Light A Penny Candle (74 page)

‘Good, I’ll settle the baby down and I’ll come down too. Tell me what to do that would help.’

‘Oh you’ll know, talk, laugh, keep people’s spirits up.’

‘
Laugh?
’

‘A bit, it’s always a great help if it’s not too solemn, it’s unnatural with people making formal speeches.’

The undertakers took Eileen’s coffin out at five o’clock
that
evening. The family followed slowly, heads down. All around the square people stood respectfully. Men had taken their hats and caps off. People blessed themselves as the coffin passed, carried by the four undertakers. People getting off the bus stopped to let the procession pass by and blessed themselves also. It wound up the hill to the church, where the bell was tolling in the most unsuitable way for a warm summer day.

They stood around the coffin at the back of the church for what seemed like hours and hours. The whole town of Kilgarret filed by one by one and shook their hands.

‘She was a great woman.’

‘She was a marvellous wife and mother.’

‘You’ll all miss her, she was a fine woman.’

‘She never had a hard word to say for anyone.’

‘And this isn’t the funeral you say?’ Elizabeth whispered in amazement to Aisling.

‘Of course it’s not. Tomorrow’s the funeral. This is just the bringing to the church.’

Cousins and customers came back to sympathise with Sean; tea and sandwiches and whisky for the men were served. People stayed until eleven o’clock.

The room where Eileen had slept and died had been cleaned and aired and the signs of illness had been taken away.

‘Do you think Dad should sleep in that room tonight? What do you think?’ Maureen asked Aisling.

Already she was in charge. Maureen was the eldest after all, but you’d never know it.

‘Yes, of course, he will. Didn’t he sleep there all the time Mam was ill, in the little bed? And won’t he have to sleep there for the rest of his life? Peggy has all the signs of Mam’s illness gone, she’s got a grand fresh bed, of course Dad’ll sleep there. That’s his room.’ She went and took Dad by the shoulders and brought him upstairs.

‘It’s very hard to believe,’ he said.

‘I know Dad.’

‘There’s not much point in doing anything, you know, in going on. I can’t see any reason for doing anything, getting up, going to work. …’

Aisling looked at him, bent and much older than his sixty-odd years. ‘Well, I must say, Mam would love to hear that kind of talk and her not a day dead, and not even buried yet. She’d be thrilled to hear that kind of attitude. What did she work for all those years?’

‘You’re right child.’ He straightened up. ‘I’ll go to bed now.’

‘I’ll look in, in ten minutes, to see are you all right.’ When she came back he lay, a lonely figure, in the big bed, with his pink and grey pyjamas buttoned up to his neck. There were tears on his face and he was looking straight ahead of him.

‘She was a very good wife.’

Aisling sat on the bed and patted his hand. ‘Weren’t the two of you lucky that you had such a marriage for thirty-six years? Not many have that much Dad, try to see it that way.’

‘I will, I will, I’ll try.’

‘What was the worst bit, do you think?’ Aisling’s eyes were red and sore. They sat in the bedroom with a large glass of whisky each beside them.

‘I think that old woman saying that Eileen used to give her food for the children when they were babies. I can see Eileen doing that so easily, with no fuss.’

‘Yes, and poor Jemmy from the shop, I thought that was terrible. He kept wiping his nose with his sleeve and saying the poor mistress won’t be back, she won’t be back.’ They both took a big gulp.

‘If you think that’s bad, Elizabeth, wait till tomorrow. That’ll be terrible altogether.’

Elizabeth dreamed that Johnny came to Kilgarret and told them that Eileen wasn’t dead, it had all been a mistake. Aisling dreamed that Mam had said she should marry Johnny and bring him back to Kilgarret to help Dad in the shop. They both woke up tired and slightly hung over. And now the funeral.

More flowers had arrived for the coffin, and this time there was a choir in the church. The family sat in the front right-hand pew. Elizabeth kept studying the little plaque in brass which was screwed on to the back of the seat that she leaned against.
Pray for the Friends and Relations of Rose McCarthy departed this life January 2nd 1925 R.I.P
. She wondered would they arrange a plaque for Aunt Eileen and in years to come would some holy people kneel
there
in the church and pray for the friends and relations of Eileen O’Connor? She kept thinking about the plaque: it took her mind off the coffin with all the flowers on it which was only a few yards away at the altar steps.

Aisling had often wondered how people could bear the sadness of seeing a body go down into the ground. Why didn’t they say goodbye at the gates of the cemetery and let the undertakers do the rest? But when Mam’s body came to the churchyard she knew why. You had to go the whole way, and finish off the life with the person. She watched, drained now of all emotion, while they took the flowers from the coffin and laid them gently on each side of the grave. Then, tenderly and softly, as if Mam might still feel the pain, they lowered the coffin down. Then Dad took the first clay and threw it down. It was filled in and the flowers were put back on top and the people moved away, to Maher’s or to Hanrahan’s or to the hotel for a drink. And a lot of them came back to the square where, this time, there were plates of cold ham and cold chicken and salad, presided over from the kitchen by Peggy, who never stopped crying all the time. Her tears even fell into the milk jug and she sniffed and said that if the mistress were alive, the Lord have mercy on her, she’d drop stone dead to see such carry-on in her kitchen.

They had been fifteen days away. Eileen had only lived ten days of the two weeks she had been given. Henry came to the airport to meet them. He was overjoyed to see little
Eileen
and swore that she had got bigger in the time she had been away. Henry was very sympathetic and when Elizabeth and Aisling told him about some of the scenes in Kilgarret his eyes filled with tears.

‘Come home and stay with us,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Don’t go home to an empty flat. It would be much better if you came back to us.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Henry kindly. ‘It’s too soon, you’ll only fret.’

‘No, honestly I’d prefer it. I think I’d like to get myself settled in. Anyway, Johnny will probably be around, I’ll let him know I’m back.’

‘Oh, Johnny’s gone to Greece,’ said Henry. ‘He told me last Friday, there was a chance of a group going on the Sunday so he went with them. He sends you both his love.’

‘She seemed very upset that Johnny had gone to Greece without letting her know,’ Henry said later.

‘Yes, well, she’s upset anyway for a start … and he’s very callous, Johnny, for another thing. Once you realise that, it doesn’t affect you, but Aisling doesn’t realise it yet.’

‘When did you realise it about him?’ Henry was diffident in asking, he didn’t want to pry.

‘Oh, I think I knew from very early on. But I agreed to live with it. Aisling has more spirit than I have. I don’t think she’ll accept things so easily. …’

‘So what will happen?’

‘The affair will end, and then I promised her mother that I would try to persuade her to go back to Kilgarret.’

‘How precise women are,’ said Henry.

*

Later still, when they had put Eileen back into her own cradle, Elizabeth said, ‘You’re worried about something. What is it?’

‘I didn’t mean to burden you the moment you came home.’

‘I’m well home now. What is it.’

‘It’s so unfair, that’s what it is. I don’t mind the act itself, it’s the sheer injustice I can’t stand.’ Henry looked very upset and Elizabeth was alarmed. ‘I could see it happening, I told you, I told you, I said, I don’t believe a word they say. I was right. I knew they were never going to hire a junior, it was too pat.’ It was a complicated and troubled tale of office politics. There had been a vacancy, the most natural thing would have been to hire a young solicitor, somebody just qualified who would come in at the bottom and be trained in the general work of the practice. But that was not what had happened. Instead, a man of Henry’s age had been appointed, a man who had come from Scotland specially – and you don’t come all the way from Scotland without some promises, some understandings. He and Henry were going to share an office, he and Henry would deal with the conveyancing work – together.

Oh, the senior partner had made fine speeches about the work having grown, the need having doubled. But anyone with half an eye could see what had happened.

Elizabeth listened with her heart heavy. She had heard this kind of story before. Often. From Father.

XX

JOHNNY HAD A
marvellous sun-tan when he got back from Greece, and his hair had grown longer. Stefan told him he looked like a proper teddy boy, but Elizabeth, who was in the shop, said it suited him.

‘Tell me all about it … was the sea really as blue as it was on all those postcards you sent?’

‘I’m awful, I didn’t send any cards at all,’ Johnny laughed, sounding not at all repentant. He told her some light-hearted tales of a minibus which had taken them all precariously to Greece and back; of Susie, who had driven it most of the way and who could speak Greek and catch fish with her hands. Susie. Elizabeth thought about the name.
Susie
. She wondered if it would send little knife-stabs of pain into Aisling the way it used to do to her.

‘How did it all go over there?’ Johnny jerked his head. ‘Was it harrowing?’

‘It was terribly sad, really heartbreaking, but harrowing – no. They make much more of a thing of funerals than we do.’

‘Oh, Irish wakes and all that.’

‘No.’ Elizabeth was annoyed.

‘Sorry.’ Johnny was puzzled. ‘I don’t seem to please anyone today, I telephoned Aisling to tell her I was back and she was very bad-tempered.’

‘Well her mother
has
just died.’

‘I know, but I said, would you like it if I come around and cook you some Greek food tonight?’

‘And?’

‘And she told me what to do with my Greek cooking, frying pan and all. I wonder if they were all listening in Harley Street.’

Elizabeth gave a scream of laughter. ‘Did she really? Isn’t she marvellous?’

‘Bloody hell, marvellous? She’s a madwoman.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I’ll rethink my position.’

Perhaps that’s what she should have done all those years ago? But then, thank heavens she hadn’t. It would be far too exhausting to cope with Johnny’s moods by having equally dramatic moods in return. No, it was just as well she hadn’t been as fiery as Aisling.

Aisling refused an offer of dinner in a French restaurant, and a weekend trip to Brighton; she tore up his single rose with its fern and threw it out the window of her flat. After two days he waylaid her on the street going to work.

‘Might I ask what all these tantrums are about?’

‘Will you let me pass, please?’

‘Aisling, I just want to have dinner with you. What’s all the melodrama for?’

‘Excuse me, you’re getting in my way.’

‘What did I do, tell me, tell me?’

‘You went to Greece without me, you mean bum.’

‘You wouldn’t come with me … you couldn’t. …’

‘And so you went off on your own.’

‘Well of course I did. We’ve no hold on each other, no tie. …’

‘No tie? We’ve no tie? We’re
lovers
, for Christ’s sake, surely that’s some kind of tie …?’

People were beginning to look at them, amused. The handsome, tanned man and the angry redhead shouting at each other before nine o’clock in the morning – it brightened the day for passers-by.

‘Aisling, do shut up. You do what you want and I do what I want … that’s always been the way. …’

‘Good, what I want is to go to work, let me pass, let me pass, or I’ll get a policeman.’

‘Don’t be so childish. …’

‘Officer!’
Aisling called at the top of her voice and a startled young policeman looked around anxiously.

‘This man is preventing me going about my lawful business,’ said Aisling pompously.

‘Oh go to hell!’ shouted Johnny.

‘I feel so stupid, Elizabeth,’ wept Aisling in the kitchen of the Battersea flat. ‘I feel such a big hypocritical fool. Mam isn’t dead ten days and here I am roaring and bawling
over
your ex-boyfriend and asking you ways to get him back.’

‘Oh, it’s easy to get him back,’ Eizabeth said.

‘What will I do? I’ll do anything, anything.’

‘It’s easy, but it’s unfair, you can have him back and play by his rules. He’ll come back if you write him a jolly little note saying sorry for the prima donna act, have now recovered scattered wits. Why don’t I serve you a delicious meal of Irish stew and Guinness, and you can tell me all about your holiday?’

‘And will it all be all right then?’ Aisling was drying her tears.

‘Well, it depends on what you mean by all right. He may have to leave early, because he’s had to see some friend he met in Greece … that would be the pattern.’

‘So I wouldn’t have him back at all.’

‘Well, if you play your cards right you will, the holiday romance will fade, or she’ll want more than he can give … and then if you’re nice and sunny and not making demands he’ll come back to you.’

‘It’s ridiculous, it’s intolerable. Who could put up with that sort of behaviour …?’

‘Well, I did for about seven years. For a quarter of my life, when you come to think of it.’

Simon called on Tuesday night when Henry had gone to a bridge class.

‘You’ve just missed him,’ Elizabeth said.

‘I know, that’s why I came.’ Simon looked so relaxed
and
urbane that Elizabeth decided to play his little game with him.

‘Now am I to take this as a frightfully indiscreet revelation of a forbidden passion for me, or are you arranging a surprise birthday party for Henry in the office?’

‘Neither my dear, I wouldn’t dare to aspire to the first, and as for the second, our stuffy office doesn’t go in for birthdays. No, simply a lonely bachelor wonders where he could possibly find a welcoming cup of coffee and a charming hostess. Thought comes unbidden to brain, wife of colleague, the lovely Elizabeth, and here I am.’