‘Oh …’ said Paddy. Then after a moment’s ponderance asked, ‘Uncle Dickie, what’s the difference between a cow and a bullock?’
‘Don’t ye know that at your age?’ cried Dick. He pointed to the drawing. Josie sat forward in alarm. ‘A bullock’s horns point frontwards an’ a cow’s horns point sideways.’ He grinned at the others over the small auburn head, then admired his handiwork again. ‘How much d’ye think I’d get for this, Son? Two-fifty?’
Sonny nodded. ‘A worthy successor to Landseer.’
Paddy was reaching for a piece of paper of his own, saying he would draw his Uncle Dickie a cow. Whilst lying on the carpet he spotted a beetle and poked it. When, after a few goadings, it failed to move, Paddy looked up at his father and asked, ‘Is that dead?’ Sonny nodded. ‘Is it going to Heaven?’
His father dodged the question, leaning over to ask, ‘How much of that picture have you done?’ and sneaking his hand over the dead beetle.
Some minutes later the picture was held aloft for inspection. Dusty tittered at her husband. ‘It’s better than yours!’
He grimaced. ‘Paddy, ye’ve made me feel really great – being outdrawn by a four year old.’
Feen was cross at the others for mocking her uncle, and told him, ‘It’s better than I could do.’ To which the ever- critical Sophia replied that anything would be better than Feen could do.
Dick screwed his own picture up and lobbed it at the fireplace. ‘No, I have to admit I’m no artist. Just as well I’ve brought my camera – hey, don’t let me forget, I want some snapshots of you all before we go back. Especially you, Feen. Have to show the folks back home what a true English rose looks like.’ Sonny answered that their father would turn in his grave to hear this; the Irish blood might be diluted but it was still an important heritage.
‘Look!’ Paddy toured the assembly, thrusting the picture into each face. ‘Look at my good painting. Look, it’s better than Uncle Dickie’s.’
‘I fear we’ve a member of the Italian school among us,’ the boy’s father apologised. ‘The Great Braggadocio – Paddy, true talent does not need to sing its own praises.’
Paddy argued that he was only repeating what his aunt had said, then asked out of the blue. ‘Why did you put that beetle in your pocket, Father?’
Sonny was spared having to answer as the butler arrived to announce that tea was ready and everyone rose.
‘Leave your pencils behind, Paddy,’ ordered his mother. ‘We don’t want your handiwork on the tablecloth.’
‘Bloody women,’ sighed the little boy.
Josie stopped and wheeled in outrage. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Paddy looked up at her artlessly. ‘Uncle Dickie says it.’
‘Oh, does he?’ Josie glared at her brother-in-law who was laughing fit to burst. ‘Well, I don’t want to hear you saying it – nor anybody else in this house, else they’ll be getting a cauliflower ear.’
‘I don’t like cauliflower,’ sulked Paddy.
‘Then keep your mouth clean!’ Josie jabbed a thumb at the dining room.
‘After you, Paddy,’ invited his uncle. ‘I’m not partial to cauliflower either – on second thoughts there’s safety in numbers!’ Grabbing Paddy, he used him as a shield as he jigged past his sister-in-law and ran laughing to the table.
‘That brother of yours,’ grumbled Josie as she and Sonny brought up the rear. ‘I thought you were going to tell him about his behaviour. I can’t have Paddy learning words like that.’
‘Hey, Josie!’ Dickie called from his seat at the table. ‘This young fella wants to say something else to ye.’
‘I don’t wish to hear it!’
‘Oh, ye do! Go on, Pad,’ he whispered, ‘say it like I told ye.’
‘You’ve got lovely eyes, Mammy.’ Paddy beamed.
When everyone laughed, Dickie winked and nudged his nephew. ‘See what I mean, Pad? A wee bit o’ flattery works wonders.’
8
On Sunday the family went to early Mass. Dick had been asked the previous night if he would be accompanying them, but he replied that he never visited church these days unless it was for baptisms, weddings and funerals. Josie was most relieved to be told this, knowing that any public appearance with her brother-in-law could only spell worse embarrassment. After returning from church Sonny disappeared. His wife and daughters went to take off their hats and coats and deposit their prayerbooks. On her descent of the stairs, Josie paused to weigh her surroundings; there was something missing but she could not think what it was. Slightly annoyed, she continued to the dining room. Sonny wasn’t at the table when she arrived. Over their twenty-two years of marriage she had grown used to his whims. He’d be off painting somewhere.
She was helping herself from the tureen on the sideboard, when she felt two arms girdle her waist and squeeze. ‘Ooh, Josie,’ groaned her brother-in-law sensuously while his body pressed itself into her back. ‘You’re gorgeous – not like this skinny wench o’ mine.’
‘Tell him to behave himself,’ was Dusty’s advice as Josie squeaked her protest.
Dickie released her. ‘Damn, just when I was going to enjoy meself. I knew she’d creep in.’ He began to lift the tureen lids. ‘Where’s himself?’ A pink-cheeked Josie smoothed her clothes and said she had no idea. ‘Oh aye, I remember now.’ Dickie filled his plate. ‘He told me he’s got an appointment with this woman in Doncaster – oh God, I’m sorry!’ He clapped a hand to his mouth. ‘I forgot, he told me not to say anything. Josie, I’m real sorry.’
‘Take no notice, Josie,’ advised her sister-in-law with disdain. ‘He thinks he’s being funny.’
Dickie stuffed bacon into his grin. ‘I do know where he is, though. He’ll be getting that canvas ready for me. I noticed it’d gone.’
‘That’s what it was!’ Josie looked satisfied. ‘I knew there was something missing. Well, I hope he isn’t planning to work on it all day and neglect you two.’
‘No, I’m not then!’ Sonny came in, dished himself some food and took a seat at the table. ‘I was just getting it ready. I can’t do anything till I’ve made some sketches – you’ll sit for me later, Dick?’
His brother consented, then paused in eating. ‘Ye know, I was thinking last night…’
‘Oh God, here comes trouble,’ said Sonny.
‘That painting was done nearly twenty years ago … if you paint me as I am now, it’ll be a bit odd, won’t it?’
‘He means it’ll make him look older than his father,’ smirked Dusty.
Sonny agreed that this was perfectly true. ‘But don’t fret, I’ll paint out your bald patch.’ He laughed as Dickie’s hand went involuntarily to his head.
‘Hah! Ye wouldn’t laugh so loud if ye knew what I was doing with your wife before ye came in,’ said Dick with a sly nod.
‘You can do what you like with the old scold,’ said his brother airily. ‘I couldn’t give a bent meg.’
Dickie held out his hands. ‘See! I told ye he wouldn’t mind, Jos – me an’ him, we share everything.’
‘Share this.’ Dusty rapped his knuckles with a spoon. ‘That’s the way to deal with men, Josie.’
Then the banter was arrested as the girls came in to breakfast.
* * *
Their fast broken, Sonny took his brother off to begin sketching. Josie sat and talked with her sister-in-law and the younger ones went to read or draw. At one point the peace was broken by Paddy who howled that someone had stolen his plasticine, but he was soon silenced on being taken for a walk by his Aunt Dusty. Had the latter known the use to which the plasticine had been put, she might have been more concerned. Up in her room the culprit, Feen, saw her aunt going down the drive. Grasping the opportunity, she dashed to the guests’ room, tugged some hairs from Dusty’s brush and dashed out again. Back in her own room, she twined the hairs around the doll she had fashioned, then studied it in approval. She took a pin from the bowl on her dressing table and after a fearful hesitation, plunged it into the p
lasticine body. Then she waited for Paddy to come running up the drive alone.
Her aunt returned unscathed. Maybe you have to do it a few times before it works, thought Feen. In this hope she inserted several pins at once. There was panic when one of her sisters barged into her room to tell her that luncheon was ready, but she managed to hide the doll in the folds of her skirt until Amelia had gone. As the day progressed even more pins were inserted, but came the evening and her aunt was still looking remarkably healthy.
Normally, Sabbath at the Feeney house was spent in quiet obeisance, but Dick showed no such respect, linking arms with Sonny’s girls whom he had dubbed The Nubiles, telling jokes and tales, rolling on the floor with Paddy and now this evening putting a record on the gramophone and asking Feen to dance. Josie was relieved when the impressionable Paddy was a-bed and her husband hauled his brother away to begin the painting in earnest, and thought it quite humorous when her sister-in-law asked, ‘I hope you don’t mind Sonny being dragged away like this.’
‘Oh, he needs no excuse to paint,’ returned Josie. ‘Sometimes he just disappears for days on end. Still, I shouldn’t complain,’ she lowered her voice against eavesdropping girls and laughed confidentially into Dusty’s ear. ‘At least if he’s using all his energy on painting he leaves me alone.’
Dusty found this attitude strange. She could not think of anything worse than Dickie ‘leaving her alone’ as Josie so delicately put it. ‘Do you think you’ll have any more children, Josie?’
‘My goodness, no!’ Josie chuckled, and made sure the girls were busy with their own conversation before whispering, ‘I thought I’d finished with all that until Paddy came along. Thank goodness it’s done with now. Still, as I said, I shouldn’t complain, I realise how lucky I am. I feel so sorry for you, dear.’
Dusty nodded. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this, as Belle hasn’t been consulted yet, but I’m so thrilled … We hope to adopt three of Belle’s children.’
‘Well, actually John did tell me,’ confided her sister-in-law, smiling. ‘I think it’s wonderful. Don’t worry, he warned me not to speak of it in front of Erin. Eh, I don’t know, she can be very set in her ways can our sister-in-law. And she’s always going on about how disappointed she is that she’ll never be a grandmother. I can’t understand her – well, I understand her disappointment, but I mean she’s always trying to encourage Belle to marry and it’s wrong you know, what with her deformity. She’d pass it on to any children – if she could have any, of course. Oh, I didn’t mean …’ She looked guilty and rushed on. ‘It’s just as well she’s as stubborn as her mother. If she’s set her mind against marriage – or anything come to that – she won’t shift for anyone.’ She saw that she had put her foot in it again. ‘Oh … well, I’m sure when it comes to considering the children’s future she’ll be sensible. Don’t worry about it. We’ll all speak up for you.’ She noticed that the girls had gone quiet and cautioned Dusty not to proceed with the intimate topic.
The other woman reached for her bag. ‘Would you like to look at some old photos we brought with us? I brought them for Mother’s benefit really, to try and fill in the missing years.’
Josie put aside her knitting and sorted through the photographs, making suitable comments. ‘I’ll bet she had a little weep, didn’t she – girls, come and look at your aunt’s photographs.’
Dusty nodded. ‘Let’s hope we can make it up to her while we’re here.’
* * *
Dick had reached his boredom threshold and began to shuffle in his chair. ‘Have you nearly finished, Son?’ Receiving an exasperated reply he strode over to the easel. ‘Christ, is that all ye’ve done?’
‘Maybe I’d get it done quicker if you’d sit frigging still!’ Sonny threw his brush down.
‘What a temperamental little soul you are – come an’ have a drink, ye can always finish it tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ It came as a squawk. ‘It’ll take weeks.’
Dickie groaned disbelievingly, then had a sudden thought. ‘Eh, you’re not in cahoots with Mam are ye? Trying to keep me here?’
‘Josie’d laugh at that.’ His brother draped a cloth over the canvas.
Dick formed a crooked grin. ‘Yeah, I kinda thought I was outstaying my welcome when Josie shoved some sandwiches under the bedroom door.’ Sonny was quick to point out that no slight had been intended by his comment, and told his brother he loved having him here. ‘But you’d love me even better if I went home.’
‘Dick, I’m not saying this to hurt you, but when you’ve got children of your own you’ll understand … you can’t be saying the kind of things you do in front of them and expect Josie to be pleased.’
‘Sorry, Son, I guess I just took things to be the same as they were when we were boys. I’m forgetting we’re all meant to be respectable now. I’ll go easy on the cussing for the next fortnight.’ He guffawed at Sonny’s undisguised shock. ‘Don’t worry, I’m only joshing yese. We’ll be on our way back to York tomorrow morning.’
Sonny grinned. ‘I think we can put up with you for another day. Anyway, I want to show you the houses I had built for my millworkers before you go back.’ He closed the door on the painting and the two of them went to join their wives.
When her mother and aunt looked up to greet the men, Feen managed to slip a photograph of Dickie into the pocket of her pinafore before the snapshots were handed to her father. Dickie rubbed his hands. ‘Gee, it was cold in there – feel.’ He clamped his palms to his niece’s cheeks. ‘Come on, Feen, let’s you and me sit in the cosy-corner.’ He led her to the cosy-corner seat beside the fireplace, where he adjusted the height of a complexion screen to, ‘guard that gorgeous skin from the roaring fire’, then squeezed onto the seat beside her.
This closeness was all that Feen had been wishing for, yet at the same time she was frightened. He was so big, made her feel even more bashful and childish. Josie damned the man and hoped he would soon be gone. She announced that it was time for bed. Feen pretended not to have heard, and asked, ‘Uncle Dickie, do you like horses?’ He replied that he did. ‘Will you come riding with me tomorrow morning before breakfast? I’m not allowed to go out alone and no one will ever go with me on these cold mornings.’ Josie said it would be dark but no one appeared to take note.
‘It would be an honour, my dear – about seven?’ He scooped up her hand and kissed it, whispering, ‘Better go to bed now. Ye wouldn’t have me take a hiding from your mother for keeping ye up so late?’
‘You really shouldn’t lead the poor girl on like that, you know,’ scolded Dusty when they were in bed. ‘She idolises you – and you shouldn’t’ve promised to go riding with her. You know what you’re like at that time of morning.’ Dickie muttered that if he had said he would go then he would go, that was if she didn’t keep him talking all night. She snuggled up to him. ‘How much longer are we staying, Dick?’ He gave the opinion that it was usually him who got fed-up first. ‘I’m not fed-up, I’ve had a lovely time. I just want to get back to the squiblings. I miss them.’ Whilst the family had been in Ireland she had spent virtually the whole time at Belle’s, helping Sally to wash and dress the little ones, telling stories, playing with dolls. ‘Fred’s not a bad little soul when you bother to talk to him – very intelligent, in fact. He was telling me things I didn’t know. And he kept asking when you’d be back. He likes you, you know.’
‘Does he?’ Dick sounded pleased. ‘Well, I guess he’s not so bad himself… with a mask on. Ow! You little …’ He rubbed his injured stomach. ‘Right, that’s the last time you strike me, woman, I’m exerting my rights. If it happens again, I’ll… I’ll get my pal Josie to come and sit on you – aagh! Mercy!’ She had bent one of his fingers back.
‘Then kindly stop demeaning folk. There’s more to people than physical appearance.’
‘Yeah, I realise that, darlin’,’ he replied sincerely. ‘Otherwise I’d never have married you, would I?’
His loud laughter under his wi
fe’s tickling assault was the last noise Feen heard before she fell asleep. Throughout the night she woke several times with a start to shine her torch on the bedside clock, dreading that she would oversleep. In between naps, she pictured her uncle’s strong arm encircling her waist, lifting her onto his steed, and the two of them galloping away. A dowdy old woman would rush out of the house and beg Dickie not to leave, and he would look down on her pityingly and say, ‘I’m sorry, Dusty, but you see I’ve fallen in love with Feen … goodbye.’
She slipped her hand into her nightgown and touched the photograph which she intended to keep next to her heart always, wondering if he were awake too, and trying desperately to exclude the woman who slept beside him.
At six, Feen was roused by the light tread of the housemaid on her way down from her attic room. At six forty-five she was dressed in her brown tweed riding habit and tripping excitedly over the yard to the stable block. Uncle Dickie was not yet up, but she was fifteen minutes early and it was still quite dark. The groom had already received instructions last night from his master to saddle a horse for Mr Richard and a chestnut hack stood clinking his bit beside Feen’s solid pony. At the groom’s information that it was five to seven, Feen mounted and led the chestnut out into the slushy grey morning. There was light and movement at one of the windows. Feen smiled expectantly, but it was only a housemaid pulling the drawing room curtains. Seven came and went. The horses began to stamp and snort. Feen decided to walk them round the house; it would ease their impatience and also alert her Uncle Dick who surely must have overslept.
Through the muzziness of sleep, Dusty heard the crunch of horses’ hooves beneath the bedroom window and felt for her husband, encountering hot flesh. Without opening her eyes, she tapped him, receiving a grunt. ‘Dickie, Feen’s waiting for you to go riding.’ There was another more petulant grunt, then silence. As much as she shoved and pinched him, Dick remained oblivious. His wife gave up and snuggled under the covers for another half hour.
Dickie (Feeney Family Sagas Book 4) Page 16