Amongst Women

  ‘Who is she?’ They asked when they were quiet again.

  ‘It must be Miss Brady that’s home from Glasgow.’

  ‘She’d never have him.’

  ‘They say she’s wild after him. She goes every evening to the post,’ and they began to laugh again at what they saw as a mocking mirror of their own flowering.

  Moran took the small blue Ford out of the shed after Mass on Sunday, tested the engine and tyres, then washed the car down, dried it and waxed it till it shone. At three o’clock he drove the four miles to Rose Brady’s house. The lane into the house was narrow and winding with too many gates so he parked the car on the wide grass margin beside the platform for the creamery cans. The car could not be seen from the house because of the shelter of trees. He walked slowly down the lane, enjoying the feel of the pressed brown suit he so seldom wore, this new excitement midst the humdrum of his life. It was as if he were going to the edge again of something fresh and new.

  Rose saw him at the heavy red gate of the yard. So intense was her relief at seeing him come that she stood stock-still in the doorway. As relief spread to pure pleasure she waved and came towards him across the yard like a young girl. She was already by his side before she thought of how her face and hair must look.

  She had gone through bad days. In the evenings, with painful vividness, she had seen the small congregation in the post office, the mail van crossing the bridge, Annie sorting the letters, the stretch of empty road to the sycamores where they had stopped to talk. Such was the restlessness of her longing to go there that she had had to struggle to stick to her resolve. She could not go. She had given signs enough, perhaps too many, and she could only wait. Now he had come to her.

  Though her mother disliked him the custom of hospitality was too strict to allow any self-expression or unpleasantness. Her brother he had met before and the two men talked about the year’s hay saving and the price they expected for sheep and wool and cattle. A white cloth was spread on the table, homemade bread and jam, a fresh apple tart. Tea was made. He praised the bread and the blackcurrant jam.

  ‘The garden is choked every year with blackcurrants. The birds get most of them. Your girls should come here to pick them next summer.’

  ‘That would be too much,’ he said.

  ‘If the girls don’t pick them they’ll just waste in the grass or go with the birds,’ the mother said as amiably as she could.

  ‘Are you interested in football?’ her brother asked.

  ‘Not so much but it’s nice to see a good match.’

  ‘Would you like to hear the end of the game then?’

  ‘Sure I would,’ and her brother turned on the Sunday game he had been listening to when Moran entered the yard. After ten minutes or so it seemed to end satisfactorily. Moran was unassertive and attentive in the few minutes they discussed the game afterwards.

  ‘Now that I’ve eaten and drunk my fill it’s time for me to beat away,’ he said after about an hour.

  Rose’s mother and brother shook his hand politely. She got a cardigan and walked him all the way out the lane. Above them rose the poor fields, littered with rock and gorse, the lower slopes of the mountain. Below the lane was the small lake ringed with reeds.

  ‘Are there fish in the lake?’

  ‘There used to be plenty – small perch, and pike, and eel – but they never seemed to grow to any size.’

  When they went through the first gate at the bottom of the hill they were out of people’s eyes for the first time since they had met. There were just the whitehorn and brier of the hedges, the green ridge of the lane inside the wheel tracks, the wild strawberries starting to darken on the banks.

  ‘Was I all right in the house?’ he asked.

  ‘You were perfect. You could not have been better. It was lovely that you came,’ and she took his hand and raised her mouth eagerly to his as he bent to kiss her for the first time.

  ‘I’m not used to going out,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to come to meet my crowd now.’

  ‘I’d love to meet them.’

  ‘One of these evenings I’ll arrange it. I hope they’ll know how to show manners.’ Responsibility visibly descended on him again as he walked.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a car,’ she said with surprise when they reached the road.

  ‘I don’t take it out very often but it’s nice to have, to know that you can go anywhere you want if you feel like it.’

  Secretly she exulted that he had the car. It was just one more sign of his separateness from the people around who would buy a cow or a few more fields. In these parts a car was prized more than flowers or an orchard or a herb garden: it was the symbol of pure luxury.

  She walked slowly back down the lane, savouring the rich peace, the strength she felt. This narrow lane was dear to her. Sleepless in Scotland she had walked it many times in her mind. The wild strawberries, the wiry grasses, the black fruit of the vetches on the banks were all dear presences. Out of the many false starts her life had made she felt they were witnessing this pure beginning that she would seize and make true. No longer, exposed and vulnerable, would she have to chase and harry after happiness. From a given and confident position she would now be able to move outwards.

  ‘Where’s Tom?’ she noticed her brother’s absence as soon as she got back to the house.

  ‘He said he was going over to O’Neill’s for an hour.’

  ‘I didn’t meet him on the lane.’

  ‘He must have just gone over the fields.’

  After a long silence the mother said, ‘That was a bit of a surprise visit.’

  ‘I asked him to call if he was ever this way. Did you like him at all?’

  ‘If he suits you I’m sure he suits me. He has a large family.’

  ‘I don’t see how that can be held against him.’

  ‘You used to have many admirers,’ the mother changed.

  ‘The admirers are all gone.’ Both women were glad to let the conversation drop. They would not change.

  She did not go to the post office the next evening or the next. No longer had she the ache of longing for that stretch of white road leading round to the sycamores. By coming to the house on Sunday Moran had made that stretch of road like all roads. She would go on the day she judged best. She did not want to appear either too eager or too casual.

  All her nervousness came back as she approached the post office just ahead of the mail van. The small room was full. Moran was there and smiled on her and spoke. Whether Annie and Lizzie had heard of the Sunday visit or had marked her absence wasn’t clear but they appeared almost conciliatory compared to previous days. She did notice too that Moran was more carelessly dressed than she remembered and hadn’t shaved for at least a day. It was as if he were truculently stating that he had gone as far towards her as he was prepared to go. Outside the post office he made no apology for the roughness of his appearance but he was as friendly and charming as he had always been.

  ‘There’s a concert in the hall on Sunday. It’d be easier if we met my troops for the first time at the concert,’ he said. ‘Then you can come to the house any time you want to afterwards.’

  ‘Whatever you think is best.’ She was glad to do whatever he wished.

  On Saturday night at the end of the Rosary Moran said, ‘I want to offer a final prayer to God that He may guide your father on the right course,’ and they all knew, even to the boy Michael, to what he was referring. ‘There’s a very special person I want you to meet at the concert tomorrow. I hope you’ll all like her. She’s Miss Brady,’ he told them as soon as they rose from their knees. They made vague general noises about how glad they would be to meet her. ‘I want everybody dressed in their best clothes,’ Moran demanded.

  Sunday evening the girls were shining and the boy wore his blue Confirmation suit with black shoes. They were all excited and a little ashamed. They had seen Miss Brady in the distance at Mass but they had never met her. At the hill beyond the village he gave them mone
y. ‘Go up to the front row and keep two chairs,’ he directed and then left them. Though the hall was almost empty they weren’t forward enough to go into the very front seats so they entered the seats three rows back, claiming two extra chairs with folded coats. They knew all the people entering the hall, and those that occupied seats close to them smiled and spoke to them. They felt nervous and compromised. They were even more uncomfortable when their father entered with Rose just as the full hall was waiting for the curtain to go up. With extreme slowness Moran walked Rose to the seats, The girls suffered agonies of exposure as they waited for them to reach their seats. Slowly and solemnly Moran introduced Rose to each member of the family in turn. The small group became more the centre of attention than the stage itself. Rose’s tact was never more evident. If she was nervous it remained hidden and in a few minutes she had put each of the sisters completely at ease, their shame and apprehension gone.

  The concert was amateur. A group of girls decked with medals danced. A blue-suited man sang. An old man played several airs on an accordion. The drama society put on a short comic sketch. As all the performers were either related to or known to the audience each act was greeted with loud and equal applause. At the interval Rose nodded and smiled to the people about her. Moran made no gesture, did not even look around him.

  At the end of the concert he took the four children back to Great Meadow. Rose sat in the front seat. At the house he invited Rose in but she refused with the excuse that it was too late. As she said goodnight to them in turn she managed by some technique of charm or pure personality to convey to each of them that they were important to her in their own light. They left her feeling completely enclosed in a warm glow of attention and to Moran’s repeated questions over the next days were able to say genuinely how much they liked her. In fact, the response was so uniform and repetitious that it started to irritate him before long.

  Rose wished that they could be married quickly but now that there was nothing in the way of it Moran grew cautious and evasive. She saw the way it was and moved differently. An invitation through Moran brought the three girls and the boy to her house for a long Sunday. As it came through Rose he encouraged it as much as he would have discouraged visits to any other neighbouring house.

  She showed them the small lake in its ring of reeds, took them to the first slopes of the mountain, rigged up a fishing rod for Michael and took him to the part of the lake she used to fish as a girl, and soon he was shouting out in glee as he missed the ravenous little perch or swung them out over his head on to the bank. Rose’s mother showed the girls the house and the fowl and farm animals, including a pet goat who wouldn’t let Rose milk her unless she sprayed herself with a perfume that the mother used. They were given a sumptuous tea and invited back any time they felt like coming. Within a few weeks they were regular visitors. As Moran encouraged them they could go without guilt. To leave the ever-present tension of Great Meadow was like shedding stiff, formal clothes or kicking off pinching shoes. Old Mrs Brady never took to Moran but she grew very fond of the children. Until she won their trust their manners were deferential, identical to the old- fashioned manners of her own youth. They were always eager to help or run messages and she enjoyed making tea and cakes for them. Rose, with the same tact as she had brought them to the house, was careful to absent herself from these occasions as much as possible. She sent them alone with sandwiches and drinks to where her brother worked in the fields and he too grew glad of their quiet company in the empty fields. In a few months Rose’s home place and Moran’s house were almost interwoven. Half-jokingly, but with a certain edge, Moran said that Great Meadow was so deserted that he himself might have to remove himself before long to her house. No one was ever able to see quite how it had all been managed. Rose’s tact was so masterful that she resembled certain people who are so deeply read that they can play with all ideas without ever listing books.

  ‘What do you think of Rose marrying your father?’ the old woman grew confident enough one day to ask Maggie in her good-humoured, forceful way.

  ‘We’re glad.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, we’re glad.’

  ‘People say he used beat ye.’

  ‘People said that because Daddy never let us mix with them.’

  ‘Did he not beat ye?’

  ‘No … now and again when we were bold, but like any house.’ Shame as much as love prompted the denial.

  ‘How is it that your brother left and never came home?’

  ‘Daddy and Luke could never get on. They were too alike,’ and when Maggie began to cry Rose’s mother saw that she had pressed too hard.

  ‘She’d have been better with someone nearer her own age,’ the old woman murmured to herself. ‘She had many admirers. Many admirers. Many admirers. I don’t understand it at all.’

  Maggie brushed away her tears as she listened. She thought the mutterings were comical. To her both Rose and Moran looked equally old. Rose’s mother was not reassured by Maggie’s answers but she liked her and didn’t want to endanger their young presences about the house.

  Michael had become her favourite. He was the least inhibited. He would chatter away egotistically to her for hours. Sometimes she would give him money on the sly and he would help her with chores. Often they would quarrel and he would stay away from the house for a while; but he was never able to stay away for long. When he would return, the two would feel even closer than before the quarrel and they would soon be moving about the yard together, chatting away.

  For all her encouragement to them to come at any time to her house, Rose herself was wary of calling at Great Meadow. Whenever she did she never stayed for long. When Moran pressed her to come for the Christmas dinner, she refused. ‘It wouldn’t look right to be out of my own house on Christmas Day,’ she answered; that they were not yet married was left unsaid. ‘I’ll come some time early on St Stephen’s Day,’ she said instead.

  The girls wished that Rose could be with them on Christmas Day. As always, it was a very long day to get through. Moran ate alone in front of the big sideboard mirror, waited on apprehensively by the girls. After he had eaten, they had their own dinner at the side table. It was the first Christmas anybody had even been absent and Moran seemed to be painfully aware of Luke’s absence.

  ‘You’d think he’d come for the Christmas or even write but never a word, no thought for anybody except himself,’ and it cast a deep shadow when they tried to imagine what kind of space enclosed Luke in England during the same hour, but they weren’t able to imagine it. It was too much like facing darkness. Afterwards the radio was played. The Rosary was said. The pack of cards was taken out. Everybody made for their beds early. It was a gladness to slip down into the sheets knowing the day had ended.

  The next morning Rose came in with presents. She had bought a silk tie for Moran, blouses and deep plum-coloured sweaters for the girls, a pair of white football boots for Michael. Because of his dislike of gifts, the girls watched carefully how Moran would receive the silk tie.

  ‘Thanks, Rose,’ he said and placed it on top of the radio.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ She smiled a little, taken aback by the spareness of the response.

  ‘It cost far too much and is far too grand for an old fellow like me.’ The response was positively exuberant.

  Just as Rose was preparing to leave, the wren-boys arrived on the Arigna coal lorry. There must have been twenty men on the back of the lorry in masks and carnival costumes. With the money they gathered from different houses, they bought ham, loaves and butter, lemonade, whiskey and half-barrels of porter to hold a big dance in Kirkwood’s barn that night. Everyone around was invited.

  As soon as they came into the house a melodeon started to play and two fiddles took up in perfect tune; then bagpipes played alone. Young men danced Rose Brady and the girls round the kitchen. There were whoops and cheers, mock kissing attempts, challenges to put names on the masked faces and then a s
ong.

  ‘The two of you will have to come to the Major’s tonight,’ the man who gathered the money said.

  ‘Maybe we will,’ Moran responded. ‘Maybe we will.’

  Moran gave them a pound, Rose took a red ten-shilling note from her handbag and they left in the same whirl as they had entered, dancing and singing all the way out to the lorry. An eerie silence descended over the house as the lorry left for the next house.

  ‘Are we going to the dance?’ Rose asked Moran as she left.

  ‘What would be seen there but the same old crowd making fools of themselves?’

  ‘It’s Christmas.’

  ‘Do you want to go?’

  ‘I’d like to very much.’

  He went reluctantly. There was an air of great jollity and freedom, even of outright licence, at the wren-boys’ dance in Kirkwood’s barn. Moran didn’t feel easy. The air of friendliness was the kind that he disliked most. The wren-boys who had gone from house to house on the lorry all day were now scrubbed and combed, playing away cheerfully on raised planks. Even though there was a sharp frost outside, couples could be seen stealing away from the dance and returning a half-hour or so later, always a little crestfallen until they had danced again, danced their way back into good cheer. Moran hardly spoke to anybody and reacted roughly to any jostling as he danced with Rose on the warped floor. Rose was anxious, feeling that he had lived in the stone house with too much responsibility for too long. He had not been able to go out and be at ease with people. What she did not know was that Moran, with his good looks and military fame, had once been king of these barn dances and now that he had neither youth nor fame would not take a lesser place. He would not take part at all.

  Rose had come to the dance to claim their place as a couple among the people in this loose, Christmas carnival. She was determined to remain. She smiled and chatted with everybody around her. She took tea. She danced with neighbours and men she had gone to school with. She forced Moran to dance and by the night’s end she was worn out by the single effort. He had given her no help throughout the night but it did not lessen her love.