“Still, I have connections, Ellen. I’m well in with a lot of the people who sit on these interview boards. I’ll make a few discreet inquiries. Can’t do any harm.”
“It’s the religious trustees and meddling parents you’ll have to nobble if you want to get anywhere.”
“A bit of discretion on your part would have gone a long way, Ellen.”
“You don’t like Eugene, do you? You’ve never approved of him.”
Matt shifts uneasily. “I don’t dislike him. He’s very presentable, pleasant, good-humored, but —”
“But?”
“Ah, he mightn’t — mightn’t — be all that serious.”
“You think he’s making a fool of me.”
“No. Just that he’s not necessarily committed. D’you know what I mean?”
“I can’t answer that, and I certainly can’t speak for him.” She sighs. “Anyway, thanks for not giving up on me. I do appreciate that.”
“The older I get, the harder I find it to pass judgment. Nothing is as cut and dried as it used to be.”
“Relativism. Better watch yourself, Matt, or you’ll end up on the slippery slope.”
“And which slippery slope would that be?”
“Oh, the one you’re always on about. The low whatever it was in high places.”
“Low standards in high places. George Colley, Lord rest him, it was said that. And he was right. It was the beginning of all that chicanery in politics, public representatives out to cut deals and make personal money, the end of idealism and the beginnings of self-interest. That was over thirty years ago. You were a child.”
“I heard it often enough. But you always acted honorably and did the right thing, stuck to your principles.”
“And was probably a fool to do so. That’s what a lot of people would think.”
“But you’re not bitter. Tell me you aren’t.”
He laughs shortly. “Bitter? Am I bitter? That comes with age and disappointment. Let’s see now. Probably not.” He stands up. “But one thing is certain, I’m probably jealous of you and Eugene. Whatever the outcome, you’ll have had a better deal than I ever did. We didn’t know we were alive, or what it was to live. Not much use discovering it now when it’s too late.”
“You’re sixty-four, Matt. You have at least two good decades. You’re fit and healthy. This isn’t the last hurrah.”
He puts his cap on his head. “Your options narrow as you get older,” he says with some asperity.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“I’ll be out of the picture when you discover it. You’re the one causing scandal. You’re the one having a fling. I’m out of the loop. Stephen will be home this weekend. Call up, won’t you?”
“Saturday afternoon?”
“Perfect. We’ll expect you.”
“Hello, stranger,” Nan Brogan says as Beatrice hauls her shopping onto the bus. “I hear you’re doing a deal on the farm with Tim O’Shea.”
“We’re sorting something out. I hope you approve of the terms and conditions, Nan, because if you don’t, I won’t go through with it.”
Nan gives that “huh” sound that passes as a laugh from her.
“Where’s Brenda today?” asks Beatrice. In the village, they’re known as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. “It’s unusual not to see the two of you together.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Nan says with a stricken air. “Brenda’s at home. She was in hospital for tests.”
“Well, how am I to know what’s happening if Brenda’s not around to tell me? Nothing serious, I hope?”
“No, no, nothing bad. A twitching in her face, it’s called Bell’s palsy. It’ll go away again — but there’s no knowing when — and she’s very self-conscious about it.”
“What a shame. You must be lost without her,” Beatrice says, and the words “poetic justice” come to mind.
“I don’t have to depend on Brenda. I have plenty of friends,” Nan says, but she speaks without conviction. The absence of Brenda lessens her vitality. Nan seems shrunken and reduced, as though she has become dependent on the synergy generated by their combined viciousness and is diminished on her own. “I suppose you heard about Sandra Dingle?”
“Denis Scope’s girl? What about her?”
“She’s home with her baby.”
“I thought she was in the early stages when she went away.”
“Not at all. It was well advanced. She carried it small.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Poor mite. She doesn’t have a chance.”
“I don’t know about that. Anything I’ve heard about Sandra has been good. Her teachers were heartbroken when she dropped out of school. She’s got a good brain.”
“Not clever enough to avoid making a complete mess of her life. These single mothers sicken me. They’re doing it because they know the council will house them. I don’t feel any sympathy for them. They’re cadging off the state.”
“I rather think that Sandra imagined Denis would be about, and that the child would have a father.”
Nan laughs coldly. “Yeah? Well, he’s history now.”
“Well, at least she didn’t have that abortion you were on about. Mind you, it would have saved the exchequer a fortune if she had.”
“Grrrh,” Nan says, or something that sounds remarkably like it. “You know how I feel about abortion.”
“And single mothers. Nan, you’ll have to arrange your dislikes in order of priority. Those poor girls are damned if they have the babies and doubly damned if they don’t.”
“If they didn’t get pregnant in the first place —”
“Unrealistic, Nan. That’s always going to happen. When we were young, it got hushed up and tidied away. Wasn’t that the case? Lots of people locked up, hidden from sight, babies adopted, false histories invented, misery all round.”
“I’m sick of you and your bleeding heart, Beatrice. Anyway, I hear you’re great with Matt Hughes these days,” Nan says slyly.
“The rumor mill has gone into overdrive again, has it, Nan?”
“You know what they say, no smoke without fire.”
“They’re going to be disappointed though, aren’t they?”
“It’d be a great merging of property if the two of you got hitched.”
“Don’t hold your breath, Nan. I’m issuing a categorical denial. There’s no truth in the rumor, none whatsoever. Lily, Matt, and I are on the committee that’s organizing the sponsored walk to raise funds for the children’s ward in the Regional Hospital.”
“That’s just spin. The two of you were seen in Hegarty’s the other night.”
“Lily was with us earlier. You’re incorrigible, Nan, determined to sniff out a story. Nothing I say will make any difference, will it?”
Nan laughs. “Divil a bit,” she acknowledges.
When they reach the top of the hill, Beatrice is out of breath. “It’s years since I walked this route. I’d forgotten how steep some of it is.”
“You’re not fit enough,” Matt says.
“Most of the young ones have probably reached the finish. This seemed no distance at all when we were young.”
“We were ready for anything and everything then.”
“This is as good a spot as any to stop.” She unzips the backpack she brought with her and extracts a plastic box, a flask, and a jar. “Time for some refreshments,” she says and opens the box.
“Did Lily drop out of the walk?” Matt asks, taking off his cap and placing it beside him. He takes a bite from a chicken sandwich.
“No, but she fell a good bit behind.” Beatrice is a little uneasy in his company. It’s years since she found herself completely alone with him. “What happened to Ellen and Eugene?”
He frowns. “I wonder did they take the wrong turning at the crossroads?”
“If they went that way, they’ll have to backtrack. Ned Roe blocked off the path by the river, and Tim Sullivan land-grabbed the track that used
to run along the edge of his place. Bianconi’s coaches used to travel that way. It was the original mail road. The only intact part is the walk by the old mill.”
“Walks are getting scarcer by the day.”
“It’s vexatious, this question of access.”
“Desperate. Having to take out insurance and the fear of compensation claims. The whole thing’s a viper’s nest.”
“Still, it’d be such a shame if people couldn’t go for a ramble across the countryside. It’s not nice to see places cut off. I hate it when I see barbed wire.”
Walkers pass by but there’s no sign of Ellen or Eugene. “They must have sprinted ahead. We’d surely have seen them by now. This chicken stuff is good, Beatrice. You didn’t buy it in a supermarket.”
“Certainly not. Supermarket chicken has no flavor.”
“Nothing has a good flavor anymore, except at a premium price.”
Matt’s hand brushes against her arm as he reaches for another sandwich. Beatrice starts and pulls back. The weight of their history presses down on her. She has devoted decades to avoiding him, but over the last few months the balance of their relationship has altered. When Julia died, something broke in him. He seemed wounded and was so at odds with everything in his world that she found herself stirred by something — compassion? Now that he’s come through his bad patch, it’s possible to recognize something of the young Matt again. Perhaps it’s her vanity, but it’s difficult to resist the allure of being valued, especially as a friend. Were a friendship to develop between them, it would be a good outcome.
“Funny old world, isn’t it,” he says suddenly.
“It certainly is.”
“Here we are, your Jack long dead and Julia gone.”
“How do you feel about Julia now?”
He reaches for his cap, puts it back on his head, and readjusts it so that its peak shadows his face. “It’s strange. I don’t feel anything much. Once I got over that reaction, I haven’t looked back. It’s as if she never existed.” He looks up at her. “Sometimes I suspect I went out on the edge to see if I could stir real feelings. I wanted to feel alive. But there’s still an emptiness.”
“We feel what we feel. There’s no ordering it.”
His voice changes. “Do you ever think of us, of the way we used to be?”
“That was so long ago I scarcely remember it.”
“I think about it sometimes.”
She laughs. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time.”
“We’re free agents.”
“Except that it doesn’t matter now.”
“It could.”
“Why would we bother?”
“Couldn’t you be bothered, Beatrice? Wouldn’t we be nice company for each other?” He clears his throat as if to say more, hesitates, then falls silent.
She shudders. “You’re not talking about getting hitched, I take it. Friendship would be more my style. I’ve no problem with friendship.”
“Marriage isn’t so bad, not if the people are compatible.”
“Who’s to know who’s compatible with whom?” she says crossly. “We’re not the people we were.” She feels a grim desperation as she tries to deflect him. “Matt,” she says more gently, “we had our chance and we blew it.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever forgiven me for… well, how could I blame you? If you knew how much I regret…”
“Regrets are part and parcel of life, aren’t they? Look at us, wrinkled and starting to sag. We’ve had the stuffing knocked out of us. Romance is a bit ridiculous at our age, but I’d settle for friendship. We could be great friends.”
“Friends, is it?” he says. “How could we be just friends?”
“Can we be anything else?”
He turns away, struggling with himself. “Aren’t we due some compensation for the wretched marriages the two of us put up with?” he says harshly. “For the hell I suffered with Julia, and the difficulties you had with Jack?”
“Speak for yourself!” she answers spiritedly. “Jack Furlong wasn’t the easiest person to live with — he could be very trying — but he wasn’t a bad man. He meant well. It was always a struggle between his impulses and his intentions.”
“I never thought I’d hear you talk so kindly of him,” he sneers. “Admit it. Weren’t you miserable with him? Do you mean to suggest that he meant as much to you as I did?”
“He wanted me, Matt,” she says quietly. “He went against his mother, told her that he wouldn’t marry anyone if he couldn’t have me. He found plenty of fault with me over the years, but he never once reproached me for my lack of money or background.”
“Well, I have to hand that to him,” he says in a subdued fashion. “But does that matter? Could you honestly say that you didn’t long for me all those years, the way I longed for you?”
“Long for me, did you? You had a funny way of showing it.”
“That again?”
“Yes, that.” She lifts her head and looks straight at him. “It took me years to realize what a fool I was to be hankering after you. I got a very poor return for my love, didn’t I? So, I wrote it off, accepted life as it was. And do you know something? It was much easier.”
She waits for him to answer, but he’s silent. After a while, he stretches and straightens up. “We’d want to be heading back. The cows have to be milked,” he says.
His face tells her nothing. It strikes her that there’s no knowing Matt Hughes. Was he trying her out to see where it would get him? Or was he genuine? “Let’s join the stragglers,” she says. “We’re about two miles from the finish.”
They don’t exchange another word during the walk to the village. Parked cars soak up the heat of the Sunday afternoon when they reach the square. The sun bounces off cement footpaths and softens the tar on the road. There isn’t a soul to be seen. “The deserted village,” he says. It’s as if he never made a play for her attentions.
From Hegarty’s open doors comes the sound of singing.
“That’s where they are, in the pub.” She marvels at her control.
He unlocks his car and sits in. “Want a lift?”
“I’d like to see if Ellen and Eugene are ensconced in the snug,” she says, making for the pub. There isn’t a sign of them when she looks in, but she spots Sandra Dingle, surrounded by friends, holding her baby up for inspection. It’s the first time she’s seen the girl since her return. Nothing remains of the hangdog expression Sandra wore after Denis’s death. There’s something intense and lively about her, a clarity and intelligence in her face that bodes well. Sandra’s mother, like everyone in the group, is ogling the baby. The child’s grandfather tickles her chin. Maybe there is hope, thinks Beatrice. Maybe Sandra will find a way out of the trap.
When she re-emerges, Matt is waiting. “You didn’t take up my offer,” he says.
“Haven’t you gone yet?” she says pleasantly. “I’ll head off under my own steam. It’s a beautiful day, and I don’t have far to go.”
He watches her walk away.
She’s hardly out of the village when she has to stop. Her heart races, her breath is ragged, and her legs can hardly hold her up. Again, she is the shocked creature of nearly forty years ago, standing on the bridge beside the Protestant graveyard, trying to gather enough courage to throw herself into the river. But the bridge is too low, the water too shallow, and the flow too sluggish. Once in the water she knows her instinct for survival will win out. She’s hearing those words, “trollop” and “whore,” over and over again. She’s shrinking into herself and clutching her pain.
No Matt anymore. He’s gone. His recoil on hearing her fears told her everything. She remembers his words — Am I the father? How do I know I’m the father? The coldness of his eyes, the cleft of his chin, and his clenched fists. He hadn’t been absent during their love-making, but he made himself absent.
And, of course, he came back, ostensibly contrite but gruff and remote, a sullen suitor, so that she had to send him packin
g. It was a mercy when, soon after, she suffered a miscarriage. She cleaned up the mess, burned the stained clothes in the kitchen range, and made a night trek into the woods with a spade to dig a hole and bury her mistake. Not a word to her parents. Never breathed a word of it to anyone. She didn’t have to go away, wasn’t sent off. Decorum was preserved.
What is it that she can’t forgive Matt? That he never asked what happened? That he never mentioned the pregnancy? His callousness? His cowardice? Such contempt she felt for him for years. But she no longer has those feelings. She knows that bad behavior doesn’t mean that a person is bad. He doesn’t have it in him to revisit that incident properly. He may even have excised it pretty successfully from his idea of what happened between them, a gruff “sorry” deemed sufficient for vaguely remembered misdemeanors. No contrite heart seeking forgiveness, no looking to start afresh. He’s forgotten his cajoling, pleading, and physical forcing. He has unremembered their couplings. There’s something in him that doesn’t feel the need to make good his misconduct, and something in her that won’t accept that.
The house feels emptier than usual. There is too much house, too much space, and not enough people. When Paula arrives home in July, her children will gad about the farm, thump up and down the stairs, and race round and round the garden. Then, in October, she’ll visit Andy in the States and see Scott again. She’ll learn whether their friendship will survive the change of location.
She has lots to occupy her — cooking, gardening, cleaning the church, reading, listening to the radio, watching television, playing cards in the hall, going on walks, and meeting up with friends. The book club in Killdingle is quite large and she’s been thinking of joining it. She’s never been to the set dancing in the hall even though she was once a great dancer. She might even develop a taste for touring about. Lily Traynor’s husband, Damien, abhors travel, but Lily has suggested that the two of them team up and go away on a long weekend to Paris or Amsterdam.
She looks out the window. The tarred avenue to the house dips between hedges, trees, shrubs, and grass, and curves down to the T-junction. She can see the roofs of cars as they hum along the main road. The noise of traffic is a persistent background to the music of everyday life.
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