Two Lives by William Trevor Page A

spent an hour with her invalid cousin. She almost asked her aunt if they might keep this afternoon as something among the three of them, but she could not find the words. Then it occurred to her that her mother and her aunt were nowadays not often in touch; sometimes a whole year went by. And since her aunt no longer shopped in the town thereseemed little likelihood of anything slipping out in conversation there.
    As she rode swiftly on the grassy avenue, she tried to remember what being in love with her cousin had felt like. Had it really been much the same, less potent even, than her feelings for the cinema images of James Stewart? For almost twelve years, since she was twelve herself, she had not devoted more than an ordinary, passing thought to the boy who’d been unable to go on attending school, even though he’d been driven in a car. Unfortunate, she had considered him, leaving it at that.
    That Sunday evening it was easier in the dining-room when Mary Louise took her usual place between her husband and Matilda. Elmer helped himself to the egg salad Rose had prepared, asking questions about the farm, and vaguely responding to the answers.
    ‘I hear your sister’s chummed up with Dennehy,’ Matilda said.
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Funny, that.’
    The silence that usually followed this favourite comment of Matilda’s did so again. Elmer said eventually:
    ‘Is that the vet from Ennistane crossroads?’
    Rose affirmed this. Dennehy’s father was the publican at Ennistane, she added.
    ‘Does your mother mind?’ Matilda asked.
    ‘Mind?’
    ‘A person like Dennehy.’
    ‘She didn’t say she minded.’
    ‘RC of course?’ Elmer always cut lettuce and tomato up very fine, and mashed a hard-boiled egg. Having done so now, he reached out for salad cream.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Rose said.
    ‘They’re not without means, the Dennehys.’ Matilda noddedmore than once, to lend significance to this. ‘Perhaps there’s that.’
    She spoke lightly, as if she sought to rid her statement of its implication, or to suggest that if the words were examined carefully it would be found that, in spite of the emphasis of her nodding, nothing much was being suggested. Carefully, she scraped butter on to a slice of soda bread. Tidily, she cut the slice in half and then in half again.
    ‘Even so,’ Rose took up the theme, ‘I’d have thought Mrs Dallon would be concerned.’
    Mary Louise looked away. She half-closed her eyes and saw the soldiers on the table, the little printed arrows, the line of cannon. The uniforms were exactly as they’d been in reality, her cousin had explained, every detail right. She wondered where they’d come from. In a poverty-stricken household the wealth of colour seemed quite out of place.
    ‘Rough,’ Rose said, the word appearing to be thrown out at random, attached to nothing.
    Matilda nodded, and again there was a silence. Elmer passed his cup for more tea. Rose poured it. Matilda added milk.
    She would go again next Sunday. She would spend no more than ten minutes at Culleen and then ride quickly on. This time she’d find the courage to ask her aunt if it could be a secret. She’d give a reason, she’d think of something during the week.
    ‘We need to order gimp,’ Elmer was saying. ‘And ticking.’
    On Sundays he went through the stock. He had a method, he’d told Mary Louise on one of their pre-marriage walks. Every Sunday morning he took a different line and checked the supply in stock: haberdashery one week, velvets and velveteens the next, chintzes, satins and silks, then hats and dresses, then overcoats, suits, all menswear, socks and braces. On Sunday evenings he went through the books, minutely comparing the entries with last week’s. It wasn’t necessary,any more than it was necessary to keep a record of the particular garments that were repeatedly rejected when sent out on approval. But all this kind of thing interested him. All this was part of trading.
    ‘I bet a shilling