Echoes (48 page)

Clare clapped her hands in delight.

“Aren't you one of the wonders of the world? Do you go round with mobile picnics and parties in your pocket all the time, or is it only on festivals?”

“It's only when I see you on your own. I was coming out of the hotel. I saw you coming down here, and raced home for the supplies.”

They toasted each other and looked out to sea.

“This is
the
year, isn't it? The finals, the big degree?”

“Yes, Lord I'll have to work when I get back. I'm doing nothing here. I thought I was going to get lots of reading done, but I haven't opened a book.”

“I'm sorry for intruding the other night. Was it a family conference?”

“It was about Tommy.”

“Don't tell me. It's not my business.”

“Oh, no, it's all right. You know anyway. But he did it again, and this time they wounded a man so badly he'll be in a wheelchair and Tommy's gone to jail for nine years.”

Gerry let out his breath like a whistle. “Nine years. Lord.”

“So this time I decided I would tell them at home. They have a right to know. They were very low as you can imagine. Angela cheered them up a lot tonight. But they think nobody knows, so I swore that nobody did.”

“Sure.”

He was easy and her restless feeling was fading fast. Or maybe it was the brandy. He had put his jacket around both of them. It kept out the wind, and it was companionable. He kissed her, a long gentle kiss. She didn't pull away. He put his arms inside her duffle coat and held her to him as he kissed her again.

She felt something touch her leg and jumped.

It was Bones looking at her eagerly, waiting for her to disentangle herself from Gerry. Behind Bones, a dozen yards away, was David.

“I was just going to say Happy New Year,” he said. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you.”

He turned very quickly and walked along the Cliff Road home.

Bones looked hopefully at Gerry and Clare, in case there was going to be any fun and games for him. But deciding there wasn't, he cantered off after David who was walking unnaturally quickly through the bright starry night.

 

His parents were still at the hotel. Nellie had gone to her family. The house was empty. David nearly took the door from its hinges with the bang he gave it.

He was going to sit down in the sitting room where the fire was still warm and have a drink to calm him down but the fear that his parents would come back and that he would have to talk to them civilly was too great. He poured himself a large whiskey and went up to his bedroom. He pulled back the curtains and looked out at the sea. Years ago, when Gerry Doyle had first seen this room, he had said in admiration that it was like a ship. You could see no land unless you turned your head or leaned out to see the garden beneath.

There were two big rooms with bay windows upstairs, and his parents slept in the one next door. David had a window seat running round the three windows of the bay. His toys had been kept inside it when he was young. He looked to see were they still there and indeed, there was a small cricket set, a blackboard and easel, there were boxes of soldiers and boxes of playing bricks. His Meccano set was still there and there was a box which said
David's Coloring Things
.

It annoyed him to see them still there. And yet what should his mother have done with them? Given them away? They were his after all, and one day he might want them for his children . . .

But anything would annoy him tonight.

It had been a very boring evening. He had made a very tactless mistake with Josie Dillon. Apparently Clare had never mentioned that Mary Catherine had been an off-and-on girlfriend of James Nolan since the Lord knew when. Josie had been distressed by the news but even more by the fact that Clare hadn't told her. She had become quite weepy and had gone off to bed before the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” so that would have to be sorted out.

But nothing had prepared him for the strength of his feelings when he saw Clare in Gerry Doyle's arms like that. He felt sick all over until he was nearly shaking to think of it again. Him, with his arms around her, inside her coat, fondling her, and kissing her, there on the bench in the dark, with a cheap half-bottle of brandy at their feet. David had walked up to them because he recognized Clare's duffle coat, and the moonlight was shining on her fair hair. It was quite obvious who she was. He hadn't really seen Gerry; it was dark that side of the bench, and they weren't kissing when he started to walk over. If only Bones hadn't rushed across he might have been able to escape without speaking to them.

But even so it was churning his stomach to think of Gerry Doyle's mean, small, dark face pressed on Clare's. To think of
him
giving her brandy and forcing himself on her. And to imagine that bright Clare, lovely, bright, sunny Clare, could be so stupid as to fall for it. Why was she letting him crawl all over her?

David felt so sick he couldn't finish his whiskey. He poured it down the wash basin, and lay back on his bed.

He was pale at breakfast and his mother asked him whether he might be getting flu.

“There are two doctors in this house, Mother. Leave the diagnosis to us,” he snapped.

Dr. Power looked up in alarm. “I heard a kind, courteous inquiry after your health from your mother, who is concerned about you,” he said quietly.

“Yes. I'm very sorry. That's what I heard too. I apologize, Mother.”

“That's all right.” Molly was gracious. At least he was able to say sorry now. A few days ago, when she had said something perfectly harmless about the young O'Brien girl, he had leaped down her throat and he had
not
apologized on that occasion.

“I'm in surgery all day, David. Do you want to take the car and drive off somewhere? It might be a nice break for you.”

“That's very nice, Dad.” He paused. He'd better make the offer. “Would you like to go for a drive, Mother?”

Fortunately it was a bridge afternoon and she had to get ready for it. But it was nice of him to ask her. Honor had been satisfied.

New Year's Day or not, people would have their ailments and Dr. Power shuffled off into the other side of the house. Nellie made David a big turkey sandwich with lots of stuffing in it and a flask of tea. He didn't even notice where he was driving until he came to a wild rocky place he had only seen from the road before. He parked the car and got out.

It must have been the same for centuries, he thought. Bleak and un-welcoming, the sea washing on it endlessly, as remote in the summer as in winter. Who would walk for forty minutes as he had through thickets and briars and down stony crumbling paths to get to a place that didn't even have a sandy beach? He threw stones into the water mechanically, one after another in a kind of rhythm. He couldn't be so obsessed with Clare that he shivered at the thought of Gerry touching her. He was only awake last night because he had drunk too much, because he had a stupid quarrel with Josie Dillon, because he was worried, as he was always worried, about this business of coming home to live like a child again in the house with a mummy and a daddy and a doctor's coat.

But her face was there, and her shoulders, and her hair. And her bright smile, and the way she was always so interested in everything and had so many views on any subject. He remembered the day he had felt so annoyed with her outside the National Library in Dublin when she was running back to her hostel to know if Gerry had rung. He remembered the relief that she didn't seem to be at all interested in the amorous Mr. Doyle. Her work plans were daunting and over-ambitious, but she was certainly destined for a first-class B.A. and acceptance as an M.A. student. So why was she behaving like a cheap tramp last night? That's what it was. The cheapest way to go on, with a bottle of spirits and right in public. And with Gerry, who had felt up and touched every girl who was any way attractive and quite a few who were not.

His hand throwing the stones into the sea paused and he dropped the stone and clenched his fists. Gerry Doyle would never touch her again. Never. He would keep his hands to himself. He would not go near Clare O'Brien, he wouldn't dare. Last night had just been silly, a New Year silliness, to be excused but never to be repeated.

He would explain this to Clare, and she would understand. They would even laugh about it.

But what would he explain?

He wished he had taken Bones with him. Just looking into the dog's foolish face helped; but he hadn't known where he was going to go and the dog could have been a liability.

What would he say to Clare?

The wise man would say nothing. The wise man would make a little joke and forget the scene on the cliff top.

But David began to think he was not a wise man. He could not forget the tableau and he couldn't stop a feeling of light sweat forming on the back of his neck at the memory.

He couldn't want Clare that badly for himself. He couldn't. It must be pure bloody jealousy that Gerry struck lucky on New Year's Eve in the cold, while he, David, had a boring evening listening to old-timers singing “Darling, You Are Growing Old”—which was too painfully true—having a totally ludicrous conversation with a tearful Josie Dillon, and then coming across Love's Young Dream on the bench.

No. It was more. He wanted to see Clare. Now.

He wanted to tell her that she was special. And to ask her to give him a chance to prove himself her lover as well as her friend.

It was highly awkward, but as sure as he knew anything he knew he loved her.

 

Clare didn't know why she felt so furious all next day. There was no way she could fault David. He hadn't been rude. Under the circumstances he had been polite. His voice hadn't dripped with sarcasm, as it had that time he had unleashed a tirade about Gerry in Dublin when he called him trashy.

But she wished he hadn't come along. It had been nothing, it had only been a couple of kisses, and she didn't think it would have gone any further. It was too public a place for one thing; and she
wouldn't,
for another.

But she had this feeling that David was always on the verge of going on to another level in their friendship. She had never admitted this to the girls. She kept telling them how unsuitable the liaison would be, and they made jokes about the security forces Mrs. Power would need to employ and where she should station them around Castlebay. But Clare knew it wasn't just a joke.

She felt they talked as she never could with anyone. They didn't just talk gossip or plans. She was always interested to know what he thought about things. He never bored her. And she had the feeling that he was delighted with her. But he had never touched her or kissed her. So she was a bit in the dark about what he really felt. She would like to have been close to him, closer than she was, but she didn't want to push it because she had no idea at all how he felt.

Anyway it might be just hero worship. When she'd been the poor little girl in the shabby cotton dress in the shop, David and James Nolan had been swaggering round Castlebay like gods. Now she was their equal in a way. He sought her out and didn't meet other people at all.

It was all such bad timing. If only she had stayed at home. Or gone straight home. Or said no to Gerry Doyle. Or if only that big idiot of a dog hadn't spotted them and come like a detective to find them out.

She'd never know now what David Power had felt about her, if anything. It would have vanished on that cliff top last night.
Damn
Gerry Doyle to the pit of hell.

Very few people came in on New Year's Day. It was a holiday of obligation and they had all been to early Mass. Clare hadn't looked round to see if David was in the church. She thought she saw his father, but she didn't want to meet any of them. She hurried home afterward, down the quiet cold street.

Clare decided that she would invite Josie to supper, too. If only her mother would get out of this servile approach things would be much better. There was no reason why Josie Dillon shouldn't have sausages and beans, and brown bread and butter in their kitchen. She would enjoy it.

Clare had tried to catch Josie's eye in the church, but Josie looked away every time. Possibly she hadn't seen her.

The shop doorbell went. Her father was cleaning the paintbrush out in the back. Ben and Jim were reading the funnies in a paper. Chrissie had arrived for a woman-to-woman chat with Mam and was sitting on a hard-backed chair while Mam ironed. Clare had been half reading a very dense account of the differences between common law, equity and statute law, for what she had been hoping would give her a better understanding of the history of the English courts.

“I'll go.” Chrissie quite enjoyed meeting the public and serving them now that she was such an important person in the town. Mrs. Maurice Byrne, and seven months pregnant too.

“It's young Dr. Power, for Miss O'Brien,” she said scathingly on her return.

Clare went out and pulled the kitchen door a little closed behind her.

“Please come out with me now. Please,” he said as if preparing for a long debate about it.

“Right,” she said and took down her duffle coat from the hook.

She was surprised to see the car outside the door.

He held open the car door for her, and then ran round the other side. “I wanted us to go for a drive,” he said. His eyes looked very bright but he didn't look upset.

“Yes, of course.”

They drove to that strange rocky place, bleak and dangerous. They got out of the car and looked down at it. Apart from the seagulls, there wasn't a soul around.

“I was down there this morning,” he said.