“There’s no need for you to be so nosy,” Mary scolded. “You know poor Patrick always had that weakness,” and she kissed Patrick warmly when he joined them to ask if they had room in the car for going to the hotel.
“We’ll make room. We’ll manage.”
“Good man, Patrick. You won’t be left behind,” Jamesie thrust out his hand.
“I’ll sit on the women’s knees if they can’t trust to mine,” he sallied amid laughter. “Bold Bill,” he took Bill Evans’s hand. “They’re all getting married but you and me,” but Bill Evans hardly heard. He was eyeing all the people arriving for the wedding as intently as a dealer measuring cattle, to ascertain how many cigarettes they were worth.
John Quinn arrived in a cavalcade of big cars, all with English registrations belonging to his children, decorated with long fluttering white streamers. They had driven from their homes outside London across England and Wales to Holyhead, crossed on the car-ferry to Dublin and driven down to the Central Hotel in town, where they had rooms booked for a week.
A hush fell on the people standing about on the white gravel as John Quinn emerged from the front car, a brand new Mercedes as large as the Shah’s. He stood erect as a man half his age and waved like a politician. Children emerged from the cars, small girls in First Communion dresses, boys in blue and grey suits. Not a single one of John Quinn’s children had stayed away. They all came to the wedding, bringing their wives and husbands and children. Gathered together outside the church door before making their way to the altar, they made a formidable and striking picture of youth and strength and solidarity. John Quinn was at their living centre, in a tailor-made pinstripe suit with a white rose in the buttonhole, thriving on the attention. Together they all filed into the church to await the bride. She came late. Only the whisperers at the church door saw her arrive, a handsome, determined-looking woman in her late fifties, wearing a stylish navy-blue costume and a veil with a spray of white lilies in her hair. In spite of her vigour and good looks the bride appeared vulnerable as she walked up the aisle on her white-haired brother’s arm past all the curious heads that turned, but she appeared to grow in confidence during the ceremony. Afterwards she looked excited and happy when confetti was thrown and the photographs were taken. Father Conroy moved from person to person on the gravel, shaking hands. Some who needed Masses said or owed him dues gave him money. When he reached Ruttledge, he caught his elbow and guided him over to the wall. They seldom saw one another but had remained friendly ever since that first visit.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“We were all invited — all the good neighbours around the lake. Naturally, I came. Are you going to the hotel?”
“No. He has his own views on marriage as he has on most things. While I have him on my ground I’m taking the happy pair into the sacristy for tea and advice. I take every couple into the sacristy for tea and advice. I know most of them would like something stronger than tea after their ordeal, and the sort of advice I dole out is probably not what they are looking for. Advice and tea, though, is what they all get.” With that, he left Ruttledge, who soon afterwards saw him leading the newly married couple towards the sacristy door.
They all piled into the car to drive to the hotel, the four men squeezed together into the back, Mary sitting with Kate in front. As they drove, Patrick Ryan began to tease Bill Evans about the food being prepared in the hotel kitchen. “I can smell it already. The chickens roasting …”
“Stop it, Patrick,” Bill Evans called out as if in pain.
“The skin brown, roasted bread crumbs with little bits of onion in the stuffing, covered with brown gravy, small roast potatoes, fresh green peas …”
“Stop torturing me, Patrick.” The cry was terrible.
Patrick Ryan laughed carefully, lowly, maliciously, as if testing the air, but he did not continue. The rest of the car was silent. The hair stood up on the back of Ruttledge’s neck. The cry cut through the years to the evening he was questioning Bill Evans after he came starving to the house: “Stop torturing me.” It was the same unmistakable cry that had to be bowed to then as the silence in the car respected it now. Bill Evans could no more look forward than he could look back. He existed in a small closed circle of the present. Remembrance of things past and dreams of things to come were instruments of torture.
A few people had come into the bar from the wedding. They waved or smiled to one another when glances met but kept to their separate tables. Many more wandered about the hotel corridors and gardens because the big dining room was still closed. Mary and Kate left the bar to go to the Ladies. When they returned to the table, it was clear they had come on something strange. In a conspiratorial whisper Mary spoke so low and so quickly that they had to interrupt her.
“John Quinn has taken her upstairs.”
“Where?”
“To the son’s bedroom. He got Liam to give him the keys. No. She didn’t want to go. They say she didn’t know right what was happening but you can be sure she knows by now. Kate and me saw it with our eyes. They were all laughing like donkeys when he lifted her in his arms as if she was a child.”
“Maybe she won’t allow … she won’t let him?”
“O-ho,” Mary laughed. “He’ll do it with soft sweet-talking and if that doesn’t work, he’ll do it with strength. Only for Knock and the Church were mixed up it would have been done long before. It must have killed him to wait this long.”
“Maybe she’s just dying for the hog,” Patrick Ryan said provocatively, coarsely.
“On an occasion like this?” Kate asked coldly.
“It’s better for herself if she wants it,” Jamesie said quietly. “Whether she likes it or not she’ll have to open the door.”
“She’ll get the rod,” Bill Evans said suddenly.
“Good man, Bill,” Mary said, and a quiet descended.
A bell rang in the hotel corridors. Everybody rose from the tables, some finishing their drinks while standing.
For a country wedding it was small but the tables were so cunningly arranged that they disguised how few were present. There was no long raised table and no flowers other than in vases. John Quinn and his bride and her party sat with his family at a single large table at the head of the room. There were no set places and people kept to their own small groups. As no priest was present there was some hesitation until the religious postman rose and recited grace with joined hands and closed eyes. The mushroom soup was home-made. Roast chicken was served with large bowls of floury potatoes and carrots and mashed turnips. There was plenty of crisp breadcrumb stuffing and a jug of brown gravy. Instead of the usual sherry trifle, a large slice of apple tart was served with fresh cream.
Nobody ate more than Bill Evans and he didn’t speak from when the meal began until it ended other than to give abstracted monosyllabic answers to enquiries. Occasionally, he sat back and surveyed the room in dazed, contented wonderment, with his knife and fork held absently in his hands before setting to again.
“Lord bless us, where is he putting it?” Jamesie asked from time to time in one of his loud stage whispers, but Bill Evans was paying no attention, completely absorbed in eating.
“He’s stacking it in the bank. He’ll be drawing on it for weeks like yer otter,” Patrick Ryan said.
Despite the good food, the real focus was on John Quinn’s bride. Whatever had happened or had not happened, all were agreed that she looked subdued by John Quinn’s side at the big table. When the choice of drinks was offered, it emerged that John Quinn’s children were hosting the meal, not the wife as had been rumoured. There was general relief and everybody drank more easily. The speeches were mercifully brief, John Quinn’s the longest, every word so predictable that it was heard in a conspiratorial silence, with the occasional wink or raised glass.