Promises, Promises

by Patricia Scanlan

  Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the Open Door series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.

  Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.

  Also by Patricia Scanlan

  Apartment 3B

  Finishing Touches

  Foreign Affairs

  Promises, Promises

  Mirror Mirror

  Francesca’s Party

  Two for Joy

  Double Wedding

  Divided Loyalties

  Coming Home

  Trilogies

  City Girl

  City Lives

  City Woman

  Forgive and Forget

  Happy Ever After

  Love and Marriage

  With All My Love

  A Time for Friends

  First published in Ireland by Poolbeg Press, 1996

  This paperback edition published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 1996

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  PB ISBN: 978-1-47114-117-1

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47114-118-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Acknowledgements

  Sometimes I feel I should call this book Miracle, Miracle because looking back on the year I spent writing it, it is a miracle that it got written. It was a tough year certainly but when the chips were down for me I had dear and true friends who took care of me and got me through the bad times. And so it is with the deepest gratitude and love I thank:

  God: I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart, before the angels I sing your praise. Psalm 138:1

  My wonderful family, especially my mother and father who looked after me with such love and kindness when I came out of hospital.

  My sister Mary – my best friend. (It was the best New Year’s Eve, ever!)

  My brothers, Donald, Hugh, Paul and Dermot, who take the greatest care of me.

  My sister-in-law Yvonne – my candle in the dark.

  Lucy, Rose and Catherine, thanks for reading the manuscript and giving me great encouragement.

  Henry who makes great fried bread.

  To my dearest agents, Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein, who make it all great fun and treat me like royalty when I visit them in London as do Francesca Liversidge, my dear kind UK editor, and all in Transworld. Can’t wait to see you at Christmas.

  Some friends never let you down no matter what, and I know I can always count on them.

  To my godmother, Maureen Halligan, Cinderella eat your heart out! She’s mine!

  To Margaret Daly, my wise, caring, loving friend whose phone calls made the hard times much easier for me.

  To Deidre Purcell, my dear, for all the belly laughs and for being cheerleader of the highest order, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  To Brenda Purdue. She read my manuscript. She gave me lifts when I couldn’t drive. She makes me laugh. She’s the best in the world.

  To Annette Tallon – no man is my enemy, no man is my friend, every man is my teacher – For all that you have taught me, Annette, there are not enough words of thanks. May the Divine pattern of your life be filled with serenity and joy.

  To Anne Schluman who makes the best toasted sandwiches ever! And to Ruth Bernstein whose memories I raided.

  To Audrey, Brenda, Olive and Emma in Mac’s Gym. Don’t give up hope!

  To Nikki and Susan for the hair and beauty bits.

  To Michael McLoughlin who listens to my sob stories, then I listen to his and we end up guffawing! Thanks mon ami.

  To Kieran Connolly my favourite computer buff . . . even if I’m still waiting to be shown how to use mail merge . . .

  To Tony Kavanagh who’s a brilliant writer and who makes me eat my greens! Thanks for reading the manuscript and for the Christmas card that still makes me laugh.

  To Noel Cleary. Sorry I drenched you at Mary’s barbie. Told you I’d put you in a book. Ha ha!

  To John Condon in RTÉ. Thanks for the beautiful flowers on the day of my op, and for all the support during the last year. ‘Raiders’ was great fun. Hollywood here we come!

  To Mr John Byrne, Maria, Betty, Tina, and all who looked after me in the Bons.

  To Dr Frankie Fine who looks after me all the time with such kindness.

  Thank you all. How lucky I am.

  This book is dedicated in loving memory to Bernadette MacDermott, a dear and cherished friend

  If at first you don’t succeed . . .

  Don’t make the same stupid mistake again . . .

  (anon)

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A Time for Friends

  With All My Love

  Part One

  Chapter One

  1961

  Glenree, North County Dublin

  I wonder what she’ll be like, Miriam Munroe thought as she strolled along the leafy back road that led to her mother-in-law Sheila’s house. She was going to meet Emma Connolly, her sister-in-law-to-be, for the first time. She’d heard a lot about Emma from Sheila Munroe.

  ‘She’s a judge’s daughter, you know,’ was Sheila’s constant refrain. ‘She mixes with the best of high society.’ All Glenree knew that Vincent Munroe was dating a judge’s daughter. Vincent was an estate agent. He was young, ambitious and hard-working. Vincent was going places. He’d sold a property to Judge Connolly and met Emma when she’d accompanied the judge to the viewing. It was love at first sight, Sheila declared proudly. When they announced their engagement, she was ecstatic. She had made a triumphant entrance into the Women’s Guild meeting that night and accepted the congratulations of the ladies of the town with regal composure.

  Poor Sheila was a terrible snob. M
iriam knew she was a bit of a disappointment to her mother-in-law. She was just a farmer’s daughter. And he’d been a relatively small farmer at that. The old, familiar hurt welled up as she thought of her late father. Even after four years of happy marriage to Ben, the memory of her father’s rejection of her still had the power to wound. ‘Don’t think about it,’ she muttered fiercely.

  She stopped walking and leaned her elbows on top of the old wooden gate that led into Blackbird’s Field. Miriam liked this shady little hollow. The rich emerald sward rippled in the breeze. Beyond that, Ned Doyle’s combine plundered a field of golden corn. A blackbird sang in a blackberry bush that was laden with ripe juicy berries. The scent of autumn perfumed the air. Miriam felt a measure of ease. The past was the past. She should let it go.

  It was just the unfairness of it all. When her father’s will had been read out it was as if he’d risen up from his grave and slapped her in the face. Even now Miriam could vividly recall the moment when she knew what she’d always suspected . . . that she meant little or nothing to her father. Tears pricked her eyes. She’d slogged her heart out at home until she was twenty-five, but her loyalty and effort had gone unacknowledged. For three years, she’d kept house for her elderly parents. She’d given up a good secretarial job in Limerick to go home to the farm on the banks of Lough Derg where she’d nursed her mother until she died of cancer.

  It hadn’t been easy. As well as nursing her mother, and running the house, Miriam had helped her father on the farm. Each morning she rose at six, prepared breakfast and then went to help him feed the stock, hail, rain or shine. She could still remember the cold dark wild winter mornings when howling gales lashed torrents of icy sleet against her face and the land, edged by the meandering Shannon river, was sodden underfoot.

  Her father, Martin, was a taciturn self-contained man who worked hard for his family out of a sense of duty rather than love. He had never shown her or her brothers any affection. He simply didn’t know how. He’d never been given affection as a child and he had none to show his own children.

  Once, he’d been in hospital for a minor operation and she’d gone to visit him. He was standing by a window gazing out. Miriam knew he hated being trapped inside a strange building. She suspected he was worrying about the farm. He looked smaller, less authoritative, in his new pyjamas and dressing gown bought specially for his hospital stay. It was as if he was diminished by his unfamiliar surroundings. Miriam felt a surge of unexpected concern for him and, when she reached him, she’d put her arms out and hugged him. Her father stood in the circle of her embrace as stiff as a board. He gave a grunt and muttered, ‘Howya . . . there’s no need for all that.’

  Rebuffed, Miriam drew back as embarrassed as he was. She’d never hugged her father again.

  When the doctor told him that Maeve’s illness was terminal he said gravely, ‘’Tis God’s will. Do your best for her.’ He never referred to the matter again. As his wife’s condition grew progressively worse, Martin spent more of his time working the land. It was as though he was preparing for the time when she’d no longer be there.

  Maeve McGrath passively accepted her fate with the quiet resignation that she’d shown in life. She bore her pain stoically and tried to be as little a burden as possible. She never complained, or showed any anger about the cancer that was ravaging her thin angular body.

  Only once had she made an oblique reference to death. ‘Look after your father and, when the time comes, you’ll find the sick call set for the priest in the middle drawer of the dressing table. Ask Lizzie Conway to help you out. She’ll know what to do.’ Lizzie was the village midwife and she always helped to lay out the dead.

  Miriam didn’t know what to say to her mother. Seeing her distress, Maeve squeezed her hand and said comfortingly:

  ‘You’re a good daughter, Miriam, and I’m lucky to have you. But when I’m gone, go and make a life for yourself in Dublin or Cork, or you’ll be stuck here like I was all my life. I never did anything. There’s an old saying. She spent a life of going to do . . . and died with nothing done! You don’t be like that. Go and do all the things you want to do. Make plenty of friends. Go places. Promise me now,’ her mother said earnestly.

  ‘I promise.’ Miriam leaned down and kissed her mother. Soon after that, Maeve slipped into a coma from which she never recovered.

  As she watched her mother’s coffin being lowered into the grave, Miriam remembered the promise she’d made to her. No matter what, she was going to leave home and get a job. She’d stay at home for a few more weeks to get her father settled into a routine. She’d organize for a woman to come in from the village to do a bit of cleaning and cooking. But then she was going to go to Dublin to try her luck.

  The day the postman arrived with a letter to tell her that she’d been successful in her application for the position of secretary in a clothing firm in Dublin, Martin had a stroke. Miriam’s plans were shattered.

  She nursed him and employed a man from the village to help her keep the farm going.

  Her brothers Sean and Johnny were too busy with their own lives to help out. Sean and his wife, Della, lived in Athlone. Sean was a lock-keeper on the Shannon. Johnny, her youngest brother, was a dining-car attendant on the Dublin to Limerick train. Neither of them had any desire to live at home and take over the responsibilities of the farm and be subject to the dictates of their father.

  And so it had been left to Miriam to shoulder the burden again. She’d argued fiercely about the unfairness of it. Sean and Della reluctantly agreed that they would take Martin into their home in the future if Miriam would stay at home and look after him for the next year. Since the doctor had told her that her father wouldn’t last the year, this meant nothing. Miriam felt thoroughly taken for granted and manipulated by her family.

  Her father lived for eighteen months after his stroke. Della got pregnant and told Miriam she couldn’t take care of her sick father-in-law and a baby. Johnny, who had a flat in Limerick, rarely came home and couldn’t have cared less about his father.

  It was a relief when Martin died. Miriam felt terribly guilty and could hardly admit it to herself but, as his coffin was lowered into the grave beside her mother, she felt a huge burden lift from her shoulders. She watched Della, weeping into her handkerchief for the neighbours’ benefit, and felt utter contempt for her hypocrisy.

  ‘I suppose we better get the will read as soon as possible,’ Sean suggested. They’d gone back to the house, as was the custom, to provide refreshments for the neighbours after the funeral. Her brother stuffed a thick skelp of buttered brack into his mouth and ate it with relish.

  ‘For God’s sake! The man’s not cold in his coffin and you’re talking about the will. Sean, will you at least wait until we’ve taken care of the neighbours.’

  ‘I just can’t be hanging around and I don’t want to have to come back down from Athlone, if we can get it sorted out now. Couldn’t you ring the solicitor and see if he can meet us.’

  ‘Right, right. I’ll speak to Mr Finnerty about it. Maybe he could see us all tomorrow.’ Miriam was at her wit’s end. She hadn’t given the will a thought. But it was something that had to be attended to. Now that Sean had brought it up, the sooner the reading was over, the better. She slipped out into the hall and phoned the solicitor’s office. He agreed to read the will the following day. Miriam didn’t give it another thought as she poured endless cups of tea and washed numerous dishes for neighbours and acquaintances who came from far and wide to pay their condolences.

  It was only as the family settled themselves in Mr Finnerty’s office the next day that it dawned on Miriam that the reading of the will could radically affect her future. As she sat and listened to the elderly lawyer reading the terms of her father’s will, Miriam was shocked beyond belief.

  Her father had chosen to ignore her sacrifice. She’d done her duty, he expected nothing less. It was not something to be rewarded. Tradition dictated that the eldest son inherit the estate, so Sean
inherited the house and farm that she had slaved over. Johnny inherited fifty acres and she was left three hundred pounds.

  Three hundred pounds after years of exhausting slogging. No roof over her head. No land. Just three hundred pounds to see her through the rest of her days. Tears smarted her eyes. Pressure like a vice grip encircled her chest so that she could hardly breathe. She felt bitterness, rage, despair . . . but most of all an aching feeling of rejection. Had her father put so little value on what she had done for him and her mother? So it seemed.

  ‘Della and I will have to talk about what we’re going to do. When we know ourselves, we’ll have a chat with you to see what your plans are.’ Sean was gruff, embarrassed.

  Miriam, suddenly anxious about her future, noted the emphasis on her ‘plans’.

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped, hurt that he hadn’t hastened to assure her that there was no need for her to leave her home. He and Della needn’t think for a moment that she’d be under a compliment to them. She could stand on her own two feet. And she would. She wouldn’t hang around waiting to be evicted.

  It was just as well she’d decided that. Two weeks later Sean and Della arrived at the farm. They informed Miriam that they’d decided to move back and live in the house and farm the land themselves. Della made it abundantly clear that there was no place for Miriam in what would soon be her house. ‘I know how keen you were to go to Dublin after your mother died, now you’ll be able to go and get on with your life and you won’t have anyone to worry about but yourself.’ Della was as sweet as could be.

  Hypocritical wagon! Miriam raged silently. But as usual she couldn’t speak of her anger or disgust and kept all her resentment bubbling deep inside. She was twenty-five, without a job or a home and, as they said in the village, ‘with no prospects’.

  It was a very bitter young woman who travelled on the train to Dublin with everything she possessed packed into two shabby suitcases. She took a room in a small guesthouse near Amiens Street and set off on the task of finding work.

  Her first job had been as a typist in a solicitor’s office. Mr Bartholomew Cunningham BL was crotchety and dictatorial and Miriam started looking for another job almost immediately. Second time around she was lucky. She got a job in an insurance company, a much nicer place to work. The other girls were friendly and, some months after joining the firm, she moved into a flat with two of them.