“Oh Jessie…well, it all went very well. Tell Jim that the place is fantastic, and the carpenters took all the rubbish away with them so you’d never know there had been any work done at all.” She was eager to give the good news.
“Lena, Lena, we’re getting married,” Jessie cried. “Jim asked me to do him the honor of becoming his wife. Those were his words, Lena. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Unaccountably two tears came down Lena’s face. “It’s wonderful news, Jessie. I’m so happy for you,” she said as the tears splashed into one of the blue and gold ashtrays.
“We’re going round to tell Mother tonight, but I wanted you to be the very first to know.”
Lena said that she thought it was the most marvelous thing she had ever heard. She sat quite still for a long time after the call. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to ring her daughter.
But fortunately she just managed to control it.
After an age she stood up from her chair, cleaned the ashtray, packed the picnic things in her basket, and locked up the offices. She walked very slowly down the road with its Sunday evening crowds beginning to gather for whatever festivities they had in mind. She went home and lay on her bed to wait for Louis.
At eleven o’clock he burst into the flat. “Oh God, I missed you, Lena. Lena, I love you,” he said, and he launched himself at her like an overaffectionate puppy dog. “I brought you a rose,” he said.
It was all done up with a fern and a safety pin as if it were a corsage. It didn’t matter where he got it, he might have found it, or bought it, or stood for ages while it was being made up. Someone could have left it on the train.
He had brought it for her. He smelled of the sea and she loved him. Nothing else mattered at all.
“KIT, you know that friend of yours and Clio’s, this Mother Madeleine?” Clio’s aunt Maura spoke hesitantly.
“Yes, she’s Sister Madeleine, Miss Hayes.”
“I was wondering, would you mind if I went to see her?”
“About us, do you mean?” Kit and Clio had not been speaking for twenty days. It was the longest silence ever between them. Most of the town seemed to be aware of it.
But Clio’s aunt laughed. “No, not at all about you…about me. I gather she’s a very fine person at sorting things out.”
“Yes, but some things can’t be sorted out.” Kit was very adamant about that. And Sister Madeleine was about the only person in the place who hadn’t urged her to make it up with Clio.
“It’s just that I didn’t want to be moving in on her if you thought it was your territory…”
Kit looked at the woman with new respect. “No, no. Everyone sort of talks to her, and she tells nothing on, it’s like the seal of confession.”
“So, if I went to see her it would just be considered like a passerby dropping in?”
“That’s very nice of you, Miss Hayes, to ask I mean.”
“I wouldn’t want to tread on your toes. And do you think you might ever feel like calling me Maura?”
“I’d be happy to,” said Kit. And indeed she was, more than happy. It would be great.
Imagine saying it in front of Mrs. Kelly. Better still, imagine saying it in front of Clio.
“Sister Madeleine, I’m Maura Hayes.”
“Of course you are, Haven’t I often seen you at Mass on a Sunday with Dr. Kelly.”
“I hear nothing but good about you, Sister.”
“I’m blessed to live in such a warm place, Maura. Would you join me in a cup of tea and some nice scones? Rita up in McMahon’s is a gifted cook and she often leaves me a batch of these in case someone drops by.”
“A fine girl indeed. Sister. Maybe she should better herself.”
“I know, I know. It’s a problem.”
They both knew the problems. Rita would not leave the McMahons until the place was settled. The question was now which of them would mention that a solution might be in sight.
The hermit decided to make it easy for Maura Hayes. “Of course you’re a regular visitor here to these parts yourself,” she said.
“I do come down often. My sister has such a happy home here herself.”
“And one day you might make a happy home yourself.”
“There are many who might say I was far too old to be considering any such thing.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Maura. I’ve never been a great advocate of young marriages myself. They don’t seem to work somehow. The danger, of course, in leaving it late is that you mightn’t be able to replace what had gone before. That would be a danger only if you were trying to replace it with the same thing. I wouldn’t imagine you’d be trying to do that.”
“No indeed. If it were to happen I’m sure it would be a very different variety.”
“Well then…I feel very sure it would work very well.” The kettle that had been moved to the center of the fire began to hiss and splutter. The old nun lifted it away deftly.
By the time they had finished their tea a lot had been straightened out. Without confidences being broken or anyone named by name Maura understood that if Martin McMahon was to be enthusiastic about a union there would be no opposition in his house. The daughter Kit would be going to Dublin to study hotel management. The son Emmet was like all boys, hardly aware of his surroundings. The maid Rita was only looking for an excuse to leave the family in good hands so that she could go to live in Dublin. There was a chance of a position in a car-hire company. Warmly recommended by Sullivan’s of Lough Glass, she would be sure to get the position and start a fuller life.
“I wouldn’t ever be anything like as special as Helen,” Maura said in a small voice.
“No, of course not.”
Maura ached to ask what she was really like, what had she talked about, had she ever said what made her soul so tormented and so far away as she paced the length and breadth of Lough Glass. But there would be no point. The nun would just look away across the lake, the lake where Helen had met her death, and would speak distantly. It’s hard to know what anyone’s like, she might say. Maura would not ask. Instead she said: “If it does work out…and Martin and I do make a life together, do you think that Helen McMahon would have been pleased rather than upset about it?”
The nun’s eyes seemed very far away, as if she were thinking of something much farther away than the lake. There was a long silence. Then she spoke. “I think she would be very pleased,” she said slowly. “Very pleased indeed.”
THEY moved into the new flat two weeks after Scarborough. Louis was loving and enthusiastic about it all. He didn’t mention Spain anymore. He said no more about England being finished and men of vision getting out while the going was good. He was so much the old Louis that the days and nights of bleak despair almost disappeared.
Almost, but not quite. He was still out very late. And he resented it terribly if Lena asked him why.
“Sweetheart, is it clocking in and clocking out at home as well as at work?” he said impatiently.
And of course she had been wrong about that weekend. Lots of people had said to her it was a pity she wasn’t there, the whole thing had been an innocent mix-up. And she must have been mad to think there was anything between him and Dawn Jones. Dawn worked beside her day in and day out, putting in extra hours coming up to the official opening of the new premises. If Louis telephoned Dawn would say, “Oh hello, Mr. Gray, I’ll get her for you now.” Unless she was trained in the Royal Shakespeare Company she wouldn’t have been able to do that and hide a liaison. Lena felt she had been foolishly suspicious, yet she knew that this was not the same Louis who had run with her to London so eagerly and without a care.
This was a man who did not feel caught up with her to the exclusion of all others as he had once been, as she still was. Sometimes he stayed on a bit in the Dryden because a few of them were having a drink in the pub around the corner. It didn’t do to be seen imbibing on your own premises.
“You were having a drink rather than coming home?” Lena had said
. But she had only said it once in that hurt tone.
“Jesus Christ, Lena. If I tell you where I am you get offended, and if I don’t tell you where I am you get offended. Shall we go down to some ironmonger now and get a ball and chain welded on and it would save us a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said in a voice disguising her terror. She had seen real annoyance and impatience in his eyes.
The new premises were opened in May, and there was the expected publicity. Yet again Dawn was photographed and Lena managed to stay out of the limelight, but this time there was something she could offer in return.
“Mr. Millar, our managing director, and Miss Park, our senior executive, are going to be married later this year,” she told the reporters who attended the opening ceremony for Millar’s new-look agency.
Nobody except her own colleagues would notice that she wasn’t properly acknowledged. Some of the clients maybe. Louis would know why, so would Ivy.
Grace did ask. “Are you on the run, by any chance?” she asked when the papers were published telling everyone’s life story except Lena’s, and showing every face except that of the woman who made the agency what it was.
“Sort of,” Lena said. “Not the law, we’re all right there, I think.”
“A man, then.”
“Well, yes. I more ran to one than from one.”
“But there was one, and a daughter?”
“Yes, and a handsome boy.”
“I hope he’s worth it…your Louis.”
“Grace, you know he isn’t. Stop having silly hopes like that.” They collapsed in giggles.
I miss the laughing more than anything else, Clio wrote.
I don’t miss the secrets and the plans. Those are separate, and different anyway. I should never have looked at your letter, and the truth is that I didn’t see who it was to. But I shouldn’t have looked. I was trying to see if it was Philip and if you were holding out on me. If ever we do get to be friends again I swear I will always regard letters as sacred. Also, I don’t want to spend any more time persuading you to come to university with me. I know you won’t, and it’s your life. I’m not much of a friend I know, a bit bossy, and I’m very ashamed about that letter. But I’m lonely and I miss you, and I can’t study properly and I was wondering whether you thought it might be worth patching it up.
Love Clio.
Dear Clio,
Okay. But remember something, We don’t have to be friends. There’s no law saying that we must walk forever two by two in this town or anywhere. I’m glad you got in touch. I’m sick to death of Lonny Donegan. Have you anything better to play?
Love Kit.
Emmet delivered the letter to the Kellys’ house.
“They’re mad, aren’t they,” Anna Kelly said to him.
“Stone mad,” Emmet agreed.
“They go to the same school, sit in the same classroom, and they use us as postmen.”
“It must have been a big row,” Emmet said in wonder.
“Don’t you know what it was?”
“No, Kit never said.”
“Clio’s never talked of anything else. Apparently Kit dropped some letter and Clio picked it up and gave it back to her and accidentally looked to see who she was writing to. And Kit lost her head altogether.”
“And who was she writing to that was so secret?” Emmet asked.
“A fellow called Len,” said Anna, proud to be the bearer of such important news.
“Thanks Emmet, you’re a pal.”
“No,” said Emmet. “I’m an eejit.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I felt such a fool. I didn’t know you have a fellow called Len. Anna Kelly had to tell me.”
“What fellow called Len?” Kit was mystified.
“The one you wrote the letter to, the one that you let fall.”
Kit looked at him levelly. “Was Clio at home when you went there?”
“No, just Anna.”
“I’ll give you anything if you go and get it back.”
“No, Kit. This is silly, you’re going mad.”
“I may be, but I’ll give you sixpence.”
“You haven’t got sixpence.”
“I’ll give you the sixpence out of the bottom of the Infant of Prague statue and then I’ll put it back when I get my pocket money.”
“Why do you want it back?”
“Please, Emmet. Please.”
“You’re old. You’re not meant to be like this.”
“I know, but it’s the way I am. I’ll do anything for you. Anytime you want something for the rest of your life…I’ll do it.”
“Will you?” He seemed doubtful.
“Remember this day, remember this act you did for me.”
“And you’ll do anything at all?” Emmet weighed it up.
“Yes. Hurry.”
“If she’s back?”
“Then it doesn’t count, so go off as quick as you can.”
“Are you a bit of a doormat?” Anna Kelly asked Emmet.
“No, I did a great deal,” Emmet said.
“What was it?”
“She’s going to do me any favor I want ever in life.”
“That’s soft. She won’t.” Anna laughed.
“She will. Kit’s as straight as a die,” Emmet said, pocketing the letter and going home.
At school next day Mother Bernard told the Sixth Years that she had now counted exactly twenty-three working days for intensive revision, prayer to the Holy Spirit, and little else. The Leaving Certificate would soon be upon them with all its attendant anxieties. She wanted to hear nothing of silliness or divilment until the examination was over.
At break Clio said, “I hear you sent a letter up and then thought better of it.”
“Your information service is as good as ever,” Kit said.
“Why, Kit? Why did you change your mind?”
“You don’t know what I said.”
“Yes I do. Anna read it, she steamed it open and told me. I’ve brought you Que Sera Sera as a peace offering.”
“You’re such a liar, Clio. You lie about everything.”
Clio’s face reddened. “No I don’t. I have it in my schoolbag.”
“You said you didn’t see who it was to, but you did.”
“Only the name…”
“You said I dropped it on the floor. You didn’t say you snatched it.”
“Bloody Anna.”
And for the first time Kit smiled. “All right, you dishonest old fraud, give me the record and come round this evening and we’ll go for a walk.”
“We’re meant to be studying!” Clio could hardly believe the long row was over.
“Well, study then. I’m going for a walk.”
“And you’ll tell me everything,” Clio said.
“I’ll tell you nothing,” Kit promised.
Martin had not asked Maura Hayes to marry him. He just couldn’t say the words. They were like lines from a play. He knew that every woman deserved to be proposed to, but he was afraid it would come out wrong. He was afraid that the echo of years ago would sound through what he said without his intending it to.
He was hoping that somehow it could all be agreed to and organized without having to ask. She was so understanding and undemanding. She cheered him up and made him laugh. She loved to go walking with him, but she didn’t choose the routes that Helen had walked so ceaselessly by the lake. Instead she found new places to go, a sheltered glen where you saw the mountains in the far distance, and just a shimmering line of the lake on one side. Sometimes she packed a flask of coffee and a slice of Fullers cake that she had brought down from Dublin. It was companionable and close, something Martin had never known in a marriage.
He had spoken to both his children separately, told them that his friendship with Maura Hayes was special. Both had said they were enthusiastic.
Kit in particular. “Dad, you don’t have to explain to us that she’s not Mother, we know that.
And she’s very nice, I always liked her much more than Clio’s mother.”
Peter Kelly drank a pint each night with Martin in Paddles’ bar. The solidarity was huge, but the subject was never broached. Both men knew that when there was something to be said, then it would be said.
And yet something in his heart, some unfinished business, prevented Martin McMahon from doing what he knew was the honorable and right thing to do. It depressed him that he seemed to be a weak man, unsure and dithering. There were so many areas of his life where he was sure and confident: in the pharmacy where he gave advice and consolation as well as compound medicines; as a father for the past years his children had been able to trust him and talk to him. Even possibly as a friend.
But not as a suitor to this good woman who deserved more from him. “I wonder are you wasting your time with me, Maura,” he said to her.
“I wouldn’t say any time spent with you was wasted.” She was calm, unflustered.
“I am not what you hoped.”
“You are what you are.”
He looked at her fondly. It was the night before the Leaving Certificate started. She had been so helpful to Kit, explained to her that examinations were all about showing what you did know rather than fearing you would be caught out in what you didn’t know.
Kit had found it not only useful but a revelation. “I never knew that,” she said truthfully.
“Well, that’s the system,” Maura had said, going over an old examination paper. “Look here when it says as an essay title The place I love most in Ireland or here it says My earliest memory…now you were telling me that you know all about Glendalough and you were hoping to get a subject like A place of historic interest. You could always turn either of those titles to your advantage.”
Maura suggested that Kit have tea and a chocolate biscuit to take with her to bed.
Martin and Maura sat in the large sofa, side by side. He had never sat there with Helen. She had perched on the window seat, or gone to read in a narrow high-backed chair that had been gradually moved to a position of less importance over the years. Helen’s bedroom had now become a storeroom. The signs of her presence had lessened but her spirit was still there.