Chestnut Street (39 page)

Before they left, Sean and Brian moved tentatively around the topic by talking about how hard their mother worked.

“If I were to work twenty-four hours a day I couldn’t repay your father for how good he’s been to me,” she would say, shaking her head at the enormity of his kindness. “And this way I can get us little treats like take him to the cinema and to a Chinese supper, or maybe a nice new shirt.”

Her sons were enraged, but yet they couldn’t bring themselves to say anything about the young woman they had seen.

When it was nearly time for them to go back to the States, would they say anything to their father or not? Sean wanted to say something, but Brian thought it might make matters worse. And suppose they were to say something? Neither of them knew how they would phrase it.

On the last night, their father was out. He wouldn’t be home until after 9 p.m.—he had got extra hours at the factory.

“What does he do with all his money?” Brian asked.

“Oh, I’ve no idea. He’s saving for something—that’s why he takes all the overtime that’s on offer.” Their mother’s face was affectionate, indulgent about men and their little ways.

Sean could bear it no longer. “You know how people are, Ma. He’s probably having a pint with the lads—and the lassies too, by the way. The place is full of them.”

“I don’t think there are many lassies up in your father’s pub, only that girl Rona. You know the niece of Liam Kenny over at Number Four?”

“I don’t think I know her.” Brian was cold.

“Well, if you saw Rona you wouldn’t forget her. Skirt up to her knickers, hair all the colors of the rainbow.”

That was her, all right.

“What’s she doing hanging round Dad’s pub?”

“She works there. Her father—Liam’s brother—owns the place and sometimes young Rona helps out, but mainly she’s a salesperson for conservatories. I used to talk to her about them in the days
when we thought we might be getting one.” Their mother sighed, then busied herself getting the supper ready. Their father would be tired when he got in, tired after a very long day.

That night, Sean approached his father in the little garden.

“By God, the week went quickly, son,” Philip said.

“I’m not going to make small talk, Dad. I want to talk to you about Rona Kenny.”

“She’s never been round here, has she? She promised she wouldn’t.”

“No, she hasn’t, but …”

“I
told
her your mother would be out at the airport tomorrow; she could come then and I’d let her in.”

“Why are you telling me this, Dad?” Sean’s face was full of grief.

It was bad enough that his father was unfaithful to his own wife, but to glory in it in front of his own sons. That was grotesque.

“Why weren’t you and Mam happy enough for each other?” Sean asked.

“I don’t know.” His father sat down on the garden seat. “I’ll never know, son, but what’s past is past. You boys were never to know—we said it would be private between us and forgotten. It’s strange that your mother should tell you now.”

“Mother told us nothing.”

“So how do you know?” He was bewildered.

“Know what?”

“About your mother and I having, well … those problems in the past.”

“Not only in the past, I’d say,” Sean said. He never saw anything as sad as his father’s face.

“Oh, Sean, lad. I don’t believe you—it can’t be true. She’d never have met him again, she’d never fancy him still.”

“What are you talking about?” Sean was totally confused.

“She promised me, and we were getting on so well. No, it can’t be true she’s seeing him again.”

“Mother seeing a man?” The world was tilting over for Sean.

“But that’s what happens. She fell in love, you see, because I was too dull for her. He wanted her to go away with him but she gave him up to keep the family together.” He spoke admiringly of her. There was no grudge. This was a great and noble thing to do.

“When was all this, Dad?”

“Years back. You and Brian were in short pants then. I can’t believe she met up with him again.”

“Dad, aren’t you seeing Rona Kenny?”

“Of course I am. To arrange the conservatory. She’s coming in tomorrow to measure it all up.… But now you tell me your mum’s seeing
him
again, then she won’t care about the new room.”

“No, Dad.” Sean spoke very gently. “I got it all wrong. I saw you and Rona whispering in the pub the day we went in, and I thought, I thought … I thought the wrong thing, you see.”

“As if that little girl would fancy a silly old man like me.”

“No, Dad. It happens. I’m sorry.”

“But does this mean that your mother
isn’t
seeing him again?” The relief in his father’s voice and the look on his face were almost too much to bear.

They heard people calling from the house.

Number 22 was all lit up and welcoming, with a table for ten.

And next time they came back there would be a conservatory.

He had his arm around his father as they came in, and he saw Brian look at him in surprise. Sean shook his head very slightly.

He watched his mother, flushed and excited from bending over the oven, wisps of hair clinging to her face. His own mother had had an affair with another man. Met him secretly, adulterously, passionately.

It was too hard to take onboard.

He didn’t think he would tell Brian. Only that they had been misled about the sighting.

He was a peacock. She knew that the moment she met him. He was looking at his own reflection, not at the picture behind the glass in the frame. He stroked the lapels of his very expensive jacket softly and with pleasure. She knew exactly what she was letting herself in for.

“I’m Ella,” she said simply. “That is
the
most beautiful jacket. Is it wool?”

He seemed pleased, but not surprised. He talked about the jacket briefly, with unaffected enthusiasm. He had bought it in Italy three weeks ago—but his manners wouldn’t let him go on too long.

“I’m Harry,” he said. “And shouldn’t we be talking about your clothes, really?”

“Not tonight,” Ella said. “Tonight I just came straight from the office.”

His smile could have lit the fire that was set in the grate of the art gallery. A fire that was pure decoration.

“It must be a very elegant office, then,” Harry said, and Ella was lost.

She always told herself afterwards that it had been as deliberate
an act as she had ever known. She had walked in, eyes wide open, into the situation she had spent most of her adult life trying to rescue her friends from. She had fallen in love with a man who was going to break her heart over and over; she would lose the sympathy, the patience and eventually the company of her friends. Ella, who was known for her self-control and her calm, practical way of looking at things, had fallen for a peacock full of charm. Not even the silliest of them would have thought there was even half a chance with Harry.

But Ella didn’t mind. She knew the odds; and then promptly forgot them. She did all the things that the women’s magazines used to advise in her mother’s day: she was a good listener, she drew him out about himself, she discovered his interests and pretended that they were hers too. She didn’t press to meet his family on Chestnut Street; she didn’t impose hers on him.

In fact, it was all so successful that Ella began to wonder whether those old-fashioned ideas about pleasing a man might not be far more helpful than all this modern advice about being yourself, and being equal from the word go. At any rate, she was very shortly Harry’s constant companion: she was on his arm at every public event, and in his bed when the night drew to a close.

It was hard work, of course; but then Ella told herself that you don’t keep a peacock by your side without a great deal of effort. Anyone could attract a sparrow, she thought, looking without much pleasure at some of the men her friends were going out with. Some of them were indeed like old crows. Only Ella had the peacock, the glorious Harry, who turned every head; and she didn’t mind when he looked at other women and smiled. They thought he was smiling at them; but he was thinking as much of the actual act of smiling. He knew it made people feel good. He did it a lot. Sometimes he smiled in his sleep, as Ella sat and watched him, his facial muscles stretched into a pleasing, warm half-grin.

She was often awake at night as she learned the plots of operas.
La Traviata:
that’s the one about Alfredo and Violetta, and a series of misunderstandings.
Rigoletto
was the one about the court jester and
Norma
was the Druid high priestess who did a Romeo and Juliet number with the Romans.

Ella worked for a publisher. She ran it down to Harry: terribly dull people, frightfully boring authors, very tedious and not worth taking up his time. But Harry’s job—now that was different: he was in wine importing—
there
was an interesting career for you. Ella made it sound like a magical world. It had involved a lot of studying, more than the opera, even: types of grape,
Appellation Contrôllée
, this vineyard, that importer, this warehouse, that family firm … Harry accepted her interest. She was right—it
was
a fascinating business. His previous girlfriends hadn’t understood that nearly so well.

He introduced her to his colleagues; her admiration of the business was so obvious she could do him nothing but credit.

The boss and his wife were a cynical, weary couple who had seen it all, done it all.

“You have a far better chance of nailing him down than the others,” said the boss’s wife as she dabbed her nose viciously in the powder room after dinner.

“Oh, heavens, there’s no question of that,” Ella protested with a little laugh.

“Keep that kind of line for Pretty Boy,” said the older woman.

Ella felt sorry for her. All she had drawn in the lottery of the birds was a bad-tempered, bald and molting eagle, not a glorious, multi-colored peacock.

She went back to the table, where Harry sat, his chin on his hand, in that way that made total strangers stop their conversations and look at him with admiration. The light fell on his fair hair, making it shine. Ella’s heart soared to think that she had captured this wonderful man.

It pleased her to think that she had “a better chance of nailing him” than anyone who had gone before—and there were many who had. Sometimes they passed through town.

“An old friend of mine wants me to have a drink in a wine bar,” he would say from time to time.

“Oh, but you must!” Ella was insistent. It would give her time to catch up on some new looming opera.
Fidelio
. This one was by Beethoven, about Leonorea, who pretends to be Fidelio. Another three hours of cross-dressing and misunderstanding.

Or on the housework. She hadn’t actually moved into his flat, but as near as made no difference. He hated seeing her cleaning, yet he wouldn’t employ anyone else to do it. She did it in secretive, hurried darts when he wasn’t around. She wanted Harry to think that fresh peaches for breakfast, clean towels in the bathroom and big vases of colorful flowers in clean water sort of happened by themselves when Ella was around.

And, because peacocks don’t think for too long about the world in general, that’s exactly what he thought. He would put his arm around her and say that everything was much
nicer
when she was there.

She took seven shirts of his, every Monday morning, to a very good place just beside her work. No, honestly, darling, she reassured him, I’ll be taking my own stuff anyway. He never noticed that everything Ella wore was drip-dry. He thought it was a miracle that his wardrobe was always full of gleaming shirts; he savored choosing them, holding the ties up against them.

“It used to be very disorganized,” he said with a puzzled frown, shaking his head at the mystery of it all. Ella shook her head too, as if she couldn’t believe that things had not always run this smoothly.

She never complained about him at work, or sought advice, so her friends just worried about her to one another and not to her face.

It did not become public until the day she refused to go to
the sales conference. For personal reasons. There were no reasons, personal or even global, that allowed you to miss the sales conference. Ella’s friends took her aside.