Light A Penny Candle (45 page)

Maureen was annoyed because Brendan wanted to go home.

‘Why can’t he go on his own and you come later?’

‘Oh, it’s easy known you’re not married, Elizabeth … where one goes the other goes, that’s the rule in marriage.’ Maureen had two red spots on her face, caused by wine and emotion.

‘There’s no problem in your getting a lift home, go on let him go on his own … then you’ll both be happy.’

‘No, that way neither of us will be happy. If I go at least
one
of us will be happy. You go and distract him, talk to him about something, anything, will you?’ Maureen looked upset. Elizabeth decided not to fight the matter on principle. She went over to Brendan, who was standing fidgeting at the door.

‘Where’s Maureen? Really and truly she’s very selfish. My poor mother’s been looking after Brendan Og since the breakfast is over. I can’t understand why people want to hang around instead of going back to their own homes. …’

There was a noise behind them, and together Aisling and Tony came out into the hall. From the dining room the women converged and out from the bar with pint glasses in their hands the men came. Aisling wore a suit which, she told Elizabeth, must be described as aquamarine, because it was in fact green but a lot of people thought green was unlucky. She had a tiny pill-box hat too which was covered with the same fabric. Her hair was piled up and tied in a chignon.

‘She looks like a film star,’ said Maureen in naked admiration. Maureen had appeared from around a corner to savour the moment.

‘She looks very old, she nearly looks thirty,’ said Donal. A glamorous thirty,’ he added, seeing Maureen’s face. That didn’t help. ‘Not that thirty’s really old, you know,’ he said.

Eileen walked behind them proudly as they came to the hotel door. She saw Ethel Murray standing on her own and with an effort she went over to stand beside her.

Elizabeth saw Mrs Murray smile quickly with surprise
and
then arrange her face in its normal, slightly quizzical, expression.

‘Ah yes, Eileen, the moment has come.’

‘Don’t they look very happy, isn’t it great to see them setting out like this?’ Mrs Murray nodded. ‘He’s a fine man, Ethel, apart altogether from the grand family that Aisling’s marrying into … Sean and I are very glad she’ll have a good man to look after her. He’s a good, kind man.’ Aunt Eileen squeezed her arm, and the two of them walked out to the footpath. Elizabeth stood a little withdrawn from the crowd. She looked at the stranger, Aisling, in the pert little hat. Somehow it was much more alien than the beautiful wedding dress which had been hung up carefully in the hotel room under sheets of tissue paper pinned to cellophane. Later Aunt Eileen would collect it and hang it carefully at home until the bungalow was ready to house it.

The crowd was shouting encouragement. Shay Ferguson was hardly able to stand as he banged on the roof of the car. ‘Come on with you, come on … it’s nearly within your grasp, Tony, stop wasting time … don’t let her ardour die down.’

‘Goodbye Aisling … good luck,’ called Maureen, tears in her eyes.

‘Where did she get that suit? It’s very well cut,’ Joannie was asking around her.

Aisling kissed Uncle Sean goodbye, and Mrs Murray, and then Aunt Eileen. Tony was shaking hands, holding everyone else’s hand in both of his.

‘Goodbye, thank you, goodbye, thank you,’ he said to everyone.

He came to Elizabeth. ‘Goodbye, thank you,’ he said.

‘I hope you’ll both be very happy, Tony,’ she said. ‘Very happy and give each other great … great happiness,’ she finished lamely.

‘Oh, I’m sure we will,’ he said awkwardly.

Shay Ferguson was at his elbow. ‘Well if you won’t, Tony Boy, it’s hard to know who else will … what? Give her
lots
of happiness, and get on the road huh?’

Elizabeth was crimson with rage at being taken up in such a loud and coarse way when she was trying to be completely sincere … she
did
hope that Aisling and Tony would give each other a lot of happiness … some people did, like Eileen and Sean, and like Mother and Harry for a while, but some people definitely didn’t. Why had that great vulgar Shay Ferguson been there to overhear her?

Aisling seemed to sense her distress from the other side of the crowd. She rushed over and caught her by the arm. ‘Tell me it wasn’t all too appalling, tell me that there was a bit of style in the way Aisling O’Connor had her nuptials?’

Elizabeth held her and the two stood as if frozen for a moment. ‘It was a beautiful wedding, it was simply beautiful. I’ve been listening to them. Nothing as classy and as … well as outright colourful and glamorous in Kilgarret ever before.’

‘Elizabeth, will you come back again? Please, when things are more settled down and there isn’t all this Twentieth-Century Fox stuff going on?’

‘Yes, of course, I’ll come back. Go
on
, Aisling, they’re calling you.’

‘And I’m right, aren’t I …?’

‘What?’

‘I’m doing the right thing? It will be fine …?’

‘Not now, Aisling … go.’

‘You’re my best friend. …’

‘And you’re mine. … Go.’

The cheer was enormous when she got into the car and Aisling’s smile was almost as great. Shay had put a big cardboard notice on the back of the car with the word ‘Honeymooners’ scrawled on it. Tony had tried to take it off but Eileen had said he should stop when he was outside the town. The car with its badly made notice revved up and drove off … but to everyone’s delight it did one lap of the square before taking the Dublin road. Total strangers who had just come in on the afternoon bus cheered too. And then they were gone.

PART THREE

1954–1956

XIV

PEOPLE HAD TOLD
them to be sure to get a hotel on the north side of Dublin so that they would be on the way to the airport when they had to set out in the morning. Aisling had said to Elizabeth that most friends and relations assumed that they were going to be so weak from the night of passion that they could hardly manage to drive to the airport at all. Maureen had said that there was a guesthouse she knew of which was actually only a mile from the airport. Dad had said they could do worse than go to the cousins in Dunlaoghaire. There would be no bad feeling because they had been sent a wedding invitation but business was brisk and they couldn’t be gone for a whole day. Dad had said that he heard they had the place much improved now, with carpets in all the bedrooms, wall to wall, and because they were family they’d get a cut.

Aisling took no notice of them and had written to the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, booking a night’s accommodation in one of the best double rooms for Mr
and
Mrs Murray. In fact she had paused and reflected for a long time when she reread the words Mr and Mrs Murray. She remembered for no good reason all the whispered plans with Elizabeth years ago, years and years back when Elizabeth lived in Kilgarret. They would only marry for love, they would marry young men who roamed through the town, not awful businessmen who lived there. In those days Aisling had said suddenly that Elizabeth had a wider choice of business families because being a Protestant she could marry the Grays, and Elizabeth had complained and asked what was the point of learning all about contrition and grace and angels if she was still going to be considered a Protestant at the end of it?

Being Mr and Mrs Murray wasn’t part of that plan. But then neither was having an abortion because Johnny Stone couldn’t be told that his attempts at contraception had failed. Aisling wondered what Elizabeth did nowadays to make sure that it never happened again. Aisling sighed a happy sigh. Thank God she wouldn’t have to bother with that. If she got pregnant it would be fine, she’d have the baby, and the next one, and Mam would help her look after them, and maybe Peggy would come and help her a bit. And Tony of course. She sighed again.

Tony looked over at her, and put his hand on her knee.

‘Are you happy, Missus?’ he said, imitating some of the old shawlies who always called people Missus even though they knew their names as well as their own.

‘I’m very happy, Misthur,’ she mimicked back.

‘Great, so am I, and in no time we’ll be in Dublin and
we
’ll have that drink I’ve been thinking about at the back of my mind.’

‘Yeah,’ said Aisling absently. She wondered would he have the drink in the bar of the Shelbourne or would they have it sent up to the room? In films drinks came in ice buckets on trolleys. They might even have that.

‘It’s grand to be back in the old Shelbourne,’ Tony said when the car had been safely parked and the porter had taken their cases. ‘Now for that drink. Right?’

‘Great,’ said Aisling. To her surprise they walked right through the hotel and out again once he had signed the book. It had been curiously disappointing – she thought he would hold her hand and they would giggle. But no. And now where were they going?

‘You wouldn’t want to drink in here, its too posh a bar, people with accents and notions of grandeur. We’ll go to a real bar.’

Aisling had peeped into the bar, it looked marvellous. It had mirrors, and waiters in white jackets. There were one or two elegant women there and she thought she looked the match for them in her aquamarine suit and little hat. But no, they were almost running away from Stephen’s Green and on Baggot Street. Suddenly they were in a bar which wasn’t as nice as Maher’s and not quite as seedy as Hanrahan’s. But it had that sour smell of beer and stout that you get when a place is full of spilt glasses and barrels not properly cleaned.

‘You don’t drink in places like this in Kilgarret,’ she
said
, ‘you drink in the hotel. Why won’t we drink back in the hotel? It’s nicer.’

‘I can’t go into a bar in Kilgarret or I’d have everyone in the town asking me for a loan of ten shillings, or travellers from the business coming up and trying to buy me a drink and tell me how they should be promoted. That’s why I have to drink in the hotel. But here it’s all right, no one will know who we are.’

Aisling looked around her. Men with caps on barely looked up from their pints, a group of young fellows near the door laughed and jeered about something. The table was covered with dirty glasses and overflowing ashtrays.

‘Oh come on back, the bar in the Shelbourne has drink too, it’s much nicer,’ she begged.

But Tony was at the counter. He indicated one of the tables with a nod of his head.

‘Gin?’ he asked.

She heard him order a large gin, a large Power’s and a pint of Guinness. She looked with distaste at the table and the barman sent a man around to clean it. The man was a bit slow, like Jemmy back in the shop. He kept looking at Aisling as he wiped the ash and rings of beer. His cloth was so greasy the table didn’t look much better after his efforts. Aisling saw an evening newspaper and she picked it up smartly. She put two pages on the table and two on the chair. Now she would only get newsprint on her, she thought angrily. At least it would be better than God knows what other dirt.

‘That’s grand,’ said Tony, coming back to the table with
the
drinks. He saw no criticism in her improvements. ‘Well, here’s good luck to us,’ he said, raising the pint first and then having a swallow of the whisky before Aisling had even touched her gin. ‘As you said we’re a fine pair.’

A man with the red nose of a drinker and a shabby, crumpled suit that might once have been a good one leaned over and said to Tony as he might have addressed a regular in the pub, ‘And what has yourself and your lady-friend all dolled up in a Saturday evening?’

Tony was delighted. ‘I’d like you to know that’s no lady-friend, that’s my wife,’ he said and roared with laughter.

The man peered at Aisling. ‘Aw, well, it doesn’t do any harm to take the wife out now and then, I always say. Were you at the races?’

‘No, we were at a wedding,’ said Tony winking and leering and looking so stupid that Aisling wanted to get up and walk away. With a jolt she realised that she couldn’t do that any more.

‘Oh, a wedding. Was it near here?’ the man wanted to know.

‘No, down the country. Two real country bumpkins.’

The man laughed. ‘Oh, nothing as bad as a culchie wedding I always say. They can get desperately pretentious down in the country.’

Tony’s face was all smiles. ‘I could go along with you, I could lead you on and make a fool of you … but you look too good a man to do that to. It was our own wedding. Now what do you make of that?’ and he sat back beaming.

The man, his eyes dulled with drink, knew something was expected of him. He stood up and shook hands with both of them. ‘My sincere congratulations and my warmest felicitations. Under normal circumstances I would be the first to offer you a. …’

Tony seemed to understand the man’s predicament as if he had been inspired by the Holy Ghost. This was a man who was about to offer them a drink to celebrate their wedding but had no money. This was a drunk, a pathetic shambling drunk, exactly the kind of man who would want to borrow ten shillings from Tony back home, a man with extravagant promises. Maybe a civil servant once, or a clerk somewhere. Aisling raged inside and her gin and tonic tasted like acid. Tony was at the counter. The man, their new friend, wouldn’t touch Power’s, he was a man who drank Bushmill’s, never touched any whisky only Black Bush, he said. Funny how many good things came out of the North when you stopped to think about it.

Aisling decided to turn her mind off. She blotted Tony and this man out, she fixed a smile on her face and she worked out what she would have for dinner. She planned her menu, she planned the bedroom scene, where she would wear her new cream nightie and lacy dressing-gown which had to be called a negligee – it was never going to be called a dressing-gown when you considered how much it cost. She planned how she was going to come into the room having undressed in the bathroom … she had been delighted that they had got a bedroom with a bathroom attached. Otherwise she would have had to walk down the
corridor
in her negligee. She planned that after it had all happened they would lie there and talk about the future, and Tony would say that he was glad they had waited for their wedding night.