Chestnut Street

  She had read every single thing he had ever written. She said she had followed his career and couldn’t believe that she had actually got to meet him at last.

  “Could I sit near you on the stage when the debate is being televised?” she pleaded.

  “Well, yes, but you’d have to be able to contribute.” Mac didn’t want to seem like a pushover.

  “I can contribute.… I’d like to say how you alone are able to make young people enthusiastic about politics. For years they have been so indifferent. You should have your own political party.”

  “Oh, I say,” Mac said.

  “But perhaps you don’t want to do that—maybe you’re a family man with a child, children of your own, you don’t want to give the time …?”

  He wished he could remember her name.

  “No, I’ve no family, no ties,” he said. Did he imagine it or did a shadow of anger cross her face? He must have imagined it.

  Wendy had the emerald-green outfit immaculately dry-cleaned and returned to the Madame Frances Boutique. Then she telephoned a national newspaper and said she had a very good story to offer. It would be something they would love, she assured them, a real feel-good account of how the underdog might eventually triumph. The newspaper loved that sort of thing, and said it was very interested indeed.

  Rita had made friends with a lot of people, including men in the television crew. She had told them she would be sitting beside the great Mac on the platform.

  “Will you be speaking?” they asked.

  “If anything happens that I have to respond to, then I will,” Rita said and she smiled a mischievous smile.

  Wendy asked Madame Frances if she could invite some of her best clients in to the boutique for the photo shoot. Why not give her a list of ten or so and Wendy would choose. She chose the people that Rita had suggested.

  Rita had managed to circulate a large number of typewritten questions before the lecture and debate began. They all had to do with “responsibility.” The fact that we all had to take responsibility for our own actions just as the state had to feel collectively responsible. She told people she had been asked to pass them on. They were all slightly different but on the same theme. People read them thoughtfully; they looked like good topics. They were questions that would be asked.

  Wendy suggested that Madame Frances might invite her ladies round on a Sunday morning and offer them shortbread and coffee to entertain them. Frances noted to herself that since it was a Sunday, the dreaded Rita wouldn’t be there being overfamiliar, and said it was a splendid idea. Frances said nothing to Rita about it all—let her hear later.

  Rita had other things on her mind that particular Sunday. She had to make sure that she was well within everyone’s vision once the row began. As it would begin.

  Mac was looking more and more confident and arrogant; he had no idea that the whole hall was busy debating arguments about “personal responsibility.”

  Wendy and the photographer from a big national newspaper were poised and ready. The well-dressed, well-coiffed ladies nibbled their shortbread and dusted their mouths in readiness for the pictures that would be taken. They were anxious to speak as well as possible of the Madame Frances Boutique and the charming girl, Rita, who looked after them. Odd that she wasn’t here today. She was the very center of the whole operation.

  The television broadcast began and Mac seemed bewildered that none of the questions he had expected were turning up. Instead there was a very heavy emphasis on personal responsibility, and although he could and did manage to turn it against several well-known politicians who had been notably lacking in that area, he had an uncomfortable feeling that some of it seemed to be directed personally against himself.

  But he must be paranoid. Nobody here knew anything about Wendy and the child that she had so irresponsibly conceived.

  Madame Frances was incensed.

  All these women, egged on by the horrible journalist and photographer, seemed to be talking about Rita nonstop and her brilliance in knowing what suited them and adjusting clothes at no extra cost.

  “Why haven’t you mentioned her at all?” the horrible journalist asked, and the photographer took more and more pictures of an angry, blustering Frances.

  The piece was going to be called “The Hunt for Rita … Mystery Woman Who Had Not Been Informed of Her Day of Triumph.”

  It was going to be a big story, they told Frances over and over. The Cinderella whom all the customers loved, a Cinderella whom the proprietor couldn’t find, no matter how many times she phoned.

  The television camera team was getting very excited. Normally they didn’t have such audience response. The guy in the black jacket was being practically howled off the stage because he wouldn’t say whether or not there were areas of his own life where he felt that personal responsibility didn’t count.

  And then to crown it all, a pretty girl on the platform leaped to her feet and asked him to keep his hands to himself.

  “I didn’t touch you,” blustered Mac in his leather jacket. “But if I had, you would only have had yourself to blame, in your short skirt and with your long hair …”

  The television crew knew that they would get a huge commendation and maybe even an award for such amazing live documentary work.

  Wendy and Rita treated themselves to a rather smart dinner out. They ran over all the events as if it were a movie script. They laughed a lot and drank endless toasts to each other. The waiter was a kind old man.

  “You ladies seem very happy. That’s nice to see,” he said.

  “We run a company together,” Wendy explained.

  “It’s called WR, which stands for Wrongs Righted,” Rita added.

  “Sounds as if there should be a lot of call for things like that,” said the elderly waiter and gave them a small port each on the house because they looked so cheerful, unlike a lot of the rest of the clientele.

  Not everyone on Chestnut Street owned a car, which was just as well. There were thirty small houses all in a semicircle, but room for only eighteen cars. Of course, some people like Kevin Walsh at Number 2 took up a lot of space with his big taxi. But that didn’t really matter, since Bucket Maguire from Number 11 cycled everywhere, as he had done for years.

  Mitzi and Philip lived in Number 22, and they had two sons who worked in New York. The boys, Sean and Brian, came home once a year in July with their families to see the old folk, even though technically Mitzi and Philip were not all that old, having married when they were twenty. They were only in their forties now, parents of two grown-up sons and grandparents to four little Americans. But of course to Sean and Brian they were very old indeed.

  Mitzi would make a Fourth of July picnic for her grandchildren to have under the chestnut trees opposite their home, and it became a regular event.

  Sean and Brian and their American wives seemed to love the week’s vacation, Mitzi thought. And so they should enjoy it. Such preparation had gone into the six nights that they would all be there.

  She herself would take a week off from the shop where she worked. She spent the time cooking and freezing meals, and cleaning the house from top to bottom. It was no use telling her that the boys and their families might be more comfortable in—and could easily afford—a hotel.

  This was their home and this is where they would stay. Philip was also very pleased that they came back, but in a less excited way.

  He would ask the lads into the pub on a Friday evening to meet a few of his workmates. He liked to show off his two strong sons and boast how well they had done over in America. He liked Sean and Brian to see that he still had friends and was well thought of in the factory.

  One year they showed up at the pub too early and saw their father in a booth with his face very close to a young woman. She was much, much younger than their mother. She had a short red skirt and bare midriff, and she had long curly hair and a small, cheeky face. She made their own young wives seem middle-aged in comparison.

  They were sho
cked to the core. Their own father! Playing away from home with a woman half his age, while poor Mother had no idea.

  They were outraged but couldn’t find the words to accuse their father, and they watched from the shadows while the girl kissed him on the cheek and scuttled away. They were short and abrupt with his friends but he didn’t seem to notice.

  That night their mother said that she thought her sons looked tired.

  “You’re very good to go out with your dad. He does love showing you off to his friends,” she said affectionately. “He doesn’t have much else in his life to look forward to, you see.”

  They looked at her, stricken. No good would come from telling her that he had plenty to look forward to and to look back on, if their eyes hadn’t deceived them.

  They talked about it together long and often during that visit. They wished the sighting had never taken place. That they had not seen their father’s little bit on the side. It gave a new slant to everything he said.

  When their father said that he’d love to travel while he still had the energy for it, Sean and Brian exchanged glum looks. Of course he would.

  They felt sick as they heard Mitzi say that she was a real stick-in-the-mud; she had been to Spain and Italy and the U.S.A. and that was it. If she won the lottery, she’d build a beautiful big conservatory at the back of Number 22. A glass room with a beautiful wooden floor and window seats. She could almost see it already.

  Their father shook his head in disbelief at her nonsense and Brian and Sean felt very brought down. This had been the year they were going to present their parents with an all-paid holiday to the States, a visit to one of the great national parks and a tour of Arizona or New Mexico.

  But now, after the sighting, what was the point?

  If Dad wanted to travel, it was with Miss Bare Midriff, and Mother had said she didn’t want to travel at all.

  “Will we just give them the money for the conservatory?” Brian wondered aloud.

  “But then what happens when they have to sell the house if Dad goes off with the little tart in the pub?” Sean said. “It would break poor Mother’s heart even more if she were to lose the conservatory as well.”

  They found it increasingly difficult to be civil to their father. His words about family life seemed hollow, his toasts to a wonderful wife and sons seemed shallow. And his plans for the future so unlikely and false. Like his saying to his grandchildren that one day he’d teach them to fish. That was a ludicrous thing to promise. He wouldn’t be around here if he had his way. He and Miss Short Red Skirt would be somewhere else, far from doing something aging like teaching a grandson to catch a fish.

  Before they left, Sean and Brian moved tentatively around the topic by talking about how hard their mother worked.

  “If I were to work twenty-four hours a day I couldn’t repay your father for how good he’s been to me,” she would say, shaking her head at the enormity of his kindness. “And this way I can get us little treats like take him to the cinema and to a Chinese supper, or maybe a nice new shirt.”

  Her sons were enraged, but yet they couldn’t bring themselves to say anything about the young woman they had seen.

  When it was nearly time for them to go back to the States, would they say anything to their father or not? Sean wanted to say something, but Brian thought it might make matters worse. And suppose they were to say something? Neither of them knew how they would phrase it.

  On the last night, their father was out. He wouldn’t be home until after 9 p.m.—he had got extra hours at the factory.

  “What does he do with all his money?” Brian asked.

  “Oh, I’ve no idea. He’s saving for something—that’s why he takes all the overtime that’s on offer.” Their mother’s face was affectionate, indulgent about men and their little ways.

  Sean could bear it no longer. “You know how people are, Ma. He’s probably having a pint with the lads—and the lassies too, by the way. The place is full of them.”

  “I don’t think there are many lassies up in your father’s pub, only that girl Rona. You know the niece of Liam Kenny over at Number Four?”

  “I don’t think I know her.” Brian was cold.

  “Well, if you saw Rona you wouldn’t forget her. Skirt up to her knickers, hair all the colors of the rainbow.”

  That was her, all right.

  “What’s she doing hanging round Dad’s pub?”

  “She works there. Her father—Liam’s brother—owns the place and sometimes young Rona helps out, but mainly she’s a salesperson for conservatories. I used to talk to her about them in the days when we thought we might be getting one.” Their mother sighed, then busied herself getting the supper ready. Their father would be tired when he got in, tired after a very long day.

  That night, Sean approached his father in the little garden.

  “By God, the week went quickly, son,” Philip said.

  “I’m not going to make small talk, Dad. I want to talk to you about Rona Kenny.”

  “She’s never been round here, has she? She promised she wouldn’t.”

  “No, she hasn’t, but …”

  “I told her your mother would be out at the airport tomorrow; she could come then and I’d let her in.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Dad?” Sean’s face was full of grief.

  It was bad enough that his father was unfaithful to his own wife, but to glory in it in front of his own sons. That was grotesque.

  “Why weren’t you and Mam happy enough for each other?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t know.” His father sat down on the garden seat. “I’ll never know, son, but what’s past is past. You boys were never to know—we said it would be private between us and forgotten. It’s strange that your mother should tell you now.”

  “Mother told us nothing.”

  “So how do you know?” He was bewildered.

  “Know what?”

  “About your mother and I having, well … those problems in the past.”

  “Not only in the past, I’d say,” Sean said. He never saw anything as sad as his father’s face.

  “Oh, Sean, lad. I don’t believe you—it can’t be true. She’d never have met him again, she’d never fancy him still.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sean was totally confused.

  “She promised me, and we were getting on so well. No, it can’t be true she’s seeing him again.”

  “Mother seeing a man?” The world was tilting over for Sean.

  “But that’s what happens. She fell in love, you see, because I was too dull for her. He wanted her to go away with him but she gave him up to keep the family together.” He spoke admiringly of her. There was no grudge. This was a great and noble thing to do.

  “When was all this, Dad?”

  “Years back. You and Brian were in short pants then. I can’t believe she met up with him again.”

  “Dad, aren’t you seeing Rona Kenny?”

  “Of course I am. To arrange the conservatory. She’s coming in tomorrow to measure it all up.… But now you tell me your mum’s seeing him again, then she won’t care about the new room.”

  “No, Dad.” Sean spoke very gently. “I got it all wrong. I saw you and Rona whispering in the pub the day we went in, and I thought, I thought … I thought the wrong thing, you see.”

  “As if that little girl would fancy a silly old man like me.”

  “No, Dad. It happens. I’m sorry.”

  “But does this mean that your mother isn’t seeing him again?” The relief in his father’s voice and the look on his face were almost too much to bear.

  They heard people calling from the house.

  Number 22 was all lit up and welcoming, with a table for ten.

  And next time they came back there would be a conservatory.

  He had his arm around his father as they came in, and he saw Brian look at him in surprise. Sean shook his head very slightly.

  He watched his mother, flushed and exc
ited from bending over the oven, wisps of hair clinging to her face. His own mother had had an affair with another man. Met him secretly, adulterously, passionately.

  It was too hard to take onboard.

  He didn’t think he would tell Brian. Only that they had been misled about the sighting.

  He was a peacock. She knew that the moment she met him. He was looking at his own reflection, not at the picture behind the glass in the frame. He stroked the lapels of his very expensive jacket softly and with pleasure. She knew exactly what she was letting herself in for.

  “I’m Ella,” she said simply. “That is the most beautiful jacket. Is it wool?”

  He seemed pleased, but not surprised. He talked about the jacket briefly, with unaffected enthusiasm. He had bought it in Italy three weeks ago—but his manners wouldn’t let him go on too long.

  “I’m Harry,” he said. “And shouldn’t we be talking about your clothes, really?”

  “Not tonight,” Ella said. “Tonight I just came straight from the office.”

  His smile could have lit the fire that was set in the grate of the art gallery. A fire that was pure decoration.

  “It must be a very elegant office, then,” Harry said, and Ella was lost.

  She always told herself afterwards that it had been as deliberate an act as she had ever known. She had walked in, eyes wide open, into the situation she had spent most of her adult life trying to rescue her friends from. She had fallen in love with a man who was going to break her heart over and over; she would lose the sympathy, the patience and eventually the company of her friends. Ella, who was known for her self-control and her calm, practical way of looking at things, had fallen for a peacock full of charm. Not even the silliest of them would have thought there was even half a chance with Harry.