A Few of the Girls (22 page)

And, boy, wasn't she right.

She looked around happily and decided that the flight to Brussels was now becoming as routine a journey as the train in from Bray used to be. There were men reading files, men working with little calculators over columns of figures, men smiling and laughing with other men. The Common Market had taken away a lot of the excitement of travel. These men wouldn't become enthusiastic about foreign smells of good coffee and fresh-baked rolls, they wouldn't marvel anymore at the traffic being on the wrong side of the road, they wouldn't translate the signs triumphantly for each other. They all had opposite numbers who spoke perfect English, and secretaries who booked their rooms routinely, reminding them to keep the receipts for expenses.

They all seemed much more mature these days, Maura thought. She remembered that about ten years ago Irish businessmen would have laid into the gin and tonics on an early flight, delighted to have it offered to them, unwilling, almost unable, to pass up the chance of an airborne party. But this morning anyone she could see was having coffee. There would be a day's work ahead. And for her there was a difficult day ahead too. She had to be more watchful than ever before in her life. One slip could ruin everything. One little thoughtless reaction and everything Auntie Nell had taught her would be useless. She would never be able to look Nell in the eye unless everything went according to the master plan. Nell didn't accept that people forgot, or were tired, or didn't think. Nell thought that losers deserved to lose. She was very absolute about that.

Aunt Nell had insisted she go to Brussels with him. She had said that there was no other course. To refuse would be childish and petty; it would be playing into the hands of the enemy. Maura must be very enthusiastic about the trip, get herself a new outfit and tell all her friends that she was going. She must keep questioning Dan about the places that they would see. Above all, she must appear to suspect nothing.

It was hard to feign enthusiasm for a trip that she knew was a journey to say good-bye. It was very hard to pretend an eagerness to see a city that she knew would be the one where her husband would tell her he was leaving her. It was almost impossible to sit beside Dan now, after eighteen years of marriage, and watch him read
The Irish Times
with a calm, untroubled face when she knew that he was going to tell her that he wanted to leave her. She knew that he would take the job in America and she knew that he would take that Deirdre with him.

Nell had always advised her to read his letters and to go through his pockets.

“He's too good-looking for you, that Dan. If you must have him, and it appears you must, then be prepared, be a jump ahead. Know your problems before they become too hard to solve.” It had always seemed shabby and dishonest to Maura to spy on someone you loved, but she had to agree that, forearmed, she was able to make a much better fist of things than she would have done with no warning. She had been able to head off some mild flirtations in the past by arranging for the family to be doing something else when a little adventure was looming. The little adventures had fizzled out. Nell was invaluable on such occasions. Nell was wealthy and Dan liked to go and stay in her big country house. Whenever Maura needed help to distract him from a dalliance, Nell obliged by providing people who would be useful in his career. She had always been a prop like this for Maura, and it was agreed that it would be their secret till death. No letters were ever written between them.

“Why do I ask your advice like a silly schoolgirl?” Maura had wondered last week as she strolled with Nell around the orchard, picking windfalls.

“Why do I want to play God with you?” asked Nell.

“You're always right, that's what's so hard to understand. You don't make any of the mistakes that I do,” grumbled Maura.

“I made them twenty years ago. That's why I like to steer you through the minefield.” Nell had ended the conversation abruptly. Nothing of her own mysterious and rather scandalous liaison way back in the 1940s was ever discussed. She had married dull, wealthy Edward, who adored her. She was over fifty but she could be any age; she had charm and confidence. Everyone except Maura presumed that she was extremely happy.

Nell said that the trip to Brussels was Maura's last chance. If she played it properly she would win. Nell knew Brussels as well as she knew everywhere else. Every little street off the Boulevard Adolphe Max she seemed to have toured in her time. Romantic restaurants, big markets, quaint chiming clocks…anything that two people in love could need, Nell knew it.

“But we aren't two people in love,” complained Maura with the hint of tears. “We're one person in love and the other gritting his teeth and girding himself and getting ready to tell me he's off.”

Nell was impatient. “I'm surprised he hasn't gone already if that's your attitude,” she said sternly. “You must make this trip what he has lyingly said he wants it to be, a chance to talk. Remember Scheherazade.”

“What did she do? I forget,” Maura said wretchedly.

“She talked,” said Nell. “And by talking she put off the evil hour.”

The plan was that Maura would talk. As they strolled around the lakes of Ixelles, Maura was to speak gently and happily about the future. She was to say that he should take the job in America. She was to say that she and the twins would not come out yet, not for six months anyway, and then only for a visit. This was so that he could concentrate on the job without the additional worries of settling in a family as well. He would be confused by this, because it was not in his plans. Thinking on his feet, he might seize the opportunity—in fact, the odds were that he would. After all, it offered him the best of both worlds. He could have his Deirdre and his New York job with no confrontation, no accusations, heartbreaks, and recriminations. What man would be able to say no?

But then Deirdre would be outraged. After all, she had been urging him for months to tell his wife of their plans. Once Dan had postponed the great telling again, their relationship was bound to suffer. In New York she would feel shabby and second best, hidden and with no status—just as she was now. Their relationship would probably wither.

Maura wasn't so sure. It had been going on for ten months—that was about eight months longer than any previous flutter.

“Well,” said Nell, “I did offer to kill her. Run her down accidentally with my car. I am getting shortsighted. No one could accuse me of doing it deliberately. I don't even know her.” Maura's hand had flown to her throat in terror. Nell sounded so matter-of-fact. She actually meant it!

“But there is the danger that I might just wound her, and that might be worse than ever. She'd be a bloody martyr,” Nell said, abandoning the scheme to Maura's great relief.

Dan knew quite a few people on the plane. “Nice to be able to bring the spouse, if it is the spouse,” said a man jovially. “Of course it's the spouse,” said Dan, annoyed. “I'm very flattered at being thought a bit more exciting,” Maura said, laughing, and the moment passed.

They went in on the train, a journey so quick that Maura could barely believe they had arrived in the city. Nell had told her not to keep making provincial statements, so she bit back her comments on how long would it be before Dublin ever had such a system, and her views on a colleague of Dan's who always took a taxi, which was about ten times the cost and four times as lengthy. Instead she laughed like a girl and told Dan a funny story about the first time she had ever been on the Continent, when the school had taken them on a trip to Rome. It made him laugh, and she hoped that somewhere Nell would hear that laugh and congratulate her.

Dan's meeting included lunch and the afternoon. She had a million things to see, she said, and a guidebook and flat shoes. She would tour and sightsee, and when he came back they would have a bath and a drink and go out to dinner. She kissed him good-bye lightly and wondered why people didn't nominate her for an Oscar.

She didn't do any sightseeing. She went to the Church of St. Nicholas and tried to pray. Often God listened and understood. She didn't burden him with too many of the details since she presumed he knew them already. But today he didn't want to know. When she heard herself telling God that she needed his strength and help to preserve their marriage, a good Christian marriage, she realized she was being hypocritical.

“All right, God,” she said. “All right. There's no point trying to fool you, any more than Nell. I want you to use every bit of pull to get him back for me. I can't see a life without Dan. Please can I have him back? Please? I never did much bad, except read his letters and tell a few lies.”

She saw people lighting candles, and remembered that Nell had told her this was a church where young ballerinas, or would-be ballet stars, came to pray to St. Nicholas so that they would get a good part. It seemed utterly ridiculous of them, she thought impatiently, and smiled to herself when she realized what they would think of her.

That night they walked around the Grand Place, all lighting and fairy tale like the postcards he had sent home so regularly. He was tired; his meeting had been difficult. Everything was fine until the Italian had disagreed, then he had agreed, and just as it all settled the British viewpoint was reexamined. When that had been smoothed down the German had become apoplectic. Maura laughed at his descriptions: she knew what he was talking about. Since she discovered that Deirdre shared an interest in his work she had made herself very well up in all that happened. They had an unaccustomed after-dinner brandy and a stroll to the hotel. He seemed to think she expected him to make love to her. She took that decision away from him too. “Tomorrow,” she said, and kissed him gently. She heard a Brussels clock chime away the night.

Dan's meeting the next day was an all-day affair. They would finish in time for the suitable trains and planes back to the other countries in the Community. Everyone on this particular committee would go home to some kind of lifestyle. Dan would stay in Brussels and tell his wife he was leaving her. Maura looked at him and wondered how he could sleep.

Nell said she should go to see some of the war graves when she was in Belgium, it might put her own troubles into perspective, but Maura thought it might depress her too much. She went to Waterloo instead. She didn't know anyone whose grandfather had been killed there. It was easy to get there—she went on a local bus—and sat on the edge of the Lion's Mound and tried to reconstruct it all with maps and guidebooks, but suddenly it seemed too sad, and such a ridiculous waste for all those boys to come from different lands and homes to be cut to bits here that she cried, and cried, until the careful makeup which was meant to make her thirty-nine-year-old face look better than Deirdre's twenty-five-year-old one went into funny clown-like lines.

She didn't even bother to wipe them away as she sat on the bus back to Brussels, and she heard a father tell his sons that Waterloo wasn't the last battle in the world, that tomorrow they would go to see Ypres and Passchendaele and realize that battles went on forever. And very simply she realized that he was right, battles did. After she had won the American battle there would be another and another. Did anyone have that amount of energy? Certainly Nell didn't. Otherwise why had she married nice, dull, safe Edward?

Maura went back to the hotel and washed her face. She sat and waited peacefully in their hotel bedroom. That would make it easier, nobody to witness the scene.

And when Dan came in the door, she poured him a drink from their bottle of duty free and asked him had he anything special that he wanted to say to her.

Bernard knew there was something special about his seventh birthday, because they seemed to be talking about it all the time at home. Mother and Father were very busy, always rushing in and out shouting to each other about it. There hadn't been as much fuss since last Christmas with all the comings and goings and doors banging and not knowing where anyone was going to be.

His birthday appeared to be causing even more drama. Every time he came into a room people stopped talking. His grannie, or his auntie Helen, or Daddy's friend from the office, the very fat lady Katy, also came to see them sometimes. And Mother must be working very hard because Grannie and Auntie Helen kept telling her she was wonderful to be able to give a children's party in the middle of everything, and then at different times Katy would put her arm around him and say that he was a lucky boy because so many people loved him. Father didn't say much because he was very busy and not home a lot. Sometimes he had to sleep at the office, he worked so hard.

Bernard had asked Katy did she have to sleep at the office too. For some reason everyone went very silent when he said this. They had looked at each other as if trying to guess the answer. Mother had come to the rescue.

“Not anymore, no need for that anymore,” Mother had said.

Father had got into a mood then, and had said that this was about as low as they had got, and that for everyone's sake he had to hope that there was no lower to go.

The birthday party tea was going to be at McDonald's, like everyone else at school did for their birthdays, so he didn't know why they kept talking about the menu. At Gerald's party his mother had taken down a list of what everyone wanted in advance and someone had driven ahead to order it. But that was all. In Bernard's home they kept talking about the food. He couldn't count the number of times he had heard them talking about the custardy case. It must be a new kind of pudding, and a huge secret. Because nobody mentioned the custardy case when he was there, it was only on the phone or when they didn't realize he was in earshot. It must be a difficult pudding because Auntie Helen was saying that there was no knowing which way it would go, and Grannie was saying that these things were usually cut and dried, which sounded awful, but Mother was saying that there was nothing cut and dried about it at all.

Nobody spoke about the custardy case in front of Father or Katy. Maybe it was a surprise for them too.

Bernard liked Katy, even if she waddled a lot. She had a lovely smile and she was interested in his school report and the sports he played. She said she loved the high jump herself. Bernard thought that she was probably far too fat to jump even three inches above the ground but didn't say anything of the sort. He nodded sagely as she told him about her school and how they had once put on a gymnastic display.

“Katy's good at the high jump,” he told Mother and Auntie Helen.

“You can say that again,” Auntie Helen said grimly.

“Shush,” Mother said warningly.

He went out for walks with Father and Katy on Sundays; Mother never wanted to come, but Katy wasn't a bit insulted.

“Your mother has to work very hard, even on Sundays,” she explained. Mother showed people houses for an estate agency. Sometimes couples wanted to see a place on weekends. It was the only time they had free. For as long as he could remember, Mother had to jump up suddenly when the phone rang.

“And don't you have to work anymore?”

Bernard couldn't quite understand: if Katy had been a friend of Father's in the office, why did she not go there anymore? It was no use asking Mother about it after all that strange fuss when he had wondered about Katy sleeping in the office. He thought it better to ask her directly.

Katy didn't seem a bit upset. They were walking together. Father had gone off to get ice cream.

“No, I'm having a baby, you see; it's in here.” She held Bernard's hand to her stomach. “So I can't really go to work anymore. It wouldn't be fair.”

“Why wouldn't it be fair?”

“On the baby, and on everyone else.”

“When will it come out?” He looked at Katy fearfully.

“In about two weeks' time.”

“After my birthday!” Bernard was pleased that none of this would interfere with the celebrations. He was going to ask Katy about this case of custard pudding that Mother, Grannie, and Auntie Helen were all so het up about. But he didn't. If it was meant to be a surprise then he had better let it be a surprise for him.

Father came back with the three cones.

“Katy's having a baby,” Bernard told him, thinking, Father would be pleased and interested at this news.

“I know,” Father said in a strange voice.

It sounded as if it was the most extraordinary thing in the world instead of something anyone could do. Harriet, the cat, had had four babies last month and the hamsters at school were always having them.

“Could we have a baby at home, do you think?” he asked Father. There was another of those silences. Bernard was beginning to find them very irritating. What could be wrong with people when you asked perfectly ordinary questions? Why did they suddenly get struck dumb?

At school the next day Bernard told Gerald that Katy was going to have a baby in two weeks. It was nearly ready, but not quite. “Will it be like a brother for you?” Gerald asked. Bernard was puzzled. How could it be like a brother when it was belonging to Katy from the office? He did what he did when he didn't understand things. He gave Gerald a punch in the arm and Gerald gave him a wallop back and soon they were rolling about on the playground.

Miss Hayes separated them. “What was that about?” she asked. Bernard and Gerald looked at her blankly. They couldn't remember. Miss Hayes believed them. Children often belted each other for no reason. She would have forgotten it if Bernard's mother hadn't called in at lunchtime and asked was everything all right with her son. Miss Hayes mentioned the unexpected fight and almost immediately regretted it when she saw the woman's face.

Bernard was pleased to see his mother coming to collect him at home time.

“Can we bring Gerald for an ice cream?” he asked.

“I thought you and Gerald were fighting like tinkers?” Mother said. Bernard sighed; you couldn't do much without it getting home.

“That was nothing,” he muttered.

“Why did he hit you?” Mother wouldn't have dreamed that Bernard was the aggressor. But Bernard had a very strong sense of justice.

“I sort of hit him first. He said I was having a brother—or something like that.”

Mother looked very upset. She was biting her lip. Bernard wanted to reassure her, let her know that he had sorted it out.

“It's all right. I told him it was Katy that was having the baby, not you.” He expected her to be pleased at his grasp of events and his swift action in thumping anyone who got them wrong. To his horror, right there in full view of the school, Mother knelt and pulled him to her in a terrible bearlike hug.

“I love you so much, Bernard, don't ever forget that. You're the dearest, best boy in the whole world.” He knew she was crying.

Bernard wriggled, trying to escape, because all kinds of people were looking at them. He beat on Mother's shoulders with his free fists, begging her to let him go.

When she loosened her arms from around him, he ran off as fast as he could.

He saw Mother standing looking after him but he didn't care. He had to be away from all the people who would laugh at a boy of nearly seven being hugged by a mother kneeling on the road. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him in his whole life.

When he got home Father was there, which was nice. Father was hardly ever home at this time of the day. Bernard was pleased when he saw the car outside the door and ran in shouting for him.

Grannie and Auntie Helen were sitting in the kitchen, but Father was upstairs.

There were three suitcases open on the bed. Father was packing, suits and clothes.

Bernard's face lit up.

“Are we going on our holiday?” he cried out excitedly.

Father looked very annoyed to see him.

“Your mother
said
she was picking you up from school. She couldn't even bloody do that. She couldn't keep her word.”

Bernard hated when Father and Mother said bad things about each other. He was going to explain that Mother had been there, but he was too interested in the suitcases.

“Where are we going? Where, Father? Please tell me!”

Father sat down on the bed. He looked old and sad suddenly. “Bernard, you weren't meant to be here, you were meant to be out for all of this.”

This whole business about surprises was getting very hard to handle. There was the cake at McDonald's, there was this holiday…Bernard wished that people would let him in on things, let him look forward to it, tell people at school about what was happening.

He looked at the cases on the bed. These were the big ones; the ones they had taken to Spain and down to Kerry, and they only came out of the attic when it was time to go on a holiday.

“Will I go and pack too, Father?” he asked, hoping that this was the right thing to suggest. Father's face looked a bit gray. Maybe he just needed to be left on his own for a bit. To Bernard's utter horror, Father suddenly grabbed him in exactly the same awful hug that Mother had.

“Oh, Bernard, I wouldn't have had this happen for the world,” he said into Bernard's hair. And Bernard tried to fight the thought but he really believed that Father was crying too. He escaped just as he had done from Mother and got to his own room.

Bernard had got an early birthday present from Katy. It was a Super Walkman, and a little plastic rack for holding story tapes. Katy had said that it could be nailed up on a wall wherever he was and that he would always have his tapes near him and he could listen to them whenever he wanted to. Bernard had explained that Mother had said things shouldn't be nailed on the wall but he'd put it beside the bed and it kept falling over. He wished Mother hadn't said that about not nailing it to the wall, as Katy had said, what were old walls for anyway except to put things on?

He listened to his tapes, and wondered about the holiday and where it would be, and whether Katy would come too, and would the baby be ready while they were on holiday, and would Miss Hayes mind, and would they come back in time for the birthday?

He lay on his bed with his eyes closed and he thought he heard Grannie and Auntie Helen come in and go out, and he heard Mother's voice, but it was arguing with Father's, so he turned up the volume, and since it was only in his own ears, nobody else could get annoyed by it and come and tell him to turn it down. Sometimes, when he was changing the tapes, he heard Mother crying and Father shouting, and though he could hardly believe it, they were all still talking about the party and the pudding and who was going to order it or collect it or get it.

Mother was saying that a man never got custardy, never in the history of the whole thing. Father was saying it wasn't a man; it was a ready-made family; it was people who would stay at home all day and mind children, not gallivanting off with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who waltzed into an estate agency for an outing.

Mother was saying that some of the judges were women nowadays; they weren't medieval anymore, they knew a woman could work and mind a child.

Father said judges were judges whatever sex they were. They could see where the advantage lay. They weren't fools. Bernard now saw that there was going to be some kind of competition, a cookery competition involved about the custard puddings. Everything pointed to it, there could be no other explanation.

He went into the room, where the suitcases were on the floor and where Mother and Father were both crosser than he had ever seen them in their lives.

“I don't mind about the pudding,” Bernard said with the air of a man who had solved it all. “Let's have no pudding, no custardy case at all.”