Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  Eileen O’Connor felt that the whole teasing game with Tony was going on too long. True, Aisling was an attractive girl, true there were more ways of getting your man than being available. And indeed it was a great relief after the Maureen and Brendan Daly situation to realise that this time the boot was on the other foot. Eileen and Sean had felt humiliated by the delay in Brendan Daly’s proposal. It was as if they had decided to keep the O’Connors on a string. Now Aisling was doing the whole thing in reverse and it was the Murrays who were dangling in uncertainty.

  Any attempts now to know what Aisling’s intentions might be were skilfully diverted.

  ‘Do you think it’s worth painting your office? Will you still be with us next year?’

  ‘Of course I’ll be with you Mam. Were you thinking of firing me?’

  ‘No, but you know if you marry into the gentry you wouldn’t want to go on working here… you wouldn’t have to work for a living.’

  ‘Aw, Mam, the Murrays aren’t gentry, they’re as ignorant as we are. Anyway I’d like to see someone stopping me from doing what I want to do and I want to work here. What colour will we get it painted?’

  ‘Tony Murray wouldn’t want his wife working in a shop Aisling, you must know that.’

  ‘Then he can go and take a flying jump at himself. Listen, what about that bright orange paint that came in a while ago? With the doors white and me in my green coat I’d look like the Irish flag!’

  She didn’t seem to be the slightest bit serious about him, yet she did see him almost every evening. What on earth was going to happen? Time would tell.

  Maureen thought that Aisling had become unbearable since her visit to London. She had become more cocky and more of a show-off than ever. All these stories beginning: ‘When we were in Piccadilly Circus’… and ‘Elizabeth and I went for a fish supper in the Elephant and Castle’ … just plain showing off. Not a present bought for the babies. A feeble excuse about rationing in England, that was nonsense of course. Hadn’t the war been over for years now? Aisling was turning out to be quite poisonous, she even managed to make a jeer and a mock of things when she did deign to come to the house. Poor Brendan was most put out by her, and Brendan’s mother had said she was in danger of becoming quite fast with all this careering around the place with Tony Murray and no intentions made clear on any side.

  *

  Joannie Murray came back to Kilgarret from time to time, full of the great life she lived in Dublin. She found things increasingly fraught at Riverside House on every visit. People were constantly taking her aside to explain the truth of the situation as if her time spent working in the capital city had given her a new sophistication and insight into the big issues of a Kilgarret day. As far as Joannie could see they all revolved around her friend Aisling O’Connor. Mummy used to walk up and down the drawing room clenching and unclenching her hands and saying that she had nothing against Aisling.

  From Aisling she got no joy either. Aisling said there was no mystery. She was very fond of Tony and he seemed to be fond of her. No, neither of them had the slightest intention of doing anything drastic like getting engaged. They were young for heaven’s sake. Tony wasn’t young, Joannie reminded her, Tony was very old, he was over thirty. Aisling would only giggle and say that thirty was like a spring chicken these days. Then Joannie would repeat this kind of conversation to Mummy, and Mummy would become bad-tempered and accuse Joannie of holding things back. It was really very wearying to come home to Riverside House for weekends. Joannie did it less and less.

  Sean was getting tired of people asking him when they would see the great merger of the Murrays and O’Connors. One of these conglomerates, they were calling it with wheezy laughs, it could take over half the business in the east of Ireland, a firm that size. They were joking about a possible merger but they weren’t joking about Aisling. People wanted to know. Sean was irritated both with the curiosity of the people who came in to him in the shop or drank pints with him at Maher’s. He was even more irritated with Aisling.

  From time to time he said she was making them all into a laughing stock with her carry-on. Aisling put on huge innocent eyes and said she didn’t know what he meant.

  Sean would fluff Aisling’s hair roughly with his hand and say that the most atrocious thing in the world was to live in a small Irish town and be at the mercy of a lot of small-town gossips.

  Elizabeth wrote about Mother. She had been right in her reading of the letters. Mother’s nerves were indeed under a strain.

  She was in hospital now, and half of the time she didn’t know where she was. Harry had been distraught. He begged Elizabeth to come up and see them and to bring that nice young man Johnny who had been such a great fellow the last time. Naturally the nice young man had no intention of going to a house where illness, insanity and confusion would reign, so Elizabeth didn’t even try to persuade him. She went by train.

  Harry did not look the same Harry when he met her at Preston. He had big worried runnels in his face.

  ‘I did my best for her, Elizabeth love,’ he began to bluster as if there was a possibility that he might be blamed for what had happened to Mother. ‘I never treated her badly. I tried to go along with whatever she said and wanted. There wasn’t all that much money of course, you see there wasn’t all that much business. …’

  To her amazement Elizabeth found herself hugging Harry there and then in the station with passers-by looking at them. Hugging the man she had called that dreadful Mr Elton, the man who had come to steal Mother away all those years ago.

  ‘Harry you old fool,’ she said over his big shaking shoulder. ‘Harry, you did everything for her. She loves you, she’s crazy about you, what are you apologising for? Think what it would be like if her poor nerves had gone when she was in Clarence Gardens. Think how lonely that would have been for her.’

  Harry’s face was wet too.

  ‘You’re a great girl, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘Really champion. I don’t know how any of us would get along without you. …’

  Mother was pleased to see Elizabeth, but only pleased in the same way as she was pleased when it was teatime in the war or when it was time to go to the basket-work section in Occupational Therapy. She looked tired and pale. She had very little interest in anything. Elizabeth searched for some subject to bring a spark back to her dead face. She remembered when she had thought that Mother had been overexcited, when she seemed twitchy and nervy, and responded and reacted like a little bird to everything, spreading unease and restlessness around her.

  Elizabeth tried to summon up that uneasy life with no success. ‘I often read your letters, Mother, about the wonderful times you had back in the roaring twenties. It must have been great, all those thé dansants. …’

  ‘All the what, dear?’

  ‘Well maybe I’m not pronouncing them right – dancing teatimes, I suppose. Remember you wrote to me about them, you used to go in a lilac dress, you told me, and there were orchestras, small five- or six-piece orchestras …?’

  She paused. Mother smiled back gently and vaguely.

  ‘Weren’t there people coming over to the table you were sitting at, and saying they would be honoured if you would while away a weary afternoon, you know, fancy exaggerated talk. …’

  Violet looked at her, nodding politely as if she were being told something that she didn’t understand.

  ‘And remember the man who asked you your name and you said Violet, and he said violet dress, violet eyes and now named Violet, and he ran away and brought back six bunches of violets from a woman in the street, he had given her a whole ten-shilling note. You must remember, you often told me about it even when I was little, and you wrote about it again this year. It did happen didn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes, dear, if you say so.’ Mother was looking around for the nurse. In her eyes was the hope that she would be rescued.

  ‘But Mother,’ Elizabeth shouted, ‘Mother you’re so young, and so lovely and your hair is all matted, why don’t you let
me wash your hair and comb it for you, let me give you some lipstick, you have such a lovely face, Mother …?

  ‘Nurse …’ called Mother in a rising tone. An older woman with a face so lined it looked like a dried mud puddle cracking in the sunlight, said to Elizabeth, ‘Don’t excite her dear, don’t try to take her out of here, she feels comfortable here, you’ll see. She doesn’t want to be upset and confused.’

  Elizabeth turned on her. ‘She only needs to be reminded of what she’s like. She’s forgotten what kind of person she is, that’s what’s wrong.’

  ‘I know,’ said the old woman. ‘But she’s happy forgetting.’

  Back in the shop Harry put a closed sign on the door as soon as he saw Elizabeth coming around the corner.

  ‘There’s not all that much business,’ he said. ‘How was she, was she pleased to see you?’

  ‘Harry, take down that closed sign. People who want to buy their half pound of margarine must be able to do it.’ She reversed the sign on the door, took off her coat and picked up the beige shop-coat that was hanging on a hook; it wouldn’t fasten around her. It must have been the one Mother had worn.

  ‘No, I want to hear, I want to know.’ Harry was upset and red-faced.

  ‘There’s nothing to hear, Harry, I swear it. She didn’t know what I was talking about. She seemed happy, the other old crones in the ward say she’s happy, the nurse says she’s happy. She doesn’t remember who she is, that’s the problem. She’s forgotten how to be lively and it’s as if the life drained away.’

  Harry’s eyes were swimming. ‘Do you think it will come back, could she change again?’

  ‘The doctor will talk to me tomorrow. He said he hadn’t time today and he would only talk if I promised not to ask for miracle cures. I thought he was arrogant and patronising but I didn’t say so. I put on a humble face. …’

  ‘But what caused it? Why did Vi lose all the life in her?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mother doesn’t know, and I’m very sure that pompous doctor doesn’t know. But Harry, if you’re going to be able to afford the bus fare up to the hospital, we’d better keep open. Now, here we go, who’s this …?’

  ‘Mrs Park, the widow, meanest woman north of Manchester, buys one cigarette at a time and two ounces of butter.’ The small woman in black came in. ‘Hallo there Mrs Park. What can we do for you, do you know my stepdaughter Elizabeth?’

  ‘How are you Mrs Park, Harry was just mentioning you were a good customer.’

  Mrs Park looked from one to another. ‘Aye, well I’m regular, I come here to support local business. Mr Elton, can I have an ounce of that hard cheese, please, more from the middle, not the outside mind, and two Woodbines.’

  ‘Having a party, Mrs Park?’ said Harry and Elizabeth had to stuff the hem of Mother’s shop-coat into her mouth to stop her laughing aloud.

  The doctor sat opposite Elizabeth and explained about illnesses which were psychotic and illnesses which were schizophrenic. He said that Violet’s was almost certainly the latter. It was a latent schizophrenia. Normally such a disorder would show itself much earlier. It was a young person’s illness. Elizabeth nodded. She kept her scorn for the doctor’s posturings out of her face. The self-important way he held his fingertips together and emphasised the words as he spoke to the twenty-year-old daughter of one of his patients. She wondered whether he ever stopped showing off and acting.

  ‘Excuse me, does that mean a split personality? Is it a question of Mother having two sides to her personality like you read about in the novels …?’

  This gave the doctor time and opportunity for a peal of laughter. ‘Heavens no, my dear. That’s a very silly lay person’s idea. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. No, it means the person is out of touch with reality, their grip on what is reality has gone. The imaginary, the non-real is just as living to them.’

  ‘And how are you trying to cure Mother?’ Elizabeth asked, her cool young voice cutting across the plummy tones.

  ‘As we think best.’ His own voice was sharper now. ‘With sedation, with giving her a life of order and control where she can be observed and calmed when the forces of unreality become too much. There are new drugs. Largactyl has been in use now for two years and we are trying this on many of our patients.’

  Elizabeth forced her voice to be polite and deferential. ‘Oh, are you experimenting with this new drug on Mother? Let’s hope it’s a good one.’

  ‘No, I am not experimenting. It is being used all over Britain. We are reporting our findings. In your mother’s case the best we can hope for is, well, to be frank, that her life will be as tranquil as possible.’

  ‘You mean it would be foolish for me to hope that she will ever come out of here? She’s only forty-nine, doctor. Do I have to tell my stepfather that he should regard her as here permanently?’

  ‘You seem a much more adult person than …’ He looked at his notes. ‘Than Mr Elton. I feel I can speak to you frankly. His reaction is to promise me that he will give her more time and more attention. And making me assurances that he will offer a better lifestyle. In fact from what I understand, she was quite content with him. He was an adequate provider and husband.’

  ‘She adored him.’

  ‘Quite. Well it’s no avail making this kind of statement. What we have to do is to hope that she may occasionally be able to go home for visits for the afternoon, or even for a weekend. These drugs have been known to create very surprising respites, you know. Nothing is impossible.’

  ‘Except to believe that Mother will be as she was.’

  ‘Quite. That would be the folly and a road to disappointment.’

  Elizabeth looked at him carefully. Perhaps he was not such a phony and a fraud. He was, after all, warning her and had tried to warn Harry against false hopes. She stood up. ‘I’ll go to see Mother again. I’m very grateful to you Doctor, I will explain all this to my stepfather, and I will try to make him see.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss White, it’s … er … a pleasure to talk to somebody so calm. It’s a great help in this profession, as you must imagine.’

  ‘Yes Doctor, I’m not really calm, but I am practical.’

  ‘Quite. Oh, there’s no point in your own father, her first husband, coming to see her. I mean you do realise that she doesn’t actually take into account much of that section of her life?’

  ‘No indeed, I wasn’t going to suggest it, I’ll explain it all to him too in case he thinks that there’s anything he should do.’

  ‘Good, good, well goodbye, Miss White.’

  He went along his corridor, importance emanating from him. Elizabeth was glad she had controlled herself, and not behaved like many of the distraught relatives of his disturbed patients must have. She braced herself and knocked on the door of Mother’s ward.

  Mother had slept for eight and a half hours last night, the nurse told Elizabeth, but it was still a tired face that looked up and gave its gentle smile. Mother was sitting in a chair beside her bed with her hands folded in her lap. Her hair had been combed and tied behind her neck with a piece of ribbon. It made her look thinner than ever. She wore a cardigan over her nightdress.

  Elizabeth sat down. She held one of mother’s thin hands in hers for a bit and said nothing. Violet looked at her anxiously. She seemed to be waiting in case Elizabeth was going to start some unfamiliar pattern of behaviour, some tirade. It was hard to know if she remembered yesterday’s upset or not. Nurse was hovering nearby arranging the flowers that Elizabeth had brought in a small vase.

  ‘Oh Mother, wait until I tell you how funny Harry was in the shop yesterday,’ Elizabeth began, and she gave a reassuring monologue of trivia. Violet looked less at Nurse. Nurse moved away. Mother left her hand in Elizabeth’s, she smiled at the funny bits.

  ‘So, anyway, I have to go back down to London tonight,’ Elizabeth said in the same cheery voice. ‘I have my final exams soon. Then I’ll have to go out and earn a living, but I’ll come back and see you in a month maybe, all right?’


  ‘London?’ Mother said wonderingly.

  ‘Yes, to Clarence Gardens, and Father.’

  ‘Father?’

  ‘George, your old man, he sends you his best regards, says he hopes they’re looking after you here.’

  Mother smiled. ‘That was nice of him, thank him, tell him I’m fine.’

  Elizabeth gulped. ‘Sure I will, and Harry’s great too, he’ll be in later today. He’s a smasher, Harry. You picked a great one there, didn’t you Mother?’

  ‘Oh yes, Elizabeth, you see there was no question of it right from the start, I simply had to have Harry Elton. He was the only man I ever wanted.’

  ‘Right, and you have him and he has you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mother was beginning to withdraw into herself again.

  ‘So I’ll be off now, I’ll write a long letter every week and if you ever want me, you only have to get someone to telephone and I’ll come back on the next train.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Elizabeth stood up. She was wearing a grey flannel skirt and a dark grey twin set. To liven it up she had pinned on a big artificial flower. It was a bunch of violets in purple velvet with leaves made from taffeta. It was all wound around wire and attached to a pin. Suddenly she took it off and pinned it to Mother’s cardigan. It looked lopsided and out of place.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mother.

  ‘You’re a good girl, you’re a good daughter,’ said the lined old woman in the next bed, the woman who had spoken to her yesterday.

  ‘They’ll take it away from her, it’s got a pin in it, she may do herself some mischief,’ said another with her hair in an Eton crop and a puffy face.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I’d like to think she had it for a bit anyway.’