Jenny Rose

by Mary Anne Kelly

  I went to get the tablecloth. When I opened the cupboard, there was a crisp, new Marks and Spencer shopping bag in there. I moved it to the side. It was full of lacy underwear, the tags still on. I didn’t know what to think.

  Jenny Rose stormed in the door, slammed it and turned flashing eyes at all of us. She stood there panting, very much, I thought, like a wild animal. No wonder Audrey Whitetree-Murphy thought she was mad.

  It occurred to me that maybe Jenny Rose had lied. For how would Audrey Whitetree-Murphy know Jenny Rose had drawn a picture of a naked man if I was the only one to have seen it? Unless of course she made a habit of drawing naked men. Maybe I wasn’t the only person she’d shown that painting. Or maybe she’d simply talked about it to Willy and he’d foolishly mentioned it to his mother. Or maybe, I thought, my heart sinking, he’d decided he didn’t really want a girl who drew great pictures of naked men.

  Dierdre went up to Jenny Rose. She didn’t take her in her arms, just stood beside her, presenting her with her nearness. Always a good idea with young people, who tend to fling you away.

  Jenny Rose still trembled. She was white with rage. “That bitch! You know what she’s gone and done? She’s signed him up for a tutor. At Oxford! And he’s going! He’s going!” Her dark head collapsed onto thin white arms. Narrow shoulder blades went up and down. Sobs filled the kitchen.

  Brownie drove around Jenny Rose’s legs in worried moaning-along. Nobody knew what to do.

  Dierdre put her hands over her ears. “And us without a home to go to!”

  Fueled anew, Jenny Rose’s head came up. “I wish we could go home! I want to go home,” she wailed.

  I started to go to her, but Bridey shook her head. Let Dierdre, her eyes said, and so I did. She leaned over and whispered to me, “In comforting, Dierdre will be comforted.”

  “Right,” I nodded. Jenny Rose must be thankful at least that Dierdre was alive.

  Bernadette grabbed my wrist. “Come on,” she said. “You can help me make up their beds.”

  Shaken, I went with her. Temple caught my eye as I hurried past him. He made a sort of face. He was enjoying this.

  Bernadette hummed nervously as she went up the stairs.

  It was terrible to think the two of them had to have beds made up for them every night. Couldn’t they have just left them there? Dierdre and Jenny Rose really would have been better off fixing up the studio, I thought. At least it would have been their own. This was terrible.

  Bernadette’s room was neat and clean. She pulled out the foldout bed, rolled it around and threw fresh sheets on the top. Right away I started to make up the bed. Another car pulled in the drive downstairs.

  “That’ll be Willy,” Bernadette said. “Coming to ask ‘Will you wait here in limbo gladly while I go discover the world?’ The bastard! It’s enough to sicken you!”

  “All these years they’re the best of friends and now, suddenly, off he goes,” I agreed, tugging to get the four-corner sheet snug.

  “Still.” Bernadette sat at the vanity mirror and tilted her head. “That’s the way of the world.”

  She looked very much like her aunt Dierdre, it occurred to me. The way Dierdre must have looked when she was young.

  Bernadette tugged the brush through her hair. “You’ve got to figure which way it is the wind blows. It’s yourself you’ve got to look after.” She regarded herself with shining eyes. She had that complacent look of someone who looked after themselves very well. “Claire,” she said hesitantly, “were you ever…”

  “What?” I said.

  “Did you ever, well … when you were young … did you ever fall in love with someone unattainable? Elusive…?” She turned and saw me. I must have looked shocked. “You know these things happen.” She turned back to the more interesting event, herself in the mirror. “Sometimes just like a thunderbolt.”

  I sat down on the bed. I don’t know which bothered me more, the “when you were young” or the fact that she thought it so unlikely. “In answer to your question,” I stated defiantly, “yes.”

  She put her hair up on top of her head and with the other hand ripped the delicate freesia blossoms from the bud vase. She clipped them in. The vase stood on the polished wood with the empty stems shocked and headless. I was suddenly filled with jealousy so pure I broke into a sweat. That, or was it a hot flash? But she wanted my dream. She would lower her breasts and drift her head beside his face and he would lift, wanting her. I could have smacked her brassy young face.

  There was a knock at the door. Uncle Ned cleared his throat. “Claire,” he said, “will ye come to the door?”

  Bernadette cracked it suspiciously. “What’s going on?” she said.

  He looked at me over her head. “Someone’s here to see you, Claire,” he said.

  “For me?”

  “Your husband,” he said.

  * * *

  Bernadette and I followed her father down the creaky little stairs. I was trembling. It had to be a joke. “I can’t believe it!” I said when I saw him.

  “Claire!” he said and took the room in a couple of strides. He kissed me before I knew what had happened. I must have looked shocked because Aunt Bridey said, “Well, now, what a surprise! Liam, go get that fruitcake out of the shed. I’ll bet that’s tasty by now. Good thing Molly spotted him on the middle road. He’d be halfway to China.”

  Molly leaned, half in and out, one hand on the doorknob. “I thought, Who’s this patroling the countryside with all that liquor?” she said.

  There he stood. I still couldn’t believe it.

  “This is great,” he said.

  Uncle Ned made formal introductions all around. You could tell Molly didn’t think much of Johnny. You could tell the way she stood with her back a little to him. But she was very kind and discreet. Johnny hadn’t slept, you could see that. I don’t think he’d ever looked worse. And his clothes! He looked ridiculous. He was busting out of them. He couldn’t believe those clothes still fit him! I couldn’t have been in a more unbearable position. I felt like murdering him and I was forced by propriety to stand there in my aunt’s house and act politely.

  “Come on, sit down,” Dierdre urged Molly. “Have a cup of tea, at least.”

  “No, I can’t.” She smiled. “I’ve left the car up in the road. Your lane’s like fudge. I thought I’d never get out if I drove in. Now I’m worried some lorry will barrel by and smash me car.”

  “Righteo.” Dierdre got up to walk her out. But Molly stayed right where she was.

  “I thought Ireland was cold and rainy,” Johnny said, accepting a cup of tea. “This is like the Caribbean!”

  “You’ve brought the mistral with you,” Uncle Ned said. “African winds, ya know.”

  “How do you like that?” Johnny looked at Temple.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Temple said sarcastically.

  Hmm. I reconsidered my position.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Johnny pulled the plastic bag from the wall and held it up in the air. It was bursting with liquor.

  Liam’s eyes lit up.

  “What a fine gift for the house.” Uncle Ned took the whole thing. “A tribute to the very best duty-free shopper! Leave it to the Americans to come with their arms full!” he declared, pointedly grinning at Temple, walking away with the lot before anyone could stop him.

  Jenny Rose was sitting, hunched and miserable but at least calm. “All the wee purple flowers have sprung up.” She pulled her forehead back with her fingers and flattened her nose. “Have you seen them? All at once, like.”

  Dierdre looked at her and you could tell she was furious at Willy for the way he’d treated her. She was edgy and upset all around, Dierdre was. You couldn’t blame her.

  “I told you it would turn fine,” Seamus said from the side. I hadn’t even seen him there. I saw Johnny’s eyes open wide at the sight of him. He hadn’t noticed him either. And Johnny notices everything.

  “That’s right, you did say that.” I s
miled at him.

  “The winds blow soft across the greeny bogs,” Liam tried out loud with one big hand up, gesturing in the air, “and purple trails of flowers…”

  “… don’t fill the sorry hours,” Dierdre finished, looking down.

  “It’s not a country-western song,” Liam said cruelly.

  “Hey,” Johnny put on his domestic arbitrator voice. “It is what it is.”

  “It’s not anything at all, as far as I can tell,” Jenny Rose shot. “It’s sitting there in the air without so much as a copyright on it and I or anyone else can say whatever we bloody well please.”

  Johnny looked around happily. He smacked his knees with the palms of his hands and shook his head. “Zen,” he said.

  And that’s another thing that burns me up about Johnny. He hasn’t got the slightest grasp of the concept Zen, but there he goes, using it as his, just because he put one of my Japanese Buddhist tapes in once when he was stuck in traffic on the Belt Parkway.

  Seamus stood before him in the middle of the room, his arms at his sides, his mouth wide open, gaping, captivated, at Johnny.

  “You know what’s going to happen, now,” Bernadette said dourly. “Every drop of that alcohol will be consumed by week’s end.”

  Johnny winked at Liam. “Oh, well,” he said. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  “You’re here just in time for the big fish meet,” Seamus said to Johnny.

  “Why don’t you sit down, big fella,” Johnny said to him. “You make me nervous. Like you were waiting for a drug run.”

  I could have died. Seamus never sat down.

  “You could borrow one of my rods,” Uncle Ned offered, filled with magnanimity now that he had the liquor stashed.

  “Do you know how to hold a rod?” Temple asked him. Temple, I knew, had invested thousands of pounds in the very best fishing equipment.

  “Me?” Johnny laughed. “I’m a beer and pretzels guy. I hold the clicker.”

  “Tch,” I said.

  “The clicker?” Dierdre said.

  “Well, have you never fished?” Uncle Ned asked cautiously, foreseeing Johnny perhaps losing his second-best rod in the river.

  “I used to drop lines from the Rockaway Bridge,” Johnny remembered. “If you saw what the fish over there look like now, you wouldn’t want to eat them, I’ll bet.” He twirled his toothpick with his thoughtful tongue. That toothpick, I had no doubt, had accompanied him clear across the Atlantic.

  “What do they look like?” Seamus drew near.

  Johnny looked him up and down. “Full of tumors.” He grinned. He was leaning so far back in his chair that in a minute the whole thing was going to go over with him in it. It would serve him right. He had no manners. None. I could see Aunt Bridey worrying about the linoleum. He was creasing a wedge in it, already. I loathed him.

  “Will you have a piece of cake?” Bernadette asked politely.

  I almost choked when, not only did he not wait to be served, but he helped himself to the knife and cut off a huge slice, then swallowed the whole thing impatiently in two greedy bites.

  I could feel Temple’s triumphant eyes upon me. I supposed he pitied me. I knew they were going to laugh about him when we left and so I kept postponing it.

  “Where are you staying, John?” Temple asked him impertinently.

  “Dayday’s?” Johnny said.

  “Nobody stays there long.” Dierdre patted her hair, sharing a look with Molly.

  “Really?” Johnny blotted every last crumb from the plate with his finger. “I thought it was terrific.”

  Of course he thought it was terrific, I thought, a load of drunken villagers joking and laughing around an amber-lit beer bar.

  “Sure, he’ll be staying with his wife, now he’s found her.” Liam laughed.

  They let that sink in.

  Molly, lingering at the door, said cheerfully, “Well, there you have it. No one ever knows what the future holds, do they?”

  “You said you’d bring that pretty blouse for me next time you came,” Dierdre said to Molly. She said it somehow accusingly.

  Molly’s smile wilted, but only for a moment. Everyone knew Dierdre was a little unhinged right now. “I didn’t know I was coming, though, did I?” Molly laughed good-naturedly.

  Dierdre trotted across the kitchen. She seemed to be puzzled. “It was the prettiest blouse I’d ever seen. What with embroidery on the collar and cuffs. They were white with dainty tufts of forget-me-nots.” Then she stopped in the middle of the floor. “Peg would have loved me in that,” she said, “but it’s too late, now.” A tear slid from one eye. “And it’s all my fault.”

  “There, there.” Aunt Bridey pulled her arm to sit down. “No one could have foreseen what was to happen.”

  “But I lied,” Dierdre said. “I’ve not loved Peg for years. I only stayed because she couldn’t bear to have me leave.”

  Everyone stared at her, shocked.

  “It’s true,” she said. “It was me who didn’t love her anymore. But she was so jealous! My tears were not for loss. They were relief. I’m in love with someone else,” she sobbed.

  “But who?” Liam asked, dumbfounded.

  She got up and stood beside the door. She took Molly’s hand in hers. “It’s Molly I love, y’see.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Molly freed herself from her. She cringed in horror.

  “Sure it’s no lie! Do you think I’d go lie for ya?”

  “Yes, I do. You’re overwrought. You don’t know what you’re saying. You make us both look foolish.” Molly was clearly embarrassed. She looked to Bridey for help.

  “Well, I didn’t have to, did I?” Dierdre gleamed with her brutal confession.

  Jenny Rose let out a sob and went to her.

  “Poor thing, poor thing.” Bridey went over, put her arms around them, encircling them both. She looked over Dierdre’s sobbing head and signaled Molly to go ahead and leave.

  Sighing, Molly slipped into her coat and let herself out. I felt terrible for her. Dierdre was so piteously out of control.

  Bernadette went to the sink and filled the teapot with a rush of water. She lit the stove and banged the lid on.

  After a while, Dierdre seemed to recapture herself. “I suppose I’d best be off to bed.” She sniffled.

  “Yes,” Bridey agreed. “Everything will look new in the morning.”

  Jenny Rose walked her up to tuck her in.

  After they left, Liam said to Bridey, “This is never going to work. You see how she is. She just gets worse and worse.”

  “Hush!” Bridey warned.

  “Why should he hush?” Bernadette said. “All our lives, every time Aunt Dierdre beeps, it’s hush hush hush. She’s neurotic compulsive. It has a name. She fixates on people. She’s obsessive! It’s ridiculous! They have drugs for this sort of behavior.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d have thought of parading by some available bachelors, in that case.” Liam pressed his lips together.

  “Ye’ll be thinking of your mother’s nerves, at this point, I should think,” Uncle Ned cautioned. “She’s been so good to us all in this difficult time.”

  “Aye,” Liam put his big hand lovingly on her knee. “That she has.”

  Temple glowered from the corner seat.

  The clock slipped on to the half hour.

  Jenny Rose came back downstairs. She folded Dierdre’s shawl up neatly and put it defiantly on its own chair.

  Finally, Bridey said to me, “You’d better get that husband of yours off to bed before he passes out.”

  Johnny looked at her gratefully. He stood up heavily and put his arm around Seamus. “Here you go, sport,” he said, slipping something into his pocket.

  My God, he was tipping Seamus!

  Jenny Rose and I looked at each other. Only she knew what I was going through. I was shocked when she grinned wickedly.

  Uncle Ned came out and pointed us in the right direction, which was pretty unnecessary; the
stars were out and winking green. “Ye’ll go down there along the cliff just donna get too near or ye’ll fall right off,” he directed. “So just follow it along and then ye’ll go up there and then ye’ll turn right about when you get to the pump. It’s a useless pump now so don’t be looking for a drink.”

  “Don’t worry.” Johnny waved.

  “Oh, and Johnny!”

  We both turned on the starlit gravel. It was bright, like the whitewashed stone of the house.

  “Did you hear the one about the young soldier from Leitrim?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t.”

  “He went off to be a soldier. But that didn’t work out, it was too rough for him, y’see. So he sent a wire back to his mam on the farm: ‘Sell pig. Buy me out.’ She sent the wire back: ‘Pig dead. Soldier on.’”

  Johnny bit his lip. “So there’s this taxi driver sees a nun in the rain and he says, Well, I’ve gotta take this nun home. So he pulls over. Oh, bless you, she says and she climbs in. They’re talking. He says, You know, I’ve always had this fantasy about nuns. Are you Catholic, my son? she says. Yes, I am, he admitted. Well, pull over, she said and they hopped in the back. Soon after, they’re on their way once again. I’ve got to make a confession, sister, he says. What is it, she says. I’m not Catholic, he says. That’s all right, says the sister, my name’s Ralph and I’m on my way to a costume party.”

  I thought I’d sink straight through the bog.

  To his credit, Uncle Ned never flinched. He held his side and turned around in a silent little dance.

  Johnny had his bag at Dayday’s so it was just he and I. We trudged away, Uncle Ned waved and went back in the house and then I stomped on ahead.

  “Where the hell are you racing?” Johnny called, in his normal saved-for-the-wife uncharming voice.

  I didn’t answer, just kept going. The ground had so much give it was easy to go on but it took up time. On our right, the land went up and down in wavy territory. The waves were breaking beneath the cliffs to our left.

  “What, are you going to walk the whole way there ahead of me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I fumed, marching on.