Nora Webster (19 page)

“Michael Collins, that’s a good one,” Nora said.

“She told me that several times. Seemingly, he had the nuns eating out of his hand.”

“Well, we all seem to be eating out of her hand now.”

“Come on Monday morning and have coffee with myself and Elizabeth. We often have coffee in the morning. She’s very lively these days, Elizabeth. I don’t know what is wrong with her. Or maybe it’s a good sign.”

It was clear to Nora that she should tell no one what had happened. When she called on Una on Saturday, she merely said that she had moved to half-time in Gibney’s because she was finding a full day too hard. She had a sense from Una’s response that she had heard about the fight with Francie Kavanagh.

It was arranged that Una and Seamus would take her out for drinks in the golf club one evening the following week.

When she told the boys that she would be working half-time, they took it in the same suspicious way as any news about change. And when she told them that she was going to leave them alone for one evening to go to the golf club with Una, which was the first time they would be alone in the house in the evening, they were more openly suspicious, wanting to know if she was going to join the golf club. When they discovered that she was going merely to the bar, they wanted to know at what time she would be home.

It took them a while to get used to the fact that she did not go
back to work each afternoon, and that she was there when they came in from school. Even though they fought sometimes, and Donal clearly bullied Conor, that had become their lives, and a change in the regime made them uneasy, as though they had to start all over again.

Una asked if Nora could collect her and take her to the golf club, as Seamus would be on his half-day and was going to play a round of golf and then have some sandwiches in the clubhouse before meeting them. While Nora thought that Seamus should have driven in to town to collect them, and wondered if this might be an excuse for her to cancel, she decided in the end to agree to everything in case she met Sister Thomas, who would ask her about Gibney’s and about Una. It occurred to her that in any other century, Sister Thomas would have been burned as a witch.

In the afternoon before going to the golf club she went to get her hair washed and set. She would wear a woollen dress with a cardigan over it and take her winter coat in case there was a walk from the car park to the clubhouse.

“Seamus is delighted you are coming with us,” Una said when she collected her. “The Gibneys are among the bank’s best customers and he thinks very highly of William Gibney Senior. He says he has a real business brain. The sons are going to make big changes and Seamus is very impressed with them too. Seemingly, the whole place is completely overstaffed. Did you know that? Seamus says that cuts in the wage-bill will make things more efficient.”

Seamus was in the clubhouse waiting for them. He ordered drinks.

“It’s been a bad day all round,” he said when he came back. “I hit into the rough on the third hole and it might have been wiser to walk away.”

He was tall and red-faced. His accent, Nora thought, was from the midlands. He spoke to her as though he had always known her. This must be useful, she imagined, for someone who worked in a bank and moved from town to town.

Soon they were joined by two other men, one of whom had a chemist shop in the town. Nora had been in his shop but had never spoken to him before.

“I could have been luckier on the fifth hole,” he said. “I mean, if I had placed the ball better. I think there was a wind.”

“Oh, I noticed that all right,” the other man said. “It was not as calm as it looked.”

“I think I got the measure of it after the fifth hole,” the chemist said. “And then the birdie on the eighth hole was the making of me.”

He looked at Nora and Una as though they had been involved in the game too.

“You know,” he went on, “I always say that this is the best time of the year for a good round of golf. If it’s dry, I mean.”

“And it stayed dry, did it?” Una asked.

“I should have called it a day on the third hole, hail, rain, or shine,” Seamus said.

“Christy O’Connor himself would not have been able to edge the ball out of there,” the chemist said.

“But there must be a way of doing it,” Seamus said. “There was an iron I used to have when I lived in Castlebar and that might have done the trick. It was light, you know, with a terrific swing.”

“Could you replace that?” Una asked.

“I lost it in a game of poker,” Seamus replied. “And the fellow who won it went on to win the club championship that year and the year after.”

The chemist went to the bar to get a round of drinks.

“I prefer here to Rosslare, do you?” Seamus asked the other man. “I like a well-designed nine-hole golf course. Some people swear by Rosslare, and they might be right at the weekend when there’s a crowd down. But there’s nothing like a quiet weekday here.”

“Were there many playing?” Una asked.

“Few enough. There was a ladies’ foursome. I don’t know who they were. That’s what being in a new town does for you. Do you play yourself?” he asked Nora.

“No,” Nora replied.

“Ah, it’s a great game. It’s not just the exercise, but it’s a way of getting to know a town. You can tell a town by its golf club.”

When the chemist came back with the drinks, Una excused herself to go to the bathroom. Nora followed her.

“It would be lovely if you could stick it out a bit longer,” Una said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Nora said. “When Maurice was alive I used to have to listen to them all talking about Fianna Fáil, and it got worse at election time, and it’s nice and relaxing because you don’t have to pay any attention.”

What she had wanted to say was that this was the sort of conversation that Maurice had despised all of his life, despised almost as much as she did now. For a second it seemed as though Una was going to be offended by her suggesting that she didn’t need to pay attention, but then Una smiled as she looked into the mirror.

“I know what you mean,” she said.

Later in the night, a man, and a woman who was introduced as
his fiancée, joined the company. Slowly, Nora realised that this was Elizabeth’s Ray. It took Ray a bit longer to figure out who she was.

“She talks a lot about you,” Ray said. “She says you are the quickest worker of anyone she’s ever seen. It might be better if she didn’t know I was out tonight. I mean, it might be better if you didn’t mention it.”

“Elizabeth and I have plenty of other things to talk about,” Nora said.

“Well, she’s not short of talk. I’d say that for her.”

“She’s very efficient at work,” Nora said in a tone that she hoped would put an end to this conversation. “Very much her father’s daughter.”

“She’s a marvellous girl,” Ray said and took a sip of his pint.

“You know, when I said I was coming here tonight, Elizabeth said that she might look in later if she has the time,” Nora said. “She has a very busy social life, as you know.”

It was untrue. She had not mentioned anything to Elizabeth, but she wanted to see what would happen now. She was pleased when Ray appeared alarmed and looked around him as though checking where the exits were.

In the morning she was surprised to find Elizabeth at work before she was.

“A little bird who was in the golf club last night,” Elizabeth said, “told me that you had a long conversation with Ray.”

Nora was sure that none of the Gibneys had been in the golf club. She could not think who else might have told Elizabeth.

“He phoned me himself,” Elizabeth said. “First thing this morning. He had told me he wanted to have an early night when I was all
set to go out. But he said no. And then Seamus phoned him and told him he was terrified of meeting you and he wanted support.”

“Terrified of meeting me? No, he was not!”

“That’s what Ray said. He said that your sister had told Seamus that he was not to talk golf to you, that he was to think of something more sensible to discuss as you were highly intelligent. And then Seamus got so nervous that golf is all he talked about and you now think he is a total gobshite.”

“A gobshite?” Nora had never heard Elizabeth use such a word before. “I’m sure he’s very nice,” Nora said. “But I’m glad to hear he was terrified. He has a funny way of showing it, mind you.”

Elizabeth did not suspect that Ray had, in fact, been in the golf club with his fiancée, but, as she began the morning’s work, Nora saw no reason to tell her.

As Christmas approached, Nora was relieved to hear that Una was going to spend Christmas Day with Catherine and then the days afterwards with Seamus. The idea of having to entertain Una and Seamus in the company of Jim and Margaret was more than she was ready for. She did not know if Jim, during his days as a rebel, had tried to blow up the golf club but she was sure that he had his sights on some of its more prominent members. And Seamus’s account of the progress of one of his games of golf would not be entertained with any enthusiasm by Jim.

There was much excitement when Fiona and Aine came home for the holidays; they both had been invited to parties, and went out with their friends to a lounge bar in the town. When Nora protested that Aine was too young for lounge bars and needed, in any case, to study her Latin, Aine responded sharply, wondering if she and
Fiona, after their hard term’s studying, were to be confined to the back room with Nora and Donal and Conor and the TV set. It left Nora silent. Aine had never spoken to her like this before and she was almost amused. On one of the nights when she heard the girls coming in at four, she was tempted to go downstairs and find out where they had been, but instead decided to go back to sleep and ask them the next day when she came home from work.