She thought of Rita being discreet in the background and baffled. She thought of the false conversation with Peter and Lilian. Of Maura, Lilian’s sister, being determinedly cheerful and saying that life was short and they should all rejoice in the good fortune that had resulted from all this instead of dwelling on the bad side.
All the time she tried to imagine a role for Louis and couldn’t find one. His smile, his charm, his love for her, would all be so inappropriate.
She knew she would have to go alone. And she supposed she would have to go. You couldn’t tell two innocent children the news that their mother was not dead without telling it to their faces. She didn’t even think about talking to Martin. The years of respect for him had just vanished away. She could not believe that anyone could have behaved in such a way over a blow to his pride.
She must really not have known Martin at all.
Jessie left, and took her incessant chatter with her. Lena hoped for some time on her own. But the lunch hour was one of the busiest times in Millar’s Employment Agency. All those already in jobs which they hoped to change used their lunch break to seek details and to register for other posts.
Lena was rushed off her feet. Perhaps it was all for the best, she thought as the wire trays filled up with application forms and personal details. Perhaps she would not have been able to work anything out even if she did have the free time. Twice she had lifted a telephone receiver and twice she had replaced it. If she had spoken to Martin in the pharmacy she would not have been able to control her anger with him. Maybe she should wait until the children were home from school.
Or should she go through someone else? But who?
Not the Kellys. Never the Kellys. Now, if Sister Madeleine had had a telephone. Lena smiled at the notion of a modern instrument like a telephone in the hermit’s little cottage.
“You’re smiling, that’s good,” Jessie said to her.
“Do you mean I don’t always smile?” Lena pulled herself together.
“You look a different woman today than the one that was here on Saturday. I thought you had something bad happen to you over the weekend.” Jessie looked eager to hear.
But Lena was well able for her. “No, divil a bit of it…now, how was your mum? Glad to see you?”
“Well, it was a good thing I did go back.” Jessie began another lengthy tale of her mother’s difficulty in digesting her food.
Up to this Lena had thought that Mrs. Hanley in the drapery at Lough Glass was the only woman in the world whose food passed through a hundred different stages, all of them fascinating to herself, before it was digested. Now she realized that Mrs. Hanley had a sister figure in West London.
Lena had thirteen years’ experience in molding her face into an expression of interest in awful Mrs. Hanley’s gullet. It was no problem to assume acceptable interest in the digestive tract of Jessie Park’s mother.
Her hands were busy putting new and clearer labels on the files, her mind was hundreds of miles away by a winter lake in Ireland.
She knew when she saw Louis’s face that there would be no conversation about it tonight. This was not a man who would sit down to work out yet again the best way to tell her children that she was still alive.
He was tired and drawn from his long day. His hands were chapped and his shoulders ached. “Do we have the money for a hot bath, or is it madness?” he asked.
His eyes were like huge dark smudges in his face, his smile as lopsided and heartbreaking as she had ever known. She felt such a rush of love and protection for him that it nearly took her breath away. She would work from dusk to dawn and then to dusk again to look after him, to take away this tiredness.
And she knew that he would do that for her too.
Remember how he had nearly died of anguish over her miscarriage, how he had sat holding her hand and stroking her brow, leaving only to get some treat. Her eyes filled with tears. This was her man, her great love.
She was so lucky. So few people really had the love of their lives with them. Most people yearned for lost chances. For opportunities missed. It would be a stupid woman who would give away one moment of this time by fretting and agonizing and trying to redefine the past.
She would think about it herself…she would waste not one precious minute of her time with Louis in what he would think was re-going over old ground.
“I think this company can run to a hot bath for one of the workers,” she said, eyes bright and dancing. “But on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That I get to come into the bathroom and rub your back.”
“Ivy’ll be shocked…goings-on in the bathroom.”
“Back rubbings isn’t goings-on…”
“It might lead to it, though. Mightn’t it?” He looked at her eagerly.
“Oh, I’d say it most certainly will,” she said, her way of telling him that she felt able to make love again. And not just able…eager, to a degree that startled her.
“We’ll splash out on a bath, then,” said Louis happily, taking up his towel and sponge bag and reaching for a sixpence from the saucer of coins they called Spending Money.
There was no mention of the crisis in Lough Glass that night.
Lena woke at five in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. Perhaps we’ll talk about it, perhaps the time will be right, she told herself. But as she thought, she knew she was deceiving herself. As far as Louis Gray was concerned, her life in Lough Glass was over. In some ways the way it was seen to be over seemed the best solution. He was busy planning their new life. He did not want to be dragged back to her old life.
The faces of Kit and Emmet were as clear as if they were thrown by projection onto the wall opposite the bed. Kit pushing her hair out of her eyes, face wet from rain and tears at the lake, her expression grim and set. Emmet, his eyes bewildered, raising his hand to his throat as he often did when he stammered, in an effort to force the words out.
She couldn’t let them believe she was dead. She would find a way to tell them.
She didn’t find a way on Tuesday.
Mr. Millar stopped by the agency.
His visits always made Jessie very nervous. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s at, coming spying,” she hissed to Lena.
“It is his own business,” Lena said mildly. “He just wants to make sure it’s going well, see if there’s anything we need…that sort of thing…”
Jessie was doubtful. “If he thought it was all going well and we were running it properly then he wouldn’t need to come in at all,” she said, biting her lip.
Lena forced herself to laugh even though her mind was far from the subject. “Come on now, Jessie. Let’s look on the bright side, because it is going well he likes to be here and to be part of it. Did you ever think of it that way?”
Jessie never had. “I suppose it’s being married and all that makes you so confident, Lena,” she said.
Lena swallowed. Imagine, they thought she was confident. She was as weak as a kitten if they only knew. “Let’s make him very welcome when he comes in today, and get him involved in it rather than waiting until he’s gone to make out plans.”
“I wonder…” Jessie didn’t want to rock the boat.
“Let’s try anyway,” Lena said.
“I was wondering, Mr. Millar, do you think that we might have some chairs and a little table so that clients could sit down while they’re waiting?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. He was a tall bald man with an egglike head and face, and an expression of permanent surprise.
“You know, if we made them feel that this was a place where they could drop in…almost a social occasion rather than standing in a line queuing like they might at a post office or a bank?”
“But what would be the advantage to us…?”
Jessie began to cringe, but Lena knew that the man just wanted to know…he wasn’t dismissing the suggestion.
“Miss Park was pointing out to me…you know
she’s being marvelous at showing me the ropes…well, she was saying that so much of our business is actually repeat business. Someone will come again if they have got a good placing the first time…”
“Yes, but armchairs…”
“Oh I don’t mean anything very grand, Mr. Millar. I think what Miss Park had in mind was the feeling that Millar’s was a sort of place they could trust, a place they felt at home in.” Her smile was bright and confident.
And he was nodding. “It’s a good idea, Miss Park. Yes it is. I wonder where we’d get that kind of furniture.”
“You wouldn’t need to spend too much, Mr. Millar…you’d need to look around a bit.” He looked at a loss. “The real person to do this of course is Miss Park…she’s wonderful at finding exactly the right thing.” Jessie looked up, she gave the impression of someone who had never been able to find the right thing, the right cardigan, hairstyle, expression on her face. But Lena sailed past that. “You know these secondhand places. I bet with a bit of hunting there’d be great bargains there. Suppose after her lunch hour…that is, I mean if…what do you think…”
Even Jessie’s slow uptake got the message this time. Lena was trying to get her time off so that she could spend it with her mother. “If I were to have a little extra time…?” she began, like a dog begging to be whipped.
“It would pay for itself over and over,” Lena finished for her.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Park?” He was doubtful about everything. Fortunately, Jessie’s naturally apologetic manner stood her in good stead, she didn’t sound too eager for the whole endeavor.
“I suppose I could…” she began.
Then Mr. Millar became eager. “We could have a couple of ashtrays,” he ventured. “An old umbrella stand even, for weather like this…”
“A table with all our information on it…rather than having them read it at the counter, taking up time,” Lena remembered to curb the enthusiasm before they might get carried away and abandon the whole project as being unrealistic.
“Yes, and as Miss Park said, it wouldn’t have to cost a lot.”
Mr. Millar went away happy. Delighted, in fact, with his visit.
Jessie looked at Lena as if she had braved a lion in a den. “I don’t know how you think of things, I really don’t…and you always make me look so good.” She was like a spaniel in her gratitude.
“You are good,” Lena said. “You were very good to find me and let me work here.”
“It was the best thing I ever did in my life,” Jessie said happily.
Lena patted her on the hand. “Right. Now, don’t find the furniture too quickly. Not for a couple of weeks anyway. Gives you more time to get home without it all being a huge rush.”
Lena realized she had been acting all day.
Acting since she got up and told Louis that she had slept so well and happily in his arms. When she told Ivy she was just sweeping the office and making the tea because she didn’t want to seem to have a better job than Louis had. She had been acting a whole series of little charades to clients who phoned, to job seekers who came in, promising everyone that huge opportunities existed.
Was this what it was going to be like from now on?
There had been so many years of acting already in Lough Glass. Assuming an interest in the new lumber jackets that Mrs. Hanley had got in, individually boxed, in the drapery. Forcing her face to smile at Lilian Kelly’s stream of consciousness about people she didn’t know who lived in big houses out the country. Telling the Hickeys that the round steak was good and the rib steak was inclined to be a bit tough, but that naturally if you didn’t pay for sirloin then you didn’t get sirloin.
Acting in the shop as she felt Martin’s eyes on her. Knowing that he would ask as he so often did, “Are you happy?” “Are things all right?” and trying not to give him her answer in a scream.
The only time she hadn’t acted was with her children. And yet she had been able to put on her coat and leave them. Leave them to follow Louis Gray.
She had thought it would turn out so differently. A new life, the life she had always wanted. A new baby, hers and Louis’s. And look what had happened. She had lost the baby, her family back home thought that she was dead, and she was still acting.
She longed to be in the small spare cabin where Sister Madeleine lived. To be able to talk as she had talked there, where there was no advice, critical or otherwise, but the very talking helped. Somehow if she could talk this over in front of the old hermit, things would become clearer.
But this was dangerous fantasy.
Imagining telling a nun that you were tempted to please your fancy man by putting off the moment you told your children that you were not dead. It would be beyond anyone’s belief.
Lena sighed and settled her face into a position that might be acceptable to a young woman called Dawn, who wanted a job as a hotel receptionist.
“I’ve gone for lots of interviews, but they take one look at me and say I wouldn’t do,” she said in an aggrieved tone.
Dawn looked like a tart, her blond hair was dark at the roots, her nails were dirty, and her lipstick was a big red gash across her face.
“You’re too glamorous,” Lena told her. “You give the wrong impression. They want something safe-looking in a hotel. Why don’t you change your appearance a bit…come on, it’s worth it…”
The girl listened, fascinated. No one had ever taken such an interest in her before. “Like what way change myself, Mrs. Gray?” Her eyes were bright and eager.
Lena looked at her thoughtfully and gave her considered advice. Nothing appeared as criticism. Everything sounded positive. “Getting a job is like auditioning for a part…it’s like being an actress. Now, Dawn, we’ll see if we can get you the role you want.”
Dawn gave her a look of gratitude bordering on love as she left to see to nails, hair, and outfit, before coming in tomorrow for a dress rehearsal. “This is a terrific agency,” she said from the door. “It’s more than an agency really, it’s a place you’d want to come back to.”
Lena, Jessie, and Mr. Millar looked at each other, delighted.
They were on their way.
Louis ran up the stairs excitedly. “They want me to do the desk tonight,” he said.
“The desk?”
“Yes. Someone called in sick, they have nobody…. So I’m promoted from porter to night manager.”
“Will you have to work all night?”
“Yup. That’s what we night managers do. Now, that’s not too bad in terms of climbing the ladder, is it?” He was like a glowing handsome puppy dog looking for praise.
Lena looked at him as dispassionately as she could. No wonder the hotel saw him as a person who could stand behind a desk welcoming late guests, coping with any problems that might arise. It was amazing that they had let him wear a porter’s uniform at all. He was obviously a man who should have had a higher status.
“You’ll be exhausted.”
“Ah, but I’ll have tomorrow off,” he said. “And I thought maybe you might have a diplomatic flu and stay here to keep me company.”
“You’ll need to sleep.”
“I’ll sleep better if my arms were around you.”
“We’ll see.” She smiled at him.
It was not the time to tell him she was devastated that he would not be here tonight to discuss with her finally what she must do. And how to give the children the good news. She knew that it was not the time to tell him that she had no intention of taking a day off from her job.
Instead she smiled as they found him a shirt that would be up to his new position.
“Will you miss me? Will you be lonely?”
“Yes to the first, no to the second. I’ll put my feet up, maybe go out and explore the neighborhood.”
“And you won’t do anything…you know, you won’t make any sudden decisions…?”
He was asking her not to ring home. She knew that. “Not a decision in the world,” Lena said.
“Not until you and I talk about them, and make them together.”
He seemed relieved. And then he was off, his quick light step running down the stairs so soon after he had come up them.
Lena lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Now, for the first time since she had woken this morning, she was on her own. With time to think and no other calls on her time. But it didn’t seem right somehow. The walls of the room, with their pink and orange paper, seemed to be closing in on her. She remembered the Count of Monte Cristo and how the walls of his cell moved a little every day. This must be happening in her room. There was definitely less distance between the table and the window than there had been before. By the time she had finished her cigarette she knew she could not stay there a minute longer.
She would go down to Ivy.
“I don’t want you to think I’m going to be a dropper-in.”
“No, love. Don’t say that. I can always do with the company.” Ivy had been doing the football pools. She gave it a great deal of time every week. When she won, it was going to change her life. She would buy a big hotel by the seaside, install a full-time manager, and she would live like a lady in a flat of her own on the top floor. “Isn’t that right, Hearthrug?” she asked the old cat. The cat purred happily in anticipation.
Lena stroked his old grizzled head. “They’re a great comfort, cats. I was very fond of Farouk at home, though he was truly the cat that walked by itself.” Her eyes seemed far away.
“Was that when you were a little girl?”
“No, no. Just back home,” Lena said. It was the first time she had let down her guard. She realized that Ivy had noticed.
Ivy said nothing but busied herself making the tea. There was no need to explain. Lena felt the same ease that she felt in Sister Madeleine’s cottage.
Though two places more different it would be hard to find.
Sister Madeleine on this winter night would be sitting by her fire, speaking with some one of Lough Glass’s citizens. It might be Rita planning her future, it might be Paddles, the man who had run a bar for thirty-seven years without ever having a drink in it. Perhaps it was Kathleen Sullivan, the mournful widow who ran the garage and seemed to despair over every aspect of it, including her two strapping sons. And there would be some animal sitting on a sack, a fox, a dog, a turkey that had been saved from becoming a Christmas dinner because it had the good luck to wander to the hermit’s house.