Such Visitors (22 page)

After a while, I go to the kitchen, pour boiling milk into the mug of chocolate powder, and stir the creamy bubbles. I choose a pretty tray for the drink and toast and dripping, and make my way, quite sure of our unchanging love, to bed.

It was Magda McCorn's custom to holiday alone. There was not much choice in this matter, but even if there had been she would probably have preferred it that way. She was well acquainted with the many conveniences of the solitary holiday and in the bad moments (which she would scarcely admit to herself, let alone anyone else) remembered to appreciate them.

Last year Mrs McCorn had gone to Sweden. The year before, Norway. Now, she was sick of fish, and twilight afternoons. A yearning for her late husband's country of birth had assailed her one April afternoon, admiring the bilious sweep of King Alfreds in her Cheltenham garden, and within the week she was booked into a first-class hotel in Parknasilla, Co. Kerry.

Mrs McCorn did little at random, and it was only after thorough research that she chose Parknasilla. As her efficient eye swept through the brochures, the name came back to her with a sparkle of nostalgia. It was not her husband, Patrick (born in the shadow of Croagh Patrick, a charming Co. Mayo man), but Commander Chariot, eligible bachelor on a spring cruise to the Canaries some years back, who had recommended the place most warmly. They had been drinking sherry at the ship's bar: the scene was an indelible picture in Mrs McCorn's mind. Commander Chariot wore his panama, despite the overcast skies, while Mrs McCorn had undone the top button of her floral bolero, which would indicate, she felt, a nice distinction between normal reserve and long-term possibility. But if the subtleties of his companion's dress made any impression on the Commander, he did not show it. His bleak grey eyes hovered on the horizon which tilted a little perilously, for Mrs McCorn's sherry-flushed stomach, through the window behind the bar. He chatted on in his charming, impervious way, about Parknasilla (often visited in July) and
other places he had enjoyed over the years. All the while calling her Mrs McCorn.

But then the Commander was a not an easy man to get to know. The very first evening aboard, Mrs McCorn, well-trained antennae highly tuned for potential companions, sensed his reserve. Reserve, however, was a challenge rather than a deterrent to the good widow. On many occasions she had found herself quite exhausted from exercising her sympathy on shy fellow holiday-makers and often, as she wore them down, she had recognised the breakthrough, the light, the reward: sometimes it was the offer of a drink or a game of bridge. On other occasions there were confidences, and it was these Mrs McCorn liked best. For in persuading a stranger to ‘unwind his soul', as she called it, she felt of some real use, and the satisfaction kindled within her in the bleaker months of the year between holidays.

She had worked very hard upon Commander Chariot, trying to put him at his ease, to draw him from his shell, with the delicate lift of a sympathetic eyebrow, or an almost indistinguishable pat on the arm by her softly padded hand. And indeed, by the last night, amid the coloured rain of paper streamers, she had persuaded him to call her Magda. But she knew he had only complied to her wishes out of politeness. The name had not burst from his lips in a rush of warmth and natural friendliness, and Mrs McCorn had felt disappointed. It was some consolation, of course, to know the other passengers were firmly convinced a shipboard romance had flared between herself and the handsome Commander, and she would not give them any indication that the truth was quite different. She returned to Cheltenham with the Commander's Suffolk address and the promise to ‘drop in for a cup of tea if ever she was that way' (which, one day, she would most certainly arrange to be). The Commander made no such promises in return. In a brief farewell, he mentioned – in a voice that was almost callous, Mrs McCorn thought later, considering all the trouble she had taken – that Gloucestershire was not a part of the country he ever had occasion to visit. They did exchange Christmas cards, and Mrs McCorn rather boldly sent postcards from Norway and Sweden – by great strength of will managing to refrain from saying ‘Wish you
were here'. But her greetings from abroad remained unacknowledged and in terms of
development,
Mrs McCorn was bound to admit, the Commander was a failure.

But hope is often confused with inspiration, and on the journey to Ireland Mrs McCorn could not but help thinking that Fate may have planted the idea of Parknasilla in her head. On the aeroplane she bought herself a small bottle of brandy to quell the feeling of pleasant unease in her stomach: a glittery, excited feeling she had not experienced for many years. But the brandy's medicinal powers had no effect on a state which no medicine can cure, and by the time she set foot on Irish soil Mrs McCorn was as dithery as a girl, her heart a flutter, her cheeks quite pink.

She walked into the lobby of the Great Southern Hotel mid-afternoon on a fine July day, accompanied by her family of matching suitcases. She moved with head held high, bosom thrust forward, knowing that should her entrance cause a rustle of interest, then those who looked her way would take her for someone. She had persuaded her cautious hairdresser to be a little more generous with the Honey Glow rinse than usual, and by great effort she had lost two pounds through cutting out her elevenses for the last month. She felt she exuded health at this, the beginning of her stay, which is more than can be said of most people, and it was with a symbolic flourish of well being that she signed her name at the reception desk.

Then Magda McCorn, glowing in oatmeal dress with tailored jacket to match, and a butterfly brooch (made from a deceased Red Admiral) sparkling on the lapel, tripped up the wide hotel stairs behind the friendly Irish porter. She admired the high Victorian passages, with their thick and shining white paint, and the ruby carpets. Commander Chariot was a man of taste, of course: he would only recommend the best in hotels. Should he not appear, then at least she would still have benefited from his recommendation and would thank him in a single sentence on the left-hand side of this year's Christmas card.

In her fine room overlooking the bay, the porter relieved himself of all her suitcases and asked if there was anything Mrs McCorn would be requiring. Mrs McCorn paused, smiled, fumbled in her bag for a tip, to give herself time. The only
thing in the world she wanted was to know whether Commander Chariot, regular visitor to the Great Southern, was expected. The porter would surely know. But Mrs McCorn was not a woman to indulge in questions that might bring forth a disappointing answer, and after a short, silent struggle, she decided to shake her head and give the man a pound. He could be useful in the future, should she change her mind.

When the porter had gone, Mrs McCorn surveyed what was to be her room for the next two weeks with great satisfaction. Then she went to the window and looked out at the grey waters of the bay. There were palm trees in the hotel garden, reminding her this was a temperate climate and, more distantly, wooded slopes that went down to the sea. I am going to be happy, here, she thought, and sighed at the idea of such a luxury.

Some hours later – having furnished the room with small touches that made it more her own (crochet mat on the bedside table, magazines, travelling clock) – Magda McCorn returned downstairs. It was time to perform her first important task of a holiday: establish her presence. This she did by arming herself with a small glass of sherry, then drifting round the lounges (three of them, with open fires), nodding and smiling with fleeting friendliness in the direction of anyone who caught her glance. The idea was to stamp a firm image in the minds of the other guests: they should instantly understand that here among them was a middle-aged widow of considerable attractions, alone, but in good spirits and certainly not a case for sympathy. While her smile was calculated to indicate enthusiasm, should anyone wish to offer her to join in their conversation or their games, her firm choice of a chair near the window, and apparent engrossment in a book, conveyed also that she was a woman quite happy with her own resources. Her establishing over, her search for the Commander thwarted, Mrs McCorn set about hiding her disappointment in the pages of a light romance.

In the magnificent dining-room of the Great Southern, Mrs McCorn had a single table by the window. There, she enjoyed a four-course dinner cooked by a French chef, and drank half a bottle of expensive claret. Nearby, at other tables, families with children, and several young married couples, chattered
their way through the meal. Mrs McCorn did not envy them: it was her joy silently to watch the sun – which put her in mind of a crabapple rather than a tangerine, but then, as Patrick used to say, she was an original thinker – sink into the silver clouds which, if she half shut her eyes, looked like further promontories stretching from the bay. Her measure of wine finished, Mrs McCorn's thoughts took a philosophical turn: the frequent lack of clarity between boundaries (sea and sky, happiness and melancholy) struck her with some hard-to-articulate significance that sent a shiver up her spine. In fact, it had been to Commander Chariot that she had tried to confide some of these private thoughts – as the sun then had been setting over Santa Cruz – but he had shown a lack of response that Mrs McCorn had quite understood. It wasn't everybody who was blessed with such insights, and after all they were of no practical use and the Commander was a wholly practical man.

After dinner, to continue the establishing process, Mrs McCorn made her way to the lounge where the life of the hotel seemed to have gathered. There, an elderly lady wrapped in a mohair shawl, the occasional sequin twinkling in its furry wastes, played the piano. The prime of her piano-playing years was evidently over and, accompanied by a dolorous young man on the double bass, their rendering of fifties tunes lacked spirit. It was as if the music was emerging from under a huge, invisible cushion, oppressed. But it was good enough for Mrs McCorn. In her time she had had quite a reputation on the dance floor, although partnering her husband Patrick there had been little opportunity to show off her prowess at the quickstep. It would have been disloyal to complain, and she never did: although for all the happyish years of their marriage, Magda McCorn secretly deplored the fact that her husband was such a lout on the dance floor. But her feeling for the dance, as she called it, never left her and here, suddenly as of old, she felt her toes privately wiggling in her patent pumps in time to the steady thump of ‘Hey, there! You with the Stars in Your Eyes' which, she recalled with a stab of nostalgia, had been played every night on the cruise to the Canaries.

Mrs McCorn chose herself a tactful armchair. That is, it was within reach of a middle-aged Norwegian couple, should they
choose to talk to her: yet far enough away to make ignoring her within the bounds of politeness if that was how they felt. She gave them a small signalling smile and was delighted, though not surprised, when immediately they drew their own chairs closer to hers and began to converse in beautiful English.

Due to her holiday in Norway, Mrs McCorn was able to tell them many interesting things about their country, and to captivate their interest for some time. Occasionally she allowed her eyes to glance at the dance floor, where she observed the deplorable sight of unmusical men shunting around their wives with not the slightest regard to the beat of the tune. The long-suffering expressions of the wives did not escape her, either. She felt for them, poor dears, and envied them, too. Varicose veins a-twinkle, at least they were on their feet.

Something of her feelings must have registered in Mrs McCorn's eyes, for the Norwegian gentlemen was standing, offering her his arm, asking her to dance. Taken so unawares, Mrs McCorn hardly knew whether to accept or refuse. But she saw the friendly smile of the Norwegian wife urging her, urging her, and knowing everything would be above board, with the clinical Norwegian eyes of the wife following their every move, Mrs McCorn said yes.