The Teacher at Donegal Bay

She opened a tin of peas, flung down the opener and strode across the kitchen towards me. For a moment I thought she was about to strike me, so hostile was the look on her face.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, with exaggerated politeness.

I moved hastily aside as she wrenched open a cupboard behind me and pulled out a saucepan.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ I asked quietly.

She tipped the peas into the saucepan so fiercely the unpleasant-looking green liquid splattered the work surface. She tossed her head and smiled a tight little smile. ‘Well, you might just think of putting a comb through your hair.’

Without a word, I turned and left the kitchen, collected my handbag and made for the stairs. As I passed the dining-room door, I looked in, smiled with a cheerfulness I certainly didn’t feel and pulled an imaginary lavatory chain. My father grinned, looked somewhat relieved, and picked up his paper again.

I locked the bathroom door and glanced around. I felt like the hero in a B movie, looking for something to barricade it with. But there was nothing handy. Brightly lit and dazzlingly clean, all the room offered me was multiple images of myself.

I sat down on the pink velvet stool in front of the vanity unit and stared at a face I hardly recognised. The dark eyes that had won me the part of Elizabeth Bennett in a school production were dull and lifeless, with deep shadows under them. My pale complexion looked much too pale and my long, dark hair had come to the end of the week before I had. I pulled the ribbon from my pony tail and watched the dark mass flop around my face.

‘How about the witch of Endor?’ I said aloud as I pulled faces in the mirror. ‘You look just right for the part.’

But I couldn’t laugh. My dear mother was no laughing matter. I sighed and tipped out my make-up on the immaculate grey surface in front of me. If I did a proper job I might just work off some of the anger I was feeling.

I slid open the nearest bathroom cabinet. My mother never throws anything away and I was sure I’d seen a bottle of cleansing cream the last time I had to look for an aspirin. There it was, at the back, a brand I hadn’t used since I was a teenager. As the cold liquid touched my skin, the faint floral fragrance stirred layers of memory. I shivered.

Harvey’s wedding. My mother in an expensive silk suit. Daddy looking handsome in tails. Everywhere the smell of carnations. Buttonholes for the ushers and sprays for female relatives. My mother had helped me into my bridesmaid’s dress of pink organza and tulle. It was not what I would have chosen, but I had to admit it was pretty and the posy and garland of fresh flowers for my hair that Mavis had sent had quite delighted me. My best friend, Valerie, said the garland made me look like Titania.

I enjoyed the wedding. Managed to do the right thing at the right time. Drank my first glass of champagne and danced with all Harvey’s colleagues after the meal. I even managed to kiss Harvey goodbye with a fair imitation of sisterly love, given how supercilious and condescending he had become since his graduation from medical school. Everything seemed to go so well that I was completely unprepared for the storm that broke over me once we were home from the reception.

I was standing in my slip in my bedroom, the pink organza at my feet, when my mother stalked in and just let fly. I still don’t know what I said or did to provoke her outburst. She said I was full of myself, didn’t know how to behave, was spoilt, big-headed, lazy and idle, and that Mavis would never have asked me to be her bridesmaid if it hadn’t been for her. I’d made a real exhibition of myself at the reception, hadn’t I, smiling up at all the men and chattering away to Mavis’s family as if I actually knew them.

Hurt and taken by surprise, I had demanded to know what exactly was so wrong about the way I’d behaved. What had she expected of me that I hadn’t done? And if I’d done something awful, why hadn’t Daddy said anything? That was when she shouted at me so loudly Daddy heard her in the garage and came hurrying upstairs. Then she turned on him.

It was all his fault. He had spoilt me since I was no size. Running after me and giving me everything I asked for. Always reading to me, and books not suitable for a young girl. Now I was so full of myself there was no standing me. I just did what I liked and walked over her. And he was just as bad as I was. It was two to one against her, all the time.

I applied a little lipstick to my chin and cheekbones and pressed powder gently over fresh foundation. Sometimes the tricks of the drama workshop came in handy. A new face in six minutes flat. But new perspectives take longer, much longer.

From that day, in my seventeenth year, I was never easy at home again and seldom felt free to enjoy my father’s company as I had before. We still did some of the things we’d done previously, theatre, concerts and poetry readings, but there was always a price to pay. Either my mother would insist on coming with us and then pour scorn on whatever we had enjoyed, or she would insist she knew when she wasn’t wanted, stay at home and then sulk for days.

I escaped when I married. But for my father there was no escape. I put my make-up away and wiped up the flecks of powder with a piece of Supersoft toilet paper. Then I mopped up the drops of water in the handbasin. There must be nothing for her to complain about when I was gone. For a long time now, this kind of avoidance had helped me get by. But it didn’t solve anything. As I walked slowly down the thickly-carpeted stairs, I knew I had problems that couldn’t be avoided any longer.

‘Come on now, George. At least come to the table when it’s ready. That’s your father’s,’ she said, handing me a hot plate.

She glared at me as I put it down quickly and picked it up again with my napkin.

‘Thank you, dear,’ he said quietly as I put it in front of him.

He did not look up at me. The effort of walking across the room and bending down to switch off the television had left him breathless. His skin had a slight yellowy look. But he seemed composed, at ease almost, as if nothing she did could trouble him any more.

‘There isn’t any pudding,’ she announced as she sat down heavily, a drained look on her face. ‘But there’s plenty of fruit in the bowl.’

I passed her the potatoes. She waved them away. ‘No potatoes for me, I’m dieting.’ She spooned a large helping of peas on to her plate and studied the beef casserole minutely for traces of fat. ‘You wouldn’t know what to have sometimes,’ she said in a pained tone.

An effort had to be made. I collected my wits, passed the peas to my father and said agreeably, ‘Yes, I know what you mean, I usually run out of ideas by Friday.’

‘Well, of course, Jennifer, you can’t really complain now, can you?’ She wore that facial gesture which always meant she was about to say something hurtful but expected it to be let pass, because she was actually smiling.

‘I don’t think you’ve much to complain about, one way and another. I wonder if sometimes you might not consider Colin just a little bit. D’you ever think it might be hard on him, workin’ away all day and comin’ home and no meal ready?’

I opened my mouth to speak, but she didn’t pause.

‘It’s all very well havin’ a job, and the extra money’s very nice, I’m sure, but you can’t just have everythin’ your own way.’ And she was off again on the old familiar circuit. She stood up abruptly and reached across the table for the jug of water before I could pass it to her. The gesture was a familiar one. It meant, ‘No one so much as offers me a glass of water.’

‘Mummy, you know I’m not teaching just because of the money. I’ve had four years at University, at the community’s expense. I don’t think sitting at home is any way to repay that.’

‘Oh, that’s all very well. You can’t tell me very much about community, with all I do for the Church. But charity begins at home, Jennifer, doesn’t it? Do you not think it’s nearly time you were to show a little consideration to your husband and his family?’

I grasped my glass of water and swallowed slowly. When Karen Pearson from across the Drive had her second baby, six months ago, my mother had spoken her mind on the subject. But it had been all right then. Colin was there, he’d laughed and told her she was far too young to be a grandmother, and besides, we still hadn’t got the house straight. Now it looked as if she was going to have another go at me with Colin safely out of the way.

‘You have to accept, Jennifer, that Colin is the breadwinner. He is the one with the responsibility. Surely you give a wee bit of thought to his future. Just a wee bit.’

It was her squeezed toothpaste tone again. Like that ‘please’ in the kitchen. If she goes on like this, I’ll pour the peas over her blue rinse. She’s still talking about breadwinners in 1968. My stomach did a lurch as I tried to control myself.

‘Mummy, we came home from Birmingham because of Colin’s future. We took the house in Helen’s Bay because of Colin’s future. I didn’t want to give up the job in Birmingham and I didn’t want to live in Loughview Heights. What do you mean, “giving thought to Colin’s future”? We give it thought all the time.’

She swallowed hard, like a blackbird consuming a piece of crust that’s too big for it. Her chin poked forward with the effort. ‘Well, I don’t see much sign of it. There’s not much comfort for Colin with you correctin’ exercises in the evenings or runnin’ off to the theatre with those girls. I don’t think Colin has much say in what you do. It doesn’t look like it, does it, heh?’

From the corner of my eye I saw my father put down his knife and fork. He looked as if he were about to speak, but he paused, thought better of it and remained silent.

‘Mummy, Colin and I discuss everything we do,’ I replied patiently.

‘Oh yes, I’m sure you do,’ she retorted. ‘And you make sure you get what you want. And I have to hear from another party that you can’t go on holiday with your husband at Easter because you’re busy gallivantin’ with your friends.’

‘Easter?’ For a moment I was so surprised I couldn’t even think where in the year we were.

‘Yes, Easter,’ she repeated, her voice rising a degree higher, her flushed cheeks wobbling with vehemence. ‘It’s a quare thing when I have ta find out from another party.’

‘Another party’ was Maisie. At least now I’d guessed what she was talking about.

‘I’m going to a conference on English teaching,’ I said coolly. ‘It’s got nothing to do with going on holiday. Colin didn’t want to go to Majorca with Maisie and William John any more than I did.’

‘Oh, is that so? Is that so indeed?’

And then she took off. Just like the day of Harvey’s wedding. There were some new lines since then, but the refrain was basically the same. I wasn’t behaving as she thought I ought to behave. I made my own decisions, which clearly I had no right to do. She commented on my lack of loyalty to my husband, my family and my country, catalogued misdemeanours such as taking my A-level girls to see plays put on by the Other Side, ‘running around’ with Valerie Thompson and that arty crowd of hers, and being ungrateful to the McKinstrys who had been ‘more than generous’ to me.

‘My fine friends’, as she called them, were a recurring theme. Everyone I knew and cared about came in for some unpleasant comment. It was on that topic I finally took my stand.

‘You and your fine friends will get a comedown one of these days,’ she said, nodding vigorously. ‘Let me tell you, that Keith McKinstry is a real bad one, him and that Catholic crowd he runs around with. I’ll thank you not to bring that dirty-looking beggar to my front door where any of our decent neighbours might see him. Colin has more sense than to have anything to do with him.’

She had to pause for breath, so I took my chance.

‘Mummy,’ I said firmly, ‘I don’t know what Maisie has been saying about Keith, but whatever it was, it has nothing to do with Colin and me. Keith and Siobhan are friends of ours and will go on being friends of ours.’