It was an awkward moment. Lena let her glance fall to the floor. “Well, do you think…?” Louis suggested.
“You must be exhausted, James…how lovely to have met all your friends,” Lena said.
He showed them up the stairs to the room, the big guest room with a bathroom of its own adjoining. It was more elegant than anywhere they had ever stayed. The sound of snoring came from an open door, and a glance showed Laura Evans asleep on a bed, one shoe on the floor, the other dangling. It was unlikely that James Williams would sleep beside her.
When the door was closed Louis reached for Lena as she had known he would. There was nothing that excited him so much as knowing that two women had left that party unwillingly. Both of them would have given anything to have been with Louis Gray that night. Lena knew that this would make Louis desire her very much indeed.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered into her ear.
“I love you,” she said truthfully.
“You’re a queen among the women here tonight,” he said.
Lena closed her eyes. Well at least she wasn’t lying drunk and snoring like Laura Evans, the woman who had hopes of the host, and she hadn’t gone home to her own house as had done the ladies Louis had found attractive. She was here, sober, and not looking her forty-five years. Yes, she was certainly queen for the night.
“I was wondering, that is we were wondering, if you’d do us the honor of being a witness.”
“In a case, a court case?”
“In a registry office, you dolt. I’m asking you to be my bridesmaid.”
“You’re getting married?” Lena looked at her, astounded.
“Well, I did all the things you told me to.”
“Oh Ivy, I’m so happy for you. When did you decide this?”
“Last night.”
“And is Ernest all delighted too?”
“Of course he’s not, let’s not ask for the moon. But he says it’s what we should do. And it’s most certainly what I want to do. Always wanted to do.” Her eyes were very bright.
“Isn’t that great!” Lena hugged her tight and over her friend’s shoulder as she saw the walls with all their postcards, clippings, cuttings and little pictures, and thought how much Ivy deserved good luck and happiness.
“THERE you are, Mona.” Martin McMahon handed her a bottle of tablets across the counter.
Mona Fitz from the post office was on a mild blood pressure medication. Martin could have prescribed for almost everyone in the town even if Peter wasn’t there, he knew their complaints and symptoms so intimately.
“These keep me alive, Martin.” Mona was very dramatic.
“Indeed they do,” he nodded gravely.
That’s the way she liked to play it. No point in telling her how slight their strength and how unimportant it would be if one or indeed several days were missed. Tablet-taking and spooning from a bottle had almost magic powers. No one knew this better than the local pharmacist.
“Tommy’s cut heal up all right?” He inquired about the postman, who had ordered a lot of bandages and sticking plaster, as well as disinfectant.
“I didn’t know he had one,” Mona said.
Martin McMahon often wished he hadn’t made some harmless remark. It could lead to endless speculation. He could see Mona Fitz looking puzzled.
“He could have hurt his leg but he never said a word. I might be wrong, I’m often wrong about things.” He looked apologetic.
But Mona was having none of it. “Of course you’re not, Martin. Would we all be able to take our pills and bottles from you if you were wrong about things?” Her tone was most reproving indeed. And she went off puzzling why Tommy Bennet would have needed to buy bandages.
The house seemed oddly empty when Francis Byrne had left. Sister Madeleine felt no need to build up the fire that evening. When she went out to her door there was no cause to look up and over at the tree house with a friendly wave. When people brought a cake or bread she knew that this time she would have to walk over to the travelers’ to make sure that it got a proper home. Francis Xavier Byrne could eat an entire loaf of bread from which she had cut one slice for herself.
In a bizarre way, even though he was disturbing and a worry, he was company for her. The nights strangely now seemed very long. She prayed that he would make his way all right. That he would come back in some months for the rest of his things. To tell her that he was well settled now, under another name, working for a farmer. Or maybe as a chopper of wood in a big monastery, where the monks would be kind to him. Better, he might write and say that she could give the bag of items taken from Sullivan’s garage back. He couldn’t write, of course. But someone would do a letter for him. Some kind person who was looking after him now as she had looked after him.
Philip had come home for the night, he brought all his washing with him on the bus.
“You look like Dick Whittington,” Kit had said.
“Don’t you bring your washing home?”
“I most certainly do not, I wash it myself.”
“You’re a woman.”
“That’s very true, but even if I were a man I would too.”
“You say that only because you’re not,” Philip said.
“Not true.”
“Or to fight with me,” he said glumly.
“Now, that’s certainly not true.” She laid her hand on his arm. “I think you’re terrific, you got rid of all this lovey-dovey bit and we’ve been great friends, you and I, haven’t we?”
“I only got rid of the lovey-dovey bit on the outside,” Philip said sadly.
For a moment he reminded her of her brother Emmet and the way he talked about Anna Kelly. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary to feel so strongly about someone as that. She was brisk with Philip. “Nonsense. It’s gone totally,” she said.
“It’s not, Kit. It’s there in aches a lot of the time, like a nagging toothache; it keeps asking me questions.”
“What does it ask?” She couldn’t be harsh or flippant with him. He was far too like Emmet.
“Things like…why didn’t you ask me to join this group for the dance you’re setting up for Saturday?” His disappointment was naked.
“I’m not really setting it up, it’s other people too.”
“If you wanted me there you’d have asked.”
“Well, you’re going home.” She was desperate not to have him hurt.
“I’m only going home so as not to be around. If you asked me to the dance I’d not be going home.”
She wanted desperately not to disappoint him. But she couldn’t have him there while she was making her play for Stevie Sullivan, that would be even worse. “It’ll all work out all right in the end, Philip,” she said.
“It better had,” Philip said. “It sure as anything isn’t working out well now.”
It was dark when Philip got off the bus in Lough Glass. He didn’t know why he had come home. His mother was bound to complain that they saw so little of him. His father was going to tell him that he had chosen the world’s worst trade, that the hotel business was over. Kit was in Dublin organizing a gathering of her friends of which he apparently wasn’t one.
The porter in the hotel welcomed him in a halfhearted way. Philip knew that was the way Jimmy would greet anyone. The boss’s son, a regular customer, a new American visitor; the half shrug and grunt and weary sigh would be your welcome to O’Brien’s Central Hotel.
“I’ll leave my things here of a bit and go down and have a walk by the lake,” Philip said, a heavy unwillingness to go into his family home coming on him suddenly.
“Suit yourself,” said Jimmy.
Philip went down the lane to the lakeside. He looked back up at the hotel. One of the best frontages in Ireland, they should be doing much more than they were. He sighed, and walked along moodily by the shore, watching the winds whip up the lake into what looked like waves. He often thought about Kit’s mother dying here alone that night. He had tried to mention it to Kit to show he
understood, that he wasn’t just an insensitive hulk like so many men. But she never wanted to talk about it.
Without his realizing it, Philip’s walk had taken him toward Sister Madeleine’s cottage. He knew the hermit, of course, like everyone did. But he had not been one to go in and give her his confidences. He was about to turn away when he saw her standing at the door. She clutched a shawl around her thin shoulders, and there was something about the way she hugged herself to make Philip think she was in distress.
He debated slipping away. After all, she had not seen him. She had chosen to live this strange hermit existence. There was probably nothing wrong at all, just his imagination. But something made him call out. “Are you all right, Sister Madeleine?”
She squinted out into the dark. “Who is that? It’s so dark.”
“Philip O’Brien,” he called back.
“Isn’t that grand, the very person,” she said. Philip’s heart sank, she wanted him to do some errand. “Would you like a cup of tea? It hardly seems worth making one for myself.”
It was an odd thing to say. She lived by herself. For heaven’s sake she must always be making cups of tea on her own. Still, it would be welcome; he was stiff and tired after the journey. He followed her in. “How’s the kitten, the little blind one?” he asked. He remembered Kit had told him that the hermit had insisted she could give it a good life.
“It died. Drowned there in three inches of water outside my door.” Her voice was curiously flat and dead.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It should have died the first day, the vet was right.”
“Maybe it had a nice life.”
“No, it had a stupid life, hitting its poor little head off things.”
Philip had no idea how to contribute to the conversation so he said nothing, just settled himself on a three-legged stool to await tea.
She cut him a slice of currant bread and spread it with butter. “You’re an earnest fellow, Philip. It’s the kind of thing that will stand to you in the future.”
“I hope something will stand to me in the future.” He was morose.
“So life isn’t good?”
“I want to marry Kit MacMahon,” he said suddenly. “Not now, but in a couple of years time maybe. And I’ve always known that. I’ve known it since way back the night her mother died, and that’s years ago.”
“Yes,” Sister Madeleine said, looking into the fire.
“But being patient isn’t enough. She must like someone else and she hasn’t told me.”
“Why do you think that?” The old nun’s voice was gentle.
He explained about the dance. If there hadn’t been someone else special she wouldn’t have kept Philip out so deliberately. “I just don’t know who it is,” he said, his face sad and resigned.
“There might be nobody.”
“No, her mind’s very caught up with somebody.”
“I’m going to tell you something…I know Kit very well and she does have problems on her mind…and something which takes up a lot of her attention, but I assure you it’s not another boy. You have no rival. She’s just not ready to think about men yet. Trust me.” Her eyes were very bright and very blue. They almost bored through him. He believed her and he trusted her. His heart felt light. “Go on back to the hotel, Philip. Your mother and father will be looking out for you.”
“They know I’m back, I left my stuff with Jimmy. Bundle of fun, Jimmy. A hundred thousand welcomes to Lough Glass written in his face.”
“If you had Jimmy’s life you might have a few less welcomes written in your face too.” She spoke in general tones. He would never know what she had learned of Jimmy’s life, but it made him feel a small wave of sympathy. It can have been no picnic working for the O’Briens, chopping wood, filling coal scuttles in rain and heat.
“You’re very good for people, you know,” he said as he left.
“I used to think so, Philip. Nowadays I’m not so sure.” She shivered although she was in no draft.
“Good-bye and thank you…thank you again.”
She made no reply, she was sitting looking into the fire. He pulled the door after him and fastened the latch. He walked back along the lakeshore with a smarter step. Kit didn’t love anyone else. She would have told the hermit, they were great friends altogether. This was very good news, very good news indeed.
On that Saturday in November Martin McMahon told his wife Maura that they were going to get a new car. He had been discussing it with Stevie Sullivan but it was a surprise until now.
“That’s the one the great spit-and-polish job was being done in.” Maura was delighted. “I can tell you we’re not getting anything half looked at. Stevie was under the hood and lying under the chassis, examining every inch of it.”
“Are you pleased? We’ll be able to go on outings without fearing that it’ll never start again.” He was like an excited child.
“You’re the best husband that ever lived,” she said.
“I wasn’t always a good husband.” There was a shadow on his face.
Maura was annoyed that it had come back. “To me you always were, and are.”
“Yes, but I don’t know.” He tried hard to shrug off the mood.
She could see him almost physically struggling. She laid her hand on his arm. “Wherever Helen’s soul is today it’s at peace, Martin. We’ve told each other that so often…and we believe it. None of us can look back on any year, any hour even, and not wish that we had done something differently. But remember, we worked all this out. Time spent regretting is time wasted.”
He nodded. She could see the shadow beginning to lessen.
LENA Gray was explaining to Jim and Jessie Millar that she would be buying the car through the firm.
“But of course you can have a car,” Mr. Millar said. “Haven’t I asked you a dozen times to take something out of this firm that you built up to be what it is.”
“I won’t use it, Jim. It’s for my husband, so I want to pay for it.”
“No, the principle is still the same.”
“You don’t take things out of the firm for your own personal use, I will not either.”
KIT arranged that they should have a little party in Frankie’s flat. The girls would provide some wine, and cheese on biscuits. Later on at the hotel the boys would pay for drinks, so this sort of evened it out.
“They’re not coming back for coffee,” Frankie explained very firmly. “The landlady here has her hand on the phone to all of our mothers if a fellow comes into the house after ten o’clock.”
The others agreed. Bringing guys back to a flat afterward was asking for it. It was cheap.
Clio heard about the party and came down to challenge Kit.
“Why was I excluded?” she asked.
“You weren’t included, that’s a totally different thing. This is just friends to do with catering.”
“Kevin O’Connor is going,” Clio said.
“Yes. It may have escaped your notice and probably everyone else’s but he is meant to be in catering, you know.”
“Well, it may have escaped your notice that I happen to be going out with his brother,” Clio said.
“Clio, you and Michael can afford to go to the Gresham to a dance every night they have one,” Kit said.
“I wish I knew what you were planning to do with your life, Kit McMahon,” Clio said.
“So do I,” Kit agreed fervently.
The Blue Lagoon was showing in the town. It would have been great to go with Anna, but Emmet knew he mustn’t weaken. He saw Patsy Hanley walking disconsolately down the main street of Lough Glass. “Would you like to go to the pictures tonight?” he said quickly before he could change his mind.
Patsy blushed with pleasure. “Me? Just me, like a date?”
“Sure.”
“I’d love that,” she said, and scampered home to get organized.
Anna Kelly had intended to go to The Blue Lagoon with some of the girls from her class,
but fortunately for her pride she heard that Patsy Hanley was going to go with Emmet. They would all be on the same bus.
She wouldn’t let anyone see her being a wallflower. She would stay at home. In fact, she would stay at home alone because her mother and father would be having dinner at the Golf Club. Anna felt this was a very bad way of spending a Saturday night.
Philip sat with his father and mother in the dining room. The walls were a mournful brown, the tablecloths were stained with the memory of too many sauce bottles. The lighting was poor, and the service was slow.
Philip knew that this was not a hotel that would tempt anyone to make a return visit; it was not the place that would invite a business traveler to come back with his family. It was going to be a long and uphill road to transform it. He had hoped to have Kit McMahon at his side. And perhaps that hope was not so far-fetched. Sister Madeleine had been very confident and sure when she spoke. She had extraordinary piercing eyes; you believed everything they said, and she had assured him that Kit McMahon had no other love.
Philip sat trying to work out what other problems Kit might have that took up her time and attention. His parents looked at him without much pleasure.
“You’re gone for weeks on end and then not a word out of you when you come home,” his mother complained.
“You know, son, if you’re ever going to make any kind of a fist out of the hotel business you’re going to have to be outgoing, greet people,” said Philip’s father, Dan O’Brien, who had never been known to begin any conversation except with a list of moans and complaints.
“You’re right,” he said agreeably. “I’m luckier than a lot of the others, I have a hotel in my family where I can learn.”
They looked at him suspiciously, in case he was making fun of them, but could see no sign of it.
Philip nailed a smile to his face and wondered whether any other young man of his age was having such an appalling Saturday night.