The Disenchanted Widow

by Christina McKenna

  At that point Lorcan decided to fetch a dishcloth, and his reappearance brought a halt to the conversation. He was intrigued but pretended he’d heard nothing. He wrung out the cloth and went back to the lounge.

  “She’s a well-lookin’ wommin right enuff,” Gusty continued. “But there’s no Cathlick frogs left in Australia now, as far as I know, so they mustn’t of went in for much of that amplexin’ tomfoolery. Well, I suppose being Cathlick, they maybe wouldn’t of anyway. Then there’s a lizard in the Amazon called the Jesus Christ. Ye see, it’s called that ’cos it can run like the Divil on the watter when…”

  Lorcan smiled to himself as he wiped a table. A good-looking city woman “like a film star” choosing to live here, in Tailorstown. My, my, things had changed since his last visit. Lorcan now realized what his mother meant by Gusty Grant’s liking for weird conversation. He was a walking encyclopedia of crazy facts.

  Still, he would not be complaining. He was glad to have Grant manning the bar because it saved him the trouble. He had ample trouble upstairs. Between his mother and the portrait, life was complicated enough.

  “Hi, turn that up, will ye?”

  Lorcan halted the dishcloth midwipe. The serious tones of a newscaster were filling the room. He put his head round the doorframe as the cadaverous features of Bobby Sands flashed up on the screen.

  “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you some breaking news. The hunger striker Bobby Sands has died.”

  “Christ, he’s gone,” said Socrates.

  “Shush!”

  “…just under an hour ago after sixty-six days of refusing food. The twenty-seven-year-old Republican spent the last days of his life on a water bed to protect his fragile bones.

  “Mr. Humphrey Atkins, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, issued a statement shortly after the death. He said: ‘I regret this needless and pointless death. Too many have died by violence in Northern Ireland. In this case it was self-inflicted. We should not forget the many others who have died. It is my profound hope and prayer that the people of Northern Ireland will recognize the futility of violence and turn their faces away from it.’”

  “There’ll be hell tae pay now,” Gusty said.

  Lorcan flung the cloth aside. He had to get away from the bar. He knew the regulars of the Crowing Cock. Could guess the prophecies of doom the martyr’s death would let loose. A walk in the fresh air was called for. It was as good a time as any to reacquaint himself with the district.

  In the hallway the artist donned his hat, picked up his sketchbook and his umbrella. It would double as a walking stick. A clear blue sky seen from the window promised a day that would remain dry.

  He shut the front door and stepped out onto the street. The sun was strong, the day calm; there was nobody about and it was good to be free.

  He shrugged, tipped the brim of his Borsalino against the sun, and set off in a southerly direction. He decided to head out the Killoran Road, knowing that a little way along lay a track to a stone circle. It was a favorite spot from boyhood, holding a charm that never failed to fire his artistic imagination. He tried to visit it whenever he returned home. Perhaps being in such a place would wash away the image of Sands and the prospect of what the man’s death would bring.

  On the outskirts of town, he passed the cemetery and struggled to keep the image of the hunger striker from his mind. Death was never easy, no matter who the victim might be. He thought of his Uncle Rupert. He lay somewhere in there among the silent majority; felled at sixty-two by a not inconsiderable heart attack, which had been spectacularly misdiagnosed by the local GP, Humphrey Brewster. Just a “little touch of indigestion,” the good doctor had opined. Lorcan wondered now how many other poor souls lay there in the boneyard due to just a little touch of indigestion.

  Soon the town was feeding into fields, as easy as dusk into night, and from then on it was open country and silence. The hedgerows hummed and the tarmac bubbled. The sky was vast and cloudless. The more he pushed into nature, the more Lorcan felt like a trespasser; the beat of his heels and umbrella point on the hard road caused cows to stir and sheep to stare.

  He was glad he’d decided on the walk. The countryside he was striding through was raising his spirits. The artist in him valued nature above all else, the majesty of it. He recalled with a smile something Marc Chagall once said: “Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers—and never succeeding.” How true that is, he thought; how true.

  He rounded a bend in the road and found himself on a gradual uphill pull under thrush-song. He paused, marveling at the sheer power of memory now drawing him back to his boyhood. A ten-year-old Lorcan in short pants and plastic sandals, dawdling on his way home from school. The hedgerows held him back then just as much as they did now: the loosestrife, the cockscomb, and round-leafed clover creating in his mind’s eye the urge to remember. And he would carry those images with him, carefully, like a bowl of precious oil brimmed full, to spill out onto paper when he reached home.

  Every farm, every dip and rise on the road, every tree, every rippling creek held a memory for him. Art, he mused, is the only way to run away without leaving home. He understood the truth of that statement every time he returned to the rural terrain.

  He quickened his step, impatient to reach the stone circle. His sketch pad and pencils weighted his pocket but lifted his heart. If there was one great benefit to the whole practice of art, it was to focus him in the “now,” where the ugly past and uncertain future could not touch him.

  Or could they?

  Chapter nineteen

  At a loose end, his chores done, Gusty decided to head up to the Turret Room. If he got the timing right, maybe—just maybe—he’d catch a glimpse of Mrs. Hailstone getting ready for work.

  The only obstacle: stealing past his uncle’s room without being seen or heard. Gusty had never bought into the hard-of-hearing story. It was simply another ruse the oul’ boy used to gain sympathy. And Ned was an erratic sleeper. Sometimes wide awake, making a nuisance of himself from six in the morning. At other times dead to the world until well after eleven.

  The bedroom door, too, was a real threat. Ned was inclined to keep it open, not wanting to miss anything.

  Gusty tiptoed up the stairs and peered into the room.

  Luck was on his side. The oul’ boy lay conked out, eyes shut, mouth agape, emitting rafter-rattling snores to the accompaniment of a monotonous news broadcast.

  Reassured, Gusty turned and beckoned to Veronica. She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, awaiting instruction.

  Together, master and piglet bounded up the next three flights to Lucien’s chamber.

  Once through the door, Veronica made for her favorite spot, a Victorian daybed of watermarked silk, and settled down for a postprandial snooze.

  The mechanic took up position in his usual armchair and raised the binoculars.

  Good news. Mrs. Hailstone was in. Her car was parked under the big ash as usual. He trained the binoculars on her bedroom window. The crocus-print curtains were open. That was more good news. He panned over to the back door.

  At that very moment, the door opened.

  His pulse quickened.

  But it was only young Herkie. Gusty saw the boy go over to the well cover and push at the stone weight with his toe. Watched as he hunkered down to inspect it, followed him as he sauntered down the yard and disappeared behind the woodshed.

  Gusty made a mental note to warn the boy again about the dangers of the well.

  He pulled back to the door once more and refocused.

  He’d struck gold.

  There she was, the object of his desires, filling the frame in a thigh-skimming nightdress: pink with satin bows.

  Oh, God! He’d never seen so much of a woman’s figure in his life. He tracked her legs as she walked—leisurely—in the direction of the clothesline, zooming in on her ankles, moving slowly up the shapely calves, to linger on her tantalizing derriere.

  A
small breeze was lifting the hem, ever so slightly.

  She reached the clothesline and began unpinning pairs of tights.

  She bent over.

  Oh, holy God! The binocs began to shake in his hands.

  She was wearing matching knickers, the frilly trim riding high on her smooth hips.

  All too soon she stood up again and unfastened a couple of bath sheets. There was quite a lot on the line. More dipping down to the basket. More precious time to focus on those buttocks.

  He was sweating now, blinking wildly so as not to miss a square inch of her loveliness. The lenses needed a wipe, but…

  Abruptly she turned.

  Damn!

  The bosom he was so looking forward to ogling was concealed—hidden from his sight by the pile of laundry she carried.

  She dropped a sock, bent down to retrieve it. Stood up, shielded her eyes from the sun—and looked in his direction.

  Hell!

  Instinctively, Gusty sank to his knees.

  Veronica grunted.

  What if she’d seen him? Impossible. A ray of sunlight glinting off the field glasses? Maybe.

  When he dared peer out the window again, there was no sign of her. The back door was shut.

  Undeterred, he swept the powerful lenses back to the bedroom window. She’d be getting dressed now. His heart was beating like a timpani drum, his knees aquiver.

  She was entering the room. He saw her dump the washing on the bed. He blinked to get a clearer view.

  Then…crocus print! Nothing but bloody crocus print. He lowered the binoculars. She’d drawn the curtains.

  Ah, damn!

  He collapsed back into the armchair, luxuriating in the brief pleasure Mrs. Hailstone had aroused. Had she spotted him? He didn’t think so, not at that distance. Not that it mattered now. He’d hit the jackpot. Needed to get his breath back and was reluctant to vacate the room just yet.

  Veronica slept on.

  He plonked the binoculars down on the dressing table. A delicate scent bottle of ruby glass pitched forward, and before he could save it, it fell to the floor, breaking into little pieces. An ancient, musky fragrance suffused the room.

  With resignation, he got down to pick up the pieces. Yet moments into the task, he wondered why he was bothering. Only he and the piglet would see the mess. On the other hand…what if Veronica injured herself? With that in mind, he hastily gathered up the glass fragments and threw them into a trinket drawer.

  His hands were wet and sticky with the scent. He wiped them on the bib of his overalls and settled back into the chair.

  His eyes drifted about the Turret Room. It had never really interested him much, but now he felt the stirrings of curiosity as his eye fell on a brass-bound trunk. There was something sticking out of it. A bit of material, not unlike the color of Mrs. Hailstone’s nightdress.

  That certainly merited investigation.

  The hasps on the trunk, stiff with age, were hard to raise. He took out his Swiss Army knife, cocked an ear. Not a sound, apart from the chickens having a chinwag in the yard below. Hopefully the oul’ boy would not wake up for another wee while.

  He levered at the hasps, twisting and tugging. One by one they sprang free, each with a nerve-jolting thwack.

  The heavy lid, once freed, creaked and groaned like the outer door to a pharaoh’s tomb as he eased it up. The whiff of age-old camphor and stale scent had him reaching for his handkerchief to catch a sneeze. Having dried his eyes and with vision cleared, he peered into the trunk. He saw that a heavy velvet coverlet was protecting the contents.

  He drew it back in amazement.

  The pink material he’d seen protruding from the trunk was in fact the frill of a petticoat. He tugged. Out it came, flounce upon flounce of shiny satin, a tumbling rush of bows and braid and lace.

  The softness of the fabric made his hands shake. He’d never touched the like of it before.

  He held it to his cheek.

  So this is what Mrs. Hailstone must feel like!

  He caught his breath, looked again at the trunk. What else might be in there? Tenderly he set aside the petticoat and got down on his knees. He would delve deeper.

  Sure enough, the gaudy undergarment was a mere foretaste of what was to come. The trunk was crammed with ladies’ underwear. His grubby hands began plundering the secret hoard as he reveled in an orgy of newfound soft, downy, silken, yielding textures. He unearthed nightgowns and slips, corsets, girdles, stockings, suspender belts, garters, bloomers, knickers.

  In a matter of minutes the floor around him was strewn with lingerie.

  The mechanic sat back on his heels, marveling at the spectacle: a thrilling new world from a box in a room he’d never had much cause to visit. Hardly knew it existed until Mrs. Hailstone showed up.

  But, oh…what could that be? Something else had caught his eye while he was hauling out the underwear. He peered into the trunk again.

  Yes, there it was at the bottom: a large, rectangular box.

  He lifted it out.

  On the cover, Jean Harlow pouted up at him, her bosom thrusting out of a peach-tone brassiere. GIVE YOURSELF A LITTLE LIFT urged a speech bubble above her head. And across her midriff, the words THE ULTIMATE BREAST ADORNMENT.

  He pulled open the box.

  An extraordinary garment flubbered out onto the floor.

  An elasticized contrivance in the style of a brassiere.

  He turned it over and did a double take. Was he seeing things?

  A pair of very ample rubber breasts, sporting maroon nipples, was staring back up at him.

  He could not believe his eyes.

  He reached down and gave each a squeeze. They felt not unlike the rubber bulb horn on his old bicycle but were a bigger handful by far, and for that reason much more rewarding to the touch.

  He carried them over to a cheval mirror and held them up against his chest.

  Thump, thump.

  “Hoi! Are ye up there?”

  His uncle’s summons from below was startlingly loud.

  The strange garment fell from his grasp and bounced into a corner.

  He wheeled around, panic-stricken.

  The floor! To Gusty it resembled what a stripper’s changing room might look like after a night on the boards. If the oul’ shite saw this, what would he think atall?

  Frantically he began gathering up the scattered lingerie and piling it back in the trunk.

  “Hoi! Are ye up there?”

  The oul’ boy again, sounding more impatient now.

  Frantically he stuffed the last of the lingerie down and slammed the lid.

  That was everything out of sight. Or so he thought.

  “Come on, Veronica,” he urged, going to the door.

  Before dutifully joining her master, Veronica took a last wistful look at the fallen falsies in the corner. They most definitely merited further inspection…

  Excited, she hopped down from the daybed.

  “That’s a good girl.”

  He bundled the piglet into his arms and dashed from the Turret Room, slamming the door behind him.

  His secret was safe. Or was it?

  The spirit of the decadent Viscount had been unleashed. Whether for good or ill, Lucien Percy would roam the corridors of Kilfeckin once more.

  Chapter twenty

  Rose McFadden was not having such a good time of it these days, and she put it all down to that new woman from Belfast. Not only had she got the job with Father Cassidy, but Gusty had given her Aunt Dora’s house as well, when it wasn’t even his to give. And God alone knew what that might lead to. Because once a woman got her toe in the door of a nice house, and her feet under the table, she could maybe squat there like a clocking hen for all eternity.

  As she pedaled along the sun-dappled road that led to Kilfeckin Manor, Rose’s mind was in a flurry. There was enough to be done without that Hailstone woman stirring up a storm.

  Uncle Ned needed looking after since taking poorly and Gusty wasn�
��t much help. A house with only men about it was not a normal house, anyway. A woman’s hand was needed to keep things tidy and stop the roof falling in on the top of them. Sure if there were no women around, heavens above, what kind of state would the world be in?

  Rose was cogitating on all of this as she pedaled up the driveway toward Kilfeckin Manor. She was out of practice—like the bike itself, which had been screaking in protest from the minute she’d left home.

  Now I really must get my Paddy to oil them wheels, she thought as she dismounted in the yard and parked the bike under a gooseberry bush.

  She noticed that Gusty’s truck was not in the shed. But that was not unusual, for between the garage work and the barkeep stints for Etta Strong, she rarely saw him anyway.

  Ned Grant had made Herkie Halstone rich by a whole £2 and 60p. His ma had been very impressed.

  “God, son, what did ye do tae make all that?” she’d asked in surprise when he tipped the sum of money onto the table.

  “Well, I went up and asked the oul’ boy if he wanted anything done, and he said, ‘Ye wouldn’t empty me pot under the bed there, son?’”

  “Thought ye said he peed out the windee.”

  He hadn’t been expecting her to say that. “Aye—I mean yes—but…but at night when it’s dark…aye, at night when it’s dark…he…he can’t see till piss, I mean pee, out the windee, so he doz it in the pot under the bed instead.”

  Herkie was proud of his quick thinking and fully intended using the same tactic again.

  Lying in the rear field, musing on this recent success, he was alerted by the screeching of a bicycle coming into the yard.

  His little heart lifted. The moneybags in the big white shoes had finally shown up.

  He waited until the woman was safely through the front door before slipping out of hiding. He would peep in the kitchen window and seize his chance when she went upstairs with the oul’ boy’s tea.