Light A Penny Candle (66 page)

‘That way nobody would be happy. Stop behaving like a spoiled child just because you had a row with Tony and he went off to the races without you.’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Well, it’s something like it. When I think of all the things you have to be grateful for, it makes my blood boil. …’

‘Like a drunken husband falling around the town?’

‘So he drinks too much, you should look after him more, and anyway, look at how much worse it could be. Suppose he was after women, suppose he was like Sheila Moore’s husband, or Brian Burns, look at him with a woman up in Dublin as well.’ Maureen stopped: Aisling’s face looked very grave. ‘Listen, you’re only talking rubbish, you’re not married as long as I am, you’re new to it.’

‘I’ve been married two and a half years.’

‘When you have a child it will all change. …’

‘If I were to tell you that side of it, you wouldn’t believe me.’

‘No, I know, Brendan’s a bit the same, he says we can’t afford another one, but when they’re born he’s delighted. He’s mad about the new fellow altogether. It would be the same with Tony.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. Let’s not talk about it any more,’ said Aisling.

‘You’re the one who brought it up,’ Maureen said huffily.

‘I know I did. I’m in a bad mood today.’

‘I knew you were.’ Maureen was triumphant. ‘When he comes back from the races, make it all up with him, have a bit of a cuddle and forget whatever the fight was about. That’s what people do.’

When Tony came home from the races it was one o’clock in the morning and he was in a blazing temper.

‘How dare you go down to Coghlan’s sympathising behind my back. How
dare
you go to that house. …’

Aisling had been asleep, she woke with a start. ‘Tony, you’re drunk, go to bed, we’ll talk about it in the morning. …’

‘We’ll talk about it here and now. I was in the hotel. I met Marty O’Brien, a brother-in-law of Dinny Coghlan. He told me you’d been down at the house asking after the boy.

‘Common politeness and a bit of humanity. Of course I did.’

‘Behind my back.’

‘Oh shut up, you stupid fool, you were propping up the bar in Leopardstown, how could I tell you I was going?’

‘Don’t call me a fool.’

‘You
are
a fool.’

‘And you’re a thief, where’s my money? I had a big roll of notes in my pocket. I didn’t have it when I got to the races, only a couple of fivers.’

‘It’s in the drawer, Tony, you know it is, I often do it when you’re going out. It’s in the top drawer where it always is. It’s to save you spending foolishly or being pick-pocketed.’

‘I don’t want a bloody keeper looking after me like an animal in the zoo. Don’t you
ever
do that again.’

‘All right.’

‘And another thing.’

‘Look, whatever it is will it wait till the morning? I’ve got to get up and do a day’s work. Dad’s opening
tomorrow
, so is Murray’s by the way, in case it’s of any interest to you. I’m going to our shop. I don’t know whether you intend to go to yours or not … but I’m having my sleep.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What?’

‘If it’s of any interest to me. Murray’s opening. Of course it’s of interest to me. I own it, don’t I? It’s my shop.’

‘That’s right. People keep forgetting.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re in it so rarely, and when you are it’s to sign for fifty pounds. They see you coming and they say … here’s Mr Tony, he’ll need some cash … I’ve heard them.’

‘Are you implying that I neglect my work?’

‘Shut up and go to bed.’

‘Are you suggesting …?’

Aisling got out of her divan bed and began to strip off the blankets.

‘If you won’t let me go to sleep here, I’m going into the other room, let me pass.’

‘Get back there, or back into the proper bed where you belong. Do you hear me?’

‘Oh not tonight, Tony, I couldn’t bear it, not tonight.’

He looked at her, his eyes blazing. ‘What could you not bear?’

‘Don’t make me say it. I don’t want to try tonight. Please, Tony, let me past you.’

‘You’re a vicious woman,’ he said. His hand came out so quickly, Aisling didn’t see it; it caught her by surprise,
across
her jaw. The sting and the hurt jarred her whole body. He hit out again, this time harder. The blood came immediately from her lip or gums. She could feel it on her chin and falling on to her nightdress. She touched it and looked at her red hand in disbelief.

‘Ash, oh, Jesus, Ash, I’m sorry.’

She walked slowly back into the room and looked at her face in the mirror. It seemed to be her lip that was bleeding but a tooth felt loose in her mouth so it could be that that was causing the blood.

‘I could kill myself. Ash I didn’t mean to, I don’t know why I did it, Ash are you all right? Let me see – God let me see. Oh my God. …’

She said nothing.

‘What will I do, will I get a doctor? Ash I’m so sorry. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you say. …’

The blood was trickling on to her lap.

‘Here, Ash, don’t just sit there, you have to do something. Will I call someone?’

She stood up slowly and walked towards him. ‘Go into the other room and go to bed. Go on. Now. Take these blankets.’

He didn’t want to go. ‘I’m so ashamed Ash, I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t hit you for the world, you know that.’

She handed him the blankets and shamefacedly he went. She took the suitcase very deliberately from the top of the cupboard and began to pack. She wrapped a towel around her neck to catch the little drops of blood that fell from her lip. Very precisely and neatly she packed winter clothes
and
shoes. Underwear and jewellery. She took off her rings and left them in a conspicuous place on top of the dressing table. She took down a second suitcase, and she put in two blankets and two sheets. She collected letters and photographs and packed those too. After an hour she thought it was safe to open the bedroom door … from their spare room came the sound of Tony’s heavy breathing. He had split her lip but he could still sleep. She collected a few small things from around the house; a silver sugar bowl that Mam had given her, a teacup and saucer with huge roses on them that Peggy had come to deliver as a wedding gift.

She wrote a very short note to Tony. She told him that she was going to the hospital to have her lip stitched; she would say it was the result of a fall. Then she would leave in her own car and would not come back. There would be no point in asking any other family where she was because they would not know. She wrote a long letter to Mam; she said that she had tried every avenue, sounded out every opinion and nobody seemed to think that she could turn the clock back, so she was going to abandon the clock instead. She said that she didn’t mind
what
cover story Mam used, whatever they wanted to say would be fine with her. Sickness, a new job, gone to visit a friend. … But she thought it might be better just to say straight out that Aisling had not been able to live with Tony any more and had gone away. That way there could be no speculation and wondering about it. It would be out in the open.

She told Mam about her lip. ‘I’m only telling you so that you’ll know it wasn’t idle fancy and selfish wishing for a happier lifestyle. I know too that there are women in this town whose husbands beat them, and women in every town.
But I will not be one of them
. I will not, and that’s as definite as I ever was about anything.’

She said to Mam that she would ring her in a couple of days, and the kindest thing of Mam to do was not to try to organise a reconciliation because there wouldn’t be one. Only if Ethel Murray became difficult and began to cause trouble was Mam to tell her about Tony’s violence. Otherwise better leave the woman a few illusions.

Her lip only needed one stitch. It was done by a young house surgeon whom she didn’t know.

‘Are you a student?’ she asked him.

‘No.’ He was shocked at the thought, but she hadn’t intended to insult him, she was thinking that she would never know about the dance that Niamh had gone to with Tim the medical student, and whether Donal and Anna Barry had fallen in love, and if Donal had been able to buy rounds of drinks with the fiver she had given him.

She knew two of the nurses and saw by their faces that they didn’t believe her story of a fall.

‘Come back during the week and I’ll have a look at it,’ the young doctor said.

‘Sure, thank you very much,’ Aisling put on her coat again and got into the car. She dropped the note for Mam into the shop, not into the house, she wanted Mam to read
it
in the peace of her eyrie when she got there early in the morning.

She took one last look back and drove out of Kilgarret on the Dublin road.

PART FOUR

1956–1960

XVIII

IT HAD BEEN
the happiest Christmas that Elizabeth had ever known. Even in Kilgarret long ago she had felt a little separate, it wasn’t quite her Christmas, she was comparing it with the ones she had known before and would go back to. This was her Christmas. Her husband, her father, and her baby starting to take shape. And in her home. It was as if she were being rewarded for all those other Christmas days, trying to console Father, trying not to worry about Johnny finding somebody new. Now it was all safe and as it should be.

Father had been happy to leave on Boxing Day; he wasn’t at ease as a house guest. She had seen him nervously pacing in his dressing-gown with his sponge bag over his wrist.

‘What’s the matter?’ she had enquired, he looked lost.

‘I didn’t know whether to go in or not, someone might have gone in the other door.’

‘Father, I’ve told you a dozen times, if we go in one door we lock the other one so that no one comes in.’

‘Very complicated way of having a bathroom,’ he said.

Henry was looking over some papers in the dining room. Father and Elizabeth lingered over breakfast in the kitchen.

‘Was Mother ill much when she was expecting me?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘What? Oh. Oh, I don’t know.’

‘But you must have known, I mean, did she tell you that she felt groggy or what?’

‘I’m sorry, I have no recall for all those details. I could never write a book – I wouldn’t remember the interesting bits. …’ That was Father making a little joke. Or trying to.

She felt a wave of sadness that he regarded the birth of his only child as a
detail
, but perhaps that was too harsh, maybe the whole memory of Mother was painful. She would ask no more.

‘Imagine poor Henry taking work home for Christmas, I think he’s too dedicated … I can’t see the others doing it.’

‘I think he’s very sensible.’ Father had a view! Elizabeth was surprised, she had expected a monosyllable.

‘He’s very sensible, the most important thing for a man to do is to get on top of his work. Once a man feels able for his work everything else falls into place.’

Elizabeth looked thoughtfully at him. ‘It’s not the most important thing, is it, Father? The most important thing is to get the most out of life, and give to people, you know, not just getting on in work.’

‘I didn’t say getting on, I said getting in control of it.’ Father looked quite animated. ‘You know in your world, in the art business it’s not the same, there aren’t the same pressures, not like law or the bank.’ (Of course, it was all men together in the big, stress-filled business world, while silly women just dabbled in art.) Elizabeth didn’t care very much about the argument, she was just glad to see Father lively, almost spirited for once.

‘Do you wish you had taken work home at Henry’s age?’ she asked almost playfully. She wasn’t prepared for Father’s face.

‘I tried to, my dear, I tried to advance myself, or even just keep up with my colleagues. I wanted to do evening classes when I first got married. I wanted to buy banking magazines and study them, I could even have sat for examinations in the Institute of Bankers if I had wanted to. But Violet never wanted me to do it. It was, let me see,
stuffy
, and
pathetic
, I think those were her objections. …’

‘Surely not, Father? Mother would have been eager for you to do well.’

‘But I wasn’t doing well, I was just doing it to keep up, she knew that.
Petty little clerk
she called me sometimes. Once she asked me was I the office dunce that I had to have help to do a job that a child could do. Your mother could be very cruel sometimes.’

‘But you could have gone on studying, couldn’t you?’

‘No, not really, not if it irritated your mother so much and made her so scornful … there was no point in making her angry. …’

Elizabeth hated the defeated tone in his voice. It was the voice of a weak man in a film – the coward who blamed other people for his own mistakes. She tutted sympathetically.

‘You see, things come easily to you, Elizabeth, you’re like Violet in that way. She was very quick, and inclined to be impatient with those who were not so quick. A lot of the world are not so quick. … remember that.’

Was Father warning her, was he actually going so far, interesting himself enough in her well-being as to offer her some kind of advice? Far from resenting it Elizabeth was pleased. She regarded what he had said as nonsense, but the very fact that he said it gladdened her soul. She didn’t want to break his mood, but he changed the subject himself.

‘We were thinking of having a nice brisk walk in the park, Henry and I, and a beer and a sandwich at the pub afterwards. And then I’ll push off back to Clarence Gardens.’

‘You’re very welcome to stay here, Father.’

‘I’d like to have my things right for tomorrow,’ Father said.

What possible things could he mean? He had been working in the bank for thirty-four years. What on earth could he have to get ready for the morning?

Henry came back from the pub glowing with the frosty weather, the brisk walk and the unaccustomed midday pints.

‘Your father’s got on a bus,’ he said. ‘He asked me to
say
goodbye and thank you again. I think he really enjoyed himself.’