Light A Penny Candle (70 page)

The night that Tony came up to the shop and broke the window with a big stone he had carried from Hanrahan’s back yard, Eileen was actually sitting in her eyrie. If she had been nearer to the window she would have been badly injured and possibly killed. A crowd gathered and the sergeant took Tony down to the station. Eileen said that it was to be overlooked; Tony was sent home in a squad car to the bungalow which was dark and cold. Eileen begged the sergeant not to tell his mother, it would upset her so much. Mr Meade arranged for a glazier to come first thing in the morning and fit a new window. Father John heard about it and wrote Eileen a letter which was meant to be soothing but in fact turned out to be an attack on Aisling for having deserted her marital duties. But apart from
these
happenings, life in Kilgarret was able to absorb the scandal of Aisling’s flight. And a lot of people wagged their heads comfortably to each other and said that it just went to show that money and good looks don’t necessarily bring you happiness.

The spring came to London and Elizabeth became much bigger. She said it was now impossible for anyone to get into the little lift with her and that when she and Henry came back from any outing he had to walk up the stairs. This was not quite true but her protruding stomach was very noticeable. She left the school at Easter and came home tearfully with a huge teddy bear the children had given. She had promised to return and show them the baby in September, she said that if it was a beautiful baby she might prop it up in the art room and they could all paint it. The children loved this idea but she knew it would never happen. Next September there would be a new art teacher who would hate this doting mother returning and looking for the limelight.

In the last weeks she felt she would never have been able to cope without Aisling. She had taught Aisling to cook more adventurously, surprised that she knew only the very basics.

‘What would I have had to cook for? At home Mam always had a girl to cook for us, and when I entered married bliss it wasn’t long before my husband decided he would prefer to drink his breakfast, dinner and tea rather than eat them.’ Aisling shopped, and chopped vegetables
and
set tables while Elizabeth had rests and put her feet up. She found her legs swelling if she stood around too much. ‘You do too much entertaining, what are you having Simon and his yukky sister and brother-in-law for?’ She chopped bits of pork expertly and threw them into a casserole as she talked.

Elizabeth sat in the kitchen with her feet on a little beaded footstool that Johnny had found for her. ‘You’ve no idea how much pleasure it gives Henry. He feels somehow that he’s their equal if he can have them to dine at his home … What are you
doing
?’

‘The recipe says a little cider. …’

‘But that’s half a bottle you’ve put in.’

‘That’s a little, isn’t it? A lot would be a full bottle.’

The baby was two weeks overdue.

‘I feel unreasonably annoyed,’ Aisling said as they sat in the flat looking out at the park one July day.

‘Funny, I don’t mind, I feel sort of dreamy and as if it’s borrowed time … oh I do hope that there won’t be anything wrong with it.’

‘You’d have just as much love … or more, they say. But let’s not start preparing for that sort of thing … Mam sent you her love by the way, in today’s letter. And I got one from Dad, too.’

‘What did he want?’

That’s what I wondered, but in fact it was just a chatty letter: your mother tells me that since we’re not going to see you at home in Kilgarret the only way I can keep in
touch
with you is to write to you … I think he always felt guilty when Mam did all the writing to poor Sean in the army and he didn’t.’ Aisling looked suddenly at Elizabeth, whose face was contorted in a kind of grimace. ‘What is it?’

‘That’s the second time … oh, oh. …’

‘Right, get your coat, the case is in the hall.’

‘Henry, what about …?’

‘I’ll telephone him from the hospital, come on.’

‘Suppose we don’t get a taxi …?’

‘Put on that smart summer coat. It was bought for great occasions like this. …’ Aisling ran to the window and leaned out. Four stories below a taxi was passing by. The taxi driver heard the piercing whistle and saw the redhead waving from the window. ‘We’ll be right down,’ she shouted.

He had pulled in outside the main door of the building when they emerged. Taking one look at Elizabeth, he groaned, ‘Blimey, just my luck. Another mad dash to the maternity ward, and I thought I was going to have this gorgeous dolly all to myself.’ He drove very quickly and Aisling held Elizabeth’s hand and said babies were never born in taxis, first babies were always slow in delivering – people always thought that the contractions were faster than they were. ‘You must admit,’ she said to Elizabeth as they turned in the gate of the hospital, ‘you really must admit that I’m very knowledgeable about childbirth for someone who has not even known the delights of sexual intercourse.’

Elizabeth was still laughing when they came to meet her in the corridor.

Henry arrived at the hospital, white-faced. In the waiting room he and Aisling hugged each other.

‘They say it will only be a few minutes now. You’re in time. You’ll see the baby first. I was afraid I would.’

‘It wouldn’t have mattered.’ Henry was stuttering with excitement.

The nurse opened the door.

‘Mr Mason …?’

‘Yes, yes, is she all right?’

‘She’s fine, she’s perfect, she wants to show you your beautiful daughter.

‘Eileen,’ said Henry.

‘Eileen,’ said Aisling.

Eileen was the most beautiful baby in the world. Anyone could see that. She was also the best-tempered.

‘Did all those Brendan Ogs and Patrick Ogs look like this?’ Elizabeth asked as she stared with adoration at the sleeping bundle in her arms.

‘Nothing at all like this. They had red, bad-tempered Daly faces looking for notice and attention, and pushing their way on in the world at the age of one day. Eileen is gentle and well bred. You can see that. Look at her expression.’

They looked at the perfect little face and Aisling traced her finger lightly over the tiny hands with their little nails.

‘It’s impossible to think of her ever doing anything remotely bad, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose they thought that about us too when we were born.’

‘Well, we didn’t do much bad did we? We had a bit of bad luck along the way and we coped with it. That’s all we did.’

‘Yes, that’s all we did. Are you listening Eileen? That is all your mother and your Aunt Aisling did.’

‘I can’t understand what you’re having her christened for if you don’t believe any of it.’

‘It’s so hard to explain. It doesn’t mean that people want to believe all of it, it’s just a nice tradition.’

‘But it’s a real thing, you know, baptism opening the floodgates of grace.’

‘I thought you believed Protestant baptisms didn’t count,’ Elizabeth laughed.

‘They do and they don’t. They do if you can’t have the real thing, though maybe in your case you have a duty to get her the real thing. After all you were brought up in the Catholic faith by me for five years.’

‘I know, and it terrified me to death.’

‘So this is only a social affair, is it?’

‘Social and ceremony really. Ceremony and tradition – I think that sums it up.’

‘Right. What kind of eats will we serve for ceremony and tradition? Roast beef of Olde England?’

‘No, you idiot. Elegant hors d’oeuvres, things that can
be
eaten in one hand while champagne is clenched in the other.’

‘Who will be there?’

‘Most of the wedding crowd.’

‘Will Harry come?’

‘Certainly he will, I’m not going to put up with a lot of old-womanish nonsense from Henry and Father. Certainly he’ll come. He can stay at Stefan’s if that makes everyone feel better. No, he can’t, he can stay here like he did the last time. And I won’t have Father being brave about it, and noble.’

‘You are marvellous Elizabeth … I wish there were somebody in Kilgarret who would smooth my path home like you smooth Harry’s.’

‘I’ve told you a dozen times … there’s nobody keeping you away from Kilgarret except yourself.’

‘So you say. Now let’s think about food. Will we do it ourselves and say we got caterers?’

‘Or shall we get caterers and say we did it ourselves?’

Dear Aisling,

I know, I know, I’m the one that didn’t write to you. But I didn’t know what to say. Apparently even Eamonn sent you a birthday card. I didn’t know. I thought you were in disgrace. Anyway it turns out that you write more letters than St Paul. So I’m sorry, I’ve been away so much and so involved in other things that people didn’t tell me things. Eamonn knows nothing. Donal’s like a lovesick calf, Maureen
spends
her whole time giving out to me for even existing so she’s not any help, Mam always thinks of you as her pet and she won’t talk about you at all.

Anyway, I didn’t write to apologise or to whinge and whine, I wrote because I think Mam looks
awful
. Nobody else will tell you that in their letters because they don’t notice. I only come home now and then so I’ve seen an awful change in her. She’s got very thin, and looks kind of sallow. She doesn’t eat much and sometimes sits down suddenly as if she had a pain. I may be exaggerating it, but I suddenly thought last night if it was me that upped and left and nobody told me that Mam was looking badly, I’d feel very cross.

I don’t know what to say about the whole other thing, I really don’t. I suppose it’s like when a love affair ends only worse because there’s all the fuss and bother. Don’t tell Mam I wrote, she’d be very annoyed, she gets sharp with me if I tell her she’s looking badly. And I’m not saying it to make you feel guilty so that you’ll come home. If things were bad you were quite right to go, and Donal thinks that too. But you might be the one to persuade her to go to a doctor … she listens to you.

Imagine Elizabeth having a child so quickly, she must be disgusted. I thought that there were no unplanned babies born in England these days, she must still have her Kilgarret training rooted in her.

Love, Niamh

*

‘Just enough to worry us to death and not enough to tell us what might be wrong,’ fumed Aisling when she read the letter. Ten months of silence and then this. Isn’t she really unspeakable?’

‘If it’s such a village,’ Johnny said, ‘why can’t you ask someone you know and trust to go and have a look at her and tell you honestly?’

‘That’s harder than you think, rumours start. … It’s probably nothing, Niamh sounds as if she just got the idea into her head and wrote it while she was still thinking about it.’ They were sitting in the Manchester Street flat having little cups of china tea which Johnny said was an elegant thing to do: he had shown her what kind of cups to serve it in and she had now quite taken to the notion of sipping tea that smelt of perfume and which you put no milk in.

‘Yes, I’m sure it’s all a bit overdramatic.’ Johnny got up and stretched. Aisling remembered that Elizabeth had always said that about him. He didn’t like to talk about unpleasant things.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said putting away Niamh’s letter.

Johnny smiled, stretched again like a cat and sat down. ‘What will we do tonight?’ he asked.

‘It’s my bridge night,’ she said.

‘Oh tell them you can’t go …?’

It was a big decision. She telephoned Henry and said she had to go out suddenly. Someone had turned up out of the blue.

‘Why didn’t you say you were going out with me?’ Johnny asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Aisling honestly, ‘I just didn’t.’

Mrs Moriarty wrote to Aisling a long reassuring letter; she had been into the shop, and though Eileen looked a bit wishy-washy the light there was never good at the best of times. She had made an excuse and called to the house in the square too. Eileen had been in fine form, full of chat about young Donal and Anna Barry. Not a complaint out of her. Mrs Moriarty had asked quite specifically how Eileen had been feeling and had discovered that she had been feeling in top form. Mrs Moriarty said that Aisling was a good daughter to be so concerned but she really mustn’t worry. Mrs Moriarty said she would tell no one of the enquiry, not even Donal, who had become like a son to them. She ended by saying that she was praying that Aisling’s problems and worries would be sorted out satisfactorily, and in the meantime, Aisling should rest assured that the Good Lord always looked after people in His Own Way.

Niamh wrote a short letter and said that Mam said she had been feeling a bit under the weather but she was much better now. She had been to Doctor Murphy and got some good tablets. And she did look a lot better.

I’m writing to tell you all this because it’s silly to write and tell you the alarming news without writing back when the news stops being alarming. Thanks for not upsetting everyone about it. Or maybe you
were
too busy over there to be able to get in touch. I hear you work as a receptionist in some specialist’s place. Tim and I will be going to London some time before Christmas for a weekend. Could we have a bit of the floor in your place? We’ve got sheepskin jackets so we won’t need much in the way of bedclothes. I’ll let you know nearer the time.

I hear Tony has gone off to England to learn more about the business. Diversification, is what Mrs Murray told Anna Barry’s mother. Whatever that means. But of course you probably know all this already. I suppose you know that Donal and Anna are thinking of buying the ring. Or so I hear from other people. I find that the older I grow the less people tell you. Or maybe it’s just Kilgarret. Or maybe it’s just me. Look after yourself and see you in December for two nights, if that’s all right.

Love, Niamh.

Johnny took her to the ballet one night and to a little Greek restaurant another night.

‘I never knew people had wines like this,’ said Aisling happily. ‘What’s it called again?’

‘Retsina. It’s a special way they have of making wine.’

‘Have you been to Greece?’

‘Yes, it’s terrific, I’m going to go again next summer. You should come with me. You’d love it, I thought the Squire would have taken you to the Greek islands. I thought that was the kind of thing squires did.’