Chapter Six: Dublin August-October 1909

‘Miss Clennaghan, welcome,’ Mahaffy said, extending his hand. ‘Twinity is gwaced by the chawms of such a lovely young lady,’ he looked over at Paddy, standing beside her. ‘Keep an eye on this tweasure, my boy.’
‘I will, sir.’

Was this some sort of joke? Paddy had not told her in the car that the Vice-Provost had a speech defect, although he had told her everything else in the world concerning him. Molly glanced at him curiously as he stood behind her left shoulder. He put a hand on her back above her corset.
‘I am pleased to meet you, sir,’ she said correctly, accepting his hand. She was very conscious of her own speech, lest she stumble and copy the defect inadvertently. ‘Patrick has told me so much about you.’ The words burned her mouth, and it was everything she could do not to giggle. ‘Twinity!’ This was the world famous scholar with the perfect musical ear? And having so earnestly to call him Patrick! He had confessed to her that no one had called him that since his baptism.

That was her introduction to Trinity and its society on the event of the Opening Day ceremonies. Paddy had driven from town very early in the morning to fetch her, surprising her by appearing in a morning coat and silk hat, looking very spruce indeed. He took in her pale silk frock and crepe-swathed hat with an approving eye.
‘You look beautiful, just perfect, ‘ he said. ‘I’ll be the envy of all.’
‘Paddy...’ she clucked. He smiled, holding out his arm.
‘Shall we go?’

He opened the door of the Lanchester and tucked her in, busied about starting it while she secured her hat with a motoring scarf. The day was fine and sunny with a light breeze, but it was ten miles to Dublin, and she didn’t want to lose her hat on the way. She’d had enough of losing hats because of him.... She smiled as he got in beside her and let off the brake.
‘You look swank,’ she murmured.
‘Do I at all,’ he said lightly, and backed the car round to head down the lane. On the way to Dublin, he reeled off the names and conditions of the various department chairs, the Vice-Provost, the Provost, chattering nervously she thought. She would never be able to remember all the names, and knew from society parties that it really didn’t matter. She knew how to behave. That was all that was necessary. Why then, was he nervous?

They had come a long way from the afternoon when he had ruined her frock at Portmarnock races. He rang up the next day in the middle of the morning and invited her to ‘go walking out’ at Howth. She hardly needed his assistance in replacing her frock. Besides she doubted a university lecturer could afford to keep her. Fa said it was more prestige than recompense. She went because she remembered the look in his eyes as they stood at the end of the racecourse grounds. Vincent had used to look at her like that. And he was amusing besides; he made her laugh.

She asked Nancy when she put up the phone, ‘What does it mean when an Irishman asks a girl to go walking out?’ Nancy looked at her perplexedly.
‘It means he wants to go courting, Miss,’ she said in a tone of confusion. ‘ ‘Tis the first part of it. Begging your pardon, Miss, but why do ask?’
Molly frowned. ‘Mr. Leary just asked me that.’
‘The man at the races?’
‘Yes.’ She looked at Nancy, whose brow was crinkled. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Mr. Liam said he was a boor,’ she blurted.
‘Liam should talk about boors!’ Molly exclaimed. He’d been a perfect ass about his coming to their box. ‘Good grief, he was perfectly nice.’ Well, not perfectly - there was that moment when he asked her in jest to be his mistress - but Nancy needn’t know that. She put her hands on her hips, staring at the wardrobe, thinking. ‘... What does one wear, walking out?’ She asked. Nancy looked at her strangely. ‘What?’

‘Begging your pardon, Miss Molly, but he is the sort of person to take up with? Mr. Liam said -’
‘Oh bother what Liam said!’ Molly exclaimed. ‘It’s only a walk! Come, help me find something suitable to wear!’ It was a great game, playing an Irish girl. ‘Is this supposed to be a formal occasion?’ she asked Nancy as she opened the wardrobe. ‘He’s not going to have to ask Fa or anything?’
‘No, Miss,’ Nancy said, with disapproval. The batiste pinafore bib over her blue calico bodice rose and fell sharply. Molly gave over sorting through shirtblouses.
‘What’s the matter?’ She asked over her shoulder.
‘It’s not right, Miss, it’s just not right!’ Nancy declared stoutly. Her face was very pink.
‘Whyever not?’
‘He’s not quality,’ Nancy blurted. Her lips thinned. ‘It’s not right. You should keep with someone like Mr. Vincent.’
Molly scowled. ‘Mind your own business! I’ll see who I like and do what I like with no remarks from you!’ She tore opened and slammed a drawer, closed her eyes, and put a hand to her head, faint. The name had gone through her like a knife and she stood there shaking.
‘I’m sorry Miss,’ Nancy said in a small voice. She took her arm. ‘Come sit, Miss Molly, and I’ll lay out what you’ll want.’
‘Thank you, Nancy,’ she murmured, and sank on the bed in relief.

She dressed in walking clothes, and was confused when Paddy arrived in a dark serge suit. He smiled at her confusion, and her apology, ‘it is what my maid said I should wear.’
‘Not to worry,’ he assured her as they went to the door after he spoke to the parents in the back parlour. ‘You look charming. Not half so charming of course as in a ruined frock, but the day is young.’

They wandered the cliffs and beaches around the windy stretch of Howth Castle for hours, he regaling her with stories of his misadventures in university days, until hunger drove them indoors to the hotel. She protested that she was not fit to be seen in the hotels in such attire, but he said,
‘Consider yourself a holiday-maker, and it won’t trouble you.’

They were shown a table near the window overlooking the seacliff and he ordered a substantial tea of cakes, sandwiches, savouries and dainties.
‘We’ll never eat all this,’ she murmured, as the waiter departed.
‘Not you perhaps,’ he agreed. ‘But I certainly will.’ His gaze wandered over her shoulders where the openwork on her shirtblouse showed bare skin beneath, and she blushed. She looked out the window.

‘I love the seaside,’ she said. ‘When I was a little girl my aunts lived at the seaside. I thought it was heaven on earth.’ She looked back at him.
‘Where?’
‘Killiney,’ she said, fiddling with the tableware. ‘They moved a few years ago to a house in Tallaght. It’s a pity really because they had been born in the other house, and my mother and uncle as well.’ She wished he would quit staring at her.
‘It was a large house?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Only the usual junior officer’s digs. My grandfather was in the army.’
‘Ah.’
The waiter brought the tea on a cart with the pot, an urn, and a compliment of tea service. When he had gone, she poured out tea.
‘How do you take your tea, Paddy?’ She faltered on his name, the cup rattling in her fingers, because she had looked up into his eyes and could not bear his gaze.
‘Strong,’ he said shortly, aware of his effect. ‘With milk and sugar.’
She made it so under his watchful eye and handed over the cup. His fingers clasped hers under the saucer, but his voice was smooth and correct.
‘Thank you.’

He was a very disturbing man, she decided as she diluted her own tea with hot water and milk. They drank tea in silence until the waiter came again with the food. She was mortified because she was usually quite good at small-talk, and could make pleasantries with the most boring people but she could think of absolutely nothing to say now. Every little thing that sprang to mind died in her throat when she looked at him. Where had gone the ease of their walk, when they had laughed together over his undergraduate antics? Paddy on the other hand seemed entirely at ease, nonchalantly drinking tea and looking out the window. What was he thinking of, so far away?

‘Do you care for swimming?’ he asked suddenly, turning to face her.
‘Hmm? Pardon?’
He put down the cup and reached for the sandwiches. ‘You said you grew up at the seaside, it occurred to me that you must enjoy swimming.’
‘Why, yes...’ she said in surprise. He had been thinking of her girlhood?
‘So, riding, tennis, swimming...it seems you are a sporting girl.’ He was smiling disarmingly. All her unease fell away in a moment, for here she was on familiar ground. She knew outrageous flirting when she heard it.
‘It would seem so,’ she returned, munching a biscuit. ‘Do you care to find out?’ She paused, making a face of innocence and he laughed. ‘I’m sure we could fit you up with some extra tack should you care to come riding. The hunting season is beginning soon.’
He shook his head, laughing. ‘Ensnared and beguiled in the sport of kings.’
‘Are you?’ she asked lightly, smiling her bright social smile.
‘I could be,’ he said, with a glance.
‘You take a mighty high opinion of yourself, Mr. Leary.’
‘Don’t you know, Miss Clennaghan, that in Ireland every man is a king?’
‘And does that make every woman his subject?’ She watched his eyes kindle in delight.
‘Only if he is a poet, Miss Molly.’
‘...Are you?’

Paddy’s expression was one of savouring. He leaned back in the chair, declaiming, ‘King, poet, beggar, or holy priest of ancient rites. Whatever you would have, I am.’
She cocked her head. ‘Is that from one of your English poets?’
He blushed, laughing. ‘No, that was mine,’ he admitted. He sat forward again and drank tea with awkward grace, his left hand fitted round the dainty cup. The afternoon sun played on his face. He was very handsome. What a strange man he was, different from anyone she had known before. He could make such pictures with words! When he had talked of his friends at university and their doings, he made them easy to see; had they walked up, she could have called them by name. Peculiar man. He read too much, surely, but he was not dull. Even their silence had been filled with thoughts and images.

He took her home in the early twilight, driving slowly through the sun-dappled lanes that led to her parents’ house. The hedges above the ditches were thick this time of year, so travelling along was like moving through a narrow valley, green and secluded. In the lane before her own, he braked the car off to the side of the road.
She looked around. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘No,’ he said slowly, the vowel round with the music of Kerry. His gaze was steady. ‘I was hoping to kiss you,’ he said frankly.

She stared at him in stupefaction, breathless at his directness, not knowing whether to laugh, be insulted, or flattered.
‘You're very bold,’ she managed at last, though not in the tone of outrage that was probably expected of her under the circumstances. It was more a ragged, half-swallowed croak. She felt as if she'd swallowed a tennis ball.
‘I won't if you don't want me to,’ he said evenly.
She blew out her breath as if he had struck her, leaning back against the door in amazement. This was too much! She shook her head violently.
‘Mr. Leary, I don't know what you take me for! But I can assure you it is not what you evidently think....’ To her consternation, he burst out laughing; hooting, whooping, more correctly. By the time he was finished she was thoroughly insulted, and sat with her arms crossed in the corner of the passenger's seat, glowering at him disdainfully.

‘I think, Miss Castle-crowd,’ he said smiling like a friendly uncle, ‘that you are a very pretty girl with whom I have passed a pleasant afternoon, and whom I'd like to see more of. But I'd also like to kiss you. Is that so awful? I promise to be gentlemanly.’ He cocked his head, looking so absurdly innocent, making his shocking directness seem so natural, that she felt like one of the Aunties, screeching about proprieties. He took her blush for something else and said, ‘It can't be that you're shy? Nothing could convince me no one's ever tried before.’
She smiled in spite of herself, and a bubble of laughter escaped.
‘No, not that,’ she admitted. She resumed her place in the centre of the seat.
‘What then?’ he asked softly, lightly, with a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. He was beautiful, and looked innocent as the day. She shook her head.
‘Silliness.’ She reached out her hand and looked at him ruefully. ‘Paddy, you make a very bad thing appear very reasonable.’
He shrugged. ‘It's only a kiss... for now.’ He took her hands in both of his. She could feel his pulse racing and a strange warmth flooded through her.
‘What does that mean?’ she asked softly. He had cast a spell again, like the one at the races. His eyes were agate, magnets, and they drew her to him as then. His arms came around her, not roughly, but firmly, gently, comfortably as an old lover. He said, almost as if to himself,
‘This is not enough. It will never be enough.’ He touched her face, kissed her.

When they parted, he was shaking and his eyes were intense.
‘Molly, I -’ he stopped, and let her go.
‘What?’
He ran a hand through his hair, looking away. ‘I don't know.’ He looked back at her. ‘I should get you home.’ He punched the starter and turned the key, got out of the car and went to crank it. His face was pale and angry-looking. He threw himself into the seat beside her and backed out into the road without a word.

‘What's the matter?’ she asked finally, when he had turned up the long road to the house.
He sighed angrily, and shot a glance at her that was full of feeling, then looked back at the road. ‘I don't know,’ he said tautly, running a hand through his hair again. He shifted gears. ‘I'm not used to this.’
She was baffled. ‘Used to what?’ She looked ahead. They were halfway to the house, bouncing along, and a cloud of dust billowing behind them, for the road was dry.
‘You,’ he said in a low savage tone. ‘A girl like you. I can't think straight when I'm with you. I can't sleep when I'm not.’ The frankness was disarming, almost horrifying. But that may have been the brutal, accusing way he said it. ‘I've thought of you since I saw your concert.’ He shook his head. ‘I am not like that--’ He was about to say something else, thought the better of it, and closed his mouth.

They had come to the front drive. He braked the car beside the paddock fence and leapt out to open her door. He remained standing very near when she got out.
‘I really would like to see you again,’ he murmured in a low tone. She raised her chin to meet his eyes. He was enough taller than she to make her feel feminine rather than ungainly as she generally did with men. ‘If I haven't been a complete ass.’
She smiled. ‘No, you haven't. You're welcome to call.’
‘Thanks,’ he said in a tone of mock-relief. ‘Come on, I'll see you to the door.’
She clucked her tongue teasingly at him. ‘Such a proper gentleman.’
‘You'd expect nothing less,’ he said seriously.

Liam was standing in the breakfast room staring out the windows when she came in from the entry hall.
‘Spying?’ she called gaily as she went down the hall to the stairs. She was halfway up when he caught her up.
‘I don't like him,’ he said crossly.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘Much I care whether you like him or not,’ she said.
‘He's bog Irish.’
She walked on. ‘He's a university don,’ she countered.
‘A pig in a coat is still a pig,’ he called after her. She went into her room and closed the door. She heard him swearing as he went down the stairs again.

They went walking several times in the neighbourhood after that, around the meadows and through the village, pausing once to stroll through the churchyard, reading gravestones. He was surprised to learn that she was a Catholic -- they went into the chapel and from habit she crossed herself with water from the stoup.
‘Not very Catholic,’ she muttered to his exclamation, and he laughed.

He teased her too that old men in the village raised their caps to her and bid her good day. ‘The landlord's daughter....’
She made a face and poked him.
‘The best you'll do with me is the wife of the bold tenant farmer,’ he said drolly. That brought her up short, in the middle of the pavement. ‘It's a song!’ he said, shaking his head. He chided her for knowing nothing about Irish culture. She thought it best not to ask whether there was one. ‘Don't your servants sing, or tell the old stories?’
‘Why should I pay attention to what the servants say?’
He shook his head again. ‘Hopeless you are!’ He put an arm around her. ‘I'll teach you Irish,’ he decided. She regarded him sceptically. She never could make heads or tails of old people with their slurry words. They all sounded drunk and disorderly. ‘Rude words first, of course,’ he conceded cheerfully. ‘You’ll have to guess what they mean, and if you can't I'll show you....’ At her shocked face he exclaimed, ‘I'm joking! ‘
‘Paddy….’
He grinned. ‘I like to make you blush.’

He had Sunday luncheon with the family, always a casual affair in the back parlour after chapel, during which he talked racing with Fa and Liam, who had deigned to be human under threat of bloody siege. She knew he had very little interest in racing, so was amazed when he spoke gamely and knowledgeably about it. He confessed later that most of what he knew was from his brother Ernie. It was an afternoon not without storms - Mummy went on abominably about the Lodge set, until Paddy countered by talking of the Yeatses and Lady Gregory, whom he knew from the Abbey Theatre - but afterward he was more or less accepted by the family; more by Fa and less by everyone else. But she didn’t care. Fa was the only one whose opinion counted. They let her go to Dublin on the train to meet him for luncheon, though Fa first looked up his address in Anne Street. They lunched at the DBC cafe in O’Connell Street, and afterwards went walking in the Phoenix Park; he never even asked if she would care to see his digs, let alone his etchings. She had no concern that he was plotting anything indecent. He only looked at her, and that was proof of nothing. Half the time when she asked what he was thinking, it had been of some obscure literary reference.

He came with her to a bash thrown by Lizzie and George at Blackrock, where in the old days they had all had parties out of the hotel. They did the same now, with a marquee where drinks and food were endlessly served, bathing and silly games on the strand. It was a chance to show him off to her friends. He did not swim, but came properly dressed in a linen suit, played shuttlecock with the men with coat off and sleeves rolled up, made George laugh out loud with some quip they would not share - no mean feat. By the end of the afternoon Hobbles was actually talking with him in the marquee, where before she had been cool. He did not drink, he had told her that he never did, but declined in a manner that was gracious, not as if he were one of those awful temperance people, sitting in judgement on them.

In September, the parents went with Patsy on a day trip to the Aunties’. Liam had already gone out, and the servants were given the half-day, so by ten o’clock in the morning, she was wandering the house in boredom. There was food left for her and Liam, but she had no interest in it. She might have gone riding, but did not feel like riding alone. After the third pass of the house, she picked up the telephone in the hall and rang Paddy in Dublin.

‘Hello,’ he said cheerfully. ‘What’s the do?’
‘ I’ve been abandoned. The family have gone away for the day and I’m all alone and bored to death,’ she complained.
‘So you rang me,’ he teased.
‘You know what I mean,’ she insisted, fiddling with the phone cord. She adjusted the mouthpiece to better fit her height.
‘Ah, my poor girl,’ he murmured in a soft tone that made her heart race. ‘I do. Would you like to go for a drive? Is the weather nice? I haven’t been out.’
‘Perfectly. Yes. Where?’
‘ A surprise.’
‘Ah....’ she murmured, faltering. The silence was heavy with intimacy. After a long time he said softly, slowly, in that musical way he had,
‘...Good...’ It broke the spell. She shook herself back into the room.
‘Um, shall I bring a picnic?’ She asked. Thank goodness the food was made, or they'd have gone hungry. Liam could fend for himself when he got in from wherever he had gone. He never minded what he ate. She heard Paddy smiling in the tone of his voice,
‘If you like. Let me dress and I'll be right there.’ He rang off abruptly and she stood looking at the phone, frowning. Bloody rude! She sighed, but he was frequently abrupt, so she should not be surprised. She put up the phone and went to change.

By the time he arrived she had packed a hamper with the picnic and had it waiting in the hall. He greeted her briefly, and used the opportunity of the empty house to kiss her familiarly.
‘At this rate,’ she said, breaking away from him and readjusting her hat, ‘we shall never get out the door!’
‘Would that be so bad?’ he challenged. His hazel eyes glinted behind the glasses.
‘Where d'you want to go?’ she said, drawing out the words, to remind him of the point.
‘Wicklow.’
She stared at him. ‘No, seriously.’
He picked up her gloves. ‘I am serious, Miss Clennaghan, and I'll even let you drive.’ He gave her the gloves and his key, dangling it before her. The Lanchester was his darling, lovingly maintained. He had never let her drive it before, though she did know how.
‘Well then,’ she said, snatching the key. ‘Let's to it.’

They spent the afternoon tramping about the furzy mountains above Bray, climbing hills and leaping ravines until they came to a spot that Paddy evidently knew well. They were deep in the woods and very far away from the car, which she had parked off the road behind a tree. The place he led her to was a small clearing with a stream that ran just beyond from the mountains higher up. He helped her set out the picnic on the red woollen car rug he had packed along, then opened one of the bottles of porter he had brought. She eyed them dubiously.

‘Beer?’ she asked in a weak voice.
‘Not merely beer, Miss Castle-crowd champagne, but porther. Beer is for the English and the Americans. This will make a man of you, or whatever the latest slogan is.’ He handed her the bottle.
‘It's warm.’
‘It's supposed to be,’ he grinned. ‘Sorry, the latest shipment of ice was delayed today. Don't be frightened, try it.’
‘You're not drinking it.’
He leaned and kissed her. ‘I took the pledge,’ he reminded her. ‘It won't kill you.’ At her sceptical face, he cried, ‘I was weaned on the stuff! It's full of vitamins! Yer man in the stable probable gives it to those horses of yours.’
As a matter of fact Joe did, in the winter when it was cold.
‘So I'm to drink horse medicine?’
Paddy burst out laughing. ‘Go on! It's time you broadened your experience of the world.’

Shrugging, she tipped the bottle up and in a moment was coughing and gagging, accosted by the bitter bite. She put the bottle down, coughing and making a face, while Paddy roared with laughter, and finally came over and slapped her on the back.
‘You have to get used to it,’ he was still laughing. ‘Don't down it so fast. You can't knock it back like champagne.’
‘You're an evil man,’ she told him, not entirely joking.
‘Hell holds a place for me, I'm sure,’ he agreed cheerfully, poking into the hamper. ‘What did you bring to eat? I'm starved.’

A long time after, she sat on the car rug amid the cluttered remains of their lunch and four of the bottles of porter, now empty. Her head was spinning.
‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘It appears it isn't so bad after all.’
‘What?’ Paddy asked from his place against the tree. He sat smoking a cigarette lazily.
‘This porther of yours,’ she answered, mimicking his accent.
He looked over at her, squinting in the brief sun that shone through the trees. ‘I was wondering when you'd notice,’ he said indolently. ‘You've drunk most of it.’
‘I have not!’ she cried indignantly.
He flung the cigarette into the water and stood up. ‘You have. There are four of six gone.’
‘I suppose there are,’ she said in some surprise, looking at them stupidly. ‘But you opened them!’
‘I confess,’ he admitted, holding out his hands. ‘I am guilty of that. Mea culpa. Come on, girl, let's walk.’

She took his hands and made to rise, only to find that she could not. She leaned back again, looking up into the trees and giggling. ‘Oh dear, I can't. Whatever shall we do now?’
Paddy knelt down beside her. ‘There's a word for this in the country, but I suppose you people call it being indisposed.’ He touched her face. ‘Molly, open your eyes.’ She did. His face was full of concern and she thought it tremendously funny.
‘You look so sad. Don't be sad. It's a wonderful day in Wi - ‘she hiccuped, ‘icklow!’ She flung out her arm in encompassing exuberance. She had never actually been drunk before. It was most interesting. She looked at him. ‘Do you need those?’
‘What?’ he frowned.
‘Glasses. You look so much better without them.’ She hiccuped again, and giggled.
‘I'm blind as a harper without them.’
She pouted. ‘They get in the way.’
‘Of what?’ He moved back a little as she sat up.
‘This,’ she leaned forward and kissed him fully on the mouth, her arms sliding beneath his summer coat, and pulled herself nearer. Paddy broke off hastily.
‘Molly, don't. Not like this. You're not yourself... and you might... regret...’ she pursued him where he had gone, with kisses, loosening his necktie and removing the collar button the while. Her hands slid over the warmth of his shoulders under the shirt and he gave over with a groan, pulling his glasses off, and rolled over with her onto the blanket.

‘And how did you come to know so much?’ he asked her as they strolled together through the woods belatedly. He held her hand as they went, helping her over the rough places. She laughed, the sound ringing through the corridor of trees. She had no intention of telling him about Vincent, but he didn't need the usual evidence to know that she was not a virgin; she had been too accommodating.
‘Liam and I breed horses, you'll recall.’
‘Horses are one thing, my dear girl,’ he said wryly. ‘That was quite another.’
‘Do you kiss and tell?’ She asked archly, looking at him sidelong. To her surprise, he blushed.
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Em,’ he glanced before them down the long avenue of trees beside the brook. The path was festooned with the purple-pink of foxglove, fuscia, and trailing white rose, a green and gloriously scented bower.
‘What?’ She could hardly believe that he was embarrassed about it, about anything, he who had been so bold. Paddy looked at her directly, pushing up his glasses with his free left hand. ‘This isn't going to be a problem, is it?’

‘What - oh,’ she laughed, swinging his hand in hers. ‘Fine time to enquire, professor! No no, not to worry.’ She laughed again. ‘Do you always shoot first and ask questions after?’ She ran ahead squealing, her hair still tumbling down her back as he swatted her. He ran after her, catching her up and swinging her around, laughing.
‘Wicked child!’ he scolded, like a minister in a melodrama. He kissed her, took her hand again and they walked on. She hoped he didn't notice that she had not answered his question.

A fortnight later the weather was unseasonably sweltering. They had been to the Wednesday matinee at the Abbey and walked the way back to his flat in Anne Street. He led her up the smelly back stairs behind the bookseller's - smelly because the neighbour's cat had had kits there and refused to be moved - and into the cool quiet of his little three rooms. The blinds had been drawn all day, and though the place was scattered with books and papers and nearly bare of furniture, it was a haven. Typically, Paddy was hungry, and went off to the tiny kitchen alcove with its inadequate grille to scrounge a bit of luncheon, leaving her to struggle out of her clothes and corset as she could. She heard him whistling as he clattered about with utensils, and donned his dressing gown to go out to him.

He was slicing tomatoes awkwardly, the knife poised uncertainly in his long fingers. He had also taken off most of his clothes and thrown them on the parlour chair. She laughed. He glanced at her, pushing up his glasses.
‘What?’
‘You're about as handy in the kitchen as I am,’ she teased. He put an arm about her, kissing her briefly.
‘Mind yourself, or I'll make you do it, Miss Molly.’
‘La!’ she rolled her eyes. ‘You'll never know what you'll end up with then!’
‘As I have only tomatoes and some rather mouldy cheese in the icebox, not much.’ He put the knife aside and reached for the iron girdle that hung on a nail on the wall. ‘Away with you, woman,’ he growled at her playfully, ‘you are distracting!’
‘Am I?’
‘Yerra, sure and you are,’ he affirmed, leaning near. He smelled of some Eastern soap, earthy and full of spice, and of the heat of the day. ‘Away with you now, or I shan't get anything done.’ He nodded his head towards the parlour. ‘Go on and enjoy the cool before I'm tempted to hot things up.’ She went obediently, laughing, and sat on his faded and lumpy sofa that faced the windows into Anne Street. It divided the room, there being a table behind with two chairs, and piles of books and papers - only one good bookcase - and a rug before, which was more or less clean, and more books and papers under the windows.

She leaned against the sofa back, sprawled inelegantly, her hair spilling down her shoulders and over the muted browns, rust, and gold of the Indian print of Paddy's dressing-gown. It was good to be able to sit in his company this way, relieved of the confinement of corsets and petticoats. He never minded if was she natural or a hoyden. On the contrary. She smiled lazily. He wasn't shocked by anything she said or did. She could be herself with him. While he far from treated her as ‘one of the lads’, neither did he expect her to play the adoring little woman, which was good because she was hopeless that way. She found in the last several weeks that she liked him very much, really liked him. He was endlessly surprising. Fascinating. This dressing gown for instance. Who'd have thought a man so trenchantly Irish as he to possess a fine silk Indian piece that smelled of exotic spices? Yet he had with delight indoctrinated her into the mysteries of what he called the ‘sixty-four arts’, from some Indian book he knew about. These were mostly decadent pastimes like flower arranging and the art of setting tables and selecting drinks and music to create an ambience. These she knew from childhood. But not the purpose to which Patrick Leary put them, which was to seduce all the senses, that one would be ‘swayed like a flower in the wind to fall with soughing sigh’ into the embrace, not of the culler's basket, but his arms. Good for him that he knew what to do once one fell there, that he was not merely a hopelessly bookish romantic. Good for her, too. She could get to enjoy this life of - she supposed people would call her a mistress - of her music and his books and parties and theatre, of the extraordinary freedom between them. That was it. He had given her freedom. It would scandalise the family, but she would like very much to move to town - not with him, into an hotel maybe - play music and have this wonderful life.

He came in now, carrying two plates of kippers on toast and the grilled tomatoes. She opened her eyes and looked at him. Lit as he was by the sunshine from the windows, he was beautiful; if one could call a man that and not mean he was a nancy. It didn't matter that he stood in loose short drawers with his dark-red hair all awry, he was beautiful. Even Dizz and Hobbles admitted that he was extremely good-looking, and they were not disposed to like the natives. There was something in his eyes that riveted one. It was like looking into a busy workshop: something grand was always going on in his mind. As he stood before her casually eating one of the tomatoes with his fingers, she mused on the loveliness of his fair skin. Fair as milk, like a hero from one of his Irish tales. Fairer than she could ever be, gypsy-dark as she was. She picked up one of the kippers as she sat now cross-legged on the sofa, holding it between her fingernails and dangling it above her mouth. She caught Paddy's eyes on her. He wore a peculiar expression.

‘What's the matter?’
‘Nothing's the matter,’ he murmured, coming to stand before her. He lifted her face with a long, bony hand, searching her eyes. ‘You look like Mum Taz Mahal that way,’ he said in a strange voice.
‘Who?’
He laughed now, and lost his queer look. He sat beside her. ‘Didn't they teach you anything in that convent of yours?’ He laid a hand on her bare leg. She ate one of the tomatoes, soft and oozing as it was, and looked at him sceptically.
‘With Sister Mark and Sister Mary Dominic? You must be thinking of somewhere else.’ She was conscious of his tracing spirals on her thigh. ‘All I ever learnt was boring geography and mathematics and how to write a fine hand.’ She wished he would stop what he was doing, as it made keeping her mind on the conversation very difficult. ‘So who's this Mum Taz- whoever you said?’

‘Mum Taz Mahal,’ he murmured abstractedly. The focus of his gaze was hovering about her collarbones where in that infernal hollowness every quickening of her pulse showed readily. The doctors had said it was because she was thin and advised her to gain weight. Paddy met her eyes and she felt the almost suffocating magnetism of his hazel stare. It was too easy to fall prey to him. She had completely forgotten the drift of the conversation. He put down the plate he held, then hers as well. His glasses were gone, balanced on the arm of the sofa out of harm's way, and he put his hands on either side of her face. He kissed her, bent his head into her neck and traced a thousand butterfly-soft kisses along the line of her pulse. She closed her eyes to the melting confusion. It was always this way with him. He led her so easily with slow, lovely torment into his snake charmer’s dance. His voice was soft and warm in her ear, husky with the tones of Kerry, as his hands moved down her arms, along her spine, while he leaned back with her gently.

‘Mum Taz Mahal,’ he murmured, and the vibration sent a shiver through her.’ She was a shah's wife, and the loveliest woman in India, a queen... mo chroi, m'aille...’ he brushed her temple with his lips, her closed eyelids. ‘And hair as black as midnight, as fine as silk. A stor, yes... yes.’ His hands were on her hair, smoothing it over her shoulders, slipping the silk away unprotested. He kissed her properly at last, only then stretching out with her on the length of the sofa. When it was done, he smiled and called it thirty-five.

She leaned on her elbow and asked him as he lay dozing on the rug, ‘So, who's this Mum person of yours?’
He opened his eyes lazily and glanced at her. ‘Have you forgotten already? Too much damson tart, Miss....’ he laughed at her outraged expression. ‘Sorry...’ He put a hand under his head and squinted a bit. ‘To answer your question, she was actually the Shah Jahan's wife, and a very brave woman. She went into battle with him and so lost her fourteenth child, and her life. But he built the Taj Mahal for her as a memorial.’
Her nose wrinkled at the sad story, but she cocked her head asking, ‘The Taj Mahal?’ He stared at her now.
‘Good god, girl, you've never heard of the Taj Mahal! I thought that you of all people would know, colonialist as you are,’ he said it without rancour, but she was insulted nonetheless, as much because he was implying she was stupid because she didn't know about some building in India as anything else.
‘I am not a colonialist!’ she protested, sitting up. ‘I was born in Ireland just as you were! You can look up the records in the Mater.’ Paddy laughed at her.
‘When I was born, there wasn't a hospital deserving the name clear to Cork City... Come here and smooth your feathers, I'm only having you on, my lovely ignoramus. ‘ He pulled her down across his chest. ‘I couldn't care if you were born in the bedchamber of the Queen or in a miserable hovel as I was. Come now and kiss me as I showed you and be my delight, there's a good girl.’ He rolled her in his arms, and she forgot his slight entirely.

At the Opening Day ceremonies at Trinity, the Vice-Provost’s wife, a lovely woman who was kind and friendly, took her up. She had been Miss MacDougall of Howth before her marriage, so she said, so they were neighbours of a sort. They knew all the same people at any rate. So few of the professors were married that they were nearly in a company by themselves, though the two other don's wives she had met were dowdy dull creatures. She must have looked lost as Paddy marched off to the grandstand as part of a presentation for Mrs Mahaffy took her arm, saying,
‘Come stand with me, my dear, under the awning, and we'll be much more comfortable.’ She looked her over, standing back a little for Molly was taller. ‘What a lovely girl you are, I hope you don't mind me saying. We are so pleased that our Pat has found you, such a nice girl of good family. The Vice-Provost and I quite worry about him you know,’ she said, gazing out over the field towards the grandstand. She looked at her again, determinedly. ‘He is like a son to us.’ She looked at the field again. ‘A man needs a good wife in university, that's what I always hear from my John. It keeps him steady... Pat is certainly taken with you.’ She looked back again and patted Molly's arm in that same friendly, determined way. ‘I know you'll be very good to him, won't you. He's such a sensitive boy.... Yes, I'm sure you'll do just fine.’

Molly stared at her, so stunned that she unable to say anything at all. He wanted to marry her….