by Maeve Binchy
“I’m sure I’ll do it wrong,” Benny had said. “You know me. I’ll think I’m being pleasant and distant, and I’ll end up walking up to Father Ross arranging for the banns to be read out.”
But Nan had said it was easy. “Ask him all about himself, sound interested but don’t get involved. Tell him things about yourself that you’d like him to know and never answer any question directly, that’s the secret.”
So far it seemed to be working quite well. Sean sat there in Mario’s and, raising his voice to compete with Guy Mitchell on the new record player, he told a tale of how the clothing industry was changing and how men were going to Dublin and buying ready-made suits off the peg, and how the bus from Knockglen stopped so near McBirney’s on the quays in Dublin it was as bad as if McBirney’s had opened a branch next to Mr. Flood’s.
Sean said that it was sometimes hard to convince Mr. Hogan of the need for change. And perhaps not his place to do so.
Benny listened sympathetically with her face and about a quarter of her mind. The rest of her thoughts were on the dance and what she should wear. She was back on her diet again, drinking bitter black coffee instead of the frothy, sugary cups that everyone else in the cafe was having. She moved the chocolate biscuits on the plate around, making patterns of them with the yellow ones underneath and the green ones on top. She willed her hands not to rip one open and stuff it into her mouth.
There were no dresses big enough for her, in any of the shops in Dublin. Well, there were, but not the kinds of shops she’d go to. Only places that catered for rich older women. Dresses with black jet beading on them, or dove gray with crossover fronts. Suitable for someone in their sixties at a state banquet. Not for Benny’s first dance.
Still, there was plenty of time, and there were dressmakers, and there were friends to help. Nan could probably come up with a solution for this as well as everything else. Benny had asked Nan if she could stay the night in her house after the dance.
Nan hadn’t said yes or no. She asked why Benny didn’t stay with Eve.
“I don’t know. It is the place she’s working, after all.”
“Nonsense. It’s her home. You two are old friends, you’d enjoy staying there.”
Perhaps this is what Nan meant by not answering any question directly. Certainly Benny hadn’t felt even slightly offended. It would be wonderful to know how to deal with people like Nan did.
Sean was still droning on about the need to have a sale. And the dangers of having a sale. Mr. Hogan felt that if a place like Hogan’s had a sale it might look to customers as if they were getting rid of shoddy goods. Also what would people who had paid the full price for similar items a few weeks previously think if they saw them reduced now?
Sean saw the reason in this, but he also wondered how you could attract local people to buy their socks and shoes in Hogan’s instead of going up to O’Connell Street in Dublin on a day trip and coming home sliding past the door trying to hide the name Clerys on the package?
Benny looked at him and wondered who would marry him and listen to this for the rest of her life. She hoped that this new policy of being polite but uninvolved would work.
“What about next week?” Sean said as he walked her down the town and round the bend of the road to Lisbeg.
“What about it, Sean?” she asked courteously.
“Jamaica Inn,” he said triumphantly, having read the posters.
The old Benny would have made a joke and said that Jamaica was a bit far to go on an outing. The new Benny smiled at him.
“Oh, Charles Laughton, isn’t it, and Maureen O’Hara?”
“Yes,” Sean said, a trifle impatiently. “You haven’t seen it, I don’t remember it being here before.”
Never answer a question directly. “I loved the book. But I think I preferred Rebecca. Did you read Rebecca?”
“No, I don’t do much reading. The light’s not very good up there.”
“You should have a lamp,” Benny said eagerly. “I’m sure there’s one in the spare room we never use. I’ll mention it to Father.”
She beamed such enthusiasm for this helpful idea, and put out her hand so firmly to shake his, that he couldn’t press her for a yes or a no about the pictures next week. Nor could he press his cold, thin lips on hers with any dignity at all.
Mother Francis moved around the small cottage. She had been very heartened by Kit Hegarty’s report on the meeting between Eve and Heather. Perhaps the way to a reconciliation was opening up after all. The agreement to pay the fees had done nothing to soften Eve’s heart to the cold distant family who had treated her mother, her father and herself so shabbily.
In some ways it had almost strengthened her resolve not to give in to them in any way.
If only Mother Francis could get her to stay a night in this cottage, to sleep here, to feel the place was her own. If Eve Malone were to wake in this place and look out over the quarry she might feel she belonged somewhere rather than perching here and there which was what she felt now. Mother Francis had high hopes that she might be able to install Eve by Christmas. But it was work of high sensitivity.
It would be no use pretending that she needed Eve’s room in the convent. That would be the worst thing to do. The girl would feel she had been evicted from the only home she knew. Perhaps Mother Francis could say that the older members of the community would like a little outing and that since they couldn’t leave the convent grounds perhaps Eve might arrange a tea party for them in her cottage. But Eve would see through that at once.
When Mother Francis and Peggy Pine were young together, Peggy used to say, “It will all come clear in the end.”
Mainly it had. This cottage was an area where it had taken a long time for things to come clear.
She was always careful to lock the door with the big key, and put it under the third stone in the little wall near the iron gate. There was a big padlock that Mossy had suggested she put on the gate as well, but it looked ugly and forbidding. Mother Francis decided to risk doing without it.
Nobody came up this way unless they had business here. Either you came through the briar- and bramble-covered paths of the convent or else a steep, unmade track up from the town. If anyone wanted a view of the big stone escarpments they chose a much better and broader way which went up at a gradual incline from the square where the bus turned every day.
To her shock, when she turned around she saw a figure standing only a few feet away.
It was Simon Westward. He had his back to her and was looking out over the dark, misty view. She rattled the gate so that he would hear her and not be startled.
“Oh … um, good afternoon,” he said.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Westward.”
In religious life a part of the day was known as The Great Silence. It meant that nuns did not feel uneasy when there was no conversation. Mother Francis waited easily for the small dark man to speak again.
“Rotten weather,” he said.
“Never very good, November.” She could have been at a garden party instead of on top of a quarry in the mist and rain with a man she had crossed swords with several times.
“Mrs. Walsh said you come up here a lot,” he said. “I told her I didn’t feel I’d be quite in place in the convent. I wondered where I might run into you casually, as it were.”
“You’d be very welcome in the convent, Mr. Westward, you always would have been.”
“I know. Yes, I know.”
“But anyway you’ve found me now.”
It would have been more sensible for them to go back into the cottage, but there was no way that she would take him over Eve’s doorstep. It would have been the final betrayal. He looked at the house expectantly. She said nothing.
“It’s about Eve,” he said eventually.
“Oh yes.”
“It’s just that she very kindly went and took my sister out from school. I’m afraid Heather very probably asked her to do so, in fact I know she did. But anyway Eve took he
r on a nice day out and is going to again …”
“Yes.” Mother Francis had cold eyes and a heavy heart. Was he going to ask Eve to stay clear of the family? If so, she would have a heart as hard as Eve’s.
“I was wondering if you could tell her …”
The nun’s gaze didn’t waver.
“If you could tell her how grateful I am. I mean truly.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Mother Francis felt the words come out of her mouth in a quick breath of relief.
“Well, I would, of course. But I don’t know where she lives.”
“Let me write it down for you.” She began to seek deep in the pockets of her long black skirt.
“Let me. Farmers always have backs of envelopes to scribble things on.”
She smiled at him. “No, let me. Nuns always have little notebooks and silver-topped pencils.”
She produced both from the depths of her pockets and wrote with a shaking hand what she thought might be the outline plans for an olive branch.
Clodagh Pine came into Hogan’s shop.
“How are you, Mr. Hogan? Do you have a loan of a couple of hat stands?”
“Of course, of course.” Eddie Hogan went fussing off to the back of the shop to look for them.
“Opening a millinery section are we?” Sean Walsh said to her in a lofty tone.
“Watch your tone with me, Sean. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here,” she said, with a loud laugh.
Sean looked at her without pleasure. She was pretty, certainly, in a flashy sort of way. But she had her long legs exposed for all to view, in a ridiculously short skirt. She wore a lime-green dress with a black jacket over it, a pink scarf, and her earrings, which were long and dangly, were precisely the same green as her dress, and her very obviously tinted blond hair was held up with two black combs.
“No, I probably don’t.”
“Well, you will,” she said.
There were just the two of them standing in the shop. Old Mike was at his tailoring and Mr. Hogan was out of earshot.
“I’ll hardly miss you, that’s for sure.”
“You’d be wise not to.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “We can be rivals or friends. It’s probably more sensible to be friends.”
“I’d say everyone’s your friend, Clodagh.” He laughed a scornful little laugh.
“You’d be wrong there. A lot of people aren’t my friends at all. However my aunt is. I’m doing a major reorganization of her window. Every notice saying ‘A Fashion Snip’ has already been burned. Wait till you see the new display.”
“On Monday, is it?” He was still superior.
“No, genius. This afternoon, early closing day, the only day anyone really looks in your window. And tomorrow we’ll let it rip.”
“I should congratulate you.”
“Yes, you should. It’s harder for me coming in than it is for you. I haven’t any plans to marry my aunt.”
Sean looked nervously at the back storeroom where Eddie Hogan had found some hat stands and was returning with them triumphantly.
“I’m sure your new windows will be a great success,” he said hastily.
“Yes, they’ll be fabulous,” she said. She gave the surprised Eddie Hogan a kiss on the forehead, and was gone in a flash of color, like a bird of paradise.
“I’m not spending hard-earned money on a dress,” Eve said with a ferocious scowl when Nan started talking about what they would wear.
She expected Nan to tell her that you are how you look, and that you must expect people to take you or leave you on the way you present yourself. It was one of Nan’s theories.
“You’re right,” Nan said unexpectedly. “Whatever you buy it shouldn’t be an evening dress.”
“So?” Eve was wrong-footed now. She had expected an argument.
“So what will you do?” Nan asked.
“Kit said I can look through her things, just in case. She’s taller than I am, but then so’s everyone. I could take the hem up, if I found something.”
“Or you could have my red wool skirt,” Nan said.
“I don’t think so …” Eve began, the prickles beginning to show.
“Well, nobody’s seen it in college. Red looks great on you. You could get a fancy blouse or maybe Mrs. Hegarty has one. Why not?”
“I know it sounds ungrateful, but I suppose it’s because I don’t want to wear your castoffs,” Eve said straight out.
“But you wouldn’t mind wearing Mrs. Hegarty’s, is that it?” Nan was quick as a flash.
“She offers them because … because she knows I wouldn’t mind taking them.”
“And what about me? Haven’t I got the same motive?”
“I don’t know, to be honest.” Eve fiddled with her coffee spoon.
Nan didn’t plead with her, and she didn’t shrug. Very simply she said, “It’s there, it’s nice, it would look well on you.”
“Why are you lending it to me, I mean what’s in your mind?” Eve knew she sounded like a five-year-old but she wanted to know.
“Because we’re a group of friends going to this dance. I want us to look knockout. I want us to wipe the eyes of people like that stupid Rosemary and that dull Sheila. That’s why!”
“I’d love it,” Eve said, with a grin.
“Mother, would it be awful if I was to ask you for a loan of money, like to get some material for a dress?”
“We’ll buy you a dress Benny. Your first big dance. Every girl should have a new dress from a shop.”
“There isn’t one to fit me in the shops.”
“Don’t be full of misery like that. I’m sure there is. You haven’t looked.”
“I’m not even remotely full of miseries. People don’t come in my size until they’re old. I don’t mind now that I know. I used to think people were born with big bones and large frames, but apparently these grow when you’re about sixty-eight. You’d better watch it, Mother, it could happen to you.”
“And where did you develop this nonsensical theory may I ask?”
“After slogging round every shop in Dublin. Lunch-times, Mother, I didn’t miss my lectures!”
She looked not remotely put out about it, Annabel was relieved to see. Or perhaps she was inside. With Benny it was hard to tell.
There was nothing to be gained by probing. Benny’s mother decided to be practical.
“What material had you in mind?”
“I don’t know. Something rich … I don’t know if this is ridiculous, but I saw something in a magazine. She was a biggish woman and it was like tapestry …”
Benny’s smile was broad, but not totally sure.
“Tapestry?” Her mother sounded doubtful.
“Maybe not. It might make me look like a couch or an armchair.”
Annabel wanted to take her daughter in her arms, but she knew she must do nothing of the sort.
“Do you mean brocade?” she asked.
“The very thing.”
“I have a lovely brocade skirt.”
“It wouldn’t fit me, Mother.”
“We could get a bit of black velvet let into it, maybe, as panels, and then a top of black velvet and some of the brocade to trim it. What do you think?”
“We couldn’t cut up your good skirt.”
“When will I ever wear it again. I’d love you to be the belle of the ball.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. And it’s better than anything you’d buy in the shops.”
It was. Benny knew that. Her heart sank though at the thought of what her mother might envisage as a design.
A sudden picture of her tenth birthday flashed before Benny. The day she thought she was going to get a party dress and had been given that sensible navy blue outfit. The pain of it was as real now as then. But there seemed few alternatives.
“Who’d make it, do you think?”
“Peggy’s niece is a great hand with the needle we hear.”
Benny brightened. Clodagh Pine looked anything but frumpish. The project might not be doomed after all.
Dear Eve,
Just a very brief note to thank you most sincerely for your visit to my sister at her boarding school. Heather has written glowingly of your kindness. I wanted to express my appreciation, but to tell you not to feel in any way obligated to this in consideration of any assistance with fees that this family may have given you. I need hardly add that you are very welcome to call at Westlands during the Christmas vacation should you wish to do so.
Yours in gratitude,
Simon Westward.
Dear Simon,
I visit Heather because I want to and she wants me to. It has nothing to do with considerations as you call them. During the Christmas vacation I shall be in residence at St. Mary’s Convent, Knockglen. You are very welcome to call there, should you wish to do so.
Yours in explanation,
Eve Malone.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hogan,
As Benny may have told you, a group of us are going to the end of term Dress Dance next Friday week. My parents are having a small sherry party in our house in Donnybrook, where we will all gather before setting off for the dance. They asked me to suggest to some of the parents that they might like to drop in for the drinks party should they be in the area. I realize it is rather far away, but just in case there was a chance, I thought I would mention it.
Thank you again for that wonderful afternoon at your home weeks ago during my visit to Knockglen.
Kind regards,
Jack Foley.
Dear Fonsie,
I’m going to have to ask you very firmly to cease writing these notes to me. My aunt thinks there is only one Miss Pine in the world and that she is it. She has read aloud to me your letters about being groovy, and inviting me to where the action is. She has begun to ask me what “turning someone on” is about, and why do people say “It’s been real.”
I have a healthy respect for my aunt. I have come here to help her modernize her shop and improve her business. I do not intend to spend every morning listening to her reading See you later Alligator at me.