William Trevor - Fools of Fortune

The tune came to an end, and another began. This one had a different rhythm, and the two couples spun about the kitchen, Tim Paddy and the girl still smoking their Woodbines, Johnny Lacy whisking Josephine as if she were a feather. When he danced you’d never guess he had a short leg.

‘Well, how’s the three of you?’ he said to us, coming over when the music ceased. ‘Will you take a turn with me, Deirdre?’

O’Neill, as usual, did not acknowledge our presence: intent on his accordion, I don’t believe he looked up once while we were in the kitchen. Johnny Lacy danced with Deirdre and then with Geraldine, and Josephine tried to show me how to waltz. Tim Paddy introduced Bridie Sweeney to us, saying she was one of the

Sweeneys from the public house. The way he spoke it seemed as if he had never been in love with Josephine. He stuck his chin out and smiled as proudly as a sultan. All of it puzzled me very much.

‘You’ll break chaps’ hearts,’ Johnny Lacy told my sisters, the smell of carnations potent in his hair. He laughed and gave each of us a halfpenny. ‘ What’s the news, what’s the news?’ he suddenly began to sing, and O’Neill picked up the tune of Kelly the Boy from Kilanne.

‘Ah, they’re lovely children,’ Bridie Sweeney said. Tim Paddy was holding her hand and she was pressed up close to him, with an arm around his waist. ‘I s’pose it’s lessons for yez the entire time,’ she said. ‘God, I couldn’t abide lessons.’ She asked us a riddle, something about skinning a rabbit, and then Johnny Lacy broke off in his singing and took a mouth-organ from his pocket. He played it skilfully, making it screech above the lilt of the accordion, and I could see the Sweeney girl eyeing him, even though she still had her arm around Tim Paddy’s waist. He winked at her, and I looked quickly over to where Josephine was sitting by the range, but she hadn’t noticed.’ Enniscorthy’s in flames and old Wexford is won ,’ sang Johnny Lacy, and I noticed then that Father Kilgarriff had entered the kitchen.

He stood by the door, not saying anything, slightly smiling. The festivities were taking place because advantage had been taken of my parents’ and my aunts’ absence; Father Kilgarriff didn’t matter because he had no position in the household. Had he been a real priest the music and the dancing would have ceased on his entrance and only commenced again when it was clear that his approval had been gained. Had he been a Quinton relative or a friend of my parents there would have been embarrassment in the kitchen. Tim Paddy slanted his head at him in his particular way; Johnny Lacy saluted him familiarly. I realized it was the first time I had been in the main kitchen when he had been there also, if indeed he had ever been there before. He stood for a moment longer by the door, still smiling, seeming pleased because of the music and the dancing. Then he went away.

‘Up you go now,’ Mrs Flynn said, and all the way up the back stairs we could hear Johnny Lacy singing another song. I wondered if Father Kilgarriff could hear it too, in his bedroom in the orchard wing. My aunts’ stray dogs had begun to bark, and it was perhaps more likely that he had shut the windows in order to protect them from the unexpected disturbance. I didn’t know why I went on thinking about him, his Spanish looks vivid in my mind, his voice insisting softly that argument and persuasion were the only way. I had never been in his room, but I supposed it would have the red glow of a holy light and a statue of the Virgin, and a crucifix on the wall. It was odd to think of him there, dwelling upon Daniel O’Connell and the compassion of my great-grandmother, when but for a convent girl he might be esteemed and respected in Co. Limerick. And then, quite strongly, I sensed that Tim Paddy was right when he’d hinted that Johnny Lacy’s love of a story had resulted in a confusion of the truth: knowing Father Kilgarriff, there was something about his romance with a convent girl that did not quite make sense. I saw the girl’s teeth glistening in the confessional and heard the tap of her feet on the tiled floor: I wondered if she’d ever even existed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I went on thinking about Father Kilgarriff, and then I thought about Josephine and Johnny Lacy and Tim Paddy and Bridie Sweeney. I kept seeing the wink that had caused that look to come into Bridie Sweeney’s eyes, and remembering how Josephine hadn’t noticed any of it. If Johnny Lacy began to go for walks with the Sweeney girl instead of Josephine Tim Paddy would be miserable all over again, and so of course would Josephine. Eventually I got out of bed and gazed from my window out over the garden. Even though it was after ten o’clock it was still light. I pretended that a Black and Tan was lurking among the mass of rhododendrons and that I crept downstairs and crossed the lawn with my father’s shotgun. I led him into the kitchen, with his hands above his head, and everyone was astonished.

The music of the accordion floated up to my window, and then abruptly ceased. It did not begin again. Tim Paddy and the Sweeney girl crept into the garden and while I still watched they kissed one another, thinking they were hidden by the rhododendrons. Through the gloom that was gathering I saw a flash of something white and realized that it was the Sweeney girl’s petticoat. Her flowered skirt was on the grass, and as I watched she lay down beside it and Tim Paddy lay down also. They had not ceased to kiss and their arms were still around one another; I could see her bare flesh where the petticoat had been bundled up to her waist and Tim Paddy’s hands pulling at her underclothes, and her own hands pulling at them also. Then, from the far distance, came the rattle of the dog-cart on the avenue and the lovers vanished.

The next day, after mass, Josephine told my mother she wanted to marry Johnny Lacy. ‘He’s been home with me last week to Fermoy, ma’am,’ she said. ‘They know he’s all right.’ My mother gave us this news on the way to church, and my father shook his head in mock disapproval, saying that Josephine was the quietest maid we’d had in the house for many a year. ‘Fools of fortune,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll be having to say our Protestant prayers for them.’ And after church, as Mr Derenzy fell into step beside Aunt Pansy for the walk to Sweeney’s, my father called out loudly: ‘Did you hear that news, Derenzy? There’s talk of a wedding.’

Aunt Pansy went the colour of a sunset and Mr Derenzy agitatedly pinched snuff from his tin box. Aunt Fitzeustace, who always remained silent when the union of Mr Derenzy and Aunt Pansy was raised by my father, groped in her large handbag for her cigarettes and matches. Aunt Fitzeustace smoked constantly but never on the village street. With a huge, grateful sigh she would light her first cigarette when the basket-trap left Sweeney’s yard.

‘Everything’s parched with the heat,’ Mr Derenzy said, as if he hadn’t heard my father. ‘I was noticing that.’

He and Aunt Pansy walked ahead, and my mother told Aunt Fitzeustace that she was concerned about the match because Josephine was a singular girl.

‘Will he lead her a dance?’ Geraldine asked. ‘Like the beery fellow and Kitty?’

But nobody answered that. Aunt Fitzeustace, who could look most severe at times, played with her packet of cigarettes.

‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘A singular girl.’

‘And he, of course, is flirtatious.’

‘You’ll have them in the divorce courts before they’ve started.’ My father laughed rumbustiously. He walked with Geraldine and Deirdre on either side of him, holding their hands. I brought up the rear, behind my mother and Aunt Fitzeustace.

‘I wish you’d take it seriously,’ my mother upbraided crossly.