She felt cheerful going home. There was no guilt—she had written to her mother every single Friday, and to Tommy as well. She had written less to Angela. She had thought she would write more to her than anyone but it was very hard to describe it all: the National Library every afternoon, where it was peaceful and studious—you felt that everyone there was a real scholar, not just learning things with their hands in their ears for exams. She had read a great deal around the courses and everything on the course. She could meet every member of the Murray Committee, look each one in the eye and say truthfully that their money had not been wasted. Funny that she couldn’t seem to write this to Angela.
She saw David Power on the train, and put her head back into her book so that he wouldn’t notice her as he came along the corridor. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him, but it was silly, there she had been three months in the same city and never laid eyes on him, only to meet on the way home—it would be very forced.
He saw her only as they were getting out of the train and his face broke into a great smile. He thought she looked very nice, in her navy duffle coat, knitted navy and white scarf and her hair in a jaunty ponytail with a white bow on it. It was only the other day that she had been a kid. But then, his mother kept saying it was only the twinkling of an eye since he was in rompers.
He saw his father waving from the other side of the gate. “Can we drive you home?” he said. “I’m delighted I saw you in time.”
“I have a lift actually, but thank you very much,” and as they came to the barrier he saw Gerry Doyle leaning casually against the machine that wrote your name in metal.
Gerry wasn’t bothering to move and wave and position himself as everyone else was doing, as David’s own father was doing. Gerry knew he would be seen when the time came. Clare raised her hand in salute.
“Second fiddle to Gerry Doyle, winter and summer, it’s the story of our lives,” David said and went over to his father.
“Your mother’s in the car. It’s very cold. I didn’t want her waiting in the draft.”
“Quite right,” David said. For some reason he couldn’t explain to himself he was glad Clare hadn’t accepted the lift. His mother didn’t really get along with her. All right in her place of course, but David felt that his mother thought her place was behind the counter in O’Brien’s, not as a university student and certainly not as a passenger in the doctor’s car.
She had forgotten it would be so quiet, that it had always been so quiet at this time of year. There were no lights or Christmas trees in the windows, there was no traffic bustling up and down the street. She had forgotten how few people there were there, and how the wet spray stung your face when you went outside the door.
She had forgotten too how handsome Gerry Doyle was. He wore a leather jacket and his hair was long and shiny. In the station he had looked like a film star. He had brought a rug for her to wrap around her knees.
“Is there anything wrong?” Clare asked suddenly.
“Your mother had a fall. But she’s fine. Fine,” he said.
“How fine?” Her voice was clipped.
“She nearly came to meet you with me—that’s how fine.”
“Why didn’t they tell me? Why did no one tell me? Where did she fall?”
“She fell on the cliff path. She broke her ankle. She wasn’t even kept in hospital more than one night.”
Clare’s eyes filled with tears.
“No, it’s not bad. Honestly, she hobbles a bit and that’s all. Your dad’s being very nice to her and he brings her tea in the morning.”
“She must be bad then. When did it happen?”
“About three weeks ago. Listen, Clare, will you stop? I was going to tell you just as we came into Castlebay so that you’d have no time to be going through all this useless kind of nonsense. So as you’d see her in five minutes and know she was all right.”
“She could have been killed.”
“She couldn’t. Don’t make it so dramatic. She’s been through all that now, it will only make it worse if you start attacking them for not telling you and saying what could have happened.”
He was right. She admitted it grudgingly.
“Very well, tell me about other things. I’ll see Mam soon enough.”
He told her that business was changing, as he had always suspected it would. More and more people were bringing their own cheap cameras to the beach, Murphy’s chemist was demented with visitors wanting their holiday snaps developed. The demand for beach photographs was growing less.
But then he had always known it would, so the thing to do was to change direction, to expand. He was in portrait photography now, and doing special commissions for hotels and new buildings which wanted prestige pictures of their premises. It meant of course that he would have to improve his own premises. Big important places only came to you if they thought you looked big and important too.
Wasn’t that risky? Clare had wondered. No, it was business, Gerry assured her.
He told her that Josie Dillon had managed to get a whole lot of people to come to the hotel for a bridge weekend, and it was such a success that bridge people from all over were going to come there regularly. Josie’s uncle Dick had learned to play bridge when he’d been ordered off the drink apparently, and he had been saying for years that they should do this but he’d done nothing about it. Now he and Josie were as pleased as punch. Josie’s sisters were hopping mad and her grandmother claimed that it was all her idea in the first place.
She told Gerry about the size of the university and about the Annexe where they had coffee every morning and how there were hundreds and hundreds of nuns and priests studying too, which she had never expected.
Was Fiona back yet for Christmas, she wanted to know. It would be interesting to compare notes with her about what her polytechnic was like.
No, she wasn’t coming home apparently—in fact Gerry thought he might go over and see her.
“Not coming home for Christmas?” It was unheard of.
Gerry kept looking at the road.
“But what’s she doing that she’s not coming home?”
He sighed, almost his whole body went into the sigh. “Jesus, Clare, you’re not an old biddy. Why do you sound so amazed? She wants to stay there, that’s all. Do I have to build up a story for you too, an explanation? Will everyone in Castlebay want a full account of what everyone else from Castlebay is doing for the rest of their lives?”
“I’m sorry. You’re quite right,” she said contritely. “I don’t talk like this in Dublin. It must be coming home that makes me do it.”
“Yeah, well some of us never left home. Don’t forget that. But we grow up too in our own way.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant but it sounded like a criticism. She nodded apologetically. They drove on in silence for a while.
“I’m going tomorrow in fact,” he said. “I haven’t told anyone else. I’ll just go.”
“Sure,” she said, “that’s a good idea.”
“I might go to see Tommy and Ned while I’m in London,” he said unexpectedly. “I haven’t laid eyes on them in years.”
She jumped a little but he couldn’t have noticed.
“Do you have their address to give me?”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”
“Would your mother . . .”
“I think not.” Her mouth closed like a trap. She too stared ahead of her.
“Right,” he said eventually. “As we were saying there’s no reason why being brought up in Castlebay means you’ve got to be at everyone’s beck and call the whole time.”
She smiled, biting her lip. She had as good as told him now, hadn’t she? She might as well have said the whole thing. It would have been easier in the long run.
Chrissie had got the ring for Christmas, she and Mogsy—whom she would now like to be referred to as Maurice—would be married next June. Mogsy—or Maurice—was building a house for them, a small place up near the cre
amery. Dwyers’ had said Chrissie could go on working until there was a sign of a little Byrne coming along. They couldn’t do fairer than that.
Clare’s mother looked tired. “Aren’t you going to hare up and see your friend Miss O’Hara before you even sit down to talk to us?” she said the first night.
“Don’t be giving out to me. I’m only just home.”
“Home! It’s not much we’ll see of you. Up there with the books, hardly a word to your own flesh and blood.”
“Mammy, why are you saying all this? I’m only in the door! I’m not going up to Miss O’Hara’s. I’ll go and see her tomorrow or the day after maybe, but you never minded that—you were always grateful to her too.”
“I know. Don’t mind me. I’m cranky these days.”
“What is it?” They were on their own.
“A bit of everything.”
“It’s not Chrissie’s wedding. You’re not upset about that?”
“Not at all, for every shoe God made a stocking. I tell you those two were matched in heaven.”
“Well what then?”
“I suppose I get to thinking. I wonder about Tommy.” Clare’s heart jumped. “You’ll know this yourself in years to come—there’s something about the eldest one, I don’t know what it is. But he never writes. He never comes back. Wouldn’t it be great if he walked in this Christmas? That’s what I was thinking I suppose.”
“Tommy never wrote more than his name in his life—you know that.”
“Yes, but I’m not settled about Ned’s letters. He’s hiding something. I’m going to ask Gerry Doyle when he comes in here will he go and see him, he’s going to England tomorrow.”
“When did he tell you that? He said he was going to tell no one.”
“I asked him if he’d pick up some supplies for us before Christmas and he said he wouldn’t be around. He just told me now, a few minutes ago when you were getting your stuff out of his van and being surprised at the sound of the sea all over again.”
“Gerry’d not have time to go finding Tommy and Ned.”
“Ah, he will. He’s a good boy for all that they give him a bad name around here. I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.”
Clare left a note into Gerry Doyle’s house that night. She said she wanted to stroll out to see the cliffs, her mother said she was stark raving mad but you might as well talk to a stone wall as to any of her children.
Gerry was sitting on the wall next morning as she had asked him. It was dark gray and threatening but it wasn’t raining. They were both wrapped up well.
“There’s a bit of a problem about Tommy,” she said.
“I thought there was from the sound of you.” He didn’t sound triumphant or curious.
“Wormwood Scrubs to be exact,” she said.
“That’s a bit of a problem all right.” He grinned at her comfortingly. “And your ma doesn’t know?”
“Nobody knows except Ned and me.”
“That’s hard.”
“No, it’s worse on him in the jail, and the old man they beat up doing the robbery, those are the people it’s hard on.”
“Sure. Well, what will I do? Say I can’t find him?”
“No, could you just ring Ned. I’ve his phone number here written out, and talk away to him and then tell Ma that Tommy’s fine. Would that be all right?” She looked very young and very anxious in the cold morning air.
“That’s fine. I’ll look after it.”
“Thanks, Gerry.”
She hadn’t asked him to keep it to himself; she didn’t need to.
“About Fiona,” he said.
“It’s none of my business,” she said suddenly.
“No, but anyway, she’s having a baby this week. A Christmas baby of all bloody things.”
Clare nearly fell off the wall with shock. But for Gerry’s sake she hid it. “She’s lucky to have you,” she said.
“We’re a great pair,” he said and leaped lightly off the wall. He helped her down.
“Happy Christmas anyway,” he said.
She looked at him gratefully. His small pointed face was cold in the chilly dawn. He had said as little as could possibly be said, offered little sympathy when there was nothing to say. He had told Fiona’s secret just so that she would have something in return, so that the pain and shame of her telling could be written off in a balance on some kind of scales.
“Happy Christmas, Gerry,” she said. “You’re very very nice.”
“I’ve always been telling you that. You’re the one that didn’t realize it,” he joked.
“I don’t mean that sort of nice,” Clare said, but she wondered as she said it was she being truthful. He was so handsome and kind; he had this great sense of being in charge. Nothing could go really wrong if you told Gerry. Fiona had been very lucky to have a brother like that. Fine help poor Tommy or Ned would have been in such a predicament. She felt sorry that he wouldn’t be around for the Christmas holidays. She felt this odd kind of wish to hold on to him. Not to let him go.
“I’d better head for foreign parts,” he said. He was still holding her hands since he had helped her down from the wall.
“Safe journey. I hope . . . I hope Fiona’ll be all right.”
“I’m sure she will. She’s going to give the baby for adoption, and then I suppose I’ll have to teach her something about photography.”
“About what?”
“Photography.” He gave his familiar crooked grin. “That’s what the whole place thinks she’s been studying for the past six months.”
Angela was delighted to see her, no of course she wasn’t too early, come on in and have breakfast like the old days.
“When I’m properly grown up and have my own place, I’ll have exactly the same breakfast as you do,” Clare said, tucking in.
“What do I have that’s special?”
“You have white shop bread and you have nice thin shop marmalade and you don’t have thick homemade bread and awful homemade marmalade like people buy at sales of work.”
“Is this all your university education has done for you, made you whinge and whine about shop bread? Tell me about it all there. Tell me about Emer and Kevin. Why don’t you write to me, great long letters like you did when you were at school?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“That’s very honest of you.” Angela smiled, not at all put out. “Anyway you’re very busy up there.”
“It’s not that.” Clare struggled to be honest. “I write to my Mam, and to Josie and to Tommy. I do have time.”
“It might be easier in a while,” Angela seemed untroubled by it. “Let me tell you about the place above. You won’t credit this. Immaculata has gone totally and completely mad this term, the men with white coats will be stepping out of a van for her before Easter, mark my words.”
Mrs. O’Hara frowned. “You’re very foolish and wrong, Angela, to say such things in front of a child. For all Clare’s great marks she’s only a child.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. O’Hara,” Clare said. “I’ve heard it all. I say nothing, I keep my mouth closed.”
“You’re the only one in this county who does then,” grumbled Angela’s mother.
There was a long and insane story about Mother Immaculata having a Christmas pageant where everyone had to bring a toy for a poor child, they would all be gathered by the crib. Then one child had asked where they would go.
“To the poor,” Mother Immaculata had shrilled.
“But aren’t we the poor?” the child had asked. “There isn’t anyone poorer than us.”
Clare laughed and while more tea was being poured she wrote Angela a note. “I want to talk to you about Tommy, but not in front of your mother.”
Angela suggested that Clare come upstairs to see some new books that she had bought, and Clare sat for the first time in her teacher’s bedroom. She was surprised at how sparse it was, with the very very white bedspread and the crucifix hanging over the bed h
ead. There was a small press, Mary Catherine would have wept over the lack of closets. And a white chair. No carpet but a nice rug on the floor. Somehow it was a bit sad.
“I had to tell Gerry Doyle about Tommy,” she explained. She told everything except Gerry’s secret.
“I had to tell him,” she said eventually when she saw Angela’s troubled face. “What else could I have done?”
“I suppose you could have let him find out and hoped he wouldn’t tell your mother.”
“But it would have been so devious, such a long way round.”
“You might be right. I’m sure you are. It’s just that now you’ve told him you’re sort of in his power.”
“That’s very dramatic.” Clare tried to laugh.
“He’s a very dramatic young man. I’ve always thought that. Far too handsome and smart for Castlebay—he’s dangerous almost.”
“I won’t be in his power, honestly.” She looked straight into Angela’s eyes. “As much as I know anything, I know that. I’ll never be in his control.”
David came into O’Brien’s shop on Christmas Eve. Bones sat obediently outside the door.
“You can bring him in. Everyone else brings their hounds in,” Clare’s father said. “In fact Mogsy Byrne brought in two cows a month ago.”
“I’d thank you to remember his name is Maurice, Dad, and he did not bring them in. They came in because the young fellow who was meant to be minding them wasn’t.”
“Congratulations, Chrissie. I heard you are engaged.” David was polite.
Chrissie simpered and showed him the ring. David said it looked terrific.
“No sign of you making a move in that direction yourself?” she said, arch woman of the world now, trying to encourage those who were hanging back.
“Oh, I think I’d better wait till I’m qualified. It’s bad enough asking someone to take on a doctor but a medical student would be a fate worse than death, and we’d have nothing to live on.”
“Have you lost your heart up in Dublin?” Chrissie wondered.