The Bright One (29 page)

‘Peter teaches history at the local secondary school,' Josephine explained.

Then she took another look at Breda.

‘Good heavens, child! What am I thinking of? You're wet through! I'll take you upstairs to your room and you can get changed. Mind you strip right down to your skin. I don't want you catching your death of cold the minute you get here. What would Molly say?'

Tony came back into the room.

‘I've taken Breda's case up,' he said. He smiled across at the old woman. ‘Hello, Grandma! All right, are you?'

Her thin mouth turned up fractionally at the corners, her face creased into the vestige of a smile. It was clear who her favourite was.

‘I would be,' she grumbled, ‘if they'd let me sit in the kitchen instead of in this place. It's too cold in here! Anyway, give your old Grandma a kiss.'

She tilted her head and he planted a kiss on her cheek.

‘Grandma Josie said you
could
go in the kitchen,' Kitty said in her clear, five-year-old voice. ‘I heard her say it!'

Mrs Maguire senior turned swiftly on her great-granddaughter.

‘You're a rude little girl! You're too cheeky by half! Children should be seen and not heard!'

Kitty turned to her mother. ‘Why doesn't she want to hear me? She's always saying “speak up”, so I did.'

‘Come along, Breda,' Josephine said.

Breda realized, suddenly, how wet she was, and she was beginning to feel cold. She followed her aunt up the stairs. The first flight, as far as the landing, was wide and shallow, with a handsome banister rail and balusters, but from the landing to the attic, which was where her aunt now led her, the stairs were narrow and steep, covered in oilcloth, and with no rail. Except on her visits to Moira, she had never lived in a house with stairs.

Josephine opened a door at the top. ‘This is your room. I'm afraid it's a bit small,' she apologized, ‘but at least you have it to yourself. To put you on the floor below you'd have had to share with Grandma.'

‘It's very nice,' Breda assured her. It was certainly small; a narrow bed, a small chest of drawers, a chair, and a curtained-off corner to serve as a wardrobe, completely filled it. But she would have slept in a broom cupboard rather than share with that awful old woman. She shuddered at the thought.

‘There now! You're shivering! And it's all my fault.'

‘I'm not really, Auntie Josephine. I'm all right.'

‘Call me Auntie Josie! It's friendlier. Now mind you change right down to the skin. There's a clean towel on the bed, give yourself a brisk rub down, then come downstairs and I'll have tea ready. Oh, I do hope you're going to be happy here, love!'

‘I will be, Auntie Josie,' Breda promised.

She was not as sure as she sounded. There were so many of them, and all strangers, however well-meaning. Not a single person in Kilbally had been a stranger to her. ‘Had been', she thought. No longer ‘is', because she had left Kilbally. ‘Had been', wasn't it now?

Longing for Kilbally pierced her like a sword: longing for Mammy, for the customers she might at this very moment have been serving in Luke O'Reilly's shop, for any familiar face she had known all her life, even that of Father Curran. The pain of loss ran through her body. What had she done? But it
was
done. She must turn around and face the future, whatever it might turn out to be.

She stripped off her clothes as if she was stripping off her old life, then rubbed herself down with the towel, and put on dry ones. She tried to make something of her hair but the rain had twisted it into tight curls, which she loathed, and all the brushing in the world would not smooth them out. Oh, how she longed for straight hair!

She shaped her mouth with the lipstick Moira had given her in Dublin. ‘You'd look a different person with a bit of make-up on,' Moira had said. And indeed wasn't that what she wanted half the time, to be different?

She was ready now, as ready as she ever would be. She battled with her reluctance to go downstairs and join the others. It was all too much, she was tired from the travelling. Why wouldn't she allow herself five minutes more before going down?

There was a window in her room, small and high up, so that the only way to see out of it would be to stand on the chair. She lifted the chair into position and climbed onto it. It was rickety, but no matter. If she fell, 'twas not far to the floor.

The wideness of the view from the window came as a surprise. Waterloo Terrace must be quite high. In the near vicinity was a park, with wide avenues, a bandstand, glimpses of a lake through trees which were beginning to take on their autumn tints. Beyond the park was the main road along which, she reckoned, she had travelled on the bus.

At the far side of the road the land dropped sharply away to the valley, then climbed almost as steeply up the hill on the other side. Buildings crowded against each other: houses, factories, churches, with small patches of green and a few trees interspersed here and there. Over the lowest part of the valley there was the same haze of smoke she had seen in the centre of the town, but at the top of the far hill, stretching the whole width of the horizon, the buildings gave way to a strip of purple and mauve, brilliant in the late sun, which met the sky then merged into it. She was contemplating this, wondering about it, when a knock came at the door.

‘It's me, Maureen! Can I come in?'

She was in the room before Breda could answer, or climb down from the chair.

‘I have to leave,' Maureen said. ‘I'll see you some time tomorrow. I drop in on Mam most days. What are you looking at?'

‘The view,' Breda answered. ‘It's interesting. There's a band of purple on the horizon just where the sky begins. What would that be?'

‘Oh, that's the moors,' Maureen explained. ‘I dare say the heather isn't quite over. When it is, the moor will be brown, and then in the spring it'll be fresh green again. Once you get out of the centre you can see the moors from most parts of Akersfield.'

‘Shall I be able to go there?' Breda asked.

‘Of course! Why not? One of us will take you. Are you a good walker?'

‘Not bad,' Breda said.

Perhaps Tony would take her if he was still on leave. On the other hand, he probably had a girlfriend, or even a fiancée, who wouldn't let him out of her sight.

‘Why not come downstairs now?' Maureen suggested. ‘Tea's nearly ready, and I hope you're hungry because Mam's prepared a feast – as far as rations allow.'

‘I am famished,' Breda admitted, getting down from the chair.

‘And by the way,' Maureen said, ‘don't let Grandma Maguire upset you, though she'll try it on. Best ignore her. She's a cross we all have to bear, poor Mam most of all. I don't know how she stands it. I'd murder the old witch!'

Breda followed Maureen downstairs, this time into the large kitchen. The table was set for tea, and at first glance it was crowded with food, but a second look showed the food to be spread out, more than one plate of the same dish, so as to fill the space and hide the lack of variety, to give the appearance of plenty. Even so, Breda thought, there
was
plenty. There were savoury sandwiches with a filling of sardines which had been mashed up with breadcrumbs to make them go further, fresh baked bread and teacakes, two dishes of home-made plum jam – the plum harvest had been good all over the country – and a cake. And who would know to look at that, Josephine thought, that it contained vinegar in place of an egg?

‘Come and sit down, Breda love!' She indicated a place beside her own.

‘Are you going to sit to the table, Grandma?' she asked her mother-in-law. ‘Or will I be giving you a tray?'

Grandma Maguire cast an eye over the table. ‘I'll not bother to sit to, if this is all it is. You can give me a bit on a tray. A bit of everything. I like ham and eggs for my tea, not this airy-fairy stuff.'

‘Don't we all,' Josephine said. She would have given a back tooth, if she'd had one left, for a plate of ham, cut thick, fried and served with two eggs. She was sick of eking out the rations and even more sick of hearing her mother-in-law's grumbles about food.

‘Two years after the war,' Grandma Maguire said, coming in on cue. ‘And there's less food than ever! Why?'

‘I've explained,' Josephine said. Tve explained a dozen times. We have people in other countries to feed now. You wouldn't want them to starve, would you?'

‘Serve 'em right,' the old lady spoke savagely through a mouthful of teacake. ‘Bloody Germans! They're the enemy, aren't they?'

‘The war's over, Grandma!' Kate said. She had stayed on to tea with Kitty and Peggy.

‘Take no notice and make a good tea,' she whispered to Breda. ‘There's plenty. Mam does wonders.'

‘I've brought some butter with me from Kilbally,' Breda said. ‘I will get it after tea, unless you want it now. And Luke O'Reilly sent some tea and some biscuits.'

Tony, coming into the room as Breda was speaking, slid into the chair opposite to her. ‘Ah! So it was food in your case; I thought it was lead-lined,' he said.

‘I enjoy a nice biscuit,' Grandma Maguire said. ‘What we get are like sawdust! Or else they're so hard they break my dentures.'

‘You shall have one of Breda's with your bed-time drink, old lady,' Tony promised her, winking at Breda.

He really was an attractive man, and not just to look at, not only because he was enhanced by his uniform, Breda thought. When he entered the room he brought an air of liveliness with him.

Brendan Maguire came in from work. He was quite different to look at from his son: short, stocky, his greying hair receding to give him a high forehead. When his wife introduced Breda he gave her a nod, then took his place at the table.

‘I hope you don't mind we didn't wait for you, love,' Josephine said anxiously. ‘Breda hadn't eaten for hours. In fact I expected you earlier, with it raining.'

She poured him a cup of tea, put in a spoonful of sugar and stirred it for him. ‘There you are, love!'

‘We've been working inside,' Brendan said. He was a builder who could turn his hand to most jobs with a certain degree of competence, though he was not a master craftsman at any one of them. Indeed, he was completely self-taught.

He tucked into his food with serious dedication, not attempting any conversation. Breda ate heartily. She was so hungry that a plate of dry bread would have been acceptable, and Auntie Josie's offering was a mile above that.

‘Have another piece of cake, love,' her aunt urged. ‘Don't hang back. Eat your fill! You're a growing girl.'

‘She's grown-up,' Kitty said. ‘
I'm
a growing girl. She's growed!'

‘Thank you. I really couldn't eat another thing,' Breda said.

Then suddenly she was uncommonly tired. All she wanted now was to go to bed and sleep until morning.

‘Would you like to go for a walk?' Tony offered. ‘The rain's stopped.'

He wouldn't mind dropping in at the Cow and Calf, showing off his new cousin. She was a good looker and no mistake!

Wouldn't he just ask me when I'm ready to drop, Breda thought? Could she possibly raise the energy?

‘Breda's too tired, on her first evening here,' Josephine interrupted. ‘She needs an early night. Leave it until tomorrow!'

‘I really would like to go tomorrow,' Breda said. ‘I'd look forward to it. But Auntie Josie's right about this evening. Also, I have to write to Mammy. I promised I'd do that as soon as I got here.'

‘As you wish!' Tony said. He sounded quite good-natured about it. ‘Tomorrow it is!' In any case he had half fixed a date with Joyce Denton. She'd be mad if he didn't show up.

‘And don't forget when you do go, you can't take her in the Cow and Calf,' his mother said. ‘She's only seventeen!'

In her young days, she thought, respectable young women didn't go into public houses, not even with a man they knew. But her day had been a long time ago. She had come from Ireland before the First World War, the war to end all wars, only it hadn't. King Edward had been on the throne then; there was an air of fun and lightness, but it was still respectable, at least in her class, though they did say there were some fine goings on in the aristocracy. It had all been different then. At this distance, with two wars in between, it seemed another life.

An hour later, though it was still daylight, Breda sat up in bed writing to her mother. She was so tired that she had been tempted to leave it until next morning, but to do it now would bring Mammy closer.

It was difficult to know what to say and what to leave out. Her heart was full of longings, misgivings, regrets, but she would not put any of these on paper, she would mention only the pleasant things. So she wrote of how she liked her room, though it was small; of her welcome from the family and a word or two about each of them; of how Tony had met her at the bus stop and carried her case. She said that Uncle Brendan was rather quiet but perhaps he had had a hard day. She did, however, permit herself one outburst.

‘Grandma Maguire is a dragon, an ogre. I am sure she does not like me and I shall keep well out of her way. I miss you, Mammy. Lots of love.'

It was dark by the time she had finished. She folded the letter and put it in the envelope, then turned out the light. In the darkness two tears rolled down her cheeks but before she could cry herself to sleep she
was
asleep.

She slept the sleep of the young and very tired, hearing nothing of her aunt putting a protesting Grandma Maguire to bed, then of her uncle and aunt arguing in the bedroom. Nor did she hear Tony coming into the house much later, noisily singing.