When her sister-in-law had first started coming, Cassie felt constrained to offer her tea. Jean was more than content to sit back and act the lady and be waited on hand and foot until one Sunday Cassie just had enough. She pointed Jean in the direction of the kitchen and told her to help herself, then she went off for a walk. Both Barbara and Jean were very frosty on her return.
Rather than have to put up with the two girls this afternoon, she decided on the spur of the moment to call on David and see if he would like to go for a walk on the beach. She usually didn’t disturb him without a prior arrangement, respecting his need for solitude to work.
They went for a walk and ended up having a row. David had been encouraging her for ages to tell Barbara and Ian that they would have to get alternative accommodation. He knew Cassie wasn’t able to cope. He had watched her get more and more irritable as the months went on and had himself suffered a few times from the sharp edge of her tongue, although she had always been quick to apologize.
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t you start!’ Cassie snapped, when he again urged her to do something about the situation.
‘Well, I’m browned off listening to you moaning every time we meet. And you won’t take my advice,’ David snapped back.
‘I can’t just throw them out on the street!’
‘Don’t be so dramatic, Cassie! You’re not throwing them out on the street; they’ll just have to go and rent a house somewhere.’ David viciously kicked a can along the beach.
‘I am not being dramatic, David Williams. Why don’t you just go home and write your damned book and leave me alone!’ Cassie exploded.
‘Right, I will, if that’s what you want!’ David glared back at her.
‘That’s what I want!’ Cassie turned on her heel and marched down the beach, leaving David to stand and curse at the inconsistencies of women.
Tears smarted in Cassie’s eyes as she jammed her hands in her pockets, letting the wind whip her hair around her face. Some help he was! Men, she’d never understand them! She walked as far as Cockleshell Bay and then turned around and walked home. Jean was still there, she and Barbara deeply engrossed in the latest society gossip. There was no sign of Nora and Ian was slumbering on the sofa. Britt was playing in Irene’s old room.
Cassie walked down the hall to her mother’s room. When she tried to open the door she found that it was locked. Barbara must have locked it! Cassie felt fury envelop her. How dare she! How dare she! Never in all the time she had been minding Nora had Cassie locked her mother in her room. She went in to Nora, who was sitting whimpering on the floor.
‘Mam! Oh Mam, it’s all right, love.’ She helped her mother up on to the bed and sat cuddling her for a while and when Nora relaxed in her arms she left her propped up against the pillows and walked down towards the sitting-room.
She stood at the door and stared at Barbara and actually felt hatred for her sister. ‘What’s wrong?’ Barbara asked, slightly unnerved by the strange look on Cassie’s face and her sister’s unusual pallor.
‘You’re what’s wrong!’ Cassie’s voice was shaking. ‘You’re what’s wrong, you bitch. How dare you lock Mam in her room? How dare you? This is her house. Are you listening to me, you . . . you!’ Driven beyond reason, Cassie made a lunge at her sister, tears streaming down her face.
Barbara gave a shriek of horror. ‘Ian! Ian! Get her off me. She’s gone mad. Get her off me.’ Cassie was clawing at Barbara, Jean was white with fright and Ian, woken out of his sleep, didn’t know what was going on.
‘I’ll kill you! You selfish little bitch,’ Cassie shouted hysterically, as Ian lumbered to his feet and grabbed her from behind.
‘Calm down!’ he ordered.
‘Let go of me, you lazy fat lump,’ Cassie struggled furiously against him. ‘You creep, you parasite! I want the two of you out of this house now,’ Cassie yelled.
‘Don’t you talk to my husband like that!’ screamed Barbara, outraged. ‘I’ll sue you for assault, Cassie Jordan. Attacking a pregnant woman! You’re mad! Jean will be a witness. Won’t you, Jean?’ she appealed hysterically to her sister-in-law.
‘Aaah . . . ’ stammered Jean, who was quaking in her shoes. She had never seen anything like this.
‘You get out too, Miss. Who do you think you are sitting in my mother’s house and allowing her to be locked in her room so that your precious gossip won’t be disturbed. Out!’
Jean took to her heels and ran out the front door as if all the demons of hell were after her. She nearly knocked down David, who was just arriving. He had come to make amends with Cassie.
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded of Jean. He had heard the sound of raised voices from the driveway.
Jean burst into tears. ‘You’d better get in there or Cassie’s going to kill someone. She’s gone mad!’
‘Jesus Christ!’ David muttered, as he ran through the door to see Cassie screaming and struggling in Ian’s arms and Barbara holding a bloody nose and screeching that she was bringing Cassie to the highest court in the land.
‘Let go of her!’ ordered David in fury, as he wrenched Cassie out of Ian’s arms. ‘What the hell is going on here?’
‘She tried to murder me!’ Barbara bawled.
‘It’s a pity she didn’t fucking succeed,’ David exploded. ‘Come on, Cassie, come outside and cool off. You two!’ He pointed a finger at Barbara and Ian. ‘Get your things together and beat it!’
‘You can’t talk to me and my husband like that!’ Barbara gasped in disbelief.
‘Watch me, lady! Out!’ David’s eyes were ice-blue flints. He put his arms around Cassie, who was pale and trembling, and led her out the front door.
‘It’s OK, you’re OK now, Cassie!’ David reassured her, as he walked her down the steps to the garden.
‘Oh David, I’m going to be sick!’ Cassie doubled over and threw up in the shrubbery. David held her head and when it was over gently wiped her mouth with his handkerchief.
‘She locked Mam in her room, David. It just freaked me out,’ she wept brokenly, her body shuddering with sobs. ‘I can’t cope any longer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so scared. I lie awake at night and my stomach is in knots and my head feels as if it’s going to explode and my mind is racing and I can’t seem to get a grip on things. What’s wrong with me? Am I going mad?’
‘No, you’re not going mad at all, Cassie, you’re just exhausted!’ David soothed. Privately, he was horrified at the state Cassie was in. He hadn’t realized she was this close to a breakdown. ‘Just come over here and sit down on the garden seat for a minute. I just have to fix something up inside.’
Too weary to argue, Cassie sat down on the seat and tried to stop crying.
Back inside, David lifted up the phone and rang the doctor. He glared at Barbara who was holding a towel to her bleeding nose. ‘I’m ringing the doctor for Cassie. She’s very close to a nervous breakdown. You can get him to look at your nose if you want. What’s John’s number?’
Barbara ignored him.
‘It’s in the little book by the phone,’ muttered Ian, completely at a loss. His wife glowered at him for assisting the enemy. David gave John a brief rundown of the incident and told him he should get over to the house as quickly as he could. He, Karen and the doctor arrived at the same time and David explained the situation to them all.
‘I’ll just check Barbara out, seeing that she is pregnant,’ the GP said. ‘Although I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ he added reassuringly when he saw the looks on their faces. ‘Go and take care of Cassie until I’m ready to see her.’
When Cassie saw John she burst out crying again. ‘I’m sorry, John, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me,’ she sobbed.
Her brother put his arms around her. ‘Shush, Cassie! It’s all right. Don’t worry about a thing!’
‘Barbara’s fine!’ the doctor announced rather grimly when he saw Cassie’s stricken face a few minutes later. Privately and unprofessionally, he was on
ly sorry Cassie hadn’t given her sister a black eye as well as a bloody nose. He brought Cassie into her bedroom and conducted a quick examination, and then told her he was giving her an injection and that she might feel a bit woozy after it.
‘What about Mam? She needs to be changed. You know she’s incontinent,’ Cassie said agitatedly, struggling to get up.
‘Lie still, Cassie, like a good girl!’ Doctor Tyne said, easing her back against the pillows. ‘Karen’s here. She’ll look after Nora. Now, let me give you this shot!’
‘OK,’ she whispered, defeated.
The doctor stayed with her until the drug took effect and when he saw that she was quite sedated he closed the door gently and went out to David and John, who were in the kitchen.
‘I’ve sedated her but she’s going to need a complete break for a couple of weeks. You’ve got to make some arrangements. I can have your mother put in residential care until Cassie’s capable of taking care of her again. I’m going to send Cassie into a nursing home this evening.’
‘Mam would fret in a home, wouldn’t she?’ John said worriedly.
‘Well, she’s in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s and it’s hard to know, but she probably wouldn’t react too well to a strange environment,’ the doctor agreed.
‘Look, Karen’s agreed that we’ll move up here for as long as Cassie needs and Mrs Bishop will be in during the day. I think Cassie might be easier in her mind if we did this. She’d be upset if she thought Mam was in a home; she told me she promised her never to put her in one,’ John said.
‘Well, whatever you want, John, that sounds fine. I’m just going to make the arrangements to get Cassie into the nursing home. Maybe Karen would put together whatever she’d need for a couple of weeks.’
‘Of course.’ John went off to talk to his wife.
The doctor turned to David. ‘Mr Williams, would you like to come with me when I bring Cassie in?’
‘I would! She will be all right, won’t she?’ David asked anxiously.
‘Ah, she’ll be fine. Cassie’s a great coper. She just needs to recharge her batteries for a while!’ the doctor told him kindly. ‘That pair will have to go, though!’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the sitting-room, where Barbara and Ian were ensconced.
‘You can say that again!’ David growled.
Once she had got over the shock of it all, Barbara was furious. Cassie had really gone too far. It was galling to have the doctor arranging for Cassie to go to a nursing home, and not a word about her or her unborn child. God knows what trauma the baby had suffered as a result of her aunt’s deranged attack. She was going to insist on having a scan.
God Almighty! All she had done was lock Mam in her room for an hour or two so she wouldn’t be wandering around getting into mischief while Cassie wasn’t there to keep an eye on her. It was Cassie’s own fault, anyhow, for gadding off with that Williams skunk. The cheek, the unmitigated cheek of him to speak to her and Ian like that. In her own home. The bloody nerve of him. Well, she wasn’t going to stay here and be accused of causing Cassie’s so-called nervous breakdown. She’d be gone in the morning. If that was what they wanted, fine. Let them throw her and her family out on the street. She’d never forgive them. By God, she’d get her own back on them. She’d sue Cassie for assault and David Williams . . . his time would come. Oh yes, Barbara would deal with him in her own special way . . .
Forty-Six
After ten days, Cassie was feeling a whole lot better. She had been heavily sedated for the first few days of her stay in the nursing home, sleeping for most of the time. By the end of the first week her drug dosage had been much reduced. Reassured constantly by John, Karen and David and the doctor that Nora was being well taken care of, she gradually began to relax as her body caught up on some much-needed rest.
She badly wanted to phone Barbara to apologize for striking her but the doctor would not allow it for the time being. John told her that the Murrays had moved out a few days after the incident and rented a house in Swords until their own place was ready.
‘And about time too! Don’t feel bad about them, now, Cassie,’ John declared.
Nevertheless, Cassie was agitated about it, so Doctor Tyne finally allowed her to phone Barbara. She immediately hung up on Cassie.
‘That’s her problem now, Cassie. Forget about it, OK?’ David ordered when he heard the news. ‘She drove you to it!’
‘There was no excuse for what I did!’ Cassie said miserably.
‘Cassie, forget it! I mean it; she deserved everything she got,’ he grinned. ‘I can only say I don’t know how you waited so long to sock her one! It’s a pity Kristi Killeen wasn’t on hand to witness it!’
‘Oh David!’ exclaimed Cassie, laughing in spite of herself. He had been so good and kind to her, making her feel loved and cherished. She would never forget the support he had given her in her hour of greatest need.
She returned home after two weeks of rest, able once again to pick up the reins and carry on, relieved that Barbara and Ian were gone, sad that her sister would not respond to her efforts to apologize. She cared for her mother with all the love she had to give her and tried as best she could to keep her own spirits up.
And then, several months later, when she went into Nora’s room to check her early one morning, she knew that there was something different about her. Her mother’s breathing was very slow and, as she bent over her in concern, Nora’s eyes flickered open briefly. They focused clear and unclouded on her daughter.
‘Cassie,’ Nora whispered, giving a little smile and then, gazing at something in the distance, she murmured ‘Jack’ and sighed softly. Cassie knew that her mother was dead.
Cassie stood dry-eyed at the graveside, watching her mother’s coffin being lowered into the ground. ‘Thank you, thank you, God, for giving me that little miracle,’ she whispered. To have her mother recognize her after all this time had given Cassie such joy. She knew her father’s spirit had been in the room with them and that he had been there to bring Nora on her last journey.
She had sat silently in prayer over her mother’s body and a great feeling of peace had enveloped her. She knew Nora and Jack were with her, she could sense their presence so strongly, and from that moment she lost her fear of death.
Afterwards, of course, there had been much to do. She phoned the doctor and John immediately and then David. John took care of the funeral arrangements and David spent his time making tea and sandwiches as required. Doctor Tyne had been very consoling and said that the massive heart attack that had caused Cassie’s mother’s death was a blessing in disguise.
Barbara had not spoken to Cassie at all! She completely ignored her sister, much to David’s fury. He wanted to say something to her, but Cassie forbade it. ‘Not now, David. I don’t want Mam’s funeral to turn into a slagging match, and besides, she looks as if she’s going to have that baby at any minute!’
Jean said nothing to Cassie either, in solidarity with her friend Barbara, and Cassie felt hurt and worried. Had neither of the other two women realized at all the immense stress she had been under? Were they going to hold a grudge for the rest of their lives? At this stage it looked like it. Cassie, who had never held a grudge against anyone, could not understand them.
Irene came home for the funeral and was hysterical with grief. She stood beside Cassie at the graveside, sobbing her heart out. Cassie put a comforting arm around her.
‘Mam knew me when she died, Irene. She was her old self and it was very peaceful for her,’ she whispered, consolingly.
‘It’s all my fault!’ sobbed Irene. ‘You don’t understand! It’s all my fault. I had an abortion and God is punishing me.’
Oh God! thought Cassie in dismay. How on earth was she going to handle this?
Irene lay in bed in her old bedroom and felt that a great load had been lifted from her shoulders. When it burst out of her about the abortion she was sure Cassie would be disgusted and call her a murderer. But her sister just took h
er home and put her to bed and told her that she was no judge of anyone and that Irene had done what she felt she had to do and that God was understanding and did not go around punishing people by letting their mothers die of Alzheimer’s disease, however much it might look like it.
Ever since she went to that clinic and terminated her baby’s life, Irene had felt guilty and frightened. But there was no other option available to her. It was Dean who had organized and paid for the abortion. If she kept the baby she would have lost him and the security he represented. She knew she couldn’t take care of a baby. She’d be scared out of her wits by a tiny thing like that and by all the responsibility and worries that having a child entailed. And she was petrified at the thought of childbirth. At the time, termination had seemed like the best idea, but looking back now Irene wondered if it had been a mistake. Maybe she would have coped better than she expected. Cassie would have been there. Cassie would never turn her back on anyone.
Irene buried these thoughts. Maybe now that Mam was dead, she would come back home and live with Cassie. Cassie would take care of her the way Mam had! Maybe that’s what she’d do, she thought, as she drifted off into a Mogadon-induced sleep.
Barbara was on the horns of a dilemma! After the funeral, there had been tea and sandwiches for the mourners in the Port Mahon Arms Hotel, although Cassie had taken Irene home first as she was dreadfully upset. Now practically everyone was gone and she couldn’t decide whether to go back to the house or not. There were a few items there that she had her eye on. Surely she was as much entitled to them as anyone else in the family. Her mother’s ivory jewellery-box for one, and that gorgeous filigree brooch that Jack had bought her for one of their wedding anniversaries.
It was a bit awkward not talking to Cassie, from that point of view. But she had vowed never to speak to her sister again and she wouldn’t. It was upsetting Cassie, Barbara noted in satisfaction. Maybe she wouldn’t go back, just to annoy her. She’d tell Irene what she wanted and make her get it for her. No, she wouldn’t go to the scene of her assault. let Cassie stew in her own juice for a bit longer.
Finishing Touches Page 46