by Maeve Binchy
‘No, no, it’s my decision,’ Elizabeth mumbled into her handkerchief. Her eyes were red now and her face streaked. Aisling was very concerned.
‘Here, have another dose of this.’ She poured some sherry into the glass with a slurp. ‘How do you mean it was your decision? You didn’t want to get caught did you?’
‘No, now, it’s my decision now,’ snuffled Elizabeth. ‘You see I want him so desperately. I’ll die if I can’t have him. I don’t want to go on living if I can’t have Johnny. …’
‘Yes, well.’ Aisling was startled at such strong words from Elizabeth. ‘Well, you will have him, won’t you? He’s not going to say that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. I mean if you work together and like each other, and you’ve been going out with him and … er … sleeping with him and everything. It’s not just a casual thing that he’s going to get out of … is it?’
Elizabeth had stopped her crying suddenly. ‘Now, this is what I’m going to have to explain to you, and it may take all night. This is why I begged you to come over and why you are the best friend I have in the world. I’m going to have to get rid of it. No, please let me finish. I’ve decided that’s what I must do, but I’m afraid. I really am, I suppose, afraid I’ll bleed to death. I’m afraid I’ll get an infection and die. I’m afraid it will hurt so desperately that I’ll scream and scream and she’ll stop. …’
‘Who will stop?’ Aisling’s voice was a whisper.
‘Mrs Norris. She’s a nurse and a midwife and everything, and the place is scrupulously clean. That’s what I heard.’
Aisling’s glass of sherry remained poised in the air. ‘You never mean … you can’t possibly mean that you’re going to a woman to have an abortion? To have her do an abortion on you?’
‘It’s the only solution.’
‘And what does Johnny say about this? Does he approve?’
‘Listen, he must never know. I know, I knew it would be like this. I’ve had to explain it aloud even to myself, and I can’t understand it logically … but what I’ve got to do is make you believe that Johnny doesn’t get involved in people’s lives, in fusses, in things he doesn’t want to … that’s not his style. …’
‘So you’re going to get rid of his child in an abortionist’s because it mightn’t be his style. … Come on, out of that.’
‘Pass the sherry, it’s going to be a long night,’ said Elizabeth.
It was a very long night. They transferred upstairs to Elizabeth’s room, lest Father should come in and want to continue the easy-going conversation he had enjoyed earlier on. They heard him come in and go to his room. Later they moved downstairs again and made soup and sandwiches. This was at four a.m.
By now Aisling’s eyes were as red as Elizabeth’s. And when dawn came in the kitchen window, she had made the following promises. …
– that she would never mention to Johnny anything of this occurrence;
– that she would try to maintain a cheerful and non-curious atmosphere in Clarence Gardens;
– that she would accompany Elizabeth to Mrs Norris’s house and stay as long as was permitted.
‘I’ve given in on everything,’ she said to Elizabeth blearily just before they traipsed upstairs again to bed. ‘I used to think I was a strong character, but now I’ve gone along with all these things I don’t agree with. I can’t see why you won’t have the baby, I am utterly certain he would marry you. … I can’t see why you wouldn’t have it even if he doesn’t marry you … if he sees you living happily and cheerfully here with the baby he’ll admire you all the more … no matter how happy-go-lucky he is. If you are going through with this thing … then it’s brave and courageous and I really can’t see why you won’t let him praise you and congratulate you for that. …
‘But no, you’re going to meet him next week as if nothing had happened. I think you’re out of your bloody mind, and I think he sounds the most cruel, selfish bum who ever walked. …’
Elizabeth smiled weakly. ‘No, he’s just very honest, he says he only does what he wants, and now I’m learning from him. I’m doing what I want. The unselfish one is you, because you’re going to help me even though you think it’s wrong. You probably even think it’s a mortal sin.’
‘God, I’ve almost forgotten about mortal sin with all the rest of the drama, but you can bet your life that’s exactly what it is, a desperate mortal sin on top of everything else.’
The days passed in a blur for both of them. There was the visit to the shop, the meeting with Mr Worsky, how delighted he was with Aisling and her hair, and her name. He made her write it down … a fairy dream … how beautiful. He called Anna from the back room. She marvelled too. They had both heard of Elizabeth’s wonderful years in Ireland. Aisling’s heart softened again when she saw how much the old couple did indeed know about Kilgarret, and her big family, and how her brother had been killed in the war.
Then there was the meeting with Monica Hart, who worked in a dress shop now. She wasn’t a close friend of Elizabeth’s these days but she was delighted to meet Aisling.
‘You called a cat after me didn’t you?’ she said. Aisling looked at the rather scrawny girl in her black shop-dress, her frizzy hair and very orange lipstick and nail polish.
‘Yes we did, it’s there still. It’s a big cat now and it’s old and it belongs to Niamh my younger sister. When Elizabeth went back here it sort of was passed on to Niamh like old clothes are.’
Monica came and had a cup of coffee with them in her lunch hour.
‘I never see Elizabeth nowadays because of Romeo in the antique shop. Have you met him yet?’
‘No,’ said Aisling, ‘I haven’t met him yet. He’s away until this afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing him though.’
She spoke jokingly as if Elizabeth weren’t there.
‘Come on, Monica, tell me, is he as handsome as they say? Is he really as good as he’s made out to be?’
‘Yes, he’s every bit as glamorous … he’s a real heartbreaker. … He’s the kind of man that would have slaves if he were in a film.’
‘Well, thank heavens life isn’t a film,’ said Aisling, looking meaningfully at Elizabeth who looked away.
They did the shopping for Father’s celebration meal on the following night. Aisling bought him a bright tie and handkerchief to match. Elizabeth got him a smart tiepin and cufflinks. Then they wandered back to the shop where a big van was now parked.
‘Remember you promised,’ whispered Elizabeth hoarsely.
‘I remember,’ said Aisling.
Johnny Stone bounded down the shop to meet them. He was so warm and welcoming that Aisling was totally taken aback. From the hours and hours of description last night she had assumed that he would be distant and superior, that he would talk in clipped tones like lords and aristocrats talked in the countless films they saw in the cinema in Kilgarret.
‘Well, let me have a look at you. Stefan and Anna … those two were meant to be working on cataloguing the last lot of stuff I brought in … but no, oohing and aahing over the lovely copper hair. Come here, let me see it in the light. It’s good, I grant you, it’s real but it’s not blonde. I like blondes. You know where you are with a blonde I always say.’ He had an arm around each of them affectionately.
He had a beautiful strong face, not at all like Clark Gable, but much longer and leaner. He was a very attractive man indeed. Aisling thought that it would be very dangerous and exciting to have sexual intercourse with a man like that and tried to imagine Elizabeth doing so, but failed.
‘Enough playing about, Aisling, you are very welcome to London. What can we do to make your visit a good one … what shall we do to make you remember us here when you go back to the Emerald Isle?’
Aisling bit down her nervous giggle. She felt an urge to say that since she was going to take part in a conspiracy, an illegal operation and the Lord knew what else she had plenty to make the visit memorable. But she remembered her promise.
�
�You’d be appalled altogether to know what I really want to do. … I want to sit down and catch up on the last four years with Elizabeth. Everyone in Kilgarret wants to know what she’s been doing, and I want to tell her all my adventures. …’
‘I’m sure there are plenty of them,’ said Johnny.
‘There’s hours of them, thank God,’ said Aisling. ‘They’ll have us entertained night and day. …’
She liked him. He wasn’t flirting with her. He was being charming, as he would have been to any new acquaintance. He was possibly the most charming and relaxed man she had ever met. She didn’t envy Elizabeth, she couldn’t understand a selfless, slavish love like that… but she did see that if you wanted Johnny Stone to stick around in your life then you would need to be fairly high on charm yourself. You wouldn’t want to be unlucky or depressing or to get dragged down, nor to let any of these things rub off on him. But she gave no hint of this as she smiled delightedly when he said he was going to take them both for coffee and cakes to celebrate her arrival.
The appointment with Mrs Norris was not until Monday morning, so the whole weekend had to be got through.
‘Do you feel any morning sickness?’ Aisling enquired on Saturday morning when she had brought Elizabeth a cup of tea in bed.
‘Heavens no, I’ve read all about it. That wouldn’t happen for ages yet. There’s nothing really there you know, inside me I mean, nothing to make me sick. It’s only a speck.’
‘I see,’ said Aisling.
‘Not a person, a baby or anything.’
‘No, of course.’
‘Anyway,’ Elizabeth changed the subject, ‘you’ve no idea what a treat this is … I don’t know when I had a cup of tea brought to me in bed. Let me see. Not in Mother’s, no Harry did offer, but I got up. Not anywhere … the last time I remember was when we had measles in Kilgarret.’
‘Lord yes, we were awful weren’t we, and with my hair I looked like a mad thing. Imagine how poor Mam had to cope with all of us, and Peggy being in bed. Sometimes I don’t know where she got the energy. …’
‘You seem to get on much better with her now. …’
Elizabeth sat up in bed and drank her tea.
‘Yes, I suppose it’s normal in a way, I used to be very jealous of the way she could talk to you, but since I’ve gone to work in the shop, it’s been different … and she’s been very grateful when I do any little bit extra … she does ask about you, you know, she sent all her love and said that if you had any worries to say she’d say a prayer for you. …’
‘That was nice,’ Elizabeth said with a note of regret.
‘I could say it was special intention,’ Aisling said. ‘Then Mam could pray and Our Lord would channel the prayers somewhere else for you. It wouldn’t be right of course for her to pray that you’d get over an abortion or anything. It would be flying in the eyes of God.’
‘Oh my goodness, I know,’ said Elizabeth apologetically. There was a little silence.
‘You couldn’t discuss it with your own mother? You said that you were getting along much better with her nowadays, like I am … would she be able to help?’
‘No, I think it would frighten her … confuse her. She’s not really able to cope … look, there’s her last letter, have a look at it. …’
‘There’s no beginning … this isn’t the start.’
‘Yes it is. That’s the way she writes nowadays. …’
And you would find it very hard in this ugly world, this modern ugly world, to know what it was like when I was a girl. We wore long flowing dresses… very tight waists, and flowers in our hair. Always fresh flowers, perhaps four or five different gardenias a day … just a little sign of a flower wilting and it was thrown lightly away … what we had Elizabeth that has been snatched away from you was beauty … so much beauty … the lawns where we had spread out the thick white cloths and napkins were green velvet lawns … not scrubland … the men … the young men going off to the war were so gallant and so brave. Their eyes used to dance … they were light-hearted about their lives. ‘It will be worth it, Violet, if you send me away with a kiss …’
Aisling stopped reading.
‘Oh God, but none of this is true is it? She wasn’t old enough to send people away to the first war was she?’
‘No of course she wasn’t. It’s all imagination … there weren’t dresses like that, there were no flowers … no picnics on lawns. She lived in a house a bit like this and went to a couple of twenties parties and married Father. You see she’s got it all mixed up with those romances and books she reads. It looks a bit as if her mind is going doesn’t it? Isn’t that the way it seems to you?’
‘Well a bit, but it might only be for a while. You know, it could only be temporary.’
‘Oh Aisling, what would I do without you?’
Then there was the birthday party, that stood out in fairly sharp relief. They must have worked hard to prepare a festive meal, though Aisling could not really remember the day whenever she tried to go back over the sequence of events. They must have gone shopping, they must have cooked, and set the table with paper they coloured themselves.
They put on their best dresses, Aisling in a cream colour which she was afraid looked dull and dreary, but everyone else said it did wonders for her hair so she believed them. Elizabeth wore a rose-coloured velvet. She had never forgotten Johnny saying that he remembered this blonde in rose velvet, but in fact she wondered whether the colour suited her. Sometimes she feared she looked wishy-washy.
Father had dressed up too, they heard him humming and even whistling in the bathroom while he was shaving.
‘He never does that,’ Elizabeth said wonderingly.
‘Poor old devil, he’s just dead lonely, that’s all that’s wrong with him. He needs a bit of attention.’
‘But when I try to give him some attention and ask him about things and what he feels and what he used to feel… he turns purple.’
‘Ah yes, but that’s the wrong kind of attention … he only needs a superficial kind of attention … nothing too deep.’
‘You’ve got awfully good at handling men,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Indeed I have not. If I’m so good at handling them why am I such an eejit with that Tony Murray? Anyone who could handle men would have him like an adoring lap dog. I’m just in a tizzy in case I lose him on the one hand, or in case I’m tied to him on the other. …’
‘You’re better than I am,’ Elizabeth said mournfully.
‘You’re a different class of person altogether, you’re prepared to put other people before yourself … I never was and never will be. That’s what Mam always said when I was young, and honestly I think it’s the truth. … I say Mr White, don’t you look the real birthday boy … Look at him Elizabeth … isn’t he gorgeous?’
‘You look smashing Father.’
‘Thank you my dear, and so do both of you. Very attractive young ladies to share the festive day with. …’
He offered them a sherry, and they exchanged glances of relief that they had replaced the bottle which had been finished on the night of Aisling’s arrival. …
They gave him their presents. He seemed very pleased and in a rare mood of participation he decided that he would put them on. It took a time for him to adjust the tie and handkerchief, and place the tiepin and replace his old cufflinks with the new ones.
There was a card from Mother. Elizabeth had censored it to make sure it had not contained anything fanciful or unstable which would upset everyone. But no, it said: ‘I wish you happy years ahead and happy memories of the years that have gone before.’ He was pleased with it and put it on the mantelpiece. There was a card from Mrs Ellis which was flowery and vulgar and they all laughed at it in a guilty way. There was a small packet which had an ounce of tobacco and a note from Johnny. ‘Happy Birthday wishes from Johnny Stone to Elizabeth’s father. I’m sorry it’s so small but perhaps when you reach your full century rationing will have gone forever.’
‘He’s a nice young man,’ he said, pleased. ‘Have you met him Aisling?’
‘Oh yes, I met him at the shop, but he and Madam here are having some kind of silly tiff so I didn’t get to know him.’ Aisling followed the rehearsed line.
Everything was defined as excellent. Home-made bread from Ireland, soda bread, wrapped up in butter-paper to keep it fresh, spread thick with butter, slice after slice of it with the soup.
‘Hey, don’t let’s forget the main course. We must leave room.’
They ran backwards and forwards from oven to table. Flashes of rose and cream, giggles when they bumped into each other. Oohs and aahs at the smell of the bacon … every plate cleaned to shining because nobody had eaten anything at midday in order to prepare for the feast.
Then there was the cake. One candle not fifty, that was more reasonable.
They lit it and looked at him expectantly.
‘Oh no, I’m not a child … this is a bit too … it’s not really. …’
‘Come on Mr White. A birthday’s not a birthday unless you blow out a candle.’
‘No, no that’s for children … no.’
‘Oh do blow it out Father, it’s a celebration.’ Elizabeth almost trembled as she spoke … her lower lip looked a lot like someone about to cry.
‘Mr White, if you don’t blow it out how can we sing “Happy Birthday”, how can we do it?’ Aisling looked so eager and excited in the candlelight.
‘Well, it’s a bit silly.’ Father stood up and took a great breath like a child and blew out the candle. They clapped and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’.
‘Right.’ Aisling pushed back her chair a bit. It was as if the signal for entertainment had been given. ‘Right, what are you going to sing for us? Mr White, you must have a fund of songs.’
Elizabeth looked alarmed. Didn’t Aisling realise how little singing went on in this household? They weren’t like the O’Connors, who would burst into ‘Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms’ as soon as there was the slightest encouragement.
Father didn’t sing. Flushing, she remembered how she had practically closed down the party that night in Preston by singing ‘Danny Boy’.
