Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden Read Free Book Online

He was a great man for it, not that he was a heavy drinker, as you well know, but he had a great fondness for whiskey. He knew all about it; he knew how it was made. He had a grandfather worked in the distillery in Midleton and so there was always a tradition of it in the family. He had a good palate, Christy, so he was able to teach me how to tell all the different flavours and aromas there were, and he showed me the difference there was between an ordinary whiskey and one that was something special. Single malts, whiskeys that had been aged. Ah he was a great man. He taught me all kinds of things.’
    Fintan looks over at Martina, expecting his glance to be acknowledged; but she is watching Beth, listening to her and smiling indulgently, as though Beth were her child rather than her aunt. The light of the fire is kind to her too. Martina is sitting holding a tea cup cradled on her lap and he notes how her looks are more striking in mundane moments such as this, when she is simply sitting by the fire, than on more formal occasions.
    Martina is a great beauty, in a way that is most rare. It is more than regular features and good bones, although those attributes are certainly there: the huge clear eyes, the heart-shaped face. There’s something mysterious to it. A couple of nights earlier Fintan had read The Snow Queen to Lucy as a bedtime story, and had found himself thinking of his sister. Not of course that she is a wicked person, but there can be something unsettling and cool about her, particularly towards men. He knows it is unfair, but he cannot help comparing her to Colette, whose kindness and guilelessness are written on her face. But you could spend a lifetime looking at Martina and wondering who she was. Her beauty suggests much more than what she is: a woman who lives with her aunt and who owns a clothes shop. There is a weight, a melancholy and mystery to her that is part of what makes her so fascinating, to both men and women; and yet it is combined with a good heart, a kindness equal to Colette’s, and a jolly sense of humour, attributes that are often not immediately evident.
    Martina is talking to Fintan now; she asks after all the family, what they are doing these days, how they are keeping, and she sends her love to them.
    â€˜Be sure to tell Colette’, she adds, ‘that I took delivery the other day of some jackets that are just perfect for her. Tell her I’ll set a few aside in her size, in different colours, and if she drops over to the shop she can see what she thinks.’
    Fintan promises to pass on the message.
    â€˜Oh, and before I forget,’ Martina says suddenly, ‘I’ll find that photograph for you.’ When he had phoned in advance to say that he would visit them, as Beth had suggested, he had asked if he might see a particular old family photo that he had recently remembered. Martina gets up and fetches a small cardboard box from the sideboard.
    â€˜I left this out, but I haven’t had time to go through it yet.’
    She tips the box out onto the rug before the fire, spilling out a jumbled heap of all kinds of pictures: colour, black and white, sepia; snapshots and studio photographs. There are fuzzy shots from long-ago family holidays and birthdays; there is Joan looking stern and lantern-jawed at her own wedding; and a picture of Fintan himself at his First Communion, with hands neatly joined and a ribbon rosette in his jacket, but without a full complement of teeth. They laugh and talk over these until suddenly Fintan says, ‘Here it is. This is the one I wanted.’
    He pulls from the pile a postcard-sized sepia photograph which is pasted onto a heavy cardboard mount, a studio portrait of a young woman from the early years of the twentieth century or the end of the nineteenth. She is seated in a low armchair and is wearing a muslin summer dress, with a broad-brimmed straw hat lying on her lap. Her pose is unusually languid for the time: