by Maeve Binchy
Nan would wait until a suitable car passed by.
A middle-aged man in a green car came into view. She hailed him and as Nan had known he would, he stopped.
Dr. Johnson asked her where she was heading.
“Westlands,” she said simply.
“Where else,” the man said.
They talked about the car. He explained it was a Morris Cowley. He’d love a Zodiac or even a Zephyr, but you had to know when to draw the line.
“I don’t think you do,” said the beautiful blond girl, whom Dr. Johnson remembered seeing somewhere before.
She had a slightly high, excited look about her. He asked no questions about her visit.
She said that a lot of people were too timid, they didn’t reach for things. He should reach for a Zephyr or a Zodiac, not assume that they were beyond his grasp.
Maurice Johnson smiled and said he would discuss the notion of reaching with his wife and with his bank manager. He could see neither of them agreeing with this view, but he would certainly present it.
He turned in the gates of Westlands.
“Were you going here anyway?” Nan asked, alarmed. She didn’t want to clash with another visitor.
“Not at all. But a gentleman, even in a Morris Cowley, always saw a lady right to the door.”
She gave him a smile of such brightness, he thought to himself that men like Simon Westward who were knee-high to a grasshopper had all the luck when it came to getting gorgeous women just because they had the accent and the big house.
Nan looked up at the house. It wasn’t going to be easy. But then nothing that was important had ever been easy. She took three deep breaths, and rang at the door.
Mrs. Walsh knew well who Nan Mahon was. She had heard the name on the telephone many times, and even though she discouraged Bee from gossiping, she knew that this girl, who had been in the house a couple of days after Christmas, was a friend of Eve Malone and Benny Hogan’s.
But just to keep things as they should be, she asked her name.
“Mahon,” Nan said, in a clear, confident voice.
Simon was coming out of the morning room anyway. He had heard the car pull up and draw away.
“Was that Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Walsh? He seems to have driven off without seeing Grandfather …”
He saw Nan.
His voice changed.
“Well, hallo,” he said.
“Hallo, Simon.”
She stood, very beautiful in a cream-colored suit with a red artificial flower pinned to the lapel. Her handbag and shoes were the same red. She looked as if she were dressed to go out.
“Come in and sit down,” he said.
“Coffee, Mr. Simon?” Mrs. Walsh asked, but she knew she would not be needed.
“No thanks, Mrs. Walsh.” His voice was light and easy. “No, I think we’ll be all right for the moment.”
He closed the door firmly behind them.
Aidan Lynch came up to Jack in the pub and said that Benny had taught him the Charleston.
It was really quite simple, once you learned to work the two legs separately.
“Yes,” Jack Foley said.
And it looked very snazzy, Aidan said, and possibly Benny should give up her notion of becoming a librarian, and be a teacher. After all anyone could check books in and out of a library, but not everyone could teach. Impart knowledge.
“True,” Jack Foley agreed.
And so Aidan wondered, how much more was he going to have to go on making inane chat until they could get down to the point, the point being that he and Eve, who were so to speak Love’s Young Dream of the University at the moment, leaving Sean and Carmel in the halfpenny place, wanted to know had there been a falling-out between Benny and Jack.
“Ask her,” Jack said.
“Eve has. And she says no, it’s just that she can never find you.”
“That’s because she’s always looking for me in Knockglen,” Jack said.
“Have you been able to … you know.” Aidan was the old confiding mate now.
“Mind your own business,” Jack said.
“That means you haven’t. Neither have I. Jesus, what do they teach them in these convents?”
“About people like us, I suppose.”
They forgot about women and talked about the match and the way that some people couldn’t kick a ball out of their way if it was laid down in front of them.
Aidan hadn’t any more information for Eve about Benny. But at least he could report that no new person had come on the scene.
“This is a surprise,” Simon said. The small narrow frown that was just a half line between his eyes showed it wasn’t entirely a welcome surprise.
Nan had rehearsed it. No point in small talk, and fencing.
“I waited until I was certain. I’m afraid I’m pregnant,” she said simply.
Simon’s face was full of concern.
“Oh no,” he said, moving toward her. “Oh no, Nan no, you poor darling. You poor, poor darling.” He embraced her and held her close.
She said nothing. She felt his heart beat against hers. Then he drew away, examining her face, looking to see how upset she was.
“How awful for you,” he said tenderly. “It’s not fair is it?”
“What isn’t?”
“Everything.” He waved his hands expansively.
Then he went over to the window and ran his hands through his hair. “This is awful,” he said. He seemed very upset.
They stood apart, Nan with her hand on the piano, Simon by the window, both of them looking out the long window at the paddock where Heather’s pony stood and across at the fields where the grazing had been let and cattle moved slowly round.
Everything seemed like slow motion, Nan thought. Even the way Simon spoke.
“Will you know what to do?” he asked her. “Will you know where to go?”
“How do you mean?”
“Over all this.” He waved a slow wave of his hand vaguely in the direction of her body.
“I came to you,” she said.
“Yes, I know, and you were right. Utterly right.” He was anxious she should know this.
“I never thought it could happen,” Nan said.
“Nobody ever does.” Simon was rueful, as if it happened all over the place, to everyone he knew.
Nan wanted to speak. She wanted desperately to say, What do we do now?
But she must give him no chance to say anything hurtful or careless that she would have to respond to angrily. She must leave silences. The expression was Pregnant Pauses, she thought with a little giggle that she fought back. Simon was about to speak.
“Nan, sweetheart,” he said, “this is about as terrible as it can be. But it will all be all right. I promise you.”
“I know.” She looked at him trustingly.
And then her ears began to sing a little as he told her of a friend who knew someone and it had all been amazingly simple, and the girl had said that it was much easier than going to a dentist.
And there had been no ill effects. Well, actually Nan had met the girl, but it wouldn’t be fair to name names. But she was someone terribly bubbly and well adjusted.
“But you don’t mean …?” She looked at him shocked.
“Of course I’m not going to abandon you.” He came toward her again and took her in his arms.
Relief flooded through her. But why had he talked about this silly bubbly woman who had been to have an abortion? Had he changed when he saw her stricken face?
Simon Westward stroked her hair.
“You didn’t think I’d let you look after it all on your own, did you?” he said.
Nan said nothing.
“Come on now, we both enjoyed ourselves. Of course I’ll look after it.”
He pulled away from her and took a checkbook out of a drawer.
“I don’t know what this chap said, he did tell me a figure, but this should cover it. And I’ll get the name and address of the place and everything.
It’s in England of course, but that’s all for the best, isn’t it?”
She looked at him unbelieving. “It’s your child. You know that?”
“Nan, my angel, it’s not a child at all. Not a speck yet.”
“You do know that you were the first and there has been nobody else?
“We’re not going to upset ourselves over this Nan. It can’t be between us. You know that, I know it, we’ve known it since we went into our little fling.”
“Why can’t it be? You want to get married. You want an heir for this place. We get on well together. I fit in with your world.” Her voice was deliberately light.
But she was playing for everything in this plea. She never thought she would have had to beg like this. He had said he loved her. Every time they made love he called out how much he loved her. It was unthinkable that he was reaching for a checkbook to dismiss her.
He was gentle with her. He even took her hand.
“You know that you and I are not going to marry, Nan. You, of all people, so cool, so reasonable, so sensible. You know this. As do I.”
“I know you said you loved me,” she said.
“And so I do, I love every little bit of you. I don’t deny it.”
“And this is love then? A check and an abortion?”
His face looked troubled. He seemed surprised that she took this view.
“And it wouldn’t have mattered I suppose if my father was a rich builder instead of a shabby builder.”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“Well, it certainly has nothing to do with religion. It’s 1958 and neither of us believes in God.”
He opened her hand and pressed the folded check into it.
She looked at him in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She was still silent. Finally she said, “I’m going back now.”
“How will you get home?” he asked.
“I was stupid enough to think I was coming home.” She looked around her, at the portraits on the wall, the piano, the view from the window.
Something about her face touched him. She was always so very, very beautiful.
“I wish …” he began, but couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Do you know someone who would drive me back to Dublin?”
“I will, of course.”
“No. It would be too artificial. Someone else.”
“I don’t really know anyone else … anyone that I could ask …”
“No. You do keep yourself to yourself. But I know what we’ll do. I’ll take your car just down to the square,” she said. “There’ll be a bus soon. You can collect it later in the day.”
“Let me at least …”
He moved toward her.
“No, please stay away from me. Don’t touch me.”
He handed her the car keys.
“It needs a lot of choke,” he said.
“I know. I’ve been in it a great many times.”
Nan walked down the steps of Westlands. He watched from the window while she got into his car and drove away.
He knew that from the kitchen window Bee Moore and Mrs. Walsh were watching and speculating.
He looked at her with admiration as she started his car and drove down the long avenue without looking back.
She left the keys in the car. Nobody would dare to steal the car of Mr. Simon Westward in this feudal backwater. They’d all be afraid of crossing anyone at the Big House.
Mikey was turning the bus. He’d be going back to Dublin in five minutes, he told her. She paid her fare.
“You could have got a return, it would have been cheaper.” Mikey was always anxious to give people a bargain.
“I didn’t know I’d be going back,” Nan said.
“Life’s full of surprises,” said Mikey, looking at this blond girl in the cream and red outfit, who looked much too smart for this part of the world anyway.
Bill Dunne saw Benny come into the Annexe. She was looking around, hunting for Jack, but there was no sign of him. She stood in the line with the other students. If Jack had been there he would have kept a table, and she could have gone straight to join him.
Bill waved and said he had an extra coffee. In fact he hadn’t begun his own, but it seemed a way of calling her over. She looked very well today, in a chestnut-colored sweater, the exact color of her hair, and a pale yellow blouse underneath.
Bill and Benny talked easily. If she was glancing around for Jack she never mentioned it. And he never showed that he noticed, Benny was so easy to talk to. They discussed banning the bomb and if it would ever work. Benny said she was afraid it was like asking boxers to tie one hand behind their backs, or like saying we should go back to bows and arrows once they had invented gunpowder. They wondered would Elvis really join the U.S. Army or was it just a publicity stunt. They talked of Jack Kerouac. Would every single person that he met On the Road have been interesting? Surely some of them must have been deadly bores.
The time flew, and they had to go back to lectures. If Benny was disappointed that Jack Foley hadn’t turned up she showed no sign of it. But then women were known to be very good at hiding their feelings. Most people didn’t know what they were up to half the time.
Rosemary saw everything and noted it all. She watched Bill and Benny chatting animatedly. They seemed like great friends. Perhaps he was consoling her about Jack. Rosemary had often thought that the feeling was unworthy, but she felt that Jack was too handsome for Benny. She thought it was like a mixed marriage. A Black and a White, a Catholic and a non-Catholic. You heard of those that did work. But the usual rule was that they didn’t. It wasn’t a view that anyone would agree with so she didn’t express it. Anyway people might think she was after Jack Foley for herself. Which oddly enough was not true. She had met a very nice medical student called Tom. He wouldn’t be qualified for years, which would give Rosemary time to be an air hostess or something with a bit of glamor in the meantime.
Sean Walsh stood on the quays waiting for the bus back to Knockglen. He had stayed in a men’s hostel in Dublin for five days to think things out. During the daytime he had walked through the menswear shops in Dublin trying to see himself working in any of them.
The prospect began to look less and less likely. He would not come armed with a reference. He would be unlikely to be taken on anywhere.
Little by little he began to realize how his horizons had narrowed. The idea of buying his own place, renovating a cottage up over the quarry, was now only a fantasy. The notion of standing at the back door of his own business and watching the town walk by was not one he could hold anymore in his dreams. His name would be over no premises in Knockglen, the town where he had lived for ten years, and which, when all was said and done, he thought of as home.
He was going to go back now with a proposition.
He saw a very good-looking girl get off the bus, a blond girl in a cream suit with red trimmings. He recognized her as the friend of Eve and Benny. The girl who had been at Mr. Hogan’s funeral, and had been up at Westlands around Christmastime. She didn’t acknowledge him. She looked as if her mind was set on something else entirely.
Sean got onto the bus and looked without pleasure at Mikey, a man who was overfamiliar and with an unfortunate habit of referring to people’s physical appearance.
“There you are Sean, with a face as long as a wet week. Is it the return of the Prodigal we see?”
“I wish I understood what you meant, Mikey.”
“It’s a reference to a story Our Lord told in the New Testament, Sean. A man like yourself nearly eating the altar in the church should know that.”
“I am well aware of the parable of the Prodigal Son, but since he was a man who spent his life in wrongdoing, I’m afraid I can’t see the similarity.”
Mikey looked at Sean shrewdly. His wife had given him some highly colored speculation about what might or might not have happened in Hogan’s Outfitters. But obviously Sean Walsh had not run aw
ay.
“I was only wondering where the Fatted Calf was going to be killed, Sean,” Mikey said. “Maybe they’re basting it already down in Healy’s Hotel.”
Nan let herself into the house that she had left that morning. She took off her cream suit and hung it carefully on a padded hanger. She sponged it lightly with lemon juice and water. She put shoe trees in her red shoes, and she rubbed her red leather bag with some furniture cream, before wrapping it carefully in tissue paper and placing it beside her other four handbags in a drawer. She put on her best College clothes, combed her hair and went out to stand for a second time at the bus stop across the road.
Mrs. Healy had tidied up her office. She placed a big jug of daffodils on the window and two small hyacinths in plastic bowls on the filing cabinet.
She had been to Ballylee to have her hair done.
The new corset was very well fitting. It managed to distribute the flesh very well. So well, in fact, that a tight skirt looked remarkably fine. She wore her high-necked blouse and cameo brooch. The ones reserved for special occasions.
And after all it would be a special occasion this afternoon. She knew that Sean Walsh was coming back today. And that he was going to make a proposal of marriage.
It was lunchtime in the convent, and Mother Francis had her turn on Dinner Duty. That meant she walked up and down keeping order as the girls had their sandwiches. Then she supervised the tidying up of the hall, the careful cleaning and refolding of the greaseproof paper for tomorrow’s packed lunch, the airing of the room and the quick exercise in the yard.
She saw a group of the girls explaining to Heather Westward the nature of rosary beads.
“Why do you call them a pair, there’s only one?” Heather looked at the necklace of beads.
“They’re always called a pair.” Fiona Carroll, the youngest of the badly behaved Carroll children from the grocery was scornful.
“What does it mean ‘Irish Horn’?” Heather was interested.
“That’s just what they’re made from.” Siobhan Flood, the butcher’s granddaughter, dismissed it.