a hernia, you will.’
‘Steady on, Neville. Watch where you’re putting your airlock. You can harm a young lad like that.’
By ten o’clock I felt desperate. I set off to go and tell Neville there was packing to do and plans to make for the weekend.
Colin hailed me halfway down the stairs. ‘Oh, Jenny, just in time. We’ve made some coffee. Are there any biscuits?’
The kitchen was exactly as I left it, only now there were sieves, bowls and large saucepans, full of the drying residue of boiled hops, stacked all over the floor, and the pedal bin was overflowing. I picked out the biscuits from the carrier where Colin had put them himself, declined coffee, and started to clear up.
It was nearly eleven by the time Neville went and Colin strode back into the kitchen, looking pleased with himself. ‘Oh, Jenny, you shouldn’t have washed up. I’d have helped.’
‘That’s what you said at eight o’clock,’ I replied sharply.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll do it now.’
‘Yes, it does matter. It’s nearly eleven and we haven’t had a moment to ourselves all evening and you still have your packing to do.’
He came and put his arms round me and nuzzled my ear. ‘Oh, come on, Jen. It’s not that late,’ he began persuasively. ‘I won’t be two ticks packing. You go on up and have a nice shower and I’ll be in bed with you in no time.’
At that moment the thought of a shower and of getting to bed without any further delay was utterly appealing. I nodded wearily but decided to finish drying up the saucepans while he packed. I heard him fetch his weekend case from the cloakroom and run upstairs whistling cheerfully. I bent over to empty the pedal bin.
The night air was cold as I replaced the lid on the dustbin, but looking up I saw the moon appear suddenly from behind a great mass of cloud. Light spilled all around me. A spray of yellow chrysanthemums gleamed in the big flowerbed at the end of the garden. Beyond the dark mass of the shrubs and the climbers I’d planted to hide the solid shape of the fence, the lough lay calm, a silver swathe laid across its dark surface. On the far shore, where the Antrim plateau plunged down to the coast, strings and chains of lights winked along the coastline like pale flowers edging a garden path. The still, frosty air was heavy with quiet.
‘Jen. Can you hear me? Where are you?’
Reluctantly, I went back into the house and found Colin peering down over the banisters. His good spirits had vanished and he wore a patient look that did nothing to hide his irritation.
‘What have you done with my white shirts, Jen? I can’t find them.’
‘Which white shirts?’
‘Any white shirts. They aren’t in the drawer,’ he went on quickly. ‘I’ve looked.’
‘They’re probably all in the wash,’ I replied steadily. ‘I’ve been handwashing your drip-dries since the machine packed up. There are two or three of those on the fitment in the bathroom.’
‘But they’re blue,’ he protested impatiently.
‘Since when has there been a rule about wearing white shirts at conferences?’ I asked crossly.
I went back into the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled a pedal-bin liner off the roll. I heard him pound downstairs and turned and saw him glowering in at me.
‘Jenny, you know perfectly well I always wear the white ones for conferences,’ he said with a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do? Wash my own?’
‘Colin, if you had let me ring someone two weeks ago about the machine neither of us would have to wash your shirts. But you wanted to fiddle with the damn thing. I told you I’d rather we paid to have it done so we’d have some time to do other things. But you said no. You’d order the part. You’d fit it yourself. Well, if you had, the drawer would be full of shirts. So don’t go blaming me.’
The wretched pedal-bin liner wouldn’t open. I stood there struggling with it as I watched him change gear. The glowering face disappeared and his tone was sweetness itself as he started to explain that he wasn’t blaming me. I just didn’t understand how difficult his position was. Didn’t I grasp what a big responsibility this new Antrim contract was? Couldn’t I see that he was run off his feet, he was so busy? And just how important it was for his future. He couldn’t really use office time to make domestic phone calls, now could he? Besides, he was out on site so much. Surely I didn’t expect him to be responsible for everything, even his own shirts.
Something about that rapid change of expression, perhaps, or something about that sweet-reasonable tone made me angrier and angrier. At one point, I nearly threw the roll of pedal-bin bags at him just to get him to stop. But I managed not to. Instead, I insisted he had plenty of other shirts. That he could have checked last night he had exactly the shirts he wanted. At the very least, he could have checked before he and Neville made both the kitchen and the bathroom unusable.
‘Why on earth did you have to invite Neville in on the evening before a conference anyway?’ I ended angrily.
‘Because I prefer not to spend all my time working, unlike some people,’ he threw back at me.
‘Unlike some people?’ I repeated furiously. ‘And what about these last three weekends? Who was working then?’
He went quite white, but I scarcely noticed as the pent-up resentment of the last weeks poured out of me.
‘Entertaining your wretched uncle from Australia because Maisie thinks he might just leave you something. And the bloke from British Steel, who might just wangle you a contract,’ I shouted. ‘Or maybe that doesn’t count as work because you could relax and wave your cigar around just like your father does while I lay on the meals. I suppose you think that’s what women are for. And I suppose you think I enjoy providing cut-price entertainment for McKinstry Brothers instead of having some time for us, like any working couple.’
Recalling the violence of my outburst, I shivered, although the room was now pleasantly warm. I looked at my watch. Ten fifty-five. The row had gone on for an hour or more. I ended up weeping from pure exhaustion. Colin apologised, insisted he loved me. Just wanted me to be happy. It would all be much better soon, he said. He thought he could promise me that. It might even be he would have some good news when he came back on Sunday night. Of course I was right about the shirts. They did look a bit creased but he’d manage with the blue ones. I was far more important than any old shirts.
So we’d made it up, and at half past midnight I got out the ironing board and did the bits of the blue shirts that showed. Going halfway, my father would call it. He always argued you have to go halfway to meet people, because we all make mistakes sometimes. No one’s perfect.
Eleven o’clock. Warm at last, I took off my coat and went and sat by the phone. Driving into Belfast this morning, Colin insisted he hadn’t told me about the early start because he didn’t want to upset me. He thought I mightn’t sleep as well if I knew we had to get up early. Hadn’t he done his best to help me, when he had so much on his mind? Didn’t I see how important this weekend was to our future?
I could see why it was so important for him. That was easy enough. After all, he’d talked about nothing else for weeks. He thought it would be the moment when his father offered him the directorship. And that was where our future came in, because it would mean more money, as he so frequently told me, besides the perks of his own office and a company car. Things would be easier for us. Of that he was sure. Why, I could even have my own little car, he said. Wouldn’t that be nice for me?
Outside school, he put his arms round me and kissed me. ‘I’ll phone you tonight between ten and eleven. I promise. Just as soon as I get away from the evening session.’ He drove off and I went slowly up the steps into the cold and empty building to put myself together for the day’s teaching, a full nine periods, most of them with examination classes.
The