The Element of Fire. Brendan Graham

       10

      With the children now settled in their respective schools, she had, as she had hoped for, more time to devote to the business of the New England Wine Company, so taking some of the load from Lavelle’s shoulders.

      Coming up to Christmas was their busiest time; Peabody was demanding and irritable, wanting stocks early, pressing for replacement stock immediately, arguing that with the large volumes he was now taking for two stores, rather than one, she should be ‘beating down the French with their high prices’. Lavelle made extra shelving to try and appease him. He looked after all activities related to shipping, warehousing and deliveries. She saw to the ordering, the banking and the documentation, being, as Lavelle put it, ‘better able to hurl the pen’ than he was.

      Twice weekly she called on Peabody at Quincy Market, soothing his irascibility, he wanting to hold her hand at every turn, still referring to Lavelle as ‘that young helper of yours, not much between the ears’. Mockingly he asked her to ‘make an old man happy this Christmas and marry me, Ellen!’

      She, in turn, telling him, ‘Don’t be exciting yourself, Jacob, with all that talk or you’ll get a heart attack and never see the Christmas. I’ll be neither an old man’s sweetheart, nor a young man’s slave.’

      Jacob feigned hurt, ‘rejected again’… then laughter … ‘Ah Ellen, what would I do without you to brighten the day?’

      What was it about men, she wondered, that they were distracted so easily? If they had a few children to bear and rear, it would soon soften their coughs. Always thinking about their ‘scythe-stones’! She’d heard the valley women, when they huddled to talk, often laugh that – ‘It’s the last thing to die in a man – the scythe-stone – if it was ever any good for anything but sharpening a blade in the first place!’

      She loved the way that in the Gaelic you could talk ‘round’ a thing, with everybody still knowing what you meant. Say it without saying it. The Americans never talked in the ‘roundabout talk’ – she missed that, much and all as she tried to distance herself from her previous life.

      Despite everything, getting the children settled, easing once again into the business, she hadn’t really fitted back into Boston life as she would have hoped. She didn’t know what it was. She still grieved for Katie, guilt always suffusing the grief. Once started her thoughts would then run to Annie and Michael, until she would have to go and hide in the dark of Holy Cross Cathedral, or slip away to sit in the cold of the Common under the Great Elm. No matter how busy she was, how she was furthering their lives, there was always the void, the big aching void, always waiting to claim her.

      Lavelle had been her one constant, steadfast in everything. He laughed and poked fun at how she worried over things, her single-mindedness. Kept at her, forcing her not to take herself too seriously. At first this irritated her, but he didn’t stand for that either, and she found it hard to sustain any measure of annoyance with him, such was his enthusiasm for ‘life to be lived’. And the children liked him. Even Patrick, though he’d never say it, had softened towards Lavelle.

      They had all gone on 5 November – ‘Pope’s Night’ – to see the Orange Parades, with their Kick-the-Pope bands. Patrick was agog at the display of anti-Catholic paraphernalia and the aggressive clatter-thump of the lambeg drums, the manic drummers facing each other ‘hoop to hoop’, malacca canes banging out deafening military tattoos.

      ‘But … they’re Irish too!’ Patrick protested, as Lavelle tried to explain the sashes, hard hats and anti-Irish slogans.

      ‘They are and they aren’t, Patrick!’ Lavelle responded. ‘Their feet are on the same island as us at home,’ and he laughed, ‘they’ve even stolen some of our jigs and reels and fifed them into marches, though they’ll never admit to that. But their hearts are for ever in England.’

      That was the moment, Ellen knew, when Patrick had begun to change towards her ‘fancy man’, as he once called Lavelle. The boy identified with Lavelle’s antipathy towards the Orangemen and their bitter, threatening music. To his credit, Lavelle did not encourage Patrick, make a thing of it, as he could have done. And she noticed it had gone on like that, in little fits and starts that bonded them, without any great scheme being behind it.

      Without any great scheme, either – certainly on her part – things had settled into a comfortable pattern between herself and Lavelle. He was as much a part of the neighbourhood of her new life as the Old South Meeting House, spiking the sky across from where she lived, or the Long Wharf, spiking the sea. Like these boundaries of heaven and ocean, always there, securing this exciting New World of hers, so too was Lavelle. Not that she was unaware of his physical attractiveness, the way he sometimes collided with her, would catch her arm, steady her up, and give that grin of his, causing her a momentary embarrassment. Once or twice he held her longer than necessary, startled her by his nearness, said something like ‘Boston life hasn’t softened you yet, you’re still a fine woman,’ then laughed and let go of her just as suddenly again.

      At Christmas, after he had dined with them, tramped in the snow, laden with presents for the children and her, she wasn’t totally unprepared when he asked her.

      She had gone down the flights of stairs ahead of him, held the door, looking out into the abandoned stillness of Washington Street. No hawkers’ cries, no noise of commerce, the Old South Meeting House cribbed in white. No sound at the Hub of the Universe, only his voice, clear and as impudent as you please, passing her, going out into the dampening snows.

      ‘You know, Ellen, we should get married after Lent!’

      She never answered him at first. Giddy in the moment, she drew back, waited until he was outside, half-turned for home.

      ‘You know, Lavelle,’ she said, mocking his impudence and laughing, ‘I had the same notion myself!’ And, despite all of her previous resolve, it was out before she knew it.

      She watched after him, his boots crunching the snow, the flakes haloed on his head, whistling his way down Washington Street – some old jig-time tune she half-remembered.

      In the New Year, little doubts had begun to raise themselves about whether or not she was doing the right thing. She hadn’t remained steadfast for long. Getting married again was against everything she once held; against ‘being true to the grave’. But that was just it – that was part of the old ways. Here in Boston, it was different. After a suitable period of mourning a man and, to a lesser degree, a woman might marry again. Still, it was only three years.

      Not that she ever forgot Michael. Not for one single day, nor would she, ever. But she had great ease with Lavelle. He had no fixed notions like some of the other men about where women fitted – mostly in front of a baking oven. Maybe it was his time in Australia, where women tamed the harsh bush as much as the men did. Whatever, there was ease and comfort between them, and she liked his off-the-cuff manner. He granted her respect, but not too much. Even the way he had asked her – going out the door – as if not caring if she had said ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Herself and Lavelle would be a good match.

      She had told the children on the following day, St Stephen’s, when she herself was more composed. Mary, she thought, took it well. Patrick less so, but without the level of opposition from him, which she had expected. The excitement somehow catching her, Louisa too joined in, running to kiss her as Mary had done.

      By early Lent, she had cast her doubts aside. She had made her bed, now she must lie in it. At times, even, the thought of lying in Lavelle’s