ii

Eilis was in the kitchen with her mother when the deliveries came. Martin, her brother, must have been doing something in the hallway because he was the one who answered the door. The two delivery men had already unloaded the fridge, the washing machine and the cooker from the van. When Eilis went to the door, she observed some of the neighbours watching the scene closely.

‘The plumber is on his way,' one of the men said. ‘So we'll need to find a place in the kitchen for the washing machine. The man for the cooker will be here tomorrow. He's in Bunclody today.'

It was only when she saw the sheer size of the deliveries that it occurred to Eilis what a mistake it had been not to consult her mother before ordering these items. In her excitement at being home, in an urge to do something special for her mother, she had imagined this as a surprise. She could not believe that nothing at all had changed in the house since she had left more than twenty years earlier – the same wallpaper, the same curtains and lino and worn rugs, the same blankets and eiderdowns on the beds, and still no fridge in the kitchen and an old cooker that depended on bottled gas, and no washing machine. Her mother had the sheets and towels done at the laundry but washed her own clothes by hand, using a washboard that could, Eilis thought, more usefully be put into a museum or maybe just thrown out.

Her mother shouted from the kitchen.

‘What is happening out there?'

One of the delivery men walked down the hallway to the kitchen, followed by Eilis.

‘We can drag the old cooker out now,' he said. ‘It will just take one second.'

‘One second to what?' her mother asked.

The man ignored her and called to his colleague.

‘Best to put the stuff where it's going to stay, so they won't have the trouble of moving it again. It would be great if that plumber came sooner rather than later.'

‘What plumber?' her mother asked and stood up.

‘To connect the washing machine.'

‘I didn't order any washing machine.'

‘I did,' Eilis said. ‘I ordered some things for the kitchen.'

‘What things?'

‘What they are delivering now.'

Her mother walked slowly along the hallway to the front door, with Eilis following. Martin was standing beside one of the delivery men.

‘Now, what might I ask is all this?'

‘Well,' the man said, ‘this is a fridge, that is a cooker and this here is the washing machine. We are waiting for the plumber.'

‘Then you are at the wrong house.'

‘Mammy,' Eilis asked, ‘I wonder if I could speak to you inside for a minute?'

In the sitting room, she explained to her mother what she had done.

‘Without consulting me?'

‘I thought it would be a surprise. It would be really lovely to have a fridge and a washing machine.'

‘If I had wanted them, I would have ordered them myself. I was not sitting here waiting for you to come home and put everything right. And I was lucky, because I would have waited a long time.'

‘They've already unloaded everything and it's paid for.'

‘Is there a law saying that they can't take it back to where they found it?'

—

Before she had left for Ireland, Frank, her brother-in-law, had phoned Eilis at work and arranged to meet her in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He had chosen a quiet place for them to talk.

‘If you're asking me,' Eilis said, ‘to see things from Tony's point of view, or your mother's point of view, then you're wasting your time.'

‘I wanted to get an address for you so I could keep in touch.'

‘Are you the one designated to keep me informed?'

‘No one asked me to inform you of anything. But there is something else.'

‘What?'

He handed her a thick envelope filled with twenty-dollar bills.

‘What is this for?'

‘For you. For your trip.'

‘How much is here?'

‘Two thousand.'

‘Why would I need that amount of money?'

‘My grandfather went back to Italy once. He went to implore his wife to come to America, try to make the trip one more time. He barely had the fare. But when he arrived in the village, both his family and my grandmother's family held big parties in his honour. And then the next day they showed him the fields they had chosen to build new houses in. It was all ready to go. They presumed he had come home loaded. When he spoke, it sounded like dollars to them. When they discovered he was broke they had no further use for him.'

‘What has this to do with me?'

‘I thought it would be best for you to have some money in case you need it. Maybe go on a road trip with Rosella and Larry, rent a car or buy a present for your mother. You have always been kind to me. It's the least I can do. No strings attached. It's not a loan. I don't want it back.'

‘But you have already been so generous, paying for Rosella's tuition.'

‘It's a hard time for you. This is just to help you out.'

—

Eilis could see that her mother was trying to decide what to do. For a second, she wondered if there was one more thing she might say. While her mother moved slowly and seemed to be in pain some of the time, especially when going up the stairs, or when she had to stand up, she had developed a strength and determination when she spoke that had not been there before. She used to be gentler and easier.

Her mother returned to where the delivery men were standing. The fridge, oven and washing machine were blocking the hallway. Martin was still talking to one of the neighbours. When she heard his high-pitched laughter, Eilis wished that her brother would move inside the house.

‘Is all this paid for?' her mother asked the delivery men.

‘Yes, paid for and delivered.'

‘Well, I'm not sure where I want it or what I want to do with it, so if you just leave it in the hallway for the moment and let me think about it. And maybe you can tell the plumber that he won't be needed?'

‘He's on his way, ma'am.'

‘Well, I'll tell him when he comes.'

When they had gone, Eilis sat in the kitchen with her mother and Martin.

‘And who might pay the electricity bill for all these machines?' her mother asked. ‘They would eat electricity. Eat it! The fridge would be on day and night running up bills. When you are back sunning yourself in America, I will be here paying bills.'

While her mother had become more assertive, Martin appeared nervous, jittery, unable to stay still. He had an old Morris Minor that often took time to start. When he came home from England first, with compensation money he had been awarded for a fall at work, he had bought a small house in bad repair at the edge of the cliff at Cush, ten miles away. Every day he seemed to move between there and his mother's house. If he was in the town during the day, he went out regularly to take a stroll or visit a pub. If he was there at night and sober, he could, in the middle of a sentence, stand up and announce his departure, made all the more dramatic by the dry sound of the ignition of the car failing, and then the engine eventually starting, and the noise of loud revving.

Eilis asked him, when she found him alone, if he agreed that their mother had changed.

‘She's only like that with you,' he said.

‘Why?'

‘Who can say?'

Slowly, she understood why her mother did not miss having a fridge in the house. It meant that she had to venture out often to buy groceries, getting some things in Hayes's in Court Street and others in Miss O'Connor's opposite, or going further to Martin Doyle the butcher's, or Billy Kervick's in the Market Square. Now, she insisted that Eilis come with her, both of them struggling to get past the bulky objects in the hallway. Eilis had tried to convince her mother that she should at least agree to have the washing machine installed, but her mother told her that she needed time to think about it.

‘When I decide what to do, I will let everyone know.'

For every trip to the shops, her mother dressed up, wearing her good shoes and putting on a hat and then standing in front of the mirror as she inserted an old-fashioned hatpin. She demanded that Eilis, too, should look her best. And then, on the street or in shops, people remarked on how well Eilis looked or said how glad they were to see her, and her mother kept the conversation going for as long as she could.

‘We'll have met the whole town before long,' Eilis said. ‘And they look at me like I'd come from the moon.'

‘It's nice to see them all so charming,' her mother said.

When she informed her mother that Nancy had invited her to Miriam's wedding, her mother was not impressed.

‘God knows who will be there.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Every type of latchico is to be found outside that Nancy's chip shop. They drink first in any pub that will have them and then they come to Nancy for fish and chips, and the next thing is a pool of vomit, or worse, if there is worse.'

‘I'm sure that's not Nancy's fault.'

‘She turns no one away. She likes money. Speaking of which, there is something I would like to show you.'

Her mother left the room. Eilis could hear her slowly ascending the stairs. Tomorrow, she thought, she would think of subjects that would please her mother more.

Her mother returned with a bank book that she opened and showed to Eilis. In her deposit account, there was a large sum of money, much more than Mrs Lacey would have been able to save from her meagre pension.

‘I don't need to be rescued from poverty,' her mother said.

‘But where did this money come from?' Eilis asked.

‘It's mine. It's nobody else's.'

‘But how did you . . . ?' Eilis was unsure how to finish the question.

‘Jack, your brother, bought this house from me. I made an arrangement with him when he was home from Birmingham two years ago that the house is mine to live in the rest of my life and then Martin can live here until it is his time to meet his maker. And then it will belong to Jack or his family. It is an arrangement that suits everyone, since Jack has plenty of money. When business is good, he has more than fifty men working for him. And I thought I would let you know for two reasons. One, so that you don't think I am in need of charity. And two, so that you don't expect a share in this house when I have passed on to my reward.'

‘I didn't expect anything.'

‘So we're happy then.'

—

The days were hard to fill. The car Eilis had rented at Dublin Airport on arrival, using some of Frank's money, was parked outside the door. When she suggested going for a drive, her mother demurred.

‘Getting into a car might be possible, but I know I would never manage to get out of one. And what would we do then? I would be a holy show.'

At first, Eilis found the conversation at the table between her mother and Martin intriguing. There was a woman called Betty Parle living in St John's Villas who worked in an insurance company on Main Street. Every morning she passed the house in Court Street. Usually she carried, with some style, an elegant umbrella. Her clothes, too, were elegant. Her hair was dyed pitch black and there was a cake of make-up on her face.

‘Do you know what I heard?' Eilis's mother asked. ‘I heard that Betty Parle wrote to the Pope. Oh, it was after her mother died and all the family had left the town and she was on her own, with just her umbrellas and her costumes and her make-up and that dyed hair of hers, and she was lonely, as you would be, and sad. But what did she do then? She wrote to the Pope! And told him all about herself. Can you imagine them all in the Vatican on a busy day? They would wake the Pope early. Get up, there's a letter from Betty Parle.'

When her mother told the story a second time and then a third, with Martin laughing each time, egging her on, Eilis realised that he had heard it many times before.

By the end of the first week, most of the stories her mother told had been repeated more than once. Often, however, she found new people in the town to discuss and denigrate.

‘Josie Cahill stopped to talk when she was passing which she doesn't usually do. And I wondered why until I realised it was to boast. Her son, the second boy, is studying to be a doctor. He has finished his first year. None of those Cahills had a brain in their heads. I almost said it to Josie straight. And none of her side either. I remember her father delivering coal and there's a brother of hers who used to walk greyhounds.'

‘Isn't it great that the boy is going to be a doctor?' Eilis asked.

‘But no one in the town will go to him if he opens up here.'

‘Maybe he'll practise somewhere else?'

‘I hope so. I wouldn't like one of the Cahills prodding at me.'

Her mother rose at eight and had the breakfast things cleared away by nine. At one thirty they had the main meal of the day. When it was over, there really was nothing to do. Eilis did not feel that she could go for a drive on her own, or even a walk. She had come home to be with her mother.

One evening when her mother had gone to bed early, as she often did, Eilis heard Martin arriving. She had learned that he remained sober once there was a chance that he might drive anywhere. The previous year, her mother had told her, he had been stopped by the Guards and banned from driving for six months.

This evening he seemed less agitated than usual and he agreed to have a cup of tea with her. When she asked him about the pubs in the town, it was a way of making conversation, but as he went through his favourite haunts, she realised that she would soon be able to ask him about Jim Farrell and make the question seem natural.

‘My mother says you broke his heart,' Martin said.

‘My mother says a lot of things.'

‘He's doing a good business in the pub. He opened up a big space in the back and brought in a young fellow to be a barman to add to Shane Nolan. I have never met anyone who dislikes Shane Nolan.'

‘And Jim Farrell himself?'

‘He has all the old timers and then the younger crowd in the big back room. It's roaring in there sometimes. Standing room only at the weekends in the back. I go there midweek.'

‘I hear Jim has a girlfriend in Dublin,' Eilis said.

‘He goes to Dublin on a Thursday but he's back by nine, and he works all weekend, so I don't know when he'd have time to see her.'

‘You follow everyone.'

‘That's what I like about here. I know them all.'

If their mother had been present, Eilis thought, she would not have been able to ask so many questions about Jim Farrell. She deliberately left silence now in case Martin had more to say about him but he soon set off for his house in Cush without telling her anything else.

Her mother did not mention Jim. Nor had she been eager to hear news of Tony and his family, and even Eilis's efforts to talk about Rosella and Larry had not met with enthusiasm. In letters, she had told her mother about Mr Dakessian's garage, but when she had referred to it on one of her first days home her mother did not appear to know what she was talking about. Over time, she hoped, it would change, but she realised that, for the moment, her mother did not want to hear about her life in America.

When her mother showed her photographs of Jack's big house on the outskirts of Birmingham and then his wife and children at various celebrations, she wondered what had happened to all the photographs that she had sent of Rosella and Larry. Her mother crossed the room to find another album of photos but they were of Pat and his family in a more modest house in Bolton. For the rest of the day, the lives of Pat and Jack and their families in England became her mother's main subject. Eilis learned about the different schools her nephews and nieces attended, the holidays they went on, the fact that Jack's eldest daughter was in university studying science and Pat's eldest boy was a wizard at maths.

She should not, Eilis realised now, have come home so early. She tried to remember how the decision to come a month before the children had been made. It was partly to get away from Tony and his mother before she found out anything more about the plans they had. But she had not put enough thought into what the days would actually be like, how long the afternoons and evenings would be, and how little there would be to do.

On her first day, she wrote a brief note to Tony to let him know that she had arrived safely. She did not tell him about the rented car in case he would worry about the cost of it. She tried not to be too cold, but she did not say that she missed him.

A few days later, it was easier to write at greater length to Rosella and to Larry, and also to Frank. As she was writing, she imagined an ordinary morning in their cul-de-sac at Lindenhurst. On a summer's day like this, she would wake earlier than the others and often would have finished her breakfast before anyone else got up. How easy it would be now to wake in that house! And then be greeted by Mr Dakessian with an account of some history book he had been reading and meeting the regular customers and making calls to have a spare part delivered as speedily as possible. And, all the time aware that there were rooms waiting for her – her bedroom, the kitchen, the living room – and noises she was familiar with – Larry playing with his cousins or Tony's car reversing into the driveway or Tony's voice as he came in the door.

She wondered if she would ever have all this back again. She found herself wishing that a letter would come from Tony or his mother or Frank to say that they had begun to see things from her point of view, or that the man had returned to say that he and his wife had decided that they would raise the child themselves.

She wished that Rosella and Larry were coming now and not weeks away. She wished her mother would let her talk about them. But she barely let herself think about what she wished for most – that she were not in her mother's living room trying to write a letter, hearing her mother move with difficulty in the room upstairs, but rather at home, waking to the soft light of early summer that appeared through the curtains of her bedroom on Long Island.

In her letter, she told Rosella about Miriam's wedding, adding that she was hoping to buy a new dress or even an outfit to wear if she could find something she liked. She wrote that her mother never missed the six o'clock news on television and complained, when it came to the nine o'clock news, if the headlines had not changed. She was going to write about Martin and his constant moving between the house on the cliff and his mother's house in the town, but she decided she would save that for her letter to Larry. To Frank she hinted at how strange she felt in a house that had once been so familiar. She did not mention Tony in any of the letters. She did not want to say anything about Tony.

To none of them did she say that she, her mother and Martin had to edge past the fridge, the cooker and the washing machine, still in their packaging in the hallway. The longer they remained there, she believed, the more impossible it would be to return them.

—

In the morning when she woke, the room was in shadow. She tried to think what was making her dread the day to come and then she realised that it was nothing. She was in her mother's house, that was all. It occurred to her, as she lay there, that she would like to change the bed. She was sure that the mattress was the same one she had slept on more than twenty years earlier. Now, it was thinner and it sagged in the middle. The sheets had a strange satiny, waxy feel to them and the blankets slipped off them through the night.

She wondered where Rosella and Larry were going to sleep when they came. She herself was in the room she used to share with Rose. Martin slept in the room he had once shared with his brothers. There was a spare room in the attic that could be reached by a ladder but that had never been used. There was no other bedroom, except her mother's.

One evening after the nine o'clock news, she raised the subject of her mattress and the sheets. She did not expect her mother to respond warmly, but she thought it best to mention it now and perhaps soften her mother up on the subject before Rosella and Larry came.

‘And what's wrong with it all?' her mother asked.

‘It might be nice to get some new mattresses and bedclothes. It might be nice for Rosella to sleep in a new bed in my room and maybe we could get a bed for Larry and put it in the attic room.'

‘Why can't he sleep in one of the beds in Martin's room?'

‘Martin comes in and out at all times of the day and night.'

‘Have your children asked for new beds?'

‘No, they've said nothing.'

‘So, why don't we leave things as they are?'

Eilis did not reply.

‘I notice,' her mother went on, ‘that people pamper their children nowadays. They want a new this and a new that. And often it's not actually the children who do the wanting, it's the parents. They don't spend enough time with their children because they are out working and gallivanting, and then they compensate by buying luxuries that no one needs. I heard someone talking about it on the radio.'

Eilis decided to change the subject as quickly as she could.

‘You must be looking forward to your birthday,' she said. ‘And Jack and Pat coming. We'll all be here.'

‘I don't think about it at all. I would like no fuss.'

‘Well, that's why Rosella and Larry are coming and that's why Jack and Pat are coming and Martin says some of their children might even come too.'

‘You must remember the old woman who used to live in number forty-seven,' her mother began. A look of satisfaction came over her face.

‘Miss Jane Hegarty, she was always called,' her mother continued. ‘She was very noble and kept a beautiful house. Miss Jane Hegarty was a very polite, well-spoken person. When she got older, a priest, a friend of the family's, used to visit once a week to give her the sacraments. And for a while a nurse came, but she took against the nurse. And then it was discovered that she was going to be a hundred years old. And we all got invited to a party in her house. I went only because I believed she had invited me. How could I not go? But the people who organised the party were a low crowd. Not all of them, mind. But enough of them to make it into a free-for-all. Word spread that there was drink to be had. Louts descended on her house. And of course they not only fed themselves lashings of vodka, if it wasn't gin, but they fed Miss Jane too, and in her innocence, Miss Jane drank it, topped up with lemonade. And they drank and she drank until someone put her to bed. And she died the next day. She died of the party. Vodka and good cheer one day and a coffin and a hearse the next. And if anyone thinks this is happening on my birthday, they can think again. I will bar the door.'

‘It will be just for family,' Eilis said.

‘Families are often the worst,' her mother replied.

Eilis stood up.

‘I think I might go for a stroll,' she said.

‘At this time of night?'

She thought of going somewhere in the car, maybe drive to Wexford and take a walk along the main street there. It was a warm night and there was still a glow in the western sky. She decided to walk down to the Market Square and perhaps down Slaney Street to the river in the last light. She would decide then what she would do. In the morning she might ask Martin to give her a phone number for Jack or Pat and ask them for advice. But they could easily reply that it was her own fault for ordering the fridge and the oven and the washing machine without consulting her mother and it was her own fault for staying away for so long. And they could add that, since their mother was old and since her life had not been easy, then the least Eilis could do was not complain about her.

She passed Aspell's and was tempted for a moment to go down Church Street but instead she continued along Rafter Street towards the Square. Maybe, she thought, she should work out a way of listening to her mother, enjoy her stories even if she told them more than once. It must be hard to be eighty and a widow of thirty years.

—

As she wondered about how she might set about persuading her mother to come for a drive with her some day, she saw a figure standing at the door of Jim Farrell's pub. Instantly, she realised that it was Jim himself. She did not know if he had seen her. He was looking in the other direction but he might have averted his gaze precisely because he had spotted her coming towards him on the opposite footpath.

Even though she put her head down, she was sure that he would not be able to avoid noticing her. There was no one else on the street. If she were to turn her head and glance across, their eyes would connect. She would not know what to do and she could not imagine how he might respond. Maybe he had not actually recognised her. But if he had seen her, they could hardly just nod to each other, or say a polite hello.

The best thing would be for her not to look across at him again and to proceed to the Square without glancing behind. An encounter like this was always bound to happen. She had never imagined, however, that if she were to see him, she would actually feel an urge, as she did now, to approach him, speak to him, hear his voice. But it could not be done.

She would have to continue on her walk through the town as if he were not standing watching her from the door of his pub.