“People who love each other get married at eighteen,” Philip said, totally ignoring the girl standing with her little order book.
“They don’t unless they’re pregnant,” Kit said with spirit.
“We could get pregnant. That would be a great idea,” Philip said.
“Jesus!” said the waitress. “I’ll come back when you’ve something less dramatic on your mind, like what you’re going to have for your supper.”
“Are they a terrible crowd of hicks down there?” Clio asked. She and Kit were having coffee in Grafton Street.
“Stop talking about down there. It would take me less time to walk to my college than you to yours.”
“Yeah, but what are they like?”
“Very nice mainly. It’s quite hard work. You have to concentrate a bit, but I suppose I’ll get the hang of it.”
“And what will you do in the end, I mean where will it take you?”
“Christ, how do I know, Clio? I’ve only been in it a week. How about you? Where’s a B.A. going to take you?”
“Aunt Maura said it’s a great basis for meeting people.”
“Maura says she never said that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk to her behind my back about things I told you. She is my aunt, you know.”
“And she’s going to be my stepmother.” They both laughed. They were squabbling the way they did when they were seven years of age.
“Maybe we’ll always go on like this,” Clio said.
“Oh yes. When we’re old ladies holidaying in the South of France, fighting about our deck chairs in the sun and our poodles,” Kit agreed.
“You getting away from Philip O’Brien, crotchety old owner of the Central Hotel.”
“Why don’t you see me as the owner of a string of hotels of my own?”
“It’s not what women do,” Clio said.
“And what about you? Will you have married some suitable fellow from First Arts?”
“God no. There’s no one suitable there. I’ll be looking amongst the lawyers and the medics.”
“A doctor’s wife? Clio, you’d never have the patience. Look at what your mother has to put up with.”
“A surgeon’s wife, a specialist’s wife…I’m planning this properly,” Clio said. Then she asked: “What are you wearing anyway?”
“A sort of gray and white dress,” Kit said.
“What material?”
“Silk, sort of silk.”
“No! Where did you get it?”
“In a small shop on a side street.” Kit was evasive.
“You’re not exactly killing yourself, then, are you?”
“It’s quite nice, it looks weddingy.” Kit defended the dress.
“Gray and white, it sounds like a postulant nun to me.”
“Well, let’s wait and see, will we?”
“Does it feel funny, your father getting married again?” Anna Kelly asked Emmet as they met at the sweets counter of Dillon’s grocery.
“What do you mean, funny?” Emmet asked. Anna was pretty. She had blond curly hair and a gorgeous smile. They were going to be sort of related after the wedding.
“Well, will you call her Mummy?” Anna wanted to know.
“Lord, no. We call her Maura already.”
“And will she sleep in your father’s room or your mother’s room?” Anna wanted to know all the details.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Daddy’s, I suppose. That’s what married people do.”
“Why didn’t your mother, then?”
“She had a cold, she didn’t want to give it to Daddy.”
“A cold? The whole time?”
“That’s what I was told,” Emmet said. He spoke without guile.
Something changed in Anna. “Yes, well, some people do,” she agreed, and companionably they discussed the relative merits of Cleeves toffees, which were flatter, and Scots Clan, which were more chunky but dearer.
Mrs. Dillon watched them. At least these two didn’t look likely to pocket half the display when no one was looking, but you couldn’t be too careful.
Maura hadn’t wanted an engagement ring. “We’re too mature for that,” she said to Martin.
“We’re not old, don’t say that.”
“I didn’t say old, I meant we didn’t have to get engaged…we had an understanding in the real sense of the word.”
“I don’t know how you waited so long and were so understanding when I was such a ditherer,” Martin said.
“Shush, we’ve been through that before. You had much more to sort out than I did.” Maura could afford to be generous now, she told herself. Her months and months of coping with Martin’s indecision were over. He was now deeply committed to their marriage. He would make it work, he would make her happy. He knew these things were possible. And as for Maura herself, she could hardly believe her good fortune in having chased the ghosts of the beautiful, restless-looking woman who was her predecessor. Martin and Maura could walk by the lake of an autumn evening now without pausing, stricken, to remember that this was where Helen’s life had ended.
“I want the wedding day to be the best day in the world for you.”
“It will,” Maura said.
“Then let me get you some jewel if you won’t have a diamond engagement ring. I want you to have more than a plain wedding ring. Would you like a diamond brooch, do you think?” His face was eager to please her.
“No, my love. Truly.”
“There are jewels of Helen’s in a box. You know that. Suppose I were to bring them to a jeweler in the town and ask him to make something completely different, then you wouldn’t worry about cost.” He was able to speak of Helen naturally now, without his face contorting.
“No, Martin. Those belong to Kit. She must have them someday. When she’s twenty-one, maybe. You must give them to her. She should wear them with pleasure. Don’t have them altered for me. I have enough.”
“They’re all there somewhere, I never even looked at them.”
“Fine. Let’s leave them for Kit’s twenty-first.” Maura had looked at them though. She had fingered them sadly. A marcasite brooch, a locket, a diamante clip, a pair of earrings that might have been real rubies and might not.
But mostly she had noticed two rings, an engagement ring and a wedding ring. Helen McMahon had not taken those with her on the night she went out in the boat on the lake. Maura wondered whether Sergeant Sean O’Connor or the detectives from Dublin had inquired about that at the time. It surely must have been a pointer to the state of mind of someone who might have been thought to end her own life, if she had carefully removed valuable jewelery and left it behind.
“Are you asking Stevie Sullivan to the wedding?” Clio asked her aunt Maura.
“No. There was a lot of debate about that. He is my future boss, that would mean a yes, but then think of his mother and that means a no. And he is a neighbor but think of his terrible little brother.”
“He is a single man and quite good-looking,” Clio added.
“Yes, but he also has a reputation for disappearing from public functions with young ladies in tow.” Maura knew the whole world of Lough Glass now. “Martin and I added it up and it came out against asking him.”
“Imagine you working for him, Aunt Maura. He came from nothing.”
“Imagine you using an expression like that…a young girl like you.” Maura’s eyes were cold. Clio realized too late that she often misjudged her aunt. Aunt Maura didn’t have the same cozy, gossipy way of looking at the world as her own mother did. There was very little gossip, and absolutely no feeling that some people were acceptable and some were not.
The week before, the wedding gifts poured into the chemist’s shop. And even more important for Maura and Martin were the accompanying notes wishing them well. People said that it was good to see two such nice people finding happiness. Maura was a known visitor to the town in recent years, and as a child had grown up only a few miles away. It wasn’t as if Marti
n McMahon were looking outside for a stranger.
As he had before.
Mona from the post office gave some Belleek china. She said she thought there was something gracious about it which would suit the new Mrs. McMahon. Mildred O’Brien chose a small set of silver coffee spoons. The Walls sent a glass bonbon dish with a silver handle. The Hickeys, who had been intending to send meat as they always did if the event was being held in Lough Glass, stirred themselves and sent something which looked suspiciously like a pram rug.
Paddles sent four bottles of brandy and four bottles of whiskey, on the grounds that the groom and the bride’s brother-in-law would consume that amount easily in any given year. There was an embroidered sampler from Mother Bernard and the community, a history of the county from Brother Healy and the Brothers’ school, a set of saucepans from Mrs. Hanley in the drapery and from Sister Madeleine a great clump of white heather and a tub to plant it in. She said that although it was superstitious to believe that white heather was lucky, at least it might be nice to have this as a symbol of their marriage, and that when it grew every year it would remind them of their good fortune in coming together.
Kit looked at the heather thoughtfully. Sister Madeleine knew that there never had been a Lena Gray writing to Helen McMahon, and so this was a new relationship. Therefore she suspected this was not a marriage in the eyes of God and yet she was going along with it.
Sometimes Kit felt the world was tilting.
“YOU never tell me anything about Lough Glass,” Louis said to Lena on Saturday morning.
“I used to, my love, but you said it was very trivial.”
“Well, some of it was…you know, the petty things…but I’m not totally insensitive. I know you must think about the children and about Martin.”
“From time to time,” Lena agreed.
“Well, don’t shut me out…I mean, I am interested in everything that concerns you. I do love you.” He sounded defensive.
“I know.”
“How do you know?” He seemed to doubt the rather flat tone of voice.
“I know because you came back,” she said. Again it was as if she were saying something by rote. In fact she was repeating his own words to her. Why would I come back to you if I didn’t love you?
“Well, that’s all right, then.” But Louis was watchful. Lena didn’t seem herself this morning.
“What do you think the place is like now?”
Lena looked at him for a long while. She debated for a wild moment whether to tell him that her husband was marrying Maura Hayes at eleven a.m. and that she had spent a week’s salary on a dress for her daughter Kit to wear at the ceremony. She wondered was it possible that, if she were to fill him in on the important areas of her own life, he would be able to feel involved with her to such a degree that he could put aside all the many distractions of his world. But the moment ended. She knew it would not be possible. She would not get the reaction she hoped for. Instead, she would get blame and recrimination for having hidden the fact that she had written to her daughter for years and then met the girl in London.
“Oh, I expect it will be like any other day,” she said. “Any ordinary Saturday in Lough Glass.”
STEVIE Sullivan said once he’d be in Dublin anyway he’d drive the bride to the church, and drive them both to the reception.
“We can’t accept that, Stevie…” Martin began to protest.
“Jesus, Martin, isn’t it a grand easy wedding present? Let me do it for you.” Stevie was a handsome young man now of twenty-one, with his long dark hair falling over his eyes and his tanned skin. When Stevie was a boy he had often heard part of his father’s drunken rages include the possibility that his mother had lain down with the tinkers…how else could she have produced such an unlikely-looking son for him? Stevie had heard her reply that since it had been such a hellish thing to have to lie down for her own husband she was unlikely to want to repeat the experience with anyone else, tinker or no tinker. His own experience of sex had made him think that his mother must have missed out a lot on life if this had been her attitude. But it was a view he kept to himself.
“Anyway, you can rely on me, Maura. You wouldn’t want to be having any truck with these Dublin fellows.”
She was grateful. It would be good to have a friendly face beside her as she set off to the church. She had packed the possessions that she needed from her flat in Dublin and brought them in advance to Lough Glass. The flat had been painted and let to a young couple who had already moved in. Maura had hoped that in the future Kit and Clio might be able to live there. It would be handy for them; it had two bedrooms, it was central. But she thought that they might not be temperamentally suited to sharing a flat. There was an edge between them that did not suggest a real friendship, more a wishing to score off each other. She wouldn’t suggest the idea until they had made up their minds more about life.
Stevie wore a dark suit, which could almost have been a uniform, when he came to the hotel to collect Maura.
“You look lovely, Maura,” he said.
He was the first to see her and even though he was little more than a child still, she was pleased. A flush came over her face and neck. “Thank you, Stevie.”
“I’m pleased to see my staff know how to kit themselves out,” he said.
Kit and Clio stood side by side in the big church.
Clio hadn’t ceased to gripe about the dress since she arrived. “What kind of a shop did you say it was, that shop?”
“Oh, I told you, in a side street.”
“You’re lying in your teeth.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Because that’s the way you’re made.”
“Ask anyone. Ask Daddy. Ask Maura.”
“You lied to them too. This is a really good smart dress. It cost a fortune. Did you steal it?”
“You have a very diseased mind. Will you shut up and let me enjoy my father’s wedding.”
At that moment they saw the small congregation turning around. Maura Hayes was walking up the church aisle with her brother. Martin McMahon stood beaming at the altar rails.
“She looks great,” Clio whispered. “That’s a terrific outfit.”
“She probably stole it. Most of us did,” Kit said loftily.
Stevie was outside the church holding open the door of the car. “I didn’t know he was coming,” Philip said to Clio.
“Oh, he gets anywhere,” Clio said. “If you have a brass neck and flash good looks like that, the world is open to you.”
Philip seemed disappointed by this. “Is that his car?” he asked.
“Yes.” Clio still sounded scornful. “Part of the Sullivan Motor Service is to realize that there will be times in people’s lives, functions, when they’ll need a bit of class. Stevie’s ahead of the game.”
“Do women like him?”
“Yes, but only in a very obvious kind of way. I mean, I personally wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole. He’s been with every maid and skivvy from here to Lough Glass and back.”
“Slept with them, you mean?” Philip’s eyes were round.
“So I hear.”
“And none of them got…um…pregnant?”
“Apparently not. Or if they did we didn’t hear.”
Maura had chosen the hotel well. There was a sherry reception in a big bright room with chintz-covered couches and chairs. The waitresses moved around efficiently, making sure that glasses were well filled. When they went in to sit down, the late autumn sun was slanting in the windows on the group.
The seating plan had been carefully thought out. Kit and Emmet sat on either side of Rita. The O’Briens were divided up so that they could not glare at each other. Lilian Kelly was put beside two of Maura’s work colleagues so that she could talk about shops in Dublin and the races.
There was a grapefruit cocktail, then chicken and ham, and an ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. The wedding cake was small, one tier.
“There won’t be any need to
keep a tier for the christening,” Mildred O’Brien explained to her neighbor, who nodded, bewildered.
The speeches were very simple. Peter Kelly said how this was the happiest day for a long time. And how great it was that his good friend had found a partner for the rest of his life. Everyone clapped.
Martin thanked everyone for their support in coming to wish them well. He said it was particularly gratifying that Maura had so many friends already in Lough Glass, and it would in many senses for her be like coming home. They thought the speeches were over but Maura McMahon stood up. A little ripple went through the group. Women so rarely spoke in public. Brides never.
“I would like to add my thanks to Martin’s, and to say this is the happiest day of my life. But I want to thank most of all Kit and Emmet McMahon for their generosity in sharing their father with me. They are the children of Martin and Helen, they will always be that. I hope the memory of their mother will never fade. For them or for any of us. Without Helen McMahon, Kit and Emmet would not have existed. Without Helen, Martin would not have known his years of happiness in a first marriage. I thank her for all she gave to us, I hope her spirit knows what a feeling of warmth there is toward her this day. And I assure you all that I will do my very best to make Martin as happy as he deserves to be. He is a truly good man.”
There was a silence as people took in the depth of feeling in her words. Then they clapped and clapped and raised their glasses. And the pianist in the corner began to tinkle so that a few songs could be called for. Maura had checked. There had been no singing at Martin and Helen’s wedding.
Stevie Sullivan stood outside the door. Maura had not changed her outfit. The wedding dress and jacket were quite suitable for traveling. The cases were packed and had been put in the back of the car.
“You’re looking fairly irresistible, Kit,” Stevie said.
“Better resist me, though,” Kit said. “I believe you’re taking them to the train.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he said.
“But aren’t you going to take them off to start their honeymoon?”