sometimes brought it home. That was another thing she didn’t want to think about. The bar was wet with rings of beer, the wood saturated with the smell.
After a time, she needed to use the bathroom, but she didn’t want to give up her stool. She thought she should order a third glass of beer just in case she lost her place and wouldn’t be able to get another. The bartender ignored her raised hand, but the women across the bar noticed. They spoke to each other as they stared at her.
The bartender, acknowledging her finally, seemed slightly less friendly than he had been before. Perhaps there was a rule of pub etiquette she had failed to follow. When he finally asked her if she’d like a third drink, she shook her head and stood up, catching her coat on the stool. She lifted the wool off the vinyl seat. She tried to walk with a steady gait, moving through the crowd of men and women standing with their drinks. It must be just after work, she decided, and she wondered when exactly that would be in London. She felt something sticky on her feet and realized she had left her shoes at the bar. She turned, but could not see her way back. She had to pee urgently now and could not afford to find her trail. She followed a sign for Toilets. It seemed unnecessarily direct.
It was a relief just to be alone inside a stall.
Afterward, she had trouble with her stockings. She was reminded of having to pull on a wet bathing suit as a child. She struggled in the small cubicle. The soles of her stockings were filthy. She thought of taking them off altogether, that they would be easier to peel off than to pull on, but then she thought, sensibly, that she might be cold if she did that. Her stomach threatened momentarily to revolt, but she held her ground, withstood the queasiness.
She washed her hands in a grimy sink and looked in the mirror. The woman reflected there could not be her, she decided. The hair was too dark, too flat against the head. Half-moons of mascara lay beneath the eyes, a ghoulish makeup. The eyes themselves were pink rimmed, the eyeballs veined. The lips were bloodless, though the face was flushed.
A homeless woman, she thought.
She dried her hands on a towel, opened the door. She passed a phone on the wall. She felt a powerful urge to talk to Mattie. The urge was physical; she felt it in the center of her body, at the place where a woman wants to hold a baby.
She tried to follow the instructions printed on a placard next to the telephone, but gave up after several tries. She asked an older man in a waxed jacket who was on his way to the men’s room to help her. She dictated the numbers to him, pleased she could remember them. When he had a connection, he handed her back the phone and looked at her blouse. He walked into the men’s room, and, too late, she remembered that she hadn’t thanked him.
The phone rang six or seven times. A door
shut, a glass broke, a woman laughed in a high register, the shrill laugh pealing out above all the others. Kathryn was dying inside for Mattie’s voice. Still the phone rang. She refused to hang up.
“Hello?”
The voice was breathless, as though she had been wrestling or running.
“Mattie!” Kathryn cried, spilling relief across the ocean. “Thank God you’re home.”
“Mom, what’s the matter? Are you OK?”
Kathryn composed herself. She didn’t want to frighten her daughter. “How are you?” she asked in a calmer voice.
“Um . . . I’m OK.” Mattie’s voice still wary. Tentative. Kathryn tried for a cheerier tone. “I’m in London,” she said. “It’s great here.”
“Mom, what are you doing?”
There was music in the background. One of Mattie’s CDs. Sublime, Kathryn thought. Yes, definitely Sublime.
“Can you turn that down a bit?” Kathryn asked, having already had to stick a finger in her other ear from the pub noise. “I can’t hear you.”
Kathryn waited for Mattie to return to the phone. The drinkers around the bar crowded at the edges of the tables. Beside her, a man and a woman held pints of beer and shouted into each other’s ears.
“So,” her daughter said, having returned.
“It’s raining,” Kathryn said. “I’m in a pub. I’ve just been walking around. Seeing the sights.”
“Is that man with you?”
“His name is Robert.”
“Whatever.”
“Not right now.”
“Mom, are you sure you’re OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You sounded breathless,” Kathryn said.
“Did I?” There was a pause. “Mom, I can’t talk right now.” “Is Julia there?” Kathryn asked.
“She’s at the shop.”
“Why can’t you talk?”
