Read Online Felicia's Journey by William Trevor - Free Book Online Page B

kitchen; as clearly as she hears the voices and the laughter of the people passing near by, there are the voices of his mother and herself.
‘I was only wondering if you had Johnny’s address.’
‘What d’you want with Johnny?’
‘Just to write him a letter, Mrs Lysaght.’
‘My son wouldn’t want his address given out to all and sundry.’
‘It’d be all right giving it to me, Mrs Lysaght.’
‘I’ll be writing to him myself. I’ll tell him you called in.’
His mother knew who she was: she didn’t say so, but Felicia could tell. She knew her name and that her father worked in the convent garden, that his grandmother was still alive, almost a hundred years old. You could tell just by being in Mrs Lysaght’s presence that she was a woman who knew everything.
‘He wouldn’t mind you giving me the address.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I know he wouldn’t.’
‘He didn’t give it to you himself then?’
Felicia began to stammer. Mrs Lysaght sat down. A hand touched the lower part of her stomach, as if some pain had begun there.
‘I have things to do,’ she said, not rising at once but doing so a moment later before Felicia could collect herself. She moved towards the passage that led to her front door.
‘I know he wouldn’t mind,’ Felicia said again. She felt a burst of heat in her face that tingled to the roots of her hair. ‘I need the address badly.’
‘Johnny has his own friends here, Cathal Kelly, Shay Mulroone, boys like that. I don’t recall anyone like yourself mentioned.’
‘I need the address, Mrs Lysaght.’
Felicia’s predicament dawned in Mrs Lysaght’s features then. Her mouth sagged; distaste crept into the coldness in her eyes.
‘Leave my son alone.’ She spoke without emotion. ‘Leave him.’
‘All I want to do is to contact him.’
‘You’ve had contact enough with him.’
But Mrs Lysaght didn’t move out of the kitchen, as she hadbegun to do. She remained in the doorway and after a moment raised the fingers of her right hand to the scar on her face.
‘I’m not well,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lysaght.’
‘It’s why he comes back. Because I’m not well.’
‘I didn’t know –’
‘When the rent man comes on a Friday I can see him looking at me. I haven’t been myself since Johnny couldn’t find work here. The worst day of my life.’
Felicia shook her head, trying to find something to say but unable to do so. On the mantelpiece, pushed between an ornamental china box and the wall, she could see a bundle of letters and postcards, and guessed whom they were from. The address would be there.
‘I knew it,’ Mrs Lysaght said, ‘the first time he went out with you. “I think I’ll get a few lungfuls of air,” he said, and when he came in again he said he’d met Cathal Kelly. One time in Dublin, on his way back after being over to see me, he was seen with a girl coming out of an ice-cream parlour. That came back to me and I mentioned it. He laughed. “Mistaken identity,” he said. They’d do anything,’ Mrs Lysaght added, as though she had forgotten whom she was talking to, ‘once they have their clutches round a boy. Sweet as sugar, and then they’re working like adders.’
Her fingers ran slowly down the mark on her cheek. ‘Wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ she said, ‘until the moment comes. “What about Johnny?” I said to his father. He stood there, just come in from the rain, the drips falling on to the floor, a foot from where you’re standing yourself. “Doesn’t Johnny mean anything?” I said, and all he did was look away from me, with the pool of water at his feet. “Listen to me,” he said, but what was there to listen to? He was off, and what’s there to listen to in that? “You’ll get money regular,” he said. That’s all he could think to say. Four years married, two miscarriages before Johnny, and then your husband’s off. “Take it,” I said to him, and I picked up the bread-knife off that table. “Do what you like with