Ashes of Fiery Weather (5 page)

Two years later, Norah still hadn't thought of anything better to do.

By then Aoife had a job in Butler's dress shop, where she persuaded women to buy more than they came in for, like a top to match the skirt they were getting or stockings with a pattern on them.

Aoife wasn't prettier than Norah. It wasn't that. They had the same fine brown hair with some sparks of red from their father's mother. Their own mother's small nose with its light freckles. But Aoife was livelier. Somehow, she got more out of her face, her voice, her hands.

During her Christmas Day phone call in 1970, Aunt Helen asked if Aoife would like to come and work in New York for a year. She'd sponsor her for a visa.

Veronica and Jimmy didn't feel they could say no when Helen asked for their daughter. Not after all the business Helen had sent them.

So it was arranged that Aoife would go over in late June 1971, just after her twenty-third birthday. Helen offered to send the fare, but Veronica said half would be fine. She would match it, and Aoife herself would pay for new clothes and other expenses.

After that, Aoife talked of nothing but America. Peter Byrne, who wanted to be Aoife's boyfriend, didn't understand why she was going when she had a job at home. He himself had been running Byrne's pub since his father died the year before. People spoke well of Peter because he canceled his own plans for university, just for a bit, until his two youngest brothers were grown. Aoife told Peter she wanted adventure, and though Norah pretended to be on her sister's side, in secret she agreed with Peter.

In their room at night, Aoife drew New York from her imagination. The bigness. The excitement. The freedom to go anywhere and not have to tell your mam and da where you were and when you'd be back.

“You'll be living in Aunt Helen's flat, though,” Norah said.

“She's different than Mam.”

“You can't know that,” Norah said.

Aoife laughed. “I do, though. Didn't she agree to write and offer me a job?”

Norah sat up in bed. “You asked her to do it? Why?”

“God, Norah, I don't have the money to pay for a trip to America,” she said. “I knew Mam and Da would offer to pay if Aunt Helen asked for me. Mam won't ever say no to her.”

Norah said nothing.

“But listen, Norah, I won't leave you stuck here. I'll save what I can and help you with the airfare,” Aoife said. “It'll take no time.”

“I can't leave,” Norah said, appalled. “We'll all be gone then.”

The bedclothes rustled as Aoife turned over. “There may be jobs in Ireland these days, but there's still no air.”

“I might go to Dublin and live for a bit,” Norah said.

“Why settle for Dublin when you could go to New York?” Aoife said. “Is it Hugh?”

“Hugh?” Norah felt her face heat. They had been seeing each other for a while but hiding it because, without having to say it aloud, they knew it would get her father's hopes up.

“He's boring as butter, Norah.”

“I can live without taking myself off to New York for a year,” Norah said.

Aoife said nothing.

“It's only for a year, isn't that right?” Norah said.

“I'm going to see how things develop.”

Norah turned her back to her sister.

In May, Aoife went to visit her friend Cynthia, who was attending University College, Dublin. She said she was going to spend the weekend shopping for clothes to take to America.

It wasn't her idea, Aoife later said. She'd never heard of the Irish women's liberation movement, and Cynthia had to explain it twice at least before she understood what it was about. But once she knew, Aoife admitted that she'd agreed readily enough to board a train to Belfast with Cynthia and about fifty other women, to buy contraceptives and carry them back to Dublin, daring customs officials to arrest them. They waved the packets of condoms and diaphragms and spermicides in the air and declared to the customs officers that they were on the Pill. They were bringing contraband into the country. Shouldn't they be arrested? But they weren't. The customs men waved them through, embarrassed, wanting the scene to be over.

Much had been made of it in the newspapers. There was great disapproval all over Ballyineen. Father Dillon declared that they were going against God and against nature.

When Jimmy called Aoife downstairs, both she and Norah were in their bedroom, waiting to be called for tea. Norah was on her bed with a book, but Aoife wasn't even pretending to read. At their father's sharp voice, Aoife stood and headed for the stairs. Norah followed, half expecting their father to tell her that this didn't concern her and to leave.

Jimmy was beside the counter and Veronica across from him, at the sink.

Aoife took her usual place at the kitchen table, and so Norah did as well. They sat across from each other. Norah tapped Aoife's foot with her own.

Veronica began. She wanted to know if it was true, what Mary Mahon had heard.

“Mary Mahon?” Aoife repeated, as if she didn't know their neighbor.

Aoife was going to be the ruin of them, didn't she realize? There was no telling how many customers would go all the way down the hill to McDermott's now.

“Women should decide how many babies they'll have,” Aoife said.

Jimmy looked away but said, “You've disgraced this family.”

“It's 1971 for God's sake!” Aoife said.

“If this is how you behave at home, what'll you get up to in America?” Veronica said. “If you go at all. I don't know now if you should.”

“You're right. I'll not be going.” Aoife tried to keep her voice casual, but she couldn't hide the tremor.

Beneath the table, Norah put her foot over Aoife's foot.

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy said.

“Peter Byrne and myself have decided to get married in June.”

Jimmy made a low noise in his throat.

Veronica said, “Next June?”

Norah had to look down, away from the last speck of hope in her mother's tired face.

“This June. In two weeks.” Aoife folded her hands on the table.

That night, in their bedroom, Norah said into the dark, “Aoife?”

“Hmm?” Aoife said as if she were half asleep, though Norah knew she wasn't close.

“He's nice, Peter is,” Norah said.

“He is.”

Norah listened to her sister's breathing.

“I said no to him fifty times before,” Aoife said, “but I didn't want to get to America and be some stupid Irish girl with no experience at anything. So I thought, just the once. It'll be goodbye to him.”

“Is there any reason you wouldn't go to England before you go to New York? Visit the boys, maybe?” Norah asked.

“Why don't I take care of it in England and be on my way to New York?” Aoife put a laugh after the words. “I don't know.”

“But—”

“I don't know, Norah, I don't. And that's all I'm going to say to you. Good night.”

The next morning at the breakfast table, Aoife, reaching for the milk, said, “Since I won't be going to New York, I think Norah should.”

Jimmy looked up from his newspaper and Veronica turned from the stove, where she was frying the rashers.

Norah put down her spoon. She could guess her parents' thoughts. If they were to simply substitute Norah, there didn't need to be an embarrassing admission. They could let it be known that Norah was the more responsible one. Helen wouldn't be left telling her American boss that the Irish niece wouldn't be coming.

“I don't have a passport. The visa, all that,” Norah said. “I'm sure Aunt Helen can find someone before I can get it all. Long before then.”

“If she needed to, she could,” Veronica said, her shoulders gone straight with hope. “But she could say it's just until her niece comes.”

Norah looked at Aoife, who lowered her eyes.

March 1972

To get a better look at him, Norah leaned forward until the bar pressed against her ribcage. Handsome wasn't the right word, somehow, for Sean O'Reilly. But he had a face that you wanted to keep seeing. He was tall. If she were standing beside him, Norah would just reach his shoulder. He accepted money and left the change on the bar, giving a nod and quick smile when greeted by name.

Marian jabbed her in the spine. “Don't stare.”

So Marian had a crush on him. Norah nearly laughed.

Marian Clark was one of the three travel agents employed by Irish Dreams and the only one Norah's age. William was a bachelor and Patricia was divorced. The two shared a host of inside jokes and all their cigarette breaks. Often, they went out for a drink after work, calling goodbye to Norah and Marian as they left for Lehane's together.

Today, though, William called, “Come out for a St. Paddy's Day drink, girls?”

It was shortly before closing time, six p.m. Norah's own relief at being asked was reflected in Marian's face. It was ridiculous. Weren't they the young ones? But Norah herself was new to the country, and Marian was plain and serious.

Lehane's was jammed. The jostling crowd seemed a wave that might break over Sean O'Reilly at any minute. A skinny man who might have been anywhere between forty and sixty was perched on a stool behind the bar, surveying the crowd with a bemused expression. He sipped from a glass that might have held either soda or whiskey. He made no move to help Sean, who was pouring a set of shots.

William and Patricia were guarding the small table they'd managed to snag. Norah spoke over her shoulder to Marian in as near a whisper as she could and still be heard.

“What's wrong with the other bartender? Why isn't he helping?”

“That's not a bartender,” Marian said. “That's Amred. His sister runs the place.”

Norah nodded. Marian had a way of speaking that suggested you should know the answers to your own questions. Marian had been at “the agency” for almost two years. That was what Helen called Irish Dreams. When William and Patricia said it, they put an emphasis on the word: the
ay
-gency. Norah was sure they were testing her, to see what they could get away with saying about Helen in front of her. No doubt they were outright mean behind Helen's back.

Norah felt sorry for her aunt, something she could never have imagined the day she got on the plane in Dublin. Helen didn't speak badly of a single member of the staff, but she ate her sandwich and drank tea from a thermos by herself at her desk in the corner instead of the small lunchroom in the back.

At home, nobody wore green for St. Patrick's Day, and Norah had appeared for breakfast in blue. Helen, who was not good before eleven a.m. and rarely spoke to her in the morning, went into her own closet and reappeared with a green sweater that had white shamrocks embroidered on the cuffs. If Mr. Fitzgerald came in, he would be very annoyed to see Norah not in the spirit of the day, Helen said as she handed it to her.

At only six-thirty in the evening, everyone was well into it. The noise level seemed to rise by the second. Patches of song broke out around Lehane's.

“Sean's been quiet since he got back,” Marian said. “He works here, but he doesn't hang out when he's off.”

Without taking her eyes off Sean, Norah asked, “Back from where?”

“Nam,” Marian said, and Norah looked at her to see if she was serious.

“Vietnam?” Norah had barely paid attention to Vietnam at home, but since coming to America she heard about it constantly.

“I wrote to him when he was over there. He never had time to write back, but then, when he was in Arizona—that's where he finished his tour after he got injured.” Marian smiled. “He sent me a postcard.”

Sean was making his way down to their end of the bar. That he'd been in a war made him seem a real grown-up, while the rest of them were just pretending.

“How do you know him?” Norah asked. She hoped she didn't sound rude, but she could hardly imagine.

Marian spoke close to Norah's ear. She and Sean had gone to grammar school together. Norah had already heard the story of how the nuns had given Marian's father a hard time about enrolling her and her sister at Holy Rosary because their mother was Jewish.

Marian's mother and father had been disowned by their families when they eloped just two months after they met. Three years later, when her mother took off, Marian's father brought her and her sister back to Brooklyn. Their grandmother let them move in only after the two of them were baptized. In fact, their father had to leave their suitcases on the stoop and take them to the church, where Father Halloran interrupted his own dinner to toss water on their foreheads. Sarah tried to bite him. Marian didn't remember any of this, but her sister said that was the night their father went into the drunk he never quite came out of.

Marian kept her eyes on Sean as she explained to Norah that there were a few other kids in the neighborhood who had one parent. Mostly, the fathers had been killed in the war. But Sean's father had left his mother. They had that in common.

Norah watched as a girl with long red hair muscled her way up to the bar.

“Sean!” she called.

Sean kept working, though he had to have heard her, even over the din.

The redhead rapped on the bar, hard, three times. “Sean! Come on!”

Norah couldn't believe the rudeness. Didn't she see there were a dozen people ahead of her?

“Knock it off, Eileen,” Sean said, his eyes on the glass he held beneath the tap.

“Mick's not coming,” the redhead—Eileen—said. “Jackass is probably passed out already and you know it. Let me come back there and help.”

Sean pushed fresh beers across the bar. “Five,” he said.

Eileen raised her voice. “You can't handle this crowd alone all night. Amred? Tell him!”

Amred said, “Let her, Sean. This way, if Mick does show his face, I can get Lizzie to toss him out.”