Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin

Author:Colm Toibin [Toibin, Colm]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 1439148953
Amazon: B005Q5OLC2
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2009-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

It was freezing outside; they moved slowly through the streets huddled against each other, hardly speaking at all. When they came close to Clinton Street, however, he stopped and turned and faced her.

"There's something you've got to know," he said. "I'm not Irish."

"You don't sound Irish," she said.

"I mean I'm not Irish at all."

"None of you?" She laughed.

"Not a single bit."

"So where are you from?"

"I'm from Brooklyn," he said, "but my mom and dad are from Italy."

"And what were you doing--"

"I know," he interrupted. "I heard about the Irish dance and I thought I'd go and look at it and I liked it."

"Do the Italians not have dances?"

"I knew you were going to ask me that."

"I'm sure they're wonderful."

"I could take you some night but you would have to be warned. They behave like Italians all night."

"Is that good or bad?"

"I don't know, but bad because if I had gone to an Italian dance I wouldn't be walking you home now."

They continued in silence until they reached the front of Mrs. Kehoe's house.

"Can I collect you next week? Maybe get something to eat first?"

Eilis realized that this invitation would mean that she could go to the dance without having to take the feelings of any of her fellow lodgers into account. Even for Mrs. Kehoe, she thought, it would serve as an excuse not to have to accompany Dolores.

Later, during the week, as she was making her way from Bartocci's to Brooklyn College, she forgot what she was looking forward to; sometimes she actually believed that she was looking forward to thinking about home, letting images of home roam freely in her mind, but it came to her now with a jolt that, no, the feeling she had was only about Friday night and being collected from the house by a man she had met and going to the dance with him in the hall, knowing that he would be walking her back to Mrs. Kehoe's afterwards. She had been keeping the thought of home out of her mind, letting it come to her only when she wrote or received letters or when she woke from a dream in which her mother or father or Rose or the rooms of the house on Friary Street or the streets of the town had appeared. She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that it must be the prospect of home.

Around Mrs. Kehoe's table, Eilis's ditching of Dolores, which Patty, having fully witnessed, informed the others about before breakfast on Saturday morning, meant that they were all speaking to her again, including Dolores herself, who viewed being ditched, since it had resulted in Eilis meeting a man, as eminently reasonable. In return for this view, Dolores wanted only to know about the boyfriend himself, his name, for example, and his occupation, and when Eilis intended to see him again. All of the other lodgers had scrutinized him carefully

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