Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn

"Oh, that's a great idea, Mrs. Kehoe," Eilis said. "You should thank him on behalf of all of us the next time you see him."

She hoped that the law exam would be as easy as the last time. And she was happy with the work she had done in all the other subjects. As part of the final exam, however, every student would be given all the details of the annual life of a company, rent and heat and light, wages, the fact that machinery and other assets might devalue each year, debt, capital investment and tax. On the other side, there would be sales, money coming in from a number of sources, be they wholesale or retail. And all of this would have to be entered into ledgers in the correct column, it would have to be done neatly so that at an annual general meeting when the board and shareholders of a company wanted to see clearly how profit or loss had been made, they could do so from these ledgers. Anyone who failed this part of the exam, they were told, would not get a passing mark even if they did well in other papers. They would have to repeat the entire exam.

One evening close to the exams, when Tony was walking her home, Eilis told him about her plan to go home for a month once the results came. She had already written to her mother telling her the news. Tony said nothing to her, but, when they arrived at Mrs. Kehoe's, he asked her to walk with him around the block. His face was pale and he seemed serious and did not look at her directly as he spoke.

When they were away from Mrs. Kehoe's he sat on a stoop where there was no one, leaving her standing against the railings. She knew that he would be upset about her going like this but was ready to explain to him that he had family in Brooklyn and he did not know what it was like to be away from home. She was prepared to tell him that he would go home too for a visit under similar circumstances.

"Marry me before you go back," he said almost under his breath.

"What did you say?" She went to the stoop and sat beside him.

"If you go, you won't come back."

"I'm just going for a month, I told you."

"Marry me before you go back."

"You don't trust me to come back."

"I read the letter your brother wrote. I know how hard it would be for you to go home and then leave again. I know it would be hard for me. I know what a good person you are. I would live in fear of getting a letter from you explaining that your mother could not be left alone."

"I promise you I will come back."

Each time he said "marry me" he looked away from her, mumbling the words as though he were talking to himself. Now he turned and looked at her clearly.

"I don't mean in a church and I don't mean we live together as man and wife and we don't have to tell anybody. It can be just between the two of us and we can get married in a church when we decide after you come back."

"Can you get married just like that?" she asked.

"Sure you can. You have to give them notice and I'll get a list of things we need to do."

"Why do you want me to do it?"

"It will just be something between us."

"But why do you want it?"

When he spoke now he had tears in his eyes. "Because if we don't do it, I'm going to go crazy."

"And we'll tell no one?"

"No one. We'll take a half-day off work, that's all."

"And will I wear a ring?"

"You can if you want, but if you don't that's fine. All this could, if you wanted, be just something private between the two of us."

"Would a promise not be the same?"

"If you can promise, then you can easily do this," he said.

He arranged a date soon after her exams and they set about making all the preparations and filling out the forms that were required. The Sunday before the date she went as usual to his family for lunch. As she sat down she felt that Tony had told his mother, or that his mother had guessed something. There was a new tablecloth on the table, and the way his mother was dressed suggested an important occasion. Then when Tony's father came in with his three brothers she saw that they were all wearing jackets and ties, which they did not normally do. Once they sat down to eat, she noticed that Frank was unusually quiet at the beginning and then every time he tried to speak the others interrupted him before he could start.

Several times more, in the course of the meal, when he opened his mouth to say something he was stopped.

Eventually, Eilis insisted that she needed to hear what he had to say.

"When we're all in Long Island," he said, "and when you have your house there, will you make them build me a room so I can come and stay with you when they're all making me miserable?"

Tony, Eilis saw, had his head down.

"Of course, Frank. And you will be able to come any time you like."

"That's all I wanted to say."

"Grow up, Frank," Tony said.

"Grow up, Frank," Laurence repeated.

"Yeah, Frank," Maurice added.

"See?" Frank motioned to Eilis and pointed at his three brothers. "That is what I have to tolerate."

"Don't worry," Eilis said. "I'll deal with them."

At the end of the meal, as the dessert was served, Tony's father produced special glasses and opened a bottle of Prosecco. He proposed that they drink for a safe journey and a safe return for Eilis. She wondered if it was still possible that Tony had told them nothing about the wedding, just about her plans to go home for a month; it struck her as unlikely that he would have let Frank know, unless Frank had overheard. Maybe they were just having a special lunch because she was going home, she thought.

In the good cheer that followed the dessert she almost began to hope that he had told them that he and she were getting married.

He arranged the ceremony for two o'clock in the afternoon a week before she was to leave. The exams had gone well and she was almost certain that she would qualify. Because other couples to be married came with family and friends, their ceremony seemed brisk and over quickly and caused much curiosity among those waiting because they had come alone.

On their journey to Coney Island on the train that afternoon Tony raised the question for the first time of when they might marry in church and live together.

"I have money saved," he said, "so we could get an apartment and then move to the house when it's ready."

"I don't mind," she said. "I wish we were going home together now."

He touched her hand.

"So do I," he said. "And the ring looks great on your finger."

She looked down at the ring.

"I'd better remember to take it off before Mrs. Kehoe sees it."

The ocean was rough and grey and the wind blew white billowing clouds quickly across the sky. They moved slowly along the boardwalk and down the pier, where they stood watching the fishermen. As they walked back and sat eating hot dogs at Nathan's, Eilis spotted someone at the next table checking out her wedding ring. She smiled to herself.

"Will we ever tell our children that we did this?" she asked.

"When we are old maybe and have run out of other stories," Tony said. "Or maybe we'll save it up for some anniversary."

"I wonder what they'll think of it."

"The movie I'm taking you to is called The Belle of New York. They'll believe that bit. But the idea that, when the movie was over, we took the subway home and I dropped you off at Mrs. Kehoe's. They won't believe that."

When they finished eating, they walked together towards the subway and waited for the train to take them into the city.

Her mother showed Eilis Rose's bedroom, which was filled with light from the morning sun. She had left everything, she said, exactly as it was, including all of Rose's clothes in the wardrobe and in the chest of drawers.

"I had the windows cleaned and the curtains washed and I dusted the room myself and swept it out, but other than that it's exactly the same," her mother said.