Light A Penny Candle (56 page)

‘Happy New Year,’ she said.

‘Oh Jesus, I knew you’d be sitting here waiting to nag me,’ he said.

‘No, I’m not actually, I just said Happy New Year, and I’ve tidied the place up. Did you notice?’

He looked around suspiciously. ‘Yes, yes, it’s grand,’ he said uncertainly. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’d have given you a hand. …’

‘No, it’s fine. And look,’ she led him to the kitchen, ‘shining isn’t it?’

‘Yes, great.’ He was worried.

‘Now look at the bedroom, that’s all tidied too.’

‘Oh, Ash, you’ve done a grand job. Is someone coming?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Well, Mam may come in for an hour this afternoon, that’s all.’

‘Ah yes … well, that’s grand for you. I may not be back actually. Shay and a couple of the others. …’

‘I’d like you to be back, Tony.’

‘Now, what’s this, what is all this? Some kind of court? Is Tony to be paraded in front of the O’Connors and put on trial? Is that it?’

‘On trial for what, Tony?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me?’

‘No, you tell me. I mentioned no trials, I just said I’d like you to be here when my mother comes to tea, that’s all.’

‘She hasn’t bothered herself to come up here for a good bit, why should I be at her beck and call?’

‘She’s been sick in bed for one thing, and she was here this morning for another.’

Tony’s eyes narrowed. ‘Here already? Did you tell her where I was?’

‘How could I have done that, Tony, since I didn’t know and still don’t know where you were …?’

‘There was a session in the hotel, it wasn’t sensible to drive back, a few of us stayed. …’

‘Yes.’

‘It was New Year’s Eve … you know, excuse for a bit of a celebration.’

‘Yes I know, I heard the bells in Christ Church, they
played
them on Radio Eireann at midnight. It was lovely. Smashing celebration, I thought to myself.’

‘Oh Ash, I should have … but you know, you’re not all that keen on the crowd … listen, I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Good, be here at teatime. Around four o’clock.’

‘No, that’s not fair, stop tricking me. Stop it. I’ve made my arrangements. I’ve got to go out. Are there clean shirts?’

‘There are nine clean shirts.’

‘What do you mean, nine? What are you playing at?’

‘You asked me, I’m answering. The laundry comes every Wednesday. I give him seven shirts, he gives me seven shirts, that’s the way we work it. It’s called the miracle of having money.’

‘I really don’t know what’s wrong with you, Ash, I don’t. You have everything you want here … why are you always so bitter?’

‘I don’t know, I really don’t. It must have been part of my nature.’

‘So now it’s sardonic is it? Sarcasm.’

‘Mam isn’t well. She’s not looking well at all. I’d like to go back to the shop and work there to help for a while.’

‘Is this what the confrontation was going to be about? I don’t want it. I don’t want my wife working back in her parents’ shop.’

‘I don’t want my husband drunk as a fool, falling around the town making eejits of us both. I don’t want to live here alone as if I were a widow. Your mother has more company than I do. There are a lot of things I don’t want, Tony Murray, and I put up with them.’

‘Now, I’m putting my foot down. I’m a married man and I won’t be made little of by my wife going back to her job. Through pig-headed stupidity.’

Aisling stood up. ‘And I’m a married woman and I won’t then be made little of by my husband saying that there’s nothing wrong with us. There is plenty wrong with us. We have not managed to have sexual intercourse yet. After a year and seven months, that is not normal, Tony. And for the last six months we haven’t even made the effort. It is not acceptable to me that I sit here and take orders from someone who is pig-headedly stupid enough to maintain that everything’s fine.’

Tony looked at her, his fists clenched.

‘So what about a bargain?’

‘What kind of bargain?’

‘You get your way over my job. I’ll agree not to go back to work. And I get my way over the other business. We go to Dublin and see a specialist. There are specialists. We can be helped.’

‘A crowd of Americans, most likely, or worse, Irish fellows who’ve been in America, asking a lot of personal questions, getting their kicks that way … telling you to lay off the drink for a year … telling you to describe this and that. You’re not getting me up there. I’m telling you that flat.’

Aisling looked cold. ‘So, I go back to work in O’Connor’s.’

‘Yes, you win, you get your way as usual.’ Tony looked at her with his face curled into a scornful look. ‘That’s
right
. Play dirty. Get your way at all cost. Do what you like.’

Aisling didn’t even bother to argue. Her shoulders slumped and she said almost to herself, ‘Oh that’s totally wrong, I haven’t got my own way. I haven’t won at all. But I don’t suppose anyone on earth will believe that.’

Dearest, dearest Elizabeth,

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with your news. You must have thought that Mam and I were drunk yesterday when you phoned, we’d been sitting here talking and it had got dark … and when the phone rang it sort of brought us back to reality with a bump. I hope we sounded as happy for you as we are.

I know I was crass when I thought you meant that you were going to marry Johnny. You see I hadn’t really heard of Henry, except very briefly. Now you must sit down and write me a long letter about him, give yourself headings like we did at English class back at school – no I’ll
give
them to you: a) why you like him so much; b) what you talk about; c) what you laugh about; d) where you are going to live; e) what kind of wedding and where; f) do you sleep with him and if so is it nice; g) what did Johnny say?

Love from us all,

Aisling

XVI

EVERYONE SEEMED EAGER
to know what Johnny would say. Even Father. He wasn’t in a position to say anything for some time since Francesca had swept him off to her aunt’s restaurant – somewhere – and she and Auntie were feeding him with home-made minestrone and building him up again. Or that was the message that Stefan seemed to gather from the telephone call. Stefan was pleased but slightly fearful at Elizabeth’s announcement. He admired the ring, the single diamond which Henry had bought as soon as the jewellery shop opened the next day. He could have got Henry an antique ring at half the price, something much more beautiful but naturally he made no mention of it. Neither did Anna. Their congratulations seemed flat to Elizabeth, it was almost as if they were looking over their shoulders … expecting a fully-recovered Johnny to come in and overturn everything.

Father said that he was pleased, he offered his congratulations to Elizabeth as if she were a stranger, a customer at the bank rather than his only child. He said
that
he liked Henry and hoped they would be happy. Then immediately he asked where Elizabeth would live, and what would happen to him for the rest of his life? He asked it flatly and not at all accusingly. Elizabeth had the answer ready. She thought that they should arrange for someone to rent her room at a low cost and that whoever the tenant was – perhaps a student, or a teacher – she should cook Father a meal each evening. Father said it would have to be looked into. Perhaps in the bank, it might not be thought, well, proper, to have a woman living under the same roof. Elizabeth kept her temper: yes of course it would indeed have to be looked into, but then of course there might be no need for it. Father was still a young man in his fifties, he was well able to look after himself. Elizabeth would be glad to show him how to make simple meals, and even when she was married she could come from time to time and do some baking for him. Father put on his anxious face for a while and said that it all did seem for the best, and he hoped there would be no problems, no trouble.

‘What kind of trouble could there possibly be, Father?’

‘Well… the other young man, Johnny Stone … do you not think he may have had expectations? After all you have been seeing him for years and years. It’s not unreasonable for him to have expected. …’

‘Nonsense,’ Elizabeth said quickly. ‘I know I have been going out with Johnny and I’m very fond of him … but that’s different – Johnny’s not a person who settles down. He had no “expectations” as you call it.’

‘What does he say about you going to marry Henry?’ Father asked doggedly.

‘Nothing, he doesn’t know, he’s away.’

‘Aha,’ said Father.

Harry’s letter was muted in its warmth. Oh, he had all the right words but there was nothing behind them. There were three pages of Harry’s great sweepy handwriting. Elizabeth had a little bet with herself about whether he would mention Johnny on page two or page three. Probably two, she decided. She won her bet. She threw the letter on the floor in a rage and then had to go and pick it up. Damn Johnny Stone, why did he make everyone think he was right? Why did he have to cloud her marriage even now? She knew that Johnny wouldn’t mind if she married Henry, but nobody else knew this. Why did everybody take his side?

She told Henry Mason no lies. She said she had been Johnny’s lover, that he had been the only one, that she had loved him for a long time but recently, over a period of a year, she had begun to realise that it wasn’t any real relationship, it was an elaborate series of pretences and attitudes. Henry found this an entirely satisfactory explanation.

He had had one affair in his life too. It had not been so long-standing. It was with Simon’s sister; Barbara Burke was one of the first girls he had ever met, he met her at tennis parties, she was terribly good. She had found him endearing he thought, but she was very impatient with
him
, if he didn’t win the tennis match, catch the waiter’s eye quickly, find a taxi in the rain, she sighed and he felt that he was very inadequate.

Henry had become determined to please Barbara … and he had succeeded: for a year they had an affair and she did not think he should be patronised and patted on the head. It had been a very happy time, and Henry had wanted them to get married. But Barbara had said they were far too young, they should see the world a little. And oddly Simon had agreed. Henry had been afraid that Simon might have thought it was a poor show having an affair with his sister and not making an honest woman of her.

Anyway, it had all been for the best, because Henry began to realise that he was in fact involved in a complicated business of pretending that he was happy doing things when he certainly was not. He had to make such an effort all the time. Barbara became so impatient when he forgot things that he had a little notebook where he wrote things she said down. She accused him of not being aware of what was happening so he used to note headings in his book of things to talk about. When she was away and he telephoned her he had a whole list of things to say beside the phone. Then it dawned on him that this was no way to live. He explained it to Barbara, and she didn’t believe him, she thought it was all a game; but he assured her that the real Henry would bore her to death in two minutes … she only liked the rehearsed and constantly-aspiring-to-please Henry. Barbara never really understood what he meant but the romance ended.

What had happened to her? Oh, she married a doctor, a very successful chap called Donaldson. They all met from time to time – there had been no bitterness. In fact Henry would like to invite them to the wedding if that would be all right? Of course it would be all right, after all Johnny Stone would be invited to the wedding as well.

‘I wonder what he’ll say when he hears we’re getting married?’ said Henry.

Stefan had obviously decided that it was not up to him to tell Johnny the news. So when Elizabeth came into the shop muffled up against the cold January winds, he still didn’t know.

They hugged each other, she exclaimed at how well he looked. Italian soup must put strength into a man certainly, she laughed. Stefan went on polishing a candlestick that didn’t need to be polished, looking carefully the other way.

‘And what have you been up to?’ Johnny said. Johnny never discussed his dalliances, there had been the slightest little frown at Elizabeth’s reference to Italian soup.

Stefan had started to polish more earnestly than ever, and began to move unwillingly towards his own little office. Elizabeth had taken off her coat and long woolly scarf, her gloves and her knitted hat.

‘Lord, that’s better, I was beginning to feel like an Egyptian mummy. What have I been up to? Didn’t Stefan tell you? Henry and I decided to get married. Look, here’s the ring … you must wish us luck. …’

‘You and Henry decided to do what?’ said Johnny, holding her hand with the ring on it; he didn’t even notice that Stefan had scuttled off into his office.

‘Get married, some time at the end of the summer, if there ever is a summer, so now isn’t that a surprise?’

‘You can’t marry Henry. It’s … it’s ridiculous. …’

‘What on earth do you mean? Of course I’m going to marry Henry. It’s exactly what I want to do, I’m delighted to marry him, he is exactly the right person for me to marry, and I think I’m right for him too.’

‘Funny-face, is this some kind of silly joke?’

‘Johnny, of course it’s not. I wouldn’t make a joke about something like this. …’

‘Well, that’s what I thought, but you’re not serious?’

Elizabeth sat down on a carved hall chair. ‘I don’t know why you keep saying that.’

‘What the hell did you expect me to say? Well done, how clever, here’s to the bride and groom?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘Oh don’t be so stupid.’

‘But you like Henry, you like me … why aren’t you pleased?’

‘I had this silly idea that you were my woman. That’s all.’

‘Of course I’m not your woman, you would hate to think of a tie like that. You’ve never wanted one. Last summer when I asked you if you had any objections if I went out with Simon or Henry you looked surprised. “What objections can I have, pussy cat? You’re your own person.” Those were your words. …’

‘Yes and I meant them. But marrying one of them. Marrying Henry when my back was turned. … Oh, come on.’