Light a Penny Candle

by Maeve Binchy

  ‘No, I’m not a singer personally.’ He was clearing his throat.

  ‘You surprise me,’ said Aisling. ‘I heard great sounds coming from the bathroom there. It wasn’t a gramophone you had in with you?’

  ‘Yes, you’re trapped now Father,’ cried Elizabeth, joining in the game.

  ‘No, no, no,’ but he was laughing, not irritated.

  ‘Let me see, what would be your forte … music-hall songs? Light opera … Gilbert and Sullivan maybe …?’

  ‘Yes, you do know some Gilbert and Sullivan, Father. …’

  ‘Not really … not to sing.’

  Aisling had stood up already … ‘Come on, I’ll start you off –

  ‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes,

  Hidden ever and anon …’

  She made gestures as if she were conducting a choir. ‘Come on can’t you … don’t leave me on my own. …’

  Elizabeth and Father joined in. …

  ‘No, no, we’ll start again, do it properly.’

  ‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes,

  Hidden ever and anon

  In a merciful eclipse

  Do not heed their mild surprise

  Having passed the Rubicon

  Take a pair of rosy lips …

  Take a figure firmly planned …’

  Elizabeth watched open-mouthed as Father’s voice soared on and on with Aisling, who couldn’t really remember the words, humming and encouraging and joining in on last lines. …

  ‘I’m not sure if I had the right key, I think I went through about three keys altogether,’ he laughed apologetically.

  ‘Nonsense, it was beautiful,’ Aisling insisted.

  ‘Now come on Elizabeth, what have you learned since you left Kilgarret?’

  ‘I don’t sing much really.’

  ‘Come on, of course you do. Weren’t we always singing on our bicycles back home?’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘All right, wait.’ Aisling ran out the kitchen door and came in wheeling Elizabeth’s bicycle.

  Everyone laughed. The bicycle looked cumbersome and out of place at the table which was full of dirty dishes and the birthday cake. …

  ‘Now you have your bicycle, get up on it and sing.’

  Elizabeth looked nervously at Father to see how he was taking it. It was all so silly, so irresponsible and childish. All the things he said he detested and there he was grinning like an idiot.

  She leapt up and sat on the saddle … and pretending it was a horse she started. …

  ‘As I was going over the Cork and Kerry Mountain

  I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was counting

  I first produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier Saying stand and deliver for you are my bold deceiver. …’

  And because it was done with such gusto, she managed to get Father and Aisling standing up and shouting the chorus. …

  ‘Whack fol de daddy o

  There’s whisky in the jar. …’

  Elizabeth remembered all the verses and they sang louder and louder until the last chorus was almost bellowed.

  Nobody cleared the table, the night went on and on. Elizabeth remembered ‘Bold Robert Emmet the Darling of Ireland’. Aisling remembered ‘Greensleeves’ … and as his fiftieth birthday was coming to an end Elizabeth’s father remembered

  ‘On the road to Mandalay

  Where the flyin’-fishes play

  An’ the dawn comes up like thunder

  Outer China ’crost the bay. …’

  ‘That’s a great one, I don’t know that,’ called Aisling, and Elizabeth saw Father throw his chest out and sing like she had never known him to sing before. For an instant she wished that Mother could see it and then she was glad that these things weren’t possible. …

  Father even sang it twice, so well did it seem to be going down. …

  ‘… An’ the temple-bells they say

  Come you back, you British soldier

  Come you back to Mandalay. …’

  It finished off the birthday on a high and excited note. …

  Sunday seemed a blur. They must have talked, but their minds were on Monday. And most of Monday was a blur too. Bits of it were only too clear, like the explanation of where they were going. Mythical friends of the O’Connors had been invented, people who lived now in Romford. Elizabeth and Aisling were going to spend three days with them. The warmth and bonds of the Saturday night had to be cooled and disengaged again. Elizabeth had to remind her father by her voice that he and she led separate lives. Aisling had to become distant instead of engaging. They left him confused and bewildered. But that was a small problem.

  The guesthouse was very cheerful. It was run by a young woman who believed in plain speaking as she told them at the start.

  ‘Now listen to me good. I don’t know why you’re here. I have no idea what you are doing in the area. I gather you want to stay and have a little peace and quiet because one of you has to have some kind of job done. Right, none of my business, I never asked, I don’t even want to know your names.’

  They looked at her fearfully.

  She relaxed a bit. ‘Well, just your first names, eh? And it’s a nice big room and it’s got a wash-basin, and there’s lots of towels and a rubber sheet and anything else you might need to make you feel comfortable and I’m leaving you in a wireless too for company. There’s only a couple of other people staying in the house, a couple of residents, you know, people who live here all the time. They keep themselves to themselves, and a nice couple of gents, travellers. They stay Monday and Tuesday. You won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Aisling.

  ‘And I’ll leave you a kettle, and there’s a gas ring, so if you want to do for yourselves, you’ll be on your own.’

  ‘Do people often want to be on their own? I mean not able to face people, you know, feeling awful afterwards.’ Elizabeth stuttered a bit.

  The woman softened still more at Elizabeth’s white face.

  ‘No love, I tell you Mrs Norris is really nice. I’ve been to her three times. Well, don’t look surprised my dear, it happens, life is life I say. … No, of course you won’t have to stay in your room ducks, it’s just nice to know that you have privacy if you do need it.’

  ‘Thank you Mrs. …’

  ‘I’m Maureen dear, just Maureen. You’re …?’

  ‘Aisling and Elizabeth.’

  ‘Ashley, like in Gone With the Wind? I thought it was a man’s name … it’s nice though.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll show you the room now. Come and go as you like. Listen Ashley, I’ll tell you a bit of advice, now take it from Maureen here. I’m in the know. Don’t talk about it all too much, no need to talk about things, only makes them a lot worse. That’s what Mrs Norris said to me first time and I always remembered it. “Don’t talk and talk Maureen, what’s done is done.” Anyway this kind of thing’s been happening to women since the beginning of time. Nature organised life in a very funny way, it seems to me. Even the ancient Egyptians used to have to cope with it and here we are in the twentieth century … so you take my advice, don’t let her chat too much, brood, wonder is it right is it wrong, was it wrong was it right. No good comes of it.’

  ‘No, that’s true,’ said Aisling.

  ‘Good girl, she’s lucky she has a friend with her. Lots of them come on their own.’

  Maureen was speaking as if Elizabeth didn’t exist.

  They went upstairs.

  ‘Let’s not even look at this room properly so that we won’t remember it,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘The room isn’t important, nothing’s important except that you’re all right.’

  ‘Do you wish I’d turn back even now? Be honest Aisling. Do you want me to change my mind?’

  Silence.

  ‘Answer me, I know that’s what you want, I know that’s what you think is right. Go on admit it. It’s what you hope will happen. You’re glad this place is so a
wful, you’re glad that woman’s so dreadful and sordid and … ugh … three times … you’re thrilled because it makes it all the more squalid. You think it’s weakening my resolve don’t you?’

  ‘Elizabeth stop it, for God’s sake.’

  ‘No, for God’s sake you stop it. Stop sitting there with that prissy disapproving look like an early Christian martyr forced to go through something unpleasant … I won’t have it. Say it straight out – you want me to cancel everything at this late stage and go ahead and have this child, and get it adopted, or look after it. That’s what you really want isn’t it?’

  Aisling took a notebook out of her handbag and began to write in it. She kept her head down as she sat on one of the beds writing.

  Elizabeth paced around. ‘But you do see don’t you … that honestly a lot of your attitudes come from Kilgarret. I mean you’ve said yourself that everyone lives their lives in the shadow of the church. You are full of the notion of sin about it, and you believe all this stuff about souls and heaven and limbo. Well if it has a soul it will go to limbo and on the last day limbo souls might well get into heaven. And maybe we could baptise it while it’s still in me. Had we thought of that? Aisling don’t be so cruel … why won’t you speak to me? Why won’t you answer me?’

  Aisling handed her the notebook. ‘At the end of an eight-hour conversation on Thursday night, we agreed that if you had doubts or worries at the last minute that I was to say NOTHING. That was your greatest fear, that I would talk you out of it, or that you would look for an excuse. You made me swear that no matter what the provocation I would say nothing. Now for Christ’s sake will you belt up.’

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, and laughed until the tears came through her eyelids.

  ‘You are marvellous, absolutely marvellous,’ she said. ‘How have I managed to live without you for all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know, you seem to be going to pieces all right,’ Aisling said, and magically it made them both laugh.

  Aisling remembered that going up the steps of the house where Mrs Norris lived was worse than going to confession after her first experiences with Ned Barrett. Elizabeth said that it had the same unreal feeling as had hung around the place when Mother and Father had decided to separate.

  Aisling said that she didn’t pray and that Mrs Norris was a liar to say that she was on her knees in the parlour of the house when Elizabeth had gone upstairs. She said that Mrs Norris was a dishonest old cow to say that she had been crying and holding her rosary beads when she had been told it was all over. Elizabeth said that Mrs Norris must have heard some praying because otherwise how would she have heard the words ‘Hail Holy Queen’? Mrs Norris wasn’t a Roman Catholic. She would not have been able to make up a prayer like that unless she heard Aisling say it.

  Maureen said that she was sorry she had mentioned rubber sheets if it frightened them. Usually she only said it just to reassure people, of course there would be no need for rubber sheets. It was all over wasn’t it? And there, it hadn’t been too bad now had it? And there was the rest of her life before Elizabeth wasn’t there? She talked to Aisling as if Elizabeth was deaf and dumb.

  And Elizabeth felt so well on Wednesday that they went to the pictures. The film was about a woman who had a child but had to pretend that the child belonged to her sister. Bette Davis played the part of the woman and together Aisling and Elizabeth watched her agony as she saw her daughter grow up but could never admit to being her mother. The film was called The Old Maid. It was a great weepie and the two girls blew their noses, wiped their eyes and ate liquorice allsorts like any two young girls on an afternoon out.

  ‘You’d never think we had even more adventures than that would you?’ said Elizabeth, and Aisling gripped on to her hand and held it tight.

  ‘You would not. We’re great, the pair of us,’ she said.

  The house in Clarence Gardens looked a bit dusty and unwelcoming when they came back. It needed the windows opened and fresh air to come through it. Elizabeth said that it was an oddly-shaped house. It seemed to trap a lot of dead heavy air all the year round. In winter it was cold and musty and in summer it was hot and musty. She wondered whether it had anything to do with the walls. Aisling said she wondered were they going to talk about the weather for the rest of her visit or could they have a normal conversation again? Elizabeth’s father came in just then and said he was delighted to see them back, the place had been very empty without them. Elizabeth said to Aisling later that Father was even more of a trial when he was being interested in things than when he was not, and Aisling said that the divil wouldn’t please someone as crotchety as Elizabeth.

  Johnny too was pleased to see them back. He said that London had been very dull without them, nobody laughed, people retired early to bed. He hoped that the whole problem had been sorted out and everything was all right now. What problem, they had wanted to know, alarmed. Well, the whole question of marriage and whether it was a good idea or a bad idea or the only solution or the last refuge. They looked at him blankly. But Johnny had thought that was one of the main reasons that Aisling had come over in order to sort out her complicated love life. Heavens above it can’t have been very serious or pressing if she’d forgotten all about it already. In his innocence he thought that this was what they had gone off to discuss.

  *

  Elizabeth took Aisling to see the college of art. It was the summer holidays but some vacation courses were under way so they could wander about. She pointed out the classrooms, the studios, the workshops. In one of the classrooms a boy stood posing for the life class naked. They could see him through the door. Aisling was astounded. Did Elizabeth have to draw naked fellows like that? Never! And put in everything? Go on. And girls too? Absolutely naked? But couldn’t you learn how a person was made and their muscles and all even if he wore underpants? Wasn’t everyone’s mickey more or less the same?

  Around this part of the visit things began to get clearer for Aisling and she remembered that everyone at home would want to know all she had been doing in London. She had better see some sights. She thought too that she had better try to integrate Elizabeth back into the life she was leading before all this drama. She assumed that it revolved around Johnny and this is what Elizabeth wanted to return to. Aisling could ask Johnny take her on a spin in the van the next time he was going somewhere exciting. He thought this was a great idea and said they must all go off to the Tower of London just in case he decided to move Stefan’s business down there! He invented a ridiculous reason why they should go everywhere a visitor might want to see. He found a real reason to go to Brighton and Aisling clapped her hands with excitement to see a huge beach. They went for a swim and splashed each other for hours in the water.

  ‘People won’t believe that there’s real beaches in England,’ she screamed happily.

  ‘Oh Aisling stop making the Irish out to be ridiculous. Of course they know there are beaches here.’

  ‘No, they don’t. They really don’t. I never heard anyone tell of an English seaside before. It’s great so it is.’

  Elizabeth and Johnny exchanged affectionate glances about her, and Johnny put out his hand to touch Elizabeth as Aisling swam off on her own.

  ‘I miss you. I don’t suppose that you could slip away for a bit, Nick and Tom won’t be …?’

  Elizabeth smiled regretfully. ‘Oh no, not while Aisling’s here. …’

  ‘She wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘No, out of the question. It’s not the kind of thing that I’d do, that anyone would do when they have a friend to stay. …’

  She made herself seem both firm and light-hearted about it. And Johnny understood, he laughed goodnaturedly.

  ‘You’re a good hostess, you keep all the rules. “The perfect hostess does not abandon the guest in order to satisfy carnal desires with a Loved One.”’

  Elizabeth laughed happily. ‘That’s it, it’s Rule Three.’

  ‘Whatever you say, but when the guest has gone back to the Emeral
d Isle. … I warn you I’ll be insatiable.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Elizabeth.

  Mrs Norris had explained that no relations must take place for two weeks. By then, she said, things could proceed as normal.

  *

  ‘You know you really broke your promise about telling me what it was like … sex … making love… doing it,’ Aisling said.

  ‘Funny, I knew I was breaking my promise. The very first night I lay there and wondered had you in fact made love a long time ago and not told me, because there really is something very … I don’t know … something so personal it would be upsetting really to try to describe it.’

  ‘Now you’re making it more mysterious than ever. I’ll never know. You were my only hope.’

  ‘But I told you, I was sure you knew and everything and weren’t telling me for the same kind of reason. …’

  ‘Holy God, Elizabeth, how would I know in Kilgarret? How on earth would I find out about having sex the whole way with someone?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t expect to either … you make this sound like Paris or something. This is a London suburb … there’s not much sin going on here either.’

  ‘Have you forgotten what Kilgarret is like? Everyone knows where everyone is all day and all night. It’s like being in a goldfish bowl. I mean, without even being like policemen or suspicious, people know what you’re doing twenty-four hours a day … “I saw you down at the river the other night” … “Josy Lynch says she saw you in Moriarty’s chemist”. The whole town would know when you were having your period.’

  ‘Or I suppose when you weren’t,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Certainly. I don’t know how I’d have organised what you had to do. There’s nobody that would know.’

  ‘But what do they do?’

  Aisling said nothing.

  ‘They must do something, it must happen.’

  ‘Yes, but. …’

  ‘Oh go on. Tell me.’

  ‘Well, either a fellow would marry them and talk would die down in a year or two, or in a dire case the girl might go off to the nuns.’

  ‘Up in the school? Never?’