The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue: The Country Girls / Girl with Green Eyes / Girls in Their Married Bliss

by Edna O'Brien

  The old white beehive was still there, in the corner of the kitchen garden. Two of the legs had come off so that it sagged a little to one side.

  “What’ll you do with the beehive?” I asked Hickey. A few years before that he had decided to keep bees. He thought he would get very rich by selling the honey to all the local people, and he made the hive himself in the evenings, after work. Then he got a swarm of heather honey bees out in the mountain, and he was very excited about all the money he was going to make. But like everything else, it failed. The bees stung him, and he roared and yelled in the kitchen garden and made Mama get him a hot poultice. For some reason or another he never got any honey, and he got rid of the bees by smothering them.

  “What’ll you do with it?” I asked again.

  “Let it rot,” he said. His voice was somewhat weary, and I think he sighed, because he knew what failures we all were. The place was gone, Mama was gone; the flag was white with hen dirt, and there were thistles and ragwort covering every inch of the front lawn.

  “I’ll convey you,” said Hickey, and he linked me as we walked down the field in the dusk. It was chilly and the cows were lying under the trees with their eyes wide open, staring at us. Dogs barked in the distance. The grass was quiet, and two bats flew in front of us.

  “Don’t grow up to be a snotty-nose now, when you go to that convent,” he said.

  “I’m afraid of Baba; she makes so little of me, Hickey.”

  “ ‘Tis a kick in the backside she wants, the little upstart. I’d give her something to make her afraid.” But he didn’t say what.

  “I’ll send you an odd bob from England,” he said, to cheer me up. He left me at Baba’s gate and went down to the Greyhound Hotel to have a few drinks. It was after hours but he preferred drinking then.

  Upstairs in Baba’s room I took out the three five-pound notes that I had hidden inside my vest since earlier in the evening. They were warm and I hid them under the pillow. I decided to go to Limerick next day to buy my school uniform. When Baba came up she tried to waken me. She plucked at my eyelashes and tickled my face with the wet stem of a snapdragon. I had brought over a bunch from home and put them in a vase beside the bed.

  If I wakened she might find out that I was going to Limerick and she would come with me and spoil my day.

  “Declan.” She called her brother from the bathroom.

  “Isn’t she like a pig asleep?” she said, and drew back the covers so that he could see the full length of my body. I felt chilly when she did that and drew my feet up under my nightgown.

  “She snores like a bloody sow,” she said, and I almost sat up and called her a liar. Next thing, the two of them were boxing and Declan knocked her onto the floor while she yelled for Molly.

  “Say that again. Say that again,” he said, holding one of my shoes over her. I could see them by peering through my eyelashes. Declan was my friend that night.

  After she got into bed, Baba kept saying, “She’s coming. She’s appearing. She’s coming back to tell you to give me all her jewelry.” But no matter what she said, I stayed perfectly still and kept my eyes closed.

  The moon shone in on us and there was a streak of silver light across the carpeted floor. I slept badly, and when the grandfather clock struck seven I got out of bed and carried my clothes off to the bathroom. I forgot my money and I had to go back for it. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow and she stirred a little when I was coming away. “Cait, Cait,” she called me, but I didn’t answer her. She must have gone to sleep, because I came down to the kitchen and dressed there in front of the Aga cooker. I was delighted to be going off for the whole day, away from everybody.

  7

  I was standing outside the gate waiting for the bus when Mr. Gentleman’s car passed by and went up the street. It stopped outside the garage on the hill for petrol; then he turned around and came back.

  “Are you going somewhere, Caithleen?” he asked, winding down the window. I said that I was going to Limerick and he said to sit in. So I sat on the black leather seat beside him and my heart fluttered. The moment I heard him speak and the moment I looked at his eyes, my heart always fluttered. His eyes were tired or sad or something. He smoked little cigars and threw the butts out the window.

  “Are they horrible?” I asked. I had to say something.

  “Here, try one,” he said, and he took the cigar out of his mouth and handed it to me. I was thinking of his mouth, of the shape of it, and the taste of his tongue, while I had one short, self-conscious puff. I began to cough at once. I said it was worse than horrible, and he laughed. He drove very fast.

  We parked the car down a side street, and I thanked him and went off. He was locking the door. I hated leaving him. There was something about him that made me want to be with him. He called me back. “What about lunch, Caithleen?” I intended having tea and cream buns but I didn’t tell him that.

  “Would you like to meet me?”

  I said that I would. His eyes were still sad, but I was singing as I came away.

  “You won’t forget, will you?”

  “No, Mr. Gentleman, I won’t forget.” I hurried off to the shops.

  I went into the biggest shop on the main street. Mama always shopped there. I asked a woman who was down on her knees scrubbing the floor where I’d go for a gym frock.

  “Fourth floor, love. Take the lift.” She had no teeth when she smiled. I gave her a shilling. I had saved three shillings on my bus fare. I could afford to be extravagant.

  I got into the lift. A small boy with a buttoned tunic operated it.

  “I want a gym frock,” I said. He ignored me.

  I sat on a stool in the corner, because it was my first time in a lift and I felt dizzy. We passed three floors with a click at each floor; then it clicked, stopped, and he let me out. The gym-frock counter was directly opposite and I went across.

  Afterward I weighed myself in the cloakroom and learned that I was seven pounds too light. There was a chart printed on the side of the scales that gave the correct weight for each person’s height.

  I went down the stairs. The carpet was worn but it was soft under the feet. In the basement I bought presents for everybody. A scarf for Dada, a penknife for Hickey, a boat-shaped bottle of perfume for Baba, and pink hand cream for Martha. Then I came out onto the street and looked in a jewelry window. I saw a lot of watches that I liked. I went into a big church at the corner, to have three wishes. We were told that we had three wishes whenever we went into a new church. The holy water wasn’t in a font like at home, but there was a drop at the end of a narrow tap, and I put my finger under it and blessed myself. I wished that Mama was in heaven, that my father would never drink again, and that Mr. Gentleman would not forget to come at one o’clock.

  I came to the hotel a half hour before the time so that I wouldn’t miss him, and I was afraid to go inside to the hall in case a porter should tell me that I had no right to be there.

  He had had a haircut, and as he came up the steps his face looked sharp and I could see the tops of his ears. Before that they were hidden under a soft fall of fine gray hair. He smiled at me. My heart fluttered once again, and I found it hard to speak.

  “Men prefer to kiss young girls without lipstick, you know,” he said. He was referring to the two thin lines of pink lipstick that I had put on. I bought a tube in Woolworth’s and went round to the mirror counter and applied it in front of a mirror that showed all the pores on my face.

  “I wasn’t thinking of kissing. I never kiss anyone,” I said.

  “Never?” He was teasing me. I knew by the way he smiled.

  “No. Nobody. Only Hickey.”

  “Nobody else?” I shook my head, and he caught my elbow as we went into the dining room. My arms were thin and white and I was ashamed of them.

  It was my first time in a city hotel. I decided to have the cheapest thing on the menu.

  “I’ll have Irish stew,” I said.

  “No, you will
not,” he replied. He was cross, but it wasn’t real crossness, only pretending. He ordered little chickens for both of us. Another waiter brought a tall, slender, dark-green bottle of wine. There was a bowl of mixed flowers on the table between us, but they had no smell.

  He poured some wine into his own glass, sipped it, and smiled. Then he poured some into mine. I had my confirmation pledge, but I was ashamed to tell him. He was smiling at me all the time. It was a sad smile and I liked it.

  “Tell me about your day.”

  “I bought my school uniform and I walked around. That’s all.”

  The wine was bitter. I would have rather’d lemonade. I had ice cream afterward, and Mr. Gentleman had a white cheese with green threads of mold in it. It smelled like Hickey’s socks, not the new socks I bought him, but the old ones under his mattress.

  “That was lovely,” I said, pushing my plate over to the edge of the table, where it would be handy for the waiter to get it.

  “It was,” he agreed. I didn’t know whether Mr. Gentleman was shy, or whether it was that he was just too lazy to talk. Or bored. He was no good for small talk.

  “We must have another lunch someday,” he said.

  “I’m going away next week,” I replied.

  “Going away to America? Too bad we’ll never meet one another again.” I think he thought he was being very funny. He drank some more wine, and his eyes got very large and very, very wistful. They met mine for as long as I wanted.

  “So you tell me that you have never kissed anyone?” he said. He had a way of looking at me that made me feel innocent. He was staring now. Sometimes directly into my pupils, other times his eyes would roam all over my face and settle for a minute on my neck. My neck. My neck was snow-white and I was wearing a silk dress with a curved neckline. It was an ice-blue dress with blossoms on it. Sometimes I thought they were tiny apple blossoms, and then again I thought the pattern was one of snow falling; but either way it was a nice dress, and the skirt was composed of millions of little pieces that flowed when I walked.

  “The next time we have lunch, don’t wear lipstick,” he said. “I prefer you without it.”

  The coffee was bitter. I used four lumps of sugar. We came out and went to the pictures. He bought me a box of chocolates with a ribbon on it.

  I cried halfway through the picture because there was a sad bit about a boy having to leave a girl in order to go off to war. He laughed when he saw me crying and whispered that we should go out. He took my hand as we went up the dark passage, and out in the vestibule he wiped my eyes and told me to smile.

  We drove home while it was still bright. The hills in the distance were blue and the trees in the folds of the hills were a dusty lilac. Farmers were saving hay in fields along the roadside and children were sitting on haycocks eating apples and throwing cores over the ditch. The smell of hay came through the window, half spice, half perfume.

  A woman wearing Wellingtons was driving cows home to be milked. We had to slow down to let them in a side gate, and I caught him looking at me. We smiled at each other, and his hand came off the steering wheel and rested on the lap of my ice-blue dress. My hand was waiting for it. We locked our fingers, and for the rest of the journey we drove like that, except going around sharp bends. His hand was small and white and very smooth. There were no hairs on it.

  “You’re the sweetest thing that ever happened to me,” he said. It was all he said and it was only a whisper. Afterward, lying in bed in the convent, I used to wonder whether he said it or whether I had imagined it.

  He squeezed my hand before I got out of the car. I thanked him and reached into the back seat for my packages. He sighed, as if he were going to say something, but Baba ran out to the car and he slipped away from me.

  My soul was alive; enchantment; something I had never known before. It was the happiest day of my whole life.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Gentleman,” I said through the window. There was an odd expression in his smile, which seemed to be saying, “Don’t go.” But he did go, my new god, with a face carved out of pale marble and eyes that made me sad for every woman who hadn’t known him.

  “What’n the hell are you mooning about?” Baba asked, and I went into the house laughing.

  “I bought you a present,” I said, and in my mind I kept singing it, “You’re the sweetest thing that ever happened to me.” It was like having a precious stone in my pocket, and I had only to say the words in order to feel it, blue, precious, enchanting … my deathless, deathless song.

  8

  The last view I had of home was in the rain. We drove past the gate in Mr. Brennan’s car, and there was a white horse galloping over the front field.

  “Goodbye, home,” I said, wiping the steam from the inside of the window so that I could wave and have a last look at the rusty iron gate and the avenue of dripping trees.

  My handkerchief was wet from crying. I had cried all morning. I cried saying goodbye to Hickey and Molly and Maisie at the hotel; and Baba cried, too. Baba and I weren’t speaking.

  Martha sat between us, and we each looked out the window at our own side, but there wasn’t much more to see—the wind-bent hedges, the melancholy mountains, and wet hens huddled in farmyards.

  My father sat in front talking to Mr. Brennan.

  “This is a good car now. How many miles do you get to the gallon?” my father asked. He called Mr. Brennan “Doc” and lit two cigarettes at a time. He gave one to Mr. Brennan. “Here, Doc.” Mr. Brennan mumbled his thanks. He never addressed my father by name.

  Martha lit one of her own, out of spite. My father neglected her. He had no interest in women.

  I began to worry if I had forgotten anything, and went over the contents of my case. I wondered had I put in the small things, and if there were name tapes on all my underwear. Baba had printed name tapes from Dublin, but I wrote my name with marking ink on strips of white tape, and stitched the tape onto my clothes. I hate stitching, so Molly did most of it for me, and I gave her two of Mama’s dresses in return. The cake and the two jars of honey Mrs. Tuohey gave me were in a travel bag, and I had Jack Holland’s fountain pencil clipped to the front of my gym frock. I had the doll’s tea set in the travel bag, too. All the little cups and saucers wrapped in separate pieces of tissue paper, and the teapot and sugar bowl were in a nest of chaff. I took the chaff out of the bottom row of Mr. Gentleman’s box of chocolates. There were only a few sweets in the bottom row, all the rest was chaff. I thought of writing to the makers to complain, because there was a slip of paper which said that people should write in if they weren’t satisfied, but in the end I didn’t bother.

  The doll’s tea service was the only thing I brought from home. I always liked it. I used to sit and look at it in the china cabinet, just sit there admiring it in the sunlight. It was pale-blue china and it looked very tender and breakable. I mean, even more breakable than ordinary china. Mama gave it to me the Christmas I discovered there was no Santa Claus. At least, the Christmas Baba told me that I was a bloody fool to believe in Santa Claus, when every halfwit knew that it was your damn mother or father dressed up. When my mother gave me the tea set I asked if I might put it in the china cabinet. I was very grown-up that way; I never played with toys, or broke them, or dismantled them, like other children. I had five dolls, each without a scratch. Mama often put a lump of sugar into one of the little cups as a surprise for me; and every time I lost a tooth I put it in one of these cups at night, and in the morning the tooth was gone and there was a sixpence in its place. Mama said that the fairies left the money when they were dancing down in the room at night.

  Remembering these little things made me cry, and my father looked back and said, “You’d think you were going to America. Sure we’ll visit you every few Sundays, won’t we, Doc?” I could hardly tell him that I wasn’t crying for him. I could hardly say, “I don’t care if you never visit me,” or “I’ll be happier in the convent than at home in the gate lodge, coaxing a fire with damp sticks, and w
orrying about the whiff of whiskey on your breath.” But I said nothing. I was trying to control my tears, and I prayed that I would last the journey without having to root in the case for a clean handkerchief. The case was under Martha’s feet.

  “Now you two must make it up,” Martha said. We looked at one another, and Baba drooped her eyelids until the lashes were fluttering on her cheeks. They were long lashes, like daisy petals dyed coal black. “Be off, trash,” she said, between her teeth, and she turned away again.

  I felt like a crow in my navy serge gym frock and my navy knitted jumper. A woman in the village who owned a knitting machine made it for me as a present. I got a lot of presents after Mama’s death. People pitying me, I suppose. My legs were thin and sad in the black cotton stockings, and they were itchy, too, because I had been used to wearing no stockings all the summer. I was thin and much too tall for my fourteen years.

  “Jesus, they’ll say you have worms,” Baba said, the night I fitted on my uniform. She looked pretty in hers, plump and round. Her curly hair was cut short, her face brown from the sun, and she looked like an autumn nut, brown and smooth.

  “What is it, anyhow, between you two?” Martha asked. Neither of us spoke.