“Will we get Peter?”
“No we will not get Peter,” she snapped. “I want to talk to you by yourself. Will you come out for a walk with me?”
“Now? But aren’t we going upstairs to have the meal that’s on the table for us?” He was utterly bewildered by her.
“I told Rita that you and I would not be having our meal today, I made you a few sandwiches.” She had a neat packet wrapped in grease-proof paper. “I have to talk to you.” Her voice was not menacing, but yet Martin seemed to fear her words.
“Listen, love, I’m a working man, I can’t go off wandering where the fancy takes me,” he said.
“It’s early closing today.”
“But I have…I have a hundred things to do—will we bring those sandwiches upstairs and have them with Rita? Wouldn’t that be grand?”
“I don’t want to talk in front of Rita…”
“You know, I don’t think you should be talking at all—come on now, and I’ll settle you into your bed, and we’ll have no more of this nonsense.” His voice was the same as when he was taking a splinter out of a child’s finger, or painting iodine onto a cut knee. He was soothing and full of encouragement.
Helen’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Martin, what am I going to do with you?” she asked.
He patted her hand. “You’re going to smile at me. There is nothing on this earth that is not made better by a good smile.”
She forced a smile and he dusted away the teardrops.
“What did I tell you?” he said triumphantly. He was still holding her hand, and they looked like a happy couple sharing a secret, a life together and maybe a loving moment, when the door opened and Lilian Kelly came in followed by her sister Maura, who had come on a visit as she did every year around this time.
“Well, isn’t this the way to live, like a courting couple in the middle of all the potions and the bottles,” Lilian laughed.
“Hallo Helen, and there isn’t a pick on you this year as well.” Maura was a plump woman like her sister, bustling and enthusiastic, a great golfer. She worked for a horse trainer and it had been said that she had hopes of him. The hopes had not materialized. Maura must be forty now, but always cheerful and full of activity.
They pulled up the two tall chairs that Martin McMahon kept for customers to use, and an ashtray was produced as both Lilian and Maura smoked the Gold Flakes, waving them around as they gestured or exclaimed at whatever was being said.
Martin noticed Helen back away a little from the smoke. “Will I open the door a bit?” he suggested.
She gave him a grateful look.
“You’ll freeze us all to death, Martin.”
“It’s just that Helen’s a bit…” He was protective.
“Aren’t you well?” Lilian was sympathetic.
“I’m fine, just a bit nauseous today, I don’t know why.”
“Would it be the oldest reason in the book, do you think?” Lilian was arch.
Helen looked at her levelly. “I don’t think so,” she said with a faint smile.
She stood in the street, gulping the cold air. It was chilly even for the end of October, and there was a mist coming up from the lake. Still, it brought more color to her cheeks.
“Listen, we called because we’re going to treat ourselves to lunch in the Central. Ah come on, Helen. It’s early-closing day—Peter’ll come down too, to make an occasion out of it. You will come, won’t you?”
Helen looked at her husband. A few moments ago he had been pleading that he had hundreds of things to do. He couldn’t take the time off on early-closing day to be alone with her. And yet now there was the chance of an outing with a group, he was obviously dying to go.
“Well, I don’t know, I really don’t know…” he said.
Helen said not a word to help him decide.
“We don’t do this kind of thing very often.” Lilian Kelly was trying to be persuasive.
“Martin, I insist.” Maura seemed eager too. “Come on now, it’d be my treat, all of you. Let me do this—I’d love it.” She beamed at them all.
“Helen, what do you think?” He was as eager as a boy. “Will we be devils?”
Lilian and Maura almost clapped their hands with enthusiasm.
“You go, Martin, please. I can’t, I’m afraid. I have to go…” Helen waved her hand vaguely in a direction that could have meant anywhere.
Nobody questioned why she wouldn’t come, or where she was going.
The Brothers had a half day on Wednesday, the convent did not. Emmet McMahon went to Sister Madeleine and read the Lays of Ancient Rome with her; over and over he told the story about how Horatius kept the bridge. She closed her eyes and said she could see it all, those brave young men fighting off the enemy hordes, just three of them and then being flung into the Tiber. Emmet began to see it too, and he spoke it with great confidence.
“‘O Tiber, Father Tiber / To whom the Romans pray—’” He interrupted himself. “Why did the Romans pray to a river?”
“They thought it was a god.”
“They must have been mad.”
“I don’t know,” Sister Madeleine speculated. “It was a very powerful river, rushing and foaming, and it was their livelihood in many ways…a bit like God to them, I suppose.” Sister Madeleine found nothing surprising.
“Can you show me the little fox you showed Kit?” he asked.
“Certainly, but tell me more about those brave Romans first, I love to hear about them.”
And Emmet McMahon, who had not been able to say his own name in public with any hope of finishing it, stood and declaimed the verses of Lord Macaulay as if it were his mission in life.
“Aunt Maura’ll be at home when I get back,” Clio said.
“That’s nice for you,” Kit said.
“Yes, she said she’d teach us golf. Would we learn?”
Kit considered it. It would be a very grown-up thing to do, certainly. It would put them in a different class to those who just collected golf balls. But Kit felt a resistance. She wondered why. Possibly because her mother didn’t play, Mother had never shown any interest in the game at all. It seemed a bit disloyal somehow for Kit to learn, as if she didn’t agree with her mother’s choice.
“I’ll think about it,” she said eventually.
“With you that means no,” Clio said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I know you very well.” Clio spoke menacingly.
Kit resolved to discuss the golf with her mother that evening; if Mam encouraged her to go ahead, she would. That would show Clio Kelly that she wasn’t always right.
“Don’t give me very much, Rita. I had a meal that you wouldn’t give to a condemned man there was so much on the plate,” Martin McMahon said ruefully.
“Why did you eat all that, Daddy?” Emmet asked.
“We went on an outing to the hotel as a treat.”
“How much did it cost?” Emmet wondered.
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth, Clio’s auntie Maura paid for all of us.”
“Did Mother enjoy it?” Kit was pleased there had been an outing.
“Ah. Your mother wasn’t able to come with us.”
“Where is Mother now?”
“She’ll be back later,” Dad said.
Kit wished she were there now, she wanted to talk about the golf to her. Why did everyone think it was so normal for Mother not to be around anymore?
Clio came around after tea. “Well, what did you decide?”
“Decide?”
“About golf. Aunt Maura wants to know.”
“No she doesn’t. You want to know.” Kit knew that and said it very definitely.
“Well, she would want to know.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“What’ll we do, then?” Clio looked around Kit’s bedroom, waiting for inspiration, or an invitation to look at the dance steps of the cha-cha-cha, which they had nearly mastered. The pattern o
f where the feet should go was worse than geometry with Mother Bernard.
“I don’t know,” Kit said. She wanted to hear Mother’s light step on the stair.
There was a silence. “Are we having a fight?” Clio asked.
Kit was full of remorse. She nearly told her best friend that she was just worried because Mother wasn’t home. Nearly, but she didn’t.
“Clio didn’t stay long.” Kit’s father was drawing the curtains in the sitting room.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Another fight?”
“No, she asked that too,” Kit said.
“Good, that’s a relief.”
“Daddy? Where’s Mother?”
“She’ll be back, love, she likes people not to be policing her.”
“But where is she?”
“I don’t know, love. Come on now, and stop pacing the room like a caged animal.”
Kit sat down and looked at the patterns in the fire. She saw houses and castles, and big fiery mountains. The same pattern never appeared twice. She looked at her father from time to time.
He sat with a book on his lap, but never turned a page.
In the kitchen Rita sat beside the range. The Aga was a comfort on a windy night like this. She thought of people who had no home, like the Old Woman of the Roads in the poem. They had a framed print from the Cuala Press of the poem by Padraic Colum up on the wall. It was a great thing to have a bit of comfort.
She wondered about the tinker women traveling on and on in those damp caravans, about Sister Madeleine, who didn’t know where the next crust was going to come from but it never worried her. Someone would bring her wood for the fire, or potatoes to cook.
And Rita thought about the Mistress.
What would have her, a fine young woman with a family that adored her, wandering about down by the lake on a cold, windy night like this, instead of sitting by the fire in her own room with the thick velvet curtains drawn.
“People are funny, Farouk,” Rita said to the cat.
Farouk leaped up on the windowsill and looked out over the backyards of Lough Glass, as if he too might have been out wandering had he the mind.
Emmet was in bed, Father was straining, listening for the sound of the door. Kit felt the ticktock of the clock going through her, almost shaking her body. Why did they have a clock with such a loud sound, or maybe it had just got louder. Kit hadn’t remembered it like this before, dominating the whole house.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Mother were there teaching her some game. Mother said you could learn any game from a book, there was no such thing as having a head for that sort of thing or having a good card sense, you did it for yourself.
Soon they would hear the door opening and Mother’s light step running up the stair. Father would never ask her what kept her out so late…even though this was surely later than she had ever been out before.
Perhaps he should ask her, Kit thought with a surge of impatience. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t what Clio would call normal.
And then they heard the sound at the door downstairs. Kit felt the color return to her face. She and her father exchanged conspiratorial glances of relief, the relief that would not be mentioned when Mother came in. But the door didn’t open. It wasn’t Mother, it was somebody rattling the door trying to turn the handle and then resorting to knocking. Kit’s father ran down to answer it.
It was Dan O’Brien from the hotel, and his son, Philip. They were wet and moving very slowly.
Kit watched them from the top of the stairs. It felt as if everything were moving very slowly.
“Martin, I’m sure everything’s all right,” Dan began.
“What is it, man? Tell me. Speak, God damn you.” Father was in a panic, wanting the words which Mr. O’Brien didn’t seem able to say.
“I’m sure it’s all fine, the children are home, aren’t they…?”
“What is it, Dan?”
“It’s the boat, your boat…your boat, Martin. It’s cut loose and it’s upside down drifting, there’s fellows pulling it in. I said I’d run up and see…make sure the children were at home.” Dan O’Brien seemed relieved to see the two faces peering down at him. Emmet had come from his bed in his pajamas and sat huddled on the top of the stairs.
“Well, sure, it’s only a boat…and there’s maybe not much damage.” He stopped.
Martin McMahon was holding him by the lapels of his jacket. “Was there anyone in the boat…?”
“Martin, now, aren’t the children there behind you…”
“Helen?” Martin almost sobbed out the word.
“Helen? Sure what would Helen be doing down there at that time of night? Martin, it’s a quarter to ten, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Helen…” Father cried, and ran out in the rain, leaving the door open.
“Helen…” they heard him cry as he ran down the one street of Lough Glass toward the lake.
That was the bit that was all very slow, the bit that Kit heard with the words taking ages to come out of Father’s mouth and Mr. O’Brien’s, even though they looked as if they were shouting…and even when Father ran…his legs seemed to be going up and down the way they showed the slow-motion bits in athletics at Pathé News when you saw people doing the high jump or the long jump.
Then things returned to normal speed and Kit saw Emmet’s frightened face looking up at her.
“What’s happened?” he began, but he couldn’t get the word out, his lips kept circling the start of “happened” and he seemed as if he would choke before he said it.
And at the same time, Rita had run to close the hall door, which was banging in and out, while Philip O’Brien stood looking foolish, unable to help.
“Either come in or go out,” Rita snapped at the boy.
He came in and followed her up the stairs.
“There was nobody there,” he said to Kit. “I mean your mother wasn’t in it or anything. They all thought that it was you kids tricking and trick-acting with the boat.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Kit said in a voice that felt as if it were coming from somewhere else.
“Where’s Daddy?” Emmet couldn’t get that word out either; Emmet, who could read every poem in the Primary Certificate Primer.
“He’s gone to bring Mother home,” Kit said. And she listened to the words to see what they meant. They sounded safe. She said them again. “That’s where he’s gone, to bring Mother home.”
They had flashlights down at the lake.
Sergeant O’Connor was there, and Peter Kelly, and the two Sullivan boys from the garage.
They were bending over the boat when they heard the sound of running feet and noises in Martin McMahon’s throat. “It’s not Helen. Tell me you haven’t found Helen in the lake.” His eyes went from one to another, the semicircle of men he had known all his life. Young Stevie Sullivan looked away; the tears pouring down a man’s face were too naked to look at.
“Please, tell me?” Martin said again.
Peter Kelly pulled himself together. With his arm around the shaking man he moved him away from the group. “Now, Martin, will you catch ahold of yourself. What brought you running down here anyway?”
“Dan came to the house, he said the boat—”
“God blast that great interfering Dan O’Brien into the pit of hell, what did he have to go upsetting you for…”
“Is she…?”
“Martin, there’s nothing here, man. Nothing except a boat that wasn’t tied up. It was blown out into the lake…that’s all there is.”
Martin stood trembling beside his old friend. “She didn’t come home, Peter. I sat there saying she’s never been as late as this. I wanted to come looking for her. If only I’d come. But she wanted to be left alone; she said she felt like a prisoner unless she could walk on her own.”
“I know, I know.” Dr. Kelly was listening and patting the man’s shaking shoulders, but he was looking around him too.
In the tree
s the oil lamps shone through the windows of the caravans. The travelers might have a fire built in a sheltered spot. He could make out their shapes; they stood watchful, silent, observing the confusion and drama on the lake’s edge.
“I’ll bring you up there out of the wind,” Peter Kelly said. “They’ll give you somewhere to shelter, till we make sure that everything…” His voice trailed away as if he sensed the uselessness of his words.
Peter Kelly had always been of two minds about the traveling people. He knew for a fact that they took poultry from nearby farms, there weren’t enough rabbits in those trees to keep them in food. He knew that some of the boys could be troublesome if they came into Paddles’ bar. But to be fair, they were often provoked into anger by locals.
Peter wished they could see that the traveling life didn’t offer much opportunity to the children of their group. The youngsters could barely read and write. They never stayed long enough anywhere for any education to sink in if they were welcomed in the school, which wasn’t always the case. They had little need of his services. They coped with birth, illness, and death in their way. And their way often had more fortitude and dignity than the other way. He had never approached them for a favor before.
“Could you give this man something to throw around his shoulders?” he asked a group of unsmiling men.
The men parted and from behind came a woman with a big rug and a cup of something that had steam coming from it. They sat Martin McMahon on a fallen tree nearby. “Do you want any help?” said one of the dark men.
“I’d be grateful if you could bring more light down to the shore,” Peter said simply. And he knew that for the rest of his life he would not be able to remove the image of his friend sitting on a log wrapped in a rug while the whole encampment lit up with the blazing torches made from dipping tar-covered sticks into the fire.
And then there was the procession down to the edge of the lake.
Martin hugged himself in the rug and moaned. Over and over he said, “She’s not in the lake, she’d have let me know. Helen never told me a lie. She said she wouldn’t do anything without letting me know.”