by Maeve Binchy
“You wouldn’t know the place in ways,” he said. “It’s very painted and bright and the shops have all got things hanging outside them, buckets, and water wings and sunhats. There was none of that in my day.”
There was a silence.
“Would you like us to walk up to your home, to see it, even if you don’t want to go in?”
She was trying hard. It worked.
“Yes, that would be an idea. I don’t think we’ll go up Church Street. We can go up the Cliff Road. It’s longer but it’s very nice.”
“Let’s go by the Cliff Road,” said Shuya.
They walked on to the golf-course road. Late golfers were coming back from their drinks after the last hole.
It was a warm, balmy evening. They walked on till they saw the house. The curtains were drawn and there was a light in the main room. Angela must be waiting there for them.
“Is it cheating to walk past it, and not go in?” he asked.
“Angela said come any time we were ready. I don’t think you’re ready now,” Shuya said gently.
“No. I’m not, somehow.”
“Well, then, it’s not cheating.”
He pointed out where his room had been, and which had been the window he used to climb out of if he wanted to race out and have an early-morning swim. They marveled at the energy of a boy who could have raced down a half mile to the sea and a half mile back. . . . He would run on the road, and there would be cows going for milking. . . . He would be back in his room and studying again before anyone in the family got up.
He showed her the little geraniums that his mother had planted in the window boxes and said that it was wonderful they had survived so well. He pointed out the chimney where the birds had made a nest, and the porch where they had to scrape off the snow in winter in case it became too heavy and broke the glass.
Shuya whispered that now she had a very perfect picture of the way he used to live.
They walked together back down the road, arm in arm, to the caravan park; again by the quiet Cliff Road, not the bustling Church Street with all its lights and the fun of the season getting under way.
Dick Dillon came downstairs; he had been peeping through the dark bedroom window.
“They’ve gone,” he said.
They had heard whispering outside and he had crept upstairs to have a look. Angela had remained at her post. If they knocked she was to let them in and Dick was to leave the back way. He would not stay and greet them—otherwise they would get the impression that the whole of Castlebay would accept him as willingly. They had to make their decisions according to the facts, not just from meeting Dick.
“What do you think they were at?” she asked.
“We’ll probably never know that,” he said.
“Would you stay the night, Dick?” she asked suddenly.
“What?”
“I don’t mean in the bed with me. I’m not inflicting that on you. Just in the house.”
“I’d love to stay with you, and since you’re on the subject, it would be no infliction at all if you weren’t to bother to go to all the trouble of making up another bed.”
“Ah, it’s no trouble, Dick,” she laughed.
“I was hoping maybe you might have no bedclothes aired.”
“They’re aired, and it’s the middle of summer. Will there be a hue and cry for you if you don’t go back to the hotel?”
“Angela, my girl, they don’t know whether I’m there or gone, whether I live or die in that place.”
“Stop playing on my sympathies. You’ll have your own bed here. I’ll go and make it for you now.”
“I’d be no trouble to you, that’s a grand big bed you have up there. I was just looking at it and speculating.”
“Speculate away. Dick?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you very much.”
She thought they would go to late Mass, so she was surprised to see the four of them at First.
When she saw Sean and the two children go to the altar to receive Communion she closed her eyes. Castlebay would forgive a lot but it would never forgive that.
She left before the Last Gospel. She was buying her Sunday paper from Mickey Mack outside the gates when she heard a farmer say to his wife, “Did you see the Chinese woman at Mass, and the two half-caste children, going to the rails and all?”
“Isn’t China full of Catholics?” said Mickey Mack: he wasn’t an ignoramus just because he couldn’t read the papers he sold.
She had plenty of soda bread, and cornflakes for the children. Dick had gone back to the hotel and he wouldn’t come to the house until she sent for him. She could always phone from the golf club if there was an emergency.
She sat down to read the paper, calmer now. Nobody had recognized them.
They must have been having some kind of second thoughts if they had come to look last night but had not come in.
She waited for them with a dread that was much less sharp around the edges. And she didn’t feel too bad about herself either. Last night Dick had assured her that she had behaved most honorably. She felt less of a coward today.
Today she could take them.
They arrived excitedly, chattering like starlings. There were hugs and a present for Aunt Angela and delight at the breakfast.
Shuya wandered round the room entranced by the books and objects. “You never told me it was like this, Sean.”
“It wasn’t, when I was here.” He seemed sad. Shuya was praising the one thing that didn’t date from his time.
Casually, very casually, Angela asked him had he met any friends to introduce to Shuya.
“No.” He seemed troubled. “Not yet.”
“Of course, a lot of Sean’s friends would have been made through his mother, and through you, Angela. When he came home, she would gather people round and because of his status as priest, people would call.”
Shuya understood.
“I don’t seem to know anyone from school.”
Angela clenched her fists. Know anyone from school? The man was mad! Thirty years ago, little fellows running in and out of the Brothers? Who in the name of God would he know?
“No, I suppose you’ve grown away, and they have,” she said cautiously.
“You know, it’s very changed, Angela. Do you not find that?” he said.
This was it. If she moved carefully, this might be the lifeline that was being thrown. There would be no point in coming back to a changed Castlebay.
“Oh, I do,” she sighed. “I think what it used to be like in the old days, room to walk on the footpaths, only a few families on the beach. . . . You knew everyone to say hallo to.”
Shuya was playing the game too. “Sean told me last night that it has changed too much, become big and what was the word you used . . . ?”
“A bit brash. Hasn’t it? To be honest, Angela, it’s getting a bit like those places in England, that used to be so nice, but very noisy and full of trippers.”
“What can you do?” Angela cried. “I often think of leaving it myself, getting a better job in a bigger school. I don’t know why I hang on, but like you, I suppose it’s roots.”
Shuya said levelly, “If you left, Angela, you could always come back. To see people. After all, you do have friends here. Sean doesn’t have many.”
“I wouldn’t say that. . . .” He didn’t want to appear friendless.
“No, you’d know a lot of people, of course, Sean. But Shuya’s right. They’re Mam’s friends, not our own. Really, the best of ours went away. It’s the same in a lot of small places.”
He repeated it. “The best of ours went away. It’s true for you, Angela. True.”
The children came in from the garden: it was scorching, could they go for a swim? Of course they could. Would Angela join them on the beach? No. If they didn’t mind. But she’d be here tonight. She had bought a lot of meat, would they come and have a big supper?
“Which is a nice, quiet part of the beach . . . um . . . for the picnic?” S
huya called.
Angela told her the part where there was least chance of Sean O’Hara being unmasked.
“We were thinking, Angela, that it would be a pity not to see a bit of the rest of the countryside around here, now that we’re this far.”
Her breathing was short—it was going to happen. “I think that’s a good idea. Take day trips, is it?”
“No. Go on and see a few other places, places they can remember, write about in their projects and scrapbooks.”
Shuya said, “And I want to see Dublin. I was promised Dublin.”
“Well, of course, that would be nice. But the caravan?”
“There’s people queueing up to get into caravans. They’ll even let us have the balance back, which is very fair.”
“But you’ll come back again? To Castlebay? Before you leave Ireland?”
“No. It wouldn’t make sense. We’d be retracing our steps.”
“I see. Yes. You’re right, of course.”
Shuya said, “So we thought we might start out tomorrow. They can let the caravan from lunchtime.”
Angela said nothing. Her heart was too full.
Sean mistook the silence for disappointment. “I don’t want you to think we’re running out on you. I’ll never be able to thank you for the welcome. It’s just . . . it’s just . . .”
“I think I understand. Some things have changed a lot.”
“And some things haven’t changed at all.”
“The bus leaves early. We must rise very early . . . ,” Shuya said.
“I have a friend—you won’t remember him—Dick Dillon. He could give you a lift to the town, and you could start out from there . . .”
“Would he mind?”
“Not at all. I’ll tell him tonight.”
“Angela . . . there’s just one thing . . . about this Dillon man.”
“What’s that?”
“You won’t tell him who I am? You see I’d prefer in a way if people thought . . .”
“I won’t tell him who you are—didn’t I say I’d leave it to you to tell who you want.”
She came down the Cliff Road with them all and kissed them goodbye at the corner by the seat that looked out to sea. They walked on up to the caravan park. She told them Dick Dillon would pick them up at the caravan site at a nice civilized time, like ten o’clock.
When she went home she prayed on her knees, long sobbing prayers of thanks to a Lord that she had thought recently had been hard-hearted.
The days fell into a hypnotic routine. They got up early. There was no one on their part of the beach so they went down the steps beside the Lodge to the beach for an early swim. Bones knew about this, and even though he was so old he had to be helped back up the steps again, he always came with them. There was no one to see the swelling of Clare’s stomach except David, who patted it lovingly as they went out into the early-morning waves.
Then they ate bacon and tomato, which they loved. David joined his father, and Clare walked down the Cliff Road to her old home. She had a cup of tea in the kitchen, did any shopping that was needed. Then, while it was still early, she would walk back the Cliff Road watching the families getting ready for the day on the beach, and she would let herself into the Lodge. The day would pass in studying. David usually found time to come in at least twice before he was home for the evening. They rarely went out to the hotel, and apart from the Committee dance they had no social outing. It was peaceful in the evenings, the sunset looking like an exaggerated picture from their own window. And sometimes they did a little desultory painting of the upstairs rooms. Bumper Byrne’s contract had only gone so far as to get the place habitable and have the downstairs part decorated. “After all, who’ll be looking at the upstairs except the pair of you?” he had said cheerfully. David and Clare were so happy to be into the place they didn’t argue.
There were three rooms upstairs: their bedroom, the room they would make into a nursery and the storeroom. Clare had thought of having that made into a study. Wouldn’t it be great to have a place you could spread your books and papers and never have to take them up when a meal was needed or when you had to tidy the place up? But, David had said, what was the point of having a study upstairs? Wouldn’t it be a bit antisocial, locking herself away there, and when the baby arrived . . .
Clare agreed. She would leave it till later.
They painted the nursery a sunny yellow color, and as soon as they started murmuring quietly about hoping to start a family around Christmas, Nellie became very excited and made curtains for them with all kinds of nursery-rhyme figures on the fabric.
David took his toys from the window seat of his old bedroom, slowly bit by bit, and always when his mother was out. He wasn’t stealing them, he just did not want to have to mention the child. Her face froze over in a mask when the subject was hinted at. David dreaded thinking about how she would react when the baby was born.
“I think she’ll come round. Not to me, but to the baby.”
“We should make sure she has some time with him herself. Or her, of course.”
They were convinced that it would be a boy. He was to be christened Patrick Thomas.
As the days went on it seemed impossible they had lived any other kind of life. The hectic, rushed meetings in Dublin, the dirty flat with the smelly hall and the unpainted, uncarpeted stairway in Rathmines seemed from a different life lived by different people. David said he could hardly remember the name of the registrar with the carroty head who was always fighting with everyone in the Res. Clare said that if she were on a torture rack she wouldn’t be able to remember anything at all that she and Mary Catherine and Valerie talked about for two and a half years.
Now they talked about David’s patients. He delivered three babies that summer. But, actually, Mrs. Brennan had done most of the work. She was a marvelous midwife, he said, reassuring and practical. The women loved her. That interested Clare—she had always thought Mrs. Brennan was an almighty bossy boots but this cast a new light on her. David told Clare the secrets of the town, knowing that she wasn’t going to speak of them to anyone. Josie Dillon’s grandmother had senile dementia and was in the county home; very quietly, the whole thing was done, but that was where she was. Mrs. Conway was going to the town shortly to have a hysterectomy. Father O’Dwyer had such a bad chest David’s father had told him that it was an act of suicide to continue smoking and the Lord would look on it very poorly indeed. Father O’Dwyer had told Dr. Power to keep his religious pronouncements to himself and concentrate on medicine. “I am concentrating on medicine, you stupid man,” Dr. Power had roared at him, and there had been a slow process of reconciliation in which David had to be the middleman.
She learned that her own brother, Jim, was very hard of hearing—not just slow, and stupid, as they had all thought. He was going to have a hearing aid, and David said that there could well be total hearing loss.
“Maybe you could teach him lip-reading, after finals.”
“Teach him what?” Clare laughed. “I don’t know how to lip-read.”
“But you could learn, couldn’t you? It could make all the difference. Otherwise he’ll just end up like Mickey Mack or someone.”
Clare was shocked. Yes, of course, she could learn. There must be books on the subject, and diagrams. Yes, of course, she would.
David was becoming like his father already, concerned and involved in everything that happened. In a few weeks people had stopped thinking of him as a boy helping his father and holding the fort until the real doctor arrived. The day came when a woman said to David’s father that she had begun with young Dr. Power and she thought she would continue with him if that was all right, he had been so helpful.
David’s father took out a bottle of sherry at lunch that day, and Molly had laughed with pride and told Nellie about it as the meal was being put on the table. And as they smiled about how well David was settling into the practice, no mention was made of his wife sitting fifty yards away, bent over her studi
es with a cup of soup.
There was no phone in the Lodge yet but there was a buzzer from the house, so that David could be woken for night calls. It was awkward, because it meant he had to go up to his parents’ to hear the details before setting out. Still, they had been promised a phone soon, and were at the top of the priority list.
Clare heard the buzzer with surprise one morning; David had long gone on house calls, they must have known she was on her own. Resignedly she walked to the house. Molly was in the hall.
“There’s a call from Dublin for you,” she said and held the receiver out as if it might contaminate her.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Clare said.
It was Mary Catherine. She and Val had the most marvelous flat, they were installed now and they would keep it for a year. Val was going to do a Higher Diploma in education and Mary Catherine was going to do a Diploma to be a librarian. Any time Clare wanted to come and stay, there was plenty of room.
A longing so great came over Clare, it almost made her faint.
Miles and miles away from Dracula, who was sighing as if the phone were needed urgently. Molly was just in earshot, fiddling with some flowers that didn’t need adjustment.
Clare sighed too.
“Well? Can you come up? Will you?”
“I’ll write to you about it.”
“Can’t you talk?”
“That’s right.”
“Do your best. We’d love you to come. David, too, of course, if he can get away. We’ve got a big double bed in the spare room.”
“Sounds great.”
“So you’ll try?”
“As I said, I’ll write.”
She told Mrs. Power pleasantly that her friends were inviting David and herself to visit.
Mrs. Power gave a tinkling laugh. “That’s very nice of them, Clare dear. But David’s never been short of a place to stay in Dublin. Heavens no. We’ve lots of friends there, and the Nolans’ house has always been a second home to him.”
Clare smiled. And before her face cracked with the effort, she returned to the Lodge and started to bang things, hard, with a ruler. She was so angry she was shaking. She tried to concentrate on her work but that woman’s superior voice rang in her ears. She was going out.
