The Bright One (39 page)

She couldn't tell him that Graham had wanted to wait to see her home, or at least meet her after she had left. It was she who had reminded Graham that if he did that kind of thing their secret would soon be out.

‘Then if you're sure, I'll just see you onto the bus this end,' Bill offered.

The time flew by towards Christmas. Although the Grotto was finished, there were plenty of jobs to be done in the rest of the store: Christmas trees, fairy lights, paper chains, fancy lampshades – anything for which material could be found. The window displays were designed, and mostly carried out, by the small team of window dressers, but Breda was frequently called upon to help with the more mundane tasks: fetching and carrying, clearing up; sometimes, under supervision, cleaning and refurbishing the seasonal models – reindeer, robins, rabbits, snowmen – which were unearthed each year from the stockrooms.

In the Grotto, which drew great crowds, Joe Ackroyd, the Senior Commissionaire, made a splendid Father Christmas, and plump Miss Hargreaves, from Haberdashery, was given her usual temporary promotion to Mother Christmas, though it was well known that she and Joe Ackroyd did not get on. It was a matter of temperature as well as temperament. While he sweated under his voluminous robes and long white beard, she felt the cold.

‘The draught in this place is cruel,' she complained to Breda, who had been sent to scatter fresh snow and glitter before the Grotto opened for the day. ‘Don't anyone be surprised if I go down with pneumonia!'

Influenza, not pneumonia, laid her low in the last week before Christmas, at a point when the queues for the Grotto were at their longest and everyone in the store was occupied in taking money and tying up parcels.

‘I shall have to have someone,' Joe Ackroyd said to Miss Opal when she made her daily visit. ‘I can't be expected to sell the tickets, talk to the children, organize the parcels and hand them out.'

‘Of course you can't!' Miss Opal agreed.

Thus it was that Breda found herself wearing a red robe which would have gone around her twice and a fur-trimmed red hood which constantly fell over her eyes.

Miss Opal's lips twitched when she saw Breda at work next day. ‘This won't do at all, Miss O'Connor,' she said. ‘Someone in the workrooms must alter it to fit, at once. Otherwise you'll trip over yourself and break a leg!'

It was a week in which Breda scarcely saw Graham. There was no time for dinner in the canteen; a snatched sandwich and a cup of tea behind the scenes was all that could be managed. In the evenings she was dead tired and, she reckoned, dull company.

Graham was to go home to his family for Christmas, travelling on the morning of Christmas Eve.

‘You've got to come out with me the night before,' he said. ‘Even if we only have a coffee. I shan't see you for the best part of a week!' He had permission to be away until the Monday after Christmas.

‘I'll miss you so much!' Breda said.

Would he forget her in his home in Surrey, with his family, his friends, parties, outings? How could he help but compare it all to her family in Akersfield?

‘I shall miss you, my love,' Graham said. ‘Don't think I won't. But this time next year it will be different. Who's to say I won't be taking you home to meet my family?'

‘Or me taking you to Ireland, to meet mine,' Breda said. ‘Oh Graham, it seems so far ahead, such a long time.'

‘It will pass,' Graham said.

Graham's four-day absence over Christmas seemed to Breda more like four months at times. It was not that there wasn't a great deal to be done. Christmas in Waterloo Terrace was a busy time and from the moment she arrived home from work on Christmas Eve she was bang in the middle of the activity. The entire Maguire family was expected for Christmas dinner.

‘How in the world will you seat everyone?' she asked her aunt.

‘Not easily,' Josephine admitted. ‘But we'll manage. We've done it before and I don't doubt we'll do it again. We shall have two sittings, the children first and then the grown-ups. Now if you will get on with trimming the tree it will be a great help. I never like to do the tree before Christmas Eve. It doesn't seem right.'

‘Now there I agree with you,' Grandma Maguire said. ‘There are some as put the tree in the window the minute Gunpowder Plot night is over and don't take it down until nigh on Easter.'

‘I'm glad we agree,' Josephine said mildly. ‘I'll hang on to that over the Christmas holiday,' she whispered to Breda.

‘What's that?' Grandma Maguire demanded. ‘Speak up! I can't hear you!'

‘I said it was going to be a nice holiday!'

‘Too much fuss,' Grandma said. ‘Too much spoiling of the children.' Why was it the children got all the spoiling?'

‘I'm sure you'll get your share of attention,' Josephine said.

At five o'clock on Christmas afternoon the telephone rang. The meal was over, the washing-up done. Those children who had not been put to sleep upstairs were playing with their new toys. Grandma was in the Land of Nod, snoring gently, and Brendan was clearly about to follow suit. Josephine went into the hall to answer the phone.

It's Graham, Breda thought at once. At the back of every activity of the day he had been in her mind. What was he doing? Who was he seeing? Was he missing her? She followed her aunt into the hall, certain that the call must be for her.

‘Molly!' Josephine cried. She turned to Breda. ‘It's your Mammy!'

The first slight pang of disappointment in Breda's heart was followed by a rush of pleasure. She waited impatiently while Josephine continued the conversation with her mother. It could go on for ever. She was giving the details of every member of her large family.

‘Maureen's well. Looking like the side of a house and she'll be glad when the baby comes. Betty is expecting again. June she reckons. Tony couldn't get leave for Christmas.' Josephine didn't quite believe that. She reckoned he had other fish to fry, but she would never say so.

A loud sigh from Breda, standing at her shoulder, brought her back to earth. ‘I'd better hand you over to Breda before she bursts!' she said to her sister.

In the next few minutes Breda caught up with the news of her own family in Ireland. Kathleen was well, and had been home for a two-day visit before Christmas. Kieran was settling into his parish in County Waterford. The twins had sent Christmas cards and presents from New York. Moira and Barry were spending Christmas at home in Dublin, and no, there was no sign of another baby there.

‘And what about you, Mammy?' Breda asked. ‘And Luke?' she added. When she thought about Luke O'Reilly these days she wondered what it was she had had against him.

‘We're both well,' Molly said. ‘And happy. And you,
álainna
? Are you happy?'

‘I am so,' Breda said. She longed with all her heart to tell Mammy about Graham but hadn't she promised Graham she would not do so, not yet? ‘All the same, I miss you, Mammy.'

‘And I miss you,' Molly said. It was wrong, she knew, to favour one child over another, and she would never admit to it out loud, but it was Kieran and Breda she missed the most.

Christmas Day being on a Thursday, Opal's store reopened on the Saturday. Even though it might not be a busy day for customers there was plenty for Breda to do, for wasn't the big January sale starting the following week and all the windows to change and sale tickets and banners to prepare? Miss Craven was miffed that Breda was kept on in Display.

‘I thought you would have been sent back to Fabrics,' she complained. ‘We shall be quite busy here in the sale. But of course once you get in with the boss class it's all very different!'

It had not occurred to Breda that she would ever go back to Fabrics, but this was not the time to say so. In any case, she was so happy at the thought of Graham's return on Monday that she felt charitable even to the Miss Cravens of the world. Poor Miss Craven, she thought. I have so much to look forward to, and what has she?

On Wednesday, New Year's Eve, she and Graham were to go into Akersfield to choose the gold chain he had promised. It had been impossible to do so before Christmas because Breda had had to work on most of her half-days. She rushed through her dinner at home, telling her aunt that she had some shopping to do in the town. She had arranged to meet Graham outside the railway station and he was waiting there when she arrived, standing on the very spot from which she had surveyed Akersfield on that first day.

‘I thought it looked dreadful,' she told Graham now. ‘I thought I would never settle here. Now I quite like it.'

‘I know,' Graham said. ‘It was the same with me. I didn't want to come. Now I shan't want to leave.'

A slight chill went through Breda at his last words. It was inevitable that he would leave. Would she go with him? Would he be forced to leave her behind? It was all so uncertain.

‘What shall we do first?' he asked. ‘Have something to eat, or choose the chain?'

‘The chain,' Breda said. She could hardly wait.

He had obviously, and unknown to her, sought out the jewellers because he led her without hesitation to a small, but select-looking, shop in the middle of the town.

‘We would like to look at some neck chains,' Graham said to the assistant.

There were several to choose from. ‘What about this?' Graham suggested. He pointed to one from which hung a gold cross. ‘It seems just the thing!'

‘No,' Breda said. ‘Not that one.'

In the end she chose a fine gold chain from which hung a small gold heart.

‘It's lovely,' Graham said. ‘Are you quite sure?'

‘Quite sure,' Breda said. ‘I love it. It's exactly what I want.'

Graham paid for it, then put the small box in his coat pocket.

They left the shop, and found a small café nearby.

‘I'm starving,' Breda said as they sat down. She picked up the menu and began to read.

‘Me too,' Graham agreed. ‘But there's something more important before we order.'

He took the chain from its box, then came and stood behind her.

‘Unbutton your coat,' he said. ‘Take off your scarf. I want to put it on myself.'

With trembling and somewhat clumsy fingers, for the clasp was small and difficult to grasp, he fastened the chain. Then he placed his hands on Breda's shoulders and swiftly dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck before moving around to sit opposite to her. She put up her hand and held the chain, with the small gold heart, against her skin.

‘I shall never take it off!' she said. ‘Never, as long as I live.'

‘I wondered why you didn't choose the one with the cross,' Graham said.

She hesitated fractionally. ‘It's to do with the fact that . . . well, that I'm a Catholic and you're not. I don't even know what you are – if anything. So I didn't want anything religious. I don't want religion to come between us. We
shall
have to discuss it, but not now.'

‘Nothing will come between us,' Graham promised. ‘And before this time next year I shall be putting a ring on your finger for all the world to see.'

He had thought long and hard while he had been at home over Christmas, missing Breda as much as she missed him, whether he would come out into the open and tell his parents about her. It had been a difficult decision not to do so, but it had been the right one for now, he thought.

‘Nineteen forty-eight will be
our
year,' he said. ‘And it starts tomorrow.'

‘Happy New Year, my love!' Breda said.

‘Happy New Life!' he said.

‘Where will we be at the end of the year?' Breda wondered out loud.

‘Married, I hope,' Graham said.

‘The time can't pass too quickly for me,' Breda said. ‘I just wonder . . . '

‘What?'

‘When we're married, where will we live? Will it be in London?'

‘Would you do that?'

‘I'd live wherever you chose to live. In a tent in the Sahara Desert if that was it.'

Graham laughed. ‘I hope it won't come to that!'

There were parts of the year which did pass quickly. These were the times when Breda and Graham managed to be alone; then, perversely, the hours flew by. But almost from the beginning of the year these times were, by mutual consent, fewer than they had been. They had made the decision that they must not be seen so much together, but when they were not together, then the time dragged.

They worked out ways they could be with each other, even though in the presence of other people, and to this end they joined several of the clubs which abounded in Opal's store. There was the Rambling Club, whose members, in almost any weather, took off every other Sunday throughout the year. With them Breda and Graham tramped, more than once, over the moors to Hebghyll – though the outings were never as sweet as that first occasion when they had done it alone. They took the train to Grassington and walked by the river, or climbed the fells in Wharfedale. They took the bus to Harrogate and rambled in Nidderdale. That first winter they also joined Opal's Dramatic Society, and in the summer they became members of the Art Club and went out sketching, or painting in water colours.

Given that they had committed themselves to doing things when other people were present, this last was the activity Graham knew he would enjoy most.

‘I'm happy to tag along,' Breda said, ‘but I can't paint for toffee.'

‘That's not strictly true,' Graham said. ‘You did some nice stuff in the Christmas Grotto.'