by Maeve Binchy
Love from your Married Daughter, Aisling
‘She looked utterly enchanting … here, I have the pictures.’ Elizabeth sat on a desk with her feet on a chair and opened the wallet of black and white pictures. She had been given this camera by Johnny for her twenty-first birthday and it had never been taken on a serious outing before. Now she had twelve pictures of Aisling’s wedding, ten of them perfect she thought, and two spoiled. Stefan and Anna pored over them.
‘Hasn’t she become slim since she was here?’ Stefan said.
‘Look at her beautiful dress,’ said Anna.
‘Is this her mother, a handsome woman. …’ Stefan looked at Eileen and somehow Elizabeth felt her two worlds grow closer.
‘And her husband, this Tony, he is handsome is he not?’ Anna had spread the pictures down on the desk. ‘And who is this man, the one who has his hand on your arm?’
‘That’s his loathsome best man … a frightful fool.’
Stefan and Anna laughed.
‘No, seriously … really dreadful. I hope for Aisling’s sake he’s not going to be a family friend.’
‘And who is the sad lady?’
‘That’s Tony’s mother. She did smile a bit, but I don’t think anybody caught it. And that’s Tony’s awfully bad-mannered sister, Joannie, and that’s his rather wishy-washy brother who’s nearly a priest … oh, and that’s Donal, the young brother who used to be delicate. Look at his laugh, isn’t he marvellous … and that’s me looking silly with my hat. …’
‘You look beautiful, Elizabeth,’ said Anna seriously.
‘Oh she does. Quite as beautiful as the little bride,’ said Stefan.
‘Oh, that’s Tony pulling a face … it was just before they got into the car to go to the hotel. He was still very edgy at that stage … he got better later on. More relaxed.’
‘You don’t think they are good enough for Aisling, these people?’
‘Oh Stefan. I never said that. No they’re the high and mighty in the town, honestly. Like the squire, as Johnny used to say.’
‘But you do not like them … listen, this Tony he is edgy, his brother is wishy-washy, his sister she is bad-mannered, rude, his mother she is weepy, his best friend is frightful … of course you don’t like them!’
Stefan laughed. Elizabeth looked at him, almost speechless.
‘I didn’t mean. …’ she began.
‘But it’s not a crime not to like the people that your friends marry. I am sure if my sons are married I would not like their wives. Anna here does not like the family that her sister married into. They live in London, she never sees the family, but she meets her sister every month. So. It’s not unnatural.’
‘I never even said it to myself. I didn’t even know I didn’t like them,’ said Elizabeth, grinning mischievously. ‘But you won’t tell them, and you’ll never tell Aisling if she comes over here again. Because I don’t really dislike them … Listen, I won’t delay you any more. I just collected these from the chemist and I wanted you to be the first to see. I’m off home now.’
‘Johnny should be back next week, then it will all be fun and bustle here again,’ Anna said with the air of someone trying to introduce a comforting note.
Elizabeth saw Stefan frown at her.
‘Now, Anna, Elizabeth knows all Johnny’s movements better than we do, in Brighton and Hove, and back on Friday … we don’t have to tell her what he’s doing.’
Darling Stefan, like Aunt Eileen, a diplomat, always wanting people to be given their dignity, never wanting to score over others. How great it had been seeing him looking at Aunt Eileen and saying she was handsome. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Aunt Eileen came over here … or was that silly? Oh God, oh God, from Stefan’s face it looks as if Johnny has a new woman. Of course she hadn’t known that he was away in Brighton, of course she hadn’t known that he was coming back on Friday. Thank God for Stefan and his refusal to admit that anything was wrong between Elizabeth and Johnny. Sometimes she thought that if it weren’t for Stefan she would have lost Johnny forever.
Father was politely interested in the photographs.
‘Which one is Violet’s friend?’ he asked first, and Elizabeth thought that this was a good sign. Usually he refused any opportunity to bring Mother’s name into the conversation.
‘That’s Aunt Eileen there,’ she said proudly.
‘Nice, nice, yes she looks a very presentable woman. Of course, she’ll be glad that Aisling has married and married well.’
‘Yes, Father, she is glad. I think she’s very glad.’
‘Well, of course she’s pleased, dear. Her daughter married and set up. Safely off her hands, with a home and a future of her own. It’s what every parent would want.’
Elizabeth looked up, amazed.
‘Is it what you want for me, Father?’
‘Of course.’
‘What?’
‘Of course I want you to marry and settle down. What else can I want for you?’
‘And are you not glad that I’m happy as I am? That I have work which interests me, teaching and working in Worsky’s, and that I have Johnny around …?’
Father said nothing.’
‘Because I am fine. Really. To be utterly honest, I wouldn’t like to be marrying someone like Tony Murray, someone sensible. I prefer to be the way I am. I mean it. I’m not just saying it to cover a broken heart. …’
‘You’re your mother’s daughter, I’m afraid, Elizabeth, and that’s what worries me. She had a fine home here, and a family and a social life and what did she do, she went off with a fly-by-night black-marketeer, a man who made his money out of other people’s suffering … she went off with him, flighty and thoughtless and ended up losing her mind. So do you wonder that I worry when I see that feckless side of her in you?’ Father said all this quite calmly; there was no twitch in his eye, as there used to be when he became upset. It was as if he believed it all now like a story that had happened to someone else. That poor Harry was a black-marketeer. Harry!
She kept her voice as calm as Father’s. If she was going to be able to talk to him, she must follow his lead. She must let his own dead objectivity be in control.
‘Yes, I do see that, I can see now why you might be worried. But honestly, things have changed. It’s the fifties now, not the twenties and thirties. Things change. Women really are interested in their work. And men, some men are simply not interested in settling down.’
‘Yes, well. I would of course prefer you to have a proper life and be looked after. I mean, what’s the point of having children if you’re going to be worried that they don’t settle down?’
Elizabeth hid her amazement. She decided it was time to end the conversation lightly.
‘Yes, you may be right, and one of these days I might actually surprise you, throw over Johnny Stone and find a suitable husband … then we’ll have a wedding like this. Here, look at Tony’s mother, now she’s a widow and you’re divorced – what do you say we make a match there …?’
Father looked seriously at Mrs Murray’s gloomy face. ‘She looks perfectly pleasant. …’ He peered at the picture. ‘But she has other children … I don’t think I could take on the responsibility of any more. …’
This was the nearest thing Father had ever made to a joke that Elizabeth could ever remember. She was still laughing when the telephone rang: it was Johnny.
‘How was the poor sacrificial lamb? Did she go through with it?’
‘Oh hallo, Johnny, yes, she went through with it. The whole ritualistic sacrifice. Marvellous, it was. Hymns and priests talking forever. I have some smashing pictures … your camera was a great success.’
‘Oh good. Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t around. I don’t know what Stefan said, or if there was any explanation when you got back …?’
‘What? No, don’t worry, Stefan gave me your message.’
‘He what?’
‘He said you said you’d be back on Friday. How’s it all going?’
> ‘Well, plan’s changed a bit, I think I’ll come back tonight. I really only rang to know how the land lay … if you felt like coming round to the flat tonight?’
‘Oh sure, that would be terrific. About eight all right?’
‘Well, I’ll be back by six if you could. …’
‘No, I’ve a few things to do here … see you at eight. Have you got any food … or shall I get some?’
‘I’ll get a bottle of wine … could you rustle up something? You sound very cheerful I must say … the wedding didn’t make you all gooey and broody?’
‘Who me? Listen, you’re talking to Elizabeth White, my friend.’
‘Yes, I know and I’m looking forward to seeing her tonight. I missed you, funny face.’
‘I missed you too, Johnny.’
Ethel Murray had said that she was going to be in Dublin anyway on the day that Tony was expected back. She was half-wondering would she go to the airport to meet him? Eileen had thought that was a poor idea.
‘I suppose you’re right, Eileen. You always seem so sensible about things,’ Ethel Murray said grudgingly. They were talking outside the church where they had both been delivering flowers for the procession. Already people were busy decorating the float for the statue of the Sacred Heart. The women walked to the gate of the church in a companionable silence. ‘I never knew you were so business-like, Eileen. I suppose you didn’t know I was so … well, so alone and so dependent of my children, did you?’
‘Ah, we’re all dependent on our children, we’d be no use as parents if we could just produce them and forget about them, would we?’
‘But yours are no problem to you. They don’t run as far away from you as they can get, like mine do.’
‘Haven’t you a big handsome son coming back next week to live down the road from you, woman? And better still, hasn’t he the eyes in his head to marry my daughter?’
They laughed. And Eileen wondered again why people thought she had no problems with her children. Eamonn and his father rowing worse than ever; Maureen expecting yet again, going to be tied down still more to the Dalys; Donal coughing and wheezing and pausing to catch his breath. Niamh was too pert for her own good. And Aisling. Eileen wished she knew why Aisling’s cards had upset her. Sean had thought that the child sounded in great form. But she never said anything about being happy.
There had been an arrangement before they left for Rome that Tony would leave the car keys under the seat and Joannie could use the car for the month that they were away. As soon as they got on the plane for the return journey Tony began to regret this.
‘It was sheer madness. I don’t know how I got talked into it.’ His face looked upset and hurt as if it had been a plot which he had recently discovered, instead of his own plan made long, long ago.
‘You said it would be a saving, we wouldn’t have to pay for a whole month’s parking at the airport, and Joannie could have the use of a car while her own is being fixed.’
‘Yes, but that’s the point, did we ever hear the full story of why hers is being fixed?’
Aisling laughed. ‘We probably never will. Stop worrying about it and look at the clouds. Imagine, these are the things that ruin whole crops on people and spoil people’s weddings and picnics, and don’t they look harmless from up here?’
‘Yes, isn’t it a mystery all right. You know, if she’s burned out the choke on that car … or driven it into the ground, I don’t know what I’ll do to her. God almighty, Aisling, that’s a new car. That’s a car with only a thousand miles on the clock. I should have had my head examined before I gave in to the lot of you over it.’
‘Tony, you suggested it, for God’s sake, I’m not going to sit here saying yes dear and no dear. It was your bloody idea so shut up about it will you?’
Tony looked at her and laughed suddenly. ‘Very well, I’ll shut up about it. No, I can’t imagine you saying yes dear and no dear. It doesn’t fit into the picture.
‘It didn’t fit into the promise. And you won’t yes dear me, like poor Mr Moriarty does to his wife. We must be equals in the yes dearing and no dearing. Or better still abolish it.’
Tony laughed again. ‘You look so funny when you get all hot and bothered laying down the law. Fair enough: no yes dearing or no dearing in our house. Ever.’
‘Won’t it be very exciting to see it? I wonder what it will look like. Mam said that they had the drive down and all. …’
‘Good, we’ll be able to take what’s left of the car inside then, rather than leaving it on the road.’
‘Tony. Shut up about the car. It will be grand to have our own home. Won’t it?’
He took her hand. ‘Yes, it will all be fine there, everything will be fine at home. It’s only natural that things should be a bit … I mean, shouldn’t work out exactly right … when people are abroad … but in our own home … In a person’s own home it should all be grand.’ He was red and embarrassed, his face working as he spoke, moving from a scowl to a pathetic little-boy look. Aisling deliberately misunderstood what he was talking about.
‘Yes, of course things will be great when we have our own food … I mean, we never promised to eat Italian food until death do us part or live with that kind of traffic screeching around us. No, what we were thinking about was life in Kilgarret. And that’s going to be grand. Don’t we know that?’
But he had begun, and he was not going to be turned aside. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I meant about the other. The other thing. Bed, you know. All that side of things will be fine too when we settle down at home, in our own place. You know?’
Aisling was utterly light-hearted about it. ‘You mean about us not doing it right yet? I think nobody does it right for a bit, I think we have to practise like playing tennis or riding a bicycle. I mean, we don’t have anyone to teach us. Nobody has. So they all pretend like mad that they know by inspiration. I bet we’ll be just as good as anyone at it in a couple of weeks and then we’ll imply there was nothing to it!’
‘You’re a great girl,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it right, though? I mean it makes sense,’ Aisling said and they dropped the subject to talk about Tony’s mother and how she must not be encouraged to drop in casually into the new house. Then they relapsed into a silence for a while and Tony looked in front of him. Aisling stared out the window, and wondered did Tony think he should go out drinking by himself still like he had before he was married and go to the pictures other nights with her? If so, did he expect her to sit at home and wait for him? Doing what? Doing bloody what? Calm down, she told herself, no point in getting all upset about something that hasn’t even happened and may not happen. Think about something else. Aisling looked out at the clouds and thought about the time she had asked Elizabeth what it was like having sex. Poor Elizabeth had been so distressed about the abortion and the whole situation she hadn’t been much help but she hadn’t said anything about it taking a long time to learn it. She had sort of given the impression that it was something you did. But of course she was so hopelessly loyal and devoted to that Johnny that she wouldn’t even admit that he had had to learn how to do it like anyone else. Or perhaps Johnny had practised on other people. Of course, that was it. That was why it had been so easy for them. And probably Maureen and Brendan Daly had been years and years learning, it was amazing that they had managed to have Brendan Og so soon. Very soon in fact. It must have been a mistake. She shrugged. There were obviously secrets in everyone’s marriage. She was never going to tell anyone about that awful night in Dublin with the drunk, and making fools of themselves in the Shelbourne Hotel in front of the porters. And she would never tell anyone about the times Tony had cried and she had cried in the Hotel San Martino in Rome. You didn’t tell those things any more than you told things like Da hitting Eamonn in the middle of Sunday lunch one day and Mother standing up with a bread knife to keep them apart. It had shocked everyone so much that nobody ever mentioned it again, or even thought about it.
Dear Aisling,
>
I’m so happy that you are home again and settled into the new house. It sounds very exotic to be writing to you as Mrs Murray in San Martino Lodge instead of Aisling O’Connor, 14 The Square. Was it your idea to call it after your honeymoon hotel or was it Tony’s? It’s so marvellous to have been back to Kilgarret because now I know where everything is all over again. I had thought that the bungalow was on the other side of town completely – for some reason I thought it was on the Dublin road. Now that I can place things you simply must write and tell me all there is to be told.
You won’t have the excuse of being busy, a married lady with nothing to do but tend the flowers all day. I know it’s not comparing anything with anything, but my earliest memories of Mother before the war, before I came to Kilgarret, were always of her sitting at a writing desk writing letters. And now I can’t think who they could have been to. Aunt Eileen said she only heard from her very rarely, so it’s another mystery.
Mother, since I spoke to her, is well. By which they mean she is peaceful, she is so heavily tranquillised now and under such sedation that she doesn’t know who anyone is, or where she is. I went up to Lancashire last week just to make sure. She is like a baby, a toddler really. Very thin and smiling. It’s as if she were a shell. Father won’t hear about it. He did mention Mother of his own accord not long ago when I was showing him your wedding pictures – weren’t they super – I had hoped he might be beginning to talk more about things, but no. Having scared me to death by saying that he had always hoped I would marry and settle down, he then went back to his normal uncommunicative self.
Oh, the reason he scared me by advocating marriage was that since he had endured such a poor experience of it himself I was surprised he wanted to see others enter into it. It’s quite different in your house. I’m not at all surprised your parents are so happy about you getting married, they had so much themselves out of the whole married state. Anyway, I said to Father quite openly that Johnny and marriage were two separate notions and if I wanted one I couldn’t have the other.
I was quite surprised to hear myself saying it, and in a way it was quite good for me. Because even to you I never admitted it openly did I? And you and I have talked about everything. I feel suddenly as if I cheated by holding back something. I didn’t mean to. I think it was superstitious magic … if I didn’t admit that Johnny is a hopeless passion in the world’s sense then maybe it might not be true. Suppose I went on behaving quite normally, maybe Johnny would come around.