The Healer: a dark family drama

by Sharon Thompson

  ‘Bredagh and Vincent are in Dublin, aren’t they?’ I ask.

  ‘There’s been changes in the “Big Smoke” with the newspapers talking about the shooting of some bad boyos. Vincent is up to no good in the capital: he’d need to watch himself.’

  ‘I’ve prayed that he’ll die.’

  Violet doesn’t give out, even she can see why I would wish such things. ‘One bad man I know has died in Dublin recently. But the beast is still alive.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Jane asks.

  I touch my heart and my head. She understands me.

  ‘It might not be long, though, if things are bad in Dublin?’ Jane says.

  ‘There has been mention of that American criminal Larry Sheeran in the papers. He’s found a long-lost daughter. They mentioned it’s a Peggy Bowden and that she’s helping to nurse him now,’ Violet says, shuffling out a paper that she gets sent with the postman. There’s not too many papers sent to the local post office and sometimes she gets them many days late and goes off her head about it. ‘There’s no photograph, which is a pity. I do remember the last time she was all over the papers. She was so pretty! And her a Sligo woman?’

  I don’t remind her that Peggy’s also a criminal.

  Jane leans in over the rustling sheets, too, and is squinting. ‘Imagine? Is she your Peggy, do you think, Molly? If she is, then she’s the daughter to that Larry Sheeran who was run out of Dublin. Years ago. They were only letting him back to die on Irish soil. Your Peggy’s probably out of the frying pan into the fire, getting caught up in all of this.’ She taps her finger on the paper on the table. ‘Your angels got you out of Dublin just at the right time. I’d want nothing to do with the likes of that fellow Larry Sheeran. Family means nothing to the likes of him. I’d say he’s behind those shootings in Glasnevin. He’s looking to get his Dublin back.’

  ‘Peggy can take care of herself,’ I say. ‘It hasn’t taken her long to get in the papers and escape number 34. She’s living with him now, isn’t that what the papers said?’

  ‘Nursing him.’

  ‘She was looking to get away for a while too.’

  ‘But you had to cut yourself to escape her,’ Jane says. I pull the sleeves on my blouse down. ‘She must be some hard dolly bird! But even she doesn’t need to be involved with the likes of that Larry. They say he eats children.’

  Violet laughs and I do giggle. It is Jane’s fanciful way of putting things that lifts the mood in the kitchen.

  ‘They do.’ She laughs a little at it herself. ‘He’s a bad apple or egg or something rotten.’

  ‘At least Peggy won’t be looking for me. She’ll be busy.’

  ‘We’ll keep an eye and ear out as to where Bredagh is too.’ Jane squeezes my shoulder when passing. ‘But word is that she has fallen a long way from where she was when she had you working all the hours God sent. She’s whoring somewhere–’ Violet silences her with a glare. ‘She’s not doing so well. She’s busy too.’

  ‘You could try to stay here…’ Violet starts just as there’s a knock on the front door. We can hear the rapping all the way to the back of the house.

  ‘That is the guards looking to question me. I don’t like anyone to lie… but I think you should say that I’m not here.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Jane says, wiping her hands in her apron. ‘Lock that back door and keep that child quiet. I’ll lie to these boys and be back in a minute.’

  48

  ‘You were right, Molly. It was the law-men!’ Jane’s been given a whiskey by Violet to calm her nerves. It is in the good crystal and Violet never pours a whiskey so it is a big one. ‘They wanted to speak to you or know where you were and Dr Brady too. I said that the doctor’s up at the big house but they were looking about knowing what happened to that fellow Tommy and some woman called Dot McKenzie.’

  ‘The missing woman?’ Violet whispers.

  ‘The poor woman’s definitely been seen at number 34 Mountjoy Square and since she’s gone missing and you’ve gone missing as well, they’re asking questions. They said they’d come back to ask the doctor as he’s in charge of ya.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Violet gasps.

  ‘I said that you were here for a night, but that you ran away and we’ve no idea where you are. I said Mrs Brady was in bed since with the worry.’ Jane winks and cackles. ‘I should be on the stage.’ She cackles again. ‘The doctor won’t be worried about it. Sure, what can he do if you ran off? Like our Jude, you’re some runner.’ The giggles out of her are funny. I laugh too. ‘It’s the whiskey,’ she tells Violet. ‘Why am I talking to you? Sure, you’re in your bed with the worry. There’s no point in talking to you.’

  ‘You’re an awful woman. They’ll think I have a nervous condition now.’

  This makes Jane chuckle again and then start to choke on a mouthful. It sprays into the air and Fionn gurgles.

  Even Violet laughs as Jane slaps her knee in glee. Wiping her eyes she says, ‘It is good to laugh. But do you know anything about that McKenzie woman?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘There’s nothing to fear then, the truth will out,’ Jane says and slurps more big mouthfuls into her.

  ‘We’ll be gone early. They have done their duty now but they’ll be back. I hope the doctor will be all right? I don’t want to cause him any trouble after all he’s done for us.’

  ‘No-one turns the word in a doctor’s mouth,’ Jane says. ‘Sure, he’s a god about here. If he says something then, we all think that it’s truer than the Bible. Especially since you’ve been away. Dr Brady’s a fine doctor and he’s been building up a nice business. Everyone loves our Dr Brady.’

  She starts on the hiccups then and our sides are sore laughing at her.

  Jane’s wedding ring fits my finger. I refuse to take it at first, but she insists. ‘A band to protect your honour until we meet again. I’d be proud to let you wear it.’

  Dr Brady fills my purse with notes and many of his letters of recommendation and explanation line my handbag. I practice saying and looking at the address in Cricklewood. Oddly it’s number 340 Cricklewood Broadway, London. ‘Not far from The Crown pub, apparently,’ Dr Brady says pushing his glasses up onto his lovely nose. ‘Near Gladstone Park. Short walk for you Molly to take Fionn to green spaces. There’s many Irish there and a big dance hall. You must to go to it as well – dance and have fun. Meet people.’

  Violet is standing back to let me out the front door. She has already hugged me and Fionn and nudged Jude to stop crying. He wipes his nose with his sleeve and she doesn’t give out to him and takes his arm instead and both smile as I wave back with Fionn’s little hand. Dr Brady holds the truck door open and helps me up into the dark space between two burly men and hands me in Fionn. They ‘hullo’ and shift in their seats and one takes Fionn for me. I get comfortable and ask the angels to not let me cry. Our suitcase is tucked in somewhere and the door gets a bang. The engine revs off and we are again leaving.

  The men are full of chat after telling me their names. They talk about the fine son I have and the great ‘head of hair and fine teeth’ we both have. There’s a lovely atmosphere in the small space. They’re not sad to be finding work, only lonesome to be leaving home. They go for months, sometimes years at a time, but they are sure that they will be back. One of their first questions is if we will need a lift back and I truly don’t know.

  I sleep much of the way to the boat and so does Fionn. We board with a line of people and walk about and stretch the legs as the boat surges up and down. The wind whistles my hair around me and I don’t go near the railings in case Fionn would fall in. My stomach lurches, too, and I’m tired. It doesn’t take long for us to be back into another truck for a big drive. The darkness hides the world we’re in now, but there’s a busyness even in the night and it makes me happy for once to be surrounded in people. Fionn is not as settled as he usually is and each man takes it in turns to amuse him and I snooze a bit until I wake myself up from snoring. All the men are marrie
d and I am not worried about them being so close. There’s a sing-a-long for a time and I join in, ‘When Irish eyes are smiling…’

  ‘You can sing, my girl,’ the man driving says.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The talk comes around to Dublin and the goings-on with men killing each other. ‘The world has gone mad. They say that Larry Sheeran’s not as sick as he made out. He got to come back to Dublin because he wanted to die on Irish soil and now they say that he’s not dying at all. He has already taken over the whole of his side of the Liffey River. Has some family back now with him and all the rest of the city is running scared.’

  Peggy is making a name for herself already, I can feel it.

  No-one asks me about Fionn’s father but I’ve seen some of them look at Jane’s ring. They’re local men who I’ve no doubt met over the years at the healing, but none pretend to know me or my situation. They don’t seem to be judging me either. Irish men ask questions and I know that they will before long. Sure enough, one does mention my own father. ‘Michael’s not a bad fellow you know, Molly. Your father I mean. The drink is a curse and with your mother dying so young and the doctor taking in your brother… He’d little to live for after that brother of his was bad to you. We all know he was bad to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him and wave to Fionn who’s now with the man who’s driving and looking over at me. I’m glad they know the truth of things.

  ‘They say you don’t talk much.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Me mother always said if you’ve nothing good to say, then say nothing.’ His teeth are bad but he laughs all the same. ‘They’ll be no-one thinking badly of you in Cricklewood, if we’ve anything to do about it anyhow. You’re a fine lassie. We’ll tell the priest that we knew your husband.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Everyone in the truck knows I’ve never had a husband and probably never will.

  ‘We’ll send people to you for the healing too,’ one fellow says. ‘Pay no heed to anyone who tells you not to be doing it. You must. There’ll be lots of people looking to have the old ways around them and to be cured rather than going to the English doctors. Some of them won’t look at us anyhow. You’ll be rolling in money!’

  ‘I know.’

  They all laugh at my confidence.

  ‘It’s not about the money. I’m going to be a great woman,’ I tell them when they stop laughing. ‘Thank you for being good to us. I’ll not forget it.’

  49

  Cricklewood is a fine place. The rooms I’ve taken are above a grocer’s and he is a fine widowed man who says that his shop is open all hours of the day and well into the night. He offers me a job, too, if I need it. Considering the signs in other windows, ‘No blacks, no dogs and no Irish,’ he is generous.

  But the first morning, when I waken after only a few hours’ sleep, there are a few people standing under the small window in the busy street. I pull up the sash to hear, ‘You that Molly Brady? The healer? We’re all waiting to see ya.’

  The door out onto the street is separate from the shop and the stairs go straight into my little kitchen. There is a bedroom directly off it into the back of the building with no outside space for us, but Fionn toddles from the kitchen to the bedroom and around the few pieces of simple furniture. A tiny privy is tucked in under the stairs with a tiny door in the bottom hallway. Racing out the bedroom door, I fall over one man sitting waiting in the stairway. In my nightdress, I’m scarlet red when he lifts me. There are three more behind him and all are waiting on me. My life in Cricklewood is starting before I can even take a piss.

  With my overcoat on I wash in the bucket in the privy and pull on my best dress and buff my shoes with newspaper on the peg. Slipping back up past all the people waiting, I put on the kettle on the little stove and usher in the first person. He is a tall, broad man who has headaches. My hands go into his hair and it doesn’t take long for him to sigh into my hands. Fionn plays all the while, sucking and gnawing on a crust of bread the grocer left up to us. The milky tea spills from the mug I gave him as he walks around the floor but on and on I go, healing each person as best I can. It’s only eleven and I’m done with the queue at the door and have a tin full of donations that the people give to Fionn. He doesn’t mind that I take the money from his little grubby grip.

  ‘Blessings to the child. What a good child he is.’

  My heart is at peace in Cricklewood. The walls of the two-storey building are firm and will protect us. The streets are full of Irish people. I can ‘spot them a mile away’. The cut of their dress or the caps on the men, the walk or the accent, the nods and the hullos. Here, though, I hold my head high and fear no-one. The park is green as far as the eye can see and there are trees as tall as houses and as broad as roads. The traffic doesn’t bother me like it bothered me in the early days in Dublin and the weather is pleasant with a breeze that blows with a welcome in its tail. Fionn’s feet drag under his little tired legs, so I carry him nestled into my neck all the way home. I’m about ready to cry with tired joy at our new life when I see the man I fell over on the stairs earlier sitting on a bench not far from our door. He’s not Irish and is waiting on me.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asks me. His face is covered in stubble, dark like his hair and his brown eyes shine from under his soft cap. He thrusts it back on his head with calloused hands and then stands with it on his hip, smiling at us both. I like the heavy weight of Fionn in my arms and never want to let him go again.

  ‘No thank you. Your headache is better?’

  ‘It went like “puff”,’ his accent sings to me. He is not an Englishman. ‘The whole place says how good you are. I’ll take boy, he how you say? … Big for small boy and small arms.’

  ‘Could you open the door? There’s a key on a string inside the letter box.’

  ‘I know.’ He pulls the string and unlocks the door following me up the stairs and into our new home, taking the string and key with him. When he was here earlier I’d been distracted and hadn’t noticed how tall and handsome he is. He likes the look of me too. He’s uncomfortable and shuffles his hands into his pockets, he’s not sure he should be near my bed. Fionn gets tucked in and I kiss his little nose.

  ‘You’re alone?’ he says, looking around.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I might ask you… I might take you,’ his accent sings almost. ‘I take you to… Meet people? You dance? Yes?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must dance? Sing?’

  ‘I’m only here since late last night.’

  ‘I don’t want other man to ask you.’ His teeth are in a perfect row of white squares and his lips are full and grinning. ‘I heard you were in Cricklewood. I had to come see. Something in here,’ he points to his stomach, ‘told me to come.’

  ‘You work fast.’

  He misunderstands me, as he starts, ‘I work hard. Build for the film sets. You come see? Say yes?’ I point at Fionn and before I can say anything, ‘Bring the bambino.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘The men they say you sing. I love to sing,’ and he starts a song and stumbles over the English words. ‘Rain, rain, don’t go away, it’s so posie in the rain…’

  ‘Cosy in the rain, pitter patter on the pane…’ I know the song and sing with him for a few lines. Our voices are nice together.

  ‘Bella. You beautiful. The talk, it is right.’

  ‘There’s been plenty of gossip about me?’ I laugh and point to the one hard chair by the small kitchen table and make us a pot of tea as he mentions my dead husband. I can’t tell him it is a lie as he goes on that I’m a healer from Sligo, Ireland, by the name of Brady.

  ‘You know plenty.’

  ‘All the people they say you special? That you see… angels? My Nonna she die and on her dying she said she’d send me, how you say… a girl with fire hair. A hair, red girl.’

  The shadows are dancing, distracting me and making my eyes flit about.

  ‘Did she say abou
t my son?’

  ‘No.’ He’s not bothered by Fionn and smiles on at me.

  ‘I don’t have a husband. I never married.’

  ‘Oh.’ He smiles and then gulps at the mug.

  ‘I’m hoping Fionn’s father never finds me.’

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘I’m good in my heart. A good woman.’

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘I don’t like to talk much.’

  ‘I talk all time.’

  ‘I’ve been in prison.’

  This stops him slurping at the tea. He leaves the mug down. The shadows are hoping that I shut up.

  ‘I’m hiding in Cricklewood.’

  ‘From police?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He doesn’t look worried or like he may run away. ‘But all people know you are here.’

  I shrug. ‘Sure, what can I do?’

  ‘I’m Italian. I not like police.’

  I lean against the table and look down at him. From the top of his thick dark hair to the bottom of his working boots, he is a fine man. There’s no question that he’s a good, strong, hard-working man.

  ‘I make a beard,’ he says. ‘It nice, yes?’ His fingers rasp across his square jaw and his perfect teeth appear again in his sallow skin.

  ‘The angels told me to look out for a man with a beard. They said that he’d rescue me. That he’d fill my soul.’

  ‘Soul?’

  How do I explain it? I touch my heart, my head and then my lips.

  He thrusts out his hand with the dirty nails and says, ‘Molly Brady, Luca Giovanni Romano. My soul, it need you.’

  My hand is in his and when he leaves I find a tiny white feather on his seat.

  50

  The better days start. Letters come from Jane, Violet and Dr Brady. Jude sends an odd one when he is made to write. I can tell he is forcing the news out onto the paper. Growing up, he has no time with all his own school work and God knows what. I can’t read and neither can Luca but I smell the paper and wait until someone who can read comes for the healing. I ask them to read them to me, as payment. I can hear all the Brady’s and Jane O’Shea talk through the words. For the first time, I understand why people read and write.