In my bedroom, which had a yellow distemper on the walls and a chest of drawers painted white, with a cupboard and wash-stand to match, Mr Dukelow told me not to worry. There was a little crucifix on the wall above my bed, placed there by my mother, and there was a sacred picture opposite the bed so that I could see the face of Our Lady from where I lay. ‘Say a prayer,’ urged Mr Dukelow, indicating with a thin hand the two reminders of my Faith. ‘I would address St Agnes on a question like that.’
Slowly he selected and lit another cigarette. ‘Your father’s a decent man,’ he repeated, and then he must have gone away because when I woke up the light had been switched off. It was half past seven and the first thing I thought was that the day was the last day of the summer holidays. Then I remembered my father kissing Bridget and Mr Dukelow talking to me in the night.
We all had our breakfast together in the kitchen, my mother at one end of the table, my father at the other, Bridget next to me, and Mr Dukelow opposite us. We always sat like that, for all meals, but what I hadn’t paid any attention to before was that Bridget was next to my father.
‘Two dozen chops,’ he said, sitting there with blood on his hands. ‘Did I tell you that, Henry? To go over to Mrs Ashe in the hotel.’
‘I’ll cut them so,’ promised Mr Dukelow in his quiet way.
My father laughed. ‘Errah, man, haven’t I cut them myself?’ He laughed again. He watched while Bridget knelt down to open the iron door of the oven. ‘There’s nothing like cutting chops,’ he said, ‘to give you an appetite for your breakfast, Bridget.’
My eyes were on a piece of fried bread on my plate. I didn’t lift them, but I could feel Mr Dukelow looking at me. He knew I felt jealous because my father had addressed Bridget instead of my mother. I was jealous on my mother’s behalf, because she couldn’t be jealous herself, because she didn’t know. Mr Dukelow sensed everything, as though there was an extra dimension to him. The chops for Mrs Ashe would have been more elegantly cut if he had cut them himself; they’d have been more cleverly cut, with less waste and in half the time.
‘Ah, that’s great,’ said my father as Bridget placed a plate of rashers and sausages in front of him. She sat down quietly beside me. Neither she nor my mother had said anything since I’d entered the kitchen.
‘Is there no potato-cakes?’ my father demanded, and my mother said she’d be making fresh ones today.
‘The last ones were lumpy.’
‘A little,’ agreed my mother. ‘There were a few little lumps.’
He held his knife and fork awkwardly because of the injuries to his hands. Often he put too much on his fork and pieces of bacon would fall off. Mr Dukelow, when he was eating, had a certain style.
‘Well, mister-me-buck,’ said my father, addressing me, ‘it’s the final day of your holidays,’
‘Yes.’
‘When I was the age you are I had to do work in my holidays. I was delivering meat at six and a half years.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t the times change, Bridget?’
Bridget said that times did change. My father asked Mr Dukelow if he had worked during the holidays as a child and Mr Dukelow replied that he had worked in the fields in the summertime, weeding, harvesting potatoes and making hay.
‘They have an easy time of it these days,’ my father pronounced. He had addressed all of us except my mother. He pushed his cup towards Bridget and she passed it to my mother for more tea.
‘An easy time of it,’ repeated my father.
I could see him eyeing Mr Dukelow’s hands as if he was thinking to himself that they didn’t look as if they would be much use for harvesting potatoes. And I thought to myself that my father was wrong in this estimation: Mr Dukelow would collect the potatoes speedily, having dug them himself in a methodical way; he would toss them into sacks with a flick of the wrist, a craftsman even in that.
The postman, called Mr Dicey, who was small and inquisitive and had squinting eyes, came into the kitchen from the yard. When he had a letter for the household he delivered it in this manner, while we sat at breakfast. He would stand while the letter was opened, drinking a cup of tea.
‘That’s a fine morning,’ said Mr Dicey. ‘We’ll have a fine day of it.’
‘Unless it rains.’ My father laughed until he was red in the face, and then abruptly ceased because no one was laughing with him. ‘How’re you, Dicey?’ he more calmly inquired.
‘I have an ache in my back,’ replied Mr Dicey, handing my mother a letter.
Mr Dukelow nodded at him, greeting him in that way. Sometimes Mr Dukelow was so quiet in the kitchen that my father asked him if there was something awry with him.
‘I was saying to the bucko here,’ said my father, ‘that when I was his age I used to deliver meat from the shop. Haven’t times changed, Dicey?’
‘They have not remained the same,’ agreed Mr Dicey. ‘You could not expect it.’
Bridget handed him a cup of tea. He stirred sugar into it, remarking to Bridget that he’d seen her out last night. It was said that Mr Dicey’s curiosity was so great that he often steamed open a letter and delivered it a day late. He was interested in everyone in the town and was keen to know of fresh developments in people’s lives.
‘You didn’t see me at all,’ he said to Bridget. He paused, drinking his tea. ‘You were engaged at the same time,’ he said, ‘with another person.’
‘Oh, Bridie has her admirers all right,’ said my father.
‘From the Munster and Leinster Bank.’ Mr Dicey laughed. ‘There’s a letter from your daughter,’ he said to my mother. ‘I know her little round-shaped writing.’
My mother, concerned with the letter, nodded.
‘Bridie could claim the best,’ said my father.
I looked at him and saw that he was glancing down the length of the table at my mother.
‘Bridie could claim the best,’ he repeated in a notably loud voice. ‘Wouldn’t you say that, Dicey? Isn’t she a great-looking girl?’
‘She is, of course,’ said Mr Dicey. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘It’s a wonder she never claimed Henry Dukelow.’ My father coughed and laughed. ‘Amn’t I right she could claim the best, Henry? Couldn’t Bridie have any husband she put her eye on?’
‘I’ll carry over the chops to Mrs Ashe,’ said Mr Dukelow, getting up from the table.
My father laughed. ‘Henry Dukelow wouldn’t be interested,’ he said. ‘D’you understand me, Dicey?’
‘Oh, now, why wouldn’t Henry be interested?’ inquired Mr Dicey, interested himself.
Mr Dukelow washed his hands at the sink. He dried them on a towel that hung on the back of the kitchen door, a special towel that only he and my father used.
‘He’s not a marrying man,’ said my father. ‘Amn’t I right, Henry?’
Mr Dukelow smiled at my father and left the kitchen without speaking. Mr Dicey began to say something, but my father interrupted him.