The Mask and Other Stories

by Nesta Tuomey

‘Pity about her!’ said mother. ‘Wouldn’t you think with all her money she’d spend a bit on a decent place to live. When I think of all we’ve done to improve this place.’

  Father often said if mother had not made so many changes to the house at her own expense Mrs. Dillon would have let it go long ago. As it was she became greedy at the prospect of the price it would eventually fetch and had to be continually reminded that as sitting tenants she could not sell it over our heads.

  I was thirteen when my mother began talking in earnest of making an offer for the house. For years she had been trying to put a bit by against the day but every time she had a few pounds saved some urgent expenditure had to be met and she was forced to begin over again. I had seen it happen so often that I no longer took the whole house-buying venture seriously. It seemed merely a pipe-dream of mother’s that would never come to anything.

  ‘Offer her nine hundred,’ she urged father as he was about to set off one Saturday. ‘She should be glad to get it. Look at all we’ve done. It’s like a palace compared to what it was.’

  Nine hundred pounds! I couldn’t get over it. We were always being told we hadn’t a penny. When I grew out of my First Communion coat mother said I must make do with my brother’s raincoat buttoned on the girl’s side. My eldest sister was the only one of us girls who got anything new; everything else was handed down.

  My mother’s expression grew secretive when I asked where we could possibly get such an amount.

  ‘Oh now, we’ll manage.’ It was a favourite saying of hers. I recalled other occasions when it preceded an almost instantaneous improvement in our fortunes, though of regrettably short duration. Once an insurance policy she had been paying off for years came to maturity. Was another about to surface?

  ‘That’s all you know,’ my brother said. He was closest to my mother, always in the know. For a twopenny Lucky Bag he shared his knowledge.

  ‘Money. Will. Auntie Nora,’ he said cryptically, and went off sucking sherbet from his fingertips.

  Auntie Nora was my mother’s eldest sister. She had married a shoe salesman and spent all of her married life in America. Vaguely, I remembered finding sepia photographs of her in my mother’s wardrobe. Unsmiling pictures posed on the driveway of her home in Seattle in the clothes of her time; long-waisted dresses, head-hugging hats and pointed strapped shoes. Mother had always professed not to like her. Now it seemed she was to be the means of mother’s salvation.

  When father conveyed mother’s offer to Mrs. Dillon she sat down heavily on the edge of a chair, her hands outspread in the region of her knees, and gasped for air.

  ‘Dat house is worth a great deal more money than nine hundred pound, Misther O’Meara,’ she said at last. Her gaze settled reproachfully on my face. ‘Your mudder knows that.’ She looked as though she might begin to cry at any moment, so wounded her expression.

  ‘In the circumstances,’ murmured father. Mrs. Dillon laid a trembling hand on the crapy folds of her neck. She was like someone in shock. ‘I’ll have to tink about it. There’s Richie. He’ll not take kindly to his house sold on him.’ Father said nothing. He’d heard it all before. ‘That waster,’ said mother when we returned home, ‘Off to England every minute. He’ll never settle over here.’

  Father waited a week then went to see the landlady again. The moment he left the house mother started baking furiously. She stood in the scullery muttering to herself and measuring cups of flour. When the bread was in the oven she turned to the wash tub.

  ‘He’s taking his time,’ she said after an hour and still no sign of father. The net curtains were off the windows and out swaying on the line, all the cushion covers piled damply in a basin about to join them. Her fit of nervous energy expended, mother slumped tiredly at the table, scratching her fingernails restlessly on scrubbed pine. She started whenever she imagined she heard the front door opening. ‘Run and see if your father’s coming,’ she said.

  At last the key scraped in the lock and father was home. Mother hurried to meet him. .’I think she’s ready to sell,’ he said. ‘About time,’ mother sighed. She pushed a lank piece of hair, long outgrown its perm, off her hot forehead with fingers bleached and ridged from washing. ‘What will she take for it?’ But father had not negotiated that far.

  A month went by, then two. Having agreed to sell our landlady seemed in no hurry to accommodate mother. Father came back each time shaking his head. Mrs. Dillon was still ‘tinking’ about it. ‘She’s holding out for more,’ mother snapped. She was right. Father came back the third month with the information that Mrs. Dillon’s price was fourteen hundred pounds.

  ‘Fourteen hundred!’ Mother’s face flamed at the figure. ‘I’ll see her in hell first.’ Then she said, ‘That Richie. He put her up to it. Those pair must be thick again.’ Father had reported that Mrs. Dillon’s son was still away in England but mother discounted it. ‘He’s back, mark my words.’

  For days it was mother’s only topic of conversation. She could talk of nothing else. I fell asleep at night to the forceful drone of her voice through the bedroom wall. In the morning it awoke me before time as she took up again where she had left off. The whole business was hashed and rehashed. Meal times were a torment. She could not let it alone.

  ‘She must take me for a fool. That house isn’t worth eight hundred, let alone fourteen,’ she said as father got up from the table. ‘The brickwork needs repainting and if the damp in the back bedroom is let go much further it’ll turn to dry rot. And then where will she be?’

  Now that mother had shifted ownership satisfactorily back on to Mrs. Dillon’s stout shoulders she seemed to gain a gloomy delight in highlighting the house’s bad points.

  ‘The next windy night will see those front windows in the street,’ she predicted, meeting father at the door as he came in from work. ‘They’re rotten right through. Now that’ll cost her a pretty penny.’

  Throughout father maintained an air of calm but he was beginning to get a strained look whenever mother opened her mouth. Gradually mother came around and began bargaining once more.

  ‘Tell her one thousand pounds. Not a penny more,’ she instructed as father prepared yet again to call upon Mrs. Dillon. ‘I’ll tell her.’ He chopped a furrow in his hat and placed it carefully on his head. Poor Dad, he was clearly not enjoying his role of intermediary. His shoulders bowed, he walked away. Mother watched him go, dissatisfaction wrinkling her brow. ‘The trouble with your father,’ she said as she closed the door, ‘He’s too much of a gentleman for that woman.’

  But whatever father said to the landlady she agreed to come down a notch. ‘Thirteen fifty,’ he told mother on his return. Mother gaped. ‘She’s breaking her heart.’

  ‘She says she’d get eighteen if she put it on the market.’

  ‘Let her then,’ said mother with spirit, ‘and I’ll take her to court. We have rights you know.’

  And so it dragged on. Sometimes in her disappointment at my father’s inability to clinch the deal my mother accused him of incompetence. ‘We’re going to lose this house like we did poor Nan’s,’ she fretted, having heard that Mrs. Dillon was talking once more of keeping the house for Richie. ‘Are you quite sure you made it clear I’m offering her a thousand pounds...cash!’ Since receiving her legacy mother’s speech was full of money.

  ‘Quite.’ Father took off his things and wearily hung them up. He went to sit by the fire wearing the stubborn look which appeared often these days whenever mother criticized his handling of the sale. As I brought him his slippers I heard him say, ‘Why don’t you go see her yourself.’

  ‘What!’ cried mother, ‘and give her the satisfaction. Never!’

  After that the subject was closed for a time. Mother went about her lips pinched together, or else moving in silent conversation with some implacable foe. Mrs. Dillon I supposed.

  Father took to reading at mealtimes, a book always propped against the milk jug. It was his only means of defence.

  Autumn commenc
ed and the days grew crisper. In November a force eight gale swept the countryside and mother’s prophecy was fulfilled. The storm blew out the front windows and we were all up at four in the morning, ineffectually boarding the freezing gap with old newspapers, and cardboard taken from cereal boxes.

  Next day, Charlie, my mother’s carpenter of the moment was summoned to produce something more substantial until the new frames could be ordered.

  ‘I saw it coming,’ Mother told him, elated. Even the fact we were all suffering from sore throats from being up half the night in subzero conditions in no way diminished her spirits. ‘Now the old sow will have to do something about it.’ Charlie winked in a conspiratorial manner. Mother’s feud with the landlady was common knowledge amongst her helpers. There wasn’t one of them who didn’t share with her a fellow feeling against property owners.

  ‘This’ll cost her,’ he said in glee as he surveyed the damage. ‘She won’t have much left out of her rent by the time this lot’s paid for.’

  Mother followed him in and out of the rooms, plying him with mugs of tea and a plate of cinnamon buns which she kept sending me downstairs to replenish. She couldn’t do enough for him. ‘How bad is it?’ she asked, and was delighted when he estimated two complete new windows would have to be put in. Before he left, Charlie threw his leg over the sill and reaching out, gathered in some fragments of timber lodged in the gutter. When he pressed them with the blade of his screwdriver, they flaked apart. As mother had predicted the wood in the old frames was quite rotten.

  ‘For all the world like over-cooked meat,’ she observed in awe. I was reminded of chocolate flake. Below the grass winked back at us in the sunny aftermath of the storm, littered with shards of broken glass.

  The next day was Saturday. Mother insisted that my father go at once to Mrs. Dillon and not wait until the end of the month. ‘Tell her the whole place is falling down,’ she cried after us as we walked away, ‘Tell her she’ll be lucky if she gets anyone to take it off her hands. Tell her.’ But the rest of what she said was lost, blown on the wind.

  The door to Mrs. Dillon’s house stood open. Father hesitated then lifted the pitted chrome knocker and let it fall. No sound came from within. After a moment he pushed the door and we went inside.

  Mrs. Dillon half sat, half lay, upon the sofa in a state of semi-collapse like some huge beached amorphous sea-creature, with the dull black satin of her dress dipping into the valley of her sprawling thighs. The soiled kerchief I had come to recognise as her placebo was stuffed into the neck of her dress where it spilled out again like some impoverished nobleman’s cravat. Every available surface was piled with crockery which had built up over the days, perhaps weeks, of her invalidism. All told the same tale, the menu had not varied in that time. Congealed egg yolk pronged through the heart, bore evidence to this along with charred remains of bacon rind, and partly consumed triangles of blackened toast bearing the indentation of the patient’s false teeth. Even as I stared the door sounded behind us and a smiling figure advanced, bearing another burned offering.

  Was it a late lunch or an early tea? There was no way of knowing. Only one thing was clear. Whatever ailed Mrs. Dillon had in no way affected her appetite. The neighbour laid down the plate and scurried away, neglecting to take with her any of the soiled crockery. I wondered if it belonged to her or whether she had already moved all of Mrs. Dillon’s pottery next door in readiness for this daily Samaritan act.

  Mrs. Dillon turned her head at our approach and waved a feeble hand. Father grasped it diffidently. When he attempted to release it she held on like someone drowning and levered herself higher on the cushions. ‘Ah, Misther O’Meara, the ould legs have gone on me at last,’ she said in a faint gasping voice, out of all proportion to her immense bulk, ‘I’ve bin bad dis long time.’

  ‘I’m sorry to see you indisposed,’ said my father calmly. He was always unfailingly polite to her. A gentleman to his fingertips, said mother, whatever about his other failings.

  ‘Ah, I’m kilt entirely.’ Father searched for the rent book. For once it was out on the sideboard. He wiped a smear of what looked like egg from the cover with fastidious fingers, and brought it to her.

  ‘There’s a hansel about somewhere,’ Mrs. Dillon said with a vague, troubled look about the room, ‘Sure they take every ting on me, dem chiselers. Wid the door open there’s no stopping dem.’

  Father had taken the precaution of bringing a pencil. As she laboriously made her mark he pulled up a chair and sat down, hooking his hat over his knee. I stood in the doorway unnoticed. I was glad of the breeze. To the habitual odour of decaying vegetable another unidentifiable strain was added.

  The rent book slid along the slope of Mrs. Dillon’s stomach and was joined a second later by the pencil. She made a half-hearted grab and let them go. ‘How is your missus. Hale as ever?’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ father agreed, poking the pencil out from under the sofa with the toe of his boot. His face was hidden as he bent to retrieve it. ‘She sends you her regards.’

  It astounded me the way my father who was the soul of honour could unblushingly tell such untruths, even for the sake of civility. Mother’s parting words as I recalled them had been anything but felicitous.

  Father cleared his throat and transferred his hat to his other knee. He squared his shoulders. ‘The windows went out the other night in the storm,’ he began, ‘Kitty said to tell you.’

  He quoted the rest of the storm damage, reminded Mrs. Dillon about the leak in the roof and the probable consequences if the damp in the back bedroom was left untreated. He even spoke of the gutters and finished up with a rough estimate of what it would cost to carry out repairs and replacements. Mrs. Dillon listened as silently as her wheezing would permit, her expression doleful. Paying maintenance went sorely against her nature.

  ‘If you prefer,’ my father suggested, ‘it can come out of the rent.’ A strangled yelp emitted from the old woman. Like a child with pocket money she hated any deductions. ‘Is there no way dem windows can be patched up?’

  ‘None whatever.’ Adopting mother’s tactics, father threw a scare into her. ‘They’ve been dangerous this long time. God forbid if any of the children...’

  There was no need for him to say anymore. Mrs. Dillon took the point. She was no stranger to the niceties of the law, having so often used it to her own advantage in the past. She gave grudging consent.

  ‘Shall we engage a man or will you? Father asked, observing protocol.

  ‘Ah, let your missus get one of those men she has about the place,’ said Mrs Dillon sulkily, as though mother kept a harem to do her bidding. She was astute enough to realize that mother’s workmen would do a better and cheaper job in the long run than any she could hire. She often complained that all she ever got were ‘only ould hooks out to take advantage of a poor widah woman.’

  ‘It takes one to know one,’ was mother’s grim retort.

  ‘Very well then.’ Father shifted on his chair, anxious to get the main business of the visit over. ‘Find out if the old bag is going to sell and may she roast in hell if she doesn’t agree this time.’

  ‘Dat house will be the death of me.’ Mrs. Dillon’s gums chewed on something sour. ‘All the expense of it has me kilt.’ A pathetic note crept into her voice. ‘Wid the state of me health I’ll not be around much longer. The docthor says the damp in this ould place will be the end of me. He sez I should be tinkin’ of selling up. Ah, sure where would I be going? I’m not ebble for the worrit of two houses widout bringing another on top of meself.’

  Surely this was the opening father sought. But he seemed in no hurry.

  ‘Have you no one to advise you?’ he asked. ‘Neer a wan.’ Mrs. Dillon fixed her starting orbs on him, moisture seeping the rims. She briefly mopped them.

  ‘What about your son. Isn’t he coming home soon?’

  At the mention of Richie an alarming change overcame Mrs. Dillon. Her face, normally pallid as uncooked dough, fluctuated ra
pidly between suet and Rioja red. Sweat beaded her skin. ‘It is dat young pup? Dat blaggard?’ she choked in asthmatic rage.

  No breath seemed to enter her body. Her face swelled and darkened before my eyes like a gas-filled balloon. Father sat forward in concern.

  ‘Water, Evvie,’ he said. ‘Quick!’

  I ran to the scullery and from amidst the jumble of brown-stained crockery found a cup and hastily filled it at the tap. Father tilted it to Mrs. Dillon’s lips. She did not immediately respond and water trickled down her chin to form a shallow pool on the jutting satin shelf. Then like a baby taking its first experimental sips she sucked at the rim.

  Father adjusted the angle and at last her gasping sighs ceased. She raised the kerchief and swotted feebly at her face and chest. ‘Oh, law! I’m not the better of dat,’ she said when fairly composed again, ‘Just the mention of dat fellah does be enough to bring on wan of me turns. Oh, if you only knew the half of it. Dat BLAGGARD!’ Her voice gained strength and she seemed fair on the way to bringing on another fit all by herself. ‘Oh, Misther O’Meara, wait till I tell you what dat blaggard went and done.’

  It was a complete changeover from the doting mother act. I moved closer anxious to hear the dreadful deed. From all mother hinted Richie made the Prodigal resemble Isaac by comparison.

  ‘Go outside!’ All of a sudden father became aware of my presence. I walked slowly to the beaded curtain hoping he would forget about me but he waited until I had gone through before turning back to Mrs. Dillon. I made a great show of scraping open the front door, then crept back and crouched on the stair, straining my ears. To my disappointment only a subdued penitential murmuring reached me. Until I got the idea of easing shut the front door and blotting out the warring neighbourhood gangs.

  ‘Have you gone to the gards?’ came father’s voice, low and discreet. ‘He was away to the boat before ever I found out.’ A gusty sigh broke from Mrs. Dillon, ‘Would you believe such a ting, Misther O’Meara. Me own flesh and blood to do the like. Biting the hand dat fed it.’