A Letter From America

by Geraldine O'Neill

  Chapter 18

  “I don’t want to pressurise you, Mam,” Fiona said, “but I think a day out of bed would do you good. A little sit in the garden while the weather is still reasonable.”

  There was silence from the bed.

  “Once you are on your feet we could go for a run in the car.” Fiona was trying to think of somewhere that might encourage her mother to move out of the bed and out of the room. She knew there was little chance of her mother agreeing to go anywhere, but she thought if the idea was planted, she might just aim towards being well enough to try going out at some point. “We could take a drive out to the lakes in Mullingar or maybe even down to Galway.”

  “Fiona, do you not realise that I’m not up to going out in the car or going anywhere?”

  “But the doctor says you need to get some fresh air. The rash has gone now, there’s not even a mark on your back or shoulders –”

  “It might look as though it’s gone,” her mother cut in, her voice slightly muffled by the bedclothes, “but the whole area where it was is still painful. And I still feel very tired.”

  “I know,” Fiona said.

  “My head hurts, and at times I find it hard to concentrate on the television or radio, or even read a magazine or book. I’m still not well, even though no one wants to believe me. I find even coming downstairs takes it out of me.”

  Fiona sighed and went to sit on the side of the bed. “Of course we believe you. I believe you. I know you wouldn’t want to lie in here all day if you were fit to be out and about.” She halted. “I just thought if we could get you bathed and dressed and down into the fresh air you might feel a little bit better.”

  Her mother turned towards her now, the bedsprings creaking. “If I felt well enough, do you not think that’s what I would be doing? Do you think I like lying here day in, day out? Even after having a bath I feel exhausted. And yesterday when I was up for the short time when Mary Ellen was changing the bed, I felt worse after it. My head was dizzy and my legs felt weak.” She turned back towards the wall, and pulled the covers up over her. “I appreciate your concern, but for the time being I’m better being left alone where I am.”

  “Okay,” Fiona conceded. “If there’s nothing I can get you, I’ll go back down to the shop and leave you to have another little sleep.”

  Fiona had just opened the shop door and put her handbag down, when she realised she had forgotten to bring her clean shop coat. It was still lying on the worktop in the kitchen, ironed and carefully folded by Mrs Mooney. She would have to go back. She pulled the door closed behind her and walked quickly back up the street towards the house.

  She put the key in the side door that opened into the kitchen and, as she stepped inside, she heard a voice coming from somewhere in the downstairs part of the house. She thought at first it was Mary Ellen but then as she walked out into the hallway the voice drifted towards her again – clearer this time – and it dawned on her that it was not the housekeeper, and that the voice in fact belonged to her mother. She was quite taken aback, considering her mother’s earlier refusal to move from the bed.

  She was about to call to her mother when she heard her say, “I don’t need anything from you!”

  Something in those few words – in the tone they were spoken – halted her. Her voice sounded sharp, even argumentative. Fiona wondered who on earth she could be speaking to. Who would be likely to be in the house with her at this hour of the day?

  It couldn’t be Mrs Mooney, as Fiona couldn’t imagine her mother speaking to her in such a way. She went quietly along the hallway, so as not to disturb them, but listening for the other person’s voice to give her an indication as to what kind of situation she might be walking into. When she heard no other voice, it suddenly dawned on her that her mother was on the phone.

  She stood for a few moments, listening, her eyes narrowed in concentration. But she could hear nothing now. She took a few quiet steps nearer to the sitting-room door then came to a halt as she heard her mother’s voice again.

  “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to see you? I’m not up to it.”

  Fiona held her breath, shocked by the cold determination in her mother’s voice.

  After a pause Nance spoke again. “I disagree. I don’t think it can be sorted out. Seán has gone, and it’s all water under the bridge – and I want to leave it like that, Catherine. I can’t handle anything more now. I’m sorry.”

  Fiona waited until she heard the phone click back in place. She moved a few steps to go into the sitting-room but, when she caught a glimpse of her mother – saw her with her head in her hands – something made her halt. All the bitterness seemed to have drained out of Nance, and she just looked weary and sad. Fiona decided it was not the time for confrontations. Instead, she tiptoed her way back out to the kitchen to hover around the back door and give the impression she had just arrived home if her mother looked in.

  A few minutes later she heard her mother come out of the sitting-room and go straight to the staircase. Fiona listened carefully, noting that the footsteps were heavy and laden – the slow tread of a woman who was still not back to good health. She heard the weary sigh and then a sound that might have been a small sob.

  Her mother was most certainly upset by the conversation between herself and her sister. Things were certainly not being resolved between them. And this row sounded serious. Serious enough to make one sister drive the other away, at a time when any family needed all the help and support there was.

  Chapter 19

  When Fiona arrived into the bar around twelve o’clock, all was quiet with only a handful of regulars propped up on stools. She had a few words with Patrick about the previous night’s takings and then she went into the shop. She looked around and decided that the shelves which displayed the tins of cooked ham, John West Salmon, Bachelor Peas and Heinz Beans needed a good wash down.

  Fiona put on her brown shop coat, carefully turning up the sleeves. Then, with a small sigh, she turned on the geyser and half-filled a bucket with hot water. The shop bell suddenly sounded, so she set the bucket down on the stone floor and went back through to find the glamorous local hairdresser, Maggie MacConnell, waiting on her.

  “Well, Fiona,” Maggie said smiling, showing her even white teeth, “how are things? Any news? How’s your mother keeping?”

  Fiona shrugged. “No news, Maggie. Well, none that I’ve heard. And my mother’s more or less the same. Still not great.”

  Maggie nodded understandingly. “Tell her I’m asking for her. And when she’s up to having her hair done, tell her I’ll come over to the house and do it there for her.” She smiled. “It’s surprising how having your hair done can give you a bit of a lift.”

  “That’s very good of you, and I’ll let her know.” Fiona paused, not wishing to get into further discussions about her mother. “What can I get you?”

  “I need a few things, I should have written a list...” Maggie bent down to look into the cold cabinet at the joints of cooked ham and beef, and the pork and chops separated by sprigs of parsley which Fiona replaced every few days. “I’ll have six slices of cooked ham, thick-cut, please, Fiona. I have a friend, Anne, coming up from Galway tonight and I thought I’d do a nice salad for us. She’s a hairdresser in one of the big salons in the middle of the city. We trained together up in Dublin and have kept up our friendship ever since.”

  “That’s lovely,” Fiona said. “You’ll be looking forward to seeing her.”

  “Oh, I am indeed. We’ll have a great chat and a laugh together.” Maggie raised her eyebrows and smiled. “We might go mad and drop over to the snug for a drink later on. We usually go out for the evening when I visit her.”

  “I suppose your friend is used to the bigger places in Galway and Dublin. There’s not much here in Tullamore.”

  “She won’t mind what we do. She’s a great character, always on the go.”

  Maggie was always doing something herself, Fiona thought
with a tinge of envy as she carried the ham joint over to the meat-slicer. She was a single woman in her early thirties, small and curvy. She was a good advert for her shop as her dark hair was always in the latest fashion. At the moment it was cut up short at the back with longer wings at the front. She lived in the house above the hair salon, and rented out the other room to one of the local librarians. She had a great life and was always talking about going off around places in Ireland, or going on holidays abroad with her various single friends.

  Fiona wished her own local friends were as adventurous as that. Of her three closest friends, one was married with a baby, one engaged to be married within the next few months, and the third didn’t like travelling far from home. And, unlike some of the others, she had no sisters at home to go anywhere with either. She fleetingly thought of Angela who was in the busiest city in Ireland, and who was out and about with her friends. Whilst it was great she was leading such an independent and busy life, how ironic it was that the sister who had always been at a disadvantage should now have the better social life.

  Maggie was bubbly and confident, and it seemed to be of no concern to her that she wasn’t married or even engaged. She seemed to have no trouble getting boyfriends, as she was always going on dates not only in Tullamore but in further-flung places like Birr and Portlaoise. She also played golf regularly, and at times made being single seem a better option than pushing a pram around the town or struggling with young children like most of her contemporaries.

  When Fiona placed the carefully wrapped ham on the counter, Maggie pointed back down to the cold cabinet. “I’ll have half a pound of white cheddar too,” she said, “and three tomatoes and a bottle of salad cream, and a bottle of Camp coffee.”

  Fiona lifted the large piece of cheddar and put it on the cutting board, then she moved the wire cheese-cutter above it, checking it was about the right size for the weight. When she popped it on the scales, she could see she was almost spot on. She wrapped the cheese in greaseproof paper and put it down on the counter, then she moved around the shelves picking up the other requested items. Then, just as she was putting the tomatoes into a brown paper bag and calculating the total bill, Maggie moved to the covered cake stand, which held an array of buns and pastries.

  “I know I shouldn’t because Anne is always watching her weight – but I’ll have a couple of meringues.” She paused, deliberating for a few moments. “And two jam doughnuts. We might fancy them with our coffee later tonight.” She laughed. “Well, I might fancy them. And if they don’t get eaten tonight, I’ll have the doughnuts for my breakfast in the morning!”

  Fiona laughed along with her. “As long as they get eaten and don’t go to waste.”

  “But that’s the problem,” Maggie said, opening her coat and, over her pink sweater, pinching a small fold of flesh. “They go straight to my waist! How on earth do you keep so slim when you have all these lovely things in front of you every day? I only have to look at cakes and I put on a couple of pounds.”

  “I’m so used to them I hardly see them now,” Fiona confessed, knowing it wasn’t a good advert for the shop that she could take or leave the fancies they sold. “And to be honest, I’ve never really had a sweet tooth.”

  “Not even for chocolate?”

  “Now and again.”

  “Lucky you,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “If I open a box of chocolates I’m not happy until the last one is gone. I’ve got up out of bed to eat them. It’s one of the good things about not having a husband, at least I don’t need to worry about him catching me in the kitchen, standing up on a stool in my shift!”

  “But why,” Fiona asked, “would you be standing on a stool?”

  “Because I keep the chocolate in the highest shelf in the kitchen – out of temptation’s way, so it’s not too handy for me.”

  “That’s priceless, Maggie! I could never imagine doing that in a million years.”

  Maggie winked at her, then said in a low voice. “Now, don’t go telling Patrick about my night-time habits or it might spoil my chances with him.”

  “Patrick?” Fiona’s voice was high with laughter now. She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. “I don’t believe it!” Maggie, she deduced, was obviously joking. Patrick was so quiet and kind of old-fashioned that she couldn’t imagine any woman having their eye on him – and definitely not someone as bubbly and modern as the hairdresser.

  “Oh, some would say there’s a lot worse around than Patrick. An awful lot worse...”

  Her tone made Fiona suddenly feel unsure as to whether she was joking or not. Rather than risk saying the wrong thing, she double-checked the cakes that Maggie had picked then busied herself making up a small cardboard box. When it was assembled she picked up a pair of food tongs and carefully lifted the cakes into it, folded the lid down and secured it with two pieces of Sellotape. She then totted up the bill, and rang it up on the till as Maggie put the items into her flowery canvas shopping bag

  Just as Maggie lifted her bag, the door opened and the two young Grattan sisters came in. Doloreen was around ten or eleven and the younger one, Helen, was around six. Fiona knew they lived in one of the little cottages out near Charleville Castle. Their mother often called in for shopping on her way home from town, as it was the nearest shop on the way home for carrying potatoes and flour.

  Doloreen rushed to hold the door open for Maggie.

  “You’re a great girl,” Maggie said. “Tell your mother I was asking for her.”

  The girl came back to the counter, handing over the shopping bag to Fiona. “Can we have a bottle of red lemonade, a bottle of white lemonade, and a packet of Kimberley biscuits and a pound of mixed broken biscuits, please?”

  “You can indeed, girls,” she said, smiling at them. “Are you having a bit of a party or something?”

  Helen, the younger one, giggled. “No, not a party, but our granny is coming over from Portarlington tonight, and Kimberleys are her favourites.”

  “Well, that’s lovely,” Fiona said. “She’ll be delighted you’re making such a fuss of her.”

  “My mammy has baked an apple tart too,” Doloreen said, her face more solemn than her sister’s.

  The little one stood on her tip-toes to rest her chin on the counter. “And my daddy bought half a bottle of brandy because he says Granny likes a sup and it puts her in good humour.”

  The older sister looked at her with an open mouth, then she grabbed her sister roughly by the shoulder. “Be quiet, you! Daddy never said such a thing – and Granny doesn’t like brandy. She says she only takes it for medicine, to help the rheumatism in her legs.”

  “Well, it must have helped her legs,” Helen said, “cos it made her laugh and dance around at Christmas.”

  Doloreen’s face was now flushed. “You’re always talking nonsense. And Mammy will give out to you when she hears what you’ve been saying!”

  The six-year-old shook her sister off and went over to stand by the door with her arms folded and her bottom lip stuck out.

  Doloreen looked up at Fiona now, embarrassment stamped on her face. “She’s always saying stupid things like that. Mammy will kill her if she hears her.”

  Fiona smiled at her. “Sure, she’s only young – nobody will pay any attention. There’s no need to go annoying your mammy about it.”

  She took the green plastic scoop they used for the broken biscuits and one of the big brown paper bags and went over to the container to fill it. Silently, Helen moved over beside her sister again, and then both girls moved along the counter to watch which biscuits were put in the bag. Fiona filled it up to what she reckoned was a pound weight, and then dropped it gently on the scales. It was just over. She turned to look at them. “What’s your favourites, girls?”

  “Coconut,” Doloreen said, then a moment later her sister said, “Kimberleys.”

  Fiona went back to search in the biscuit container with the scoop until she found two of each.

  “They’re extr
a just for you,” she told them, then she gave them one each and put the other two in the bag.

  “Oh, thanks!” Helen said, clapping her hands together, her earlier bad humour now forgotten.

  Doloreen looked up at Fiona. “That’s very good of you.” Her voice was quiet, but her face had brightened up.

  They stood eating the biscuits and smiling at each other as Fiona packed the bottles and packages into their bag. She came around the counter to them then, suggesting they take a handle each as the bottles were heavy.

  “Now,” Doloreen warned her sister, “make sure to keep a good grip on it. Not like the last time when you let all the potatoes fall out.”

  Helen’s brows came down as though she might answer back. Then, having thought better of clashing with her sister again, she started humming loudly to herself and took the handle as directed.

  “Good girl,” Doloreen told her. “That’s how to do it.”

  Fiona smiled to herself as she saw them out the door, and she stood for a minute watching them as they went along swinging the bag. How easy it would be, she thought, if all family problems were solved so quickly and easily.

  The bar was quiet during the afternoon opening hours, but Fiona was kept fairly busy in the shop. She had several periods when she had three or four people queuing, and after five she had seven people at one stage, coming off the train and on their way home for work. In between serving she continued wiping down shelves and washing the meat-slicer, and later sticking price-tickets on mops and brushes and scrubbing boards that had been delivered from the hardware company.

  Patrick closed the bar around three and went upstairs to his bedroom to collect his jacket, and then, as he did every day, he headed out for the half-mile walk to his elderly parents’ house where there would be a meal waiting for him.

  At six o’clock he returned to re-open the bar just as Fiona was closing up the shop. “Are you okay for later this evening?” he asked.