The Glass Lake (69 page)

“I feel such a fool in front of all these people,” Ernest complained.

Lena wanted to smack him very hard.

There were going to be sixteen people there altogether. All friends who wished them well. His two sons had accepted that Ivy would now be his wife. They would be there. He had nothing to do, nothing to organize, all he had to do was be bloody grateful that Ivy saw fit to marry him.

Lena wondered was she becoming very anti-man. But that was not so. Mr. Millar was an angel. James Williams was a gentleman. Martin had been a sort of saint. Peter Kelly had been a good and loyal friend. There was so many around her who were giving. And Ernest wasn't all that bad, he was gruff and inarticulate, he didn't have the silver tongue of Louis Gray.

Louis, who would come and join them and lie his way into their hearts. When the day was over they would remember him and the lovely mirror he had given and the jokes he had told and how he had made people happy.

She saw that Sammy was perspiring heavily, the man really was nervous. These were timid people, she remembered, people who feared ritual and occasion. They didn't realize that they controlled it, and they could run it. They thought it controlled them.

“Well, are we ready for the road?” she asked the two men. “The taxi is outside the door.” She had arranged that too. And paid for it in advance. Otherwise they might have been searching the streets of London for one when they were all assembled.

“The bride?” Sammy said as if he had only just thought of her as an essential part of the undertaking.

“Is in the bedroom. She'll come out when we're all set to go.” Lena went to fetch her. “You look absolutely lovely,” she said. “You never ever looked better.”

Ivy's lined face lit up with pleasure. Her hat was at an angle, her cream and maroon scarf was tied jauntily. She looked years younger and about four social classes higher than she looked normally. She was the kind of lady you might see coming out of the Ritz Hotel.

Ernest and Sammy looked at her in awe. That was Lena's reward, the pure, undisguised surprise and delight that their Ivy had smartened up so well. And the slight fear that they might not look her equal.

“Where's Louis?” Ivy said. As almost anyone who had ever met Louis always said.

“He'll meet us there, he has to get away specially.” She linked Ivy's arm and escorted her out to the taxi. “Caxton Hall please,” she said at the top of her voice, so that nobody could be in any doubt where they were heading.

Louis slipped in beside Lena just before the ceremony. He smelled of lavender soap. Of course, they could have lavender soap at the Dryden. He smiled at her warmly. “You look gorgeous,” he said appreciatively. The tan and cream outfit had cost a lot, but she could wear it for giving lectures, for meeting important new clients. For the many work engagements that stretched ahead of her as her future. “Sweet little hat,” he whispered.

The function might have been canceled. And he might have had to stay and work on late anyway so that it seemed a waste of time to come home. Don't ask, Lena told herself. Leave yourself that escape route. You can always think it. If you ask then you'll know. “How was the function?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Don't ask,” he sighed, rolling his eyes to heaven. “Interminable, I suppose that's the best way to sum it up.”

“What was it, a conference, a golden wedding or what?”

“A crowd of salesmen on the piss.”

“Still, it's good money for the hotel.”

“I'm getting a bit sick of doing things so that the hotel will make money.”

She looked at him. This was her cue to soothe him, persuade him to stay, tell him what a good position it was, how highly they thought of him…how unwise it would be to make any move.

This time she did it differently. “Well, you should move, Louis.”

“What?”

They were whispering, waiting for the little group to assemble itself. Lena should be up beside Ivy. “Don't let them use you, take advantage of you, there must be some new positions coming up. You should think about them seriously.”

He was staggered. “But I thought you would…”

“Never assume you know what I'm going to do or think…which reminds me, I'm meant to be a witness here.”

With perfect timing at the arrival of the registrar she went to stand beside Ivy and Ernest and Sammy, and take part in a ceremony which felt as if it were a million miles away. Like a little pinpoint down there on earth. Far below where her mind had gone to try and take in the whole situation.

Once the formal bit was over, Ernest and Sammy relaxed to the extent that Lena thought that the couple might never leave on their honeymoon. The pints were bought, the brandies-and-gingers. Plates of sandwiches circulated in the corner of the pub that had been reserved for them. Passersby came to wish them luck and were offered a sandwich and even a drink for their trouble. Then the little cake came in and Lena photographed them cutting it.

She took some time to pose this picture. It would be the one on the wall. She straightened Ivy's hat and Ernest's tie. She even got them to put their hands together on the knife so that it looked like a real wedding picture.

“I'm surprised you didn't have her in white with half a dozen trainbearers,” Louis said under his breath.

Lena flashed him a smile as if he had said something warm and encouraging instead of sneering. Ivy was very quick on the uptake, she would notice if Lena glowered.

Then they asked the barman to take a group picture and the bride and groom ran in a shower of rice across the station. They were going to spend three nights in a town thirty miles and one hour from London. Their friends waved them good-bye from the platform. The pubs were closed now, the little group wandered back through the barrier.

The good-byes were lengthy, Sammy wanted everyone to come to a drinking club he knew down in the City but their hearts weren't in it. Lena knew that she could have invited them back to the flat, a couple of bottles of wine would have kept the party going until opening time. But she had no intention of doing it. Not for Ernest's two sullen sons, not for Sammy and the handful of people who couldn't organize anything for themselves.

With huge regret she said she had to go back to work and she dragged Louis away with her.

“You don't really have to go back to work?” he said.

“No, but you do. I wanted to get you out of it without having the lot of them descend on the Dryden.”

“I don't have to go back to work,” he said.

“You said you had a split shift, didn't you?”

He looked at her searchingly to see was he being tested. “My God, of course I did.” He hit his forehead.

“Well now, who's a good secretary to you, then?” She was playful.

“I work too hard, Lena,” he said.

“I know you do.” She was insincere but he wouldn't know it.

“Maybe you're right. Maybe I should leave the place.”

“Not in the middle of a Saturday split shift. Wait till there's something better on offer. You could do any job.” They had walked as far as a tube station by now.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Well, if you have to go to work so will I. It's no fun without you at home.”

“Do you really think that?” He looked troubled.

“Come on, handsome, you know I do.” She kissed him on the nose and looked around once to find him still standing at the top of the steps looking after her as if there were things to be said but he hadn't said them.

Lena picked up the post. It always seemed a total luxury to her to have a postal delivery on a Saturday. Imagine if there had been such a thing in Lough Glass. Mona Fitz and poor Tommy Bennet would have had a fit if anyone had suggested it.

She divided it up expertly, marveling as she often did at the way the business had blossomed. When she came here first the mail had been hardly worth talking about and there had been only Jessie sitting bewildered and confused with overstuffed drawers full of papers that would take hours to sort out. If she had done nothing else in the years of life in London then at least she had built this monument to working women, their needs and hopes and chances.

She made herself a cup of tea, took off her wedding hat with its little tan feather, and her shoes. She sat back in her office chair and wondered what she would like to do now. She decided she would like to write to Kit. She must be careful, she thought. It was fragile, the peace between them; she must not rush the fences and destroy it again.

But this was the first time today that she had asked herself what she, Lena, would like to do. And she was going to do it. After hours of encouraging Ivy, calming Ernest, making conversation with Ernest's sons, taking pictures, throwing rice, smiling at everyone, telling Louis that she knew he had to go back to work, she bloody deserved to do what she wanted to do.

She wrote to her daughter about the wedding she had just come from. About how well Ivy had looked and how nervous the groom had been, about the people in the pub who had all joined in and the passersby who had waved as the happy couple got onto the train. She wrote lightheartedly and read through it many times to make sure that there was no telltale sign of bitterness or self-pity. Nowhere in the three closely typed pages had she mentioned Louis Gray.

It was as if he did not exist.

“Hello Maura, it's Kit.”

“Oh Kit. I'm so sorry, your father's just gone down to Paddles' with Peter. He'll be so sorry you wasted your money on the phone.”

“Will you come on out of that, wicked stepmother. I didn't waste my money. Didn't I get to talk to you?”

“We're all fine here, he's totally back to his old self again. And Emmet's cheerful too, head down studying hard. You won't know this house when you get back at Christmas.”

“Is Emmet there, Maura?”

“No love, you've missed him too. He's gone to the pictures with Anna. They seem to be pals again, really they're as bad as you and Clio used to be. How's Clio, by the way?”

“I don't see her that much, Maura, but she's fine.”

“Ask her to ring home a bit more, will you? I feel ashamed telling Lilian that you ring twice a week, it's like I'm boasting.”

“So you should, you're much nicer than Lilian,” Kit said.

“Stop that. Do you want me to give them any messages?”

“Yes. Tell Father that his only daughter was distraught to hear he was out drinking his skull off, and tell Emmet I'm keeping my promise.”

“I don't suppose I'm going to be told what promise.”

“No, but he'll know.”

“You're a great girl, Kit.”

“And you're not the worst either.”

         

“Clio, will we go out for chips?”

“Lord, who stood you up that you have to phone me as a last resort?”

“Did you go to special classes in how to be charming, or did you just read a book?”

“Sorry, I'm in bad form.”

“Would chips help?”

“When did they not?”

         

“This is Philip. Kit, I was wondering would you like to go to the pictures. Normally like, you know the way people often go together.”

“I know the way people go to the pictures, Philip. But I can't, I've just said I'd meet Clio for chips.”

“Oh.” He sounded very disappointed.

“Come with us if you like,” she offered.

“Won't you want to giggle and laugh?”

“No, we're too old for that now. Come with us.”

         

“It would make life so much easier if you fancied Kevin O'Connor,” Clio said.

“I told you what I felt about him, I even told him by solicitor's letter, for God's sake. There's no use going after that particular fantasy.”

“A person can wish,” Clio said.

“I told Philip O'Brien he could join us, he seemed a bit at a loose end.”

“Of course he's at a loose end until he can take you to the Happy Ring House and buy you a miserable small diamond and chain you to his side.”

Kit laughed. “Where on earth is Michael? What has he done to bring on all this fit of the miseries?”

“He wants me to go to England with him for Christmas and New Year. His sister's having a big party or something.”

“Well, isn't that great.”

“They're not letting me go.”

“Oh ask them nicely, Clio.”

“No, it's a brick wall. And Aunt Maura is in it too, up to her eyes in it.”

“But you're grown-up. They'll have to see that.”

“They don't see it. It's just an ultimatum. We expect you to come home to us for Christmas and New Year, Clio, like any nice girl from any nice family would do.” Her face was full of tragedy.

“He won't take anyone else,” Kit consoled her.

“But it makes me such a fool. The one time he does see my home it's got that mongrel Anna sitting hissing insults at him in the kitchen, now he hears that they're such jailers they won't let me accept a perfectly reasonable generous invitation to a friend's house.”