by Maeve Binchy
Then there was the washing. Nellie had offered to help, but unfortunately she had offered when Molly Power was there, raising her eyebrows. So Clare thanked Nellie profusely, and said not at all. It was quite impossible to imagine that a tiny baby like that could provide such a mound of washing. Not to mention David’s shirts. At home nobody changed their shirt every day. Dad would wear his shirt for four days maybe. And the boys . . . Lord knew when they changed theirs. But David had a fresh shirt every single day. It took seventeen minutes to iron each bloody shirt in the beginning. Now it took eleven. It was still far too long. Eleven minutes. That was a whole hour on five shirts one morning, and it was easier to do five at a time because otherwise he used to seem disappointed that he hadn’t a choice.
“If you hate it so much, I’ll do it. It might be quite restful,” he had said once when she protested.
“No, you damn well won’t. The very first day you do one your mother will call and see you, and I might as well throw my hat at it after that.”
Today she had decided to iron three. But in the middle of the first one Olivia woke up again, and since it was nearly time for her bottle, that was the end of the shirts. Then David was home for lunch. Then she had to tidy herself up. This was the day she had been invited for a cup of tea in the big house. Molly talked almost entirely to Olivia, in baby talk, and twice asked the baby, who was not yet three months old, whether she thought that matinee coat was a little bit too tight.
Clare answered, as the baby didn’t. It was a fine fit.
“Why, then, Olivia, do you have these little red marks on your arm, little sore marks? Poor Olivia.”
Clare wanted to hit Molly with one of the big hard uncomfortable cushions on the sofa. Instead she sat back and swallowed her thin tomato sandwich.
David rang her later in the afternoon.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just celebrating that we have the phone, that’s all.”
“Yes, it’s marvelous. No more buzzing from the Great House.”
“Now, Clare!” he laughed.
“Sorry. Sorry. Will you bring home some chops from Dwyers’?”
“It might be closed when I’m coming back. Why don’t you ring them and ask them to deliver?”
“And have Chrissie calling me Lady Muck for a month.”
“Oh, well, do what you can. I have to go. I thought I’d just ring.”
“There was nothing you wanted to say?”
“Only that I loved you.”
She hung up, and realized she should have said she loved him too.
She asked Nellie to look after the baby in the kitchen and walked down to Church Street and a confrontation with Chrissie.
Her mother-in-law moved the curtain in the sitting room and watched her go.
She wrote to Valerie that evening but tore up the letter. It was a list of complaints and moans and grouses. It was the kind of letter you would hate to read. Then she put the pieces in the range in case anyone ever found them torn up in the bin and pieced them together. She wondered was she going mad to imagine anyone piecing together one of her letters to Valerie.
David was called out twice in the night.
When the phone went the second time, Olivia woke too. Clare went to pick her up. David was putting on his socks and shoes as he talked to the woman on the phone.
“It’s no life this, is it?” she said jiggling the crying baby up and down in her arms.
“It’s not for that woman.” David nodded at the phone which he had just put down. “Those bloody dogs they have out there have just eaten the face off her baby.”
“No!”
David had his clothes on by now.
“What will you do?” Clare asked, stricken.
“Hope the baby’s dead, properly dead. Hope we can get its mother to agree to go into the hospital. For a couple of days, anyway. She’ll need more than just a sedative after that lot.”
He was down the stairs and into the car. It was three hours, and dawn, before he came back. Olivia was asleep again. Clare was in the kitchen, she had a kettle ready and made some tea. He took the mug gratefully.
“Was the baby dead?” she asked.
“Not quite,” he said.
She waited. He said nothing.
“And Mrs. Walsh? Is she all right?”
David still said nothing. His shoulders were shaking. He was crying, but he didn’t want her near. He went to the window and looked out at the dark sea and the shapes of the cliff heads only becoming visible now. He stood there for a long time and she found no words or gesture to help him.
She went over to the big house to take the paper back. She had read it from cover to cover. There was a voice in the kitchen, talking to Olivia. She thought David must be back, but she didn’t see his car. It was Gerry. He was dangling a little woolen ball, a brightly colored pompom, in front of the baby who was looking at him eagerly.
“Gerry?” She was not pleased. He had given her a fright, and anyway, how dared he come in uninvited?
“I don’t remember asking you in,” she said.
“I don’t remember a time when friends in Castlebay had to wait to be invited in. Maybe it’s different here in the . . . um . . . in the Lodge.” He made the name of the house sound laughable.
“What do you want?”
“I came to see your daughter and ask her would she like her photograph taken. That’s all.”
“Don’t be childish, Gerry. What do you want?”
“What I said. Would you like a picture of the baby . . . as a wedding present?”
“No,” she said quickly.
“What nice manners they teach up at the Lodge.”
“No, thank you. I’m sorry. No, thank you very much.”
“Why not? I take nice pictures of babies. They like me.”
Olivia was indeed gurgling up at him and the red, black and yellow ball of wool.
“I’d prefer not, if you don’t mind. Thanks, though. Sorry about my manners.” She smiled, hoping he’d go.
He stood up. “She’s beautiful,” he said. “I sometimes think I’d like one.”
“Well, nothing’s stopping you.” She tried to be light. “You know how to set about it.”
“Ah, but it would be no use if it weren’t yours too.”
She flinched.
He put up both his hands in peace. “I’m off. I’m off. Take that look off your face.”
He did have his camera with him, in its shabby black bag that he had always used. “Whenever you think she’s old enough, I’d love to.”
“Sure. I’ll talk about it with David,” she said.
“Do that.” He smiled and was gone.
She felt very uneasy and didn’t know why. He only wanted to take a photograph. He had only made those sort of flattering remarks that he made to everyone. Why did she feel so bothered?
She invited her mother-in-law to see the baby being bathed. She spent the whole day tidying the place up first.
Molly came to watch the ritual.
Clare tested the heat of the water with her elbow, feeling very experienced.
“Do you do that? How strange,” Molly said. “How very strange, with all the thermometers and everything. Ah, well.” She sighed as if her granddaughter was being brought up by a thick, ignorant peasant who knew nothing.
One gray morning she heard a timid tapping on the door. It was her mother.
“You haven’t been down for a bit. I called to see you.”
“That’s great. Come on in.”
Agnes O’Brien looked around as if fearful someone might ask her what she was doing there. “Have you done up the parlor yet?” she asked.
“You’re always asking me that. What would we need a parlor for or a sitting room or drawing room or whatever we’d call it? This is where we live.”
Agnes jerked her head up toward the big house. “But wouldn’t they expect . . . ?”
“Let them expect
what they like. David and I want to make this a nice bright room that we can live in. Armchairs and bookshelves and the advantage of it being the kitchen as well.”
“And when are you going to start?” her mother asked innocently.
“Will we have a cup of tea?” Wearily she emptied the tea leaves from the pot and put it on the range.
“Are you not using a kettle?”
“There’s just the two of us, Mam.”
She was wrong.
Molly Power was at the door.
“I thought you might want something from town, I’m going in with Mrs. Dillon this afternoon. Hallo, Mrs. O’Brien.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Power. Good morning.” Agnes stammered a little.
“Come to admire the baby?”
“Yes, well, Clare hasn’t shown her to me yet.”
“Clare dear, do show the baby to your mother.”
Clare fumed. Her mother had made it seem that she had never seen her granddaughter at all. Mrs. Power made Clare feel like a very unsatisfactory hired help.
She went upstairs for Liffey. She was not only wet; her nappy was filthy. The clean nappies were downstairs.
She went down to get them.
“Oh, don’t bother dressing her up specially.”
“I’m not,” Clare hissed.
She did a rapid change job and Liffey, alarmed by the speed and lack of gentleness, cried in fright. Clare handed her first to her mother.
“I don’t know whether I should . . .”
Why did Mam have to be so humble?
“You had six of your own. I’m sure you won’t drop her.” Her voice was sharp. The teapot was hissing. Trying to shield her actions from her mother-in-law, Clare put four spoons of tea into the boiling water and pulled it aside.
“What a funny way to make tea,” Mrs. Power said clearly.
“I’ve told Clare a dozen times not to do that,” Agnes said. Awkwardly she passed the baby over to Mrs. Power. For a few minutes Molly Power cooed at her grandchild, and by magic the child stopped crying.
“There you are,” said Molly triumphantly, as if she alone knew the secret.
She refused a cup of tea without actually shuddering, and left.
Clare and her mother were full of gloom.
“You shouldn’t let her see the house like this, Clare, really.” Agnes looked at the heap of dirty clothes in a corner, the unwashed saucepans on the draining board.
“It’s my house. I’ll have it look exactly the way I want to.”
“Oh, all right.” Her mother was about to take offense and leave.
“Not you, Mam. Sit down. I mean her. Why should we bow down before her? I’m damned if I’ll do everything the way Lady Molly wants.”
“No, but you could do a bit of cleaning and cooking, that’s not bowing down before her,” Agnes said coldly.
Clare knew that she wouldn’t drop in again casually; she would have to go and invite her from now on.
She had been very entertained by Angela’s attempts to learn to cook and decided it wasn’t a bad idea. She might well do the same herself. She made shortbread biscuits one morning and took a plate of them up to the house for Molly.
“Won’t you come in and have coffee with me?” Molly said.
“I left her there on her own,” Clare said.
“Oh, well. Another time then.”
The woman could have said to go back for her, couldn’t she?
She lay on her bed resting one morning, and her mind just drifted off. She wasn’t asleep for more than a moment. David came in.
“Hey, you worried me. I thought you weren’t here.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Clare, what are you doing? Olivia’s crying her head off downstairs, Bones is sitting looking at her, and there’s no lunch.”
“It’s not lunchtime.”
“It’s half past one. I thought I’d be late.”
“Christ, I’m sorry, David. I must have fallen asleep.” She leaped from the bed and raced down the stairs. With Olivia in one arm she grabbed a saucepan and broke three eggs into it, she reached for some butter.
“What are you doing?”
“David, my love, I’m making you a scrambled egg. I’m sorry. I’ll make a proper dinner this evening. I tell you I must have drifted off to sleep. I feel so tired sometimes.”
“I know. I know. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right, I’m dreadfully sorry.”
“Look, will I make toast or something?”
“No, hold your daughter, I’m quicker.”
She swept the breakfast things away and into the sink.
“I don’t want you to feel you have to cook a lunch for me every day. Don’t think that—”
“Darling David—will you stop it. One day, just one day I fell asleep. Every other day I love to have lunch with you. I love it. I used to be very lonely when you were up with your mother and father, and I was there at the window working.”
They both looked over at the window as she spoke. No books there now, just a big arrangement of dried flowers.
“Aren’t you going to start studying again?”
“What for?”
“Clare, please. Don’t be like that. For your degree of course.”
“I studied for it once. Why should I do it again?”
“Because you didn’t take it, you clown. You were happy studying.”
“Not all the time I wasn’t. A lot of the time I was worried and anxious.”
“Will we go to the pictures tonight?”
“Are you trying to entertain me by any chance?”
“A bit I suppose.” He looked troubled.
Clare asked Angela was there any kind of Christmas present you could make for people, by cooking, something that would look as if you’d gone to a lot of trouble over it.
“I suppose you could make fudge,” Angela said doubtfully, “and put it in nice colored boxes. But why do you want to make things? You’re worse than me. And I think they’d expect a bit more than fudge from you.”
“Who’d expect? I don’t care what they expect, I’m so tired, I tell you Angela I can’t stay awake these days. It’s such an effort to go into town, and there’s nothing here . . .”
“Well, stay awake long enough to go into town just one day. Make a list of what you want. Come in with Dick and me on Saturday afternoon.”
“Yes, I could do that. I’ll ask her Ladyship would she mind Liffey.”
“Liffey. Isn’t that a name, now? How did you think of it?”
“I just made it up,” Clare said. She didn’t want to tell anyone that it was Gerry Doyle’s idea.
“Am I going to teach you to drive, Clare? Remember we set it all up. You learned the theory all at once.”
There was a silence at the back of the car.
“I think she’s asleep, Dick,” Angela said.
“No, sorry. What was it?”
“Will I give you driving lessons after Christmas?”
“I don’t know if I’d have the time. It’s very kind of you. If I have the time . . .”
Molly and David were sitting by the fire in the big house when she came back.
“You look exhausted,” David said.
“David, you must get Clare some nice clothes. It’s terrible to have her dragging round in all that studenty-type thing. No wonder the girl looks so dawney.”
Clare let them talk about her.
“Why don’t we all have a sherry? You’ve provided the excuse.” David leaped up.
“A really nice coat in a good bright color, something that would put some color in her face.” Molly was thoughtful. “A cherry red maybe.”
David handed them both a sherry.
“Thank you, my dear,” Molly said.
Clare said nothing.
“Was it exhausting?”
“It was very tiring all right,” Clare said.
“Did you leave your parcels in at the Lodge?”
“No. This is all I got.” She had a small shopping bag with a few little things in it.
She sat on a stool looking into the fire and eventually David and his mother went back to talking as they had been before she came in. They didn’t even try to bring her into the conversation.
David bought all the Christmas presents in the end. He even wrapped them and wrote the cards. He put the Christmas cards she was to send to Mary Catherine and Valerie in front of her and she wrote Love from Clare on each of them.
When David opened his Christmas present from Clare, he said he was delighted with the shirt. It was just what he wanted. You couldn’t have enough shirts. He said this one was particularly nice, and he put it away hastily before his mother could see it had been bought in the shop in Castlebay and was exactly the same as half a dozen he had already.
David had bought Christmas tree decorations when he was in town; he couldn’t bear anyone in Castlebay to see him buying them locally. He brought a tree home from one of his country calls; the man whose child had been sick was delighted to give the young doctor a fine green tree.
“Your wife will enjoy decorating that, Doctor,” the man beamed as they fitted the tree into the back of the car.
“Oh, she’s going to love it,” David said with a smile he didn’t feel.
He looked carefully at his mother’s tree that evening and did something a bit similar to their own; Clare looked up at him gratefully as he stood on a chair.
“That’s terrific, David. It looks really lovely. I’d do it myself but I’m just worn-out.”
It was cold clear weather, from the window David saw his parents warmly dressed and in their comfortable walking shoes setting out with the dog. He knew they would head far along the cliff away from Castlebay and they would point things out to each other, and see the birds swooping low and hares running through the fields. They would come back to a hot lunch. They would sit on either side of a big well made-up fire and read. He looked over at Clare to know if she too would like a walk. She was sitting at the kitchen table. She had been reading, but in fact she had dropped off over her book.
