Sarah Love

by Geraldine O'Neill

  Rose nodded her head. “That’s a good idea. It would make a bit of a change from here.”

  After he left the bar, Rose had a heavy feeling in her chest. The sort of feeling she got when she heard bad news. Why did Hannah have to spoil everything?

  There was a time when they were younger when she had really liked her cousin – but that had changed. It was hard to like somebody when you couldn’t trust them. Hannah had shown herself to be a liar on a number of occasions. She had no hesitation in making a story up on the spur of the moment to get herself out of an awkward situation. And she had involved Rose on a couple of occasions without even warning her about what she was going to say.

  Rose tried to get on with her work now and not let the fact that Michael Murphy had enquired after Hannah annoy her. As she briskly dried the glasses to a fine polish, she comforted herself with the knowledge that Hannah wouldn’t be coming to the next dance in any case.

  Rose couldn’t put her finger on what she actually liked about Michael, because he was – and always had been – a fairly deep and quiet type. Of course the fact that he worked in a bank – which made him a cut above the other local lads – was certainly a factor. But an even bigger attraction was the fact that he could play almost any tune on the fiddle. Even the older men grudgingly admitted that he was the best player they’d ever had in the area. He was the best fiddle player for miles.

  But it was more than that. There was something about Michael Murphy’s eyes – a strange, almost sad quality – that made her want to put her arms around him.

  A short while later the few older men at the fire were finishing off the last mouthful of their whiskies for closing time and the younger lads finishing the dregs of their pints when the shop door went again.

  Trained to the sound, Rose turned automatically and was moving down the step when she saw the petite but striking figure glide inside, clad in her customary waxed green hat and coat. There were only a few people Rose dreaded serving in Slattery’s bar or shop – and this was one of them.

  The fifty-odd-year-old widowed Leonora Bentley lived up in Dublin and she drove down to Kilnagree in her white Mercedes every so often to visit her daughter Diana. A schoolteacher in Gort, Diana was married to the local veterinary surgeon and they lived in the oldest and largest house in the village, overlooking Galway Bay. There had been a bit of talk when they first moved to Kilnagree, as the Bentleys were Protestant, but Diana had taken ‘instructions’ in the Catholic faith before they got married and was now a practising Catholic herself.

  When Leonora paid her daughter and son-in-law a visit, she would always be seen first thing in the morning striding along the circular coast route that took her from the big white house along the edge of the sea and then onto the small main road that led to Kinvara and back around to the house again. After dinner in the evenings she took the exact same route again – a good brisk walk which covered approximately three miles.

  Dressed in her long Barbour coat and hat, Leonora Bentley greeted everyone with an abrupt “Good morning” or “Good evening”, depending on the time of day. She never broke the rhythm in her stride to wait for a return greeting, but carried straight on as though heading for an urgent appointment.

  On the odd occasions that she came walking down to the post office, she sometimes looked into the shop for a loaf of fresh bread or some fresh scones or cakes. But she could go six months between one visit and the next.

  If her straight-backed, elegant figure was seen going into the post office, Mary Slattery was notified immediately and she would take up residence behind the shop counter, all prepared should Mrs Bentley deign to come in. Joe would be ushered into the bar just in case he did or said anything in front of the sophisticated Dublin lady that might just show them up. Rose would also be kept in the background, unless she was needed to serve another customer to allow Mrs Slattery to devote all her care and attention to the lady.

  But Mary Slattery obviously had not heard that Leonora Bentley was in Kilnagree on this particular occasion, as she had left no instructions with her young charge as to how she should approach or serve such an important customer.

  Rose took a deep breath and went forward into the shop. “Hello, Mrs Bentley,” she said in what she hoped was a cheery but polite voice. “What can I get you?”

  “Nothing for the moment.” The older woman’s voice was unusually low and had a slight tremor in it but the usual strident edge was still there. “You can attend to your business . . . I just need a few moments’ peace and quiet . . . please.”

  She moved backwards now until her legs touched the wooden bench under the window, then she sat down. She made a sudden ‘oohing’ sort of noise and pressed the palm of her hand up against her temple, inadvertently cocking her wide-brimmed green hat to the side.

  Rose watched in alarmed silence, until Mrs Bentley looked up and caught her eye.

  “Are you okay?” the young girl asked.

  Leonora Bentley closed her eyes, then nodded her head. “It’s probably a migraine. It came on very suddenly. I thought I would make it back to the house, but the pain is very intense . . .” She waved her hand towards the bar. “If you could get me a drink of water, I think I have some tablets in my pocket that will help.”

  The hurling supporters were all starting to leave the bar now as Rose came rushing through to pour a glass of water.

  Liam O’Connor was heading towards the door when he saw her and made a quick detour over to the bar.

  “You’re sure you can’t persuade your parents to let you out tonight?” he said.

  Rose moved her head to look over his shoulder as Ruairí and Michael Murphy headed for the door, both giving her a casual salute as they went. She could barely conceal her irritation with Liam O’Connor for making her miss having a word with them before they went. “No,” she said in a decisive tone. “I’ve told you already, I’ve got things to do at home.”

  Liam turned to see what she was looking at and his eyes narrowed when he realised it was the two brothers. He looked back at Rose and gave a small shrug. “I’ll see you again, so . . .”

  Rose went back through to the shop and saw that Leonora Bentley had her hat off and was holding her head in both her hands. Even in such a pose she looked elegant and her thick ash-blonde bobbed hair had hardly moved out of place.

  “I have the water for you,” Rose said in a voice loud enough to be heard but not too loud for her customer’s painful head.

  Very gingerly and with only one eye open, Leonora stretched her hand out for the glass. “Thank you, my dear,” she said in a weary but grateful voice.

  Rose moved back behind the counter. “If you need anything else?”

  There was a few moments’ silence as the woman put the pills in her mouth, took a gulp of water and then threw her head back to help swallow them down.

  “A brandy,” Mrs Bentley suddenly said, her usual commanding tone back in her voice. “And I think you’d better make it a large one.”

  Rose hesitated. The bar was officially closed now until five o’clock and she had been reminded by both the landlord and his wife to stick strictly to those hours. She quickly asked herself what either of them would do, if they were in this situation.

  Two minutes later Rose came back out into the shop holding a glass with a good measure of Hennessy’s brandy in one hand and a small jug of water in the other. “I’m not sure how much water you want in it . . .”

  “The same amount of water as brandy will be fine.”

  “Is the pain in your head easing yet?” Rose carefully poured water into the brandy.

  “Very slightly . . . but it’s affecting my eyes as well.”

  Rose took the empty water tumbler from Leonora Bentley’s outstretched hand and gave her the brandy glass. “If you sit for a while and give the tablets and the brandy a chance to work . . .”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Rose looked out of the window now and saw two local women ap
proaching the shop. Instinctively she knew Mrs Bentley would not want to be viewed in such a position. If it were her own mother or grandmother they would be mortified to be seen ill in a public place.

  “Mrs Bentley, I see some customers coming across to the shop . . .”

  “Oh, good heavens!” she groaned and made to stand up, looking suddenly flustered.

  “Maybe you’d like to sit in the bar for a few minutes?” Rose suggested. “There’s no one in there and there’s a nice fire on.”

  “Perfect.”

  She straightened her back, took a deep breath and then made her rather unsteady way behind the counter and into the bar.

  As she passed by, Rose was struck for the first time by how small and slender the Dublin woman actually was. She couldn’t have been more than a few inches over five feet, but there was something about her manner and attitude that gave the impression of a taller, formidable type of woman. She was very different to the other females in Kilnagree. She dressed differently, spoke differently and acted quite differently.

  In many ways – particularly when she was dressed in her severe winter outfits – she seemed older than women of her own age. But when summer came, in her cream linen trousers and straw hat or flowery dresses and dark sunglasses, she suddenly seemed much younger – almost girlish.

  And Rose and her mother and granny weren’t the only ones to comment on this – she had overheard two of the men in the bar talking about Leonora Bentley when they’d had a few drinks, and their coarse comments left her in no doubt that she was still an attractive woman.

  As she bustled about organising the bread and vegetables the two women had asked for, Rose glanced every now and again into the bar, but she couldn’t see any sign of Mrs Bentley by the table at the fire.

  When she went back into the bar the place was strangely dark. At first she thought there was no one there but when she looked more closely she saw a stretched-out form on the long bench by the window. It dawned on Rose that she had obviously reached up and closed the curtains to keep out the light.

  Rose tip-toed over to the bench. She could hear the gentle sound of Leonora Bentley’s snoring. The tablets and the alcohol had obviously done the trick.

  Very quietly, Rose worked around the sleeping figure, lifting glasses and ashtrays across to the bar where she left them in a neat pile to wash later, lest the noise of the rickety old tap wake Leonora up.

  She then went silently around the tables with a damp cloth and a polishing rag to clean and shine to the standard that Mary Slattery would expect when she returned.

  She wandered back into the shop and tidied around there for a few minutes and was standing with her arms folded looking out of the window when she saw her mother’s neat figure coming out of the post office and making towards the shop. Kathleen Barry often walked down to post things for the Guards or letters for herself or her mother-in-law. Rose moved quickly to open the door as gently as she could and then held it open to keep the bell mute. As her mother approached the shop, Rose pressed her finger to her lips to warn her to be quiet.

  “What’s wrong?” Kathleen whispered, her brow deeply furrowed.

  “Mrs Bentley – Diana Tracey’s mother – is asleep in the bar!”

  “What?” Kathleen’s face was a picture of utter shock.

  “She has a bad migraine headache,” Rose whispered. “She nearly collapsed when she came in so I gave her a drink and she took some tablets for it.”

  Kathleen leaned on the counter and stretched up on her toes to try to see into the bar.

  “She’s lying on the old bench at the window,” said Rose. She motioned to her mother to move further down the counter so they couldn’t be heard talking, just in case Mrs Bentley woke up. “She had a brandy as well – she said that sometimes helps.”

  “A brandy?” Her mother’s face was truly aghast now. “A brandy at this time of the day? Good God! And her one of the Quality! Who would believe it?”

  Rose shrugged. “She must be used to taking it for the headaches.”

  “She’ll have a bigger headache waking up after drinking that at this hour of the day!” Kathleen shook her head in a bemused fashion. She had very limited experience of alcohol – the odd sherry at Christmas or funerals – and it always went straight to her head. “Of course, she’s a Protestant,” she said now. “They have their own strange ways . . .”

  Rose didn’t say that the brandy had actually been a large one, as she knew her mother would only disapprove further and might well gossip about it to her father or, even worse, the Guards down at the barracks. Since working in the pub, she had come to realise that her parents had a very puritanical attitude to drink.

  Kathleen shook her head again and turned her attention to her daughter. “Anyway, one of the reasons I called in was to tell you that I got a letter from your Auntie Sheila yesterday. I meant to tell you last night but I clean forgot.”

  “And what did she have to say?” Rose asked, lifting the small soft brush from under the counter to wipe away a few stray crumbs from an empty cake tray.

  “She said that Hannah is definitely coming down for the dance next weekend – won’t that be nice for you?”

  Rose suddenly froze, the brushing of the crumbs forgotten. “But how does she know about the dance?” Her dark, arched eyebrows were knitted together in annoyance. “I never told her about it.”

  “Oh, I mentioned it to Sheila a few weeks ago in one of my letters,” Kathleen said airily, “and I told her to tell Hannah about it, since she enjoyed the last dance so much.” She smiled at her daughter now. “I thought it would be company for you and your father won’t mind you going if she’s there with you. He can hardly stop you going if Hannah has come all the way down from Offaly and everyone else is walking down to it.” She looked at the expression on Rose’s face now. “Is there something wrong? Do you not want Hannah to come down for the dance? Have you had a row or something?”

  Rose forced herself to smile. “No, no . . . it’s just that I thought Hannah was saving up to move to Dublin or London. I didn’t think she’d have the money to come down.”

  “Oh, there’s no fear of Hannah going anywhere! She has it too comfortable at home with only herself there, now the boys have gone. And anyway, Sheila says she still has her birthday money saved from January and she’s keeping it for the coach fare down. She said that Hannah was writing to tell you what coach she will be arriving on next Wednesday or Thursday. I suppose you’ll get the letter Monday.”

  “That’s grand,” Rose said, trying to sound enthusiastic. She pinned a smile on her face now. It was obviously all arranged. Hannah would be there at the dance making big eyes at Michael Murphy and all the other lads – and there wasn’t a single thing that she could do about it.

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  Leaving Clare by Geraldine O’Neill

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