The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “I manage,” she shrugged when I questioned her about how she could live on the poor returns she was getting. “The rent is barely anything and I don’t need many clothes, or fancy things.”

  I remembered how smart she’d been in the thirties when we used to stay in the Northern Hotel in our garrison town and how people had stared in appreciation at her expensive clothes and coiffured hair. Now, here she was, sitting opposite me in her tiny smoky kitchen, dressed in a plain blue jumper and an old grey checked skirt.

  “Let’s go into Galway Town, tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll have a bite of dinner and I’ve some business to do.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’ll be grand. I’ve to pick up some worming stuff from the vet, as well.”

  I nodded and stared at her while the new thoughts I’d had, whirled round my head.

  “What?” she said, “what are you looking at?”

  “Nothing, just thinking, that’s all.”

  She giggled. “Don’t worry; I’ve still got some decent clothes. I won’t show you up.”

  I found a lawyer in the town and with him and the help of the bank manager who just happened to be his uncle, arranged the transfer of the money that Billy had given me that time before the war. With the extra money that I had added over the years, it came to quite a tidy sum, enough that I was able to buy Elizabeth’s farm and another hundred acres from the same estate.

  The following week we went for lunch again and I picked up the deeds while she was shopping for our supper.

  “Here,” I said holding out the large brown envelope as we sat over a couple of whiskeys, beside a roaring fire in the best hotel. “This is for you.”

  Slowly, she put down her drink and carefully opened the envelope. “What’s this?” she whispered, “what have you done?”

  “I’ve bought the farm for you. It’s yours and the land in the valley.”

  If I’d thought she would be grateful and fall upon me with effusive thanks then I got a horrible surprise. “No!” she cried, slamming the envelope back on the table. “I can’t take this. I don’t want anything from the Wildes.”

  That girl. She was without doubt the most stubborn, difficult person in the whole world. For once, I was really angry with her and the whole room of quiet, genteel visitors knew it.

  “Elizabeth Nugent,” I shouted, getting to my feet, “you will take it. You’ll take it because I have given it, not the Wildes, because you are me and I am you, so in that case, I am buying it for myself. And last,” I stopped shouting then and sat down again facing her, “because of our son.”

  That made her quiet and she sat staring at the fire while the rain poured down outside and our fellow diners, seeing that the excitement was over, turned back to their plates.

  “If John had lived,” I said in a quiet voice, “I would have wanted to support him, you know that.” She nodded and I took another deep breath. “He’s here, all around us, isn’t he? I can feel his presence when I’m with you, not only in the churchyard but in your house and the fields, everywhere. By making you comfortable in this place, it’s as though I’m doing it for him.” I took her hand. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

  Well, she agreed in the end and by the time I left, was already looking to buy more dairy cows and to take on a farm labourer. I went with her to the cattle market one morning, sitting nervously beside her in the old van as she drove wildly through the country lanes. For the first time she asked me about Billy.

  “I dreamed about him a lot when I first came here,” she said. “I thought that he would come and get me.” She shuddered and put out her gloved hand to wipe the mist from the inside of the windscreen. It had rained now continuously for a week and I wondered if the sun would ever come out again. I was cold as I had been ever since I came home from India. Elizabeth had taken me to a shop in Galway Town where I bought a thick tweed suit of clothes and some stout boots and those helped, but I did miss the hot sun of the east. So when she shuddered, I shuddered too.

  I grunted. “He’s just the same. Still got fixed ideas about women and is upset about the new land girl. She’s pretty see, but modest and quiet.” I thought about him looking at the girl in the field and my stomach lurched when I remembered the strange glittery look in his eyes as he watched her.

  “I think I’ll telephone Mother when we get to town,” I said, suddenly feeling uneasy about the situation I’d left behind. “See how she is.”

  I was right to be uneasy. Things were bad at home and Mother was close to tears when I finally got through to her. Dorothy had disappeared and her parents had called in the police. “They took Billy for questioning,” Mother cried, “kept him for two nights.”

  “What happened?” I was shocked and looked desperately through the telephone kiosk window to Elizabeth, who was standing outside looking anxiously at my troubled face.

  “They let him go. He says it’s all a mistake and that her disappearance is nothing to do with him, but the folk in the village are saying…” The line crackled and I couldn’t hear what it was that they were saying, but I could guess. Her next words were quite clear, however. “Oh, come home, Richard. I do need you.”

  Elizabeth looked miserable when I told her. “You’ll have to go, I suppose,” she sighed. “Just when I was getting used to having you around.”

  I think that if I hadn’t gone then, but stayed, we would have lived there for the rest of our lives together. That barrier she had put up after John died had suddenly melted away and we had become close again. We talked about her plans for the farm as though the two of us were going to carry them out and I had already thought about bringing the telephone and more importantly, electricity to the place.

  “I’ll only be away a week or so,” I assured her. “In the meantime, get help in and I’ll be back in two ticks.”

  There was a strange atmosphere at Manor Farm when the taxi dropped me at the back door. A raw, squally wind was blowing across the fields, pulling at the bare thorny branches of Mother’s favourite climbing rose which normally clung snugly to the outside scullery wall. Now the wind had dragged it from its moorings and it was waving about trying to catch the threads of my coat, as I stood by the door looking across the yard. Flecks of snow were dancing in from the mountain, not enough to lie but enough to drive the poultry into their shed where they perched miserably, waiting to be closed up for the night.

  I could hear the cattle restlessly stamping in the shippon and I wondered if they’d been milked, for it was late afternoon and no-one was about. Even the kitchen, Mother’s domain, was empty when I went inside and called for her. My shout of “Mother,” echoed hollowly through the gloomy rooms and the only reply I got was fierce rattling from the windows as another gust hit the side of the house. To add to my misery, I could hear the wind howling in the chimney, something that I’d never liked, even as a boy, and I wished desperately that Mother or someone, would come.

  Slowly I walked up the stairs and went into my bedroom. The bed was turned down, ready for me, and some-one, Mother I suppose, had put a carafe of water and a glass on the bedside table. Beside it was the little biscuit tin that I knew would hold four plain crackers, Mother’s treat for visitors. My room had remained unchanged since my boyhood. The two narrow single beds and the two bedside tables at right angles to the window. For a moment, I was back as a youngster, running in after school and throwing myself on the bed ready for a guilty read before I was called down to do my chores. I looked over at the bed that had been Billy’s. He had long since moved into the big room that had been Father and Mother’s and although on my visits home I had heard him snoring away in there, I was sure he was lonely. Our Billy didn’t like the night. He didn’t like waking up and finding himself alone. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, but I was remembering that he was the reason that I’d had to leave Elizabeth, yet again, and I muttered an oath to the silent room. My damned brother was like a millstone around my neck.

  Dusk was falling in the ya
rd when I went outside again but now I could see movement from the barns. The cows were going in to the milking parlour and I followed them in hoping to find Billy and vent the anger which was growing with every second.

  He wasn’t there. All I found was Ernie, cooing and cushing at the beasts as he tied them into the stalls and began the long round of milking.

  “Mister Richard,” he said in his dull unsurprised voice, “you’re back again.”

  He looked older and pinched in the face and when I drew closer, I saw that he had a cut lip and a yellowing bruise on his cheek.

  “How did you get that?” I asked pointing to the injury.

  He shrugged. “Master.”

  “Where is he?”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know. He’s gone out in the car.”

  “Well,” I sighed, my heart thoroughly sunk with the situation that I’d found, “we’d better get these beasts done.”

  We’d finished the milking when I heard the sound of a car drawing up and I rushed outside ready to confront our Billy but it wasn’t him. Marian and Mother had driven up and, spotting me, Mother hurried out of the Bentley and came over to give me welcome hug.

  “Oh, Richard, love,” she crooned. “I thought you’d never come.”

  “I said I would.” I knew I sounded impatient but it was hard to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I had been the rejected one and now all she seemed to want was me there to pick up the pieces.

  “I know,” she said, brushing aside my irritation as though she hadn’t heard it. She had, she could always tell what I was thinking. “But we weren’t sure, we thought that you might not want to be bothered.”

  Behind her, Marian shook her head and gave me a warning look. “Hello, Richard,” she said. “You find us in difficult times again.”

  My sister looked almost as old as Mother. She wore a brown wool coat and a mannish trilby hat that completely covered her hair. All the prettiness that she’d had as a girl had vanished and on that cold November evening, in the wavering yellow light that shone out from the shippon, all I could see was Granny. The dull brown eyes and the sharp witch’s face were an exact likeness and even her hand when it reached out to take mine, was wrinkled and claw-like, just as Granny’s had been. Why hadn’t I noticed it before, I wondered. After all, I’d seen her only a few weeks previously before I’d gone to Ireland.

  “Where is he?” I asked, sighing as I sat down in the chair beside the range and pulled off my boots. They were Billy’s boots really; I’d taken mine with me to Ireland and left them there. Had I done that deliberately? I think I must have. Something of me should be on that farm; after all I was going back soon.

  I’d looked for Billy’s boots in the scullery before I’d gone into the yard and found them placed neatly side by side under the window. They were cleaned and hosed down as was his usual practice. Whatever else had been going on, he was still careful about his apparel.

  “He was here before I went out,” Mother said, busy now with the kettle and teacups. “He knew you were coming, I told him this morning. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”

  Marian sat at the table and took off her hat. Her hair was a mixture of brown and grey, parted in the centre and dragged into a bun at the back of her neck. It was a big bun for she’d always had thick, coarse hair and at the sides of her head above her ears, two rows of Kirby grips held every last hair in place. The grips glinted in the lamp light and that was the only thing about her that shone, for her face was pale and dusted against any possibly glimmer and her coat, dress and lisle stockings were uniformly dull.

  “Mother and I have been having a spot of tea in town,” she said. “It’s been hard for her these last few days, what with being short-handed here and…other things.”

  I shook my head in weary irritation. She and Mother were amazing. A girl who lived in our house had disappeared, my brother had been taken in for questioning and they still couldn’t bring themselves to talk about it. It was ridiculous. If they wanted me at home to sort it out then I wanted everything out in the open. They damn well had to talk about it. I thought about the blonde curly-haired girl who’d sat opposite me at the kitchen table only a few weeks before. She had seemed harmless, naïve almost and not the type of girl that our Billy would take against. Mind you, he had called her a ‘tart’ on the first occasion that I’d seen her. Something about her had obviously struck the wrong chord with him. But what had happened to her and why were the police suspecting my brother? No-one was prepared to tell me that.

  “Tell me about Dorothy,” I said. I watched my mother and sister’s faces cloud over but I was too weary and fed up to feel sorry for them. “Come on,” I said, “speak up. Let’s hear what happened.”

  They were saved from answering immediately for another thought, which had been vaguely swimming about in the back of my mind, struck me and I got up to look out of the window. It was dark now but the wind was up and bits of paper and twigs were blowing about the cobbled yard. Ernie had gone home to his old mother and the lights in the barns and shippon had been turned off. Only the storm lantern that we always left on at night was lit. It threw an eerie glow over the corner next to the house but beyond it, all was dark. No-one was out there.

  I turned back to Mother. “Where’s the other girl? Where’s Gloria?”

  She gave a little moan. “Gone,” she cried. “Went the night that the police let Billy come home. She said it wasn’t safe here any longer.” Mother’s voice choked. “I was very disappointed with her, I thought she had more sense, after all she’s been here for nearly five years and knew us as well as anyone.”

  I sat down again and dragged my hand through my hair. What a mess. How shaming for the family. “And I suppose there hasn’t been any sign of this Dorothy yet?”

  Marian shook her head. “No. They’re not really looking any more. They searched the farm and the fields. I think they went through the village too because she was last seen at that play rehearsal at the school. She left there at about ten o’clock and was never seen again.”

  I hated saying it, but I had to. “Was Billy out that night?”

  Mother said nothing and I looked at Marian. “Well?”

  “Mother says he was about the yard, she thinks.”

  “Was he?”

  Her round face crumpled and the handkerchief she’d been twisting between her fingers went swiftly up to her eyes. “I don’t know,” she cried. “I didn’t see him after supper, but he always takes a turn about the yard. He’s a hard worker. You know that.”

  “And he goes to town sometimes,” my voice now thick with scorn, determined not to let her get away with it, “and gets into trouble there, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t know,” Mother sobbed and then added, “not for a long time.” She got up quickly and went out of the room. I could hear her going through the hall and up the stairs. That was my Mother’s way, you see. She never liked to show herself weak and emotional. I knew that she would go to the bathroom to wash her face and comb her hair. When she came downstairs she would be calm and tidy and behave as though nothing had happened.

  “Fred Darlington is convinced that our Billy knows something,” Marian said in a low voice. “He said he’s had his eye on him for a long time. He told Mother that Billy should be put away and he also said that he’d begged you to do something about him years ago.” She bit her lip at that and we sat in our chairs both silently thinking our own separate thoughts.

  The clock in the hall struck six and Mother reappeared. “I’m going to make supper,” she said, her voice back to its ordinary pitch. “We won’t wait for your brother.”

  As though he’s late home from market, or busy doing a calving, I thought. She’s pushed it to the back of her mind. But while she bustled about frying bacon and eggs and chopping cabbage and potatoes, I sat there brooding about what would happen when our Billy finally did come home. The thing was that everyone had made it my responsibility and I had to sort it out. Damn him, I thought
, damn and blast him. Why couldn’t he be normal and let me live my life? Elizabeth was waiting for me and we were still young enough to enjoy ourselves. She wasn’t that old; we might even have another child. I remembered that they’d said that it would be dangerous, but there were good doctors in Ireland and something could be done. So, for a while, I did as Mother had done and pushed the present difficulties to the back of my mind and allowed myself to be comforted by the happy thoughts of Elizabeth and me on our own farm with our child. Maybe a little girl, this time. In that mood I could almost forget the unpleasant reason for my return.

  “Here,” said Mother placing a plate on the table in front of me. “I’m sure you’re hungry, after travelling all day.”

  I was and I got stuck in, relishing the thick slice of gammon and the bright yellow yolks of our own eggs. Marian sat quietly beside me, drinking tea and nibbling bread and butter.

  “Eat something more filling,” Mother urged her, but she shook her head. Marian hadn’t changed over all the years; she still ate like a bird. What a difference between her and Albert. He was a right good trencherman and when he had dinner with us last month, I was waiting by the second for his waistcoat buttons to burst apart. Oh he loved his grub, and I still liked him, never mind that he had girlfriends and that he went on trips abroad without our Marian. He was always kind and good humoured and if he slept around, perhaps it was her fault as much as his. At least he never wiped her nose in it. She kept her respectability intact and her position in town as the wife of an important business man and ex-mayor. He lived on years after Marian died and he and I remained good friends. He didn’t marry again but I do know that on the evening that he passed on, it was a young woman that reported it to the police and the doctor.

  He wasn’t with us though that night and I could have done with him, another man, to help me tackle our Billy. I had the feeling that I was in for a difficult time.