The Glass Lake (58 page)

“Sorry for what?” He was cold.

“What I said…like your mother and everything.”

“My mother drowned in a boating accident in the lake, she didn't throw herself in because people kept asking her questions,” he said.

Her face was dark red.

He longed to reach out and hold her close to him, tell her that of course he knew that was what people had said and that he understood her embarrassment and that it didn't matter one little bit. But he had been told they were no longer close, they were just friends. So he kept his hands in his pockets instead of reaching out for her. And he looked away.

She laid her hand on his arm. “Emmet?” she said in a small voice.

“Yes?” She had been going to ask him a favor; he knew that tone of voice. But her eyes met his and something in Anna Kelly's mind told her this was not the time to ask a favor.

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Well, okay, then. I'll see you, I expect.” His heart ached to tell her that he would always be here, whatever she wanted. But it would be wrong. Anna hated people who were weak, she had told him that. She liked the strong things about him. So he had to be strong now.

He saw Kevin Wall and shouted to him.

Kevin was pleased to see him. “What about your one?” he said, jerking his head back to where Anna stood forlorn on the road.

“Oh Anna, she and I were just having a chat.”

“I thought you were soft on her.”

“Don't be mad, Kevin. She's only a friend,” said Emmet McMahon, and walked off with his schoolmate without a backward glance.

         

Kit was doing her practical work in a Dublin hotel where they took a serious interest in the trainees. One week she was on the reception desk, and the next in the bar. Then she could be waiting tables, or supervising chambermaids. It wasn't easy but she knew from the outset that it wouldn't be.

“You must be mad,” Clio said when she came to call one day.

“You say that about every single thing I do.”

“Why be different this time?” Clio was sitting up at a high stool at the bar. “Do I get free drinks for knowing the barwoman?” she asked hopefully.

“Not a chance,” Kit said.

“Okay, I'll buy one, then. Can I have a gin and lime?”

“Gin! Clio, you're not serious.”

“Why not! Are you an apostle of temperance masquerading as a barmaid?”

“No, it's just that we don't drink gin.”

“You don't. I do.”

“As you wish. The customer is always right.” Kit turned and filled the optic measure. In the mirror she saw Clio's face. Clio was biting her lip; she looked very unhappy. Kit carefully put the ice lumps in with her silver tongs and pushed the lime bottle and the jug of water toward her friend. “Help yourself…” she said with a smile.

“Will you have one too?” Clio asked.

“Thanks, Clio. I'll have a Club Orange.”

They drank companionably for a few moments. “Aunt Maura is becoming a bit nosy,” Clio said eventually.

“Ah, she's only making conversation, asking us what we're doing,” Kit defended her stepmother.

“I think she knows about me and Michael.”

“Well of course she does, you never stop talking about him.”

“No, I mean about the other bit, about sleeping with him and everything.”

“How could she know that?”

“I don't know.” Clio bit her lip again.

“Well, stop looking at me, I didn't tell her.”

“No, I know that.” Clio did know that much.

“What makes you think she knows?”

“She says things like…oh, I don't know, awful cautionary tales about lack of respect, and girls not needing to do more than they want to…to keep men.”

“Well, you're not doing more than you want to,” Kit said briskly. “According to yourself you're only doing what you love doing.”

“Yes, that's true but it's not something you'd say to Aunt Maura…and apparently she knew Michael's father.”

“Well, isn't that good? They love knowing people and who people are.”

“I get the feeling she didn't like him.”

“Oh?”

“And when I was in Michael's house Mr. O'Connor said he sort of remembered her.”

“But not enthusiastically?”

“No, kind of furtively, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe they had a romance.”

“I doubt it. Michael's mother and father have been married forever.”

“I'm sure you're imagining it,” Kit said, trying to console her.

“I wish we were young again. Things were easier then.”

“You're not even nineteen, a lot of people think that's still young.”

“No, you know what I mean. It's easy for you, Kit. It always has been. You'll marry Philip O'Brien and run the Central and boot awful old Mildred and Dan down into some kind of cottage and be the real queen bee of everything.”

“As long as I remember you, you've been saying that and I've been saying I won't. Why won't you believe me?”

“Because we all do the same as our parents in the end. Your mother was glamorous and could have gone anywhere and done anything and yet she married your nice, safe father and came to live in a one-horse town like Lough Glass for security; you'll do the same.”

“And what about you? Do you love Michael, Clio?”

“I don't know. I honestly don't know. What's love?”

“I wish I knew that, too.” Kit spoke absently. She wondered if there was any truth in what Clio said, that people did what their mothers did. If so, there was a stormy future ahead for Kit.

         

Kevin O'Connor brought some friends into the bar of the hotel where Kit was working. As she served them one of his companions put a familiar hand on her bottom.

Kit tensed up immediately and looked him straight in the eye. “Remove your hand,” she said in a staccato voice like shots from a gun.

The boy dropped his arm immediately.

Kevin O'Connor looked at her, horrified. “Kit, I'm sorry, I swear…I mean…I swear…Matthew, why don't you fuck off out of here if you can't treat a woman with respect.”

Matthew, the offender, looked at his friend Kevin in open amazement. This was not the response he had expected. “I was only being friendly,” he blustered.

“Leave the company,” Kevin O'Connor ordered.

“Jesus, O'Connor, you're an ignorant bollocks,” he said, aggrieved.

“If there is one more word of that language nobody will be served,” Kit said. She was confident and secure. Not only did Kevin respect her but he made sure that his loud-mouthed and ignorant friends did so too.

“Sorry, Kit,” he said to her sheepishly as a bewildered Matthew left the hotel.

“That's all right, Kevin. Thank you.” She gave him a warm smile, and he looked pleased. She felt cheap practicing on him this way, but she had to do something to rehearse for Stevie Sullivan in order to keep her faith with Emmet.

Dear Kit
,

Your card about working in a bar was most entertaining. I found this book on cocktails to send you in case there might be anything in it that would be of use. It does seem a very odd thing to send you. I suppose in other circumstances someone in my position would be warning you of the evils of drink rather than sending you a book detailing ways to make even stronger concoctions. But then, these are very unusual circumstances by any standards and I want to thank you for everything. It makes a huge difference
.

Love Lena
.

Kit read the letter that came with the cocktail book a dozen times. She wondered what exactly Lena was thanking her for. For not blowing the whole situation wide open?

Possibly Lena, too, missed the happy, carefree correspondence when she and Kit wrote as friends. Kit certainly missed it. There were so many things she would have written to Lena had she continued to be the friend she had once been.

And not the mother who had lied to her.

“Stevie? It's Kit McMahon.” She had rung deliberately when she knew Maura would have gone across the road to have lunch with Father.

“Oh sorry, Kit, you just missed her. She'll be back at two.”

“No, it was you I wanted.”

“Great. You've saved enough to get a car?”

“No, not work. Leisure I'm afraid.”

“Leisure is always good with me.” She could see him smiling lazily and leaning against something as he held the phone with his shoulder raised and looked for his packet of cigarettes at the same time.

“Would you like to come to a dance in Dublin next Saturday?” she asked.

“Say that again.”

If she had been keen on him, if she had waited in panic for his reaction, she would never have been able to do it. But because she was so casual she was playing it just right.

“What kind of dance?”

“Aren't you choosy?”

“Wouldn't you be if somebody phoned you out of the blue with a notion like this?” He was laughing, and playing for time.

“Yes, I would be.” Kit was being fair. “It's one of those dances where we all pay for our own ticket in the Gresham on a Saturday night, tables you know, and a great band.”

“I've not been to one of those,” Stevie said.

“No, neither have I, and we got up a party but we're a couple of fellows short and I was wondering…”

“Why don't you ask Philip O'Brien? He'd go like a shot.”

“If I asked him he'd think I fancied him.”

“And what about me? What might I think?”

“Oh God, Stevie, you've known me long enough to say yes or no.”

“Would I like it?”

“You might love it. Loads of great girls, music, drink even. Wouldn't you love it?”

“And I'd be getting you out of a problem.”

“Not just that. I think you'd like the people going. I think they'd like you too, you're great fun.”

She tried to remember whether he was or not. He always seemed so jaded and cynical and eyeing people up and down. But he did have a kind of laughing way with him.

“Okay, it's a deal,” he said.

“Thanks, Stevie.” She told him where they were going to meet and how much it was going to cost.

“And do I say anything about this to your stepmother or not?”

“I leave this entirely to you whether you do or not.”

“May I put this another way, do you intend to tell her?”

“I'll probably mention sooner or later that we organized a party, but I don't believe in burdening people with every detail of life, do you?”

“I get your drift,” he said.

Kit hung up and let out a breath of relief. ‘Well, Emmet. Your old sister is beginning to deliver the promise for you,' she said to herself. This at least would mean that the awful little Anna Kelly would be at a loose end for Saturday night. But she wouldn't tell Emmet yet, she didn't want him rushing in too early and ruining it all.

Stevie Sullivan hung up and looked at the phone in surprise. That McMahon girl was remarkably attractive nowadays. Imagine her asking him to make up a party. He had always wanted to go to one of those Dublin dress-up affairs. It would mean telling Anna Kelly that the pictures were off. But he'd tell her nicely and she'd understand.

Anna Kelly didn't sound very understanding. “I just got permission from my parents to go into the big town for the pictures. I told them a whole group of us were going.”

“Well, go, then. I have to go to Dublin for work,” Stevie said.

“No, if I go it'll waste an outing I could have had with you.” Why didn't he understand?

“Well, I'm sorry too.” He gave her his lopsided grin, but it didn't work.

“You couldn't change it, I suppose,” she pleaded. Stevie looked impatient, and Anna caught the mood. “No, I'm being silly, of course you can't. Okay, another night, right?”

“Right.” Stevie smiled. It was easy in the end if you were just nice to girls. That's what lots of people didn't understand.