that, Kathleen.’
She said she understood. There was a new sprightliness about her father; the fatigue in his face had given way to an excited pleasure. His gratitude to the Shaughnessys, and her mother’s gratitude, had made the farmhouse a different place during the last couple of weeks. Biddy and Con had been affected by it, and so had Kathleen, even though she had no idea what life would be like in the house above the Shaughnessys’ Provisions and Bar. Mrs Shaughnessy had not outlined her duties beyond saying that every night when she went up to bed she should carry with her the alarm clock from the kitchen dresser, and carry it down again every morning. The most important thing of all appeared to be that she should rise promptly from her bed.
‘You’ll listen well to what Mrs Shaughnessy says,’ her father begged her. ‘You’ll attend properly to all the work, Kathleen?’
‘I will of course.’
‘It’ll be great seeing you on Sundays, girl.’
‘It’ll be great coming home.’
A bicycle, left behind also by Mary Florence, lay in the back of the cart. Kathleen had wanted to tie the suitcase on to the carrier and cycle in herself with it, but her father wouldn’t let her. It was dangerous, he said; a suitcase attached like that could easily unbalance you.
‘Kathleen’s field is what we call it,’ her father said on their journey together, and added after a moment: ‘They’re decent people, Kathleen. You’re going to a decent house.’
‘Oh, I know, I know.’
But after only half a day there Kathleen wished she was back in the farmhouse. She knew at once how much she was going to miss the comfort of the kitchen she had known all her life, and the room along the passage she shared with Biddy, where Mary Florence had slept also, and the dogs nosing up to her in the yard. She knew how much she would miss Con, and her father and her mother, and how she’d miss looking after Biddy.
‘Now, I’ll show you how to set a table,’ Mrs Shaughnessy said. ‘Listen to this carefully, Kitty.’
Cork mats were put down on the tablecloth so that the heat of the dishes wouldn’t penetrate to the polished surface beneath. Small plates were placed on the left of each mat, to put the skins of potatoes on. A knife and a fork were arranged on each side of the mats and a spoon and a fork across the top. The pepper and salt were placed so that Mr Shaughnessy could easily reach them. Serving spoons were placed by the bigger mats in the middle. The breakfast table was set the night before, with the cups upside down on the saucers so that they wouldn’t catch the dust when the ashes were taken from the fireplace.
‘Can you cut kindling, Kitty? I’ll show you how to do it with the little hatchet.’
She showed her, as well, how to sweep the carpet on the stairs with a stiff hand-brush, and how to use the dust-pan. She explained that every mantelpiece in the house had to be dusted every morning, and all the places where grime would gather. She showed her where saucepans and dishes were kept, and instructed her in how to light the range, the first task of the day. The backyard required brushing once a week, on Saturday between four o’clock and five. And every morning after breakfast water had to be pumped from the tank in the yard, fifteen minutes’ work with the hand lever.
‘That’s the W.C. you’d use, Kitty,’ Mrs Shaughnessy indicated, leading her to a privy in another part of the backyard. ‘The maids always use this one.’
The dresses of the uniforms didn’t fit. She looked at herself in the blue one and then in the black. The mirror on the dressing-table was tarnished, but she could tell that neither uniform enhanced her in any way whatsoever. She looked as fat as a fool, she thought, with the hems all crooked, and the sleeves too tight on her forearms. ‘Oh now, that’s really very good,’ Mrs Shaughnessy said when Kathleen emerged from her bedroom in the black one. She demonstrated how the bodice of the apron was kept in place and how the afternoon cap should be worn.
‘Is your father fit?’ Mr Shaughnessy inquired when he came upstairs for his six o’clock tea.
‘He is, sir.’ Suddenly Kathleen had to choke back tears because without any warning the reference to her father had made her want to cry.
‘He was shook the day I saw him,’ Mr Shaughnessy said, ‘on account he couldn’t sell the bullocks.’
‘He’s all right now, sir.’
The Shaughnessys’ son reappeared then too, a narrow-faced youth who hadn’t addressed her when he’d arrived in the dining-room in the middle of the day and didn’t address her now. There were just the three of them, two younger children having grown up and gone away. During the day Mrs Shaughnessy had often referred to her other son and her daughter, the son in business in Limerick, the daughter married to a county surveyor. The narrow-faced son would inherit the businesses, she’d said, the barber’s shop and the Provisions and Bar, maybe even the insurances. With a bout of wretchedness, Kathleen was reminded of Con inheriting the farm. Before that he’d marry Angie McKrill, who wouldn’t hesitate to accept him now that the farm was improved.
Kathleen finished laying the table and went back to the kitchen, where Mrs Shaughnessy was frying rashers and eggs and slices of soda bread. When they were ready she scooped them on to three plates and Kathleen carried the tray, with a teapot on it as well, into the dining-room. Her instructions were to return to the kitchen when she’d done so and to fry her own rasher and eggs, and soda bread if she wanted it. ‘I don’t know will we make much of that one,’ she heard Mrs Shaughnessy saying as she closed the dining-room door.
That night she lay awake in the strange bed, not wanting to sleep because sleep would too swiftly bring the morning, and another day like the day there’d been. She couldn’t stay here: she’d say that on Sunday. If they knew what it was like they wouldn’t want her to. She sobbed, thinking again of the warm kitchen she had left behind, the sheepdogs lying by the fire and Biddy turning the wheel of the bellows, the only household task she could do. She thought of her mother and father sitting at the table as they always did, her mother knitting, her father pondering, with his hat still on his head. If they could see her in the dresses they’d understand. If they could see her standing there pumping up the water they’d surely be sorry for the way she felt. ‘I haven’t the time to tell you twice, Kitty,’ Mrs Shaughnessy said over and over again, her long, painted face not smiling in the least way whatsoever. If anything was broken, she’d said, the cost of it would have to be stopped out of the wages, and she’d spoken as though the wages would actually change hands. In Kathleen’s dreams Mrs Shaughnessy kept laughing, her chin going long and smooth and her large white teeth moving in her mouth. The dresses belonged to one of the King of England’s daughters, she explained, which was why they didn’t fit. And then Mary Florence came into the kitchen and said she was just back from Kilburn with a pair of shoes that belonged to someone else. The price of them could be stopped out of the wages, she suggested, and Mrs Shaughnessy agreed.
When Kathleen opened her eyes, roused by the alarm clock at half past six, she didn’t know where she was.
