Brenda had taken to it all so much, she hardly realised when her normal hearing returned. By this stage she could read conversations across a room.
Nora and Mario were very impressed. "If all else fails, we can put you in a circus," Nora cried, delighted.
"And I will sell tickets outside," Mario promised.
But they all knew this wouldn't happen. Mario was going back shortly to Sicily to marry his fiancee, the girl Gabriella who lived next door to him back there.
Nora knew this too, but she just would not accept it. She was not going to stay in London without Mario, or go back to Ireland to cry over him there. She would follow him to Sicily and all it would bring.
Brenda was lonely in London when her friend had gone. She was bewildered by a love so great that it could withstand such humiliation. In her letters, Nora wrote of how she lived in a bed-sitting-room in the village that looked down on Mario's hotel. How she saw his wedding and the children's christenings and was slowly becoming part of the life of the place.
Brenda could never have loved like that. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever love at all. She came back to Dublin, but it was the same there. Nobody filled her days and nights with passion like Mario had been able to do for Nora O'Donoghue. Everyone said that Brenda was cool and calm in a crisis, a great reliable person to have around if someone spilled the gravy or dropped a tray. Brenda wondered was she going to be like that all her life, look calm and unflappable? Never in love like the couples she served at table, never upset and aching like the colleagues she consoled in kitchens when their love affairs were shaky. Never to marry even as two of her younger sisters had married, with huge drama and great expenditure of nerves. Brenda had been there, cups of tea, aspirins and calm advice at the ready.
She didn't know why she went to the dance that night. Possibly to have something to write to Nora about. It was for past pupils of their catering college. Maybe she hoped she might hear of some job opportunities.
She wore the new dress she had bought for her sister's wedding. It was very dressy, cream lace with a rose-pink jacket. It looked well with her dark hair. She thought that she got many admiring looks, but perhaps she was only imagining it.
Across the room she suddenly saw Pillowcase. Now she couldn't remember why she and Nora had called him that, an over-serious fellow, head in his books, barely any time to socialise. She heard he had gone to some high-flying place in Scotland, that he had been with a pastry cook in France. What was he doing back here? And even more important, what was his name? Paddy . .. Pat?
She looked over at him. As clearly as if the words were written like subtitles, she read his lips and heard him say to the man he was with, "Will you look at that. It's Brenda O'Hara from our year in college. Isn't she a very fine looking girl? I haven't seen her in years. Very classy, altogether." He seemed full of admiration.
The man he was with, a loudmouth whom Brenda knew around town, said, "Oh, you'll get nowhere there. Real ice maiden, let me tell you."
"Well, I'll go over and say hallo. She can't take offence at that." He walked towards her.
Sometimes she felt a little guilty at having advance knowledge because of her extra hearing due to the lip-reading. Why hadn't the other said his name, so that at least she'd know that much?
Pillowcase approached her with a broad smile. He had smartened himself up. He looked taller, or else he didn't crouch over so much.
"Patrick Brennan," he said as he shook her hand.
"Brenda O'Hara, delighted to see you again." She must beat the silly nickname out of her mind.
"Don't I remember you and Nora O'Donoghue very well, and is she here tonight as well?"
"Sometime when you have an hour, remind me to tell you what happened to Nora," Brenda laughed.
"I have an hour and more now, Brenda," he said.
Would she have seen the admiration in his face anyhow, or was it because she had lip-read his praise of her that Brenda turned her charm on Patrick Brennan?
Whatever it was, she saw him most evenings for the next two weeks. He seemed pleased that she still lived with her family.
"I'd have thought a glamour girl like you would have gone off with a rich man long ago," he teased.
"No, no, I'm an ice maiden, didn't they tell you that?" she teased him back.
"I think I heard it said." He shuffled awkwardly.
She wrote about him to Nora. He's still very serious about work. He'd rather do nothing than work for a place that he doesn't think is worth it. He says I'm wasting myself doing waitress shifts here, there and anywhere. He'll do construction work or delivering cases of wine rather than work in a kitchen which would give him a bad name. But I don't agree. It's all work. You're learning all the time and anyway, he's a man who doesn't even have a flat of his own. He sleeps on people's sofas or floors. He doesn't notice. He told her about the small farm in the country where he grew up; how his younger brother, who wasn't exactly simple-minded but not far off it, lived there still. She told him about the corner shop where her father had worked so hard to make a living. They went to the cinema and sometimes she paid if Patrick had no money. They went to Mick's Cafe for old times" sake.
One lunchtime as she unpacked their sandwiches to eat by the Grand Canal, she said to him firmly that she had her own plans as to how they would spend the evening.
I live at home, Patrick. For over a month now I've been going out every single night with you."
"Yes?" He looked anxious.
"So I'd like to let them see you, know the kind of person I'm meeting."
"Sure."
"No, you don't understand. It's not for them to inspect you. It's not a gun to your head. It's common courtesy."
"No, I agree entirely. I thought you were going to say you were tired of going out with me. When we have a daughter won't we feel the very same way about her, want to know her friends?"
"What?" said Brenda.
"When we have a daughter. It's not the same with sons."
"But what are you saying, exactly?"
He looked at her, bewildered. "When we're married. We will have children, won't we?" He was genuinely concerned.
"Patrick, excuse me. Did I miss something here? Did you ask me to marry you? Did I say yes? It's quite a big thing. I should have remembered it, I know I should."
He held her hand. "You will, won't you?" he begged.
"I don't know, Patrick. I really don't know yet."
"What else would you do?" he said, alarmed.
"Well, a number of things. I might marry no one. Or I might marry someone else as yet un-met. Or I might marry you in the fullness of time when we know that we love each other."
"But don't we know now?"
"No, we don't. We haven't talked about it at all."
"We haven't stopped talking about what we'll do," he said.
"But that's work, Patrick, what jobs we'll get."
"No, it's about what kind of life we'll live. I thought it was about our life together."
"This is nonsense, Patrick." She stood up, upset. "You can't take us for granted like that. We're not even lovers." She was very indignant.
"It's not for want of trying," he protested.
"Not on the sofa of some ghastly flat with half of Dublin about to walk through the door with cans of Guinness any minute."
"So what do you want, Brenda? A night in a b. & b. and for me to go down on one knee? Is that it?"
"No." She was hurt and angry. "Not that at all. It sounds ludicrous. I do like you, Patrick, you fool. Why else was I inviting you home? But I wanted love and passion and desire and all those things too. Not a casual munching on a sandwich and talking about our daughter as if it were all planned."