Free Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor Page A

sir – but what it is I’m trying to tell you …’
    ‘Dear, kind Alice … Oh no … Please don’t cry.’
    ‘Lawyer Morgan is after being here, sir. He was sent to Dublin for, yesterday. He was in with her an hour and another man along. Bridget was asked for paper, sir, and a bottle of ink. When the tea was brought in beyond, they were talking of your mother’s Will, sir. It’s my opinion it’s come to that, sir … I don’t know what to do …’
    ‘I see. Well, don’t be upset. The girls need your example. And we mustn’t put the worst complexion on matters we don’t understand.’
    ‘Don’t be letting on to herself that I told you, sir. Sure you won’t?’
    ‘Of course not. Thank you, Alice. Your discretion does you credit. We are so fortunate to have you. You are not to worry about anything. Now, tell Bridget I’ll be ready presently. And assist my mother to the dining table if you would.’
    He washes in his bedroom, looking out at the trees, the walls of the neighbours’ gardens, the conservatories. To be away from people now. In some quaking, black bog. To raise one’s face to a rainstorm.
    ‘Good evening, Mother. Have you been well?’
    She does not reply. The dining room is cold as a November orchard.
    ‘I am sorry my return was delayed. I was down in Wicklow, walking. The weather was that charming I took a room at the inn in Rathnew. I asked a local type to send a telegram for me but I gather from Alice it didn’t arrive.’
    ‘Do you wish to kill me, John? Has this family not suffered enough?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Have I not been wounded and cut at sufficiently to placate the wicked selfishness you appear to regard as a devoted parent’s due?’
    ‘I can see that you have upset yourself, Mother. Now what is the matter?’
    ‘Teasy Ryan was able to tell me that you had been seen at Greystones. Swimming.’
    ‘What of it?’
    ‘With some female. Is this allegation true?’
    ‘Is it an offence against the by-laws to bathe on a hot day? I shall take care not to commit it again if so.’
    ‘With a female? Can you be serious? Is this disingenuousness or stupidity? Have you the scantest regard for propriety? You are not in Paris now!’
    ‘She is a friend. It was sunny. We went bathing at the public strand. She is a colleague at the theatre. Afterwards we had ices. Now you have the entire penny-dreadful.’
    ‘I knew it. Your so-called theatre. Some little typist who sells tickets. I imagine she must be good and proud of herself to have ensnared you quite so readily. One need not speculate as to how.’
    ‘She is not a typist, Mother. You may as well know she is an actress.’
    Her frightened, beautiful face seems to lose all its colour, and a quiver briefly distends her mouth. ‘So it is true, then. The worst is true. Do you hate me so much? The woman who gave you life?’
    ‘Mother –’
    ‘What have I done to you?’ Tears come staining her cheeks. ‘Have I not loved you enough? Protected you? Supported you? It is commanded of us that we honour our father and mother and yet this beautiful injunction, on which all decent society is predicated, is to be trampled with its nine companions. To imagine that you would invite an individual of that sort to an inn , as you call it. You are aware, I think, that we are known throughout Wicklow? Have the words “shame” and “scandal” been expunged from your vocabulary? That is to say nothing of the girl’s reputation, if she has one.’
    ‘She is a person of faultless integrity and she quite obviously did not stay with me at the inn, which is incidentally a perfectly respectable establishment. She came down on the train one morning and returned to Dublin in the evening. We had a day outing; that is all. I stayed there alone. I felt one of my fevers coming on and thought the mountain air would do me good.’
    ‘A Roman Catholic, one assumes?’
    ‘For pity’s sake, Mother –’
    ‘Where are your loyalties? Is