Temptation

by Dermot Bolger

  The answering machine came on, with Peadar’s measured voice. She didn’t leave a message, not wanting Peadar to think she was chasing him. She phoned the school. McCann answered and she put the phone down. The last thing she wanted was to speak to him and she knew that Peadar could never be himself when talking in somebody else’s presence.

  What did she want to say to Peadar anyway? If she couldn’t cope with these first few hours alone, then how would she manage until Friday? Peadar had enough stress without her irrational foreboding. Sheila and Shane ran into the room, pulling their sneakers off, spilling out mounds of sand onto the polished floorboards. Shane found the remote control and they both settled back happily on a bed.

  Alison took her book and sat outside on the gravel path beyond the French door, trying to ignore the thud of tennis balls on the nearby court. Four p.m. The children’s dinner was at half–five, then their disco, then the film. Peadar hadn’t cancelled the babysitter, but she would need to get out. The prospect of eating in the bedroom, with three children watching her, was unbearable. It would be awkward though, alone in the dining room and then afterwards having to latch onto Joan or somebody else before heading off early to bed.

  There was a crunch of gravel. She looked up and spied Chris Conway closing his French door two rooms away. There was only one more room after his. Immediately she knew that it was his footsteps she had heard on the previous two nights. Why? Alison had never known anybody to wander in the gardens after dark. Chris smiled when he saw her and hovered, uncertainly.

  ‘You’re enjoying the sun,’ he observed.

  ‘When I get the chance.’ Alison nodded towards the children inside.

  ‘They’ll keep you on your toes all right.’ He went to move off, then stopped. It was that old hesitancy, the first time she’d seen it on this holiday. ‘Any word of Peadar?’

  ‘No. It’s just unfortunate timing.’

  ‘That’s true.’ He glanced into the room again, then, to her surprise, sat down. ‘Listen, Ali, I don’t want to ruin your holiday. I can go somewhere else. I hadn’t planned on sticking around much longer than the first night anyway.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  He looked away. ‘You’d sooner I wasn’t here, especially with Peadar gone.’ ‘No,’ she lied.

  ‘It’s okay. These last months I’ve learnt to spot the people I make uncomfortable. It was crazy coming back. I just wanted to see Fitzgerald’s again. It’s never special unless it’s your first time or you know it’s your last.’

  She remembered sitting on that rock at twelve years old, the magic she had never recaptured.

  ‘You’ll come here again,’ she said. ‘You’re young yet.’

  ‘No,’ Chris replied. ‘I’ve been in limbo since January, shock, grief. Now I want to say my goodbyes and make a fresh start. You probably think it was strange to come, but I’ve spent four months running from memories. Eventually there’s nowhere left to run.’

  ‘I think you’re brave to come.’

  Chris openly studied her face, her hair, her figure. It should have felt discomfiting but it wasn’t. ‘I was never brave, was I?’

  Alison looked away. The past should be finished. For Peadar it was, leaving her here with a man who had once loved her as much, if not more, than he did. That was why she had wanted the reassurance of his voice on the phone. She glanced back. Chris looked better now than two decades ago, with more character in his features without the beard. Was she really so unchanged in his eyes or had he made that up?

  ‘You were a coward.’ The hurt within her voice surprised her. ‘I wasn’t some glass ornament, you know.’

  He glanced in at the children who were growing restless. ‘Would it have made any difference if I’d …?’

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Forget it. I’ll be gone by the morning.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ she said guiltily. ‘Not for my sake.’

  There were footsteps inside, the click of the television being turned off. Chris rose, allowing his hand to rest on her wrist.

  ‘I’m going for my own sake. But it was so good to see you again.’

  His hand lingered for the fraction of a second, bringing back sunshine, a steep winding road in Dalkey between the stone walls of rich gardens. And both of them giddy with laughter as she slid her palm into his, slipping away from the van on their lunch break. How a body feels at eighteen. Intoxicated by life. A sea breeze. Blossom hanging down onto the roadside. Sheila called for her attention as Chris lifted his hand away.

  Jack Fitzgerald had obviously spoken to the girls who served the children’s dinners, because they seemed aware that Alison was alone and one waitress offered to carry plates for her. Danny attacked his mash and chicken nuggets, but Shane only picked at his food, content to exist on milk. It was hard to get Sheila to eat anything. She was subdued, missing her father. Alison had to repeat things to get her attention.

  The first–time mother, Sally, was at her table again, with her husband who looked like he had walked the floor all night. They were leaving tomorrow, the price of five nights being well beyond their reach. Joan came across to rescue her from the attentions of the staff.

  ‘If I’d known you got treated this way I’d have sent Joey home ages ago,’ she joked. ‘Any word of Peadar?’

  ‘He’s probably trying to do ten jobs at once,’ Alison replied.

  ‘That sounds like him,’ Joan said. ‘He’s a good man, Peadar. You’re lucky. Not all fellows are like that.’

  It took twenty seconds of deliberate silence for Alison to realise that Joan was hinting at something.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If there’s one thing I hate it’s solitary men lurking around hotels. Who was the guy hassling you in the pool this morning?’ ‘He wasn’t hassling me. We were talking.’ ‘You weren’t the only ones.’

  This was crazy. Joan who sat up all night, using language like a docker. Guests mixed here all the time, so why should Alison change her behaviour because Peadar was absent?

  ‘What are you driving at, Joan?’

  ‘Just that Joey wouldn’t like me cosying up to somebody as soon as his back was turned.’

  The woman was serious, with disapproval in her eyes. Peadar had always found her company boring, the endless impersonations of neighbours on her tiny estate outside Dundalk. ‘The only reason Joan sneers at her neighbour’s gaudy porch,’ Peadar would say, ‘is because she can’t afford a gaudier one.’ Married at seventeen in a dress that didn’t fit. ‘It was no shotgun wedding,’ she’d once joked. ‘Joey was in the army. It was a Lee–Enfield.’ If things had worked out different, people might still be making jokes about why Alison had married Peadar. It was wrong to look down, but she resented being lectured.

  Peadar would laugh if she mentioned Joan’s suspicions on the phone, although Alison knew that she wouldn’t tell him. She had turned an innocent encounter into something suspicious, but maybe it was just as well Chris was leaving, after the way he’d looked at her for a second this afternoon. Joan made some girlie remark, realising her advice was unwanted. But Alison knew she would spend this holiday avoiding Joan. They had nothing in common, except the coincidence of staying here. Shane pulled at her sleeve, asking for an ice cream. He would only take one bite of the cone, but Alison was glad of the excuse to escape. She walked away, with Joan telling her to join them for a drink that evening.

  Her words to Danny about being in charge must have played on his mind, because when the human train was being formed to go to the video room, Danny insisted she have a rest and let him mind the family. She smiled, watching him usher Shane and Sheila into line, his manner unconsciously impersonating Peadar’s. They marched off, with Sheila looking back a little uncertainly.

  Alison had been expecting a phone call and twice checked at reception for any messages she might have missed. She phoned home again but got the answering machine. The blips told her there were seventeen messages on the tape, eleven
more than earlier. The school phone kept ringing and she refused to try McCann’s home number. There were a half dozen meetings that Peadar could be attending or maybe he was grabbing a bite to eat. She wished she wasn’t so susceptible to suggestion, but Joan’s remark had left a sour taste.

  In ten minutes she would check the children, but now she went out into the gardens. For once the crazy golf course was empty, with just a few older couples on the patio, doing crosswords or sitting in companionable silence.

  The upper storey of the Slaney Room led out onto an open–air balcony. Chris Conway leaned on the rail there, watching the ferry depart the distant harbour.

  Alison might never have joined him were it not for Joan’s words. But she needed to assert her independence, even though nobody was watching. It was hot when she entered the Slaney Room and she was glad to ascend the curving staircase to the upper level and push the glass doors open. Chris was alone on the balcony.

  ‘What news from the front?’ he asked.

  ‘The children are quartered before a video.’

  ‘Long may the peace last.’ He turned back to watch the ferry. What direction was he going in afterwards, she wondered? France, Germany, Spain? How far had you to travel to start a new life? Even if you couldn’t understand one word the local children said, surely they would still remind you in a hundred ways. Alison rested her elbow on the rail beside his and looked out across the grounds. Part of her wanted Joan to appear and glance up disapprovingly. ‘Any word from Peadar?’

  ‘He’s probably eating out. It’s hardly much fun going home to an empty house.’

  ‘No.’ There was no intonation in his voice, but she regretted the remark.

  ‘That must have been hard,’ she said tentatively. ‘After the funeral, going back to an empty house.’

  ‘It wasn’t empty.’ He looked at her. ‘That was the problem. I couldn’t get rid of hordes of well–meaning people with nothing useful to say.’

  The remark hurt, though she couldn’t be sure if there was a barb in it. She sensed now that Chris couldn’t wait to be gone.

  ‘Where will you go tomorrow?’

  ‘Somewhere different.’ Another couple came out onto the balcony, watching the ferry turn in a giant loop before heading for France. Chris seemed uncomfortable with her. She should leave him alone, yet how long was it since she’d had this effect on any man? Her own husband rushing off to do business sooner than spend time with her. How many other women had there been in Chris’s life?

  There were terribly intimate questions she wanted to ask this man who had once offered to marry her, clumsily at a Christmas party, long after the whole office became aware that she was pregnant with Peadar’s child. He had got drunk and locked them into the bathroom of a Rathmines flat while the ceiling shook with dancing feet. Even then Chris had been obsequious, caging his offer in terms of things not working out between Peader and herself, casting himself in the role of fall–guy. ‘That’s sweet of you, Chris,’ she’d replied, taking his hand as if to calm a nervous child. Later, when leaving, she had seen him collapsed in a corner and placed a coat over his shoulder. That was the weekend she miscarried and the last time she had seen him before this holiday.

  The Irwins emerged below, Mr Irwin stooping to collect two putters off the grass. They walked companionably towards the first hole. Alison hoped they wouldn’t look up, even though it was ridiculous to think she was doing anything wrong. She was a happily married woman, or as happily married as any woman her age was if you spoke honestly to them. Besides Chris seemed locked inside a pain now which she could barely even fathom.

  ‘Peadar would have liked to have had a drink with you,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘I always admired Peadar.’

  She couldn’t detect irony in his voice. His hand brushed against hers but this time he was pointing. Sheila stood on the grass below, near tears, looking around for her. Alison called and the child started running.

  Sheila was struggling with the doors of the Slaney Room by the time Alison reached her and gathered her daughter up in her arms.

  ‘I didn’t like the dinosaurs in the film, Mammy,’ she sobbed. ‘They gave me a headache.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Like my head is too heavy.’

  Sheila should have worn a sunhat this afternoon. Lotion wasn’t enough to protect her. The child’s face looked puffy and tired. The sun came out through clouds and Sheila raised a hand to shield her eyes from it.

  ‘I want to go to bed,’ she said. ‘I want Daddy.’

  Alison soothed her as she began to cry. She looked back at the balcony, but Chris Conway was gone.

  Of all the children Sheila had the most sensitive skin. Alison had taken a risk in using perfumed shower gel on her after their morning swim and by bedtime the child’s tummy was covered in a light heat rash. She was cranky and exhausted, asking for her father. Alison even phoned home again, convinced that Peadar would be there by now and could at least speak to the girl. The blip count of ‘messages received’ was up to twenty–four. She didn’t leave a message but suspected the answering machine memory was probably full at this stage.

  She might not have gone down for dinner if the babysitter hadn’t bustled her out, explaining that her hovering around was only making Sheila worse. Alison made the woman promise to page her if the child didn’t settle, then stood outside the door listening until Sheila stopped crying as the woman read her a story.

  She had never eaten dinner alone in a crowded room before. It was hard not to feel that people were watching from the moment she entered. Even the couples nearby seemed to lower their voices as if suspicious of her eavesdropping. She regretted not bringing a book, but knew that she lacked the panache to casually read through her meal.

  The long dining room was filled with a hubbub of chatter. Evening dress was requested and young children frowned on after seven o’clock but it always surprised her to see the few casually–dressed younger couples who brought children in. She chose roast stuffed saddle of lamb Dauphinoise with gratin of potato. It was Peadar’s favourite meal, with finely chopped shallots and rosemary in the stuffing. Where was he now? Judging by the answering machine a lot of people were after him or the same people very badly. Yet she resented his silence, when he could have phoned from somewhere.

  The lamb was perfectly cooked, its familiar taste adding to his absence. Across the room the Bennetts nodded as they rose after their meal. Mr BMW was complaining to a waiter – about life in general, she suspected – while his daughters practised pouting. He would probably only be satisfied with a written apology from God. Two tables away an elderly couple held hands with their food barely touched. The man wore a bow tie at least thirty years old. His wife’s eyes were bird–bright, shining. How lucky they were, Alison thought, to still have, and enjoy, each other’s company.

  Joan was trying to attract her eye. It was foolish to prolong a quarrel with somebody you barely knew, but Alison avoided looking back. She wanted to be alone. What if Joan had glimpsed some unconscious temptation within her this morning? Had she been flaunting herself slightly, flattered by Chris’s attention, by any attention? She dismissed the idea, but then why had he suddenly chosen to leave? Ironically, it was the very absence of anything physical between herself and Chris which made their relationship seem so special with time. Through Peadar’s eyes she could see herself screaming in labour–pangs or haggard from sleeplessness when a child was sick. Knowing crises of inner despair as she sensed her body ageing. Years of kitchens crammed with dishes, piles of clothes for ironing. Voices complaining on the radio, supermarket queues, meaningless talk in mother and toddler groups. Peadar had been there at every stage, seeing her differently at different times. The way he never found her as tight after the stitches following her caesarean section with Sheila. How she could walk through the bedroom naked now after a shower and he would no longer automatically put a hand out to fondle her.

  Chris still seemed to see the eighteen–year–old girl
preserved inside this thirty–eight–year–old woman, saw her with no complications in between. The thought was frightening. Surely he must see the wrinkles and changes, the slight sag of her breasts. Perhaps only he could be the true judge of how her body had withstood two decades of living. Yet his eyes seemed non–judgemental. Maybe it was vanity to think he still cared.

  She knew little about his life since that Monday morning when she started to miscarry, climbing down from a mobile van in Santry, and never returned to work afterwards. He had been working an afternoon shift, not there when it happened.

  What had his wife been like? Were they happy together? Somehow Alison had imagined him staying single, never having found – she knew this was adolescent conceit – the right replacement for her. Would he find someone again now?

  She wondered if Peadar ever wished them all gone from around his neck, in those black moods when he pretended to work in his room upstairs? Surely there were times when everyone fantasised about having a fresh start, but never like this. Alison had noticed how tender she was with her children all day, finding excuses to touch them, brush back their hair, hug and plant kisses on their necks, as if storing memories up. She could imagine no other life than her present one and the purposelessness of the years to come, when they would move naturally away from her, was something she already dreaded.

  Alison was thankful that Jack Fitzgerald wasn’t on duty tonight. She didn’t feel like small talk. Her hot walnut pudding arrived with ice cream. She ordered coffee, wishing for once that she hadn’t stopped smoking when pregnant with Danny. Smokers always looked self–contained at a table, engaged in doing something. Had Jane smoked? Plain Jane? Jane the sophisticate? Alison imagined a woman with blonde hair tied up, laughing at a table like this, confident and knowing. Every time the door opened she expected a waiter to beckon her to a phone. Nine–fifty. Surely Peadar was home by now, though knowing him he would be too concerned about waking the kids – especially Danny with his night terrors – to phone the room this late.

  She decided to phone him and left her dessert unfinished. A log fire blazed in the reading room. The elderly couple she had seen holding hands at dinner sat in silence on two armchairs there, beyond the need of words.