Echoes

by Maeve Binchy

  “But that means you can’t go,” her mother said.

  “It does not. I was going to Dublin. Now I’ll go to Rome instead.” Angela threw herself into a chair and spoke to the ceiling. “Now I do believe in miracles,” she said, smiling up at it.

  Emer couldn’t believe it. “And you’ll be my bridesmaid?”

  “Why not? They’ve seen lions eating Christians in Rome, they must have seen ageing bridesmaids as well.” Angela was phoning from Dillon’s Hotel—that way Mrs. Conway would have had to tune in deliberately to hear her.

  “We’ll have a great time, and you can be round for the honeymoon bit too, can’t you? You don’t have to rush off home the next day.”

  “No, I’ll bring my best nighties and a frilly dressing gown and I’ll get into the bed with yourself and Kevin. It’ll be great.”

  “Oh, Angela, it’s the very best news in the world that you’re going to be there. Imagine you coming all the way to Rome. What a friend you are. I’ll never be able to thank you.”

  “When I get married, I’ll have the ceremony in Jerusalem. Then we’ll put you to the test.”

  Emer laughed. “I don’t think there’s much chance of a romance between you and the best man, but you never know.”

  “Oh, you never know—Italian music and wine, it could be highly romantic.”

  “Angela, isn’t it marvelous? I feel like a young girl again.”

  “So do I, truly,” Angela said.

  Everyone seemed to know she was going to Rome. Dick Dillon—who had given up drink and was as bad-tempered as a weasel—called her into the hotel one day and showed her a lot of brochures. Apparently, because of the pilgrimages, the best way to go to Rome would be on an all-inclusive tour. That way she’d have a hotel booked already, and she’d be with people while she needed them. Angela was very grateful to him: she had feared the plane would be too expensive, but of course Dick Dillon was right. It turned out too that all Emer’s party were going on a similar kind of arrangement.

  Dick Dillon said he had been in Rome once and he had thrown coins into the fountain which meant you would come back again but he never had. He shook his head gloomily.

  Angela said there was nothing stopping him going back any time he wanted to. He said that she didn’t understand: now that he had given up the jar there was no point in going anywhere. Being in Italy and not being able to drink that wine? And the grappa, oh God, the grappa gave a fierce kick to the back of the throat, it was marvelous stuff. No, there would be neither rhyme nor reason going somewhere like Rome and drinking milk.

  They got on to less heartbreaking subjects: Angela said she was glad that Josie was going to the commercial college next year, and hadn’t she come on a lot lately? Dick Dillon agreed—she had been a terrible pudding of a poor thing but she seemed to have brightened up all right. Good for her anyway, she wouldn’t be left on the side while the bright brothers and sisters got the pickings of the hotel; she wouldn’t be left in a corner with no position, no status, just drinking her liver to bits like he was.

  “But you’re all right now, Dick,” said Angela a bit impatiently. “Why can’t you wrest your share back for yourself, or take control, or get in there and fight, or whatever you want to do?”

  “I suppose I don’t know what I want to do. That’s the problem.” Dick Dillon was morose.

  “Come to Rome with me as my escort,” she said.

  “I could, I suppose, but I’d be no company and we wouldn’t be able to go on anywhere they served drink,” he said, taking her seriously.

  “You’d better stay where you are then. I’ll send you a postcard of your fountain.”

  David Power was furious that she was going to Rome.

  “I was going to bribe you to go over my whole history course with me. You make it all sound so reasonable, as if they were normal people.”

  “Then I must be getting it wrong, because most of them weren’t.”

  He was wrapped up in himself, his worries, his future.

  “You’ll be fine, David. You’re very bright. You’ve worked hard. It’s only nerves now after all the years. Anyway you’ve got weeks yet to cover the things you aren’t sure of. Look at Clare O’Brien—she’s really the one to pity, one shot, only one chance for a proper education. Your father’s a very kind man—he’s going out of his way to drive her to that scholarship next week. If she doesn’t get it, that’s it. And she’s mad to learn.”

  “I bet she’s a bit fed up with you going off to Rome when she needs you.” He was still mutinous: it had never occurred to him that Miss O’Hara would be doing anything except waiting for chances to teach.

  “No, oddly enough, she’s very pleased for me, but then of course females are much more considerate than males, and generous—it’s known.”

  David smiled, his good humor restored.

  “I hope she gets it.”

  “I hope she gets it too. I remember this time seventeen years ago. It must have been the year you were born. I went over to the town to do the scholarship too, and I had no idea how many farmers’ daughters there might be up against me. To be the brightest in Castlebay wasn’t much—it was the rest of the county all around.”

  “And when you got it, was it great?”

  “No. Not really. My father was very drunk that day and very abusive. It had nothing to do with the scholarship. Well, not at first. Then he got upset about that and said that people were giving Dinny O’Hara’s child their charity. No, the day wasn’t great.” She brightened up. “But it was great afterwards . . . How’s James Nolan?”

  “Languishing over Fiona Doyle—not over his revision I’m afraid.”

  “And his sister? Languishing too?”

  “She’s got over her miseries. Much more fickle females are than males.”

  “Has she transferred her attentions back to you?” Angela ignored his barb.

  “There was a tentative move in that direction, but I discouraged it, until my exams were over.” He was as proud as punch. “I’ll play a bit hard to get.”

  “Oh, I’m glad I’m not your age. You’d have my heart broken in bits.”

  “Will you pray for me in Rome, Miss O’Hara?”

  “Of course I will, Clare, in St. Peter’s itself on Easter Sunday, and again at the wedding on the Monday, and I’ll go to Mass somewhere specially for you on the Tuesday, on the day.”

  “That should work.” Clare was adding it up in her mind. “Nobody will have that many prayers for them. I wish you were going to be here.”

  “No, in a way it might be worse for you, might make you too anxious. You’re probably better on your own.”

  She was doubtful. “There’ll be no one to tell.”

  “Yes, there will. There’ll be Dr. Power in the car coming back. There’ll be Josie. She’ll be dying to know. And your mother and father. Now be sure to tell them all about it—they mightn’t sound as interested as you hope, but in their own way they are.” Angela sought more people that Clare could talk to. It wasn’t easy to find them; she would be wise to keep away from the convent. Mother Immaculata would depress her into the ground, with the Answers She Should Have Given and the Things She Ought To Have Said.

  “You could always talk about it to David Power?”

  “I wouldn’t tell him about it, Miss O’Hara. He’s a bit snobby.”

  “No, he’s not. His mother is, but he isn’t, not at all. But suit yourself. Hold on till I get back. I’ll be back on the Saturday night late, too late for you, but leave a note up in the house about how you got on, and come round after early Mass. We’ll have breakfast together and you’ll tell me step by step how you went in there, flags waving for Castlebay.”

  Suddenly Clare threw her arms round Miss O’Hara, on the side of the road where it divided in three to go to the golf club, to the Cliff Road or down Church Street. There was nobody but a man on a bicycle and his dog passing by to see.

  “You’re so kind. You’re the best help anyone in the world could
have. I’ll never be able to thank you.”

  Angela was embarrassed but she hugged her back quickly and released her. “That’s all right, child. Wait for the long weeks until we know. That’s going to be the hard bit.”

  Kevin was a lovely fellow, Angela thought. He was waiting with Emer at Kingsbridge station to meet her the night she arrived in Dublin. He ran up to take her suitcase and welcome her. He had freckles and reddish hair and he was as delighted with Emer as if she were a present that had been handed down to him from a Christmas tree.

  Emer hadn’t changed at all in the seven years since they had met. She had a brown corduroy pinafore dress and a white blouse; with her shoulderbag she could have been a student still. Angela touched her own face in some kind of reflex, she wondered had the years of living in wind, rain and sea spray with an invalid woman and teaching in a very narrow school taken their toll? She must look much, much older than Emer, when she was in fact over a year younger. And her clothes. They were drab and old. Though she had ironed them all and folded them with care in Castlebay now she wished she could lose the suitcase that Kevin was carrying as they swung along the platform to the bus. Emer had her arm linked and the years rolled away.

  “I’ll never be able to thank you for this, you know,” Emer said, looking at her with a shining face. “It makes it all more normal, less odd if you know what I mean.”

  Kevin was nodding too, eagerly: “You’re a very good friend, Angela, I can’t tell you how pleased we both were, Emer danced round the room when you rang that day. It was terrific of you.”

  “I couldn’t wait for the post,” said Angela.

  “My mother is pleased too, and Lord God nothing has pleased her since I don’t know when. She remembers you coming to the house and she thinks you’re much more reliable than any other friend I have.”

  “Why on earth does she think I’m reliable? I’d hate to be reliable,” Angela said indignantly.

  “Well, you went and looked after your mother, didn’t you? I mean how more reliable could another mother think one could be? You get all the points in the world for that.”

  They laughed as if they had never been separated, and as if they had both known Kevin always. As they climbed on the bus and ran lightly upstairs so that they could smoke, Angela felt the first pang of envy for Emer. Wouldn’t it be great to be on the verge of spending your life with this easygoing, happy man? They talked on the bus about the house they had bought, and how it needed a lot of doing up but it would be terrific in the end. They took her to the kind of a restaurant that hadn’t existed when she was in Dublin. It had candles in wine bottles, and a foreign man serving them—it was like being abroad already.

  Mrs. Kelly was at the door waiting for them.

  “Here you are at last, Angela,” she said crossly. “What has she been up to, keeping you out till this hour? Why on earth were you not brought back here straight from the station. There were sandwiches made and all.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful news about the wedding! Imagine being married in Rome! Could you ever have believed it?” Angela was an expert at changing subjects and getting old women to talk about more cheerful things. And you didn’t always do it in one step either.

  “Well, yes, it is of course, but it’s so far away, and the family . . . and I’m not altogether sure whether . . .”

  Angela clapped her hands like a gleeful schoolgirl. “I think you’re all marvelous, Mrs. Kelly, but I’d do the same if it were my daughter, if there were a chance of her seeing the Holy Father and having all the Easter ceremonies in Rome. Anyone can get married in Dublin but if it were my choice I’d much prefer to think a child of mine was able to have all this experience and there’ll be the photos and everything.”

  It was the right thing to say. An element that had not yet been introduced, that it was one up on everyone else. Mrs. Kelly liked it. She liked it so much that she offered them both a sherry as a nightcap.

  Emer was about to refuse and Angela hissed, “Last night under this roof.”

  So they all sat down and talked about how impressed people would be when they saw the pictures. Mrs. Kelly asked Angela what kind of a hat she was going to wear. Angela had never worn a hat in her life and was momentarily stuck.

  “We’re going to choose it tomorrow morning,” Emer said.

  On the way upstairs Emer said that it would be a great excuse to get out of the house for an hour or two, before the family came to wave goodbye and annoy them all.

  There was a divan bed in Emer’s room, which was used as a settee when she was on her own but could be made into a spare bed. That was where Angela was to sleep, but they both sat on it and talked for two hours. In the end they remembered that they would still have days and days in Rome, and that from now on Angela was to come to Dublin every year and stay with Kevin and Emer in a house where nobody would interrogate you the moment you came in the door.

  “I never spoke to you about money,” Emer said as she got into bed. “Kevin asked me to say that the groom gives the bridesmaid a present, and he wanted me to find out tactfully if you’d like some of the money towards the fare instead of a gift. He said I wasn’t to say it straight out but I can’t think of how else to say it.”

  “Isn’t he very kind? You are so lucky, Emer.”

  “I know.” She hugged her knees in bed, a schoolgirlish gesture. “I can hardly believe how lucky I am. Well, what will I tell him?”

  “Tell him I was touched to the heart but I’d prefer a present. I don’t spend much in Castlebay, you know. I live at home. I don’t go anywhere much. I save a bit each week in the post office and I save that much again at home like a mad old lady in a box under my bed.”

  “Why on earth do you not put it all in the post office?” Emer was amused.

  “Because I wouldn’t give it to that demon Mrs. Conway to know how much I have managed to put by over the years. No, honestly, Emer, I really do have the money, thank you and Kevin very much, and I don’t spend much on clothes so I’m fine. I was always hoping that I’d have a great opportunity like this.”

  Emer blinked away tears. Angela looked so sad lying on her elbow in the divan bed, her long brown hair brushed and tied loosely back with a rubber band, her face pale and worried looking. Emer felt guilty that her friend had such a sad life and was now spending her savings coming to Rome. Yet Angela seemed absolutely determined to be there, from the very first moment too. It was almost as if she had been looking for an excuse to go there and this was it. It was marvelous to have such enthusiasm as that, compared to everyone else moping and complaining. Emer drifted off to sleep happily, and didn’t know that Angela smoked five cigarettes hoping that sleep would come, and when it didn’t she took half a sleeping tablet with a sip of water.

  They were meeting the best man in Rome, and so the party that set out on the plane were Kevin’s cousin Marie who worked for Aer Lingus and could get a reduction, and Emer’s uncle David who was an artist of some kind and who went to the Continent once a year to paint. It had all been balanced with great care. One relative from each side but no mothers or fathers, no clerics or nuns from either side and no sisters or brothers. Emer provided a bridesmaid, and the best man who was working his way there by train was a friend of Kevin’s and a teacher in the same school.

  There had been a full day of discussion about whether the parents should come, but Kevin and Emer while pretending a certain enthusiasm had marshaled every possible argument against their making the journey. It worked. They were through the barrier at Colinstown airport in Dublin, with Angela, Uncle David and Kevin’s cousin Marie. The wedding had begun. He was waiting outside her hotel. She had told him not to come in person—it was a hotel where Irish pilgrims stayed, but he should leave a note for her saying where they should meet.

  The taxi that Father Flynn had organized for Uncle David, Cousin Marie and Angela stopped outside the door. Sean jumped eagerly but Angela motioned him angrily away. Her first shock was that he was wearing a blue suit
with a pale blue shirt open at the neck. It had never occurred to her that he didn’t dress like a priest anymore.

  David and Marie spent ages being assured that she was fine, that she had her passport, which she would need, that they knew of her at the desk, and then they all repeated to each other where they were going to meet for lunch the next day. At the foot of the Spanish Steps, on the bottom step, that way nobody could get lost.

  Angela stiffened as she was aware of Sean listening eagerly to the arrangements. She wanted to keep him out of it, she wanted the two lives separate. She hated him for standing there mute and dying to join in. She hated herself too for keeping him at such a distance with a wave of her hand. Eventually, finally they went, back into the taxi and on to the hotel where Father Flynn and the happy couple had gone. Where the best man should be arriving tonight if all went well. Emer had been upset that Angela couldn’t change her arrangements and stay at their hotel too, and that she wouldn’t even try. But Angela had insisted that the booking remain the way it was. They would see plenty of each other, the hotels were only ten minutes’ walk apart.