The Matchmaker of Kenmare (16 page)

I could feel their buzz. They came in and sat on facing chairs. Neddy had his back to me. While she tutored him I made notes. Her face glowed with praise.

“You’re nicely dressed, Edward. Well done.” He nodded. “And you got the teeth?”

“My mother doesn’t like them.”

Miss Begley frowned. “Does your mother have teeth, Edward?”

“Thirty-one.”

“You mean she only ever lost one tooth?”

“She broke it on the bone of a pork chop. My father has thirty. And my two brothers, they’ve thirty each. And my sisters, one has the whole thirty-two, one sister has a few gaps at the front. But she has twenty-six if you add up the total. Another of ’em has thirty-one. And the twins, they have thirty each.” He grew animated. “Miss, there’s two hundred and seventy teeth in our house.”

“But you’ve none.”

“I bring down the average.” Neddy had raised his voice. “That Limerick man—I went back to him, the lease on the teeth was up, and he sold them to me.”

“Good man, Edward. Now, tell me.”

I thought, not for the first time,
Difficult to believe that this woman is in her twenties; she has the authority of a dowager
.

“Oh,” Neddy said. “And my grandfather has all his own teeth, and he’s ninety, like.”

Miss Begley rubbed her hands together. “Good.”

“And my grandmother, she had none at all, I take after her, I suppose.”

Miss Begley seemed keen to skip away from things dental. She clapped her hands.

“Now, Edward, did you remember? Soap and water?”

“Miss, amn’t I as clean as an infant?”

“And what are you to say to this girl when she arrives?”

Neddy sat up, straight as a spear. He groped for a reply.

“Will I tell her about my teeth like?”

“No. You’re to say”—Miss Begley enumerated on her fingers—“first, ‘How do you do? I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Second, when she sits down, you start by saying to her that you know a family the same name in Ballybunion. Now do you remember her name?”

“Eileen Mangan.”

“And what does she do for a living?”

“She works in the bakery in Kenmare.”

“Good. And what else do you know about her?”

“A fellow disappointed her two years ago. And she mightn’t be over it yet, but I’m not to say a word about it.”

Miss Begley, when she’d met Neddy, recognized a man “with a good heart,” she told me. Here’s the note I made of her remarks.

Her behavior that afternoon illustrated her sense of respect, but didn’t stop her from introducing some controls. If her hand didn’t wag a finger, her voice did.

“Edward, it’s a big responsibility to introduce a lady to a gentleman. I’m responsible for her well-being and yours. Now, you’ll be spending time alone with her. Are you accustomed to spending time alone with young ladies?”

“I’ve my sisters, like.”

“That’s different, Edward. Now—I want you to know something. You’re to behave to this young lady as though she were a kind of a princess. Better than a sister. Be nice to her, be kind to her. Smile at her.”

Neddy interrupted. “And haven’t I the teeth for it now, miss?”

“You have, Edward. You have indeed.”

Although his back was turned to me, I could tell that Neddy smiled
at Miss Begley, because she reached forward and patted him on the knee. “That’s a lovely smile, Edward, lovely. Just do that, and all will be well.”

He nodded, as earnest as a friar.

“When you go for a little walk with her, Edward, offer her your arm.” He must have seemed bemused, because Miss Begley stood up and said, “Like this. Stand up.” She took his hand, placed it in her curved arm, and escorted him up and down the kitchen. “Always let her walk through a doorway first. That’s what a gentleman does.”

“What about a gate, miss?”

“The same, Edward. A gate is a kind of door outside, isn’t it?”

Up and down the long kitchen they walked, turning and walking back, turning and walking back.

“Not too fast, and not too slow, Edward, and always making sure that she doesn’t step in a puddle. And don’t walk so fast that you’re dragging her along behind you. And don’t be so slow that she’s dragging you.”

Miss Begley, diligent as a governess, gave demonstrations of both. It was difficult to be a silent witness; I so much wanted to help.

“One more thing, Edward. If you feel you want to kiss her—kiss her hand, or kiss her cheek. Kiss nothing else, d’you understand? Nothing else. Here, let me show you.”

And she kissed Neddy’s weathered, menial hand, a paw of brown leather that mostly handled the rumps of cattle; and she kissed his cheek, that mottled, red cheek reamed by winds from the world’s four corners, and I shall never know to this day why Neddy’s new teeth didn’t at that moment fly in ecstasy across the room.

Mouth open as a bag, Neddy the Drover, who looked like an old shed with a new coat of paint, stood in the middle of the kitchen, as pretty Miss Begley, with her hair fluffed and curled, smiled her famous smile at him, and I thought he might swoon—until we all started at the swish of bicycle tires in the lane.

“Wait in here,” said Miss Begley to Neddy the Drover. “And you can leave your envelope over there on the windowsill.”

To me she said, “Go in there and keep the door open a little bit but don’t let yourself be seen.”

Neddy tiptoed with his envelope of cash to the broad white windowsill—and I heard Miss Mangan’s opening gasps.

“Miss Begley, there you are, God save us all, and aren’t I after seeing a
man down there bathing in the sea and he naked as a pig, this time of the year an’ all, is he a polar bear or what?”

“Come in, Miss Mangan, I’ve somebody who wants to meet you.”

“Oh, Miss Begley, shouldn’t I not for a few minutes? With the heat on my face, look at me, I’m as red as your door.”

The women remained outside, chatting in voices too low for me to eavesdrop. Now and then from the kitchen came the scrape of a chair leg on the floor, or a creak of the chair itself—Neddy the Drover with cold feet. Of the grandmother I saw no sight; Miss Begley had taken over the stage.

The voices rose again as the women came in. Miss Mangan, well upholstered, with an embarrassed smile and Viking-blond hair, held back, then surged forward, and blurted, “Hello, very nice to meet you.” To which Neddy the Drover replied, “How do you?”

Miss Begley, in my eye line, sent a hopeful glance to Neddy and mouthed the word, “Do,” which Neddy repeated—“Do, like.” Then he strung it together; “How do you—do?”

“Edward, this is Miss Mangan, and Miss Mangan, this is Edward Hannitty. Now I want the two of you to be friends, so we’ll all sit down.”

Their voices reached me clear as bells.

“You’re very blondy altogether,” said Neddy the Drover, to which Miss Mangan replied, “Miss Begley didn’t say, did you, Miss Begley, that he was, that’s you, I mean, Edward, you’re as big, like, you’re nearly a tree.”

Miss Begley said, “There’ll be tea now in a minute,” and I knew that she had ears a-flap for every word, every nuance. It was like watching a great conductor getting the best out of two highly anxious musicians.

“D’you like the bakery work, so?” said Edward, as my notebook, I see, now began to call him. “I’ve a great fondness for cakes—”

He was interrupted by Miss Mangan saying, “What kind do you like? ’Cause if I’d known I’d have brought some.”

At which Miss Begley offered a burst of enthusiasm, saying, “Do you know those, do you call them cream horns? They look like a small cornucopia, and they have cream and strawberry jam.”

I had the sense that Neddy the Drover wouldn’t have known a cornucopia if it licked his ear, and Miss Mangan had no greater understanding of the word, but she did appreciate the individual pastry, because she
said, “Cream horns, yes, and for the little bit of variety, I sometimes puts in raspberry jam instead of the strawberry jam.”

To which Neddy the Drover said with a sigh, “That’s inspired, like.”

Clinking brought tea and Miss Begley did the fussing.

“Now, I’ve to go and do a small job out in the yard,” she said, “and I’ll be back in a minute.”

I saw her stride out through the front door—and within moments she tiptoed through the door behind me, a shushing finger to her lip, a hand cupped to her ear.

We stayed there, Miss Begley with her head cocked a little, me with pen and notebook, eavesdropping from our silent place. The trysters in the kitchen warmed to each other, and when we sensed that the eating and drinking had concluded, Miss Begley left my side, quit the room, retraced her steps, and bustled back in through her own front door.

“You were hungry people,” she cried. “Will either of you have more?”

Miss Mangan and her cattle-droving swain made demurring sounds, and Miss Begley drew up her chair. I sensed importance.

“Now,” she said. “I’ve a few words to say to the two of you. My grandmother has made over four hundred matches. And with the exception of a few bereavements, and one match where the pair of them were complete rogues, all those people are still together, happily married.”

Miss Mangan made a pleased, gurgling sound. I fancied that I heard Neddy the Drover’s rented teeth clash a little, but I may have imagined it. Miss Begley continued and I made more notes.

“I learned a lot from watching my grandmother, and I’m going to say to the two of you what she says to every couple she introduced. This is what she says: ‘I hope the two of you get on well with each other, and I believe you will. But there’s a rule you’ve to follow—and you have to follow it from this moment on, no matter what happens. Neither of you is ever—not ever, not even once—you’re never, never deliberately to do anything that’d hurt the other, or make them feel low. If you do, you’ll have to answer to me. D’you understand that and agree to it?’ That’s what my grandmother would say if she were the one making this match.”

Neddy the Drover got there first. “Oh, miss, like, she’s right, isn’t she, without a doubt, why would a person do a bad thing like that?”

Miss Mangan followed by saying, “That’s a very good rule. If more persons only obeyed such a rule.”

As Miss Begley remarked to me later, “Miss Mangan is still carrying an injury to the heart. She’s not over the fellow who ditched her. She was actually standing at the altar when he never arrived.”

To the couple she offered some more words.

“You’ve plenty of time to practice, and what you should be practicing is how to hold your tongue. Most people’s problems would never happen if they thought first and spoke later. Words aren’t like chickens. You can’t call them back once you’ve let them out.”

Then she dispatched them. “Go and sit on the rocks and look at the sea, and talk to each other. And I’ll see both of you back here in a couple of weeks.”

When they had gone, Mrs. Holst appeared from the other wing of the long, low house where she too had been listening. I walked, blinking, into the kitchen.

“What do you think, Nana?” asked Miss Begley.

“That’ll take,” said the grandmother. “They’ll be married before Lent.”

As the afternoon’s chemistry warmed the two departing hopefuls, I felt a familiar and loathsome chill return—my own sense of loss. Often at the moment when I thought I had it under control, it rose again like some sinister yeast, forced the lid off its box, and foamed down the sides. Whenever I encountered comfort and warm good feeling, I had to fight off tormenting images of Venetia. Mostly I lost the fight.

We stood for a moment at the cottage doorway, watching the couple depart. I took Miss Begley’s arm and steered her out into the winter light, toward the steep cliff path. We halted at the place where she used to watch for what she called “the anxious fishermen” coming in search of wives. I blinked away the sudden rush of tears, for once able to track my own emotions and bring them under control.

Down to my left, I could see the white horses on the waves galloping miles and miles of ocean as they charged the rocky shores of Deenish and Scarriff and Derrynane, then retreated and charged once more. Darkness from the rocky shadows cloaked the pool behind the jetty, waters magical enough for sea creatures. The sounds of the day ran around us high and free, with, always, the ocean mumbling and grunting and roaring below, like a beast beneath the ground.

To take my mind off myself, I said, “You did that very well.”

As I said it, I realized how rarely I’d paid her a compliment—because she blushed.

“Oh, do you think so?” and then asked, “What was it that I did particularly well?”

“You were gracious,” I said, “and you were firm. You were their leader.”

She looked out to sea and said nothing for a moment. Then she spoke, slowing her speech.

“Sometimes I hear them,” she said. “The voices on the wind. Mama’s voice, she was a lovely singer. And Dada laughing. Did you ever hear anything like that? Voices, I mean?”

I said, “Oh, God, yes.”

She said, “They’ll come back here someday, I know that.” When she saw my anxious face she changed her mood and asked, “How am I going to help you with your loss?”

I said, “By not going to France.”

She said, “Matchmaking gives me a special power. I know things. I learn things.”

I have here in front of me the notes she wrote that night: