Another Kind of Life

by Catherine Dunne

  And she never stopped missing her three boys. Life was good in America, it seemed, and the work plentiful. Father MacVeigh had tried to get in touch with them for her after their father died, but there had been no response. Not known here. No forwarding address. They’d moved on by then, maybe; or maybe they just didn’t want to know. It happened. People here shrugged it off, as though such abandonment was natural, only to be expected. Sometimes, parcels kept coming from America for years, dressing and entertaining the younger ones in the large families left behind. More often they stopped after a year or two, to be replaced by the few dollars at Christmastime inserted between sheets of writing paper, folded carefully into blue envelopes with exotic stamps. Eventually, inevitably, these stopped, too. People made new families, created new memories, a whole new way of life. ‘That’s the way of the world, child.’ One of Ma’s favourite sayings. Nevertheless, Mary could always tell that it had scalded her heart.

  She kept rummaging around the kitchen for almost an hour, looking twice or three times in the same places, dismayed at the paltry yield. A handful of copper pennies, a sixpence, a couple of ha’pennies. That would pay no doctor. He was a kind man, Mary knew, and that made it all the more important to be able to give him something. She hated relying on charity.

  She spread her arms out on the tiny table and rested her forehead on them. Her whole head felt heavy. It was an effort to hold it up. At least this escape cost her nothing. She would sleep until he arrived.

  Dr Torrens arrived punctually at ten o’clock. His knock startled Mary. She had been dreaming about being surrounded by a hostile crowd, her body powerless, her chest suffocated by fear and inertia. In the dream, she had no voice, no will. She tried to cry out, to move her legs and arms; instead, she woke whimpering, paralysed between sleep and wakefulness, saliva all over her hands where her mouth had rested. Hurriedly, she wiped her hands on her skirt and ran to open the front door.

  Dr Torrens looked too clean, too cheerful, too well tended to be standing outside her front door first thing on a rainy Sunday morning.

  ‘Good morning, Mary. How’s our patient?’

  ‘Still the same, I think. I don’t even know if she slept.’

  ‘Let’s go take a look. And you?’ he asked. ‘Any ill effects?’

  She shook her head.

  No, she wanted to say, not unless you include fear for yourself and your sister, terror at watching the next forty unchanging years of your life unfold before you in dust, consumption and bitterness, or watching your unborn children’s lives unfold in dust, consumption, bitterness. That’s if you live that long. No other ill effects.

  Cecilia was very still, lying just as Mary had left her. Dr Torrens leaned over her and very gently lifted one eyelid. He turned to Mary.

  ‘Can you bring me some warm water and a cloth and we’ll clean up her cuts? I’ve got antiseptic with me.’

  She had the feeling he was getting rid of her, kindly. She’d go then, but she wanted the truth, all of it, when he was finished.

  When she came back upstairs to the bedroom, Cecilia was weeping silently, the doctor peering into her right eye with a small light.

  Mary was frightened. There was a strange atmosphere in the room.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, almost dropping the cracked bowl full of warm water.

  ‘Cecilia’s afraid that the shadow in front of her eyes is worse than yesterday.’

  He lifted her left eyelid.

  ‘It’s not even twenty-four hours, yet, Cecilia. Give things time to settle. Please try not to worry.’

  He put his light away, and snapped the top of his black bag shut. He handed Mary a bottle.

  ‘Put ten drops of this into warm water and wash the cuts three times a day. Keep the room dark and quiet. I’ll be back again tomorrow morning.’

  He laid his hand on Cecilia’s forehead.

  ‘I’ve given you something for the fever, my dear, and you’re made of strong stuff. Don’t lose heart.’

  There was no reply. He didn’t look as though he expected one.

  Mary followed him downstairs.

  ‘Her sight has got worse, I’m afraid. I’m hoping it’s only temporary, but it’s very distressing for her. You must try and keep her spirits up.’ He hesitated. ‘And your own. I’ll do whatever I can to help.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You must send for me at once if the fever gets any worse. If you’re in any doubt, please don’t delay.’

  He paused, and Mary knew that he was breaking things to her gently.

  ‘It’s very important that the fever doesn’t get a grip. Watch her closely tonight.’

  All feeling suddenly seemed to have left Mary’s body. She clung to the door after he had left. Cecilia. Blind. She’d known by looking at her this morning that she wasn’t going to get better. Now what? She sank to the floor, leaning her back against the door, resting her forehead in her hands. She stayed, unmoving, until pins and needles began to creep up her legs towards her knees. She wasn’t going to be able to cope with this; all her familiar strength seemed to have deserted her. She had no idea what she was going to do next.

  Look after Cecilia, that’s what. Up off yer arse, girl, and stop feelin’ sorry for yerself. This is no time for guernin’. She heard her mother’s voice, startlingly clear inside her head. She felt, suddenly, some of the old energy begin to seep back into her blood again. Something under the surface of her skin began to feel alive. Even her hands had begun to tingle. She had a strange, warm sensation that Ma was looking after her, willing her to do what was right. She couldn’t just sit down under this. She’d promised to look after Cecilia, always.

  She had today to get herself organized. Mrs McNiff would surely come and sit with Cecilia in the mornings. The old lady was a great talker: she had a wealth of stories. She’d be good company for Cecilia. Then there was Mrs Devlin. She’d help out, too, once her sons went off on their afternoon shift to the ropeworks. Saturday afternoons and Sundays she’d mind Cecilia herself.

  And if she did go blind, maybe there was still something she, Mary, could do without leaving Cecilia alone. She might become a homeworker. She’d ask Father MacVeigh. There was great call for fine needlework these days – embroidered sheets and table-linen for all the big houses on the Malone Road.

  She rubbed the backs of her legs vigorously and made her way into the kitchen. She filled the bowl again with water, this time cold water, straight from the tap. She would bathe Cecilia’s forehead all day, if that’s what it took. She would break this fever, for both of them. That was today’s work. She’d worry about tomorrow when it came.

  Cecilia slept fitfully all day. Mary stayed at her side, filling bowl after bowl full of cold water, talking to her all the time as she bathed her forehead. There were times when she was sure that Cecilia heard and understood her, other times when her sister seemed to have gone so far away from her that Mary was terrified. She couldn’t leave her side for more than an instant. She had called out the window to neighbours who knocked anxiously, looking for news. She threw down a key to Myles for Mrs McNiff, just in case she, Mary, had to rush away for Dr Torrens. She willed the fever to break, willed her sister to come back to her.

  Shortly after midnight, something in the room changed. Mary jolted awake, sensing the presence of something different. She had fallen asleep for an instant, still on her knees at the side of the bed, the cloth wrung out and clenched in her right hand. Cecilia seemed to lie more quietly. The childlike moaning had ceased. Mary stretched out her hand to touch her sister’s forehead. Cooler; it was definitely cooler. Even by the light of a single candle, her skin seemed less livid, its rawness abating. Too exhausted even to undress, Mary climbed into bed beside Cecilia, pulling the blanket around her own shivering body. She slept.

  Sunlight filtered through the thin curtain, filling the room with a warm, yellowish haze. When Mary opened her eyes, she knew she was already late for work. She’d overslept – it was much too bright. Ne
vertheless, the brightness made her cheerful until she remembered. All the unhappiness of the past two days came flooding back. She turned at once to Cecilia. Her sister was already awake, her face much cooler than yesterday.

  ‘Cecilia?’ she said.

  She couldn’t keep the joy out of her voice. She was better – the fever had broken; even some of the swelling had gone down. She was no longer moaning and thrashing in pain. Maybe things wouldn’t be as bad as they seemed, maybe Cecilia would recover and—

  ‘I can’t see, Mary.’

  Mary felt the room deflate, as though somebody had suddenly let the air escape from all around them.

  ‘What?’

  She couldn’t think of what to say, and yet she had thought of nothing else, imagined nothing else since Saturday night. She had heard the doctor’s voice, her sister’s voice, even her own voice giving life to the fact of Cecilia’s blindness. The younger girl’s quietness made Mary fearful in a way that tears and hysterics never could have done. There was nothing else here for her, other than the truth. There was no comfort to offer her sister in the face of such quiet certainty.

  She reached for Cecilia’s hand.

  ‘Don’t give up hope, love. Mebbe it’ll pass. Try not to worry.’

  But the cracking of her own voice gave her away. Two huge tears trembled on Cecilia’s lower lids. She squeezed her sister’s hand. Mary broke then.

  ‘Oh, Cecilia. I’m so sorry. So sorry.’

  She wept, her head on her sister’s thin shoulder. Then, with a huge physical effort, she hugged the younger girl closer to her.

  ‘I’ll look after ye, Cecilia. I will. As God’s my judge, I’ll always look after ye.’

  Eleanor’s Journal

  OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS back in Dublin was rather a grim time. I have only the vaguest, most shadowy memories of that infamous train journey, that rushed exit from Belfast after Papa had been arrested. That awful event is now part of our secret family history, spoken of, I think, only amongst us girls. In fact, Hannah and May and I spoke of it so often afterwards that I can no longer be sure whose memories I have of that day and the days that followed. Certainly a mix of May’s and Hannah’s – they were older than I was, so much better able to articulate. But children absorb so much of what is going on around them; other people’s fear and anger seem to seep into their very bones, leaching out in later years, transformed into something very different. I think that the first seeds of my desire for independence were sown that year of our return to Dublin. Whether I knew it at the time is not really important: I came to know it later on. I wanted to hand my destiny over to no man.

  It is ironic, of course, that another man should have been our saviour that awful summer. Grandfather Delaney, with his stern face and kind eyes – I’ll always remember the way he greeted us at the station, off the Belfast train. I know that he made me feel safe, made me feel that I had, at last, come home.

  We all stayed with Grandfather until about a week or so before we went back to school in Dublin the following September. The four months leading up to then had seen our lives grow more and more difficult – Grandfather was not accustomed to three noisy young ladies disturbing his afternoon sleep, giving him indigestion with their antics after dinner. Mama had grown white and tense again – she shushed us angrily so often that we went around the house like ghosts, our very shoes made of whispers.

  We were glad to move out – at least, Hannah and I were. Grandfather’s house was full of male smells, and stiff, no-nonsense furniture. All traces of Grandmother’s hand had long since disappeared: there was no sense of the feminine in any of the rooms to which we were permitted access. To this day, the smell of brandy, cigars, and the warm, heady aroma of cinnamon-smothered bread-and-butter pudding remind me of my Grandfather Delaney. His tastes were solid, respectable, upper middle class. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, a good claret, a blazing fire beside which to open one’s waistcoat in the late afternoon. Such were the joys of the masculine household. However, he and May seemed to form an unlikely alliance. They disappeared together to the study most afternoons, although May never spoke about it. I didn’t mind – I had no wish to be singled out for Grandfather’s attention. I was very happy to be left alone, or to play tennis with Hannah in the park opposite Grandfather’s house.

  As with many things, I learned later that the house we moved to – a pretty red-brick house on Leinster Road in Rathmines – was one of Grandfather’s several properties. I have wondered often about the unhappy family who had to move out so that we could move in. I have often felt guilty that our misfortune was the cause of some other poor family’s displacement. Bits and pieces of the previous tenants’ lives were everywhere, and I know that my small self was distressed at finding some child’s teddy bear hiding in the dust under the bed in May’s and my room. I wanted Mama to find out where that child had gone, so that we could give her back her toy. But Mama got angry with me then, and I learned never to speak of it again. I still have the bear, as you know, somewhat the worse for wear, but none the less well loved for all that.

  Lily and Katie set to cleaning the new house with a vengeance. It was smaller than we were used to, but I liked that. I liked sharing with May. On the nights when she snored, or went sleepwalking, I took my pillow to Hannah’s room. I thought my heart would break when both of my sisters were sent away to boarding school early in the New Year. That they had been at day school since September had been the source of all my happiness. I cried and cried until Lily and Katie took pity on me, and brought me warm milk and comfort in the evenings. Mama was far too distracted to worry about my childish tears.

  She disappeared several times that autumn, usually for a day or two at a time. I think I knew that she had gone to see Papa, but I was too afraid to ask, and she never spoke of it. She would return to Leinster Road with red-rimmed eyes and creased travelling-clothes. Lily would always look after her, bustling her upstairs, disappearing for an hour or two, then reappearing with an armful of Mama’s dresses. She would shake her head over the clothes in the kitchen, clucking at the mistress’s unhappiness.

  Perhaps it was because neither Lily nor Katie had children of their own, but they seemed totally oblivious to my presence by the range, where I sat sipping my warm milk, nibbling on Katie’s cherry buns. I was always loath to go to my bed, and I made this supper last as long as I could. If I kept still and quiet, they would talk about Mama, about Papa, about us children and our misfortunes as though I didn’t exist, as though none of us really existed. Perhaps that is why I now have a healthy respect for other people’s children: what they do not understand of speech, they more than supply with intuition.

  I sometimes feel sorry now for the little girl I once was, sitting in her lonely corner of the kitchen. In all senses, that range was the only warmth I received; by its side, I learned to decipher adult language, to understand the words that were spoken and, more importantly, to understand the significance of the silences in between.

  I got books that first Christmas back in Dublin, and a new pair of boots. Grandfather Delaney came for dinner and slept in the big winged armchair by the fire all afternoon. We girls had to be silent. It wasn’t hard. There was no cheer for us that festive season. Hannah was disinclined to play the piano; May sat quietly, poring over the atlas Grandfather had given her from his library. There was little that was new. Grandfather didn’t believe in making a fuss over Christmas.

  I remember thinking, even as a precocious nine-year-old, how ridiculous it was that everybody had to pretend to be happy on the same day of every year. As if happiness were something we could experience to order.

  We all went to bed early that night. I couldn’t bear any longer to see Mama’s eyes fill every time any of us looked at her. May slept instantly, but thrashed and tossed so much during the night that she kept me awake.

  I took my pillow and made my way to Hannah’s room. She was not asleep. Wordlessly, she turned down the bedclothes on one side and waited u
ntil I had climbed in beside her.

  She kissed me on the forehead.

  ‘Good night, Mouse,’ she said.

  I was glad. She didn’t need to say anything else. I understood that this was now part of our private language. We were both thinking of him. In our own way, this was our gift to Papa, our way of wishing him a happy Christmas.

  Mary and Cecilia: Summer 1893

  ‘ARE YOU REALLY sure about this, Cecilia?’

  Mary was braiding her sister’s hair carefully. She tried to cover up the bald patches, brushing wisps of fine, tired hair from one side to the other, trying to hide as much as possible. Of all the injuries which Cecilia had suffered, Mary found these open, hairless patches of scalp the most difficult to look at. It seemed as if all her sister’s vulnerability lay just below the surface of the tender pink weals that littered her scalp. They had been raised and angry before, in the days immediately following the attack; now they looked flat and defeated, like the discarded cocoons of some predatory insects. If she pinned up the plaits, then perhaps the scars wouldn’t be so visible. Not that Cecilia would notice anyway, not any more.