Light A Penny Candle (6 page)

And, ‘I won’t speak to you at all then,’ the son of the house would reply; and a scraping of the chair and a bang of the door and he would be gone. A second bang of the door and he would be out in the square and across to the library where he would sit and read the newspapers for hours on end with everything they had to say about the world where there was war.

He would be seventeen on 7 September. Eileen remembered so well the year he was born, with the Civil War still all around them, and how she had written to Violet about her hopes that her son would grow up in a land that would never go to war again. She couldn’t remember what, if anything, Violet had replied. But now it was happening, in a distorted way, her son was grown-up and his land was not at war – and that
was
the problem. …

She had thought of having a party of some kind on his birthday. It would be the day the school reopened and so the horror would be taken out of it for little Elizabeth.

Eileen found herself more and more drawn to this odd little girl. There was something more gracious, less rude and heavy and rough about her than there was in any of Eileen’s own children. It was as if the polish which St Mark’s was meant to confer had skipped Violet and Eileen and landed on Violet’s child. She was so willing to please, and so unlike any of the O’Connors in this that Eileen felt somehow wistful. Why hadn’t she been able to give any of this gentleness to her own family? Only Donal had any trace of it and that was because he was delicate and not able to tear through the house, shove and push, shout and grab.

Yes, a bit of a party might cheer up her restless son. He might lose his strained look and even Sean Senior might mellow a bit in the light of birthday candles. She began to make a list, then felt a pang of guilt about the birthday parties in England where no child would have cakes or cream – but it passed. And perhaps he would bring over a few of his friends from school; that young Murray boy, or one of the Healys, or whoever it was he was friendly with these days. Funny that she didn’t know. There was a time when he used to have the house full of his friends.

When he came back from the library and crept into the kitchen to eat something from the meat safe, she would talk to him about the party. It would cheer him up. Cheer them all up.

7 September. Donal was waved off to school – he didn’t want to be accompanied any further, not by his mother and
two girls;
and he ran off on spindly legs, like a leaf,
Eileen
thought, comparing him to the stout twigs of boys who were already pummelling each other cheerfully in the yard of the boys’ preparatory. Then, with a smile, she deposited Aisling and Elizabeth, trying not to notice Elizabeth’s fearful glance at the huge statue pointing to its exposed and open heart …

She returned to the house in the square. Peggy, who hadn’t expected the mistress back so soon, was half-heartedly fending off the gropings of Johnny O’Hara, the postman. Johnny was drinking tea and eating bacon on his soda bread, and that annoyed Eileen more than the fumblings. She had ruled that it was extravagant to have bacon for breakfast, and here it was being handed out to the postman. She took the letter from the speechless Johnny, brushed aside the protests and explanations from Peggy with a curt request that Niamh should be restored to her cot.

Then she read that Sean had failed his Leaving Certificate examination.

She decided that she would tell her husband before anyone else.

Then she found that Eamonn had already gone to the school when the list was being read out and had galloped back to the shop with the news.

Then she heard on the wireless that an almighty blitz had begun on London, and that people were huddling down in the Underground to avoid the bombs and the falling buildings.

Then a message was sent from the school to say that
Elizabeth
had been sick and that Aisling was being sent home with her.

And as she sat down to try to cope with all the day had brought, she realised that she had not had her period since the middle of July and that she was probably pregnant. Pregnant at the age of forty.

Most things had sorted themselves out, as most things do, after two weeks. Most, not all.

Donal seemed stronger and happier at school than he had been during the summer term. He came home with names of friends and stories of what Sister Maureen had said. And plans for the Christmas play, where he would be playing an angel.

Elizabeth was not quite so fearful, and seemed to clutch at Aisling for safety. Aisling, in turn, was pleased and proud to have a new responsibility. It was better than a sister if not quite as good as a best friend. She was now an object of great interest in her class. An English Protestant refugee from the war over there
and
a kitten called Monica.

Peggy was so contrite about the episode with the postman that she took it on herself to make amends. She scrubbed floors unasked, and even tidied out cupboards, unearthing the most extraordinary things.

Young Sean got over the disappointment of his failure. Several other boys had failed too. The Brothers couldn’t understand it, although one told Eileen quietly that he thought a few of the lads had their heads stuffed with all
this
nonsense about going over and fighting a war, and they hadn’t given their work or their books enough attention.

Sean O’Connor had taken his eldest son’s failure much better than Eileen had hoped. He had had a man-to-man talk and told him that life was full of failures and problems, that Irish history had been one crisis after another … all had to be met, faced and solved. He arranged a regular wage and regular hours of work for Young Sean in the store, and saw that he had a smart dun-coloured coat to wear, which lifted him into a different category.

News from London was bad. Every night the bombers were coming over. Every night the Underground stations were full. There were stories of people leaving London again for another evacuation, but not nearly as many went as had gone before, the previous year. A message came from George and Violet, that they were managing. They had taken their beds down to the cellar and lined the walls with mattresses and padding. Eileen shuddered to think what it would be like, and managed to explain it all to Elizabeth in terms of fun. Elizabeth found it hard to think of her parents doing anything in a spirit of fun.

Eileen’s period resumed before she had told anyone of its delay. For four evenings she had had very hot baths and a glass of gin. It was just a relaxing thing to do after a day’s work. She didn’t even think she would worry Father Kenny by telling him about it in confession. It wasn’t a sin or anything, it was just something women did to get their bodies back to normal when they were a bit overstrained.

*

Maureen had seen pictures of nurses bending low over fevered brows and holding the hands of brave young men while reading temperatures and noting pulses and being generally indispensable. She had started writing to Dublin hospitals for details of training. She thought that there would be more brave young men languishing in Dublin than there were likely to be in the local county hospital which they visited whenever Grannie was taken in, which was every winter. Or when Donal had been there for his asthma.

Sometimes Young Sean discussed it with her, which pleased her. It made her feel grown-up to be talking about careers and futures with her elder brother.

He had tried to persuade her to train for war nursing; then they could both go together. There wouldn’t be so much fuss if they both said they thought it would be a great opportunity. He had changed his approach: he had begun to realise that his father really didn’t see the cause of Good and Honour being with Britain. He now brought the subject up in a purely practical way. …

‘What other chance would ever be half so good … the pay alone is terrific … they’ll train you, you know, for a career or a trade. I’d be a skilled man when I came out … I’d have a whole set of qualifications I’d never be able to get anywhere else. … Did you not hear there’s fellows already from Dublin, fellows with hardly any education doing great out there, learning and getting qualified. …’

It wasn’t any better than other lines of persuasion. Ones about duty and wishing to defend our way of life. But at
least
when he and his father argued now it was about points of fact and not blazing ideological rows which Young Sean didn’t really understand and always lost. …

‘Tell me, boy, why we should lift one finger to help them, let alone lose our young men for them in their fight? Yes, it’s their fight. What ever did they do for us except bring us torture and humiliation for eight hundred years. … Yes, and leave our country when they had to leave it … leave it in the state it’s in … half the land still bitter about the Civil War and a good quarter of it they’re still hanging on to. … When they give us back the North, which belongs to us by right, when they make some compensation for all they did, then I’d consider fighting in their wars. …’

Maureen tried out her hair in different ways with her friend, Berna Lynch, and wore lipstick and powder when she was out of the house. Sixteen was a tiresome age to be in Kilgarret. There was nothing for young people: instead they were watched with suspicion, as if they were on probation from the age of sixteen to twenty – and even longer if, by then, they hadn’t settled into the role of ‘walking out’ decorously with a suitable person. There were no social occasions. Maureen and Berna were considered too respectable to go to the local dance, where messenger boys and maids went. Peggy went to the dance on Saturday nights, but she hated to be asked about it. It wasn’t for the likes of Berna and Maureen, she kept saying. They’d hate it even if they managed to get there. They were too well born for the fun and glitter of a hot
dance
hall, but they weren’t well born enough for the tennis parties and supper parties of the people in the big houses. There were the Wests and the Grays and the Kents, all with young people of Maureen and Berna’s age, but they never met them. The children had been in boarding schools in Dublin; they came home at the end of term to the railway station three miles away, sometimes they arrived on the bus in the square with their lacrosse sticks and suitcases and blazers. Families in station-wagons met them with cries of excitement, but they never mixed in the life of the town.

Berna, as a doctor’s daughter, could have been their social equal … but for all their gentility, it was known that her father had a problem with the drink. It was well hidden, but well known at the same time. So Berna missed her chance. Sweet little thing – such a pity about her father. Awfully good doctor, of course, but inclined to go off on his own and mixing with all kinds of rough people. Then into a nursing home in Dublin and after that he wouldn’t touch the stuff for about eight months. …

They were bored at the convent, they thought the other girls silly and parochial. The time passed very slowly while they waited for Maureen to be called for interview to the hospital and for Berna to go to secretarial college in Dublin. Meanwhile, they sorted out their hair and their skin … and hoped that they would have
some
experience of something before they got to Dublin and everyone considered them real eejits.

*

Eamonn was having an unexpectedly bad term. He had looked forward to going back to school, for it held no terrors for a big strong eleven-year-old able to defend himself. But this term, everything was different. Brother John kept rapping him over the fingers.

‘Concentrate, young Eamonn O’Connor … we don’t want you flopping your exams like that big brother of yours. …’ And Brother Kevin, one of the kindest Brothers who never said a hard word to anyone, was also coming at him and being annoying.

‘Now, listen to me, Eamonn, like a good boy. Remember next year you’ll have little Donal here, after he makes his first communion, please God. Now, he’s not a strong little lad and you’ll have to take care of him, you know, you’ll have to keep an eye on him. …’

And at home, things weren’t any better. Peggy was no fun; she was forever cleaning and looking nervously over her shoulder, as if she and Ma had had a row. But there had been no row. He couldn’t understand it.

Niamh had begun to cut teeth, and oh janey, what an awful noise she made. She had a bright red boiled face and her mouth was always open and dribbling. Eamonn thought she looked revolting and couldn’t understand why they were always picking her up and soothing her. Everyone cut teeth, he thought savagely. When he had lost his and got new ones there was no fuss and roaring.

And Father was in a bad humour, he’d fight with Sean at the drop of a hat. And then Ma would get upset and look away; she was very tired every evening and had no
time
to talk to him about school or anything. Even Maureen was never there any more, she was always up at Berna’s house.

But the worst of all was Aisling. Aisling used to be all right. Someone to play with. A girl, of course, and a sister, but only a year younger, so not too bad. But since the arrival of this Elizabeth, there was no fun to be had out of her. When the two of them came home from school, it was a glass of milk and a bit of soda cake with currants in it and then up the stairs with the kitten. Stupid name, Monica. Up the stairs and the door with their silly notice on it would close with a bang. Aisling and Elizabeth. Eizabeth and Aisling. It would sicken you.

IV

AISLING HAD TAKEN
her responsibilities about Elizabeth very seriously indeed. Not everyone was given a foreigner of their own to look after at the age of ten. Admittedly there were compensations like the beautiful Monica who had a white front and a purr like an engine and an endless capacity for running after bits of string and rubber balls. And another was that she could get away with lots of things by ‘having to help Elizabeth’. She never had to help with the clearing of the table at home nor the washing-up on Peggy’s half day. At school she could get out of extra homework.

‘I can’t Sister, I really can’t, I have to show Elizabeth how we do things. Honestly Sister.’