Then one after another the details of the previous day impinged on her waking consciousness: the cork mats, the shed where the kindling was cut, the narrow face of the Shaughnessys’ son, the greasy doorknobs in the kitchen, the impatience in Mrs Shaughnessy’s voice. The reality was worse than the confusion of her dreams, and there was nothing magical about the softness of the rug beneath her bare feet: she didn’t even notice it. She lifted her night-dress over her head and for a moment caught a glimpse of her nakedness in the tarnished looking-glass – plumply rounded thighs and knees, the dimple in her stomach. She drew on stockings and underclothes, feeling even more lost than she had when she’d tried not to go to sleep. She knelt by her bed, and when she’d offered her usual prayers she asked that she might be taken away from the Shaughnessys’ house. She asked that her father would understand when she told him.
‘The master’s waiting on his breakfast, Kitty.’
‘I lit the range the minute I was down, ma’am.’
‘If you don’t get it going by twenty to seven it won’t be hot in time. I told you that yesterday. Didn’t you pull the dampers out?’
‘The paper wouldn’t catch, ma’am.’
‘If the paper wouldn’t catch you’ll have used a damp bit. Or maybe paper out of a magazine. You can’t light a fire with paper out of a magazine, Kitty.’
‘If I’d had a drop of paraffin, ma’am –’
‘My God, are you mad, child?’
‘At home we’d throw on a half cup of paraffin if the fire was slow, ma’am.’
‘Never bring paraffin near the range. If the master heard you he’d jump out of his skin.’
‘I only thought it would hurry it, ma’am.’
‘Set the alarm for six if you’re going to be slow with the fire. If the breakfast’s not on the table by a quarter to eight he’ll raise the roof. Have you the plates in the bottom oven?’
When Kathleen opened the door of the bottom oven a black kitten darted out, scratching the back of her hand in its agitation.
‘Great God Almighty!’ exclaimed Mrs Shaughnessy. ‘Are you trying to roast the poor cat?’
‘I didn’t know it was in there, ma’am.’
‘You lit the fire with the poor creature inside there! What were you thinking of to do that, Kitty?’
‘I didn’t know, ma’am –’
‘Always look in the two ovens before you light the range, child. Didn’t you hear me telling you?’
After breakfast, when Kathleen went into the dining-room to clear the table, Mrs Shaughnessy was telling her son about the kitten in the oven. ‘Haven’t they brains like turnips?’ she said, even though Kathleen was in the room. The son released a half-hearted smile, but when Kathleen asked him if he’d finished with the jam he didn’t reply. ‘Try and speak a bit more clearly, Kitty,’ Mrs Shaughnessy said later. ‘It’s not everyone can understand a country accent.’
The day was similar to the day before except that at eleven o’clock Mrs Shaughnessy said:
‘Go upstairs and take off your cap. Put on your coat and go down the street to Crawley’s. A half pound of round steak, and suet. Take the book off the dresser. He’ll know who you are when he sees it.’
So far, that was the pleasantest chore she had been asked to do. She had to wait in the shop because there were two other people before her, both of whom held the butcher in conversation. ‘I know your father,’ Mr Crawley said when he’d asked her name, and he held her in conversation also, wanting to know if her father was in good health and asking about her brothers and sisters. He’d heard about the buying of the Lallys’ field. She was the last uniformed maid in the town, he said, now that Nellie Broderick at Maclure’s had had to give up because of her legs.
‘Are you mad?’ Mrs Shaughnessy shouted at her on her return. ‘I should be down in the shop and not waiting to put that meat on. Didn’t I tell you yesterday not to be loitering in the mornings?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, only Mr Crawley –’
‘Go down to the shop and tell the master I’m delayed over cooking the dinner and can you assist him for ten minutes.’
But when Kathleen appeared in the grocery Mr Shaughnessy asked her if she’d got lost. The son was weighing sugar into grey paper bags and tying string round each of them. A murmur of voices came from the bar.
‘Mrs Shaughnessy is delayed over cooking the dinner,’ Kathleen said. ‘She was thinking I could assist you for ten minutes.’
‘Well, that’s a good one!’ Mr Shaughnessy threw back his head, exploding into laughter. A little shower of spittle damped Kathleen’s face. The son gave his half-hearted smile. ‘Can you make a spill, Kitty? D’you know what I mean by a spill?’ Mr Shaughnessy demonstrated with a piece of brown paper on the counter. Kathleen shook her head. ‘Would you know what to charge for a quarter pound of tea, Kitty? Can you weigh out sugar, Kitty? Go back to the missus, will you, and tell her to have sense.’
In the kitchen Kathleen put it differently, simply saying that Mr Shaughnessy hadn’t required her services. ‘Bring a scuttle of coal up to the dining-room,’ Mrs Shaughnessy commanded. ‘And get out the mustard. Can you make up mustard?’
Kathleen had never tasted mustard in her life; she had heard of it but did not precisely know what it was. She began to say she wasn’t sure about making some, but even before she spoke Mrs Shaughnessy sighed and told her to wash down the front steps instead.
‘I don’t want to go back there,’ Kathleen said on Sunday. ‘I can’t understand what she says to me. It’s lonesome the entire time.’
Her mother was sympathetic, but even so she shook her head. ‘There’s people I used to know,’ she said. ‘People placed like ourselves whose farms failed on them. They’re walking the roads now, no better than tinkers. I have ten children, Kathleen, and seven are gone from me. There’s five of them I’ll maybe never see again. It’s that you have to think of, pet.’
