by Sandy Taylor
‘You haven’t met the right boy,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you come to the Irish club with me and the girls one Saturday?’
‘Wouldn’t they mind?’
‘Not a bit of it. They’re really nice, all three of them. You never know, Erin, you might meet the love of your life, or at the very least, someone you can spend more than five minutes with.’
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I’m reverting back to Dymphna. My family thought that the whole thing was hilarious and none of them would call me Erin. To be fair, Mammy did try, but she was mocked for her trouble. There’s no point in being Erin here and Dymphna at home.’
‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ I said, quoting Mr Shakespeare, who I thought had a very elegant turn of phrase.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Dymphna, laughing.
We pulled on our coats and lifted the cases down from the rack. ‘Call in at the shop,’ I said. ‘We’ll make arrangements for you to meet the girls.’
‘Grand so,’ she said.
We walked across to Joe. ‘This is Dymphna, Joe, I told you about her.’
‘Pleased to meet you Dymphna,’ said Joe, smiling.
Dymphna gave me a hug. ‘See you soon then,’ she said. Joe took my case as we walked out of the station. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, taking hold of my hand.
‘I’ve only been gone a few days.’
‘Well, it’s been a very long few days.’
I kissed his cheek. ‘You really missed me then?’
‘Every day. My sisters have been tormenting me about it. They said I’ve been acting like a love-sick eejit and they’re probably right.’
‘Well, I’m home now,’ I said.
He stopped and smiled down at me. ‘Home?’ he said.
What had made me say home? Dublin wasn’t my home, Ballybun was my home. Paradise Alley was my home.
‘I don’t know what made me say that,’ I said.
‘I like that you said it,’ said Joe.
We walked slowly back to the digs, our bodies perfectly in step. It was cold but my hand felt warm in his. Maybe home wasn’t a place, maybe home was a person. Maybe home was Joe.
Thirty-Six
As winter turned to spring, Joe and I grew closer. When we walked out together, I was proud to be seen with him. I rarely thought of home now and pushed any guilty feelings about Mammy and the Grey House to the back of my mind. I didn’t know what the future held for me, I only knew that Joe was going to be a part of it.
When I’d come to Dublin, I’d never planned to stay. In fact, I hadn’t planned anything at all, I’d just wanted to get away. I’d been sure that one day I would return home and make my life in Ballybun. I hadn’t known that I would meet a boy and fall in love. The thought of never going back, never seeing Malachi grow up or Grandad Doyle getting older, made me want to cry – it was something too awful to imagine. Dublin was too far from home and home was too far from Joe. But Joe’s future had been mapped out since he was a child; he would take over the bakery, his life would be here and if we married, then my place would be beside him. At night as I lay next to Josie, I turned the problem over and over in my mind. I just couldn’t see myself in either place. I decided to talk to the girls about it.
That evening we all crammed into mine and Josie’s room. It was a warm night and we opened the window to let some air in.
‘Isn’t it a bit soon to be thinking about settling down?’ said Molly.
‘But if she’s sure of the feller?’ said Ellis.
I smiled at her, I thought she was the wisest of the four of us and I valued her opinion. ‘I am sure,’ I said.
‘But what if you change your mind down the road?’ said Josie. ‘And you’re working yourself to death in that bloody bakery, with a crowd of kids hanging off your apron?’
‘I’m sure that if I had a crowd of kids, I wouldn’t be working in the bakery. I’d be at home minding them.’
‘Well, either way you’d be trapped,’ said Josie.
‘I know what the Bible says on the subject,’ said Ellis, gently, ‘if that’s any help.’
‘Of course you do,’ said Molly, crossing her eyes.
‘I’d like to hear it, Ellis,’ I said.
‘Well, it says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.” So, I suppose that’s saying that your Joe should follow where you go and if you have a mind to go to Ballybun, then it’s his duty to go with you but I’m not sure that life is that simple. Besides, he might not pay much mind to the teachings of the Bible.’
‘But what do you think, Ellis?’
‘I think that you would need to come to some sort of agreement that will make you both happy.’
‘Has Joe asked you to marry him then?’ said Molly.
‘Not exactly, but we talk about our future and how many children we will have and what we are going to call them. You know, dreams.’
‘Well, I don’t think you should be making any long-term plans,’ said Molly. ‘Or be worrying about where you are going to end up. You’re only young, for God’s sake – you need to live a bit before you settle down.’
‘Nora came to us for advice,’ said Ellis. ‘She knows as well as we do how old she is, but this is worrying her and it’s no help for you to be telling her that she’s too young to be settling down.’
We all stared at Ellis, who normally said very little but had gone a bit red in the face.
‘You’re right, love,’ said Molly, smiling at Ellis. ‘I have too much gob on me.’
Talking to the girls hadn’t resolved anything but it had made me realise that I needed to just enjoy being with Joe and that I should leave the rest to fate.
When I wasn’t working in Finnigan’s and Joe could get away from the bakery, we spent our days wandering around the city. Sometimes we went to the picture house to see a film, or we’d find a café and just sit and talk. We didn’t do anything exciting, but we didn’t feel the need to. It was enough just to be together. There was no place to be alone but I began to think that maybe that was a good thing, because as our feelings for each other deepened and our kisses became more urgent, the last thing we needed was to be alone. My family were too important to me to bring shame on them. Mammy had enough to worry about without having a wayward daughter as well. She had never wanted me to go through what she had gone through and I would never let her down, however much I loved Joe.
It was Monday morning and Finnigan’s was desperate quiet, so we were all trying to keep busy, tidying shelves and dusting books. As the dust flew around the shop, Molly began sneezing.
‘I think I might be allergic to books,’ she said.
‘You’re not allergic to books,’ said Ellis, ‘you’re allergic to dust.’
The morning dragged and we were all fed up and couldn’t wait for lunchtime when we could escape for an hour. We were just deciding where to go to eat our sandwiches when Miss Berry walked towards me.
‘Nora, your parish priest is on the phone.’
I could feel my whole body turn icy cold and the blood drain from my face.
‘Is it Stevie?’ I said. ‘Please don’t let it be Stevie.’
‘I don’t know anything, Nora,’ said Miss Berry. ‘I only know that he wants to speak to you.’
The girls crowded round me and Ellis handed me a glass of water.
‘Are you ready to talk to him?’ asked Miss Berry, gently.
I nodded and followed her into the office. It was going to be bad news – why else would Father Kelly be ringing me at the shop? I was shaking as I picked up the phone. It felt heavy and cold in my hand.
‘Father?’ I said.
‘Now I know I’ll have given you a fright, Nora, so let me assure you straight away that your family are all safe and well.’
I hadn’t realised that I’d been holding my breath until I let out a sigh and felt my body relax. My family were alright and that’s all I needed to hear. ‘T
hen why are you calling, Father, if it’s not about my family?’
‘There’s been an accident, Nora, and I thought you would want to know.’
‘What sort of accident?’
‘A car crash. The Bretton family were travelling to a wedding in Cork. Pat Lamey, who was driving, had a heart attack at the wheel and the car crashed into a tree.’
I couldn’t speak.
‘Are you still there?’ said Father Kelly.
‘Who was in the car?’ I asked in a whisper.
‘All of them, except Caroline – she’d gone up by train the day before. Nora, I have to tell you they all died at the scene. God rest their souls.’
I could feel hot tears burning behind my eyes. I didn’t want to ask the question, because once I knew, then nothing would ever be the same again. I took a deep breath. ‘Eddie?’
‘I’m sorry, Nora.’
I put my head down on the table and cried as if my heart was breaking. I would never see Eddie again, I would never work beside him in the garden, or soar high over the little pond on the swing he made me, or plant bulbs, or cut back the roses or just sit together on the green bench while the snow fell about our shoulders. He couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t, because he was as alive in my mind as if he was standing in front of me. His sweet smile, the way his hair fell over his eyes, the habit he had of scratching behind his ear, the way the sun glistened on the fine hairs of his arms when he rolled up his sleeves. He couldn’t be gone, he just couldn’t. Not the Eddie who had shown me a secret garden and taught me the names of the flowers and the birds. It felt as if a light had gone out of my life. I had lost my dear, sweet, gentle friend. I had lost my brother.
This journey home was different in so many ways. When I’d first left for Dublin there had been so many emotions. Sadness to be leaving my family, mixed with relief to be away from the town that had almost broken me. When I’d gone home for Christmas, I had been full of excitement to see my family again and to walk up Paradise Alley and then my return to Dublin to be with Joe, but there was no joy in my heart now as the train sped towards home and all the sadness that awaited me there. My heart was as frozen as the garden in winter.
As the train pulled into Cork, I stood up and pulled my case down from the rack, my feet felt like lead. The first person I saw on the platform was Mammy, searching the crowds of people, stepping down from the train. I ran into her arms and she held me close. Then she took my face in her hands and said, ‘He’s not dead, Nora. Eddie is not dead.’
Thirty-Seven
The news that had reached Father Kelly was that the whole family had died in the crash, but somehow Eddie had survived. He was badly injured and no one held out much hope for him but he was alive and that was all I needed to know. I could see him and I could hold him and I could give him strength, I could give him my strength. If love could make him live then he would live, because I loved him and I wasn’t going to let him die. All I knew was that I had to see him, I had to be near him.
All my thoughts had been for Eddie. I’d hardly given a thought to the rest of the family who had died in the crash but now I found myself thinking about Peter Bretton, the man who was my father. I’d never known him. I had never wanted to know him because I already had a daddy and I’d never needed another one. I tried again to bring his face to mind, it suddenly seemed important, but all I could remember was his hair curling over the back of his collar, hair like Eddie’s, hair like mine. I remembered that he had seemed kind and that he’d wanted to share a cup of tea with me. Perhaps he’d wanted to get to know me but didn’t know how, so he did the only thing he could do – he left me my fortune. Maybe it was his way of saying that he knew who I was, and that in his own way, he cared about me and wanted to make sure that I was happy. I said a silent prayer for the father I would never get the chance to know.
Eddie was in a hospital in Cork but only family could visit him. Well, I was his family and if I had to break down the doors of the hospital, no one was going to keep me away. The next day, Father Kelly, Mammy, Daddy and me drove to the hospital.
Father Kelly laid his hand on my shoulder at the doors. ‘They might not let us in, Nora,’ he said, gently. He went to find a doctor while we sat on chairs and waited.
We watched people coming and going, we watched them being wheeled past on trollies and wheelchairs. Nurses hurried along the corridors. They wore dark navy dresses covered by crisp white aprons that crossed over at the back and white caps covering their hair. The doctors wore white jackets and some wore suits. I watched them come in and out of the rooms, sometimes standing outside to talk to each other. I wondered if one of them was the room that Eddie was in. I wanted to open every door until I found him. A couple sat down beside us – the woman was crying and the man had his arm around her. Mammy touched the woman’s arm and she smiled sadly through her tears. I shall never forget the smell of the place. It was an indoor smell, an unnatural smell; cleaning fluid and soap and, faintly, the smell of people; of breath and cigarette smoke, sweat.
It felt like hours before Father Kelly returned with the doctor. Daddy stood up and shook the doctor’s hand.
The doctor smiled at me. ‘Nora?’ he said.
‘I have to see him,’ I said, urgently. ‘I’m his sister, you see, and I have a right to see him.’
‘Yes, you have,’ he said kindly.
‘Can you tell us how badly injured he is, doctor?’ asked Daddy.
‘Edward’s back was broken on impact. He is sedated, and he won’t be able to talk to you.’
‘But I can talk to him,’ I said.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘His aunt is with him.’
We watched the doctor going into a room a little way down from where we were sitting and we waited. I didn’t care what Caroline said; I wasn’t scared of her anymore and she wasn’t going to keep me away from Eddie just because she was Caroline Bretton. If Eddie lived, she would never keep me from him again.
We could hear raised voices coming from the room but I didn’t care if her voice raised the roof, I was going to be with him. Eventually the door opened and the doctor and Caroline Bretton came out. She stood for a moment and stared at us, then walked away. The doctor shook his head but beckoned us in.
‘Do you want to go in on your own?’ asked Mammy. ‘Or do you want us with you?’
‘I’d like to be alone, Mammy.’
Mammy stood up and put her arms around me. ‘Go and see your brother,’ she said. ‘We will be right here if you need us.’
The only bright colour in the room was a vase of red roses – the blooms looked like splashes of blood against the whiteness of the walls and bedsheets. The light that day was blinding, rushing through a window on one wall, illuminating the room like a theatre, glinting off the side of the vase that held the flowers.
In the centre of the room was a narrow bed with the covers neat and straight. Beside it was the kind of chair I remembered from school – wooden, upright and uncomfortable-looking. On the other side was a wooden cabinet with a glass water bottle and a glass. The heart-shaped stone I’d given Eddie for Christmas lay on the top of the cabinet.
Eddie was in the bed. I didn’t recognise him at first because I’d never seen him so still. His face was bruised and one arm was in a cast. I reached out and held his hand that lay on the crisp white sheet. It was warm and soft, and I took comfort in the warmth because it meant there was blood running through it. It was warm because however badly injured he was, he was still alive.
‘I’m here,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve come home.’ I looked at his sweet face and gently brushed the hair away from his eyes. ‘If you can hear me, I want you to imagine that it’s autumn, remember how beautiful the garden is in autumn? Leaves are drifting from the trees and falling around us, browns and greens and yellows, like a shower of rainbows putting on a show just for us. A single golden leaf with crinkled edges lands on my head, making us giggle. Can you hear us, Eddie? Can you hear our laughter dancing a
cross the garden and floating up into the sky above the tall trees?
‘The garden is alive, Eddie, it’s alive with growing things that we’ve planted and all the little creatures who have made it their home and it’s alive with us. In a hundred years from now, when nature has claimed it once more, our spirits will still be there, our laughter will still echo within those old stone walls and the last rose of summer will still belong to us. Imagine the garden, Eddie, and it will carry you away from this room and this bed and it will take you to our special place. You have to live, my darling brother, because I love you and I need you. You have to live, Eddie, you have to live.’
Thirty-Eight
Father Kelly arranged for me to stay with the nuns at the convent in Cork, just like Mammy had when Stevie was in the hospital. I had to be close to Eddie, even if he didn’t know that I was there.
The doctor told me that Caroline visited in the mornings, so I went every day in the afternoons and was able to go straight to his room and not sit in the corridor waiting for her to leave. Slowly, Eddie began to wake up, his eyes opening for a while and then closing again – he seemed peaceful and not in any pain. I held his hand and talked to him about my life since I’d gone away. I told him about Dublin and the new friends that I had made. I described St Stephen’s Green and the lovely lake and the ducks. I didn’t know whether he could hear me but I kept talking. ‘I work in a bookshop, Eddie. It’s called Finnigan’s, you’d love it. When I first went to work there, I had to do all the dusting, but I didn’t mind because it was books that I was dusting. I serve the customers now and I feel like a real shop girl. My friend Molly works in the antiquarian section, I know that you will understand that word because of your schooling. I’ve discovered writers I’d never heard of before, like Voltaire and Swift and Pope – I expect you have those books up at the Hall but it’s all new to me.’