laughter.
“What’s so funny about a row of gigot chops?” he asked the two laughing girls outside his window. It only made them laugh more.
“Get on with you then, do your laughing somewhere else,” he growled at them. “Stop making a mock and a jeer out of other people’s business.”
His face was severely troubled and he went out into the street to look up at the tree which overhung his house.
Mr. Flood had been staring into that tree a lot lately, and worse still having conversations with someone he saw in its branches. The general thinking was that Mr. Flood had seen some kind of vision, but was not ready to reveal it to the town. His words to the tree seemed to be respectful and thoughtful, and he addressed whatever he saw as “Sister.”
Benny and Eve watched fascinated as he shook his head sorrowfully and seemed to agree with something that had been said to him.
“It’s the same the whole world over, Sister,” he said, “but it’s sad it should come to Ireland as well.”
He listened respectfully to what he was hearing fromthe tree, and took his leave. Vision or no vision, there was work to be done in the shop.
The girls only stopped laughing by the time they had reached the convent gates. Benny turned to go back home as usual. She never presumed on their friendship with Eve by expecting to be let into the inner sanctum. The convent in holidays was off-limits.
“No, come on in, come in just to see my room,” Eve begged.
“Mother Francis? Wouldn’t they think …?”
“It’s my home, they’ve always told me that. Anyway, you’re not a pupil anymore.”
They went through a side door; there was a smell of baking, a warm kitchen smell through the corridors, then a smell of polish on the big stairway, and the wide dark hall hung with pictures of Mother Foundress and Our Lady, and lit only by the Sacred Heart lamp.
“Isn’t it desperately quiet in the holidays?”
“You should be here at night. Sometimes when I’ve come home from the pictures and I let myself in, it’s so quiet I’d nearly talk to the statues for company.”
They went up to the small room where Eve had lived for as long as she could remember. Benny looked around with interest.
“Look at your wireless, right beside your bed!” The brown Bakelite electric radio, where, like very other girl in the country, Eve listened at night to Radio Luxembourg, was on her night table. In Benny’s house, where she was considered a very pampered only child, she had to borrow the kitchen radio and then perch it on a chair because there wasn’t any socket near enough to her bed to plug it in.
There was a neat candlewick bedspread and a funny nightdress case shaped like a rabbit.
“Mother Francis gave me that when I was ten. Isn’t it awful?”
“Better than holy pictures,” Benny said.
Eve opened a drawer in which there were piles of holy pictures, each one bound up with a rubber band.
Benny looked at them fascinated. “You never threw them away!”
“Not here. I couldn’t.”
The small round window looked down over Knockglen, along the tree-lined drive of the convent through the big gates and down the broad main street of the town.
They could see Mr. Flood fussing round the window of his shop as if he were still worried about what they could have found so amusing in its contents. They saw small children with noses pressed against the window of Birdie Mac’s, and men with caps pulled well down over their faces coming out of Shea’s pub.
They saw a black Ford Prefect pull up in front of Hogan’s and knew it was Dr. Johnson. They saw two men walking into Healy’s Hotel, rubbing their hands. These would be commercial travelers, wanting to write up their order books in peace. They could see a man with a ladder up against the cinema putting up the new poster, and the small round figure of Peggy Pine coming out of her dress shop to stand and look admiringly at her window display. Peggy’s idea of art was to put as
“What’s so funny about a row of gigot chops?” he asked the two laughing girls outside his window. It only made them laugh more.
“Get on with you then, do your laughing somewhere else,” he growled at them. “Stop making a mock and a jeer out of other people’s business.”
His face was severely troubled and he went out into the street to look up at the tree which overhung his house.
Mr. Flood had been staring into that tree a lot lately, and worse still having conversations with someone he saw in its branches. The general thinking was that Mr. Flood had seen some kind of vision, but was not ready to reveal it to the town. His words to the tree seemed to be respectful and thoughtful, and he addressed whatever he saw as “Sister.”
Benny and Eve watched fascinated as he shook his head sorrowfully and seemed to agree with something that had been said to him.
“It’s the same the whole world over, Sister,” he said, “but it’s sad it should come to Ireland as well.”
He listened respectfully to what he was hearing fromthe tree, and took his leave. Vision or no vision, there was work to be done in the shop.
The girls only stopped laughing by the time they had reached the convent gates. Benny turned to go back home as usual. She never presumed on their friendship with Eve by expecting to be let into the inner sanctum. The convent in holidays was off-limits.
“No, come on in, come in just to see my room,” Eve begged.
“Mother Francis? Wouldn’t they think …?”
“It’s my home, they’ve always told me that. Anyway, you’re not a pupil anymore.”
They went through a side door; there was a smell of baking, a warm kitchen smell through the corridors, then a smell of polish on the big stairway, and the wide dark hall hung with pictures of Mother Foundress and Our Lady, and lit only by the Sacred Heart lamp.
“Isn’t it desperately quiet in the holidays?”
“You should be here at night. Sometimes when I’ve come home from the pictures and I let myself in, it’s so quiet I’d nearly talk to the statues for company.”
They went up to the small room where Eve had lived for as long as she could remember. Benny looked around with interest.
“Look at your wireless, right beside your bed!” The brown Bakelite electric radio, where, like very other girl in the country, Eve listened at night to Radio Luxembourg, was on her night table. In Benny’s house, where she was considered a very pampered only child, she had to borrow the kitchen radio and then perch it on a chair because there wasn’t any socket near enough to her bed to plug it in.
There was a neat candlewick bedspread and a funny nightdress case shaped like a rabbit.
“Mother Francis gave me that when I was ten. Isn’t it awful?”
“Better than holy pictures,” Benny said.
Eve opened a drawer in which there were piles of holy pictures, each one bound up with a rubber band.
Benny looked at them fascinated. “You never threw them away!”
“Not here. I couldn’t.”
The small round window looked down over Knockglen, along the tree-lined drive of the convent through the big gates and down the broad main street of the town.
They could see Mr. Flood fussing round the window of his shop as if he were still worried about what they could have found so amusing in its contents. They saw small children with noses pressed against the window of Birdie Mac’s, and men with caps pulled well down over their faces coming out of Shea’s pub.
They saw a black Ford Prefect pull up in front of Hogan’s and knew it was Dr. Johnson. They saw two men walking into Healy’s Hotel, rubbing their hands. These would be commercial travelers, wanting to write up their order books in peace. They could see a man with a ladder up against the cinema putting up the new poster, and the small round figure of Peggy Pine coming out of her dress shop to stand and look admiringly at her window display. Peggy’s idea of art was to put as
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