Mr Shaughnessy never said anything when he came to stand close to her, although on other occasions he addressed her pleasantly enough, even complimenting her on her frying. He had an easy way with him, quite different from his son’s. He was more like his two other children, the married daughter and the son who was in Limerick, both of whom Kathleen had met when they had returned to the house for an uncle’s funeral. He occasionally repeated a joke he’d been told, and Mrs Shaughnessy would laugh, her chin becoming lengthy and the skin tightening on her forehead. On the occasion of the uncle’s funeral his other son and his daughter laughed at the jokes also, but the son who’d remained at home only smiled. ‘Wait till I tell you this one, Kitty,’ he’d sometimes say, alone with her in the dining-room. He would tell her something Bob Crowe, who ran the barber’s shop for him, had heard from a customer, making the most of the anecdote in a way that suggested he was anxious to entertain her. His manner and his tone of voice denied that it had ever been necessary for him to stand close to her, or else that his practice of doing so had been erased from his memory.
But the scarlet complexion of Mr Shaughnessy’s face and the spiky grey hair, the odour of cigarette smoke that emanated from his clothes, could not be so easily forgotten by Kathleen. She no longer wept from loneliness in her bedroom, yet she was aware that the behaviour of Mr Shaughnessy lent the feeling of isolation an extra, vivid dimension, for in the farmhouse kitchen on Sundays the behaviour could not be mentioned.
Every evening Kathleen sat by the range, thinking about it. The black kitten that had darted out of the oven on her second morning had grown into a cat and sat blinking beside her chair. The alarm clock ticked loudly on the dresser. Was it something she should confess? Was it a sin to be as silent as she was when he came to stand beside her? Was it a sin to be unable to find the courage to tell him to leave her alone? Once, in the village, where the convent was, another girl in her class had pointed out a boy who was loitering with some other boys by the sign-post. That boy was always trying to kiss you, the girl said; he would follow you about the place, whispering to you. But although Kathleen often went home alone the boy never came near her. He wasn’t a bad-looking boy, she’d thought, she wouldn’t have minded much. She’d wondered if she’d mind the boys her sisters had complained about, who tried to kiss you when they were dancing with you. Pests, her sisters had called them, but Kathleen thought it was nice that they wanted to.
Mr Shaughnessy was different. When he stood close to her his breathing would become loud and unsteady. He always moved away quite quickly, when she wasn’t expecting him to. He walked off, never looking back, soundlessly almost.
Then one day, when Mrs Shaughnessy was buying a new skirt and the son was in the shop, he came into the kitchen, where she was scrubbing the draining boards. He came straight to where she was, as if between them there was some understanding that he should do so. He stood in a slightly different position from usual, behind her rather than at her side, and she felt for the first time his hands passing over her clothes.
‘Mr Shaughnessy!’ she whispered. ‘Mr Shaughnessy, now.’
He took no notice. Some part of his face was touching her hair. The rhythm of his breathing changed.
‘Mr Shaughnessy, I don’t like it.’
He seemed not to hear her; she sensed that his eyes were closed. As suddenly, and as quickly as always, he went away.
‘Well, Bob Crowe told me a queer one this evening,’ he said that same evening, while she was placing their plates of fried food in front of them in the dining-room. ‘It seems there’s a woman asleep in Clery’s shop window above in Dublin.’
His wife expressed disbelief. Bob Crowe would tell you anything, she said.
‘In a hypnotic trance, it seems. Advertising Odearest Mattresses.’
‘Ah, go on now! He’s pulling your leg, Des.’
‘Not a bit of him. She’ll stop there a week, it seems. The Guards have to move the crowds on.’
Kathleen closed the dining-room door behind her. He had turned to look at her when he’d said there was a woman asleep in Clery’s window, in an effort to include her in what he was retailing. His eyes had betrayed nothing of their surreptitious relationship, but Kathleen hadn’t been able to meet them.
‘We ploughed the field,’ her father said the following Sunday. ‘I’ve never turned up earth as good.’
She almost told him then. She longed to so much she could hardly prevent herself. She longed to let her tears come and to hear his voice consoling her. When she was a child she’d loved that.
‘You’re a great girl,’ he said.
Mr Shaughnessy took to attending an earlier Mass than his wife and son, and when they were out at theirs he would come into the kitchen. When she hid in her bedroom he followed her there. She’d have locked herself in the outside W.C. if there’d been a latch on the door.
‘Well, Kitty and myself were quiet enough here,’ he’d say in the dining-room later on, when the three of them were eating their midday dinner. She couldn’t understand how he could bring himself to speak like that, or how he could so hungrily eat his food, as though nothing had occurred. She couldn’t understand how he could act normally with his son or with his other children when they came on a visit. It was extraordinary to hear Mrs Shaughnessy humming her songs about the house and calling him by his Christian name.
‘The Kenny girl’s getting married,’ Mrs Shaughnessy said on one of these mealtime occasions. ‘Tyson from the hardware.’
‘I didn’t know she was doing a line with him.’
‘Oh, that’s been going on a long time.’
‘Is it the middle girl? The one with the peroxide?’
‘Enid she’s called.’
‘I wonder Bob Crowe didn’t hear that. There’s not much Bob misses.’
‘I never thought much of Tyson. But, sure, maybe they’re well matched.’
‘Did you hear that, Kitty? Enid Kenny’s getting married. Don’t go taking ideas from her.’ He laughed, and Mrs Shaughnessy laughed, and the son smiled. There wasn’t much chance of that, Kathleen thought. ‘Are you going dancing tonight?’ Mr Crawley often asked her on a Friday, and she would reply that she might, but she never did because it wasn’t easy to go alone. In the shops and at Mass no one displayed any interest in her whatsoever, no one eyed her the way Mary Florence had been eyed, and she supposed it was because her looks weren’t up to much. But they were good enough for Mr Shaughnessy, with his quivering breath and his face in her hair. Bitterly, she dwelt on that; bitterly, she imagined herself turning on him in the dining-room, accusing him to his wife and son.
‘Did you forget to sweep the yard this week?’ Mrs Shaughnessy asked her. ‘Only it’s looking poor.’
She explained that the wind had blown in papers and debris from a knocked-over dustbin. She’d sweep it again, she said.
‘I hate a dirty backyard, Kitty.’
Was this why the other girls had left, she wondered, the girls whom Mrs Shaughnessy had trained, and who’d then gone off? Those girls, whoever they were, would see her, or would know about her. They’d imagine her in one uniform or the other, obedient to him because she enjoyed his attentions. That was how they’d think of her.