by Maeve Binchy
They hadn’t even begun the lunch and already he must have regretted asking her. She had talked about the bracing air of Dun Laoghaire, reminding him of fat ladies on postcards. She had assumed that his younger brother must think she was mad. She had engaged the waiter in an endless and confused dialogue about whether he knew another Italian living miles away. What a great fun person she was. And there wasn’t even anybody in the restaurant to distract him, to make him feel that the outing had any excitement at all. Benny wished she were back in the Dolphin Hotel with half of Dublin there and all the Rosemarys and Sheilas and even Carmel and Sean picking at each other and feeding each other bread rolls.
Anything was better than this catastrophic setting.
“Isn’t it super to have it to ourselves,” Jack said at that moment. “I feel like a sultan, or some millionaire. They do—you know—ring up restaurants and say they want to book all the tables so that they won’t be disturbed.”
“They do?” Benny asked eagerly.
At least it was conversation and he seemed to be making the best of the place being empty.
“Well, I did it today of course! Carlo, we need the whole place to ourselves … a pianist possibly, no. Well, all right. Just a few violinists at the table later. Just don’t let any hoi polloi in, no awful Dubliners having their lunch or anything sordid like that.”
They laughed and laughed just like last night.
“And what did Carlo say?”
“He said, ‘For you Meester Foley anything you like, but only eef the Signorina ees lovely.’ ”
The words were bitten back. She was about to say, “Well, we fell down on that one, didn’t we?”
She was going to put herself down for fear of thinking that she might actually believe herself to be acceptable. But something warned her it wasn’t the right thing to do. She put her head on one side and smiled at him.
“And then you arrived and he saw you were very beautiful, so he has now put a House Full sign on the door,” Jack said.
“Is that Carlo who’s serving us do you think?” Benny asked.
“No idea,” Jack said. “He looks much more like a man who has a secret cousin in Knockglen, but didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I must remember every detail of this place to tell Mario about it,” Benny said, looking happily around.
“You’re lovely, Benny,” Jack said, and laid his hand on hers.
Clodagh told her aunt that she had been barred from Healy’s. It didn’t matter all that much because it wasn’t a place she planned on visiting much anyway, but she felt that Peggy should know from her before anyone else told her.
“What were you doing the pair of you?” Peggy asked.
“I’d tell you if we were doing anything you know that. But as it happened we just walked in. She decided she didn’t like the look of us.”
“She can’t do that under the Innkeepers Act.”
“I think she can. Management reserves the right and all that. We thought you ought to know, you and Mario, but honestly Fonsie and I don’t care. That’s the truth.”
The truth also was that Peggy and Mario did care. Very much. Neither of them liked the way that the young people dressed, in fact it was a source of great common grumbling between them. But to be refused service in the town’s only hotel. That was something else. That was war.
It wasn’t long before Mrs. Healy discovered how the lines were being drawn. Mr. Flood, who was having one of his clear spells where he neither saw nor mentioned the nun in the tree who had been visiting him with messages, said that it was time that someone had taken a stand. Those two were an abomination. He had read in the papers that there was an international movement to take over the civilized world, and that its members knew each other by these kinds of garish clothes. It was no accident that Fonsie and Clodagh had gravitated to each other, he said, nodding his head sagely. Mrs. Carroll was with Mrs. Healy too. The sooner this very undesirable influence in the town was stamped on the better. Neither of these two young people had parents to deal with them, relying only on a maiden aunt and a bachelor uncle. No wonder they had run wild.
Mrs. Carroll of the grocery said that her own daughter Maire, who was working in the shop and doing bookkeeping by correspondence course, had often been drawn to the bright lights in the cafe, and to the garish clothes in what had once been a respectable window. Mrs. Healy had been quite right to make her point.
Mrs. Kennedy on the other hand took a different view. She was heard to say that Mrs. Healy had a cheek. She hadn’t even been born in Knockglen. Who did she think she was, making rules and regulations for the people of the town? Mrs. Kennedy said that there were many unsavory people seen in the corner of Healy’s bar on a Fair Day and when commercial travelers had too much to drink and knew they could always get a drink in the hotel. Mrs. Kennedy, who had never liked the young widow and thought that her own husband used to spend too many evenings there, was outraged that she should think of refusing a drink to a niece of Peggy Pine, no matter how unwisely the poor girl garbed herself.
Birdie Mac wasn’t sure. She was a timid woman who had lived all her life looking after an aged mother. She had neither wanted to do this or not wanted to. It was just that Birdie was unable to make a decision. She had never made her own mind up about anything. Even though she was a friend of Peggy’s, she also listened to what Mrs. Carroll said. Even though Mario was a good customer and bought biscuits from her every day, she still agreed with poor Mr. Flood that Mario’s nephew was going too far altogether and how could it be stopped unless somebody shouted stop.
She didn’t like Mrs. Healy personally, but she admired her courage in running a business so well in a man’s world, instead of retreating humbly behind the counter of a sweetshop, which was all that Birdie had been able to do in terms of independent living.
Dr. Johnson said that Mrs. Healy was free to serve or refuse whosoever she wanted. Father Ross wouldn’t be drawn at all. Paccy Moore told his cousin Dekko that Mrs. Healy had two bunions, one on each foot. That was his only comment. It was taken to be support for Clodagh and Fonsie.
Eddie and Annabel Hogan discussed it for a long time over their Saturday lunch. There were ways of course that Clodagh and Fonsie had misunderstood Knockglen and gone too far. They both looked as if they were in fancy dress almost all of the time. But they were hard workers, it couldn’t be denied, and that was their great saving grace. If they had been standing smoking on the corner there would have been no sympathy for them.
But nobody could accuse either of them of being idle. And in Knockglen that would cover a multitude of sins, like dressing so mutinously.
“If someone came into your shop, you’d serve them no matter how they were dressed, wouldn’t you Eddie.”
“Yes, but if they had manure on their boots I’d ask them not to walk it in,” he said.
“But they weren’t walking anything in,” Annabel Hogan said. She had always thought that Mrs. Healy had a special smile for the men and nothing nearly so warm for their wives. And also Clodagh had made such a lovely dress for Benny it would be hard not to be on her side. All that brocade had looked so well, there were little bits of chestnut color in it, just like Benny’s hair, and that beautiful dash of white at the front, that pleated insert over the bosom. It had given the whole thing such a classy touch. So elegant and ladylike, and not at all the kind of thing you’d ever have thought Clodagh would have dreamed up.
Mother Francis heard about the scene in the hotel as well. Peggy drove up to the convent that afternoon for tea and advice.
“Rise above it, Peggy. Rise right above it.”
“That’s not easy to do if you’re out in the world, Bunty.”
“It’s not easy to do if you’re inside a convent either. I have that Mother Clare descending on me for Christmas. Imagine trying to rise above that.”
“I’ll never go in there for a drink again.”
“Think carefully, Peggy, think. If you do want a drink where will
you go? The spit and sawdust in Shea’s maybe? The pokey little snugs of the other places? Don’t do anything rash.”
“God, Bunty, for a nun you’ve a great knowledge of all the bars in town,” said Peggy Pine admiringly.
They talked about the dance, and how wonderful Aidan had been. No other table had won so many spot prizes. And there had been an incident Jack told her where a girl fainted at another table and when they had loosened her clothes and tried to revive her, two bread rolls had fallen out of her bra. Jack laughed good-naturedly at this. Benny thought of how the girl must be feeling today, and how she would never be able to remember the dance with anything but shame.
“Oh, go on, it is funny,” he said. She knew she must see the lighthearted side.
“Yes, and full of crumbs, very scratchy I’d say.” She felt like Judas to this girl she didn’t even know, but she was rewarded with the smile.
“Not anything you’d ever need, Benny,” he said, smiling at her across the table.
“Everyone’s different.”
She looked down, very, very embarrassed.
“You’re different in a good way,” he said.
At least the veterinary student, whoever he was, had a nice floppy jumper. You couldn’t see the outline of her breasts. She looked at her front relieved. What could she say now to change the subject?
The door opened and another couple came in. Jack shrugged.
“I said only people from Napoli could come, and then only if they stayed quiet.” He looked at them warningly.
They were a pair of middle-aged Dubliners. Cold and shivery.
“Probably civil servants having an affair,” Benny whispered.
“No, two school inspectors planning to make everyone fail the Leaving Certificate next year,” he countered.
Most of the time it was easy to talk to him. He was so normal and relaxed, and there really was nothing in his manner that made her feel anxious. It was just herself. Benny realized that she had spent years sending herself up and playing the fool. When it came to the time to play the romantic lead, she didn’t have a clue. And worse, she wasn’t at all sure that was the part she was actually being cast to play. She wished she could read his signals, and understand what he was saying.
If only she could know then she could respond.
The ice cream was offered. The waiter explained cassata, a beautiful Neapolitan ice cream he said, lovely bits of fruit and nuts chopped up in it, some candied peel, some macaroons. Bellissima.
Something told Benny that the right thing was to have it, not to talk of diets or calories, or waistlines.
She saw Jack’s face light up. He’d have some too.
The waiter saw them smile at each other.
“It’s a very dark afternoon. I light a little candle to give you light to see each other when you talk,” he said.
Jack’s open shirt over his navy sweater was a pale pink. It looked beautiful in the candlelight. She felt again that urge to stroke him. Not to kiss his lips or press against him, just to reach out and rub her hand softly from his cheek to his chin.
She had drunk only one glass of wine. It couldn’t be some drink-crazed feeling.
Benny watched as if it was happening to someone else as she leaned across and stroked his face softly three times.
The third time he caught her hand and held it to his lips.
He kissed it with his head bent over it so that she couldn’t see his eyes.
Then he gave it back to her.
There was no way he was making fun of her, or making a silly extravagant gesture like Aidan might.
Nobody would hold your hand like that and kiss it for such a long time unless they wanted to.
Would they? Would they?
Dessie Burns said that Mrs. Healy could be a bit uppity in herself, and there had indeed been times when she had spoken to him more sharply than was called for. But to be fair, there had been a question of drink involved and perhaps there were those who would say that the woman had been within her rights. There was nothing more scrupulously and boringly fair than Dessie Burns when he was on the dry.
And when all was said and done that young Fonsie was a pup, and a pup needed a good spanking now and then if he was to grow into a good dog, so that’s all that had happened. Fonsie had been told he couldn’t walk around this town as if he owned it. Who was he? The nephew of an Eyetie, with no sign of the Eyetie mother and the Dub father since the day he’d set foot in the place. That was a young lad without a background, without a history, in Knockglen. Let him take things more slowly. And as for Peggy’s niece, she was a sore trial with the getup of her. Maybe this would make her settle down.
Mario said that he would go up and stand on the step of Healy’s Hotel and spit in the door and then spit out the door, and then he’d come home and spit at Fonsie.
Fonsie said that none of this would advance them, they should instead go to Liverpool and buy a beautiful secondhand Wurlitzer jukebox that he had seen advertised there.
Mario developed a most unexpected loyalty to Fonsie. Having denounced him to everyone in the town individually and generally he now said that his sister’s child was the salt of the earth, the mainstay of Mario’s old age and the shining hope for Knockglen.
He also said with a lot of pounding on whatever surface was near that he would never drink in Healy’s again. Which, considering he had never drunk there anyway, was a threat more powerful in the utterance than the deed.
Simon Westward came into Healy’s that afternoon to inquire if they did dinners.
“Every day, Mr. Westward.” Mrs. Healy was delighted to see him in the place at last. “Might I offer you a little something on the house to celebrate your first visit to us?”
“Very kind of you … er … Mrs.… er …”
“Healy.” She looked rather pointedly at the hotel sign.
“Ah yes, how stupid of me. No, I won’t stay for a drink now. You do do dinners. That’s wonderful. I wasn’t sure.”
“Every day from noon until two-thirty.”
“Oh.”
“Do those hours not suit you?”
“No, I mean they’re perfectly fine hours. I was thinking of dinner in the evening.”
Mrs. Healy always prided herself on being ready when Opportunity came to call.
“Up to now Mr. Westward we have merely served high teas, but coming up to the Christmas season and thereafter we will indeed be serving dinner,” she said.
“Starting?”
“Starting next weekend, Mr. Westward,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.
The waiter thought they must have a Sambuca. It was a little Italian liqueur. This was with the compliments of the house. He would put a coffee bean in it and set it alight. It was a wonderful drink to have at the end of a lunch on a winter’s day.
They sat there and wondered would the disgruntled couple get one too, or was it only for people who looked happy.
“Will we see you next weekend?” the waiter asked eagerly. Benny could have killed him. She was doing so well. Why must the waiter bring up the subject of another date.
“Certainly another time, I hope,” Jack said.
They walked along the quays, which had often looked cold and wet to Benny, but this afternoon there was a glorious sunset, and everything had a rosy light.
The secondhand booksellers had wooden stands of books on display outside.
“It’s like Paris,” Benny said happily.
“Were you ever there?”
“No, of course I wasn’t.” She laughed good-naturedly. “That’s me, just showing off. I’ve seen the pictures and I’ve been to the films.”
“And you’re studying French of course, you’d be able to take it in your stride.”
“I doubt that. Great chats about Racine and Corneille in English would be more my line.”
“Nonsense. I’ll be depending on you to be my guide when I’m playing in the Parc des Princes,” he said.
“I bet yo
u will,” she said.
“No, that’s me showing off. I’ll never play for anyone if I keep eating like I did last night and today. I’m meant to be in training. You’d never know it.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t have practice today. You often do on Saturdays, don’t you?”
“We did. I skipped it,” he said.
She looked at him suddenly. The old Benny would have made a joke. The new Benny didn’t.
“I’m glad you did. It was a lovely lunch.”
She had her overnight bag in a shop near the bus stop. The woman handed it over the counter to her and together they walked toward the bus.
“What will you do tonight?” he asked her.
“Go to Mario’s cafe and tell people about the dance. What about you?”
“No idea. Hope there are some invitations when I get home.” He laughed lazily, the kind of man who didn’t have to plan his own life.
He passed her zippered bag onto the bus. Benny willed Mikey not to make any smart-aleck remarks.
“There you are, Benny. I knew we didn’t have you yesterday. The weight in the bus was lighter altogether,” he said.
Jack hadn’t heard, or if he had heard he hadn’t understood Mikey’s mumblings. That’s what she told herself as she sat and looked out at the darkening city and the beginnings of the countryside.
She had danced close to Jack Foley, who had then invited her out to lunch. She had said nothing too stupid. He had said he’d see her in the Annexe on Monday. He had kissed her hand. He had said she was lovely.
She was absolutely exhausted. She felt as if she had been carrying a heavy weight for miles and miles in some kind of contest. But whatever contest it was, and whatever the rules, it looked as if she had won.
TWELVE
Heather wanted to know all about the dance and mainly what they had for pudding. She was stunned that Eve couldn’t remember. She found it beyond comprehension that there could be too much else happening to remember pudding.
She broke the news that Simon said he was going to join them on their outing.