‘OΚ, let’s go,’ he said when a gong sounded, and we swiftly descended the stairs, Hubert setting the pace. I caught a brief glimpse of a door opening and of a girl. In the hall Hubert struck the gong again as he passed.
‘No need for that,’ his grandmother gently reprimanded in the dining-room. ‘We are all present and correct.’
The girl smiled at me, so shyly that I was made to feel shy myself. In the absence of her husband Mrs Plunkett said grace while we stood with our hands resting on the backs of our chairs. ‘We are quite a houseful now,’ she chattily remarked as she sat down. ‘Pamela, please pass that salad along to our visitor.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Pamela blushed as she spoke, her eyes flittering for a moment in my direction. Hubert, silent beside me, was relishing her discomfiture: I knew that, I could feel it. He and I and his cousin were aware that we had not met; the old woman imagined we had.
‘I hope you are a salad-eater.’ Mrs Plunkett smiled at me. ‘Hubert does not much go in for salad. I’m not sure why.’
‘Because Hubert doesn’t like the taste,’ Hubert replied. ‘Lettuce does not seem to him to taste at all. The skin of tomatoes catches in his throat. Chives hang about on his breath. Radishes are nasty little things. And so on.’
His cousin laughed. She was a pretty girl, with dark bobbed hair and blue eyes: I didn’t, that evening, notice much else about her except that she was wearing a pale pink dress with white buttons down the front. She became even prettier when she smiled, a dimple appearing in one of her cheeks, her nose wrinkling in a way that became her.
‘Well, that’s most interesting,’ Mrs Plunkett said, a little stiffly, when Hubert ceased to talk about his dislikes.
There was corned beef with the salad. Hubert buttered two slices of brown bread to make a sandwich of his, and all the time he was preparing this his grandmother watched him. She did so uncomfortably, in an odd, dutiful kind of way, and I received the impression that she would have preferred not to. It was what her husband would have done, I suddenly realized: as if guided by his silent presence in an upstairs room she was honourably obeying him, keeping faith with his wishes. Mustard was spread on the corned beef, pepper was sprinkled. Mrs Plunkett made no comment. The slow movements of Hubert’s knife, a faint whispering under his breath of one of the songs Frank Sinatra had sung, contributed to the considerable unease of both Hubert’s cousin and myself. Pamela reddened when she accidentally knocked the little silver spoon out of the salt cellar.
‘You’re not in a public house, Hubert,’ Mrs Plunkett said when he lifted the sandwich to his mouth. ‘Pamela, please pour the tea.’
Hubert ignored the reference to a public house. ‘Don’t dawdle,’ he reminded me. ‘If we miss the seven-thirty we’ll have to cadge a lift and that takes ages.’
Pamela poured the tea. Mrs Plunkett cut her lettuce into fine shreds. She added salad cream, meticulously mixing everything up. She said eventually:
‘Are you going in to Dublin?’
‘We’re going dancing,’ Hubert said. ‘The Four Provinces Ballroom in Harcourt Street. Music tonight by Ken Mackintosh.’
‘I don’t think I’ve heard of Mr Mackintosh.’
‘Celebrity spot, the Inkspots.’
‘Inkspots?’
‘They sing songs.’
On a large round breadboard beside Mrs Plunkett there were several kinds of bread, which she cut very slowly with a battered breadsaw. On the table there was plum jam and raspberry jam, and the honeycomb we had bought from Mrs Hanrahan. There was a fruitcake and a coffee cake, biscuits and shortbread, and when we’d finished our corned beef Lily came in and added to this array a plate of éclairs. She lifted away the plates and dishes we’d finished with. Mrs Plunkett thanked her.
‘Mrs Hanrahan said she picked that honeycomb out for you,’ Hubert said.
‘Well, that was most kind of her.’
‘She’s lonely since Hanrahan died. She’d talk the legs off you.’
‘It’s hard for the poor woman. A builder’s widow.’ Mrs Plunkett explained to me what I already knew. ‘He fell off a roof six weeks ago.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Hubert said, ‘she’s better off without him.’
‘What on earth d’you mean, Hubert?’
‘Hanrahan went after shop girls. Famous for it.’
‘Don’t speak so coarsely, Hubert.’
‘Is Pam shocked? Are you shocked, Pam?’
‘No, no, not at all.’ Pamela swiftly replied before her grandmother could answer for her. She had reddened again in her confusion, but being flustered made her more vivacious and was not unattractive.
‘Mr Hanrahan was a perfectly decent man,’ Mrs Plunkett insisted. ‘You’re repeating tittle-tattle, Hubert.’
‘There’s a girl serves in Binchy’s, another in Edwards’ the cake shop. Hanrahan took both of them to the dunes. D’you remember Hanrahan, Pam?’
She shook her head.
‘He painted the drain-pipes one time.’
‘You’ll need to hurry if you wish to catch the train,’ Mrs Plunkett said. As she spoke she drew back the cuff of her sleeve to consult a wristwatch that had not been visible before. She nodded in agreement with the statement she’d just made. Addressing her granddaughter, she said:
‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish.’
Doubtfully, Pamela half smiled at Mrs Plunkett. She began to say something, then changed her mind. Vaguely, she shook her head.
‘Is Pamela going in to Dublin too?’ Hubert said. ‘Going to the flicks, Pamela?’
‘Isn’t she accompanying you? Don’t you want to go dancing with the boys, Pamela?’
‘No, no.’ She shook her head, more vehemently than before. She was going to wash her hair, she said.