The Bright One (14 page)

No, 'twas not the shop. It was Mrs O'Reilly. She had not seen her the previous day because she had been resting. She wondered how they would get on. She had never, ever spoken to her, and neither Kieran nor Patrick had ever said much about her, so that all she knew was from the few remarks her mother had let drop from time to time. Thinking of them did nothing to reassure her.

Luke O'Reilly was unlocking the door at the precise moment she arrived.

‘Ah! So you're here. Well, at least you're prompt. I set great store by punctuality. Never be late, never try to skive off early!'

‘Oh I won't, Mr O'Reilly,' Breda assured him.

There was no smile of welcome in him. But perhaps he did not have much to smile about, what with a poorly wife, she thought. He was not very tall. He had dark hair, with a lot of grey in it, a high forehead above thick eyebrows. His eyes were worried, as if he had too many things to think about.

Breda unwrapped her apron and tied it around her waist to show that she was ready.

‘What do you want me to do first, Mr O'Reilly?' she asked.

He sighed.

‘'Twould be best if you attended to Mrs O'Reilly first. She's in bed, she doesn't get up too early. Make her breakfast and take it in. She likes strong milky tea, one slice of bread and butter and a boiled egg. Can you boil an egg?'

‘Of course!' Breda said. ‘How does she like it?'

‘The white well set and the yolk runny,' he replied. ‘Try to get it right.'

If the girl got it right, the job was hers for ever. He never could. He never wanted to boil another egg as long as he lived.

He took Breda into the bedroom and introduced her to his wife.

‘Mary, this is Breda O'Connor, Josephine's niece. She has come to help out, here and in the shop. She'll be after making you a bit of breakfast now.'

‘Can you boil an egg?' Mrs O'Reilly demanded. ‘Himself is no good with the eggs. Are you good at it?'

‘Expert, Mrs O'Reilly,' Breda said firmly.

So what was there to boiling an egg, she wondered. She had not often done it because Mammy was always there, but what could be simpler?

‘You look very young!' It was an accusation.

‘I'm going on fifteen,' Breda said. ‘I'm just not tall for my age, but Mammy says I might shoot up any time now.'

‘I must get back to the shop,' Luke said. ‘Can't keep customers waiting!'

Now less than ever if he was to pay Breda O'Connor ten shillings a week. He wondered if he had been too generous – would seven and sixpence have done? – but it was Josephine who had driven the bargain.

‘Why wouldn't I shake up your pillows and make you comfortable before I bring the breakfast?' Breda suggested.

Mrs O'Reilly looked very pale, with a yellowy cast to her skin and no colour in her lips. Her voice was tired, as if she had spent the night in bed without sleeping much. She was thin, too; no visible shape beneath her flannelette nightdress.

In the kitchen Breda laid the breakfast tray, put the water to boil for the egg, cut the bread, then wet the tea. All these things must wait on the egg. She stood poised, with the egg in a tablespoon, while she waited for the water to come to the boil. When the first bubbles appeared she said ‘God bless this egg!' and launched it into the water like a ship taking to the sea.

It was at that moment she realized that there was no clock in the kitchen.

‘Jesus save us!' she cried.

She would have to count out the three and a half minutes! Two hundred and ten seconds! Quickly, she began to count, out loud, and hovering over the pan in case she should lose concentration.

‘. . . Two hundred and eight, two hundred and nine. . . . '

She scooped the egg out of the water, set it in the egg cup, and bore the tray into the bedroom.

‘Here we are!' she said brightly. ‘Will I take the top of the egg off for you, Mrs O'Reilly?'

It was perfection; milky, set white, yolk like liquid gold. Breda observed the corners of Mrs O'Reilly's mouth turn up in the beginnings of a thin smile of approval. Thanks be to God and all the saints, she thought.

The rest of the day went reasonably smoothly. She helped Mrs O'Reilly to dress, settled her in the living room, then went back and tidied the bedroom. It was the only housework she'd be called upon to do, she was informed, because Flora Milligan came in twice a week to see to the rest.

‘You had better go and give Himself a hand,' Mrs O'Reilly said presently. ‘No need to hang around here.'

Breda spent the rest of the morning tidying shelves. Never a customer was she allowed to serve, though didn't she know most of them, and they surprised to see her there, and ready to talk?

‘Will I go home for my dinner?' she asked Mr O'Reilly at midday. She would not mention that she had brought the soda bread. She wanted to get into the fresh air, go home for a spell.

Mr O'Reilly looked disappointed.

‘I was hoping that you would make a bit of dinner for us. You could eat at the table,' he added kindly.

‘I think Mammy expects me,' Breda said, not quite truthfully. ‘I'll be back punctually.'

Aunt Josephine was there when she got back to the house. Breda took her place at the table while Mammy putfood in front of her, then tried to answer their questions through mouthfuls of potato.

‘You'll be needing a better way to time the eggs,' Mammy said.

‘I know,' Breda agreed. ‘Deirdre has a wristwatch!'

Mammy laughed.

‘No chance of that! I expect Luke O'Reilly has a clock, if you ask him.'

‘I know a woman who timed them by singing “Abide with Me”' Josephine said. ‘Two verses for lightly boiled, three for hardboiled. But then she was a Protestant, wasn't she?'

‘You had better get back,' Mammy said. ‘You mustn't be late.'

‘Tell Mrs O'Reilly I'll be in to see her later,' Josephine said.

The following day it was time for Josephine to return home. She called for Molly, who was to accompany her to the station.

‘Sure, I shall miss you so much,' Molly said. ‘Come again soon.'

‘Whenever I can,' Josephine said. ‘When the war is over I hope 'twill be easier.'

‘Won't it be easier for all of us?' Molly said. ‘I pray for it every day.'

When they were ready to leave the house they paused to say three Hail Marys together, for safety on the journey.

On the station platform it was difficult to know what to talk about.

‘Look after Mammy,' Josephine said. ‘She's getting old.'

‘Oh, I will,' Molly promised. ‘I'll pop in and see her on the way home.'

It was time to board the train. The sisters embraced each other.

‘May God hold you in the hollow of His hand,' Josephine said.

‘May the roads rise with you on your journey,' Molly said. ‘May the wind be ever at your back!'

‘I seem to spend too much time seeing people off at the station,' Molly said to her mother a little later.

‘Now you know how I have felt,' Mrs Byrne said. ‘And is it not what every Irish mother knows?'

‘And is that not because we have too many children, more than the land will keep?' Molly ventured.

‘We have the children God sends!' Mrs Byrne's voice was sharp. ‘Don't let me hear you speak otherwise, Molly Byrne! Every child is a blessing!'

‘I know that,' Molly said.

When the end of the war in Europe came in May 1945 the majority of the inhabitants of Kilbally, indeed probably of the whole county, were pleased. There had always been a minority who spoke up on the side of the Germans, but they were now silent. On the other hand, there were in Kilbally none of the great goings-on of the kind which, according to Josephine's latest letter, were happening day and night in Akersfield.

‘Just listen to this,' Molly said. ‘“Brass bands in the parks, flags over all the buildings, the Government allowing red, white and blue bunting without coupons, if you can find it, that is. Street parties for the children, dances for the grown-ups, and church bells ringing fit to make your head burst! Such shenanigans! But it's lovely!”

‘She goes on and on,' Molly said, turning the page. ‘Now why don't we celebrate like that?' she asked James.

‘I suppose because it's not our war.'

He said it through a mouthful of nails. He was resoling his shoes.

Molly stared at him.

‘
Not our war?
Not our war? What in the world can you be meaning? Have we not two sons fighting? And are there not hundreds of Irish boys side by side with the English? How many homes have given a son or two? So how can you say it is not our war, James O'Connor?'

James spat out the nails, then lowered his head and held his hands outspread over it in mock terror, as if to ward her off physically.

‘Whoa! Don't be so fussed! Not that anger does not make you the more beautiful, sparks flying from your eyes and all!'

‘Never mind that! I'm serious!' she snapped.

‘So am I. 'Tis a statement of fact. We are a neutral country. We have the Emergency here, but we have not been at war.'

‘It certainly felt like it to me,' Molly said furiously.

‘Our lads who joined up were volunteers,' James said patiently. ‘You would have known the difference if it had been
our
war. All the men would have
had
to go. There is no choice in war. Why, even I might have had to go in the end!'

‘Get away with you!' Molly said. ‘And you about to be a grandfather!'

She was smiling now. His logic had calmed her down.

And perhaps I would have been of more use than I am here, he thought. I would have had a proper job of work. But I wouldn't have wanted to take orders. That's not my line.

‘All the same,' Molly added, ‘I feel like celebrating. It is the best of news.'

‘It is good news,' James acknowledged. ‘But the best of news will be when the war in the east is over. When the fighting stops there, when our sons come home,
then
we will celebrate.'

‘Oh, indeed we will! Such celebrations as we've never known!' Molly agreed. ‘And please God it will not be long now.' She could not understand why the war didn't stop everywhere at the same time. ‘But when I go to Mass I shall thank God for those other mothers and sons.'

As far as she knew – and she never stopped praying or offering masses for their safety – the twins were all right. It was three weeks since the last letter, but she tried to tell herself that no news was good news.

On the other hand, over the last few months the news from Moira had been positive and welcome. She was by now five months pregnant, though many people wondered, and made no bones about asking, why was it it had taken so long for her to conceive. Would she not have been married almost two years by the time the baby came?

Father Curran had started asking before the first Christmas after the wedding, was there not yet a child on the way, and he had kept at it. Almost as if he was accusing me, Molly thought. Well, he had never been quite satisfied about her, had he?

A little girl, Moira said in her letters, was what she wanted. You could dress little girls so prettily. And now she said in her latest one, ‘Didn't Barry's sister, Rose, hold a cork on a piece of string over my stomach, and weren't we quite certain from the direction it spun round that I am indeed carrying a girl?'

‘She is
so
lucky!' Breda sighed when she read the letter that evening. ‘Imagine having a baby of your very own! When will it ever happen to me?'

‘All in good time,' Molly said. ‘The husband must be found first!'

That would not be difficult, Molly reckoned. Her daughter was growing from the pretty child she had always been into an even more attractive young woman. And as she had always said would happen when Breda had despaired about her shortness, she had put on almost two inches in height and her figure, once too thin, had developed its womanly curves. And with it all, though the freckles were no fewer, she had kept her clear, creamy skin.

It was only a matter of time before the right man came along. And it is not I who am in a hurry, Molly thought. I would like to keep my daughter a little longer.

The truth was that so much of Breda's life was taken up with the O'Reillys – eight o'clock in the morning until eight at night, except for Sundays and a half-day on Wednesdays – that there was time for little else, even if she had had the energy. Molly worried that her daughter worked too hard, but there was nothing to be done about it.

‘Deirdre is walking out with Paddy Murray,' Breda said. ‘She says she is serious. They might get engaged at Christmas!'

‘Stuff and nonsense!' Molly declared. ‘She's only sixteen. Time to have half a dozen boys before that happens!'

But even as she spoke, she wondered, was it safer for a girl to have a number of boyfriends or to stick to one? Either way, wasn't it an anxious time for the mother?

‘She's happy enough,' Breda said. ‘He takes her to all the films, and in the best seats, no less!'

It was ages since she had been to the pictures, though she knew it was her own fault, 'twas not for the want of being asked. There were all the boys she had grown up with: Danny Quinn, Eammon O'Toole and the rest. Danny was always after her: would he meet her from O'Reilly's and they'd go for a walk? Wouldn't she go with him to the
céilidh
?

After Mass on a Sunday they would all stand on the pavement outside the church, though in two separate groups, girls in one, boys in the other, never mixed, but close enough to hear what was being said, to catch the eye, to interpret the admiring glance and decide whether to throw one back. They had been doing it since they were thirteen or so, but now they were of an age where they would soon be pairing off. A new, younger group would emerge and start the process all over again.