by Tara Hyland
She went to her grandmother’s room. Again, there was no sound from inside. She knocked on the door and called through, but there was no response. Instinct told her that something was wrong. Pushing the door open, Cara saw that Theresa was still in bed, lying on her side, facing the window, the patterned quilt pulled up to her neck.
‘Gran?’ she said tentatively, assuming that Theresa had simply overslept. When there was no response, she took a step closer, and said more loudly, ‘Granny?’
Again, Theresa didn’t respond. The girl reached out to touch her grandmother’s shoulder. Even through the cotton nightie, Cara could feel that her nan was stiff and cold.
No, she thought. This couldn’t be happening.
‘Gran?’ Cara could hear the panic in her own voice. She shook her grandmother a little harder. ‘Gran? Wake up!’ Tears filled her eyes, as she pleaded, ‘Please, please wake up.’
This time, she shook so hard that she rolled Theresa onto her back. Cara gasped, her hands coming up to cover her mouth, as she saw her grandmother for the first time: blank eyes stared up at the ceiling; the front of her nightdress fell open to reveal one withered breast.
Falling onto her knees, Cara closed her eyes and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
‘Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .’
Maybe if she prayed hard enough, God would give Granny back.
She stayed by the body, praying, for the next two hours. By that time, Cara had realised that God didn’t intend to grant her request. It was only then that she allowed herself to cry. Granny Theresa might have been a cold, harsh woman, but she had also been the only person Cara had known over the past few years. A bond had inevitably developed between grandmother and granddaughter, and now that Theresa was gone, she was all alone.
Cara had no idea what to do or who to tell. She was self-sufficient for her age, something she’d been forced to be, but having interacted with no one other than Theresa for the past six years, she wasn’t well-socialised. Another child might have run to a relative or neighbour for help, but she knew no other adults. And, having been warned so many times to keep her identity secret, she wasn’t sure if she should go to a stranger. So she locked up her grandmother’s room – with the body inside – and went through the motions of living in the cottage, as she had with Theresa.
Over the past few years Theresa’s contact with the outside world had been minimal. The only regular visitor was the delivery boy from the grocery store. She had stopped being able to go into the village a few months earlier and, concerned for her, the shopkeeper had started to send his son out once a fortnight, with the basics that she had always bought to subsidise what they grew on the farm.
At seventeen, Ryan Quinn was eager to get away from his father, the store and Connemara. He hated going out to the Healey farm, and hated having to talk to old Mother Healey even more. She was getting increasingly strange these days. Although he liked to think of himself as a hard man, he was still young enough to have heard the children whisper stories about her being a witch, and he was also stupid enough to believe them. So when he got to the farm and there was no answer at the door, he was almost relieved. No doubt she was out, although God only knew where. He would have happily dumped the groceries on the step and left, and no one would have been any wiser. Except his father had introduced a new system, whereby the customer had to sign a slip saying they’d received their goods. So instead of leaving the groceries, Ryan took them all the way home and told his father what had happened.
Seamus Quinn was smarter than his son. Aware of how frail Theresa had grown, he suspected that something might have happened to her and contacted the Garda.
Young PC Matthew O’Donnell was the one sent to the cottage. Like most people in the little village, he knew Theresa by sight and to nod a ‘hello’ to.
Approaching the house, he took in his surroundings with a trained eye, noticing at once that the garden was overgrown. It was a shame that Theresa didn’t have family or neighbours close by, who would look out for her. He knocked a couple of times on the front door, but got no answer. As he stepped away, he happened to glance up and thought he saw the curtain twitch at one of the top-floor windows. Matthew was only a couple of years older than Ryan – although unlike the shopkeeper’s son, he was a sensible, grounded sort – but even he felt a little shiver pass through him as he walked around the house trying to get in. The landscape was empty and silent, apart from the sound of birds twittering above.
Trying the handle of the front door, he found that it was open. Although he felt a little bad letting himself in, he knew it was the best thing to do. Inside, the house looked surprisingly neat, but it was so quiet that he knew something was up.
Matthew headed upstairs. He’d been in similar cottages, and guessed that the main bedroom would be at the back of the house, overlooking the garden.
As soon as he opened the door, he could smell the stench of death. Covering his nose and mouth, he walked over to the bed. Theresa was grey, and from the stink of her, she’d been dead for several days. Saying a quick prayer to himself, he pulled the sheet over her face.
‘Leave her be!’
Terrified, he jumped at the voice, convinced it was a banshee behind him. Then he caught a hold of himself. Whirling around, he saw a tall, skinny girl glaring angrily at him.
‘I said, leave her alone!’ she said again, before bursting into tears.
It took the police another two days to find a way to contact Theresa’s next-of-kin. During that time, Constable O’Donnell’s mother had agreed to look after the girl. Recently widowed, and with her own children grown, she was happy to fill her empty nest. She took one look at the thin, blank-eyed waif, and wanted to make everything better for her. The child managed to tell them her name – Cara – and that she was twelve years old, but after that she went mute.
‘The poor mite’s no doubt in shock.’ Mrs O’Donnell’s eyes filled with tears of sympathy. ‘Imagine, living all that time with a dead body.’
Theresa’s elder daughter, Margaret – no longer going by the name of Maggie now that she was a married woman with children – eventually turned up a week after her mother’s body had been discovered. It was the earliest she had been able to get there, she explained as she swept into the police station. She was a very busy person, a respected member of her community, and she had responsibilities that she couldn’t get out of, what with organising a cake sale for her children’s school fete, flower-arranging in the church, and leading her prayer group in the Stations of the Cross.
‘And now there’s this to deal with,’ she said, with a martyred sigh.
‘So, do you know anything about the child that your mother had living with her?’ Constable O’Donnell wanted to know, turning the conversation from Maggie’s complaints.
Maggie looked over sharply. ‘Child?’ she repeated, just to be sure she’d heard right.
‘Y-yes.’ The young policeman faltered under the woman’s piercing gaze. ‘I found her when I went to check on the house. The best we can tell, she was alone with the body for six or seven days. Strange little thing, she is. Says she’s twelve, though she looks younger to me.’
Something in Maggie’s mind clicked. The age of the child – well, it would fit, wouldn’t it? It seemed far-fetched, but . . .
‘I know nothing about any girl,’ she said brusquely. ‘She must have been some stray my mother took in.’ She pretended to muse on the problem for a moment. ‘Can I see her, though? Perhaps something will come to me then.’
While the policeman went to fetch the girl, Maggie paced the room. If what she suspected turned out to be true, she wasn’t sure what she would do. A moment later, the door to the interview room opened and Constable O’Donnell came back in, with a thin, sad-looking girl trailing behind him.
Maggie took one look into the child’s green eyes – those huge, pained eyes, which seemed to take up most of her face – and knew exactly who she belonged to. She might not have inherited
her mother’s good looks, but Maggie would know those eyes anywhere. So that’s why Franny had left so abruptly all those years ago. She hadn’t just run off with that farmhand, she’d been carrying his bastard, too. Maggie wondered when their mother had found out about the child. She remembered Theresa saying that Franny had got in touch – it must have been then that she’d dumped her child on their mother. Suddenly the events of the past few years fell into place – Theresa’s insistence at being left alone; family visits to the cottage being discouraged; and when Maggie did go there, the upstairs rooms being kept locked.
‘Well, would you be able to look after the child?’ the policeman asked. ‘If not, it’ll be the orphanage for her. She’s too old for fostering.’
Maggie needed to make a quick decision. As Theresa had predicted all those years ago, like everyone else who had known Franny in her pre-Hollywood days, Maggie had never made the connection between the movie star Frances Fitzgerald and her wayward younger sister. That meant she didn’t realise that Franny was dead. To her mind, she had no idea where Franny had got to, but it seemed safe to assume that she didn’t check in much on her child. And Maggie had no intention of taking on her sister’s mistake. Conrad would be here soon. Once he saw the girl, he would no doubt come to the same conclusion about her parentage, and would insist on taking her in. That was the last thing she wanted. If the child was anything like her mother, then Maggie didn’t want her in their home and their life. She had her own children to consider. They were good, God-fearing girls and she intended to keep them that way. One bad apple could spoil the whole barrel.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘Believe me, I wish I could take her. But I have five of my own, and we have no room and little money as it is.’
The policeman looked at the well-dressed woman, with her new winter coat and handmade leather shoes and handbag, and wondered how she could have so little compassion.
Matt tried not to sneer as he said, ‘I understand. The authorities will be here in a few hours to take the child. After that, you needn’t concern yourself with her any longer.’
He looked at the poor, skinny wretch, silent and watchful. His mother would happily have taken her in, but at fifty-five she would be deemed too old. Matt didn’t understand it. To his mind, there was something very wrong with a system which would rather send a child to an institution than see her with a loving family. But sadly, there was nothing he could do about it.
Chapter Thirty
Cara had barely got used to Mrs O’Donnell’s house, when she was told that she would be leaving. She accepted her fate without question or complaint, simply doing as she was told and packing up her few belongings. She hadn’t said much in the week since she’d been found with her grandmother’s body. She was still in shock. The policeman and his family had been kind to her, but she’d known not to get too settled with them.
The following day, Cara sat with Mrs O’Donnell in the front room, waiting for the welfare worker to arrive. On the dot of midday, a black Mini-Metro drew up outside the house. An officious-looking middle-aged woman in a brown suit got out and came to ring the doorbell. With her pinched face and mousy hair tied back in a severe bun, she didn’t look very friendly.
‘I’m Miss Lynch,’ she introduced herself when Mrs O’Donnell answered the door. She glanced down at Cara, who stood a little behind the older woman. ‘Is this the child?’
Frowning, Mrs O’Donnell said pointedly, ‘Yes, this is Cara.’ Then, realising it wouldn’t help Cara if she got the woman’s back up, she tried to smile and be more welcoming. ‘Perhaps you would like to come in for some tea?’
Mrs O’Donnell had spent the morning baking, thinking that it would make things easier for Cara if she could get to know the woman a little before they left. But the shrewish Miss Lynch appeared to have other ideas.
‘Oh, I don’t have time for that,’ she said, looking down her nose at the little house. ‘We must be getting on.’
It was all happening too quickly, Cara thought, panic setting in; she didn’t want to go with this woman. She looked up pleadingly at Mrs O’Donnell, but the kind lady could do nothing more than give Cara a sympathetic hug goodbye.
‘Well, come on with you.’ The woman took Cara by the wrist and dragged her away.
They were already at the car, when Mrs O’Donnell called out, ‘Wait!’
Miss Lynch stopped reluctantly and turned back. ‘Whatever it is, be quick. We don’t have long.’
The older woman hurried inside and came out again with something wrapped in brown packaging. She pressed it into Cara’s hands.
‘There’s some fruitcake to keep you going.’
Impatient now to get on, Miss Lynch tried to usher Cara into the car. ‘Come on now. We must be off.’
Suddenly faced with the prospect of going with the unfriendly lady, Cara cracked. Breaking from her hold, she rushed over to Mrs O’Donnell and threw her arms around the older woman’s waist.
‘Please! Let me stay. I don’t want to go with her!’
Mrs O’Donnell’s eyes filled with tears. She wished that she could stop this, but there was nothing she could do. ‘I’m so sorry . . .’
Storming over to the pair, Miss Lynch wrenched Cara away. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she hissed, as she marched the girl back to the car. ‘Any more scenes like that, and it’ll be the worse for you.’
The drive took an hour and a half. Mostly it was in silence. Miss Lynch seemed to have little interest in getting to know her. From snatches of conversation that she’d overheard between Mrs O’Donnell and her son, Cara knew she was being sent to live at a church-run orphanage. Having read Jane Eyre, Cara was already terrified about what the institution was going to be like, but the first glimpse she got of St Mary’s Orphanage was even more disheartening. Miss Lynch pointed out a grey fortress-like building on the horizon.
‘The building once served as a prison,’ she said.
Originally erected in the seventeenth century, it had been used to house rebels during Oliver Cromwell’s Irish campaign. A huge wall, at least ten feet high, surrounded a large central building. Cara couldn’t help wondering if it was designed to keep the children in or the rest of the world out. A young nun sat in a reception booth at the entrance. Seeing the black car approach, she hurried to open up: Miss Lynch was clearly a frequent visitor. The rusty iron gates heaved open, the hinges squealing, crying out for oil.
As the car drew into the little courtyard, Cara saw that the main building was just as unwelcoming: cold grey stone, gnarled wooden doors and windows that were little more than slits. There was no greenery to speak of. The other children, who were outside on some kind of break, played on the hard concrete, not grass. A distant memory clicked in Cara’s mind. After years of being starved of the company of others her own age, she suddenly recalled what fun it had been to play with Danny. But, getting out of the car, she realised this was nothing like how she’d played back then. As girls leaped over skipping ropes, or played hopscotch and chase, there were no squeals of excitement or shouts of joy. Under the stern gaze of two nuns, who were dressed head to toe in their black habits, like watchful crows, they clearly didn’t feel free to show any enjoyment or frivolity.
Only one or two of the girls glanced in Cara’s direction as she got out of the car and followed the social worker into the building. They stared at her with blank indifference. Curiosity didn’t seem to be encouraged here, and a new arrival clearly wasn’t anything to get excited about.
Inside, Cara trailed Miss Lynch through long, dark corridors, passing children and nuns as they went, until they reached a wooden door.
‘Stay here, while I talk to Sister Concepta,’ the woman instructed.
Miss Lynch disappeared inside. Through the door, Cara could hear voices; although she couldn’t make out the words, she knew they were talking about her. It was a long wait, and when Cara watched a nun go in carrying a tray of tea and cake, she knew it was going to take much longer. Her legs gre
w so tired that she ached to sit down, but she didn’t dare.
It must have been nearly an hour before the door opened again, and Miss Lynch appeared, brushing crumbs from her skirt.
She glanced briefly at Cara. ‘You can go in now.’
Cara looked at the closed door and felt afraid. Although she hadn’t warmed to Miss Lynch, she’d never met a nun before and didn’t want to go in by herself.
‘Aren’t you staying?’
The social worker sighed, as though she felt Cara was forever causing problems. ‘I have to get on.’
Miss Lynch hurried off, leaving Cara alone. Steeling herself, she went into the room.
Sister Concepta had been at St Mary’s Orphanage for twenty years now, which meant she was considered to be the most senior member of staff below the Abbess. It fell to her to greet the new arrivals, and it was a job she relished: she liked to have the opportunity to size them up – certain she could spot a troublemaker straight off. Now, staring at the young, bedraggled girl in front of her, instead of sympathy she felt a wave of revulsion. Nothing was known of this child’s heritage, but the nun suspected her parents had been tinkers or gypsies. With that shock of raven hair, she was clearly from raw, ill-bred stock.
‘What’s your second name, child?’ There was silence. The nun looked up over her reading glasses. ‘Well? I asked you a question.’
The girl still didn’t reply. She must be slow, the nun decided; that or she was being insolent. Miss Lynch, the social worker, had said that there had been something of a scene at the house earlier when she’d picked her up. Either way, the nun had no time for this child.