by Maeve Binchy
“They might, one day.”
“Of course.” He was courteous.
She was silent. She couldn’t ask him to get the money now, she didn’t want to launch into any thanks. The word grateful might slip out. She sipped her sherry thoughtfully.
Their eyes met. “I’ll get a checkbook,” he said, and went out to the hall. Eve heard him rooting around amongst the papers and documents stacked on the table.
By the window the old man sat silently staring with unseeing eyes at the unkempt garden. Out on the lawn the sister who must have been nearly twenty years younger than her elder brother played with a couple of large dogs, throwing them sticks. It was like a foreign land to Eve.
She stood there like the visitor she was, until Simon came back in.
“You’ll have to forgive me, I am not saying this in any way to be offensive, but I don’t know if your name is Maloney or O’Malone, or what.”
“Eve Malone.” She spoke without expression.
“Thank you. I didn’t want to go out and check with Mrs. Walsh. It was one or the other, ask you or ask her.” He smiled.
Eve did not return the smile. She nodded her head slightly. He wrote the check slowly and deliberately, then folded it in half and handed it to her.
Common politeness must make her thank him. The words stuck in her throat. What had she said before, what had been the word which had pleased her? Glad.
She used it again. “I’m glad you were able to do this,” she said.
“I’m glad too,” he said.
They did not use each other’s names, and they knew there was no more to say. Eve put the check in the pocket of her cardigan and stretched out her hand.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Simon Westward said exactly the same thing at the same time.
She waved cheerfully at the child, who seemed disappointed to see her go, and walked down the avenue of the house that had been her mother’s home with her back straight, because she knew that she was being watched from the house. From the kitchens, from the garden where the dogs were playing, from the drawing room and from a wheelchair.
She didn’t let the skip come into her step until she was outside.
In the convent Mother Francis and Kit Hegarty were having lunch in the window of the community dining room, and a place had been set for Eve.
“We didn’t wait for you,” Mother Francis said, her eyes anxiously raking Eve’s face for the answer.
Eve nodded twice. The nun’s face lit up.
“I’ll go now. I have a lot of things to do. Eve, your meal’s in the kitchen. Bring it out and sit here with Mrs. Hegarty like a good girl.”
“Perhaps …” Kit looked uncertain. “Can’t I go and let you two talk.”
“No, no, no you’ve not finished yet, I have. And this is Eve’s home and mine. We have years to talk. You’ll be going away soon.”
Eve brought out her heaped plate of bacon and floury potatoes with a white sauce. She placed it on the table and saw the sad tired face of the older woman watching her.
“Sister Imelda’s always trying to fatten me up, but it’s no use. When you’ve got my kind of way of going on it just burns up food.”
Mrs. Hegarty nodded.
“I expect you’re the same,” Eve said. She felt almost light-headed with relief. She was only making small talk until the lunch was over, until she could run up the road to tell Benny the news, until she could talk to Mother Francis alone when this sad woman went away.
“Yes, I am the same,” Kit Hegarty said. “I never rest, I hardly ever sleep. I think about everything too much.”
“You’ve had a lot to think about,” Eve said sympathetically.
“Not always. Frank used to say to me that I couldn’t sit down, that my eyes were never still.”
“People say that to me, too,” Eve said, surprised.
They looked at each other with a new interest, the two who had been competing for Mother Francis’s time and attention. They didn’t think it odd that she hadn’t come back to them. They didn’t notice that Sister Imelda never came in to take away their plates. As the gray clouds that raced along behind the big banks of convent trees turned black, as the short winter afternoon turned into evening, they talked on.
Their stories fell into place, like pieces of a jigsaw. Eve Malone needed somewhere to live, a place where she could earn her keep. Kit Hegarty needed someone to help her with her guesthouse. She had no heart to stay in it all day now that Frank, the reason for all the work, had gone. They both could see the solution and yet were afraid to voice it.
It was Eve who spoke first. In the convent which had been her home, Eve softened her voice to ask. Eve, who could never ask for a favor, who hadn’t been able to form words of thanks for the £400 in her cardigan pocket, was able to ask Kit Hegarty could she come and live with her.
And Kit Hegarty leaned across the table and took Eve’s hands in hers.
“We’ll make some kind of a life out of it,” she promised.
“We’ll make a great life out of it,” Eve assured her.
Then they went to tell Mother Francis, who seemed very surprised and thought it must be the direct intervention of God.
SEVEN
Brian Mahon had been drinking now for several days. Not a real batter, nothing that had involved any violence or a brawl as it sometimes did, but steady drinking. Emily knew that things were shaping up for a fight. And this time it was going to be about Nan’s bedroom.
Nan had decided that from now on she would study there in the evenings. She had said it was not possible to study downstairs with the radio on and the family coming and going all the time. Nasey had fixed her up a simple desk and Paul had put a plug on an electric fire. This is where she would work from now on. Emily sighed. She knew that Brian would object as soon as it was brought to his notice. Why had he not been consulted? Who was going to pay for the electricity? Who did Nan think she was?
The answer to the last part was that Nan thought she was a lot too good for Brian Mahon and Maple Gardens. Her mother had ensured that over the years. As she brushed her daughter’s golden hair, Emily had always made the girl believe that there would be a better and a different life. Nan had never doubted it. She felt no need to conform to the life-style of a house ruled by an often drunken father.
Nan Mahon was not afraid of her father because she knew with a certainty which her mother had helped to create that her future didn’t lie in her father’s kind of world. She knew without arrogance that her beauty would be her means of escape.
Emily wished that there was some way that she could take Brian aside and talk to him in a way that he would listen. Really listen and understand. She could say to him that life was short and there was no point in crossing Nan. Let her work up in the bedroom if that’s what she wanted. Be nice—be pleasant about it, then she’d come down and sit with them afterward.
But Brian didn’t listen to Emily these days. If he had ever listened to her. She sighed to herself as she opened up the new delivery of Belleek china, and put the packing neatly into a big container under the counter. She arranged the little jugs and plates on a shelf so that they would best catch the eye and began to write out price tags in her meticulous handwriting. Emily Mahon sighed again. It was so easy to run a hotel shop, and so hard to run a family. People didn’t realize how often she’d like to make her bed in the corner of this little world, amongst those nice car rugs and cushions with Celtic designs on them. It would be simpler by far than going back to Maple Gardens.
She had been quite right of course. The row had well begun when Emily Mahon let herself into the family home.
“Do you know anything about all this?” Brian roared.
Emily had decided to try and play it lightly.
“Well, I must say that’s a great greeting to one of the workers of the world,” she said, looking from her husband’s hot, red face to Nan’s cool and unruffled expression.
“Aw, shut up with that worke
rs of the world crap will you? We all know there isn’t a reason in the world for you to be going out to work. Only because you took some figario. If you’d stayed at home and minded your business we wouldn’t have all this trouble now.”
“What trouble?” Emily was weary.
“Well might you ask what trouble. Sure you don’t know what’s going on in your own house.”
“Why are you picking on Em?” Nan asked. “She’s only in the door, she hasn’t her coat off, or her shopping-up down.”
Her father’s face was working. “Don’t call your mother by her Christian name, you young pup.”
“I’m not.” Nan was bored with this argument. “I’m calling her ‘M,’ short for Mother, Mama, Mater.”
“You’re dismantling that contraption you have upstairs, and coming back down here to where we have the house heated. You’ll study your books in this room like a normal human being.”
“Excuse me?” Nan asked. “Excuse my mentioning it, but what kind of study could anyone get in a room like this with people bellowing and shouting.”
“Listen to me you impertinent young rossie … you’ll feel the weight of my hand on you if there’s any more of this.”
“Ah, Dad, don’t hit her …” Nasey had stood up.
“Get out of my way …”
Nan didn’t move. Not an inch did she stir from where she stood, proud, young, confident in her fresh green and white blouse and her dark green skirt. She had her books under her arm, and she could have been a model picture for student fashion.
“Am I breaking my back for you to speak to me like that in front of the family? Am I working to make you into a bad-mannered tinker?”
“I haven’t said anything bad-mannered at all, Dad, only that I’m going up to work, to get a bit of peace. So that I’ll get my degree eventually, so that you’ll be prouder of me than ever.”
The words were inoffensive, but Brian Mahon found the tone of his daughter almost more than he could bear.
“Get up there out of my sight then, we don’t want to see hair nor hide of you this evening.”
Nan smiled. “If you want me to give you a hand Em, just call me,” she said, and they heard her light step going up the stairs.
The three students in Mrs. Hegarty’s digs were delighted to hear of Eve’s arrival. They had felt awkward and unsure of themselves in a place where the son of the house had been killed so tragically. Now at least an attempt at normality was being made.
They liked Eve too, when she appeared. Small, attractive in a wiry kind of way and prepared to put up with no nonsense from the very start.
“I’ll be getting your breakfast from now on. Mrs. Hegarty is feeding you like fighting cocks so you get bacon and egg and sausage every day and scrambled eggs on a Friday. But I have a nine o’clock lecture three days a week so I was wondering if you could help me clear and wash those days, and the other days I’ll run round after you like a slave … pouring you more cups of tea and buttering you more toast.”
They went along with her good-naturedly, and they did more than she asked. Big lads who wouldn’t have known where the Hoover was kept in their own homes were able to lift it out for Eve on a Tuesday before they went to catch the train to College. They wiped their feet carefully on the hall mat. They said they never again wanted to risk anything like the reception that they got when they had accidentally walked some mud in on top of a carpet that Eve had cleaned. They kept the bathroom far cleaner than they had ever done before Eve had come on the scene. Kit Hegarty told her privately that if she had known how much the presence of a girl would smarten the lads up, she might have had a female student years ago.
“Why didn’t you? They’d have been easier.”
“Don’t you believe it, always washing their hair, wanting the lavatory seat put down, drying their stockings over chairs, falling in love with no-hopers …” Kit had laughed.
“Aren’t you afraid of any of those thing happening with me?” Eve asked. They got on so well now, they could talk easily on any subject.
“Not a chance of it. You’ll never fall for a no-hoper. Hard-hearted little Hannah that you are.”
“I thought you said I was like you?” Eve was making bread as she spoke. Sister Imelda had taught her to make soda bread when she was six. She had no idea of the recipe, she just did it automatically.
“Ah, you are like me, and I didn’t fall for a no-hoper, there was lots of hope in Joseph Hegarty. It’s just that as time went on it didn’t seem to include me.” She sounded bitter and sad.
“Did you make any attempt to find him, you know to tell him about Frank?”
“He didn’t want to know about Frank when there was something to tell like when he learned to swim, or when he lost his first tooth, or when he passed his Inter. Why tell him anything now?”
Eve could see a lot of reasons, but she didn’t think it was the time or the place.
“Suppose he came back,” Eve asked. “If Joe walked in the door one day …”
“Funny I never called him Joe, always Joseph. I’m sure that tells us something about him or me. Suppose he came back? It would be like the man coming to read the meter. I gave up looking at that gate years ago.”
“And yet you loved him? Or else thought you did?”
“Oh, I did love him. There’s no use denying it just because it wasn’t returned and didn’t last.”
“You’re very calm about it.”
“You didn’t know me years ago. Let me see. Around the time you were one or two, if you’d known me then you wouldn’t have said I was calm!”
“I’ve never loved anybody,” Eve said suddenly.
“That’s because you were afraid to.”
“No, the nuns were much more liberal than people think. They didn’t fill me with terror of men.”
“No, I meant afraid to let yourself go …”
“I think that’s right. I feel things very strongly like resentment. I resent those bloody Westwards. I hate asking them for money. I can’t tell you how much it took to make me walk up there that Sunday. And I feel very protective too, if anyone said a word against Mother Francis or Sister Imelda I’d kill them.”
“You look very fierce with that knife. Put it down for God’s sake.”
“Oh.” Eve laughed, realizing she was brandishing the carving knife, which she had used to put a cross on the top of the soda cake. “I didn’t notice. Anyway it wouldn’t harm anyone. It’s as blunt as anything. It wouldn’t cut butter. Let’s get one of those budding engineers inside there to take it into a lab and sharpen it up for us.”
“You will love somebody one day,” Kit Hegarty said.
“I can’t imagine who.” Eve was thoughtful. “For one thing he’d have to be a saint to put up with my moods, for another I don’t see many good examples, where love seems to have worked out well.”
“Have you anything planned on Sunday?” Dr. Foley asked his eldest son.
“What am I letting myself in for if I haven’t?” Jack laughed.
“Just a simple answer. If you’re busy I’ll not bother you.”
“But then I might miss something great.”
“Ah, that’s what life is all about, taking risks.”
“What is it Dad?”
“You are free then.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“You know Joe Kennedy, he’s a chemist in the country. He wants to see me. He’s not well I think. We go back a long way. He wondered if I’d come and call on him.”
“Where does he live?”
“Knockglen.”
“That’s miles away. Don’t they have doctors there?”
“They do, but he wants a friend more than a doctor.”
“And you want me to come is it?”
“I want you to drive me, Jack. I’ve lost my nerve a bit.”
“You can’t have.”
“Not altogether, but just for a long wet drive, slippy roads. I’d be very grateful.”
“All r
ight,” Jack said. “What’ll I do while you’re talking to him?”
“That’s the problem. I wouldn’t say there’s all that much to do there, but maybe you could go on a drive or sit in the car to read the Sunday papers.”
Jack’s face brightened. “I know. There’s a girl that lives there. I’ll give her a ring.”
“That’s my boy. Only a couple of months at University and already there’s a girl in every town.”
“She’s not a girl in that sense. She’s just a nice girl,” Jack explained. “Have you the phone book? There can’t be that many Hogans in Knockglen.”
Nan was very excited when Benny said that Jack Foley had rung her.
“Half the girls in College would give anything to have him coming to call on them, let me tell you. What’ll you wear?”
“I don’t think he’s coming to call, not in that sense. I mean it’s not something to get dressed up for. I won’t wear anything,” Benny said, flustered.
“That should be a nice surprise for him when you open the door,” Nan said.
“You know what I mean.”
“I still think you should get dressed up, wear that nice pink blouse, and the black skirt. It is a party when a fellow like Jack Foley comes to call. If he was coming out to Maple Gardens I’d dress up. I’ll get you a length of pink ribbon and a black one and you can tie them both round your hair to hold it back. It’ll look great. You’ve got gorgeous hair.”
“Nan, it won’t look great on a rainy Sunday in Knockglen. Nothing looks great there. It’ll just look pathetic.”
Nan looked at her thoughtfully. “You know those big thick brown bags, the ones they sell sugar in. Why don’t you put one of those over your head and cut two slits for eyes. That might look right.”
Annabel Hogan and Patsy planned to make scones, and queen cakes and an apple tart. There would be bridge rolls first with chopped egg on one plate and sardines on the other.
“Maybe we shouldn’t overdo it,” Benny suggested.
“There’s nothing overdone about a perfectly straightforward afternoon tea for your friend.” Benny’s mother was affronted at the notion that this might not have been their normal Sunday afternoon fare.