The Guesthouse on the Green Series Box Set 2 Page 10

  The sisters shrugged. ‘Because it was funny.’

  The only one smiling beatifically at the camera was Mammy.

  ‘And it’s such a nice one of me,’ Maureen lamented sadly.

  Chapter 14

  1957

  Eighteen-year-old Cliona Whelan had never been in love before and, falling in love was the last thing on her mind as she sat on a warm, sunny patch of grass near Trinity College. A bee buzzed lazily past and the air had an autumnal tang to it she fancied she could taste. It was a curious mix of grass and damp fallen leaves. She was people watching, her favourite way in which to while away her lunch break and today was a grand day for it, given the burst of unseasonal October sunshine. On her lap was an open notebook, her scrawled shorthand filling the page as she wrote down the different characteristics of the people milling about her.

  She’d been particularly fascinated by the nervous looking girl she’d seen scurry across the park, a tote bag weighed down with text books hanging from her shoulder. There’d been something about the stoop in her shoulders and the way she wouldn’t meet any of her fellow students’ smiles. She’d been dressed plainly in a non-descript cardigan and skirt. It was the sort of outfit that would fade from your memory moments after she faded from your line of sight. Her hair had been scraped back in a ponytail and she’d kept pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. She’d not had so much as a slick of lipstick on her face which made her look younger than she was, given she was obviously a student. There was an air of vulnerability about her as she made her way toward the college buildings, a frown firmly embedded on her forehead.

  Cliona scribbled away nervous disposition due to stress over impending exam results, probably from a small village and finding it hard to make friends in the big smoke. She paused, pen hovering over her notebook. She needed to eat. It was lunchtime after all and if she didn’t put something in her stomach, she could be sure it would make embarrassing rumblings at inopportune moments that afternoon. Accordingly, she tucked the pen behind her ear and retrieved the grease paper-wrapped sandwiches Mammy had thrust at her on her way out the door that morning.

  It was a conundrum of sorts the whole falling in love thing, she mused, biting into the corned beef sandwich. She needed to experience it first-hand if she was going to write her novel, which she’d already decided would be a love story. She didn’t want to use her imagination to reshape others’ words. That would have felt like cheating, somehow. The thing was, most boys were scared of her. It wasn’t just her height. They wanted girls in pretty frocks who agreed with everything they said. Cliona sighed.

  There had been one boy brave enough to ask her out, Niall Fitzsimmons. A lanky lad who stood a whole half inch taller than her, it was enough to be respectable. He caught the same bus to Westmoreland Street as her of a morning. Niall had spent weeks positioning himself opposite her and the first time she’d caught him staring shyly at her with those dark brown eyes peering out from under his cap, she’d wondered if she had a spot or, even worse, a telltale sign she’d had egg for breakfast on her face. Then, one day he’d taken her by surprise and as she’d looked up to find him staring at her he’d asked her out in a red-faced blurt he’d clearly practised. She hadn’t the heart to say no.

  So, you see, it wasn’t as if she was completely inexperienced when it came to romance. She’d kissed Niall at the end of their evening together too but if she were to tell the truth she’d only done so out of obligation and curiosity. He’d forked out for a fine fish supper and film. It was the least she could do. Besides, he was a nice enough lad even if he did smell of menthol and eucalyptus. That was down to the Brylcreem he styled his duck’s arse with. He must go through tubs and tubs of the stuff, she’d thought, trying not to inhale as he leaned in toward her with his wet, nervous lips puckered. The feel of them as they locked on to hers like a sucker fish made her think of two things. Her father with his slicked back hair, he was a Brylcreem man, and her heavy-handed mammy wielding the Vicks VapoRub. A girl did not want to be thinking about her mammy and da, or cold remedies, when she was being kissed, thank you very much. There’d been nothing in the least poetic about it all and she hadn’t gone out with him again. She suspected he caught the bus that came twenty minutes earlier as she hadn’t seen him since either. She didn’t have time for fellas right now, anyhow.

  Cliona had decided the day the letter arrived confirming her employment at the Times that she was too practical to fall in love. Sure, what was the point? Love led to marriage and it was written right there in front of her in bold black typeface that her employment would be terminated when she married. She didn’t know much about the ways of the world but she did know that it would take time to work her way up through the hierarchy to where she wanted to be. What was the point in all that steady, hard graft if just as the finish line came into sight it was all whipped away from her because she’d said, “I, do.”? There was no point was the simple answer and that’s why she had a plan.

  She would learn the trade from the ground floor up. She would be smarter, and work harder and faster than all those other reporters with their air of self-importance as they tapped out their stories, cigarettes smouldering in the ashtrays beside their typewriters. They were always at the ready with a wise-arse answer and keen to make the girls from the typing pool blush. She would prove she was up to the job. Cliona Whelan would make sure of that. She’d become indispensable.

  She thought of her mammy and her brothers and sisters. Her tribe of younger siblings were always demanding something and never very grateful for having got it. She had no desire to find herself shackled to the kitchen sink with runny-nosed little ones tugging at her apron strings crying for attention in years to come. No, she wanted to write. Writing was something she’d always done. The proof was in her diary, hidden away under her mattress, safe from her nosy, spying sisters’ eyes. It was something she needed to do because it stilled the restlessness in her. How else were you supposed to get all those feelings out? Sure, Father Sheridan didn’t have time to sit in his confessional box and hear her outpourings. Cliona wrote because, well because she had such a lot to say about what she saw all around her and how it made her feel.

  The, world was changing, she liked to tell Mammy, and she was too modern for marriage. Sure, hadn’t she got Honours in her English Leaving Certificate. She was going to be a career woman, so she was. She’d even told Mammy to stop shortening her name to Clio and under no circumstances was she to call her Clio-Cat in the presence of others. The nickname had stuck since she was in nappies and had had a fascination with pulling poor Mittens’, God rest her grumpy old soul, tail. The thing was she’d said, hands on hips, as Mammy stood at the sink with her Marigolds plunged into the hot, soapy water, when she finally got to do some proper reporting—not just the rewrites and advertising editorial mind, her byline would read Cliona Whelan. Not Clio-Cat, thanks very much. It was hard enough to be taken seriously but if anyone got wind of that nickname, sure it’d be the end of her. Mammy had huffed and made an awful clattering with the plates in the sink upon hearing this and said, she was getting ideas above her station since joining the newspaper and it would be a lonely washing that had no man’s shirt in it, if she continued along the way she seemed determined to go.

  Clio absently pulled a piece of crust from her sandwich and tossed it onto the grass. A squalling seagull instantly swooped from where he’d been circling keeping a watchful eye on her and the other students enjoying their lunch. She didn’t like crusts. something she blamed her mammy for. It was the disappointment you see. All those years of dutifully eating them and her hair still hung straight as a curtain to her shoulders. There was not so much as a kink in it, let alone a curl. Most days she pulled it back into a ponytail but once in a while, like when she’d gone out with Niall, she’d dig deep for her inner girl and coax it along with the mesh rollers, lots of backcombing and lashings of setting spray. She frowned. She’d be having words with Fidelma when she got home
, so she would. She was sure she’d been helping herself to the spray. It had been three quarters full the last time she’d used it and now there was only a third left.

  She watched the bird as it pranced about, sending the smaller sparrows hoping for a crumb scattering as it asserted its bullyish presence. She liked bullies even less than she liked crusts. She’d always been one to stand up for the underdog. Sure, look at the trouble she’d gotten into with Sister Evangeline when she’d told her she was being very unfair to poor Patricia Murphy. She only stuttered all the more when she was shouted at and how was the sting of the ruler being brought down on her hand supposed to help her speech? It was why she dreamed of becoming a fully-fledged journalist. She wanted to report on the injustices she saw around her. Put those bullies to rights. And then, one day, she’d publish a novel. A great sweeping, epic of a thing. Oh yes, Cliona thought, she had a plan alright.

  She finished what was left of her sandwich, sweeping the crumbs from the lap of her ink-blue cigarette pants. Mammy was aghast at her insistence on wearing trousers to work, telling her it wasn’t right and what would the neighbours think seeing her prance down the street bold as brass in them. Clio told her, if it was good enough for Katherine Hepburn in her heyday then it was good enough for Cliona Whelan thanks very much. How could she expect to ever have a serious assignment passed her way if she looked like a cake decoration? Besides, she’d reminded Mammy, she’d bought the pants with her own money.

  Indeed, the small brown envelope she’d been handed at the end of her first week’s work had been her wages. They’d burned a hole in her pocket and she’d felt ever so grown up shopping on her own. She’d come back down to earth with a bump when Mammy had greeted her at the door, eyeing her shopping bags before holding her hand out. ‘You’re earning now, Cliona, it’s time you paid for your keep.’

  A gentle breeze whipped over the green and Clio felt it tickle the downy hair on her arms. She’d rolled the sleeves of her white shirt up in order to feel the sun’s kiss. The seagull was still there stalking about and so she flung the remainder of her crust in the opposite decoration, kicking her foot out at the greedy bird and telling him to shoo and give the others a chance. He squawked and flapped at her indignantly.

  ‘What did the poor guy ever do to you?’ a crisply cut American accent asked.

  Clio looked up startled, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun, to see the rangy outline of a student, with a pile of text books tucked under his arms, grinning down at her. He looked to be around twenty or so and had a quiet confidence about himself as he waited for her reply. She automatically noted he was taller than she was.

  ‘The seagull?’

  He nodded and she could tell by the way his sandy-blond hair blew into his eyes, moved by the sudden gust of wind, that he didn’t use Brylcreem.

  ‘I wanted to make sure the sparrows got fed,’ Cliona said, her usual bravado slipping under his gaze. His blue eyes were the colour of the marbles her little brother played with and she tried not to stare but there was something about him that made her want to keep looking.

  He held out his free hand, ‘I’m Gerald Byrne, but everybody calls me Gerry.’

  ‘I’m Cliona Whelan, but everybody calls me Clio.’ She was rather pleased with her comeback, even more so when she received an approving grin. She liked the way the dimples in his cheeks softened his face when he smiled and she liked the trail of freckles across the bridge of his nose, too.

  ‘And what are you studying...?’

  She filled in the gap, ‘Clio, you can call me Clio.’ She conveniently pushed her outburst to her mammy regarding the shortening of her name aside. Cliona suddenly seemed far too much of a mouthful, too serious all of a sudden, which was fine when it came to work but no good when you were talking to a handsome American. She half wished she’d listened to Mammy now and worn her fitted jacket and pencil skirt. She’d held it out hopefully to Clio that morning, telling her it looked a picture on her. Remembering his assumption, she replied, ‘Oh, and I’m not a student.’

  ‘What do you do then, Clio?’ He eyed her notebook curiously and she snapped it shut, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth as she debated how she should describe herself. Journalist or reporter was a stretch given she spent the best part of her day typing other people’s work and making tea. In the end she went with, ‘I work for the Times.’

  ‘I’m a Times man myself. I was reading this morning about that Soviet satellite, Sputnik. It’s been seen over the city a second time. It’s like something from a science fiction novel.’

  Cliona nodded. Every newspaper in the city would have been hustling to get their story to print on time for that morning’s run. ‘The space race has begun.’ She quoted the headline.

  ‘Do you write for the paper?’

  My, but he had a lot of questions given they were complete strangers. Cliona was unnerved. It was usually her who had all the questions. Perhaps it was just the American way of things. She liked his assumption that it was a possibility she was a journalist though, perhaps the trousers had been the right choice after all and, flattered, she told him, ‘I’m a junior typist but I want to be a reporter. You have to work your way up.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘I love it,’ she replied simply. ‘There’s always something happening.’ The clacking of typewriter keys, the shuffling of papers, telephones ringing, reporters anxiously pacing, and best of all the buzz of a big story about to break. It filled her days with excitement and anticipation. It was a long way from the typing pool to being out in the field breaking your teeth on a meaty story though. ‘You’re at Trinity?’ She gestured to the books he was carrying.

  ‘Yup. Third year law student on exchange from Boston Law College. My great-grandparents were both from Dublin.’ He shrugged. ‘Most of Boston’s from somewhere in Ireland. My folks thought it was high time I came back to the motherland and saw the place for myself.’ He hesitated and then asked, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  She looked him over, this confident, good-looking boy from Boston and found herself telling him she didn’t mind, she’d have to go in ten minutes or so anyway. Sure, what was the harm? He sat down, his legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned his head back, raising his face to the sun and closing his eyes for a fleeting moment. ‘Those rays are good. I think the whole city is outside enjoying the weather.’ He gestured around him at the busy slip of green. ‘Or at least the entire college.’

  ‘That’s the Irish for you. We turn into basking African meerkats at the slightest hint of sunshine.’

  He laughed. ‘Wow, that’s some analogy.’

  ‘I saw a photograph of them in a book once, all of them with their heads pointing up at the sun. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘What were you writing in there? If you don’t mind me asking?’ He pointed to her notebook.

  ‘I collect character descriptions.’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘I write down things about people that stand out or catch my eye.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but why?’

  ‘Because I want to write a novel one day and I figured that it would be good to have something to call on when I describe my characters.’

  ‘So, it’s a reference book?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘You’ve a pen behind your ear, did you know that?’ There was a cheeky glint in the blue irises.

  She pulled it down and opened her notebook making an entry.

  ‘Is that shorthand?’

  Cliona nodded.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘A Bostonian law student with intelligent, deep-set blue eyes and twin dimples. Hair a curious mix somewhere between blond and brown. A looming, athletic build. Wearing brown trousers and a green sweater and carrying a clutch of text books. An air of insatiable curiosity about him.’

  Gerry looked taken aback momentarily and this time when he threw his head back it was to laugh. Clio grinned and snapped her boo
k shut.

  ‘Look over there,’ he said once he’d sobered. She followed the direction of where he’d pointed and saw a young woman with the most unusual shade of red hair. She stood out from the crowd, not just because she was pretty, but because of the confidence with which she moved and Cliona felt something stir. A kernel of something unpleasant knotted in her stomach, an unfamiliar feeling and she didn’t like it. Nor did she understand why, his pointing out a good-looking girl, should make her react that way. Why did she suddenly want to be pretty and feminine like that girl? Her looks had never mattered all that much to her. You were given what you were given and there wasn’t much you could do about it, so you might as well make the most of it and get on with things. She was glad for the most part that she wasn’t a great beauty. To be beautiful would be a distraction from what she had to say.

  She wasn’t unattractive. According to Mammy’s women’s magazine she had a heart-shaped face and she’d been blessed with clear skin, bright inquisitive grey eyes and a nose that could have been a little smaller but one that was passable. Her nan had sighed over her waist just the other day, saying she could remember when she’d had a waist you could fit her hands around like Clio’s. It was hard to imagine Nan ever being small, she’d always had a middle like a sack of spuds, but eight children would do that to you, and there was another good reason not to fall in love, and get married.

  ‘Hair the colour of autumn fire, skin like milk,’ Gerry began.

  Clio snapped her notebook shut and got up, annoyance pricking. So much for him being different. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She really did have to go, she only had five minutes to get back behind her typewriter. She remembered her manners. ‘It was nice talking to you, Gerry.’ And then, without looking back, she strode off unaware of his admiring gaze as he watched her wind her way through the various basking bodies to the street.

  Chapter 15

  Roisin drove down the unfamiliar treelined street Jenny now lived on, keeping an eye out for the numbers. It was a far cry from the one-bedroomed apartment on the Quays she’d once swanned about in, where Roisin had dossed down on her lumpy old sofa many times after a night on the lash. Her hands tapped the steering wheel enjoying the poppy beat of the music playing. It was a treat being out and about on her own. No Noah chattering incessantly about Mr Nibbles or Mammy pointing out what every other driver on the road was doing wrong. The first thing she’d done after adjusting the rear view and side mirrors had been to change the radio station. Mammy liked a talky-talky one because she enjoyed arguing with the host even though he couldn’t hear her. She slowed a little and peered over to the left looking for a house number. ‘Twenty-three,’ she said out loud, ‘twenty-five. Nearly there.’