The Stone House

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Romy woke up a few hours later, the nurse putting a blanket over her because she was cold. The television was on in the room, with someone watching it! Later there was chicken in a sauce and a boiled potato and a cup of tea. Nauseous, she barely touched it. She felt sick, sore, walking like an old woman when she went to go to the toilet. Red blood in the bowl. She flushed it. Back in the bed she rolled over, wanting to sleep, wanting to forget. They woke the women early the next morning with tea and toast. Romy queued for the shower, the hot water streaming down her face and body as she washed and washed, knowing the stain would never go away.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked a woman with dyed-black hair in the bed near hers.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, putting on her jeans and jumper.

  ‘Isn’t it a great relief to get it all over!’

  Dr Bennett appeared briefly, coming over and telling each of them in turn that the procedure had gone well and to take it easy for the next few days. Afterwards the nurse reminded them to make sure they had all their belongings before they checked out.

  Romy couldn’t wait to get out of the clinic. Not even bothering with the lift, she ran down the stairs. She settled the bill with her father’s money and, taking a deep breath, stepped out in the street, traffic and noise, the world still turning as she walked down the road. Shaking with relief, she turned the corner and leaned against the wall, heart and mind racing, trying to calm down. It was over.

  Ravenous with hunger she found a small coffee bar on the Fulham road and ordered ‘The Works’, a toasted BLT. A hostel or a B&B for the night was her next priority, she decided.

  Booking into the Prince of Wales Hotel, she noticed the difference between the nightly and weekly rate and immediately decided to stay for a week. She couldn’t face going home tomorrow and back to college. She needed a few days on her own to get over everything.

  As she lay in bed that night in the small stuffy room, she was overcome with tears at the enormity of what she had done. Pretending she was still pregnant, she placed her hands on her stomach. The comforting bulge was gone.

  She slept and slept, and walked Marble Arch, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and the posh streets round Knightsbridge and Kensington. Nobody bothered her for she was a stranger, and by the end of the week she had decided to stay in London. She couldn’t go home, pretend that nothing had happened, go back to studying and failing exams and hanging out. She was pregnant and had chosen to get rid of her baby. She could never hide that!

  Days passed in a blur. Romy stayed in bed, sleeping or watching stupid game shows and soaps on the TV. Conscious her money was beginning to run out she had moved to the Harp Hostel in Kilburn, her room a draughty box with a double bed and high ceiling and heating that barely worked. She had no energy and had to force herself downstairs to eat or to go to the shop on the corner for bread and milk and coffee. She cut her hair as she couldn’t be bothered to wash and blow-dry it. Sometimes she cried for no reason when she saw families on the ads on television or strangers in the street pushing prams. It felt like she was losing her mind and she longed to see Brian again, and have him tell her he still loved her, despite what she had done. Other times, she cursed him for letting her down and her father for making it too easy for her. He’d always believed money could buy you anything, solve every problem! She should have listened to her mother instead. She had failed her! Failed every word of prayer that she had ever learned from Uncle Eamonn and Sister Goretti and all the nuns in St Dominic’s. Yes, the consequences of her bought freedom were far worse than she had ever imagined.

  By December she realized that she had only a few pounds left and was forced to lift herself from the spiralling depression that constantly overwhelmed her as she tried to find a job. Staring at the freaky stranger in the bathroom mirror, she washed and tidied herself and borrowed a clean white blouse from one of the other girls as she set out in search of some kind of work. All of the big stores were hiring seasonal staff and with her sales experience she managed to land herself a job in Fenton’s, a busy gift store just off Regent Street, which sold among other things the familiar Waterford glass. The owner was delighted to meet someone so well versed in selling the range.

  At the end of the week she bought four postcards and sent them home, one to her parents, one to each of her sisters and one to her housemates, reassuring them that she was well and living in London but not giving them a contact address or number.

  At Christmas there was no question of returning to Rossmore, and she pushed all thoughts of her family from her mind as she worked late and did overtime, wrapping china and silver and glass right up till closing time on Christmas Eve, and then joined the sing-song that was held in the hostel that night. She’d cried during Christmas morning mass in St Patrick’s in Kilburn; the sherry reception and turkey and ham dinner provided by the staff of the Harp was the only thing that got her through the day.

  The grey London January and February skies depressed her, the rain and cold weather chilled her soul, and in March she quit her job and joined up with a girl called Elise she’d met briefly in the hostel who was going back to France to work.

  Chapter Nineteen

  SHE’D GONE TO Paris first, working as a chambermaid in the Intercontinental Hotel, making beds and cleaning rooms and bathrooms. Elise and herself shared a small stuffy apartment provided for staff with three other girls from Holland.

  ‘Shit and sheets!’ they’d joked about work as they smoked Gitanes and Gauloises, drinking lemon Pernod till late at night in cheap scruffy bars and rising only a few hours later to go on duty in their pink and white uniforms. But the tips were good, and after only two months Romy and Arlene Vermeulen had packed up and hit the road, heading south for Provence. En route they’d picked grapes and lemons, their skin covered in insect bites and stings, their fingers and hands hard and calloused. They’d trekked the coast looking for jobs – Saint-Tropez, Nice, Cannes, Antibes, the surly French waiters in their pristine white shirts driving them off, the bar owners sneering at their French accents and Romy giving them the fingers and cursing them in perfect French.

  Reluctantly they’d gone back to bed-making and washing toilets in a huge white hotel overlooking the beach where the French ladies lay bare breasted in the sun.

  Their own skin turned to copper and they lived on salami and fish and salad, their breath stinking of garlic and oil as they danced in basement discos and clubs with nice French boys who wanted to do bad things with them. As the season ended and the beach began to empty Romy resisted the urge to pack her bags and return home and crossed to Morocco, learning from a girl called Leilah how to make filigree silver bracelets and anklets and how to string wire through beads and shape them into pretty necklaces and belts which they sold in the crowded market in Marrakesh.

  ‘Always price it too high, at least 100–150 dirhams more than you expect. The buyers want to haggle, the tour guides tell them to. They expect to wear you down and to get a bargain. It’s part of coming to the market.’

  Her hair grew long so she braided it and wore leather sandals and loose tie-dye caftans. At night she slept in a low white house, open to the sky, wrapped in the arms of a tall American boy called Josh who hailed from Cincinnati. When he returned to America, another boy, David, took his place. Getting bored with skinny yellow dogs that panted in the sun and pot-bellied men who tried to press against her on the streets while calling her ‘bitch’, and friends who smoked too much hash and cared about nothing too much, she said goodbye to Leilah, packed up her wire-cutters and pliers and lino cutter and bags of blue-tinted beads, and headed for Spain.

  Habit brought her to the hippie market in the old town of Ibiza, where the Germans and Danes admired her handiwork, paying with pesetas and Deutschmarks for their trinkets. Over a summer she amassed enough to open a bank account and put money by for when times were tight.

  One evening she was sitting on a stool, concentrating on the wave-shaped earring she was making for a Viking fr
om Copenhagen, when she heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Romy? It is you, isn’t it?’

  Startled, she looked up, recognizing the strong Irish accent. It was her sister’s friend, Minnie Doyle.

  ‘Romy, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She smiled, laying down her work, her mind racing.

  ‘Did you make all this jewellery?’

  ‘Well, most of it.’

  Minnie fingered a fine necklace with glass and turquoise on silver. ‘God it’s gorgeous! It’s so unusual!’

  Romy smiled. Most of the bracelets and necklaces she made were very similar, things the tourists liked, but there were always pieces that stimulated her and gave a creative edge to her work.

  ‘You look so different, your hair’s so long and you’ve gone so fair I’d have hardly recognized you.’

  Romy thought Kate’s friend hadn’t changed a bit. Her dark hair and dark eyes twinkled like they always did.

  ‘How’s Kate?’ she asked, nervous. ‘Is she with you?’

  ‘God no! You know Kate, I couldn’t get her to take a break. She’s the same as ever, working too bloody hard. No, I’m with two other friends, we just came out for the week to have a bit of fun in the sun, as they say.’

  ‘Will you tell Kate I said hello when you get back?’

  ‘Hold on, Romy, why don’t you come and meet myself and the girls for a drink later?’

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘No pressure, just a drink,’ coaxed Minnie.

  Curious, she agreed to meet them at the Flamingo Bar, down near the harbour, later that night. Sitting in huge cane chairs, Minnie filled in Romy with all the news from home.

  ‘Do you keep in touch at all?’ she asked.

  ‘I send them cards and a letter to my mother on her birthday, otherwise not really.’

  ‘They miss you,’ said Minnie softly, her eyes serious, ‘especially Maeve.’

  She could imagine her mother kneeling in the church praying, doing novenas for her, while her father sat up at the bar in McHugh’s priding himself on getting the family out of an embarrassing situation, believing the thousand pounds he’d sent her money well spent. She hated him for it! For his hypocrisy, for letting her down when she needed him most!

  ‘I know Kate and Moya miss you. Did you hear that Moya and Patrick have a baby girl, Fiona?’

  ‘So I’m an auntie now!’ laughed Romy, suddenly jealous of her older sister and her nice safe life. A baby! Moya was bound to be the perfect mother.

  ‘Romy, why don’t you come home for a holiday?’ coaxed Minnie over a Bacardi and Coke. ‘See them for a few days. Your folks are getting older.’

  ‘I know, it’s just that right now is not a good time for me,’ she apologized. ‘You wouldn’t understand, Minnie, but I just can’t.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll keep my big fat mouth shut and my nose out of it.’ Minnie grinned, squeezing her hand.

  She had a laugh with them as they filled her in on the Dublin scene, which seemed a million miles from the balmy heat and tranquillity of sitting under a starry Ibizan sky with a glass of ice cold rum and fresh lemon juice in your hand.

  By the weekend Romy had packed up what was left of her stock and a few possessions, selling the remaining lease on her stall to an English potter and his wife Carrie as she headed for the mainland. She wasn’t taking the risk of having her mother or Kate coming out to find her. It was time to move on.

  Chapter Twenty

  IN BARCELONA, THE city of Gaudi, she’d spent six months teaching English to wealthy Spanish teenagers who wanted to know how to curse and to make love in her native language. Tongue in cheek, she had taught them words like ‘feck’ and ‘shite’, wishing she could be there to see the reactions of British hosts or visitors to the Irishification of their swear words. Restless and feeling the urge to travel further she considered the map she’d spread out on the bed, trying to work out distances to Lisbon, Rome or Milan. She wanted a change and in the end decided to toss a coin in the air about deciding to stay in Europe or not. She tossed again, torn between New York and Sydney. Australia won.

  The far side of the world was as far away as she could go and she phoned her parents and sisters briefly to tell them of her planned change of continent.

  ‘Please, Romy!’ her mother had pleaded. ‘Come home for a few days before you go off. I promise there will be no questions or upsets. We just want to see you.’ She had hardened her heart, reluctant to put her travel plans in jeopardy, and had instead flown to Sydney via Bangkok and London.

  Australia suited her and in Sydney, the magnificent city on the sea, she found work in Molloy’s, an Irish bar, serving pints of dark Guinness and traditional brown bread and fresh prawns to city businessmen and tourists and freckle-faced Irish students missing home. Living only a block from the beach at Coogee, life was almost perfect. Then after twenty months she’d been hit by wanderlust and had once again packed up her bags. Aunt Vonnie had been right about her when she was a kid, saying she was like a tinker that could settle no place and wanted to be on the road the whole time. Bussing it up to Brisbane she had discovered paradise in Byron Bay. Bypassing the temptation to join the hippie trail in Nimbi she had instead rented a one-bedroomed beach-front apartment overlooking the ocean. The place was packed with surfers and those searching for something more to life than wealth or position: writers, artists and researchers. Romy immediately fitted in. Bar work was plentiful and in a few weeks she had mastered the art of mixing cocktails and surf-speak and cleaning sand off the wooden floorboards and making tuna melts for the masses.

  Rob Kane came into her life not long after. She had watched him often from a distance on the beach early in the morning, chasing the waves, envying his ability on a surfboard, and was surprised as hell when he had come over to watch her feeble attempts to barely stand on the second-hand board she’d borrowed off Marti, one of the girls she worked with.

  ‘You’re doing it all wrong,’ he chastised her, standing on the sand watching her. ‘The board knows you’re afraid of it and it’s just tossing you.’

  ‘The board knows I’m afraid?’

  ‘Have you ever ridden a horse?’ he insisted.

  ‘Yeah of course, back in Ireland.’

  ‘Well did you let the horse know you were afraid?’

  ‘No, Paddy Ryan told us that the rider is always boss.’

  ‘Well the same goes for boards! You walk out a bit further. You’re playing it too safe here, making it easy to fall off where it’s shallow.’

  She waded out further and further.

  ‘Good girl, climb on now!’

  She looked like an ungainly seal trying to climb onto the slippy board, Rob suddenly holding it steady for her as she managed to right herself and, trying not to wobble, almost stood up.

  ‘Don’t look down, only look up!’

  Unbelieving, she had caught a gentle wave and actually stayed on the board for a few seconds before tumbling off again.

  ‘Not bad,’ he praised, as dripping she stood up out of the water, her hair and face covered in sand. Mortified, Romy introduced herself.

  Rob must have been a glutton for punishment as over the next week he seemed to miraculously appear just when she needed him, ignoring her pleas to just leave her be and ‘Go off and surf!’

  One Saturday night he’d turned up in the bar with a crowd of friends. Romy waved to him and gave him a free beer in return for her lessons and was amazed when at the end of the shift he was waiting out on the veranda for her and insisted on walking her home. They sat on the cold sand in the moonlight talking for hours, Romy hugging her knees as she told him about leaving home and all the places she’d been, Rob telling her about his Melbourne childhood, confessing his sole obsession was with the waves and where they ran. As the morning sun came up, she led him towards her lonely bed and they made love till they were both sweat-soaked and exhausted and Romy fell asleep in his arms. The next day he’d packed up his things – a computer and
three boards – and moved in with her.

  He worked designing websites – surf sites for boardies, mostly: places, resorts, best boards, surf gear, competitions. His dream, he confessed, was to create a surf game for non-surfers to enjoy.

  He was easygoing and fun and very loving, working at night and the evening mostly on his own projects or as a programmer for the bank while she was busy in the bar, the days kept for the water. He had a huge group of friends, all sharing the same obsession, a gaggle of beach-babe girlfriends in attendance as they polished their boards and worked out a strategy for tackling each day’s waves.

  Month after month passed and Romy had never felt so relaxed and comfortable with her surroundings. Using her tools she had bought some silver and designed a few pieces based on surf and the crashing crescendo of waves on the rock and beach. She showed them to Tilda Gray, who ran a high-class jeweller’s and gift shop on the Shore Road, and was pleased beyond belief when Tilda put on her glasses and studied them, immediately ordering more.

  ‘Wow that’s great!’ shouted Rob, scooping her up in his tanned arms. ‘Now you’ve got your own business too.’

  ‘It’s just a bit of silver work, that’s all.’ She didn’t want to make too much of it or take on more work than she could handle.

  ‘If you want I can set you up with a website to sell your designs.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, maybe people who can’t come to Byron Bay or to Tilda’s might be interested in your designs and want to buy them?’

  She hadn’t even thought about it. It was too soon to think that way.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything, Romy. I’ll set it up for you and you can expand it and operate it any way you want in the future.’

  On Christmas Day she had sat at a massive barbecue on the beach eating shrimp and steak, drinking chilled sparkling Australian champagne and thinking of Moya and Kate gathered around the Christmas tree down home, her mother fixing the stuffing and cranberry sauce for the turkey, her father throwing logs on the fire and making sure the booze cupboard was adequately stocked for the arrival of their cousins and friends. The scent of her mother’s hot mulled wine would be filling the Stone House.