The River Capture

by Mary Costello

  After five days, the muscle cells began to pulse.

  xr

  Josie lost her childhood when Una fell down the well, he writes, but she got it back with Lucy and me. I’m going to marry Lukey, she’d say, and then run to fetch the broom and lay it on the ground between us for the mock wedding. All her life she drank her tea from a saucer. She kept nests of kittens in her room. She ate chocolate muffins in bed at night. She could probably hear our hair growing.

  I was bereft when she died. I thought: how easy it is to die, how fragile and easily extinguished the pattern of ordinary life is. I’d wake up at night shaking and frightened. Some days I couldn’t breathe for her loss, my arms liquid with love for her. And then one night, I felt myself rise from the bed, and hover, and observe myself from above. I started to interrogate that self that lay on the bed. It was like an inquisition, but what accrued slowly was a record of my life and with it a validation of me. I was no longer afraid. Even as it was happening, even as I was looking down and interrogating myself, I knew it was the machinery of my mind restoring order on a shocked, bereaved self.

  Why, in the larger picture, she even existed? But people as good as Josie calibrate those around them. Humans are moved by rivers and mountains. She could implore something beautiful down from the sky into her apron. Pigeons descended to be close to her. As if she herself had been in the sky. As if she, in all her simplicity, had more answers than God. But of course she and simplicity had nothing in common. She was deeper and more damaged than any of us. But she was safe with me.

  Lx

  Shane, the boy I told you about, is in a secure unit in Oberstown tonight. The foster parents sent him back. He had a pillow-fight with the eleven-year-old boy in the family. He’d snuck a brick into his pillow beforehand. And the thing was, he actually liked this family. They were his best chance, maybe his last chance. xr

  I want to meet your mother and your sisters, and I want you to meet Ellen. She’s like a mother to me. I wish you’d known Josie, and my mother and father.

  Write to me, Ruth. Write to me honestly. Tell me everything. ‘Love is unhappy when love is away.’ Lx

  Be honest, you say … Well, late at night I’m plagued by thoughts of your past. You, with men. I feel very unevolved saying this. I tell myself these fears will subside. I keep thinking: why did you suddenly change direction, sexually, when you were twenty-seven? You must have had an inkling before then, felt the change coming. In the dead of night all these fears rain down on me – I’m convinced, for instance, that you share some secret bond with every man you meet, and that being with me will deprive you of something. Will it? Will a part of you always be unreachable to me? Please be patient with me. It’s not love if it’s not jealous – I don’t believe anyone who says otherwise. xr

  ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON, when they are out for a walk, they visit Ellen.

  ‘We won’t stay long,’ Luke says after he has introduced Ruth and Ellen to each other. ‘Ruth is heading back to Dublin shortly.’

  ‘Your house is lovely,’ Ruth says. She is sitting on the edge of the sofa, her feet tucked in under her.

  He watches Ellen watching Ruth. Sizing her up. Guessing her age. Women can be hard on each other. Ellen wanting only what’s good for him, but maybe no woman will ever be good enough for him, or for Ardboe. Used to call Mammy Her Ladyship when she was irked.

  ‘And the garden too,’ Ruth says. ‘You have a great view.’

  Ellen turns towards the window and in the second her head is turned Luke catches Ruth’s eye and gives her the briefest wink and then, barely stirring a muscle, makes a swift, furtive thumbs-up sign from hands resting calmly on his thighs.

  They talk a little about the garden. Ruth’s mother likes to garden, she says. Ellen is paying full attention. When she excuses herself and goes to the kitchen to make tea they are, in her absence, like giddy kids – whispering, poking each other, making faces.

  When she returns with tea and biscuits she gives them a wide-eyed smile, as if surprised to find them still there.

  ‘It was Ruth who got me the dog,’ Luke explains.

  ‘That’s right, I remember. A nice little fella – by the look of him,’ Ellen says. Then, turning to Ruth, ‘Luke is a big softie when it comes to animals.’

  ‘Oh, she’s much worse herself,’ he says, nodding towards Ruth. ‘I’m only in the halfpenny place compared to her.’

  They drink the tea. For a while the only sound is the little tinkle of china when they leave the cups down. Luke’s foot starts tapping. Lost for words, all of them.

  He hops up and takes down a framed photograph from the mantelpiece. ‘That’s Ellen there,’ he says, pointing, ‘with the family she worked for in America … Wasn’t she a fine-looking woman in her day?’

  Ruth scans the photo and looks at Ellen. ‘Luke told me you lived in America for years.’

  ‘I did indeed. Forty-two years. I went there when I was twenty-three.’

  ‘It must’ve been a big change coming back after all that time. You must miss America.’

  Ellen hesitates, as if thrown by the question. ‘I’m back a long time now,’ she says. ‘Sixteen years. I miss certain things – the variety of foods, the weather in springtime, everywhere so clean and tidy, especially on Long Island where I lived.’ She gives a little laugh. ‘The mailboxes too – familiar things … the front lawns, even the yellow school buses.’ She pauses and looks at Ruth. ‘America was very good to me for all those years.’

  She offers more tea. ‘I always knew I’d come back though,’ she continues. ‘I thought I’d come back when I was still young, and settle down here.’

  He has the sense that she is trying to tell him something. Tell them. That life is short, perhaps.

  Ruth is still gazing at the photograph.

  ‘That was taken out in California,’ Ellen says, leaning over a little to look at it. ‘Around 1973 or ’74, I think. We’re all there at the ranch, sitting around on the terrace. Mrs Clark moved out there permanently a few years later.’

  ‘They were very wealthy, the Clarks, weren’t they, Ellen?’ Luke says. ‘Ellen did everything and went everywhere with them – she’d be called a personal assistant today. Mrs Clark’s brother was a politician – the Governor of Vermont, was it, Ellen?’

  She nods. ‘It was a good life.’

  Ruth hands him the photo and gives him a look he cannot interpret. All the ways to read each other still unknown.

  ‘I think Luke said you’re from Dublin, Ruth?’ Ellen says.

  ‘No, I’m from just a few miles out the road, Curraboy. I work in Dublin all right.’

  ‘What did you say your name is?’

  ‘Ruth, Ruth Mulvey. My mother’s name is Angela. Maybe you know her?’

  Ellen nods. ‘I don’t know your mother personally, I only know of her.’

  After a few moments, he says, ‘We’d better head off soon. Ruth has to drive back to Dublin.’

  At the door, the two women shake hands. Luke hugs Ellen. ‘I’ll give you a call later,’ he says quietly. When he goes to draw away, she holds onto him for a moment longer than he expects.

  ‘There’s no need to call me later,’ she says. ‘Drop up to me in the morning, will you? I want to talk to you.’

  He looks at her curiously. ‘Sure. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says and taps him lightly on the back, a little there-there tap. ‘Off you go, now.’

  ‘DID YOU KNOW?’

  ‘Did I know what? … Ellen, what’s wrong?’

  They are in her sitting room the next morning. Her eyes are fixed on him.

  ‘Is she Mossie Mulvey’s daughter? Is that who she is?’

  He makes a face. ‘Who’s Mossie Mulvey?’

  She turns her head to the window.

  ‘Ellen, please, what’s going on? You’re frightening me now.’

  ‘What’s her father’s name?’

  ‘Ruth’s father is dead. Maurice, I think … yes, Maurice. What’s Rut
h got to—’

  ‘That’s him … Maurice. Mossie Mulvey.’ She looks him directly in the eye. ‘You have to give her up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s bad news, Luke. Give her up.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Ellen? What’s gotten into you?’

  ‘I was engaged to her father years ago. It ended badly. I had to take him to court.’

  His stomach lurches.

  ‘You know those big trunks of mine above in the house? There’s a wedding gown in one of them. It was bought in Bloomingdales in New York one morning in the autumn of 1962. Mrs Clark was with me – it was her gift to me. It cost $450, an absolute fortune at the time … I never got to wear it.’

  He is shaking his head. ‘Stop, please. Slow down. What happened?’

  ‘I was a fool, that’s what happened. I made the mistake of thinking that Mossie Mulvey was a good, honest man. He seemed honest. He had a fine farm, he came from a good family. We were a good match – and that mattered in those days. And, much as I loved the Clarks, I never wanted to stay in America. I was always going to come home and settle down.’

  ‘What happened? What went wrong?’

  ‘He lied, that’s what went wrong! Why, I’ll never know. We got engaged in the summer of ’62 and planned to marry the following summer when I’d move back home for good. But a few months after I returned to the States – after getting engaged – he started to pull away from me. In his letters, I mean. The letters became less warm and less frequent. Oh, I should have confronted him – I know that now. But at the time I was afraid – afraid to admit that anything might be wrong. So I ploughed on with the plans, bought my wedding gown, my wedding chest, all that stuff.’

  A fly lands on a paper napkin on the coffee table beside him. It seems to be moving its forelegs, like hands, over its head, like a cat washing.

  ‘I’d write him letters telling him how I couldn’t wait to be married,’ she says, ‘telling him how much I missed him and … loved him. I’d be longing for his letters – they were our only means of communication. But his were getting scarcer and more distant and finally I asked him straight out if everything was okay, or if I had done or said anything to offend him. Well, he hummed and hawed and avoided answering that question for weeks. Then he said yes, I had annoyed him a few times when I was home … He made out that I told him what to do, and that what I said and the way I said it sounded to him like an order! Well, I was mortified. I apologised profusely, explaining I never meant to sound like that, that I only wanted what was best for him. Anyway, that wasn’t really it, that was just a cover, that was him trying to set things up.’

  Luke’s heart is thumping. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He claimed to have received anonymous letters about me … saying nasty things about me. He said he got three or four of these letters over several months. Well, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it – who would write nasty letters about me? I had no enemies here – or anywhere.’

  ‘But who would – I don’t understand.’ He shakes his head. ‘It makes no sense.’

  She is silent, looking at him.

  ‘Ellen?’

  ‘Are you’re doubting me, Luke?’

  ‘Go on, Ellen, please. Tell me what happened.’

  She takes off her glasses, rubs her eyes. ‘Before any of this trouble … before it all went wrong, there were good times – normal, happy times, Luke. I want you to know that. Dancing, little road trips, boat rides on the river …’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘What I’m trying to say is that there was a relationship, a real relationship between Mossie and me. Your father knew him. We’d all go to the dances together and they’d talk about cattle and the beet harvest and things … It existed, it was not some figment of my imagination.’

  ‘But why? Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll never know why any of it happened. I told him over and over that there was no truth in those letters, that it was all malicious lies. I begged him to ignore them or at least go to the Guards. At that stage my main concern was to reassure him that I was telling the truth … It was a terrible time, Luke, and … also, I felt for him too, you know, I really did. It was tough being so far away from him, every day waiting for a letter from him and nearly always being disappointed. Sleepless nights, worrying constantly, thinking that all this would reach Mamma and upset her.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I wrote every day pleading with him to believe me. I’d dash down to the post office in Laurel Hollow at lunchtime to get a letter out in the afternoon post. Begging him constantly to stay strong and believe me, and that when I got home we’d get to the bottom of this together.’

  She looks at Luke. ‘I was going up the wall – being so far from him, not able to talk to him. We arranged a few phone calls but he wasn’t much good on the phone … and nothing I said seemed to reassure him. And that made me even lonelier and more frightened.’

  Silence again, the image of the phone calls lingering. His heart racing.

  ‘What was in the letters, what sort of lies?’

  ‘Does it matter, at this stage?’

  ‘It does.’

  She averts her eyes and sighs.

  ‘He said the letters were warning him about me, tipping him off. He said they claimed that I had a child in America, that I was “a loose woman” … A loose woman!’ She lets out a wry, bitter little laugh. ‘Someone – or someone who knew someone – had a baby in a hospital in New York a few years before, and apparently I was in the bed next to her, after giving birth! Can you credit it!’

  ‘And were there letters? Did you actually see them?’

  ‘Eventually he produced two. I believe he wrote them himself, or got a drinking pal to write them.’

  He brings a hand to his face.

  ‘The correspondence went on like this, back and forth between us for months,’ she continues. ‘I was going out of my mind. I never expected for one minute that he’d doubt me. Not for one minute! It was awful, awful … Going to bed every night after a long day’s work, full of fear and dread, waking up to face another day the same way. Finally I wrote to your father and told him everything. Not an easy letter to write, as you can imagine. Your father met him and tried to get to the bottom of things but only came to a dead end. Eventually we had to tell Mamma. I came home early that summer, still hopeful I could sort things out – that once he saw me and heard the truth in person – out of my mouth – he’d have no doubts whatsoever. How wrong I was!

  ‘I asked him to come up to Ardboe that first night, and he did, but he wouldn’t come in. He waited in the car until Mamma and Josie and your father were gone to bed. Then he came into the kitchen, sheepish, you know. Everything was so fragile between us … I feel sick even now thinking of it … Answer me, yes or no, I said, do you believe what was written about me in those letters? I don’t know, he said, it leaves a doubt. You either believe them or you don’t, I said, so which is it? I don’t know, he said, I don’t feel right inside, the letters are after coming between us. There was a long silence then. I remember thinking that he’s a good man and I’m a good woman and this – this shouldn’t be happening, and if we stick at it and if we have good intentions, we’ll be all right. And I really believed that. I felt this great peace coming over me and I reached out a hand to him, hoping he’d … But he didn’t move. He just sat there like a stone. Finally I asked if he’d stand by me until I was either proven innocent or guilty. He couldn’t even look at me. He shook his head. I don’t feel right, he said, I think it’s best to call things off … I remember the clock ticking behind me on the wall. It must have been past midnight by then. I could feel everything slipping away from me. I looked out the window into the night. I knew in my heart it was all over then.’

  The clock on the wall. Not the same clock. The table is the same.

  ‘They were terrible times, Luke, terrible times! Do you know what it was like for a woman to be labelled loose t
hen? I knew it would be the end of me – no one would ever touch me. And all lies, all lies … But mud sticks, Luke, and especially to women. People love gossip and scandal and the more salacious the better. The whole parish was talking about me. The unfairness of it – it still rankles. Never really knowing if I was believed – because it’s a man’s world and women are the first to be doubted, women are never really trusted. I learned that lesson – how quick people are to malign women, view us as liars, as conniving. Even my own family, good as they were, I often wondered if they doubted me too. Mamma and your father – if they had moments when they thought, well, she’s beyond in America and she might well have had a child and we wouldn’t know. Don’t tell me that thought didn’t cross their minds. I had to do something! I was raging and frightened out of my wits – and grieving him too, and grieving all that was lost. But I had to clear my name and my reputation. I was not going to lie down under his damn lies. Never! I’m an O’Brien, Luke, and when it comes to the truth, I’m a lioness. So I consulted a solicitor – your father came with me to Cork – and the solicitor told me the best way to proceed was to sue Mossie for breach of promise and defamation. And that’s what I did. But the upset it caused, the scandal! I thought it would all happen quickly but it dragged on for a couple of years, as these things do, back and forth between the two solicitors, with all the usual delays and adjournments. Luckily I had kept all his letters – and he had kept mine. The case was originally to be heard in the Circuit Court in Cork, but because of the amount of damages we were looking for, we got it transferred to the High Court in Dublin.’