Echoes (52 page)

“Oh, you're a worse flatterer than your father,” she said, still in this high silly voice that he hated.

He looked around. Mrs. Nolan looked vague and sort of fluttery as usual. David wondered yet again why his mother didn't see how strange Sheila Nolan was, how dotty, for want of a more technical word.

“Lovely to be here, Mrs. Nolan,” he said dutifully.

“Oh, David.” She looked at him as if she had never seen him before but as if she had learned his name to make him feel welcome. “How good of you to come to see us. Your mother is here too you know.” Sheila Nolan looked around vaguely.

“Yes, yes. I've just seen her.” David was beginning to feel trapped, to experience the hunted sensation that Mrs. Nolan managed to create all around her.

“David—they tell me you love sherry. Sweet or dry?” The woman stared into his eyes as if waiting for the Meaning of Life in his answer.

“Dry would be very nice, Mrs. Nolan.” He
hated
sherry of any kind.

He saw James had managed to get a gin and tonic, but it was too late, the sherry glass was in his hand. Caroline was talking to Mary Catherine by the window. Two priests were talking to Mr. Nolan. One of them looked familiar, yet David hadn't met him before. Breeda came in and passed round cheese straws and little bits of celery filled with cheese.

The voices of his mother and Mrs. Nolan talking archly at him receded, and David wanted Clare and their little room and a tin of tomato soup. He wanted to be miles from this overheated room and babble of chat. He answered the questions automatically: yes, it was pretty hard work, no, he didn't know that specialist, but of course he knew him by name, and how nice of the Nolans to say they'd have a word. He asked his mother about home, and about his father, and had Bones recovered from the terrible paint incident. Molly Power said that Bones had never looked beautiful but nowadays he would actually frighten you to look at him. They had cut off so much of his coat where the spilled paint had all hardened and matted. He looked very odd but had no idea that his appearance had changed. Old as he was, he still ran round in circles barking happily. Molly said you couldn't take him for a walk anywhere because the explanations were so lengthy when you met anyone, and the memory of finding him lying on his back on the kitchen floor in a pool of red paint was not one you wanted to relive.

“Will you be down before Easter to see him? And us indeed,” she asked.

“Not a chance . . . oh and about Easter . . .” he began, but Sheila Nolan had clapped her hands. Lunch was ready.

They moved to another very overheated room with nine places set around a table, two bottles of wine already open and a huge joint of beef on the carving table.

“Isn't this the life?” said Molly Power wistfully as they went into the room with its heavy dark furniture and thick curtains. Her voice was envious for a life which could assemble people around a table like this, far from Castlebay.

David took his mind from the dingy bed-sitter not two miles away, and forced himself to feel some sympathy for his mother. Dad had always said that she needed very little to make her happy. And it was true, there she was, reveling in the showy lunch that Sheila Nolan had organized in her honor. He was not going to be rude to her. He wasn't going to spoil her visit. He'd tell her about Easter later.

David was sitting between Caroline and one of the priests. Caroline was in high form and full of confidences and whispered questions.

“Do you think James is serious about the Yankee lady? Oh, go on. He must tell you. I don't believe this strong, silent act. Men do tell. I know they do.”

“But you are so wrong, Caroline, men are much too gentle and sensitive to discuss their emotions, would that we had the strength of women, able to bring anything out in the open, air it, examine it and dust it down.”

She laughed. “Do you think they're
involved,
if you know what I mean? Once upon a time he used to be only interested whether she had money, now he's a bit lovesick, I think.”

They both looked at Mary Catherine, who was battling with interrogation from Mrs. Power and glances of fluttery hostility from Mrs. Nolan.

“Why don't you ask her? She'd tell all, the way women do.”

“No, she's like a tin of sardines that one. I wouldn't get to first base, to use her own kind of language.”

“And how about your own romances? Are you the toast of the Incorporated Law Society?”

“You only ask me that to break my heart. You know I think of no other man.” Caroline waved her eyelashes up and down at him jokily.

“What chance would a humble country hick like myself have with a sophisticated girl like you?” David smiled. He had always liked Caroline. He had fancied her of course when he was very young, and in phases ever since, she was so easy to talk to, so jokey, and she took nothing too seriously. He remembered with a start that his mother had always regarded them as a likely match, and with some alarm noticed that Mrs. Power and Mrs. Nolan were looking at them fondly.

Caroline was unaware of it. “I never tried seriously to capture you, David, I hate failure. I feel that with you I have to bide my time, wait till you're ready for me, and fall into my arms like a ripe plum. Maybe on the rebound from some other female.”

She threw back her head of dark hair and laughed. Clare had once said that Caroline Nolan had too many good, white, even teeth. It was a sign of great money and breeding. Rich people didn't rot their children's teeth with sticky things, and rich people took their children to the dentist regularly.

Caroline did look very healthy.

She looked very attractive too: she had a lemon-colored jumper and a green-and-gold sort of tartan-type skirt. She wore a big amber necklace. She said that she must have been mad to listen to the nuns who said that a degree was the answer. It wasn't the answer, it was the question. You had to ask yourself what to do then. Fortunately now that she had done the boring secretarial bit she was nicely installed in her father's office as a solicitor's apprentice where she should have been years ago. Before she became old and gray.

She turned to pass the vegetables in their heavy tureens and David found himself talking to the priest with the small buttons of eyes.

“I know your face from somewhere, Father. Would there have been a picture of you in the paper or anything?”

“I hope not. I'm in bad enough books with the archbishop already. No, I don't think I've come across you—I know you're from Castlebay. Your mother was telling me before you arrived.”

“I'm not such a genius as she makes out,” he said.

“She didn't make you out to be a genius at all,” the priest said.

“I don't know if that's good or bad.”

“We do have a mutual friend though. Angela O'Hara. She and I met at a wedding in Rome, oh it must be eight years ago now. A long time. But somehow we all remained great friends. A couple called Quinn got married . . .”

David remembered why the priest was familiar. He was the Father Flynn whose round face shone out of the wedding photos in Kevin and Emer Quinn's bedroom.

The photo that he had looked at for a long time as Clare slept in his arms in the big bed that belonged to Kevin and Emer.

Mary Catherine didn't like David's mother one bit. She thought that Clare was going to have a hard time of it with this one.

“Tell me about Castlebay,” she said brightly, smiling her perfect smile and pretending an interest she didn't feel. “I hear it's one lively town.”

“You hear wrong,” Mrs. Power said definitely. “It's a small community—very, very small, swollen to about twenty times its size in the summer. A lot of
riffraff
been coming recently, and
loud
people. It used to be a wonderful family resort. Remember, Sheila, when you all came down . . . ?”

Molly caught David's eye and realized she mustn't run down the place she was trying to get him to come home to. “. . . But I think that's just my age, really. For young people, for young
professional
people,
working
there, for the
doctor
or the young
solicitor,
or the people in the hotel, it's a wonderful life. And a lot of very nice people a few miles back from the coast. Very nice indeed. Wonderful big estates and everything.” She nodded owlishly.

David raged within. She had never been invited to any of the big estates nor did she even know anyone who had. Why did she try to impress people with a line of chat which was just making her pathetic?

“I was thinking of spending a few days there this summer. When I do my degree I'll have to go back to the States, so best see a bit of Ireland while I can.”

Molly was a little nonplussed. On the one hand the girl had been talking about her father being a postman and her mother working in a clothes factory of some sort, hanging garments on rails. On the other hand, the Nolans seemed to think that James was serious about her. Who knew what way to jump?

“Well, that would be very nice, dear,” she said noncommittally. “Be sure to let us know when you arrive, and come to see us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Power.”

“Will you stay in Dillon's Hotel?”

Mary Catherine spoke without thinking. “I guess Clare will find me a bed. . . .”

“Clare?”

It was too late. Clare had asked her not to bring up her name at all, but it was done now.

“Clare O'Brien. I share a room. I've been sharing a room with her.”

Molly Power sniffed. “I doubt if there's going to be any room for you with the poor O'Briens—but maybe Clare didn't describe it to you properly. It's not a place that anyone could
stay
in.”

David's face flushed a dark red.

Mary Catherine spoke quickly. “I explained it badly. I meant to say that Clare said she would book me in somewhere. But, heavens, who knows if I'll ever get there? There's so much work to do. . . . Was your last year full of frights and horrors, Caroline?”

“Dreadful. I didn't know you shared a room with Clare O'Brien.”

“You never asked,” Mary Catherine said with spirit.

“I know Clare O'Brien,” said the small priest. “A very bright girl. She won that scholarship for three years from your county, didn't she? I always think it must be the most terrible pressure on young people when they get that kind of bursary . . .” He chattered on lightly, knowing there was some tension in the air but not knowing where it came from.

“So you know Clare O'Brien too, Father? My goodness, doesn't she get about?” She turned to Sheila Nolan. “Remember them, Sheila? Big, straggling family, not a penny to bless themselves with?”

“I don't think so.” Sheila Nolan's vacant blue eyes were vaguer than ever.

“Oh, you
must
remember them. We used to go in to buy ice creams there. Though I never particularly liked dealing there. Not terribly
clean.
”

“Why did we buy ice creams there, then?” Mrs. Nolan was bewildered.

“It was near the beach—that's why, I think.”

“I would never have bought ice creams there, had I known it wasn't clean.” Mrs. Nolan's thin hand went to her throat as if regretting the possible germs that might still lurk there.

“No, no. That's not the point. I was just telling you who the family were. One of them put her mind to her books and she's come a long way. Everyone here is on calling terms with her except you and me . . .” Molly Power looked fussed and annoyed. Sheila Nolan looked confused and worried about possibly unhygienic ice creams eaten in the past.

Father Flynn thought he saw the lay of the land. He asked his colleague Father Kennedy, who was the new curate in the Nolan's parish, to tell them all the story of the archbishop's garden. It was a harmless little tale but it distracted them.

Father Flynn looked at David levelly. “People often sound much more cruel than they are. In their hearts they're probably very kind.”

“Yes,” David mumbled.

“Eat up. That's lovely beef. I bet you don't get food like that in the hospital.”

David didn't respond.

“And there's nothing for concentrating the mind like eating.”

David had to smile. “I knew the clergy were dangerous,” he laughed.

“That's better. Give Clare my love.”

“Were you the priest who was so helpful about her brother?”

“You must be a
good
friend if she told you all that. Yes. Not that I was all that much help as it turned out.”

“Clare said you were great.”

“Is she going to get a First? She was very eager about that.”

“I think so. I'll keep her at it.”

They spoke low and stopped when Caroline turned to join the conversation.

At the other end of the table Molly whispered behind her hand to Sheila. “I can't explain it, but I
never
liked that girl. She didn't ever do anything against me, but I don't
trust
her. Do you know the feeling?”

“I do.” Sheila was equally conspiratorial. Her glance rested on Mary Catherine. “That American girl is going back where she belongs,” she said.

“The pity of it is, that it's hard to say where Clare O'Brien belongs now and where she should go back to,” Molly whispered.

 

She was lying on the bed reading the verses in the Memoriam column. “Listen, David. Listen to this one: ‘Now every year upon this day/We ask just why you went away.' ”

Clare pealed with laughter. “They couldn't could they? Each year on her anniversary, they sit down and say, ‘What
could
have happened to her?' ”