The Bright One (15 page)

Breda would not be pairing off. Neither Danny nor any of the others, though they were nice enough, were what she wanted. She was not sure what she
did
want, she could not have put a description to him, except to say that she had never seen him in Kilbally. But when – and wherever – she did see him, she would recognize him at once. She was certain of that, and she was prepared to wait – well, not for ever, but at any rate a little longer.

‘And how was Mrs O'Reilly today?' Molly asked. ‘Was she any better?'

Breda's face clouded. She shook her head. ‘She was not, Mammy. I would say she was not as well as a week ago. She hardly eats a morsel and she seems to have a lot of pain.'

‘What does Mr O'Reilly say?' Molly asked.

‘He says nothing. They don't seem to talk to each other, Mammy; not the way you and Dada do. Oh, I don't mean he neglects her. He sees to it she's well looked after, at least when I'm there, and I expect the rest of the time as well. 'Tis not easy to describe, but they don't seem to have any comfort for each other.'

‘'Tis sad,' Molly said. ‘Isn't that what marriage is about, even when some of the other things have gone? That each comforts the other? Remember that when your turn comes.'

‘Oh, I will!' Breda assured her.

Most of her working day was now spent with Mrs O'Reilly. Only two hours in the afternoon, when the sick woman managed to sleep, were spent in the shop. Although she had grown quite fond of Mrs O'Reilly over the period of getting on for two years, and did all she could to make her life more bearable, to quit the living quarters and step into the shop came as a relief, especially as by now she was no longer entirely relegated to cleaning and stacking shelves, unpacking deliveries, sweeping floors. Quite often now she served customers, and that she enjoyed. It was contact with the real world instead of the twilight world of the sickroom.

An even better contact with the world outside was that on two afternoons a week she was allowed to deliver orders to customers by bicycle. It was tricky work because the iron basket at the front of the bicycle and the panniers at the back were so filled with goods as to make the whole thing heavy and unbalanced. The outward journeys, when sometimes all she could manage was to push the bicycle up the hill, were compensated for by the return, with no more than her own weight in the saddle, so that there was nothing to stop her flying down the hill, terrifying every living thing in her path.

On the same evening that Breda and her mother were discussing the relationship between the O'Reillys, Luke, cashing up in the shop, with the doors locked and the blinds drawn, heard his wife call. ‘Luke! Luke, what are you doing?'

There was a whining note to her voice which set his teeth on edge. Sometimes his life seemed bounded by that cry. It was as constant and melancholy as the wail of the seagulls which flew around all the time. He could never escape it. Nevertheless, he tried now, as always, to hide his feelings.

‘Just coming!' he called out.

He left the money on the counter and went to the living room. He would have liked to have stayed in the shop until bedtime rather than spend the evening in his wife's company, but he knew where his duty lay. He would do his duty, though each day that passed it was heavier on him.

‘What is it?' he asked. ‘Do you want something?'

‘I'm cold,' his wife said. ‘Mend the fire!'

The room felt hot and stuffy to Luke. It was a summer's evening after a warm day and all the windows were tightly closed.

‘It feels quite warm to me,' he said mildly.

‘Well, I'm cold,' she said. ‘Is it the fire you begrudge me now?'

‘I begrudge you nothing,' he answered, stirring the fire, piling on more fuel.

It was true he begrudged her nothing material. Whatever she wanted or needed she could have. What he could not give her was love and understanding, though God knew he had tried.

He had grown out of such things long before she became ill, and it had been her fault, he thought, not his. Soon after he had brought her back from Dublin, a proud and happy man to have won her – for wasn't she a cut above the Kilbally girls? – he had discovered his mistake. Oh, she was good in the house, she managed the money. On the outside she was attractive, everyone acknowledged it, but there it ended. Inside her was a splinter of ice. She never touched him, and if he touched her, even if he brushed against her, she flinched. In bed it was like sleeping with a stranger.

He straightened up. ‘Is that better? Shall I get you a shawl?'

‘I don't want a shawl,' she said. ‘What's keeping you in the shop?'

‘I'm cashing up. It's been a busy day.'

At one time she would have done that. She had liked counting the money, entering it in the ledger; but not for a long time now.

‘I'm always alone,' she grumbled.

‘No you're not,' he said mildly. ‘Hasn't Breda been gone only an hour?'

‘You're my husband,' she said.

Husband, he thought bitterly! How could she say that, and what would she do with a real husband anyway? Sometimes, in his frustration and his longing, he had felt he would tear the clothes from her and take her whether she would or not, but that had been when she was fit and well. As her illness advanced he could no more touch her than she could him. The worst moment of every day came when he must climb into the bed beside her.

‘I must finish the cashing up,' he said. ‘I'll not be long.'

Every morning when she came to work Breda tried to think of something to say, some topic of conversation to cheer things up, to enliven the atmosphere. Mrs O'Reilly's talk varied only between her illness and complaints about this and that, though nowadays she seldom complained about Breda, as she had in the beginning.

‘She knows which side her bread is buttered!' Molly had said when Breda had remarked on this improvement.

Luke O'Reilly, when in the house, seldom said a word about anything. There he was the most taciturn of men. In the shop, though, he was civil to his customers, ready to pass the time of day, to enquire about their welfare; but there was no banter in him, no jokes.

‘I think my Dada is really looking forward to being a grandfather,' Breda said this morning. ‘He pretends he's not, says he is too young, but he does not deceive me!'

Her remarks caused not a single ripple on the still pond of the living room. No answer. And serve me right, she chided herself. Wasn't it a tactless remark to make to a couple who had neither chick nor child? But there it was, she was not good at keeping a guard on her tongue, never had been.

And what has James O'Connor done to deserve such fortune, Luke asked himself? He has never worked hard, never been a good provider, has spent his time and money in the bars. Yet O'Connor had a brood of fine children, and now there was another generation coming along. What good thing has
he
done that I have not?

There was no need to look far for the answer. O'Connor had married Molly Byrne, while he had gone to the trouble, and made the mistake, of bringing Mary from Dublin.

He had learned early in his marriage that there were to be no children; no son to carry on the business in the way he had taken over from his father; no daughter who would brighten his life when she was young and look after him in his old age. Mary did not want children, and since she was a true daughter of the Church there was only one road for her, the road of abstinence.

‘Well now, Mrs O'Reilly, I'll be seeing to your breakfast,' Breda said. ‘An egg, is it?'

‘I don't fancy an egg,' Mrs O'Reilly said. ‘I have no hunger, none at all.'

‘But you must eat something,' Breda said gently.

Luke left the room.

‘I'll tell you what,' Breda said. ‘I'll poach you an egg. 'Tis lighter that way, Mammy says.'

Mrs O'Reilly protested, but Breda went ahead regardless. With the shelled egg waiting in a cup, she brought the water in the saucepan to a boil, added a few drops of vinegar – she had no idea why – then vigorously stirred until the water was a swirling vortex. When it was at its fastest she neatly dropped the egg into the whirlpool and watched while it spun around and quickly solidified, the white wrapping itself in a protective cocoon around the yolk. It was over in no time at all, and she never could work out how it happened.

It was mostly in vain. Mrs O'Reilly ate a couple of teaspoonfuls, with one small finger of bread, and that was it.

Breda sighed.

‘You will have to do better than that! 'Tis not enough to feed a sparrow. Will I bring you a bowl of my mother's broth tomorrow, then? That will be full of goodness.'

Mrs O'Reilly shook her head without speaking.

I will so, Breda determined. No matter what.

She washed Mrs O'Reilly every day now, knowing that left to herself she would neglect it. Once a week she gave her a bed bath, and today was the day. In a way, she disliked doing it, feeling it an intrusion into the woman's privacy, even though she bared only a little of her body at a time, drying it and covering it up again before moving on to the next bit. I would not like anyone to do it to me, Breda thought. I would be mortified. Even so, Mrs O'Reilly always seemed better after it.

But not today. Today she protested that her limbs ached, that the flannel was too hot, too cold, that she could not bear the smell of the soap, even though it was Yardley's lavender. Breda was shocked by the sight of Mrs O'Reilly's body. Even in the last week the flesh seemed to have fallen off her.

When Breda tried to brush her hair Mrs O'Reilly, with what strength she had, pushed her away.

‘Leave me be!' she said. ‘Go and help in the shop.'

‘Only if you will definitely take a nap,' Breda said.

Mrs O'Reilly took her rosary from under her pillow, clutched at it, and closed her eyes.

‘I will so,' she said.

Breda waited until the woman's breathing, and the loosening of her grip on the rosary, signified that she had fallen into a sleep, then left the room.

‘Mrs O'Reilly does not seem at all well today,' she said to Luke. ‘When is the doctor due?'

‘Tomorrow. Are you saying I should send for him sooner?'

‘'Tis not for me to say,' Breda told him. ‘'Tis for you to decide.'

‘She looks no different to me,' he said.

And isn't that because you never really look at her, Breda thought.

Yet he looked at
her
. She was always conscious, these days, of his eyes following her as she moved around the shop. Sometimes, when she turned too suddenly, she caught him at it. She knew she did not imagine it because when that did happen he would redden and move away, busying himself with something or other.

She hated the way he looked at her. Aside from hating it, it made her uncomfortable, slightly apprehensive. Though she could not have said she was afraid of him, she felt better when there were customers in the shop. But he was not unkind to her, and he was always polite. Also, as he had when Kieran and Patrick had worked for him, he gave her little extras in the way of food to take home to her mother. Dada did not like it, but Mammy did not mind. She saw it as kindness.

Today he gave her a punnet of strawberries to take home.

‘Though if he'd kept them they would not have been fit to sell tomorrow,' Breda said as she handed them over.

‘That is not a nice thing to say,' Molly reproved her. ‘'Twas kind of him to do it.'

‘Perhaps it was,' Breda agreed. ‘He is not easy to understand. Kind in some ways; not kind to his wife.'

‘Perhaps he has reasons for it,' Molly said. Half of Kilbally suspected the reasons; some said they knew. It was not a subject she proposed to discuss with Breda.

‘Does he ill-treat her?' she asked.

‘Oh no, Mammy. Nothing like that. He's just . . . well, cold.'

He had not been cold as a young man, quite the reverse, or so Molly had heard. Of course she could not actually know, but that was what had been said.

‘Well then,' she said. ‘As long as he is not unkind. And I dare say he is a very worried man.'

‘Could I be taking some of your broth for Mrs O'Reilly tomorrow?' Breda asked. ‘It might tempt her. The flesh is falling off her.'

‘Of course!'

It troubled Molly that Breda was poised between a woman as sick as Mary O'Reilly and a man she didn't like. It was not the right job for her. But what could be done about it? They needed the money. It always came down to that in the end.

‘Do you think Moira will let me be a godmother?' Breda asked, changing the subject. There were times when she wanted to shake the O'Reillys out of her hair, and this was one of them.

‘Who can tell?' Molly said. ‘Aren't you her sister, and won't you be the baby's aunt, but who can ever tell what Moira will do?'

It would depend partly on where the child was to be baptized. Would it be in Kilbally or in Dublin? Molly knew well the dilemma for Moira and Barry. It was to court bad luck to take the baby too often or too far from its own home before it was baptized; better for it to stay within its own place, with the windows and doors signed with the sign of the cross against all evil. It might be no more than superstition, but even Moira would hesitate to take chances with her baby and Kilbally was quite a journey.

On the other hand, Great-grandmother Devlin, as she would be, was no longer fit enough to travel to Dublin. She was bent double with the rheumatics and could hardly move out of the house, and wasn't it Grandma Devlin who had the money and had declared that if she could not be present at the baptism of her first great-grandchild, perhaps the only one she would live to see, then might she not just as well give the money to the Poor Clares? For Moira and Barry it was a difficult decision all right.