The Teacher at Donegal Bay

‘Nothing to do with you?’ She twitched with fury as her voice rose higher.

I poured myself another glass of water and tried to find some logic in the flood of abuse and accusations she was stringing together. But I couldn’t. When she finally stopped, I didn’t know where to begin. But she completely misread my silence. Encouraged by it, she began again in a tone several degrees less hysterical than before.

‘You know, Jennifer, we all have to accept that we only have one life to live and that life is for the service of others. I don’t think if you had to give an account to your Maker, you could really say you’ve done the things you ought to have done, now could you?’

I listened hard. Not to the words, but to the tone. Did she really think that by lowering her voice and making the odd reference to God, her message would sound any different?

I waited till she stopped. My hands were stone cold and my stomach felt as if I’d swallowed a huge pork pie. Suddenly, a moment from my childhood sprang back into my mind and in the midst of the angry words and all my anxieties I felt a totally unexpected sense of unshakeable calm. I saw myself as a small girl, hand in hand with my father. I was trailing my feet through the puddles, utterly confident of the magical water-repellent qualities of my new Wellington boots. The memory was extraordinarily comforting. I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, Mummy, I agree. We do have only one life to live.’ My voice was so steady I couldn’t believe it. ‘Where we disagree is about who decides how you should live it. I think each person has to decide for themselves. I don’t think you should let other people decide for you.’

She opened her mouth, closed it again, then sprang to her feet. ‘Oh no, you’ll not do that, Jennifer. You only want to hear what suits you. As long as you’re all right, you couldn’t care less about poor Colin, or me, or anybody. I might as well talk to the wall. All you’re interested in is yourself. Self. Self. Self.’

She flung her napkin down on the table.

‘That’s all you ever think about. That, and making others like you. Well, I’m not stayin’ here for you to make skit of me. You take me for a fool. Well, I’m not. You’re not going to get everythin’ yer own way. We’ll just see who’s the fool.’

With a final vicious stare at me, she turned and strode out. She banged the door so hard a collection of old plates on the dresser rattled ominously. In the silence that followed, a full-blown rose on a small table by the door shed its petals in a soft shower on to the carpet.

I turned towards my father. To my amazement, he was smiling.

‘Good girl yourself. You didn’t cry.’

‘I think I might now,’ I said weakly.

‘Ach, not at all. We’ll have a drop of brandy and I’ll make us some coffee. I went down on the bus to Bell’s for a wee bag of Blue Mountain this morning. How about that?’

I nodded enthusiastically and then hesitated. ‘D’you think she’ll come back?’

‘No, not very likely. She’s got a television upstairs now and there’s something or other she watches at seven thirty. She might come down at eight. Shure there’s plenty o’ time.’

I looked across at him as he took the brandy from the cupboard. How could he be so cool, living with this woman, the fresh-faced girl he’d married thirty-five years ago, when he was my age and she a country girl from a cottage where they still used paraffin lamps and drew water from a well halfway up an orchard behind the single-storey dwelling.

‘Would you eat a bit of cheese, Jenny?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve got terrible wind.’

‘The brandy’ll help that,’ he said comfortingly. ‘I don’t know what set that one off,’ he went on ruefully. ‘I’d have said my piece if I’d thought it would’ve done any good. I’m glad I didn’t. It was better the way it was.’

We sat down together, glasses in hand and looked into the fire. I thought of all the times we had sat by this fireside, reading to each other. Plays and poetry and fairytales. Those were the days, from my early years right up to Harvey’s wedding, when my mother seemed happy enough, with the new house being done up to her liking, a round of coffee mornings and sales of work at the local church, and Harvey always wanting attention, help with his work, someone to look at what he was doing, or making. It was always my mother he called for. If Harvey wanted to go to the cinema, she was quite happy to leave my father and me to make our own supper. How we might amuse ourselves while they were gone didn’t seem to trouble her at all.

I knelt on the hearth rug, hands outstretched to the leaping flames, and looked at him over my shoulder.

‘Got offered a job today, Daddy.’

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. ‘Headmistress?’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘Head of English. Connie’s going to retire early. She recommended me. So Miss Braidwood said.’

‘You’ll take it?’

‘To take or not to take, that is the question. I’ve got to decide by Monday.’

‘How do you feel about it?’

‘I feel yes, but it’s not as easy as that.’

He looked slightly puzzled and I wondered if, like Mr Cummings, he too might have forgotten all the business about starting a family. Since his heart attack, I’d noticed he could forget things and then get very upset, once he realised what had happened.

‘What’s on the no side?’ he asked quietly. ‘Colin wouldn’t stand in your way, would he?’ he went on, more sharply.

I reassured him. Colin and I had agreed I’d pursue my career till I was well-established. No need to make a break till I was twenty-nine or thirty, he’d said.

‘No, it’s not Colin, Daddy. There are some parties who might think it’s not considerate to wait any longer. Not just Mummy. I have a nasty feeling Maisie and William John have been getting at Colin.’

‘But what do you feel about that?’ he asked, very gently.

‘I just don’t know, Daddy. I really don’t.’

‘But you do know about the job?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said honestly. ‘I’d love the job.’

He looked away for a moment and I wondered what he could be thinking. Suddenly my mother’s words came back to me and I felt so uneasy.

‘I’m not selfish, Daddy, am I?’ The question was out before I’d even thought it. My voice had wavered dangerously.

‘Selfish?’ he repeated, as if the very idea puzzled him.

For a moment I expected him to say, ‘Now don’t be silly, Jenny.’ But he didn’t. He just sat looking into the fire. It was a look I’d seen recently that worried me, though I couldn’t really say why. I waited for him to reply. In the firelight, his face looked very old and very tired.

He straightened up with a visible effort and turned back to look at me. ‘Jenny, dear, all human beings are selfish in one sense of the word. They have to be if they’re going to be any good to themselves or anyone else. Your self is all you’ve got in the end. No matter how much you care about anyone else, it’s you that you have to live with, for whatever time you’ve got.’

He paused. I could see he was short of breath, but he ignored it and went on.

‘Your mother was right saying you had only one life to live. But you’re right, too, about making your own decisions. It has to be you, Jenny, leading the life you choose, otherwise you end up living the life others choose for you.’

His breathing was rougher by now, and to my dismay I heard a sound I hoped I’d never hear again, the wheeze he was making in the intensive care unit at the Royal when I got there straight from the Birmingham plane. That was two years ago. They’d said then they didn’t think he’d pull round, the heart attack was massive. I’d held his hand and prayed, the way children pray. ‘Please God, let Daddy live and I’ll give up the job and come home as Colin and everybody else wants, and I’ll not complain about leaving a super school and kids I love.’ He’d pulled through but he’d had to retire early. And I’d kept my part of the bargain. But at times like tonight, I wondered if I’d actually been very selfish indeed.

He took a deep breath. The ominous sound disappeared. He went on, ‘Jenny, I’ve seen too damn much of living for others in my time. This island’s full of it. Women living for the house, or the family, or the neighbours, or the Church; men living for the business, or the Lodge, or the Cause. Any excuse so as not to have to live for themselves and make some sort of decent job of it. Shakespeare had it right, you know. “To thine own self be true, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Aye, or woman either. If that’s selfish, Jenny, I wish to goodness there was a bit more of it around.’

He leaned back in his chair, his face flushed with the effort he had made. I wanted to say so much, but I could see how tired he was. So I just said, ‘Thanks, Daddy, I’ll remember that.’ Then I offered to go and make the coffee, thinking he might well doze off in his chair.

He nodded gratefully and I was just putting my warm feet back into my shoes when the telephone rang loudly in the hall. I heard my mother’s step on the stairs. Her voice was as clear from the hallway as if she was standing in the room beside us.

It was Harvey, we gathered, honouring Rathmore Drive with one of his infrequent family visits for Sunday lunch. My mother was positively purring after the first few exchanges. There were a number of nauseating references to her favourite grandchild, Peter, the usual inquiries about Mavis and the two girls, and then, to my horror, I heard her assuring Harvey that I would be there too, that she was just about to ask me.

The call ended. I heard the heavy tread of her footsteps, the rattle of wooden rings as she pulled the velvet curtains behind the front door. The sitting-room curtains would come next. If she were going to come in, she would come in then. And as likely as not she would behave as if nothing whatever had happened.

My father was leaning back in his chair, listening to the pattern of the evening ritual. We exchanged glances and grinned ruefully at each other.