by Anne Doughty
In the end, I chose a checked skirt with a plain wool sweater, a dark jacket, high heels and a pretty silky scarf. I surveyed my efforts in the long mirror of my wardrobe hoping that I looked poised and in command of myself, but the figure who solemnly returned my gaze, though very neat, was far from poised. I had to admit it looked decidedly uneasy.
I knew the hotel in Royal Avenue, but I’d never been beyond the plate-glass doors before. My high heels sank into the thick carpet and I tried not to blink in the battery of spotlights which had been carefully positioned to reflect from the tall, highly decorated mirrors. I walked towards the reception desk, my eye upon the heavily made-up woman who stood there smiling automatically, and rather too brightly, at the business-men who paused to collect their keys or pick up long envelopes with travel reservations.
Before I reached her with my carefully practised request for Mr Delargy, a hand touched my arm and Patrick stood at my side.
‘My goodness, you are looking well. No ill-effects at all from your adventures?’
‘No, not at all. I’m fine.’
I had been through this moment a hundred times. I had done my best to imagine my possible reactions as some preparation for the event itself. Now the moment had come and gone. We were walking through to the bar to have a sherry and I had no idea at all how I felt.
Certainly, Patrick was no different from the man I met in Lisdoonvarna six long months ago. Smiling, courteous, easy to talk to, interested in whatever I had to say, it was as if we had never been apart. Then it struck me that perhaps we’d never really been together.
Lunch was very good. After all the agitations of the morning I discovered how very hungry I was. We enjoyed the food and we enjoyed our conversation, as we had enjoyed meals and talk together in Limerick and Galway and in Patrick’s own home. I almost began to wonder what the problem was with the letters, when he was so clearly the same person I had known in the summer.
Time was passing and I was perfectly aware he had no plans to stay overnight. I could not bring myself to ask him why he had suggested we meet, but I could have spared myself that particular anxiety. The waiter left us our coffee, he poured mine, handed it to me and looked at me very directly.
‘There is something I must say to you, Elizabeth. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
All the old anxieties returned with a rush. I sat trying to behave normally, though my mind was in a state of complete turmoil.
‘You know, this has been a very strange year for me. Full of experiences I could never have guessed at, if you’d asked me. And most of them nice.’
He paused and smiled at me and for the first time I felt something of the old intimacy that had been between us.
‘When you came into my life, you showed me just how sad and empty it had become. Because of you, I came to see how much I needed a companion, someone to share my life with. Love is a very important thing, a great gift, but companionship is very precious too. I’ve decided, Elizabeth, that I want to marry.’
For a moment I could say absolutely nothing. I felt stunned, distressed, overwhelmed. I couldn’t possibly make up my mind to marry him. Not now. Not ever perhaps, however much I might believe I loved him. But before I could say anything, he took my hand and went on speaking.
‘Perhaps you’ve guessed something was changing over the winter, for you are so sensitive to what goes on between people. You know I’ve been staying regularly in Rathfarnham, in my cousin’s house. What you didn’t know is that Alexander was killed in a car crash five years ago. Rosemary has been coping on her own ever since.’
Already, I could see what was coming, but I said nothing, wanting to hear him say what he had to say.
‘Rosemary and I have known each other for many, many years. She was an only child so her mother sent her to spend her holidays with our family in Clare. Rosemary’s older than I am and when she went and married Alexander at eighteen I was furious because she had just started teaching me to sketch,’ he went on, laughing easily. ‘We’ve always got on well, but it’s only in these last months I’ve realised how much we could give each other. The difference in age doesn’t seem to matter very much as one gets older.’
Suddenly, it all fitted into place. The increasingly frequent visits to Rathfarnham, the long letters to me full of cuttings, and news, and interest in my activities, but nothing which touched on what we’d had together. All my unease that there was something wrong had been justified, that something precious was closing, coming to an end, dying. Not my love for him, or even perhaps his love for me, but the possibility of making a life together. Patrick and I could not make a life together because he had his life already made. It was a life Rosemary knew well and could share. But I couldn’t. To me it was distant, remote from anything I knew or would choose for myself. Besides, I wanted a life made with someone I loved, a life worked out a bit at a time, changing and shaping as we changed, not a life I could step into ready-made like a garment, just needing a small adjustment here or there to make it fit perfectly.
Tears came trickling down my cheeks. I didn’t tell him they were tears of relief but I said how very happy I was for him. That I always cried at weddings. After a moment, he smiled. It must have been clear by then that I was taking it well. I saw the relief flow over him as I blew my nose and poured us both more coffee.
‘When will you be married, Patrick?’
‘Very soon. We hope to go to America to visit relatives immediately after. You can guess I’ll need to be back before the summer season and there will be a lot of work to do on my house.’
I drank my coffee gratefully, amazed that I could look at him quite steadily, the man who had once held me in his arms and wanted to ask me to marry him. Suddenly, it felt as if I was standing a long, long way away, watching two people having lunch in a hotel dining room. Two people who had once intersected for a moment in time, touched each other, changed each other, and were now moving past and away to lead lives so different, soon it would be hard to imagine how they had ever once intersected.
Chapter 25
Dinner that evening was interminable. The moment it ended I grabbed my coat, hurried down the steps outside and sprinted to the bus stop. I paused only a moment to see if there might be one coming, but there wasn’t, so I kept going, walking so fast I got a stitch in my side. I arrived breathless at the door of the union just after seven-thirty.
I stepped inside and scanned the few figures drinking coffee at this quiet time between late suppers and mid-evening breaks from work in the library. There was no sign of Ben. I stood poised, undecided. If I went to meet him from the Ormeau Road bus I might miss him, but the thought of waiting a moment longer was more than I could bear.
I turned to go out again so hastily I nearly fell over him in the doorway. For a moment, I hardly recognised him, he looked so pale and tired. There were dark smudges under his eyes and a droop to his shoulders that was quite unlike him.
‘Ben, are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’
‘It’s not your mother ill again, is it?’
‘No, she’s grand. She’s not looked back since the op,’ he muttered, evading my gaze.
Whatever was upsetting Ben, the echoing emptiness of the union wasn’t going to help. We needed somewhere a lot more private.
‘Ben, I’ve been to the bank. Let’s go to the Lilac Room. My treat.’
We headed for the coffee bar without another word, parked ourselves in the furthest corner and ordered cappuccinos.
‘Look, Ben. I told you a lie yesterday and it really upset me, but I couldn’t explain then. Can I tell you about it now?’
He nodded, but still wouldn’t look at me. I had never seen him so utterly dejected. The only thing to do was get on with it, so I told him all about Patrick, how he wanted to ask me to marry him, and how he’d felt I had to have time to choose the life I wanted.
‘And he gave you six months?’
‘N
o, there wasn’t a time limit. I didn’t know I was going to see him today until I had his letter last week.’
‘And you’re going to marry him?’
‘No, of course I’m not. He’s going to marry his cousin’s widow, a woman called Rosemary, with three sons.’
‘But he can’t marry her if you love him.’
‘Why not?’
He looked at me in amazement. He was still very pale, but a little colour was now creeping back into his face.
‘Ben dear, one thing Patrick did teach me is that though you can love someone, truly love them, that isn’t always a good reason for marrying them. It depends on whether you want to make a life with them and what the chances are that you’ll be able to manage it if you do.’
‘I want to make a life with you, Lizzie,’ he said firmly, looking me straight in the eyes at last.
Said in that plain, unvarnished way of his I knew he meant it.
‘Ben,’ I began, laughing, ‘am I to take that as a proposal or a proposition?’
He smiled at last. The whole set of his body changed and the light came back into his eyes.
‘I thought I’d had it,’ he confessed, ‘that you were going to marry him and I’d never see you again. I couldn’t bear that, Lizzie.’
‘But, Ben, neither could I.’
Two weeks later, we did have our afternoon out. It was a breezy March day with glints of sun and we walked on the beach at Brown’s Bay until our faces were frozen. Then we sat in the car drinking tea from a thermos, looking out at the grey-green mass of the Irish Sea, watching the ferries plough their way back and forth to Stranraer.
‘D’you think we’ll cross water, Ben?’
‘Could do. But there’s my year in the Royal next year. After that I’m free to go anywhere that’ll take me. There’s a big hospital in Oxford called the Radcliffe. I could try that.’
‘But would you be happy in Oxford if I can get a grant?’
‘I’d be happy anywhere so long as you’re there.’
We sat silent, watching the gulls skim the white-capped water and a man throwing a stick for a black Labrador puppy.
‘I wish we could live together,’ he said suddenly.
‘So do I.’
‘Probably all right if we got to Oxford. Not much chance in Belfast though, unless we got married.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic about the idea,’ I protested.
‘Oh Lizzie, come off it. Just think what your dear mother would say if I turn up on the doorstep next week to ask your dad for your hand in marriage. It’s the stuff of comedy. A medical student Penniless. With a year before I earn anything.’
‘Well, we could try an experiment and let me ask your mother for your hand in marriage. If I get that job with the Folk Museum, I’d have a salary. And there’s always Uncle Albert to bail us out’
‘So you think it’s a good idea?’
‘Worth considering.’
‘Marriage without prejudice?’
‘What d’you mean, “without prejudice”?’
‘I mean not letting the whole business get in our way, like so many of the people we know. If we decide to get married let’s be clear it’s to make our life easier, not to satisfy other people’s conventions or expectations. I don’t need a wife, Lizzie, and you don’t need a husband. We just want to be with each other.’
He took my plastic mug, parked it on the dashboard and drew me into his arms. It was some time before we came up for air and were able to go on with our conversation.
‘If we do decide to get married and we have a bun fight afterwards, let’s invite the Brigadier,’ I said lightly.
‘Only one problem.’
‘What?’
‘He’s an Air Commodore.’
I wound my arms around him. ‘Let’s invite him anyway.’
Chapter 26
Flat 2b
Marlbrough Park North
Belfast,
25 July, 1961.
My dear Mary and Paddy,
It was lovely to get your letter and to know you’re both well and that the weather’s held up for the peat and the thatch. It was great that Larry was able to come over for a few days and help you. I loved your stories, Mary, about his little boy ‘helping’. I wonder what he’ll tell his nursery teacher when he goes back to school in Manchester?
You asked for my news. Well, there’s a lot of it. I can’t quite believe how much has happened in such a short time, but the biggest news of all is that we are getting married on August 10th, which is Ben’s birthday. He says that way he won’t be able to forget our wedding anniversary!
My mother, as you know, was not pleased when Ben and I got engaged, but my father has been very generous. A few weeks ago he got a big cheque from the insurance people for the damage to the shop and flat and he gave me the money for a second-hand car on condition I didn’t tell her.
I wonder if you can guess what’s coming next?
We’ve been lent a cottage in the Mournes for a week’s honeymoon, but we have a second week before my job with the Folk Museum begins. I want to bring Ben down to meet you and all the people I told him about last year when I was with you.
We don’t want to make extra work for you, Mary, we could stay in a bed-and-breakfast, but I know you’ll tell me what suits you best. Ben is a great hand at peeling spuds. I don’t think you’d feel you had a stranger in the place.
I wish so much you could be at our wedding, but I know it’s not possible. I’ll keep you some cake and bring the photos with me when we come. Did I tell you Geoffrey will be in Dublin in August and is coming up to be our photographer? I’m sure he’ll come to Clare while we’re with you. Maybe we can persuade you to take the cards out again for us all. You’ve been right about most things so far!
There’s more to tell, but I must stop now. As you see I’ve moved into the flat we’ve found and there’s such a lot to do. I’m supposed to be stripping walls this morning while Ben’s in town buying paint so I’ll tell you the rest when I see you.
All my love,
Elizabeth.
I put my letter in its envelope, wrote the address and parked it on the mantelpiece. Brilliant sunlight streamed into the empty room making patches of brightness on the yellowed wallpaper and the bare floorboards. I went to the window and looked out. Above the heavy canopy of the chestnuts that lined the avenue, the edge of the Antrim hills cut a sharp line across the vivid sky. From the overgrown shrubbery below me the song of a blackbird soared effortlessly above the muffled noise of traffic on the nearby Lisburn Road.
As I turned back to the empty room, seeing it transformed, fresh and bright, full of the things we had found for it, Uncle Albert’s clock on the mantelpiece, Ben’s bookcases in the alcoves, I heard the doorbell. As it echoed up the deep stairwell of the old Victorian villa, I counted. Three rings.
‘It is. It is. He’s early,’ I said out loud, as I ran downstairs to open the door.
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Turn the page for another heart-warming saga from Anne Doughty. . .
CHAPTER ONE
Ardtur, County Donegal
April 1845
Hannah McGi
nley put down her sewing and moved across the tramped earth floor to where the door of the cottage stood open through all the daylight hours, except in the coldest and stormiest of weather. She stood on the well-swept door stone, looked up at the pale, overcast sky and ran her eye along the stone walls that enclosed their small patch of potato garden. Beyond the wall, the hawthorns partly masked the stony track, which ran down the mountainside.
There was no sign of them yet. No familiar figures walked, ran, or skipped up the narrow rocky path leading steeply up the mountainside from the broader track that ran along the lower contours of the mountain. Below that, the final, bush-filled slopes dropped more gently to the shore of Lough Gartan. The only movement she could detect in the deep quiet of the grey, late April afternoon were flickers of light reflected from the calm surface of the lake itself, just visible between the still-bare trees and the pale rise of smoke from the cottage of her nearest neighbour.
Dotted along the mountainside above the lake, clusters of cottages like Ardtur itself huddled together in the shelter of the mountain, its brooding shape offering some defence against the battering of westerly winds from the Atlantic, westerlies that brought both mildness and heavy rain to this rugged landscape.
She moved back to the hearth, hung the kettle over the glowing embers of the turf fire and took up her sewing again. She paused to push back a few strands of long, fair hair that had escaped from the ribbon with which she tied it firmly each morning. Touching the gleaming strands, she smiled to herself, thinking of her daughter. Rose was as dark as she herself was fair, her eyes and colouring so like Patrick, her husband, while Sam, a year younger, pale-skinned and red-haired, so closely resembled her father, Duncan Mackay, far away in Scotland where she had been born and grew up.
They were good children, always willing to help with whatever task she might have in hand; Rose, the older, patient and thoughtful; Sam quick, often impatient, but always willing to do as she asked. Even now, though he was lightly built and only eight years old, he would run to help if he saw her move to lift a creel of potatoes or turf, or to pick up the empty pails to fetch water from the well.