The Bright One (27 page)

‘The diamonds,' Luke had told her as they sat in the train on the way home, ‘are no brighter than your eyes!'

Four weeks later they would be married. Dermot Brady, with whom Luke had struck up something of a friendship since their evening together in the Harp, had agreed to act as best man and Breda, with a reluctance she tried hard not to show, as her mother's attendant. Though the rest of Molly's family had been informed about the wedding, no invitations had been issued. Both Molly and Luke wanted it to be a quiet affair. Luke had no relatives.

Kieran – Father Kieran now – sent a loving letter, as did Kathleen. Moira sent a card. It was too soon to have heard from the twins, though Molly knew she would. Josephine wrote with congratulations and approval and asked what they would like for a wedding present.

‘I wish she would bring herself over for a visit,' Molly said to Luke. ‘That would be the best present ever!'

Though Breda was aware of all the planning, the activity – how could she not be, it was the chief topic of conversation? – she gave little heed to it. Rory's departure, and the humiliation surrounding it, filled her mind to the exclusion of all else. She went through the motions of each day as if in a dream; working in the shop, eating (though very little), dressing and undressing, going to bed and getting up, all mechanically, like a wound-up toy. She felt nothing which did not include Rory, and everything which did stabbed her to the heart. She would never recover,
never
.

Only in the last week before the wedding, with which Molly was now totally preoccupied, did Breda begin to emerge, for short periods, from her shattered dreams of Rory, and then she found herself plunged into the nightmare of her mother's arrangements.

Two days before the wedding Molly was putting the finishing touches to the dress she was to be married in. It was a navy and white floral, smart but not fussy, and with it she would wear a navy hat and white shoes and handbag.

‘Do you really think I will look all right?' she asked Breda anxiously.

‘You will look fine, Mammy!' Breda said. She tried to sound enthusiastic, and failed. Molly gave her a worried look.

‘I know how you feel,
dote
,' she said. ‘But try to be happy, for my sake!'

‘You do
not
know how I feel,' Breda contradicted. ‘And I
am
trying to be happy for you.'

It was not easy; she was deeply unhappy on her own account, and as the wedding drew nearer, the thought of it grew worse. And then at last it was there. All she wanted to do when she wakened was to put her head back under the bedclothes, and stay there for ever.

Somehow she got through it, managing to say the right things, not upsetting either Luke or her mother – though it was doubtful if anything, even she, could have upset them. They seemed so happy with each other.

She was glad of the presence of Dermot Brady. Even though he was a constant reminder of Rory, about whom they kept a silence, she felt he understood her feelings about her mother. Wasn't it Dermot she had confided in in the first place?

To her relief, the newly-weds had decided to leave for Galway immediately after the ceremony, stopping only to visit Grandma Byrne, who was not well enough to be at the ceremony and was being looked after by a neighbour. They would stay in Galway two nights, returning home on the Monday. She could not have borne it if they had spent the first two nights of their honeymoon in their own house.

Together with the rest of the small wedding party, she saw them off at the station.

‘Shall you be all right on your own, Breda?' Molly asked for the twentieth time. ‘Are you sure?' It would be the first time ever.

‘I shall, so,' Breda assured her.

What she really dreaded, though it could not be said out loud, was their return.

When the train left she hurried back home.

‘I had thought you might have a meal with me,' Dermot said. ‘I am a fair cook!'

‘'Tis very kind of you,' Breda said, ‘but I promised Luke I would open the shop for a couple of hours. It has been closed all day.'

When she finally closed the shop and went through into the house she felt incredibly lonely, and at the same time glad to be on her own at last. It had been a long day.

What would she do with the rest of her life, she asked herself? It stretched out bleakly before her; a life without Rory, a life with her mother married to Luke O'Reilly.

At Mass on Sunday morning she prayed earnestly, though she hardly knew what to ask. Nothing would bring Rory back; he belonged to someone else. Nothing would change things between her mother and Luke. Sometimes, she thought, even God was powerless.

After Mass, she walked back with Dermot Brady and, out of the fullness of her heart, she confided in him once again.

‘The only way I see it,' he said gently when he had listened, ‘since, as you say, those circumstances cannot change, is that 'tis you who will have to do so!'

It was not at all the reply she had expected, or hoped for.

Back at home, she fried herself a rasher and an egg for her dinner, then took out her bicycle and cycled along the narrow, winding road which ran beside the coast. She had the place almost to herself. Though the visitors had started to return once the Emergency was over, there were not many around today. The summer was almost over and the weather was not reliable.

After a mile or two she left her bicycle in the ditch, scrambled over the low wall and climbed up the hillside. Sitting on an outcrop of rock, she looked out to sea.

‘What will I do with myself?' She said the words out loud, as if the birds of the air could answer her.

I cannot stay in Kilbally, she thought. All her life she had wanted nothing more than to stay here. No matter what anyone else did, she had never even contemplated leaving. Now she thought she
must
leave. Kilbally had nothing more to offer her.

She gazed at the sea; all dark blues and greens today, with two currachs, those small boats, riding the waves like corks. The air was clear. She could see, in the distance, the Aran Islands and the hills of Connemara. How could she abandon this? Where would she go that was like it?

At the other side of this same ocean, where the sea ended, there was New York, there were Patrick and Colum. Should she go to them? Living in Luke's house, earning a small but regular wage, she now had some savings, but she doubted if they were enough to take her to America. She would have to save for at least another year, and she did not fancy waiting so long.

She could go to Dublin. She could get a job there and stay with Moira, who would be pleased to have her, she thought, if only to help with the children. But would she want to be with Moira and Barry? She would have to think about that.

The weather changed suddenly. It came on to rain, a few large drops which quickly turned into a heavy shower. She ran back down the hill, rescued her bicycle and pedalled home.

As she rode, she thought about Dermot Brady's advice. Change yourself, he had said. Could she do that? If she tried really hard, could she learn to like Luke O'Reilly? Could she learn to live with the newly married couple in some sort of harmony? Nothing could ease her pain about Rory, but was it possible she could get on with Luke and her mother?

By the time she reached home, soaking wet, and the rain still pouring down, she had decided. She would do her very best to cope with the new arrangement. What was more, she would start from the very moment Mammy and Luke arrived back tomorrow. If she should fail, 'twould not be for the want of trying.

Yet she did fail. Or was it not, she thought, that her mother failed her? From the moment Luke and Molly arrived back in Kilbally, Breda noticed a change in her mother. Whereas before she had looked up to Luke O'Reilly, respected him, liked him, now she had, over two days, become incredibly close to him; and he to her, also. It was as if she had found something quite undreamt of in her new husband, as indeed she had. Who would have thought that the middle-aged, rather staid, reserved Luke O'Reilly could have turned out to be such a wonderful lover? Molly felt, once again, like a woman fulfilled.

They were open about it too. They would touch each other as they passed; Luke would bend to kiss the back of his wife's neck, Molly would sit beside him on the sofa, holding his hand.

It was nauseating, Breda thought. And most embarrassing of all was the way they went early to bed, as if they couldn't wait another minute. In her own room she stuffed her fingers in her ears, buried her head under the bedclothes, to shut out the sounds which came nightly from the next bedroom.

She
did
try, but she knew it wasn't working. She became silent, she had little to say, and when she did speak it was often to snap. She was aware of it and couldn't help herself.

‘Whatever is the matter with you?' Molly asked her after one outburst.

‘Sure, 'tis not me! 'Tis you!' Breda said. ‘Haven't you changed completely?'

‘No, I have not!' Molly defended herself. ‘I am just the same with you as I always was.'

‘You have changed towards Luke,' Breda said. ‘You are quite different there. You shut me out, the two of you. There is no place for me!' She felt the tears pricking at her eyes, and blinked hard to keep them back.

‘Oh, Breda love, that is not so!' Molly protested. ‘You always have a place with me. You are my daughter!'

‘You can't deny you have changed about Luke,' Breda said. ‘Why is that?'

A flush crept over Molly from her neck to the roots of her hair.

‘It is true,' she admitted. ‘I have fallen in love with him! I never thought it would happen, but it has. It will happen to you one day, and then you will understand.'

Breda flounced out of the room. Had her mother totally forgotten about Rory? But that was different, or could have been. She and Rory were young: her mother and Luke were old.

The next day Breda said to Molly: ‘I want to talk to you. On your own.'

‘Then why not now,' Molly said. ‘What is all this about?'

‘I can't stay here. I'm leaving Kilbally. I've thought about it, and I have made up my mind, so don't be trying to change it.'

‘I will not do that, except to say that I do not want you to go,' Molly said.

But it was not unexpected, she had seen it coming, and in her heart she knew it was for the best.

‘Where will you go, love?' she asked.

Breda felt suddenly and terribly alone and unsure. ‘I don't know,' she admitted. ‘I could go to Moira, I suppose.'

Molly shook her head.
That
would never work. ‘Why do you not go to Aunt Josephine in Akersfield? You could go for a visit, see how you liked it.'

Her daughter would be safe with Josephine. She would be well looked after. She knew in her heart that wherever Breda went, it would not be for a visit. She was saying goodbye to her.

‘That might be a good idea,' Breda said. ‘I will think about it.'

Molly opened her arms wide, and Breda went into them.

‘Oh, Mammy!'

It was all she could say.

The train shuddered to a halt outside the station, waiting for the signal which would allow it to proceed. Breda, sitting by the window, facing forward, studied the view.

The journey had been long and depressing, right from the moment she had walked up the rickety gangway onto the boat which, even in the harbour, moved and groaned alarmingly under her feet. The Irish Sea had been horrendous, but mercifully her sickness had stopped the moment when, with legs trembling from exhaustion, she had thankfully stepped onto dry land. All the same, this moment of looking out of the train window was amongst the worst so far. The turbulent sea could be consigned to memory; what she saw now was what she would have to live with for who knew how long.

Streets of mean-looking houses ran down towards the railway line. Factories, warehouses, a church, a school, crowded together, no space anywhere. A forest of house chimneys and, rising high above them, great mill chimneys, all belched smoke against what could be seen of a grey sky.

What held the scene together into one coherent whole, silhouetted, was that everything was black. The stone of the buildings was black; the clouds of smoke were black, fading to grey only as they thinned at the distant edges. The school playground was black asphalt, and on the murky canal, which ran close to the railway line, a barge was heaped with shining black coal. Occasional stunted trees had presumably started out green, but now their leaves were black-edged. The woman sitting opposite to Breda was clad in black from head to foot.

The train gave a couple of jerks, then crept forward into the station.

‘You're here, love!' the woman said. ‘This is Akersfield!' She sounded pleased, as if she was introducing a well-known beauty spot.

‘I'll give you a hand with your luggage,' she offered. ‘And when we get out of the station I'll show you your bus stop. Unless of course you're thinking of taking a taxi?'

From the look of the girl's luggage – a large, cardboard suitcase and a couple of straw bags – she didn't look the sort to be taking a taxi, but you could never tell these days, not since the war. Now the most unlikely looking people would jump into a cab, seemingly thinking nothing of it.

‘Indeed no,' Breda assured her. ‘I'll be taking the bus. My aunt sent me the directions.'

‘A pity she'll not be here to meet you, your auntie.'

‘'Twas not possible. I was not knowing the exact time I would arrive. But I'll be all right.'