He said he would, thanking her. He was a meter-reader with North Thames Gas, a position he had held for twenty-one years, ever since he’d emigrated. In Waterford he’d worked as a clerk in the Customs, not earning very much and not much caring for the stuffy, smoke-laden office he shared with half a dozen other clerks. He had come to England because Norah had thought it was a good idea, because she’d always wanted to work in a London shop. She’d been given a job in Dickins & Jones, in the household linens department, and he’d been taken on as a meter-reader, cycling from door to door, remembering the different houses and where the meters were situated in each, being agreeable to householders: all of it suited him from the start. He devoted time to thought while he rode about, and in particular to religious matters.
In her small kitchen she made the tea and carried it on a tray into the living-room. She’d been late this year with the decorations. She always liked to get them up a week in advance because they set the mood, making everyone feel right for Christmas. She’d been busy with stuff for a stall Father Malley had asked her to run for his Christmas Sale. A fashion stall he’d called it, but not quite knowing what he meant she’d just asked people for any old clothes they had, jumble really. Because of the time it had taken she hadn’t had a minute to see to the decorations until this afternoon, two days before Christmas Eve. But that, as it turned out, had been all for the best. Bridget and Cathal and Tom had gone up to Putney to the pictures, Dermot didn’t work on a Monday afternoon: it was convenient that they’d have an hour or two alone together because there was the matter of Mr Joyce to bring up. Not that she wanted to bring it up, but it couldn’t be just left there.
‘The cup that cheers,’ he said, breaking a biscuit in half. Deliberately she put off raising the subject she had in mind. She watched him nibbling the biscuit and then dropping three heaped spoons of sugar into his tea and stirring it. He loved tea. The first time he’d taken her out, to the Savoy cinema in Waterford, they’d had tea afterwards in the cinema café and they’d talked about the film and about people they knew. He’d come to live in Waterford from the country, from the farm his brother had inherited, quite close to her father’s farm. He reckoned he’d settled, he told her that night: Waterford wasn’t sensational, but it suited him in a lot of ways. If he hadn’t married her he’d still be there, working eight hours a day in the Customs and not caring for it, yet managing to get by because he had his religion to assist him.
‘Did we get a card from Father Jack yet?’ he inquired, referring to a distant cousin, a priest in Chicago.
‘Not yet. But it’s always on the late side, Father Jack’s. It was February last year.’
She sipped her tea, sitting in one of the other brown armchairs, on the other side of the gas-fire. It was pleasant being there alone with him in the decorated room, the green clock ticking on the mantelpiece, the Christmas cards, dusk gathering outside. She smiled and laughed, taking another biscuit while he lit a cigarette. ‘Isn’t this great?’ she said. ‘A bit of peace for ourselves?’
Solemnly he nodded.
‘Peace comes dropping slow,’ he said, and she knew he was quoting from some book or other. Quite often he said things she didn’t understand. ‘Peace and goodwill,’ he added, and she understood that all right.
He tapped the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray which was kept for his use, beside the gas-fire. All his movements were slow. He was a slow thinker, even though he was clever. He arrived at a conclusion, having thought long and carefully; he balanced everything in his mind. ‘We must think about that, Norah,’ he said that day, twenty-two years ago, when she’d suggested that they should move to England. A week later he’d said that if she really wanted to he’d agree.
They talked about Bridget and Cathal and Tom. When they came in from the cinema they’d only just have time to change their clothes before setting out again for the Christmas party at Bridget’s convent.
‘It’s a big day for them. Let them lie in in the morning, Norah.’
‘They could lie in for ever,’ she said, laughing in case there might seem to be harshness in this recommendation. With Christmas excitement running high, the less she heard from them the better.
‘Did you get Cathal the gadgets he wanted?’
‘Chemistry stuff. A set in a box.’
‘You’re great the way you manage, Norah.’
She denied that. She poured more tea for both of them. She said, as casually as she could:
‘Mr Joyce won’t come. I’m not counting him in for Christmas Day.’
‘He hasn’t failed us yet, Norah.’
‘He won’t come this year.’ She smiled through the gloom at him. ‘I think we’d best warn the children about it.’
‘Where would he go if he didn’t come here? Where’d he get his dinner?’
‘Lyons used to be open in the old days.’
‘He’d never do that.’
‘The Bulrush Café has a turkey dinner advertised. There’s a lot of people go in for that now. If you have a mother doing a job she maybe hasn’t the time for the cooking. They go out to a hotel or a café, three or four pounds a head –’
‘Mr Joyce wouldn’t go to a café. No one could go into a café on their own on Christmas Day.’
‘He won’t come here, dear.’
It had to be said: it was no good just pretending, laying a place for the old man on an assumption that had no basis to it. Mr Joyce would not come because Mr Joyce, last August, had ceased to visit them. Every Friday night he used to come, for a cup of tea and a chat, to watch the nine o’clock news with them. Every Christmas Day he’d brought carefully chosen presents for the children, and chocolates and nuts and cigarettes. He’d given Patrick and Pearl a radio as a wedding present.
‘I think he’ll come all right. I think maybe he hasn’t been too well. God help him, it’s a great age, Norah.’
‘He hasn’t been ill, Dermot.’
Every Friday Mr Joyce had sat there in the third of the brown armchairs, watching the television, his bald head inclined so that his good ear was closer to the screen. He was tallish, rather bent now, frail and bony, with a modest white moustache. In his time he’d been a builder; which was how he had come to own property in Fulham, a self-made man who’d never married. That evening in August he had been quite as usual. Bridget had kissed him good-night because for as long as she could remember she’d always done that when he came on Friday evenings. He’d asked Cathal how he was getting on with his afternoon paper round.
There had never been any difficulties over the house. They considered that he was fair in his dealings with them; they were his tenants and his friends. When it seemed that the Irish had bombed English people to death in Birmingham and Guildford he did not cease to arrive every Friday evening and on Christmas Day. The bombings were discussed after the news, the Tower of London bomb, the bomb in the bus, and all the others. ‘Maniacs,’ Mr Joyce said and nobody contradicted him.
‘He would never forget the children, Norah. Not at Christmas-time.’
His voice addressed her from the shadows. She felt the warmth of the gas-fire reflected in her face and knew if she looked in a mirror she’d see that she was quite flushed. Dermot’s face never reddened. Even though he was nervy, he never displayed emotion. On all occasions his face retained its paleness, his eyes acquired no glimmer of passion. No wife could have a better husband, yet in the matter of Mr Joyce he was so wrong it almost frightened her.
‘Is it tomorrow I call in for the turkey?’ he said.
She nodded, hoping he’d ask her if anything was the matter because as a rule she never just nodded in reply to a question. But he didn’t say anything. He stubbed his cigarette out. He asked if there was another cup of tea in the pot.