Nora Webster (39 page)

The idea of what she might do with the rooms downstairs kept her awake. She had to remind herself that she was free now, that there was no Maurice who would be cautious about costs, and grumpy about anything that would cause disruption to his routine. She was free. She could make any decision she liked about the house. She felt almost guilty as it occurred to her now that she could do whatever pleased her. It could all be done, anything she wanted, as long as she could afford it. If Jim and Margaret disapproved, or her sisters or daughters came with advice, she could ignore all of them.

She would have to be careful with the boys. They were suspicious of everything, and watched her with nervous attention if she mentioned money. Conor had formed the habit of checking the price of things, and commenting on her purchases. If he were to find her looking at carpets in Dan Bolger’s, he would worry; it might be best if a new carpet arrived before he knew that she had bought it.

She wrote a list of things to make the rooms more modern. A new carpet and fireplace in the back room; then the walls to be painted. She might do the painting herself if she could watch Mossy Delaney working in Phyllis’s house and maybe find out what paint he was using. Then she would move the dining-table from the back room into the front room, and maybe put a new carpet on that room too, and perhaps even paint the walls there. Conor could do his homework at the table in that room or Fiona could use it. And she would move the three-piece suite from the front room into the back room and throw out the two fireside chairs, which were shabby and not very comfortable.

In Dan Bolger’s in the Market Square she looked at curtain material and saw a catalogue in which the curtains stretched right across
a wall, even though the window needed only half the amount of material to cover it. She wondered if this would work in her back room. If the walls were painted white, she could select some colour for the curtains that would be warm and rich. The living-room pictured in the catalogue used lamplight at night rather than a single light in the ceiling overhead. She could take the standard lamp from the front room, where it had hardly ever been used, and put it in the back room. Maybe she would buy more lamps in Dublin—in Arnotts or in Clerys—or in a shop in Wexford.

She began to put prices on things. Some days at work, Nora took out her list and looked at it. The painting would have to come last, when all the dust had settled; replacing the fireplace would have to be done at the very beginning.

When she explained to Phyllis that she did not want to use Mossy Delaney, Phyllis told her she was wise.

“Oh, I am sorry I didn’t have him up here just to get all the best advice from him. And then start it myself the minute he left. It would have saved a lot of trouble, and it’s probably very good exercise.”

Within a few days Phyllis called on her, having received full instructions about paint and brushes from Mossy Delaney. Phyllis had even found out the best way to apply the new type of paint and how to stop it dripping. She did imitation strokes on the wall.

Dan Bolger had noticed Nora in the shop one day, and came over to say that he had known Maurice well when they were trying to set up the credit union. He and Jim Farrell always said, he told her, that if it had not been for Maurice, it would have taken another year to get things going properly.

“I’m not Fianna Fáil myself, as you probably know,” he said, “but I always say that if Maurice Webster had run for the Dáil I would have given him a number one vote, and that’s the highest compliment you can get from a dyed-in-the-wool Fine Gaeler like myself.”

Nora smiled.

“So if there is anything I can do for you, with wallpaper, or curtain material or carpets,” he said, “then I will.”

Nora realised that if she spoke to Dan Bolger, she would get a reduction on everything. Somehow, she felt, it would make a difference if she could tell everyone that she had done it all cheaply. She produced her list.

“I’ll phone Smyth’s now because I don’t have that paint but they will have it,” Dan Bolger said. “And I can do you a good deal on the curtain material and the fireplace and the carpets. And there’s only one man can put in a fireplace without making your house look like the entrance to Croke Park on a wet all-Ireland Sunday and that’s Mogue Cloney. You won’t get much talk out of him, but he’ll do the job.”

Once she selected the curtain material and the carpets, Dan Bolger sent a man to take the measurements. When she told him that she wanted the curtains to run the entire length of the wall, he explained that there was a new system for hanging curtains that would not require a large pelmet.

“Can you hang curtains?” she asked him.

“We don’t normally do that. We’ll fit the carpet all right,” he said. “But we’ll just have the curtains made up for you.”

She left silence and did not move, as though what he was saying was causing her anxiety.

She could almost feel him wondering how he was going to get out of her house without having to offer to hang the curtains for her. For a second, she wished she knew his name or something about him so she could soften his determination.

“I can’t think who would hang curtains,” she finally said.

“Ah, well,” he said, “I wouldn’t leave you stuck.”

“Thanks very much,” she said. “That is really very nice of you.”

Mogue Cloney came one morning at eight thirty with a helper. She explained to Conor that he was going to take out the old fireplace and put in a new one.

“How do you take out a fireplace?” Conor asked.

“A few blows of a hammer against a metal bar will unsettle the cement,” Mogue Cloney said.

“Would it not take bits of the wall with it?” Conor asked.

“Begob, you sound like an old Guard who has stopped me for bald tyres,” Mogue Cloney said as he and his helper laughed.

When she came home, the back room was covered in dust and the old fireplace was lying on the lino in the middle of the room. As soon as Conor arrived, he went with Fiona to inspect everything, as though the two men were working for him.

“Where’s the new fireplace?” he asked.

“It’s in the van,” Mogue Cloney said.

“Are we sure it will fit?” he asked.

“We are,” Mogue Cloney replied.

Conor looked around the room. He seemed to be checking if everything else was still in place or if Mogue Cloney had done any damage.

When Conor and Fiona went back to school after dinner, Nora
thought that she should go out. But she was uncertain if she should not be there to supervise.

“If you give us a good sweeping-brush and a good scrubbing-brush,” Mogue Cloney said, “you won’t even know we have been here.”

Once the paint was delivered, she went to Wexford one Saturday to buy the exact brushes Mossy Delaney had used in Phyllis’s house. When she borrowed a ladder from Una, her sister told her that she should not attempt the painting herself.

“It’s just a few days’ work,” Nora said.

“I think you have enough to do,” Una said.

She began one day as soon as Fiona and Conor had gone back to school. If she stood on the top rung of the ladder and put the pot of paint resting on the flat top of the ladder, then she could reach the ceiling. The paint was thin and it dripped on her hair, so she had to find a shower-cap to cover her head. She was determined to do this in three or four days and also to have a visible sign of progress by the time Fiona and Conor came home. Each stroke of the brush took work and concentration, as she had to balance herself carefully and spread the paint evenly. The ceiling would be the hardest part, she thought; the walls would be much easier.

The work gave her a strange happiness and made her look forward to coming home from Gibney’s the next day and doing more. It was only when the weekend came that the pains in the arm and her chest began. She had to ask Fiona to go to see Donal on Saturday as she did not think she could drive; she was in such pain by the afternoon that it was clear she would have to go to the doctor. She wondered, as the pain seemed to dart and intensify, if she was not having a heart attack.

She winced when Dr. Cudigan touched her arm and almost cried out when he pressed a thumb into the soft space beneath her collar-bone.

“Have you painted a ceiling before?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“It’s not something anyone should take on lightly,” he said. “You were straining muscles that you normally don’t use at all. I am going to give you a strong painkiller and that will bring the pain down and then the muscles will go back to where they were, if you don’t strain them anymore.”

“I won’t be able to do any more painting?”

“You could have done yourself real damage,” he said. “So you’d be better to leave the painting to painters.”

That evening she looked at the room. Three-quarters of the ceiling was done, and not done very well. She asked Fiona to phone Phyllis to see if she could visit whenever she had time.

The next day when Phyllis came, she inspected the back room.

“Well, there’s only one solution,” she said. “And that is to call in Mossy Delaney. Today is Sunday and it might at least be possible to find him. And if I were you I would play the part of the poor woman who thought you could paint a ceiling. He objects to me most when I am high and mighty, so humility might work with him. But of course money would work too. He leaves every job to begin another, so he can leave one for you if you pay him on the first day. But you have to put the right face on.”