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be best if she stopped thinking about it altogether.
The following Sunday, Father Flood announced that the parish hall was now ready to run dances to raise funds for charities in the parish, that he had procured Pat Sullivan’s Harp and Shamrock Orchestra and that he would ask the parishioners to spread the word that the first dance would be held on the last Friday of January and then every Friday night after that until further notice.
When Mrs. Kehoe came briefly into the kitchen that evening, having left her poker session, and sat at the table, the lodgers were discussing the dance.
“I hope Father Flood knows what he’s doing,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “They ran a dance in that selfsame parish hall after the war and they had to close it because of immorality. Some of the Italians started to come looking for Irish girls.”
“Well, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Diana said. “My father is Italian and I think he met my mother at a dance.”
“I’m sure he is very nice,” Mrs. Kehoe said, “but after the war some of the Italians were very forward.”
“They’re lovely-looking,” Patty said.
“Be that as it may,” Mrs. Kehoe said, “and I’m sure some of them are lovely and all, but from what I heard great care should be taken with many of them. But that’s enough about Italians. It might be better for us all if we changed the subject.”
“I hope there’s not going to be Irish dancing,” Patty said.
“Pat Sullivan’s band are lovely,” Sheila Heffernan said. “They can do everything from Irish tunes to waltzes and foxtrots and American tunes.”
“That’s good for them,” Patty said, “as long as I can sit it out for the céilí stuff. God, it should be abolished. In this day and age!”
“If you’re not lucky,” Miss McAdam said, “you’ll be sitting down all night, unless of course it’s ladies’ choice.”
“That’s enough about the dance,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “I shouldn’t have come into the kitchen at all. Just be careful. That’s all I have to say. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Over the next while, as the night of the dance approached, the house broke into two factions: the first, which consisted of Patty and Diana, wanted Eilis to come with them to a restaurant where they would meet other people going to the dance, but the others—Miss McAdam and Sheila Heffernan—insisted that the restaurant in question was really a saloon bar and that the people who would gather there often were not sober or indeed decent. They wanted Eilis to go with them directly from Mrs. Kehoe’s house to the parish hall only as a way of supporting a good cause and to leave as early as was polite.
“One of the things I don’t miss about Ireland is the cattle mart on a Friday and Saturday night, and I’d be happy to stay single rather than have half-drunk fellows with terrible hair oil pushing me around.”
“Where I’m from,” Miss McAdam said, “we didn’t go out at all and none of us were any the worse for it.”
“And how did you meet fellows?” Diana asked.
“Will you look at her?” Patty interjected. “She’s never met a fellow in her life.”
“Well, when I do,” Miss McAdam said, “it will not be in a saloon bar.”
In the end Eilis waited at home with Miss McAdam and Sheila Heffernan and they did not set out for the parish hall until after ten o’clock. She noticed that both of them were carrying high-heeled shoes in their bags that they would change into once they arrived. Both, she saw, had backcombed their hair and were wearing make-up and lipstick. When she saw them first she was afraid that she herself would look dowdy beside them; she felt uncomfortable at spending the rest of the evening, no matter how short their stay in the parish hall, in their company. They seemed to have made so much effort, whereas she had merely tidied herself and put on the only good dress that she owned and a brand-new pair of nylon stockings. She decided, as they walked to the hall through the freezing night, that she would look carefully at what other women were wearing at the dance and make sure the next time that she did not look too plain.
As they approached she felt nothing but dread and wished she could have found an excuse to stay at home. Patty and Diana had laughed so much before they left, running up and down the stairs,