The Grace Girls

by Geraldine O'Neill

  ‘Auntie Mona can be very hard,’ Heather said, giving a loud sigh. ‘She was terrible to Claire at the hospital; it was really, really embarrassing having to sit through it.’

  ‘She doesn’t mean to be,’ Sophie said, feeling sorry for her bristly sister-in-law. ‘And this Christmas we need to give her a wee bit of leeway, because she’s been under a terrible strain.’

  ‘She’s always under a strain,’ Heather said in a low voice. ‘She gets too wound up and has to have an opinion on everything.’ She turned the box around in her hands, guessing it was some kind of jewellery because it was the same size and shape as the box that Lily’s gold locket was in. She looked up at her mother, smiling now. ‘Should I keep it until Christmas Day?’

  ‘It’s up to yourself,’ Sophie told her, relieved that the tension was disappearing between them. She shook her head, laughing. ‘Kirsty opened hers – but then Kirsty’s never had any patience when it comes to waiting for presents. She was delighted with it – they’re really lovely.’ She hesitated. ‘The only thing is, she’s wearing hers tonight, so you might see it on her if she doesn’t know you’re waiting.’

  ‘I’ll open it now then,’ Heather suddenly decided. Carefully, she unwrapped the gold paper and then opened the velvet box to reveal a charm bracelet. ‘It’s gorgeous!’ she breathed, lifting it out of the box. It was the sort of thing she had dreamed of having when she was older and with money to spare. The chain had fairly heavy gold links with a heart-shaped lock on it, and she had four charms already dangling from it – a pair of ballet shoes, a lucky dice, a shamrock and a small cross.

  ‘I felt terrible when Kirsty opened hers,’ Sophie confessed, ‘because we never even thought to send a Christmas card to them. We didn’t have their new address until the other night, and I never gave it a thought.’

  ‘Maybe we could take a run out over the Christmas week,’ Heather suggested. ‘We could take a nice box of chocolates or something like that. What d’you think? The weather’s good for travelling, it’s been clear every day this week.’

  ‘We’ll see what your father says,’ Sophie said cautiously, ‘and what the weather forecast is sayin’ – it mightn’t stay this mild for much longer. Last year we had sudden snow in January and it lasted for weeks.’

  Heather held the bracelet up, examining it more closely. ‘D’you know, Mammy,’ she said in surprise, holding the trinket out for her mother to examine, ‘she has even gone to the trouble of having an “H” engraved on the heart.’

  ‘Has she?’ Sophie asked, taking it from her. ‘Kirsty never noticed that, we must tell her when she comes in tonight, then you’ll both know how to tell them apart.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘That’s just typical of Claire Grace – she always took care over the wee details. Even when she was young, she was always a thoughtful girl.’

  Heather’s face darkened. ‘But isn’t it terrible that the whole family has turned against her just because she got married to a Protestant?’ She let the charm bracelet trickle back into the box, link by link.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that, Heather,’ Sophie sighed, hating this sort of discussion with either of the girls, especially around Christmas. ‘Religion causes major problems in families, and we’re actually not as bad as some.’ She paused, trying to find the right words. ‘The Graces have always been staunch Irish Catholics, and to have one of their own turn her back on their religion is awful hard for them to take. Especially when it’s one of the girls.’

  ‘I still don’t think it’s fair,’ Heather persisted. ‘Andy seemed a nice polite man, and he obviously thinks the world of Auntie Claire.’

  ‘That’s all true,’ Sophie agreed. ‘But Claire knew what would happen if she married him – she went into it with her eyes wide open.’

  Chapter 28

  ‘Is there definitely no snow?’ Lily asked, as she was being taken in a wheelchair out to the waiting ambulance. ‘I thought we might at least get some snow for Christmas,’ she said in disgust. She was all bundled up in trousers and jumper and a woolly pixie-hat, and wrapped in two warm blankets. There would be no risks taken during this short first visit home.

  ‘It’s too mild for snow, hen,’ the young nurse accompanying her said kindly, as they came to a standstill beside the open door of the waiting ambulance. ‘And we don’t get snow every Christmas. As least we won’t be slipping and sliding getting you in and out of the ambulance.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so . . .’ Lily said, but there was an ungracious note in her voice, because she really didn’t ‘suppose so’ at all. Christmas wasn’t the same without snow, everybody knew that.

  ‘All ready, Miss Grace?’ the kindly ambulance driver asked. She giggled at being called Miss Grace and nodded, and then he and the nurse came either side of the wheelchair and very gently lifted Lily out.

  They carried her up the three fold-down metal steps, their feet clanging as they went, and into the ambulance, where she was then seated on a long, soft bench. It reminded Lily of the kneelers in the church. Something soft on top of something hard.

  Then she looked around her at the other two people in the ambulance – a man about the same age as her daddy and a girl with pale red, straight hair about the same age as Kirsty or maybe even Heather. The girl had a white plaster on her arm and a white sling supporting it.

  Lily smiled across at them, thinking how much she was looking forward to being home.

  ‘Are you all right, hen?’ the man asked kindly.

  ‘Aye,’ she answered, her curls bobbing up and down. ‘I’m fine now, thanks.’ She wondered what the man was doing in an ambulance; he didn’t look as if he had anything wrong with him at all. She scrutinised him a bit more – her eyes narrowed a little – but came to the same conclusion. He didn’t look as if he had a single thing wrong with him. Maybe he was just getting a lift home in the ambulance, she decided.

  ‘And are ye lookin’ forward to Santie comin’?’ the man asked now.

  Lily nodded her head vigorously.

  The nurse wrapped the blankets tightly around Lily’s top half, keeping her weak arms well supported. Then a moment or two later, the ambulance shuddered into life, and set off towards the hospital gates. ‘She’s a great lassie, this one,’ the young nurse said, putting a hand up to check that her navy hat with the badge was still clipped in place. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to do in that ward without her. She kept the whole place going – she was even singing for them all last night.’

  ‘Well, ye see,’ Lily said, her blue eyes more expressive now she couldn’t use her hands in the same way, ‘it was only easy Christmas carols, and we learn the exact same ones in school every year.’

  ‘And are you a good singer?’ the red-headed girl asked, joining in.

  There was a little pause while the younger girl thought. ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to say it maself . . .’ she said modestly, batting her eyelids. ‘It’s different if other people say – but if I said I was a good singer, then that would be really showin’ off.’ She paused. ‘My big cousin Kirsty is a real singer on the stage, right enough – an’ sometimes people say I take after her.’

  The man suddenly started laughing, and shaking his head. ‘You’re a right wee blether, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I’d say they’ll all be glad to get you home for Christmas.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I’ve been in it for weeks an’ I was just gettin’ a bit fed up.’

  ‘And why were you in the hospital, hen?’ he enquired.

  The nurse lifted her head sharply to look at him, but it was too late.

  ‘That oul’ polio thing,’ Lily said, very matter-of-fact, looking across at the girl now. She wondered if her arm was broken or just hurt. She decided it must be broken or she woudn’t have the stookie plaster on it.

  The man’s jaw dropped and he looked mortified at having asked such a tactless question. Polio was not a subject people touched on lightly. ‘Och, I’m really sorry, hen,’ he said
, all flustered, looking from Lily to the nurse. ‘I’d never have asked . . . I thought it was just a bad dose of flu. There’s a lot of it goin’ about.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Lily said, wishing she could see out of the blacked-out ambulance window to check where they were. ‘The doctor said I’ll soon be back to my old self.’

  They were all waiting for her. Most of the family was watching for the ambulance from the window in the house, while the two younger lads, Patrick and Declan, were hanging about with a crowd of youngsters by the gate.

  Sophie and Fintan and the girls had decided to wait until she’d had a wee while with her own family, but were also watching for the ambulance from their own window.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the crowd that came into the chemist this morning,’ Kirsty said, taking a bite out of her roll and cheese. ‘All the men – lookin’ for last-minute Christmas presents for their wives.’ She gave a derisory giggle. ‘Half the women in Rowanhill don’t know that I ended up picking their Christmas presents for them. They’ll all be walking around smelling of the same perfume, for there’s not much choice in Simpson’s. It’s either 4711, Cusson’s Lilac Blossoms or Evening in Paris.’

  ‘They’re all lovely perfumes,’ Heather said. ‘I wouldn’t mind any of them myself.’ She couldn’t resist a joke at her father’s expense. ‘And it’s far better than getting a new teapot.’

  The three women went into titters of laughter.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Fintan said, ‘laughing at your poor oul’ father.’ He was laughing himself now, although slightly self­consciously. ‘Your mother said she needed a new teapot, so I bought her a nice fancy one – what was wrong with that?’

  ‘If a man bought me a teapot,’ Kirsty squealed, ‘I’d batter him over the head with it!’ Then the two girls fell against each other giggling, while Sophie and Fintan looked on in bemusement.

  ‘There’s the ambulance comin’ down the street!’ Kirsty suddenly said, and the laughter came to an abrupt halt as they all moved towards the front door.

  As they waited for the ambulance to pull up, Heather pointed to the H-shaped aerial on her Uncle Pat’s roof. ‘I didn’t noticed that when I came in last night,’ she commented. ‘But I suppose it was a bit too dark.’

  ‘There’s more of them goin’ up every few weeks,’ Fintan said. ‘I think the television’s eventually going to take over from the wireless.’

  ‘Mona was complaining that it’s not a great picture,’ Sophie said. ‘There’s times it’s like faint snow moving across the screen.’

  ‘Well, at least you can listen to it as well,’ Kirsty pointed out. She dug her father in the ribs. ‘I can’t wait until we get one.’

  ‘Well, try and find some patience,’ Fintan told her, putting his arm jokily around her neck, ‘because you’ll be waitin’ a while before a telly comes into this house.’

  When the ambulance doors opened, a cheer went up from the group gathered round Pat Grace’s gate, then everyone fell silent as first the wheelchair was brought out, and then the ambulance driver and the nurse came out carrying Lily, still wrapped in the blankets. She had her eyes screwed up against the piercing brightness of the winter sunlight.

  ‘Move away now, and let her through,’ Pat Grace instructed as he went forward to meet the little party from the hospital, Mona only feet behind him. When he saw the small white-faced bundle in the blankets, a big lump formed in his throat. He had been looking forward to her coming home all morning, for some ridiculous reason imagining her running about like her old lively little self. But seeing her now brought the severity of her illness into sharp focus. Seeing the brightest little light in his life being lifted into the wheelchair, just as he used to lift her as a small baby into a pushchair.

  ‘I feel far happier now I’ve seen her in her own house, and I think she’s lookin’ quite well, considering,’ Kirsty announced after the four of them had been over to see Lily. They were all sitting around the fire, with the radio on in the background, Sophie hand-stitching a hem on her own skirt and Fintan reading a novel by one of his favourite Irish authors, while the two girls were flicking through the Christmas editions of their weekly magazines. ‘She’s moving her arms and legs much better, and she’s well able to sit up now, with a couple of cushions behind her.’

  ‘Thanks be to God and his Blessed Mother,’ Sophie said, making the sign of the cross on her chest.

  ‘Did you hear Pat saying about the look on her face when she saw the television?’ Fintan put in. He laid his book, spine up, on the arm of his chair. ‘He said for once in Lily’s wee life she was speechless! Then she started going on about Andy Pandy and The Woodentops, and all these programmes she been hearing about.’

  ‘That was a great idea,’ Heather said. ‘It means that she’ll never be on her own downstairs in the evening while the television is on.’

  ‘And Mona has warned all the boys that Lily’s to choose whatever she wants to watch or listen to on the radio over Christmas,’ Fintan laughed. ‘It looks like she’ll be ruling the roost, the very same as always.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said Sophie. ‘We’ll know she’s back to normal when she’s bossing the boys and Pat about.’

  ‘And the priest!’ Fintan said. ‘Did you hear Mona sayin’ that he’s coming out to the house tomorrow before eleven o’clock Mass to give Lily communion?’

  ‘No, I missed that,’ Sophie replied, her eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘I must have been chatting at the time.’

  ‘Talkin’ about the priest – are any of you going to Midnight Mass?’ Kirsty suddenly put in.

  ‘Your father and I thought we’d go in the morning,’ Sophie said, looking across at Fintan. ‘We’ve been on the go since early this morning, so we thought we’d head off to bed around ten or eleven tonight.’ She yawned now, shielding her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you two from going on your own.’

  ‘Are you going?’ Heather checked with her sister. ‘I’ll go if you’re going.’ Midnight Mass was usually very nice and sociable. If it wasn’t raining, a group of them often met up outside the church afterwards and went back to one of the houses for a cup of tea and toast or maybe a bit of Christmas cake.

  Kirsty shrugged. ‘OK then, we might as well get it over with, and have a long lie in the morning. Anyway, you always get a good laugh wi’ the drunks that come in after the pub.’ She went into peals of laughter at the thought. ‘D’you remember Michael Murphy last year? He hadn’t a leg to put below him, and then he missed the kneeler at Communion and banged his knee onto the floor!’

  Heather started tittering at the memory. ‘And what about the year the choir got all mixed up and half of them were singing the wrong hymn?’

  ‘Enough now, ladies!’ Fintan warned, his face suddenly serious. ‘That’s no way to be talkin’ about the Church on Christmas Eve – it’s no way to be talking about the Church at any time.’ His eyes flicked from one to the other. ‘I’m very surprised at ye both now.’ The girls looked across at each other now, realising they’d gone too far. Their father was usually so easy-going that sometimes they forgot that religion was a touchy subject.

  He nodded towards Heather. ‘You were happy enough going to the Legion of Mary for years.’ He looked over at his younger daughter now. ‘And up until a couple of years ago, Kirsty, you used to paint the statues for the crib every Christmas.’ He stopped for breath, and to calm himself down a little. ‘I don’t mind the odd little joke . . . but after all the problems we’ve had wi’ poor Lily and everythin’ – it’s to our religion we should be turning and not making a mockery out of it.’

  ‘Och, you know we were only kiddin’, Daddy,’ Kirsty said in a low, placating voice.

  ‘You know we’re not serious when we’re goin’ on about anything to do with the Church, isn’t that right, Heather?’

  ‘Of course,’ Heather confirmed. ‘We were only carrying on.’

  ‘Well, you might try to find someth
ing more suitable to be skittin’ about,’ Fintan said, but there was definitely a lighter note in his voice now.

  They all halted now as the doorbell went.

  ‘Oh, that might be Liz,’ Heather said, getting up from the sofa. She turned back to Kirsty.

  ‘She said she wanted a wee word with you when she was here.’

  ‘What about?’ Kirsty asked, surprised. Liz was Heather’s friend and although they often went out in a crowd together, she normally wouldn’t have anything very private or personal to say to Kirsty.

  Heather shrugged. ‘I haven’t the foggiest what she wants, she never said.’ She looked at her mother. ‘If it’s all right, I’ll take her into the kitchen for a cup of tea and see if she wants anything to eat.’

  ‘There’s a fancy tin of biscuits in the bottom cupboard that I bought for Christmas, and if you like I’ll come in later and make you both a Snowball,’ Sophie offered.

  ‘That’s awful nice of you!’ Kirsty said, her face a picture. ‘I made a cup of tea for everybody earlier, and nobody mentioned Fox’s biscuits to me!’

  ‘You’re not a visitor,’ Fintan said, winking over at her, ‘and you just have to wait until one comes, like the rest of us.’

  Kirsty laughed, relieved that her father had let the argument go.

  Chapter 29

  Heather and Liz went into the kitchen, where they first of all exchanged Christmas presents and then Liz showed her the Mickey Mouse jigsaw puzzle that she’d bought for Lily. She’d left the end of the Christmas paper wrapping open, so that she could just slide the jigsaw out to show Heather. ‘Jim said the best thing to get her was something that other people could help her with – you know with her arms not being as strong as before. He said that it would keep her from bein’ too bored either in bed or lying on the couch all day.’

  ‘That was really sensible of him,’ Heather said, nodding her head in agreement. ‘She loves things like that, and it’ll definitely pass the time. I was sitting with her this afternoon, while she was reading one of those pop-up picture books, and she had to have it propped up on a cushion, while she had a cushion under the arm she was trying to turn the pages with.’