‘Sorry. That was me,’ said Liddy, coming up to kiss her father. ‘I was ordering something for Bobbie.’
He put his free arm round her. ‘How was the end of term? I don’t suppose you got the Latin poetry prize?’
‘You know they don’t teach Latin at our soppy girls’ school, Dad.’
‘And much you care about it. You’re looking magnificent.’ He turned her round so he could examine the skimpy yellow shift cut low in the front and even lower at the back. ‘Isn’t it rather cold?’
Liddy giggled. ‘I’m OK sitting near the fire.’
Mr Macchuin glanced at the chimneypiece. If he noticed the absence of the pile of old newspapers, shoes and a broken fan heater that had graced the hearth before and the brightness of the brass fender, tongs and poker that had previously been brown and sooty he gave no sign. ‘Do we usually have a fire in July?’
‘It’s to dry everything out. Do you really like my dress? I put it on specially for Bobbie’s birthday.’
‘Is he the latest boyfriend?’
‘Darling, you’re hopeless,’ said Constance. ‘I told you all about Bobbie when you rang last.’
Mr Macchuin’s attention was caught by the bottles Constance was clutching to her chest. He turned his head slightly to read the label. I thought he flinched but it may have been a trick of the light. ‘Chevalier-Montrachet nineteen sixty-eight. Hm. You’ve taken to house-breaking, Con.’
Constance looked uncomfortable. ‘I found the key in your room. I wouldn’t have touched it normally, only it’s Bobbie’s birthday and she’s worked so hard and I’m so grateful. We’ve been having lovely things to eat; she’s such a marvellous cook and the house is so much cleaner. We’ve started to reclaim the old walled garden, the girls aren’t drinking so much, we’ve ordered new hens; everything’s different and so much better. Honestly, she’s worked like a slave from dawn till dusk and you won’t recognize the place …’
I could see this recital of my achievements was not having the effect Constance intended. Men are creatures of habit. They dislike change. Most of all, they dislike change that has taken place in their absence, without consulting them. Mr Macchuin’s dark brows were drawing together over the bridge of his long, thin nose.
At that moment his attention was caught by the empty bottle of champagne. He walked over to the table to identify it. He opened his eyes wide and drew in his breath sharply.
‘How do you do?’ I said, walking forward with my hand extended. ‘I’m Bobbie Norton.’
He shook it briefly. His eyes, grey and deep-set like Constance’s but harder, met mine with a look that was not unfriendly exactly, but cool. He had a broad face with an angular jaw. It was easy to see, looking at him, that Constance would be a handsome woman if she lost a couple of stones. ‘How do you do?’ he said. ‘It’s good of you to put my household to rights so selflessly.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s good of you to pay me a salary.’
He continued to look at me. For a moment I feared he had recognized me but he only said, ‘You’re evidently a connoisseur of wine.’
‘Oh, Bobbie didn’t choose—’ began Constance but whatever she was going to say was forgotten as Sissy burst in.
I felt a strong curiosity to see the modus operandi of this ill-assorted couple.
‘Mavourneen!’ Sissy’s black eyes were bright with joy and she was undeniably fetching. She stood poised on tiptoe a moment before skipping in great bounds towards him, neck stretched up to kiss him on the lips. ‘’Tis burning like a fire in hell I’ve been to see you this long while. But in the dew this morning it was written that you’d be coming.’
He kissed her briefly then held her at arm’s length, towering over her. ‘We may all have to resort to writing in the dew if Liddy continues to run up the telephone bill. How are you, Sissy?’
‘Pent up!’ Sissy rolled her eyes in a way that would have made a tired man quail.
Mr Macchuin raised his eyebrows as he looked her up and down and said, ‘Marie Antoinette was well known, I believe, for her excitable nature.’
‘And who’s she, I’d like to know?’ Sissy’s face darkened and she showed her teeth in a terrifying manner. ‘Some hussy ye’ve been seeing in Dublin? Let this Mary Antonetty come here, tell her from me, and I’ll scratch out her eyes and I’ll roll her liver in oats and fry it in pig fat and I’ll hang her by her hair from a tree …’ She paused, panting with emotion.
‘You stupid, ignorant creature!’ said Maud. ‘Marie Antoinette had her head cut off two hundred years ago.’
‘On diabhal!’ exclaimed Sissy. ‘’Twill teach her to lift her skirts to them that’s above her.’
‘I often think it has been a mistake to try to educate the peasantry,’ Maud said to no one in particular.
‘Hello, Maud, you’re looking well.’ Mr Macchuin went round the table to kiss the cheek she extended.
‘I look terrible. You, on the other hand, contrary to the just deserts of liars, appear to be thriving.’
I saw, to my surprise, that she liked her son-in-law. Or rather, she could not help responding to him as a woman responds to a man whom she finds attractive. Her eyes shone as though a switch had been turned on.
He rested his hand on her shoulder. ‘How’s morale?’
‘I’m irritable and bored. Bored half to death. I’d like to go the whole way. If I could get up to the roof I’d throw myself off.’
‘You’ve never been a coward, Maud. Your resolution and will-power have always been an example to the rest of us.’
‘I no longer wish to cut a fine figure. Even if I could.’
‘Now who’s a liar?’
Maud shook her head and smiled with an air of coquetry.
‘Hello, Flurry.’ Mr Macchuin walked over to his son who had been standing by the window, looking at his father with an expressionless face.
‘Hello, Dad. Did you remember?’
‘What?’
‘The book about bridges.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is your case in the hall? I’ll go and get it.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Mr Macchuin detained the departing Flurry by gripping his arm. ‘How are you?’
‘My styes are better. Bobbie bought me some ointment. I had a stomach ache last week.’ He strained against his father’s grasp but Mr Macchuin held on.
‘It’s a question that doesn’t usually require such a particular answer, unless an absolute disaster has befallen you. You might say “fine, thanks” or “well, thank you”. Then you ask me how I am.’
‘How are you, Dad?’
‘Much better for seeing you, my dear Flurry.’
Flurry’s face broke into a smile. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Can I go and find it now?’
‘All right. Don’t get my things in a mess—’ But Flurry had gone.
‘Hello, Eugene.’ The master of the house approached his guest. ‘How’s the muse?’ The two men shook hands.
‘A little shy from time to time but it is her nature to be slippery. I subscribe to Yeats’s view that in poetry it is the accident that charms and inspires. One must compose in an improvisational mode. The intention can never be more than merely admirable.’
‘You mean you have to make it up as you go along?’
‘Well … yes. I suppose that is what I do mean.’ Eugene’s eyes began to pop as he scented an audience. ‘I could demonstrate the point by reading you my latest verses?’
‘Thanks.’ Mr Macchuin smiled. ‘But you know what a blockhead I am for that kind of thing. It would be casting diamonds before apes.’
Eugene demurred politely but did not press the point. I felt almost envious as I witnessed this nimble side-stepping of what was for me an almost daily duty: listening to the incomprehensible product of Eugene’s spontaneity. Mr Macchuin was capable of diplomacy, it seemed, and this, too, was unexpected. Constance, with her frequent references to her brother’s temper, had led me to
imagine a man always flying in and out of moods, at the mercy of his own passions.
‘Don’t open that, Con,’ he said pleasantly, as he saw his sister preparing to get to work with the corkscrew on the Chevalier-Montrachet. ‘It won’t be cold enough. What are we having?’
‘Fish pie with frozen prawns!’ cried Constance in accents of joy.
Whatever his thoughts, he kept them to himself. ‘I’ll find something that doesn’t need to be too chilled.’
While he was in the cellar I busied myself at the sideboard, serving the fish pie, peas and purée of carrots, feeling embarrassed by this paltry demonstration of my much-vaunted cooking skills. I slipped into a chair beside Flurry at the far end of the table and encouraged him to eat the four peas I had given him while the others discussed Dublin and mysterious things which sounded like so many sputum-rich clearings of the throat and of whose nature I was ignorant except that I divined them to be assemblies of eccentrics, given to extreme opinions. This should have given me the clue. Now I know they are spelled Oireachtas, Dáil, Seanad and Taoiseach.
My silence went unnoticed. I was happy to amuse myself by studying the painting that hung over the fireplace. It was a portrait of a woman in the manner of Gainsborough, her hair elaborately curled and powdered, her grey dress edged with wonderful lace. In one hand she held a posy of flowers. Her other hand rested on the open door of a birdcage. The eyes were beguiling, the mouth open fractionally as though she was poised forever on the edge of laughter. It seemed to me a sublime piece of work. If there had been money to spare I would have suggested having it cleaned. I spent an enjoyable ten minutes repainting the horrible brown walls green in my imagination and cutting into small pieces the 1940s utility sideboard on which stood a hot-plate, a repulsive aesthetic movement vase decorated with storks and an equally horrible art deco chromedmetal lamp … I realized that the fish pie had been eaten down to the last anaemic rubbery segment of prawn and that it was time to fetch the apple tart.
Afterwards I made coffee and took the tray into the empty drawing room. I could hear laughter coming from the dining room. I decided to leave them to it and retire early to bed. As I crossed the hall towards the stairs my reflection in the looking glass made me jump back with a cry of dismay. I had forgotten that I was wearing Sissy’s coronet of weeds.
‘You mustn’t take Finn’s temper too seriously,’ said Constance.
‘Daddy didn’t realize it was your magazine or he’d never have said anything,’ said Flavia, who was sitting between us in the front of the Land-Rover as we drove back from a neighbouring farm, having collected the new chickens.
‘Let’s forget all about it,’ I said politely. ‘I have.’
This was a lie. I was still smarting. We had been at the breakfast table when Mr Macchuin had come downstairs, looking much more relaxed in an old jersey and corduroys. I was pouring coffee while Constance put butter and marmalade on a slice of toast for Eugene. Liddy was reading Vogue with rapt concentration and failed to notice her father’s arrival. Smiling, he looked over her shoulder. Then his smile vanished.
‘Liddy, really! After all we’ve said on the subject!’
Liddy looked immediately guilty and tried to close the magazine but Finn put his hand on the page. ‘“Summer’s Super Diet”,’ he read aloud. ‘“For lunch the weight of an egg in raw fillet steak plus two glasses of juiced watercress and five asparagus spears …” Liddy, this is as absurd as it’s dangerous.’ He turned some pages. ‘“The step-by-step guide to flawless beauty.” Honestly, why do you read such junk? The silliest novel would be better than this. Look at this woman!’ He prodded a photograph of a girl advertising a nightdress. ‘She’s so thin, she looks as if she’s dying of a horrible disease. This is a vile attempt to make women think that nothing matters but appearance.’ His anger seemed to mount. ‘How dare you women demand equality when your minds are swimming in this slush? I won’t have such trash in the house!’
He walked over to the fireplace and held the magazine over the flames.
‘If you burn it I’ll never forgive you!’ Liddy was large-eyed and tense with temper. I saw how alike they were. ‘I don’t care if it’s trash. It makes me feel happy when I read it. Anyway, it isn’t mine, it’s Bobbie’s and you can’t burn her things. I’m going to stay with her in London and I shall read exactly what I like and if I choose to starve myself to death, that’s my business. You can’t go away for weeks and come here just when you feel like it and … and tell me what to do …’ She was losing control now. ‘You don’t want me to be beautiful because you’re afraid … you’re afraid …’ Whatever it was she thought her father was afraid of I never discovered for she burst into tears and ran weeping from the room.
Mr Macchuin turned to look at me, his eyes fierce, his lips drawn back in an expression that reminded me of Osgar. ‘You’d better have this.’ He threw it on the table. ‘Perhaps you’ll be good enough to keep such stuff in your own room. I don’t want my children contaminated by it.’
I was immediately furious myself, though I kept my voice under control and spoke with a cool contempt I knew would enrage: a technique I had learned when dealing with my father. ‘It’s a harmless fashion magazine, hardly pornography or a manual for heroin users.’ I laughed disdainfully. ‘And there’s little chance that Liddy will find watercress or asparagus in Kilmuree.’
The technique was more successful than I had bargained for. I thought for a moment he might explode with temper for his face grew dark and he clenched his right fist. ‘Don’t meddle, Miss … whatever-your-name-is. Or you’ll be sorry.’
He walked out before I had time to think of a provoking reply.
‘It’s because he’s had such a time with poor Liddy,’ explained Constance as I steered between the potholes. ‘A year ago she started dieting and she ended up almost a skeleton. Anorexia nervosa, Dr Duffy said. She’s been so much better recently. But Finn’s still worried about her. I’m so sorry he was rude to you. He flares up and then he simmers down almost at once. But I, for one, hate being on the receiving end.’
‘It certainly isn’t pleasant,’ I said.
I was experiencing a disagreeable combination of resentment and repentance. However he might behave with members of his family nothing could excuse rudeness towards someone in his employ. But I could imagine the anguish of watching one’s beloved daughter slowly starving herself.
‘Liddy seems pretty well at the moment,’ I said. ‘She had two helpings of kedgeree this morning before your brother came down.’
‘Oh yes. I’ve been really pleased to see how she’s been eating up since you’ve been doing the cooking. I’m afraid my food would make a slimmer out of the fat lady at the funfair. Look out!’
I jammed on the brakes as we rounded a corner to avoid running into three men who were walking along the track. They scrambled up the banks and disappeared over the top.
‘Who were they?’ I asked. ‘They seemed rather anxious to get away.’
‘One of them was Mickey Joyce. And I think the other two were Padraig O’Conner and Cahir Roohan. They did look a bit alarmed to see us. I expect they’re shy.’
Their faces beneath the peaks of their caps had looked anything but shy to me. In fact I thought they looked furtive and up to no good but Constance probably knew better than I.
‘I don’t believe Vogue could do anyone any harm.’ I returned to the former, more interesting topic. ‘Anorexia springs from deeper causes than the influence of fashion, doesn’t it? Men like to think women are dangerously superficial and venial. It makes them feel less threatened and inadequate. Also they feel better about the hours they devote to cars, football and breasts. But all the same, I wish I’d known.’
‘How many more?’ I asked, throwing another section of sawn sleeper on to the heap. The barn was full of the resinous smell of sawdust.
‘Only five hundred and forty-six,’ said Flurry with sanguine calm.
‘Good God! When’s it ever going to be fin
ished?’
Flurry looked surprised. ‘We’ve sawn one thousand, two hundred and fifty-three already over the last year. We’re two-thirds of the way there.’
‘How are the rails coming on?’
‘Thady O’Kelly’s waiting for more iron. He’s used up every bit of the old fencing.’
I flexed my aching fingers. ‘I admire your single-mindedness, Flurry, I really do. But I can’t saw another stroke. Let’s go and see how the new hens are settling in.’
I watched with satisfaction as the old brown hens scratched and pecked among the long blades of brilliantly green grass. Timsy, under my direction, had cleaned out and deloused the hen-house and already its occupants were growing more feathers and putting on weight. This may have been because Flavia now had charge of feeding them and giving them fresh water every day. The new hens were huddled together, unnerved by the journey in the Land-Rover and finding themselves in strange surroundings. They were plump and fluffy with black and white feathers and crimson combs.
‘I’ll check the eggs,’ said Flurry. A moment later he took his head out of the nesting boxes to say, ‘Eight. That’s fifty-five per cent up on yesterday.’
‘Nine,’ said Flavia’s voice and a hand appeared from one of the boxes, holding an egg.
Flurry was silent, calculating.
‘Gosh!’ I said. ‘At this rate we’ll be selling them at the market in Kilmuree.’
‘Could that pay for the iron for the rails?’
‘I’m afraid not. If we gave up eating eggs ourselves and sent every single one to be sold it might eventually raise enough money for the screws.’
Moonshine Page 40