Nora Webster (25 page)

“But is that all that’s wrong with him?”

“You should see him.”

“I thought someone was drowning.”

“He is kind of hysterical, or he was when I left him.”

Donal was sitting on a rug, away from Conor, who watched her cautiously when she arrived. He was rocking back and forth, his hands joined around his knees, the camera on a strap around his neck.

“What happened?”

“The m-manager who was th-there last n-night was waiting for me t-today. He s-said the lounge was only for r-residents and it
was not for p-people from the caravan p-park. Until l-last night, he th-thought I was a r-resident.”

“Do you not have enough photographs?” she asked.

“I am g-going to miss the l-landing,” he said and began to sob. “All the photographs I had were j-just l-leading up to that.”

“Donal, you can’t have everything,” she said.

“I d-don’t want everything,” he replied.

She took a towel and began to dry herself. If Maurice were alive, she thought, Donal would not have become so obsessive about his camera. He would certainly not have a darkroom at his disposal. She tried to remember what he was like before it all happened. It came to her now how attached he was to Maurice, how he would go over from the primary school to the secondary school and find Maurice’s classroom and sit at the back and wait for his father, or draw on the blackboard if he was allowed. He knew Maurice’s timetable by heart, what days he finished early and what days he taught a Leaving Cert class and could not be disturbed.

She sighed as she changed out of her wet bathing costume. Her sisters would tell her not to do this, and Josie probably too, and her mother would have sharp words for her, were she alive. But she was sure, despite all of them, that it was the right thing to do. Fiona, she thought, was at home. This meant that Nora could drive Donal into the town and leave him in Fiona’s charge. He would hardly be any trouble, since the only things that interested him now were the television and the darkroom. She knew that Fiona would be annoyed, that she wanted to have the house to herself and invite her friends around. But she felt that she had no choice. She would go first into the village and phone Margaret at work, and Margaret would, she knew, be delighted to make Donal his tea in the evening and watch the moon landing on television with him. But he could not sleep
in Margaret’s house; there was not room for him. He would have to sleep in his own bed. Nora would make him promise to be tidy and not make a nuisance of himself. She thought of phoning Tom O’Connor next door and asking him to speak to Fiona, let her know that they were coming, but she decided that it would be better just to drive Donal home and deposit him there. She hoped that it would not be too much of a surprise for Fiona, but she could object all she wanted, Nora thought. It would be only until the coverage of the moon landing ended.

In the car, she looked severely at Donal who was pointing his camera at the windscreen.

“Donal, put the camera back in its case. I am trying to drive, and the last thing I need is you pointing the camera at things.”

“I c-can sit in the b-back.”

“Stay where you are and don’t annoy me,” she said.

As soon as she put the key in the front door of the house she could smell stale alcohol. She looked into the front room but there was no sign of any disturbance. In the back room she had to turn on the light, as the curtains were still drawn. Clearly, there had been a party. No matter what she did now, she would be playing a role. She imagined that Fiona was upstairs in bed, possibly still asleep. Nora could wake her in indignation and force her to get up so that they could discuss who had been in the house the previous night and until what time. Or she could begin to clean up the mess herself now, all the more to shame Fiona when she finally appeared. As she inspected the room further, she locked eyes with the awestruck Donal. There was an ashtray full to the brim beside an empty bottle of vodka. She drew the curtains back and opened the window, hear
ing as she did a noise coming from the room above, the room Fiona and Aine slept in. Quickly, she made a decision to go, to pretend that she had never seen this.

“Fiona will clear all this up,” she said, “so you should find a chair and turn on the television before those men are on some other planet. I’m leaving money for food, but you can go down to your aunt Margaret’s for your tea today, and your auntie Una will be looking in too.”

“And what about F-fiona?” he asked.

“You can tell her what happened at the hotel and explain why you need a television. And tell her I have gone back to Curracloe and if anyone wants me they know where to find me.”

“But how will we g-get in t-touch?”

“I don’t know. Ask your spacemen to help send a message.”

They heard another noise from the room above. Fiona was now out of bed.

“What will I say to F-fiona about this?”

He pointed to the mess in the room.

“Tell her that this house had better . . . No, just tell her to make sure there’s enough food, and don’t get in her way.”

Donal looked at her puzzled. And then he nodded and smiled. As they heard a door opening upstairs, Nora put a finger to her lips and handed him a key to the house.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied.

She moved towards him and tossed his hair affectionately as he recoiled from her, smiling.

“If you change your mind . . .”

“I w-won’t,” he whispered as she crept silently out, closing the front door behind her without making a sound.

In the days that followed in the caravan all three of them were quiet. Conor began to go to the tennis court and made friends with two boys from Wexford town who were staying in one of the thatched houses near Culliton’s Gap. In the evenings Nora walked over to collect him. In the mornings the air in the caravan was stifling and hot. As soon as she woke, Nora went out to the shower in the caravan park and then walked down to the strand. Some mornings, the haze was dense and, even though she could hear the rush of waves like muted thunder, she could not actually see the water until she was very close to the shore.

In the last few days of the holiday she began to feel guilty about Donal on his own away from them. She went into the village and stood by the phone in the kiosk and thought of phoning Margaret. She put coins in the slot and had half dialled Margaret’s number when she realised that she did not want to hear Margaret wondering if she had been wise to leave Donal on his own. She put the receiver back and pressed button B to retrieve her coins and used them again to phone Una at work. She briskly asked her if she would bring Donal down to the caravan for the last weekend. When she noticed Una’s coldness, she pretended that she was running out of coins and had just enough to hear Una say that she would drive Donal to Curracloe on Saturday.

When Una brought Donal, Nora saw that he would need to start shaving and tried to remember if there was a shaving brush and shaving cream and men’s razors somewhere. But then she thought that if she had not thrown them out, she should do so soon with all of Maurice’s clothes which were still in the wardrobe. As soon as they got home, she thought, she should buy Donal brand-new equipment to shave.

She was not surprised when Aine announced that she would be going back to the town with Una. Her exam results would come soon and, if the results were good enough, she would be preparing to go to
Dublin to university. She had barely spoken in the past few days and was more involved in her books than ever, going to the strand at a different time to Nora and swimming alone when things were quieter, at six or seven in the evening. Often, she set up her beach chair in a shady spot at the side of the caravan and paid no attention to anyone.

Nora smiled to herself as Una spoke of how sensible and quiet Fiona was and how lucky that Nora could trust her alone in the house. She expressed surprise at Nora’s leaving Donal to be cared for by his sister and said that his stammer had seemed worse than ever; she wondered how he would manage with it.

On the last morning, Nora packed some things in the car and left the boys sleeping. As she walked to the strand she felt the wind that had woken her in the night. The haze had all gone. Clouds moved across the sky, blocking the sun, and then the sun would appear again, its heat faint. She swam out, braving the cold morning sea, discovering that the sandbank, which had been there all the days when the waves were high, had now gone, dissolved by force of the tides. She found a depth that pleased her and began to swim an overarm stroke that gave her speed and then made her tired. When her arms were too sore to do any more, she turned on her back and floated, keeping her eyes closed and trying to leave her mind empty. The swimming several times a day had made her strong. She would come back later before they had finally to give up the keys of the caravan. Conor would come too, she thought, for a last swim, and they would let Donal do whatever he wanted, stay in the caravan if he liked and point his camera at the wall.

Fiona never mentioned the party she had held in the house and Nora did not allude to it either. She had had enough trouble with her own mother, she thought, without making unnecessary trouble with her
daughters. When Aine’s Leaving Cert results came, they could not have been better and this meant that Aine would be going to University College Dublin. Nora enjoyed it when people whom she met on the street congratulated her. She was tempted to say that the success of her two daughters had very little to do with her, but she thought that people might misunderstand.

In the week of her return to work, they were busy at Gibney’s, since some of the office staff were dealing with the farmers and charting the moisture in the wheat and working out the value of each consignment. Nora stayed on a couple of afternoons to make sure that everything on her side was up-to-date and in order. In the evenings, when it was still bright, she drove to Curracloe for a swim, offering a lift to anyone who would come with her. Conor was in the tennis club and did not want to go to the beach, and Aine and Donal were too wrapped up in the riots going on in Belfast and Derry and did not want to miss the news. Only Fiona came with her. She had been learning about her salary, a cheque coming in on the tenth and twenty-fourth of every month, that would be higher than Nora’s income from Gibney’s and her pensions combined. Nora had to be careful not to give any hint that she found this strange; she presumed that she and Fiona would, at some stage, discuss how much money Fiona would contribute to the household expenses.

On the second day as they were driving home, Fiona said, “I was going to ask you for another loan of money. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get paid.”

“Are you short of money?” Nora asked her.

“I wanted to go to London for a week before the summer is over and I start working. A lot of the girls from the training college went this year again and I’d have somewhere to stay.”

“London? Just on holiday?”

“Yes.”

Nora was about to say that she would like to go to London too, never having been there, but she stopped herself.

“How much would you need?”

“I was thinking about a hundred pounds. I’d pay you back from my pay cheques. The girls all say that the clothes shops and the stalls are even cheaper and better this year. And I’m going to need clothes to go to work in and then, well, I’ll be going out a lot at the weekends. I need clothes.”

Nora wondered if this implied some criticism of how Fiona had been provided for up to now, but she said nothing and concentrated on her driving. She thought of a number of things to say, including that she had to get up every morning and go to work to pay for Fiona’s upkeep and she had to watch every penny that she spent. The idea that she would get the money back as Fiona received her pay cheques did not interest her. It was the idea of money being spent foolishly, money being spent at all.

She intended to talk to Fiona about the money over the weekend, but she could not think what to say. On Saturday morning, as she lay in bed, she concluded that it would be best to refuse if Fiona broached the subject again, but as the day went on her resolve softened. All she wanted, she thought, was not to have to discuss it again, or think about Fiona on a shopping spree in London. Somehow, the idea of having to talk about it, or listen to any arguments about it, made a strange anger rise in her.