Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  ‘I wasn’t saying that, I was only saying that you’ll have to be prepared for a lot of emotion. Worse than if you had been at home.’

  ‘I know, I know. Thank God you came with me, you’re so good.’

  ‘She’s nearly as important to me as she is to you.’

  ‘I know, she’ll be so pleased.’ Aisling suddenly broke down. ‘Oh, isn’t it ridiculous that she’s going to die, she’s not old, she’s not sixty, it’s so unfair.’

  ‘Stop it Aisling, stop it now, you can’t see where you’re going, you’ll kill us all, is that going to help?’

  ‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry.’

  ‘We must be full of bravery when we meet her. That’s what she’d want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what she’d want, to see us back in Kilgarret behaving very well and keeping everyone else’s spirits up. That’s what we’ll have to do.’

  They hadn’t told anyone what time they would arrive and Dad didn’t recognise the hired car as it came past the shop. But they saw him locking up; he looked old and stooped, his hair was straggly and his face was lined.

  ‘Stop it, Aisling, remember why we came,’ Elizabeth said, and the trembling in Aisling’s lip stopped.

  She got out of the car just as Sean was walking wearily towards the house in the square, and Elizabeth got out the other side holding little Eileen, who was fast asleep.

  ‘Dad,’ Aisling began. ‘Dad.’

  Elizabeth stepped in front of her. ‘Uncle Sean,’ she said, ‘we’ve come back to show Eileen her namesake. We thought she’d like to see the baby and know that her name lives on. …’

  That was when Sean broke down and right out in the square, where anyone could see, he sobbed like a child. They patted him and they blew their own noses and they offered him a big handkerchief which Elizabeth had seen sticking out of his pocket. Then he firmed up his shoulders and they went into the house.

  ‘Can we have our old room?’ Aisling asked.

  ‘You can have what you like,’ Dad said.

  They went up and left their cases on the same beds that they had occupied as children, one on each side of the white chest of drawers.

  They put the baby, fed and changed in her carry-cot, on the floor between them and sat down.

  ‘Did we ever think in the years gone by. …’ Aisling said.

  ‘No, but we never thought anything … it was all going to be so different, and everyone was going to stay the same age … we were just going to catch up with them.’

  ‘And treat them like equals. …’

  ‘And stay up as late as them

  ‘She’s still asleep, Dad says … should we …?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth, ‘let’s go in now.’

  ‘Take the baby?’

  ‘All right. Brave, remember.’

  ‘I’ll remember. There’s no point in coming home to weep, she doesn’t want that, she wants … she wants. …’

  ‘That’s right. Come on.’

  She looked tiny, or they had given her huge pillows. Mam was a big woman but everything, her head, her shoulders and her arms seemed to have been scaled down. The room was darkened, but you could still see the light through the flowery curtains, and you could hear the noises of the town, the bus revving up, children calling across the square, the clip-clop of a horse and cart.

  Mam wore a cardigan, a pale blue one that Aisling remembered as one of her better ones. It had become a bed cardigan now. There was a missal, and rosary beads, on the bedside table beside all the glasses of water and bottles and medicines.

  Her smile was without tears, her voice matter-of-fact. ‘Well, I was right, I was right. Sean told me he had to make a phone call from the shop yesterday. A Sunday. He said it had to do with business. I knew he was ringing you, and he didn’t want to tell me in case you didn’t come. Let me have a look at you.’

  ‘Oh Mam.’

  ‘Merciful Lord, is that Elizabeth you have with you? The room’s so dark. Come here, the pair of you, let me look at you.’

  ‘It’s the three of us. I brought her to see you. …’

  ‘What do you mean, what are you saying? Who …?’

  ‘I brought Eileen to see her adopted granny … you’re the only one she has. I thought she should have a look at you. …’ Elizabeth put the baby on the bed and little Eileen put up her hands towards the sick woman as if she wanted to be lifted. Elizabeth and Aisling stood motionless. The two frail arms reached out and lifted the baby with effort, and laid it against her breast.

  ‘Wasn’t that a beautiful thing to do, to bring her to see me? Oh, Elizabeth, I’ve always said you had more class than any of my own children. And much more than this rascal, who I love more than all of them put together.’

  Then they moved to the bed and kissed her and they sat down beside each other so that she wouldn’t have to keep turning her head to look from one to another. And sometimes she took Aisling’s hand with her own thin ones, and sometimes she took Elizabeth’s. She told them she was not afraid, and she knew that Our Lord was waiting for her. And that she would see Sean, and Violet and everyone, and she would watch down and pray for them all. She said that she worried about Eamonn and his father, and what would happen when she wasn’t there to keep the peace. She said it was a terrible pity that she wouldn’t live to see Donal and that nice Anna Barry married, and what a tragedy for them, with all the plans made, and now a bereavement to hang over the wedding festivities. She said that Niamh was as bright as a button and would come to no harm, because she was able to look after herself better than any of them. It came from being the youngest of the family. She didn’t worry much about Maureen either. Maureen was a Daly now, and she had settled down; the children were a great delight to her. She would always be a complainer: it was in her nature.

  She told them that it was a great grace to be given a warning of your death, not to be killed in an accident or in a war. It meant you had time to take stock and to tell people things you hadn’t wanted to tell them before, and set things right. She had even made a little will; not that she had much to leave, but a few personal possessions she wanted people to have. It was a comfortable feeling. She said nothing about Tony or Aisling’s departure from Kilgarret. She said there was plenty of time. Doctor Murphy had said she would be well able to talk for a week or two. The trouble was she got tired easily.

  She kissed the baby’s forehead and let them scoop her up off the bed. Elizabeth held her child in one arm and held out her hand to touch Aunt Eileen’s.

  ‘I’ll let Aisling come to you on her own … we don’t have to be like Siamese twins.’ She smiled.

  Aunt Eileen smiled back. ‘But you always were like Siamese twins, that was what was so wonderful about the whole thing, when you came here. Thank God it didn’t die, when you grew up. I’m so glad you came back full of strength for me, you two fine girls. It’s a great great help. You do know that.’

  ‘Yes, Mam, it’s the devil to try and keep cheerful but if it’s what you want … well, you always get your own way.’

  ‘No, I don’t, you bold rossie, I never had my way over you … go on now, and let me sleep.’

  She was still smiling as they closed the door.

  It was very hard indeed to visit Mrs Murray. Aisling rang first to know if she would be welcome.

  ‘Well, of course, you must come, if you want to,’ was the reply.

  It had been awkward, even when Mrs Murray tried to be warm. Aisling could not apologise for her own behaviour and Mrs Murray could not forgive it. They were two women bound by a wish to be understood but a failure to understand.

  ‘I believe that the home where Tony is staying is very comfortable.’

  ‘How do you believe that, Aisling, if you haven’t seen it?’

  ‘A friend of Elizabeth’s saw it.’

  ‘Oh I see. Elizabeth brought her baby over, I hear.’

  ‘Yes, they called her Eileen, Henry’s mother was Eileen too.’

  ‘That
was nice.’

  ‘How is Joannie?’

  ‘About the same, the same really.’

  And in the end when the conversation became almost too heavy to hand backwards and forwards to each other, Aisling said, ‘I’m so sorry, about everything, Mrs Murray.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry about everything too. Truly sorry.’

  ‘I’ll go back to my mother now.’

  ‘And I’m truly sorry about your mother too,’ said Mrs Murray. ‘It’s a very hard life that the Lord gives us here on earth.’

  ‘And I gave it a lot of thought. It’s not just a foolish dying woman’s fancy, now.’

  ‘No, Mam, I know that.’

  ‘What could be better, you could live here and be mistress of this house, you’d have a girl to do all the work? You’d run the shop with your father, keep the peace between himself and Eamonn.’

  ‘But Mam. …’

  ‘There’s no cause for you to be over in London working as a doctor’s receptionist to people we don’t know at all, and living in a poky little flat with second-hand furniture, and learning bridge, and going out to eat in foreign restaurants. That’s no life, Aisling, no life at all.’

  ‘But I’d be no good here. …’

  ‘You’d be great, and I’ve come round to thinking that all the things you told me about your marriage mean you should ask for an annulment. You should try. Here you are, a fine young woman, and Tony, the Lord be good to him, hasn’t his full senses. … The Church has to be understanding in cases like this.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s worth it, Mam.’

  ‘You were the one who said it was worth it, and I didn’t listen to you. After all, if you can prove that you never consummated your marriage, they’d have to say it wasn’t a real marriage.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Aisling looked down at the floor. Mam knew nothing of Johnny, nothing of any other love and interest in her life. Poor, kind, good Mam was trying to see that fate didn’t deal her out of her entitlements. ‘I’ll be fine, Mam, I’ve … sort of settled into new ways, and I’m very happy. I’ll be fine. I’d be better there than here.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you again about it, girl, I get tired so easily. Today I feel a puff of wind would blow me away.’

  ‘Don’t go away, Mam, please, please.’

  ‘What good are you, Aisling, if you start to cry? Aren’t we all worn out with weeping, my shoulders and chest are weary with crying.’

  ‘It’s only because we love you.’

  ‘If you loved me, wouldn’t you help me by being practical? Your father in here on his knees beside the bed … “I’ll never live without you, Eileen, you keep us all going, don’t die, don’t die.” Aisling, what kind of help is that for a dying woman? I want to know that he’ll be all right, that he’ll be able to look after everything, that he’ll go on to an old age and let you and Eamonn run the business and give all the others their due out of it. I’d like your father to get the ground floor turned into a place for himself, with a bedroom and all, to save him all those stairs. Could you get Kearneys, the builders, in …?’

  Aisling stood up, eyes blazing. ‘Right, Mam, would you like them to come this afternoon, or will we wait until the day after the funeral …?’

  Eileen laughed and her face looked years younger. ‘That’s more like it, my girl, that’s it. That’s the Aisling I used to know.’

  ‘I don’t know how I can be so calm with you, Eileen, we English are terrified to talk about death, and I sit with you casually talking about it all the time. …’

  ‘I’ve always told you you’re more Irish than we are. …’

  ‘That’s a great compliment, from you.’

  ‘It’s a compliment from anyone … will you send Aisling back? She’s better off here. She’ll become restless in England, it’s not her place. …’

  ‘She’s settling there though, Eileen. I mean it, if you saw her place, she’s made a little home out of it, much more than she ever bothered in the bungalow with Tony. …’

  ‘Ah, it was all a very sad mistake, that, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but she did the only thing she could have done when she left.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m more of your opinion now than I used to be, but I’d like her to come home. Not only for Sean’s sake and everything; I think she’ll find that this is her place. In the end.’

  ‘Maybe eventually, but I think she feels more free. …’

  ‘My love, I know well she has a man in London. I’ve been that girl’s mother for nearly thirty years, I don’t have to be told. …’

  ‘Well, of course, I’m not sure … I don’t really. …’

  ‘Of course you don’t, you don’t know a thing. Now, tell me one thing – and this is the only thing – I don’t want you to tell her that I asked. Is he a good man? Will he be reliable? Will he make her happy?’

  Elizabeth looked her straight in the eye. ‘He’ll make her very happy for a while. He is not reliable and it’s hard to know whether he’s a good man or not. In some ways he is very good, very good indeed. …’

  Aunt Eileen sighed. ‘So, it’s your own young man is it … ah, well, well.’

  ‘You have second sight.’

  ‘When it’s over, will you send her back here?’

  ‘I’ll encourage her to think seriously about it.’

  ‘You are the only person who tells me the truth – everyone else tells me what they think I want to hear.’

  ‘I wish my daughter had time to get to know you.’

  ‘She’ll do fine now with her own mother. God bless you child. I feel very very weary. …’

  The next day the family were asked to come to the bedside. Father Riordan gave out the rosary and even Sean gave the responses. Holy Mary, Mother of God … Holy Mary, Mother of God … Maureen was crying and had her hands over her face; so was Niamh. Eamonn and Donal stood by the door with their heads bowed. Brendan Daly stood beside them. The woman breathed hoarsely, the sound and the drone of the prayers seemed to go together. Then her breathing got softer. The prayers went on and on.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners. …

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death.

  ‘Goodbye, Eileen, thank you, thank you very much,’ Elizabeth said softly. It didn’t matter if Eileen heard or not. She knew.

  Peggy insisted on coming in to organise the house for the funeral.

  ‘The mistress liked everything done right, the girl you have now wouldn’t know what dishes to have out, and how things should be served.’

  The kitchen was soon a hive of activity. Chicken boiling in a huge pot, bacon in another … Elizabeth looked on in amazement.

  ‘How many people are they going to invite?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t invite people, they come. Surely you must have been at some funerals when you lived here?’

  ‘I don’t remember anything like this.’ Elizabeth stared as more and more people called with mass cards, and sympathy.

  ‘I’ll have to go and help Dad cope with it all,’ Aisling said. They had been sitting in their bedroom, as always, with the door open, aware of the activity of the house.

  ‘Good, I’ll settle the baby down and I’ll come down too. Tell me what to do that would help.’

  ‘Oh you’ll know, talk, laugh, keep people’s spirits up.’

  ‘Laugh?’

  ‘A bit, it’s always a great help if it’s not too solemn, it’s unnatural with people making formal speeches.’

  The undertakers took Eileen’s coffin out at five o’clock that evening. The family followed slowly, heads down. All around the square people stood respectfully. Men had taken their hats and caps off. People blessed themselves as the coffin passed, carried by the four undertakers. People getting off the bus stopped to let the procession pass by and blessed themselves also. It wound up the hill to the church, where the bell was tolling in the most unsuitable way for a warm summer day.

  Th
ey stood around the coffin at the back of the church for what seemed like hours and hours. The whole town of Kilgarret filed by one by one and shook their hands.

  ‘She was a great woman.’

  ‘She was a marvellous wife and mother.’

  ‘You’ll all miss her, she was a fine woman.’

  ‘She never had a hard word to say for anyone.’

  ‘And this isn’t the funeral you say?’ Elizabeth whispered in amazement to Aisling.

  ‘Of course it’s not. Tomorrow’s the funeral. This is just the bringing to the church.’

  Cousins and customers came back to sympathise with Sean; tea and sandwiches and whisky for the men were served. People stayed until eleven o’clock.

  The room where Eileen had slept and died had been cleaned and aired and the signs of illness had been taken away.

  ‘Do you think Dad should sleep in that room tonight? What do you think?’ Maureen asked Aisling.

  Already she was in charge. Maureen was the eldest after all, but you’d never know it.

  ‘Yes, of course, he will. Didn’t he sleep there all the time Mam was ill, in the little bed? And won’t he have to sleep there for the rest of his life? Peggy has all the signs of Mam’s illness gone, she’s got a grand fresh bed, of course Dad’ll sleep there. That’s his room.’ She went and took Dad by the shoulders and brought him upstairs.

  ‘It’s very hard to believe,’ he said.

  ‘I know Dad.’

  ‘There’s not much point in doing anything, you know, in going on. I can’t see any reason for doing anything, getting up, going to work. …’

  Aisling looked at him, bent and much older than his sixty-odd years. ‘Well, I must say, Mam would love to hear that kind of talk and her not a day dead, and not even buried yet. She’d be thrilled to hear that kind of attitude. What did she work for all those years?’

  ‘You’re right child.’ He straightened up. ‘I’ll go to bed now.’

  ‘I’ll look in, in ten minutes, to see are you all right.’ When she came back he lay, a lonely figure, in the big bed, with his pink and grey pyjamas buttoned up to his neck. There were tears on his face and he was looking straight ahead of him.