Music from Home

by Geraldine O'Neill

“It was very nice, thank you,” Maria said. She stood up and pushed back her chair, and then she picked up her own plate, Jude’s and Ambrose’s. “Can I help you with the washing-up?”

  There was a momentary softening in the look her grand-mother gave her. “Another time. You need to have a few hours’ sleep to make up for your journey. Ambrose has a sleep at this time most days and, after us all being up so early this morning, I think we might all need a bit of a rest.”

  Maria went over to the worktop beside the sink and put the plates down, then she lifted the top one, which was her own, and scraped the remainder of her breakfast into the bin that stood below.

  “Sure, I’m not tired, I’m grand,” Jude told his mother. He went over to the hooks on the back of the door and lifted his coat. “I’m heading down to Mick Carney’s for an hour.”

  Eileen Donovan’s head jerked up. “Don’t be going near any of the pubs in town now,” she warned. “Don’t get into any talk about what’s happened . . .” She glanced over to where Maria was still standing by the sink. “I have to go into town to the bank and the chemist’s this afternoon, and I’m not ready for any interrogations. It will be time enough in a few days.”

  Maria wondered what she meant by ‘interrogations’ and guessed it might be to do with her arrival.

  Jude looked at Maria. “I’ll see you later.”

  The door closed after him, and then Patrick Donovan came over to the table beside Ambrose, holding two small sticks. “Now, Master Ambrose, do you need a hand?”

  “I think I can manage,” Ambrose said. He put his two hands flat on the table and then levered his slight body up into a standing position.

  Maria noticed that both his tiny arms were trembling with the effort, and her heart speeded up as she watched him painstakingly get his balance, and then turn to take one stick from his father and then the other. After a few faltering steps he had to stop to readjust one of the sticks in his hand and catch his breath. It was then that Maria noticed that both his mother and father were watching him with great apprehension, as though they were measuring each step that he took. When her gaze moved to her grandmother’s face and then her grandfather’s, she instantly knew that they were afraid of something.

  Not knowing what to do or say, she just stood with her back pressed against the old stone sink and waited the necessary minutes while the frail figure of Ambrose made its way across the flagged kitchen floor until he came to rest in his bed by the fire.

  Patrick Donovan went over to take the sticks off him, and lift Ambrose’s legs up onto the bed. “Well done,” he told his son. “You’re getting stronger every day.”

  Ambrose did not answer his father and instead, once in a sitting position, said to Maria. “Are you going for a lie-down now, too? You surely must be tired.”

  She suddenly realised that she was tired. She had slept little in the past week. “Yes,” she told him, “I will go upstairs in a minute and have a rest.”

  She checked once more with her grandmother as to whether she could help with washing the dishes, and again she was told it was fine.

  “Maybe,” Ambrose said, “when you’re rested, we could make a start on the jigsaw that my father brought me from England? Did you see it yet? It’s a fine one.”

  Maria told him that, no, she hadn’t seen it.

  “She can see it later,” Eileen Donovan said gently, “Now, it’s bed for us all for a few hours, or otherwise we’ll be fit for nothing tonight.”

  As Maria went up the stairs she heard Ambrose say, “Maria is such a lovely girl, isn’t she?” She paused on the step she was on and listened.

  “Yes,” her grandmother said, “but it’s early days. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Well, I have my own opinion,” Ambrose informed her. “And I think she’s very nice.”

  “And so do I,” his father agreed.

  There was a silence then her grandmother said. “Well, nice or not – it’s hard getting used to that English accent, but hopefully it will grow on me.”

  Maria quietly tiptoed the rest of the way up to the bedroom and, once inside, she closed the door.

  Chapter 36

  Darkness was falling outside when she woke, and for a few careless, happy moments, she thought it was morning and she was back in St Aiden’s Avenue in Heaton Moor. She thought her father was downstairs making her pancakes for breakfast and that she would be seeing Stella at school and seeing Paul at the stables later on. And then, she remembered where she was, and the enormity of her loss and the change in her life all hit her again and again until she went tumbling down to the hopeless place inside herself.

  She lay there for some time, until her thoughts became more rational and logical and she again came to the same realisation that there was no alternative for her. This strange in-between life that had been thrust on her by her father’s death, and by his last wishes, would have to be endured until she was old enough to make her own choices.

  This damp corner of Ireland, where her mother had grown up, felt more foreign to her than the wide lakes and mountains in Italy where everyone spoke a language she hardly understood. And she had to keep telling herself that even if she were free to somehow find her way to Dublin and board a plane back to where she knew as home – she would not be returning to their old place in Heaton Moor. The house where she had lived with her father might already have a ‘For Sale’ sign on it. And, as she had been told last week so many times, and by so many different people, she was neither old enough nor independent enough to find a place of her own.

  But, as sure as night would follow day, as Mrs Lowry often said to her, the time would eventually come when she would make her own decisions. And that thought alone would sustain her. She could not bear to work out exactly how long that might be. The thought of knowing the exact number of days, weeks, months, and maybe even years, terrified and depressed her.

  Then, as tears of hopelessness trickled down her cheeks, she felt a spark of something deep inside her that told her she would somehow survive until that day came. It might well be in the far-off, dark and distant future – but it was out there and she would count off every single day until the one she was waiting for came.

  In the meantime she had to survive. She would have to go back downstairs and re-join all those strangers who were her family, knowing that her grandmother found her voice and probably other things about her annoying.

  She came into the kitchen, where the tall sash windows had trickles of condensation running down them, and two large steaming pans – one filled with soup and the other with a large lump of ham – were simmering on the stove.

  There was no one else around except Ambrose, who was propped up in his child’s settle bed by the open fire, surrounded by all the colourful cushions. He had a tray on his lap which held a bowl of soup and two slices of thickly buttered soda bread. On the stone-flagged floor just within his reach was a small pile of American comics.

  “You’re awake!” he said. “I hope the sleep did you good?”

  The unmistakeably sincere and warm greeting lifted Maria’s heart. In the midst of her misery, she had almost forgotten about her uncle. “Yes,” she said. “Although I’m not sure I’ve quite wakened up yet. I can’t believe I’ve slept so long – practically all day.”

  “It’s the best thing for you, so I’m often told.” He held his spoon out in the direction of the cooker. “My mother said to tell you to help yourself to the chicken soup and bread. She has a piece of bacon on boiling and we’re having that later. It’s probably cooked now, if you want to cut a slice off it.”

  Her father had rarely cooked bacon, although she clearly remembered her mother doing it on occasions. She still did not feel that hungry. “The soup will be fine,” she said, going over to the cooker. “It looks and smells lovely.”

  “Our neighbour, Mary Hynes, made the soup and handed it in, because she knew Mammy was away early this morning and she said it would be handy to have when you all arrived.” />
  “That was very kind of your neighbour.”

  “People around here are very kind,” he said. “But then, Mammy would do the same for them.”

  “Where are . . .?” she halted, not sure what to refer to her grandparents as. “Where are your parents and Jude?”

  “They’re all out,” he said. “My mother is down visiting Sister Theresa – you know, the woman I was with this morning when you were all away, and my father and Jude are out at the sheep.”

  “I thought it was cattle they had on the farm.”

  “They have both, but my father has a good few sheep so he’s always out doing something with them.” He craned his neck to see what Maria was doing. “Can you manage? Can you see where everything you need is?”

  “I’m just looking for a soup bowl . . .”

  “You don’t use the china that’s out on display on the dresser unless you want to give my mother a heart attack.” He started to laugh. “That’s just for show – we use the plainer delph in the cupboard to the side of the cooker. It’s all a bit of a mixture as some of the sets have got broken over the years. I suppose you might be used to grander stuff back in England?”

  “No,” Maria said, opening the cupboard he directed her to and taking out a white bowl with a blue rim. “We had a glass display cabinet for all the fancy stuff, and we used ordinary plates too. I think most homes are like that.” She started to ladle the soup into her bowl, filling it only halfway in case she couldn’t finish it. Then, she cut a small slice from the large round soda loaf, as she didn’t want to feel her grandmother’s disapproval again if she left her food.

  Ambrose gestured towards an old leather button-backed chair by the fire. “Put your dish on a tray and bring it over here to the fire, where it’s grand and warm.”

  “The whole kitchen is lovely and warm.”

  “You’d need it. The summer is nearly over. Do you feel the cold, Maria? I feel it something dreadful, right in my bones. I’d swear that’s what makes them so sore at times.”

  “I do feel cold sometimes.”

  “My mother knits me heavy woollen sweaters, and makes me wear these thermal vests and everything, but there are times when nothing will warm me.” He sighed and shook his head and then lifted his spoon up and dipped it back in his bowl.

  When they had finished, Maria took Ambrose’s tray and he sank back down into his colourful cushions as though the effort of eating had worn him out. The thought made Maria catch her lip between her teeth and then she felt his eyes on her.

  “I was just thinking how lovely and bright those cushions are,” she said.

  “Sister Theresa and some people from the church make them for me. I think they must feel sorry for me being laid up so much or something like that.” He suddenly smiled, and Maria noticed a little devilish glint in his eye. “Although it’s not all bad . . . from the summer on now they let me sleep down here by the fire. It saves me all the walking back and forward in the cold to the bedroom. It’s bad enough I have to do the walk along the corridor to the bathroom.” He beckoned her closer then said in a low voice as though they might be overheard, “Between you and me, it suits me fine down here where I’m up later and can watch the telly and listen to the radio and hear all that’s going on around me. I’m fit enough for the bedroom, but who would leave this nice little perch if they didn’t have to?”

  Maria shook her head and laughed. “There’s no flies on you, Ambrose,” she said.

  “None at all,” he said, winking and laughing along with her. He lifted a patchwork cushion to the side of him. “Now, this is a rare one. My mother actually made it, although she prefers knitting to sewing. She cut out squares from the dresses that your mother used to wear when she was young. She just appeared with a bag of them one day and started to cut and sew them. She must have kept them all those years.”

  Maria stared at the cushion, worked in squares of pastel satins, light floral cotton, checks and stripes. She thought of her mother wearing dresses in those fabrics as a child, and then she thought of her sombre-faced grandmother who had kept those dresses all those years.

  She took both trays back to the sink and, after running the water from the old copper tap to check that it was hot, then asking Ambrose where the washing-up liquid was, she set about washing the dishes. She had just started drying them when the door opened and her grandmother came in followed by a small, slim woman with wonderfully thick brown-and-grey-streaked hair, tied back with a strip of maroon velvet, who Maria presumed was Sister Theresa She was wearing a long strange-looking green waxed coat, the sort a man might wear. Maria had assumed Sister Theresa was a nun, but she did not look like any nun she had ever seen. Perhaps, she thought, she was from a very modern order that did not require them to wear habits.

  “So this is Maria?” the woman said, her eyes bright and friendly.

  “Yes,” her grandmother said, taking her raincoat off, “this is Maria.” She turned to Maria. “This is our friend and neighbour, Sister Theresa Callaghan.”

  Maria thought the woman’s voice sounded younger than she looked and, if she wasn’t mistaken, she spoke with an American accent. Then, she caught the frown on her grandmother’s face and she suddenly felt self-conscious, as though she had been caught doing something wrong. She wondered if she shouldn’t have made herself so free in the kitchen, and put the plate and the dishtowel down on the worktop.

  Sister Theresa came over to shake hands. “Welcome to Tullamore!” Her grip was warm and she shook Maria’s hand firmly. Then, as Maria went to let go, the woman put her other hand on top of Maria’s and held it tightly. “I’m so sorry for your sad loss . . . I know it’s not a happy reason for coming to Ireland, but I’m sure that something good will come out of it. Some things are meant to happen in life, and this might be for a reason.”

  Maria couldn’t think of a reply. She couldn’t think of any reason that could justify her father having died in such tragic circumstances, but she knew the nun did not mean that literally. Then, when she met her eyes, she saw the innate kindness in them and she smiled.

  “Pity about the weather,” Sister Theresa said. “We’ve had a dreadful summer here. But I suppose it’s not a lot better in Manchester? The weather tends to be fairly similar any time I’ve been over there.”

  “You’re perfectly correct,” Ambrose chipped in, struggling into a sitting-position. “It would be more or less the same weather because we’re nearly in a straight line on the map.” He held his arm up and drew a line with his finger. “You go from Tullamore to Dublin, then you go across the Irish Sea, and then to Wales and straight across to Manchester.”

  “Good man, Ambrose,” the nun said. “Your geography has come on in leaps and bounds.”

  He shrugged. “Sure, when you have an interest in something or somewhere, it makes you more inclined to find things out. Over the years, I was always wondering how far Maria and her father was away from us so every now and again I’d get the atlas out and check it up.”

  Maria felt a sudden jolt at what her uncle had just said, and how he had spoken so matter-of-factly about thinking of her and her father. Because of the distant way her mother had been about her family back in Ireland, she had thought that they too would have been as distant and remote about her. She never imagined that someone would have cared about the distance they were from them or what kind of weather they were having.

  “Maria,” her grandmother said, “thanks for tidying around the sink.”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” She almost smiled. “It’s a change to have another female helping around the place.”

  “Sister Theresa,” Ambrose said, “my father brought me back a great jigsaw puzzle of Classic Scenes of London, and myself and Maria were going to make a start on it now. Would you like to give us a hand?”

  “Oh, Ambrose,” his mother said, “Sister Theresa has been good enough to have you this morning while we were away – we can’t take advantage of
her any more.”

  But the nun was already shrugging her coat off, saying, “What else do I have to do on a wet evening? There’s nothing on at the church this evening and, if I’m not imposing on anyone, I’ll be happy to join you.”

  “You don’t have to be told,” Eileen Donovan said. “You know that there is always a welcome waiting here for you.”

  “Well, that’s kind,” the nun said. “Very kind.”

  Maria came over to help Ambrose pull the jigsaw out from the side of his bed, and when Sister Theresa came towards her she noticed that she was not wearing anything that would indicate she was a nun, apart from a plain silver cross on a long chain. She had a tiny slim figure under the shapeless coat, and was wearing a modern, short smock-style dress in a floral pattern.

  Maria wondered if she had bought them in America, because she had heard enough of her accent to be convinced that she was from there. She also thought that if it hadn’t been for the greying hair from the back the dainty nun could easily be mistaken for a young girl.

  Maria asked Ambrose if he would like her to take the cellophane wrapping off the jigsaw and get all the pieces out, but he said he would prefer it they did it together.

  “I think the card table would be the best,” Eileen Donovan stated, then went over to the pantry and came out with a small wooden folding table.

  “I hope it’s not as big as the dinosaur jigsaw,” Ambrose said, holding the box out to check the picture. “Do you remember the dinosaur one, Mammy?”

  “Oh, I do,” she said, her voice momentarily lighter. “How could we forget it?” She placed the card table in front of her son’s bed and pulled her husband’s well-worn armchair next to it.

  “Wasn’t it gas?” he said, his voice bubbling with laughter. “And one of the best nights I ever remember with a jigsaw.” He then explained to Maria how he and his father and Jude had started this great jigsaw puzzle on the card table only to find the puzzle was exactly half an inch too wide. His father thought they should move it over to the kitchen table, but Jude insisted it would as good as fit. “And then,” Ambrose said, starting to laugh again, “we were just putting the last few bits on when Daddy pressed down a bit too hard on a piece in the middle and the whole thing shot up in the air and then fell asunder. There was bits of the poor dinosaur scattered everywhere!”