by Anne Bennett
‘So you’re passing up on something you want to do in case people tease you about it,’ Paul said. ‘I honestly didn’t think you were so feeble.’
‘I’m not feeble!’ Carmel cried. ‘Don’t you dare call me feeble!’
‘Prove that you are not then,’ Paul taunted.
‘Right, I’ll show you,’ Carmel said.
‘So you’ll come with me?’
‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
Despite his weariness, Paul was in a jubilant mood as he returned to the ward, though he knew he would have to treat Carmel as the friend he had claimed to be and not the lover he hoped to become.
The night was a magical one. Paul called for Carmel in the afternoon and, though the day was bleak and raw, with all the promise of snow from the leaden skies, they wandered around the shops first, all preparing for the January sales, the streets outside still festooned with Christmas lights.
Before the pantomime, they went for a meal at Lyons Corner House and then on to the Alex. The pantomime was every bit as good as Carmel had hoped. She loved the glitz and glamour and sheer splendour of it all. She loved the audience participation too, and she booed, hissed and cheered with the best of them, laughed herself silly at the jokes and clapped until her hands were sore.
Paul would have taken Carmel for a drink after the show, but she said she wasn’t keen on pubs and, anyway, it was late enough. Paul didn’t argue and as they walked back he said, ‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Oh, Paul,’ Carmel said, ‘I can’t tell you how much. I have had such a wonderful time. I feel as if I’m still in it, you know? As if I could dance madly along this road now.’
Paul laughed. ‘Shall I catch up your hand and we’ll cavort along together?’
She gave him a push. ‘You’ll do no such thing. They’ll think the two of us crazy.’
‘I thought we weren’t going to care what people thought.’
‘Maybe not,’ Carmel said, ‘but I’d care very much if I was encased in a straitjacket.’
‘So if I promise to behave, could we, maybe, do this again?’
‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘I’d like that, but don’t forget my prelims are looming and I will have to get my head down to do some revision.’
Still, Paul was amazed at the progress he had made in one evening.
Carmel was right about one thing: nothing could be kept quiet in the nurses’ home. Though her room-mates knew she had gone out with Paul she had told no one else, but still they had been spotted. Aileen stopped Carmel and Lois when they came off duty the night after the pantomime.
‘Are you going out with Paul Connolly, Duffy?’ she demanded angrily.
Carmel looked at Aileen’s angry face and she was irritated by the way the girl had spoken to her. ‘I don’t know what it has got to do with you, but, no, I am not “going out”,—not in that sense. We are just friends.’
Aileen gave a sniff of derision. ‘Don’t give me that,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? The two of you were seen all very pally walking the town.’
Later, up in their room, Lois said, ‘Is anything going on with you and Paul?’
‘No,’ Carmel said. ‘We’re just friends, like I told you.’
‘Hmm,’ Lois said. ‘Don’t play fast and loose with Paul’s feelings, will you? He is really gone on you.’
‘He might have been once,’ Carmel said, ‘but, he’s over that now and knows full well where he stands.’
But Lois remembered that, less than half an hour before, she had seen Paul gazing at Carmel as she walked down the ward. Carmel had been unaware of his scrutiny and for a few moments Lois saw the naked love printed across Paul’s face. Then he seemed to remember where he was and the moment passed, but now Lois knew, whatever Carmel thought, that he wanted to be more than a friend and she just hoped he wasn’t heading straight for heartache.
However, though they went out together again to see Cavalcade in mid-January, Carmel wasn’t able to see much of Paul at all after that, for the prelims, or mid-term exams, were early in February and any spare time was given over for revision, because if she failed she would be unable to continue nursing.
Carmel and Lois received news that they had passed their prelims on Carmel’s birthday and were given different caps to denote their new status just two days before starting their annual three-month block of night duty.
As before, Carmel felt as if her life was put on hold because she was so constantly tired. She saw Paul rarely, usually in the company of others and never for very long. Paul knew the stresses and strains of working long and unsociable hours and could quite appreciate Carmel’s exhaustion.
Not everyone was as understanding. Lois’s boyfriend finished with her before the stint was over in mid-June and Lois was pretty miserable about it. Carmel suggested they go to the cinema together to see King Kong, which some of the others had been raving about. It was a long time since Lois and Carmel had been out together and at first, when Paul turned up with his friend and fellow medical student, Chris, Carmel was quite annoyed, but they could hardly let the two men sit on their own.
Carmel was soon glad of Paul’s solid presence beside her because the film was more than just scary, and when his arm encircled her shaking form, she was too frightened to make any sort of protest. Anyway, she saw that Chris was comforting Lois the same way. Chris wanted to go for a drink afterwards, but Carmel again refused. Lois saw that Paul didn’t mind and what he wanted was to get Carmel on his own and so they parted at the pub, and Paul and Carmel took off into the night.
It was balmy and still quite warm, and as they walked Carmel suddenly said, ‘Why did you go in to be a doctor in the first place, Paul? You told me once that it was because you were interested in people.’
‘Yes, that was it really,’ Paul said. ‘I wanted to make things better for them. I don’t remember when I first wanted to be a doctor. It didn’t come in a blinding flash or anything like that. It was as if it had sort of always been there. Mind you, it might have been harder to convince my parents—my mother, anyway—if I didn’t have a younger brother to take over the business.’
‘That’s Matthew, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘Lois told me,’ Carmel said. ‘She told me lots about you, as a matter of fact. Don’t look like that either; I didn’t ask her. She told me not long after I met her and ages before I met you for the first time. She said you studied at the Sorbonne in France for a couple of years.’
‘Yes I did. I enjoyed my time there,’ Paul said. ‘Matthew is there now, studying engineering.’
‘Can you speak fluent French?’
‘Pretty much. Did you take French at school?’
Carmel suppressed a smile at the thought of French introduced at the little county school in Letterkenny. It was as likely as someone having two heads or taking a trip to Mars, but she answered seriously enough. ‘No, Paul. French wasn’t offered in my school.’
Paul seemed surprised. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought it was pretty well standard now, but there you are. Anyway, when Matthew gets back, he will join the old man at the factory. Without him, I might not be on my way to being Dr Connolly, or not at least without some argument and unpleasantness.’
‘I nearly didn’t get here either,’ Carmel said.
‘Was there some opposition from your parents too?’ Paul asked, and then without waiting for a reply went on, ‘Your father, I bet. Lots of fathers object to their daughters working. Hell of an old-fashioned idea today, I think. Was that it?’
Carmel wondered what Paul would say if she was to answer, ‘No, Paul, not quite. My father had me out grafting for his beer money since I was fourteen years old and the opposition he felt when I attempted to escape his clutches led to him beating me so severely I still have the marks of his belt on my back.’ But she wouldn’t say that, couldn’t say it. Instead she said, ‘Something like that.’
She knew that Paul moved in circles far different fro
m her own. His family owned a factory, for heaven’s sake. Paul and his brother had probably gone to private school, places where the teaching of languages was standard, and they could both swan off to France without causing any sort of financial constraint. He lived in the sort of world where many daughters did stay at home until they were married, where it wasn’t considered quite the done thing to go out to work, but did it matter that friends came from different backgrounds?
However, Paul wanted more than friendship. He knew he was risking the relationship they had, speaking from his heart, and yet he felt he had to tell Carmel how he felt because it was chewing him up inside.
He slid his arm tentatively round her shoulders. Usually he never touched her, but what she had allowed him to do in the cinema had heartened him and he was filled with hope when she didn’t throw his arm off.
In fact Carmel thought she should, for she remembered Lois’s word about playing fast and loose with Paul’s feelings, but she didn’t want to. It felt just so right resting there.
Paul said ‘If friendship is all you can offer me, I will take it and welcome, for I value that highly, but you should know that I love you with all my heart and soul. I have done since the moment I saw you in the Bull Ring and I imagine I will go to my grave loving you. Whether you return that love or not, I have to tell you how I feel.’
Carmel didn’t reply straight away. Then she chose her words with care. ‘This has come as a bit of a shock,’ she said. ‘I mean, I knew how you felt about me once. I suppose I thought you’d got over it, come to your senses.’ She stopped, gave a sigh and then said, ‘I don’t know how I feel about you now and that is the honest truth. What I will say is that I have a higher regard for you
than any other man I have ever met.’
‘Will you think about what I have said?’
‘Of course, but what if I cannot return your feelings?’
‘Then we will go on as before.’
‘Won’t that be hard for you?’
‘It’s hard for me now.’
‘Maybe,’ Carmel said, ‘it would be better for you to cool our friendship, give you time to meet someone else who could love you the same way you say you love me now.’ She realised as soon as the words were out of her mouth how upset she would be if he did that, but for his happiness she would bear it.
Paul suddenly caught her hand and swung her round to face him. ‘It would break my heart if I were never to see you again,’ he said earnestly. ‘That is the honest truth.’
They had reached the door of the nurses’ home, and Paul leaned over and kissed Carmel on the cheek. ‘Sweet dreams, Carmel,’ he whispered softly.
She was smiling as she closed the door behind her.
The room was quiet and in darkness, Jane and Sylvia asleep, Lois not in yet, and Carmel was glad of it. She had to sort out her feelings before she would be able to share them and she was soon in bed and reliving the time she had spent with Paul again and again.
She eventually fell into a deep sleep, so deep she didn’t hear Lois come in. She dreamed that she was back in Ireland with her drunken father roaring at her mother and lashing at her and any who tried to go to her aid. When she felt the belt cut across her back, she was jerked awake with a yelp of terror. She lay back down and tried to still the panic. It was just a dream, she told herself, that was all. This here and now was reality.
Eventually, her breathing got easier and she was ready to drop off again, when suddenly her eyes shot open as she suddenly realised that she owed it to Paul to tell him all about her background. She shouldn’t have secrets about where she came from, what her beginnings were, though she had never wanted to bring that sordidness and brutality into her life here. Ah, dear Christ, she thought, when Paul knew the type of home she came from, it would wipe the love from his eyes all right.
Should she break off any friendship they shared before they got in any deeper? But then she remembered him saying that his heart would be broken if she did that, and the bleak look in his eyes when he said it. Could she inflict that hurt on someone she cared for?
The dilemma she found herself in drove sleep well away and when it was eventually time to rise she felt like a bit of chewed string. She hoped that Lois wasn’t going to ask questions about Paul, but fortunately she was more interested in talking about her and Chris, and Carmel was grateful.
As soon as her shift was over and she had eaten a scratch meal, she set off for the church, knowing the priest would be there to hear confession in the evening. She wanted so badly to pour her feelings out to someone.
When Father Donahue saw Carmel enter the church, and the dejected stance of her, he rushed forward and led her to one of the pews. ‘Carmel, my dear child, what is all this? Are you in trouble of some kind?’ He hoped, even as he spoke the words, that she wasn’t in that kind of trouble.
Carmel looked at the priest, her eyes glistening with tears and said. ‘It’s trouble of my own making, Father, for I think I must tell Paul our friendship is over.’
‘And why is this, my dear?’ the priest asked gently, sitting down beside her.
‘It’s because of something from my past. Something no one can help me with.’
‘I see,’ the priest said. ‘And this thing—was it something you did, something you could confess, get forgiveness for and put behind you?’
‘It wasn’t anything I did, Father.’
‘But you are not responsible for the sins of others.’
‘I know that deep down, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘It’s just…I can’t expect Paul to…He’s going to be a doctor, Father.’
Father Donahue had seen Carmel in the church a few times with Paul and had been delighted that she had found herself a good Catholic boy. Carmel’s duties prevented her from doing more than attending Mass on Sunday and Holy Days and she had been unable to go to any social events where she might meet other Catholic young people.
When he expressed this regret not long after Carmel made herself known to him, she had told him not to worry; that she didn’t intend marrying anyone. He had hidden his smile, though he did say she was young to make such a momentous decision. He couldn’t help thinking, however, that a doctor was a good catch for this girl, whom the nuns had told him came from one of the most desperate families in Letterkenny.
Suddenly the priest knew what Carmel was talking about because shame and degradation were mirrored in her eyes and he said gently, ‘Carmel, I know the sort of home you come from and the sort or rearing you had.’
Carmel’s head shot up and she looked at him in sudden alarm.
He went on in the same soothing voice, ‘The nuns told me. They thought I should know.’
‘Oh, Father,’ Carmel said, and the tears began trickling down her face. She covered her face with her hands and moaned.
The priest took hold of those hands and pulled them from her face as he said, ‘Come, come now, Carmel. Don’t distress yourself like this. There is no need. Have I ever treated you differently because I had this knowledge?’
Carmel made an effort to control herself. ‘No, Father, you haven’t,’ she said. ‘In fact you have always been kindness itself to me. But that isn’t the same everywhere. In Letterkenny, for example, there were many there who looked down on us and I can’t expect Paul to want even friendship from the likes of me.’
‘Are you ashamed of your family, Carmel?’
‘Aye, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘And ashamed of being ashamed.’
‘Then be ashamed no more,’ the priest said. ‘Pity them instead. Take responsibility just for yourself. Seek out your young man and tell him about your background and see what he says.’
‘I couldn’t, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if he despised me.’
The priest gave Carmel’s hands a small shake and looked deep into her eyes. ‘He will never despise you. The love he has for you shines bright in his eyes and that will not be dimmed when he hears how you were reared. Carmel, you owe it to him to tell him.’<
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‘You really think so?’
‘I know so. And you speak of friendship—is that all you really want from Paul?’
‘Yes, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘As I said, I never intend to marry.’
‘And how does Paul feel?’
‘He admitted last night that he loves me, Father.’
‘And you can’t feel the same?’
Carmel shook her head and the priest said, ‘I know that I am a fine one to talk about love. But sometimes you have to open your heart and see what God wants for you in the future. I had to open my own so I could hear him calling me to the priesthood. Maybe you are approaching this with your head only, giving reasons why it isn’t sensible to become involved with someone, when really a person’s heart is often a better indicator of what will make them happiest and bring the greatest fulfilment in their lives.’
‘So you think I should keep seeing Paul?’
‘Not if you continue to feel only friendship,’ the priest said ‘That way only pain and anguish wait for him and, knowing you, even as well as I do, you will feel guilty for the hurt inflicted. However, the stumbling block in all this is your background and your home in Letterkenny. You must tell Paul. Give the man a chance and then see if it makes a difference to the way you feel.’
‘All right, then,’ Carmel said with a sigh. ‘I will be guided by you, but it will be the hardest thing I will ever do.’
CHAPTER SIX
Over the next few days Carmel didn’t see Paul to speak to. Any time they had off never fell together and, anyway, he was in the throes of studying for his finals, as Chris was. So Carmel and Lois were thrown together quite a lot, for Jane and Sylvia were courting strongly. Carmel had admitted to Lois what had happened on the walk home after the pictures, and some of what the priest had said, omitting all mention of her background.
‘So how d’you know you don’t actually love Paul, then?’ Lois asked.
Carmel shrugged. ‘How would I know? How does anyone know?’
‘Well, do you think about him a lot?’
