by Colm Toibin
“Come and have a gin with us,” she said to Carol. “Or is vodka your tipple?”
“No, thank you. I really must go.”
“I already have one on the counter for you, Nora,” Josie said. “Oh, the heat!”
She shuffled towards the bar. Nora nodded at Carol and then fetched the key and went upstairs. She had a cold shower before going downstairs to join her aunt in the bar. Somehow, the possibility of the gin, especially if she put very little tonic in it, and then the food, gave her the courage to continue. But once dinner was over, she thought, she would implore her aunt to leave her the room for a few hours, and she would try to get some sleep before the night’s snoring began.
When Merce had served the dessert and poured more white wine for both women, she motioned to Nora to come with her, pointing towards the door to the lobby.
She led her down a narrow creaking staircase to the basement. The ceiling of the corridor they moved along now was low, and the paint on the walls was peeling. The air was cool, with an edge of damp and a smell of mustiness that to Nora was refreshing. They squeezed past a pile of cardboard boxes stacked from floor to ceiling and then Merce opened a door to the right and switched on a light. It was a room like a prison cell, Nora saw, with a single bed and a tiny window with bars at the top of the back wall. The light-bulb was bare. The bed was made and the sheets were starkly white in the sharp light coming from the ceiling. When Merce crossed the corridor she opened a door into a bathroom. The air was even damper here, and there was a smell of mould. There was an old bath with plastic nozzles attached to the taps and a shower head hanging over the side. There was a toilet and a wash-basin. This room, too, had a small window with bars. Merce looked at her, and put her hands out as if to say that this was not much, but it was hers if she wanted it. She managed to say in English that there would be no extra charge. Nora nodded enthusiastically. Merce had a set of keys in her pocket and tried a number of them before she found the one that locked the bedroom door. She removed it from the key-ring and handed it to Nora and then went with her along the corridor and up the stairs to the lobby.
Nora left Josie at the bar once dinner had ended, carried her suitcase and her toilet things down to the basement, and then came and told her aunt that they had given her a room of her own and that she was tired and was going to bed now. Josie, she saw, was ready to become offended, but she did not give her time. She turned and disappeared. The idea that she could sleep, settle into sleep, filled her with such relief that nothing else could matter now. Once she had made her way back down to her basement quarters, closed the door of her room and undressed, she relished how crisp and clean the sheets were on the narrow bed. She turned off the light and tried to stay awake for as long as she could so that she could enjoy the prospect of solitude and long uninterrupted sleep.
When she woke she knew that it was morning. There was a faint, insistent light coming from the small window but there was no sound at all. She did not think she had slept as deeply as this since she married Maurice and began to share a bed with him, and certainly not since she was pregnant for the first time. There was once, however, she remembered, when Aine was a baby and had cried throughout each night. No matter how often she was fed, or how many times lifted and comforted, she cried. Nora, without any warning, had taken Aine and two days’ supplies to her mother’s house, leaving Fiona with Maurice, and despite her mother’s nervous protestations, had left Aine downstairs with her, and gone upstairs to bed and slept solidly for twelve or fourteen hours. That was the only time in her life, she thought, when she had woken like this, the night’s sleep a heavy oblivion, utterly satisfying and complete in its blankness.
She felt alert now, excited at the prospect of the day ahead. She went to the bathroom and showered in cold water. When she checked the time, she found that it was only five o’clock. She put on her bathing costume and then a dress and a pair of sandals and stuffed a towel and some underwear into a bag. She walked quietly, stealthily, out of the hotel, aware that any encounter at all could break the spell of the night.
She walked in the early-morning sunlight down a side-street towards the beach that lay behind the church and was quieter than the others. She was surprised when she passed a few people in the street, people on their way to work. When the sea came into view, she looked at the pale morning sky above it. She walked towards the esplanade past white-painted buildings with shutters coloured a deep dark blue.
As she came to a café on the corner, the owner was rolling up the metal shutters. He greeted her casually as though he knew her. She would come here after her swim and linger at one of the tables the owner might put outside, and not return to the hotel until just before ten o’clock, when Josie would come down for breakfast.
There were large machines on the beach flattening out the sand, making everything smooth and perfect for the day. Men sorted sun umbrellas and arranged beach furniture. There was still a cool breeze, a remnant of the night, coming from the sea, and the water was colder than she had imagined, and the waves higher than they had been in previous days. She dived under a wave as it came towards her and felt a chill as she swam out.
She closed her eyes and swam without making much effort, edging out beyond where the waves broke. She noticed the sun’s first heat as she lay back and floated. She felt lazy now and tired as well, and yet the energy that had come to her earlier was there too. She would, she thought, stay in the water for as long as she could; she would use up her energy. She knew that a morning like this would not come to her as easily again, the early light so beautiful and calm, the sea so bracing, and the promise of the long day ahead and the night that would follow when she would be alone once more, undisturbed, allowed to sleep.
For the last few days of the holiday Josie became quieter, and the stories she told were more interesting. Nora loved her bed in the basement, although she preferred using the shower in the bathroom beside the room where Josie slept. She swam a few times a day, liking the way her bathing costume dried quickly in the sun. She and Josie did not mind paying for the deck-chairs and the sun umbrellas. And Josie never tired of commenting on anyone who went by. One day they found a market where Nora bought cheap clothes and presents for everyone at home.
She studied the buildings along the streets between the beach and the hotel, wondering about the people who lived in them, what their lives were like, and what hers would be like, were she living here. During those last days she thought about her walk to work in the morning, the red raincoat she wore, an umbrella at the ready. All of it seemed remote and alien, as far away from here as it was possible to be.
On the last day she bought Merce a bottle of expensive perfume to thank her for rescuing her.
It was late when she arrived home. The boys had gone to bed and she was careful not to make a sound that might wake them. Fiona was at a dance and Aine was there alone. She sensed from Aine that something had happened, but then felt, as she quietly unpacked upstairs, that it was nothing more than the newness of where she had been and the strangeness of returning home. But the thought remained that there was something wrong so she went back downstairs and asked Aine if there had been a problem while she was away.
“It’s just that Conor has been put into the B-class,” Aine said.
“The B-class? Who put him into the B-class?”
“Brother Herlihy moved himself and two others into the B-class.”
“Which two?”
The two Aine mentioned were, Nora knew, along with Conor, among the very best in the A-class.
“Did he give a reason?”
“No, he just did it.”
In the morning, which was Sunday, she spoke to Conor before he went to mass. He seemed most concerned that she would not think he had been moved because of anything he had done or failed to do.
“He just moved us,” he said. “And we don’t know anyone in the B-class.”
At mass she could barely concentrate. When a woman in front of the cathedral afterwards admired her suntan, she barely responded and then felt guilty as she walked home. As the day went on she felt more and more resolute, so, early that evening when she rang the bell of the Christian Brothers monastery she was determined that she would have Conor put back into the A-class where he belonged. When the door was finally answered by a young Christian Brother, she asked to speak to Brother Herlihy.
“I am not sure that he’s available,” he said.
“I’ll wait,” she replied.
He did not invite her into the hallway.
“Tell him that I’m Nora Webster, Maurice Webster’s widow, and I need to see him now.”
The young Christian Brother examined her cautiously and invited her in and closed the front door behind her.
As she waited, she noticed more than anything else the silence in the monastery. It was like desolation. She did not know how many brothers lived here but she guessed ten or fifteen. They all had their own cells, she thought, like prisoners, but there was something almost worse than prison about the place, the bare tiles on the floor, the long stained-glass window in the stairwell, everything polished and stark and unwelcoming, a place where every sound and every movement could be noted and heard.
Brother Herlihy seemed very cheerful when he arrived and led her into a reception room on the right.
“Now, Mrs. Webster, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“My son, Conor Webster, has just gone into fifth class. And I was away and when I came back I discovered that he had been moved into the B-class.”
“Ah well, it’s not really a B-class.”
“It’s not the class he was in before.”
“Yes, we’re making some changes, just to try and even things out a bit between the two classes.”
“Well, I’d rather if you moved him back into the A-class.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“The roll-books are all done, and the names have been sent to the Department.”
“That’s not a problem. You can easily make a change to that.”
“Mrs. Webster, I run the school.”
“Brother Herlihy, I’m sure you run it very well. As you know, my husband was a teacher in the secondary school for many years.”
“Yes, he is very much missed.”
“And you would not have moved Conor if my husband were still teaching.”
“Ah, now, Mrs. Webster, many considerations went into the decision.”
“None of them interests me, Brother. I am interested only in Conor’s education.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do anything about it at this late stage.”
“Brother Herlihy, I didn’t come down here to ask you to move Conor back into the A-class.”
“Oh?”
“I came down to tell you to do it.”
“As I said, I run the school.”
“I hope you heard what I said.”
“I did, Mrs. Webster, but it can’t be done.”
He moved to accompany her out of the reception room. In the hall he put his hand on her shoulder.
“How are all the family?”
“That’s none of your business, Brother Herlihy.”
“Ah, now,” he said and smiled, rubbing his hands together.
“You will be hearing from me,” she said, as he opened the door for her. “And you will find that when I am crossed I am very formidable.”
At home, she found notepaper and an envelope and wrote a letter: “Dear Brother Herlihy, If, by next Friday, Conor is not moved back to the A-class, please be advised that I will take action against you.” She signed her name and walked back down to the monastery, rang the bell again and handed the letter to the young Christian Brother who had answered the door to her earlier.
Later that evening, she wrote down the names of all the teachers in the Christian Brothers, both primary and secondary, whom she knew. For a few of them, she could remember their home addresses; for the rest, she would write to them at the school.
To each of them she wrote the same letter:
As you may be aware, my son Conor Webster, who is in fifth class in the primary school, has been moved from the A-class to the B-class without any notice or any justification. As you also must know, this would not have happened were his father still alive and teaching in the school. This is to put you on notice that I will not tolerate what has occurred. If Conor is not back in the A-class by next Friday, then on Monday morning I will put a picket on the school. If you travel to work by car, I will stand in front of your car and prevent it entering the gates of the school. If you travel by foot, I will stand in front of you. I will continue the picket until Conor is returned to the A-class. Yours sincerely,
Nora Webster.
She did not have enough envelopes but resolved that she would buy some on her way home from work and write the addresses on them at the desk in the post office. Since she had fourteen teachers’ names, she wrote her letter out fourteen times.
In the morning when she woke, she felt a new energy and realised that she did not mind going back to work after her holiday. She chose clothes from the wardrobe that she thought would make her look most dignified. As she walked to work across the town, the idea that the letters were in her handbag gave her pleasure. At work there were several notes on her desk with queries that had arisen while she was away. She dealt with each one briskly and by ten thirty had settled down to a pile of invoices which needed to be entered into a ledger.
“I think you could do my work and your own as well,” Elizabeth Gibney said, “if we just left you to it.”
“Some mornings,” Nora replied, “my mind is clear. Do you find that?”
“Not on Mondays, I don’t,” Elizabeth said.
She posted the letters that afternoon and waited, but nothing happened. Over the following days as she walked home from work, she expected to see one of the teachers she had written to, but she did not. Later in the week she walked downtown as the schoolday ended, but still she saw no one.
On Saturday morning she went to Jim Sheehan’s in Rafter Street and bought a long, thin, flat piece of wood and some nails and then she went to Godfrey’s in the Market Square and bought a black marker, a large piece of cardboard, white paper and thumbtacks. She tried to think what she would put on the placard and concluded that it would be best not to put anything about A-classes and B-classes and not too much detail. She wondered if I WANT JUSTICE would be best and then thought I DEMAND JUSTICE might be better. She also decided to tell both Donal and Conor not to go to school on Monday and to explain to them as best she could that she was preparing to mount a protest outside the school and it would be a good idea if they were at home studying on their own while this was happening. She was not sure, however, how they would respond to this and wondered if she might try some other approach. She would wait, she thought, until Sunday evening before telling Fiona what she intended to do.
On Sunday evening at about seven a car pulled up outside the door. Two teachers from the secondary school, Val Dempsey and John Kerrigan, both of whom she had written to, got out of the car. For the first time, she felt afraid, as though all the courage of the previous week had dissolved and there was nothing except her pride and the threats she had made. She opened the front door for the two teachers before they had time to knock and ushered them into the front room.
“We’re very concerned,” Val Dempsey said, “about the letter you sent. You know, we had nothing but respect for Maurice.”
They both remained standing and she did not ask them to sit down. Somehow, Val Dempsey’s tone had restored her determination.
“I can understand that you’re upset,” he continued.
“I’m not upset at all,” she interrupted. “What made you
think that?”
“Well, your letter—”
“My letter simply said that if Conor was not put back in the A-class, I would picket the school. So I have the placard upstairs. Would you like to see it? And don’t think I won’t stand in front of you tomorrow morning, because I will.”
“That would be ill-advised,” John Kerrigan said.
“I didn’t look for anyone’s advice. If my husband were alive, Brother Herlihy would not have picked on Conor in this way.”
“Well, the other parents—”
“I have no interest in the other parents.”
“We wondered if you would call off the picket in the morning,” Val Dempsey said. “And then we’ll see what we can do.”
“You’ve had three or four days and you have done nothing.”
“Well, there was a lot of talk about it among the teachers.”
“Talk, I’m sure, is wonderful, but tomorrow morning there will be more than talk, and perhaps if you are talking to any of your colleagues tonight you might mention to them that I will curse any teacher who passes my picket. I think you might have heard of the power of a widow’s curse.”
“Ah, here now,” John Kerrigan said.
“I will curse anyone who passes me.”
The two men looked at each other and then stared at the ground.
“Maybe we’ll go and see Brother Herlihy tonight,” Val Dempsey said.
They stood in silence for a moment and then she opened the door of the room and accompanied them both into the hallway.
“We’ll let you know if there’s any news,” John Kerrigan said.
She did not smile, but looked at him gravely.
Within an hour Val Dempsey and John Kerrigan returned. It would be harder this time, were Fiona or the boys to ask, to think of an excuse for their visit. She would have to tell them that it was about books and notebooks that Maurice used for teaching and that she was going to donate to the school. Both Fiona and Conor came into the hallway to look as Nora led the two teachers into the front room and closed the door.