The Bright One (30 page)

The thought which came immediately to Breda when she wakened in the morning was that she didn't know where she was. This was not her bedroom in Luke's house, nothing like it. Her second thought, when she had remembered, was that the house was totally silent. Where was everyone?

She looked at the small gilt clock on the chest of drawers, Mammy's parting gift. Horrors! Half-past nine! She jumped out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, shuffled into her slippers and hurried downstairs.

Auntie Josie was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. ‘There you are!' she said pleasantly. ‘I hope you slept well.'

‘Like a log,' Breda said. ‘I'm sorry to be so late down. Where is everyone?'

‘Brendan goes off early. Tony is still asleep. Goodness knows when he'll surface. As for Grandma, she's still in bed and hopefully asleep. I like to get a few jobs done before she starts nagging.'

‘So what can I do?' Breda asked.

‘Well, for a start you can make a fresh pot of tea for you and me, since you've brought tea with you from Kilbally. And get yourself some bread and plum jam. You'll find everything you need on the dresser there. I hope bread and jam will suit. If I have eggs, or a rasher or two, I tend to give them to the menfolk.'

‘Bread and jam is what I have at home,' Breda said. ‘Sometimes cereal because of Luke having the shop.'

‘So how is Luke? And how is your Mammy?'

Josephine put the question cautiously. She knew the situation only insofar as Molly had told her in letters, and that didn't include much of Breda's side of it. She didn't even know whether the girl had wanted to come to Akersfield – or even to leave Ireland. Molly had made all the arrangements, and perhaps that had been as well to start with. She didn't want to have to take sides.

‘Oh, they're both well, thank you.'

‘And are they happy together?'

Breda wished her aunt had not asked that question. ‘They seem to be,' she said grudgingly.

‘Then that's good, isn't it?'

All right for them, Breda thought.

‘Now, can I ask you a question, love?' Without waiting for permission Josephine did so. ‘Did you want to come here to Akersfield? In fact, did you want to leave Kilbally? Tell me the truth, then we'll both know where we are. You won't hurt my feelings if you say you didn't want to come, you were just sent.'

Like a parcel, Breda thought. And indeed hadn't there been times when she'd felt like one?

‘I wouldn't ever have wanted to leave Kilbally if Mammy hadn't married Luke O'Reilly. How could she do that? He's not a bit like Dada.'

Which was just as well, Josephine reckoned. Married to James O'Connor, Molly would have been a poverty-stricken slave for the rest of her life. Luke O'Reilly – and hadn't she after all known him longer than Molly had? – was a far better prospect as a husband. But young people didn't see it like that. They looked for romance, and never mind reality.

‘He's no worse for that,' she said. ‘I know you thought a lot of your Dada, and so did your Mammy, but Luke's another person. He's his own man.'

‘I wasn't needed,' Breda said. ‘Mammy had always needed me, then suddenly she didn't.'

I warned Molly, didn't I warn her, Josephine thought! Hadn't she always kept Breda too close to her side, right from being a little one? She wouldn't ever let her go because she was the youngest and the last.

It was a feeling she understood. She didn't want Tony to go. She'd had him when she thought she'd never have another child. In fact, though she hadn't told anyone, she'd been pregnant with him when her two eldest had left for America. He was the apple of her eye and she wanted to keep him, but she knew it was a feeling which had to be watched. Brendan often accused her of spoiling him, of being too lenient with him. He reckoned three years in the Army would do him the world of good.

‘Nobody needs me, actually
needs
me,' Breda said. It was a strange feeling.

Josephine smiled at her niece. ‘Nay love, you mustn't think like that. You're a pleasure to those who know you. And you're young yet. There's plenty time. But you mustn't feel sorry for yourself. That's no way to be.'

‘You're right,' Breda said. ‘I'll try not to be.'

‘And you haven't answered my question,' Josephine said. ‘Did you choose to come to Akersfield?'

‘Oh, indeed I did,' Breda assured her. ‘If I can't be in Kilbally I'd rather be with you than with anyone else.'

She was not too sure about the rest of the family. Grandma didn't like her, and there was something about Brendan. Did he resent her? Tony was all right, though.

‘What did Tony do? I mean, before he went into the Army?' she asked.

‘He was a gardener,' Josephine said. ‘He worked in Sutherland Park. You can see it from the back of the house. He wanted to be head gardener, and he reckoned he had a good chance in a year or two, but the man who had the job before he was called up has come back, and got his job back. Which is only right of course, though it means our Tony can't ever be head gardener there. So he joined up. But he'll not stick fast. He'll make something of himself, Tony will. He's ambitious.'

‘Does he have a girl-friend?'

Josephine looked at her keenly. ‘He has a dozen on a string, love!'

She was quite pleased by that. Safety in numbers. ‘I don't know that he favours one over the others,' she added.

She drank the last of her tea, then twirled the cup around and peered into its depths.

‘Oh, Auntie Josie!' Breda exclaimed. ‘I'd forgotten you read the tea leaves. Will you read mine?'

‘I shouldn't do it at all,' Josephine admitted. ‘A good Catholic doesn't believe in such things, as I'm sure you know. But there you are, I only do it for fun!'

That was not strictly true. Sometimes she saw amazing things in the bottom of teacups, though mostly other people's, seldom her own.

‘Oh please!' Breda begged.

‘Go on then,' Josephine said. ‘Give it here.'

Breda twirled her cup, poured the dregs of tea into the saucer, then handed the cup to her aunt. Josephine studied the tea leaves, turning the cup this way and that, frowning in concentration.

‘It's a busy scene,' she said at last. ‘A lot of people and you're in the middle of them. I don't recognize anybody – except – wait a minute – there's a woman here. She looks important. I don't think I know her . . . '

‘Then it can't be Mammy,' Breda said.

‘Don't interrupt, Breda love,' Josephine said. ‘I can't concentrate if you interrupt . . . '

‘I'm sorry!'

‘There! It's gone! The woman's the last to go, though. Can you think who she could be?'

‘I can't,' Breda confessed. Truth to tell, she was disappointed. She had hoped her aunt would see a handsome man and lots of riches.

‘I'd best get back to peeling the potatoes,' Josephine said. ‘You can wash these cups if you've a mind to. So did you enjoy yourself in Dublin?'

After leaving Kilbally, Breda had gone to visit her family in Dublin before taking the boat for England.

‘I did so,' she said. ‘I was able to see Kathleen, though not Kieran because he was in retreat, and I stayed the night with Moira and Barry.'

‘And how are the children?' Josephine asked. ‘Still only the two?'

‘That's right. And they're lovely. I wonder, how long will it be before I see my godson again?'

‘Well now, doesn't that depend on how long you decide to stay here?'

Nothing had
really
been said about that, whether she was there for a short or long visit, or for ever. They would have to see how it worked out. It was not plain sailing.

I could never have stayed with Moira, Breda thought, and certainly not with Barry. Every time he came near her he ran his hands down her back or across her shoulders, or stroked the back of her neck. She would never feel comfortable with Barry in the house.

A loud knock on the ceiling interrupted her thoughts. Josephine raised her eyes to heaven.

‘There she goes! That's the gracious way Grandma informs me she's ready for her breakfast. Still, I like it better that way, me taking it up instead of her coming down. It gives me a few more minutes on my own, and I don't get many of those, I can tell you!'

The knocking began again. Josephine went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted, ‘I'll be up in two minutes.'

‘When she's finished her breakfast I help her to the bathroom,' she told Breda. ‘Though it's my opinion she can do it perfectly well herself. But I'm all for a quiet life. You can have plenty of arguments without looking for them. And you'd best go into the bathroom while you've got a chance. Once Grandma takes over she's there for ever and a day. Anyway, when I've seen to her and got her downstairs you and me are going into the town. We need to go to the Food Office to see about a ration book for you.'

‘I'd like to do that,' Breda said. She would feel more comfortable not eating other people's rations, though such a thought, living in Luke's household with all the benefits of a shop full of food, had never entered her head before.

‘Can you leave Grandma?' she asked.

‘Oh yes,' Josephine replied. ‘She's not as helpless as she makes out. In any case I have to. I'd go mad if I didn't get out now and again.'

Breda was quite impressed by the centre of Akersfield, though the traffic was horrendous. There were scores of shops which she hoped in due time she would visit. There were two cinemas, outside which she paused, entranced to read the programmes; at one of them Bob Hope, at the other, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in
Bells of St Mary's
. She had seen neither. You could wait nearly for ever in Kilbally.

‘You like the pictures, do you?' Josephine asked.

‘Oh yes! Didn't I see every film that I ever could?'

Would Auntie Josie let her come into town to go to a cinema on her own? Or perhaps Tony would take her if he was on leave long enough. ‘When does Tony go back?' she asked.

‘Tomorrow afternoon,' Josephine said. She would miss him badly. She didn't like to think of him in the heathen South – Sussex it was. And as well as that, young men should be getting on with their careers, not playing at soldiers; which was all they were doing, because the war was over.

‘We shall have to get back,' she said when they'd been to the Food Office. ‘It's more than my life's worth not to be back to make Grandma's dinner. Thank goodness Brendan doesn't come home in the middle of the day. He's content to take a sandwich and have a proper meal at teatime.'

Back at Waterloo Terrace Grandma Maguire was at the front window, watching out for them. When she saw them nearing the gate she retreated to her armchair.

‘You've been a long time gone!' she called out the minute they set foot in the door. ‘I don't hold with all this traipsing around town, spending money.'

‘As it happens,' Josephine said, ‘the only money we've spent, apart from our bus fares, was a little treat for you. I bought you a custard tart from Clark's. And what are you doing sitting in the front room? I thought you didn't like it in here.'

‘If other people are fine enough to sit in the front room, then so am I!' Grandma Maguire gave Breda a baleful look.

‘Suit yourself,' Josephine said evenly. ‘Though you'll have to come into the kitchen when your dinner's ready. I'm not serving meals in here.'

‘You could light a bit of a fire in here,' Grandma said. ‘You know I feel the cold.'

‘No I couldn't,' Josephine replied. ‘We don't have the coal.'

She went into the kitchen, followed by Breda.

‘She's always on about spending money,' she said. ‘I wouldn't care, only she keeps every penny of her pension, not a sausage goes into the housekeeping purse. She reckons Brendan should be pleased to keep her for nothing to repay her for bringing him into the world.'

‘What does Uncle Brendan say?' Breda asked.

‘Not much. But then he doesn't have to keep house, does he? He has no idea what things cost, and he doesn't want to know neither.'

‘I want to talk to you about that,' Breda said. ‘I've got a little bit of money I've saved, so I'll be able to give you some, and then I'll find a job and pay you regularly. I don't want to sponge on you.'

‘Good heavens!' Josephine exclaimed. ‘Who's talking about sponging? Can't I give my niece a few weeks' hospitality without taking money for it? Of course, if you're planning on staying, you'll want to get a job. You'd go mad hanging around here all day long, listening to Grandma. But there's no hurry, love. You can take your time.'

Breda shook her head. ‘I intend to look for a job right away. I just want a bit of advice on how to go about it.'

Josephine turned the gas out under the soup she was heating. ‘We'll talk about it later,' she said. ‘For now you could go and fetch Grandma in while I cut some bread.'

‘Does she need help?'

‘It depends what mood she's in. Either she'll be a frail old lady who can't walk a step on her own or she'll bark at you for suggesting she's not capable of crossing a room. Either way, you can't win.'

Although her aunt's words were sharp her tone was mild, tolerant, as if she had learned to take it all for granted, to live with it.

With some trepidation Breda returned to the front room. ‘Dinner's ready, Grandma! Can I be giving you a hand?'