Read Felicia's Journey for Free Online Page B

woman in the middle of the day, as the job at the Slieve Bloom had. He’d worked it out; he had probably discussed it with the nuns.
‘I’d say it would suit you all right. If not the dentist’s then something like it.’
‘I’d rather have the full-time.’
‘It’s what’s going, though, at the heel of the hunt. It’s what’s on offer, girl.’
‘Yes,’ Felicia said, and then the subject was changed, her father repeating what he’d told the old woman: that Sister Antony Ixida was bothering him about tayberries. When the meal was over and the washing-up completed Felicia changed out of her jersey and skirt and put on make-up in the bedroom, beadily observed by the old woman, who was always alert after she’d eaten.
‘You’re going out, girl?’ her father asked, seeing her with her coat on. When she said she was he expressed no further interest. Her mother would have been curious, Felicia thought, from what she could remember of her. Her mother would have guessed that she wouldn’t doll herself up, with earrings and eye-shadow and her coral lipstick, just to meet Carmel and Rose on a Monday evening. Her brothers, on their way out themselves to Myles Brady’s, didn’t even notice that she had her coat on.
‘Hi,’ Johnny Lysaght greeted her in Sheehy’s ten minutes later. ‘You’re looking great.’
She loved his saying that. She wanted him to say it again. She didn’t know a thing about eye make-up, yet he could say straight away when he saw her that she was looking great. ‘Aren’t you thepretty one!’ Dirty Keery used to call out, lying in wait in Devlin’s Lane. But that was different because he said it to all the girls going by, trying to get them to come close to him. And he was blind in any case.
‘Take off your coat,’ Johnny Lysaght invited, and she was glad he did because the shade of red her coat was didn’t match her coral lipstick. Also, it was worn in places. She had put a dress on specially, her blue one with the squares and triangles. ‘What’ll you drink?’ he offered.
‘7-Up.’
‘Drop of gin in it?’
‘Ah no, no.’
‘Keep me company. Cheer you up. Try a vodka and orange instead of that old stuff.’
He had been drinking beer himself. The label on the bottle was festive beside his empty glass. He’d go over to a short, he said, ring the changes. ‘Cheer you up,’ he said again.
‘OK.’
He ordered their drinks from young Sheehy behind the bar. His expression changed a lot when he conversed, vivacious one moment, meditative the next. He referred to her perfume when he returned to their table, saying he liked it. Love in a Mist it was called; she’d put it on when she’d left the kitchen, on the street outside. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
She asked him whereabouts he was in England. She asked if it was London and he said no, north of Birmingham. He mentioned a town but the name was not familiar to her. He was a storeman in a factory, spare parts for lawn-mowers. He lit a cigarette. It kept the wolf from the door, he said; you could do worse.
‘You’re good the way you come back to see your mother.’
‘You only have the one mother.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
She said it was all right. Most people wouldn’t apologize; most people would forget, or remember too late and not know what to say.
‘Is the old lady OK, these days?’
She said she was. In her hundredth year, she said, and he wagged his head in wonderment. He smiled again and she watched him smoking. Marlboro , it said on the packet on the table. In the Coffee Dock and the Two-Screen Ritz Carmel smoked the odd Afton Major. So did Rose.
‘What’s England like?’ she asked.
‘All right. You get used to it. You can get used to anywhere when you’re there a while.’
‘There’s some gets lonely. Patty Maloney came back.’
‘The likes of Patty Maloney would.’
‘I don’t know will things improve here.’
He didn’t know either. She said there had been talk of Bord na Móna opening a factory, to do