The Bright One (35 page)

Graham was astonished by her refusal. ‘I thought you would enjoy the pictures,' he said. ‘I thought going to the pictures was what everyone around here did in the evenings.'

She flared up at once. ‘Don't be so patronizing! People
do
go to the pictures, but it's not the only thing. They go to dances, concerts; they go to night school; they do all sorts of things. They're not nearly as dull as you make out. Of course I suppose in London it's all very different. Theatres, night-clubs – that sort of thing!'

She realized, to her horror, that she was quarrelling with him. How
could
she? How could she do it? She was stung by the bewilderment on his face.

‘As a matter of fact,' he said, ‘I've never been to a night-club in my life. As a matter of fact,
I
like going to the pictures. I wasn't being the least bit patronizing. I don't know what's got into you, Breda, but why don't you get off your high horse and say you'll come with me? It's Gregory Peck,
Duel in the Sun
.'

Not only was she ashamed of herself, she was tempted. Wasn't Gregory Peck her first favourite in the whole world?

‘But if you'd rather go to night school and learn to speak Chinese, then I'll go with you,' Graham said.

Her black mood vanished. Let the future take care of itself! ‘You are an idiot,' she said. ‘But yes, I'd like to go to the pictures. And I'm sorry.'

‘Right,' he said. ‘We'll go tomorrow. I'll call for you at seven o'clock.'

‘I'll meet you in the foyer,' Breda said quickly.

‘Oh no you won't,' he said. ‘I shall call for you, in the proper manner.'

She was ready long before seven o'clock. She had changed into a green skirt and jacket and a cream blouse, all of which she had made before she'd left Kilbally. Graham, she thought, had never seen her in anything other than her plain black work dress with its demure white collar. She pinned up her hair on the top of her head in a sophisticated style and, as a final touch, added a pair of silver-coloured earrings in the shape of fishes. Do I look all right, she asked herself, studying herself in the mirror, or do I look tarty?

Either way, it was too late to do anything about it, because wasn't that a ring at the door, and who else could it be but Graham? He had no business to be early. She had planned to answer the door herself, and to leave with him on the same instant, not even asking him in. Now, by the time she had re-powdered her nose and added a touch more lipstick, Auntie Josie had already answered the door and ushered Graham into the kitchen where everyone, Maureen and Kate included, was waiting to set eyes on him.

‘I'm sorry to keep you waiting,' Breda said, joining them.

‘You haven't,' Graham said. ‘I'm early.'

They were unashamedly inspecting him; Kate, Maureen and Josephine with smiling approval, Brendan with caution and Grandma Maguire with suspicion.

‘It's nice to meet you,' Josephine said. ‘Breda has told us a lot about you.'

Was that a fact, Breda asked herself. Sure, she had hardly mentioned him. Auntie Josie was making it up just to be polite.

‘You come from London,' Grandma Maguire said. ‘I went to London once, on a day trip. Nasty. Noisy place!'

‘You're quite right, Mrs Maguire,' Graham said agreeably. ‘You stick to Akersfield!'

‘I think we should leave,' Breda said, ‘if we're not to miss the beginning of the film.'

They went to the same cinema, sat in almost identical seats as when she had gone with Tony, and there was no question that Graham was pleasant, yet from start to finish it was quite different, disappointingly so.

Tony had been especially attentive, had bought her chocolates, held her hand, put his arm around her. There was nothing like that this evening. Even though she sat very close to Graham in the double seat, and practically everyone around them was concentrating on something other than the drama on the screen, Graham did not even hold her hand. Is it all different in London, she wondered? Do they have different rules?

‘That was great,' Graham said as he saw her home. ‘I won't come in,' he said when they reached the house.

She hadn't thought of asking him in, far from it, so why did she mind his words? Worse, he made not the slightest attempt to kiss her, simply squeezed her hand briefly, said ‘See you tomorrow', and was gone.

She walked slowly up the path and fitted her key in the lock.

Perhaps he had made a deliberate decision to play it cool, she thought. Well, if that was his idea it was all right by her; she had no wish to be involved where she wasn't wanted.

She had enjoyed the film – Gregory Peck would never let you down. The evening had been a great improvement on listening to Grandma Maguire's moans and groans or sitting through her uncle's heavy silences. That was all there was to it.

‘Well!' said Josephine the minute Breda walked through the door. ‘He seems very nice, your young man. We all thought so. Quite the gentleman!'

Too much the gentleman, Breda thought!

‘Oh, Auntie Josie, he's not my young man,' she said loftily. ‘Whatever made you think that? He's simply a friend, someone I work with. Nothing more than that.'

It hurt her to say the words, but facts were facts.

‘Well, you know what I mean,' Josephine said. ‘And you can't deny he's taken a shine to you!'

She was pleased Breda had found a friend, especially a young man. She had worried that the girl had been lonely, also that she'd fretted too much about Tony. She could have told her that that would come to nothing. Tony wasn't to be tied down, he was too fond of a good time. In any case they were first cousins. It wouldn't have done at all.

Breda knew quite well what her aunt meant. Auntie Josie saw the whole thing as romantic. Graham Prince was the son of a rich father, he was way above them, and in addition he was handsome and charming. It was just like one of the stories in the magazine she bought every Thursday.

But Auntie Josie was wrong, Breda thought. She and Graham Prince were simply good friends, not even close friends, not friends of long standing. Ships that passed in the night. She was not his sort and he was not hers, and wasn't that the size of it?

But she knew, as the matter-of-fact words ran through her head, that it wasn't true. It wasn't what her heart said.

‘I didn't say I liked him,' Grandma Maguire said suddenly. ‘And I didn't say I didn't! I thought he was a bit posh. Not our sort, if you ask me. All the same,
I
wouldn't mind going to the pictures with him!'

Perhaps Grandma sees further than the rest of us, Breda thought as she went to bed, but not, for a long time, to sleep. Not our sort. She would put him out of her mind. She was making too much of it.

She wondered, next morning, whether she would ask Miss Craven if it would be possible to change her dinner hour so that she'd have an excuse for avoiding Graham. She even got as far as asking, but to her relief – and she was annoyed with herself that she should fed relieved – Miss Craven refused. ‘Since there are only the two of us at the present time, and we have to go opposite each other, it would mean
me
changing
my
time. I'm afraid I couldn't consider that.'

Without a doubt, Miss Craven thought, the young man had changed his dinner hour and she didn't want to miss him. Too bad!

So when Breda walked into the canteen there Graham was, sitting at the table. It would make too much of the whole thing not to join him.

‘Did you enjoy the film?' he asked, looking up from his corned beef fritters.

‘Very much, thank you. Didn't I say so?' She was aware she sounded cool. She couldn't help it.

‘I just wondered,' he said. ‘These fritters aren't half bad.'

‘Very nice.' In fact they were choking her.

‘I also wondered if you'd like to come for a walk on Sunday morning,' he said. ‘If you're a good enough walker we could go over the moors to Hebghyll. I've been told it's a popular outing.'

‘I'm a perfectly good walker,' Breda said. ‘We do it all the time in Ireland. But I couldn't manage Sunday morning. I go to church.'

‘I'm sorry about that,' Graham said. ‘I really hoped you would. It would have been nice.'

So it would, Breda thought. Very nice. Heaven! ‘I could go in the afternoon,' she offered.

‘But I couldn't,' Graham said. ‘I have a date. Can't break it.'

‘Well, in that case . . . And how nice to be so popular!'

There was an edge to her voice. With whom, she thought? Where? Why? But especially with whom.

Graham looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I do believe', he said, ‘you're jealous! I'm flattered.'

‘You needn't be,' Breda said. ‘Me, jealous? Sure, you must be out of your mind.'

‘But I wish you were! So, would you like to know with whom?' he asked. He was smiling and she could have killed him for that.

‘I could not care less,' she lied. ‘'Tis no affair of mine.'

‘I'll tell you all the same,' he said. ‘I have a date with Miss Opal. I'm summoned to take tea. A command performance. I think my father must have asked for a progress report.'

A wide smile, which she could not keep back, lit up Breda's face. It was like the sun coming from behind the clouds, Graham thought.

‘Well,' Breda said quickly, ‘if you
really
want to go for a walk . . . '

‘Didn't I say so? Didn't I ask you?'

‘I suppose I could go to early Mass. I could meet you at half-past nine . . . '

If she'd been a nail biter, wouldn't her nails have been bitten down to the quick in the next forty-eight hours, wondering would it keep fine, what would she wear, and were her shoes up to it?

They met by the main gates of Sutherland Park. Breda had firmly squashed Graham's suggestion that he should call for her. The thought of him impinging on the Sunday morning scene at 52 Waterloo Terrace, with Auntie Josie getting a recalcitrant mother-in-law ready to be taken to church while Brendan sat in his shirt sleeves reading the
News of the World
was not to be borne.

The weather had all the greyness of early November, but at least it wasn't raining, and with luck it wouldn't. There had been a slight frost early on, which had left the air crisp.

‘I've checked out the way,' Graham said. ‘A bus here which will take us within a few minutes of the moor road. From there it's about seven miles, mostly on footpaths, over the moor to Hebghyll. We shall have to get the train back from Hebghyll to Akersfield so that I can be in time to spruce myself up for Miss Opal. A pity we can't make a whole day of it, but we will some other time.'

It was a stiff climb from the spot where the bus deposited them to the top of the moor. At the summit they stopped for a minute to regain their breath. Breda gasped at the width of the view, which spread before them in every direction. ‘Holy smoke!' she cried. ‘Would you just be looking at that! Isn't it like standing on top of the world?'

Graham nodded. ‘It's like nothing I've ever seen before,' he said. ‘Is it what you expected?'

‘Not at all. I suppose I'd wondered, would it be anything like Ireland,' she confessed.

‘And is it?'

‘Not at all. At any rate, nothing like Kilbally.'

After a minute, they took the footpath ahead. The ground was rough, strewn with rocks, patched with bracken which at this time of the year had turned brown. Breda was a little disappointed that the heather, which she had glimpsed from her attic window on that first day in Akersfield, was no longer in bloom, though as they walked they found, in a few sheltered places protected by larger rocks, a few small pockets of purple.

‘Tell me what Kilbally's like,' Graham said.

Breda was silent for a moment. There were times, and this was one of them, when it was almost impossible to talk about Kilbally, so much did she miss it.

‘For a start,' she said, ‘it's on the coast. You walk along the cliffs and you look out over the sea. Three thousand miles of ocean, my Dada said. Nothing between us and America. In one way that's like this place here. So much space, and so much sky. But the land is green there. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how green. And the houses are small and white, and the people mostly poor.'

‘I would like to see it,' Graham said quietly. ‘I'd like to see the place where you grew up.'

‘And I would like you to,' Breda said. ‘But tell me about where you grew up. I don't know anything about you, or your family – except that your father has a large store. I suppose he must be rich,' she added ruefully. She would much rather he wasn't.

‘It's a family business, not just my father, though he's the head,' Graham said. ‘There are two uncles, four children between them, and I have two brothers.'

‘You never said!' Breda accused him. ‘Why did I think you were an only child?'

‘Perhaps because I'm the youngest.'

Not only that, Breda thought. He had an air of . . . loneliness, wasn't it, sometimes, and at other times a sufficiency, as if he was used to managing on his own.

‘I grew up in Surrey about twenty miles from London,' he said. ‘We still live there, in the house I was born in. I only ever saw it in the holidays. I was sent away to school when I was eight.'

Breda's eyes widened in horror. ‘Sent away from home at eight years old! That's terrible.'

‘It was the thing to do,' Graham said. ‘All my parents' friends did the same thing. But yes, it was awful. I wouldn't do it to a child of mine.'