The Glass Lake (82 page)

Her heart still pounding, Anna went back into the hotel.

Stevie was right in her path as she joined the dance. “Don't you look lovely,” he said admiringly.

“Thank you, Stevie, and you look very handsome, I've never seen you dressed up before.”

“Little Anna.” He was full of admiration for her.

“Not so little.” She was cross. “And you brought an interesting party with you,” she said.

“Yeah, watch out for Joe Murphy though. He has a wife and family.” She was furious. Instead of being jealous he was just giving her a friendly warning, telling her that the man groping her was a married man.

“I'm sure he has, God help them,” Anna said loftily.

“I'm going to the bar to rescue some of my flock,” Stevie said. “Otherwise I'd invite you to dance, but I have to make sure they're not disgracing me in there.”

“I don't have a free dance as it happens,” Anna said.

“Well then, isn't it all for the best,” Stevie said.

She wanted to pick up a nearby chair and hammer him to death with it.

In the bar Stevie found his cronies ordering large brandies and regaling Peter Kelly and Martin McMahon with their life stories. Joe Murphy was telling them about the car he had, of which there were only five in Ireland. Harry Armstrong was telling them that he had been on a trip to Africa. It was the most interesting thing he had ever done in his life.

He kept stabbing Martin McMahon's chest. “Have you ever been to Africa?” he asked. And no matter how many times Martin said no, the farthest he had ever been was England and Belgium, Harry Armstrong didn't seem to have received this information.

“Africa is the place,” he said over and over.

“What were you doing there?” Peter Kelly asked, hoping to lift the needle from the groove.

It was a complicated story, an opportunity that was meant to exist and hadn't turned out, a fellow who had a contact that hadn't materialized. Harry Armstrong hadn't given a fiddler's damn, he had enjoyed Africa, the whole fact of being there. And when he was down on his uppers he had gone and stayed with his uncle Jack, who was a priest out there, nay, more than a priest, a bishop, would you believe.

“That was a great thing, to be Bishop Armstrong in Africa.”

“Arse Armstrong?” cried Peter Kelly and Martin McMahon in one voice. “You met Arse?”

“What? What?”

“You're a nephew of Arse?”

“I don't understand.” Harry Armstrong did understand something, that these two men who weren't at all interested in him and his travels before were now fascinated by him.

“Large brandy for the nephew of Arse Armstrong,” Dr. Kelly shouted.

Stevie shook his head in confusion. This seemed to be going fine for some reason that nobody could fathom, except perhaps it might have had something to do with the strength of the drinks being served.

Clio and Michael were still not at the table. Anna had now looked everywhere, they were not in the bar, where her father seemed to be getting progressively drunker with some of Stevie's awful friends, they were not in the lounge, where some couples were sitting talking. Clio wasn't in the ladies' room, she wasn't in the gleaming kitchen.

Anna Kelly, who should have been the belle of the ball in the dress that had cost a fortune in Brown Thomas, felt very sorry for herself. Stevie Sullivan had no eyes for her at all. Nobody else at the table had been in any way gallant. Her only conquest had been a fat married man with groping fingers. She had been frightened to death by one of the tinkers.

She felt like having a good cry. But not in the newly refurbished ladies' room, where everyone would see her. There was a sofa up on one of the landings. She would go up there and sit for a while in the dark. Nobody would see her.

Anna sat and sobbed over the unfairness of life, the fickleness of men, the hopelessness of living in a goldfish bowl like Lough Glass, where everyone knew everything about you, the vulgarity and cheap common red dress that Kit McMahon was wearing and how much everyone seemed to like it.

Nearby she heard a door lock open and her heart jumped again. This place was full of strange sounds and shapes and noises. Then through the light she saw her sister start to creep out. Anna gave a gasp. Clio had been in Michael O'Connor's room. They really had been doing it. Making love. My God. Her gasp must have been audible, because Clio went straight back into the room again. Anna crept to the door.

“There's someone out there, I tell you,” she was saying in a panic-stricken tone.

“Don't be ridiculous, who could it be?”

“I don't know. It could be anyone.”

“Who's the worst person it could be?” Michael asked. His voice was shaky too.

“My mother, I suppose, or Mrs. O'Brien. Mrs. O'Brien, I think, because she'd tell my mother and she'd tell everybody and…Oh Jesus, Michael, what'll we do?”

Anna giggled to herself for a moment, then she rattled the door imperiously and called out at the top of her voice: “Open this door at once. This is Mildred O'Brien here, open this door or I'm sending for Sergeant O'Connor.”

The door opened and they stood there. Anna had to put her hand in her mouth she laughed so much. She went into the room and threw herself on the bed with mirth. Eventually she blew her nose and wiped her eyes and looked to see if the others were laughing.

They were not. But they had relaxed a little. Bad and all as it was being discovered by Anna, there were worse things that could have happened.

“Very droll,” Clio said eventually.

“Wonderful to meet someone with such a sense of humor.” Michael had barely been able to recover his breath. “If the performance is over perhaps we could go downstairs.”

“Oh, I've finished,” Anna said, looking from one to the other. “Have you though?” Then she got another fit of uncontrollable mirth.

They eventually managed to walk down the stairs, the three of them. There was safety in numbers. And they needed it. Mrs. O'Brien was at the foot of the stairs. “And where have we all been, might I ask?”

“I was showing a few people the lovely view from the corridor upstairs,” Anna said, cool as anything.

“It is a fine old place,” Mrs. O'Brien said. “Not everyone appreciated it but still we've always known.”

They were beginning to gather everyone together for the “Auld Lang Syne.”

“Is it that time already?” Stevie said.

“I hope to God the place ran itself for the last few hours, I did nothing I was supposed to do,” Kit said.

“You did everything you were supposed to do,” Stevie said.

Bobby Boylan and the boys were giving little warning toots to tell people it was time to make the circle. The doors were opened so that they could hear the bells of the church ring out. Someone had the radio on to count down to twelve o'clock.

Stevie and Kit stood side by side as if they always had. Maura saw and her heart was heavy. Anna saw and knew she had lost the battle but maybe not the war. Clio saw and thought again that Kit needed her head examined. Frankie saw and decided that Kit had always fancied this guy since the world began and it had really taken off at that party in Dublin. Philip saw and knew it was all over.

And then they were all linking arms and crying out Happy New Year, the balloons were falling from the ceiling, the band was playing, the people were going out into the garden to call Happy New Year over the lake.

They could see the fires of the travelers over in the distance, across the lake. The place had never looked more beautiful.

Stevie Sullivan kissed Kit McMahon as if they were the only people on the earth. They stood in the garden of the Central Hotel with the lake in front of them and the path of moonlight which stretched out to the low hills and woods of the neighboring county. This was their place and their time only.

They didn't see anyone else in the garden. Everyone was inside where Bobby Boylan had started a conga line snaking in and out of all the downstairs rooms. It was headed by Con Daly, who was being hailed as a chef of the century.

And as Stevie and Kit clung to each other they might have heard the sound of the lake lapping below them but they didn't hear the tears fall from the figure that watched them. The figure in the darkness who had sat watching all night.

Anna saw the way they looked at each other. It was like a knife. That's what it was, as if someone had put a sharp knife in under her ribs where her dress was at its tightest and most uncomfortable. She looked very woebegone.

Emmet was watching. This might be his time. Everyone in the town had seen how Kit had taken Stevie Sullivan as her own. He knew that his father and Maura would be cluck-clucking about it. He would never be able to thank Kit enough. If he couldn't make Anna come back to him now he never would.

“Do you know what I'd like to do?” he asked Anna.

“No.” She was ungracious, she was sure it would be to dance, to drink, to neck. She wanted none of these things, not with the broken heart.

“I'm tired of this, I'd love to go and sit in the summerhouse.”

“And kiss and cuddle and take my dress off, I suppose.”

“Certainly not.” Emmet sounded shocked. “Hey, you and I made a bargain. You love someone else but that will never stop us from being friends.”

“I don't think he loves me, I think your bloody sister managed to interfere there.”

“Well, that had nothing to do with me, or with you,” Emmet lied smoothly. “We're friends, you and I, and I wondered would we go and read some poetry in the summerhouse, like we used to do. Nobody reads poetry like you do, Anna.”

“Would you like that?” She was suspicious.

“I would, very much.”

“And when we get there it won't be all, now we're here we…”

“No, it's poetry, and I went and got a book in case.” They stood and looked at each other.

“Yes, let's do that,” Anna said. Anything would be better than witnessing the sickening failure of an evening that had gone so wrong.

Emmet had thought of everything. He had brought a rug so that they wouldn't be cold, he had a flask of drinking chocolate.

“Hey, this is nice,” Anna said, feeling good for the first time for hours.

They had a poetry book but they didn't open it. They listened to the music thump out of the windows and across the lake.

“I just thought I'd say, speaking as a friend…that you look very beautiful,” Emmet said.

“Thank you.” Anna looked at him suspiciously.

“Not as a person about to make a lunge at you…just as an ordinary person…and the kind of thing a girl might say…the dress, it's just gorgeous. You look much better than a film star.”

“Well, that's very nice of you, I must say.”

“It would be a poor kind of friendship if I couldn't say what was in my mind,” he said eagerly.

Anna looked at him, there were tears in her eyes.

“You know what I mean,” Emmet said foolishly.

“Oh Emmet,” Anna Kelly cried. “Emmet, I love you. I'm so blind and stupid. Thank you for waiting for me, for understanding.”

And they held each other and kissed in the summer-house.

Watched a few yards away by a woman with a cloak over her head. A woman who cried too.

Kevin O'Connor and Frankie had discovered more about each other than they had ever known on this New Year night. They looked at each other with new eyes. They went walking together by the lakeshore, pausing for a bit of this and that. That's how they told it.

And when they were down near the boats they saw this woman, a woman with long hair and a white blouse, sitting with her head in her hands crying as if her heart would break. It had been nobody who was at the dance.

Neither of them had ever seen anyone so upset. A great dark cloak lay beside her on the ground. When they came near her and spoke she picked up the cloak and flung it around her and ran, leaping over the mooring ropes of the boats. She ran away into the dark.

They told this to the others when they were back at the hotel. The older people were leaving, the young had gathered in the lounge unwilling to end the night. Kevin and Frankie were obviously startled by the encounter; it had been eerie.

“I saw her earlier,” Anna said. “It was one of the tinkers. She ran in that direction when she left. She was crouching in the garden looking at the hotel, spying, seeing what she could see.” Emmet moved near her protectively as she shivered over the incident.

“No, it wasn't a traveler.” Frankie was very definite.

“No, I saw her face,” Kevin added. “She had a different face.”

“And expensive clothes,” Frankie said.

“Did she say anything?” Kit asked, a nervous knot beginning to form in her stomach.

“No, nothing at all.”

“Would it be that ghost? Do you remember the woman years ago who was meant to have drowned herself in the lake and kept crying out…” Clio began. Then she saw the eyes fixed on her, Stevie's, Emmet's, Anna's, Kevin Wall's, Patsy Hanley's, all the children of Lough Glass who remembered who else had drowned in the lake. “I didn't mean…” Clio began.

But Kit had broken away. She had run out the door down the path toward the lake. “Lena,” she was calling, “Lena, come back, Lena. Don't go again. Lena, come back, it's Kit.”

The others stood at the door and watched in horror as Kit ran into the dark night, shouting through her tears. “Come back, Lena, come back.”

Chapter Ten

T
HEY
talked about the dance for ages.

There were so many things to tell. Of the bold strap Orla Dillon and how she had been sent back where she belonged. Of the amount of food there was on the table—a banquet was all it could be called. The marvelous spot prizes—crates of brandy, whiskey, and sherry seemed to have been donated, a turkey, legs of lamb, sides of beef, boxes of chocolates, tins of biscuits, fancy soaps, gents' scarves, ladies' blouses (can be changed if size is inappropriate). Nobody in the town had held back when asked to contribute.

“Do you remember the moment the balloons came down?” people said. “And Bobby Boylan's band playing like the Pied Piper as they all went through the kitchen. And wasn't the kitchen shining, it would put you to shame over your own place.”

And the fur cape that Maura McMahon wore, she was like royalty. And the great crowd of hard men that were guests of the garage, who slept in their cars and started drinking all over again in Paddles' the following morning. And the moonlight on the lake.

And Stevie Sullivan and Kit. The way they danced all night. And how she ran out of there when someone told a silly story of seeing a ghost at the lake, and she thought it was her mother's ghost. Poor girl, and she went out calling don't leave me, or something. Nobody could hear. And how she had run out in the cold in her red dress and stood down by the lake until Stevie carried her home.

There were so many things to tell.

         

“You know, Maura, you can leave Stevie in the room. I swear we won't take off our clothes and get it started immediately.”

“I didn't think you would.” Maura was indignant.

She had brought chicken broth for two days to a shivering Kit, without a word of remonstration about the strange way the night had ended. She had cleaned the mud off the red dress, waiting until it dried so that she could brush it properly.

She had been uneasy when Stevie Sullivan called so often to see the patient. She had found excuse after excuse to come back into the room. Kit reached out and held her hand. “Maura, of course that's what you think. Hasn't Stevie been known for it with everyone in the county?”

“Well…” Maura reddened.

“But we've had plenty of places far more discreet and secluded than this, and if I didn't then I'm unlikely to succumb in my own house. Come on, isn't that true?”

“I don't want you to get hurt.”

“I won't, I swear.”

Maura put her hand on Kit's forehead. “I was given my orders by Peter to keep your temperature down. I think it's normal, but Stevie Sullivan's not going to be much of a help in that department.”

“I'd be worse without him, Maura.” Kit spoke as an equal.

Maura felt touched by this. “I'll talk to your father.”

“He wouldn't understand unless you said it properly. I mean, I couldn't say to Father that Stevie and I haven't done it yet, and won't start under this roof.”

“I'll try to explain the situation a bit more diplomatically,” Maura said.

Nobody had asked Kit about her strange upset. Even Dr. Kelly had said that it wasn't important. The story that the stupid girl from Dublin had told must have reminded Kit of the night her own mother disappeared. Nobody had told Dr. Kelly that it was his own daughter Clio who had brought the whole thing to a head, reminding them of the ghost of the girl who had died so long ago.

She lay there when there was nobody in with her, her hands gripping the sheets, her brain racing. It must have been Lena. Who else would have come and watched? She must have seen her son in the summerhouse with Anna Kelly. She must have seen her daughter locked in Stevie's arms as they stood on the grass in the moonlight. She may have seen Maura Hayes wearing her little fur cape.

She saw a town lit up with life and banners and balloons and flowers. A town which had been gray and oppressive when she lived here. She knew that among the revelers were the O'Connor boys, young brothers of the girl that Louis would marry. A crowd of nearly two hundred people having a wonderful time while her own heart was broken. Standing on the edge of a place that believed her dead.

Now Kit was a prisoner here. She had caught a chill and she was ordered to stay in bed. There was never a time when people would leave the house, a time when she could ring Ivy to know had Lena returned. Ivy would know. But how could she get to talk to her?

Emmet sat on her bed. “Are you all right, Kit? Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, I am. Didn't the dance go so well?”

“But afterward?”

“Afterward I got upset, I got a fright. I was all nervous and tied up inside and I had nothing to eat with the fuss of it all.”

“You were wonderful…it all worked so well.”

“Yes.”

“I'll never be able to thank you.”

“I know a way,” she said.

“What? I'll do anything.”

She looked at him, his face eager to help, foolishly happy in love or what he thought of as the love of that deadful Anna Kelly. In many ways he was still a child.

She just couldn't ask him to ring Ivy. She couldn't tell him everything. That his mother was alive, that she had come to look at them all, that she had run away again, run again toward the lake.

         

Clio came to visit. “I could have kicked myself. I'm so thoughtless, why did I mention people in lakes, ghosts? I'm just so thick,” she said.

“No, it doesn't matter. I was nervous, I'd had three drinks, no food…” This would be her excuse.

“Will you ever forgive me?”

“Of course.”

“You must be very seriously sick if you say that. Normally you never forgive me.”

“Oh, I forgive you this time.” Kit smiled wanly.

“It was terrific, the dance, wasn't it?”

“You didn't get caught?” Kit asked.

“No, only by Anna. Who, by the way, asked me to come and spy out the lay of the land here…She wants me to find out all I can about you and Stevie Sullivan.” Clio giggled as she spoke.

“And she asked you to do it diplomatically?”

“Yes, she said I was to be discreet.”

“Oh, but you are,” Kit agreed.

“I don't want to give that ghastly Anna one scrap of information. But this is for me…this is for myself …Kit, what in the name of God Almighty were you doing? Were you really drunk?”

“Yes, probably a bit.”

“You never saw anything like it. You were wrapped around him. All night.”

“I know,” Kit remembered.

“Listen, it's not the end of the world. They'll forget it, eventually.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Kit said.

“They will, they'll know it was just part of the madness of the night.”

“Not when they see me glued to him for the rest of my life they won't.”

Clio's eyes and mouth were round. “Kit, you're crazy. Stevie Sullivan, of all the people in the world.”

“Yes, of all the people in the world.”

“No, Kit, he has a girl everywhere. He doesn't care who they are, married or single, fat or thin, you know what he's like.”

“I do. I love him.”

“You're still fevered, that's what it is.”

“You asked me, you wanted to find out the lay of the land. Now you've found it out.”

“Why did you tell me this…? It can't be for real.”

“Because you're my friend. You tell me you love Michael O'Connor and you've been to bed with him and that you love it. We're friends, we tell each other things.” Her voice sounded a bit hysterical, Kit realized this as she spoke.

“But loving Michael is different, it's…well, it's what you'd expect. You can't love the fellow in the garage who's slept with every maid in the parish.”

“His past isn't important,” Kit said loftily.

“Ah, don't be ridiculous, it's not his past. Didn't you see Orla Dillon turn up at the dance looking like a madwoman just wanting more of it with Stevie?”

“Didn't you see him sending her home?”

“You're serious,” Clio said in shock.

“You're the one who always said I was unnatural because I didn't love anyone. Now I do and that's wrong too…”

“Look, I'm going home…you're not well enough for visitors.”

“Okay, and tell Anna what I told you, that I'm crazy about him, and I won't rest until I get him.”

“I'll tell her nothing of the sort, I'll say you were so pissed drunk you don't remember dancing with him.”

“I'll tell her different and that'll get you into trouble for doing your job so badly.”

“I'll ignore you, you're quite mad. I came down to ask was there anything I could do for you, post letters, get you messages…but now I think I should get you a psychiatrist.”

“Thanks, Clio. You're a real pal.”

Kit realized that though she had known Clio as long as she could remember, it was an odd friendship. If Clio was the last person on earth she wouldn't ask her to ring Ivy to give a simple message. She couldn't say, Clio please ring this woman in England and ask her is Lena all right. No questions, just do it. Clio would want every detail and the whole country would know every detail.

         

“Are you too tired? I won't stay long.”

“No, Philip, it's fine. It's great to see you. Wasn't it the best dance in the world?”

“Oh yes. I'll never be able to thank you.”

“For what, Philip? For making an eejit of myself…I just got upset when they started talking about ghosts.”

“Oh, that,” Philip said.

“Sure what did you think I meant?” Kit looked at him long and hard. “How are your parents?” she said eventually.

“Oh, throwing out a new wing here and a new wing there. They think it was all their idea, can't understand why I never saw the potential of the place.”

“You're great, Philip,” she said.

“But not great enough.” His face was different. There was less doglike devotion there now. It was as if the dance had managed to convince him that there would be no future for them together.

She could trust him to the ends of the earth. But could she trust him to ring Ivy for her?

         

When Stevie arrived she was sitting up flushed and eager. “Leave the door open,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“I want them to know we're not at it like knives on the bed.”

“Why did you suggest that? I'm just about able to control myself, if I think it's out of the question. Don't even joke about it.” His smile was broad.

“And I want to ask you something.”

“Anything.”

“I have it written down. I want you to do something, to make a call, but no one is to hear you.”

“Where is it to?”

“To London.”

“Sure.”

“Would Mona listen in on the exchange, do you think?”

“Not to me, I have too many boring calls to Dagenham and Cowley and places like that.”

“Not when Maura's there.”

“Understood.”

“It's the most important thing in my whole life. Could you do it now?”

“Straight away.”

“I've written it down for you.”

“Right.”

“No, it's not just an ordinary message, wait till you go through it…Only Ivy, not her husband Ernest. Say you're my boyfriend, and that I've been sick and can't get to a phone…say I think I saw Lena here in Lough Glass on New Year's Eve. I want to know if Ivy's heard from her since then.” Tears began to fall down Kit's cheeks.

Stevie took a handkerchief and wiped them away tenderly. “Will she tell me?”

“She might be worried, but you could say I trust you to ask the question but that you don't know anything else. You don't know the full story.”

He nodded as if he understood. He was so dear to her, his long dark hair on the collar of his scarlet jersey. She knew he had washed and changed his shirt just to cross the road and visit her. That made her feel so touched she could have cried again.

“I'll be back soon,” he said. “Drink your soup, it's going cold.”

“Thanks, Stevie.”

He had gone, he would do it, he had asked nothing. Kit closed her eyes. She was absolutely certain she had done the right thing.