The Story of Lucy Gault

Bridget would say she’d need help to get their room ready for them. They’d put flowers in it and open the windows. They’d put hot-water jars in the bed. ‘We’ll get the trap out,’ Henry would say and he’d clean it down, ready for them too. They’d be cross with her and it wouldn’t matter. All the time they were cross with her it wouldn’t matter.

‘Oh, I remember Kerry Creams is the favourite,’ Mrs McBride said. She came round to the front of the counter, where the glass-topped biscuit tins were arranged along the counter’s edge. She swung up the glass cover of the Kerry Creams and Lucy took one.

The first time she went with Henry to the creamery he lifted her up on to the counter and she sat there with her lemonade, the first time she’d seen the stout foaming when it was poured. Six she was then.

‘Give me ten,’ Henry said, and Mrs McBride said she had only fives and Henry said two fives then. Woodbines he always smoked. The only other cigarette he’d ever tried was a Kerry Blue. He told Lucy that once. He showed her the Kerry Blue packet, with the dog on it. Sweet Afton her papa smoked.

‘How’s herself, Henry?’

‘Arrah, not bad.’

‘Have you the list handy?’

He found Bridget’s grocery list and handed it across the counter and Mrs McBride collected the items. Mrs McBride didn’t like her any more even though she’d given her the biscuit. Mrs McBride was the same as everyone else, except Henry and Bridget.

‘I’ve no strawberry jam, Henry. Only raspberry in a pound pot.’

‘Will raspberry do, Lucy? Would we say it would?’

She nodded, bent over her glass, not wanting to speak because Mrs McBride was there. Mr Sullivan still didn’t like her either.

‘Keiller’s is a good jam,’ Mrs McBride said.

‘None better,’ Henry agreed, although Lucy had never seen him putting jam on his bread. He smeared on lots of butter and sometimes he sprinkled salt on it. He often said he didn’t have a sweet tooth.

‘The greengage is good,’ Mrs McBride said, and then she talked about the meat sandwiches she made for the army lads when they called in, a bunch of them going by at night. They came out from the Camp in Enniseala to go dancing at Old Fort Crossroads. They got hungry on the way, she said. ‘Mike makes the sandwiches too big,’ she said, referring to her husband. ‘Thick as two doorsteps he has them. Sure, no young soldier could get his teeth at them.’

Not listening any more, Lucy read the advertisements: for Ryan’s Towel Soap, and corned beef and whiskey and Guinness’s stout. She’d asked her papa what Guinness was when they saw it written up and he said it was the stuff Henry drank. There was a bottle of whiskey they’d left behind, only a little gone from it. Power’s it was.

‘Thank you,’ she said when they were on the cart again, when Henry had lit another cigarette. The grey paper bags that held the groceries were at their feet. Far ahead of them two other carts were bringing back their empty churns too.

‘Get on there,’ Henry urged the horse, shaking the reins. He pushed his hat back a bit in order to catch the sun on his forehead. Already the first of his summer freckles had come.

8

She watched the butterfly disappear and then come back, the magician’s wizened fingers splayed in triumph, the butterfly’s wings slowly folding away their bright pink and gold. The magician’s expression never changed. There was always his pursed smile, his stare, his parchment cheeks. Only his arms ever moved.

On the stairs there were Everard’s footsteps and then his key in the lock. He brought the shopping in. He’d been to the railway station as well, he said.

‘How good you are to me!’ Heloise murmured. For months, while she had rested, he’d read to her from books in English he’d found in a bookseller’s two streets away. He had cooked her meals and washed her nightdresses, had brushed her hair and brought her make-up to her. He had listened again while she remembered moments from her childhood. From the Saturday markets he brought back cups and saucers and plates, and china ornaments that would make their rooms more their own, storing away what had been supplied.

She watched while he wound up the clockwork of the magician. He had bought it to divert her while she rested, until early one morning her baby was lost and the doctor who’d been sent for struggled to find words when he learnt about miscarriages in the past. Commiserating but firm, he instructed that what had been attempted should not be again.

‘If it is what you would like,’ she said when the toy was still. ‘Yes, of course it would be nice.’

Fearing that her present lassitude would cling to her, the Captain had suggested that they should visit the great Italian cities. ‘Just once in a while,’ he had persuaded, ‘to be somewhere else for a week or so.’ He had read to her from the guide-book he’d bought, drawn her attention to photographs of buildings and sculpture, of frescoes and mosaics.

‘Of course,’ Heloise answered his further coaxing now. ‘Somewhere different would be nice.’