There were wastepaper baskets not fully emptied, rings from cups left on desks, calendars not changed, flower water left to gather a little scum on it. She would have to be very diplomatic about all these things, make it appear that the staff had noticed them rather than she herself.
And also, she must smarten herself up as well as the office. She went to the salon after work. There were no questions from Grace West. But she was owed an explanation.
“He married a young girl who was pregnant. Her brothers are friends of my daughter. That’s what Louis did next,” she said.
“Married? He got a quick divorce, didn’t he?” Grace said.
“No need, not an official marriage between us.”
“I’m glad you have a daughter,” Grace said simply.
James Williams was waiting at the table.
“You look so well,” he said.
“I feel well now,” she said.
“And I was so worried about you, I tried to get in touch.”
“I know,” she said.
“But why didn’t you return any of my calls?”
“I wasn’t well then, but I am now. So here we are.” Her face was bright and cheerful.
“A glass of wine?” he suggested.
“Yes, I need it.”
“I fired Louis,” he said. “Did you know?”
“No, I didn’t know that. I thought he stayed there until last week.”
“No, I couldn’t bear to look at him after what he did to you.”
She was perfectly composed and calm. “I don’t know what I should say, I suppose I should thank you because you did it on my behalf…but the reason I asked you to lunch was to tell you that Louis has gone now out of my life. I won’t be talking about him, thinking about him, or referring back anymore…”
“Good,” he said approvingly.
“Yes, I went four days ago…that’s all it was, and watched him get married. It’s all gone now.”
“It won’t last, you know. He’ll cheat on her too.”
“You mean very well, James. But it’s no consolation or help to me to know how well rid of him I am. These things only come from within.”
“I think you’re perfectly right,” he said. “His name will not be spoken between us again, but…”
“Yes?”
“I hope we’ll be able to speak of other things like perhaps your coming to the theatre with me, or to see an art exhibition or just to go out anywhere.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “From time to time I would love to go out with you as any friend, but that would be it. I don’t want to anticipate anything on your part but I’ve learned that it’s better to, should there be any misunderstandings…”
“Indeed,” he murmured.
“I mean it, James. I’ve had two marriages as I call them, two long relationships. I haven’t an intention in the world of getting involved again.”
“I quite understand…”
“Not even a casual involvement. So if you’d like to be my friend we could buy each other the occasional lunch…”
“And dinner?” he said.
“And theatre ticket.” She entered into the spirit of the thing.
“And one could always live in hope?” he said.
“But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life.” She spoke with a steely edge to her voice. As if she knew that only too well.
He raised the glass to her. “To our friendship,” he said.
Ivy watched her like a hawk.
Often she dropped in on her landlady. They had enlarged the room by knocking down a wall. Now Ernest sat looking at the television a distance away, shielded by a big screen.
It was a screen that Lena had found for them, in a secondhand shop, she said. In fact it was an antique. It was exactly right for the room. It also meant she could sit and talk to Ivy undisturbed.
Sometimes she had coffee, often Ivy persuaded her to take a sandwich. She was looking better, Ivy said approvingly. Her skin was firm and young again, she had put on those few pounds that made her look less anxious, less drawn. Kit’s letters still came to Ivy even though there was no need. It was as if she sensed that Ivy liked being postman.
Sometimes Lena read her little extracts.
We went to see Sister Madeleine. She’s exactly the same in many ways. She works in the kitchen and in the yard. She has a pigeon with a false leg that she made herself. She has a hare, a poor old hare that sleeps in a box all day and eats cornflakes. It got hit on the head running away from something apparently and doesn’t know where it is.
She was so pleased to see me. She didn’t ask about you by name of course and not in front of Stevie. But she did want to know if everything was fine over in London, and I told her it was. It’s as if she were always there. If I tell her about people like Tommy, people she liked, she sort of looks vaguely away as if they were people she dreamed about once.
I wonder was she ever married. Remember I told you that tale she told Clio and myself years ago, and we kept it as such a secret? I asked Clio the other day what did she think. Clio said she’d forgotten it. I can’t believe she’s forgotten. It was the biggest secret we ever had when we were young. But then, Clio has her own secrets and problems these days. This time she’s almost definite that she’s pregnant. And she’s terrified to tell Michael.
“Isn’t it wonderful that she can tell you all these things?” Ivy marveled.
Lena agreed. No mother could talk like this to a daughter. But there was something, she wasn’t sure what it was, something about Stevie, that Kit wasn’t telling. But she wasn’t going to worry. She would tell one day…if it was important.
“I’m going to throw myself on your mercy,” Clio said to Kit.
“Don’t do that. You’ll only regret it.” They were in Kit’s flat. Clio had called unexpectedly.
“I need help desperately.”
“You’re sure, then, you’ve had a test?”
“Yes, I sent a sample of urine into Holles Street under a false name.”
“And you still haven’t told Michael?”
“I can’t, Kit. It’s too much for his father and mother. Two shotgun weddings in a few months.”
“But they won’t have to pay for your one, your mother and father will.”
“Jesus, I know. Why do you think I’m so afraid? I have to tell them too.”
“Well, get it over with as quick as possible. Tell Michael today and I’ll go home with you to Lough Glass and help you tell your parents. Now, will that do?” Kit looked at Clio, expecting to be thanked. She was being very generous. Clio had been nothing but dismissive and downright hostile about Stevie. Kit felt saintly to be returning such good for evil.
“No, that’s not the favor I want.”
“What else can I do?” Kit asked.
“I want to get an abortion.”
“You’re not serious?”
“It’s the only way.”
“You must be mad. Don’t you want to marry him? Don’t you keep saying that from morning to night? Now you have to. He has to.”
“He mightn’t.”
“Of course he will. Anyway, you can’t think of the other.”
“Lots of people do. If we only knew where to go…I wanted you to ask around.”
“Well, I’m asking nothing of the sort. Get ahold of yourself, Clio. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Clio was sobbing. “You don’t understand. You don’t know how awful it’s going to be. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Kit put her hand on Clio’s shoulder. “Remember when we were younger we used to count the good points about things…”
“Did we?”
“Yes. Now let’s see what are the plusses. He’s respectable, your parents can’t go berserk altogether as if it were someone like Stevie Sullivan.”
“That’s true,” Clio said, sniffing.
“You love him and you think h
e loves you.”
“I think he does, yes.”
“His family can cope with shotgun weddings. They’ve been through it, they know the sky doesn’t fall on you.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You can ask Maura to help you, intercede for you. She’s terrific about heading off rows, I’ve watched her.”
“Would she? I get the feeling she’s gone off me.”
“I’ll ask her to,” Kit said.
“But suppose, suppose…”
“And Maura could suggest you live in her flat, it’s a great place. Michael could buy it from her, she was thinking of selling it. It’s got a garden, it would be nice for a baby.”
“Baby!” wailed Clio.
“That’s what you’re having,” Kit explained.
“And will you be my bridesmaid?” Clio asked. “Suppose it all worked out?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you,” Kit said soothingly.
“And it needn’t be big. Just a few of us…we could have it in the Central. Just Michael’s family to come down, Mary Paula and Louis and…”
Kit’s blood went cold. Louis Gray couldn’t come to Lough Glass. She must think very fast. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have it at home. You know the way half the town will be offended if they’re not asked.”
“But if it’s small…”
“They’ll still be offended, the doctor’s daughter and we weren’t asked. You know how they are…”
“But where else?”
“Do you remember the place Maura got married? That was nice…and she’d be flattered if you asked her to try and set that up.”
“Kit, you’re very devious, you should have been an international spy,” Clio said in admiration.
The Central Hotel Lough Glass got four more bookings as a direct result of the New Year’s Eve Dinner Dance.
Philip began to panic. “We can’t have Christmas candles all over the place.”
“No, your parents are going to have to bite the bullet and get the place decorated. We can’t disguise the walls forever. And suppose you had to have a lunch, something the light of day might shine on…then they’d see what it’s really like.”
“Will you help me tell them?” he pleaded.
“Why me?” She felt she was involved with too much on too many levels.
“Because you sound businesslike and calm, and you don’t sound all up in a heap like the rest of us,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“What? Will I organize them a bank loan?” Kit asked with a grin.
“No, I want to ask you are you serious about Stevie Sullivan?”
“Now, Philip, we agreed…”
“We agreed that I wouldn’t discuss my feelings for you or show you any sign of them. I’ve kept to that, haven’t I?”
“Yes, of course you have. Yes indeed.”
“So could you tell me about Stevie?”
“Yes, I do love him a great deal. I didn’t love anyone ever before but now I do. It’s odd for someone to say it coldly out in the open, but you asked me and I’m telling you as a friend.”
“But Stevie, Kit? You know, we know, everyone knows what he’s like.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“No, you’re not going to be an ostrich about this. You and I used to make jokes about him and Orla Dillon and Deirdre Hanley and everything that moved.”
“Yes, that was then and this is now. And I hope you won’t be part of any jokes about him and Kit McMahon, that would not be the action of a friend.”
“But I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t warn you and say maybe it’s an infatuation or something. People are beginning to talk and they’re very surprised.”
“Thank you, Philip. I know you mean well, and truly I thank you for it. Now, can we go back to talking about the hotel and what kind of pressure I’m going to have to bring to bear on poor Dan and Mildred.”
The huge refurbishment of the Central Hotel began almost at once.
Even if Dr. Kelly and his wife had wanted to hold the reception there they would not have been able. They were greatly helped over the whole distressing business by Maura.
“She’s been so good to Clio,” Lilian said over and over. “And I always thought that there was a bit of friction between them of late.”
“Goes to show how wrong we are,” Peter Kelly said. He was surprised at how strongly he felt about the news of his daughter’s pregnancy. And at how casually it was being taken by Michael O’Connor, the young man responsible, and by Clio herself.
They all seemed to think that because Maura was selling them her flat that everything was falling into place. There was no mention of all the illicit sex that had led to this. Dr. Kelly came from the generation where there was no sexual activity until you married. How had everything changed in his own family without his being aware of it?
“I’m sure you knew, Daddy? You must have known I was pregnant,” Clio asked him.
“No, no. I assure you it came as a very great shock to me.”
“But doctors often know,” she persisted.
“Not this one.”
For no reason at all there came to his mind a memory, a memory of the night a long time ago when he had seen Helen McMahon and realized she was pregnant. And then she had thrown herself in the lake. At least the world had changed in some respects for the better, he thought to himself, and patted his daughter’s arm.
“I’ll tell you about what you’ll wear as the bridesmaid,” Clio said. “I’m going to talk to Mary Paula about it tonight, and we’ll choose what everyone will wear.”
“No, that’s not the way round it at all. I’ll tell you what I’m wearing as your bridesmaid,” Kit said.
“What?”
“I’m wearing a cream silk dress with a jacket to match and depending on what you want I’ll either wear a big picture hat or some concoction of flowers and ribbons in my hair. It’s three-quarters length. I am not wearing an evening dress to parade up an icy cold church, and I’m not dressing up in fancy-dress outfits for whatever color scheme you and Mary Paula think up…”
“I—I don’t believe you,” Clio gasped.
“You’d better believe me, that’s what you’re going to get, or else change your bridesmaid.”
“I might easily do that.”
“It’s your privilege, Clio. And please understand me that I don’t mind at all if you do. There’ll be no falling-out.” In many ways it would be marvelous if they could fall out. Then she wouldn’t have to go to a family gathering and meet Louis. Mother’s Louis. But a serious falling-out would cloud the day for too many people.
Kit sighed.
“I don’t know what you’re sighing about,” Clio said. “I’m the one putting up with all this. I’m the bride, for God’s sake. People are meant to be nice to me.”
“I am nice to you,” Kit hissed at her. “I told you that clown would marry you, I told you about Maura as a middleman, about her flat, about the hotel in Dublin. Jesus, Mary, and Holy Saint Joseph, how much bloody nicer could I have been?”
Her violent outburst made them both laugh.
“You win,” said Clio. “I’ll tell Mary Paula I’ve a mad bridesmaid. Just another cross to bear.”
Would you and Stevie come over to London? There’s a special Car and Motor Show, Lena wrote. He’d love that and it would mean you and I could catch up on chat. Let me know if it’s a good idea, and here’s the fare anyway. I’m not paying for Stevie so that he’ll have his pride, and he might use that as a real chance to see new cars and meet people.
Let me know what you think.
Kit rang Lena.
“I opened it five minutes ago. We’d love to come to London. Now, how about that for being eager.”
“And Stevie? He’d love it too?”
Lena’s voice was light and happy that they were going to accept.
“He doesn’t know yet but he’s going t
o be thrilled. When I tell him.”
“You sound very sure of him,” Lena said.
“I’m very sure he’d like this,” Kit said.
“Where are you? Let me imagine where you are now.”
“I’m in the phone box outside my flat. You know, the one you made the calls from when you were booking the plane.”
“I know it well, I can see you there now.”
“Well, you should see the big smile on my face.”
“I can imagine it. I can nearly see it,” Lena said.
Philip was walking along the road.
“You look very cheerful,” he said accusingly. It was so like something his mother would say.
She wondered did she have some of the same expressions as her mother. Perhaps everyone did. Take Clio—she said the same snobby things that Mrs. Kelly did, and Frankie Barry was shruggy and couldn’t-care-less like her mother.
Perhaps I really am going to live the same kind of life as my mother, Kit thought with a shock. She looked at Philip as if she had never seen him before.
“Hey, Kit, take it easy…I mean it’s good to look cheerful,” he said.
“What?”
“Listen, are you awake yet? You’re like someone sleepwalking,” Philip grumbled.
She linked his arm on the way to college. They talked about things that they were not thinking about. Philip was wondering if Stevie. Sullivan and Kit had gone all the way. Kit was wondering what Philip and all the O’Briens would say if she told them she was cheerful because her long-dead mother had just invited her over to London.
I’ve booked you in a guest house near here. Two single rooms. You’re my guests, you can make your own arrangements about the beds, Lena wrote.
No need for any arrangements, I told you I’d tell you if there is any of that, Kit wrote.
“I’ve friends coming over…I’ll put that plan we have on hold for a couple of weeks,” Lena told the Millars at the Saturday lunch.