Light A Penny Candle (71 page)

‘This squire took me to the pubs of Rome twice and that was it. So Greece is still to come.’

‘It’s a date,’ Johnny said lightly.

‘Can I pay for the meal tonight, you’ve spent a lot?’

‘No, no, heavens no.’

‘What can I do to repay you?’

‘Ask me to supper in that tasteful flat that I practically furnished for you.’

‘Of course. When?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Hallo, Elizabeth, is it a bad time?’

‘No, no of course not. I’m just putting her into the cot, Conchita has arrived.’

‘Oh yes, you’re off to the college.’

‘I hate leaving her actually, very boring and Mumsy suddenly. I thought wouldn’t it be great if I could put her in a sling over my arm?’

‘I don’t see why not, in the art college they should be nice and Bohemian now. They’d accept it.’

‘
They
might, but it’s pouring with rain, she might drown on the way there. How are you?’

‘I wanted to ask you something. It’s a bit awkward. …’

‘Go on, what is it?’

‘Well, it’s a bit childish, but Johnny asked himself to supper in my flat tonight.’

‘Yes?’

‘And I was wondering … I wondered did you mind?’

‘Mind what?’

‘His coming to the flat.’

‘Heavens above, hasn’t he been going to the flat since the day you found it, haven’t we all? Why should I mind?’

‘Well, just him and me, in case … God, this sounds silly, in case there was any lingering anything, you know?’

‘I
see
,’ Elizabeth said, emphatically. ‘Oh, I
see
. No, Guide’s honour, and cross my heart and hope to die, the coast is clear. …’

‘And I’m not …?’

‘Treading on any broken hearts? No, not at all. Go ahead. With all the usual warnings.’

‘It’s nothing like that, it’s just that. …’

‘I know, and you don’t have to tell me, but if you do I won’t mind.’

‘There’ll be nothing to tell.’

‘Enjoy yourself.’

‘I hope you don’t mind my taking this extraordinary attitude.’ Aisling was almost purple with embarrassment.

‘Heavens, no, my dear girl, it’s entirely up to you.’

‘It’s just I feel that by asking you to supper I sort of implied that the other was also … on the menu.’

‘No no, shall we have another little drink instead?’

‘Johnny, you’re far too smooth, and like the hero of the film … why aren’t you flustered like I am?’

‘Darling girl, what is there to be flustered about? We
were
kissing each other very delightfully and I suggested that we might go to your bed and kiss further there, and you said you didn’t want to, I said fine, let’s have a little drink instead.’

‘Yes, that’s right, it’s not a matter for getting flustered about.’

‘You’re very pretty flustered.’

‘No, I’m not, my red face clashes with my hair. I’m best when I’m pale with anxiety. I once saw my face in a mirror when I was so anxious about something or other that Tony had done – I can’t remember now – but I looked quite ravishing.’

They had a companionable drink and Johnny left before midnight.

‘It was a lovely meal and a lovely evening.’

‘I’m sorry about the other thing.’

‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll suggest it from time to time – or better still, you do if it occurs to you. Otherwise we won’t worry about it.’

‘Are you going to get the tube back to Earls Court?’ she asked.

He had his address book out. ‘No, love, I think I’ll go and call on a friend, it’s early still.’ He waved at a taxi and was gone.

She went up to her flat which smelt of food and cursed herself for being so stupid. Why could she not have said yes, she would like to have kissed him in her bedroom. Why could she not have learned about making love from a smashing lover like Johnny Stone?

*

‘Nothing happened,’ she told Elizabeth next day on the phone.

‘You forgot to cook dinner?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘No I forgot to go to bed with him,’ she said.

‘He’ll ask you again.’

Ethel Murray had never written a full reply to any of Aisling’s long warm letters. But she did reply when Aisling said she had heard Tony was in England, what possible course could he be doing in ‘diversification’?

I had to say something, Aisling, when people asked me where he was, but in fact Father John was able to use his connections and get Tony into this very nice nursing home. They have a special Catholic chaplain there and mass and confession for all the Catholic patients; others have their own services. I know I’ve pleaded with you long and often to see him, and I understand in a way some of your reasons for not coming back to Kilgarret, but now that he’s in England, over in the same country, could you not go and see him? Make no promises, just go to see him. He’s very bad, Aisling. Doctor Murphy here sent him for some medical tests and he definitely has a liver infection. So this is being treated as well as his craving for drink. That wonderful priest in Waterford has been a great support; he told me, and I believe him, that Tony did not mean to hit you that
night
, that they often do the very reverse of what they would do when sober. It’s just their illness. I enclose the address in hope and prayer that you may find it in your heart to visit him. It’s not near London, it’s more in the North of England. It’s near Preston.

Your loving mother-in-law Ethel Mary Murray

Johnny telephoned and asked her if he could cook supper for her one night the following week.

‘That would be great. What time?’

‘Come earlyish, about seven say. That will give you plenty of time to catch a tube back home – if you want to.’ It couldn’t have been more straightforward, he could hardly have made it more plain.

She wore not only her best dress, but her good slip, and the only panties with lace on them. She even bought a new bra because she thought the one she had was grubby. She put a mouth-freshener and a small talcum powder in her handbag. Then she remembered having made all those preparations for her honeymoon and her heart became like a stone.

Johnny cooked some dish with rice: she couldn’t identify what it was, it tasted like sawdust. The wine was bitter, yet she knew this was all in her mind. After dinner they sipped brandy by his fire and he played ‘Unchained Melody’ over and over on the radiogram. He kissed her several times … and said that they would be more comfortable in the other room.

‘That would be nice,’ she said weakly.

He helped her take off her clothes and kissed her again as she stood in her slip.

‘You won’t believe this, but I’ve never done it before.’

‘I know, I know.’ He was very soothing.

‘No, you don’t know. ‘I’ve never done it at all. Not even when we were married. …’ She didn’t dare look at him. ‘That was part of the problem. He didn’t, he couldn’t … so I never. …’

Johnny folded her in his arms very tightly and stroked her hair. ‘Poor Aisling, stop trembling, it’s all right, it’s all right.’

‘I’m very sorry, I should have told you before … at my age it’s ridiculous.’

‘Poor Aisling.’ He stroked her hair and held her to him. He was so nice and kind she could hardly believe it.

‘So if you’d prefer us to get dressed and forget it, if it would all be a lot of work for you. …’

‘Stop burbling, Aisling.’ He stroked her hair still, she felt safe and happy in his arms. ‘Whatever you like my sweetheart,’ he said. ‘If you’d like to stay with me, that’s wonderful. If you want to go home, of course home you go.’

‘I’d like to stay with you,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Then we’ll just take it very easily, very gently,’ he said. ‘You’re so beautiful Aisling, you’re so lovely – I’m very glad to be the first.’ He held her tight to him and she could feel his heart beating.

She was glad he was the first too.

She lay and looked at him as he slept.

It had been so gentle and natural and as if it had been meant to be like that always. In fact it seemed ridiculous to kiss and stroke someone without fitting exactly together with them like that. It had been so lovely to think she was giving pleasure only by welcoming him towards her.

To think how worried she had always been about this. She must have been very silly and immature. There was nothing awkward. No shame, no awful moment of when you did and when you didn’t.

Suppose she had met Johnny years ago, years and years ago when it had all been groping and shoving and awkward and rough? Suppose she had always known this kind of loving, that it was there at the back of her mind? Then surely she would have been less hopeless. How great to have been able to love somebody properly, to have been part of this lovely man. If only it had happened to her long long ago, when she was a young girl.

Like it had happened to Elizabeth, she remembered suddenly. Then she looked at the sleeping Johnny and put that very firmly out of her mind.

XIX

AISLING FOUND THAT
being a doctors’ receptionist was not very challenging. She welcomed the patients as they came in, settling them in the elegant waiting room with its highly-polished furniture and copies of
Country Life
and
The Field
on the huge table. She kept three immaculate appointment books, the card indexes and a detailed day by day book in three different-coloured pens, so that any of the doctors could look back and see what had related to him on any given day.

They were very pleased with her and each one of them told her separately that when she had taken two weeks’ holiday at Christmas there had been utter chaos. The temporary girl had confused everything, and had not been able to follow Aisling’s simple system.

‘Maybe I’ve become an old retainer, a treasure … wonderful Old Miss O’Connor.’ Aisling smiled.

They hastily assured her that she didn’t seem at all old to them.

‘They have absolutely no sense of humour, that’s what’s
wrong
with them,’ Aisling said to Elizabeth and Henry as she was doing one of her impersonations. ‘But I suppose if I was raking in all the money they are, I wouldn’t have time for a giggle either, I’d be too busy counting it and gloating over it.’

‘Do they make a lot?’ Henry was interested.

‘A fortune,’ Aisling said firmly. ‘I don’t write it up, of course, they have a book-keeper – as well they might. I leave all the information there in the files: who came, what was wrong, what happened, what was prescribed … then they work out some enormous fees. They have two sets of books, one for the income tax and one for themselves. I know that because I saw the book-keeper working once. Funny little woman – she looks like someone’s granny, not a fiddler.’

‘That’s very unfair of them,’ Henry said, it’s most unjust – if they make so much anyway why are they unwilling to pay taxes on it?’ Henry was getting quite worked up about the doctors now.

‘Henry, we’re not going to cure the corruption in Harley Street – or any other street. As Aisling, said, everyone’s doing it. Just because we don’t, it doesn’t mean the world is like us. Here, take your beautiful daughter from me for a while; I must go and do some work on this year’s art course or we’ll not earn enough money to pay taxes on.’ She smiled and handed Eileen over.

Henry took the baby absently, still looking upset. ‘We earn enough money, I’ve had a rise. We manage. You don’t need to do the art course this year.’

‘But I
do
. We discussed it. Apart from liking it and wanting to do it, it really does bring in a nice little sum. …’ She turned to Aisling apologetically. ‘Why don’t you and your chap Johnny join up, then I’d know I had two pupils anyway?’

Elizabeth had meant it as a joke, but Aisling answered her seriously. ‘I was going to do just that, I thought it might educate me a little … but Johnny said I would only confuse myself and tie my already garbled brain up into more knots.’

Elizabeth laughed easily. ‘Oh yes, I know, pathetic once-weekly culture-seekers … middle-class aspirations …
Readers’ Digest
condensed art lessons. …’

Aisling burst out laughing. ‘He told you he said all that to me?’

‘Aisling, Johnny has been saying that for years. He has always been wrong but he never changes his tune. Still, suit yourself. You’re missing the chance of a lifetime, isn’t she, Henry.’

‘What?’ Henry was still annoyed. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t listening.’

Elizabeth kissed Henry suddenly. ‘If I hadn’t had my art course,’ she said, ‘I’d never have found you, think about that.’

‘Yes, but if you keep on having art courses, maybe you’ll find another one.’ Henry was almost good-humoured.

‘That’s the only reason I keep holding them, you know that!’

*

Aisling and Elizabeth pushed the pram through Battersea Park. Eileen was so wrapped up it was hard to see how she could get any benefit from the spring sunshine. Still, Aisling said, it was doing the grown-ups no harm to have a bit of exercise. As usual, they stopped at a bench for a cigarette.

‘Undoing the good of the healthy walk,’ Aisling would say, lighting up happily.

‘Does Johnny not try to get you to give them up?’

‘Oh, I smoke very little with him, one after a meal, and I’m forever brushing my teeth. He doesn’t go on at me so much now. Anyway, it’s only a phase, he’ll go back on them.’

‘No,’ said Elizabeth, ‘it’s not a phase, everything he does he means. He won’t go back on them.’

‘It hasn’t made any difference, between us, my being with Johnny?’ Aisling asked.

‘No, no, of course it hasn’t. I mean that.’

‘Yes, I know you said from the start … and I know you don’t have regrets or anything. After all, it was you that gave him up.’

‘Yes, in a way. …’

‘Does it bring it all back, you know, the good bits, the start, when you see me with him, when I talk about it all? You see. … it’s the only thing I’m not sure about. …’

‘About what, about me?’

‘Yes, I know how you feel for Henry and Eileen and I know almost every corner of your life as you do mine …
but
I don’t know about Johnny. If you cared for him so much once how had it turned into a sort of joky friendship by the time I came over here?’