The Glass Lake (45 page)

“It's nearly time.”

“But your woman hasn't moved in with Martin yet.”

“If you are speaking of Miss Hayes, they are very close friends. But you are right, there is no engagement…as yet.”

“I thought you'd stay with me and keep the garage afloat.”

“Your mother doesn't approve of me, Stevie.”

“Don't mind her. I don't.”

“It's not pleasant to be asked to empty the rubbish, scrub the pots, take in the washing…”

“But come off it, Rita, you don't
do
any of those things. She just asks you, you refuse. It's a game.”

“Not to me it isn't.”

“I don't believe this. There's another reason…you've been offered a better job?”

“No, not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I've come from nothing, I've made myself acceptable. I want to be somewhere that I
am
accepted.”

“I pay you well.”

“If I went on the streets I'd be paid even better. Money isn't everything.”

“Okay, I've been working my arse off here. I agree I don't have time to be polite to people.”

“You're quite polite to customers, Stevie. And to the people who might get you a Ford agency.”

He looked stricken. “That's true.”

“And to girls who catch your eye, and to people you want credit from, or those you think might be in the way of buying a new car.”

“You've had your eyes open.”

“Yes, and I don't particularly like everything that I see.”

“Jesus, Rita, I'm ashamed. That's all I can say.”

“Funnily, I think you mean it,” Rita said.

“So will everything be all right now? I've learned my lesson, and I'll be as good as gold.” He smiled his heartbreaking smile.

“You're only a kid, Stevie. That won't work with me,” Rita laughed at him.

“So what do I have to do?”

“Nothing really. Just a nice reference and I'll be off tonight. Everything's in apple pie order.”

“You're never walking out on me.”

“More on your mother.”

“She's nothing to do with this.”

“Then she has no business in your office.”

“Who taught you to be so tough?”

“Mrs. McMahon, the Lord have mercy on her.”

“I doubt if he will, she drowned herself.”

“You've a big mouth, Stevie Sullivan.”

“I'll give you a lot more money. Stay, Rita. Please.”

“No, thanks all the same.”

“Who will I get?”

“An older woman, even older than me.”

“How old are you, Rita? You're only a girl.”

“I'm a good five years older than you.”

“That's nothing these days.”

“Get someone older. And someone who'll frighten the bejaysus out of your mother.”

“What'll I say in the reference you want from me?”

“I have it written here.” Rita smiled at him.

         

“I can't believe this, Rita. I really can't,” Martin McMahon said to her.

“It's time for me to go, sir.”

“Is there anything I can say to make you stay?”

“Everything you did here was always for my good, but I could find you someone, sir. Someone to work in my place.”

“There's no one that could equal you, Rita.”

“What I was going to suggest was a young cousin of mine. She might just work mornings, do the cleaning, ironing and wash the vegetables…you'll probably be able to make your own arrangements and maybe want the house run in a different way.” It was as near as she could come to telling him that it was time he married Maura.

         

Maura Hayes opened the letter. It was typed and postmarked Lough Glass.

You may think this an extraordinary letter, Miss Hayes, and if you are offended by it then my judgment has been wrong
.

Maura hastened to see who it was from. The signature
Rita Moore
meant nothing. Then she understood. The girl who had worked in Martin's house was telling her that she was leaving. That there were two vacancies. Housekeeper, and in the office across the road.

         

“Is there an understanding between you and young Kit McMahon?” Dan O'Brien asked his son that night before the course began in Cathal Brugha Street catering college.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No I don't, actually,” Philip said.

“Well, actually for your information, I meant do you and she intend to be boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“And suppose we did?”

“Suppose you did I want to warn you that she could be a bit flighty like her mother, and I wouldn't want to think that you'd have your name up with someone like that.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Don't take that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

“Mildred, speak to him.”

“There isn't any point, is there? He's determined to be like all the modern youth today.”

         

“Sister Madeleine,” said Kit. “There was a thing I was going to say about the letters from London.”

“What's that now?”

“I think my mother's friend will write to me in Dublin now, at the hostel.”

“Yes, of course…”

“I just didn't want you to think I took things for granted, or was keeping things secret on you.”

“No, of course not…and often things that sound complicated are quite simple.” Sister Madeleine was lighthearted about her alternative postal service. “Anyway, Kit, when you're as old as I am and half talking to the birds and the foxes and the butterflies that come in at the end of the summer, you're not sure what you know and what you only dream…”

“Does everyone have a secret, do you think?”

“Certainly. Some are more important than others, of course.”

Kit looked at her. There was one more thing she wanted to ask. It was hard to know how to put it. “Suppose you knew something…something that should actually stop something…” The nun's eyes were very blue and gave nothing away. “I was wondering if that were to happen to someone…should that someone try to change what was going to happen, you know, by saying everything, or would it be better to let things go ahead?”

“A very hard question all right.” Sister Madeleine was sympathetic.

“But you'd need to know more before you could answer it…is that it?”

“No no. Not at all. I couldn't answer a question like that for anyone else. They'd have to find the solution all on their own. They'd know it in their hearts anyway.”

“They might know what they want but that needn't be the right thing.”

“If it was the right thing that helped people and made them happy…” Sister Madeleine paused.

Not for the first time the thought crossed Kit's mind that the hermit had an easy, simplistic view of the laws of God that might not be found totally acceptable to the more official wings of the Church.

L
ENA
bought the paper every week. She read it from cover to cover, wishing there were more about Lough Glass and less about the surrounding countryside and villages in the area.

She read it first in fear. Fear that news of a great local scandal might be revealed. And then as the weeks went on she realized that Kit had not broken down under the strain of the knowledge she had come by. There were not going to be stories unmasking the great mistake that had been made in identifying a body all those years ago.

Lena read how two Lough Glass students had been accepted in St. Mary's College of Catering. Kit was described as daughter of Martin McMahon, the well-known pharmacist, and his late wife, Mrs. Helen McMahon.

She read of the new drainage scheme, the improved roads, and the campaign for street lighting. She saw a picture of a bus shelter and read the outraged correspondence when it had been defaced.

And one day most unexpectedly she read that Martin McMahon, pharmacist of Lough Glass, and Miss Maura Hayes were to marry. She sat still for a very long time. Then she read it again.

Kit McMahon must be a strong girl to be able to take that in her stride. At her age she could allow her father to make a bigamous marriage. She knew that her mother was alive and she would have the courage to stand in a church and watch a wedding ceremony that she knew was a sham. She must be very courageous indeed to face the wrath of the Church or the State if it ever came to light.

Either that or she must hate her mother and have forced herself to believe that she was really dead.

         

Kit knew it was the right thing to do. She had no doubts at all. Sister Madeleine was right, you followed your conscience.

But she did have one worry. Suppose Lena found out. Suppose Lena wanted to spoil things. She might come at the last moment. It would be unforgivable if Kit was to let her father's day be ruined, and have him and Maura made into a laughingstock. But she couldn't write and ask a favor now.

She had left that day knowing she was doing the right thing. Her mother didn't exist for them anymore in the way she once had. She couldn't go crawling now, begging, pleading, asking her not to come back and haunt the happiness that had been so slow to come to this family. She would have to hope and pray that Lena would never hear about the wedding. How could she hear? She didn't know anyone who lived in Lough Glass. It wasn't going to be on the news or anything.

It was hard to pray in conventional terms about this. Kit said big swooping prayers which skirted the issue of God's law on marriage.

God was out for the best too, wasn't he?

         

Lena thought about it for a long time.

Martin holding the hand of Maura Hayes and saying the words that couples said all over the world. Martin taking Maura home to his bed. Maura presiding at the table in the kitchen, going to Kit's graduation, buying Emmet's clothes.

She smoked late into the night. But what was another sleepless night? She had had so many of them.

By morning she had made up her mind. At lunchtime she took a bus to one of the smarter shopping streets and spent two hours choosing a dress. She had it wrapped for postage and took it to a post office. She addressed it to Kit McMahon, First Year Hotel Management Student, St. Mary's College of Catering, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin. And before she had time to change her mind she put in a note.

I thought you might like this to wear at the wedding. L
.

And she left the parcel into their hands so that she could have no second thoughts.

She didn't tell Ivy, not about the dress, nor even about the wedding. Somehow it was better if it wasn't spoken about. It made her own position less vulnerable, less lonely.

She dreamed about the children every night. Emmet looking for her everywhere—behind rocks on a beach, behind trees in a wood, calling always “I know you're there, please come out, come back, come back.” And of Kit wearing the dress, and standing stonily at the church gate. “You can't come in, you must not come to the wedding, you're buried over there. Remember this and go away.”

M
AURA
Hayes gave a lot of thought to the wedding.

It would be small but not hole-in-the-corner. It should be held in Dublin, far from the eyes of a too interested Lough Glass. Lilian would be her matron of honor, and Peter the best man. Or was that the wrong way? After all, Peter had been best man at Martin's first wedding, when he had married Helen with all the hope that had been involved there. But if it wasn't Peter who else would it be? Martin had no other close friend in Lough Glass or anywhere. It would be deliberate and wrong to exclude Peter.

Maura would wear a cream-colored suit and a blue hat with a cream ribbon.

Maura's wedding plans came as a surprise to her Dublin friends, who hadn't somehow thought of sensible, golfing Maura as a likely bride. They heard of this kind widower, a pharmacist in a small country town, with two children whom Maura liked very much and who as far as she could tell seemed to be pleased that she was marrying their father. They learned with amazement that Maura had already found herself a job in this town. There was a position as a bookkeeper/administrator in a fast-growing motor business. It was two steps from her front door.