Daylight begins to fade in the room; gloom turns to darkness, and then the tyres of the car crunch on the gravel. A door of the car bangs, and there’s his key in the lock. No dice, he says, the first words he utters, shaking his head sorrowfully. All day long the girl has been ringing round. Not a sausage. No sign of a John or a Johnny Lysaght anywhere.
It’s not a disappointment. She knew; she said it would be this, it isn’t unexpected. At least they know the score, he says; at least all that’s out of the way. ‘You been OK?’ he asks.
‘Yes, fine.’
‘We’ll have a bite to eat and then map out a plan of campaign.’ He smiles. ‘We’ll get you home somehow.’
He cooks food for them, which, again, they eat formally in the dining-room. He talks about his regimental days, action he has seen. He asks her if she has been interested in the geographical magazines on his shelves, or the bound volumes of Railway and Travel Monthly. He asks her to tell him more about herself and she says there’s not much really, but when he presses she tells him about her mother’s death, and going to the convent, up steep St Joseph’s Hill every morning with Carmel and Rose and Connie Jo, the same journey her father made every day and still does. She describes the Square because he asks her to: Doheny’s where the buses draw in, the statue of the soldier that commemorates those who lost their lives in the national struggle, the Two-Screen Ritz. She tells him how Mr Hickey didn’t want confetti thrown in the hall of the hotel on the day of the wedding because of the mess it made; and how Aidan has given up his trade under pressure from the family he married into, how he’s serving in McGrattan Street Cycles and Prams now. She tells him about Shay Mulroone coming into the Diamond Coffee Dock; and how her father would like her to have part-time work only, so that she could continue to look after the house and do the cooking, so that Mrs Quigly needn’t be called upon to see to the old woman every midday. She tells him that when she was a child people brought her back shells when they went to the seaside, all shapes and sizes, that she used to display on the chest of drawers in her room but which she keeps in a drawer now, the one where the letters she wrote are.
All the time he listens, pouring cups of tea for them when they have finished their main course, only interrupting to offer her biscuits to go with the jelly he made that morning. Then, when they are still in the dining-room:
‘I know you don’t care for the subject, Felicia, but I’m afraid I’m duty-bound to raise it again. I’ve had experience, as I’ve explained to you, with some of the young chaps under me in the old days. There wasn’t one of them, not a single one in my entire recollection, Felicia, who didn’t want the matter taken care of when it arose. Every man jack, not one out of step.’
She nods, knowing what he’s referring to.
‘You came over here to ask Johnny that question, but you never got an answer, Felicia. That’s the way we have to look at it. If the girl in the office had struck lucky today it’d be a different kettle of fish, I’m not saying it wouldn’t. But she didn’t, and I’m definitely of one mind with you now: we won’t find Johnny.’
‘Johnny’ll be over, St Patrick’s Day or Easter. I was thinking about that the entire day. It’ll be all right when I’m back there and we’re together again.’
‘But, dear, didn’t you ride out on your bike to see that woman you told me about? Didn’t you want to get the thing done then?’
‘I wasn’t right to think about it without Johnny knew. It was only I couldn’t think what to do for the best.’
‘I’m cognizant of all that, dear. I appreciate every word; I appreciate you’ve had a change of heart. But what we’re trying to work out now is what Johnny’d want without having access to him. D’you understand me, dear?’
‘Yes, I do. It’s only –’
‘If Johnny comes back and finds you in a certain condition he’ll say to himself he’s been trapped. Any young fellow would.’
‘I’m not trying to trap him.’
‘That’s what I’m saying to you. That’s what you and myself know. What Johnny’ll choose to know mightn’t be on the same lines at all.’
‘Johnny and me love one another. He wouldn’t think anything like he’s been trapped.’
‘It’s not in doubt that Johnny loves you, dear. There’s nothing you’ve said to me that contradicts that. The point I’m making to you is that a situation like you and Johnny are in can all too easily be affected by misfortune.’ He pauses, looking away from her for a moment, before he continues. ‘Ada used to say that, Felicia. Ada had considerable insight into matters of the heart.’
‘I wish we could have found him.’
‘I wish we could have. I’ll be honest with you, Felicia: there’s nothing in this world would please me more than if Johnny rang the bell this instant minute.’
‘Johnny doesn’t know –’
‘I know, dear, I know. I was only putting a hypothetical case to you. The thing is, Felicia, you’re over here, where a certain facility’s available. What I’m saying to you now is what I’d say to any daughter Ada and myself might have had. I’m giving you the benefit of long experience. There’s no doubt in my mind, Felicia.’
She is silent at the big dining-table, her headache worse now. She tries to work it out, to think how it would be: Johnny arriving home, and meeting him, Johnny looking at her and knowing before she can tell him. She tries to see his face. She tries to make him speak.
‘I’ve given it thought since half past two this afternoon, Felicia, when the girl turned to me and shook her head. I sat there and said to myself it isn’t only Johnny. There’s her father too, I said to myself, a man in distress due to what’s happened. There’s her brother who got married that day, and then again the two lads out in the quarries, and the old lady who’s her great-granny. There’s that girl’s whole life, I said to myself.’
‘There’s people would call it murder.’ She explains that the nuns would. She explains that there are people who would never forgive it. Her mother wouldn’t have.
‘But your mother’s no longer –’x
‘I know.’
‘I understand how you feel, Felicia. Nobody understands better. But I’m an older man, that chance has sent your way. I have a little put by that I’d gladly donate in order to do the decent thing by your father and your brothers and the old lady. We’re not put into this world to cause pain. I used to say that to the young lads I had under me, I used to make the point. You have to think of yourself on occasion, I used to say. You have to sometimes, I’m not saying you don’t. But there’re other people too, which is something you’re daily more aware of as you get older. No one’s denying you’ve been through it, Felicia, but so has your unfortunate father and the old lady, and your brothers trying to hold their heads up. That’s all I’m saying to you. We all have to do terrible things, Felicia. We have to find the courage sometimes.’
Her eye is caught by a face in a painting above the mantelpiece, pink-cheeked and solemn. Again the tin of biscuits is offered to her. It’s because he knows so much about her by now that he’s able to advise her, he says. All he’s intent upon is helping her.
‘I know.’
‘We’ll get you home afterwards. Don’t worry about that.’
‘Anything you lend me I’ll send back. Every penny.’
‘I have no doubt, Felicia.’
Afterwards they sit together and he plays her old songs on the gramophone. When one of them comes to an end he repeats that looking after her is what his wife would want, deprecating his own kindness and his patience. But she knows they’re there; she knows he’s doing his best to help her. Tonight she’ll sleep upstairs, in the room he wanted her to sleep in last night.
‘I’m sorry we never found Johnny,’ he says. He puts another record on. ‘Do nothin’ till you hear from me’, a lugubrious singer begs.
Later, in the kitchen, he makes Ovaltine. He tells her not to worry, not to lie wakeless. The night can be an enemy, he says, and she understands what he means. When
she asks if he has anything for a headache he makes a fuss of her, watching while she takes aspirins, getting her a glass of water.
‘They can do an immediate at the Gishford.’ His back is to her now. He pours the milk he has heated into two plain white mugs.
‘A what?’
‘They can do it at once, Felicia. I asked the girl to put a call in to them. You could be back across the water by Monday – you could be back a free spirit, Felicia, the whole thing lifted from you. It’s what’s right, Felicia.’
She takes the mug he offers her. She sips the Ovaltine, leaning against the dresser. He asks her if she’d like a biscuit, and she says no.
‘It’s right to erase an error,’ he says. ‘It’s what’s meant, Felicia.’
15
Magazines are on a square central table. The fitted carpeting is flecked, grey and brown. There are pale clean walls.
Two different nurses keep passing through; and once a specialist, white jacket and trousers, short sleeves. Behind a glass window that slides open a staid receptionist is occupied at a desk. Classical music plays.
Two girls wait also, one with a youth, the other alone. The one on her own leafs through Woman and Hello!, a tough-looking creature in Mr Hilditch’s opinion, with aluminium hair. The couple whisper.
Mr Hilditch is certain that conclusions have already been reached in the waiting-room. Twice he has approached the staid receptionist, apologizing for doing so, seeking assurances that there are no complications. On both occasions she suggested he should go for a walk, or simply go home and return later, which is the more usual thing. ‘If you don’t mind, Nurse,’ he replied, the same words each time, ‘I’d prefer to be near my girlfriend.’
He could feel the youth thinking about both of them before they called her in: a man of fifty-four or -five, the youth was speculating, the kid no more than seventeen. When he called her darling, telling her not to worry, the youth heard every word.
‘Now then,’ a nurse with a mole says. ‘Miss Dikes?’
‘It’s Mrs, actually,’ the youth sharply corrects her. The girl with him doesn’t move. ‘Go on, Nella,’ he urges in the same sharp voice. ‘You’ll be all right.’
‘Just the prelim, Mrs Dikes,’ the nurse says. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘I’ll come back in a while.’ The youth is on his feet also, halfway to the door.
‘I’d be grateful if you’d remain until the prelim’s complete, Mr Dikes,’ the nurse requests.
The girl with the coloured hair reaches for another magazine, Out and Away. The youth raps on the glass of the receptionist’s window and when she slides it back he asks if there’s a coffee to be had. She closes her eyes briefly, snappishly. Coffee isn’t available.
‘Bloody marvellous.’ The youth addresses Mr Hilditch. ‘You pay through the bloody nose, you think they’d supply a coffee.’
‘I imagine the young ladies get something. I imagine they’re well looked after, it being private.’
‘We had the dosh put aside for Torremolinos, but there you go. Nella wouldn’t touch the other. Gets around, she says, if you go on the public, and she don’t want that. The wife’s far on, is she? Don’t look it to me.’
‘No, she’s not far on.’ Mr Hilditch pauses. ‘Actually, she’s not my wife.’
The girl with the coloured hair looks up from her magazine, interested now.
‘Girlfriend,’ Mr Hilditch says, and when a second specialist, smaller and bald, enters the waiting-room and raps on the receptionist’s glass, Mr Hilditch hopes the youth will ask another question so that the specialist and the receptionist can be drawn in. But the youth says nothing further and the bald specialist requests that when the eleven-fifteen appointment arrives he is to be informed immediately. ‘Cut it a bit fine, the eleven-fifteen has,’ he comments, hurrying away again, and Mr Hilditch smiles and catches his eye.
It is then that the excitement begins, creeping through him, like something in his blood. He is the father of an unborn child, no doubt in any of their minds. The girl they have all seen, who was here not ten minutes ago, whey-faced and anxious, is at this very moment being separated from their indiscretion. A relationship has occurred, no way can you gainsay it.
That he is an older man is just fact. Girls can take to an older man, they can take to a stout man: it’s a natural thing; it isn’t peculiar, it isn’t wrong. ‘You’re never that big boy’s mother!’ people used to say, the other way round then; strangers would say it when they were out somewhere, down town or at the Spa they went to. Funny if she were here now, Mr Hilditch reflects; funny if she came back from the dead.
Mr Hilditch closes his eyes and the indiscretion that occurred is there, an episode in his car. It’s dark; they can’t see one another; nothing could be nicer, the Irish girl is whispering to him; she wants to be with him for ever.
In the waiting-room a tremor afflicts him, a slight thing, nothing serious: he has experienced this before. It’s in his legs and then his arms; he steadies the quivering it causes in his hands by pressing the tips of his fingers into his knees. He would like to rest for a moment, to close his eyes again, but he does not do so. He smiles in order to control the quivering when it affects his lips, hoping it will not be taken as untoward that he should smile at this time.
16
The watch is her father’s. She sits among the daisies, waiting for him while he looks for it. She arranges the pink flowers on a dock leaf and they are strawberries on a plate and it is a party except that no one comes to it but herself. The dandelions are another fruit, maybe pears, she doesn’t know. ‘Crickets talk with their legs,’ her father says when he comes back.
The watch always dangles into his top pocket, only it wasn’t there when he looked. He took it off to keep it by him, so that he’d know the time when his jacket was off. He drooped the watch-chain over a fallen branch and then walked away without it. ‘We’ll go and look,’ he said in the kitchen. Her mother was there too. A Sunday because they’d all been to Mass.
It’s too hot where she is so he says go under the tree. His grandfather’s the watch was, brought back from Dublin the time his grandfather was killed by the soldiers. ‘It won’t take long,’ someone else says. ‘Try and relax now.’ It’s when he worked for the Mandevilles, before he worked for the nuns. ‘There it is,’ he says. ‘Right as rain.’
There is music a long way off, a man singing and the music. ‘That’s Felicia, ma’am,’ her father says, and a tall woman bends down and holds her hand out. ‘Shake hands with Mrs Mandeville, Felicia.’ But she doesn’t want to, and the woman laughs. She has smooth hair drawn back from her face, and trousers. ‘Felicia’s a nice name,’ she says.
A white dog sniffs her foot and she cries. The tall woman puts a finger into the dog’s mouth to show it won’t bite.
The music is still playing, and the voice is singing. ‘Look, Felicia,’ her father says, and she sees people sitting on chairs in front of a house, a man and another woman and a boy. The music is coming from there. ‘John Count,’ her father says.
The house is green, a big square house. The bottom of a curtain has blown out of an open window and trails on the windowsill, white net on green. The hall door is open as wide as it will go, darkness inside. Tall Mrs Mandeville walks with the dog behind her, going slowly towards the chairs, her footsteps sounding on the gravel, silent on the grass. There is a rattle of plates and cups when the music ceases.
In a shed in the garden her father shows her the garden tools he uses. He tells her what each is called: rake, fork, shears, spade, hoe. This is where he spends his days. He shows her a bird’s nest in the roof of the shed, and lifts her up to see speckled green eggs. ‘Isn’t that a queer thing?’ he says.
They pick bluebells to bring back. She can hear the music again, but it’s different now. Jazz, her father says, the music of the southern American negro. ‘A black man that is, Felicia. Black all over.’
It’s hot when they come out of the wood where
the bluebells are, she can feel it on her head. Her father takes one hand and she holds the bluebells in the other. The hinge on the watch is faulty, he says, he must get it fixed in MacSweeney’s. ‘Aren’t you the big girl now,’ he says, ‘able to be a companion on a Sunday?’
On the road they stop while he opens a packet of cigarettes. Sweet Afton he likes, but sometimes he’ll try another brand. He doesn’t smoke much, just now and then during the day. ‘Keep the midges off us,’ he says, lighting a match.
He tells her about when he was small, as small as she is, and about how his own father had bare feet going to school. His own father and his mother are dead, but he still has his grandmother. They go into Lafferty’s shop and he has some of her lemonade because he is thirsty, too. He carries her on his shoulders and she can smell the tang of tobacco on him. ‘All done,’ someone says and it isn’t him, and there are lights and a smell that isn’t cigarettes, clean like Jeyes’ Fluid or the stuff when the sink’s blocked. The sheets are cool, a soreness is just beginning. ‘All done,’ someone says again; the fingers on her wrist have black hairs on them. ‘She can take herself off now,’ another voice says.
17
She’s there in the waiting-room, standing in front of him, white as a sheet. The youth who saved up to go to Torremolinos doesn’t pay any attention. There’s no one else in the waiting-room now except the receptionist behind her glass window.
‘Sit down a minute, dear,’ he says, and as he approaches the receptionist’s window it is drawn back. He pays in cash. ‘Thank you,’ he says to the woman. ‘We’re greatly obliged.’
‘See she keeps warm.’
‘We have a little journey and then I’ll tuck her up.’
The woman nods, glancing at him once. He can feel her wanting to ask if he’s the father, even though she must have clearly heard it when he said girlfriend. He says the word again, mumbling through the rest of the sentence because in the time he can’t think of anything coherent to say. He smiles at the receptionist. It could happen to a bishop, he wants to say, that expression of his Uncle Wilf’s. But already the glass has slid back into place.