The Glass Lake (49 page)

         

“I see you didn't take my advice,” Louis said as Lena stumbled in the door.

“What advice wash that?” Lena couldn't get the words out.

“I thought I said you should stay sober, and you said there was no question but that you would.” He looked at her quizzically.

She had flung off her shoes and her hat was at an awkward angle on her head. “Yesh,” she smiled at him. “That's what I thought. But I wash wrong.”

“You're a sweetheart,” he said. And peeled off her good suit, hung it carefully on a hanger, and steered her to bed.

         

Twice in the night she got up to be sick.

If Louis heard he made no sound. He lay breathing gently. He never dreamed, or at least he couldn't remember his dreams. A man who had so much to remember, why did none of it come out in dreams?

Lena had dreamed incessantly of James Williams and what might have happened if she had accepted the offer he was so definitely making. She shuddered to think she had been so near to saying yes.

Louis was on an early shift.
I didn't wake you
, he wrote in a note.
Your lovely little snores sounded as if they deserved to be allowed to continue. See you tonight
.

She had never felt worse. Why did people drink too much if this was how it left them feeling next morning? She wasn't at all sure that she could make the office.

She called in on Ivy.

“How did the wedding go?” Ivy said, pouring coffee.

“They seemed to be happy, buying lots of stuff in Oxford Street and going back to the hotel to have tea served in the bedroom.”

“You went on their honeymoon with them?” Ivy asked, shocked.

“No, that was something else. Ivy, do you think I should have something like a prairie oyster?”

“A what?”

“It's to cure a hangover.”

“What is it?”

“You're the one with the contacts in the pub.”

“Not anymore,” Ivy said.

“Well, I need to know. Would Ernest know?”

“I expect he would.”

“What's his number?”

“Lena, you're mad. It's only nine-thirty in the morning.”

“Yes, I'm half an hour late for work already. I can't go in like this or I'd collapse. Give me his home number or I'll ring directory inquiries.”

“I've always said you're
mad
.”

“Hello, Ernest, it's Lena Gray.”

“Yes?” He sounded cautious.

“You do remember me?”

“Well, yes.”

“Ernest, very simply, what's a prairie oyster? It's got something to do with raw eggs and nothing to do with oysters, am I right?”

“A raw egg in a glass, a tablespoon of sherry, some Lea and Perrin's, shake like mad and swallow in one.”

“Thank you, Ernest.”

“Have you got all the ingredients?”

“Yes, I think so. Thanks.”

“Will she be all right, do you think?”

“Who?”

“Ivy. I presume she's been overindulging.”

Lena paused for a moment. Perhaps this was a way to get Ivy back with Ernest. “I do hope so, Ernest. She doesn't tell you, but it's all hitting her very badly.”

“Could you—um—tell her…?”

“Yes?”

“Tell her…to take care.”

“Maybe you should tell her yourself, Ernest.”

“It's difficult.”

“No, it's not. These things are easy.”

“But she's always pissed drunk.”

“No, she's not, last night was special. It was some kind of anniversary between you both. I don't know exactly. But whatever it was it hit her hard.” Lena hardly dared to lift her eyes to meet Ivy's.

“Yeah, well, it's about this time of year that she and I…But you don't want to bother.”

“It's none of my business. All I know is that she won't hear a word against you, Ernest. I have tried, God help me I've tried to say a few, but she won't listen.”

“You're a very good friend, Lena. Even with you being Irish and not understanding any of our ways,” he said.

“Thank you, Ernest,” she said humbly, and hung up.

“I'll kill you here and now in my own kitchen,” Ivy said.

“No, get two eggs, sherry, Worcestershire sauce, and a saucer to put on top of the glass.”

“Why?”

“So that it won't all fall out when I shake it.”

“No, I mean why should I do any of this for you?”

“Because I think I may have saved your great romance for you. Hurry, Ivy. I might be about to die.”

         

“Was it a great wedding?” Dawn asked.

“Simply lovely,” Lena said.

“I was hoping I might be asked.”

“There were very few of us there. Honestly it was only a handful.”

“Was your husband there, Mrs. Gray?”

“No. Louis wasn't able to go, sadly.”

Dawn went back to her work.

Lena looked over at her blond head bent over the papers at her desk. Dawn was a spectacular-looking girl. Lena and Jessie had arranged that she take public-speaking lessons and it had been a wise investment. Now Dawn could stand up in front of any gathering of school seniors. Lena knew that the students would listen to the words that came from a slim young glamour girl only a few years older than themselves. If Dawn talked about the need to get good typing speeds, exact shorthand symbols and office routine, then they would accept it. Such advice coming from Jessie or herself would carry little weight.

Lena felt her head heavy and she had an inexplicable thirst. She must have drunk six glasses of water by lunchtime. Is this the way all heavy drinkers felt? The regulars in Paddles' and Foley's back in Lough Glass? The regulars in Ernest's bar? Did they all have to rehydrate themselves the next morning? What a pointless exercise it was. She would never get drunk again.

“Ernest is coming around tonight,” Ivy said.

“Great stuff. Have you said ‘Thank you, Lena'?”

“No, I haven't. I've said I wonder why I am now cast in the role of a screaming alcoholic.”

“You could be a reformed alcoholic. Men love that,” Lena suggested.

“I'm actually pleased,” Ivy said.

“I know you are.”

“But I don't want to put too much hope in it.”

“No, of course not.” Lena lay down on her bed and drifted off to sleep.

When she woke, Louis was standing beside her. “How's my poor drunk?” he said, full of sympathy and love.

“I'm so sorry, Louis, was I disgusting?”

“No, you were sweet, you were like a floppy bunny, you couldn't sit or stand or anything…” He handed her a cup of tea which she drank thirstily.

“And what was I saying?” She was ninety percent sure she hadn't mentioned the Regent Palace Hotel, the journey to spy on the newly married couple.

“Nothing too intelligible, great difficulty in pronouncing words with an ‘S' in them.” He stroked her forehead. “More tea, then I'll scramble you some eggs…that's all you'll be able for. Trust Uncle Louis.”

Lena closed her eyes. How strange it all was. Here she was lying in bed while Louis Gray got her a cup of tea. A couple of miles away Maura Hayes was lying in bed while Martin organized the hotel to get them tea also.

Lena let her mind wander back to the way they looked…Martin and Maura. At ease together, like people who had been friends and loved each other for years and had only just realized it. Martin wasn't straining and struggling to please her as he would have been with Helen. Maura was making no effort to concentrate.

They were well matched.

Lena wondered whether there was any passion between them. There must be some sexual love. They would hardly enter into a relationship unless they had planned to consummate it.

But she found herself unable to imagine it.

She could hardly remember her own coupling with Martin. Sex had always meant Louis, from the very first time she had known him and known he was for her. It didn't make her uneasy thinking about Martin and Maura making love on their London honeymoon, nor about Maura sleeping beside Martin in the bedroom that Helen McMahon had abandoned early in their marriage.

It was just that she couldn't imagine it at all.

         

Jessie and Jim came back from their honeymoon. They were anxious that the wedding party had been a success.

“I think everyone enjoyed it,” Jessie said.

“Oh yes, it was wonderful,” Lena assured her.

“My brother didn't say much about it, but then, he's a silent man,” said Jim Millar.

This was an understatement, he had been almost wordless through the ceremony and the lunch that followed it.

“My mother enjoyed it though?” Jessie was hoping it had been the great social event that she wanted to remember it as.

“It was a wonderful day,” Lena said. “A marvelous happy occasion. We won't ever forget it.”

She was rewarded by the relief and pleasure in Jessie's eyes, and in Jim's when she looked at him triumphantly.

The truth was that Lena had hardly any memory whatsoever of anything that day except standing beside Martin and Maura as they waited to go upstairs.

         

Ivy grumbled from time to time that Ernest had taken a very strong stance about things like sherry trifle. He said it could be the beginning of the slippery slope. But still it seemed a small price to pay to have him back in her life.

He called regularly. Sometimes Lena spoke to him. “I owe you a great debt of gratitude,” he said once conspiratorially. “I always thought that Ivy was a woman who could take care of herself, run her own life. I never knew she'd gone to pieces.”

         

The months passed in Lough Glass as they did everywhere else, and people were so accustomed to seeing Martin McMahon and his wife Maura walking together exchanging affectionate smiles that the memory of Helen had faded from the forefront of every mind.

“She's a lot dumpier than her predecessor,” Mildred O'Brien said, looking out the hotel window at the McMahons striding along with Rusty, their red setter puppy. Mildred had never liked Helen when she was alive, but she didn't seem to be pleased either with the second Mrs. McMahon.

Dan sighed. “She doesn't have Helen's way with her, that's true,” he said, thinking back wistfully on the slow swish of Helen McMahon's skirt as she walked down the lane behind the hotel, her hair tumbling down her back, her eyes restless.

Maura went from time to time to see Sister Madeleine. Once she brought a pane of glass and some putty. “At least you won't give this away,” she said, knocking out the broken window with a hammer and collecting the shattered glass on old newspapers.

“Don't be too sure of it. There are plenty of people worse off than I am,” said the hermit.

“This is the first window I've ever put in, you wouldn't destroy my faith in myself by taking it out to give to some ne'er-do-well.”

“You sound very happy, Maura.”

“I am, thank God, very happy indeed. And what's more, I'm blessed in those two children.”

“You wouldn't be if you weren't so good to them.”

“I was wondering…” Maura lined the window frame with the putty as she spoke. “I was wondering whether you'd put my mind at rest over something…”

“My own mind is so confused, Maura, I'm never one to set myself up as an adviser to other people's minds.”

“It's just, you know, dreams, and superstitions, and sort of thinking you see things…”

“Go on.”

“Would that be real at all, or would it be just from being overtired?”

“Would you tell me a bit more and maybe I'd know the drift.”

“It sounds very silly.”

“Things always do.” Madeleine went to the fire to move in the old black kettle over the flames.

Maura eased the glass into place. “There now, isn't that a dream,” she said, standing back to admire the slightly crooked window which was a great deal better than the cracked frame with several pieces out of it which had been there before.

“It's beautiful, Maura. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said Sister Madeleine, looking at it with admiration.

“I've put in an extra bit of putty at the top, where there was a bit of a gap on the top corner. I don't think you'd see it.” Maura bit her lip looking at it.

“I only see a lovely clean shiny window keeping out the wind and rain. Thank you again, Maura.” The tea was poured. “And what did you see or dream that disturbed you.”

“It's so odd. But it was when we were in London…a woman came and stood beside us…”

“Yes?”

“And I was absolutely sure it was Helen.”

         

They were having dinner at the golf club as they did every Saturday. It was such an easy foursome and sometimes they were joined by other couples. The talk turned to the hermit.

“She won't let me listen to her chest,” Peter Kelly said. “I don't think she has any truck with modern medicine, you have to be a mystic or a gypsy for her to take any notice.”

“She's warm enough in there, the place is quite snug,” Maura said.

“Ah yes, it's warm all right, but what's she inhaling? Turf smoke, and her bedding could be damp. Still, you might as well be talking to the wall, she was always full of cracked notions. She'll live and die by them.”

“I tried to give her a preparation for chilblains last year and she thanked me and said they'd go in their own time.” Martin shook his head about her.

“But I think she's fairly sound in her own head,” Maura said.

“She certainly cured Emmet's stutter,” Martin agreed.

“And she calmed Clio down when she was behaving like someone bound for the gallows,” Lilian added.

“She doesn't encourage foolish fantasies. She's as practical as Mother Bernard in many ways,” Maura said.