Dance Lessons: A Novel

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66 The tr ain conductor calls out the station stops: “Athlone! Clara! Tullamore!” These are places and towns that John and Jo Dowd, the honeymoon couple , have only heard of on the wireless or in the newspaper. At each country station, people stand waiting with their coat collars pulled up, their breaths fogging on the freezing afternoon. From the train windows, the Dowds watch the pools of frozen water in the fields, the bare trees against the January sky. Then at last the train is nudging into Westland Row Station, Dublin. Train doors are suddenly slapping open. On the platform, people push ahead of them toward a waiting bus. They all have a purpose, but not Jo and John. It feels ridiculous, going off on holiday when they should really be at home. She stands there waiting for him, watching his slow gait along the city footpath. From the train, they walk up along the River Liffey with its smell like stale coffee. Then there’s the porridgy smell of the brewery. “That’s the Guinness brewery,” John points, stopping to stare at the street-side gates. “St. James’ Gates. Now fancy that.” She hobbles along in her wedding shoes. She wears a winter coat over her going-away suit, which is blue wool, a cream blouse, leather gloves with a little button at the cuff. In her suitcase is her wedding-night trousseau. A week ago, in their bedroom, she and Kitty rehearsed that word, whispered to each other and screeched and tittered at its implications. Now, a week, a wedding and a train journey later, the word has turned heavy, sour. Dance Lessons * 67 They walk on, watching the red brake lights from the cars. Across the river, there’s a building with a domed roof: the Four Courts. She recognizes it from a school history book. Then at last, they’re approaching the bridge, O’Connell Bridge, where men and women keep rushing past, their shoulders hunched into the wind from the river. “Nelson’s Pillar,” John is pointing out to her. “God, that must be it, there. Look at it, Jo.” All day, except for their wedding vows, it’s the first time he has actually said her name. “Oh, is that a fact?” she asks, feeling suddenly contrite. It’s not his fault: this bitter cold, her high heels, the terror in her belly. “It is,” he says. “It is that a fact.” They walk on down O’Connell Street. When they reach the GPO, the General Post Office, she waits for him to announce this, too. And she will muster some surprise, even pleasure. But he does not. And then she tells herself again. It’s not his fault. They turn into a narrower street, then another, where the houses are much smaller than their own house at home in Knockduff. “Guests & Teas,” says the sign in the window. In the doorway, the Dublin woman takes them in, looks them up and down: first Jo, then John. There is something about this County Mayo couple that amuses her. She smirks as she leads them into a doilied little living room, where she inquires about the weather way down the country. She brings biscuits on a plate. She congratulates them on this morning’s nuptials. She smirks again as she says it—nuptials—as if savoring a joke to tell someone later. “God,” the little woman says, “I remember well the morning myself and my poor Jim got married. Above in Whitefriar Street. But Jim is long dead now, God rest him.” The tea curdles in Jo’s stomach. Her eyes drift to the ceiling above them, the room upstairs. Kitty said that there was a girl who worked with her in the drapery shop who had a friend who had emigrated to England to train as a nurse. The friend had promised to post them back French letters, straight to the shop, so Mother would never know. In England, the girl said, you could just buy French letters in the corner shop, without a bit of shame. Same as you’d buy a lipstick or a packet of fags. From the shop, Kitty sometimes brought 68 * Áine Greaney home English books and magazines, sneaked them in the house to the sisters ’ upstairs bedroom. At night, Kitty would put on an English accent as she read from the magazines’ advice columns: Dear Maggie, I...