by Maeve Binchy
Gerry and Fiona Doyle’s father was taken off to hospital in the town, and it became known that he would not come back. For a while there was a lot of talk that Mrs. Doyle didn’t go in to see him like you’d think she would have done. Then Dr. Power let it be known that the poor woman had a kind of temporary condition, something to do with blood pressure, which meant that she found it very oppressive to go out of the house at all. Dr. Power also suggested that poor Johnny Doyle was better not to be troubled with too many visitors since he found it hard to speak. Gerry drove his father’s van everywhere now, and acted as an unofficial taxi service for anyone wanting to go into the town. The nurses said Gerry was an extraordinary visitor. He calmed not only his father but the three other men in the ward.
The screens were put around while Johnny Doyle hissed with what was left of his voice that Gerry mustn’t expand, he must listen to nobody telling him that Castlebay was a boom town, there was a living, a small living, nothing more. It wasn’t something like a dance hall or a hotel or even like an ice-cream shop that you could make bigger. There were just so many people and so many snaps of themselves they would buy. Gerry agreed, he nodded, he promised.
The old man died more peacefully because Gerry was there easing away his worries. Gerry told him that the business was doing fine, which it was, that Gerry would never expand it, which he would, and that Mam was getting much better, which she was not. Her agoraphobia was so bad now that she didn’t even go to answer the door. Gerry had eased her guilt about not going to see her husband by saying that Dad was too tired to talk. He only took Fiona three times because it was too distressing.
Gerry was there when they closed his father’s eyes. He didn’t cry, he asked the nun was it always as peaceful as this, and the nun said no, Mr. Doyle had been lucky. He had died with few worries. His son was reliable, his wife was cured and his business was in good hands. Not everyone had such peace at the end.
One of the old men in the ward asked Gerry Doyle to come and see them even though his father was gone. Gerry said he would come every week or so, but not regularly because he didn’t want the men waiting on him. One of the young nurses who thought that Gerry Doyle was an extraordinarily attractive young fellow told him that he was quite right, and she congratulated him even more when another old man wanted to know if Gerry would take his picture. Gerry looked at the wasted face and the thin neck coming up out of the pajamas and decided against it, but he explained that it was very hard to take pictures indoors with these white walls and he would wait till the weather was better. The weather became better but there were no old men left to take pictures of.
Gerry put all his efforts into his work, his mother got a bit better sometimes and at other times she got worse. He never let Fiona come home from the pictures in the dark by herself, and he helped her to do the housework, especially cleaning the windows and polishing the brass knocker on the door so that the place looked well on the outside. Since nobody much came in, the inside wasn’t so important.
But if you saw Fiona Doyle with her shiny ringlets and her well-ironed dresses, or Gerry Doyle with his elfin smile and easy ways, you would never know that there was a thing wrong in that house; or that their father had died from cancer, that their mother was in the grip of her nerves and that the bank manager had offered to give them a big loan to expand the business. Gerry told his mother that Dad had told him to go ahead with any plans and his mother fretted and worried about that, but since she worried about everything it didn’t make any difference to him.
Fiona must have understood that his father’s wishes did not include any kind of expanding, but she said nothing. She was quiet and smiled gently but said very little. That’s the way Gerry thought it was best to be for a girl. Otherwise you got your name up with people and you got talked about, and people misunderstood. He didn’t want any of that for Fiona.
The letter from Sean had an Italian stamp. He had been five weeks in Rome, he said, and had wanted to get settled in before he wrote. Things were progressing but very slowly. He had no idea that there would be such an endless form-filling and waiting about and answering the same questions twenty times for some underling and trying forty times to see the person one step up but not being able to. Still the process was under way. He and Shuya had got here pretty exhausted after such a long journey and he was working now as a tutor to a very ancient family, real nobility. They had a house in Ostia which was at the mouth of the river Tiber and on the sea. It was a huge villa, and Sean taught the boys for three hours a day, which gave him time to go up to the Vatican to see how things were getting on. Shuya helped in the linen room because she was a wonderful seamstress. The children loved the place, they had a little lodge of their own to live in, they were well established there. It was torturing to be so near and yet so far. Last week he had seen a group of Irish pilgrims; they had all carried Aer Lingus bags with the name of the travel agency added to it. He had been dying to talk to them, but he was keeping his word. If Angela said it was so desperately important that nobody must know until after the laicization then she must have her reasons, he had held himself back from chatting to his compatriots. Sometimes when little Denis said the sea was beautiful Sean got an urge to carry him in his arms right back to the beach at Castlebay. He was longing to hear from her, and of course letters would travel much quicker to Italy than to Japan.
They would. Angela addressed the envelope to Mr. and Mrs. S. O’Hara and she changed her writing so that Mrs. Conway wouldn’t guess. Lord Almighty, was she becoming paranoid? There must be other O’Haras in the world, mustn’t there?
Clare said that there was a typewriter in the hotel and Josie had got a book called Teach Yourself Typewriting. It didn’t look too hard, but the bits with your little finger were crucifying, you had to keep typing Qs and As and Zs with your little finger so that you could do it without looking. Josie was full of confidence now. She had gone on a diet too, and she had her hair cut. She had also begun the process of convincing her parents that it would be a good idea to take this course. Angela had managed to maneuver Immaculata into a position where the nun had thought she had dreamed up the whole idea of Josie’s future career herself, so they would be able to rely on her for support. Now the only real thing was Clare’s scholarship. It would be held in the Easter holidays. Angela would be in Dublin at Emer’s wedding, but that didn’t matter. Clare could cope on her own now. In February she had asked Mother Immaculata if she thought she should enter, and once Immaculata began to think of it as her own project all was well. Nothing had changed, Angela had noticed, in nearly twenty years. The nuns were still enthusiastic that one of their pupils might win a place, they offered extra tuition here and there, all of which Clare accepted gratefully. She surprised them all with how much she knew already.
Funny little dark horse, they said in the Community room. You wouldn’t believe she was Chrissie O’Brien’s sister: remarkable little face with those big dark eyes and fair hair—you didn’t usually get that mixture. The nuns were kind. They made her gifts—a lace handkerchief to bring with her, numerous holy pictures all mounted on bits of satin with sequins and decorations. One old nun gave her a fountain pen which had been sent for a feast day and another gave her a bright-colored carved pencil box. Immaculata bathed in the glory of it and Angela O’Hara watched entertained from the sidelines.
“What have they said at home?” Angela asked her.
“I haven’t said. You said not to say.”
“You’d better say now. Otherwise they’ll think you’re holding out on them.”
“Right,” said Clare. “I’ll tell them this evening.”
Agnes O’Brien was looking into the big saucepan with no pleasure. “This thing about getting cheap meat because Chrissie works in Dwyers’ is a mixed blessing,” she said. “This is a pile of bones when all’s said and done.”
“It’ll make soup,” Tom O’Brien said, peering in at it.
“Yes. Again!” Agnes said. “Still there’s few
enough mercies to be thankful for these days, I suppose I mustn’t turn up my nose at meat got for half nothing.”
Clare took her books out of her schoolbag and covered them immediately with a paper bag. Any schoolbook left casually round that kitchen could well be covered in soup, spattered fat, dust from the range or a variety of stains.
“Something nice happened at school,” she said. She rarely spoke of school now. It had raised such scant interest. The very fact she announced it like that claimed their attention.
“What was that?” Agnes asked, transferring her glance from the big saucepan.
“Mother Immaculata and the other nuns think I should enter for the scholarship to the secondary school. In the Easter holidays.”
“Secondary school?” Tom O’Brien was astounded.
“I know Dad. I mightn’t get it. There’ll be people from all over going in for it. But isn’t it great that the school think I should try?”
“A scholarship. That means they’d take you without paying, as a boarder and everything?” Agnes said.
“Yes, if I won it.”
“How do you win it? Is it a competition?” Ben was interested.
“Sort of,” Clare said. “Well, yes, really. A lot of girls come and sit an exam, on one day, and the best one gets to go to the school.”
“Forever?” Jim wanted to know.
“Well, forever until school’s finished, you know, sixteen or seventeen.”
“Would you stay at school that long?” Ben’s eyes were round with interest.
“That’s very good,” Agnes said slowly. “Tom, what do you think of that, Clare going to the secondary school?”
“With the daughters of everybody,” Tom said happily.
“I haven’t won it yet,” Clare said.
“Ah, but they wouldn’t be putting you up for it if they didn’t think you were in with a chance.” Tom O’Brien rubbed his hands delightedly. “Mother Immaculata is a very intelligent woman. She knows what she’s doing.”
Clare smiled to herself: it had all been kept from intelligent Mother Immaculata for nearly two years.
“I’ll need to study very hard for the next few weeks. I’m not saying that to get out of things, you know that?” She looked from one to another.
“We know that, child. Weren’t we always anxious that you should be at your books?” Clare’s mother really seemed to believe that she had been.
“Wait till everyone hears that,” Tom O’Brien said happily. “There’ll be very few who’ll look at us crooked then.”
“Only if I get it.”
“You’ll get it. Agnes, see to it that this child doesn’t do one hand’s turn of housework, do you hear me?”
“I was just going to tell you, don’t have her out there lining shelves and running messages for you.”
They argued happily over the saucepan of mutton bones while Jim and Ben looked on.
The door opened and Chrissie arrived in her blood-spattered apron. “God it’s freezing out, and in the shop too with the door open. I nearly cut off my arm to give to Miss McCormack with the chops for the parish priest.”
“Clare’s going to the secondary school,” shouted Jim.
“For years and years and it’s all free,” said Ben.
“I’m not going,” Clare cried. “I’m only entering a competition to go. You wouldn’t say you’d won the crossword in the paper if you just did it, would you?”
But she was unheard.
“What do you think of that? Your young sister has been chosen to go and enter for a scholarship in the school in the town,” Agnes said triumphantly.
“Look at that now,” said Tom O’Brien.
It was too much for Chrissie. A long hard day’s work in a cold shop, home for her tea and they’re all praising Clare, horrible sneaky little Clare, going behind everyone’s backs.
“Will you be a boarder?” Chrissie asked.
“If I win it, but I mightn’t have a chance. I might never get there.”
“Oh, you’ll get there. You get everything you want,” Chrissie said bitterly.
“I don’t, I don’t!” Clare cried. “I hardly ever do.”
“Oho no, it’s Saint Clare this and Saint Clare that. Well, I hope you do get to your boarding school. Then I’d have my room to myself for a bit without Saint Clare spying on me and making my life a misery.”
“Chrissie, stop that.” Her mother looked at the angry girl with the red face in the filthy butcher’s coat. “You should be delighted that Clare’s doing so well.”
“They’ll think all the more of you up in Dwyers’ if your sister’s in secondary school,” said Tom excitedly.
“Oh, they wouldn’t care there if she was in the county jail,” Chrissie scoffed. “But I’m glad all right. I really am. A bit of peace in this house at last.” She slammed out and upstairs, so Clare’s hopes of taking her homework there vanished.
“Don’t mind her,” said her mother. “She’s delighted really.”
Chrissie went upstairs and threw herself on the bed. It was too much, coming today of all days, today when Gerry had come in for a half-pound of minced meat. Chrissie had joked with him like she always did, how was it that he was doing the shopping, a man in a house with two women? He had said nothing, just smiled. Then she had asked, out of politeness, out of niceness, how was his mother, did she still feel she couldn’t leave the house? Gerry had turned on her. In a low voice that the others couldn’t hear he had called her a big-mouth. He had said the word several times. Big-mouth Chrissie, can never leave well alone, never knows when to say things and when not to. Big-mouth. She had stammered, what had she said wrong, wasn’t she only inquiring after his mother? But Gerry hadn’t smiled. Chrissie should not use her big mouth to air other people’s business in public, he had said.
Frightened, she had asked him would she see him at the pictures that night, a crowd of them usually went on a Friday evening.
“You may see me, you may not,” Gerry had said. His anger was over. He was distant now. She knew that just from a civil inquiry about his stupid old mother, whom she hadn’t seen for months come to think of it, she was going to see no more of Gerry Doyle.
And now there was going to be a God Almighty fuss about Clare. Wasn’t it desperate the way things never come singly. There was all that fuss about Tommy and Ned having left their digs in London, and when Mam wrote to the landlady to know why they weren’t replying, the landlady wrote back this real snotty letter saying they had disappeared, owing her three weeks’ rent. Dad had been very upset and nearly cried. They sent a postal order to the woman in England and their apologies.
The O’Brien boys had left their jobs: they were working with a different gang now. The landlady, who had become more friendly since the sudden and unexpected appearance of three weeks’ rent, which she had said goodbye to a long time ago, told the O’Briens that the fellows their sons had joined were rough and not what they’d want. She said that everyone was paid on a Friday night in this pub so if they wrote a letter there it would reach them. And then of course there was a letter. Ned was sorry they hadn’t written, but times were hard. They had changed jobs and changed where they lived; there wasn’t much to spare at the moment and he hoped that Mam and Dad understood. Mam and Dad wanted no money—only please keep in touch. So the odd postcard arrived. Nobody in Castlebay liked getting postcards: it gave Mrs. Conway a perfect right to comment on all your business. Agnes O’Brien sent Ned a pound note in an envelope addressed to the pub, asking him to buy proper envelopes and stamps: she didn’t want the whole of Castlebay to know their business. And why was there never a word from Tommy?
Well, Tommy wasn’t much for writing as they all knew but he was fine, getting on great.
Tom O’Brien wondered would the scholarship cover everything, supposing Clare did win it. Everything, Clare said firmly. She didn’t know but she wasn’t going to have it all debated now. Miss O’Hara had said that she should assume she was going to win and tha
t when she won she was going to go; otherwise she would waste precious time worrying about things over which she had no control.
Dr. Power said that he would drive her into the town on the day of the scholarship. He said he had to go once a month anyway so it might as well be that day. No, of course it wasn’t too early. Angela had asked him this favor since the bus would have the child too late. He would pick her up in the evening, he said, and it would be a privilege. He hoped that he would have some part in bringing honors to Castlebay. When he said that Clare’s parents were almost overcome, they hadn’t realized that it would be an actual honor. They thought it might be just one more problem.
There were still six weeks to go. Clare came steadily to Miss O’Hara’s house twice a week. Sometimes Miss O’Hara just gave her an essay title while she busied herself making her mother’s meal or setting the place to rights. Then she would go over the essay, praising and correcting, discussing and debating. Clare never felt she wrote a bad essay, but she learned how to write one that would win her even more praise. She was to consider this day as an audition, her one chance. There would be no other.
She was writing an essay on the “Rural Life Versus the Urban Life” which had been one of the topics a few years ago on the scholarship paper, when Miss O’Hara gave a sudden start. Clare looked up and saw that the teacher was reading a letter. Old Mrs. O’Hara looked up too, and they waited for some explanation.
“It’s Emer,” Angela cried. “She and Kevin are so sick of the whole fuss about the wedding. Do you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to get married in Rome. They have it all arranged. They’re going to get married in a side chapel in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome on Easter Monday. A friend of Kevin’s is a priest who’s doing some postgraduate work . . .” Angela was reading from the letter now: “ ‘. . . He has said there is no problem, we’ve sent all the documents and we will be married in the Holy City. Now nobody can object to that, can they? Even Kevin’s awful cousins are struck dumb because they can’t fault us. It would be like criticizing the Pope or something. And it’s too dear for anyone to come, and it’s too far. And I can wear what I like not what my sisters say, and we can have a honeymoon there as well. I can’t think why we didn’t think of it sooner.’ ” Angela hugged herself with pleasure. “Isn’t that magnificent?” she said to the old woman and the young girl who looked at her, dumbfounded.