he had not seen her, and she was relieved. She had been staring, and that was ill-mannered, no matter how interesting a person might seem.
‘You saw him,’ McDaid observed, so quietly it was little more than a whisper.
She was taken aback. ‘Saw him? Who?’
‘Cormac O’Neil,’ he replied.
She was startled. Had she been so very obvious? ‘Was that. . I mean the man with the. .?’ Then she did not know how to finish the sentence.
‘Haunted face,’ he said it for her.
‘I wasn’t going to. .’ She saw in his eyes that she was denying it pointlessly. Either Narraway had told him, or he had pieced it together himself. It made her wonder how many others knew; indeed, if all those involved might well know more than she, and her pretence was deceiving no one. Did Narraway know that? Or was he as naive in this as she?
‘Do you know him?’ she asked instead.
‘I?’ McDaid raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve met him, of course, but know him? Hardly at all.’
‘I didn’t mean in any profound sense,’ she parried. ‘Merely were you acquainted.’
‘In the past, I thought so.’ He was watching Cormac while seeming not to. ‘But tragedy changes people. Or then on the other hand, perhaps it only shows you what was always there, simply not yet uncovered. How much does one know anybody? Most of all oneself.’
‘Very metaphysical,’ she said drily. ‘And the answer is that you can make a guess, more or less educated, depending on your intelligence and your experience with that person.’
He looked at her steadily. ‘Victor said you were. . direct.’
She found it odd to hear Narraway referred to by his given name, instead of the formality she was used to, the slight distance that leadership required.
Now she was not sure if she were on the brink of offending McDaid. On the other hand, if she were too timid even to approach what she really wanted, she would lose the chance.
She smiled at him. ‘What was O’Neil like, when you knew him?’
McDaid’s eyes widened. ‘Victor didn’t tell you? How interesting.’
‘Did you expect him to have?’ she asked.
‘Why is he asking, why now?’ He sat absolutely still. All around him people were moving, adjusting position, smiling, waving, finding seats, nodding agreement to something or other, waving to friends.
‘Perhaps you know him well enough to ask him that?’ she suggested.
Again he countered. ‘Don’t you?’
She kept her smile warm, faintly amused. ‘Of course, but I would not repeat his answer. You must know him well enough to believe he would not confide in someone he could not trust.’
‘So perhaps we both know, and neither will trust the other,’ he mused. ‘How absurd, how vulnerable and incredibly human; indeed, the convention of many comic plays.’
‘To judge by Cormac O’Neil’s face, for him at least, it was a tragedy,’ she countered. ‘One of the casualties of war that you referred to.’
He looked at her steadily, and for a moment the buzz of conversation around them ceased to exist. ‘So he was,’ he said softly. ‘But that was twenty years ago.’
‘Does one forget?’
‘Irishmen? Never. Do the English?’
‘Sometimes,’ she replied.
‘Of course. You could hardly remember them all!’ Then he caught himself immediately and his expression changed. ‘Do you want to meet him?’ he asked.
‘Yes — please.’
‘Then you shall,’ he promised.
There was a rustle of anticipation in the audience and everyone fell silent. After a moment or two the curtain rose and the play began. Charlotte concentrated on it so that she could speak intelligently when she was introduced to people in the interval. To know nothing would imply that she was uninterested, which would be unforgivable here.
She found it difficult. There were frequent references to events she was not familiar with, even words she did not know. There was an underlying air of sadness as if the main characters knew that the ending would include a loss that nothing could ever alter, no matter what they said or did.
Was that how Cormac O’Neil felt: helpless, predestined to be overwhelmed? Everybody lost people they loved. Bereavement was a part of life. The only escape was to love no one. She stopped trying to understand the drama on the stage and as discreetly as she could, she studied O’Neil.
He seemed to be alone. He looked neither to right nor left of him, and the people on either side seemed to be with others. Not once all the time she was watching did they speak to O’Neil, or he to them, not even to glance and catch the eye at some particularly poignant line on the stage, or a moment when the audience seemed utterly in the grasp of the players.
The longer she watched him, the more totally alone did he seem to be. But she was equally sure that neither did he look bored. His eyes never strayed from the stage, yet at times his expression did not reflect the drama. She wondered what was passing through his mind: other times and events, other tragedies related to this only in the depth of their feeling?
By the time the interval came Charlotte was moved by the passion she could not escape, which emanated from the players and audience alike, but also confused by it. It made her feel more sharply than the lilt of a different accent, or even the sound of another language, that she was in a strange place teeming with emotions she caught and lost again.
‘May I take you to get something to drink?’ McDaid asked her when the curtain fell and the lights were bright again. ‘And perhaps to meet one or two more of my friends? I’m sure they are dying of curiosity to know who you are, and, of course, how I know you.’
‘I would be delighted,’ she answered. ‘And how do you know me? We had better be accurate, or it will start people talking.’ She smiled to rob the words of offence.
‘But surely the sole purpose of coming to the theatre with a beautiful woman is to start people talking?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Otherwise one would be better to come alone, like Cormac O’Neil, and concentrate on the play, without distraction.’
‘Thank you. I’m flattered to imagine I could distract you.’ She inclined her head a little, enjoying the trivial play of words. ‘Especially from so intense a drama. The actors are superb. I have no idea what they are talking about at least half the time, and yet I am conquered by their emotions.’
‘Are you sure you are not Irish?’ he pressed.
‘Not sure at all. Perhaps I am, and I should simply look harder. But please do not tell Mr O’Neil that my grandmother’s name was O’Neil also, or I shall be obliged to admit that I know very little about her, and that would make me seem very discourteous, as if I did not wish to own that part of my heritage. The truth is I simply did not realise how interesting it would be.’
‘I shall not tell him, if you don’t wish me to,’ McDaid promised.
‘But you have not told me how we met,’ she reminded him.
‘I saw you across a room and asked a mutual acquaintance to introduce us,’ he said. ‘Is that not always how one meets a woman one sees, and admires?’
‘I imagine it is. But what room was it? Was it here in Ireland? I imagine not, since I have been here only a couple of days. But have you been to London lately?’ She smiled at him. ‘Or ever, for that matter?’
‘Of course I’ve been to London. Do you think I am some provincial bumpkin?’ He shrugged. ‘Only once, mind you. I did not care for it — nor it for me. It was so huge, so crowded with people, and yet at the same time, anonymous.You could live and die there, and never be seen.’
‘But I have been in Dublin only a couple of days,’ she repeated to fill the silence.
‘Then I was bewitched at first sight,’ he said reasonably, suddenly smiling again. ‘I’m sorry I insulted your home. It was unforgivable. Call it my own inadequacy in the midst of three million English.’
‘Oh, quite a few Irishmen, believe me,’ she said with a smile. ‘And none of them in the least inadequate.’
