The Teacher at Donegal Bay

by Anne Doughty

  ‘Jennifer, I’m aware that you seem to have some very clear plans regarding your future. Would you think it too unreasonable if your family were to inquire what they might be?’ Harvey began, in the tone I imagined him using in his consulting room when he felt he was dealing with a really recalcitrant patient.

  Susie was strolling along the path now, singing to herself. In the dead hush of the room, I could just catch an odd fragment of ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’.

  ‘No, Harvey, no, it’s not unreasonable at all,’ I said agreeably. ‘My immediate plan is to accept the job of Head of Department I was offered on Friday, reorganise the English Department ready for the move to the new building, get the Drama Studio working there, and set up an English workshop. When I’ve done that, I’ll take stock again.’

  Harvey glanced at my mother, though he knew full well that wasn’t the answer she had in mind at all.

  ‘I hardly think, Jennifer, that the details of your job are quite relevant to the present discussion,’ he said.

  ‘Then we must disagree, Harvey,’ I replied sweetly. ‘Perhaps you still haven’t grasped that I have no intention of giving it up. If you’d reported that part of our conversation this morning accurately, I don’t think Mummy could have been left in any doubt.’

  Harvey put his empty coffee cup back on the table with such force that the cup fell over and rattled noisily against the saucer. ‘Now look, Jennifer, don’t you go acting the schoolmarm with me,’ he protested.

  My mother silenced him with a look.

  ‘And what does Colin think of all this, Jennifer, may I ask?’ she began, with that veneer of politeness which I knew well enough to ignore.

  ‘As I have told you many times, Mummy, Colin says it’s up to me to decide.’

  She was leaning back comfortably in the angle of the settee, pushing her gold wristwatch back into position and glancing idly round the room.

  ‘And what age do you think you’re going to be by the time you’ve done all this reorganising?’ Harvey burst out.

  ‘I haven’t really thought about that, Harvey,’ I began coolly. ‘Age isn’t very relevant to running an English Department, you see,’ I went on steadily. ‘Connie’s done a splendid job and she’s in her fifties, as far as I know,’ I added wickedly, knowing that Harvey was having the greatest difficulty in keeping his temper.

  ‘You deliberately misunderstand me,’ he spluttered. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. What on earth age do you think that’ll leave you when you do decide to start your family?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Forgive me, Harvey, but have you forgotten that childbearing is not obligatory?’ I began, very quietly. ‘And thanks to the tremendous scientific advances in your chosen field, it is not inevitable either. You may not find it profitable to encourage choice among your clients, but choice does exist and I intend to exercise mine. No one is going to coerce me into starting a family when I don’t choose to. Is that clear?’

  The set of Harvey’s shoulders and the way he was twitching the sleeves of his elegant lambswool sweater told me he’d got the message all right, but my mother left me no time to enjoy my small victory.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve made that very clear, Jennifer,’ she said, her voice rising an octave. ‘Speaking to your brother like that. I suppose that’s the way you speak to Colin too, telling him what you’ll do and not do. I suppose you walk over him the way you walk over us.’

  Daddy’s logs had burned up in the grate and my left foot was being quietly roasted. I’d also developed a bad attack of wind. Neither discomfort was exactly helping me to seem cool and in command of the situation. I withdrew my grilled ankle very slowly, tucked it nonchalantly behind the other, and asked her what she meant by walking over her.

  She tossed her head at me and I got a momentary back view of her recent perm, the grey-blue curls stuck tight to her scalp, lacquered enough to preserve them for all time.

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Jennifer, and you needn’t use that sarcastic voice of yours with me.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy, I do know what you mean, but I think we’d better get it straight just the same.’ I paused deliberately and managed to continue in the same level and steady tone. ‘What you actually mean by “walking over you” is that I’m not prepared to give up my job, have a baby and settle down to running a comfortable life for Colin, the way Mavis has chosen to do for Harvey. If that’s walking over you, then you’re quite right. I am “walking over you” and I shall go on “walking over you”. I didn’t marry Colin to turn myself into a wife and mother, or social secretary, or to lead the kind of life that you, or Harvey, or Maisie McKinstry, or Karen Baird, or any combination you think fit for me. What I do with my life, I am going to decide. Not you or anybody else.’

  By the time I had finished, her face was twisted with fury, her cheeks a hectic red. The hostility she gave off was so tangible, I just had to look away. I turned towards the fire and watched a shower of sparks shoot up the chimney as a glowing log settled into the orange embers. From the corner of my eye, I could see my father watching me closely, a look of profound concentration on his face and an almost discernible twinkle in his eye.

  ‘I, I, I, Jennifer,’ she burst out, ‘that’s all we ever hear from you. Very nice, isn’t it? I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself speaking to me like that.’ She glared at me, her eyes glittering. ‘Well, let me tell you, my girl,’ she went on, dropping her voice and nodding to herself. ‘You’re not just going to get everything your own way.’

  I knew the tone and I didn’t like it. Sometimes it was bluff, but as often as not there was some reality behind the self-satisfied smirk. Probably there was something she knew that I didn’t know, but how important it was I had no way of guessing. But she had managed to make me thoroughly uneasy, just like yesterday when Karen Baird had gone all sickly sweet as I was leaving after morning coffee.

  ‘Perhaps when you’re not so handy to your fine friends, you’ll learn to think different,’ she went on, continuing to nod to herself. ‘You’ll not walk over the McKinstrys the way you walk over me. No, nor make a fool of Colin either.’

  She made a twitching gesture with her shoulders, leaned forward on the settee and poked her head out towards me. ‘Entertaining your gentlemen friends till all hours of the morning. What have you got to say about that, heh?’

  Her lips were compressed into a tight line as she threw a furious glance towards my father. It looked as if he was going to get blamed for this as well. Perhaps it was that look thrown across at my father, or perhaps it was that sneering ‘gentlemen friends’ but instead of being knocked off balance as once I might have been, I just felt an ice-cold fury generate somewhere in the region of Sunday lunch and spread out to envelop me. I actually felt the colour drain from my face and I knew my hands had gone stone cold.

  I stared at her quite calmly. It was the ‘gentlemen friends’ that had done it. For a moment I was right back on the moonlit shore at Drinsallagh, my hands clutching the bare bones of the old wreck, the memory of that awful year before I was married pouring back into my mind like a flood tide. Those were the words I had mimicked when I stood there sobbing, telling him what had happened, and why I had lost the last chance I had to talk to someone I trusted about the way things were going between Colin and me.

  It was that moment in the hall, in March 1965 that had sealed my fate. That was when I’d caved in, given up any last chance of avoiding the path she’d managed to set up for me. It was my fault all right for giving in. But who was it had made me so desperate to escape that marrying Colin had looked like some kind of heaven?

  There was only one possible way my mother could know about Alan’s visit to Loughview. The sheer bloody cheek of that damn Karen woman took my breath away.

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked very quietly, as I continued to look straight at her.

  ‘I suppose now you’ll tell me it took you three hours to drive back from the far
side of Bangor to Helen’s Bay,’ she crowed, triumphantly. ‘Like the story you told me on Friday, when you arrived here with Mister Keith.’

  She spat his name out with another sneer, confident she had me cornered.

  ‘Oh, so Karen Baird gave you a ring this morning, did she?’ I asked, keeping my voice as lightly conversational as if I were inquiring about Mavis’s use of Greensward on her lawn.

  She looked distinctly taken aback, opened her mouth to speak, but I didn’t give her the chance. For what seemed like the first time in my life, I was ready and waiting.

  ‘And did she tell you that the plan you made last Friday in Brand’s, when you discussed my future with her and Maisie, got nowhere?’ I began. ‘Well, she tried all right. Oh yes, she tried. I had the whole works on Saturday morning. Everything from how worried you and Maisie were about my health to the medical advantages of early pregnancy,’ I went on briskly. ‘You’d be proud of her, Harvey, she sounded just like you,’ I added with a laugh, as I glanced along the settee to see how he was getting on.

  I was managing so much better than I’d ever imagined I’d be able to. I couldn’t quite believe it. But I did have a problem. All this self-control had given me the most awful cramp in my right leg. If I didn’t do something to ease the pain I was sure the leg was going to twitch. Only one thing for it. I leapt to my feet as if I had intended to, parked myself in front of the fire and stood facing them.

  ‘It didn’t work, Mummy. Karen was a flop. And so was Harvey. And setting up family lunch so you can both have a go at me is just as big a flop. And I’ll tell you why.’

  Neither of them said a word. So I just spelt it out, very simply and directly. I told her that she’d been manoeuvring me ever since Harvey went off and got married, that she’d decided who I could bring home, who I could visit, which of my friends she would accept and which she wouldn’t. I told her she’d used Karen Baird, and others like her, to keep an eye on me and that I wasn’t having it. She herself had said on Friday night that we only had one life to live. From now on, she could be absolutely sure that it was me who would be living mine.

  Although I managed to keep control of the anger, it did make me breathless. I just managed to get to the end of what I wanted to say before I had to stop. She was in at once, but to my surprise her voice was quite unexpectedly calm and her manner almost reasonable. Immediately, I was on my guard.

  ‘Jennifer, there’s no need whatever for you to get worked up over nothing. You’ve always done it and it really isn’t good for you. If you go on like that you’ll end up with your father’s trouble. You’re simply overworking, doing far too much, just like him. It’s a pity you can’t appreciate who really has your best interests at heart.’

  ‘Best interests. Best interests,’ I repeated, my voice an icy whisper. ‘When have you ever let my thoughts or feelings get in the way of what you wanted? You’ve made up your mind what “best interests” suit you. You want me to pack up the life I’ve chosen for myself so I can step into the one that you and Maisie have cobbled up for me. It’s a game called Happy Families. Colin doing well, a couple of lovely grandchildren for the pair of you to come and coo over, all arranged in a suitable, detached property, with plenty of money splashed around to give it a touch of class. I run the show and the pair of you sit back and feel pleased with yourselves. Well, it’s not on. I’m not playing.’

  My last words were drowned by the sudden shrill of the telephone, but neither of them were in any doubt about what I was saying. They looked at each other, my mother tight-lipped and flushed with anger, Harvey pale and uncomfortable. My father stubbed out his cigarette carefully in the ashtray on the small table by his chair. Usually he flicks the end neatly into the fire, but this way he could take a long look at them. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, unhurried in their descent.

  ‘Hello, Belfast six four nine . . . Yes, yes, I see. Just hold the line, please.’

  Mavis walked back into the room, glanced across at me and said evenly, ‘It’s for you, Aunty Jenny. It’s Colin and he says he’s got no more money, so you’d better hurry.’

  I dashed into the hall, wondering why hotels bothered to install phones in bedrooms when people like Colin appeared to be incapable of using them. His voice was agitated by haste and irritation and the phonebox got the prize for the most appalling of the weekend. But even worse than the scream of jet engines and the boom of ethereal voices on the tannoy was Colin’s news. Despite hearing one word in five and losing most of his final sentence, I got enough to go back into the sitting room pale and shaking.

  My mother’s face was enveloped in a large, monogrammed handkerchief. Beside her, Harvey muttered soothing comments about not distressing herself and having done all that any mother could do. My father looked up sharply as soon as he saw me.

  ‘Daddy, could I borrow the car? I’ll have to go up to McKinstry’s,’ I said, ignoring Harvey’s stare.

  ‘Surely you can. But would you not rather I ran you up? You’re looking rather pale,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  I hesitated, so grateful for his offer yet uncertain as to whether I should accept it.

  ‘You’re surely not going off, Jennifer, without apologising to Mummy,’ Harvey broke in.

  ‘Apologise, Harvey? For what? For speaking a few of the home truths I should have had the courage to spell out years ago?’

  My mother emerged from the handkerchief. Her face was very red but her eyes were bone dry. ‘Oh, you can be very pleased with yourself, Jennifer, speaking to me like that and then running off. But I’ll not forget today. Maybe by the end of it, you’ll not forget it either.’

  There it was again, that same tone of veiled threat. I put it firmly out of mind. Whatever she thought she had up her sleeve, I had more important things to think about.

  ‘No, Mummy. I’m not likely to forget today,’ I said coldly.

  Her face bore a familiar look of complacency. It was the ‘You just wait and see if I’m not right’ look. Well, perhaps she would be proved right. So far, she had always managed to get the better of me. Either I was so lacking in courage that I always gave in, or she had some power I just hadn’t recognised. Well, if that was the way it was to be and I had to accept defeat in the end, this time at least I would go down fighting.

  ‘Nobody forgets the day when they come to understand at last how a certain kind of wickedness has been used against them,’ I began slowly, my voice still managing to hold on to its cool, steady tone. ‘Oh, it may not seem wicked to you, this scheming with winks and nods, bullying with words and gestures so that you can impose your will on anyone who is too young, too weak, or too inexperienced to stand up to you. But doing it to your own daughter is only the start of it. If enough people do to others what you have done to me, and if they’re as determined to impose their will on them at whatever cost as you have been with me, then I’ll tell you where it leads.’

  My mother looked around the room as if she had lost something, stared out of the window and then consulted her watch. But I paused only to draw breath. However indifferent she pretended to be, she was going to hear me out.

  ‘It leads to what happened in Derry yesterday. It was people like you, thinking and acting like you, who sent in the B Specials to break up the demonstration. Break it up by beating it up. A peaceful, legal demonstration. Of young people. Young men and women, unarmed. Committing no crime, except the crime I’ve committed of making up my own mind. Those young people wouldn’t accept graciously what others had decided was in their “best interests” any more than I will. No, Mummy, there is no danger whatever that I’ll ever forget today.’

  With a final effort, I turned to my father who had been standing beside me. ‘Daddy, Keith is in Altnagelvin with a head injury. Colin doesn’t know how bad. Could we go right now?’ I asked distractedly, suddenly so weary that I wondered how I was to get myself out of the house without another delay.

  ‘I’ll get our coats,’ he said, as he crossed the room with a briskne
ss I had not seen for a long time.

  ‘If you go and anything happens to you, you’ve only yourself to blame,’ my mother called after him as he disappeared into the hall.

  I picked up my handbag from beside my chair, turned round and found him already holding out my coat for me. As I buttoned it up, she jumped to her feet and turned on him.

  ‘You weren’t listening to a word I said, George Erwin, running off to the Antrim Road. I said—’

  ‘That if anything happened to me, I had only myself to blame,’ he responded amiably. ‘I am quite aware of what you said, Edna. My heart is a fairly dubious organ,’ he went on, as he took his car keys from his pocket, ‘but I’m happy to say both my hearing and my eyesight are still quite unaffected.’

  ‘You know the specialist insisted you had to avoid stress and drive as little as possible. Harvey will bear me out. Didn’t he say that, Harvey?’

  ‘But of course he did, Edna,’ said my father soothingly. ‘There’s no doubt about that at all. What seems to be involved is a matter of interpretation. And that being the case, I shall follow my daughter’s splendid example and make my own decision. Should it be the last decision I make, I think I shall feel it most worthwhile.’ He turned to me, a broad smile on his face. ‘If we go out by the garden we can say goodbye to the children.’

  My mother scowled and turned her eyes heavenward. I ignored her and went through the French window he held open for me.

  Chapter 15

  Down on the Stranmillis Road, students from Queen’s University and the Stranmillis Training College were walking hand in hand in the sunshine, as they had done every Sunday afternoon since I was old enough to remember. There was a surprising amount of traffic around, along with the kind of Sunday drivers who force you to concentrate on them all the time. Despite that, Daddy seemed relaxed and in very good spirits.