Echoes (41 page)

She could hear laughter coming from the bathroom. Clare was scrubbing the bride's back.

“You'll be next, Fiona,” she said to the beautiful dark-haired girl standing quietly in the shop.

“Oh, I don't know, Mrs. O'Brien. Who'd have me?”

“Tut, tut, child, aren't you the most beautiful girl in Castlebay?”

“I haven't got much life in me though. Fellows like someone with life in them. I'm like that advertisement up there on the wall:
Do you wake tired?
I seem to wake tired all the time.”

Agnes O'Brien had never heard the young Doyle girl utter a sentence as long as that in her whole life. She wasn't at all sure what to do. She wished Fiona had chosen a better time to confide in her.

“If I were you I'd go and have a chat with Dr. Power, it might be tablets you need. Dr. Power has great iron tonics in bottles too, they'd make you feel strong. Maybe it's a lack of iron.”

The thin, kind face of Agnes O'Brien under her unaccustomed hat and dotted with unfamiliar powder was concerned. Fiona shook herself.

“That's what I'll do, Mrs. O'Brien. I'll go up to him the next chance I have. It could well be lack of iron.”

Agnes beamed; and then decided to hurry on the bride and her sister.

Peggy had now arrived dressed in her bridesmaid's gear and carrying a hairbrush and a can of lacquer. She pounded up the stairs.

“Your room looks different,” Peggy said, looking around. Clare said nothing. She didn't mention that she had put all Chrissie's clothes in the wash, everything that she wasn't taking on the honeymoon. Clare would personally transfer these to the new home. Chrissie had an alarming habit of saying that she'd “leave this here” or “leave that here for the moment.” She couldn't grasp the fact that she was actually moving residence. Clare had taken all the old shoes and put them in a box marked “Chrissie's Shoes.” For the first time in years there was actually room to move.

Peggy began the back-combing and the teasing of the hair, expertly and with great intensity.

“Are you sure you're not in a huff because I asked Peggy to be the bridesmaid instead of you?” Chrissie asked for the twentieth time.

“No. I think you're quite right. I told you,” Clare said.

Chrissie examined her miraculously cured spot. “It was just that we didn't know if you'd come or not. You see?”

Clare bit back her rage. There had never been any question of her not coming. “I know,” she said sympathetically. “I'll try not to be
too
jealous of Peg,” she added cheerfully, and Chrissie laughed.

Peggy shrugged her shoulders. Chrissie
hated
Clare! What on earth were they laughing like old friends for? Oh well. It was her wedding day. She was entitled to laugh if she wanted to. Not that marrying Mogsy Byrne was anything much to laugh about, Peggy thought sourly. She'd prefer to be a spinster of twenty-two than marry Mogsy.

 

Father O'Dwyer was waiting at the gate of the church when the wedding party arrived. The Byrne family were all installed. The O'Briens arrived together—it was only a five-minute walk from their shop up Church Street and this was the triumphal journey. Chrissie walked on her father's arm. She wore a white dress, which the dressmaker had said was far more suitable as a dance dress. Chrissie had giggled, and said why not, one day it would be a dance dress. Her veil was short and held in place by a headdress of wax flowers.

It was a sunny Saturday morning in June. The season hadn't really begun; the people would start arriving in the next few days. But the whole town saw Chrissie O'Brien go to her wedding. They waved and shouted from shops and houses. Josie Dillon waved out from the hotel. Miss O'Flaherty at her stationery shop; the Murphys were in the street in front of the chemist's shop. Dwyers' had a big sheet of paper with
Good Luck Chrissie
written on it. She was very excited when she saw it, and kept drawing people's attention to it.

Behind Tom O'Brien and his daughter walked Peggy in a very bright yellow which didn't suit her.

Clare and her mother walked next, with Jim and Ben. Clare wondered would she ever walk like this with her father, as she had seen so many other girls walk to the church. It was nice because everyone had a chance to see the wedding party without having to go up to the church uninvited and peer. But Clare couldn't imagine it. She could not see herself going through this kind of parade for anyone. It would have to be somebody quite extraordinary waiting up there in the church if she could endure this pantomime for him.

Just as she was wondering what kind of person it could be, Gerry Doyle appeared at her elbow.

“Stop dreaming about me and listen,” he said.

“You arrogant thing!” she laughed.

“I'll run on ahead. Make sure Chrissie stops yapping enough for me to get a proper picture of you all coming into the church. Do you hear me?”

“Just her and Daddy? Or all of us?”

“I'll want both, but she's so excited now she'll have half the town in the picture. I'm relying on you to calm her down.”

Clare smiled at him affectionately. Gerry Doyle understood how this album would be treasured for years, when Chrissie and Mogsy had few ceremonies to entertain them.

Yes, she'd calm Chrissie down for him. Even if it meant being bossy, superior Clare again.

 

Chrissie became very quiet in the church, and you could hardly hear her responses. Maurice Byrne, resplendent in a blue suit, was almost as mute. Only the firm unchanging voice of Father O'Dwyer could be heard properly. Then it was over and it was into the room that was too small to call a hall.

There were photos cutting the cake; and then the going away photograph of Chrissie with one foot on the ground and one foot in the car, the big Cortina that her brother-in-law was letting them drive to the station. There was confetti too—the understanding being that the family would clear it up before nightfall. Then Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Byrne had gone.

 

Nobody worked hard in Second Arts. It was a year off in a way because there was no serious examination at the end of it.

Valerie had had an eventful summer; her father had gone to hospital in England and had written from his hospital bed a long apology for his life. What had her mother done? Instead of laughing hysterically and opening another bottle to give her further fluency to curse him, didn't she up and off to England? Her father had got better; and promised to abandon the fancy woman and come home. But not immediately. These things needed time, he had said. Valerie's mother, however, had become a different person. No more morning cocktails. In fact, no cocktails at all. There was now no question of wasting as much money as possible and making-that-bastard-pay-up. Now it was different. Valerie must work hard in UCD, and make full use of the generous fees her father paid for her; she must remember that money didn't grow on trees; and what's more, they had to spend the whole summer doing up their house and getting it in order for the return of the Prodigal Father. Since Valerie had only scraped First Arts this was going to be a hard year. She was full of gloom.

Mary Catherine had been very off-putting when James had asked if he could come and call. She had said that the family would be moving around a lot during the summer; and, really, it wouldn't be a good idea, because they were sure to be vacationing with friends whenever he arrived. James had tried to pin her down by giving her definite dates; but she had been adamant. James seemed much more interested in her this year; he had asked her to a dress dance. Mary Catherine had spent the entire summer working in a soda fountain making milkshakes. It was very wearying trying to explain Ireland to people—they thought it was full of cottages and leprechauns. Her mother worked in the garment district and her two younger brothers did paper deliveries all summer. She hardly saw any of them until the big Labor Day picnic that the parish organized. Mary Catherine said it was nearly as difficult to explain America to the Irish as it was the other way round. She said she was hopeless at being an ambassador and that is exactly what her father thought that she was going to be when she graduated. Why else should she be so highly educated if it weren't to get herself a big job like that? Obviously he had decided that she wasn't going to marry an Irish nobleman with a castle if she hadn't nabbed one the first year and he was pinning his hopes on her becoming a career woman instead.

Clare said she hated anyone being secretive but she had very little to tell. It was a summer like any other in Castlebay. Chrissie's wedding had been exciting, and the weather had been good. Which was smashing, because that meant business was good and everyone was happy. Yes, she had met Gerry Doyle a bit. But he had been followed around by a very glamorous piece who had been meant to stay for three weeks. Her name was Sandra. And when the three weeks were up, Sandra decided that there was plenty to keep her in Castlebay, so she stayed the whole summer. Gerry Doyle had found her a caravan that wasn't being used. They were the talk of the town, but Gerry didn't take the blindest bit of notice. Apparently she was a student in Queen's University up in Belfast, and she had a red bathing suit which she wore all summer long, with open shirts of pink and purple and orange, all the colors that are meant to clash with red. She had a big mane of hair and she used to wash it in public with a shampoo, using the new shower that Dr. Power had got the Committee to put up near the bottom of the steps to the beach. Valerie and Mary Catherine were rather sorry to think that the handsome Gerry had been so spoken for during the whole summer.

“Didn't you have any adventures and romances at the dance or anything?” Valerie asked interestedly.

“No. I hardly went to dances. I went to the Committee dance, because I had to, like everyone else, but I had no romances. I worked in the shop from morn to night, it was bloody exhausting. Do you know I find myself apologizing to Josie that I don't have romances in Dublin and to you that I don't have romances in Castlebay.”

 

It wasn't a light year for David. This was the year of his finals. He told James that he was going to put his head down and study, and he must be counted out of any socializing. James was affronted: it was his final year too, he insisted, and the Law was every bit as sacred as medicine. Wouldn't David come to this dance and make up a party? He had invited the American heiress who had played so hard to get during the summer.

David was resolute. He was going to work.

He found Caroline less than understanding these days. She had been very moody down in Castlebay, and had fought with her mother on every possible occasion. She had been obsessed with a rather trampish-looking girl called Sandra from Northern Ireland who seemed to be Gerry Doyle's choice for parading around the town. Caroline had even worn her own shirts loose over her bathing suit and had bitten the head off her mother when Mrs. Nolan had complained mildly that Caroline seemed to have forgotten her skirt.

“Do you
still
find Gerry attractive?” David had asked her in exasperation. “I thought you got over all that as a child.”

“Oh, don't be so patronizing,” she had snapped. “
Nobody
gets over Gerry Doyle. He's just there driving everyone mad all the time, isn't he?” She said it as if it were as obvious as night following day. He felt very irritated.

Or maybe he had just lost his way with girls. That could be it. He had taken Bones for long walks down the Far Cliff Road. Bones was nice and simple. He just wanted walks and for people to throw things which he would bring back. Bones imagined rabbits for himself and went happily in useless pursuit of them. It would be easier to have been a dog. Bones felt no guilt, no uncertainties. If he didn't get what he wanted he sat panting and smiling with his foolish face, and sooner or later, someone took him for a walk, threw him a stick or gave him a bone. Bones didn't sit smoking in his kennel at night and wondering what to do. Like David did. Well, his bedroom, but the principle was the same.

For the first time in his life he had not enjoyed the summer in Castlebay. He had grown away from Caroline so much that there was hardly any pleasure in being with her. She seemed to find him plodding, and yet she didn't really know what she wanted either. She was restless and impatient, she wouldn't talk about her career and her future. It was all too silly, she said, there she was with an M.A. degree and no chance of a job, she had to learn shorthand and typing like that patronizing halfwit Josie Dillon in the hotel who kept hanging on to her and giving her advice for some reason.
A nice commercial course
indeed! She had mocked Josie's accent. David had always liked Josie: she was far more pleasant than her two older sisters. And she had been such an ugly duckling when she was young—but Caroline wouldn't have known any of that. Anyway, David knew Josie was trying to cultivate Caroline from a deep interest in Caroline's brother. It was very transparent; and futile.

But that hadn't been the main problem of the summer: the main problem had been at home.

His mother had talked happily about his coming back to Castlebay to help his father in the practice. The way she put it reminded him of the times he used to help Nellie make shortbread, or help old Martin in the garden. She didn't understand that he was almost a fully qualified doctor. You didn't go round
helping
people if you were qualified, you practiced medicine. He had his intern year to do first in a hospital before he was even allowed to practice; then he was going to do a year in pediatrics and a year of obstetrics and . . . but his mother had said in that really
irritating
voice, that it really wasn't necessary to do all that extra work. The best training was on the ground. His father needed all the help he could get. He even employed a young doctor to come and help in the surgery as a locum during the summer season—there was always something happening to the visitors. He had a heavy enough caseload with the people of Castlebay themselves . . .