The visit that Biddy was dreading.
It was just another tentacle stretching out from the dark waters of Biddy’s past in Ballygrace. And the only safe raft in the middle of all this was Ruby Sweeney’s house. The house that Biddy could be another person in. A ordinary girl, living in an ordinary house. The house that nothing would make her leave, for the time being. Not even her long-standing friendship with Tara Flynn.
* * *
Father Daly arrived at six o’clock the next evening. He had sailed over the previous night from Dublin on the boat, and then driven from Holyhead to the convent near Buxton. After a couple of hours’ sleep in the afternoon, he had eaten something light and then had made his way out to Stockport to see Biddy.
“Well, well, well,” he said, when Biddy opened the front door to him. He took off his black hat, revealing sparse grey hair, and looked her up and down. “If I met you out in the street, I wouldn’t have known you . . . not a bit of it.” He stepped inside the lodging house. “That certainly makes up my mind,” he said. “We must eat out at a nice restaurant tonight. Only the best for such a sophisticated young lady.” Food and drink was a very important factor in the parish priest’s life, as was borne out by his purplish nose, heavy jowls and good-sized paunch.
Biddy tried to smile, but her mouth froze in a tight line. “If you come through to the kitchen, I’ll introduce to you to my landlady – Mrs Sweeney. Tara’s upstairs, I’ll give her a shout in a few minutes.”
“So, the situation with the address I gave you didn’t work out?”
Biddy shook her head. “She would only take one of us, and we didn’t want to separate.”
“You’re happy and content here?” the priest checked.
“I am.” There was no mistaking the determination in Biddy’s voice. “I have no intention of moving for the foreseeable future.”
Father Daly pursed his lips and bobbed his head up and down.
Several of the Irish lads were still eating their evening meal in the kitchen. Seeing the clerical collar, they downed knives and forks and stood up respectfully. There was also an element of guilt, wondering if the priest could tell that they had abandoned their Sunday Mass and Catholic duties since coming to live in England.
“Finish your meal, lads,” the priest said in an over-jovial tone, squeezing Sonny on the shoulder for good measure. He stretched a hand out to Ruby Sweeney. “So this is the lady who has been looking after my young parishioners?” He shook Ruby’s hand. “A fine place you have here.”
He was sitting down at the table, drinking a cup of tea and eating a slice of apple tart, when Tara came in. “Tara Flynn,” the priest said, getting to his feet. “Terrible business about your young friend and her father. Ballygrace hasn’t got over it yet.” He held her hand tightly between both of his. “I never got a chance to talk to you at the funeral. I believe you came and went very quickly. I called down to your uncle Mick the day after, but you’d already gone.”
“Work, Father,” Tara said quietly, easing her hand out of his grip. “I could only get a day off work, so I had to travel straight back.” Already, Tara was feeling uncomfortable with this man of the cloth.
“Ah, yes,” he sighed, sitting back down. “Unfortunately, the English don’t make the same ceremony out of funerals as we do.” He gave a little smile in Ruby’s direction. “Who’s to say which is the right way and which is the wrong? I’m afraid in Ireland, we still stick to the traditional ways of doing things. The mourning can take up to a week.”
* * *
“You have the day off tomorrow?” The priest waited in the hallway, as Biddy was making upstairs to get her new summer coat. When Biddy nodded, he said: “Good. In that case, bring a few personal items in a bag, just in case we stay overnight in the . . . convent. You’d better warn the landlady, too.”
Biddy stared at him with wide eyes. “I’d rather come back,” she said quietly.
The priest’s eyes narrowed. “We have a number of things to talk about, Bridget, and it may take longer than a few hours.” He jingled his car keys. “Run upstairs and get what you need,” he said firmly. “Something nice and feminine. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
As they drove out through Stockport and into the rolling hills of Derbyshire, Father Daly did most of the talking. “Have you a boyfriend?” he asked, holding the steering wheel in one hand, and unbuttoning his white collar with his other.
“Not really,” Biddy replied, looking out of the car window at the hills and ploughed fields.
“I mean,” Father Daly said, “have you a boyfriend like PJ Murphy or . . . Dinny Martin? A boyfriend who you let kiss and feel you?”
Biddy kept staring out of the window. “No, they’re just friends.”
“So, there’s no chance of any more babies for the time being?” he said in a low voice.
“No . . . and I have no intentions of having any more. Not until I’m married.”
“Very sensible,” the priest commented. “It’s a pity you didn’t think of all that before.”
“I was young . . . I didn’t know any better.” She turned towards the priest. “When I came to you at Confessions for the first time – when I told you about Dinny – I was only fourteen years of age. What did I know?”
“Our Lady was only a young girl when she gave birth to Our Lord,” he replied, throwing the clerical collar over his shoulder into the back seat. “The age business has nothing got to do with religion – it’s a culture thing.” He waved his hand in the air. “They’re all man-made rules and laws. Look at the business with Jesus and Mary Magdalene.”
Biddy bit her thumbnail and stared out of the window.
“Jesus,” the priest went on, “didn’t care for the rules and conventions of the Jewish faith at the time. He consorted with her, when no one else would bid her the time of day.” He put his hand on Biddy’s knee. “Just like me with you, Bridget. When everyone else in Ballygrace cast you aside, because you brought an illegitimate child into the world – who stood by you? Well?”
Biddy looked out of the window again, and tried to move her leg out of his grip.
“I stood by you, did I not?” he said, sliding his hand up between her thighs. “I sorted you out with the convent in Dublin, and then with all the adoption business.” His hand moved up to the fleshy part at the top of her legs. “I’ve always looked after you . . . my own little Mary Magdalene . . . and you must always look after me.”
Biddy squeezed her legs together tightly, until he moved his hand. A short while later, they veered off the road which went to Buxton, further into the Derbyshire country.
“I thought you said we were goin’ to Buxton?” Biddy said sharply.
“Did I?” he said in an amused tone. “Well, we might call in there after breakfast in the morning. The nuns said, if I could make it, they’d like me to say a late morning mass.”
“Where are we goin’ now?” Biddy asked quietly.
“To a nice hotel,” he replied. “Somewhere that we won’t be known. We’ll have dinner there tonight, and then we can go out for a walk or a drink later.”
Biddy slunk down in her seat and stared straight ahead. The ghosts of Ballygrace had caught up with her once again.
Chapter Thirty
The legal and financial business of buying the house was completed by the end of October. Two of the lads from Ruby’s who were painters and decorators gave all the rooms a coat of paint, which made a huge difference. Tara then advertised in the local hospitals for any nurses who needed lodgings, and placed an advertisement in the local papers for ‘professional businesswomen’.
Whilst the paperwork was being done on the house, Tara had accumulated the necessary furniture and had stored it in a warehouse belonging to a friend of Frank’s. She had originally planned on second-hand stuff for the bedrooms she would rent out and new furniture for her own bedroom. But, when she looked at the new stores in Stockport, she chang
ed her mind. There was no comparison between the quality and beauty of the old carved furniture and the characterless modern stuff.
Another thing which swayed her, was the similarity of a marble-topped mahogany bedroom suite to one she had seen in Ballygrace House. In the end, she bought pine furniture for the spare bedrooms, a three-piece suite for the sitting-room, and a dining-room table and chairs, from an Italian dealer in Stockport. She also bought the mahogany bedroom suite for herself, plus a number of large rugs.
“I was told you would take something off the price for cash,” Tara said confidently.
“You’re a good businesswoman, and know how to drive a hard bargain,” the Italian had laughed, but he knocked a good bit off the price, and threw in a dark wood coffee table and a hall stand as well.
There were other necessary items which Tara could not buy second-hand. She took her time comparing prices of curtains, towels, bedding, pots and pans, a kettle and a teapot and other odds and ends. When she was satisfied she had the best deals, she bought those, too. Luxury items such as pictures and ornaments she decided could wait.
The piano, sadly, would have to wait even longer. Tara had visited a huge musical shop in Manchester, and had priced the sort of piano she wanted. Even the most basic model was out of her reach at the moment. She could have signed up to buy one on a hire-purchase agreement, but every instinct told her not to do so. If anything should go wrong at all with the rent – then she might not be able to meet the payments on the piano.
However disappointed she felt, Tara would not let it spoil the excitement of moving into her new home. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would eventually get her piano – and exactly the type she wanted. It would be worth the wait.
As Frank promised, all the work that needed doing in the house was completed within a week, and the following Saturday he helped her to move in.
“Didn’t I tell you it would be all right?” he said with a grin, as he helped carry in the last piece of furniture. “It’s all ready for your lodgers to move in tomorrow.
So far, Tara had interviewed and accepted three young nurses who would share the big room. A schoolteacher in her thirties, who had come to Stockport, would move into the room with two beds. Miss Woods said she would prefer to pay extra for a room on her own, rather than share with a stranger. When she got to know the other teachers in the area, she said, she would perhaps be willing to share.
“Fine,” Tara had agreed. The woman looked so harmless and respectable, that Tara felt she would be a steadying influence on the younger, giddier nurses. She understood the teacher’s feelings because she was delighted to have a room to herself, after sharing for so long with Biddy. She told Miss Woods that if she could find someone to share the room within a month, she wouldn’t charge her the extra for having the room to herself in the meantime. This, Tara reasoned, would save her having to advertise and interview people, and then take a chance on them. She was quite sure that Miss Mary Woods would find her a perfectly acceptable lodger who could afford to pay the rent on time.
Tara gave the furniture remover five shillings for his help, then she whispered to Frank: “You haven’t forgotten tonight, have you?”
“Not at all!” He smiled and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s not often that a beautiful young lady insists on taking me out for a meal.”
“It’s the first time I’ve done such a thing myself,” she smiled, “but it’s the least I can do, to thank you for all your help.”
Frank bent his head and lightly brushed his lips on hers. A hot feeling of passion rose up in her immediately, and her body instinctively started to move to meet his. Then she drew back, conscious of the fellow watching from the van.
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” Frank told her, as he climbed in the removal van, “and then you can decide where we’re going.”
When she closed the front door, a wave of excitement – different from the one Frank had just evoked – ran over her. She pressed her spine against the heavy wooden door, and looked around the imposing reception hall and the swirling carved staircase. You,Tara Flynn, she said aloud, own this beautiful house. You own every single bit of it . . .and it’s just a start. Sometime in the future, you’re going to own somewhere every bit as grand as Ballygrace House!
* * *
Biddy called to her friend’s new house to see how things were going around six o’clock. Tara was in a dressing-gown with her hair wrapped up in a towel.
“I can’t believe me eyes!” Biddy said, as she opened one door after another. “I’ve never seen anything’ so grand-lookin’ – it would put you in mind of Ballygrace Castle. You’d think you’d been livin’ here for years.”
“You don’t think I’m mad for having bought it?” Tara said quietly, when they were sitting at the small table in the kitchen later, sipping tea.
Biddy reached out and took Tara’s hand. “This is the sort of place you belong . . . where you’ve always belonged.”
“Thanks, Biddy,” Tara whispered. “It’s just that when I was younger I could never have imagined myself owning a house like this.”
“When we were younger,” Biddy replied, “there was a lot of things I could never have imagined happenin’ to me . . . terrible things I wish had never happened. It’s only when you get older that you realise how bad they were.”
“Are you thinking about the baby?” Tara asked cautiously.
Biddy sighed and looked down into her cup of tea. “That’s the worst thing. Lately, I keep wondering what it would have looked like . . . whether it would look like me or . . .”
Tara reached over and put her arms round Biddy’s shoulders. “We all have things we regret happening.”
Biddy looked up at her friend, large tears in her eyes. “You never did anything wrong in yer life, and apart from Gabriel Fitzgerald, you never even looked at any of the local lads. And even then, I’m sure you only kissed him . . . isn’t that all?”
Tara nodded. How could she tell Biddy that Gabriel hadn’t done anything wrong? How could she say: It wasn’t Gabriel – it was his father! Looking back, she wished now she had lost her virginity to Gabriel Fitzgerald, for although it would have been a sin, it would have at least been normal.
“What about Frank?” Biddy asked. She loved girlish gossip, and it wasn’t often Tara was in the mood to talk like this. “He’s a bit older than you . . . he doesn’t look the type that would wait forever for . . .” She wiped away her tears with the back of her sleeve. “He’s so handsome he could have any girl he wants.”
Tara took a deep breath. “To be honest, I’m worrying about it. So far, he’s been quite content with kissing and cuddling . . . but I don’t know how long that will last.”
Biddy drained her tea. “Just make sure you don’t make the same mistake I did,” she warned. “There are things a man can buy to make sure that nothin’ happens. Things that stop you havin’ a baby.”
Tara coloured up. Trust Biddy to assume the worst. “I don’t think I need to worry about anything like that.” She looked at the clock. It was twenty to seven. “I’ll have to get ready now,” she said getting to her feet. “Frank will be here any minute.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Biddy said, lifting up her handbag. She took out a small, tissue-wrapped parcel and handed it to Tara. “It’s only a little thing . . . I’ll get you a decent present when I get me wages.”
Tara opened it carefully. It was a holy-water font, with a picture of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus on it. “Thanks, Biddy – it’s lovely,” she said gratefully, “I’ll put it by the front door.”
Later that night, after a lovely meal in Manchester, Tara had cause to remember Biddy’s words. Since she had always invited Frank in for a cup of tea or coffee at Ruby’s, he had automatically got out of the car and followed her into the new house. As soon as the front door was closed behind them, he pulled her back and wrapped his arms around her.
�
�You are the most beautiful girl in the world,” he whispered, whirling her round and burying his face in her hair. “And it’s nice to have you to myself at last. We never have any time on our own at Ruby’s; there’s always an audience around. Sometimes I feel that we’re like two teenagers, with everybody checking up on us.” He gave a laugh and then started to kiss her neck and throat in a small pecking manner. “It’s ridiculous – and me the age I am.” He suddenly stopped and looked deep into her eyes. Then slowly, he guided her backwards, until her back was pressed up against the wood panelling which she had polished lovingly earlier in the day.
Then, he bent his head and kissed her full on the lips – light at first, then much harder. Harder and deeper than he had ever kissed her before. His arms tightened round her, and then Tara felt his full weight pressing against her, pinning her against the wall, as his mouth crushed down on hers. His body moved even closer to her, until she could feel the unmistakable male hardness pressing into her groin.
Suddenly, William Fitzgerald’s face swam before her eyes. It was him all over again . . . his hands, his mouth, the hard part of his body pressing into her. A feeling of revulsion and nausea overwhelmed her, and she violently moved her head sidewards to prevent Frank kissing her, then went limp in his arms until he released his hold.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse.
Tara avoided his gaze. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said quietly. She slipped past him and opened the kitchen door.
Frank followed her into the kitchen, a deep frown on his handsome face. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked again.
“No,” Tara replied, keeping her back to him as she filled the kettle. “Would you mind checking the fire in the sitting-room? I banked it up before we went out, but it might be a bit low.”
A short while later she came into the sitting-room with a tray of tea and fruit cake. The fire had come to life again, and Frank was sitting on the sofa. Tara placed the tray on the coffee-table, and after pouring out the tea she sat down in one of the armchairs.
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