“Where are my manners? I never sympathised with you on the loss of your husband. I am so sorry.” She took Connie’s hand and squeezed it hard. “Why don’t you join us at the Ludlow Ladies’ Society?”
“I don’t know much about sewing or anything like that.”
“We are also good for a cup of tea and a chat, if you change your mind. We are all in my place tomorrow night, No. 5 on the terrace as you go into town.”
“I am not sure.”
“We meet at seven. If you call before that, you won’t have to walk alone into a crowded room.”
Connie did not answer and Eve turned out into the hallway to the front door. For a moment, she swung around, taking in the wide, high hallway.
“I hope you find the peace you want here.”
Connie did not answer, but waited until Eve passed the rhododendron and out of sight before closing the front door.
11
Hetty was the first to arrive at Eve’s the next night.
“I am a bit behind,” Eve said. “Aoife Meehan insisted on waiting while I turned up a pair of trousers she wants to wear at an interview tomorrow. She pays well, but Mrs High-and-Mighty Meehan thinks we are all on this earth to serve her.”
“At least you are not that poor husband of hers. Have you heard the latest?” Hetty bent forward, as if there was a danger the empty room might soak up her words. “She has engaged the services of a landscape designer for their patch of a lawn or, as she insists on calling it, ‘the grounds’. That one thinks she has a palace rather than a former council house on the Ballyheigue Road.”
“A good garden is always worth paying for,” Eve said, making Hetty pull a face.
“She is putting in a big water feature. Where does she think she is living, Ludlow Hall?”
Eve laughed out loud. “She certainly would bring the old place into the twenty-first century. In comparison, the American does not seem so bad any more.”
“Is she coming tonight?”
“I don’t know, but if she does, we will make her welcome,” Eve said, placing a plate of sliced lemon cake on the coffee table in front of the fire. “What about the memory quilt, Hetty?”
Hetty concentrated on ripping open the box of chocolate fingers, letting them slide out on to the plate. “It seems like an awful lot of work. I am not sure I could do Barry justice.”
She could not help it: her voice trembled, so that Eve put her arm around Hetty’s shoulders.
“You are a lucky woman, Hetty Gorman, in so many ways.”
Hetty, tears bulging at the corners of her eyes, nodded, setting off around the room, plumping up cushions. Eve concentrated on getting cups and saucers out on a side table as they heard the first of the women arrive.
Hetty, picking a stool at the far side of the room, let the others take the main seats as Eve opened the meeting.
“We have to get started as soon as possible. The Festival organiser said maybe three quilts max.”
Eithne Hall, the farmer’s wife, guffawed out loud. “Who the hell wants to be cutting up old clothes?”
“Not all of us have old clothes, Eithne. I am sure you can contribute some of the lovely flowery fabric you wear to Mass every Sunday,” Kathryn Rodgers said, immediately continuing on so Eithne did not have a chance to respond. “Yes, it is work, but it is our chance to shine, ladies. Surely everybody can see that?”
Eve straightened in her seat in the middle of the room. “So, who have we got to help out the memory quilt teams?”
A few women shuffled their feet; others concentrated on twisting the rings on their fingers. Everybody was quiet, the silence loud between them. Eithne threw her hands in the air and shook her head.
Eve looked anxiously from face to face. “What is eating everybody?”
“Maybe dipping into the past is not such a good idea,” Dana mumbled, and the others nodded in agreement.
Eve sighed loudly. “I have given my word. The Rosdaniel Festival has reserved a space for us. I am going to take on the Ludlow memory quilt.”
She looked at Hetty. Hetty’s face flushed pink.
“It is only a bit of sewing,” Hetty said.
She elbowed Rebecca Fleming, to her left, making the other woman shift and sit stiffly on her seat.
“I will contribute to a Rosdaniel quilt, but only if everybody does their bit,” Rebecca said, her voice low but firm. When nobody answered, she threw her eyes to the ceiling, her cheeks quivering pink, as the other women sniggered.
“I will oversee the Rosdaniel quilt, and Eithne, Dana and Rebecca, we can’t do without your steady hands,” Kathryn said, and the other women nodded. Bernie Martin put her hand up to indicate she was in.
Glad that business was over, they took out their patchwork.
“Is the American going to make an appearance?” Kathryn asked, and the other women laughed.
Eve, who was cutting out squares of purple and black lace, turned around sharply. “Don’t you think that young woman has enough on her plate, without us turning against her when we don’t even know her.”
“She is not in a rush to meet us all, is she?” piped up Marcella Lyons, who was squashed between the sofa and the wall.
“I am not sure I would be brave enough to walk into a room full of women I did not know,” Hetty answered, her head down, as she busied herself examining the edges of two pieces of fabric. “She probably has more to be doing with her time anyway than sewing patches,” she said.
The others, sensing an unhappiness in Hetty, returned to their sewing, the room going quiet as each concentrated on the work at hand.
Eve made two pots of tea and was about to serve when Hetty said she had to get going.
“You will do the Barry quilt?” Eva asked gently.
Hetty hesitated.
“It is a quilt everybody would love to see made,” Eve said.
“I might be able to do a small one,” Hetty replied, anxious not to draw the attention of the other ladies.
Grabbing her things, she let herself out. Not even stopping to pull on her coat, she set off up the hill home. The town was dead. She was itching for a cigarette, but she was too nervous to light up. She waited until she got home and into the kitchen before pulling the cigarette box from her handbag.
Anger pulsed through her that, five years after his death, the women of the Ludlow Ladies’ Society revered her husband so much. How did they know what it was like to be Barry Gorman’s wife? So charming, they said. How many times had she paid for the charming persona he put on outside of the house, the frustration of his daily existence building inside him, like a powder keg ready to ignite with a smile from her or maybe a word or often just a look his way.
The first time it happened, she excused it: it had been a bad week, with two repeat orders cancelled. He ignored her when she put the dinner on the table, stabbing at the roast potatoes, saying they were too crispy, the beef tough. Suddenly he shouted, setting the plate spinning across the table until it crashed to the floor.
Bending down to pick at the porcelain, she pulled at the beef, wondering if she should have let the roast sit for longer once out of the oven. Letting the dog wolf what was left on the floor, she dropped the remains of the plate in the bin.
Tears jugged through her, her hands shaking, her voice feeble when she spoke.
“Barry, I am sorry.”
“You had the whole day to produce this swill.”
“I can do something else, I am sorry.”
“What can you possibly do in the next half-hour?” he said, his lips bulging with sarcasm.
“A nice creamy scrambled egg and some toast?”
She expected him to spit out a reply, but instead he reached for the newspaper. Taking his silence as a signal, she began to work cautiously around him. Carefully, she cracked the eggs on the edge of the bowl, fearful the noise would disturb him.
When he lit up a cigarette, she did not complain. Head bowed, she worked over the gas cooker until the eggs pulled in
to a soft mess. Spooning it out on to the plate, she kept the scrambled eggs warm over the saucepan, until the toast was ready to butter. Just before serving, she asked him quietly if he would like some salt. She stood, holding the plate, waiting for his answer.
“A sprinkle,” he said, lowering the newspaper.
She got down the tub of salt, letting a small amount fall into the palm of her hand, kicking off a pinch across the eggs, before sliding the plate in front of her husband.
He said nothing, but folded the newspaper carefully, making sure to keep the crease. He raised a triangle of toast and spooned some egg on to it, before placing it neatly in his mouth.
She was filling the sink with boiling water from the kettle when she heard him shout.
“Who said you could throw the whole of the salt cellar on top of my dinner?”
“Just a sprinkle, Barry, nothing else.”
Not bothering to look around at her husband, she started to pile the dishes into the hot, soapy water.
When the blow came, she had no idea what had happened. Pain punched across her head as she reeled across the floor, hitting against the dresser, so her display plates and the china tea set her aunt had given her for a wedding present clattered. The sugar bowl fell off, smashing to the floor. Barry shouted at her to get up, his face so close she felt the hot spray of his spit. He put a hand out and she made to grab it, thinking he was helping her up, but he pushed her, so that she was bent over. Catching her by the hair, he dragged her up. When she cried out, he clenched her hard, snarling in her ear.
“Who the hell said you could throw the whole of the salt cellar on my dinner, bitch?”
“I didn’t, Barry. Stop, please stop.”
He released his grip and she staggered away. Instinctively, she put her hands up to shield her head. When the blow came, it was the hardest yet, sending her careering across the room, hitting the wall before falling in a heap on the cold tiles.
She must have been knocked out, because when she woke up she was woozy. Pain swelled through her, and blood caked into her hair and head, staining the ruffled collar of her good blouse.
She did not know where her husband was, so she went back to the sink, scrubbing the dishes hard, the lukewarm water a strange comfort. When she was finished, she dried the dishes, before making sure to stack them neatly on the dresser. Next, she straightened her china cups and saucers, being particular the plates at the back were secure. On her hands and knees, she brushed the broken delph into a discarded cereal box.
That was the night she started smoking. She saw the pack of Major thrown in the bowl on the dresser, and ripped it open. Reaching for the box of matches, she struck one, making sure to hold the cigarette well away from her face when she lit it. Sucking in a long draw, letting it down into her lungs, it made her wheeze and cough until her stomach heaved. She had to bolt for the back door, throwing up in the flower bed. Standing, looking out into the pitch dark, she worried where her husband was. Leaning against the back door, she pulled on the cigarette again, a short puff this time, observing the smoke as she exhaled curl off into the black, away from the pool of kitchen light.
As more puffs followed, she began to feel better. Leaning against the back door of the kitchen, inhaling, exhaling, the nicotine made her feel strangely lightheaded, the pain throbbing through her, pulsing at its own beat.
The click of the front door indicated Barry was back in the house. Quickly, she grabbed the cigarette pack from the kitchen table and put it back in the bowl. Catching the handle of the back door, she fanned the door swiftly back and forth to clear the air in the room.
Barry, his coat hanging open, walked in, pulled out a kitchen chair and slumped down. He looked at his wife.
“You look a mess. After you have made me a cup of tea, go clean yourself up,” he rasped.
She lit the gas under the kettle, waiting for it to whistle, busying herself taking down his mug, swiping it with a teacloth to make sure it was clean.
“Stop fussing, woman, get me the tea,” he said, and she felt a chill crawl through her, that he might lash out again.
When she brewed the tea, she poured it into a mug and nervously placed it in front of him. He took a sip before pushing the mug away.
“I will have a full Irish breakfast in the morning, on the table at 7.30 a.m.”
He stood up, the chair tilting back, before marching out of the room. She heard him tramp up the stairs. His footsteps sounded over her head, as he walked across the bedroom to place his watch on the dressing table. Moving to the bathroom, she heard the thud of his shoes as he threw them into the hall for her to take away and polish. Finally, she heard the creak of the bed, but she decided she would wait until she was sure he was asleep before venturing up the stairs.
Grabbing the pack of cigarettes she had bought for him earlier that day, too afraid to steal from the box in the bowl again, she sat down at the kitchen table to light up. Pulling long and deep, she threw her head to the ceiling and exhaled slowly. Her hands shaking, tiny flecks of ash flicked across the table, but she did not care.
Halfway down the cigarette, she got up from the table, her bones aching, flashes of pain vibrating across her skin. Taking her coat from the hook on the back door, she made to go outside. She wanted the cold air to soothe her throbbing head. Before she went out the door, she switched off the kitchen lights, in case anybody noticed and commented on the funny hours the Gorman household was keeping. Quietly, for fear he might hear her, she lifted the latch and pulled back the door enough so she could slip outside.
The cigarette tip her only light, the darkness crawled around her like a comfort blanket. Here, she let the tears flow; her nose full of snot, she swiped it with her coat sleeve as she stumbled around the side, to the seat Barry had installed on the lawn last week. The seat was hard, the cold seeping up through her, but she liked it because it reminded her she was alive.
Tears flowed down her neck, soaking the velvet collar of her coat. Why he had beaten her like a thug on the street, she did not know. Neither did she want to know. How was she going to get his egg right for breakfast? Tears clogged her throat. She wanted to shout at the stars to go away, to tell the moon to stop shining, in case he woke up and saw her sitting on the garden seat, installed just for show.
She had been so excited when the seat arrived. Last Saturday he arranged for a man in a van to collect it and help him put it in place. After they decided on the angle, she went to sit on the seat, but Barry pulled her back.
“You don’t want to be sitting out here, where all the neighbours can see you. They will say Barry Gorman’s wife is gone bone lazy sitting, taking the sun.”
She giggled but bypassed the seat, returning to weed the bed of dahlias.
Hetty sat down, pulling her feet up under her coat. Shivers of fear shuddered through her, combining with the cold, so that she ached all over. It must have been two in the morning, but she didn’t care: while he was sleeping, she was safe.
Could it be that he would wake up later full of remorse? She did not think so. They were married, and that was the way it was going to stay.
Her mother was the only one not taken in by the charming Barry Gorman.
“I don’t care how good he is to you now, girl. He was once a salesman, too skilled at putting an image across; you remember that. Ask yourself: do you know the real man?”
“Of course I do.”
“He is asking you to give up your job. You are going to be very dependent on him.”
“Mum, Barry has picked me, can’t you be proud of that?”
Her mother placed her two hands on her daughter’s shoulders. Quietly, she took a bundle of notes out of her pocket, slipping them into Hetty’s hands.
“For you and you only. Use it when you need to. It will get you a guesthouse, if you ever need one in a hurry. If you want to dash for home, we are always here.”
Hetty pulled away from her mother’s embrace. “For God’s sake, Mum, will you stop telling me
I am a failure at marriage before I even start.”
“Keep it for a year. If I am wrong, you can fritter it after that.”
Hetty snatched the notes tight, before throwing back her hand and firing them across the room. “Don’t think I will be talking to you any time soon, the way you insult us.”
Hetty sobbed to think she had not even invited her parents to the wedding, choosing to get married in Rosdaniel with just Barry’s family and a few of his friends as guests. Her mother died suddenly a few years later. Barry refused to take a day off for the funeral, so she went on her own, her sisters barely civil to her, her father too caught up in his own grief to realise her anguish.
Spotting a car coming up the hill, she rushed from the seat back into the house. Shaking out her coat in the night air, in case he got a whiff of smoke from it, she also left the kitchen door open while she arranged a bed for herself on the sitting room couch. She couldn’t face cleaning his shoes just yet.
She lay on the couch, his snoring shuddering through the house, counting down the minutes and the hours until she had to get up.
Date: March 27, 2013
Subject: THE LUDLOW LADIES’ SOCIETY
*****SPECIAL NOTICE*****
Ludlow ladies,
This is an urgent request for help. We need premises, any type of permanent structure. Please keep your ears close to the ground and your eyes peeled.
Creating as many as three patchwork quilts in one go is a big enough job, we so badly need space, somewhere to store the fabric and where we can hold meetings and join together stitching these quilts. It must have electricity for light, the machines and the irons. Anyway, who can sew for any length of time without a cuppa?
We need premises urgently if we are to keep our commitment to provide three works to the Rosdaniel Festival.
We hold on to the belief that when the Ludlow Ladies’ Society puts its mind to something, there is no stopping us.
Kathryn Rodgers,
Chairwoman
12
Connie woke up early, the white mist curling in across the fields, the birds competing in song, the sun peeping through, touching off the windows at the front of the house. The mist lightly skimmed the grass, huddling into the fuchsia bushes, skirting around the trees. Ludlow Hall was quiet, but all around it, the day was beginning.
The Ludlow Ladies Society Page 10