All the while she talked to him, even braving a joke when it came to the more intimate moment of stopping his bodily passages. ‘You know, Pat, there were times when I felt like doing this years ago.’ Then, imagining his twinkling, laughing face, she fell across his body and rent her heartbreak.
She cried long and passionately, bathing his corpse in her tears. When her spasm of pain had eased, she straightened, blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then used the towel to dab the smears of brine from his ribs. After a long, long stare she once again bent her head over his body, pressing her cheek to his cool skin, eyelids drawn tightly together. Then with a huge sniff she unbent her spine and grasped the clean nightshirt which Vinnie had brought. ‘We’d best put you something decent on – I know you, you’ll go mad if folk see you in this.’ Discarding it, she went to fetch a shirt and his best suit from the wardrobe. Getting them on was extremely difficult, but Thomasin had never been one to balk at a challenge.
‘There,’ she puffed proudly when she had triumphed, sloughing the sheen from her brow. ‘I hope you’re satisfied. You and your vanity – it’s nearly given me a blasted apoplexy …’ She traced a tender thumb across his cheek. It was finished, but she could not bear to leave him.
With a final, somewhat angry tug of the sheets, she picked up the bowl of water and the towel and took them out to the landing. Then, overwhelmed by loneliness, she went back in, stooped to pick up the nightshirt that Patrick had been wearing and pressed it over her face. It was strong with his scent. Leaving the room, she carried the garment with her, took it to her bed, where it might comfort her through the darkness.
* * *
Downstairs, little was said between brothers and sister, and not merely because of the crushing grief. Whilst the rest clustered in familiarity, Erin had selected a chair which put the widest possible gap between herself and Dickie. From time to time he would feel her gaze, but when he looked up to meet it she was always evasive.
A disgusted laugh escaped his lips. ‘The priests never change, do they? Still pumping that rubbish about hellfire…’
Erin stood abruptly, muttering, ‘I’d better tell the servants they can go to bed, it’s nearly midnight.’ She looked at Dusty, eyes settling contemptuously on the ruby necklace round her throat. ‘I take it you two will be staying?’ The other, after glancing at her husband, said yes, if that was no trouble. ‘It’s no trouble to me.’ Erin was curt. ‘Come on, I’ll get you some sheets. You’ll have to make your own bed up, it’s not fair to keep Vinnie from her sleep.’
Dusty offered no retort, accepting Erin’s bitchiness as a product of grief. Untypically passive, she followed in her sister-in-law’s wake.
The women had barely shut the door when the boom of Great Peter invaded the quiet. For a moment, the Minster bell went unheeded. Then, a clamour of noise from churches all over the city caused Nick to remember, ‘Oh … it’s 1901,’ and from outside came the sound of merrymakers spilling out of The Black Swan, bawling their Happy New Years!
‘The new century proper,’ observed Sonny. He and the family had made more of the 1900 celebrations, decreeing this as the start of the twentieth century, though others had argued that they were technically wrong. He was glad now that they had courted ridicule; there would be no celebrating this year.
‘Oh Christ, I hope they don’t come first-footing in here,’ sighed Nick, who wished fervently that he was at home seeing in the New Year with his wife.
‘They won’t,’ replied his father solemnly. ‘At least not the neighbours; they know about your grandad being ill.’
‘I notice that hasn’t stopped them from doing their luckybirding,’ said Nick in sour voice, listening to the rat-tatting of doorknockers and gay laughter.
‘Aye, well.’ His father looked weary. ‘We can’t expect everybody to feel our loss. They’re alive, let ’em enjoy it.’
‘Suppose so,’ muttered Nick dully. ‘I think I’ll turn in now if no one minds.’ He received a shake of head from his father, at which he rose to his feet. ‘I’ll have to be up early and get back to Leeds to tell Win. D’you want me to break it to Mother or are you going to telephone?’
Sonny shook his head. ‘I’ll go myself tomorrow.’
‘I don’t mind telling her …’
‘No, I’d rather tell her and the girls personally, son. Besides, I’ll have to bring them all over for the funeral.’
‘Right…’ Nick hoped his relief wasn’t too blatant. After a respectable pause, he delivered a goodnight to both men.
His father, seeing his eyes linger on Dickie, realised all at once that there had been no formal introduction and emerged from his slouched posture of grief. ‘God, I’m sorry! What with all the drama I forgot you two haven’t been properly introduced.’
Nick waved the apology aside. ‘It’s all right, Dad. I think we both know each other’s identity, don’t we?’ At his uncle’s grave nod, the young man left.
Sonny’s shoulders returned to their miserable hunch, arms resting on thighs. There was a long intermission before anything else was said. Finally, after lighting a cigar, Dickie asked, ‘What is it, Son?’
Sonny turned blank eyes on him. ‘Our father’s just died, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Ye know that’s not what I meant,’ replied his brother sombrely, flicking the match into the fire. ‘Ye’ve hardly said two words to me. I expected it from the others, but…’
Sonny jumped from his seat. ‘All right, you want me to say something? I’ll bloody well say it! You’ve been gone for twenty-six years under pretext of death, you walk calmly in here and snatch the last precious minutes of my father’s life – you always were a selfish bastard!’
Dickie was perplexed. ‘I don’t get y …’
‘If anybody should’ve been with him at the end it should have been me!’ raged Sonny. ‘Or Mother, or Erin – but not you, who’s never given a toss about either him or Mam. D’you realise he should have died days ago, but he’s been hanging on and hanging on, waiting for you. You!’ He rammed both hands at the mantelpiece and leaned on them, neck bent.
Dickie bounced to his feet. ‘Son, ye don’t understand …’
The bilious retort was flung over Sonny’s shoulder. ‘Too frigging true, I don’t!’
‘He had things to say that he couldn’t say to any of you …’
‘Oh great!’ The red-haired man whirled from the fireplace to glare at him. ‘From Spring-heeled Jack to Father Confessor, that’s an impressive transformation!’
Dickie pressed his hands to his head, the cigar protruding like a horn. ‘Look, he didn’t want me to tell you yet, but…’
‘Oh, don’t go breaking any confidences, Richard!’ Sonny strode up and down the room. ‘I’m sure I don’t want to …’
‘Just shut your bloody gob an’ let me tell ye!’ yelled his brother. ‘It was about Rosie!’
‘You what?’ Sonny spun round in disbelief.
The cigar hand was held palm upwards as Dickie tried to explain. ‘When he went to Ireland he saw the man who killed Rosie and he just wanted …’
‘And he told you?’ Sonny looked like an old bear, ready to lash out. ‘You, of all people?’ The grey eyes were lost beneath furrows of confusion.
‘Son,’ moaned his elder brother in despair. ‘Don’t ye see? It wasn’t ’cause he cared for me that he told me this, but ’cause he couldn’t bear to hurt you. He wanted somebody to know, but not anyone who was close to Rosie …’ Dickie looked away as if insulted. ‘He thought I didn’t care about her, that I was cold enough to be able to hang onto the information until you and Mam were ready to tackle it … he didn’t want to add to your burden, to hurt ye. It was pure freak that he died while I was with him …’ The neglected cigar had gone out; he threw it on a table, looking sick.
For a moment, Sonny’s resentment threatened to overcome all else he felt for his brother. He took a menacing step forwards. Apprehension glued Dickie’s eyes to the other’s temple where a suffusion
of wrath had swelled a vein to twice its normal size – always the precursor to a fight when they were boys. An arm was raised …
And then the other arm came up and both were used to grab him into a fraternal embrace, chest to chest, ribs squashed, heads clashing. The dark-haired man responded with gusto, hugging his younger brother tightly, whilst from the grey eyes were squeezed tears of rage and bereavement.
* * *
After a while, Sonny gave his brother’s back a rough series of pats and the two unlocked, but stayed close together, sharing a soft laugh of embarrassment. Then, ‘For God’s sake, Son, what happened here?’ appealed Dickie. ‘Ye never mentioned he was sick – an’ what’s all this about him going to Ireland anyway?’
Sonny was about to tell him, when Dusty entered. Realising she had disturbed an intimate moment, she drew back, ‘Sorry … I just came to tell you the bed’s made up.’
‘Just give me a minute or two, chick,’ begged Dickie. His wife nodded and told him their room was the second on the right on the first landing, then closed the door. Dickie turned back to his brother’s harrowed countenance. ‘Well?’
A deep breath expanded the other’s ribcage. Maintaining their closeness, he spoke into Dickie’s face. ‘A short while before Christmas, Dad tells us he’s off to Ireland. Course, we all think he’s bloody mad going for a holiday at this time of year … till Francis tells us the real issue – Francis is Mother’s business partner, by the way, I think I mentioned him in my letters.’ Dickie nodded for his brother to continue. ‘It turns out that Dad knew for weeks he was dying, but didn’t want any of us to find out. The only reason he told Francis was so he could prepare Mam …’
‘But why did he go to Ireland if he knew he was dying?’ enquired Dickie.
‘Well, apart from not wanting us to see his deterioration, he wanted to die where he was born.’ Sonny hugged himself and looked at the floor. ‘I suppose it’s just instinct … Of course, when you wrote, you bugger, and said you were coming home, I had to tell Mam and then Francis felt it was his duty to let us in on Dad’s secret. Thank God he did … Mother went to Ireland – she insisted on going alone. I don’t know how she was expecting to find him. Anyway, the luck of the Irish must have been working for once; Dad was already in Dublin when she docked … waiting for the ferry to come home. He was almost done for when she got him back here. God knows what went on over there …’ He looked up. ‘But maybe you can tell me that now.’
Dickie grimaced and looked away. ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell ye until ye were over this upset. But seeing as I’ve gone an’ opened me big trap …’ He pulled at his earlobe, then began. ‘Dad said he met this Timothy Rabb …’
‘The man who killed Rosie,’ interrupted his brother.
Dickie shook his head. ‘It was all a bit garbled but he did say that Rabb wasn’t the one who killed her. It was this other fella. Seems Rabb thought she was still alive… anyway, Dad just said, tell Sonny that Rosie’s killer is dead now, no loose ends. That’s all.’
Sonny nodded thoughtfully. ‘It might seem daft to some, but I’m glad that Rabb wasn’t the one who killed her. It seemed such a dreadful betrayal … anyway, that’s that.’ His voice petered out.
Dickie searched for the abandoned cigar and relit it. ‘God, if I’d known about this I would’ve come straight up here instead of spending the day sightseeing.’
Sonny removed himself from the vicinity of the smoke, fingering the guardchain on his waistcoat. ‘It’s a good job you did come here and not to my house or you might’ve been too late. I wasn’t sure on whose doorstep you’d be arriving.’
‘I expected you’d’ve told Mam an’ Dad so I thought I’d come straight here,’ answered Dickie.
‘Aye, expected me to do your dirty work as usual,’ replied his brother grimly.
Dickie pulled on the cigar, then rubbed self-consciously at his nose. ‘What did Nick have to say when ye told him I was still alive?’
‘He was the only one I didn’t have to tell. Apparently he’s known for years … been reading your bloody letters.’
‘And he never said a word?’
‘If you knew him you wouldn’t be so surprised.’
Dickie gave a bitter laugh. ‘Huh, probably couldn’t give a damn if I was alive or dead, eh? Ah well, that’s the way it goes … Ye say Dad’s been hanging on for me. How long?’
‘Mam brought him back from Ireland on Boxing Day. Your birthday.’ Sonny gave a humourless smile at the coincidence. ‘We didn’t expect him to survive the night. Christ knows where he got the strength to last five more days.’ He looked at his brother’s face. ‘When did you dock?’
‘Last night. We booked into a hotel in London, thought we’d do a bit of sightseeing before driving up here. I was just going to hire an auto but Dusty said we might as well buy it then sell it again when we leave. Six hundred pounds it cost. I’m still trying to work out what that is in bucks.’
Sonny nodded without interest. Still the same old Dickie, his talk always got around to money or women. He looked at the clock. ‘You must be tired anyway. Come on, we’d best get to bed. We can have a long talk tomorrow.’
Dickie clamped the cigar between his teeth and used both hands to grip his brother’s arms. ‘What about the funeral arrangements?’
‘I’ll see to it all in the morning before I go to collect Josie.’
‘Well, don’t be a bloody martyr. If you want any help, ask.’
‘I will. Goodnight, Dick.’ Sonny watched his brother’s naturally arrogant stroll to the door. ‘Eh, and Dick.’ The latter spun, fixing him with an enquiring blue gaze. ‘It’s great to see you.’
The blue eyes crinkled at the edges. For one brief, heartwarming moment the old Dickie grin vanquished all sorrow. But when the door closed, Sonny felt a shiver of isolation and, after making the fire safe and turning the lights out, wandered dolefully up to his own room.
Dickie leaned his back against the door he had just closed and stared at his wife who was already in bed. He didn’t have to tell her how he felt. Reading his misery, she simply held out her nightgowned arms. He tossed the dead cigar aside and, shouldering himself from the wood, went to bury his face in the fresh-smelling silk of her bosom.
And still he could not believe that his father was dead.
3
Breakfast was like a gathering of rooks. Hemmed in by grief, Nick had declined to eat and gone straight home to Leeds. After Erin’s return from church, the rest of the family moved into the dining room. Denuded of their festive chains, the walls in here appeared vast and echoing. It was always this way after Christmas, but this year the emptiness was tenfold.
‘Have ye ever felt out o’ place?’ muttered Dickie to his brother, whose wife had slipped a black suit into his case in readiness. Dickie himself rarely wore sober dress; the only item of black in his possession was a Tuxedo and he could hardly don that to breakfast – though a dinner jacket might have been less conspicuous than the pale-grey one he was wearing. Not even the loan of a black armband could make him look funereal. ‘I’ll have to go see if I can get fixed up with a black suit in time for the whatsit.’
Sonny told him not to waste his money. ‘I’ll fetch you one of mine when I come back tonight. It won’t be a perfect fit but it’ll do.’
Dickie thanked him and both sat at the table. Naturally, little was eaten. Had the loss not blunted their appetites, then one look at their mother would have done. Thomasin’s eyes stared into space. One of her hands rested by a teacup, the other stroked unconsciously at a strip of fur on her black crape gown. Though some considered it bad luck to store crape in the house after mourning was over, Thomasin had never been one to waste clothes that still had wear in them; its last airing had been at Rosie’s death, eight years ago. My God, eight years, thought Sonny, raising his teacup. Rosie would have been … twenty-nine by now, with children of her own. His eyes locked momentarily with Erin’s before his sister looked away and picked up the teapot to refill he
r mother’s cup. Still Thomasin’s fingers caressed the fur, but when the teapot’s motion ceased, she lifted the cup and drank.
At the pathetic little movement, Erin’s eyes blurred. She reached into her black beaded skirt for an already drenched handkerchief and wept quietly. No one commented upon it, just stared into their own visions of the past.
When the subdued meal was over, Sonny took his temporary leave, saying that before he went home to Leeds he would go to the Register Office to file his father’s death and then to the undertaker’s. His mother thanked him with a hug and he left.
* * *
At the time of his spontaneous offer, Sonny had forgotten how traumatic a funeral arrangement could be. Faced with a catalogue of coffins from pine to oak, he despaired of which to select. If he chose the best, as was his first impulse, he could imagine what his father would have said – ‘Don’t waste your money, it’s only going to be shoved under the soil. I’d rather have it spent on my grandchildren than in the undertaker’s pocket.’ On the other hand, if Sonny picked the cheapest or even one from the middle range, it would look to outsiders as though he hadn’t thought much of his father.
Finding it hard to speak without betraying emotion, he said gruffly that he would have the very best, and waited to shed his tears until he was at home in the loving company of his wife and children.
When his brother had left the breakfast table, Dickie expected the inevitable showdown with Thomasin over his twenty-six years’ deception; but she scarcely spoke to him and when she did it was only chat designed to break the awkward silence. It all grew too much, like being in a foreign hotel, not amongst family. Beneath the Regency table, Dickie pressed his foot against the daintier one of his wife, urging her to provide the excuse that might remove him from this mausoleum.
Dickie (Feeney Family Sagas Book 4) Page 5