Like One of the Family (18 page)

‘I know you're all longing to hear the names of the successful actresses so I won't prolong the agony. I'm delighted to congratulate Sheena McArdle ....' Sister Whelan paused for effect and, despite herself, Claire felt her stomach swoop, ‘and Claire Shannon!'

There was an enthusiastic burst of clapping and cries of congratulation. Sheena hugged Claire and confessed, ‘God! I thought I'd die of suspense,' and Claire nodded shakily.

They rehearsed three afternoons a week during the term and every day during the Christmas holidays.
The Revenge of Rodrigo
was written and produced by one of the masters. Noel Ryan was tall and knife thin with a beautiful speaking voice which he used with sarcastic effect, mainly on the boys. He was quite charming to the girls. Claire was a little shy of him. Sheena flirted with him shamelessly. She had got her wish and been cast as Katya, playing opposite tall fair-haired Rory. Claire was Anya and her opposite number was dark and hirsute and renowned for his piano-playing.

Claire's assurance on stage surprised everyone, especially herself. She began to enjoy being caught up in the make-believe of
Rodrigo,
finding relief, even anti-climax, in the melodramatic story-line, which seemed innocuous when compared to the turbulent happenings in her own short life.

Her mind could never really let go of the past. Even after three years she was still full of regretful longings and remembered shame, and was constantly preparing herself for the moment when Jane would find out and cast her off without a chance to explain. The opera was a welcome distraction and left little time for brooding.

Then one afternoon, she arrived at St Gabriel's to find that her long-haired musician had got tonsillitis and been replaced by, of all people, Terry McArdle.

Claire did not know how she would ever get through the rehearsal. Sheena thought it very funny and kept giggling behind her hand. Terry scowled and folded his arms, darting glances at Claire from under beetling brows.

‘We'll take the last scene next,' Noel suggested. ‘It needs a good deal of polishing.' His eyes wandered towards Terry. ‘In the final clinch your predecessor managed to look like he was about to be guillotined. Let's see if you can do better, McArdle. Remember, you may be a great man in the back of a car but on stage it's got to look real.'

Claire blushed. Usually the kiss was taken as given and the four of them moved on to the next and final stage, holding hands and singing the quartet. .

‘Just bear in mind that you're kissing the object of your desire and, I might add, a very pretty young lady to boot.'

Claire and Terry gravitated towards each other. Terry stood, hands awkwardly hanging at his sides. His face was flushed and he avoided looking at her. Claire tried to move gracefully but she felt all hands and feet. Sheena always managed it better, she thought, miserably conscious of the attention she was getting from the rest of the cast. The boys were growling appreciatively in their throats and giving the odd jeering hoot. Terry had a reputation for being a knockout with the girls and this bashfulness on his part was highly amusing..

‘Very well,' Noel said. ‘Let's be having you.'

Terry stepped forward and took firm hold of Claire. She settled back on his arm and gazed fondly up at him as she was meant to. His face was very close to hers, his eyes wide and alert, staring grimly into hers. She had never realised they were so light a brown, almost golden. Eddie's were a shade darker, she thought, just before Terry's lips came down, blotting out thought. Neither moved for several seconds. There was pandemonium.

‘Cut!' Mr Ryan said, moving forward. Claire and Terry broke at last. Claire felt hot and confused, conscious that for a few dizzy seconds she had forgotten where she was. She had never been kissed by anyone but Eddie.

Noel lightly applauded and sighed, ‘Thank God for at least one scene bearing the mark of authenticity.' Claire blushed for the implication and Terry shoved his hair off his forehead and slouched scowling to rejoin his cheering schoolfellows.

‘Now let's take that scene of yours,' Noel turned to Rory.

After rehearsal Claire ran off without waiting for the twins. If she had to face Terry he might say something to her and she would blush and say the wrong thing. She wondered how she could go through it all again. Two more rehearsals and then the night itself.

She was amazed at how well the whole thing had passed off in the end. She was quite contained and even smiled at Terry before the curtain fell.

This year, the one before Claire sat for the Leaving Cert, was her best year with more time reading for pleasure before the pressure of exams began. The other girls in her class went out with boys and talked about their dates. They were fairly explicit but so far none of them admitted to going any further than kissing and petting. There was a lot of joking done about close dancing and the rigidity of male partners. Claire refused to get into the discussion. When she told Sheena that she got more fun curled up with a good book, Sheena had laughed. But it was true.

Sheena was doing a hectic line with Rory since the opera and kept asking Claire to come out with them and one of Rory's friends, or even Terry, on a double date bowling or to the cinema, but Claire had no interest. It was true that for a while after the school opera, stimulated by Terry's closeness, she had begun coming regularly in her dreams. Otherwise, she had not experienced any sexual feeling in three years and definitely did not want to be turned on again. Although she was not happy, she did not expect to be happy, nor could she ever remember being really happy. Not, she supposed, since Bella. That was the nearest she had ever come to happiness.

By contrast, her mother was the most light-hearted Claire had seen her since her father deserted them. Her brother seemed happier too. Christopher had missed another male in the house and Austin slipped easily into the absent parent's role of sports enthusiast and TV companion - only later did he take on an additional role of Annette's friend and comforter.

When the new contented Annette began urging her to go to discos and have fun (more, Claire felt, from a desire to get her out of the house than anything else) she gave her mother the same answer she had given Sheena. Anyway, there would be plenty of time for all of that in the summer months away with the McArdles.

By the end of the summer term, however, Claire finally gave in.

One Saturday afternoon she arrived at Claire's door with Rory and a shy-looking boy called Alan. The four of them took a bus to Rathfarnham and walked up to the Pine Forest. There the boys produced a tonic bottle filled with whisky and passed it around. Claire drank her share and almost lost her footing coming back down the mountainside.

‘Enjoy our double date?' Sheena asked, when Claire called over for a chat on Sunday morning. ‘Great fun, wasn't it?' She grinned. ‘Only don't let on to your mother about the whisky.'

‘Of course not,' Claire said. Whisky. Annette was getting through bottles of the stuff with the help of Austin, ever since the government launched its campaign to introduce divorce into Ireland. Although Claire's father hadn't actually spoken of marrying again her mother was convinced it was only a matter of time.

‘But how can he?' Claire had asked shaken. ‘He's a Catholic.'

Annette laughed grimly. ‘Once a Catholic always a Catholic, eh? That's what they used to say about priests but it hasn't stopped them. No, depend upon it if the bill is passed he'll make an honest woman of her and cast the rest of us off.' Claire had shivered at the finality of it.

Now Sheena was asking, ‘Want to go out with the boys again?'

Claire nodded. ‘Great! We'll call for you on Saturday,' Sheena promised.

‘I might go with you,' Terry said, coming into the kitchen. He had been intrigued by Sheena's veiled hints and thought it might be instructive to find out just what she and Claire got up to when out with his classmates.

‘Good idea but bring some cans,' Sheena told him, giving Claire an impish look which clearly read, this will give the fellows a bit of competition.

That Saturday afternoon when they got off at the bus terminal, the boys grouped naturally to kick a tin can further along the country road. They crested the hill. Ahead of them, up another sloping road, a stream wound its way down through rocky banks.

‘Let's go for a paddle,' Sheena said, tugging off her runners. She hopped across the pebbly grass and eased herself down into the water. ‘Come on,' she called. ‘It's lovely.'

Within minutes she and Rory were fisting water over each other and Sheena was soaking wet. The other boys made quasi-helpful suggestions, like she should take off her wet shorts before she caught cold. Terry eyed his twin and said she'd never dare with them all watching her. At once Sheena stretched and did a sensual dance as she peeled off her shorts and T-shirt. Claire wandered away from the shouting group, bent to pull a blade of grass and place it dreamily between her teeth. She stood looking down the sloping road to where the foreshortened figures of three climbers could be seen moving ant-like, slowly upwards. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sheena dash madly past pursued by the boys.

When they eventually rounded Sheena up and escorted her back to the rock, she was shivering and exaggeratedly chattering her teeth. Rory made a great ceremony of wringing out her shorts and T-shirt and handing them back to her. They were almost dry. Sheena picked up her bra and took her time putting that on. The boys watched her openly. They walked deeper into the forest. When they got to their usual place they sprawled on the ground, and Rory produced the bottle. Claire soon began to get that, by now, familiar woozy feeling. Only this time the whisky taken in conjunction with beer inspired a feeling, not so much dreamy as out of control. How would she get herself down the mountain? She didn't think she could even stand up. The June sun shone hotly on the tender flesh of her exposed thighs, increasing her feeling of inertia. A hand ran lightly over her knees and coasted higher to settle on her breast. She felt a love-bite on the right side of her neck and turned in that direction. Her lips met other lips. She kissed them and was kissed back. Most of the time she was not quite aware who was doing what. For a time the kissing and stroking continued but none of them went any further than that, and after a while they all fell asleep.

Claire set off with the Ardles in July, her mother absently waving her off. Since the Divorce Bill had been defeated Annette had stopped anticipating the worst and was looking forward to a lazy summer, without the burden of her offspring.

This summer, like the previous two, Jane commuted more frequently from their holiday cottage. Now that she was sole breadwinner, she felt she couldn't be away from her practice for more than a couple of weeks. Besides, work helped distract her from thoughts of past vacations when she'd had Eddie and all her family around her. She considered that Sheena and Claire were well able to run the household in her absence and, even more important, take care of Ruthie. In this regard Jane was more than ever glad of Claire's steadying presence. That Sheena was unreliable was regrettably true. Jane had long ago come to terms with her daughter's shortcomings.

Every so often, Jane took Terry back with her to town. Sometimes she regretted leaving them all so much on their own, and especially him. She secretly feared he would fall into bad ways, and might even display some of the darker aspects of his father's nature. These trips alone with Terry were an attempt to keep the lines of communication open with her teenage son.

In June, when he had turned seventeen, Jane had applied on his behalf for a provisional licence and Terry relieved her of some of the burden of driving, especially to and from the clinic at night.

Since Eddie's death, besides increasing her time at the clinic to include three evenings a week, Jane regularly took surgery each morning and afternoon, excluding Saturday. Summer had made very little difference in the need for her services. There was, if anything, an increase in rape and violence at night on the summer streets. Jane's consciousness of women's plight, which had always been acute, increased with the passing of the years. She was now committed to representing and improving the lot of her less fortunate sisters.

With Terry gone a lot of the time and Sheena opting out of her responsibilities, Claire was left looking after Ruthie most of this holiday. Not that she minded. Besides being a way to repay Jane's kindness to her, she loved the little girl as if she were her own sister and enjoyed the prospect of spoiling her. Sheena, who wanted to be off all the time flirting with boys, made no secret of the fact that she considered her small sister a drag on her, but Ruthie was never anything but a pleasure to Claire.

At eight years Ruthie was a biddable little girl and although the tragic events three years earlier had left her shy and inclined to be clingy, most of the time she happily played her own made-up games. She had an insatiable appetite for books and the only demands she ever made on Claire were for more stories. Claire made some up out of her head but, by the second week of the holidays, was glad to resort to rereading her own childhood favourites to keep Ruthie satisfied. It seemed to Claire that if she had been lucky enough at Ruthie's age to have had someone like herself to befriend her, she would have grown up a happier, more integrated person, less likely to fall prey to the first sexual overture.

Claire wished that the whole episode with Eddie could be as cleanly wiped out as though it had never happened. That she could regain, not only her innocence but, with regard to Jane, her self-respect too. Claire would hold anguished monologues in her head, in which she tried to justify the whole sordid business. Failing, she would grow angry with herself, until she realised that Jane had never accused her of anything. It was her own conscience she had failed to convince.