Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn

She took a short lunch break, insisting to Maria that she would not need any help, just a pile of envelopes and someone to open the safe and run to the bank or the post office for loose change if there was not enough. By four o'clock she had everything done and the amount of cash used up equalled the amount in her original tot. She had given each man a slip in his envelope that included details of the money due, and had also kept a copy of each for the office files.

This was the work she had been dreaming about as she had stood on the shop floor in Bartocci's, seeing the office workers walking in and out as she was telling customers that the Sepia- and Coffee-coloured stockings were for lighter skin and the Red Fox for darker, or as she had sat listening to the lectures and preparing for the exams in Brooklyn College. She knew that once she and Tony were married she would stay at home, cleaning the house and preparing food and shopping and then having children and looking after them as well. She had never mentioned to Tony that she would like to keep working, even if just part time, maybe doing the accounts from home for someone who needed a bookkeeper. In Bartocci's she did not think any of the women in the office were married. She wondered, as she came to the end of her day's work at Davis's, if maybe she could do the bookkeeping for the company that Tony was going to set up with his brothers. As she thought about this, she realized that she had forgotten to write to him that morning and resolved that she would make time that evening and write to him then.

On Sunday, just after lunch, with the weather still warm, George and Nancy and Jim pulled up in front of her house on Friary Street. Jim held the back door of the car open for her while she got in. He had a white shirt on with the sleeves rolled up; she noticed the black hair on his arms and the whiteness of his skin. He was wearing hair oil; she thought that he had made a real effort in how he dressed. As they left the town, he spoke to her quietly about how the pub had been the previous night and how lucky he was that, even though his parents had made it over to him, they were still willing to work there when he wanted to go out.

George said that Curracloe might be too crowded and he thought they should go to Cush Gap instead and make their way down the cliff. This was where Eilis had come with Rose and her brothers and her parents when they were children, but she had not been there for years nor thought about it. As they drove through Blackwater village she almost pointed out the places she knew, such as Mrs. Davis's pub where her father had gone in the evenings, or Jim O'Neill's shop. But she stopped herself. She did not want to sound like someone who had come back home after a long time away. And, she thought, this was something that she might never see again on a summer Sunday like this, but for the others it was nothing, just a decision George had made to go to a quieter place.

She was sure that if she began to talk about her memories of this place, they would notice the difference. Instead, she took in each building as they drove up the hill before the turn to Ballyconnigar, remembering things that had happened, small outings to the village with Jack, or a day when their cousins the Doyles had come to visit. This made her silent and made her feel withdrawn from the ease and the quiet sense of comfort and cheer in the car as it turned left and made its way along the narrow sandy lane to Cush.

Once they had parked the car, George and Nancy walked ahead towards the cliff, leaving Jim and Eilis walking behind. Jim was carrying his own togs and towel as well as her bag with her swimsuit and towel. When they came halfway down the lane, they stopped for a moment at Cullens' house, in front of which Jim's old teacher Mr. Redmond was sitting wearing a straw hat. He was clearly on his holidays.

"This might be the only summer we'll get, sir," Jim said.

"Best take full advantage of it so," Mr. Redmond replied. Eilis noticed that his speech was slurred.

As they moved on, Jim said in a low voice that Mr. Redmond was the only teacher he had ever liked and it was a pity he had had the stroke.

"Where's his son?" Eilis asked.

"Eamon? He's studying, I'd say. That's what he usually does."

When they came to the bottom of the lane and peered over the edge of the cliff, they saw that the sea below them was calm, almost smooth. The sand close to the water's edge was a dark yellow. There was a line of sea birds flying low over the waves, which seemed barely to swell before they broke quietly, almost noiselessly. There was a vague mist that masked the line between the horizon and the sky but otherwise the sky was a pure blue.

George had to run down the last stretch of sand at the gap in the cliff; he waited for Nancy to follow and held her in his arms. Jim did the same, and Eilis found that, when he caught her, he held her in an embrace that was almost too close and he did this as though it was something they were used to doing. She shivered for a second at the thought of Tony seeing her now.

They spread two rugs out on the sand as Jim took off his shoes and socks and went down to test the water, returning to say that it was almost warm, much better than the previous day, and he was going to change and go in for a swim. George said he would go with him. The last to get down in the water, they agreed, would have to buy dinner. Nancy and Eilis put on their swimsuits but stayed sitting on the rugs.

"They're like a pair of children sometimes," Nancy said as they watched George and Jim involved in horseplay in the sea. "If they had a ball, they'd spend an hour playing with it."

"Whatever happened to Annette?" Eilis asked.

"I knew you wouldn't come on Thursday if I told you Jim was coming, and I knew you wouldn't come with just me and George, so I told you Annette was coming; it was a white lie," Nancy said.

"And whatever happened to Jim's manners?"

"He's only bad-mannered when he's nervous," Nancy said. "He doesn't mean it. He's a big softie. Also, he likes you."

"When did that start?"

"When he saw you at eleven o'clock mass with your mother last Sunday."

"Will you do me a favour, Nancy?"

"What is it?"

"Will you run down to the sea and tell Jim to go and take a running jump at himself? Or, better still, go down and tell him that you know someone who lives beside a marl pond, and ask him why he doesn't drop in sometime."

They both fell over laughing on the rug.

"Have you everything ready for the wedding?" Eilis asked. She wanted to hear no more about Jim Farrell.

"Everything except my future mother-in-law, who makes a new statement every day about something she wants or doesn't want. My mother thinks she's an awful old snob."

"Well, she is, isn't she?"

"I'll knock that out of her," Nancy said, "but I'll wait until after the wedding."

When George and Jim returned, all four of them set out walking along the strand, the two men running at first to dry themselves. Eilis was amused at how tight and flimsy their swimming togs were. No American man would be seen on a beach in anything like that, she thought. Nor would two men in Coney Island move as unself-consciously as these two did, seeming not to be alert at all to the two women watching them as they ran awkwardly ahead, keeping close to the hard sand at the water's edge.

No one else was on this stretch of strand. Eilis understood now why George had chosen this lonely place. He and Jim, and perhaps Nancy too, had planned a perfect day in which she and Jim would be just as much a couple as Nancy and George. She realized, as they turned back and Jim began talking to her again, letting the other two go ahead, that she liked his bulky, easygoing presence and the tone in his voice, which came so naturally from the streets of the town. He had clear blue eyes, she thought, that saw no harm in anything. And she was fully aware that these blue eyes of his lingered on her now with an interest that was unmistakable.