Nora Webster (34 page)

One day Laurie told her that she had persuaded Frank Redmond, the choirmaster in Wexford, that, even though he did not actually need a new mezzo-soprano, he should hear her latest pupil, Nora Webster, with a view to allowing her into the choir. It was agreed that Nora should come to the Loreto Convent on a Saturday afternoon, when the piano would be free in the music room.

She had her hair done the day before, with some new colouring added, and wore the dress from Essie’s, with a new pair of shoes that she had bought in Mahady Breen’s. She had arranged to see Phyllis when it was all over, for a coffee in White’s. When she arrived at the convent and met Frank Redmond at the door, she was surprised to be ushered immediately into a recital hall. Besides the pianist, there were two other people, to whom she was not introduced. She showed Frank Redmond and the pianist the sheet music she had brought; the pianist said that he could play the first song from memory and would need the sheet music only for the Schubert song. He practised while she went to the bathroom.

She wished she had had time to do the vocal exercises that she always did before Laurie would let her sing. She would have to start cold. There was not even a glass of water on the stage and she felt that her mouth was dry. It was clear that these people had other work to do and they wanted this over with as little fuss as possible. She stood beside the piano and faced out into the hall. She put her hands by her sides first and then, since she felt exposed and uncomfortable, she put her right hand on the piano, only to be told by the pianist that she should not do this. Laurie would never let her sing until she was fully comfortable, but she had no choice now, she could feel the pianist’s impatience.

The minute he began she knew that there was something wrong. Instead of playing the opening of the melody, he was playing something more complicated. She could not tell at what point she was meant to come in. The playing went under the melody, as though the pianist was harmonising with someone else, and then he began a number of trills, before going back to the original melody. It was impossible to know what to do, so she simply began to sing. She had come in at the wrong moment, she knew as soon as she started, but there was nothing she could do now. When it came to “no flower of
her kindred,” her breathing failed and she wavered too much on the high note.

When it came to the second verse, the pianist was barely playing and that made it easier, but she was not letting the depth of her voice emerge. Still, she did her best, and with a few phrases, concentrating hard, she found a tone she could work with. She relaxed and sang as Laurie had taught her to, controlling her breathing perfectly now as she came to the end of the song.

The three members of the audience left silence when she finished. She saw Frank Redmond making a sign to the pianist and she turned to him to see if he had the sheet music for “An die Musik” in place. Instead, he shut the piano. She wondered if this meant that, since his playing for the first song had not gone well, he would allow her to sing the Schubert unaccompanied. She was not sure how she would find the right key.

“Maybe it would be better if we went outside,” Frank Redmond said, coming up to the stage, taking the steps in twos.

As she looked puzzled, he took the sheet music from the piano and handed it to her. She presumed that he was going to take her to a smaller and more intimate room to sing the Schubert, where she might be less nervous. He led her off the stage and out of the hall and into the corridor.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “We’re very grateful to you for coming all the way down.”

“I haven’t sung the Schubert,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied.

“So, is there another room that has a piano?” she asked.

“That song is one of my favourites,” he said, “and I’d prefer not to hear it just now. Really, if we need to hear you again, we’ll let you know.”

“I got off to a bad start. The accompaniment at the opening was not familiar.”

“Was it not?” he asked.

Suddenly, she saw that he was coming close to mocking her and that she was being dismissed. Even though she knew it was better to say nothing, she could not stop herself.

“I think he was using a different arrangement,” she said with some authority, as if she knew about arrangements.

“Yes, the whole thing sounded like the tune the old cow died on, you are right about that.”

He was being openly insulting.

“Thank you,” she said, when he opened the front door for her.

She parked her car at White’s and did some shopping before she met Phyllis.

“Well, not since Janet Baker has anyone sung so beautifully. Is that what he told you?” Phyllis asked.

“What is the tune the old cow died on?” Nora asked.

“I don’t know,” Phyllis said.

“I’m sure that it was not melodious in any case,” Nora said.

“Nora, did you not triumph?”

“The pianist played his own personal introduction to ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ and they wouldn’t even let me sing the Schubert.”

“Who was the pianist?”

“A little mousey fellow in a suit.”

“That’s Lar Furlong. He did that before to someone I know.”

“Well, I hope never to see him again.”

“He is a well-known crank.”

“Is he?”

“Yes he is. Now let’s have coffee and cakes and work out how you are going to break the news to Laurie O’Keefe. You are her big discovery.”

When she arrived home, Jim and Margaret were there, talking to Fiona in the back room.

“We were just having a discussion about Donal,” Margaret said, “because I met Felicity Barry, who’s a speech therapist and she’s working in a number of schools, including St. Peter’s College in Wexford, and they have great facilities, including darkrooms to develop photographs and a camera club. And some of the boys get very good results in the Leaving Cert.”

“You mean the boarding-school?” Nora asked.

“Well, I would be quite happy to pay the fees, especially if there was going to be a speech therapist.”

“Donal’s stammer gets better sometimes,” Nora said.

“And then it gets worse,” Fiona said.

“And has anyone discussed this with him?” Nora asked.

“Oh, yes,” Margaret said, and then noticed her irritation. “I mean, he was going to talk to you about it,” she went on.

“I am not sure that a boarding-school would suit him. He’s older than his years in some ways and younger than his years in others.”

“Well, being with others his own age might be good for him,” Margaret said.

None of this conversation could be happening, Nora thought, without Donal’s direct involvement. He spoke to Margaret a great deal when he went to her house to develop photographs; he also spoke to Fiona. They asked him questions about himself that she never did, but, somehow, she felt that she was closer to him and that he depended on her in ways that no one understood. He had a habit of watching and taking things in that none of the others had, and Nora felt that he had absorbed her own feelings just by being in the
house with her. He was fifteen now; in two years he would be going to Dublin to university. Maybe he needed to leave home sooner, to experience other things and be released from having to worry about her, but she did not think so. He liked the freedom she gave him, being treated as an adult in the house. His own interests were deep and private, she knew, and would not adapt easily to an imposed routine and a lack of autonomy and solitude.

The following day, when she spoke to him about it, she realised that it was something he wanted. He wanted a speech therapist; the idea of a camera club was also attractive. She tried to make him imagine what sleeping in a dormitory would be like, or obeying a large number of petty rules and regulations. But since he resisted her efforts to make him think negatively about boarding-school, she knew to be careful. She did not want him or any of the others to believe that she depended on him, or wanted two more years of him and Conor together in the room beside hers. If she did not try to prevent something that he wanted, then he might decide more easily not to go. On Monday, she found a phone number for Felicity Barry and called her from the phone-box on the Back Road, but there was no reply. She wondered if she should write to her and ask her if she would be willing to see Donal privately. She should have done this long before now.

Gradually, Nora watched the question of Donal and boarding-school move out of her grasp. She would like to have known how it had actually started, who had mentioned it first. She did not say that she was against it, but she realised that Margaret was aware of her opposition and had grown silent on the subject, leaving it to Jim to say that he had met Father Doyle, the president of the college, at a meeting of the GAA and asked him if there would be a place for Donal in St. Peter’s College. Father Doyle said that he would be delighted to have any son of Maurice Webster’s in the school. Nora
found out later that Donal knew about the encounter with Father Doyle before she did.

When, once more, they went to Curracloe and stayed in a caravan, they were visited on their last evening by Jim and Margaret. Nora watched Donal lingering in the caravan, listening to the conversation. It was late July now and, if he was going to boarding-school in early September, it would have to be arranged soon. As they talked, and the light of evening faded, Nora understood that it had already been decided. She had never openly confronted Margaret but felt like doing so now, felt like asking Jim to take Donal and Conor to the Winning Post for ice cream, and when they were gone telling Margaret that she was not to interfere in her children’s lives. Margaret would, however, be able to claim innocence with full conviction and also claim that she was offering to pay for Donal’s schooling, as she had paid for Aine’s, only because it might be for the best. Nora would be put in a position of not wanting Donal to have a better education, and not being gracious in the face of Margaret’s generosity.

Before Jim and Margaret left, it was agreed that Jim would write formally to Father Doyle. They made it sound as though it was not clear what his response would be, which Nora knew was not true. The school would accept Donal; Father Doyle had already told Jim. And Donal would leave home and go to boarding-school. Nora wondered if there was anything she could have done to stop it, or if there was anything she could do now.

In the morning, when they had packed up and were ready to leave, she asked Donal to come for a walk with her. As they approached the strand, using the boardwalk which was almost covered over with sand, she could see how uncomfortable Donal was, knowing that they were going to have to discuss something serious.

“Are you sure you want to go to St. Peter’s?” she asked him when they were on the strand.

“I s-suppose s-so,” he said.

“It’s a big move,” she replied.

They walked along by the shore.

“I hate the C-christian B-brothers,” he said.

“Do you?”

“I w-wish I d-didn’t have to g-go to any school.”

“It’s just two more years. Have you spoken to Aine about UCD?”

He nodded.

“You’d be free to study whatever you liked there.”

“I want to s-study photography.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem. There must be very good places.”

They walked further in silence. Donal began to pick up small stones from the shoreline and throw them into the water.

“Is there a particular problem in the Brothers’?” she eventually asked.

He shrugged.

“It’s all a p-problem.”

“Would boarding-school be better?”

She could hear his breathing now and could see that he was upset.

“Would St. Peter’s be better?”

“D-daddy didn’t t-teach there.”

He looked at her, and the look suggested a rawness that she had never seen in him before.

“Has it been bad?”

“The rooms are all the rooms he taught in. I sit in the classroom he came into every day.”

His tone was direct and hard; he did not stammer. She held him as he began to cry.

“And they all l-look at me and f-feel sorry for me. And I c-can’t s-study. And I c-can’t do anything. And I hate them all.”

She put her arm around him until it seemed to make him uncomfortable, and slowly, they made their way back towards the caravan.