Foreign Affairs (43 page)

‘Yeah, loads. Much more than I thought. Did you?’ She responded to his friendliness.

‘I’m pleased enough. Are you doing the Leaving Cert?’

‘Yeah, unfortunately,’ grimaced Jennifer, unwrapping the bar of chocolate. ‘Would you like a piece?’

‘Oh, yes please.’ His eyes lit up as he sat down beside her. ‘I’m starving now. Fresh air gives you an appetite.’ He accepted half the bar gratefully and wolfed it
down. Jennifer smiled. He reminded her of her brothers.

‘What exams are you studying for?’ she asked, munching her own portion of chocolate rather more sedately.

‘I’m doing electronics in Bolton Street Tech,’ he said. I knew he wasn’t a Leaving Cert, Jennifer thought triumphantly. ‘I was studying in the library but it was so
fine I couldn’t concentrate. I decided to come up here instead. It doesn’t feel as much like work here.’ He grinned and Jennifer smiled back. He had an open sort of face. His
eyes, a lovely hazel, were wide and clear. His skin was a ruddy weather-beaten colour. He looked like someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Jennifer couldn’t quite make out his accent. It
was not a Dublin one, or Cork or west of Ireland. Her curiosity got the better of her.

‘You’re not from Dublin, are you?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, I’m from a place called Rathbarry. It’s a village in Wicklow, not far from Bray.’

‘I knew you weren’t from Dublin,’ Jennifer declared. ‘Where do you stay? In a flat?’

‘Naw, I wish I did. I’m in digs in Phibsboro, and the landlady can’t cook for buttons.’ He threw his expressive eyes up to heaven. ‘If it wasn’t for the
chippers I’d starve. You should see her version of Irish Stew!’ He made a horrible face and she laughed.

‘Why don’t you move into a flat and do your own cooking?’

‘My da doesn’t approve of flats and as I can’t afford to put myself through college, I don’t have any choice in the matter,’ he said glumly. Jennifer’s
maternal heart melted. It must be awful to have to eat horrible food. If he was anything like her brothers, his grub would be of immense importance. Fellas were always scoffing.

Impulsively she turned to him. ‘Would you like to come back and have some tea in my house? We usually have a fry-up on Saturday and my mother’s a very good cook, she does lovely
homemade bread and scones and tarts and things.’

‘Thanks very much but I couldn’t really barge in on top of your family like that. I’m a stranger. I’m sure she wouldn’t be too impressed.’

‘Oh she wouldn’t mind at all and besides, she’s at a flower-arranging course. My dad’s working overtime until late tonight. My sister’s away so if you could put up
with two noisy brothers and a cranky grandad, it’s no problem. I’ll be cooking the tea anyway and I won’t poison you, I promise. My name’s Jennifer Myles, by the way.’
She held out her hand.

‘Thanks very much, Jennifer, that’s very nice of you, I love a fry.’ He smiled broadly and shook her hand in a good hearty handclasp. ‘My name’s Ronan
Stapleton.’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

‘That was lovely, Jennifer,’ Ronan said with heartfelt pleasure, as he mopped up the last of his fried egg and red sauce with a crispy piece of fried bread.

‘She’s not a bad cook is our Jennifer,’ Grandpa Myles noted. ‘You must be someone special. She’s never brought a lad home before. I was beginning to think that she
was going to turn into an old maid like that sister of hers.’ Grandpa Myles belched and patted his stomach. Sean and Gerard guffawed. Jennifer was mortified. She didn’t know where to
look. Trust him, just trust him to make a show of her. She was furious.

Ronan glanced at her and gave the tiniest wink. ‘Jennifer could teach my landlady a lot about cooking,’ he remarked politely to the old man. ‘Yesterday the woman cooked
cabbage. You could have poured it out of the saucepan.’

‘Let me tell you one thing, son. No woman knows how to cook cabbage. I’m always at me daughter-in-law to cook it in the bacon water, but she’ll have none of it. Cooking cabbage
is an art, son, an art,’ Grandpa Myles proclaimed. ‘Some day I’ll cook you a feed of cabbage and you’ll see what I mean. Excuse me now, I want to watch the news. Why
don’t you come in and watch it with me while Jennifer’s doing the washing-up?’ he invited.

‘I couldn’t leave her to do it on her own after a lovely feed like that,’ Ronan said firmly. ‘I’ll give her a hand here.’

‘Suit yourself so.’ Grandpa Myles marched out of the kitchen. Followed hastily by Sean and Gerard, who were eager to escape the washing-up.

‘Sorry about that,’ Jennifer apologized, pink-cheeked.

‘Aw, don’t worry, I know what it’s like. My dad’s the headmaster at the local primary school. Sometimes he’d embarrass you with the things he comes out with. I
don’t mind so much now, but sometimes my sister Rachel gets really annoyed. He asked a friend of mine, who was bringing her to her Debs Ball, if his intentions were honourable.’

‘That’s
awful
! It’s exactly the kind of thing Grumps would do. She must have been very embarrassed,’ Jennifer exclaimed.

‘Oh she was. She’s very shy at the best of times too,’ Ronan said as he began to clear the dishes. ‘She’s training to be a teacher in St Pat’s in
Drumcondra.’

‘Oh!’ Jennifer was surprised. ‘Is she in digs with you?’

‘Oh God, no!’ Ronan declared. ‘My dad wouldn’t allow that. He’s very old-fashioned, you know. He thinks she couldn’t manage on her own in Dublin. So he
collects her off the bus in Bray. I feel sorry for her. She has to traipse into town to get the bus and she misses all the social life at college.’

‘How come you’re allowed to stay in digs then?’ Jennifer asked as she ran the hot water into the sink. Mr Stapleton sounded like a bit of a dictator – in the Grandpa
Myles mould.

‘I’m doing a computer studies course at night. I want to get a job in computers eventually,’ Ronan explained. ‘My father wanted me to go to university and get my degree
but the course in Bolton Street was right for me. I really had to stick to my guns.’

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I suppose it depends how I get on in the Leaving.’ Jennifer sighed.

‘Listen, there’s a party on in the college next weekend if you’d like to come to it. Bring some of your friends if you want. It should be a bit of gas. It’ll be a good
excuse for you to get away from your studies. What do you think?’ he asked diffidently as he neatly stacked the dishes he’d dried.

Jennifer smiled shyly. ‘That would be nice,’ she agreed. She liked Ronan Stapleton. He was easy to talk to. Jennifer had never bothered much with fellas. Beth and Paula were much
more extrovert than she was. The only fella she’d gone with was Gary O’Shea and that had only been for a couple of months last year. Gary had taken her to the pictures once. In the
darkness of the cinema she’d spent half an hour trying to fend off his sweaty-handed gropes. Disgusted, she’d stood up and left him protesting that she was a prude and everybody came to
the pictures to have a snog in the back seats. What made her so different? The next Saturday at the disco she heard him tell a crowd of his friends that she was a stuck-up bitch who wouldn’t
part her legs. They’d guffawed and she’d been horrified.

‘Shut your mouth, you pathetic little creep, the nearest you’ll ever get to a girl is in your dreams. Because any girl with an ounce of sense, like Jennifer here, wouldn’t let
you touch her with a ten-foot barge pole,’ Paula’d said coldly.

Gary reddened. ‘Shut up you, ya culchie. Can’t she fight her own battles?’

‘Certainly, I can.’ Jennifer recovered her composure. ‘But I wouldn’t waste my breath on the likes of you.’ She’d turned and walked away and left him
blustering to his friends that she and the Culchie from Waterford were just a pair of lezzers.

Jennifer looked at Ronan’s honest open friendly face, and knew instinctively that he’d never treat her like that. ‘I’d love to come to the party,’ she said happily.
‘And I’m sure Beth, my friend, would too.’

Ronan Stapleton walked briskly across Cross Gun’s Bridge, towards Phibsboro. He felt very pleased with himself. He had just fallen head over heels in love, and he was as
full as an egg as well. That had been some feed Jennifer had given him. Jennifer Myles, Jennifer Myles. What a pretty name, and what a pretty girl. He smiled. Jenny was lovely-looking with her
silky black hair and gorgeous black-lashed gentle brown eyes. The minute she’d sat down on the grass in the Botanics, he’d been very taken with her. There was a serenity about her that
was unusual. After she’d had her little snack, she studied very methodically, oblivious to all around her. When she responded to his first overture and started chatting, Ronan had been
delighted. When she asked him to tea, he’d been stunned. But when he walked home with her, they’d talked away and he’d started to feel as if he’d known her all his life.
He’d never felt like that with a girl before. It was a shock, falling for someone as suddenly as that. Certainly, he’d been out with girls. Especially since he’d come to Dublin.
Some of them were nice too. It was far easier to go out with a girl in Dublin without having his father annoying him. But this girl had really knocked him for six. And he’d met her parents,
as well as the hilarious old grandfather. Her parents had been very nice and didn’t seem to find it strange that she’d asked him to tea on the spur of the moment. They’d even
invited him to call again.

Whistling, Ronan walked on. He’d bought her an ice cream on the way home from the Botanics and left himself short for his bus fare. The allowance his father gave him didn’t go very
far. The money he’d earned working on the fruit farm during the summer had gone on his books and clothes.

He was going to have to think about getting some kind of a part-time job to supplement his income. Dating girls had not been on his agenda. Ronan’s main aim was to free himself from his
father’s financial grip. He’d had enough of authoritarian parental control. He wanted his independence. The sooner the better. Now that he’d found the girl of his dreams, totally
unexpectedly, even if it was sooner than he’d planned, he wanted to do as well as he could at college and get a decent job. Invigorated, he entered the dingy hall of his landlady’s
house, raced upstairs to the damp shabby room and sat at his desk and studied until well past midnight.

‘What do you think of the lad Jenny brought home?’ Jim Myles lay with his hands behind his head watching his wife perform her nightly ritual. Kit smoothed in her
night-cream and then rubbed some into the palms of her hands and massaged each elbow. It was a routine she never failed to follow. Jim liked it. Its familiarity was vaguely comforting. Everything
was all right in their little world when Kit sat down at her dressing-table at night and he had a little chat with her before going to sleep.

‘I thought he was a very nice chap. To tell you the truth, I was very pleased. I hope she starts going out with him. It would be good for her. She never brought that O’Shea lad home.
Not that they were going together for long.’ Kit started to brush her hair.

‘He’s made a hit with Dad.’ Jim chuckled. ‘He told me he was going to cook him a feed of cabbage the “proper” way.’

‘Hmmm,’ murmured Kit drily. ‘Imagine the poor unfortunate, though. He’s not getting fed properly in those digs. I hate to think of a young lad like him not getting a bit
of decent grub. Could you imagine if it was our pair? Jenny’s got a soft heart, hasn’t she?’ Kit smiled. She could understand why her daughter had asked Ronan back for tea. She
would have done the same herself once.

‘She’s got a soft heart like her mother.’ Jim held back the covers for Kit and put his arms around her as she snuggled in against him.

‘He has nice manners. There’s a bit of breeding there,’ Kit said with satisfaction and then gave a prodigious yawn, echoed by her husband.

‘I think I’ll ask him to dinner some Sunday. If Jenny keeps in touch with him. What do you think?’

‘It’s fine by me,’ Jim said drowsily.

I’ll cook roast beef and mushy peas, Kit decided before she too fell asleep.

Her period had come with a vengeance. Jennifer lay curled up in bed with a hot-water bottle on her stomach. The cramps were awful but she didn’t really care. At least she
would be OK for the start of the exams and even more importantly for the party next week in Bolton Street Tech. She smiled to herself. It was hard to believe that a day when she’d been so
down in the dumps could have turned out so well.

Meeting Ronan had been the nicest thing. She still couldn’t believe that she’d invited him home for tea. It had been an impulsive thing to do. Most unlike her. But it had all gone
well except for that dreadful moment when Grumps opened his big mouth. It had been nice of Ronan to laugh about it and give her that little wink. He seemed very understanding. He said his father
sometimes embarrassed him. It created a little bond between them. Mr Stapleton sounded like a right dictator. Jennifer was glad she wasn’t his daughter. She was really looking forward to the
party. Beth was thrilled with the invitation, needless to say.

‘It’s much more sophisticated than going to Mick’s. Is Paula coming too?’

‘I have to ask her first.’

‘Well, we’ll go ourselves,’ Beth said briskly.

Jennifer laughed at Beth’s no-nonsense attitude. Paula would probably be mad with her for taking off the way she had earlier. Finally, Jennifer phoned. She apologized for rushing off the
way she had done. ‘I just felt harassed, I needed to be by myself,’ she explained.

‘I thought you were annoyed with me for not going to the disco,’ Paula said frostily.

‘Well I was a bit miffed. It was just the humour I was in.’

‘That’s OK,’ Paula said magnanimously.

‘I went to the Botanics for a walk and I met a nice guy called Ronan Stapleton. He’s a student in Bolton Street. There’s a party there next Saturday, Beth and I are going if
you want to come.’

‘OK,’ Paula agreed.

‘Great,’ Jennifer said happily.

She burrowed down in the bed and cuddled her hot-water bottle. It had been a lovely day, she decided, period pain and hurt feelings notwithstanding. Next Saturday would be even better.