The Story of Lucy Gault

The child’s features were pinched, the hand that was rearranging the sugar bowl and milk jug affected by chilblains. Her other hand was bandaged.

‘Isn’t the rain heavy for itself, miss?’

‘It is. Are you Eileen? I confuse you with your sister. I’m sorry.’

‘Is it my older sister?’

‘I think it might be.’

‘My older sister’s Philomena.’

‘And you’re Eileen?’

‘I am, all right. Wait till I’ll bring you the tea now.’

Above the door that led to the back regions, a plaster figure, fingers raised, blessed the café. Lucy watched the child pass beneath it, then rooted in her purse for a threepenny piece in case she forgot later. She dropped it into her glove, knowing she would feel it there. She watched the rain through the painted letters on the glass of the wide half-curtained window. People were hurrying on the street, raincoats over their heads.

‘You’ll have us drowned, Mattie!’ the woman behind the counter shouted at a ragged man who’d just come in, whose drenched clothes were dribbling on to the floor. He was often on the streets, playing his accordion for coppers.

‘Sure, won’t it wash the floor for you?’ He sat down at a table near the door, his accordion on the table in front of him.

‘There’s only these ones left,’ the girl called Eileen said, referring to the cakes she’d brought. A wedge-shaped piece had been cut out of the sponge of each, artificial cream and raspberry jam inserted and the piece replaced. Six there were on the plate. ‘They’re the nicest anyway, miss.’

‘They’re lovely, Eileen.’

A dinged metal teapot was carefully lowered on to the cork mat, a knife placed beside an undecorated white plate.

‘Would I bring you a slice of the brack, miss?’

‘No, no, I have plenty, Eileen.’

She poured out the strong, dark tea and weakened it with milk. She peeled the paper from the bottom of one of the sponge cakes. Other people came in from the rain, a pram pushed to the table next to the accordion player’s, drops shaken from a red umbrella, one of its ribs protruding awkwardly when it was collapsed. ‘It’s here for the duration,’ someone remarked and there was laughter.

How she would like to be addressed in the easy way the accordion player had been! How she would like to take part in the badinage! ‘The Protestant woman’s still waiting for her change,’ one of the counter girls had said in Domville’s not long ago. It was how they thought of her, how they described her when her name escaped them or if they didn’t know it, what her appearance and her dress suggested, as her voice did, as their manner with her did. A Protestant woman was a relic, left over, respected for what she was, not belonging. And she among such women was more different still. After she’d left Domville’s that day, the girl who hadn’t known her would have been told.

She poured more tea and asked for hot water, which came with time. Blurred sunlight weakly lit the window, was lost and then flickered back again. The colour-wash of the houses across the street brightened – pink and green, slates of a roof glistening. She was as used to being different as she was to feeling alone. The same thing perhaps it was, and anyway it was ridiculous to mind.

The moment passed. Elation – exhilaration almost – had been her mood during the months she’d stitched her embroidery of poppies. She had not sought to understand, only continuing in her obedience to an intention that was entirely her own, to do what she was drawn to do. She watched the people in the café for a little longer, the accordion player finishing the cup of tea he was not asked to pay for, the baby sleeping in its pram, a couple eating fish and fried potatoes, two women intently conversing. She found the threepenny piece in her glove and left it under the rim of her saucer. She paid at the counter.

Outside, the pavement had already begun to dry in patches when she walked to where her car was. Tinker children begged; behind her somewhere the accordion music began. Blue spread in the sky.

She drove on to find a place where she might turn and then drove back again, past the Bank of Ireland and Coughlan’s warehouses, on through the town and into the country.

When she came to the iron gates she drew on to the verge, as she had before. The embroidery that had taken her all winter to complete was framed in ash-wood so pale it was almost white. She reached into the back of the car for it and carried it with her to the pillar where the bell-chain hung.

Rusty on its pivot, the heavy bell swung soundlessly at first before its clanging echoed against the hill. She waited, but no one answered. No gardener or workman came. No one appeared on the short, steep avenue. She stayed a while, then drove away.

She stopped when she saw a line of men approaching a crossroads ahead of her. Ten or eleven of them there were, all darkly clad. A keeper walked in front, another brought up the rear. She waited until the men were closer and then got out of her car.