William Trevor - Two Lives

‘I’m the lucky man,’ Elmer declared in a speech. ‘There’s no one for ten miles around wouldn’t agree on that.’

That was enough, he considered, so he did not say any more. Last night Rose had actually dropped to her knees, tears streaming, begging him to reconsider at this eleventh hour. Matilda, grim-faced on the first-floor landing, had announced that he would regret this folly for the rest of his days. Mary Louise Dallon hadn’t a brain in her head. She was marrying him for his money, since it was a known fact that the Dallons hadn’t two coins in the house to rub together. There was flightiness in her eyes. She would lead him a dance, if not in one way then in another. She would drain him dry in ways he couldn’t even imagine. She would upset him, and disturb him. His sisters didn’t go to bed until half-past two, and even after he’d lain down, exhausted, Elmer could still hear their ranting, and Rose’s weeping.

In a final passion of energy, the night before also, Letty had sought to dissuade her sister. In the warm darkness of the bedroom they shared Mary Louise listened to the persistent murmur, edged with bitterness one moment and scorn the next. A picture was painted of her future in the house above the shop, the two sisters critical of every move she made, the man she was to marry never taking her side. She’d be no more than a maid in the household and a counter girl in the shop. There would be smells and intimacies no girl would care for in the bedroom she’d have to share with the heavily-made draper; her reluctance to meet his demands would be overruled. The three Quarrys would beadily eye her at mealtimes. Dried-up spinsters were always the worst.

But by midday on 10 September the pair were joined together. The best man was one of Elmer’s cousins from Athy, imported into the parish for the occasion, a man Mary Louise had never seen before. The Reverend Harrington – cherub-cheeked and rotund, not long married himself – had asked the necessary questions slowly and with care, his lingering tone designed to imbue the union with an extra degree of sanctity, or so it seemed. In the vestry while the register was signed Mr and Mrs Dallon stood awkwardly, and Rose and Matilda and Letty stood grimly. Sensing unease, the Reverend Harrington chatted about other weddings he had conducted and then recalled the details of his own.

‘Phew!’ Mary Louise’s brother whispered to one of his Eddery cousins in the dining-room of the farmhouse. The exhalation was a reference, not to the nuptials of his sister, but to the agreeable effect of a second glass of whiskey. James could feel it spreading through his chest, a burning sensation that was new to him.

‘I had two bob on a horse today,’ the older Eddery brother revealed. ‘Polly’s Sweetheart.’

James, who spent all he earned in Kilmartin’s the turf accountant’s, was impressed. He hadn’t gone for anything today, he said. He’d heard about Polly’s Sweetheart.

Letty changed out of her bridesmaid’s dress in order to help her mother in the kitchen. The chickens had roasted during the wedding service, the bacon and the spiced beef were cold, cooked the day before. Mrs Dallon’s cheeks were flushed from the small glass of sherry she’d drunk and from the heat of the range. She strained potatoes and peas. Letty tipped them into warmed dishes and carried the dishes into the dining-room. Mr Dallon began to carve the meats while the guests were seating themselves.

‘A great spread,’ Elmer remarked. He was wearing a carnation in the lapel of a muddy-brown suit, his Sunday suit he called it, much less worn than his usual clothing. His short hair had been cut the day before, and the barber’s application of brilliantine still kept it tidily in place. The back of his neck was a little red.

‘Lovely,’ a woman said. ‘Lovely it all is, Mrs Dallon.’

Mrs Dallon, hurrying with two gravy boats, was too occupied to reply. She whispered to her husband and he paused in his carving to say:

‘I’m told to say, start eating. Don’t let the hot stuff get cold.’

Miss Mullover confided to the clergyman’s wife that she loved a past pupil’s wedding. It was surprising the emotions you felt. Mrs Harrington – who knew that at one stage her husband had had heart-searchings about this match – was relieved that Miss Mullover seemed pleased. He would have liked to say Grace, she thought, but unfortunately he’d had a call of nature.

James and the Eddery brothers poured more whiskey, finding the bottle behind a potted fern on a windowsill. The Eddery brothers were smoking cigarettes. They told Mrs Dallon they wanted to finish them before they sat down. They were in no hurry for the chicken and bacon, they said.

Letty, given the task of moving the vegetables about on the table in case anyone was missed out, thought about Gargan the exchange clerk at the Bank of Ireland who’d been promoted to Carlow. They’d gone out together for two years, to the pictures and on bicycle rides, twice to the Chamber of Commerce dance in Hogan’s Hotel. When Gargan had gone to Carlow and enough time had passed to indicate that he wouldn’t be coming back to see her, Billie Lyndon of the radio shop had suggested an evening at the Dixie dancehall and she’d gone there once with him, but had found it rough. It might have been herself and either of them, she thought as she moved the vegetables about. In this moment she might be sitting at the far end of the table, Mrs Gargan or Mrs Lyndon. They’d both mentioned marriage, not exactly proposals but the next best thing, sounding the notion out. In the Electric they had acted similarly: putting an arm along the back of her seat halfway through the big film and then, after another few minutes, grasping her shoulder. With each of them, she’d felt a knee pressing hers. Their fingers had caressed the side of her face. On the way home there’d been the good-night kiss.

‘You were lovely in that dress, Letty,’ Angela Eddery, still a schoolgirl, complimented while she spooned peas on to her plate. ‘Dead spit of Audrey Hepburn.’

Letty knew that wasn’t true. Either Angela Eddery was confusing Audrey Hepburn with someone else or was simply telling a lie. She looked nothing like Audrey Hepburn; she was a different type altogether.

‘Did you make them yourselves?’ Angela Eddery went on. ‘God, I never saw dresses like them.’

‘We made our dresses.’

When she offered the best man one of the potato dishes he said they were in the same line of business today, bridesmaid and best man. Mary Louise had said he was a bachelor, manager of a creamery near Athy. Letty considered he was familiar with her, calling her Letty straight off and talking the way he did. He was taller than Elmer Quarry, but just as paunchy, and balder.

Rose and Matilda, sitting together, didn’t eat much. ‘Oh, I could never manage all that,’ Rose said as soon as she received her plate, staring at its contents as if making a judgement. The chickens would have cost them nothing, Matilda reflected, running about the yard they’d have been.

The Reverend Harrington spoke to Mr Dallon and again Mr Dallon laid down his carving knife and fork. He said that the clergyman had wanted to say Grace but had been out of the room at the right moment. If nobody objected, he’d say it now, even though some people had started. That didn’t matter at all, the Reverend Harrington added hastily. For what we’re about to receive,’ he added also, ‘the Lord make us truly thankful.’

Mary Louise felt sleepy due to Letty’s keeping her awake half the night with her haranguing. She had taken the plunge, she said to herself; she had made her own mind up and had done it; it was her own business, what she had done, it was her own life. She smiled at Miss Mullover, who was leaning across the table to speak to her.