Part Seven

‘I'm in Ferns, which means I am nearly in Enniscorthy,' the man's voice said. ‘I will see you in half an hour.'

Nancy had met Birdseye first when he had convinced George to put a freezer into his supermarket and begin to stock frozen food. He loved arriving with new products, insisting that frozen peas and frozen fish fingers would soon be outselling fresh bread.

‘People want something new, something that is being advertised on television.'

Once Dunnes Stores opened in Rafter Street, Birdseye had been the first to warn her.

‘You can't compete with them.'

‘So, what do I do?' she asked. ‘Just close up?'

‘Yes, you are going to have to close up sooner or later. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you.'

‘And what will I do?'

‘There are always options, missus, there are always options.'

‘I don't see any.'

Two weeks later, Birdseye came to her with a plan.

‘We will help you install a chip shop if you sign up to using our products which are, in any case, the best. Everything comes packaged and ready – the fish, the chips, the burgers. They'll be frozen. And I can guarantee you that you won't lose money.'

‘So why doesn't everyone open a chip shop?'

‘Because not everyone owns a premises on the main square of a small town.'

Nancy consulted no one. Even when she was borrowing money from the Credit Union, she told them it was for work on the supermarket and the floors above. She did not mention a chip shop.

Once it was opened, Birdseye came every two weeks to take her order. She made him tea and a sandwich in the kitchen upstairs. He knew from the size of her order how well she was doing.

‘You were the bravest. Anyone else would have let the supermarket sink before making a decision. All over the country grocers and small supermarkets are going to the wall slowly, ending up in debt. People are being ruined.'

—

This morning, Birdseye, sitting at her kitchen table, seemed more formal than usual. As soon as the tea was ready, he took out the order sheet for her to sign and indicated the amount that was due to be paid.

‘You're all business today,' she said.

‘I'm a man on a mission.'

‘I haven't seen you like this since the day you came with the first batch of chicken nuggets.'

‘This is bigger,' he said. ‘In the longer term, this is bigger.'

‘Tell me.'

‘It might seem like nothing. But if pubs began to serve toasted cheese sandwiches and toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, it would be a whole new ball game. They'd buy them frozen from us. They'd be delicious. That is the main thing, missus, they'd be delicious. There's no one in Ireland wouldn't want one.'

‘Is that what has you fired up?'

‘In each town, we are looking for a pub to start off with. It has to have young people, rugby people. That sort of bar. And I thought you would know what pub in Enniscorthy we should start with.'

‘I most certainly do.'

‘The next step then is for the owner to fill in this form. And just a signature expressing interest. And then we'll set the ball rolling. We want to reach a stage when ten lads will order not only ten pints but ten toasted cheese sandwiches as well.'

She looked at the form.

‘I could get this signed for you this morning,' she said.

‘It would be great if you could. What if I call back at two when I'm on my way home? Make sure you tell the bar owner that this doesn't commit him to anything. But if he has a brain in his head, he'll jump at this chance.'

—

Nancy thought that she would walk over to Jim's pub once twelve struck and Jim, having just opened the bar, would, she hoped, be on his own there. It occurred to her that she might even offer to take responsibility for the sandwiches. It could be her way of helping out. She would have to be careful, however, not to appear to be making decisions for him. But he knew about Birdseye, and he would surely want to serve toasted sandwiches if it was made easy, even though he would have to buy plates and cutlery.

When she pushed open the front door of the pub, she was met with silence. There was no one behind the long counter. The first customers had not arrived yet. Jim must be outside in the store. She sat on one of the bar-stools to wait for him. But it was Shane rather than Jim who appeared in the doorway that led to the back yard. When, at first, Shane didn't notice her, she called out his name.

‘The boss's not here,' he said.

‘Will he be back soon?'

‘I can't tell you that.'

She wondered if Shane was being deliberately dismissive and casual. She hardly knew how to reply. Shane did not move from the doorway.

‘I'll give him a shout later,' she said and turned to go.

‘Right you be,' he said.

It reminded her of the other time she had dropped by in the morning, that day when Shane had told her that Jim was in Dublin. Even afterwards, when she had questioned Jim about the trip, Jim had brushed her off, given no satisfactory reason for going to Dublin.

The way Shane had said ‘I can't tell you that' irritated her. It was as if she were a nosey person coming in from the street.

Back home, she put the form on the hall table and went upstairs, finding Gerard and Larry, Eilis Lacey's son, in the kitchen.

‘How is your mother enjoying her stay?' Nancy asked him. ‘Your grandmother must be delighted to have her home.'

‘I think my grandmother is delighted to have my sister here,' Larry said. ‘They're inseparable. They drink their tea from the same cup.'

‘Do they really?'

‘Well, not actually, but it feels like that.'

‘And your mother is well?'

‘Yeah, she's good. She's gone to Cush where my uncle has a house. She went this morning.'

‘I hope the weather lifts a bit. Did the others go with her?'

‘No, she went on her own. My uncle Martin is in the town because he is coming to the match with us.'

‘She's on her own down there?'

‘Yes, just for the day, I think.'

Nancy moved towards the sink and pretended to be washing a cup and saucer. At the wedding, Lily Devereux had told her about Jim appearing on a lane in Cush. It had seemed puzzling at the time and she wondered if Lily's mother hadn't mixed him up with someone else. But it occurred to her also that the day Jim was in Dublin, Eilis was, by coincidence, in Dublin as well. And now Eilis was in Cush and Jim was not where he usually was. And Shane had used the same offhand tone with her just now as he did on that other day.

It added up for a second and then, when she considered it further, it didn't add up. It was not possible that Jim and Eilis Lacey were together at this moment in Cush, or somewhere else. But if Jim needed to see Eilis, how would he do so? He could hardly call to the house in Court Street. And Eilis could hardly come into the pub or be seen knocking at his door.

Just before the end of the wedding party the two had spoken. Nancy was sure of this. She had caught a glimpse of them, but she thought nothing of it. Yes, surely Jim might want to see Eilis before she went home. Nancy remembered Eilis asking about him when she visited her that first day. It seemed that she genuinely didn't know whether Jim was married or not. Now that he was about to get married and she was soon to return to America, Jim would want to talk to her. Perhaps he would hint to her, or even tell her, that his life was going to change.

But if they had, indeed, arranged to meet that day in Dublin, and if Jim were in Cush at this very moment, and had also been there before when he was spotted by Mrs Devereux, and since they had met at the wedding, this morning's meeting was clearly more than a valedictory occasion.

But maybe all of this surmising was nonsense. Maybe Jim was at the bank or seeing an accountant.

It was too much of a coincidence or it was nothing. Whatever it was, she knew, it would go through her mind all day. How ludicrous it might appear were Jim even to discover that she, Nancy, believed he was seeing Eilis Lacey, that they had sneaked off to be together!

It would be easy, she thought, to drive to Cush. It wasn't yet half past twelve. The drive there would take only half an hour. She had plenty of time and no one would ever know she had done this. But it would be wrong not to trust Jim. It was tempting fate. She put the idea out of her mind. She could easily relax for a few hours or even go for a walk by the river. But then she would not be able to stop herself going over every possibility, analysing every clue.

She found the car keys and walked down the stairs. As she reached the car, another image came to her. It was the sight of Jim's Morris Oxford parked on the street in Wexford on the night of the wedding when she had been told that he had already gone back to Enniscorthy.

As she drove out of the town, she tried to piece together, once and for all, the evidence that she had. Yes, Eilis would want to see Jim, of course she would! Nancy should have understood that the very first day Eilis came home. And, since she knew how madly in love Jim had been with Eilis all the years before, why did she not imagine that he, in turn, would want to see her.

But had they really met? And how many times? Was it actually possible they were together now?

As she passed through The Ballagh and then Blackwater, Nancy was glad she had made the decision to go to Cush. She was nervous. In the run-up to the announcement of their engagement, she still often wondered if it was all real. Today, she determined, once she got home, she would give up being nervous, give up worrying. It would be all right. In April, she would be married.

On the road between Blackwater and Ballyconnigar Strand, Nancy turned left at the ball alley. She parked her car at the top of the first lane that led to the strand. If she saw someone, she would ask where Martin Lacey's house was. She could even knock on the door of the first farmhouse and enquire. But then she saw that she would not have to. As she made her way down the lane, she saw Jim's car parked straight ahead. And the car parked in front of it was Eilis Lacey's rented car.

Further along, she could see a gate into a field where a small house stood. She walked past the cars to the gate, which was open, and headed towards the house. The morning had brightened. There was not a sound.

She looked in through the windows of the house and saw a single bed with blankets and sheets all tossed and some women's clothes on a chair. If anyone came, she decided, she would simply say that she was down here for a walk and thought she would call in on Eilis, since Larry had told her that Eilis was here. But then it struck her that the person most likely to appear was Jim and she had no idea how they would face each other, what they would say. She felt as though she would be somehow in the wrong.

When she went to the edge of the cliff, she saw Jim and Eilis on the strand below and she realised that if she did not crouch down, they would easily be able to see her. Over to the right, nearer the gate, there was a mound of earth half covered in grass. She moved back from the cliff and approached the mound on all fours, finding that the only way she could get a view of the strand below without running the risk of being spotted was to lie on her stomach and look down.

Jim and Eilis were having an intense conversation. Both, she saw, were in bare feet. Eilis was carrying a towel. When Jim said something, Eilis moved away from him, closer to the waves. And when she came back, he embraced her and they began to kiss.

Nancy noticed Jim glancing at his watch, and then, after another embrace, edging away from Eilis. He was going to walk up the steps in the cliff. She would have to get back fast to her car. She did not want Jim to see her; she did not want a confrontation. She made her way as quickly as she could to the lane and walked to her car without looking behind.

When she finally did turn, she saw with satisfaction that Jim had not yet come to the top of the cliff. He would have no idea that she had been here.

On the journey back to the town, her mind did not waver for a single instant from a plan that she had begun to formulate even as she lay on the clifftop looking down.

—

She went to her bedroom and looked through the jewellery box on her dressing table. If her old engagement ring was too tight for her finger, she would go straight to Kerr's and buy a new one. Were it another day, she might worry about how to explain the purchase to the Kerrs. But today she would simply find an engagement ring that fitted her and write a cheque for the amount it cost. She had no interest in what anyone might think.

Nor did it detain her for a moment when she found her old engagement ring and knew that she would be using the ring that George had bought for her.

At first, she could not get the old ring on. It had always been a struggle, she remembered, but she liked that George had chosen it and, at the time, didn't want to go back to the jeweller's with it. It was years since she had worn it. With time and with all the working in the chip shop, her fingers had become thicker.

Years before, there was a way to get the ring on. Since her mother-in-law owned a lot of rings, it was old Mrs Sheridan who taught her to apply Windolene, the pinkish liquid used to clean windows. Nancy remembered that you wet the finger with it and then you could slide the ring on.

She put the ring beside the sink and began to massage her finger with the Windolene, pressing hard against the bone. And then she remembered her mother-in-law lifting her hand high in the air for a moment before the liquid dried and then slipping the ring on in one try.

She winced with pain as she felt the ring cutting the knuckle. But it was on her finger. She washed the Windolene away. She was wearing an engagement ring.

All she needed now was to change her clothes, brush her hair and put on good shoes.

She kept her left hand to her side as she walked across the Market Square and then along Rafter Street and Court Street until she came to Mrs Lacey's house.

The door was answered by Eilis's dark-eyed daughter.

‘Is your mother in?' Nancy asked.

‘No, she isn't.'

‘Who is that?' a voice came from the kitchen. ‘Rosella, who is that?'

‘It's Mrs Sheridan, Granny.'

‘Tell her to come in.'

Rosella ushered her into the back room where Mrs Lacey, moving laboriously, soon joined them.

‘You're looking very well, Mrs Lacey.'

‘Rosella picks out the clothes for me every morning and she has the best taste.'

‘And will Eilis be back soon?'

‘I'm sure she will. She went off early. We are waiting for her too.'

‘There was something I wanted to tell her. You know, she's one of my oldest friends. Can you say I called in specially?'

‘Well, I can get her to drop down to you.'

Nancy lifted up her left hand.

‘I wanted to share the news with her that I got engaged.'

‘Congratulations, Mrs Sheridan,' Rosella said.

‘Oh now, engaged! Congratulations!' said Mrs Lacey. ‘And who, might I ask, is the lucky man?'

‘Well, it was a secret but it's not any more. And can you tell Eilis that I walked up here specially to tell her. I'm engaged to Jim Farrell. We've been seeing each other for a while, but at our age you don't want too much of a splash.'

‘And when will the big day be?' Mrs Lacey asked.

‘Oh, we've decided to get married in Rome. It will be quiet.'

‘Rosella, she is marrying that nice man whose pub Larry goes to. The Farrells have always been very decent people. You know, I go back very far, Nancy, there aren't many like me left, but I even remember his grandmother.'

When she was offered tea, Nancy declined and took her leave. She went slowly along Court Street. Normally, when she had to walk through the town, she tried to avoid people who wanted to stop and talk. But this time she sought people out. She even made a visit to Dunnes Stores. And to everyone she met she showed the engagement ring and told them that herself and Jim had wanted to keep things under wraps until now, but they would be getting married in Rome in April. They had the date fixed and the arrangements made.