In Sunshine Or In Shadow Page 8

  ‘I find that an astonishing painting, don’t you?’

  Mr O’Hara was now at Ellie’s side, having arrived unnoticed, so deeply was Ellie involved.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellie. ‘It’s the most astonishing painting I have ever seen.’

  ‘It is indeed, and I have to say it’s my own personal favourite. It’s by an English painter, William Turner, he painted it in 1822. And what I like about it – no.’ Her host stopped and nodded courteously to Ellie. ‘No I’d prefer it if you told me what you like about it.’

  Ellie stared at the painting some more, before she started to explain. ‘I love the movement of the sea,’ Ellie said. ‘These waves whipped by the wind. And all the reflections in the water, and all these deep shadows. I can almost feel the spray, and taste the salt in the air.’

  ‘I do so agree,’ said Mr O’Hara. ‘But what does the painting tell you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ellie puckered her brow and stood a little back from the canvas. ‘I sort of get the impression that these little boats, the sail boats, they’re in trouble, because the wind appears to be blowing away from the harbour, so if they’re trying to get in, they’re not going to make it.’

  ‘They’re not, are they? Not unless they wait for the tide, or row in.’

  ‘But the steamer, you see. Here.’ Ellie pointed. ‘Behind this boat here, which is also in difficulty, the steamer is obviously having no trouble, and is going to make harbour easily, at least that’s how it appears. Judging from the excitement going on on the jetty.’ Ellie pointed again, indicating the figures on the pier, people waving and running, accompanied by a startled dog.

  ‘And these poor fellows,’ Mr O’Hara added, ‘they’re in real bad trouble I’d say, wouldn’t you?’ He indicated the fishing boat in the foreground, where the fishermen were struggling with a mass of unfurled canvas. ‘If they don’t make sense of that lot soon, they’re either going to go under, or at the very least collide with another boat.’

  ‘If I was any of those people,’ Ellie concluded, ‘I’d want to be one on the steamer, wouldn’t you, Mr O’Hara?’

  ‘I most certainly would, Miss Milligan,’ her host agreed. ‘And I think that’s what the painter was saying. I think he was celebrating the coming of steam power, and showing the people of his time how much safer they were going to be on the seas, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I hadn’t yet made that conclusion, Mr O’Hara,’ Ellie replied.

  ‘Perhaps not, young lady,’ O’Hara smiled. ‘But I’m certain you soon would have done.’

  They lunched next door in a wood panelled dining room, hung with more fine paintings.

  ‘Is this where you live, Mr O’Hara?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ her host replied. ‘Yes, most of the time. But I’d far rather be at home.’

  Madame Gautier looked up and caught Ellie’s eye just for a moment, and the glance seemed to say, See? See what the world can hold? And then Madame Gautier picked up her Waterford glass and took a sip of her wine.

  ‘You always have such exquisite wines, Buck,’ she said. ‘As well as the most perfect food.’

  ‘You only deserve the best, Madame,’ Mr O’Hara replied. ‘I’m forever telling you that.’ And he smiled at her, but his eyes left Ellie’s face for only one moment.

  ‘Bon,’ Madame said on the cab ride home. ‘You did so very well, chèrie.’

  Ellie said nothing. She just sat and stared blankly as the world outside her changed from one of elegance and opulence to one of uniformity and poverty. She said nothing because she did not know what to say. One minute she had been on her hands and knees scrubbing and the next she was being wined and dined by the owner of the largest store in town. And he had never stopped talking to her. He wanted to know what she thought about everything, because as he told her he found everything she had to say so interesting.

  Ellie was in fact surprisingly erudite, due, Patsy used to tease her, to her missing so much school. Because she had spent so much of her teenage by herself, she had found plenty of time to read the newspapers and the books Patsy would bring home from school, or take out for her from the school library. But she had never realized quite how much knowledge she had assimilated until today, until she had been forced into conversation for the first time ever with a total stranger. And obviously she had done more than hold her own.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Madame sighed, lighting a fresh cigarette and blowing the smoke out of the side of her mouth, ‘yes, you did very well indeed.’

  ‘Why?’ Ellie suddenly asked her companion. ‘You see I just don’t understand, Madame. Why did you take me there?’

  Madame adjusted the cigarette in her holder, and then took another deep draw on it before answering. ‘In life, choupette,’ she said, ‘the most difficult thing is la choix.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Madame,’ Ellie frowned.

  ‘To make a choice, chèrie. No – the choice,’ Madame explained. ‘And so often it is better for someone other to make the choosing.’

  ‘Are you saying I have a choice, Madame?’

  ‘We all have a choice, choupette, d’accord. Either we grab ’im by the beard –’

  ‘Who, Madame?’

  ‘The mountain lion, chèrie! Either we grab ‘is beard, and teetaire on the brink! Yes? Of the cliff! Or we die from boredom. Old, and depressed. And with nothing in our journaux except the jottings of regret. You want to be an unpaid ’ousemaid for the rest of your life? Or for the rest of what matter of your life? Your youth? Yes? No, no, of course not, choupette! No the only thing to regret is what we do not do, which is what happen! We regret the part we ’ave left, rather than rejoice over the part we ’ave preferred!’

  Madame then settled back in her seat and fell into a deep sleep for the rest of the journey, full of good food and wine, and liqueurs, while Ellie stared back out of the window and tried to make some sense of all that had just been said, and all that had just happened.

  Patsy was horrified when he saw his sister’s hair.

  ‘Now you look like everyone else!’ he complained. ‘You look like every other shop girl!’

  ‘No I do not, Patsy!’ Ellie retorted. ‘No shop girl could afford this style! This style is the very height of fashion!’

  ‘You bet,’ Patsy said. ‘And where are you planning to show it off? At Sunday lunch? When Pa gets home?’

  Ignoring her brother’s last remark, simply because Ellie had not yet worked out an answer to that particular problem, Ellie started to clear away their supper things into the kitchen. Patsy followed her out, bringing some dishes.

  ‘He’ll kill you,’ Patsy said. ‘He’ll murder you.’

  ‘I’m over eighteen, Patsy,’ Ellie replied, ‘and I can wear my hair as I want.’

  Even so, Ellie made sure she was upstairs and well out of the way when her father returned on Saturday. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, a miracle perhaps, because one thing she did know, and that was that Patsy was right. It didn’t matter how old she was, or what her personal wishes were, when her father saw what she had done to her hair he would undoubtedly try to murder her.

  She heard her father come into the house and call out for her, and she called back that she would be down in a moment, as soon as she was dressed.

  And then the miracle Ellie was still praying for happened. There was a ring at the front door. Her father called twice for her to come down and answer it, but Ellie pretended not to hear. After a moment, she crept out of her room and looked round the corner of the landing, down the stairs. Outside the front door, which was open, she could see her father standing talking to someone in the porch. At first Ellie was not sure who it was, as her father totally obscured her view. And then when he moved and Ellie could see who the caller was, she didn’t believe her eyes.

  It was Madame Gautier.

  Her father turned, to look suddenly up the stairs, as if he could sense Ellie hidden there, listening. So Ellie darted back to her room, and sh
ut herself in, her heart pounding. It seemed an age before she heard the front door close again, and then another age before her father finally summoned her. This time, since there was no reason for further prevarication, Ellie straightened her dress and went downstairs.

  ‘And what time may we expect supper, Eleanor?’ her father asked, standing by the front window with his back to her.

  ‘It’s ready and cooked, Pa,’ Ellie replied. ‘But what about the others?’

  ‘Your brothers won’t be back until tomorrow,’ her father replied, still staring out on to the street. ‘They stayed on for the game.’

  He said nothing more to her. He just stood there looking out, his large leathery hands clasped tight behind his back, while Ellie wondered what on earth it could have been that Madame Gautier had said to him.

  ‘Patsy?’ Ellie called up the stairs, still wondering at her good fortune. ‘Supper!’

  Nothing was said over supper either, not one word. Not only that but Patrick Milligan ate his meal without a word of complaint about either the temperature of the plates or the quality of the food. He simply cleared his plate, drank his tea, and then got up and went out of the house.

  It was left to her brothers to pass comment at lunch the following day.

  ‘Jeeze – who do you think you are?’ Dermot sneered. ‘Jean Harlow?’

  ‘Jean Harlow’s blonde,’ Mike said. ‘No she looks more like one of those cheap broads in the chorus.’

  ‘Shut it,’ Patsy said.

  ‘Hey, hey!’ Dermot put down his knife and fork and stared at his kid brother. ‘Any of you guys hear what I just heard?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Fergal. ‘I thought I heard a worm turning.’

  ‘Me too,’ Mike agreed. ‘Anyway, like I was saying. I don’t know about you fellahs, but I don’t like having a sister that looks like a tramp.’

  ‘Shut it, Mike,’ Patsy said again. ‘I mean it.’

  Ellie looked down the table at her father, expecting an intervention. Normally at table he nipped any argument in the bud, at least until he had finished eating. But today he just carried on eating his pot roast with his head down, paying no attention at all to his argumentative brood.

  ‘I don’t think I heard you right, Patricia,’ Mike said, looking Patsy in the eye.

  ‘You heard me right enough,’ replied Patsy.

  ‘I think Sis’s new style would look good on Miss Patsy, fellahs, don’t you?’ Dermot asked. ‘I think she’d look very pretty.’

  ‘Prettier maybe than her trampy sister here,’ Fergal added.

  ‘I can’t take you all,’ Patsy said. ‘So who’s it to be?’

  ‘Patsy –’ Ellie started.

  ‘Just keep out of it, Ellie,’ Patsy said. ‘OK?’

  ‘That’s right, tramp,’ Mike agreed. ‘Keep your slummy nose out of it.’

  ‘OK, Mike,’ said Patsy, rising. ‘In the yard.’

  Dermot and Fergal gave a great whoop and rose with Mike and Patsy. Ellie looked once more down the table to her father, silently praying he would put an end to it, and prevent what was sure to be a bloodbath. But he was still to all intents and purposes uninterested. For he just pushed his plate aside, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and getting up from the table once again went out of the house without saying a word.

  In the yard, the protagonists were preparing for battle. Patsy had his jacket and tie off, and was carefully rolling up his sleeves. Although he was now nearly twenty, he was still considerably smaller than even Mike, who was nearest him in age. He was also still considerably lighter, although as he rolled his sleeves right up to the top of his arms, Ellie for the first time was aware of the amount of muscle he seemed to have gained.

  His brothers certainly were not as they formed a conspiratorial circle round Mike in the other corner of the yard, which all at once had become a boxing ring. Dermot looked round briefly at Patsy and Ellie and then said something to his two brothers which made all three of them laugh.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, Patsy,’ Ellie told her brother. ‘You don’t have to do this for me.’

  ‘I’m not doing it just for you, Ellie,’ Patsy said, spitting into his hands. ‘Don’t you worry, I’m doing it for both of us.’

  Ellie squeezed her brother’s arm, then turned to go. She could never bear to watch her brothers fight, least of all when one of them decided to give Patsy a pasting.’

  ‘No – don’t go,’ Patsy said. ‘I’d like you to stay.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Ellie replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’ll be sorrier if you go,’ Patsy suddenly grinned. ‘For there’ll be no second shots.’

  ‘Look out!’ Ellie cried, as she saw Mike hurling himself at the unprepared Patsy.

  Patsy turned in plenty of time, nimbly, quick on his feet as a buck hare. Then he jinked and side-stepped, and Mike crashed clumsily past him straight into the fence.

  ‘Now will you stay?’ Patsy asked. ‘You’ll be missing something otherwise.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Ellie told him.

  ‘I’ve been mad for too long,’ Patsy replied, moving out into the centre of the yard. ‘And I’ll stay mad till this is settled!’

  Ellie stayed.

  It was no contest. From the moment Mike put up his fists, the fight was over. He moved in against his young brother, slowly this time, determined not to be made a fool of twice. Patsy jinked away from him, on his toes, his hands held low, leaving his face completely exposed.

  ‘On the button!’ Dermot yelled. ‘Let’s see the bastard bleed!’

  Mike moved in even closer, and this time it seemed he caught Patsy flat-footed. Certainly Mike had all the rime in the world to launch a right hook, but Patsy also must have had all the time in the world to see it, for he simply swayed back on his heels and the punch missed by over a foot.

  Still Patsy didn’t put up his hands, inviting his opponent to take another swing. He even moved in, thrusting his bobbing head well within range. Mike met his brother’s eyes and saw they were like steel.

  ‘Come on, cissy,’ Mike hissed, ‘put up a fight. Make a show of it, come on – before I knock the shite out of you.’

  ‘OK,’ said Patsy, and hit him with a perfect straight left. Mike didn’t even see it coming. One minute Patsy’s hands had been by his side, the next moment Mike’s nose was split and the blood was gushing down his face and flooding the back of his throat.

  ‘Jesus!’ Mike cried, ‘you bastard! You sneaky bastard!’

  ‘You said you wanted a fight,’ Patsy replied, circling round his enraged brother. ‘If you didn’t want me to hit you, you should have kept your mouth shut.’ He jabbed Mike again, suddenly, right under his nose. ‘That mouth,’ he said. ‘My – it’s that big –’ Patsy hit him again. ‘I can hardly miss it.’ And he hit him again.

  ‘What in hell are you doing, kid!’ Dermot shouted from Mike’s makeshift corner. ‘You gone to sleep or something!’

  Patsy backed off and dropped his hands again, but not his mental guard. He kept moving all the time, on his toes with his weight perfectly balanced, just as he’d been taught, down at the gymnasium, every Saturday and every Wednesday for the past five years, times when everyone thought he was busy doing something else. The occasional black eye he had collected early on, when he was still at school, he had attributed to the fights he was always having in the playground, or on the street coming home. And no-one had ever suspected a thing. Because no-one was in the least bit interested.

  Least of all his brothers, who were now watching with ever increasing dismay as Mike, the ‘broth’s’ best fighter, was having the rings run round him by the family runt.

  ‘Wake up, you dozy bastard!’ Fergal yelled at Mike. ‘Pick him off with your right!’

  But Mike was hurting too much already from the blow that had split his nose; he’d never been hit that hard. And then the three straight jabs in the mouth – Mike could feel several loose front teeth, one of which seemed embedded in his swo
llen upper lip.

  ‘OK, Patsy,’ he mumbled as his young brother weaved round him. ‘OK so you got lucky. So let’s call it a day – OK?’

  ‘No,’ said Patsy. ‘It’s not OK, Mike. Not yet I’m afraid.’

  Then again from nowhere came a punch, like iron, straight into Mike’s solar plexus, knocking the breath from him so completely Mike thought he was going to die. He doubled over, unable to help himself, only to be immediately uprighted by another punch which rocked him back on his heels. He stood there, his face awash with blood, his swollen mouth hanging open, but still conscious, still awake enough to see his younger brother’s eyes as they fixed his own and lined him up for the coup de grâce. Which came mercifully swiftly, in the shape of another devastatingly accurate straight left, and then a perfect right uppercut which hardly seemed to travel more than a foot, but which was delivered with such a force that it lifted Mike up on to his toes, before toppling him backwards in a heap at his elder brothers’ feet.

  Eight punches. That’s all it had taken. A straight left, three jabs, a right, another right, a straight left, and a right uppercut.

  ‘Christ,’ said Dermot. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’ said Fergal.

  Patsy turned to them, unmarked except for where he had been stained by his brother’s blood. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Who’s next?’

  ‘You didn’t learn to fight like that in the playground,’ Ellie said as she bathed Patsy’s knuckles in onion water.

  ‘You’re right,’ her brother grinned, and told her about the gymnasium. ‘I haven’t lost a fight in three years,’ he said.

  ‘Look,’ said Ellie, wiping her hands dry. ‘If you were that fancy, we’d have heard about you.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ Patsy replied. ‘I fight under the name of Charlie Farrell. No-one knows I’m a Milligan. And no-one in the family follows boxing. Least not amateur boxing.’