Chapter 50
CHAPTER 50
Maura
Nuala drives. Her car is a tangerine Mini with fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror and thick gray smoke blowing out the exhaust. Geraldine insists that I sit in the front, next to Nuala.
“It’s easier for you with your crutches,” she says.
At Geraldine’s parents’ house, Nuala gets out and lifts her seat so Geraldine can climb out of the back of the two-door car. Geraldine makes a big show of saying goodbye.
“Keep an eye on her,” she tells Nuala. “Make sure he doesn’t touch her.” There’s so much contempt for Christy in her tone that the words could sour milk.
Nuala nods and says, “I’ll take care of her.”
Geraldine waves from the porch of her parents’ massive detached bungalow in Ballsbridge and I find myself wondering what her father does for a living. I shake my head as if I can spill the thought out and mentally scold myself for turning into my mother.
Nuala sits back into the car and I prepare to make small talk as we pull away from the horseshoe-shaped road of houses and leave Ger, still waving, behind.
“This is the best way to Rathmines, right?” Nuala asks.
“Yes. Take a left at the first set of traffic lights; it’ll cut off some of the traffic.”
“Grand… you’re amazing. I hope you know that,” Nuala says, and there’s a flash of something across her face. Sadness mixed with hope, I think. It’s gone before I can grab hold of it to see it clearly. “What you said earlier, your honesty. I can’t believe how well that went.”
“I don’t think Sharon likes me much,” I say.
“Sharon doesn’t like anybody much. But she’s all right when you get to know her. She’s just a loudmouth. But we need loudmouths if we’re going to get people to listen.”
“I suppose.”
Nuala flicks on her indicator and we veer left. The ticktock of it soothes me and I close my eyes and lean into the sound.
“I think Sharon fancies herself on the telly. Reading the news, maybe.” Nuala snorts as if the very notion of a woman reading the news is farcical, but there’s a hint of optimism behind her amusement.
“Wow. That’s a big dream,” I say.
“She hasn’t got the face for it, though. God bless her, she has a face only a mother could love.”
I cover my mouth and keep my laughter in. I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Sharon’s face. I was too busy trying to make sure her mouth didn’t bite me to notice the rest of her features.
“You have it, though,” Nuala says. “Your face is practically perfect.”
“Oh, erm…”
I instinctively touch under my left eye. It’s still tender, and no doubt ugly. Nuala takes her eyes off the road for a moment to look at me. She smiles, and although they’re as obvious as the nose on my face, she doesn’t mention the mottled, yellowing bruises gathered on my cheekbones and temples.
“People used to say I looked like Doris Day when I was younger,” I say, and there’s a pang of longing, as I miss those carefree days.
“Doris bloody Day, well, my God, you do ’n’ all. I see it now. Perfect. It’s perfect.”
A car cuts us off at the junction and Nuala slams her hand on the horn.
“Typical man,” she mutters. “Downright typical.”
I pull my hand away from my face and stare out the window. I think of Christy and his temper. I think of Dan and his kind eyes. My da. The nice man who assisted me in Bewley’s. My neighbors. The postman, the milkman, the man who sits on the same bench in the Phoenix Park every Sunday after mass and reads his paper while his children play tag. Tall, short, funny, grumpy, happy, sad. All men. All different. There is no such thing as a typical man. Just as there is not, and never should be, such a thing as a typical woman.
We turn onto a less congested road and Nuala drives a little faster, lost in her own thoughts. We don’t say another word until I say, “It’s just up here, next right.”
Nuala turns onto my road. Children are out playing hopscotch that they’ve drawn on the concrete with colored chalk. Mrs. Keogh in number 17 will complain later and make them wash it away with cold, soapy water. They don’t move when they see us coming. Nuala slows and we crawl past them. My next-door neighbor’s children are among the giddy group. Two girls and two boys. They wave when they see me passing and I wave in return.
“Jesus, this place is like an advertisement for domestic bliss, isn’t it?”
“That’s what I thought when I first moved here. Perfect houses, perfect gardens, perfect lives.”
“If only,” Nuala says.
“If only.” I sigh, and then I say, “This is me. Number eleven.”
“Wow. Nice. Jesus, those net curtains sparkle.”
I smile. It’s a compliment. And I should take it as such, but somehow it doesn’t quite feel the way praise should. I know Nuala only means to observe the net curtains that my mother-in-law so keenly taught me to keep white. Curtains that I have the time and inclination to hand-wash and dry and hang. Nuala wouldn’t have the time. Or Sharon. Or Geraldine. They aren’t housewives. They have big, busy lives and I hate that I have to squash the sting of jealousy.
“You know, I grew up in a neighborhood just like this in the fifties,” Nuala says, glancing out the window toward the children. “I played hopscotch with my friends and my ma had the whitest net curtains on the road. She died giving birth to my brother, her tenth child. I was fifteen. The curtains went yellow after that.”
“Oh, Nuala, I’m sorry.”
Nuala tucks her car next to the curb and turns off the engine.
“It was a long time ago. Twenty years ago, next month. And I keep waiting for women’s lives to be worth more than keeping house, you know? But here we are, looking at some of the brightest net curtains I’ve ever seen. Don’t you want to let them yellow up? Even just a little bit?”
“I never wanted to keep them white in the first place. In fact, I’d love to rip the damn things down altogether.”
Nuala looks at me with wide, almost wild eyes, checking if I understand that we are not talking about curtains. I grin so wide it stings my aching cheeks, but I keep the smile pinned to my face.
“Then let’s do it,” she says. “Let’s tear up every damn curtain in the country.”
There’s so much fire in Nuala’s belly I feel the heat of it. I feel it warm me. I feel it warm the whole car.
“Sharon has some connections in RTé. I’m not too sure of the ins and outs of it. But she might be able to get an interview on The Late Late Show .”
Her fire is burning so brightly now it feels as if it might singe me.
“ The Late Late Show ? That’s amazing. Oh golly.”
“It might only be a ten-minute slot, if even. But there’s a lot you could say in ten minutes.”
I tap my fingers against my chest. “Me?”
“Please, Maura, you have to come on the show with us. Tell the women of Ireland what you told me. Open their eyes to contraception and their right to choose.”
“Oh Jesus. I couldn’t. I can’t. Everyone watches The Late Late .” My throat closes over just thinking about it. “My parents, my in-laws, my husband, for goodness’ sake.”
“Good. Let them watch. Maybe we could get them tickets to sit in the audience.”
“No. No. God, no. They wouldn’t understand. My family aren’t like that. They’re not looking to fix anything. To be honest, they don’t even know it’s broken.”
“Then show them. Come on the telly and show them.”
Something inside me is shaking. Desire. Trepidation. Longing. Fear. I can’t tell the difference.
“What about Ger?” I say. “She’d be perfect. She’s young and full of ideas—”
“She’s also single.” Nuala’s face is awash in frustration and desperation. “How do you think the people of Ireland would react to an unmarried woman fighting for contraception? We want people on our side.”
“But every woman should have the right—”
“Every woman should. I agree. But we’ll have our work cut out for us convincing Ireland that women deserve contraception at all. If we bring unmarried women into the argument… well, we might as well just shoot ourselves in the foot now and be done with it.”
I sigh. Nuala is right. Ireland is not looking to change. If we push too hard too soon, we’ll lose.
“That’s why we need you, Maura. We need your pretty face and your posh accent and pristine home and suburban life. You’re the nearest thing to the perfect woman there is.”
“Perfect.” I snort.
“Listen. Please listen.” Nuala raises her voice. It’s too loud for the small space of the car. “If we can show people that it’s all a facade, if we can make them see that behind every closed door is a desperate housewife, maybe, just maybe, they’ll take our side.”
I’m lost for words when Nuala places her hand over mine.
“Say you’ll do it? Please?”
“He’d kill me.” I swallow. “I think he might actually kill me.”
Nuala takes a deep breath. She pulls her shoulders to her ears and holds them there as she looks at me with concern and kindness.
“Then maybe you should tell people that too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, disappointment and fear crushing me. “I really am so sorry.”
“Yes. Me too.”
Nuala’s fire has burned down to ashes. I can feel it. She helps me out of the car, and I hobble toward the front door. My body is tired and aching. It’s a tiredness I’ve never known before.
“Hello, Mrs. Davenport,” says Tilly Johnson, my next-door neighbor’s middle child, turning her attention away from her friends and toward me. She waves. Tilly is about six, maybe seven, and she has a smile that lights up her whole face. But she’s not smiling now. She’s wearing the concerned expression of an adult. “Did you fall down again?”
“Yes. I did, unfortunately.”
“You’re a silly billy,” she says, twirling the strand of her dolly’s hair around her finger. “My ma says if my da ever maked her fall down she’d hit him on the head with the frying pan.”
Some of the other children laugh at the idea of frying pan violence. I push on the door handle, relieved to find it’s not locked, and step inside. I can’t invite Nuala in, and she knows it. We say our goodbyes on the doorstep.
“If you change your mind…”
I nod and smile. “I won’t. But thank you.”