25

 

The recent ease between Daniel and me had not returned by the day before his dinner. Fresh flowers were in almost every room, bedrooms had been aired out, all the preparation and the cleaning done by Marg Hislop and her daughter. The caterers would arrive next day. In Daniel’s case, rest would have been a good thing, but he was too keyed up. Jude worried he’d wear himself out and not be able to sit at the dinner table.

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’ll be there no matter if the sky falls. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I thought of it.”

But in fact there was nothing to do but wait until his guests arrived next day, and he finally agreed to lie down for a while in mid-afternoon. Exhausted as well as nervous about seeing Oliver Pike again, I sat in the parlour and tried to read a book. Jude was there polishing the silverware that was already gleaming. I fretted that Oliver might let on Daniel and I knew each before, but I consoled myself that as a literary agent to the like of Daniel and other such men, he must be able to keep a discreet tongue in his head.

“Delia, has something happened between you and Daniel?”

Jude’s voice made me jump. Unwilling to talk about it, I tried to marshal my thoughts.

“I mean, it seems a bit distant between you this past week. It’s none of my business, I know, but if I can do anything to smooth things over, or if you want to talk, I’m here.”

I fairly trembled with relief. Surprised and a bit touched that she cared and offered, I had to stop my eyes from filling. I gave myself a good mental shake and tried to get a grip. Not a person who cried easily, I’d been on the verge of it way too often these past couple of weeks.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Jude. Daniel is preoccupied with this dinner, and I’ve been chivvying him to take it easy. You know he hates that.”

As an explanation it would do. In any case, it was the best I could come up with.

“I’ve thought about what you said about Iris and a paternity test. Daniel would have to agree. I’ll ask Iris to do the test after this is over. If she doesn’t want to, or is hesitant at all, I’ll let it go.”

“Good. Good. I’m sure she’ll agree. But make sure she’s comfortable with it if it turns out to be a disappointment. You know how upset she was when nothing came about in Wales.”

Some of my tension left with this news. It would take some of the weight off my shoulders about Iris, bring us one step closer to resolution, without me having to say anything at all. Even so, I worried that if the test turned out negative, Iris would be despondent. It would close another door, one she must herself be thinking about. In this I was wrong.

No sooner had Jude finished her polishing and gone back to the dining room than I took myself off for a walk. At the cross between the road into the village and the one out of it, it struck me that I had nowhere to go. Our farm offered no comfort to me this day, and my stomach had no place for a piece of Peggy O’Shea’s pie or her questions. In the end I turned to the road out towards Knockdeara. When I reached the hill topped by the oak I climbed over the low wall and made for the tree I had come to think of as my tree. Spread out below me was the village on one side, the pier and harbour on the other, and behind the drop to the road to Knockdeara.

It was just about suppertime and the parade of cars back into the village was underway, the whine of their engines as they tackled the hill a counterpoint to the cawing of crows. Four magpies foraged down the slope from me. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a wedding and four for a boy. The old rhyme came to me as I watched them. The crows croaked protest at the invasion of their territory. The magpies took no notice. From the hill the change in colour of the trees created a fine muted patchwork of brown and gold against the turned earth of the farmers’ fields. A few Holsteins lying under the trees a few fields away complained they needed milking. I took a deep breath and settled my back against the oak. Gradually the smaller sounds penetrated, the distant low of a cow, an unarticulated shout from one of the sailors on the pier, the flap of a crow’s wing as it lifted over the treetop.

My mother and Mrs. Cleary had it right. Things had changed since 1968. I was, after all, a grown woman. Whatever came out about me now would be old news, a nine days’ wonder, and life would go on. The onslaught of memories assailing me from being around Daniel, June and Iris had exhausted me. Since I had lost myself under the rhododendron in the driveway, terror that I would go the same way as Maggie haunted me and drove me to a decision. I was finished with hiding things and lying. Iris was grown up and could make her own decisions. I would have to talk to Mam. Soon. There under the oak, I made a solemn promise to myself and Maggie that, no matter what, I would never speak to another living soul about the thing that ruined her. That part of the story I would keep to myself. I rose as the sky dimmed, and with more peace than I’d had since Daniel Wolfe approached me in Peggy O’Shea’s café, I headed back to the Big House. The first thing on my list was to put a call through to Leigh Sweeney.