by Maureen Lee
Maggie closed the door and handed him a sheet of paper. ‘I found this on the mat in the hall when I came in. What do you make of it?’
It was a pencil drawing, extremely life-like, of a tiny boy wearing a nightshirt and carrying a candle in a holder. His hair was tousled and he was grinning widely, the tip of his tongue stuck mischievously out of his mouth.
‘It’s our Aidan!’ he gasped.
‘I’ve never seen Aidan, but I thought it might be,’ Maggie said, tight-lipped. ‘See what’s written on the back.’
Finn turned the paper over. ‘Anne is perfectly safe. She is being well looked after. You have no need to worry,’ he read. The words were written in perfect copperplate. ‘He calls her Anne.’
‘Why do you say “he”?’ Maggie queried. ‘It could have been written by a woman.’
‘This is how a solicitor would write, or a clerk in a certain sort of office where a woman is unlikely to be employed. Our wedding certificate was written in copperplate. Jaysus!’ He slapped his hand against his brow as the message in the note, the sheer strangeness of it, began to sink in. ‘But what does this mean, Maggie? Why does he call her Anne? And how did he know to deliver it here?’
‘I’ve no idea, unless Annemarie told him this address or he saw one of our cards. Perhaps someone else knows it - what about the woman you say was in the cabin with the girls, Gertrude Strauss?’ Maggie scowled. ‘Or Olive Raines, who stole Mollie’s passport and the suitcase with the money. Oh, Finn! I really don’t know what to think.’
‘She’s happy,’ Finn said thoughtfully. ‘If she weren’t, she’d have drawn our Aidan crying. She loved drawing: happy pictures and sad ones, depending on her mood.’
Maggie sat down with a bump. ‘I suppose that’s something.’
‘She loved singing, too, and dancing. She was in love with life, Annemarie, but the slightest little thing - a cross word, a sick animal - could make her sink into the doldrums - the Slough of Despond, Mam used to call it - though she quickly snapped out of it. Strangely enough, she wasn’t as upset as the rest of us when Mam died, because she said she could see her in heaven.’ ‘Your mother used to worry about her all the time. She said she was too sensitive for this world.’ Maggie’s face darkened. ‘I can’t imagine how she must have felt the night your father raped her,’ she said savagely. ‘It must have sent her out of her mind, the poor wee child.’ ‘Hazel said it more or less had, that she was in a sort of trance the night they left Duneathly. Yet our Mollie stood it for two whole years and didn’t say a word.’ Finn’s voice shook. ‘I actually told her off, Mollie, when we met in Liverpool, as if she’d done something wrong.’
‘Mollie’s a brick and Frank Kenny is a bastard. I hope and pray I never set eyes on the man again, else I’ll murder him for sure.’ Maggie eased herself out of the chair and went towards the kitchen. ‘Me throat’s crying out for a cup of tea, Finn. Once we’ve had it, I’ll take that piece of paper round to Sergeant McCluskey at the station, see what he makes of it. And, instead of us sitting here all night long trying to make sense of things until we feel dizzy, we’ll go for a meal and do it there instead. As you say, at least it seems Annemarie’s happy, wherever she is.’
‘Me, I’m aching for a pint of ale. D’you know, Maggie, I haven’t seen a pub all week, though I’ve been keeping me eye out for one.’
‘You’re not likely to.’ Maggie smiled for the first time since he’d met her in New York. ‘Haven’t you heard of Prohibition? Alcohol’s banned in the United States, though there’s more drunk now than when it was legal. There’s a speakeasy round the corner where you can get really vile whisky at an outrageous price and there’s always a chance the police will raid the joint.’
‘I think I’d sooner wait until I get back to Ireland,’ Finn said hastily.
He didn’t have to wait quite so long. As soon as he arrived back in Liverpool, he went to the George Hotel and ordered a pint of best bitter while he waited for Mollie. He wanted to have a long talk with his sister and try to persuade her to return to Duneathly. It was too much to expect her to live in the Doctor’s house, but she could live with him, Hazel and the new baby when it came. Finn hoped she still wasn’t planning on going to New York. Maggie’s apartment wasn’t nearly big enough for two people, and weren’t his legs still hurting like blazes after sleeping with his top half on one chair and the rest of him on another for seven uncomfortable days?
The boat had docked early and he had to wait a good hour and a half before his sister came, during which time he thought about Annemarie. At least she was happy - he must have said that to Maggie half a dozen times while she said the same to him. It was something, the only thing that had provided a crumb of comfort during the long futile search. He took the drawing out of his pocket and studied it yet again, visualizing Annemarie drawing it, concentrating hard, her white brow furrowed. But drawing it where? Somewhere in New York was the only answer. Somewhere within that busy, noisy, brightly lit, tumultuous city, Annemarie had sat and drawn a picture of their little brother.
‘That’s our Aidan,’ said a voice, and he looked up and saw Mollie staring at the picture. ‘I can’t remember Annemarie doing that.’
He leapt to his feet, took her in his arms, and held her tightly for a good minute, wanting to cry for some reason. ‘It’s good to see you, Moll,’ he said, kissing both her cheeks before letting her go.
‘You didn’t find her, did you?’ she said sadly. ‘Else you’d’ve sent a telegram like you promised.’
‘No, Moll,’ he said gently. ‘But Annemarie’s all right.’ He signalled to a waiter to fetch the tea he knew she’d want, then told her about his useless search for their sister - the visits to the churches, the Irish clubs, the cards he and Maggie had written out together - and, finally, the delivery of Aidan’s picture through the front door of Maggie’s apartment house. ‘Read what’s on the back, sis.’
‘ “Anne is perfectly safe. She is being well looked after. You have no need to worry,” ’ Mollie read aloud. ‘Why do they call her Anne and not Annemarie?’ Finn shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
Mollie continued to ask the same questions that he and Maggie had asked each other without coming up with a single answer that made sense. ‘Well, at least she’s happy,’ she said at last.
‘Maggie’s determined to keep on searching and the police haven’t given up. She’ll be found one day, Moll, you’ll see.’
Mollie smiled sweetly and Finn was struck by how lovely she was. She didn’t have Annemarie’s flamboyant beauty, the sort that made your head turn, but a quiet, serene loveliness that grew on you. He noticed a well-dressed young man seated a few tables away who seemed unable to keep his eyes off her.
‘What are you going to do with yourself now, Moll?’ he asked. If she wanted, he told her, she could come back with him to Duneathly today.
‘I’m going to stay in Liverpool, Finn,’ she said quietly.
‘But it’s not your home, sis. You hardly know a soul here except the Brophys. You’d have to get a job and a proper place to live.’
‘I’ve already done both. I arranged it as soon as I realized you hadn’t found Annemarie. If you had, then I’d’ve gone to New York and come back to Liverpool as soon as she was herself again.’
‘But why?’
She looked at him shyly. ‘Because I’m getting married in July on my birthday, that’s why.’
‘Jaysus!’ Finn nearly dropped his beer. ‘Who to?’
‘To Tom Ryan, he’s a policeman.’
‘He sounds much too old for you.’ It was all he could think of to say.
‘He’s twenty-one, same as you. Would you like to meet him? That’s him over there. Today’s his day off, that’s why he’s not in uniform.’ She signalled to the young man who’d been watching her so avidly. He jumped to his feet and came over. ‘Tom, this is my brother, Finn. I’ve just told him we’re getting married.’
Finn arrived in Kildare feeling limp and dejected. He’d had nea
rly four weeks off work - his boss was just as understanding as Maggie’s. He hadn’t liked Tom Ryan; he was too full of himself for words. What’s more, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel content again in Ireland after the hustle and bustle of New York. He caught the bus to Duneathly and stared gloomily at the scenery, the rolling fields, the trees just bursting into bud, the little cottages, like his own, nestling at the foot of the hills. It was all too damned quiet and dull.
The bus stopped outside his cottage, he opened the creaking gate that he kept meaning to fix, and went in the front door, to be met by a strange cry from upstairs. He dropped his suitcase, mounted the stairs two at a time, and burst into the bedroom.
Hazel was lying on the bed, looking as if she’d just climbed Mount Everest with lead in her boots, and Carmel O’Flaherty, the midwife, was holding a tiny baby covered in blood, who was yelling loud enough to bring down the roof.
‘You’re just in time to say hello to our son, Finn,’ Hazel said with an exhausted smile.
‘Is there something wrong with him?’ Had his son cut himself already?
‘It’s your wife’s blood, Mr Kenny. I’ll wash it off him in a minute. As for the crying, that’s quite normal. You’d cry if you’d just come out of a lovely warm place into the cold of the big wide world.’ Carmel gave him a severe look. ‘You shouldn’t really be here. Most husbands take themselves off to the pub, leaving their wives to have their babies in peace. But,’ she relented, ‘seeing as you are here, would you like to hold the baby while I tidy your wife up?’
‘Yes, please,’ Finn croaked. The baby was wrapped in a towel, still screaming, and placed in his arms.
‘Would you mind looking the other way for a wee while, Mr Kenny?’
He did as he was told, but not before glancing at Hazel, seeing the love in her eyes that he knew was reflected in his own. He stood in front of the window holding his baby. In the space of only a few minutes, he had forgotten all about New York and his sisters. Now he was just thankful that he was back in Ireland with his wife and his new son.
‘Hello, Patrick,’ he whispered.
Chapter 4
He opened the door and she came dancing towards him, her black hair flaring out.
‘We bought pizza from Lombardi’s, Lev, your favourite, ’ she sang, ‘with cheese and tomatoes and Italian sausage and olives.’ She threw her arms around his neck. ‘I’m starving,’ she announced. He watched, fascinated, as her hair settled in a tumble of little curls and waves around her shoulder.
‘Then we shall eat immediately.’ Levon Zarian removed his cap and jacket and put them in the lobby cupboard. His own hair was just as black and lustrous, if considerably shorter. ‘Where’s Tamara?’
‘In the kitchen, getting things ready. I’ve been helping. We’re having wine, red, and there’s coffee ice cream in the ice box.’
He smiled - Anne always made him smile. ‘Is there a reason for this feast? Or are we just celebrating the fact it’s Tuesday, the sun is out, and the trees in Central Park are in full bloom? I passed today and it looked lovely. We must go there for a walk one day soon.’
‘I don’t think we’re celebrating anything, Lev.’ She hung on to his arm when he went into the kitchen where Tamara was preparing a salad.
‘Hello, my love.’ He rubbed his cheek against her smooth one and she kissed his nose. Tall and queenly, with plaits wound around her well-shaped head, to him she always seemed out of place in a kitchen. In Armenia, servants had done everything for them. ‘Are you all right?’ She looked rather strained, he thought.
‘Something’s happened, I’ll tell you later.’ Her eyes flickered towards Anne, who was attempting to uncork the wine.
Levon’s stomach lurched. ‘Does it mean we might lose her?’ he enquired in their old language.
‘No, and please speak English, Lev,’ Tamara whispered, ‘otherwise you’ll frighten her.’
Neither could understand why Anne’s face froze and she ran from the room when sometimes, inadvertently, they addressed each other in a foreign tongue. Perhaps she felt shut out or scared by something she didn’t understand.
‘Lev will see to the wine, darling,’ she said. He saw that Anne’s efforts were taking pieces out of the cork. ‘You set the table. I’ve nearly finished the salad.’
They ate in the small dining room, the sinking sun illuminating the room like a stage set. It was a cheerful meal, gay and full of laughter, so different from the meals eaten in the same room before Anne had arrived to bless their lives with her vivid smile and delightful presence.
It was three months since he’d found her and he found it unbelievable how quickly she’d settled in. Within the space of a day or two, she had begun to talk in a strong Irish accent, not about the past, but the present. She seemed to accept him and Tamara without question, calling them by their first names, as if she’d known them all her life. Levon realized that her brain wasn’t wholly sound: no normal girl would behave the way she did.
Tamara thought she was hiding from something. ‘What?’ Levon had asked.
‘How should I know, Lev? She shows no sign of being homesick: she isn’t missing anybody. She never talks about her past, yet she must have one. I think she feels safe with us: she knows we’ll never harm her.’
Tamara was a new woman nowadays. She taught Anne the songs she’d sung at weddings back in Armenia, translating the words, bought her clothes, ornaments, ribbons for her long hair, purses, and pretty shoes. And she bought clothes for herself: lacy blouses and skirts, not as short as the latest fashion - Tamara wouldn’t dream of showing her knees - a hat made entirely of pink velvet petals to frame the aristocratic face that now seemed miraculously free of careworn lines.
Anne had been there barely a fortnight when she’d asked for a drawing pad and pencil. Tamara, always willing to indulge her every whim, rushed out and bought them. When he came home, she showed him the drawing Anne had done: a small grinning boy in a nightshirt with a candleholder in his hand.
‘She said his name is Aidan.’ They had studied the drawing, not speaking. ‘It might be her brother,’ Tamara had said eventually.
‘I wonder if he’s missing his sister?’ For the first time, Levon felt a sense of guilt. It had been rash and utterly irresponsible to virtually kidnap the girl off the streets. He’d told himself he was rescuing her from the people who’d been careless enough to put her in a taxi to be delivered like a parcel to an address where no one was in. He couldn’t have just left her there to wait for someone who might never come. That would have been even more irresponsible.
The day after the drawing, he’d said nothing to Tamara, but had taken it with him when he went to collect the taxi from the depot, written a message on the back, and put it through the letterbox of 88 Bleecker Street. If someone were worried, it would reassure them that Anne was safe.
Since then, she’d drawn more pictures: another boy older than the first whose name was Thaddy; a sad-eyed girl called Mollie; a young man named Finn; a woman of about Tamara’s age who appeared to be seated on a cloud. Tamara, who seemed attuned to the girl’s every mood, deduced that this was her mother and she was dead. ‘The cloud means she’s in heaven,’ she explained.
One morning, she’d taken Anne to Mulberry Street market on the Lower East Side where there was a stall that sold Italian lace. The minute they got off the bus, they’d come across a man savagely whipping an old, ailing horse that was attempting to pull a cart heaped with sacks. Anne had been so distressed that they had returned straight home. That afternoon, she’d drawn the face of a black-eyed man with heavy eyebrows and lips twisted in a sneer. ‘She even drew horns on his head,’ Tamara had told Levon, shocked. ‘At the bottom, she wrote “The Doctor”.’
‘Where is the picture?’ Levon had asked.
‘She ripped it to pieces, very slowly and deliberately, then threw it in the trash. Something bad has happened to her, Lev. I’m convinced of it.’
The meal over, Tamara and Anne cleared t
he table and went into the sitting room to play records on the phonograph, while Levon stayed at the table to study for the Bar exam. He would be relieved when he was able to practise law in America and no longer had to drive a taxi, something he did more to pass the time than for the money. He was already a moderately wealthy man, and had managed to bring his small fortune with him, if not the rich contents of his house in Armenia. Not that things, however beautiful and finely crafted, mattered after they’d lost their beloved Larisa.
The strains of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite drifted into the room. He bent his head over his work until, a few minutes later, Tamara came in and sat at the table with him. He laid down his pen, remembering she had something to tell him.
‘Anne is dancing,’ she said. ‘She makes up the steps as she goes along. She gets quite lost in it.’
‘Perhaps we should send her to a stage school,’ Levon suggested, ‘where she can learn to sing and dance professionally?’
‘That’s a good idea, Lev, but not just yet.’ She played with the earring in her left ear, a sign she had something important to say. ‘I took Anne to the doctor’s this morning,’ she said in her mother tongue. ‘She needed more drops for her heart.’ It was Tamara who’d noticed the girl’s heart beat unevenly on occasions. The doctor had prescribed a drug called digitalis. ‘It’s nothing serious, but it’s best to be safe than sorry. Just give her five drops a day on her tongue,’ he’d said.
‘Is she all right?’ Levon asked now, alarmed.
‘Fine, Lev, but there’s just one thing: I thought Anne had yet to start having periods, but that’s not the case at all. She doesn’t have them because she’s pregnant.’ She laid her hand on his arm. ‘Lev, darling, Anne is expecting a child.’
There’d been poor people in Duneathly, farm workers mostly, who lived in shacks on the farmers’ land. They weren’t seen all that often in the village. They had no need of solicitors, banks, or dress shops. Occasionally, they might call out the doctor, but doctors didn’t work for free and it had to be a real emergency. The women sometimes went to the butcher’s just before it closed to buy bones for a stew that would last all week, and the men packed into O’Reilly’s pub on Friday night after they’d been paid. Mollie had been woken from her sleep many times by the sound of a desperate row going on outside. A woman would be dragging her husband out of the pub screaming, ‘Before you spend every penny of your wages on the ale and leave your kids to starve, you flamin’ eejit!’