by Maeve Binchy
Our wedding day in Rossmore was just great.
Canon Cassidy did the actual wedding bit, but the new curate Father Flynn was very helpful too. And we had a reception in the hotel where people made speeches.
My dad said that as far as he was concerned his beloved wife who had been cured by St Ann was in this room with us to celebrate the day and I was the best son in the world and would be the best husband and indeed father too when that time came.
I made a short speech and said that I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. I wanted people to know that I knew that’s what they said. But I was the luckiest knife. I had got everything I wanted all my life and I could ask for no more.
And Clare said that she would like to make a speech. She knew it wasn’t usual for the bride to speak but there was something she wanted to say.
I had no idea what it was going to be.
She stood up in her beautiful dress and said to everyone in the room that the drawers were full of sharp awful old knives. So many that she had almost despaired of opening a drawer again. And that then she had found me and her whole life turned around. And as I looked around the big room in the hotel I saw everyone was half crying as they clapped and cheered and it was simply the happiest day of my life …
Part 2 – Gold Star Clare
When I was at school at St Ita’s, Rossmore, I used to get the gold star every week.
Once when I had flu, another girl, my friend Harriet Lynch, got it but otherwise it was always mine.
I used to take it off my school tunic every Monday morning and lay it back on the Principal’s desk and then an hour later, when the gold stars in each class were being read out, I would get it back again.
It was a reward for a combination of good marks, good behaviour and school spirit. You couldn’t just get one for studying hard. No, you had to be an all-rounder, a balanced person, as they saw it.
And it was easy really to make them see it like that. Because I liked being at school. I was in early and I left late. They had plenty of time to see me and my good school spirit in their environment. I mean, if you came from my home, any environment was preferable. Who wouldn’t prefer to be at school than at home?
It wasn’t entirely my mother’s fault. Not entirely.
Women were different then, they did literally everything not to rock the boat, no matter how dangerous and unpleasant that boat was. Any marriage was better than no marriage, any humiliation was better than the ultimate humiliation of being an abandoned wife. They went up to St Ann’s Well to pray that things might get better but they didn’t try to make them better themselves.
And I wasn’t the only child in the school that had trouble like that at home. There was a poor girl – Nora Something – who was a bit soft in the head. In her case it was her grandfather who bothered her. And she got pregnant and she said that it was some fellow she had met at a dance, but apparently the fellow brought all his brothers and proved that he was never alone with her. And poor Nora went to the nuns, had her baby and gave it up for adoption and her grandfather went on living in that home. And they all knew. All the time. And said nothing.
Like they knew about my Uncle Niall in our home. And said nothing.
I put a lock on my bedroom door and no one asked me why. They knew too well that my father’s brother fancied me. But he owned most of the farm, so what could they do?
I asked God a lot if he could stop Uncle Niall from trying to do these things. But God was busy back in those days or there were a lot of cases worse than mine, I suppose. The really hard thing was that they all knew and did nothing. They knew why I did my homework up at the school lest he approach me when the house was empty, and why I didn’t come back until I was certain that my mother had come back from the creamery where she worked and my father in from the fields and that there would be other people to protect me. Sort of, anyway.
I was both proud and ashamed when I was a schoolgirl. Proud that I was able to stay out of my uncle’s messy clutches. And ashamed because I came from a family that wouldn’t look after me but left me to fight my own battles against things I didn’t understand.
And I suppose it did make me grow up quickly. And then when I passed my exams I announced firmly that I was going to university miles away.
There was a bit of grumbling about this. Where would they get the money to pay for all this? my father wondered. He had wondered about money all his life, it was his greatest curse.
Why couldn’t I stay at home and do a secretarial course and mind my sister? my mother said, as well she might.
My sister Geraldine did need to be minded and I would warn her well before I left. Maybe I’d go to the bad in a big city? Uncle Niall said that, even though he knew and I knew and my parents knew. I’d go to the bad much quicker here had I not got a lock on my bedroom door.
But I was much tougher than they all thought.
I was really quite grown up for my years.
I’d survive, I told them, I’d get a job to pay for a flat and my fees. I was a gold star girl. An all-rounder. I could turn my hand to anything.
And I did. I went to Dublin two weeks before term started and I fixed myself up in a flat with three other girls, and got a job in an early-morning breakfast place, which was terrific because I had nearly a day’s work done and a huge breakfast eaten by the time I went to my 10 a.m. lectures, and then I worked a shift in a pub from six to ten every night, which kept me out of the way of spending money and I had the whole day to myself.
And because of Uncle Niall and all that sort of thing I wasn’t all that keen on fellows like my flatmates were, so I could put my mind to my studies as well. And at the end of the first year I was in the top five of the whole group, which was an achievement.
I never told them any of this when I went back home to Rossmore. Except for my sister Geraldine because I wanted her to know we could do anything, anything, if we wanted to.
Geraldine thought I was wonderful and she told me too that she was well able to deal with Uncle Niall now by shouting aloud, ‘Oh there you are, Uncle Niall, what can I do for you?’ at the top of her voice, alerting the whole house and he would slink away. And she had announced one day in front of everyone that she was putting a giant padlock on her door.
And then in the middle of my second year at university a lot of things went wrong. My mother got cancer and they said they couldn’t operate. My father coped with it all by drinking himself senseless every night.
My sister went to stay with my friend Harriet Lynch’s younger sister in order to study and to get away from Uncle Niall since there was no one to protect her.
Back in Dublin they put up the rent on our flat. Seriously high. And just then I met Keno who ran a nightclub down a little cobbled street in Dublin and asked me to dance there. I said, nonsense, I couldn’t dance, and he said there was nothing to it. And I said it would be dangerous, wouldn’t it be sort of flaunting yourself at people and then not letting them touch you?
But Keno had bouncers who looked after all that sort of thing.
And then my mother died.
Yes, it was awful, and I tried to mourn her properly but I could never forget that she had turned aside and left Geraldine and me to our fate. And shortly after the funeral Uncle Niall sold the farm over my father’s head and Geraldine hadn’t done any work at school because she was so upset about everything and if I did do the bloody dancing it meant I could have my own flat in Dublin, finish my university degree, put Geraldine into one of those sixth form Leaving Certificate colleges and keep an eye on her. So I said okay to Keno and wore this ludicrous thong and danced around a pole every night.
It was silly. Just mainly silly and a bit sad really.
And the music sometimes would do your head in.
But the tips were enormous, and the bouncers were great and there was always a taxi home at 3 a.m. and God, why not?
I told Geraldine that it was a gambling club, and I was a croupier taking in the money, and th
at the law said she was too young to come in, and that was fine. And then one night of course, wouldn’t you know, Harriet Lynch’s father and some friends were there and recognised me. They nearly dropped dead.
I went to their table to have a drink and said very sweetly that everyone earned their living and took their pleasures in an entirely individual way and I didn’t see any need to inform Harriet Lynch’s mother or daughters back in Rossmore of the nature of these business trips to Dublin. They got the message and Keno told me afterwards that I was the brightest girl he ever had in his stable. I didn’t like the word ‘stable’. I felt we were all like performing prancing horses or something. But I did like Keno. A lot. He was very respectful to us all and he was doing all this because he had a very poor family who needed support back in Morocco. He would really like to have been a poet but there was no money in poetry. His little sisters and brothers wouldn’t have had an education if he were busy writing verses, so he had this club instead.
I understood so well.
Sometimes we’d have a coffee, Keno and myself – my friends from college thought he was gorgeous. He always talked about poetry so they thought he was some kind of student. He never told any actual lies, I noticed, but he never told the whole truth either.
But I wasn’t going to criticise him for that, I didn’t want him to tell my friends from the BA honours group that he knew me from my dancing nearly naked five nights a week in his club.
He was the same with Geraldine, who was now also at university, and mercifully having too good a time to want to investigate my so-called life as a croupier in a casino. I didn’t fancy Keno and he didn’t fancy me, but we often talked about love and marriage and what it might be like. He was cynical that any romance ever really lasted. His business experience told him so much the contrary.
He said he would like children and in fact he had a child, a daughter in Marrakesh. But she was being brought up by her grandmother. Her mother was an exotic dancer in one of his clubs there. That was the first time I knew he had any other establishments than the one where I worked in Dublin.
But I said nothing and never brought the matter up again.
‘You’re a great girl, Clare,’ he said to me often. ‘A real star.’
‘I was a gold star at school,’ I explained and he thought that was very endearing.
‘Little Gold Star Clare! Give up this nonsense of becoming a teacher and manage my club for me instead,’ he begged.
But I told him that in fact when I did become a teacher I’d actually give up the club. Too much danger that the pupils’ fathers might see me!
‘Well, as you said yourself, they shouldn’t be there,’ he laughed.
He came to my graduation and sat at the conferring ceremonies with Geraldine. I smiled as I took my parchment in my hand. If they knew that the girl with the First Class honours was a topless dancer … Only Keno knew and he was clapping loudest of all.
A year later I was a fully-fledged teacher with my diploma and I got into exactly the kind of school I wanted to. I took Keno out to lunch to say goodbye. He didn’t believe it when I told him what I was going to be earning. For me it was plenty.
Geraldine had won a scholarship, I had my savings and hardly any outgoings.
I thanked him from the bottom of my heart for having made it all possible. He was dark and moody looking, and he said I was ungrateful.
‘Over the years, Keno, if there’s anything I can do to help you I will,’ I promised and I meant it.
I didn’t hear from him for three years. And by the time he got in touch again a lot had changed.
After years of drinking my father eventually died and at the funeral I met an old man in a wheelchair called Marty Nolan, who had known my father once. Like back in the days when it had been possible to talk to my father. A long time ago. A nice old man. His son, who was pushing the chair, was a really good-natured fellow called Neddy. Neddy had worked in England on the buildings, he said, well, more as manager for his brother and their friends, and now he had come home and looked after his father.
He was an oddly restful person and I liked talking to him.
Harriet Lynch said to me, I should see his elder brother Kit, a real hunk. Take the sight out of your eyes, he would. And where was he now, I wondered? Apparently he was banged up in jail for something, Neddy was the one who had the decent streak in that family.
Not the brightest mind, a bit slow, a minute late, she said. Harriet Lynch was always sorry she had volunteered this information to me.
Very sorry.
I saw Neddy again because I came back to Rossmore over and over to get what I considered were Geraldine’s and my just portions of my father’s estate. If you could use a word like ‘estate’ to describe what was owing to a drunk who had died in the County Home. Over the years I had tried to contribute to my father’s keep from my earnings in Keno’s club, but the doctor told me to save my breath. He said that my father didn’t know where he was and would only spend any money that came his way on cider. People had been discouraged from giving him anything at all.
I faced my Uncle Niall after the funeral when he was busy accepting sympathy about his unfortunate poor brother. The one with the drink problem, people said, shaking their heads sadly.
I asked for his attention for a moment.
He looked at me witheringly.
‘And what can I do for you on this sad day, Miss Clare?’ he said.
‘Just a third of what you got for the family farm,’ I said to him pleasantly.
He looked at me as if I were mad.
‘One third is fine. I have written down the bank account number.’
‘And what makes you think I am going to give you one single Euro?’ he asked.
‘Let me see, I think you won’t want Geraldine and myself to tell the local doctor, the priest, half of Rossmore and, even more important, a top lawyer the reason why she and I had to leave home at a very young age,’ I said.
He looked at me, unbelieving, but I met his stare and eventually it was his eyes that moved away.
‘It will be no problem, there’s a new young curate here who would give Canon Cassidy the courage to stand up to you. Mr Barry would get us a hot-shot barrister from Dublin, the doctor will confirm that I asked his help to get Geraldine away from your clutches. The world has changed, you know. The days are gone, Niall, when the uncle with the money can get away with anything he likes.’
He spluttered at me. I think my calling him Niall was about the clincher.
‘If you think for one moment …’ he began.
I interrupted him. ‘One week from now, and a decent gravestone for my father,’ I said.
It was surprisingly easy. He lodged it.
It was blackmail, of course, but I shrugged. I didn’t see it as that.
Then I was going out with Neddy. He came to Dublin once a week to see me. And I went down to see him once a week. And we hadn’t slept together because Neddy wasn’t like that.
And in the middle of things in Dublin, which were always a bit pressurised, he was very restful indeed.
And then I heard from Keno.
They really needed me back at the club, he wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t desperate. He’d been having a bit of trouble with some of the girls from abroad. Visas and red tape and form filling. He needed someone reliable to be in there, dancing, yes, and keeping an eye on things for him.
I explained how impossible it was for me, or I tried to explain. I even told Keno about Neddy and the kind of man he was. I shouldn’t really have told Keno about Neddy.
When he put the pictures down on the table, he mentioned Neddy.
I hadn’t known there were any pictures being taken, and it was very obviously me, and the positions were very suggestive indeed. It was sickening, looking at them.
It didn’t bear thinking what the board of the school or dear innocent Neddy would make of them.
‘It’s blackmail,’ I said.
‘I don’t see
it as that,’ Keno said, shrugging.
‘Give me a week,’ I said. ‘You owe me that.’
‘Right.’ Keno was always agreeable. ‘But you owe me too. For your start in life.’
During the week, of course, wouldn’t you know, Neddy asked me to marry him.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Too much baggage.’
‘I don’t care about the past,’ Neddy said.
‘It’s not just the past. It’s the future,’ I said.
And I told him. Everything. Every single thing – like my awful Uncle Niall and Geraldine and how boring and tiring the dancing had been. I had left the envelope of pictures on the table and he just threw it into the fire without opening it.
‘I’m sure you are very beautiful in the pictures,’ he said, ‘and why shouldn’t people pay to look at you?’
‘He’ll have more,’ I said in a despairing kind of voice.
‘Yes, of course he will, but it won’t matter.’
‘Ah, come on, Neddy, these are nice respectable girls I teach – do you think anyone would let me near them if they saw those pictures?’
‘Well, I was hoping that if you married me you’d come back to Rossmore and teach near by.’
‘But he could still show them,’ I said. I wondered if Neddy might really be soft in the head.
‘But you could tell them in advance. You could say at the interview you had to pay your way through college by doing various jobs including exotic dancing,’ he said.
‘It won’t work – we won’t get away with it, Neddy.’
‘It will work because it’s true.’ He looked at me with his honest blue eyes.
‘I wish things had been different,’ I said to him.
‘Would you have said yes and married me if it weren’t for this little problem?’ he asked me.
‘It’s a big problem, Neddy.’ I sounded weary.
‘Would you, Clare?’
‘Well, yes, I would, Neddy. I would have been honoured to marry you.’
‘Right then – we’ll sort it out,’ he said.
