“What would we pray for?”
“We could give thanks that Kathleen Sullivan is out of hospital and back in her house again.”
“I don’t have all that sympathy for her, to be honest. She came at me herself like a demon out of hell.”
“Well, you were attacking her and robbing her son’s premises. Just because you stay here I don’t want you to think that I approve of everything you do.”
“But you know why I did it.”
“Do I?”
“You know I didn’t mean to do it. I needed something to keep going. I couldn’t be cooped up. You said yourself that you hated the feeling of being cooped up.”
“I didn’t rob and steal and hit people to get out of it.”
“You didn’t need to, Sister,” he said.
And again the sureness came back that she was doing the right thing.
“Do you know I think you got a suntan even in this weather,” Stevie said admiringly to Anna Kelly.
“Well, they always say it’s the wind that tans you,” she said, smiling.
“Only one more year and then you’ll be a free woman,” he said, looking up and down the tall blond girl with the perfect teeth and the bright smile.
Anna liked the admiration. “Free from school, but not what you’d call free, Stevie Sullivan,” she said.
“And what would I call free?”
“Oh, something much racier than me altogether,” she said.
She went home pleased with herself. It wasn’t bad to have the two best-looking fellows in Lough Glass interested in her. Not that she’d pay any attention to Stevie. Everyone knew what he had been up to.
They were old enough now to have a flat in Dublin. Everyone thought that Kit and Clio would share. Everyone in Lough Glass, that was. Except perhaps Maura.
“Won’t you be lonely in a little bed-sitter of your own?” Martin worried about his daughter.
“No, Dad. and it’s so near college and everything…”
“But if you were to share with Clio…you could both afford somewhere nicer.”
“We’d do no work…we’d be laughing and talking all the time. Anyway, we have different friends in Dublin.”
Maura glanced at him and Martin let the matter drop.
Frankie helped Kit to move into her little room.
“I wish there was room for you in our place,” she said. “But I was the last one in so I can’t throw any of the others out.”
“No, I mean it, I like being on my own.”
And mainly Kit did like being by herself. She could study when she wanted to and if she needed friends she could go to Frankie’s flat or to see Clio, who had also got a place on her own. But Michael O’Connor spent a lot of time there. Clio’s need to be without flatmates had a lot to do with Michael O’Connor’s idea of entertainment. Not that she would ever let on to them back home.
“Now, isn’t that fine.” Frankie admired that way she had tacked a brightly colored bedspread to the wall and fitted linoleum onto the little shelf where the kitchen things assembled by Maura were arranged.
Frankie’s brother Paddy, the law student, had helped them too. “I pretended I was delivering a summons,” he said.
“You’ll get fired one day.” Kit was amazed at how casually Paddy took his job.
“Nephew of the boss! Not a chance,” he said cheerfully.
“Oh well, then,” Kit laughed at him.
“Hey, why don’t I just put in an appearance in the office, show them I’m alive, and then take you girls to beans and chips?”
He made it sound a great outing. Kit and Frankie said it was the best offer they had had all week.
He was back in fifteen minutes, racing up the stairs waving a paper and so excited that he could hardly speak. “You won’t believe it! He’s paid, he’s paid. I have the check here for you!”
“What, what?”
“Fingers O’Connor. A check from him in absolute settlement. He fell for it…he’s paid what we asked for…”
The girls looked at him in disbelief. “But isn’t it illegal…I mean it’s not a real demand…from a real solicitor,” Kit said.
“Could you get struck off the rolls before you get onto them?” Frankie wondered.
“No, it’s all legitimate…look at what he’s written…” The letter was addressed to Paddy.
Dear Mr. Barry,
I am sure I can rely on your discretion in this matter. The statement attributed to my son Kevin is agreed to be entirely false, and shall never be repeated. I am enclosing a check made payable to Miss McMahon, who has my son’s assurances that no further statement of this nature shall ever be made concerning her character or behavior to any other person.
If there are legal fees above and beyond this I shall be happy to pay them. Please mark any correspondence in this matter STRICTLY PRIVATE.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours,
Francis Fingleton O’Connor
They whooped with delight when Paddy finished reading it out.
“Can we keep it, do you think?” Kit said.
“You can…you earned it by being reported as unchaste.”
“I’ll take you out to something better than beans and chips,” Kit said.
“We have to cash it first,” Frankie said.
“Fingers’s check won’t bounce,” Paddy said.
“What will you do about fees? You can’t get your office to send him a bill when they don’t know they’ve sent him this.” Kit hardly dared to think it was true.
“Oh, I’ll write him a generous letter and say that since he paid so promptly and that since you are a personal friend of mine I will not charge any fee. That leaves me in the clear.”
“You’re terrific, Paddy,” Kit said.
He looked embarrassed. His freckled face reddened and he didn’t know how to take the compliment.
“What’s this about a slap-up meal?” he said.
“Anywhere you like,” Kit said. Paddy Barry’s letter had got her the kind of sum of money she would never have dreamed of. The whole year’s allowance for pocket money that she got from her father.
Weren’t these old-fashioned laws about women’s reputations absolutely marvelous?
“Hi Philip, it’s Kit.”
“Yes?” His voice sounded fearful. What was she going to throw at him now?
“I’m going to take you out on the town for a great night out,” she said.
“You are?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“Don’t make fun of me, Kit. Please.”
“I swear I want to take you on a treat. Suppose someone asked you, what would you say? Don’t think what I’d like, think what you’d like.”
“I’d like to go to the pictures first, to Mon Oncle, the French one, you know, like Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday we saw, then I’d like to go to Jammets for just a main course, not a full meal. I’d love to see the way they serve it.”
“Done,” said Kit. “Where’ll we meet? Let’s look up the times at the cinema.”
“Why, Kit?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
“No. Why really?”
“Because thanks to you I got a fortune from awful Kevin O’Connor. A fortune.”
“How much?”
“You’ll never know, you’ll have your night out and that’s it.”
Kit went to Switzer’s in Grafton Street and bought a lace nightdress for Clio. She gave it to her in a box all wrapped in tissue.
“What’s this?” Clio was suspicious.
“The ape paid, the big bad ape, he ran for cover. I owe it to you.”
“They all think you’re cracked, you know. A screw loose is what they say.”
“Good. Then I won’t have to be bridesmaid.”
“Stop making jokes. What did he say when he gave you the money?”
“He said nothing. It was all done through solicitors with mutual assurances of confidentiality.”
“So how much did you get?”
“You heard me, assurances of confidentiality.”
“I’m your friend. I’m the one who put you on the track.”
“You get a nightie. Enjoy it, though how you could I do not know.”
“You’re no authority on anything.”
“I know. Don’t you keep reminding me.”
“Why can’t Emmet come up to Dublin for a weekend? I’ll show him the ropes,” Kit said.
“We might all go together sometime,” Maura suggested.
“No, I’d love to show my little brother Dublin. Go on, Maura. Let me feel like a big important person,” Kit pleaded. Maura’s smile was so warm and nice, Kit felt a heel.
Maura gave in at once. Emmet was to come to town.
Philip lived in a flat now so there would be a bed for Emmet there. “Only if you don’t hang on and spy, and follow and do all those awful things,” Kit said.
“I told you that phase of my life is over,” Philip said. He was much nicer now. The night at Jammets, Dublin’s poshest restaurant, had been a huge success. Philip had discussed wines with the waiters as if he were a regular customer.
“What are you going to do to entertain him?” Philip asked.
“I warned you, no spying,” Kit threatened.
“What do I care what you do?” Philip asked. “Even if my future brother-in-law is shown none of his capital city I’ll say nothing.”
“That’s the boy,” Kit said approvingly.
THE postcard from Kit of the Blarney Stone had been a breakthrough as far as Lena was concerned.
There was no reason for it. It wasn’t thanking for anything…not in any real sense. And Kit had asked her to look after herself. The girl who had run from her in disgust all those months ago had softened enough to ask her to take care. It was a ray of hope. Lena kept these letters carefully in a drawer in Ivy’s kitchen. Sometimes she took them out to read them again. The last one was definitely full of promise.
Lena waited until she left London to send Kit a card. She and Dawn went to talk to Sixth Formers in four different cities. It meant spending the night in Birmingham. Lena bought a postcard of the Bull Ring and addressed it.
I’m here spreading the good news of our agency to schoolgirls. Very exhausting but satisfying all the same. I think maybe I should have been a schoolteacher. All I know is that I was extremely foolish to have had no career for so long. Have you got a date for your exams? And I’d be so interested to know about your brother’s too, of course.
I hope you are well and happy.
Lena.
She debated putting “love” but decided against it.
“Are you sending a card to Mr. Gray?” Dawn asked her.
“Hardly, Dawn. I’ll be home to him tomorrow night.”
“He’s so nice, Mr. Gray. Great fun and everything…he was the life and soul at the Dryden.”
“I forgot you knew him then.”
Lena had forgotten. Dawn had been with her so long in Millar’s she had almost forgotten the tempestuous short-lived series of appointments they had found for her in offices and hotels, and where there was some incident of Dawn being highly fancied by the most unsuitable men in the company. As far as she knew that hadn’t happened in the Dryden. James Williams was not the type.
“Did you like Mr. Williams?” she asked Dawn.
“I can’t say I remember him, Mrs. Gray.” Dawn’s big blue eyes were unaware of a lot of people who had passed through her life.
“Oh, well, it’s a long time back now.”
“That’s true.”
Dawn looked around the dining room in the hotel. They were the center of many appreciative glances, the blond girl and the dark, handsome woman. Nobody could quite place what they were doing there. They looked too respectable to approach and yet surely Dawn’s eyes promised a lot of fun.
Lena smiled to herself to think how the great James Williams would feel to be so instantly forgotten by a pretty little secretary like Dawn Jones.
But then with the familiar turn of her heart she remembered that Dawn hadn’t forgotten Louis Gray or what fun he had been. “The life and soul at the Dryden” was how she’d put it.
Back in the office she found herself looking speculatively at the blond girl she had thought was such an asset to Millar’s Employment Agency. She had, of course, been quite right in insisting that a young attractive girl would sell the whole idea better than any other approach from a different generation. She must beat down this absurd and dangerous suspicion. She could not be jealous of every single woman who had ever worked with Louis.
Pausing to pick up some papers in an outer office, she heard Dawn talking to Jennifer, the receptionist on the desk.
“…honestly she was so nice, and she’s done so much for me. Sometimes I feel guilty, dead guilty about her husband.”
Dawn noticed Jennifer staring horrified over her shoulder and she met Lena’s smile. “Oh, Mrs. Gray…” Dawn’s face reddened. Lena said nothing, just stood there with the smile nailed on her face. “Mrs. Gray, you know what I mean. It was all a bit of fun, nobody meant anything by it.”
“I know indeed, Dawn…a bit of fun is what it was.”
“And you’re not upset…?”
“About Louis having a big of fun…heavens, what do you take me for?” she said, and left them.
She barely got to the bathroom basin in time to throw up. Louis and this girl, this girl whom he knew had been sent to his hotel by Lena. Lena rinsed her face and reapplied her makeup. She returned to her desk and managed to avoid Dawn for the rest of the day.
That evening she went to Jessie’s office and said she would like to dismiss Dawn Jones.
“I missed you when you were in Birmingham,” Louis said that night to her.
“I wasn’t away for long.”
“No, but any time is long.”
“It was hard work,” she said. “Dawn and I were almost hoarse at the end of it.”
“Dawn?” he said.
She looked at him. He probably didn’t remember Dawn. Truthfully. The bit of fun had been so passing, so fleet, that it had not stayed in his mind.
“Dawn Jones, remember she used to work for James Williams once?”
“Oh, yes.” Now he did remember. “And how did she get on there…with you?”
“Fine, just fine. I think she’s leaving the agency though.”
“Oh, is she? Why’s that?”
“I’m not really sure,” Lena said, turning off the light.
RITA was well established now in the car-hire company in Dublin. She was walking out with one of her colleagues. He came from Donegal, far far away. She thought of the gypsy who had said she would marry a man from far away. His name was Timothy and one day soon he was going to introduce her to his mother.
Rita had told him she didn’t come from important stock. Not from any people you could speak of. Her father and mother had lost interest in her when she had gone as a girl to work as a maid for the McMahons. She didn’t want Timothy to have any false impressions.
Timothy told her that nothing mattered less. He said that all that old nonsense was changing in Ireland and about time too. Once or twice Rita wondered whether she should ask Kit if she might meet Timothy. It would give her a bit of standing if a lovely, confident young hotel management student appeared as her friend.
But Kit had enough to do and Rita would not abuse their friendship. One day she would meet Timothy and that would be fine.
Emmet went up to Kellys’ to tell Anna about his trip to Dublin. Kit was going to meet him at the train and he would stay with Philip O’Brien, who had improved beyond all measure apparently. They were going to the pictures and on a little train out to Bray to the amusements. And Kit had a friend who was a law student who was going to take them to see a prison and a tattooist.
It was going to be a fantastic weekend, everything he’d want to do. He hated leaving Lough Glass and Anna, of course, but then, she’d had so man
y outings recently…there was a school trip here and a careers talk there and he had not really seen her for ages.
Lilian Kelly opened the door. “Hello, Emmet,” she said, surprised. There was something about her voice that alerted Emmet. He said nothing, just grinned. “I thought Anna was with you,” she said.
It was awkward telling Father and Maura that she didn’t need any money to entertain Emmet in Dublin. Kit would’ve liked to buy them presents too with her unexpected windfall. But she thought it would cause too much trouble if she explained it.
She waved and he saw her. “Come on, we’ll get the bus back. Quick, to the front seat,” she said, taking his hand, and they ran together to board the bus for the city center.
“Imagine you knowing Dublin so well.” He seemed wistful.
“Well, you will too next year, won’t you?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded a bit down. But perhaps he was just tired after the journey.
“I’ll show you my flat first,” Kit said, determined she wouldn’t start looking for problems where none existed.
Emmet said he thought it was great. Imagine all this whole place of her very own. Kit was touched by that.
It was so small, even her bedroom in Lough Glass was bigger than the area where she slept, sat, ate, studied, and washed at a sink. But it was very central, there were no bus fares, she was even so near one of the cinemas that she could look out her window and see whether the queues were lessening.
“We could go to a dance, seeing it’s Friday night,” Kit said. “And I’d be happy to bring you to one of the places we go, but they’re very hot and sweaty. And honestly, as it’s your first night I thought we might go somewhere less noisy.”
“That would be nice,” he said.
He did sound flat. Kit was not imagining it.
“What do you think of an Indian restaurant?” she suggested. “There’s one up in Leeson Street. It’s great, and I’ve been there a couple of times so I know what to order. And then we’ll meet Philip and he’ll take you home.”