by Maeve Binchy
“Yes, please.”
“What?”
“I said yes, please. I’d love to marry you.”
Angela tried on the beautiful ruby ring—the ring that Dick Dillon had bought long ago hoping for the day it would be needed. It was perfect.
“I’ll make you a good wife—not a peaceable one mind, but I’ll be good to you, and love you and look after you.”
“The love bit is the most important one,” he said shyly.
“It is for me too. I just felt awkward saying it.”
“We don’t need to feel awkward anymore,” he said, and they sat in the firelight, as the pastry burned black in the oven and the red ruby glittered and shone.
“Do you have this funny feeling that it’s all over? It’s all happened? Like everything went into the past tense instead of the future tense?” asked Clare.
David looked at her. He had no feeling like that at all. “I know, I know,” he said, his heart heavy.
“Oh, good. I was afraid it was just me. I suppose we’ll get used to it, and adapt.”
“I think that’s what happens to people,” he said.
“It’s not regrets or anything. You know that?”
“Of course.”
“But you must find that too. I mean you don’t regret coming back here, but the kind of work you do, the life we lead, it sort of happened a bit soon, didn’t it?”
He patted her hand. She was much brighter than before, she was far more aware of Liffey and spent hours playing with her. She had taken driving lessons from Dick Dillon. David had even seen some of her history textbooks out by the window again.
Perhaps Clare was just too young and unprepared to settle down so quickly. Perhaps she would never settle down. It made it all the harder to tell her that he loved this life. He liked caring for sick, frightened people, and curing them with medicines from his black bag; or sewing up their wounds; delivering their children sometimes or closing the eyes of their dead. A couple of years ago he might have been mildly tolerant of his father’s brand of medicine, preferring instead to think of a more scientific approach. Now he couldn’t see anything that would be better for the patients than to see a face they trusted, an old face and his son a newer face. This gave them some confidence and very often that was three-quarters of the battle.
It all made him feel unsettled. He didn’t worry about Clare’s health anymore but he felt that the great closeness they had grown used to, and accepted as if it was their natural right, had disappeared. The words were the same, the interest was there, she was eager to hear about his cases and discuss them. But it was as if she believed that somehow they had been shunted into a siding and forgotten about, and they were trapped in this middle-aged world, so they had better play the role of old people as cheerfully as possible.
Dick and Angela were married in Dublin. There had never been the slightest discussion about it. They knew they wanted nobody from Castlebay, not one of Dick’s hotel relations, and Angela said that she certainly didn’t want to draw sisters and brothers and the whole of Japan on her either. It was arranged with no fuss, Father Flynn again, of course, and Emer and Kevin.
Just the five of them at a small side altar early one morning.
“It’s not festive enough for you,” Father Flynn complained.
“Our life is festive enough, Father. We don’t need it on a wedding day. Honest.”
He gave in grudgingly.
They went back to Emer and Kevin’s house and they had scrambled eggs and bacon and a cake that Angela and Dick had made themselves from the section called “Simple Cake Making,” which they said was another example of lies in cookery books. Reluctantly they allowed Father Flynn to take one photograph of the occasion which, when it came out, was so ludicrous that Angela said it could illustrate an article called “Christmas Day in the Asylum.”
They took the picture out occasionally if they wanted a good laugh, but they didn’t need anything to remind them of the best day of their lives. That’s just what it was, Dick said, pure and simple. The best day ever. And for once even Father Flynn found himself without a word to say.
It came as a great surprise to hear that the Nolans were going to take a house on the Cliff Road again. Mr. Nolan hadn’t been well: he had been told to take things easy and get a bit of sea air. Caroline had finished her apprenticeship and was in the throes of looking for a job. She thought she would have a break. James said that he could prepare his few briefs just as well in Castlebay as anywhere else.
That was the way the news was broken to David by letter. He read it to them all with suitable James gestures and Clare was surprised to see how pleased they all were.
Even Nellie was delighted. “It puts the Mistress into great good humor when that lot comes down, and their Breeda’s a very nice girl. I’ll be glad to see her again myself.”
Mrs. Power started in a mad rush to get the garden done up. There was a nice corner with lupins and she wanted to be able to have afternoon tea served there. She had all the deckchairs of course but they looked a bit shabby.
“I’ll paint the deckchairs blue for you, and we’ll look like an ocean-going liner. What do you think?” Clare looked at her mother-in-law.
“I don’t think so . . .”
“Oh, go on. You’ve got blue-and-white china. You could get blue paper serviettes. It would be terrific.”
Mrs. Power seemed to regret having shown how flustered she was to Clare, she wished she hadn’t admitted her wishes to impress the Nolans, she began to take it all back.
“Well, thank you, dear, for the idea anyway,” she said dismissively.
“Are we going to do it?” Clare cried. “Because if we are I’ll ring Bumper and ask him to get some cans of paint round here right away.”
“I think not, Clare. Thank you, no.”
Two red spots burned in Clare’s cheeks. “A bit flashy, might it be?”
“Since you say the word, that’s just what it might look like, you know, a little . . . well, a little overdone.”
“Common?” Clare asked.
“No, no, heavens, what a thing to say about your idea, but you know . . .”
“I know,” Clare said grimly and walked back to the Lodge.
“You’ve got a common, flashy mother,” she said to Liffey, “a mother who is a little—what’s the word again?—overdone.”
Liffey seemed pleased with the attention and the tone of Clare’s voice.
“And, Liffey, you also have an almighty bitch of a grandmother. I never want you to forget that. She is in the major league of bitchiness, as your godmother Mary Catherine would say. She is a class-A bitch.”
Clare felt better when she had defined everything. Liffey was a good listener.
Caroline looked very elegant. Clare remembered when she had come to Castlebay first, and she had been so jealous of all the fun Caroline and her friend Hilary had been having with David, James and Gerry Doyle.
How strangely it had all turned out. She felt uneasy when she thought of Gerry and his strangeness.
She was surprised when Caroline, languidly reclining in a deckchair with Liffey on her lap, said, “Is Gerry Doyle still the Main Attraction?”
“I think so,” Clare said carefully. “I’m not as in touch as I used to be. Possibly the younger ones have other heroes, but I think he does very well.”
“Well, I think I’ll stroll down later and have a look at him,” Caroline said. “Now that you’ve taken the most gorgeous man in Castlebay, I’ll have to start looking round at the second bests.”
She laughed, and they all laughed. David too.
Clare was furious. The bitch—why did she say that in front of Molly? Clare had seen the look of regret come over Molly’s face. Suppose David and Caroline had married—now wouldn’t that have been something special? Suppose she and Sheila Nolan had been cooing over Liffey. Molly would have much preferred that than have Liffey also the granddaughter of O’Brien’s shop.
Valerie came to s
tay in the Lodge for a week.
“I can’t stand Caroline Nolan,” she said. “Stop being so nice to her, Clare.”
“I’m only being civil. Not nice. She’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that. She’s asking that old man the solicitor friend of David’s father . . .”
“Mr. Kenny.”
“Yes, she’s asking him if there are any openings for a solicitor round here. A country practice would be so much more interesting than a city one. You’d see all sides of the law.”
“But she couldn’t be a solicitor in Castlebay. There isn’t any need for anyone apart from poor old Mr. Kenny and most people go to the town.”
“Aha, that’s what he told her. She’s going into the town today to investigate possibilities. Gerry Doyle’s giving her a lift.”
“That’s all baloney, as Mary Catherine would say. She’s just gone to get a quick feel from Gerry Doyle, she fancies him rotten—she always has. She pretends it was David, but I remember all those years. It was Gerry this and Gerry that.”
“I hope you’re right,” Val said.
“I wish you didn’t have to go. You make me feel safe,” Clare said.
“You are safe, stupid.”
“Well, normal, then.”
“Come to the dance tonight,” Valerie said suddenly.
“No, I’m too old, too dull. David’s going to be out all night, nearly. He rang. Mrs. Brennan says there are complications in a confinement.”
“You come anyway. David would like that. I know he would.”
“I don’t want to. I feel wrong, somehow.”
“I won’t go either and I was so looking forward to it.”
“Damn you, Valerie. Now I have to go. I have to wash my hair and go.”
“Yes, you do,” said Valerie, pleased.
They all had a drink at the hotel first, Caroline, James, Josie and Martin, Valerie and Clare; then they crossed the road and headed for the dance hall. The sound of the band hit them as soon as the swing doors opened.
“I feel that old excitement, just like when we were young,” Caroline said.
“So do I,” James Nolan said, eyeing Josie Dillon speculatively.
Martin said nothing.
Inside, the familiar smell of sweat and perfume and suntan oil came to them, and the band struck up a Paul Jones.
Clare remembered the excitement of the Paul Jones years ago when you could stop opposite literally anyone, and half the girls in the ballroom wanted to stop in front of Gerry Doyle. She forced herself to relive that sense of excitement.
“Come on, girls, get into the ring,” she called.
“Good to see the grass widow enjoying herself for a change,” Caroline said.
Clare refused to wonder what that meant. It probably meant nothing. It was a clever-clever thing that Caroline would say.
She stopped opposite a boy of about sixteen, red faced and sweating with nerves. It might even be his first dance.
“Hallo,” she smiled. “I’m yours, I think, for the dance.”
“Um, thank you. I’m not a great dancer,” he said.
“You couldn’t be any worse than I am,” Clare said cheerfully and she made him feel so confident in their gallop around the room that she knew he would come back and claim her over and over, unless she told him.
“That was lovely,” she said. “I’m married to the local doctor here. We have a little girl. It makes me feel nice and young again to dance like that.”
He was gone like a bow from an arrow. A married woman! Heavens!
Valerie seemed to be happy, Clare thought later as she looked down on it all from the balcony, a freckled man in a check suit had asked her to dance several times over, he looked nice and they were chatting away too. James Nolan, the smooth, two-faced rat, was dancing cheek to cheek with Josie Dillon who was admittedly very foolish indeed to allow and encourage such a thing. Clare didn’t approve, but she could have foretold it. She could also have foretold that Caroline and Gerry Doyle would have found each other out too.
She leaned with her elbows on the balcony looking at them. Caroline was taller than Gerry, but who wasn’t? Saying not much but smiling a lot, not groping but dancing very close. Very sure of each other. Clare wished that Valerie would leave the check-suited man and come up here for a moment. Then she would get over this silly idea that Caroline Nolan was a troublemaker with eyes for David. Anyone could see that Caroline had eyes only for Gerry Doyle.
Clare remembered the days when she and Josie would come to the dance and be rushed off their feet. Not so for Josie tonight, she never left James Nolan’s side. Not so for Mrs. Clare Power, the doctor’s wife, and mother of the doctor’s daughter. None of the boys who used to ask her to dance would approach her now, and it wasn’t the Castlebay Committee dance where she would have found older people to dance with. She didn’t mind being a wallflower, she didn’t really wish David was here, she felt she had grown away from the dance. Not too old for it, just away from it.
Three little things happened before they played the national anthem and the night was over. Martin told Josie in a shaking voice that he was leaving now and would she like to come with him or not. He put a lot into the question, and Josie answered head on. No, she would not, she would like to stay. Thank you.
Then Bernie Conway came up to Clare and said it was marvelous to see her again, she had been such a recluse in the beginning.
“I suppose it was the shock of the baby coming so early.”
“It must have been,” Clare agreed.
“And who’s looking after her tonight? David?”
“No, no, if he were free he’d be here, Nellie Burke loves to have her from time to time.”
“Oh, the resident domestic. Nice,” Bernie said.
There was a pause.
“I’d never have expected to see you here on your own . . . after . . . after everything,” Bernie said.
Clare wanted to push her out the window onto Church Street but decided against it. “I’m not really on my own. I came with about five or six other people. I’m just not being danced with at the moment.” She smiled sweetly. “Like you.”
And the third thing was that Gerry Doyle and Caroline waved casually and went off into the night toward the caravan park.
Caroline’s father said she was very sensible to get experience in a country town, there was nothing as useful as learning the business on the ground at every level. They were all congratulating her on having got a position in the town twenty miles from Castlebay.
James said he hoped she would get the firm to send all the cases to advise to him, he needed a good country contact. Sheila Nolan said she would come down and help to settle Caroline in, and then she could come across to Castlebay and see Molly for a winter weekend. Dr. Power said that she’d find it a real change from the summer, in fact some of the Castlebay Committee didn’t agree with Josie Dillon that visitors should be allowed in the place in winter at all, let them think it was the land of eternal summer.
Clare was silent. She remembered how she had laughed when Valerie said that Caroline was a schemer and that she was plotting to be down in this part of the country. Was Caroline really a bit keen on David as Valerie had all but said? It couldn’t be. Hadn’t she taken up her romance with Gerry Doyle exactly as she was planning? Perhaps she was scheming to be near Gerry Doyle. Surely not. Caroline had too much intelligence for that.
They often had tea in the garden at Crest View, Caroline seemed to be able to summon it up with a wave of the hand, while Molly Power would fuss for three days about any entertaining, Sheila Nolan never seemed to think of it, and Clare never suggested it in the Lodge since she thought none of them would want to come there.
But Caroline just knew automatically that what people loved around five o’clock was a huge pot of tea, and plates of nice thin tomato sandwiches. Even Dr. Power loved dropping in, for half an hour or so. Caroline had painted all the deckchairs bright red.
“Of course not, but they were so tatty. The old bat who owns the place will be delighted with us.”
Molly said it was a very clever idea. And very tasteful.
She took Liffey sometimes but not always. A ten-month-old baby was lively and needed attention, Caroline had limited time for babies. And this summer it seemed as if Caroline was calling the shots. After all she was planning to become a native. Almost.
David did seem to find her good company, but then he always had. They had been friends, and now he seemed to laugh and relax more with Caroline than he did even with James.
She sat with her hand on the pram, rocking the sleeping Liffey. Mrs. Nolan was describing some dream in elaborate detail; Molly Power listened enthralled. Dr. Power and James Nolan were discussing the business of calling doctors as expert witnesses in court cases. Breeda was refilling the teapot and setting out further plates of sandwiches. David and Caroline were sitting on the whitewashed wall of Crest View watching the beach below.
What am I doing here? Clare thought. This isn’t my place. I’m not meant to be here with these people.
It was like an echo of what Gerry Doyle had said.
“I always hated saying goodbye to this place,” Caroline said. “Now it’s not goodbye at all. I am glad about the job.”
“So are we,” David said eagerly. “But won’t it be very dull? Honestly, Caroline, you’ve no idea how quiet it can be in this area. I know the town is bigger but it’s still small after Dublin.”
“How could a town with Gerry Doyle be dull? Answer me that.” Caroline was being light and joky but she saw immediately she had said the wrong thing.
“Oh, him,” David said.
“I was only teasing you. I don’t think he’ll form part of my winter social life—hardly the suitable escort for the legal profession.”
“You must choose your own friends. I’m only a stick-in-the-mud.”
