The Bright One (24 page)

He was out of church well before them, Breda champing at the bit because her mother
would
stop and ask how someone was, and was the new baby thriving, and draw Breda into the conversation. Was anything more certain, she asked herself, since half the unmarried girls in Kilbally had their sights on him, that one of them would carry him off before she even got out of the building?

When they did emerge he
was
in the centre of a group, but he left them at once and came over to Breda and Molly.

‘Good morning to you both,' he said in his deep voice, raising the smart fawn trilby he wore to church. ‘Now would you be giving me the pleasure of escorting you two beautiful ladies back to your home, since we all walk in the same direction?'

‘'Tis not necessary . . . ' Molly began, and thought how rude she sounded. ‘But very well, then,' she ended.

Her reward from him was a radiant smile, with a flash of perfect teeth. They set off, he taking the edge of the pavement and manoeuvring Breda into the space between himself and Molly. The pavement was narrow. They could not avoid walking close together, bumping into each other from time to time.

He walked all the way to Luke O'Reilly's shop with them, though it meant passing the pharmacy. He had been in the shop several times in the past week or two, on behalf, he explained, of his uncle. Now he lingered on the pavement outside the door, but if he was expecting to be invited in, Molly thought, he was due for disappointment. Also, it was not her place to be inviting people into Luke's home.

‘I was wondering, so I was, if I might take Breda for a walk this afternoon?'

Rory made his request to Molly. Molly glanced at Breda, who looked as though she had had a light turned on inside her. If only the child would not be so transparent, always showing her feelings, good or bad! And I am thinking of her as a child again, she thought, and she is so no longer. She is seventeen. I was married at eighteen.

‘You must ask Breda,' she said.

But it had been polite of him to ask her first – polite, or quite clever. She wished she did not have these double-edged feelings about the young man. There was no good reason for it; it was unfair.

‘I would enjoy it,' Breda said. ‘'Tis a fine spring day!' She would have enjoyed it even if it had been a cold November fog.

‘Then I will be calling for you at three o'clock?' Rory said.

He raised his hat once again, and left them.

No matter how much her mother urged her, Breda could not eat her Sunday dinner, which was a pity because it was always the best meal of the week, and today there was a piece of beef, pink and succulent. She swallowed a mouthful of meat, pecked at a potato, pushed the cabbage aside, refused the rice pudding, and escaped to her room.

The time crawled towards three o'clock. She changed her dress twice, and then went back to the first one. She brushed her hair until it shone. She put on her blue beads, then took them off and settled for the pink. But at least Rory was not late. When his knock came at five minutes to three, she rushed to the door. She had been watching out for him for more than half an hour. She had no intention of inviting him in; she did not want time being wasted in polite conversation with her mother and Luke.

‘I wondered, would we walk along the cliffs?' Rory asked as they set off.

‘I would like that fine,' Breda said.

It was a favourite walk for Kilbally people, as well as for visitors who came by bicycle, or these days once again by car, leaving their transport along the sides of the lane before climbing the steep slope to the top of the cliffs.

It being a fine Sunday afternoon, there were plenty of people about. Although Breda would have liked nothing so much as to be on a desert island alone with Rory she was, on the other hand, delighted to be seen walking with him, especially by several people who knew her. To be one of a group of young people taking the walk was one thing, she had done it often – though she hoped that if they met with such a clique Rory would not wish to join them – but to be linking arms, which Rory had done the minute they were out of the main street, just the two of them together, was quite different. She knew it would not go unremarked.

This high, the air was as clear as crystal, so fresh as almost to tingle on the tongue. The sea, far below them, was a deep, dark, almost navy, blue, with the crests of the waves turning to green at the moment before they hit against the cliff face in an explosion of white foam and spray. Further out the water was calm, but in the small bays and gullies which cut into the cliffs there was strong movement and incessant sound, added to by the whirling and dipping and crying of the gulls.

‘I like the feeling of being above the birds,' Breda said. ‘Of looking down on them as they fly. And I like to see the ones riding on the water, letting the waves take them wherever they will!'

‘And I would like it if you would not stand so close to the edge,' Rory warned. ‘I don't want to lose you. I've only just found you.'

He tightened his grip on her arm and held her close in to him. She was flooded with pleasure, her whole body trembling. Surely he must feel her shaking? She knew that what she wanted most of all now was to be alone with him. She wanted everyone else to disappear, leave the two of them with only the cliffs, the short, springing grass, the sounds of the birds and the sea for company. Minutes ago she had been pleased that there were people around to see them; now she wanted no-one but Rory.

As if he read her thoughts, he said, ‘Are there not far too many people around? Why would they not go away and leave the place to you and me?'

It happened almost immediately. The rain came, as it frequently did in Kilbally, with the suddenness of someone up there, behind the clouds, turning on a tap; warmish rain, and gentle, but persistent and plentiful. In no time at all the cliff top was cleared of people. Only Breda and Rory remained, and while he held her close Breda was oblivious of the weather.

Rory was more practical. ‘If we climb just a little way down, over there,' he said, pointing, ‘there's a rock overhanging. Sure, we could get shelter for a wee while, until it eases off.'

He began to lead her, cautioning her to be careful. The grass was slippery, but bit by bit they inched forward and made it to the place, a shelf about four feet wide, overhung by a rock.

‘Why, it's quite dry here!' Breda said. ‘Why did no-one else see it, I wonder?'

‘We may as well sit down until the rain is over,' Rory said.

It would stop as suddenly as it had started, Breda knew that. It was the way it was on this coast.

He sat down, and pulled her down beside him, and then he was kissing her, gently at first, then harder, and holding her closer. It was not the first time in her life she had been kissed; hadn't they all larked about on the way home from a dance? But it had not been like this, it had been nothing like this. It was as if his kisses entered her parted lips and coursed through her body, to her fingertips and the ends of her toes. And all the time she wanted him to do more than kiss her, though she was not sure what.

Then suddenly he stopped kissing her and held her away from him. ‘The rain has stopped, so it has, and we are both quite wet. I must take you home or your mother will not let you come out with me again!'

Breda wondered how he could change so quickly. She was still trembling inside, still half in another world where it didn't matter what the weather did, but she didn't protest as he pulled her to her feet. Whatever he did, whatever he said, was right, and she would follow him.

I am in love, she thought. I am really and truly in love! This is what it is like, and it is wonderful!

On the Wednesday he took her to the film show – Cary Grant it was, and he was not one whit more handsome than Rory Nolan, who, she was sure, could himself have been on the films if only he had wanted to. On Saturday night he accompanied her to the
céilidh
, where he spent most of his time with her, and on Sunday he again walked her and her mother home after Mass. She was, Breda could tell, the envy of all her friends in Kilbally.

And so it went on as spring gave way to summer: films, walks, dances; once a trip to Ennis; once they cycled all the way along the coast to Ballyvaughan and picnicked on the Burren. He was interested in everything about her, what she was, what she did.

‘I want to know all that's ever happened to you!' he said.

‘And that will not take long,' Breda told him. ‘Not much happens in Kilbally.'

She told him about her family, about Kieran, about the twins in New York. She spoke to him of her father, and of how she came to be living in Luke O'Reilly's house, and why she was not altogether happy there.

‘But you do not tell me anything about
your
life,' she said.

They were walking along the edge of the hayfield. A path ran along the side of the field and when the hay was ready to be cropped, as now, Breda knew they were supposed to keep to the path, not tread down the grass; but Rory ignored that, forging a path several yards in the field, then firmly taking her in his arms and pulling her to the ground. They were completely hidden now, in a world of their own, closed in by the sweet-smelling grasses.

‘And isn't that because my life only started when I came to Kilbally,' he said.

She thought they were the most romantic, wonderful words she had ever heard.

And then there were better things to do than talk. He was on top of her, and she loved the weight of him, as if he was all hers and she was all his. His hands were everywhere, now caressing her neck, now undoing the buttons of her blouse, but when his hands moved downwards and he lifted her skirt and began to stroke her thighs, she pushed him away, and sat upright.

‘What is it?' he murmured. ‘You needn't be afraid, sweetheart. I won't hurt you!'

How could she explain that she would not mind being hurt by him, and she was not afraid in the way he meant it? It was just that she knew they must not go any further, she knew that this was what led to a baby. For a girl in Kilbally, a good Catholic girl, to have a baby when she was not married was a mortal sin and a fate worse than death; a disgrace for which she would be sent away, indeed worse. Had it not been Kitty Shane, and only last year, who had gone with a man from the summer fair and he had left her with a child inside her, and hadn't she drowned herself in the lough?

‘'Tis not that,' she said hesitantly. ‘'Tis just that . . . well . . . only if I was married. Only then.'

Perhaps he would ask her to marry him, she thought! Oh, how wonderful that would be, to be married forever to Rory Nolan, to live with him, no matter whether it was Kilbally or Dublin, to be made love to, to have his children! She was suddenly full of hope. Had he not called her ‘sweetheart'? It must be what he had in mind. 'Twas only that he had not got around to saying it.

‘What a little prude you are!' he said, though he was still smiling.

‘'Tis just that . . . '

‘Don't explain,' he said. ‘I understand.'

‘And we will-still be . . . friends?'

‘Friends, is it? Well, why not?'

‘Will I make a pot of tea?' Molly asked Luke. ‘I had thought Breda might be back, but since she isn't there is no reason why we should wait.'

‘She seems set on this Rory Nolan,' Luke observed. ‘Dermot is right enough, but what do we know of his nephew?'

‘Perhaps there is nothing
to
know,' Molly said. She spoke without conviction. She was never totally easy in her mind about Rory and she wished once again that Breda was not so besotted with him, or at least did not let him see it so plainly.

‘Well then, never mind about Rory Nolan or Breda,' Luke said. ‘There is something I want to say to you, Molly.'

‘Oh?' She tried to sound surprised, for the sake of politeness, though she knew at once what it must be, and she had not yet made up her mind either way.

‘You can guess what it is and I will not beat about the bush. Will you marry me, Molly?'

‘I am not—'

He ignored her interruption. ‘I love you, Molly. I don't think there was ever a time when I didn't love you, but it never worked out. I would do everything in the world to make you happy.'

‘I am not sure—'

‘I am not getting any younger, and one day everything would be yours.'

‘Oh Luke!' Molly cried. ‘That would not be why I would marry you! Not at all.'

‘I would not expect you to love me, not at first. But you do like me, don't you?'

‘Oh I do!' Molly assured him. ‘I have always liked you, Luke. Always!' It was true. She could not remember a time when she had not liked and respected Luke O'Reilly.

‘Then if I love you, and you like me, what is to stop us? There's many people happy on far less.'

‘I know.'

‘So what is it to be? Will you marry me?'

She looked at him directly. He was not handsome, as James had been. There was no bright twinkle in his eye, but there was great kindness there, and honesty. His hair, though still abundant, was grey, but didn't she find grey hairs among her own black ones these days? And what did the colour of his hair matter? He was utterly reliable and trustworthy and he would never let her down. Surely these alone were qualities for which she could learn to love him.

She took a deep breath. ‘I will be honoured to marry you, Luke O'Reilly,' she said.

She was sitting in the chair. He took her hands and pulled her to her feet, then he drew her into his arms and kissed her.

‘We will go into Ennis and buy a ring,' he said. ‘You shall have whatever takes your fancy. How soon can we be married?'