by Molly Keane
“Don’t worry, Leda. No goodbyes. I’m coming too. Of course I’m coming with you.” Her voice was full of comforting cadences
Leda put her hand over her mouth, a gesture of despair. “Oh, no. Please not.” Her protest went unheard and unnoticed.
“And we shan’t have your good nuns interfering with our diet sheet.” April turned to Jasper. She put a cheque in his hand. “And don’t worry about my packing. I rang Ulick. He’s going to see to everything. His Japanese boy is so skilled. Give Ulick this, please.” She handed the parcel to Jasper and got into the car as elegantly as if she were being photographed. When she had settled herself and Tiger she waved, smiling and distant as royalty.
Leda’s daughter put her cropped head out of the car window: “Watch your steps,” she said seriously, “don’t forget. I’ve warned you.” Gravel, unraked for years, shot up in spitting showers as she turned the car fast and drove off down the avenue, heedless of fissures and potholes.
9
Time After Time
The three Swifts stood together on the steps, the rhythm of their day disrupted. Leda had gone and a flame of excitement had died in their lives. Even June had been singed a little, but May had been burned through. Everything that mattered to her was now black paper fragments, a flutter of nothing on a biting wind.
Jasper, denying all regret, unfolded a cheque in his hand. “April’s,” he said, “we’re going to be rather on the breadline without her.”
“Ah, she’ll be back,” June said easily.
“She won’t, you know,” May looked away down the empty drive.
“And another thing,” June went on. “This horse should win the fourteen stone and upwards in Cork Show. Well, anyway, he’ll be placed, you’ll see.”
Jasper turned his back on her, not unkindly, and returned to the house and to washing up breakfast plates in his kitchen. June said to May, “If you like, I’ll keep Tiny in for the day.”
The concession, implying sympathy and pity, was so mortifying that May’s stomach contracted in a shiver of pain. “Don’t bother,” she said coldly, “I’ll keep Gripper with me.” She went upstairs to her bedroom and, before she made her bed, she put on one bar of the electric fire, saying to Gripper as she did so, “We’ll have a little fire, just for the two of us – won’t we, boy?” unaware that she was speaking the loneliest words of a lifetime.
For June, life, this April morning, had returned to something near its proper level. Leda’s shadowy and absurd accusation linking her to Christy she regarded only as angry ravings, seething in a foreign (dangerous word, “foreign”) mind. Now, with complacent relief at the foreigner’s departure, she called Tiny to her and set off down the drive to organise her own and Christy’s work for the day – an ordinary day. She would be on the tractor most of the morning while Christy mucked out the cowsheds and the Wild Man’s box and loaded manure into the trailer. In the afternoon they might give the horse a little school and, with Cork Show in distant prospect, a short introduction to dressage. She felt relaxed and affectionate towards Tiny, and pleased to see Christy looking sharp and able in clean jeans and blue jersey. He was even wearing a tie, a pretty picture indeed, as they met for their morning conference.
“I got delayed,” she apologised.
“I have my horse done and mucked out, and my cow milked. God bless her, I think she’s getting very anxious for the bull.”
“I’ll ring the AID man,” June promised.
“The Holy Father is very averse to that class of thing.”
“He’s only strict with humans,” June assured him, “so get her in at dinner time.”
“I mightn’t be here for my dinner.” Christy sounded curiously sullen. “And I have to get the eleven Mass.”
“What Saint’s day is it today?” June asked dubiously. “Matthew and Mark?” she hazarded.
Christy looked his lofty disdain at such Protestant ignorance.
“If it’s not them it must be Peter and Paul – those two haven’t had a holiday together for a long time.” June was sorry she had hazarded the joke, as surprise and shock were evident in Christy’s silence. “Well,” she gave in hastily, “if you must you must, I suppose. Put up a prayer for me, won’t you? And you’ll be back to give the lad a little school after your dinner. A dash of the dressage would do him no harm, or yourself either.”
“I mightn’t be back in any case after the dinner. My mother has an appointment arranged.”
“Couldn’t your mother put it off today – with the horse to exercise and the cow bulling.” June’s sense of two urgencies overcame her endless patience with Christy’s religious exercises and obligations to his mother.
“It’s for me she has the appointment made.” He paused. “My mother is of the opinion I should get married. I suppose it’s the will of God I to be so unlucky.”
“Marry? Who does she want you to marry?” June asked, awed by the calamitous tone of his announcement.
“My mother says I’ld be a long time before I’ld drop on such a good Catholic girl. She says the most of the girls going now are no bloody use.”
“Well,” June considered the matter as perhaps less of a disaster than she had at first thought, “you won’t have to get married this afternoon.”
“No. Marriage is horrible. A horrible thing. If you thought of it you’ld go mad.”
“Don’t think about it,” June advised. “And if you must do it, I’ll get Mr Jasper to put the roof back on the gate lodge and you can live there.”
“It’s my mother’s opinion I couldn’t offer a girl less than the electric light and an indoor toilet.”
“I don’t think we’ll get a toilet out of Mr Jasper,” June said helplessly, “but he’s promised me he’ll lend you his old Huntsman jodhpurs for the Cork Show.”
“Thanks, Miss Baby, I prefer the blue jeans, they’re less remarkable. And I should go now, I have to get the eleven Mass.”
“All right. Don’t be too late coming back. We might have time to get in a short school now the evenings are longer.”
“I won’t be coming back today, Miss Baby, or any other day either,” Christy bent solicitously over the handlebars of his bicycle, rather as though looking down the fore-leg of a lame horse. “I’m giving you in my notice now this minute, and I’ll see you again for my money and my insurance.”
“Christy!” A chill of despair went through June, and her crying out of his name came from her shocked heart; while through her mind sped a vision of all the impossibilities confronting her with his departure.
“God Almighty – you can’t do this – your religion could tell you that much.”
“Who are you to accuse me of my religion?” Angry and defensive he leaned his foot on a pedal, ready to ride away.
June put her foot in front of the wheel and a hand on the handlebar. “And what about the cow now?” she said. “And you could spare five minutes to show me where the hens are laying out, and in God’s name what will I do with the Wild Man?”
“You’ll only have to get some other one to ride him, Miss Baby, for you’re not fit. You’ld never be able for that sod yourself. He’s a proper scourge of a horse – he’s waiting his chance all the time, he’s as clever as a man. He thought he had me at the caravans yesterday.”
June sickened a little in a new panic. “There’s only myself to get up on him, and you know it.”
“I wouldn’t advise it, Miss, for you’re not fit for the likes of him, or any other horse at your time of life.”
“And the hours I gave schooling you to ride in a show ring.”
“I could be at that too,” he smiled shyly. “The lady was with my mother yesterday have a horse entered in Dublin, never mind Cork, and I’m to be over with her at three o’clock today. So, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Baby,” he looked politely at her detaining hand, “I must get Mass first. There’s a house and electricity and a toilet going with the job, so I wouldn’t doubt you’ld give me a nice reference.” He raised a h
and to his pretty bare head and rode away without a further word.
All sense of order in the day’s work left June. Her mind was pitifully confused by the size and complexity of Christy’s disloyalty. Her fury with the robber-lady who had tempted him away was only equalled by her contempt for the act. She could think of no one who could have done her such a wrong, until she remembered Alys, May’s friend, who had been with them the day before. And May had wanted Christy out, so who but May had alerted Alys to his special skill and usefulness, that even she could not deny?
Remembering all she had taught him, all he could do, and all he could leave undone, June, who should have been on the tractor an hour earlier, went fumbling round the yard, inspecting Christy’s morning’s works. There was a cool farewell in the perfection of their accomplishment; a righteousness showing forth his ability, as though to cloak the traitor behind the mask. He had slighted nothing. The cow, milked and carefully enclosed, was bellowing for love. The hens were fed and creaking away about their unlaid eggs. Sweetheart lay in a ray of sunlight – very Morland – suckling her young on a clean bed; he had even cut the nettles round the dark mouth of the duck house. “What will I do without him?” June wondered, “I’m sweating, Tiny, I’m sweating to think of all we have to do on our own.” She did not admit it fully to herself, but every time she thought of the big horse waiting for her and his daily exercise, she squeezed her fingers into her wet palms before she dried them on her jeans. “We’ll be OK Tiny,” she promised, “I’m just only nervous. We must get the old tractor going anyway.” Thankful to postpone her marathon she set off for the fields in the harsh roar of the tractor’s engine. When she saw that Christy had failed from his usual custom of having a line of three gates propped open along the farm track to the five acres awaiting her labour, tears for his forgetfulness filled her eyes.
In the bathroom May was cleaning her teeth. Leda was gone, she thought, and still I have to brush my teeth. In the same way she knew that nothing would ever stop her proceeding bloodlessly, tearlessly, meticulously with her previous plans and commitments, lifeless as wax flowers seen through a window now. But no wax flower was lifeless to May.
Back in her bedroom she decided on a complete change of clothes – it would be a therapy. The least favourite suspender belt must have its turn. So must the brassière with the slipping shoulder strap. She decided against discarding her thermal spencer.
Her bedroom, as she undressed and dressed again, was warm, and smelling a little of happy comfortable dog. Within its order May realised the static frigidity of her own continuing life. Though she might never change her habits, all achievement and all praise would be empty of satisfaction. She knew now that all praise was owing only to her sad repulsive hand; while it was the hand she had controlled and trained which owed all to her; a cold welling of dislike rose in her as she pulled her arms through her sweater and saw her hand again, as she would do till she died. But with May, although she might never escape from her present limbo of distress, habit would prevail, assuaging the bitterness of disaster. She lit a cigarette, hung it in the corner of her mouth – one of the few louche tricks she allowed herself – and proceeded to make her bed, turned back before breakfast for its Spartan airing. She made it up with her usual exactness, giving to it the same attention that she gave to one of her tweed pictures.
In the past happy weeks it had been her privilege to make Leda’s bed and tidy up her room; at the same time enjoying an informative chat about herself and her activities, useful or artistic, or both. Today it was her sense of order which brought her across the landing to the room that had once been Mummie’s. As she stripped the bed and laid the blankets back to air, she felt it would exorcise Leda’s tenancy if she remade it properly with Mummie’s pillowcases, big and little, freshly washed and ironed. No visitor need ever again interrupt its well tended privacy – provided that Jasper would keep his cat out of the Yellow Room, and see to the leak in the Magnolia Room.
As she shook pillows out of their cases and folded sheets May noticed a sweetish smell in the room – April’s scent, probably, always heavier and more potent when Leda wore it; but there was another, a curious under-smell. May thought of asparagus and looked underneath the bed for the po – which Leda had been arrogantly obstinate about not using. The po was quite empty. She crossed the room to open a window, and as she passed the dressing-table she saw something that made her stand still. To restrain her shock she pressed her left hand with the other, using the strong finger and thumb without a thought of their maiming, the first time since breakfast that she had touched it without hatred.
A silver photograph frame – it belonged to the days before leather and talc – lay on the flowered carpet, empty. Its smashed glass was scattered in stars and angles round it, together with the torn and twisted pictures it had held of Mummie and Daddy. Horrified at the extraordinary desecration, May picked up the pieces one by one and considered the possibility of sticking them together again.
Careful for Gripper, she was scrupulously clearing up the broken glass when she noticed him sniffing interestedly at the base of the wardrobe. She went over to him at once, worried that glass splinters might have flown across the room. Then, she too paused and sniffed, curious and unbelieving, before she opened the door and looked into the spacious half of the wardrobe where she had hung Mummie’s lovely dresses closely together in order to leave room for Leda’s few belongings – so soon supplemented by April.
Shocked and rather frightened, May drew back from the cupboard, to stand and sniff in excited disbelief, before deep anger at the violation took its place. Folds of satin and chiffon, beaded corsages, strict pleated tweeds, all had been soaked and smeared. May caught her breath in dismay for a mauve brocade shoe with its diamanté buckle. Her love of beautiful things, her efforts and ceremonies in caring for them, doubled the horror she felt at this crazy desecration. At the same time as it axed any remnant of the devotion she had given to Leda, it revived her doctor-like sense of order and restoration.
Jasper met her leaving the bathroom, a dripping evening gown swinging on its hanger at the full length of her raised arm. “It’s no good,” she said, “soap and water are useless.”
“I don’t know why you think so,” he tried to pass on his way, ducking any involvement, “but I’m sure you’re right.”
“Just a minute.” She stood in his way, with the strange, waving dress. “Come into Mummie’s room. See what she’s done.”
Jasper was reluctant to share May’s probable criticism of Leda’s untidiness. He felt almost on Leda’s side, as he was totally on the side of his cats when May protested at their unseemly habits. However, after all the unnecessary scenes and emotions of breakfast-time, he felt it would be inhuman not to follow her. She brought him to the cupboard and stood, pointing severely, as one indicates to a guilty dog something dirty on the carpet. Jasper leaned sideways to peer with his one eye before, appalled and embarrassed, he withdrew his head and put his handkerchief to his nose.
“My God, am I seeing the truth?” he said.
“And smelling it,” May responded, almost in a tone of triumph. “Right?”
“So right.” Again he tried to escape, and again she and the dress on its hanger stood in his way.
“It’s what one has read about places like Belsen.”
“She was never near Belsen, or any other camp.” For once Jasper spoke directly and with disgust. “From what I gathered this morning, she sold her Jewish friends and kept herself out of trouble for the duration. Then, Brazil with the Nazi boyfriend.”
“Something to do with the Vatican, I’m sure.” May dismissed the Nazi régime, as for years she had dismissed the thought of Leda. “But the thing is – what am I to do about Mummie’s lovely dresses? How many years have I looked after them – moths under control, every shoe stuffed with paper. And nothing will wash. Look, it rots the chiffon.” She displayed a wet sagging hole.
“To the sword with the lot of them,” Jaspe
r suggested hastily, “or the garden bonfire.”
“Mummie’s dresses?” May looked really stricken.
“Then take the lot to the cleaners today.”
“Why, Jasper, that’s a fortune. You must think money grows on trees.”
“I don’t care what it grows on. I’ll pay, if you’ll do the explaining to the cleaners.”
May grew suddenly taller. She was back with decisions, with capabilities that others lacked. “Good!” she pronounced. “All this muck to the cleaners today. I’ll get it in before my lecture to the club. Right?”
“Sooner you than me,” Jasper murmured to himself, “not my affair anyway.” At the door he turned to say: “And bring that parcel of April’s to Ulick. I really can’t involve myself there. It’s on the oak chest in the hall.”
Another importance. And she could be rude to awful Ulick. Quite revived, May set about the dreadful task of packing the defiled garments, between layers of tissue paper, into two large suitcases. On each sheet of paper she sprayed Green Apple deodorant from the bathroom. “Hope for the best. Everything under control,” she told herself as she slapped shut brass locks in her own masterful way.
In his kitchen Jasper ran the hot tap rather carelessly in and over the breakfast-time cups and plates. He felt more free and relaxed than disturbed at Leda’s sudden departure. Drama of any sort was one of his special dreads. Although he had entertained himself in depriving his sisters of Leda’s undivided attention, he was more than relieved to have evaded the deeper waters of last night’s visit. He had never been one for midnight rampages in the dorm, and he certainly felt beyond adventure now. The desecrations in his mother’s room, which had so appalled May, he was able to ignore, since someone else was dealing with the nastiness. “Very nasty” was his hardest word for what he had seen; he set the whole affair aside; and, along with it, the sad reality of Leda’s untempting body. It all belonged to the wild accusations of breakfast time. There might be more than half a truth, he suspected, in those launched against his sisters, but in his own security from scandal he knew himself inviolate – for how could Leda have guessed the first thing about his relationship with Brother Anselm? At the same time he was not without a slight shudder of apprehension over her hint at a hot-line to the Lord Abbot. He must see his young friend today. He hoped the boy would bring the promised load of willow hurdles, one of the monastery’s most attractive industries. How he wished they would make liqueurs as well; out of gorse blossom, perhaps; or the berries of mountain ash. His mind chased away after endless possibilities. Bringing it back to the hurdles, and the shelter belt to be constructed from them, he set about preparing a large and luscious sandwich for the strong and handsome Brother.