Dance Lessons Page 7

  At last he walks away, back across the dance floor, his shoulders hunched as he pushes through the dancing, twirling crowd, the young couples and their faces dappled in the dance-hall lights. He walks all the way out the dance hall door to his waiting bicycle, parked around the side of the hall.

  Later, three o’clock in the morning and Jo and Kitty are cycling up Knockduff Hill. November, and the night is still warm. Kitty, her dress fluttering behind her, hums a song that the band had played twice that night.

  The sisters stop to unlatch the first gate. They see the lights on in the house. “What? Oh, God, what? Bad news?”

  They pedal the rest of the way up the hill, their heart thump-thump. Someone dead? A beast in distress?

  “Up to bed, Kitty!” Mother commands. She’s standing there under the kitchen light, her arms folded over her aproned bosom. “Up this minute to bed.” Father sits hunched in over the hearth, swaddled in his scarf and knitted pullover.

  Mother says, “There’s sense in marrying a man like John Dowd. We know his people. And as a second son, he’ll get no place of his own, no farm. But there’s a place, a farm here. Your father’s not getting any younger. And his bad chest. If there’s nobody to work the land, the land commission will come; we’ll lose it all. There are plenty watching this place with only two daughters, plenty with their eye on it, watching, waiting.”

  Father. Thursday night. So this is where he went, why he was dressed up and waiting for a hackney car. He was sent off to make a match for Jo. Jo feels her legs weaken. But it’s a joke, a silly joke. No. No. No.

  From his fireside armchair, Father will not look up to meet his twenty-five-year-old daughter’s eyes. If he did, he would see something new there. He would see all that girlish youth, all her dreams waning.

  Not Kitty of course. Kitty has just started her first job in town, the town of Ballinkeady, just three miles away. Every morning she cycles there to the drapery shop where she’s serving her apprentice time. She’s learning how to measure and cut dress material, how to measure a woman for her bust and waist size, how to say, “Good morning, ma’am” to the doctors’ and solicitors’ wives who come to buy their nylon twin sets and sheer stockings and skirts with box pleats. The very idea of an old man with sad eyes is out of the question for Kitty Burke of the rosebud lips and the high, trilling laugh.

  Two months later, the 6th of January, the Feast of the Epiphany, Mother summons the hackney again. The weather has turned chilly at last.

  The Ford Prefect car makes its way down the avenue, the headlights bright in the morning dark. They drive for a very long time.

  In the back seat, Jo knows she is supposed to be excited. She is being brought to the city. She is being taken to buy her wedding dress and trousseau.

  All week in the house, they have been scrubbing and painting. Mother has made her wedding cake, three tiers of a dense fruit cake that she has wrapped in the old flour bags to keep it fresh and ready for icing. There are two big hams hanging from the kitchen ceiling, and Mother has cycled down to the village shop to order grapefruits and bottles of sherry and shop bread.

  In Galway City, the hackney drops them outside a church, a strange stone-fronted church on a city street. Mother and Jo go to Mass there, a holy day of obligation. Mother says that shopping without morning Mass would be flying in the eyes of God; it would bring bad luck on them, on her daughter, on the marital match.

  Mass is over, and the sky is paling to a winter daylight over the city’s slate roofs.

  It thrills Jo—these buses and cars, house after house, shop after shop, lorries and vans. Everything is moving, moving, moving. Jo’s heart skips. I love this. I love all of this, all these vehicles and people.

  Mother and daughter turn down a side street to a shop where Mother tells the shop woman that they’re here for a wedding dress—something sensible and serviceable.

  “Nothing showy,” says Mother. “Above all not showy.”

  From the woman’s offerings, Mother selects a green dress—bottle green, the shop assistant calls it.

  When Jo steps out of the fitting room, there’s the shop woman with the pincushion ready. She stands on tiptoe to pull at the bride’s shoulders, to settle the bottle green dress into place, saying that it will have to be let down, let out, made to fit a girl this size.

  “She’s such a fine strapping girl,” the woman says to Mother. “God bless her. She must have a great appetite.”

  On the wedding morning, the hackney driver knocks on the back-kitchen door to ask for the kettle off the hob. The winter has turned cold at last, bitter cold, so just on the drive up Knockduff Hill, the hackney car windows have frozen over again.

  Then they are all ready at last—the Burke family walking out across the yard, bride and bridesmaid, mother and father. Father wears a trilby hat and a wool topcoat and an extra scarf for his bad chest.

  Then the man drives them down the avenue, down through the fields that are white and hoary with frost.

  After the church, there they are again, driving up the avenue. But this time, there are five cars. In the first one sit Mister and Missus John Dowd.

  The temperature has dropped lower. The hackney man keeps rubbing, rubbing at the windscreen.

  In the car’s back seat, John’s hand has grown sweaty in hers. Jo looks out the back window to see the other cars behind. It’s his people and hers, all of the car wheels spinning, engines revving, the avenue shiny with ice.

  In the end, their driver turns into the front paddock, the tires crunching over the frozen grass. The other cars follow, one after the other, bumping across the field where they have traction at last.

  The car doors bang shut. The women pick their way in high heels. The men pull their topcoats tighter.

  Up the hill they trudge, their footsteps slipping. Jo, who is leading, reaches behind her for her husband’s hand, and he reaches behind him for his mother’s, who reaches for her husband. Now they are a chain of people, a wedding waltz, step, step, stepping up the hill. Then sliding, falling again.

  11

  THE TRAIN CONDUCTOR calls out the station stops: “Athlone! Clara! Tullamore!”

  These are places and towns that John and Jo Dowd, the honeymoon couple, have only heard of on the wireless or in the newspaper. At each country station, people stand waiting with their coat collars pulled up, their breaths fogging on the freezing afternoon. From the train windows, the Dowds watch the pools of frozen water in the fields, the bare trees against the January sky.

  Then at last the train is nudging into Westland Row Station, Dublin. Train doors are suddenly slapping open. On the platform, people push ahead of them toward a waiting bus. They all have a purpose, but not Jo and John. It feels ridiculous, going off on holiday when they should really be at home.

  She stands there waiting for him, watching his slow gait along the city footpath.

  From the train, they walk up along the River Liffey with its smell like stale coffee. Then there’s the porridgy smell of the brewery.

  “That’s the Guinness brewery,” John points, stopping to stare at the street-side gates. “St. James’ Gates. Now fancy that.”

  She hobbles along in her wedding shoes. She wears a winter coat over her going-away suit, which is blue wool, a cream blouse, leather gloves with a little button at the cuff. In her suitcase is her wedding-night trousseau.

  A week ago, in their bedroom, she and Kitty rehearsed that word, whispered to each other and screeched and tittered at its implications. Now, a week, a wedding and a train journey later, the word has turned heavy, sour.

  They walk on, watching the red brake lights from the cars. Across the river, there’s a building with a domed roof: the Four Courts. She recognizes it from a school history book. Then at last, they’re approaching the bridge, O’Connell Bridge, where men and women keep rushing past, their shoulders hunched into the wind from the river.

  “Nelson’s Pillar,” John is pointing out to her. “God, that must be it, there
. Look at it, Jo.” All day, except for their wedding vows, it’s the first time he has actually said her name.

  “Oh, is that a fact?” she asks, feeling suddenly contrite. It’s not his fault: this bitter cold, her high heels, the terror in her belly.

  “It is,” he says. “It is that a fact.”

  They walk on down O’Connell Street. When they reach the GPO, the General Post Office, she waits for him to announce this, too. And she will muster some surprise, even pleasure. But he does not. And then she tells herself again. It’s not his fault.

  They turn into a narrower street, then another, where the houses are much smaller than their own house at home in Knockduff. “Guests & Teas,” says the sign in the window.

  In the doorway, the Dublin woman takes them in, looks them up and down: first Jo, then John. There is something about this County Mayo couple that amuses her. She smirks as she leads them into a doilied little living room, where she inquires about the weather way down the country. She brings biscuits on a plate. She congratulates them on this morning’s nuptials. She smirks again as she says it—nuptials—as if savoring a joke to tell someone later. “God,” the little woman says, “I remember well the morning myself and my poor Jim got married. Above in Whitefriar Street. But Jim is long dead now, God rest him.”

  The tea curdles in Jo’s stomach. Her eyes drift to the ceiling above them, the room upstairs.

  Kitty said that there was a girl who worked with her in the drapery shop who had a friend who had emigrated to England to train as a nurse. The friend had promised to post them back French letters, straight to the shop, so Mother would never know. In England, the girl said, you could just buy French letters in the corner shop, without a bit of shame. Same as you’d buy a lipstick or a packet of fags. From the shop, Kitty sometimes brought home English books and magazines, sneaked them in the house to the sisters’ upstairs bedroom. At night, Kitty would put on an English accent as she read from the magazines’ advice columns: Dear Maggie, I am six years married and we have four children, but I don’t want to have any more in family. Yet every Sunday night, my husband still wants . . .

  Kitty would keep on reading as Jo stuffed the corners of her blanket in her mouth to stop herself laughing and waking Mother and Father.

  On those nights, Kitty declared she would, yes, she really would do it if a fella asked her nicely. But only a fella that was gorgeous and that she was in love with. God, it might be fabulous. And she wouldn’t get in trouble either. Once they arrived in the post, the French letters wouldn’t let her get in trouble.

  The landlady is stacking the tea cups on a tray, saying that in honor of the occasion, she has given them the best room in the house. So off they go now; she wouldn’t dream of delaying them.

  The room is lit by the Dublin streetlight outside their window. Jo had, in fact, been hoping for darkness. The bed sheets are cold. It’s the coldest that Jo has ever been in her life, lying here against the wall in her wedding trousseau. She peers over the blankets at him, where he’s standing there with his back to her, next to the dressing table, stepping out of his wedding trousers. In the streetlights, his legs are waxy white. He looks like a patient in a hospital.

  There is no blood at all. And there’s no giggling or panting, nothing like what Kitty and her English magazines had promised. First there’s the shock, a stab of pain between her legs. But it’s bearable. Much, much worse is the embarrassment, the ridiculousness of a man lying there on top of her grunting, snuffling like a pig.

  12

  JO HOOKS HER CANE on the edge of the kitchen sink and plugs in the electric kettle for tea. This morning she’s going to entice Ned back inside. She’s going to set a place for him at the kitchen table, where they’ll have their breakfast together. Just like old times. Just like when Ned and the seasonal hired men used to come from the hay and the plough field for huge meals of new potatoes and saucepans of cabbage, boiled carrots, pans of roasted mutton from the oven. She can see them now: those men, sunburned and flecked with hayseed sitting around the table, the caps crooked on the chair rails, salt and butter and meat bones sucked dry.

  The morning sky is overcast. In the orchard, the crows are loud and busy. For once, despite the pain tablets, she’s up at a normal time. She checks the electric clock on the wall. Eight o’clock. Where is he? Ned McHugh is never late.

  Last night—was it last night?—Yes, yes, she’s sure of it. There she was, awake as usual, pitch dark outside, and here the pain came creeping through her, her legs, arms trembling. Like someone had plugged her in. So bad she had to switch the lamp on again, rattle the pills in their brown bottle. Christ, Jo thought. Two. Only two of the hospital’s pain tablets left. This time, the pain was so bad that she downed a whole tablet, then lay there, waiting for the trembling to stop, waiting for sleep.

  She must have dozed off. For here she is now, the kettle on the boil and up with the lark and waiting. She has a brilliant plan. God, yes. She should’ve thought of it before.

  Her cheeks feel hot, burning. But the pain hasn’t returned. And her mind is seething sharp. The tablets are great for that.

  She takes the packet of fags from her cardigan pocket. She lights one, then sets it in an empty saucer next to the sink, next to where she crooked her walking stick.

  Wait! Is that the gate, the yard gate clanking shut? Yes. And a car, his old Ford Fiesta bumping across the yard, parking in his usual spot along the orchard wall.

  She watches Ned slip from the car—the small, tidy man, grey moustache and a tweed cap. He looks to the sky, grimaces at the cloudy morning, the thick, cotton-wool clouds.

  Here he is now, the stooped gait, heading for the back door. He doesn’t look at the house, at the kitchen window. She wills him to look, to see her here waiting. She doesn’t want him to get the shock of his life when he finds ma’am up and dressed and the kettle in and her cheeks scalding hot.

  She watches the doorknob turn. It’s like something in a film.

  He lets out a little yelp at the sight of her standing there, up and about and leaning against the sink.

  He pulls off the cap. “Jesus, what’s . . . what’s wrong, ma’am?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Ned. Nothing.” Already she feels some of the excitement wane, and she wonders if the tea, their breakfast together, is a daft idea. Unsuitable. “I’m fine,” she says. “Never better.” The cigarette hand shakes, so she sets the fag back in the saucer. But now she has too many hands. What should she do with them all? She shoves the right hand into her cardigan pocket where she feels the €100 note folded there.

  She cocks her chin at him. “Ned, I need a message from the town. That’s if you wouldn’t mind.”

  His face relaxes, relief flooding.

  “I’ll pay you for your time, your petrol.”

  “Ah . . . no ma’am sure whatever you w—”

  “—I want you to drop into Vet O’Laughlin in the town, in Ballinkeady. Tell them we’ve a beast with a limp in the back leg, one of the black-and-white Fresians that went down, her foot caught in the hazel rock below.”

  His eyebrows furrow, puzzled. “Not a bit of bother, ma’am. But when did you find her? We should bring him out.”

  The electric kettle boils, the water gurgling. The tea. They were going to have lovely hot tea and a bit of a chat. But she’s shaking too much, her body is plugged in again, plugged in and trembling. The kettle boils on, the noise loud between them.

  Her voice comes high, rushed. “No. Arrah, why would we want to draw him on us, that fella? Thinks he’s the cock of the walk. Sure it’s a young heifer, she’ll recover soon.” She laughs, madly, at her own joke—a cackling laugh that makes Ned flinch, the eyes furrowed deeper with worry, then suspicion.

  She picks up the fag again. Takes a puff, blows the smoke out her nose. Better. Yes. Calmer. “Tell him the beast is in pain, and we’re waiting a while before deciding whether to put her down or not. That she might be better if she had relief. So get a few injections or
them patch things—d’ya remember them patch things he gave us for that Charolais there, last year?”

  She gives another cackling laugh. “Lord, I used to think the bullock looked like a bloody child with a nappy on it. Ha, ha, ha.”

  From her cardigan pocket she shoves the €100 at him. She meets his frightened gaze. Look, we both know our little game here, her look says. But just do it. The vet will be a lot easier than the bloody doctor, that young Fitzgerald barging in here and sending me off to some stupid nursing home that’s full of piss and old women. Get me these animal pain things and I’ll never ask again. Never ask for another thing.

  Ned swallows. Then she watches it fully dawn on him, what ma’am is really asking—to drive the three miles into town, a place he rarely goes, never needs to go. But he’ll visit the vet and make up stories about a beast in pain, a beast ready, possibly ready for the place in Ballyhaunis where they slaughter and make pet food out of dead agricultural beasts. A dose, a box of patches—Fentanyl, yes, that’s the name for them—that he’ll bring her, faithfully, leave them with the other cattle doses in the kitchen cupboard as if they don’t both know what they really know.

  “Here,” she whispers, shoving the money toward him. The kettle keeps boiling. It’s supposed to click off. Why won’t the bloody thing switch itself off today? Her cheeks are two hot coals. She’s ready to jump out of her own skin.