Finishing Touches (15 page)

Over and over again, Cassie would reassure her mother, ‘Mam, it was the right thing to do. The fruit-farm is still ours and you always have the option of not renewing the lease but for the
time being you know it will be well looked after until you do decide to run it yourself. And this way you’ve got a steady income and you don’t have to be worrying on that score. Pops
would be very proud of the way you’re handling things.’

‘I hope so!’ Nora would weep and Cassie’s heart ached for her distraught mother.

There had been so much to do in the weeks following Jack’s death. His will had to be taken care of. Cassie had had to help her mother with a lot of business concerning his insurance
policies and bank accounts. Fortunately Jack was an organized man and everything was fairly straightforward. Eventually all that remained to be done was for her father’s clothes to be
disposed of.

‘Cassie, I can’t do that,’ Nora sobbed. ‘Will you decide what to do with them and take care of them for me?’ Cassie’s heart sank. It was the one thing she
dreaded. Getting rid of Jack’s clothes was so final. Like banishing him from the home. At least with his clothes hanging in the wardrobe you could pretend that all was well and he was just
out in the fields. Don’t ask me to do it, she wanted to beg her mother. She was so weary. So tired of having to make decisions for everybody. But it was something that had to be done, this
final thing that would really confirm that Jack was gone for ever.

In the end, Aunt Elsie came to her rescue. ‘I’ll help you,’ she told her beleaguered niece over the telephone. ‘The sooner you do it the better for yourself and Nora.
Meet me off the train. I’ll stay for the weekend.’ They spent an afternoon sorting out Jack’s belongings. The clothes that were good enough to give to the St Vincent de Paul they
washed and ironed. The rest Elsie put in a refuse sack which Martin and John burned. Cassie cried her eyes out. She kept a plaid shirt, one of Jack’s favourites, for herself. She could still
get the scent of her father on it and she hugged it close, rubbing her cheek against its worn softness, whispering his name over and over. Nora kept her husband’s dressing-gown.

Cassie sat her Leaving Certificate less than a month after Jack died. It was almost impossible to study but it was a relief in a way to go back to school and try and get some
revision done for her exams. All the teachers and nuns were very sympathetic to her – even Mother Perpetua did her best – and encouraged her to put her heart into her studies. The
thought of the exams took her mind off her great loss and the disruption at home, and when the time came to sit them she managed to blot out her grief and concentrate on the papers. On the day of
her maths exam, Cassie had felt her heart sink as she read the paper. Maths had never been her strongest subject. At the desk in front, Laura, head down, was busily writing. Maths was no problem to
Laura. To her left, Aileen was looking extremely perplexed. They caught each other’s gaze. Aileen threw her eyes heavenwards and grimaced dramatically. Cassie grinned.

Cassie managed to answer a few questions and was sitting chewing her pen, pondering the relationship between
a, b
and
c
on a linear equation. She was flummoxed. She sat in the
silent exam hall, staring into space. Then a very strange thing happened. For a brief moment she had the strongest sense of her father; then her mind seemed to clear and the answer to the problem
just came into her head. ‘Thank you, Pops,’ she whispered. Laura had given her a prayer when Jack died and it gave Cassie great comfort. She learnt it off by heart and said it to
herself each night. It was called ‘Togetherness.’ Now she said it to herself, knowing that somehow Jack had been with her in her difficulties.

They were exactly the words that Pops would have said to her. He of all people would not want her to be mournful. He would always be with her – hadn’t he just proved it by helping
her with her maths paper in her hour of need? He hadn’t left her at all!

With a lighter heart, Cassie turned her attention back to her maths paper, and when the exam was over, she was cautiously optimistic that she had passed. As usual, the whole gang gathered
afterwards in Kentucky Fried Chicken, to discuss their answers over snack boxes and coffee.

‘I know I’ve failed,’ wailed Aileen, running inky fingers through her coppery curls. ‘It was a woeful paper, an absolute disaster! I’ve a good mind to complain to
the Department of Education. It’s put me off my lunch!’

‘Calm down,’ instructed Laura, the mathematical expert of the gang. She had taken the honours paper. She glanced through the paper. ‘Hmm, tricky enough. What answer did you get
for this one?’

The rest of them compared their answers and most of them seemed to have achieved similar results.

‘See this one about naming the triangle? That wasn’t too difficult,’ Laura remarked, smiling comfortingly at the downcast Aileen, who brightened up immediately.

‘That was dead easy. I thought it was a bit of a trick question actually,’ Aileen replied, forgetting that she had lost her appetite and cheerfully taking a bite out of her chicken
leg.

Laura’s face fell. ‘What made you think that? You had to name the triangle, A, B or C, whichever was the appropriate one. It’s quite a straightforward question.’

Aileen’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh dear!’ she murmured. ‘I couldn’t think what they meant. So in the end I thought they just wanted us to name the triangle and I
couldn’t think what to do.’

‘What did you call it?’ Laura said sternly.

Aileen grimaced.

‘Come on! Tell us!’ Cassie grinned. Knowing Aileen, it was bound to be good.

‘Well,’ said the mathematical genius to her captivated audience, ‘I named it Fred!’

The girls nearly fell off their chairs laughing.

Several months later when the exam results came out, it was no surprise that Aileen had failed maths! Cassie had done much better than she had hoped for. All her studying had paid off and,
despite the trauma of her father’s death, she had coped well with her exams and had earned the coveted place in the School of Architecture in Bolton Street. Nora did not greet the news
enthusiastically. She pointed out to her daughter that if she were to continue studying for another four years Cassie would be twenty-one before she was in a position to get a job. With four other
children to educate she had finances to think about. And besides, Nora remarked, a lovely-looking girl like Cassie would certainly get married and have children and what use would her qualification
in architecture be to her then? Nora firmly believed that women should stay at home and look after their children and allow men to be the breadwinners.

Women can have children
and
a career, Cassie wanted badly to retort. She wanted to argue with her mother about her attitudes and she desperately wanted to study architecture. Laura was
going to UCD to study law and they had planned to share digs. Nora nearly had a fit when her daughter presented her with this scenario.

‘But Cassie, I need you here. I’d be worried sick about you up there in Dublin on your own and I’ve enough to be worrying about without that. I’m very surprised at Mrs
Quinn allowing Laura to live in Dublin. Why can’t she go in and out on the train? Anyway, that’s the Quinns’ business. Laura is getting a grant. You wouldn’t be eligible for
one and I just couldn’t afford to support you for the next four years, Cassie.’

‘I’d support myself!’ Cassie said earnestly. ‘I’ll get a part-time job in a pub or supermarket. They stay open late in Dublin, I’m sure I’d have no
trouble finding a job.’

Nora bristled. ‘Indeed and you will not get a job working late in a pub or a supermarket. I’m not having you out at all hours in a strange city. The streets aren’t safe to walk
on up there. Mrs Atkins had her bag snatched at Amiens Street station in broad daylight! Imagine what it’s like at night! No, Cassie, I’m sorry, I can’t allow it. I’d never
forgive myself if anything happened to you. Jack wouldn’t have allowed it,’ she declared.

He would! He would! Cassie wanted to yell. Jack would have talked her mother round, calming her fears, making a joke about her and Laura living together in the big smoke. What did her mother
want her to do? Live in Port Mahon for the rest of her life? If only Donie hadn’t decided to go and become a priest, maybe he might have persuaded her mother to allow her to come and live in
Dublin by promising Nora he’d take care of Cassie. But no! He had to let her down as well by going and shutting himself up in the seminary in Maynooth, where he was no use to her at all.

It had been an awful shock for Cassie when Donie told her right out of the blue after her father died that he had decided to enter the religious life. Cassie had been devastated. They had been
dating for months and she was really happy being with him. There was something so kind and nice about Donie. He treated her so well and with such respect. Too much respect, she had often thought
ruefully. It was always he who stopped their lovemaking and drew back when things were getting hot and heavy.

At the beginning Cassie had been very impressed by his restraint. Obviously Donie respected her and that was good. He never mauled her or groped her and he always made her feel special. But as
their relationship progressed and her feelings for him grew stronger, Cassie, unable to ignore the natural desires of her young body, wished that he would occasionally forget his restraint and
experiment a bit more. There were lots of things you could do without actually doing ‘it.’ She couldn’t bring herself to discuss the problem with the girls. After all, Aileen was
now a woman of the world, having been deflowered in the Skylon Hotel in Drumcondra, where she had spent a weekend of glorious abandon with her soldier lover before he was posted off to a tour of
duty in the Middle East. Mrs O’Shaughnessy was under the impression that her daughter was staying at a house run by a religious order that was holding an open weekend for young girls who felt
they might have a vocation!

Laura and Cassie had been vastly impressed by Aileen’s daring and deeply envious of the fact that she was no longer a virgin. And to have stayed the weekend in a hotel with a man! How
thrillingly sophisticated! And the amazing thing was that their friend felt not the slightest bit of guilt. Not even the teeniest bit. She had thoroughly enjoyed herself, she had told the girls.
Now that she was getting the hang of it. It had been a bit disappointing the first time. Aileen was nothing if not honest.

‘Did you bleed when your hymen broke?’ Laura asked, fascinated.

Aileen made a face. ‘Don’t talk to me. Believe me, girls, the first time is not the slightest bit romantic. We’ve been led up the garden path there, I can tell you, but things
do improve. It’s rather nice doing it in the shower.’

Laura and Cassie nearly choked with envy. Cassie knew, no matter how hard she tried to assure herself that she was a woman of the Seventies, that if she made love to Donie, she’d be
riddled with guilt! Riddled with it! This angered her deeply. Why should she feel guilty about something that was obviously so nice and pleasurable? Why was sex invented if people were made to feel
guilty about it? Not that Cassie wasn’t aware of the dangers relating to sex. Hadn’t she seen with Laura’s elder sister exactly what could happen as a result of having sex without
taking precautions? Jill was now living on her unmarried mother’s allowance trying to raise a child by herself. Aileen had assured the girls that she had used a contraceptive and they
expected nothing less of her. They would act the same when their time came. If their time
ever
came, thought Cassie mournfully. Laura would do it when the time was right for her. But
Cassie and her guilts – would she ever do it? Or would she die wondering, that is, unless she got married? What a woeful thought!

‘You’re always feeling guilty about something or other, Cassie Jordan,’ she snapped at herself in irritation. ‘I wish you’d cop on to yourself. You’re a real
pain in the neck.’

Donie was no help whatsoever. ‘It’s not right, Cassie,’ he’d say miserably when she tried to tell him that she was quite willing to be a bit more adventurous. She
wondered unhappily if it were because she was not desirable enough. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she was sex-mad or even a bit of a nymphomaniac and that was scaring Donie off! Romance had its
problems, that was for sure.

When Donie told her one evening that he was thinking of becoming a priest, she was utterly shocked. She felt even more of a failure. If she had been desirable enough, surely he would never have
even contemplated such a course of action. If Donie had told her there was another woman in his life, she could not have been more dismayed.

The girls were speechless when she finally told them. ‘Bloody idiot!’ Aileen snorted. ‘What a waste!’

‘Imagine going to confession to Donie Kiely!’ Laura muttered glumly, giving Cassie a comforting hug.

‘Don’t hate me,’ Donie begged Cassie, the weekend before he left for Maynooth.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Cassie had said miserably. ‘Of course I don’t hate you.’

‘Cassie, you’re the only one I’ve ever loved. But at least I’ve got to see if I can get this out of my system. Maybe it won’t work out. But I think it will.
It’s something I’ve been putting off for years and I can’t ignore it any longer. Try to understand. Try to be my friend at least.’