never would marry. It lasted about three months, dinner in little restaurants where you could dance, theatres.
I don’t think he made any frightful sexual demands, if so they weren’t mentioned, but she brought him home often, and he got very uneasy about the best china being brought out and Mary’s mother saying that she would leave you young people alone and vanishing, so he asked me to help him unload her which was a lousy rotten thing to do and I said he was to do it himself, the weak fool, and the weak fool just stopped ringing her, and her heart was broken, because school was getting more and more boring and mother was more and more trying and Mary had really thought that This might be It.
She met a man in a pub shortly afterwards while waiting for a girlfriend, he invited them both to a party, and there was a lot of drink and messing, Mary said, but it was better than nothing, and he and his gang had parties nearly every weekend up in Rathmines, where they all lived in bedsitters or flats, and it was getting harder and harder for Mary to take a taxi out nine miles home afterwards, so she got into the habit of staying with her friend Brenda in town. Mother would be a bit sour, but at least not suspicious, and indeed at this stage she had nothing to be suspicious about because Mary was staying with Brenda and they would both have glasses of milk and discuss the talent at the party and wonder which one of the lads they should try and settle for.
And then she fell in love. Yes, that’s what it was; she really found someone she loved much more than herself, and someone she couldn’t live without. I didn’t see her at all during this great period, but everyone who knew her said he was a total bastard, had got one of these funny divorces, because he had a load of money and a small luxurious flat that he actually called a ‘pad’ somewhere in Fashionable Dublin Four, and this was even further from Mary’s home than ever, and so Brenda was being used as a very real excuse this time.
Brenda had a phone, and if Mary’s mother rang, as she often did, Brenda would say, ‘Hold on a minute, she’s in the bath,’ and then ring Mary at the pad and tell her to ring her mother quick, for God’s sake.
I met them once and I agree he was very, very attractive and charming. He had a certain smoothness which I didn’t like, but then put that down to prejudice because I had heard he was a smooth bastard from people who are kind of right about these things. But that night when I was eating a very quick meal before going to the theatre, and was by myself, they asked me to join them, and he did have something very warm about him; he seemed to be interested in her, and pleasantly interested in whatever I had to say too. He talked a bit about ‘my little nipper’ and explained that he was divorced, so there didn’t seem to be any great deception or anything involved. Mary said her mother was going on a coach tour soon and that she and the guy would be having a party in his pad and I must come. The relevancy of the coach tour didn’t strike me for the moment until I remembered that naturally her mother thought she was staying with Brenda four to five nights a week. He said it had been very, very nice to meet me, which I thought was a bit overdoing it; it might have been nice enough, but since I was shovelling food into my mouth and looking at my watch, it could hardly have been very, very nice. Still, people talk different ways.
And act different ways, too.
He never suggested marriage to Mary, though she was quite willing to go to England and get married there, or in the registry office here, but apparently whenever she brought it up he said that the Irish laws were funny, and even though he did have a Mexican divorce or whatever it was, there was always the possibility that one could be prosecuted for bigamy here. Not likely, he said, because the courts hate doing it, it makes them look ridiculous, but possible. He would,
I don’t think he made any frightful sexual demands, if so they weren’t mentioned, but she brought him home often, and he got very uneasy about the best china being brought out and Mary’s mother saying that she would leave you young people alone and vanishing, so he asked me to help him unload her which was a lousy rotten thing to do and I said he was to do it himself, the weak fool, and the weak fool just stopped ringing her, and her heart was broken, because school was getting more and more boring and mother was more and more trying and Mary had really thought that This might be It.
She met a man in a pub shortly afterwards while waiting for a girlfriend, he invited them both to a party, and there was a lot of drink and messing, Mary said, but it was better than nothing, and he and his gang had parties nearly every weekend up in Rathmines, where they all lived in bedsitters or flats, and it was getting harder and harder for Mary to take a taxi out nine miles home afterwards, so she got into the habit of staying with her friend Brenda in town. Mother would be a bit sour, but at least not suspicious, and indeed at this stage she had nothing to be suspicious about because Mary was staying with Brenda and they would both have glasses of milk and discuss the talent at the party and wonder which one of the lads they should try and settle for.
And then she fell in love. Yes, that’s what it was; she really found someone she loved much more than herself, and someone she couldn’t live without. I didn’t see her at all during this great period, but everyone who knew her said he was a total bastard, had got one of these funny divorces, because he had a load of money and a small luxurious flat that he actually called a ‘pad’ somewhere in Fashionable Dublin Four, and this was even further from Mary’s home than ever, and so Brenda was being used as a very real excuse this time.
Brenda had a phone, and if Mary’s mother rang, as she often did, Brenda would say, ‘Hold on a minute, she’s in the bath,’ and then ring Mary at the pad and tell her to ring her mother quick, for God’s sake.
I met them once and I agree he was very, very attractive and charming. He had a certain smoothness which I didn’t like, but then put that down to prejudice because I had heard he was a smooth bastard from people who are kind of right about these things. But that night when I was eating a very quick meal before going to the theatre, and was by myself, they asked me to join them, and he did have something very warm about him; he seemed to be interested in her, and pleasantly interested in whatever I had to say too. He talked a bit about ‘my little nipper’ and explained that he was divorced, so there didn’t seem to be any great deception or anything involved. Mary said her mother was going on a coach tour soon and that she and the guy would be having a party in his pad and I must come. The relevancy of the coach tour didn’t strike me for the moment until I remembered that naturally her mother thought she was staying with Brenda four to five nights a week. He said it had been very, very nice to meet me, which I thought was a bit overdoing it; it might have been nice enough, but since I was shovelling food into my mouth and looking at my watch, it could hardly have been very, very nice. Still, people talk different ways.
And act different ways, too.
He never suggested marriage to Mary, though she was quite willing to go to England and get married there, or in the registry office here, but apparently whenever she brought it up he said that the Irish laws were funny, and even though he did have a Mexican divorce or whatever it was, there was always the possibility that one could be prosecuted for bigamy here. Not likely, he said, because the courts hate doing it, it makes them look ridiculous, but possible. He would,
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