Sometimes he forgot, and didn't really see the beauty that had broken all their hearts in Dublin. The girl with the perfect face, who had chosen Martin McMahon of all people to be her consort.
"No, Peter, I love to walk on an evening like this... it's so free. Do you see the birds over the lake? Aren't they magnificent?"
She looked magnificent. Her eye were bright, her skin was glowing. He had forgotten that for a slight woman she had such a voluptuous figure; her breasts seemed to strain at the blue wool dress. With a shock he realised that Helen McMahon was pregnant.
"Peter, what is it?"
"You keep asking me that." He was irritated with Lilian.
"What is what?"
"You haven't said a word all evening. You just keep staring into the fire."
"I have things on my mind."
"Obviously you have. I was just asking what things."
"Are you some kind of Grand Inquisitior? Can I not even think now without your permission?" he snapped.
He saw the tears jump into Lilian's eyes and her plump face pucker. It was very unjust of him. They had the kind of relationship where each would ask the other hoe they felt and what they were thinking. It was monstrous of him to behave like this.
He admitted it.
"I only asked because you looked worried." Lilian was almost mollified.
"I'm wondering did I do the right thing over Kathleen Sullivan, telling her to have the funeral above in the Home." said Peter Kelly, and listened with part of his mind to some of his wife's views on the subject while he tried to work out the implications of Helen McMahon's pregnancy.
In the pit of his stomach was the feeling that all was not as it should be. There was no reason why Martin and Helen should not try for a late baby. Helen must be thirty-seven or thirty-eight, an age when most women around here would think nothing of having children.