Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  Anyway, it had all been for the best, because Henry began to realise that he was in fact involved in a complicated business of pretending that he was happy doing things when he certainly was not. He had to make such an effort all the time. Barbara became so impatient when he forgot things that he had a little notebook where he wrote things she said down. She accused him of not being aware of what was happening so he used to note headings in his book of things to talk about. When she was away and he telephoned her he had a whole list of things to say beside the phone. Then it dawned on him that this was no way to live. He explained it to Barbara, and she didn’t believe him, she thought it was all a game; but he assured her that the real Henry would bore her to death in two minutes … she only liked the rehearsed and constantly-aspiring-to-please Henry. Barbara never really understood what he meant but the romance ended.

  What had happened to her? Oh, she married a doctor, a very successful chap called Donaldson. They all met from time to time – there had been no bitterness. In fact Henry would like to invite them to the wedding if that would be all right? Of course it would be all right, after all Johnny Stone would be invited to the wedding as well.

  ‘I wonder what he’ll say when he hears we’re getting married?’ said Henry.

  Stefan had obviously decided that it was not up to him to tell Johnny the news. So when Elizabeth came into the shop muffled up against the cold January winds, he still didn’t know.

  They hugged each other, she exclaimed at how well he looked. Italian soup must put strength into a man certainly, she laughed. Stefan went on polishing a candlestick that didn’t need to be polished, looking carefully the other way.

  ‘And what have you been up to?’ Johnny said. Johnny never discussed his dalliances, there had been the slightest little frown at Elizabeth’s reference to Italian soup.

  Stefan had started to polish more earnestly than ever, and began to move unwillingly towards his own little office. Elizabeth had taken off her coat and long woolly scarf, her gloves and her knitted hat.

  ‘Lord, that’s better, I was beginning to feel like an Egyptian mummy. What have I been up to? Didn’t Stefan tell you? Henry and I decided to get married. Look, here’s the ring … you must wish us luck. …’

  ‘You and Henry decided to do what?’ said Johnny, holding her hand with the ring on it; he didn’t even notice that Stefan had scuttled off into his office.

  ‘Get married, some time at the end of the summer, if there ever is a summer, so now isn’t that a surprise?’

  ‘You can’t marry Henry. It’s … it’s ridiculous. …’

  ‘What on earth do you mean? Of course I’m going to marry Henry. It’s exactly what I want to do, I’m delighted to marry him, he is exactly the right person for me to marry, and I think I’m right for him too.’

  ‘Funny-face, is this some kind of silly joke?’

  ‘Johnny, of course it’s not. I wouldn’t make a joke about something like this. …’

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought, but you’re not serious?’

  Elizabeth sat down on a carved hall chair. ‘I don’t know why you keep saying that.’

  ‘What the hell did you expect me to say? Well done, how clever, here’s to the bride and groom?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘Oh don’t be so stupid.’

  ‘But you like Henry, you like me … why aren’t you pleased?’

  ‘I had this silly idea that you were my woman. That’s all.’

  ‘Of course I’m not your woman, you would hate to think of a tie like that. You’ve never wanted one. Last summer when I asked you if you had any objections if I went out with Simon or Henry you looked surprised. “What objections can I have, pussy cat? You’re your own person.” Those were your words. …’

  ‘Yes and I meant them. But marrying one of them. Marrying Henry when my back was turned. … Oh, come on.’

  ‘I didn’t marry him, I’m going to. If you were here I’d have told you. It wasn’t when your back was turned. He asked me on New Year’s Day and you weren’t. …’

  ‘Oh spare me the sordid blow-by-blow account, for heaven’s sake,’ pleaded Johnny.

  Elizabeth shrugged. ‘It’s impossible to please you,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t try very hard to please me, do you sweetness? When my back’s turned going off to marry a twitching solicitor.’

  ‘He is not a twitching solicitor. God, how dismissive and cruel you are. Henry never says anything except nice things about you … why do you have to be so hurtful about people?’

  ‘He might say less nice things if he knew what I had been up to with his future bride.’

  ‘He knows.’

  ‘You never told prissy Henry about. …’

  ‘You are not to call him names. I told him that you and I were lovers for years, since I was eighteen. I know about his past. We’re not fools, but we don’t go over and over it with relish. …’

  ‘You are serious? You are going to marry him?’

  ‘Of course I am. Can’t you be happy for me, for us, instead of being all bitter and cruel? Can’t you?’

  ‘But I’m not happy, I’m not happy to have my lady love going off to marry someone else, let’s not be idiotic. Why should I be?’

  ‘I’m not your lady love. I’m one of them.’

  ‘The main one. For me … and I was the only one for you wasn’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why can’t things be as they were?’

  ‘They can’t, it was nonsensical. I was pretending I didn’t care that you had other girls and that you didn’t want to settle down, but I did care, and I’m sick of pretending.’

  ‘You should have said.

  ‘If I had said … you’d have left me years ago, you left all the others who said, didn’t you?’

  ‘It’s rather drastic though isn’t it? Going off behind my back and getting engaged to someone else.’

  ‘Wish me happiness?’

  ‘You’re making the greatest mistake in your life, choosing him rather than me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have me if I chose you. “Free as the air”, another of your expressions. …’

  ‘Ah yes, but what we had was super. I thought we got the best of each other and none of the tedium – no valleys, all peaks.’

  ‘A bit unnatural though, as a permanent way of going on, wouldn’t you say?’ Elizabeth spoke without guile; she was even surprised at being able to talk in this way to Johnny. Her heart didn’t race any more, she didn’t try to find the right phrase, the good approach. She wasn’t eyeing him nervously in case his expression might change.

  ‘Dear Lord, homespun philosophy already.’ But Johnny was laughing. ‘Right, if you’ve got such a puritan ethic, you want the bad times and the whole business, then you’re going to get it. And I wish you well. And I wish you happiness. Of course I do, of course I do.’ Johnny took her by the shoulders and pulled her up to face him. He kissed her gently on each cheek. ‘All the happiness in the world. You’re a lovely, lovely woman. He is a really lucky man. Hey, Stefan, you old humbug, come out here and give me an account of yourself. …’

  Stefan appeared nervously from the office where he and Anna had been peering through the slit they used in case there was any shoplifting.

  ‘Stefan, you’re a fine watch-dog. While I was away getting my strength back, look what you did. You let that solicitor walk off with my lady love behind my back. And now we’ve got to wish them well. …’

  Stefan and Anna burst into smiles of relief. So would Henry, Elizabeth realised, so would Father, and so would Harry. Johnny had decided to get over his pique. The wedding could go ahead.

  Elizabeth had a letter from Jean, Henry’s sister, welcoming her to the family. Simon Burke was so thrilled he had a drinks party at once in his flat, which was much more elegant and stylish than Henry’s place. His sister Barbara was there, wearing a small hat made of smooth feathers shaped to fit her hair-style, a fur stole and a very
expensive dress. Her husband, the doctor, looked considerably older than her, greying, a little paunchy and very charming.

  Barbara embraced her and wished her every happiness. ‘Henry tells me you’re so kind,’ she purred. ‘That’s what he needs, lots of kindness.’

  Simon kept up a witty act about how he was the loser in some contest. It had always been the same, he complained, hand on brow in mock despair. When either of them wanted something it was always Henry who got it first. The flat with a view over the park? Henry got it. The office upstairs in the solicitors’ firm, the one with the big desk? Henry had got it. And now Elizabeth, their beautiful art teacher. Henry had got her. Henry flushed with pleasure and disclaimers about his success. Elizabeth thought Simon was a very good friend, because actually neither Henry’s flat nor his office were as good as Simon’s.

  After the party, Henry and Elizabeth walked in the crisp night air arm in arm and chatting companionably.

  ‘Isn’t Simon marvellous? I don’t know how he does it, just assembles people and pours them drinks, a few little savouries … and it’s a party. …’ Henry sounded admiring and envious.

  ‘Wait until we have our own little place, we’ll give parties like that all the time,’ she said, struck at how quickly he had been echoing her own thoughts.

  ‘I’d love that,’ he said, his face lighting up. He stopped under a street light and kissed her. ‘We’ll have great times,’ he said.

  ‘Sensational times,’ she said.

  ‘Would you come home with me now?’ he asked. He had been about to take her home to Clarence Gardens; she had argued that it would take him too long, the journey there and back, but he insisted always on seeing her to the door.

  ‘But it’s in the other direction,’ she said, confused. ‘If I were to go back with you and go to Clarence Gardens. It would take all night … oh, I see.’

  ‘Yes, I want you to stay with me,’ he said full of hope.

  ‘Why not?’ she said suddenly.

  They lay in the narrow single bed sipping mugs of hot chocolate. Henry had got up and made them and brought them back to bed.

  ‘It’s not a very comfortable bed.’

  ‘It’s fine, it’s friendly,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Yes, well, when I was getting furniture for this place, I thought it might be rather overoptimistic to get a double bed, you know. Tempting fate.’

  They laughed together.

  ‘I feel I’ve been with you always,’ Henry said.

  ‘So do I,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘It’s just right, somehow,’ he said.

  Elizabeth laid her head on his shoulder. ‘You are the dearest and most loving man in the world, I can’t tell you how happy I feel.’

  ‘I was afraid … I thought that maybe … you know, I was worried that. …’

  ‘I don’t know what complicated process is going through your mind,’ said Elizabeth, who thought that Henry might be about to look for some reassuring comparisons, ‘but whatever it is I want you to know that I feel safe and happy and loved … and you are my man forever and ever.’ Henry sighed with happiness and content.

  Johnny and Elizabeth did the books for Stefan once a month. They had always treated themselves to an evening out when the figures were finished. It had become a little ritual.

  ‘I suppose all that is a thing of the past?’ Johnny said casually when they had put away the ledgers. ‘Home to my gloomy tomato sandwich for me.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to go out to supper, we usually do, don’t we?’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘But what about Faithful Henry?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Won’t he mind?’

  ‘Why should he?’

  ‘Good,’ said Johnny. ‘Hang on, I’ll get the car.’

  ‘Is good to see you Mr Stone,’ said the waiter in the little Italian restaurant. ‘I was afraid you an’ the young lady had a quarrel, you no come here.’

  ‘No quarrel. She’s going to marry another man. But we haven’t had a quarrel.’

  ‘You make a joke, Meester Stone.’ The waiter looked confused; he knew that somehow Johnny was making a fool of him.

  ‘Shut up, stop embarrassing people,’ she said. And after that they relaxed and talked about Stefan and the amazing woman with all that old glass who came in to sell it to him bit by bit, and how Anna was jealous because she thought the woman must secretly hanker after Stefan. They laughed over the contents of a house which had been offered to them, where nothing was more than five years old … a brand new bungalow with modern furniture, which had, not unnaturally, displeased its owners.

  Johnny’s flat was nearby.

  ‘Can I presume this eminently reasonable man’s tolerance will include your coming home for a nightcap?’ he asked elegantly.

  ‘I never checked, but mine doesn’t,’ she said lightly.

  It was cold and windy in the street.

  ‘Well, goodbye then, my little chick,’ he said and kissed her on each cheek.

  Elizabeth didn’t know why she felt so furious as she struggled against the wind and rain to the bus stop. After all, Johnny had very rarely driven her home to Clarence Gardens, nor collected her either. But here was something calculated. You don’t come home to bed with me so you are left out in the cold and rain. She caught the last bus and did not feel at all in the mood for a chat.

  ‘Coldest weather we’ve had for years,’ said the conductor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth, telling herself she had no right to feel so angry with Johnny. He was sticking to his rules, it was she who had changed the pattern.

  ‘Not been a day as bad since 1895, did you know that?’

  She smiled at him, it didn’t hurt to be pleasant, she told herself. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘It was in the papers, you must have been up in the moon, or in love, if you didn’t see it. Was it in love?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she laughed.

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t let you come home on buses alone at this time of night. Next time you see him, tell him that from me, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes I will,’ said Elizabeth wondering how it appeared that almost everyone in the world, including strange bus conductors, thought that she was in love with Johnny.

  … If I stop once I’ll never start again and you are right, you make all the running, you tell me everything and I’m the one who is buttoned up. So. What do I do all day? Now I work back in O’Connor’s again, and I’m happy. What used I to do all day? Cry, wander around the house, cry more. Wash my face, go in and see Mam. Come home. Wait for Tony.

  What do we do when Tony gets home? Well that depends. If he comes home before midnight we usually have words. That’s not often. He is drunk, and bad-tempered, and the reason he has come home is because no better alternative presented itself. No party with Shay, no session at the hotel. He says I am nagging and I am, I say he is a drunk and he is. Then we go to bed. But most nights he does not come home while I am awake, I go to bed at midnight usually. Or he doesn’t come home at all. We do not entertain people. I used to have his mother to tea but the pretences are over now, even with her. We are not invited to other people’s houses. Tony may be invited to other people’s houses, at two a.m., but if so he doesn’t tell me, and I don’t think he remembers.

  What’s next now, sex. I think Catholics are allowed to talk about it, that is if they have it. I haven’t even known what it is like so I’m in a poor position to discuss it. Our marriage has not been consummated. We have never done it. Not once. I don’t know why I think it’s because Tony is impotent. It may not be that, it may be that we just didn’t get round to learning about it properly at the start, and then Tony became such a drunkard that he couldn’t manage it anyway. But there it is. You ask me do I enjoy sex, I don’t know, I’m sure I might. Everyone else seems to. Do I intend to have children? Well there’s no rule saying that a star couldn’t appear over Kilgarret and another miracle happen, but so far the Holy Ghost hasn’t arrived
with any messages for me.

  Mam isn’t at all well. She won’t admit it, but she has some very bad days where she looks very yellow and not well. She says it’s the weather, or the change of life or indigestion. But I wish she’d see a doctor. I want everyone to see doctors, as you can see. Dad’s fine, overworked, he’s glad to have me back. He picks rows with Eamonn over nothing; I wish I could tell him what real causes there are for rows but I begin to breathe a word against Tony and they all shut up. Maureen’s looking like a woman of seventy – she’s not thirty-two yet, and honestly she’s like an old woman. The Dalys are a crowd of devils really. Niamh is home about every second weekend with a college scarf and a smirk on her that would drive you up the wall. She and that friend of hers, Anna Barry, think they’re the cat’s pyjamas just because they’re at UCD. I said to her very cattily that we could all have gone to UCD if we’d wanted to and that she was making herself foolish going round pretending she was an intellectual and a genius. She said, truthfully of course, that none of us had the brains to get in there, and I must say it’s very galling that snotty little Niamh is the one who’s going to be a graduate. You were right all those years ago, I should have, I should have – but then there are so many things that I should have, and more important, things that I should not have done. And Donal’s fine. Did I tell you that the Moriartys are terribly pleased with him, and he’s almost like a medicine man in there behind the counter? I heard a woman coming to consult him about ointments the other day – wouldn’t have Mr Moriarty at all, had to speak to the young gentleman in the white coat who cured her baby the last time. Donal loved it, of course.

  Things will not get better. They will only get worse. I am expected to cover up for Tony’s drinking. If he doesn’t look well in public, people blame me, I swear it. I’m not being a good wife to him, not looking after him. Do you remember that Doctor Lynch years ago? I honestly do remember people said that it was his wife’s fault because she was a sourpuss and she didn’t give him a good home. She’s dead now but I’d like to go up to the churchyard and dig her up and apologise to her for ever having thought such a thing.