The Glass Lake (85 page)

“How do you do,” Rita said.

“Hello, Rita.”

Rita's head snapped up to look at her again as if she recognized the greeting.

“Lena's been a great friend of mine and given me lots of good advice. She runs an employment agency,” Kit said desperately.

Rita was calm. “Of course, and what a good business to be in these days. Young people need all the advice they can get. You must get a lot of satisfaction in your work.”

Lena said nothing.

“We've got to rush now,” Kit said.

“Great to see you, Kit.” Her eyes stayed long on Lena. “And you too, Mrs.…Mrs. Gray,” she said.

“She knew,” Lena said when they were around the corner.

“Of course she didn't,” said Kit. “But let's get you away really quickly in case we meet anyone else. It could be Mona Fitz's day for a shopping excursion.”

The first taximan looked at them expectantly. “Where to, ladies?” he asked.

Lena looked blank. “Will we go first and collect your case?”

“Case?”

“Suitcase, luggage, wherever you left it.” Kit tried to sound casual.

“I have no luggage,” Lena said.

Kit shivered. She might never know what her mother had intended to do at the wedding of Mary Paula O'Connor and Louis Gray. Lena had come to Dublin with no possessions, no plans of where she would stay at night. It was as if she had not expected to be a free agent by the time night fell.

“Will you come home and stay in my flat, rest now and stay the night?” Kit said. “I've always wanted to have you to stay. And there's a nightie for you and a hot-water bottle…”

“And will we fit in the bed?”

“I'll sleep on cushions on the floor.” There was a pause. “I'd love you to come, Lena.” Another pause. “I don't ask for much,” Kit said.

“It's very true, you don't,” Lena said.

Kit gave the taximan her address.

They climbed the stairs slowly. Lena said nothing when Kit opened the door. “Well, say you like it. Say it's nice…it's got character…” Kit was desperate. “Say it's got possibilities even.”

Lena smiled at her. “I've dreamed so often what this place would be like. I thought the window was on the other side,” she said.

“And what did you dream you might be offered for lunch when you came here?” Kit asked.

Lena saw on the little table beside the gas ring that there were four tomatoes and a loaf of bread.

“In my dreams I always had tomato sandwiches and tea,” she said.

After that it was all right. The talked to each other as friends.

And then finally, worn out, Lena went to sleep in the little single bed. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon. But Kit felt her mother might not have slept for many a night before now. Kit sat in a chair and looked out the window. She felt very empty. She wished that Stevie would come. The darkness came but she didn't put on a light.

About eight o'clock she saw Stevie's car. He paused to look up at her window. He had never been in this room. What a different way for him to see it from the way she had planned. With her mother lying in her bed.

She tiptoed to the door and beckoned him in. She pulled another chair to the window, a finger on her lips.

“She needs her sleep, don't wake her,” she said. “It's Lena.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence. He had brought her a box of chocolate sweets that were only on sale north of the border. Things always seemed more exotic when you couldn't get them here. He stroked her hand.

“Was the trip okay?” she asked.

“Tiring,” he said. “And the wedding?”

“Uneventful,” she said.

“That's what you wanted, wasn't it?” He looked at her, she could see his face in the street light.

She nodded. “I'll tell you sometime. I swear.”

“So do you want me to go now?” he asked.

Never had she seen such disappointment on a face. He had driven in the cold and rain all the way back and she was going to ask him to leave because of Lena, an unexplained woman in the bed.

“No, I'll write her a note, tell her we've gone to the Chinese, if that suits you?”

“I was thinking about sweet-and-sour pork since Drogheda,” he said.

“If she wakens up she might join us. But she'll know I'm coming back…”

“Can you see to write?” He stroked her hair as she bent over the table to write the note.

Lena, you were sleeping so peacefully I didn't want to wake you. It's eight-fifteen now, Stevie and I have gone to the Chinese restaurant. I've left its little card to show you where it is. Please come and join us there. If not, I'll be back by midnight and will sleep on the cushions…but I truly truly would love you to come and follow us there
.

Love always, Kit
.

Then they left the room on tiptoe, pulling the door behind them.

Lena sat up when they were gone. She read the note and stood at the window watching them walk along the road, arms draped around each other. She had learned that this boy did care for Kit, and cared a great deal. She agreed that he knew nothing of her circumstances, only that she was an unexplained friend, Lena from London.

And she also felt that he had every characteristic of Louis Gray. When he loved he would mean it at the time. But the time would not last very long in any given place. If only she could protect her girl from this.

Kit came back alone. She read the note.

I did wake up, but forgive me, I literally didn't have the energy to come out and join you. I had some biscuits here and now I'm going back to sleep. Bless you, dearest Kit, and see you in the morning
.

Kit lay on the cushion and rugs on the floor. She felt certain that her mother's breathing was too even somehow. It didn't sound like the breath of a woman getting her first deep sleep in weeks.

         

“Let me take you round Dublin,” Kit offered.

“No, I'd better go back to London. The holiday is over.”

Kit hated the way she grimaced when she said the word “holiday.” She decided she would grasp it. “Not much of a holiday, Brighton on your own, two quick visits here.”

“No, well. I'll organize it better another time.”

“I wish you'd meet Stevie. I want you to.”

“No.”

“You think he's unreliable.”

“He was only a child when I left, I rely on you for a definition of how he is.”

“I've told you everything about him, every single thing…if you're going to get so buttoned up on me and purse-lipped I'll have to stop telling you things.”

“I think you're just on the verge of stopping telling me things about him.”

“You mean that we're going to be lovers?”

“Believe me, I'm not criticizing,” Lena said.

“So why don't you approve?”

“I think he'll break your heart.”

“So? It'll mend again.”

“If they're badly broken they don't.”

“Lena, I know you see…well, let's say some similarities…”

“If you see them then is it possible they might be there?”

“No, it's not.” Kit's chin stuck out defensively.

Lena pleaded with her. “I know what's going through your head…you're going to say if only Lena had met Stevie a few months ago…suppose all this had happened when Louis was around…then she would have approved, understood, said you must follow your star.”

“And so you would,” Kit cried.

“I might not. I told you that it had been worth it. I mean, what would have been the point of anything if I hadn't believed I did the right thing. It would have meant I messed everyone's life up for nothing, which is what I did. Everyone, all because of me.”

“No, that's not so.” Kit was gentle.

“It is. I look around me and I see it.”

“But Father's all right, and Maura. And Emmet is happy, and I'm in love. And you and Louis…well, what you had was very bright, you told me that once…that it was better to burn brightly…it was very good…”

Lena looked very lost. “In a way you're saying I didn't mess up people's lives, that everyone survived fine, including Louis. Only my own. I destroyed my own as surely as if I had drowned that day.”

“I certainly did not say that. Stop putting words in my mouth…I'm just saying don't feel so guilty. You've always been good for people, helping them, giving…not destructive.”

“If you hadn't been there…”

Kit would not allow them down this road. “Tell me, what did you love most about Louis?”

“His face lighting up to see me, it was as if someone had turned on a switch…”

It was a funny phrase, Kit thought, especially when she had seen through Louis at his wedding ceremony, an actor reading lines. Of course he could turn on a switch. “And what was worst about him?”

“The way he thought I believed his lies. It made us both so stupid.”

“And why do you think it didn't last? What you and he had?” She was gentle but probing, she felt Lena wanted to answer. To think it out.

“I don't know…” Lena said thoughtfully. “You tell me, what do you think it was?”

“Maybe it was about not having children. If you had ever been pregnant…”

“I was,” Lena said. “I was more pregnant than Mary Paula O'Connor. That's why I left you and Emmet and Lough Glass and Ireland. Of course I was pregnant.”

“And what happened?” Kit asked.

“I lost the baby. I lost it all over the train from Brighton and all over Victoria Station and in Earl's Court. That's where our baby is. Louis's and my child.”

Kit held her hand. “And could you not have…did you never try…?”

“He didn't want a child. He didn't want a child until I was too old to have one, but by then he wanted one with someone else.” Her mouth was in a hard white line.

Kit McMahon felt more troubled than she had ever been in her life.

They didn't speak of what had brought her to Dublin. Of what she might have done if Kit had not rescued her and taken her away in the nick of time. There would be another day when that could be talked about.

Lena was getting stronger by the hour. She was like a plant that needed water. Something was giving her back energy and hope and purpose. She was rapidly becoming the old Lena, full of plans and moving quickly. She had run to a phone box and found the times of planes. She had telephoned Ivy. To say she'd be back that night. And Jessie Millar to say she'd be at work next day.

“I'll come to the airport with you,” Kit said.

“No, we could meet a dozen more people we know.”

“I don't care. I'm coming.”

“What about Stevie? Suppose he turns up here?”

“I'll leave a note on the door for him.”

Lena looked at her thoughtfully. “He doesn't have a key?”

“You know he doesn't.”

“Yes, I only meant maybe he should have.”

“But I thought you said…”

“I know you love him.” For Lena it was simple. Love was something that happened, you had no control of it. It took over.

Kit was bewildered. “But what about everything you told me of all that happened to you, and how you didn't want it to happen again?”

“It's too late.” Lena was matter-of-fact. “The only thing you must learn from me is not to take the safe option. Not to run away and marry a good, kind man just because he
is
good and kind. That's not the solution.”

Kit thought of Philip. “I don't think I'd do that,” she said slowly.

“You mightn't now, but if you were lonely you might. And it would be very wrong, well, you can see how much hurt and wrong came out of it.”

Kit went back to what she had said earlier. “You think I should give Stevie a key to…here?”

“I think you should ask yourself why you are putting off something you want so much.” They looked at each other in amazement. “The only mother in Ireland today taking this side in the age-old argument…” Lena said, and they collapsed in laughter. Whatever madness had taken Lena over seemed to have gone, or to have been replaced with a different one.

Stevie knocked at the door. “I'll only stay a moment,” he said.

“Come in and meet Lena…” Kit opened the door.

“How do you do.” She shook his hand firmly. “I'm very sorry for messing all your plans up this weekend. Kit has been very good to me.”

“No, heavens no.” His smile was warm. He was not awkward or ill at ease, which was remarkable, Lena thought, when he was in the middle of a situation he didn't even begin to understand.

“Anyway the good news is that I'm off to the airport now. I'm trying to persuade Kit not to come…so you're the ideal excuse. Perhaps we could all walk down to Busaras where I could catch the airport bus.”

Before Kit could speak Stevie said: “I have a car at the door. It would be my pleasure to drive you out there and I'll sort of circle a bit while you say good-bye.”

Lena accepted. Stevie looked around for her suitcase but didn't seem put out when he realized there wasn't one. Lena sat in the front of the car and Kit leaned on the back of the seat between them.

She pointed out landmarks. “I can't remember, was Liberty Hall there in your time?”

“Not in my time as such.”

“Look, do you see this house on the corner? Frankie's grandfather lives there. He's as rich as anything and all the family keep calling on him and asking about his health. Imagine!”

“Does Frankie call on him?” Lena inquired.

“No, she's got more sense.”

“He'll probably leave her everything just to spite them,” Stevie said.

Lena looked at him with interest. Louis would have said that there was no harm in being nice to the old fellow, and you never knew the day nor the hour. She would have thought that Stevie Sullivan would have gone that route also.