Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn

Sometimes it came as sharp reminder, but much of the time it did not come at all. She had to make an effort now to remember that she really was married to Tony, that she would face into the sweltering heat of Brooklyn and the daily boredom of the shop floor at Bartocci's and her room at Mrs. Kehoe's. She would face into a life that seemed now an ordeal, with strange people, strange accents, strange streets. She tried to think of Tony now as a loving and comforting presence, but she saw instead someone she was allied with whether she liked it or not, someone who was, she thought, unlikely to allow her to forget the nature of the alliance and his need for her to return.

A few days before the wedding, when Eilis had been working a half-day at Davis's office and Jim Farrell had collected her there and they had gone for a meal in Wexford and then to the pictures and were now on the way home, he asked her when she planned to go back to Brooklyn. She had received a letter from the shipping company suggesting that she contact them by telephone when she wished to arrange her return passage, but she had not been in touch with them.

"I still have to phone the shipping company, but it will probably be the week after next."

"You are going to be missed here," he said.

"It's very hard leaving my mother on her own," she replied.

He said nothing for a while until they were passing through Oylegate.

"My parents are going to move out to the country soon. My mother's people came from Glenbrien and her aunt left her a place out there and they're doing work on it at the moment."

Eilis did not say that her mother had already told her this. She did not want Jim to know that they were discussing his living arrangements.

"So I'll be on my own in the house over the pub."

She was going to ask him in jest if he could cook but realized that it might sound like a leading question.

"You must come for your tea some evening," he said. "My parents would love to meet you."

"Thank you," she said.

"We'll arrange it after the wedding."

It was decided that Jim would drive Eilis and her mother and Annette O'Brien and her younger sister Carmel to the wedding reception in Wexford after the ceremony in Enniscorthy Cathedral. That morning they were awake early in Friary Street, her mother coming into her bedroom with a cup of tea, telling her that it was a cloudy day and she was hoping now that the rain would keep off. The night before, both of them had left their clothes out carefully for the morning. Eilis's costume, which she had bought in Arnotts in Dublin, had had to be altered, as the skirt and the sleeves were too long. It was bright red and with it she was wearing a white cotton blouse with accessories she had brought from America -stockings with a tinge of red, red shoes, a red hat and a white handbag. Her mother was going to wear a grey tweed suit that she had bought in Switzers. She was sad that she had to wear plain flat shoes, as her feet hurt her now and swelled up if there was any heat or if she had to walk too far. She was going to wear a grey silk blouse that had belonged to Rose not only, she said, because she liked it but because Rose had loved it and it would be nice at Nancy's wedding to wear something that Rose had loved.

It had been arranged that if it were raining Jim would collect them and drive them to the cathedral but if it were fine he would meet them there. Eilis had written several letters to Tony and had opened one that had told her about a trip to Long Island with Maurice and Laurence to look at the site they had bought and to divide it into five plots. There were strong rumours now, he said, that services like water and electricity would soon be coming very cheaply in their direction. Eilis folded this letter and put it in the drawer with Tony's other letters and the photographs from the day at the strand in Cush, which Nancy had given her. She stood now looking at the picture of herself and Jim, how happy they seemed: he with his arms around her neck, grinning at the camera, and she leaning her head back, smiling as though she had not a care in the world. She did not know what she was going to do with these photographs.

As her mother watched the weather, Eilis knew she was hoping for rain, that it would please her more than anything for Jim Farrell to come in his car to collect her and Eilis and take them the short distance to the cathedral. It was one of those days when the neighbours, because of the wedding, would feel free to come openly to their doors to inspect Eilis and her mother in all their style and wish them a nice day out. And there would be neighbours, Eilis thought, who already were aware that she had been seeing Jim Farrell and would view him in the same way as her mother did, as a great catch, a young man in the town with his own business. Being collected by Jim Farrell, she thought, would be for her mother the highlight of everything that had happened since Eilis came home.

When the first drops of rain hit against the glass of the window, a look of undisguised satisfaction appeared on her mother's face. "We won't risk it," she said. "I'd be afraid we'd get as far as the Market Square and then it would spill. I'd worry about the red running into that white blouse of yours."

Her mother then spent the next half-hour at the front window watching in case the rain eased off or in case Jim Farrell came early. Eilis stayed in the kitchen but she made sure she had everything ready were Jim to come. Her mother came to the kitchen at one point to say that they would usher him into the parlour, but Eilis insisted that they should both be ready to leave once Jim came in his car. Eventually, she went to the window with her mother to look out.

When Jim came, he opened the driver's door and emerged briskly with an umbrella. Both Eilis and her mother moved fussily into the hall. Her mother answered the door.

"Don't worry about the time," Jim said. "I'll drop the two of you straight in front of the cathedral and then I'll park. I think we have plenty of time."

"I was going to offer you a cup of tea," her mother said.

"No time for that, though," Jim said, and smiled. He was wearing a light suit, a blue shirt with a striped blue tie and tancoloured shoes.

"You know I think this is just a shower," her mother said as she made her way out to the car. Eilis saw that Mags Lawton next door had appeared and was waving. She stood at the door waiting for Jim to come back with the umbrella but did not return Mags's wave or encourage her to make any comment. Just as she closed the door and went towards the car, Eilis saw two other doors opening and knew that, much to her mother's delight, news would spread that Eilis and her mother in all their style had been collected by Jim Farrell.

"Jim is a perfect gentleman," her mother said as they walked into the cathedral. Her mother, Eilis noticed, moved slowly, with an air of pride and dignity, not looking to her left or her right, fully aware that she was being watched and fully enjoying the spectacle that she and Eilis, soon to be joined by Jim Farrell, were making in the church.

This was nothing, however, to the spectacle of Nancy in a white veil and a long white dress walking slowly up the aisle with her father while George waited for her at the altar. As the mass began and the church had settled down, Eilis, with Jim beside her, found herself entertaining a thought that had come to her in the early mornings when she lay awake in her bed. She asked herself what she would do if Jim proposed marriage to her. The idea, most of the time, was absurd; they did not know one another well enough and so it was unlikely. Also, she thought that she should do everything possible not to encourage him to ask, since she would not be able to say anything in reply except refuse him.

She could not stop herself from wondering, however, what would happen if she were to write to Tony to say that their marriage was a mistake. How easy would it be to divorce someone? Could she possibly tell Jim what she had done such a short while earlier in Brooklyn? The only divorced people anyone in the town knew were Elizabeth Taylor and perhaps some other film stars. It might be possible to explain to Jim how she had come to be married, but he was someone who had never lived outside the town. His innocence and his politeness, both of which made him nice to be with, would actually be, she thought, limitations, especially if something as unheard of and out of the question, as far from his experience as divorce, were raised. The best thing to do, she thought, was to put the whole thing out of her mind, but it was hard now, as the ceremony went on, not to dream about herself being there at the altar and her brothers home for the wedding and her mother knowing that Eilis would be living in a nice house just a few streets from her.