The Glass Lake (55 page)

         

The rains came and the tree house was very damp. It needed a firmer roof. Tommy Bennet the postman was a helpful man.

“Do you know what would be a great ease to me, Tommy, is a couple of sheets of lino or tarpaulin, something that would keep that rain out of a caravan.”

“Now, Sister, I've told you a thousand times they could buy and sell us, those tinkers.”

“I'm not talking about the traveling people across the lake who are good friends to this community but about another friend who has a caravan. You often ask if there's anything you could do for me. This is something I couldn't thank you enough for.”

“Say no more.” Tommy Bennet hated these people taking advantage of the kind nun. “I'll have it for you in a day or two.” As he left the house he put on his cape. The rain was lashing against the door. “Ah, would you look at that,” he said. “The poor little kitten is half drowned in a big dish of water.”

“What? Where?” Sister Madeleine ran out in the rain, mindless of getting wet.

There it was, panting and struggling for life but obviously nearly gone. “Let me finish her off in the barrel, poor little thing. She's not going to make it.” Tommy had a kind heart.

“No,” Sister Madeleine cried.

“Ah, look at it, Sister. It's gasping for breath, it's dying. Be kind to it. We can't will it back to life. Be fair to it, Sister. It was blind anyway, always hitting into things. Maybe we should have let it go at the start.”

Tears were mixed with rain on Sister Madeleine's face. “Drown it then, Tommy,” she said, and turned away.

It took only a few seconds for the small, wet limbs to stop moving.

“There, Sister. All at peace now,” he said.

He wondered at the nun. She took the body and put it into a box that had once held cornflakes. “I'll bury her later,” she said. Other animals had died—she had the place surrounded with little crosses, she knew what foxes and tame hares and elderly dogs lay under each simple marker. Why was there such a fuss about a poor blind kitten that everyone had said she was mad to have kept in the first place? He wasn't to know that she saw the kitten as an omen, some kind of sign that she hadn't always done the right thing.

         

“I've stopped saying my prayers but you're the kind of woman that would bring me back to them,” said Francis Xavier Byrne as he chewed the lamp chops down to the bone.

The young Hickey boy had been so grateful for a reference that Sister Madeleine had written him, he had agreed to do anything for her. “Just the odd bit of meat, whenever you think there's some your parents don't need. I don't want you to take from their earnings,” she had said. He understood that he wasn't to tell them about it either. “Is it for the gypsies?” he asked. “It's for someone who needs meat to make them strong,” she said.

“We could always say a prayer together, Francis,” she said.

“What would we pray for?”

“We could give thanks that Kathleen Sullivan is out of hospital and back in her house again.”

“I don't have all that sympathy for her, to be honest. She came at me herself like a demon out of hell.”

“Well, you were attacking her and robbing her son's premises. Just because you stay here I don't want you to think that I approve of everything you do.”

“But you know why I did it.”

“Do I?”

“You know I didn't mean to do it. I needed something to keep going. I couldn't be cooped up. You said yourself that you hated the feeling of being cooped up.”

“I didn't rob and steal and hit people to get out of it.”

“You didn't need to, Sister,” he said.

And again the sureness came back that she was doing the right thing.

         

“Do you know I think you got a suntan even in this weather,” Stevie said admiringly to Anna Kelly.

“Well, they always say it's the wind that tans you,” she said, smiling.

“Only one more year and then you'll be a free woman,” he said, looking up and down the tall blond girl with the perfect teeth and the bright smile.

Anna liked the admiration. “Free from school, but not what you'd call free, Stevie Sullivan,” she said.

“And what would I call free?”

“Oh, something much racier than me altogether,” she said.

She went home pleased with herself. It wasn't bad to have the two best-looking fellows in Lough Glass interested in her. Not that she'd pay any attention to Stevie. Everyone knew what he had been up to.

They were old enough now to have a flat in Dublin. Everyone thought that Kit and Clio would share. Everyone in Lough Glass, that was. Except perhaps Maura.

“Won't you be lonely in a little bed-sitter of your own?” Martin worried about his daughter.

“No, Dad. and it's so near college and everything…”

“But if you were to share with Clio…you could both afford somewhere nicer.”

“We'd do no work…we'd be laughing and talking all the time. Anyway, we have different friends in Dublin.”

Maura glanced at him and Martin let the matter drop.

         

Frankie helped Kit to move into her little room.

“I wish there was room for you in our place,” she said. “But I was the last one in so I can't throw any of the others out.”

“No, I mean it, I like being on my own.”

And mainly Kit did like being by herself. She could study when she wanted to and if she needed friends she could go to Frankie's flat or to see Clio, who had also got a place on her own. But Michael O'Connor spent a lot of time there. Clio's need to be without flatmates had a lot to do with Michael O'Connor's idea of entertainment. Not that she would ever let on to them back home.

“Now, isn't that fine.” Frankie admired that way she had tacked a brightly colored bedspread to the wall and fitted linoleum onto the little shelf where the kitchen things assembled by Maura were arranged.

Frankie's brother Paddy, the law student, had helped them too. “I pretended I was delivering a summons,” he said.

“You'll get fired one day.” Kit was amazed at how casually Paddy took his job.

“Nephew of the boss! Not a chance,” he said cheerfully.

“Oh well, then,” Kit laughed at him.

“Hey, why don't I just put in an appearance in the office, show them I'm alive, and then take you girls to beans and chips?”

He made it sound a great outing. Kit and Frankie said it was the best offer they had had all week.

He was back in fifteen minutes, racing up the stairs waving a paper and so excited that he could hardly speak. “You won't believe it! He's paid, he's paid. I have the check here for you!”

“What, what?”

“Fingers O'Connor. A check from him in absolute settlement. He fell for it…he's paid what we asked for…”

The girls looked at him in disbelief. “But isn't it illegal…I mean it's not a real demand…from a real solicitor,” Kit said.

“Could you get struck off the rolls before you get onto them?” Frankie wondered.

“No, it's all legitimate…look at what he's written…” The letter was addressed to Paddy.

Dear Mr. Barry
,

I am sure I can rely on your discretion in this matter. The statement attributed to my son Kevin is agreed to be entirely false, and shall never be repeated. I am enclosing a check made payable to Miss McMahon, who has my son's assurances that no further statement of this nature shall ever be made concerning her character or behavior to any other person
.

If there are legal fees above and beyond this I shall be happy to pay them. Please mark any correspondence in this matter
STRICTLY PRIVATE
.

I look forward to hearing from you
.

Yours,
Francis Fingleton O'Connor

They whooped with delight when Paddy finished reading it out.

“Can we keep it, do you think?” Kit said.

“You can…you earned it by being reported as unchaste.”

“I'll take you out to something better than beans and chips,” Kit said.

“We have to cash it first,” Frankie said.

“Fingers's check won't bounce,” Paddy said.

“What will you do about fees? You can't get your office to send him a bill when they don't know they've sent him this.” Kit hardly dared to think it was true.

“Oh, I'll write him a generous letter and say that since he paid so promptly and that since you are a personal friend of mine I will not charge any fee. That leaves me in the clear.”

“You're terrific, Paddy,” Kit said.

He looked embarrassed. His freckled face reddened and he didn't know how to take the compliment.

“What's this about a slap-up meal?” he said.

“Anywhere you like,” Kit said. Paddy Barry's letter had got her the kind of sum of money she would never have dreamed of. The whole year's allowance for pocket money that she got from her father.

Weren't these old-fashioned laws about women's reputations absolutely marvelous?

         

“Hi Philip, it's Kit.”

“Yes?” His voice sounded fearful. What was she going to throw at him now?

“I'm going to take you out on the town for a great night out,” she said.

“You are?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“Don't make fun of me, Kit. Please.”

“I swear I want to take you on a treat. Suppose someone asked you, what would you say? Don't think what I'd like, think what you'd like.”

“I'd like to go to the pictures first, to
Mon Oncle
, the French one, you know, like
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
we saw, then I'd like to go to Jammets for just a main course, not a full meal. I'd love to see the way they serve it.”

“Done,” said Kit. “Where'll we meet? Let's look up the times at the cinema.”

“Why, Kit?”

“Because you're my friend.”

“No. Why really?”

“Because thanks to you I got a fortune from awful Kevin O'Connor. A fortune.”

“How much?”

“You'll never know, you'll have your night out and that's it.”

         

Kit went to Switzer's in Grafton Street and bought a lace nightdress for Clio. She gave it to her in a box all wrapped in tissue.

“What's this?” Clio was suspicious.

“The ape paid, the big bad ape, he ran for cover. I owe it to you.”

“They all think you're cracked, you know. A screw loose is what they say.”

“Good. Then I won't have to be bridesmaid.”

“Stop making jokes. What did he say when he gave you the money?”

“He said nothing. It was all done through solicitors with mutual assurances of confidentiality.”

“So how much did you get?”

“You heard me, assurances of confidentiality.”

“I'm your friend. I'm the one who put you on the track.”

“You get a nightie. Enjoy it, though how you could I do not know.”

“You're no authority on anything.”

“I know. Don't you keep reminding me.”

         

“Why can't Emmet come up to Dublin for a weekend? I'll show him the ropes,” Kit said.

“We might all go together sometime,” Maura suggested.

“No, I'd love to show my little brother Dublin. Go on, Maura. Let me feel like a big important person,” Kit pleaded. Maura's smile was so warm and nice, Kit felt a heel.

Maura gave in at once. Emmet was to come to town.

Philip lived in a flat now so there would be a bed for Emmet there. “Only if you don't hang on and spy, and follow and do all those awful things,” Kit said.

“I told you that phase of my life is over,” Philip said. He was much nicer now. The night at Jammets, Dublin's poshest restaurant, had been a huge success. Philip had discussed wines with the waiters as if he were a regular customer.

“What are you going to do to entertain him?” Philip asked.

“I warned you, no spying,” Kit threatened.

“What do I care what you do?” Philip asked. “Even if my future brother-in-law is shown none of his capital city I'll say nothing.”

“That's the boy,” Kit said approvingly.