‘Yes . . . but not yet. I want to get used to being married first. I want to have them when I’m ready to have them.’
‘Tsk, Claire, that’s no way to talk. I have no time for this modern stuff. God will bless us with children as he sees fit and that’s the way it will be.’
‘That’s all right for you to say,’ Claire protested heatedly. ‘You don’t have to have them!’
‘But you’re a woman, Claire! It’s the natural thing for a woman!’ Sean had been amazed at her attitude. ‘Now don’t be worrying yourself over it – there’s a good girl.’
Claire sighed. There were times when her husband treated her like a schoolgirl and she resented it. Still, maybe he was right. She was quite happy as she was, although having a baby would give her something to occupy herself with. Since she had left work she found the days long until Sean came home from school at three-thirty. He had been totally against the idea of her doing home hair-dressing for a few extra bob. Didn’t want the tax man after him, he said when she suggested the idea. Marriage was not quite what she expected. Sean was very thrifty and expected her to account for every penny that was spent. On Saturdays he took her to the supermarket in Waterford where they bought their weekly groceries. He signed the cheque that paid for them, Claire never handled the money. She had a small float to cover things like milk and bread from Griffin’s shop but at the end of the week she had to account for what she had spent. If she needed anything for herself like tights she had to ask him for the money to buy it.
Sean loved Saturday night when he would spend an hour going over his accounts. ‘We’ve saved ten pounds this week, love,’ he’d inform her cheerfully. Silas Marner couldn’t have been happier than Sean at his accounts on a Saturday night, Claire thought fondly as she observed him in the firelight, with his head bent over his account book, writing happily. There was always good food on the table and plenty of coal for the fire but there was no doubt that her husband was a very careful man with money. It was Sean who had selected the furniture for the house and he had a preference for brown that depressed her. Brown curtains! Brown suite! Brown carpets! She had been so looking forward to decorating her home. Some of the magazines in the hairdressing salon where she had worked had given her great ideas and she had been dying to try them out. Pink and grey, cream and apricot, lemon and white, she had furnished and decorated each room of their tiny cottage in her mind’s eye many times, but the reality was always there. Dull brown! ‘It’s easy to keep clean and it will last, Claire!’ her husband assured her. Still, at least she had a roof over her head and a loving husband – so she often told herself.
But confirmation of her pregnancy had left her with an awful feeling of dismay. So many things could go wrong. Her sessions at the maternity clinics only compounded this fear as other women swapped horror stories of things that could and did go wrong. Sean would never come with her, even when he was on holidays: ‘That’s all women’s business. I don’t want to be interfering.’
Molly was a great comfort to her. ‘Don’t be fretting, child. I’ll be with you,’ she’d reassure her poor upset daughter.
Claire was right to be worried. She’d had a terribly long and painful labour before the little red-faced bundle was placed in her arms. Then she’d had to learn to breast-feed! The baby wouldn’t suck and the nurses said not to bother, it was much easier to give her the bottle but Claire had stuck to her guns. She wanted to breast-feed. It gave a good start in life to the child, at least that was what she had read. Not that bottle-feeding had caused her any harm but she wanted to breast-feed her baby and after a few tears and false starts she at least succeeded in that. She knew that Sean was disappointed that the baby wasn’t a boy. He couldn’t conceal it as he leaned over the cot and took a look at his daughter. ‘Never mind, we’ll have a boy the next time,’ he assured her. That’s what you think, Claire thought to herself. There never would be a next time if she had anything to do with it. Once was enough to go through that ordeal.
Having suckled her daughter five minutes on the right breast, five minutes on the left, Claire recommenced the struggle with the christening robe. The baby stared red-faced at her mother. She couldn’t be! She had just been changed, for God’s sake. Laying her tiny daughter on the sofa, Claire investigated and had her fears confirmed. She’d have to change her again! Was it natural to be having so many soiled nappies? Maybe she had the runs. She seemed healthy enough, and now that she had been fed again, quite contented. In fact she was falling asleep. Blast it! Claire would never get that bloody christening robe on. A beaming Molly entered the sitting-room. Claire had never been so glad to see her mother as she was that minute. Catching sight of her harassed daughter’s flustered face Molly said comfortingly, ‘Go on up and get ready and leave the dote to me.’ Claire obeyed with alacrity.
Watching the priest pour the holy oil over her sleeping daughter’s forehead Claire felt a mixture of emotions. Pride, love, fear. This helpless little being was dependent on her now so she’d better get her act together and stop panicking because it was obvious that Sean was going to leave her to get on with it. She caught Rosie’s eye and smiled. Rosie was the godmother and she was besotted with the baby. In fact for the first time in her life, Claire knew that Rosie envied her. As Rosie handed the baby back to her after the christening, she woke up. Claire gazed down at her tiny daughter, who stared right back at her with eyes unblinking. ‘Well here we are,’ Claire whispered. ‘You and me. We’d better do the best we can.’
LAINEY
Friday 7 June 1974
Lainey Conroy stamped out ten Mills & Boon romances to the borrower standing at the desk in front of her. It was three-fifteen, and she was starving. It must be time for tea-break soon, so she’d be able to have a sandwich. Lainey had worked her lunch to enable her to leave early to catch the train home that evening. By rights, she should have been off this afternoon and due to work until nine, but one of the other girls had wanted a swap and Lainey had been only too happy to oblige.
It was no joke, working in the public library service. The hours were dreadful. She worked late two nights a week and every second Saturday, having Thursday off instead. Big deal! What use was a Thursday to anybody? Everybody at home thought she must be making a mint on overtime. What a laugh! They weren’t paid one measly penny for their unsocial hours. When Lainey started work six months before, she was told that her job was more important than her social life.
Because she was the most junior person on the staff, Lainey had to work late on Monday and Friday nights and this meant that on her weekend off she couldn’t go home until Saturday, so getting off early was a real bonus. ‘Tea time!’ Anne, one of the other girls, called out to Lainey and the two of them walked into the back workroom.
‘If one more smart alec tells me it must be great to have nothing to do all day except read books, I’ll split them!’ exclaimed Lainey.
Anne chuckled, ‘You’ll get used to it. How are you getting on in the flat? Do you like living in Dublin?’
‘It’s fine and I love Dublin,’ Lainey assured her. ‘You must come over some evening.’
‘Lovely,’ agreed Anne. ‘We could go to the pictures or something. Do you think you’ll last in the libraries?’
Lainey shook her head. Although she really enjoyed the variety of the work and meeting the public, and though most of the people she worked with were extremely nice, a great bunch in fact, the hours were dire and the working conditions were tough. Already she had worked in three different branches, had her nights changed at a moment’s notice, and knew she could be transferred from one library to the other according to ‘the exigencies of the service’, as the higher echelons put it. What about her ‘exigencies’? She’d had to look up the dictionary to find out what the word meant! Lainey didn’t intend to spend her life hopping and trotting across the city, spending hours waiting for buses. She knew one poor unfortunate who lived in Shankill and had been transferred to Phibsboro. Imagine doing that journey in the rush hour! She knew
of another girl who had recently moved to a flat in Rathmines, to be near the branch she worked in. A week later, she was transferred to Baldoyle Library. ‘One must be flexible in this profession,’ she had been informed loftily when she complained. ‘I don’t mind being flexible within reason but I’m not made of bleedin’ India rubber!’ she announced in disgust as she filled out her resignation form.
Remembering this, Lainey grinned at Anne. ‘I don’t think so, somehow or another. I don’t think I’m exactly what they are looking for. I might try and get into the general services, because the carry-on couldn’t be any worse than it is here.’
‘It’s a pity because the work here is very interesting and you work with really nice people . . . like myself!’ Anne laughed as she plonked herself down on a chair and poured out a cup of tea. ‘God, my feet are killing me! I didn’t sit down once today – it was so busy at that desk! Of course, your woman’, she nodded towards the librarian’s office, ‘is inside all day drawing a timetable for the children’s summer project. You should see it, the writing is tiny but very fancy, all these curlicues and things – but the kids won’t be able to read it. I’d have had it done on the typewriter in twenty minutes. This is her second day on it and wait until you see – she won’t even go out to the desk to relieve us for the tea-break. And that’s what she was sent to college for, on ratepayers’ money! It’s disgusting. Here’s you and me getting half the salary, running around like fools! While she’s inside drawing!’
‘Ah but!’ Lainey remonstrated, ‘as the higher-ups would put it, she’s “very artistic”.’
‘Very artistic, my arse!’ snorted Anne, tucking into a cream slice.
‘Some of them take themselves so seriously,’ Lainey reflected. ‘I was told that we were here to disseminate information, not to entertain, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!’
‘Puke! How did you keep a straight face?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Lainey, as the buzzer on the intercom went and the plaintive voice at the other end apologized for disturbing their tea-break, but there were ten people at the desk, two dogs were fighting in the porch, a child had piddled on one of the chairs, someone was on the phone trying to find out the capital of Mongolia for a competition she was entering and the librarian hadn’t appeared to relieve Anne and Lainey.
It was a very tired Lainey who stood waiting for a bus into town later on that evening. There had been a big rush in the afternoon and they had been run off their feet. She was hot, tired, and very apprehensive about getting down to Amiens Street Station to catch her train. Three weeks ago to the day, three car-bombs had gone off in the city, right in the middle of the Friday rush hour, killing twenty-three people and injuring more than a hundred. It had been one of the greatest days of horror in living memory. One of the bombs had gone off in Talbot Street, along which she must pass to get her train. Since the tragedy, she, like everyone else, had been nervous walking the streets of the capital. Each parked car was a potential threat and she found herself taking deep breaths and rushing past two cars parked illegally. Her family had been frantic with worry that Friday until she was able to phone to reassure them that she was all right. If only she was on the train. It would be nice to get down to Moncas Bay for the two days. She might go to the beach and have a swim if the weather remained fine. Anyway it would be terrific just to unwind for a while. She liked her life in Dublin, but there was no place like Moncas Bay for relaxing in the sun.
The traffic was brutal and she sat almost steaming with impatience on the bus-ride into town. Finally reaching the city centre, she took off down Talbot Street as though all the devils in the universe were after her. Heart thumping loudly, she passed Guiney’s where the bomb had exploded. Just keep going, she told herself, keeping the façade of Amiens Street Station in view. While she was passing under the railway bridge a train thundered overhead and for a moment she nearly jumped out of her skin. Fool! she cursed herself. She was breathless, perspiration trickling down between her breasts. She had never felt so hot and sticky in her life. Licking a bead of salty sweat from her upper lip, she groaned as she saw the queue at the ticket kiosk.
Crikey! She’d never make the train. The minutes seemed to stretch into an eternity as the queue shuffled slowly forward. A young guy in front of her tried to pass himself off as under-age and there was an argument. Cursing bitterly, he paid full fare and finally she was able to purchase the precious ticket to Arklow. Another queue at the ticket checker’s gate and then she was legging it down along platform four, which had never seemed so long before, to where the Rosslare train was almost ready to pull out. Hauling herself and her bag on to the last carriage, she stood gasping at the window as the porter slammed the doors shut. Then they were moving slowly out of the station.
The train was packed, she noticed in dismay. She’d probably be standing all the way to Arklow. Tripping over a student’s rucksack she made her way along the swaying train, hoping against hope that there might be a seat at the front. Everybody else seemed to have the same idea and there was a lot of passing and excusing as they all tried to achieve the same goal. It was useless: the seats were all occupied and the passageways just as crowded. In a thoroughly bad humour and with the beginnings of a pounding headache, Lainey hunkered down in one of the corridors and prepared for an uncomfortable journey.
She had given up hope of a seat, when a group of four rose to depart at Dun Laoghaire and because she was nearest the entrance to the carriage, she was able to make a successful run for a seat. So did about half-a-dozen others, three of whom were successful. Lainey sank back into her window-seat with a sigh of satisfaction. Apart from the few minutes on her tea-break, it was the first time that she had sat down all day. They were passing Dalkey now and she settled down to enjoy the view.
The whole panorama of Dublin Bay spread before her. A big cargo ship was heading into port away over to the east, and above, she could see a jet making its descent towards Dublin Airport. As they headed towards Killiney, she could see strawberry-pink houses dotted along the overhanging cliff. Some of the houses and gardens out here were magnificent, but of course this was where the monied people lived, and what a beautiful place it was. The beach below, though stony, was fairly crowded still, and along its length she could see children dancing around, building sandcastles, while their mothers knitted and read and their fathers snoozed. Swimmers bobbed in the sea and the surging surf rushed in and carried them with it as they shrieked with delight. Spaced apart like sentinels, fishermen cast their lines into the sea in hopes of catching ‘the big one’.
As the train sped by, young and old alike turned to wave. There was something about a train going by that made people wave. When Lainey was in her own home as a child, she had always waved at the train going past their garden and loved it when someone waved back at her. Now, feeling like the Queen Mother, she waved back to the smiling occupants of the beach. Others in the carriage did the same and for a few moments a sense of camaraderie spread through the carriage as its occupants smiled at the people below, and then a little foolishly at one another, before retiring back into their books, papers and thoughts. Before long they were thundering through the Bray Tunnel, and she caught sight of a reflection of herself in the window.
She didn’t look too bad, considering how hot and sweaty she felt. Her blonde hair was in a French plait that one of the girls in work had shown her how to do, and it made her look so sophisticated. Her eyebrows had been plucked and shaped nicely last night, and her nails painted a delicate shade of lavender to match her lipstick and her lavender pants. The pants had been a good buy. She’d got them in a sale in Roche’s, and they were linen, very cool and casual-looking with just that little bit of class. She wore a white loose-knitted sleeveless top and white espadrilles, and her large summer shoulder bag, for which she had searched the city, was exactly the same shade of lavender as the trousers. Colour co-ordination was so important – it always finished the look so well. All in all, she decided, she
didn’t look the way she felt. She looked dressy yet casual. Anne had told her she looked like something out of a magazine and she felt such a great sense of satisfaction. She was getting there! Lainey had learned a lot since she had come to Dublin, and she would go on learning. She’d be as good as that lot in Moncas Bay yet. Lainey Conroy would show them.
Rooting in her colour co-ordinated bag she withdrew a book and settled back to put in some serious study. Etiquette For Every Occasion: A Guide To Good Manners was the title. She had got it in the library that very morning. Honestly, the library was great for things like that; she could look for information on any subject under the sun and be sure of finding something. Scanning the chapter-headings she came to ‘Dinners, Restaurants and Hotels’. Lainey’s lips tightened. Never ever again would she not know what cutlery to eat with and what side-plate was hers, as had happened on a mortifying occasion when she had been invited to dinner by the Mangans. Lainey’s cheeks flamed at the memory of her introduction to ‘the set’. The Mangans lived in Sea View, a big eighteen-roomed Victorian house overlooking Moncas Bay. They were loaded, and leaders of high society in the area. They had three daughters and one son, and every matron in Moncas Bay had their eye on the poor unfortunate youth as a potential wealthy spouse for their marriageable daughters. Unfortunately for them, although they did not know it, young Tony Mangan’s taste did not run to women. It was to Lainey that he had confided this awful secret when she caught him trying to drown himself off the pier one early-summer’s evening during their Leaving Cert examination.
Her brain addled from study, she had decided to take a walk before going to bed to try and induce a good night’s sleep. In the pearly light just after sunset, as the encroaching night was beginning to cast shadows, she walked briskly down the road that led to the pier. There was a slight breeze, enough to blow her hair from her face, and she sniffed its salty scent appreciatively. She felt better already! No one disturbed her solitude. The fishing boats were in, the nets lining the pier awaiting mending. Behind her, along the cliff’s edge, house-lights were starting to twinkle, delicate pinks and yellows and whites, depending on the colours of curtains and lampshades. Ahead of her the pier curved protectively around the bay, its high storm-wall seeming almost impenetrable. Lainey had seen the winter sea exert its authority on the high solid wall, waves lashing over the top on wild and stormy nights.
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