Letting herself into the flat, Liz felt a lump in her throat at the memory. It had been such a happy day, and as she told Matt when he asked her to marry him, she always cried when she was happy. The reception had been a great success. Clontarf Castle was a lovely venue for a wedding and the meal was superb. That home-made soup . . . she felt a pang of hunger as she remembered. A thought struck her. Maybe she was starting to get cravings. Thrilled with herself, she did a little dance into the sitting-room that looked out on to a flower-filled patio. The difference the hanging baskets made. She and Matt had bought a load of them and Will was forever giving them potted plants. A scarlet geranium blazed against a whitewashed wall and Liz, sitting down at her patio table, was reminded of Greece. They had gone to Mykonos for their honeymoon, a fortnight in paradise.
Their rooms had led out on to a flower-filled patio, and at night the scent of jasmine and bougainvillaea had been exquisite. From the patio, they stepped on to the beach and they had spent the time bathing and eating and making love. In the evening, they would stroll along the beach to Nikos’s Taverna and, watching the moon rise over the Aegean, they would eat moussaka and baklava and drink the lovely red house wine, serenaded by the bouzoukis. It had been a perfect holiday and Liz had come home glowing and a half-stone heavier. Maybe she’d make a moussaka tonight. Yes! That’s what she’d do. She’d have a special dinner, and crack open a bottle of wine, although she would of course abstain. Now that she was pregnant, she must think of the baby.
Liz spent the afternoon working on the plans for a mural she had been commissioned to do by a big insurance company. She had been so lucky to secure the commission. Interested in new talent, the chairman had been to the exhibition of their work at the College of Art. She and several others out of her class had been invited to submit designs, and Liz’s had been selected. It was a real break. Not that she hadn’t been busy, she had. Liz had not stopped working since she graduated, but this was a biggie and was bound to get her noticed. With the fee she was getting, they’d be able to start house-hunting.
She worked, engrossed, utterly happy. Once her hand slid down over her tummy and she said, ‘Hello baby, your mam’s working real hard and when I’ve done this I’m going to do a mural for your nursery and I can’t wait to see you.’ She had read that you should talk to your baby in the womb, and play music to soothe it. Well that was no hardship, Liz always played instrumental music when she was working. Right now the mellow sounds of Acker Bilk playing ‘Stranger on the Shore’ wafted on to her patio.
Matt rang at six and it took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to blurt out the news of their impending parenthood. ‘You sound real bubbly. What are you going to spring on me now?’
Liz could tell that her husband was smiling at the other end of the phone. ‘We got the phone bill,’ she informed him, rubbing her stomach gently. She wondered if the baby could hear anything or feel anything yet. Really! She was so ignorant about babies and motherhood. She was going to go to the library tomorrow and read up about it all. Oohh, she was so excited!
‘The phone bill! What’s so exciting about the phone bill?’ Matt demanded.
‘I love getting letters through the door, even if it is a boring old bill. It’s the boring old life I lead. Any bit of excitement makes me bubbly,’ she grinned.
‘I’ll make you bubbly when I get home,’ her husband assured her in that lovely sexy Connemara accent that she could listen to for hours.
‘Hurry home, Matt, I miss you,’ she said huskily, as desire ripped through her.
‘I will,’ he promised.
By ten o’clock she had the moussaka ready, the aroma permeating the kitchen, making her mouth water. At least she wasn’t having any awful morning or evening sicknesses. If anything, she was even more healthy than usual. Liz studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she towelled herself dry after a quick shower. Her blue eyes were so bright and healthy, her skin glowing, her hair, freshly-washed, shining and luxuriant. She knew she had never looked so well in her life – people were always saying it to her. Marriage to Matt had been the greatest thing to happen to her and things could only get better with this beautiful baby inside her. She slid a royal blue silk camisole top on, and stepped into a matching pair of French knickers. Matt loved French knickers: they were a real turn-on for him. Wrapping herself in a matching negligée, she dabbed some White Linen behind her ears, between her breasts and on her wrists, slipped her feet into mules and sashayed out to the kitchen feeling like a film star. The wine was chilling, the candles were ready to be lit, Matt should be up the road from Kevin Street any minute. She switched on the news and sat down in her comfy cane rocker to wait for her beloved.
There were awful things happening in the world. What would she do if something ever happened to Matt? Don’t be daft, she told herself, wishing he was home. He was very late tonight. Maybe there was trouble at the station. It was a tough old life being a guard. People didn’t hold them in respect any more. Life on the beat was much more dangerous than when Matt’s father was a sergeant in Connemara. Only a month ago, Matt had arrived home with a black eye and a razor-cut on his hand – he had been attacked by someone he was trying to arrest. Liz had nearly had a fit but her husband had just shrugged it off. Some little gurriers had thrown rotten tomatoes at him yesterday and ruined his shirt. But he had laughed at her anger and said that if it was the worst that happened to him wouldn’t he be all right? He loved his job. His father had been in the gardáı, and his grandfather before him.
Sometimes Liz felt it was worse on the wives and mothers. They were the ones who sat and waited. It was a horrible job in the winter. Many was the morning that Matt had crept in at seven, frozen to the marrow after the night shift on the bike or on the beat, and she would wrap herself around him and thaw the coldness out of him with the warmth of her body. Matt loved that. He said it was worth it to be out in the wind and rain knowing that she was there waiting to warm him up. Liz smiled happily to herself. He wasn’t on the beat tonight and it wasn’t a night of wind and rain, nevertheless she’d warm him plenty. Tonight was going to be one of the best nights of their lives . . . if he ever got home. The dinner was going to be ruined. Where on earth was he?
That bloody car, the one that had let him down on his wedding day! It would just have to go and that was all there was about it. It really was time to get a new one. Maybe they’d have enough to buy one now that he had finished sending his sister to college. Matt was so good to his mother and family and Liz didn’t begrudge the money one little bit. She’d do the same herself if the positions were reversed. Both of them knew the joy of having a close family; it was a bond that brought them even closer. Just wait until her mother and father and Mrs Lacey heard about the new baby. The first grandchild! The excitement would be mighty.
A ring at the doorbell startled her out of her reverie. Relief flooded through her. He must have forgotten his house keys, the brat. ‘It’s about time!’ she said in mock anger, flinging open the door.
But it wasn’t Matt.
‘Mrs Lacey,’ said Sergeant Daly, her husband’s superior, ‘I’m afraid there’s been a bit of an accident!’
Tuesday 25 December 1979
Liz had been awake all night thinking about Matt and the baby. Remembering how this time last year they had so romantically become engaged. Remembering the plans they had made for what would have been their first Christmas together. Liz’s hand slid down over her flat stomach. Who could believe how cruel fate could be? She bit her lip to stop it trembling. But it was no use. ‘Oh Matt, Matt, why did you leave me, why did you have to die?’ she sobbed aloud. ‘Why did you do this to me, God? What did I do to deserve this? We were happy, we were going to have a baby. Look at all the horrible vicious drug-dealers, murderers and tyrants in the world, why don’t you punish them? Why did you have to take Matt and my baby from me? Matt was a good man. What did he do to deserve to be killed?’
How many times had she asked these
questions since that nightmare day in May when the station sergeant had told her there had been an accident. The terror and panic she felt as she hurriedly dressed and sped away to the Meath Hospital in the squad car would never be erased from her mind. A drunken driver, Sergeant Daly had told her, tight-lipped. They had to pass Matt’s car on Clanbrassil Street, and when she saw the mangled remains of the Toyota, she turned pale and thought she was going to faint. He’d been so near to home and her loving arms. When she saw him in intensive care, hooked up to monitors and drips, all the colour drained from his face, his eyes closed, she thought he was dead, and almost died herself. ‘Matt, Matt, I’m here. I’m with you. I love you, Matt. Darling, we’re going to have a baby,’ she whispered in desperation over and over, willing him to open his eyes, to give her his lopsided grin. But he just lay so still and silent and unmoving. He had severe head injuries, the stoical doctor told her. He had seen it all before and he cursed the drunken bastard that was going to make this shocked, frantic young woman a widow. He’d probably get a suspended jail sentence and lose his driving licence for a year while she would be left to try and repair the ruins of her life.
The nurses had been so kind to Liz. As had Sergeant Daly, who had seen to it that her family and Matt’s were notified. Before long her parents and Christine were there to keep vigil with her as she watched the life drain from her husband. Never had she felt so useless, so powerless. ‘Don’t let him die, please God, don’t let him die!’ she begged over and over as she sat at Matt’s bedside, holding his hand. ‘Don’t die, Matt. Wake up please,’ she pleaded. ‘I need you. The baby needs you. Oh Matt, we’re going to be so happy, I know we are. Just open your eyes for me, darling. I know you can hear me.’ A thousand times during that long long night she told him that she loved him and the next morning she refused point-blank to leave his side for rest.
When his mother and sister came, having been collected off the Galway train by Christine, Liz wept for the first time as she saw the frail old woman lean over and kiss her son and whisper, ‘It’s me, alanna. It’s all right. Mam’s here!’ Hope battled with despair as the hours passed and they did their best to comfort each other. Mrs Lacey whispered her rosary as she sat beside her son and Liz knew that it gave her mother-in-law comfort. She could not pray. She was too shocked to pray. She felt as though she hated God.
It was Eve who was with her when Matt died without having regained consciousness, Eve who held her as she cried aloud in anguished terror when her husband gave a shuddering sigh and passed away.
‘No! No! No!’ Liz screamed as the nurses gently told her that he was dead. ‘Eve, he can’t be dead. It’s a mistake. He just can’t be. We’re going to have a baby, Eve. He’s just asleep. Look at him!’
‘Oh Liz!’ exclaimed Eve as she held her devastated sister-in-law and tried as best she could to console her. The next few days were a living nightmare for Liz. The funeral had to be arranged, the burial place decided. Liz had never even considered such a possibility in her carefree days, so when Mrs Lacey, crying softly, said, ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting him buried in Dublin, pet,’ she could only stare blankly.
‘I suppose so,’ she agreed numbly but when she thought about it, she knew it was wrong. Matt would hate to be buried in the city. Connemara was his home, not this whore city that had taken everything from him and on whose streets he had been killed. Besides, she had only known and loved Matt for a short and precious time, his mother had loved him all his life. Let her have him back where he belonged. Even in her darkest hour, Liz’s generous nature, that had made Matt adore her, shone through.
Later, when she tried to remember details of the funeral, she couldn’t. It all seemed like a dream. The mass seemed to go on for an eternity and the time afterwards was just a blur. All she could remember was her hand being shaken over and over by people she was too numbed to recognize, then the guard of honour formed by his colleagues as his coffin was placed in the hearse in preparation for the long journey home to Connemara. Only as Matt’s coffin was being lowered into the grave did it really sink in that her husband was dead. ‘Matt! Matt!’ she gasped aloud in shock, unable to grasp what was happening. Everything wove away from her, the sky spun dizzily. She saw her mother’s concerned face and tried to speak but couldn’t, and slumped into Christine’s and Eve’s arms in a faint. She came to in the car with Eve cradling her head in her lap and Christine trying to get her to sip a glass of water. She felt ghastly.
‘We’re going back to Mrs Lacey’s now and you’re going to bed,’ Eve said firmly.
‘I can’t. All the neighbours and relations are coming in,’ Liz replied, her voice weak.
‘They won’t mind at all. Now be a good girl and do as you’re told,’ Eve said soothingly.
‘Eve’s right!’ Christine agreed as she held the glass to her sister’s lips. ‘You’re exhausted and you’ve got to think of the baby!’
Tears slid down Liz’s face as she rubbed her hand gently over her stomach. ‘Poor little baby,’ she whispered. And Eve and Christine, catching each other’s eyes, wept with her.
The next day, Liz drove home to Dublin with her parents. She and Mrs Lacey had talked long into the night, all about Matt, in the way that people who are bereaved do. They parted, clinging to each other for long moments in shared grief, each knowing what the other was going through.
That night in the single bed of her girlhood, with Christine asleep across the room from her, Liz ached for her husband. How cold and lonely her bed was without his strong arms around her. How strange to be at home again as if her marriage had been all a dream. What would she do now that Matt was gone? She knew she could never go back to stay in the flat again. It would be too painful. The memories would be unbearable. Too tired to think straight, Liz fell into an exhausted sleep.
Two days later she had a miscarriage.
It was work that kept her going. Doggedly she worked on the mural that she had been commissioned to do, blotting out every other thought. She gave up the flat and moved in with Don and Eve to the large house they had recently bought near her parents’ home. They had a granny flat and with characteristic kindness they decorated it beautifully and helped her to move all her belongings from the flat in Harold’s Cross.
The only thing of Matt’s that she kept was his favourite grey flecked jumper. As the nights got cold and winter crept closer she wore it in bed over her nightdress and derived some comfort from it during the restless dreamfilled nights when she tossed and turned and was eaten by bitterness and despair. She turned in on herself, withdrawing from people, as she sought to come to terms with her grief. Eve’s loving patience with her never faltered and often she would come and sit with her in the evening, listening as Liz ranted and raved and railed against her lot.
The people in the insurance company that had commissioned the mural from her were more than kind. The managing director told her to take her time and work at her own pace and not to hesitate to come to him if she had any problems in executing the mural. Finally the day came to actually start painting. Her design had been accepted very enthusiastically and on paper it looked impressive. But would it look as good when it was painted on the wall. She fretted, uncharacteristically lacking in confidence where her work was concerned. She need not have worried. Once she started all her doubts fell away as the mural, covering a selection of some of the most important episodes of Irish history, came to life. As she put the finishing touch to the motif of St Brendan setting off on his voyage she felt a tingle of satisfaction, the first positive emotion she had felt since her husband died. As the mural took shape and expanded, her old confidence in her work returned and she wielded her paintbrush vigorously. But in the evening when she walked through the revolving door and out into the bustling city, her heart became leaden again and depression dogged her.
She found herself unable to be near a baby. It pained her physically to see a smiling little bundle and she tormented herself with thoughts of what her own child would have been l
ike. Would it have been a boy or a girl? Fair-haired like Matt or dark like herself? She would wonder aloud to the long-suffering Eve. When a girlfriend gave birth and she went to visit her in hospital, she disgraced herself by running from the ward, sobbing as though her heart would break.
More than anything she dreaded Christmas. As the season drew nearer and the lights went up in town and the shops started selling Christmas cards her depression got worse. Had she still been pregnant it would have been time for the birth and the thought haunted her. If only she hadn’t had the miscarriage she would have had a baby, a living breathing part of Matt. All she had ever wanted in life had been Matt and his babies and now she had nothing . . . nothing. Unable to face Christmas at home, and unwilling to spoil it for her family who were desperately concerned about her, she told her mother she was going to spend it in Connemara with Mrs Lacey.
‘Maybe that’s a good idea, love,’ agreed her mother as she hugged her gaunt and traumatized daughter to her. She worried so much over Liz, whose weight had dropped alarmingly and who looked pale and dull-eyed and so unhappy.
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Christine offered supportively. But Liz refused the offer. Christine had Liam, her boyfriend, to think about and it wouldn’t be fair to drag her to the wilds of Connemara for Christmas. And besides, Mrs Lacey was elderly and catering for another guest wouldn’t be fair on her either.
The two women cried when they saw each other again, as Mrs Lacey drew Liz into the cosy little cottage out of a howling banshee of a wind. They hugged each other tightly and then Matt’s sister and brother were kissing her and she was made to sit in front of the fire while the tea was brewed. Outside the branches of the trees rattled against the windows as the winds whistled and howled along the valley between the mountains. But the house was solidly built and snug and had weathered many a storm, and in the soft fire-glow, tired after her journey, with a mug of tea in her hand and a plate of buttered home-made brack and scones, Liz sat in Mrs Lacey’s rocking chair and was glad she had come.
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