Fools of Fortune by William Trevor Read Free Book Online Page B

one another; I could see her bare flesh where the petticoat had been bundled up to her waist and Tim Paddy’s hands pulling at her underclothes, and her own hands pulling at them also. Then, from the far distance, came the rattle of the dog-cart on the avenue and the lovers vanished.
    The next day, after mass, Josephine told my mother she wanted to marry Johnny Lacy. ‘He’s been home with me last week to Fermoy, ma’am,’ she said. ‘They know he’s all right.’ My mother gave us this news on the way to church, and my father shook his head in mock disapproval, saying that Josephine was the quietest maid we’d had in the house for many a year. ‘Fools of fortune,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll be having to say our Protestant prayers for them.’ And after church, as Mr Derenzy fell into step beside Aunt Pansy for the walk to Sweeney’s, my father called out loudly: ‘Did you hear that news, Derenzy? There’s talk of a wedding.’
    Aunt Pansy went the colour of a sunset and Mr Derenzy agitatedly pinched snuff from his tin box. Aunt Fitzeustace, who always remained silent when the union of Mr Derenzy and Aunt Pansy was raised by my father, groped in her large handbag for her cigarettes and matches. Aunt Fitzeustace smoked constantly but never on the village street. With a huge, grateful sigh she would light her first cigarette when the basket-trap left Sweeney’s yard.
    ‘Everything’s parched with the heat,’ Mr Derenzy said, as if he hadn’t heard my father. ‘I was noticing that.’
    He and Aunt Pansy walked ahead, and my mother told Aunt Fitzeustace that she was concerned about the match because Josephine was a singular girl.
    ‘Will he lead her a dance?’ Geraldine asked. ‘Like the beery fellow and Kitty?’
    But nobody answered that. Aunt Fitzeustace, who could look most severe at times, played with her packet of cigarettes.
    ‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘A singular girl.’
    ‘And he, of course, is flirtatious.’
    ‘You’ll have them in the divorce courts before they’ve started.’ My father laughed rumbustiously. He walked with Geraldine and Deirdre on either side of him, holding their hands. I brought up the rear, behind my mother and Aunt Fitzeustace.
    ‘I wish you’d take it seriously,’ my mother upbraided crossly.
    ‘Sure, they can only try it and see.’
    ‘Yes, they can only try it,’ Aunt Fitzeustace said.

    *

    Father Kilgarriff was saying something uninteresting about the Gulf Stream when through the drawing-room window I saw my father hurrying beneath the rhododendrons in a way that was unusual for him. ‘Evie!’ he called loudly, somewhere in the house. ‘Evie! Evie!’ And that was unusual too.
    ‘Something’s happened,’ I said, and we both listened. There were hasty footsteps on the stairs, and ten minutes later Tim Paddy led the dog-cart past the window and my parents drove off in it. Father Kilgarriff attempted to continue with the geography lesson, but neither of us had any concentration left. It was Josephine, coming in with the mid-morning tea, who told us that the grey-faced Doyle had been murdered.
    Father Kilgarriff crossed himself; Josephine had been weeping.
    ‘He was hanged from a tree,’ she said. ‘His tongue was cut out.’
    There was a long silence after she left the drawing-room. The tray of tea and biscuits remained untouched on the oval table. I remembered my father saying he shouldn’t have taken Doyle back. I began to say something about that but Father Kilgarriff spoke at the same time.
    ‘How can people be at peace with themselves after doing a thing like that?’
    ‘Who would have done it, Father?’
    ‘I don’t know, Willie.’
    He read to me for the rest of the morning from The Old Curiosity Shop, but instead of the adventures of Nell and her grandfather I saw Doyle’s crooked grey face and the blood rushing from his mouth. When Father Kilgarriff began his journey back to the orchard wing my sisters pulled at me in the hall. ‘What