The Teacher at Donegal Bay

She pulled a paper bag full of soda farls out of her carrier so fiercely one of them escaped and bounced to the floor. She picked it up, saw its pale floury surface was unmarked by the fall and put it in the bread bin with the others. These cleaning women were all the same. Everything bright as a new pin the first few times, then you’d only to look to find what they hadn’t done.

She put away the rest of her shopping, collected a colander full of potatoes from the sack in the larder, and filled the basin with hot water. As the warmth released the smell of earth, unbidden and unwelcome the voice of her old grandmother came to her from the long past.

‘Ed-na, Ed-na,’ it called, high-pitched, peremptory.

‘I’m busy,’ she called back, knowing it would not have the slightest effect.

‘I’ve slipped down the bed.’

‘Not far enough, ye haven’t,’ she muttered as she dried her hands and went into the small, dark bedroom.

Mary Anne lay barely visible, her bright eyes peering over the mound of disordered bedclothes, her small head overhung by the pillows. She watched the girl’s every move. Critical. Malevolent.

‘Where’s Lizzie? Where’s yer mather? It’s her place to cum up and see ta me.’

‘She’s nae well hersel’. Ye know that.’

‘An’ what’s wrong wi’ her, a young thing like her? She’s no right to be takin’ to her bed at her age. Lift me up. How canna ate me supper lyin’ doon? Is it not near ready yit?’

Edna tried to lift her up but the old woman grabbed at her arms and almost pulled her over. Edna breathed in the odour of her unwashed body. It smelt of age, of decay. Like the cottage itself with its rotting thatch and damp walls. She hated coming here. And she hated this old woman who bossed her around just like her mother did. Always wanting something. Edna this and Edna that. Fetch and carry. Well, she’d show them. She’d show them all. She’d get out of this place if it was the last thing she did. And they could rot together for all she cared.

She rinsed the potatoes and dropped them noisily into a copper-bottomed saucepan. Every time she washed those filthy potatoes George had brought home from some farm or other, it reminded her of the old days. Well, she wasn’t going to put up with that. The past was over and gone. And good riddance. She’d give the rest of those dirty old potatoes away. The women on the garden produce stall at the Autumn Fayre would think they were just great. More fool them. Then she could go back to buying clean ones at the supermarket. George would never notice the difference.

‘Hello, Edna. Can I do anything to help?’

She turned, startled by the quiet voice. ‘Oh, so you’re awake,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Can I lay the table?’ he continued mildly.

‘Well, you know where the cloth is.’

He nodded to himself and turned to go. Something had upset her. But what was anybody’s guess. Sometimes she didn’t even seem to know herself.

‘And you might just redd up those catalogues lying round the place,’ she shouted as he closed the door gently behind him.

She bent down to the fridge and pulled out the casserole she had cooked the previous day. She caught the handle of a small china jug. It fell over and spilled milk down into the crisper drawer, showering a limp cabbage, a handful of carrots and a couple of mouldy tomatoes.

That was just typical of what she had to put up with, wasn’t it? Maisie McKinstry didn’t have to wear herself out bending down and poking around in her fridge. All her stuff was eye-level. But then her husband had money. William John McKinstry could buy and sell George Erwin and not even notice it. The man might have no education and no manners, but he did have a bit of go about him. And that was one thing you could never say about George. If he’d ever listened to her he might have made something of himself. He could have done just as well as any McKinstry if he hadn’t been so pig-headed.

She turned the oven full on, pushed the casserole in and banged the door. If it hadn’t been for her they’d still be stuck in that wee house in Ballymena. He said they couldn’t move till he had some capital behind him, but that was just an excuse. What capital did William John have? And now Maisie could have anything she wanted.

‘Shure why don’t you and George buy a nice wee bungalow down at Cultra, Edna? Surely George doesn’t haff to go on working,’ she said aloud, exaggerating the sweet-as-pie tone Maisie had used over lunch.

She’d passed it off, said George didn’t feel quite up to a move. She wasn’t going to let Maisie McKinstry think they couldn’t afford it. But George wouldn’t move for her or anyone else. He had always done exactly what he wanted with never a thought for her. And Jennifer was every bit as bad. Like father like daughter. If it weren’t for Harvey, her life would hardly be worth living.

The phone rang with a peremptory note. She hurried into the hall. Out of habit she composed her face muscles in just the same manner as she did when it was the doorbell. She picked up the receiver.

‘I’d have phoned you earlier, Edna, but Karen said she saw you in Brand’s and you and Mrs McKinstry were having a day out, so I didn’t want to bother George. How is he, Edna?’

‘Oh, he’s fine. Working away as usual,’ she replied automatically. It was only Mary Pearson from the other side of the Drive about the church flower rota and as usual she was looking for information. Well, she wasn’t going to get any. ‘I’m just getting a meal, Mary, can we have a chat another time?’

‘Oh, yes, how thoughtless of me. I forgot. Karen did say Jenny was coming this evening. In fact, Edna, I think a car has just stopped at your house. I’ll see you at the P.W.A. meeting on Monday and we can arrange things then. ‘Bye.’

Edna dropped the receiver as if it had suddenly become hot and hurried in her stocking feet into the sitting room. The curtains on the large window that overlooked the front garden and the road beyond were still undrawn. The room which ran the full depth of the house was empty and dark, except for patches of light where the street lamp outside had begun to flicker in the low light of the overcast evening. Cautiously, she edged herself into the one place where she had a good view of the garden gate but could not herself be seen.

A car had stopped, but it couldn’t possibly be anything to do with her. It was an awful old thing with white patches here and there as if someone had been trying to mend it. Probably some workman coming to collect his money on a Friday night from some of the better neighbours who were having improvements made.

She was just about to draw the curtains to shut out prying eyes when she saw a movement and drew back. Someone was getting out of the car. She’d just wait and see who it was.

‘My God,’ she breathed as she recognised the familiar figure. ‘Has that girl no sense at all?’

She peered forward as a second figure, equally familiar, unwound itself from the driver’s seat and stood leaning against the car door looking down at her daughter.

‘Keith McKinstry,’ she said to herself, her voice thick with fury. She was sure Mary Pearson would be looking out of her upstairs window to see who it was. Of all people, it was that beggar. She’d never liked him but she’d thought if he was clever enough to study law at Queen’s he’d have more wit than to go running around with a crowd of Catholics and troublemakers. Young Socialists, was what they called themselves. So Maisie said. Though to her credit she and William John had told him where to go. Letting them down like that after all they’d done for him.

He was getting something out of the back seat of the car now. What was it? Only her basket and her briefcase. And there she was standing there looking up at him, all big eyes and smiles. As she watched, Edna saw Keith McKinstry bend down and kiss her on the cheek.

‘Oh, that’s very nice, isn’t it, in front of all my neighbours,’ she began furiously.

She would have said more but Jennifer had turned away and now had her hand on the garden gate. She scurried down the hall, shut the kitchen door firmly behind her and pushed her feet back into the high heels which she had kicked under the kitchen table. Then she took out the scouring powder and began to clean the sink vigorously.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_3cf17bf1-abe8-5c7b-9aaf-daafda0c7e91)

I looked back over my shoulder as I put my key in the lock. Beyond the shrubs and trees that screened one side of the Drive from the other, the black and white shape of Keith’s Volkswagen headed for the main road. I waved, but he didn’t see me.

I closed the front door behind me, tucked my baggage under the hall table and hung up my coat. At the end of the hall, the kitchen door was firmly shut. The crash of pots and pans escaped to greet me. A bad omen. The dining-room door was ajar and I caught sight of my father as I passed. He had been listening for me, his newspaper folded on his knee. He raised a hand in greeting but said nothing.

As bad as that, I thought. I opened the door of the kitchen and went in. When my mother is in a good mood, she leaves it open, so she can hear the phone and the doorbell. When she’s not, she shuts it tight and her hearing becomes even more acute. On such occasions any delay on my part is seen as an unfriendly act. Conversation with my father becomes rudeness to her. On a really bad day she treats it as an act of conspiracy.

‘Hello, Mummy, sorry I got held up.’

She turned round from the sink, a look of feigned amazement on her face. ‘Oh, so you’ve arrived after all,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’d given you up half an hour ago.’

‘The traffic gets worse all the time,’ I replied easily.

The signals were clear. Whatever I said would be wrong. All I could do for the moment was try to ignore them.

‘Now you can’t tell me, Jennifer, that it was the traffic kept you since four o’clock,’ she began, slapping down her dishcloth on the draining board. ‘You may think I’m a fool, but I’m not that big a fool. Give me credit for some sense. Please.’

The ‘please’ was squeezed out with such self-pity, I could hardly bear to go on looking at her. The lines of her face were hard and her careful make-up did nothing to soften it. Indeed, the Gala Red of her lipstick only accentuated the tight, unyielding line of her mouth. I felt the old, familiar nausea clutch at my stomach.

If Colin were here, she’d be fussing over the dessert she’d made especially for him, making polite inquiries about William John, arch remarks about young directors and comments about hard-working young men needing good suppers at the end of a busy day. It required a fair amount of tolerance but it was better than this.

‘I had to go into town about the A-level texts,’ I said coolly. ‘I thought you said “the usual time” on the phone.’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ she snapped, turning her back on me and continuing to scrub. ‘You must’ve been buyin’ the whole shop,’ she threw over her shoulder. She laughed shortly, pleased with herself. She rinsed the sink noisily and then threw back a sliding door and searched through a row of tins.

For two years now, ‘the usual time’ for a Friday evening visit was as soon after five as Colin could get away, collect the car, crawl through the traffic, pick me up in Botanic Avenue with the shopping, and get back across to the Stranmillis Road. It was seldom before five thirty. Often enough it was a quarter to six. But I knew from long experience the facts were not relevant. There was no point whatever in mentioning them.