Echoes (56 page)

She sat icy and withdrawn. She had hoped he would touch her, put his arms around her. Now she felt she would kill him if he tried.

He took his head out of his hands, hair tousled, face flushed. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“What for?”

“For it happening. I'm meant to be a doctor. Some medical knowledge I have.”

“Don't worry about
that.
It's not an exam. Nobody's going to give you marks or take them away for it.”

“Clare!”

“Well? What else is there to say?”

“I don't know. I suppose we should think what we'll do. . . .”

She was silent.

“Make plans . . . It's just, just such a shock, and such a bloody shame. Now of all times.”

“Yes,” she said.

Her face looked small, white and hurt. He remembered suddenly that he hadn't told her about his father. She didn't even know that side of it. He remembered too that she was in the most feared condition of any girl from any small town and maybe any big town in Ireland. She was In Trouble.

He reached out for her hand. “We'll sort it out,” he said.

She pulled her hand away.

“You haven't touched your drink,” he said awkwardly.

“Neither have you.” The pint looked too big and too sour.

“I think I'll have a brandy,” David said. “Would you like that, for the shock? Doctor's orders.” He tried a watery smile.

“No. Thank you,” Clare said.

When he came back, she leaned across the table. “I'm terribly, terribly sorry. I can't say any more. I know how frightening this must be for you, David. I'm trying to keep calm and think what on earth we're going to do. But you probably don't know what you feel yet. It's probably still unreal to you.”

“Yes. That's right,” he said, grateful that she understood that much.

There was another silence.

He drained his brandy. “Will we go home?” he said.

They stood up and left, each afraid to touch the other and walking several paces apart.

Out in the street the yellow light shone down and made their faces look even more strained. They walked in silence toward the bus stop where David had been heading less than an hour before. They sat silent on the bus, too. Once or twice they looked at each other as if to say something but the words didn't come.

About two stops before their own David stood up. “Will we get out here?” he asked her diffidently.

“Yes. Of course.” She was very polite. Under normal circumstances she would have questioned him and joked and argued.

They were beside the canal. “Let's walk a little here,” he said.

They walked in silence and both stopped when two swans glided up to them.

“I only have a bit of chewing gum,” Clare said in almost her ordinary voice. “Do you think they'd like it, or would it stick their beaks together?”

“Will you marry me?” David said.

“What?”

“Will you marry me? Please.”

“David?” her voice was low and unsure.

“Please,”
he said again.

“David, you don't have to say anything yet. Don't say anything now. I don't expect you to. . . . You don't have to. Honestly. We'll talk. We'll make plans. It's not the end of the world.”

“I know. I love you,” he said.

“And I love you. That's never changed—that never will.”

“So,” he said, eyes shining, “we'll get married. Now rather than later. Won't we? Say yes. Say, ‘Yes, David.' ”

“You know I'd love to, but there are other things, other possibilities which we should discuss. You know that.”

“Not with
our
baby, our own child. No other possibilities.”

She stared at him, her eyes filling with tears.

“You haven't given me your answer, like they do in stories.” He was eager and still not sure what she would say.

She paused and took his face in her hands. “If you mean it . . .” she began.

“That's not an answer—that's a conditional clause,” he said.

“I would love to marry you. Yes. Yes,
please.
”

 

They walked home and bought chips, and wine, and a chocolate cake. They sat down by their oil stove to make plans and to think about the future.

“Can we get married here? In Dublin? I couldn't bear it at home.”

“That's not the way my wife is going to talk about our big day!”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. Of course we'll get married here. Wherever you like. London. Paris. Rome.”

“And then we'll come back and get ourselves a bigger flat, and wait till the exam and the baby. There's a month between them. The finals are over at the end of September and the baby arrives in October, the third week.”

He held her hand between his. “Isn't it marvelous?” he said again.

“I'm so glad you're pleased. I was afraid that when you get your job in the hospital, you wouldn't like coming home at night to a baby.” She smiled at him. He said nothing.

“I mean it's not what a young doctor, a junior hospital doctor wants to come back to, a flat of nappies and a wife at her studies . . .” She was worried by his sudden silence. “But the great thing is that I
will
be able to do a lot of work at home, I was discussing it with one of the postgrad students. She said that as long as they know your circumstances and can see that you're in there and doing the work and consulting every week or so, you don't have to present yourself every day or anything.”

“Oh.”

“What is it?”

Then he told her about his father's stroke, and that they would have to go back to Castlebay.

 

Because of Angela's letter, they had five days. Five terrible days. Sometimes they raged at each other, sometimes they just clung together. There were times when they were calm and worked out the alternatives. There were no alternatives. Sometimes Clare taunted him and said he was a Mummy's Boy. No other man would throw his whole career away. Sometimes he wounded her and said that her love was meaningless and shallow if it could change because of place. True love survived wherever it lived. They knew of a doctor that Clare could go to—he had been struck off the medical register, but he did a steady practice in terminations. Because he was a doctor, it wouldn't be dangerous. Then they could think again. But they never talked of that seriously. The miracle of a child of their own seemed about the only cheerful thing in the middle of all the tears and confusion. They would solve none of the dilemma if the baby were taken out of the picture. The pregnancy, and having to tell both families, was not the biggest thing.

The biggest thing was going back.

Neither of them wanted to.

David was going to.

That was where it stood when David got the letter from his father.

 

Clare cried and cried when she read the letter. It was so generous, so understanding. The old man had put down on paper all the things they had been talking about during the week. He said he regretted so much asking this of David that he barely had the strength to write it. He set out clearly the impossibility of asking another doctor to hold the fort for three or four years until David might feel ready to return. He sympathized almost dispassionately with David.

 

The Lodge. It was a small house just within the half-acre garden of the Powers' residence. It needed a new roof. It had about four rooms, David thought. No kitchen, and only an outside lavatory. They had always been intending to get it done up. At the moment it just housed extra furniture.

It would be their new home.

 

They traveled back on the train together.

This time they were quiet. They looked out as the fields and telephone wires flashed by. At one place where the train slowed down there were children at a gate waving excitedly at the passengers. A six-year-old held up a fat baby who waved like mad with his two fat arms and his face split into a grin showing one tooth. David and Clare automatically reached for each other's hand. By Christmas they would have something like that. Not as big, not with a tooth, but a bit like that. They gave each other encouraging smiles. They weren't silent out of pique, or despair. It was just that they had been over the plans so often they didn't even want to mention them again.

 

The plans were complicated. Clare was going to stay on the train while David left as one of the first passengers. His mother would meet him and he would hasten her out of the car park as quickly as possible. Clare had asked Angela to arrange for someone to meet her. She had telephoned Angela at school, and could almost see the disapproving face of Immaculata.

Clare had said that for reasons she would explain later she didn't want to be met by Gerry Doyle, but anyone else, and for reasons which she would also explain she would be the last person to leave the train, well after Mrs. Power had cleared the car park. Angela said she understood perfectly.

 

She felt sick when he went through the ticket barrier without a backward glance, as they had arranged.

She waited till a porter walked through the train picking up newspapers before she got out.

The ticket checker was surprised. “Well, now! I was off to my tea. Fall asleep on the train, did you?”

Clare smiled at him. Lucky man. Just his tea to worry about.

In the car park Dick stood, waving enthusiastically and coming forward to carry her bag.

 

Molly Power wore driving gloves. She had been told that they gave you a better grip on the wheel. She looked very well, David thought, her hair freshly done, a nice wool two-piece in a soft green—not the fussy, insecure over made-up woman he had met a few short months ago at the Nolans' house.

She was calm and practical about his father too. She understood the nature of his attack and the need not to exert himself. There was no evidence of panic or anxiety. She spoke pleasantly of Dr. Mackey, the locum, of the great delight that David had returned home so quickly to discuss things, of the conversation she had held with Bumper Byrne about getting the Lodge fixed up.

David raked her face for clues of how she would react in a couple of hours when she knew she was going to have Clare O'Brien as a daughter-in-law.

 

Dick Dillon was easy to talk to. He talked about things, not people. She asked was it easy to learn to drive, and he said it was very easy. He showed her the pedals at his feet and said he'd have the theory of it taught to her by the time they got back to Castlebay. And indeed he had. A was accelerator, B was brakes and C was clutch.

She studied his big feet in their neatly laced, shiny brown shoes as he told her what he was doing each time. “I see, you have your foot heavy on C and lightly on A and as you release C you press A. I have it,” she said excitedly. “And now you're pressing B because you want to slow down at the crossroads,” she said.

“I want to
Stop
at this crossroads, Madam. Because I see a big sign saying
Stop.
”

“That's great. I have the hang of it. I'll get a license as soon as I can.” She would need to know how to drive, and to drive far, if she were going to be living in Molly Power's garden.

 

His father listened attentively. David said they had hoped to marry in a couple of year's time and he had hoped to get further experience in Dublin hospitals. But now, since circumstances said otherwise, they were happy to come back and start both married life and practice all at the same time.

His father looked thoughtful. Weren't they very, very young to settle down? Clare wasn't twenty yet, well, only barely twenty. Still very young.

No. David was firm. Circumstances had changed so they would marry now. In a few week's time in Dublin.

“So Clare is pregnant.”

“We're very very pleased,” David said defiantly.

“You may well be. But is it the best start for a marriage, for a young girl like Clare, for the baby?”

“Dad, whether it is or not, it
has
started. We never thought for a moment of trying to unstart it.”

“No. No. I'm glad of that.”

“So, I suppose what I'm trying to say is, that once we've told Mum and once Clare has told her family, we'll just get on with it.”

“Is Clare home?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't say . . . Molly didn't say she was with you.”

“We thought it best to come separately from the station.”