by Maeve Binchy
Mam could hardly be seen in the kitchen behind the lines of washing. There were five bars—long wooden slats, and they went up and down over the range on a dangerous pulley system that only Mam could work, everyone else reached up by standing on a chair. But today there seemed to be a crisis of enormous proportions. The range was out. And Mam was standing on it at the back fixing what must have been a row of washing that had fallen, judging by the rage and the pile of ash-covered clothes in the corner of the kitchen.
Mam looked as if nothing would please her, and indeed nothing did.
“Can I do anything to help?” Clare asked after a moment, thinking that was a better approach than asking what had happened.
“It would be nice if someone did something to help,” Mam cried. “It would be very nice if anyone in this house did something to help. That would be very nice. And very surprising.”
“Well, tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. Do you want me to make the tea?” Clare asked.
“How can you make the tea for eight people? Don’t be stupid, child.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Clare’s voice was becoming querulous. What was the point of being nice to Mam if she was going to be so bad-tempered? Clare wished she hadn’t come into the kitchen at all but just gone upstairs to the bedroom.
“Why don’t you go and stick your nose in a book, isn’t that all you ever want to do?” Mam shouted and at that moment the rest of the clothes from the line, all of them damp and some of them almost dripping, fell on top of Clare’s head.
There was a silence and then Mam was down ripping the shirts and sheets off Clare and flinging them regardless to the floor. “Are you all right, child? Are you hurt?” Mam was near to tears with the shock. Her hands tore at the clothes until she could see Clare’s face. When she found it, it was laughing, from shock more than anything. Mam hugged her, with the damp clothes between them. Then she hugged her again. Normally any thought of pressing wet clothes would make Mam start talking fearfully about rheumatic fever. But not now.
“You poor little thing. Are you all right? Are you all right? That was God punishing me for being cross with you over nothing.”
Clare was bewildered and delighted. The accident seemed to have put Mam into a great temper for some reason.
“Now let me get you out of all this wet swaddling clothes . . . or we’ll both have rheumatic fever. And I’ll put on the kettle and you and I’ll have a cup of tea, just the two of us with some biscuits. Then we’ll throw the whole bloody lot of this into the bath, it’ll all have to be done again anyway. And we’ll get one of those useless men of ours to mend the line.”
Mam looked happier than she had done for a long time.
David Power was in great trouble, and because of him so were the rest of the school. Father Kelly had read the letter out to Assembly not once but three times as a living example of how deceitful boys could be.
The letter was from a girl who was called Angela O’Hara and who apparently came from Power’s home town. The letter was now almost known by heart throughout the school:
Dear David,
I have no objection to sending you the family tree of the Tudor monarchs with notes on how each one treated Ireland. I would have thought after all the money you pay in that great ugly castle up there, one of those priests who doesn’t even have to make his own bed or cook his own breakfast could find time to do it for you, however. But I do not intend to join in your silly games of calling myself “Andrew” when I write to you and filling the letter up with details of fictitious rugby matches. If that is the kind of hothouse nonsense that is encouraged in your school I am sorry for you, and for the men who are supposed to be in charge of you.
I wish you continued success and also to your friend James Nolan.
Regards, Angela O’Hara
The grossness of this letter had never been equaled in the memory of every single member of the Order. Imagine a boy writing to anyone else for a teaching aid, when it was known that this was the best school in Ireland and one of the best in the whole of Europe. Imagine describing it as, letting it be believed to be, “a great ugly castle.”
To allow, nay encourage, such slurs on men who were the anointed priests of God, to make remarks about these priests not cooking their own breakfast—as if this is what they had been ordained to do! Worse still, to encourage deception, to ask this girl whoever she was to pretend to be a boy, to sign herself with a false name, to invent details of rugby matches to deceive the innocent guardians in whose care they had been placed. And more, to suggest that this was a common practice. That this had been going on undiscovered in the school before this sickening letter had been exposed. There would be thorough investigations and in the meantime those boys who knew anything were expected to come forward.
David apologized to everyone as best he could. He couldn’t have known she would do a thing like this. She had been great altogether before, he appealed to Nolan, who in all honesty had to admit that this was so.
“She must have gone mad, that’s the only explanation,” David said.
“Yes, that must be it,” said Nolan who was familiar with madness, if extremely annoyed to have been mentioned by name in the letter that shook the school.
The sleeping tablets were very odd. You could feel your legs getting heavy first, then your arms, and your head wouldn’t lift from the pillow and suddenly it was eight o’clock in the morning. Angela felt that it took her until noon to wake up properly. Then she felt fine for the afternoon. So at least they bought her some good hours, hours when she could correct exercises, mark tests and try to undo some of the harm she appeared to have done during the first weeks after the letter from Sean, the weeks when she had hardly ever closed her eyes.
Mother Immaculata had said she was looking her old self again, which was irritating beyond words, and Sergeant McCormack, the priest’s housekeeper, said she was glad that Angela seemed to have got over whatever it was that had made her so disagreeable. Mrs. Conway asked was there anything in particular that Angela wanted—she kept coming into the post office and leaving again without making any purchase at all. And her mother said she was glad the pacing had stopped and added mysteriously that whenever Angela had any definite plans the fair thing to do was to tell them immediately.
But Clare O’Brien was not won back so easily, not in those alert hours of the afternoon. Angela looked at the small white face and the large dark eyes. It was only a few months ago that there had been those bright yellow ribbons and the big bright hope that she had won a history prize. Now there was nothing of that. There was the watchful look of a dog that has been struck once and won’t let it happen again.
Angela had tried to put it right.
“Here’s that letter back from Sister Consuelo. It’s very encouraging really, isn’t it?”
Clare took it with thanks.
“I was a bit hasty that day you came to the house. I had a lot on my mind.”
“Yes, Miss O’Hara.”
“So I’m sorry if I appeared a bit short-tempered. It had nothing to do with you—you know that.”
“Yes, yes, indeed.”
“So why won’t you come on back again? And we’ll get a bit of work done, any evening you like.”
“No, thank you, Miss O’Hara.”
“Goddamn it, Clare O’Brien, what do you want me to do, go down on my bended knees?” There was a silence. “I’m going to tell you something now for your own good. You’re a bright child. I would love to see you get the bloody scholarship. I don’t mind working till midnight every night to help you get it. What better way could I spend my time? But you have a really sickening habit of sulking. Oh yes, you have. I remember you were just the same when you didn’t win the history prize. Nobody likes a sulker, Clare. It’s a form of blackmail. I didn’t get what I wanted so I’m not going to speak to people. It’s about the most objectionable vice anyone could have, so my advice is to get rid of it if you want to have any friends.”
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br /> “I haven’t many friends,” Clare said.
“Think about it. That might be why.”
“Anyway, you’re leaving, so why tell me you’ll help me?” She was still mutinous.
“I’m leaving, am I? That’s the first I heard of it. Where am I going?”
“Your mother said . . .”
“My mother doesn’t know what time of day it is.”
“She said you paced round the house all night planning to leave.”
“Oh, Christ Almighty, is that what she’s on about?”
“So you’re not?” Clare had brightened a little.
“I’m not, but unless I see a marked change in your attitude, I might as well have left as far as you’re concerned. Come up to me this evening and we’ll make a start. I need a bit of distraction, to tell you the truth.”
“It’ll soon be the bright weather and the long nights will be over.”
“Why do you say that?” Angela sounded startled.
“My mother always says it to cheer people up. I thought it was a nice thing to say.”
“I think it is.”
She decided not to send him a telegram, and it took her five weeks from the day she got the letter before she was able to reply. Only the thought of him waiting and watching for a Japanese postman to bring a letter made her put pen to paper at all. She began the letter a dozen times. The words didn’t ring true. She couldn’t say she was glad he had confided in her, she would prefer never to have known a thing about it. She couldn’t say she sympathized with him because she didn’t. She could find no words of welcome for her sister-in-law Shuya, her new nephew Denis, nor any enthusiasm about the arrival of the next child. Instead, her mind was full of snakes and worries slithering around. Would her mother have a stroke if she heard the news? Was there a possibility that the family might have to pay back some of the money spent educating Sean to be a priest, now that he had abandoned it all? Was it something that he might be excommunicated for, and the excommunication made public? Would all the priests in Ireland hear about it? Would Father O’Dwyer get to know through some clerical bulletin? She knew she should think kinder thoughts and treat him as a lonely frail human being; those were the words he used about himself, but then in the next sentence he said that he now knew perfect happiness, and understood for the first time why man and woman were put on this earth.
Several times she had her foot on the doorstep of Mrs. Conway’s post office prepared to send the wire telling him that his news had been received and urging him to communicate no further. But what would the town make of that piece of intelligence. The houses and shops up and down Church Street and up the golf-course road and across on the far cliff road would buzz happily with speculation. If Angela wanted to send a telegram like that it would have to be sent from the next town. And it might provoke Sean into doing something really foolish. After all he had talked fondly, and insanely, in his letter of the day when he could come back to Castlebay and show it to his wife and children. Father Sean O’Hara show Castlebay to his wife and children! He must be raving mad! Not just mad, but sheer raving lunatic mad!
She tried to imagine what she would advise if it were somebody else. Her friend Emer back in Dublin, whom she had taught with and prowled the likely places with looking for husbands. Suppose it were Emer’s brother. What would she say? She would probably urge a noncommittal kind of letter to tide things over. Fine. But once you started to write to your own brother about something like this you couldn’t remain uncommitted. It was ridiculous to expect that you could behave like an outsider. So eventually she wrote from the heart.
She wrote that she was shocked that he had given up his vocation, and that he must realize everyone in Ireland would be shocked too, no matter how good and supportive his fellow priests in the mission field had been. She said that if he was absolutely certain that this was not a temporary loss of faith, then she was glad that he had found happiness in his relationship with his Japanese friend, and pleased that the birth of their son had given them both so much pleasure. She begged him to realize that Castlebay in 1950 was a place where understanding and casual attitudes toward married priests simply did not exist. She wrote that, as she sat in the dark room with the rain outside the window, and with her mother poking at the open door of the range with a rough old poker that she held in two hands, it became more and more obvious that their mother should never know. After her time, then they might all think again; but it would destroy the woman’s life, and they had all agreed that when lives were being handed out Mam had had a very poor one given to her. She said she knew it was hard; but could he as a higher kindness write letters that assumed he was still in the Order. And because Mrs. Conway looked at every envelope that went through her post office, Angela had decided she was going to address hers in the way she always had done. Could he imagine the excitement if she were to drop the Father bit? She said she knew this was not the warm, all-embracing letter he had hoped for, but at least it was honest and it was practical and for the moment that was the best he could have.
It was on the dresser for two days before she could put it in the post-box. It was sealed and there was no fear that her mother would open it—the old woman thought that it contained the usual letter and the four folded pound notes for Masses. She half hoped it would blow away or fall down and be lost so it would never be sent.
Clare O’Brien, looking around her with wonder as she always did, spotted it. “Can I post that to Father O’Hara?” she asked eagerly. “It would make me feel very important posting a letter to Japan.”
“Yes, you post it,” Miss O’Hara said in a strange voice.
“Will we look at the globe to see how many countries it will go over before it gets to him?” Clare asked. She loved getting out the old globe which creaked when it spun round.
“Yes.” Miss O’Hara made no move to pass the globe which was near her.
“Will I get it?” Clare was hesitant.
“What? Oh yes. Let’s see.” Angela lifted the globe onto the table. But she didn’t start to move it yet.
“Well, it will leave Castlebay . . .” Clare prompted.
Angela O’Hara shook herself. “That’s the hardest part of its journey,” she said, like her old self again. “If it gets out of Mrs. Conway’s sticky hands without being steamed open for Madam in there to read it, then the worst’s over.”
Clare was delighted to be made party to such outrageous accusations about awful Mrs. Conway, the awful mother of really awful Bernie Conway. She decided to take the letter to Japan by the westward route and brought it over the Atlantic to Nova Scotia where they said all Irish planes stopped first, and then she took it slowly across all the United States, going to Hawaii and then on to Japan. That’s probably the way they’d take it, Clare thought, less land, less places to stop in. Could you choose whether it went one way or the other? Miss O’Hara shook her head. Clare supposed it depended on which way the planes were going first; she looked at Miss O’Hara for confirmation and to her surprise she thought she saw tears in her eyes.
“Will he be home soon at all?” she asked sympathetically. She realized that poor Miss O’Hara must miss her brother and maybe she shouldn’t go on and on about how far away he was and how huge the world was. Maybe it wasn’t tactful.
Chrissie said that Clare wasn’t normal because her big toe was bigger than her second toe. This was discovered when Chrissie was painting her toenails and the bedroom smelled so much of lacquer that Clare had wanted to open the door.
“You can’t do that,” Chrissie hissed. “Everyone will smell it.”
“But nobody can see it under your socks. What’s the point of it?” Clare had wanted to know.
“It’s the difference between grown-up and being a stupid eejit like you are,” Chrissie had explained.
Clare had shrugged. There was no use in trying to talk to Chrissie about anything, it always ended up with an explanation that Clare was boring and that seemed to be the root cause of everyth
ing. Chrissie taunted her about every aspect of her life.
“Your hair is awful. It’s like a paper bag, it’s so flat.”
“I don’t put pipe cleaners in mine like you do,” Clare said.
“Well, that’s it. You’re so stupid you can’t even put curlers in.” And then on another tack: “You’ve no friends at all at school. I see you in the playground on your own. You walk to and from school all by yourself. Even your awful stupid class must have sense—they know not to be friends with you.”
“I do have friends,” Clare cried.
“Who? Name me one friend. Whose house do you go to in the evening, who comes here? Answer me that! Nobody!”
Clare wished devoutly that Kath and Peggy didn’t come so often—it meant that she couldn’t go to the bedroom, and downstairs she was always being asked to do something.
“I’ve lots of friends, different friends for different things, you know. Like I’m friendly with Marian in domestic science because we’re at the same table and then I’m friendly with Josie Dillon because I sit beside her in class.”
“Ugh, Josie Dillon, she’s so fat, she’s disgusting.”
“That’s not her fault.”
“It is too. She’s never without something in her fat hand eating it.”
Clare didn’t like Josie all that much: she was very dull, she couldn’t seem to get enthusiastic about anything. But she was harmless and kind and she was lonely. Clare didn’t like all the faces that Chrissie was making.
“Ugh, Josie Dillon. Well, if you had to have a friend, I might have guessed that it would be someone like that big white slug.”
“She’s not a slug, and anyway your friend Kath had nits in her hair. Everyone in the school knows that.”
“Aren’t you horrible!” screamed Chrissie. “What a desperate thing to say about anyone. When I think how nice Kath always is about you.”