Finishing Touches Page 12

  Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.

  Let my name be the household name it always was. Let it be spoken without the shadow of a ghost in it.

  Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.

  What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of your sight?

  All is well, nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

  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 co
ntraceptive 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.’

  ‘We’ll always be friends,’ Cassie comforted the troubled young man at her side. She cared too deeply for him to end their relationship on a note of reproach. He looked terribly relieved and held her close and she knew deep in her heart that Donie Kiely would come out of Maynooth a priest.

  He did become a priest but for the rest of her life, he was one of her staunchest friends, a pillar of strength in her life.

  If only he had waited at least until she was settled in Dublin, life would have been much simpler. But with Donie in Maynooth, and Nora in the frame of mind she was in, Cassie’s dream of a career in architecture was shattered. Unwilling to upset her mother, she stayed in Port Mahon and began a secretarial course that left her screaming with boredom and frustration.

  Ten

  ‘You’ll have to practise, I’m afraid, Miss O’Shaughnessy,’ Cassie heard Sister Madeline tell Aileen. She too had been told to practise closing a door while keeping her eyes firmly on the interviewers. They were now going to practise seating themselves gracefully in their chairs while still facing their interviewers. This was all a result of the visit to Saint Imelda’s by a deportment and etiquette teacher, Miss Vera Wrigley, who went to schools all around the country giving advice to girls. They learnt how to ‘start from the outside in’ when faced with a bewildering array of cutlery at a formal luncheon or dinner. They learnt how to press their peas against their forks rather than spearing them and having them pop into their partner’s lap and cause embarrassment all round. They were advised on grooming and warned not to have too heavy a hand with their make-up.

  ‘You don’t want to look as if you’ve put it on with a trowel,’ Miss Wrigley recommended, ‘and, besides, young men prefer a more natural look.’ She showed them how to walk properly. ‘Shoulders up. Head straight. Abdominal muscles tucked in with arms swinging loosely by the side and fingers loosely bent.’ They spent an hour and a half marching around the yard in single file, practising their deportment and feeling like prats. And all the time Cassie and Aileen were stuck in Saint Imelda’s Commercial College for Young Ladies, Laura was up in Dublin as free as a bird, leading a wonderful life on campus. Cassie and Aileen were going mad with envy.

  They might as well be still at school, Cassie reflected dolefully as the bell went for the end of class and they prepared to go to the typing-room. True, they were called ‘Miss’ and they had a common-room where they could smoke if they wished. But bells still went, homework had to be done, and life was altogether unexciting. Even having a smoke didn’t give the same satisfaction as the illicit smoking parties in the boarders’ bathroom used to give. The thrill was gone out of it when you were allowed to do it.

  The interviews for the banks were coming up, hence the practice and preparation for interviews. Cassie and Aileen had already sent in application forms for the position of clerical officer in both Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council. In the meantime they were learning to type and do shorthand and book-keeping and accounts. Aileen and book-keeping did not see eye to eye. She could not get the hang of debit the receiver and credit the giver, much to Sister James’s exasperation.

  Sister James was almost six foot tall. Skinny and angular, with a beaky nose and a sharp tongue, she was one of the most self-righteous, self-important, puffed-up busybodies it had ever been their misfortune to meet. The entire class loathed Sister James. Mother Perpetua was a darling in comparison. In particular, Aileen and Sister James could not stand each other. From their first encounter, when Aileen’s début accounting exercise did not balance, it had been all-out war. Aileen was at a disadvantage because she was not mathematically inclined, a disadvantage that the gawky nun exploited to the full. Still, Aileen was well able for her and the rest of the class eagerly looked forward to their spats. Today they would have Sister James for last class after their typing and then they were free for the weekend.

  Clacking away on her manual typewriter, Cassie tried to concentrate. It was almost the middle of October but they were having an Indian summer and there was still great heat in the sun, which was blazing in through the windows and making her feel extremely lethargic. It reminded her of the Fridays when she was still at school and longing for the weekend to start. She stifled a sigh. That was the problem – this college was like school, not a real college. If things had gone according to plan, she should have been up in Bolton Street, studying architecture. Instead she was stuck at a typewriter in Saint Imelda’s with the likelihood of being stuck in Port Mahon for the rest of her life. This was a thought that filled her with dismay. It was quite obvious that even if she did get a job in Dublin, Nora would expect her to commute daily. To do otherwise would be seen as a betrayal of the family.

  It was a problem that taxed Cassie’s brain many a night. Was she being selfish in wanting to go and share a flat with the girls in Dublin? Was Nora right to expect her to stay at home? Was that where her duty lay? For all Nora would see of her, she might as well be living in Dublin anyway. After all, it would be almost seven by the time the train rolled into Port Mahon station. If she decided to go out for a few hours, she wouldn’t be home before twelve, and then she’d be going to bed. The next morning she’d leave the house before eight to get to work on time. She might as well not be there.

  Aileen was in the same boat. Her mother had been widowed some years before and there were just the two girls, Aileen and Judy. Mrs O’Shaughnessy was not happy about her elder daughter’s future plans. For years, Aileen had had to tell her mother the most outrageous fibs in order to be able to lead any kind of a life. It wasn’t that she wanted to be telling fibs, she moaned to the girls, and she genuinely meant it. But if she didn’t, she would never have been allowed to do anything, and would have had no life at all. It was a matter of self-preservation!

  Laura had observed her mother’s life as a skivvy to her father and decided years before that she was having none of it. She had hardened herself so that when the time came, she had been able to leave home with not an ounce of guilt or regret. As she said to Cassie and Aileen, her mother had made her bed and was lying on it, unwilling to make any changes in her life. No woman
had to put up with what Anne Quinn put up with unless she wanted to.

  ‘Don’t be emotionally blackmailed!’ Laura had advised her two friends. ‘It’s not fair. You’re not children any longer. You’re adults and you’ve got to take responsibility for your own lives, just as your mothers have got to take responsibility for theirs. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be any less supportive or that you won’t be there when they need you. And don’t ever think it. Don’t dare feel one bit guilty!’ Laura was very firm about it and Cassie envied her for the way she could reason things out and make decisions that were not clouded by feelings of guilt or responsibility.

  She knew Laura was right and she could see that it wasn’t she who was being selfish, but her mother. And yet . . . and yet . . . Nora was her mother and how could she leave her in the lurch so soon after Jack’s death? But she’d have to do it some time and so would Aileen, and the longer they left it, the harder it would be. Sighing, she continued typing for the umpteenth time, ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’

  ‘I’m really looking forward to going up to see Laura tomorrow. Aren’t you?’ Aileen said cheerfully as they sat waiting for Sister James to arrive for their last class. ‘I’m dying to see UCD.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Cassie. ‘It sounds so exciting. All the blokes she’s meeting and all the parties she’s going to. She’s having a ball. I don’t know how she gets any studying done. What with her part-time jobs and all.’

  ‘There’s one thing about Laura. She knows what she wants and she goes for it. She’ll get her degree without any problem.’ The arrival of Sister James cut short any further conversation and they began to study the intricacies of the petty-cash book. All went well for a while and then Aileen was asked a question. Aileen, who had been mentally rehearsing the part of Mrs Pearse, which she was playing in the Port Mahon Dramatic Society’s production of My Fair Lady, was taken completely by surprise.