Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  Sean was moved by her distress, and even more so by her bewilderment. It was not often that you found Ethel Murray not knowing what to do. He calmed her down, he insisted they both have a seasonal nip of whisky, he said he wouldn’t disturb Eileen now, but they would talk about it in the near future. He apologised for his own short temper, and she patted him on the knee with her gloved hand. He thought to himself that in her day she mightn’t have been a bad-looking woman at all.

  Eileen was back on her feet and up at nine o’clock mass on New Year’s Day. She met Aisling just as they were coming out the door. Aisling’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Oh Mam, isn’t that great that you’re well again, come on, get into the car and I’ll give you a spin back home – or better still, come up to me?’

  ‘I’d like that, give me a bit of peace – but hold on, let me tell one of them where I’m going or they’ll have a search party out for me.’ Her eyes went through the crowd coming out into the cold morning, calling Happy New Year at each other. She saw Donal, well wrapped up. ‘Tell them I’ve gone up to Mrs Murray’s house for breakfast. Let them eat their own without me,’ she called.

  ‘Fat lot you’ll get to eat up in the Murrays’ house, I’ll tell them to put yours in the oven,’ Donal called back good-naturedly.

  ‘He’s only making a joke of you Aisling,’ said Eileen, tucking herself into the car.

  ‘He’s not far wrong,’ Aisling said and she revved up and headed for the bungalow.

  Eileen was shocked to the core by the state of things. The sitting room was filled with dirty dishes, there were glasses on the table, crumbs on the floor. The gleaming kitchen which had been such a cause of envy to poor Maureen was a sorry sight. The oven was thick with grease, saucepans half rinsed but not cleaned stood around, cornflakes were scattered, the sink had not been emptied. It looked filthy and uncared for.

  ‘Child, you’re mistress in your own house, but in the name of the Lord would you not make an effort to keep the place a bit better?’ Eileen was aghast, she had to move a dirty dishcloth from a chair before she could even sit down.

  ‘Oh Mam, sure what’s the point, what in God’s name is the point?’ Aisling looked not the slightest bit contrite. ‘If I tidy it all up and clean it, he’ll only destroy it again.’

  ‘But Aisling … you can’t live like this … you can’t possibly. Where’s Tony now, is he still in bed?’ Eileen had lowered her voice.

  ‘He didn’t come home, Mam, he’ll be home around lunchtime, to change his clothes and go off down to the hotel.

  ‘But where on earth is he? On New Year’s Eve, were you all alone here? What happened to him?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose he slept where he fell, in Shay Ferguson’s, or one of those places. He sometimes sleeps in the hotel too, I’d have thought you’d have heard. …’

  ‘No, I heard nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘So I sat here last night by myself. And I boiled some potatoes – that’s that saucepan – he often feels like a few potatoes when he comes in with a feed of drink … then it got later, and I thought, well, he’s not coming home, so I’ll cook something for myself … So there was some bacon there and I began to fry it with onions and it burned, and that accounts for that pan. And that’s yesterday morning’s scrambled eggs which he didn’t touch, and that … I don’t know, I think it’s milk for something.’

  Eileen felt a wave of nausea flow over her.

  ‘How long have things been like this …?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Let me see, I’ve been married for one year and seven months … or is it seven years and one month …? About that long. …’

  It was this dreamy self-parodying behaviour that snapped Eileen out of her shock.

  ‘Do you have hot water in the taps?’ she asked crisply.

  ‘What?’ Aisling was surprised.

  ‘Is the immersion on? They’ll expect me back in the square in an hour’s time or an hour and a half. This place is to look right by then.’

  ‘Oh Mam, it’s not worth the. …’

  ‘Shut up whining and complaining – get started. …’

  ‘Mam, I’m not going to do it, neither are you.’

  ‘You’re not crossing the door of my house again, you little slut, unless you get up off your backside this minute and get your place into order.’

  ‘It’s my place Mam, you said so.’

  ‘My God Almighty it is, and when you think of all the people who would love it, would make it into a little palace, but no, Miss High-and-Mighty-Aisling always has to know better than anyone else in the world. What your sister Maureen would give for a kitchen like this – I saw her face, you know. Think of Peggy out in a bothan on the mountain. What would she give for a house like this? But God didn’t see fit to give it to people who would appreciate it, he gave it to a self-pitying snivelling slut – yes, Aisling, that’s what you are. …’

  Aisling was shocked. Not a word about Tony, not a speck of comfort, not a motherly arm around her shoulder about the terrible nature of men. Instead a lecture worse than any she had got when she was fourteen. Almost as a reflex action she stood up. Mam had taken off her coat.

  ‘Hang that up somewhere it won’t get covered in filth, and get me an apron or an overall … oh all right, get me one of your rags of dresses that cost pounds in Grafton Street, and I’ll put that on over my good outfit. Hurry up!’ She had found trays hidden away somewhere. ‘Keep clearing the sitting room, go on, keep them coming.’

  ‘Mam, I don’t want you to wear yourself out. …’

  ‘I’m not letting any outside person know the way I brought my daughter up. Do you hear me? Move!’

  With a hysterical giggle Aisling thought that they must look like one of those old speeded-up films where the cops and robbers were running jerkily in and out doors.

  ‘The sitting room’s clear, Mam,’ she called.

  ‘I didn’t hear the Hoover,’ Mam shouted back.

  They had it done in an hour and a half. Mam had opened all the windows to air the place.

  ‘We’ll get pneumonia,’ complained Aisling.

  ‘Better than diphtheria from the dirt there was in the place,’ Mam said.

  Bins had been filled, floors had been cleared. Mam had left five saucepans soaking in soap powder, with instructions that they were to be scoured in a few hours’ time. She had opened the door of the bedroom and closed it with a bang.

  ‘You have about an hour or two before you expect your husband home. Get in there and clean up that room, take the sheets off the bed and make it properly, I’m coming back this afternoon to see you and I want to see the place perfect. Open those windows if you want to before you drive me back home, it might clear the place up a bit.’

  ‘You’re coming back, Mam?’ Aisling said fearfully.

  ‘Certainly I am, you invited me for a cup of tea, and, I don’t know whether you noticed or not, we never had it. So I’m coming for it this afternoon. And I wouldn’t like to drink it from a teapot that’s all tarnished either. I got no silver teapots for my wedding, but if I had they’d be shining.’

  ‘Tony may not be here Mam, I don’t think you realise how bad it is.’

  ‘I don’t think you realise how bad it is,’ Mam said grimly and put on her coat to leave.

  Tony came in at midday. He looked terrible, Aisling thought. His suit was crumpled and had stains all over it as if he had vomited and it had been only superficially cleaned. His eyes were swollen and puffy. He smelt of drink even across the room with the draughts coming through the open windows.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ she said.

  ‘Oh Jesus, I knew you’d be sitting here waiting to nag me,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m not actually, I just said Happy New Year, and I’ve tidied the place up. Did you notice?’

  He looked around suspiciously. ‘Yes, yes, it’s grand,’ he said uncertainly. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’d have given you a hand. …’

  ‘No, it’s fine. And look,’ she led h
im to the kitchen, ‘shining isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, great.’ He was worried.

  ‘Now look at the bedroom, that’s all tidied too.’

  ‘Oh, Ash, you’ve done a grand job. Is someone coming?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Well, Mam may come in for an hour this afternoon, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah yes … well, that’s grand for you. I may not be back actually. Shay and a couple of the others. …’

  ‘I’d like you to be back, Tony.’

  ‘Now, what’s this, what is all this? Some kind of court? Is Tony to be paraded in front of the O’Connors and put on trial? Is that it?’

  ‘On trial for what, Tony?’

  ‘I don’t know, you tell me?’

  ‘No, you tell me. I mentioned no trials, I just said I’d like you to be here when my mother comes to tea, that’s all.’

  ‘She hasn’t bothered herself to come up here for a good bit, why should I be at her beck and call?’

  ‘She’s been sick in bed for one thing, and she was here this morning for another.’

  Tony’s eyes narrowed. ‘Here already? Did you tell her where I was?’

  ‘How could I have done that, Tony, since I didn’t know and still don’t know where you were …?’

  ‘There was a session in the hotel, it wasn’t sensible to drive back, a few of us stayed. …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was New Year’s Eve … you know, excuse for a bit of a celebration.’

  ‘Yes I know, I heard the bells in Christ Church, they played them on Radio Eireann at midnight. It was lovely. Smashing celebration, I thought to myself.’

  ‘Oh Ash, I should have … but you know, you’re not all that keen on the crowd … listen, I’ll make it up to you.’

  ‘Good, be here at teatime. Around four o’clock.’

  ‘No, that’s not fair, stop tricking me. Stop it. I’ve made my arrangements. I’ve got to go out. Are there clean shirts?’

  ‘There are nine clean shirts.’

  ‘What do you mean, nine? What are you playing at?’

  ‘You asked me, I’m answering. The laundry comes every Wednesday. I give him seven shirts, he gives me seven shirts, that’s the way we work it. It’s called the miracle of having money.’

  ‘I really don’t know what’s wrong with you, Ash, I don’t. You have everything you want here … why are you always so bitter?’

  ‘I don’t know, I really don’t. It must have been part of my nature.’

  ‘So now it’s sardonic is it? Sarcasm.’

  ‘Mam isn’t well. She’s not looking well at all. I’d like to go back to the shop and work there to help for a while.’

  ‘Is this what the confrontation was going to be about? I don’t want it. I don’t want my wife working back in her parents’ shop.’

  ‘I don’t want my husband drunk as a fool, falling around the town making eejits of us both. I don’t want to live here alone as if I were a widow. Your mother has more company than I do. There are a lot of things I don’t want, Tony Murray, and I put up with them.’

  ‘Now, I’m putting my foot down. I’m a married man and I won’t be made little of by my wife going back to her job. Through pig-headed stupidity.’

  Aisling stood up. ‘And I’m a married woman and I won’t then be made little of by my husband saying that there’s nothing wrong with us. There is plenty wrong with us. We have not managed to have sexual intercourse yet. After a year and seven months, that is not normal, Tony. And for the last six months we haven’t even made the effort. It is not acceptable to me that I sit here and take orders from someone who is pig-headedly stupid enough to maintain that everything’s fine.’

  Tony looked at her, his fists clenched.

  ‘So what about a bargain?’

  ‘What kind of bargain?’

  ‘You get your way over my job. I’ll agree not to go back to work. And I get my way over the other business. We go to Dublin and see a specialist. There are specialists. We can be helped.’

  ‘A crowd of Americans, most likely, or worse, Irish fellows who’ve been in America, asking a lot of personal questions, getting their kicks that way … telling you to lay off the drink for a year … telling you to describe this and that. You’re not getting me up there. I’m telling you that flat.’

  Aisling looked cold. ‘So, I go back to work in O’Connor’s.’

  ‘Yes, you win, you get your way as usual.’ Tony looked at her with his face curled into a scornful look. ‘That’s right. Play dirty. Get your way at all cost. Do what you like.’

  Aisling didn’t even bother to argue. Her shoulders slumped and she said almost to herself, ‘Oh that’s totally wrong, I haven’t got my own way. I haven’t won at all. But I don’t suppose anyone on earth will believe that.’

  Dearest, dearest Elizabeth,

  I can’t tell you how pleased I am with your news. You must have thought that Mam and I were drunk yesterday when you phoned, we’d been sitting here talking and it had got dark … and when the phone rang it sort of brought us back to reality with a bump. I hope we sounded as happy for you as we are.

  I know I was crass when I thought you meant that you were going to marry Johnny. You see I hadn’t really heard of Henry, except very briefly. Now you must sit down and write me a long letter about him, give yourself headings like we did at English class back at school – no I’ll give them to you: a) why you like him so much; b) what you talk about; c) what you laugh about; d) where you are going to live; e) what kind of wedding and where; f) do you sleep with him and if so is it nice; g) what did Johnny say?

  Love from us all,

  Aisling

  XVI

  EVERYONE SEEMED EAGER to know what Johnny would say. Even Father. He wasn’t in a position to say anything for some time since Francesca had swept him off to her aunt’s restaurant – somewhere – and she and Auntie were feeding him with home-made minestrone and building him up again. Or that was the message that Stefan seemed to gather from the telephone call. Stefan was pleased but slightly fearful at Elizabeth’s announcement. He admired the ring, the single diamond which Henry had bought as soon as the jewellery shop opened the next day. He could have got Henry an antique ring at half the price, something much more beautiful but naturally he made no mention of it. Neither did Anna. Their congratulations seemed flat to Elizabeth, it was almost as if they were looking over their shoulders … expecting a fully-recovered Johnny to come in and overturn everything.

  Father said that he was pleased, he offered his congratulations to Elizabeth as if she were a stranger, a customer at the bank rather than his only child. He said that he liked Henry and hoped they would be happy. Then immediately he asked where Elizabeth would live, and what would happen to him for the rest of his life? He asked it flatly and not at all accusingly. Elizabeth had the answer ready. She thought that they should arrange for someone to rent her room at a low cost and that whoever the tenant was – perhaps a student, or a teacher – she should cook Father a meal each evening. Father said it would have to be looked into. Perhaps in the bank, it might not be thought, well, proper, to have a woman living under the same roof. Elizabeth kept her temper: yes of course it would indeed have to be looked into, but then of course there might be no need for it. Father was still a young man in his fifties, he was well able to look after himself. Elizabeth would be glad to show him how to make simple meals, and even when she was married she could come from time to time and do some baking for him. Father put on his anxious face for a while and said that it all did seem for the best, and he hoped there would be no problems, no trouble.

  ‘What kind of trouble could there possibly be, Father?’

  ‘Well… the other young man, Johnny Stone … do you not think he may have had expectations? After all you have been seeing him for years and years. It’s not unreasonable for him to have expected. …’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Elizabeth said quickly. ‘I know I have been going out with Johnny and I’m very fond of him �
�� but that’s different – Johnny’s not a person who settles down. He had no “expectations” as you call it.’

  ‘What does he say about you going to marry Henry?’ Father asked doggedly.

  ‘Nothing, he doesn’t know, he’s away.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Father.

  Harry’s letter was muted in its warmth. Oh, he had all the right words but there was nothing behind them. There were three pages of Harry’s great sweepy handwriting. Elizabeth had a little bet with herself about whether he would mention Johnny on page two or page three. Probably two, she decided. She won her bet. She threw the letter on the floor in a rage and then had to go and pick it up. Damn Johnny Stone, why did he make everyone think he was right? Why did he have to cloud her marriage even now? She knew that Johnny wouldn’t mind if she married Henry, but nobody else knew this. Why did everybody take his side?

  She told Henry Mason no lies. She said she had been Johnny’s lover, that he had been the only one, that she had loved him for a long time but recently, over a period of a year, she had begun to realise that it wasn’t any real relationship, it was an elaborate series of pretences and attitudes. Henry found this an entirely satisfactory explanation.

  He had had one affair in his life too. It had not been so long-standing. It was with Simon’s sister; Barbara Burke was one of the first girls he had ever met, he met her at tennis parties, she was terribly good. She had found him endearing he thought, but she was very impatient with him, if he didn’t win the tennis match, catch the waiter’s eye quickly, find a taxi in the rain, she sighed and he felt that he was very inadequate.

  Henry had become determined to please Barbara … and he had succeeded: for a year they had an affair and she did not think he should be patronised and patted on the head. It had been a very happy time, and Henry had wanted them to get married. But Barbara had said they were far too young, they should see the world a little. And oddly Simon had agreed. Henry had been afraid that Simon might have thought it was a poor show having an affair with his sister and not making an honest woman of her.