‘A drop of the hard stuff!’ She handed him his glass, and he noticed that there was more than a small one in it. They all joined in the toast except Mary Louise, who took it into her head to walk away. It embarrassed Elmer that she did so, in the company of her mother and father and Mrs Dennehy.
‘We’re pleased about it, Mrs Dennehy,’ Mr Dallon said, but Elmer doubted it: poor Protestants for donkey’s years, why would they be pleased to see their grandchildren brought up holy Romans?
‘I’m right pleased myself. Right pleased!’ Mrs Dennehy exclaimed. Her teeth were in proportion to the rest of her. When she addressed anyone she opened her mouth very wide, which might have contributed to the loudness of her voice. You could see all the way back to her molars.
‘It was a great spread you laid on for our own wedding,’ Elmer confided quietly to his mother-in-law, who seemed to be a bit out of things. ‘You did wonders that day, Mrs Dallon.’
He listened while Mrs Dallon told him that this wedding party, too, should be taking place at Culleen. But Mrs Dennehy had come over a month ago and put it to her that since such large numbers were expected, and since the Dennehys had such spacious premises and were in the business professionally, it might be in order to reverse the usual procedure. Letty had been in favour of that also, and reluctantly Mrs Dallon had given in.
‘Ah, you would of course. And wouldn’t you save a bit while you were at it?’
A familiar euphoria had begun to flow softly through Elmer. He’d taken to keeping a little John Jameson in the wall-safe in the accounting office, for any man would require a drink in certain circumstances. There was an expression Matilda had used one time: trapped like a squirrel she’d said he was. She was thinking of a time when they were children and a man had come into the shop with three squirrels in a cage, trying to sell them in some ignorant kind of way, beautiful soft fur, he kept saying. Their father had called Elmer and the girls downstairs so that they could get a close look at the creatures, and then had sent the man packing. In Elmer’s view being trapped wasn’t a bad description of his own predicament, but he had no intention of giving Matilda the satisfaction of knowing that he agreed with her. Ridiculous, he’d said when she made her observation. Another thing was that when you’d had a drink or two you got a predicament like that into proportion – which naturally he couldn’t have said to Matilda either.
‘Bullocks are fetching well,’ he remarked to his father-in-law. ‘What’s that I heard a hundredweight?’
‘Thirty-five last week.’
‘You’d not turn up your nose at that, sir.’
Mrs Dallon had watched Elmer finishing the first drink he’d been given quicker than anyone else. He was three-quarters of the way through the second and his neck and forehead had begun to glow. She glanced across the bar to where the bridegroom was standing with Letty and some people she didn’t know. To her relief, Dennehy appeared to be drinking some kind of fruit juice.
‘I haven’t a bullock to sell,’ Mrs Dallon heard her husband saying. ‘Unfortunately.’
She returned her attention to her younger daughter’s husband. His conversation wasn’t sensible. He was rambling in his speech, going on about what some bullock or other had fetched at a fair ten years ago. When Mrs Dennehy had been standing there he’d kept staring into her mouth. At one point he’d stood back in order to get a general view of her.
‘The biggest price ever paid in the town,’ he was saying now.
Dennehy, with his arm round Letty’s waist, was thinking she had a bit of style. She could hold her own on the family premises, calm as a cucumber. The dress suited her beautifully, greenish with shiny stuff run through it, threads that caught the light when she shifted. Underneath it, pinned to her straps, she was wearing the good-luck brooch he’d given her. The emerald engagement ring was still in place, with the gold band beside it.
‘Hullo,’ someone said, half behind him so that he had to turn his head. He dropped his arm from Letty’s waist and smiled at Mary Louise. ‘She’s all over the place,’ Letty had said earlier, asking him to be nice to her.
‘Hullo, Mary Louise, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. Are you OK yourself?’
‘Never better. Have you something in that glass?’
‘Oh yes, thanks.’
He heard Letty saying the honeymoon was a secret. When they’d still been undecided she’d mentioned places he’d never heard of before. Tramore he’d thrown in himself, and Tramore they’d agreed on.
‘I hope it’s all right with you, Mary Louise? The wedding?’
She nodded, a very slight movement of her head, her expression solemn. She looked as though she had weighed the matter up, as if she had actually wondered if it was all right or not. Dennehy felt reassured, but even so he wished his future sister-in-law was a little more forthcoming. She had committed an act of madness when she’d married Elmer Quarry, Letty said, and in her company Dennehy couldn’t help agreeing. Protestant girl or not, surely she could have done better than a draper nearly twice her age?
‘You heard I bought a house at Rathtrim?’ he said.
‘Letty told me that.’
‘We’ve had the builders in.’
‘It’ll be like she wants in that case.’
‘Oh, it’s not bad at all.’ He drank some of his pineapple juice. There was a small measure of gin in it, which gave it an edge. ‘They’ve only a few small things left to do. They’ll do them while we’re away.’
‘I’m sure they’ll have it ready for you.’
‘They’ll hear me a mile or two if they haven’t.’
The lounge-bar filled up. Mrs Dallon was joined by her sister Emmeline, who said she didn’t know anyone except the Edderys and Miss Mullover. Letty had invited other people she’d know, Mrs Dallon said, but they hadn’t arrived yet. Apparently they were sharing a car. ‘Would you say Elmer’s sober?’ she whispered, and both women observed him for a moment. He was still talking about livestock prices. They moved closer, still listening.
‘Are your sisters keeping well?’ Mrs Dallon interrupted when he’d gone on a little longer. It was typical of them not to attend Letty’s wedding, she had already observed to her sister. Typical to be snooty.
Elmer said his sisters were fine. Neither of those girls had ever had a day’s sickness in her life, he said. When they were small they’d maybe had the measles, he couldn’t remember was it measles or chicken-pox, but they never caught a cold. They could be in the shop all day with the stove going and germs coming in with the customers, but never a cold between them. The same with indigestion, nothing like it at all. Which was more than he could say for himself.
Mrs Dallon glanced at her sister and then at her husband. She’d never heard Elmer Quarry talking like that before, in the shop or out of it. After his own wedding he’d been propriety itself.
‘Will I get you another?’ he suggested, reaching out for their three glasses. Mrs Dallon put her hand over the top of hers. Winter’s Tale sherry it was, but a glass was enough.
‘Well, it’s good of you, Elmer,’ Mr Dallon said. ‘Will he get you something, Emmeline?’
‘Ah, no, no, I’m all right.’
‘He’s footless,’ Mrs Dallon said when Elmer had gone off.
‘He’s had a few certainly,’ her sister agreed.
Mr Dallon hadn’t noticed anything amiss, but on hearing this he realized that the draper was more easy-going than usual. He’d taken it with a pinch of salt when Letty had said her brother-in-law was drinking.
‘Stotious,’ Mrs Dallon pronounced.
While he was waiting for the drinks to be poured Elmer considered that there was no reason why he shouldn’t refer to the unpleasantness back in the house, since Rose and Matilda were under discussion and the conversation had to be kept going. He’d been asked how they were and there was no reason why the thing couldn’t be hinted at. He could hint at it when he gave out their drinks to them, best to get it out of the way, best not to have it hanging there.