Aisling Gayle

by Geraldine O'Neill

  “True for you,” Mrs Gilroy said. “He’s about the best of the bunch in here, anyway.” She lifted up a turnip now. “Although Pauline’s nice enough.” She inspected the turnip carefully. “And isn’t that little Bernadette one only like an angel?”

  “Oh, she’s an angel right enough,” Peenie said, ripping a page of the newspaper in half this time, for the turnip. “Although, she has her moments, the same girl.” He winked knowingly now at Mrs Gilroy. “The minute she gets her eye on me, she’s over like a shot, looking for a sweet or a bit of chocolate. But sure, yeh couldn’t refuse her – she’s the loveliest-natured little thing.”

  Mrs Gilroy handed over half-a-crown. “The cratur’,” she said, smiling. “You’d wonder who she takes after now . . . wouldn’t you?”

  Peenie sorted out the change, then handed over the two newspaper parcels to his customer. “Oh, yeh needn’t look far. She’s the spit of her mother,” he said lightly, “the very spit.”

  The older woman put the vegetables into her shopping bag, the handles of which were well-reinforced by thick twine. “She might as well be,” she said, nodding her head gravely, “for we’re never likely to see what her father looks like.” She pulled the zip across the top of the bag. “An Englishman, no doubt . . . although there’s some say she could have been that way when she was leavin’ here.”

  “Now, Mrs Gilroy,” Peenie said, “you know as well as me, that there’s some that’ll say anythin’.” He came out towards the door, checking on the rain again. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s all Pauline’s business – and nobody else’s.” He held a hand out, checking how heavy the drops of rain were. “If people would mind their own business, they’d have no time to be talkin’ about anybody else.”

  “An’ you’re right there, Peenie, so you are,” Mrs Gilroy said, dropping her shopping bag to put her umbrella up again. “If they were half as good at cleanin’ their houses, as they are at runnin’ other folk down, they’d be far better off.” She lifted the bag up now.

  “You have it in one, Mrs Gilroy,” he called, as she hurried off down the street, head and umbrella bent against the rain. “See yeh now!” He added to himself: “Yeh nosey oul’ bitch!”

  * * *

  “I’ll be ready for the dinner in five minutes, Mrs Kelly,” Charles called, as he by-passed the kitchen and headed down the hallway to his bedroom. He closed the door carefully, then made straight for the highly-polished mahogany wardrobe on the back wall. He swung the door wide open, and then reached in for his good navy blazer. He lifted it onto the bed – hanger and all – and then reached in for his tweed jacket with the leather patches on the elbow. That joined the blazer on the bed.

  He pushed the remaining hangers along, searching – until he spotted his dark suit trousers. He lifted them down, and inspected the length. They would surely look allright with an inch off them, he thought to himself. Sure, what was an inch? Hardly anything. He took them off the hanger, and measured them down the side of his right leg. Would an inch make that awful difference, he wondered again. He would hate to ruin his good suit altogether.

  Maybe, he thought, the trousers will wait until the next visit. No point in takingeverything over to her at one go . . . better to spread them out over a couple of weeks. Charles hung the trousers back up in the wardrobe, and rubbed his hands together. A couple of weeks?Sure, ’twould be the best part of a month before they were back! All that time to do what he liked – go where he liked – without answering to anyone.

  Then, he turned back to examine the blazer. There were a few stitches loose on the top of one of the pockets. He lifted it up, inspected the pocket closely. Then, with an unusually quick movement, he ripped the stitching halfway down the pocket. “That’ll do fine,” he whispered to himself. “She’ll never know I didn’t catch it on a door handle.” Then, he went to the tallboy in the corner of the room, and lifted a pair of nail-scissors. It was the turn of the tweed jacket this time. Very carefully now, he cut the stitches holding one of the elbow-patches in place, then he did the same to the other.

  He had a spare pair of patches – still in the cellophane – in his underwear drawer that he would take out to Mrs Lynch along with the jackets. That would keep her busy, and then he would have the excuse of going out to pick them up on yet another occasion.

  All good, valid reasons to drive out to her house by the canal in Tullamore. Between that, and driving out some evenings when it was dark, to watch her house from his car – he would see plenty of her over the next few weeks.

  Charles gleefully rubbed his hands together now at the thought of it all. Then, whistling, he headed down the hallway to the delights of Mrs Kelly’s cooking.

  Chapter 10

  Charles gave a loud sigh, then he started the engine up, his eyes still glued to Mrs Lynch’s house. It was getting dark now, and there was no point in hanging around. He had been out and about for the best part of two hours picking up vegetables and eggs from two farms, and delivering several boxes of groceries to customers who were housebound.

  He had borrowed his father’s car with the comfortable leather seats. His own little van with the two cramped front seats didn’t compare with this two-year-old Morris Oxford, although it was obviously more suitable for throwing the vegetables and the like in the back. Charles would have to give the boot a good clean before his father came back, to remove any onion skins or other evidence that would give away the fact it had been used for the deliveries. But even if he found out, it was worth the row it would cause to have had the luxury of the car while his father was away.

  En route back home, Charles had spun round past Mrs Lynch’s house on the off-chance that she might be out working in the garden or maybe out chatting to a neighbour. If he had seen her, he had planned to stop for a few words, explaining that he was just passing by after doing his deliveries. He could imagine her coming over to admire the shiny Morris Oxford, and maybe him even offering to take her a spin around the town in it.

  But unfortunately, there had been no sign of the seamstress, and he was afraid to hang about too long in case she got the impression he was spying on her. Although he was keen to see and chat to her, he didn’t want to frighten her in any way.

  Thank goodness at least for the last time, when he’d driven out in the van to drop off the blazer and the tweed jacket with the missing elbow patches. A little smile came to his lips as he remembered the look on Mrs Lynch’s face when he handed her the box of Quality Street. Absolute shock wasn’t in it!

  She had stepped back, clutching the parcel with the two jackets in it.

  As he smiled down at her, Charles had noticed how lovely and shiny her hair was. He wondered if she rinsed it in beer the way Pauline occasionally did when washing her hair at home. How his sister’s hair didn’t smell like a brewery, he often wondered.

  “No . . . no,” Mrs Lynch said, blushing furiously. “I can’t take chocolates off you.”

  “Just to say thanks for all your hard work,” Charles had said – in something like the manner he imagined that Jay Gatsby might. He gave a low sweep of his hand towards the hallway. “I’m sure Dominic might like a few chocolates . . .”

  Mrs Lynch suddenly stopped. “How did you know his name?”

  “You mentioned it last time,” Charles said with a grin. “I’ve got a great memory for names.”

  There was a silence during which Charles considered throwing Peenie’s advice to the wind regarding the books. He was just on the point of asking her what sort of books she preferred, when, much to Charles’s delight, her hand had come out and taken the box of chocolates – just as he was imagining himself placing them back on the shop shelf in the shop. Second row from the top – next to the fancy biscuits. Luckily, he hadn’t entered them into the till – so no alterations would be necessary there.

  “You shouldn’t have,” Mrs Lynch said, looking shyly down towards the linoleum. “Aren’t you paying me for the sewing . . .”

  Charles stepped bac
k, and pushed his sliding glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. “Just a little gesture,” he said. “It can’t be easy bringing up a child on your own.” His fist came up to his mouth now, and he cleared his throat in a loud, nervous fashion. “I have a sister at home in a similar position . . . bringing up a child on her own.”

  Mrs Lynch’s face flushed. “I know about your sister,” she said quietly, “but I think there’s a difference . . .”

  Charles sort of swung away to the side, his eyes no longer meeting hers. “Of course . . . of course,” he said. “I just meant that . . . it can’t be easy.” This was not going the way that he had imagined. What on earth had made him mention her widowed situation? And his mother would absolutely kill him if she knew he had purposely brought up the subject of Pauline’s plight as an unmarried mother.

  He stepped backwards now, his trousers catching on the thorns of a small rose bush. “Thanks, now . . .” he said, his voice trailing off as he unhooked himself from the bush.

  Then, just as he was ready to go about his business, Mrs Lynch suddenly smiled. “Thanks for the chocolates, Mr Kearney,” she said, “but really – there was no need. I’ll have your jackets ready by tomorrow evening, if you’d like to call back around six o’clock.”

  “Charles,” he reminded her, with another little cough. “You can call me Charles. No need for formalities. And I’ll be seeing you around six tomorrow evening.”

  But Charles had found it very hard to wait until then. Some hours later, after his business was finished, he had swung the car around in the widowed seamstress’s direction, and parked for a while further along the road where she lived.

  There were about ten houses, all in a row, in a street just up from the Grand Canal. Mrs Lynch was the only widow in the street, the rest being all families or elderly couples. According to what he had heard his brother-in-law say to his mother one evening. And Oliver usually got his facts straight.

  Oliver had recommended Mrs Lynch to the Kearneys when Maggie needed someone to alter the dress she had bought for the wedding in America. He had told her that this young, but mature, widow-woman had been doing alterations for customers of the shop for the last two years.

  And it just so happened that Charles was sent out to Mrs Lynch’s with the instructions that she had to take exactly an inch and a half off the bottom of the skirt. And an inch and a half was all she took off it. Unlike the lady in Ballygrace who had left a brand-new summer dress unwearable last year. Three inches she had cut off the expensive dress, completely ruining it and leaving Maggie without a new outfit for the Church summer dance. And leaving the Ballygrace seamstress without a name. For none of the customers in the shop would ever go near her again, by the time that Maggie Kearney had finished giving out about her ham-fisted sewing.

  Mrs Lynch was now given any work that was needed doing by the Kearney family, and had also gained an admirer in Charles. Although Charles wasn’t exactly sure what the attraction actually was. Up until he had met the widow, he had never had any great interest in women as such. They were an unknown quantity to him. Even his sisters. And especially his mother.

  In fact, there were times when Charles found it hard to be interested in people in general. There were very few around who could hold an intelligent conversation. Apart from discussing the necessities of life – such as the business of the shop or what he would like to have for dinner – there was little else he found worth discussing with them. Charles found the facts or the characters in his books far more interesting – and far safer and more predictable than people in the flesh.

  But there was something about Mrs Lynch that had struck a chord with him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something that had added a new dimension to his life. The possibility that he could perhaps sit on the opposite side of the fire with another person and discuss topics such as whether Atlantis really existed or maybe how the pyramids came to be, without the benefit of modern construction methods. Or maybe even divulge to the widow his dreams of writing his own book some day. Fact or fiction? He hadn’t worked that one out yet. The possibilities were endless.

  Charles would have time in the morning to discuss it all with Peenie Walshe. Bring him up to date, as it were, and seek his opinion on how he thought it was all going. He smiled now, thinking of Peenie’s reaction when he told him how Mrs Lynch had accepted the Quality Street.

  That had been one of the shop assistant’s inspired ideas. Peenie had told him that women were easily got round where chocolates were concerned. It never failed to work. And in this case, Peenie had been spot-on.

  Charles turned the key in the engine and smiled to himself. What with all this coming and going – his life was unusually hectic at the minute. Thank God his mother wasn’t around. She would soon have put a stop to it.

  Then – just as he turned his head to check there was nothing behind him – a great bang reverberated on the bonnet of the car! The bonnet of his father’s car. The car he shouldn’t be driving at this hour of the night.

  Charles jerked his head forward, and found himself staring face to face with the wildest-looking man he had ever seen at close range. The man was leaning across the bonnet, banging and shouting in a deranged manner. He was so angry he could almost have been described as frothing at the mouth! Like the dogs in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  Instinctively, Charles hauled the gear-stick into reverse, and put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The car started to move backwards away from the madman.

  But the madman clung on to either side of the bonnet.

  Charles put the boot down further on the accelerator until the man eventually lost his grip on the slippery, shiny car bonnet and came to a half-running, half-staggering halt.

  Wide-eyed with shock, Charles did a wide reverse swerve and then, shooting forward, took off up the little street with more speed than he knew the car was capable of.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he called out loud, having noticed the madman now running behind the car in his rear-view mirror.

  This was like something out of an action film. A James Bond or something like that. What on earth was happening? And in Tullamore of all places!

  Charles swerved around a corner, and in a few moments was heading out of the town. Out towards the blessed safety of the shop and home – and all the double-locks and bolts he could find to protect himself.

  Chapter 11

  “I’m still waiting for an answer, Charles,” Pauline Kearney said, her hands on her neat hips, clad in the new green slacks that her mother would not approve of – even for working in the shop. The tight slacks were actually a bit too good for the shop, Pauline thought herself, but you never knew who might call in unexpectedly.

  Charles continued to scrub at the bonnet of his father’s car, counting the swishes of the cloth as it moved backwards and forwards over the top.

  “Where did you go last night?” Pauline repeated, her voice on a higher note. “And why did you take Daddy’s car instead of the van?” Her older brother was infuriating. Trying to get information out of him was like trying to get blood out of a stone. She’d tackled him last night when he came in looking white-faced and drained, but after a few heated words, he’d stomped off to bed. Pauline was determined that come what may she was going to get the answer out of him this morning.

  Charles, slightly out of breath now, came to a sudden halt. He stood back, checking if the dull mark on the bonnet had diminished any. Yes, he thought, it all looked the same now. Shiny all over. God knows what that fellow had on the knees of his trousers last night, that would have left such a streak on the bonnet.

  “Charles!” Pauline hissed, grabbing him by the shoulder of his brown overall. “Where the hell did you go last night?”

  Charles pulled out of his sister’s grip and stepped back to a safe distance, jiggling the cloth about between both hands. “I was doing the deliveries,” he snapped, looking down at the ground.

  “Why did you take Daddy’s ca
r instead of the van?” she demanded. “And what took you so long? You weren’t doing deliveries for that length of time.”

  “I took the car for a bit of a run . . . to keep the engine ticking over.”

  “A bit of a run?” Pauline said, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Since when have you taken to going for runs in the evenings after work?”

  Charles moved to the far side of the car – to a safer distance from his sister. “The engine’s making a funny noise,” he explained, “and my father says I have to give it a few good long runs to clear the petrol tank.” Charles knew nothing about the workings of cars, but he was cute enough to know that his sister knew even less and couldn’t argue with him.

  “You promised that you would mind Bernadette for me,” she said, her voice dropping now that she had noticed an elderly man – a regular customer – pushing a bike up the street towards them. “I was left sitting in all night like a feckin’ eejit because of you.”

  “Less of the language,” Charles admonished, folding the cloth into a smooth pad. “You wouldn’t be so smart in coming out with stuff like that if my mother was around. And I know what she’d have to say about that get-up you’re wearing as well.”

  “And it’s just as well for you that she’s not around,” Pauline hissed. “Out for hours, and not saying where you’ve been.”

  “Grand day!” the old fellow called, leaning his bicycle on the wall of the shop.

  They both turned to call a cheery greeting back, and remark on the reasonable day that it was.

  He came forward to Charles. “Did you get any of them soft biscuits that the head-woman likes in yet?”

  Charles lay the cloth down on the car bonnet, and held his glasses on the bridge of his nose while he thought. His eyes suddenly brightened. “Tell Peenie he’ll find them on the middle shelf on the back wall.”