Circle of Friends (17 page)

“A bit hard on Patsy,” Eve said. “I feel like the prodigal son. I never had any time for him in the gospel but still it’s a nice feeling. The accident saved me, everyone’s so sorry for me they forget I told all those lies and was so rude to awful Mother Clare. Listen, I meant to tell you, the most extraordinary thing. The boy that got killed, Frank Hegarty … Mother Francis met his mother that day. I don’t remember it clearly, but anyway they got talking and she’s coming here to stay for a few days. Here to Knockglen.”

“Will she stay in Healy’s?”

“No, here in the convent would you believe? They’ve done up one of the parlors as a bedroom.”

“Go on!”

“She’s coming on the bus today. It’s going to be very hard to know what to say to her.”

“I know,” Benny agreed. “I mean anything could be the wrong thing. She mightn’t want to talk about it at all, but then it could be considered callous to start up chats about other things.”

“Nan would know what to say,” Eve said suddenly.

Benny felt a cold lurch in her heart. It was an unworthy thought, considering how kind Nan was to her and how she included her in everything. But Benny did feel that Nan got
too
much credit for things. Was it right that she would know what to do in every circumstance?

A little wave of pure jealousy came over her. She said nothing. She was afraid it might show in her voice.

Eve hadn’t noticed. She was still musing what Nan would do or say.

“I think it’s because she doesn’t dither, like we do. She always sounds as if she knows what she’s doing, whether she does or not. That’s the secret.”

“I suppose it is,” Benny said, hoping the glum, mean note didn’t sound in her voice.

“Nan could make anyone do anything,” Eve said. “She got them to let us smoke in the ward!”

“But you don’t smoke!” Benny was startled.

Eve giggled. “Oh I did for the fun of it, the others all did. It was the principle of the thing.”

“What will she do all day? Mrs. Hegarty?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Walk around. She’s going to feel lonely and odd here.”

“She would at home too I suppose,” Benny said.

“Have you talked to Sean since?”

“Not really. He was on his high horse last weekend,
you know, head turned the other way when he saw me at mass, a fit of the sulks. Unfortunately, that didn’t last and he came round last night to discuss the pictures. I’m afraid I used you shamelessly. I said I couldn’t make any plans until I knew what you’d be doing.”

“
That
didn’t please him.”

“Well, he said that from what he heard you’d most likely be in Mario’s, clicking your fingers with that Fonsie … He was full of disapproval.”

Eve pealed with laughter.

“I wonder what Fonsie said. He’s very funny, really he is. He thinks he’s going to be Mr. Big of Knockglen.”

“Lord, that wouldn’t be hard.”

“I know, I told him. But he said I’d missed the point. He said that by becoming a Mr. Big he would make Knockglen big too, he would drag it up with him.”

“It can’t happen soon enough,” Benny said gloomily.

“God, you sound like a cross between Father Rooney and Mrs. Healy with your dire voice,” Eve warned her.

“Maybe that’s who I am. Maybe my parents were given the wrong baby.”

“Boy, would
that
be the wrong baby,” Eve said, and that started them off all over again.

Kit Hegarty said she never saw such a lovely room. It was exactly what she wanted. It was small and low-ceilinged and there were no shadows or corners in it to keep her awake at night. She knew she would sleep here as she had not slept since it happened. She would love to do something to help, she said. She hadn’t many skills, but she was used to running a house.

Mother Francis was soothing. Not now, later maybe, now she must rest. She showed her the chapel. It was quiet and dark. Two nuns knelt in front of the altar where Mother Francis explained that the Blessed Sacrament was exposed.
There would be compline later, if she’d like to come and listen to the nuns singing their office.

“I’m not sure …”

“Neither am I,” Mother Francis said firmly. “It might make you too sad, on the other hand it might be just what you need, to sit in a church with people you don’t know and weep for your son. And there are the glasshouses. I’ll show you those. They’re not in very good condition. We don’t have the money or the people to look after them. Ah, if only you’d known them when Eve’s father was alive …”

She told the woman the story that was rarely told, the workman and the restless daughter of the Big House, the unsuitable relationship, the pregnancy, the marriage and the birth of Eve and the two deaths.

There were tears in Kit Hegarty’s eyes.

“Why are you telling me this?” she said.

“I suppose it’s a clumsy attempt to let you know other awful things happen in the world,” said Mother Francis.

“Are you not going out tonight?” Annabel Hogan asked as Benny pulled up a chair with them in the breakfast room after supper. “Out” meant out with Sean Walsh. Benny pretended not to realize this.

“No, Eve has to take it easy. She’s up and everything and coming down for supper tonight with the nuns and Mrs. Hegarty.” Her face was bland.

“I meant, nothing on at the pictures?” her mother asked equally innocently.

“Ah, of course there’s something on, Mother. It’s meant to be very exciting—about the sound barrier.”

“And wouldn’t you like to be at that?” her father asked.

“I don’t really like going by myself, Father. If we were
all
going now …” The Hogans hardly ever went to the cinema.

She knew that they liked to see her stepping out with Sean from time to time. Somewhere in their confused minds they must think it was company for her, entertainment, a date even. And from Sean’s point of view, they knew he considered it an honor to take the daughter of the house out for all to see. Somehow it made things nice and orderly. Safe.

Sean wouldn’t leave them, go to a better shop in a bigger town if he was happy, and this must be their view, however short-term, and foolish.

“You know we don’t go to the pictures,” her mother said. “We wondered were you going to go with Sean?”

“Sean! Sean Walsh?” asked Benny as if the town were full of Seans, all of them craving to take her to the cinema.

“You know I mean Sean Walsh.” Annabel’s voice was sharp.

“Oh no, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go with him all the time.”

“You don’t go all the time.”

“No, but with Eve not being here, there’d be a danger I could slip into the way of it.”

“And what would be the harm of that?”

“Not a bit of harm, Mother, but you know.”

“Did he not ask you? He told
me
he was going to ask you.” Eddie Hogan looked puzzled. He didn’t like things that weren’t clear.

“I said no to Sean because I didn’t want Sean to think and me to think, and the whole of Knockglen to think, we were a twosome.”

It was the first time such a notion had ever been mentioned in their household.

Benny’s parents looked at one another at a loss.

“I wouldn’t say going to the pictures occasionally is making you into a twosome,” Annabel Hogan said.

Benny’s face lit up. “That’s exactly my point too. I think it’s fine to go to the pictures with Sean
occasionally,
but not every week. Occasionally was the very word I said, I think.”

Actually the words she had said were “Sometimes, perhaps, but not in the immediate future,” and he had looked at her with his cold small eyes, and she had shivered. But there would be little point in trying to explain this to her parents. It was quite enough to have told them as much as she had already told them.

Jack Foley and Aidan Lynch decided to go to the debate on Saturday night. It was held in the big Physics Theatre, and was fairly rowdy, despite the dinner jackets worn by the committee and the visiting speakers.

As they stood at the doorway watching from the sidelines Aidan saw the blond head of Nan Mahon in the center of a sea of male duffel coats. She was laughing, her head thrown back and her eyes sparkling. She wore a white frilly blouse with a rose pinned to the top button, and a black skirt. She was the most attractive girl in the room.

“Look at the lovely Nan,” Aidan said, whistling a low envious sound through his teeth. “I asked her to come with me to this and she said she’d rather be free.”

“So, she’d rather be free,” Jack said, looking at her closely.

“I thought she liked me.” Aidan sounded mock desolate.

“No, you didn’t. You thought she liked Bill Dunne. In fact
I
thought she liked
me
,” said Jack.

“There’s enough of them liking you,” Aidan grumbled. “No, I thought I was special with Nan. She took me to see her friend in hospital.”

“You’re a natural hospital visitor.” Jack laughed. “Look at Nan over there. She likes everyone.”

He looked with a pang of regret at the girl in the center of the crowd.

“What was the friend like in hospital?” he asked Aidan in order to take their minds off lost opportunities with Nan.

“Okay,” Aidan said unenthusiastically. “A bit skinny and ready to bite your head off about everything, but all right I suppose.” Even as he said it, Aidan realized that it might not sound all that gallant. “Not that I’m exactly an Adonis myself,” he added.

“But you are, you are!” Jack Foley said. “Listen, I’ve had enough of this caper looking at our girl in the middle of that crowd. Will we go for a pint?”

“You’re on,” Aidan said.

Jack looked long and hard at Nan as they went out of the hall, but if she saw them come in and go out her eyes gave not a flicker of recognition. Jack could have sworn she was looking straight at them but then perhaps there were so many in the crowd at the door she just didn’t see them.

Eve was disappointed in the way that Mother Francis had invited Frank Hegarty’s mother to stay. It would mean that their talk had to be put off for one thing, and she was restless and eager to know the nun’s view on how she should approach the Westwards. She intended only to ask for her university fees. She would find a place to live where she could mind children. It must be possible. Not every single student who went in the doors of University College could have parents with money to pay for everything. There had to be some of them working their way through a degree. Eve had refused to consider a daytime job and night studying. She had heard of course of those who had done it, but the atmosphere was different. The students were older and grayer. They scurried in for lectures and scurried out again. It wasn’t just the letters after her name that Eve Malone wanted. It was the life of a student. The life she could have had if things had been different.

She hoped that the Hegarty woman wouldn’t stay long
in Knockglen, because Eve needed to act soon. She must not malinger in the convent and prove Mother Clare’s point about how she was a liability. Also if she were going to aim to be enrolled in UCD this year then she must do so within the next few days. And if there were to be an unpleasant interview with Simon Westward, the sooner it was over the better. She wished she had Mother Francis’s attention to herself.

After supper Eve sat in the warm kitchen. Sister Imelda had clucked around for a while getting her some warm milk with a little pepper shaken on top, which was known to cure any condition. The tea towels had been washed and laid out on the Aga. The smell was familiar, it was home; but Eve didn’t feel the sense of comfort that the place usually brought her.

Moving quietly as she always did, Mother Francis came in and sat down opposite her. “Don’t drink that if it’s horrible. We’ll pour it away and rinse the mug.”

Eve smiled. It had always been the two of them against the world.

“It’s all right … not something you’d choose, though, if you had a choice.”

“You
do
have a choice, Eve, a series of them.”

“It means going up to Westlands, doesn’t it?”

“If your heart is set on it … then yes.”

“And what will I say?”

“We can’t write a script, Eve.”

“I know, but we could try to work out what would be the best way to approach them.” There was a silence. “I expect you
have
approached them for me already?” It was the first time Eve had ever mentioned this.

“Not for a long time, not since you were twelve, and I felt that we should ask them in case they might want to send you to a posher boarding school in Dublin.”

“And no response?”

“That was different. That was six years ago and there
was I, a nun wearing black, covered in beads and crucifixes … that’s the way they might see it.”

“And was that the last time? You didn’t ask them about university fees did you?”

Mother Francis looked down. “Not in person, no.”

“But you wrote?”

The nun passed over the letter from Simon Westward. Eve read it, her face set in hard lines.

“That’s fairly final, isn’t it?”

“You could say that, or you could look at it differently. You could say that then was then and now is now. It’s you, you can ask them for yourself.”

“They might say I never went near them except to ask for money.”

“They’d be right.”

Eve looked up startled.

“That’s not fair, Mother. You know how I felt all these years. I wouldn’t lower myself to go to them cap in hand when you had all done so much for me and they had done nothing. It would have been letting the convent down.” She bristled at the injustice of the nun’s remark.

Mother Francis was mild. “
I
know that. Obviously I do. I’m trying to look at it from their point of view. There’s no point otherwise.”

“I’m
not
going to say I’m sorry. I’m
not
going to pretend …”

“True, but is there any point in going at all if you go with that attitude?”

“What other attitude is there?”

“There are many Eve, but none of them will work unless …”

“Unless …?”

“Unless you mean it. You don’t have to cringe and pretend a love you don’t feel, you don’t have to go up there with a heart filled with hate either.”