A Week in Winter (9 page)

She answered questions as if it was an interview in a Garda station. There was none of the normal to and fro of a conversation. Apart from hoping that all was well back at Stoneybridge, she asked nothing about her grandson and granddaughter.

‘Do you take a drink at all, Nuala?’ Carmel asked.

‘No, no, I never got in the habit of it.’

‘Rigger doesn’t drink either, which makes him fairly unusual in our part of the world, but I do love the occasional glass of wine. Can I get you one?’

‘If you’d like to, yes,’ said Nuala.

Carmel brought two glasses of white wine back to their little table.

‘Good luck to the bride and groom,’ she said.

‘Indeed.’ Nuala raised her glass mechanically.

‘I’m taking a big risk here but I’m just going to tell you something. I
love
Rigger with all my heart. He is the perfect husband and the perfect father. You won’t know this because you haven’t seen him in that role. He works all the hours God sends. There is one thing he is not – he is not a son. He is nobody’s son. As a father himself now he would love to know something about his own father, but he wouldn’t ask you any questions about him, not in a million years. But much more important than anything, he wants his mother back. He wants so much to share this good life he has now with you.’

Nuala looked at her, astonished.

‘I haven’t gone away,’ she said.

‘Please, let me finish then I promise that I will never mention this again. He’s just not complete. You are the one piece of the jigsaw that’s missing. He never thinks that you were a bad mother. Every single thing he says about you is high praise. I would die happy if I thought my son Macken would talk so well of me. You don’t
have
to do anything at all, Nuala. You can forget I said any of this. I won’t tell him. He wanted to bring the children up to meet you but I asked him not to. I said that one day they would meet their grandmother Nuala, but not until she was ready. You say you feel guilty about letting him run wild. He now feels guilty that he has made you unbalanced and ruined your life.’

‘Unbalanced?’

‘Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it? You’ve got the balance wrong. You need someone to help you to mend the scales. Like as if you had a broken leg. It wouldn’t heal without someone to set it.’

‘I don’t need a doctor.’

‘We all need a doctor some time along the way. Why don’t you try it? If it’s no use then it’s no use, but at least you gave it a try.’

Nuala said nothing.

So Carmel decided to finish. ‘We will always be ready. And he needs to be a son again. That’s all I wanted to say, really.’ She hardly dared to look Nuala in the eye. She had gone too far.

The woman was not well. She lived in a world of her own. All Carmel had done was to annoy her and upset her further.

But she thought that the lined, strained face had changed slightly. Nuala still said nothing but she definitely looked less tense, her hands didn’t grip the edge of the table so hard.

Was this fanciful, or was it real?

Carmel knew she had already said more than enough. She would not speak any more. She sat very still for what seemed a very long time but was probably only a minute or two. Around them, the wedding party was singing ‘Stand By Your Man’.

Rigger came towards them.

‘They’ll be going in a few minutes, do you want some confetti to throw?’ he asked.

Now Carmel realised that Nuala’s face had changed. She was definitely looking at the eager, happy face of her son with different eyes. It was as if she could see that this was not someone she had destroyed but a proud, happy man secure in himself and steady as a rock.

‘Sit down for a minute, Rigger, knowing Nasey it will be hours before they get going.’

‘Sure.’ He was surprised and pleased.

‘I was just wondering who was looking after Rosie and Macken tonight?’ she asked.

‘Chicky and Miss Queenie. They have our mobile number. Chicky rang an hour ago to say they were all asleep except herself – Miss Queenie, the twins, Gloria . . .’

‘Gloria?’

‘The cat. She’s a heavy sleeper.’

‘The cat wouldn’t sleep in the pram?’ Nuala looked anxious.

‘No, Gloria’s much too lazy to get up to that height. Anyway, they’re watched all the time.’

‘Good, good.’

‘Chicky wanted to know how it was all going,’ Rigger said.

‘And what did you tell her?’ His mother was actually asking a question, looking for information.

‘I said it was a great wedding,’ Rigger reported.

‘Will you be talking to her again tonight?’ Nuala wondered.

‘Oh, you can be sure we will. This is the first night we’ve ever left them,’ Carmel said.

‘Could you say to her that she’s to keep a sharp eye on them, and to tell them that I’ll be coming to see them myself before too long? I’ve just got a few medical things to sort out but then I’ll be there.’

Rigger struggled for the words. He was determined not to break the mood. This was not a time for hugs and tears.

‘And won’t they be so pleased to hear that, Mam,’ he said. ‘So very pleased.’

Just then there was a rush to the door. The bride and groom really
were
leaving.

Carmel looked at Nuala. She wanted to tell her that with those words she had made her son feel complete.

But there was no need. Nuala knew.

Orla

W
hen Orla was ten they got a new teacher in St Anthony’s Convent. She was Miss Daly, she had long red hair and she wasn’t remotely afraid of the nuns or Father Johnson or the parents, who were demanding that the girls get first-class honours and scholarships to university. She taught them English and history and she made everything interesting. The girls were all mad about her and wanted to be just like her when they grew up.

Miss Daly had a racing bicycle and could be seen flying across cliff roads pedalling madly. They
must
all take exercise, she told them, otherwise they would end up as little wizened old ladies crawling around. If they were fitter they would have more fun. Suddenly the girls of St Anthony’s became fitness freaks. Miss Daly had an early-morning dance exercise class and they all turned up eager for new routines.

Miss Daly told them that they were very foolish to resist the computer skills classes, this was the future, this would be their passport out of a dreary life. And even the noisy, troublesome pupils like Orla and her friend Brigid O’Hara listened and thought it made sense. They became part of the fundraising drive to get more computers for the school.

Their parents had mixed feelings about Miss Daly. They were glad, and indeed astounded, that she had such an effect on the children and was able to control them like no other teacher had even begun to do. On the other hand, Miss Daly wore very short shorts on her racing bike; she was almost
too
healthy, with wet hair and a just-out-of-the-sea look in all seasons. She drank pints in the local pubs, which women didn’t usually do.

It was reported that one elderly bar owner had hesitated before pulling a pint for her, saying that ladies didn’t normally get served in this manner. Miss Daly is meant to have said politely that he would pour the pint or deal with a complaint to the Equality Commission, whichever he preferred, and he poured the pint.

Miss Daly was not seen regularly at Sunday Mass but she put in more hours at that school than any other staff member had ever done. She was there half an hour before lessons began with her dance exercise class, and after the bell went at four o’clock she was there in the computer room helping and encouraging. A generation of girls in St Anthony’s became confident with Miss Daly as their role model. She told them there was nothing they couldn’t do and they believed her utterly.

When Orla was in her last year, Miss Daly announced that she was leaving St Anthony’s, leaving Stoneybridge. She told everyone, including the nuns, that she had met a fabulous young man called Shane from Kerry. He was twenty-one and trying to set up a garden centre. He was quite gorgeous, twelve years younger than her and besotted with her. She thought she’d help Shane put his garden centre on the map.

The nuns were very startled by this and sorry to see her go.

The Reverend Mother made the mistake of hinting that marriage to a much younger man might have its pitfalls. Miss Daly reassured her that marriage was the last thing on her mind and that confidentially marriage was really outdated.

Reverend Mother was shocked, but Miss Daly was unrepentant.

‘But didn’t you realise that yourself, Reverend Mother? I mean, you were ahead of your time deciding to give the whole thing a miss . . .’

The girls organised a goodbye picnic for Miss Daly – a bonfire on the beach one night. She showed them pictures of Shane, the young man in Kerry and she begged them all to travel and see the world. She told them to read a poem every day and think about it, and whenever they went to a new place, to find out about its history and what had made it the place it had become.

She said they should learn all sorts of things while they were still young, like how to play bridge, how to change a wheel on a car and how to blow-dry their own hair properly. These things weren’t hugely important in themselves but they stopped you wasting time and money later on.

She gave them her email address and said she would expect to hear from them about three or four times a year for ever. She expected them to do great things. They cried and begged her not to go, but she told them to look at the picture of Shane again and ask themselves seriously would any sane person let him slip through their fingers.

Orla did write to Miss Daly, and told her about the course in Dublin she had done, how she had won the medal at the end of the year. She told Miss Daly that she found her mother totally unbearable, full of small-town attitudes, and when Orla came back from Dublin it was usually only three days before she and her mother had a blistering row about something totally unimportant like Orla’s clothes or the time she came home at night. Her father just begged her not to cause trouble. Anything for an easy life. Her aunt Chicky, who came home from America, was so different; a real free spirit, and Orla was hoping to go out on a holiday with Brigid to New York to see her. Orla always asked about Shane and the garden centre but got no response to that. Miss Daly was only interested in her pupils’ lives, not in telling them tales of her own.

Then Orla wrote and said that the whole trip to New York had been cancelled because Uncle Walter had been killed in a horrific crash on a motorway. Miss Daly reminded her that her life was in her own hands. She must make her own decisions.

Why not get a job away from home and come back for short bursts? It was a big world out there; there were even further horizons than just going to Dublin.

So Orla reported that she and Brigid were going to London.

Brigid got a job in a public relations agency which handled publicity for a rugby club, among other clients. They would meet an amazing amount of fellows. Orla got work with a company that organised exhibitions and trade fairs. It was full of variety; at any moment they might be dealing with health foods or vintage cars. James and Simon, the two men who ran the company, were both workaholics and taught Orla to be tough and to work under pressure. After a month there she found herself able to talk firmly and with great authority to people who would normally have terrified her.

To her surprise, both James and Simon found Orla very attractive and each of them made a move on her. She almost laughed in their faces – two more unlikely suitors she could not imagine. Married men who scarcely saw their families and whose main interest was beating their rival companies. All they wanted was some on-the-spot entertainment.

They took the rejection cheerfully. Orla dismissed it all as a childish mistake and went on to learn more and more.

She wrote to her teacher saying that Miss Daly should be proud of her. This job was a whole education in itself, and she was rapidly becoming expert in the world of taxation, websites and networking, as well as setting up exhibitions.

Orla and Brigid shared a flat in Hammersmith. It was all so gloriously free compared to home. And there was
so
much to do. She and Brigid went to tap-dancing classes in Covent Garden on Tuesday nights. Orla also went to a lunchtime calligraphy class every Monday.

James and Simon protested in the beginning about this. She was not fully committed to the job if she insisted on being free to learn fancy handwriting. Orla took no notice of them whatsoever. If she had to earn her living in their busy, dreary, business-obsessed world, she said it was completely necessary that she have some safety valve of a little artistic input to start the week. They didn’t dare say a word against it after that.

And at night they went to the theatre or to receptions that Orla organised or to various functions at the exhibition halls. They were young, lively and unimpressed and people loved them. So far, there was nobody special for either of them but neither Brigid nor Orla were in any hurry to settle down.

Until Foxy Farrell turned up.

Foxy was the kind of man they both hated. Loud, confident, big car, big sheepskin jacket, big job in a merchant bank, big opinion of himself. But he was completely besotted with Brigid. And, oddly, Brigid started to find this less hilarious and embarrassing than it had seemed at the start.

‘He’s basically decent, Orla,’ she said defensively.

‘I know he is,’ Orla spoke without thinking. ‘But could you
bear
it? I mean, imagine waking up beside him in the morning.’

‘I have,’ Brigid said, simply.

‘You never have! When?’

‘Last weekend, when I was in Harrogate. He drove all the way up to see me.’

‘So you made it worth his while.’ Orla was still reeling from this news.

‘He’s very nice, really. That old showing-off thing is just the way they go on in his set.’

‘I’m sure he is when you get to know him properly . . .’ Orla began the backtracking, which she hoped was not too late.

‘Yeah, well, I’m going to get to know him improperly next weekend. We’re going to Paris,’ Brigid said, with a giggle.