The Celtic Knot

The Cake from Jacob’s

When everyone gets home, Mam is up and dressed, pale but smiling by the window. Kathleen tells her they are all tired from the long walk home. Madge allows that Kathleen did quite well; Patsy shrugs that she didn’t do too bad. Only Lily blurts out that Kathleen won a medal, and dances around the room holding Eddy’s hands.

Kathleen pulls the medal from her pocket. It carries a lovely Celtic design and gleams in the afternoon sun. Mam reports Mother Rosario was right about Kathleen’s talent, and they will sew the medal onto a sash right away. Da declares this is only the first of many.

Polly allows that may be true, but they need their tea first. A large cardboard box sits on the table, and Kathleen can’t imagine how Polly knew she would win. Polly lifts out the biggest white cake Kathleen has ever seen, smothered in icing and decorated with rosebuds and silver balls. She announces it is a wedding cake, a Jacob’s wedding cake. She was married that very morning, at six o’clock Mass at the church everyone calls Adam and Eve’s.

The family erupts in questions. Da blurts that Polly never said a word. Everyone crowds around her, pulling at her, kissing her, all talking over one another.

Kathleen stands back, let down with a clunk, as though someone had told her they were taking her medal away to give to somebody else. What about their plans to share a garret, paint their toenails any color they liked, and drink brandy flips for breakfast? Was it all just talk? She turns away and tucks her medal into a drawer, where it loses its shine for her, and wipes her eyes with a napkin from the drawer.

Polly calls her name, and when Kathleen turns, Polly waits with raised eyebrows for her to speak. Kathleen can’t say what she truly feels, but manages, stiffly, that she hopes Polly and Bill will be happy together. Polly only stares, and the room falls silent. Then she admits she married Shamy Macnamara instead, adding that surely everyone saw it coming. She tries a small laugh, but nobody laughs with her, since all anyone had ever noticed was Shamy Macnamara pestering Polly half to distraction.

Kathleen starts to protest, but Polly cuts her off. She had said a lot, but Shamy is a grand man, and the truth is, they are sailing for America, where Polly means to become a regular Scarlett O’Hara, feather in her cap and all. Mam says America is a terrible long way away. Polly, cheeks flushed, explains that Shamy’s uncle over there will find him work, and Polly, too, if she wants it, and they have already booked passage as Mr. and Mrs. Macnamara, with a cabin to themselves.

Mam wants to know what possessed her to marry at dawn without a word to anyone. Polly, twisting her handkerchief, explains she would have waited until Mam was well, but Lent starts next week, and the ship would have sailed before they could marry six weeks on. Polly adds that this was supposed to be Kathleen’s day, besides.

Kathleen dabs her eyes, unwilling to cry on Polly’s wedding day, though the news has taken the wind out of her sails all the same. Once she trusts her voice, Kathleen asks after Bill, the one with smoldering eyes who looks like Rhett Butler. Polly murmurs that he was no good, a right bowsie, gorgeous or not, and nowhere near a patch on Rhett Butler. He had been two-timing her, so that settled that.

Kathleen finally demands why Polly needed to marry at all. What about growing into old maids together in a garret, eating chocolates in bed and taking tea at Bewley’s? Polly’s eyes go misty, and she starts to say she wishes, but never finishes the thought.

Instead, Polly snaps back into her bustling cheer, calling out orders. Madge is sent for the best china, since this is now a double celebration, with Shamy due any minute to help cut the cake. Patsy fetches the bread knife, Lily carries out the cups, and Da is put to wetting the tea. Madge protests they own no best china, only the plate that belonged to Granny Murphy, painted with roses and rimmed in gold.

Polly says that will do fine, so long as nobody drops it, or she will drop their head instead. She seems entirely her old, laughing self again, though Kathleen notices she is the only one not asked to help, and thinks sourly of Polly’s own favorite proverb: marry in haste, repent at leisure.

Kathleen mouths why the next time their eyes meet, and Polly draws her into a corner to explain that grown-up people simply build a life together. She has no wish to spend her days baking biscuits and staying poor forever, and Kathleen herself admitted as much that very morning. Kathleen hisses back Shamy Macnamara’s name, but Polly insists, firm now, that he is a good man who loves her. Kathleen isn’t happy about it, but hugs Polly anyway, trying to forgive her for giving up on their garret.

A creak sounds on the top stair. Polly remarks that it will be Shamy, and dashes out to meet him, the red spots flaring back up on her cheeks. She reappears moments later, tugging him by the hand, and presents him to the Murphys as her husband, Mr. James Aloysius Macnamara. Shamy stares at the floor throughout, done up uncomfortably in a brown suit and stiff collar, and reddens further when Mam welcomes him into the family and shakes his hand.

Da asks whether Mrs. Macnamara will pour the tea, or he will. Startled, Polly remembers the cake instead, and calls Shamy over to cut it with her, since she explains that cutting it together is what marriage is all about, handing him the bread knife. Shamy’s yes is the first word he has spoken since arriving. Together they cut the cake, which groans as the blade goes through and turns out to be packed full of fruit.

A round of hip-hip-hurrays goes up, and Da toasts the bride and groom, raising his teacup to the ladies present, Eddy too small to count. Everyone echoes it back three times, clinking cups and trying to look pleased for Polly’s sake. Madge passes round the cake, but Polly waves her own slice away, having had enough excitement for one day.

Polly then lifts her teacup to Kathleen and declares to the room that here, too, is the Irish dancing champion, the first-place medalist, Miss Kathleen Lightfoot Murphy, the Pimlico Prancer, headed for stardom. Da laughs, and Polly scolds Tommy Murphy, insisting the girl will go far and she will hear about her all the way from America. Kathleen begs her never to repeat that Pimlico Prancer nonsense outside the house, though she is secretly pleased. Polly promises that Kathleen will leave rivals like Tess O’Hara far behind, just as she did today, though never again will Polly sew her a dress out of a pair of curtains. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Kathleen remarks that sounds like getting married, and Polly agrees. Since she has been getting real answers for once, Kathleen risks another question. A married woman turns from a Miss into a Mrs., and Shamy is a Mr. now that he’s married, so why was he not a Master just yesterday? Polly thinks it over, then tells her to ask no questions and she will be told no lies.

Kathleen realizes, with dismay, that Polly is turning into exactly the sort of grown-up who won’t answer a straight question. Marriage, apparently, does that to a person.

Perhaps, Kathleen decides, she will be an old maid in her garret after all, even without Polly to share it. She will miss her terribly, though Polly is sure to visit on holidays now and again, and maybe someday Kathleen can sail to America herself.

Kathleen isn’t giving up her own dreams just because Polly has become Mrs. Shamy Macnamara. Her garret will need to be an especially large one, with room for dancing classes, since she would like to become a better teacher than Mrs. Maguire, teaching girls to fly for a shilling a lesson, and she has no intention of being poor, any more than Polly is.

Kathleen will paint her toenails whatever color she pleases and won’t bother going out to Bewley’s for tea. Instead, she will send out to Bewley’s for sticky buns any time she feels like it, and everything will arrive on a tin tray with a Japanese lady painted on it, threepence handed to the messenger boy for his trouble. That famous garret of hers will end up crammed with gleaming Irish dancing medals, won at feiseanna the length and breadth of the country, until it sparkles like a treasure cave. Kathleen is going to be a medal millionaire.