The Copper Beech (27 page)

She was always very agreeable and quiet, as if she had accepted long ago that her father was a disgrace and her mother was always asking for handouts. Foxy Dunne was different, he behaved as if his family were dukes and earls instead of drunks and layabouts. You’d never know from looking at Foxy Dunne that his father and brothers were barred from almost every establishment in the town. They weren’t even allowed into their Uncle Jimmy’s the hardware shop.

Foxy neither apologised for them nor defended them. It was as if he regarded them as separate people.

Nessa wished she could be like that sometimes. It hurt her when her mother was sharp to her easy-going father. It annoyed her when her father just shrugged and took none of the responsibility.

‘There’s a gypsy telling fortunes. They say she’s terrific,’ Maura said.

‘Will we get our fortunes told?’ Leo’s eyes were sparkling.

Nessa knew that her mother would be very cross indeed if they went anywhere near the tinkers’ camp. So would Leo’s mother, but Leo didn’t care. It would be wonderful to be as free as that.

‘She’d only tell you back what you’d tell her,’ Foxy said. ‘That’s what they do. They ask you what you want to be and then they tell you two minutes later that this is what’s going to happen to you.’

‘But that’s dishonest,’ Niall Hayes objected.

‘That’s life, Niall.’ Foxy spoke as if he knew much more of the world from his broken-down cottage than did Niall Hayes, the lawyer’s son who lived in The Terrace.

‘So? Will we go?’ Leo was on for any excitement.

‘We could read palms to know what’s going to happen to us,’ Eddie said suddenly.

That seemed much safer to Nessa. Her mother need never know of this. ‘How could we do it?’ she asked.

‘It’s easy. There’s a life line and a love line, and a whole lot of ridges for children.’ Eddie sounded very confident.

‘Where did you learn all this?’ Foxy asked.

‘I got interested in it through a friend,’ he said.

‘Is that your pen-friend?’ Leo asked. He nodded.

A wave of jealousy flooded over Nessa. How did Leo know everything about everyone else and hardly anything about Nessa, who was meant to be her best friend?

‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.’ Nessa spoke sharply.

They walked up through Barna Woods, up towards the Old Rock.

No one needed to lead the way or decide where they were going. Once anything of importance had to be done, it was always at the Old Rock.

Eddie showed them their life lines. Everyone seemed to have a long one.

‘How many years to the inch, do you think?’ Foxy asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Eddie admitted.

‘Lots, I’d say.’ Maura wanted to believe the best.

‘Now. This is the heart line.’ These varied. Nessa’s seemed to have a break in hers.

‘That means you’ll have two loves,’ Eddie explained.

‘Or maybe love the same person twice. You know. Get your heart broken in the middle and then he’d come back to you,’ Maura suggested.

‘I might break
his
heart, whoever he is.’ Nessa tossed her head.

‘Yeah, sure. It doesn’t say. Back to the lines.’ Eddie moved away from troubled waters.

Foxy’s heart line was faint.

So was Leo’s. ‘Is that good or bad?’ Leo asked.

‘It’s good.’ Foxy was firm. ‘It means that neither of us will have much romance until it’s time for us to marry each other.’

They all laughed.

Eddie moved to children. You’d know how many you were going to have by the number of tiny lines that went sideways at the base of your little finger. Maura was going to have six. She giggled. She’d be like her mother, she said, not knowing when to stop. Leo was going to have two. So was Foxy. He nodded approvingly. Eddie and Niall didn’t look as if they were going to have any. They kept searching their hands and uttering great mock wails of despair.

Nessa had three little lines.

‘That’s three fine little Ryans to bring into the hotel with you,’ Foxy said approvingly. He had already pointed out to Leo that they each had a matching score of two on their hands.

‘Not Ryans,’ Nessa corrected him sharply. ‘They’ll be my husband’s name.’

‘Yeah, but if you’re anything like your ma they’ll be thought of as Ryans,’ Foxy said.

Nessa wouldn’t let him see how annoyed she was. She fought back the tears of rage at his mockery.

‘Don’t let him upset you,’ Leo said. ‘Let it roll off.’

‘It’s all right for you. You don’t care about your family,’ Nessa snapped.

The others were still counting their future children. Leo and Nessa sat apart.

Although Nessa’s eyes were bright, she would not allow herself to cry. She felt she had to keep talking, it might stop her starting to weep. ‘If anyone says anything about your mother or father, Leo Murphy, you just laugh.’

‘It wouldn’t matter
what
they say, Nessa you eejit. It’s only important if it upsets you, otherwise it’s just words floating around in the air.’

Leo had lost interest as usual.

She went off to join the others, who had discovered the line in your hand that meant money. It looked as if the only one who would have any wealth to speak of was Maura Brennan from the cottages, the least likely one of them all.

Nessa didn’t wait around to hear how her own future was mapped out in terms of wealth. Maybe Foxy would make some joke about her father’s love of horses and greyhounds. It was so unfair, she raged. You couldn’t answer back. You couldn’t say that Foxy Dunne’s father was even barred from Johnny Finn’s, which meant he must have done something spectacular in terms of drunkenness.

Nor could you say that Foxy had one brother in gaol, and one who had got on the boat to England an hour ahead of the posse before
he
was in gaol too. It seemed that by being so really desperate Foxy’s family had put themselves above being spoken badly of.

And yet she got annoyed at home when her mother would say those very things about the Dunnes. She found herself defending her friends in her home and defending her family when she was with her friends.

She couldn’t bear it when Maura Brennan wiped her nose on her sleeve, because she knew her mother would sigh and shake her head.

But it was just as bad and even worse if Eddie and
Niall were around when her mother would speak sharply to Dad, and tell him to clear the papers away, put on his jacket and make some pretence of running a hotel. She had seen them exchange glances once or twice at her mother’s sharpness of tongue.

She longed to explain that it was needed, that Dad would sit there for ever telling long pedigrees of dogs and horses in far-away race tracks, while people waited to be served. She wished they knew that her father didn’t take offence like other men might.

Nessa wanted her friends to be interested in tales she told about what her parents discussed over supper at home, but no one could care less. She wanted her mother and father to listen to stories about Foxy being mad enough to fancy Leo, without sniffing and saying something dismissive about both of them.

Up to now, she had felt safe in her family. It was one of the many bad things about growing up that you began to feel it wasn’t as safe as it used to be.

A few days after the end of term the convent where Nessa would go to school sent a message saying that they would like to see the new pupils in advance.

‘We’ll dress you up smartly. It’s important to make a good impression,’ her mother said.

‘But they’re not going to refuse me, are they?’

‘Will you ever learn? You want them to treat you as someone important, then
look
like someone important.’

‘They’re nuns, Mam. They don’t look at things in that snobby way.’

‘They don’t, my foot.’ Her mother was adamant.

They had a good outing. Leo went in her ordinary clothes, she hadn’t dressed up at all.

‘She doesn’t need to,’ Nessa’s mother had said when
they saw Leo arriving in her ordinary pink cotton frock, with its faded flower pattern and frayed collar.

‘Why?’

‘Because she is who she is.’

It was a mystery.

Leo was in great form that day, she and Nessa laughed and giggled at everything. They laughed all the more because they had to keep such solemn faces in the convent.

The corridors were long and smelled of floor polish. Little red lights burned in front of statues and pictures of the Sacred Heart, little blue lights in front of Our Lady.

Mother Dorothy, the Principal, spoke to them very earnestly about the need to behave well in school uniform. She told them that it would all be very very different from Shancarrig. She made Shancarrig sound as if it were on the back of the moon.

‘Are you two great friends?’ Mother Dorothy asked.

‘Everyone’s friends in our school,’ Leo shrugged.

The nun’s bright eyes seemed to take it all in.

Leo was all for exploring the town.

‘We’d better go back,’ Nessa said. ‘They’ll be wondering where we are.’

Leo looked at her in surprise. ‘We’re nearly fifteen, we’ve gone to see the convent where we are going to be imprisoned for the next three years. What can they be worried about?’ she asked.

‘They’ll find something,’ Nessa said.

‘You’re a scream.’ Leo was affectionate.

And then, about three weeks later, Leo became almost a different person as far as Nessa was concerned. She was never around, and seemed unwilling to stir from The Glen at all. She’d gone off mysteriously for a holiday with her
mother and father and the two great stupid dogs without even telling anyone where she was going.

The summer was endless. There was nobody to play with. Maura Brennan had gone around asking everyone could she be a maid in their house, and eventually Nessa’s mother had given her a job, as a chambermaid in the hotel. Maura slept in, which was stupid because it was only ten minutes’ walk to the cottages. But then again, Mother had said would Maura want to sleep in that place, and would you want to have her sleeping there?

Eddie Barton was lost in his old pressed flowers, and writing letters. Niall Hayes was complaining all the time about the school he was going to start in next September. He seemed to want reassurance that it was going to be all right.

Nessa wished that Leo was more like Niall, dependent on her, asking for advice. She thought Niall should be more like that tough little girl up in The Glen, able to survive on her own, fight her own battles.

Her mother noticed, like she always did.

‘I’ve told you a dozen times, lead and they’ll follow.’

‘I could lead a thousand miles and Leo would never follow.’ Nessa wished she hadn’t admitted it, but it was out before she knew it. Breda Ryan sighed, she looked disappointed. ‘I’m sorry, Mam, but it’s different for you. You were always a born leader. Some people just have it in them.’

Her mother looked at her thoughtfully.

‘I’ve been thinking about your hair,’ she said unexpectedly.

‘Well, don’t think about it,’ Nessa cried. ‘Don’t always think about how everyone else could do things better if only they did them like you.’

‘Nessa!’ Her mother was shocked at the outburst.

‘I mean it. I’m fifteen. In some countries I could be married and have my own family.
You
always know best.
You
know Dad can’t talk about greyhounds.
You
know that we can’t call anyone a fella because you think it’s vulgar, we have to say boy or man or something that no one else says.’

‘I try to give you some manners. Style, that’s all.’

‘No. That’s not all. You don’t let us be normal. Maura is below us for some reason. Leo Murphy’s family is above us because they live in a big house. You’re
so
sure of everything, you just
know
you’re right.’ Nessa’s face was red and angry.

‘What brought this on, may I ask?’

‘My hair. I was having an ordinary conversation with you and suddenly you said you wanted to talk to me about my hair. I don’t care
what
you want, I won’t do it. I won’t do it. I’ll go and tell Dad you want me to cut it or dye it or put it in an awful bun like yours. Whatever you want I won’t do it.’

‘Fine, fine … if that’s the way you feel.’ Her mother stood up to leave the sitting room.

Nessa was still in a temper. ‘That’s right. You’ll go down now to Daddy and frighten him. You’ll tell him I’m being so difficult you don’t know how to handle me, and then poor Dad will come and plead with me, and ask me to apologise.’

‘Is that what you think I’m going to do?’ Her mother looked distant and surprised.

‘It’s what you’ve done for years.’ She was in so far now it didn’t matter what she said.

‘As it happens I was
going
to tell you about your hair. That it never looked better, that you should get a good cut. I was going to suggest that we went to
Dublin together and I took you to a good place that I asked about.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

‘Well, believe what you like. The address is here on a piece of paper. I was going to say we could go on the cheap excursion on Wednesday. But go on your own.’

‘How can I go on my own? I’ve no money.’

‘I was going to ask your father to give you the money.’

‘But you’re not now. I see. You mean I lost it all by being badly behaved.’ Nessa gave a mirthless laugh to show she knew the ways of adults.

‘Ask him yourself, Nessa. You’re too tiresome to talk to any more.’

Nessa didn’t ask her father, so he mentioned it on Tuesday night. Why didn’t she take the day trip up to Dublin and have a nice hair cut. She said she didn’t want to go, she said her mother hated her, she said her mother was only making her feel guilty, she said her hair was horrible, that it was like a horse’s tail.

She said she wouldn’t go to Dublin on her own.

‘Take Leo. I’ll stand you both,’ he said.

‘You can’t, Dad.’

‘Yes, I can. I make some of the decisions around here.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I do, Nessa. I make the ones I want to.’ There was something about his voice. She believed him utterly.

Leo went to Dublin with her.

The hairdresser spent ages cutting and styling. ‘You should come back every three months.’