‘We’ll think of you, Teresa,’ Philomena said. ‘We’ll pray for you.’ Philomena, plump and pale-haired, had every hope of marrying and had even planned her dress, in light lemony lace, with a Limerick veil. Twice in the last month she’d gone out with Des Foley the vet, and even if he was a few years older than he might be and had a car that smelt of cattle disinfectant, there was more to be said for Des Foley than for many another.
Teresa’s two sisters, much older than Teresa, stood by the piano and the framed Power’s advertisement, between the two windows of the lounge-bar. Agnes, in smart powder-blue, was tall and thin, the older of the two; Loretta, in brown, was small. Their own two marriages, eleven and nine years ago, had been consecrated by Father Hogan in the Church of the Immaculate Conception and celebrated afterwards in this same lounge-bar. Loretta had married a man who was no longer mentioned because he’d gone to England and had never come back. Agnes had married George Tobin, who was at present sitting outside the lounge-bar in a Ford Prefect, in charge of his and Agnes’s three small children. The Tobins lived in Cork now, George being the manager of a shoe-shop there. Loretta lived with her parents, like an unmarried daughter again.
‘Sickens you,’ Agnes said ‘She’s only a kid, marrying a goop like that. She’ll be stuck in this dump of a town for ever.’
Loretta didn’t say anything. It was well known that Agnes’s own marriage had turned out welclass="underline" George Tobin was a teetotaller and had no interest in either horses or greyhounds. From where she stood Loretta could see him through the window, sitting patiently in the Ford Prefect, reading a comic to his children. Loretta’s marriage had not been consummated.
‘Well, though I’ve said it before I’ll say it again,’ said Father Hogan. ‘It’s a great day for a mother.’
Mrs Atty and Mrs Cornish politely agreed, without speaking. Mrs Tracy smiled.
‘And for an aunt too, Mrs Tracy. Naturally enough.’
Mrs Tracy smiled again. ‘A great day,’ she said.
‘Ah, I’m happy for Teresa,’ Father Hogan said. ‘And for Artie, too, Mrs Cornish; naturally enough. Aren’t they as fine a couple as ever stepped out of this town?’
‘Are they leaving the town?’ Mrs Tracy asked, confusion breaking in her face. ‘I thought Artie was fixed in Driscoll’s.’
‘It’s a manner of speaking, Mrs Tracy,’ Father Hogan explained. ‘It’s a way of putting the thing. When I was marrying them this morning I looked down at their two faces and I said to myself, “Isn’t it great God gave them life?’ ”
The three women looked across the lounge, at Teresa standing with her friends Philomena Morrissey and Kitty Roche, and then at Artie, with Screw Doyle, Eddie Boland and Chas Flynn.
‘He has a great career in front of him in Driscoll’s,’ Father Hogan pronounced. ‘Will Teresa remain on in the Medical Hall, Mrs Atty?’
Mrs Atty replied that her daughter would remain for a while in the Medical Hall. It was Father Hogan who had persuaded Artie of his duty when Artie had hesitated. Mrs Atty and Teresa had gone to him for advice, he’d spoken to Artie and to Mr and Mrs Cornish, and the matter had naturally not been mentioned on either side since.
‘Will I get you another glassful, Father?’ inquired Mrs Tracy, holding out her hand for the priest’s tumbler.
‘Well, it isn’t every day I’m honoured,’ said Father Hogan with his smile, putting the tumbler into Mrs Tracy’s hand.
At the bar Mr Atty and Mr Cornish drank steadily on. In their corner Teresa and her bridesmaids talked about weddings that had taken place in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the past, how they had stood by the railings of the church when they were children, excited by the finery and the men in serge suits. Teresa’s sisters whispered, Agnes continuing about the inadequacy of the man Teresa had just married. Loretta whispered without actually forming words. She wished her sister wouldn’t go on so because she didn’t want to think about any of it, about what had happened to Teresa, and what would happen to her again tonight, in a hotel in Cork. She’d fainted when it had happened to herself, when he’d come at her like a farm animal. She’d fought like a mad thing.
It was noisier in the lounge-bar than it had been. The voices of the bridegroom’s friends were raised; behind the bar young Kevin had switched on the wireless. ‘Don’t get around much anymore,’ cooed a soft male voice.
‘Bedad, there’ll be no holding you tonight, Artie,’ Eddie Boland whispered thickly into the bridegroom’s ear. He nudged Artie in the stomach with his elbow, spilling some Guinness. He laughed uproariously.
‘We’re following you in two cars,’ Screw Doyle said. ‘We’ll be waiting in the double bed for you.’ Screw Doyle laughed also, striking the floor repeatedly with his left foot, which was a habit of his when excited. At a late hour the night before he’d told Artie that once, after a dance, he’d spent an hour in a field with the girl whom Artie had agreed to marry. ‘I had a great bloody ride of her,’ he’d confided.
‘I’ll have a word with Teresa,’ said Father Hogan, moving away from Teresa’s mother, her aunt and Mrs Cornish. He did not, however, cross the lounge immediately, but paused by the bar, where Mr Cornish and Mr Atty were. He put his empty tumbler on the bar itself, and Mr Atty pushed it towards young Kevin, who at once refilled it.
‘Well, it’s a great day for a father,’ said Father Hogan. ‘Aren’t they a tip-top credit to each other?’
‘Who’s that, Father?’ inquired Mr Cornish, his eyes a little bleary, sweat hanging from his cheeks.
Father Hogan laughed. He put his tumbler on the bar again, and Mr Cornish pushed it towards young Kevin for another refill.
In their corner Philomena confided to Teresa and Kitty Roche that she wouldn’t mind marrying Des Foley the vet. She’d had four glasses of Babycham. If he asked her this minute, she said, she’d probably say yes. ‘Is Chas Flynn nice?’ Kitty Roche asked, squinting across at him.
On the wireless Petula Clark was singing ‘Downtown’. Eddie Boland was whistling ‘Mother Macree’. ‘Listen, Screw,’ Artie said, keeping his voice low although it wasn’t necessary. ‘Is that true? Did you go into a field with Teresa?’
Loretta watched while George Tobin in his Ford Prefect turned a page of the comic he was reading to his children. Her sister’s voice continued in its abuse of the town and its people, in particular the shopman who had got Teresa pregnant. Agnes hated the town and always had. She’d met George Tobin at a dance in Cork and had said to Loretta that in six months’ time she’d be gone from the town for ever. Which was precisely what had happened, except that marriage had made her less nice than she’d been. She’d hated the town in a jolly way once, laughing over it. Now she hardly laughed at all.
‘Look at him,’ she was saying. ‘I doubt he knows how to hold a knife and fork.’
Loretta ceased her observation of her sister’s husband through the window and regarded Artie Cornish instead. She looked away from him immediately because his face, so quickly replacing the face of George Tobin, had caused in her mind a double image which now brutally persisted. She felt a sickness in her stomach, and closed her eyes and prayed. But the double image remained: George Tobin and Artie Cornish coming at her sisters like two farmyard animals and her sisters fighting to get away. ‘Dear Jesus,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Dear Jesus, help me.’
‘Sure it was only a bit of gas,’ Screw Doyle assured Artie. ‘Sure there was no harm done, Artie.’