Foreign Affairs

by Patricia Scanlan

  Theresa could see exactly what was happening. Ronan was testing the waters, spreading his wings. William knew he was losing him. Ronan was growing up to be his own man. It was a bitter blow to her husband when he realized that he no longer had total control over his son. His authority was rapidly dwindling, especially when Ronan put his foot down over not commuting. It was obvious that William was not going to relinquish his authority over Rachel. And she wasn’t a strong enough character to stand up for herself the way her brother did.

  No doubt William would have a say about this Debs thing. He’d probably insist on her being home by eleven. Theresa drew a weary breath. She’d need to be in the best of health for this one, she thought tiredly. She just couldn’t let Rachel down. For some reason, she remembered the time she’d discovered the bruises from Patrick McKeown’s compass on Rachel’s little body. Rachel had pleaded with Theresa not to tell William. She’d been eight then, ten years ago. And William was still a figure of dread to her. Please God she would get her place in college, Theresa prayed. She’d hate her daughter to leave home but Theresa knew it would be the making of her. If only she could wave a magic wand and protect her daughter from all the pitfalls ahead. It was awful sending your children off out into the world knowing you could do nothing more for them. Theresa felt very guilty about Rachel. She should have stood up to William on her daughter’s behalf much more than she had, she thought as a tear slid down her cheek. It was just that she always felt so tired and lifeless. She simply hadn’t the energy, especially lately, to engage her husband in battle. There were times she felt that she had let her daughter down badly.

  ‘Five honours, not bad.’ Her father read her exam results and handed them to her.

  ‘It’s wonderful, Rachel, I’m proud of you,’ her mother exclaimed, flinging her arms around her. ‘You worked very very hard.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam. It should be good enough for St Pat’s.’ Rachel couldn’t believe it herself. Five honours was a very good result no matter what her begrudging father thought. That trip to the school to get the results had been a nightmare.

  Her hands were shaking when Sister Martha handed her the envelope. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the three Bs and two Cs. Michelle got five honours too. Mary Foley and Eileen Dunphy each got three, and Glenda Mower only got a pathetic one, although she got a C mark on a pass paper and was claiming it as an extra honour.

  Rachel had been dying to get home to show her father her results. And then he came out with ‘not bad.’ It was good enough for St Pat’s anyway if it wasn’t good enough for him, she thought defiantly.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. A lot depends on the type of interview you do before you get into teacher training. Five honours is no guarantee of anything,’ he warned.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ she agreed dutifully. Now that she had her exam results she was going to have to face the ordeal of an interview in St Pat’s. It wasn’t so much the interview she was dreading, it was the singing test. She would have to sing two songs, one in English and one in Irish, in front of an examiner. The thought of it made her mouth go dry. She was practising singing in front of her mother. But singing to your mother was one thing. Singing for a complete and utter stranger . . . was another. At least she had the Debs to look forward to.

  If things went according to plan, Harry and she would meet for drinks in Dublin and who knows, maybe they’d end up dating. She had to do well in her interview if she wanted to go and live in Dublin and be near Harry. That thought would get her through her interview, Rachel told herself firmly. This was her one big chance, she wasn’t going to mess it up.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Báidín Fheidhlime . . .’ Rachel tried again. Her voice was far too high and she got stuck on the top notes. She had sung her English song, the old reliable Skye Boat Song, for the examiner. Now she was attempting to sing her Irish one. It was torture. Her mouth was dry and she could hear her voice quavering as she sang. She’d never get in to St Pat’s after this performance.

  The examiner gave a wry smile when she’d finished. ‘You’ll hardly be taking up opera-singing,’ he remarked as he made some notes. ‘You may start the sight-reading now.’ Rachel was completely drained when it was over. She would have liked to go in to town and have a cup of tea and a cream cake and have some time to get over the ordeal, but her father was waiting in the car outside. He had insisted on driving her to Dublin. He’d gone on and on for the whole journey up to the city, telling her what the interviewers would be looking for in a prospective primary school teacher. By the time they’d arrived she’d been a bundle of nerves.

  ‘How did it go?’ a friendly girl called Pauline asked. She was next in line to be interviewed.

  Rachel threw her eyes up to heaven. ‘I can’t sing for nuts,’ she murmured. ‘But he’s nice enough.’

  ‘Would you like to wait for me? We could go and have a look around and maybe have coffee,’ Pauline suggested.

  Rachel shook her head. ‘I’d love to, but I have a lift outside. Maybe if we both get places, we could go do it when we’re living here?’

  ‘Sure,’ Pauline agreed. Then her name was called.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Rachel, watching the other girl take a deep breath before entering the room. Oh please let me get a place, she begged the Almighty as she walked slowly down the corridor. She would have loved to explore the college and grounds. She liked what she’d seen so far.

  The college was on the main road to the airport. On the other side of the road she’d seen a busy shopping area. A pub called the Cat & Cage was a little further up. She’d heard some of the lads who were waiting for their interviews making plans to go there later and wet their dry throats. The college itself was set in well-kept tree-lined grounds. It was surrounded by a huge brick wall that closed it off from the hustle and noise of the city. Rachel felt excited when she looked at the residential halls. Soon she might be living in one of them. Soon she might be living a life of fun and freedom. Ronan was always telling her about the things students got up to in the Tech. Boozy nights at the pub, lively debates, parties, card games and Scrabble. It sounded so different to her desperately boring existence.

  No-one would know her here. No-one would know that her father was the headmaster of a village school and full of his own importance. No-one would know that she was dead shy and had never been out with a fella, let alone been kissed by one. That girl Pauline had been very easy to talk to. She’d assumed Rachel was NORMAL.

  Well she would be, when she came to live here. She wouldn’t let her shyness ruin her life as it had done until now. If people didn’t know she was shy, they wouldn’t treat her as a shy person. So Rachel would pretend that she was an absolutely normal un-shy person and perhaps she would get to the stage where she wouldn’t need to pretend any more. Full of good resolutions, she walked out into the grounds.

  The sight of her father sitting reading his Irish Times in his Cortina sent a surge of deep resentment through her. If he hadn’t insisted on driving her to Dublin she would have been able to go exploring with her new friend. He pretended it was out of the kindness of his heart, but Rachel knew it was just downright nosiness. He wanted to keep her under his thumb. Well not for long, she vowed. Soon she would be her own woman.

  ‘How did you get on, Rachel?’ he asked as soon as she got in beside him.

  ‘All right,’ she murmured.

  ‘What kind of an answer is that?’ William asked crossly. ‘Tell me the questions you were asked and the answers you gave, so I can get some indication of how your interview went.’

  ‘They asked me all the questions you said they would, and I gave them all the answers you said I should. And I’ve got a headache and I want to shut my eyes for a while,’ she fibbed. This was the start of being a new woman, she decided with satisfaction, closing her eyes and ignoring her father’s tight-lipped annoyance. They didn’t speak once on the return journey. Rachel kept her eyes closed and imagined h
er joyful new life. She’d go to the Cat & Cage with Harry. She’d share a communal kitchen with friends in the hall of residence. They’d have long gossipy chats over coffee. It was going to be great!

  William fumed. That Rachel one was getting to be an impertinent little madam. Brushing him off like that. She wasn’t a bit grateful that he had given up his whole morning to take her to Dublin. And he’d given her pertinent advice for her interview. And then, when he asked her a civil question, a question that showed interest in her welfare, she’d not been one bit gracious about it.

  She need not think she was going to get any notions about herself as her brother had. Just because he was living in Dublin. Rachel wouldn’t be living in Dublin and, as long as she was under his roof, she’d treat him with respect. No daughter of his was going to behave in such an offhand manner. William sat primly behind the wheel doing a sedate forty mph and felt very hard done by indeed.

  ‘How did it go?’ Theresa was waiting to greet them. She had the lunch ready and Rachel was suddenly starving. It was steak and kidney pie, her favourite. Her mother had cooked it as a special treat. And lemon pudding for dessert. Rachel could see the golden fluffy pudding on the dresser. Yummy, she thought as her stomach gurgled.

  ‘Oh Mam, it was OK, I think,’ she said excitedly as she hugged Theresa. ‘I met a very nice girl there called Pauline. She asked me to go for coffee with her but I couldn’t, because of the lift.’

  ‘Your headache seems to have disappeared.’ William sniffed.

  ‘What headache?’ Theresa enquired as she began to dish up.

  ‘She had a headache on the way home and she couldn’t tell me how she did in the interview,’ William said huffily.

  ‘I told you, they asked me the questions you said they would and I gave them the answers you told me to,’ Rachel said.

  ‘That sounds fine to me,’ Theresa said placatingly. ‘Sit down, William, here’s your dinner.’

  Rachel glowered at her father behind his back. Trust him to start.

  ‘Tell me about Pauline,’ her mother encouraged as she set Rachel’s steaming dinner in front of her.

  Rachel forked some pastry and steak into her mouth. ‘This is scrumptious,’ she declared. ‘Pauline Hegarty is her name and she’s from Clonmel in Tipperary and she wants to be a teacher because of the long holidays.’ She laughed.

  Her father shot her a disapproving look. ‘Obviously a totally unsuitable candidate. If she were to say that at an interview, she certainly wouldn’t get a place.’

  ‘It was a joke,’ Rachel murmured. She wanted to say, Don’t be such a daft eejit, of course she’s not going to say that at an interview. Even if it is one of the reasons why lots of people want to be teachers. But she didn’t say anything of the sort. As usual.

  ‘When would you be starting, if you do get a place?’ Theresa asked.

  ‘It starts in October. You do two degree subjects in first year as well as your primary subjects. So I think I’ll do English and geography. There are lots of societies to join as well. I think I’d like to join the geography one, definitely,’ Rachel said between mouthfuls. ‘You’d go on field trips to see come lakes and evidence of glacial erosion and things like that. It would be fascinating.’

  ‘They didn’t have any of that nonsense in my day. You went and did your studying out of textbooks. Those things are only an excuse for socializing and boozing.’ Her father snorted.

  ‘Things have changed a lot since your day, William, and probably for the better.’ Theresa’s tone was a rebuke. William’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in indignation and his cheeks reddened.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Theresa,’ he snapped. ‘When I was there this morning, I heard young lads who’ve just done their Leaving Cert saying they were going to the pub. I ask you? What kind of carry-on is that? Is it any wonder the country’s in the state it’s in? Young people don’t want to work these days. They’ve no manners, no respect for their elders. Society is going to the dogs.’ Rachel and Theresa exchanged glances. Both sighed almost simultaneously. They had heard this diatribe many times before.

  ‘The halls of residence look very modern,’ Rachel said cheerfully, hoping to side-track him. ‘You have your own bedroom cum study and you share a kitchen and bathroom with the other people who live on your landing. The rooms are supposed to be very nice and you can decorate them any way you want. Can I bring my patchwork quilt with me when I’m going?’

  ‘Of course you can, love,’ Theresa agreed. ‘If you like I’ll even do you a new one.’

  ‘Just a minute there,’ William said sternly. ‘You won’t be going anywhere, Rachel, except home to your own bed at night. I don’t know where the two of you got the idea that you were going to be living in a hall of residence. But it’s out of the question. You, Rachel, will commute.’

  Rachel and her mother stared at each other in consternation.

  ‘But Daddy—’

  ‘But William—’

  ‘Enough.’ William put up his hand. ‘I don’t want to hear another word. Rachel lives here. There are plenty of buses from Bray. I’ll leave her over in the morning and pick her up at night. And that’s my last word on the subject.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Theresa stared at her husband. Anger, more violent than she had ever experienced, surged through her. ‘It might be your last word on the subject, William Stapleton, but it certainly isn’t mine.’ Her voice shook. William, deeply offended by the venom in her tone, sat opening and closing his mouth. Rachel, shocked speechless by her father’s edict and her mother’s uncharacteristic wrath, thought William looked like a turkey gobbling.

  ‘Sit down, Theresa, and don’t be upsetting yourself. I don’t want any arguments in this house,’ William ordered.

  ‘Don’t you?’ his wife fumed. ‘That’s your hard luck then, William, because you’re going to get one from me. For once in my life I’m not going to let you dictate the law in this house. I have some say too, you know. I bore Rachel in my womb for nine months. I think that gives me far more right to make decisions about her than you’ll ever have.’ She glared at him, her usually gentle brown eyes like two flints.

  ‘Have you gone completely out of your tree?’ Theresa raged. ‘What sense is there in dragging Rachel home every night of the week, stuck in traffic jams and the likes when she could be studying away like everyone else from the country in one of those residential halls? It’s hard enough having to study without being exhausted from travelling. Think what it’s going to be like in the cold winter mornings and the dark wet evenings. You won’t have to stand waiting for buses in the rain. You know, whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to face the fact that our children have grown up. Why are you trying to deprive Rachel of the chance to make new friends and stand on her own two feet? I don’t understand you, William, I really don’t,’ she finished angrily.

  ‘And I don’t understand you,’ William said heatedly. ‘I’m trying to protect our daughter. I’m trying to save her from the wildness of the youth of today. The city’s no place for a young girl on her own—’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Theresa snorted. ‘Look at Jacinta Collins, gone to New York on her own and doing very well, according to her mother. Rachel’s only going to Dublin and she’s going to be living in supervised accommodation.’

  ‘Jacinta Collins’s mother would say that,’ William said curtly. ‘That argument doesn’t impress me. Don’t forget I’ll be giving up my time to drive her to Bray to the bus or train. She won’t get wet in the car,’ he said scathingly. ‘I’ll have to leave the comfort of the house to go and pick her up in the evening. But I’m not complaining. I’ll willingly do that to make life easier for Rachel. But I will not permit her to live in Dublin on her own. I let you persuade me, against my better judgement, to allow Ronan to stay in digs and look at the state of him.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Theresa said furiously. ‘What state of him? Ronan’s a very good lad. He�
��s very attentive to his studies. He’s never caused us one bit of worry. You’re talking through your hat, William, and you know it.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ William said coldly. ‘Look at the length of his hair! Look at the scruffy old army clothes and jeans he wears. He frequents public houses with that Armstrong lad. He doesn’t come home half the weekends he’s supposed to. There’s always some excuse. Let me tell you, Theresa, I bitterly regret giving in to your pressure over our son, but by God I won’t make the same mistake with Rachel.’

  ‘But Daddy, it’s not fair!’ Rachel was unable to contain herself any longer.

  ‘Be quiet and stay out of this, Rachel. It’s got nothing to do with you,’ her father ordered.

  ‘That’s the most stupid thing I ever heard in my life,’ Rachel said savagely. ‘Of course it’s got something to do with me. It’s my future you’re talking about. I have the right to be consulted about what I want to do. The only reason I want to go to St Pat’s is to get away from Rathbarry. You wouldn’t let me apply to Aer Lingus. You insisted I train as a teacher. Well if I’m going to train as a teacher I’m bloody well going to live in college,’ Rachel exploded, too furious to be intimidated.

  ‘How dare you, Miss! How dare you speak to me like that, using such disgraceful language. How dare you issue ultimatums to me. Let me tell you, Rachel Stapleton, as long as I’m paying for your education, and as long as you’re living under my roof, what I say goes. Such selfishness. You’d think at least that you’d consider your poor mother. You know she isn’t well and yet you’re quite happy to take off to Dublin—’

  ‘By God, William, I won’t have it.’ Theresa was white with rage as she sprang up from her chair. ‘That is the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard. Don’t you dare use me as an excuse to stop Rachel leading her own life. I’ll never forgive you for this as long as I live.’