To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  And they both sounded still drunk.

  Cassie took her coat from the hall cupboard and, calling Brian, walked out into the brisk March morning.

  Tyrone arrived back at the house early in the evening. Cassie was ready and waiting for him in the drawing room. What she wasn’t prepared for was him still to be drunk. He threw the doors open, then ran over to Cassie, lifted her up in his arms, and kissed her passionately.

  ‘Cassie my darling!’ he cried. ‘We’ve won our first big race!’

  ‘Put me down, Tyrone!’

  ‘Never! I shall never put you down again for a minute ever!’

  ‘The baby!’

  ‘I have you quite safe, never you fear!’

  He kissed her again, then lowered her gently to the ground, taking her by both of her hands.

  ‘We’ve won our first big race,’ he said softly.

  ‘Tyrone—’ Cassie started.

  ‘Never mind with your Tyrones!’ he replied. ‘Upstairs with you and get changed! We’re going into Dublin to celebrate!’

  And he waltzed out of the room, singing ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ and taking off all his clothes as he went.

  Cassie, who had been all prepared for a showdown about Leonora, and quite determined to walk out on Tyrone if what the showdown revealed made it necessary, instead started to laugh quite helplessly – initially at Tyrone for being such a fool, but really more at herself, for being such a damned fool.

  Then she followed the trail of Tyrone’s discarded clothes upstairs, and changed for the evening, after dancing a tango round the bedroom with her stark naked husband.

  They ate at Jammets. And they also drank at Jammets. Cassie didn’t know half the people in the party, and she was quite sure Tyrone didn’t either, even though he was picking up the bill. Leonora looked absolutely ravishing, although she was well and truly gone, as Tyrone called it, and kept telling everyone in Jammets, whether they were with the party or not, that Tyrone Rosse was the best bloody trainer in Ireland, and that she was mad for him.

  ‘I’m mad for your husband, Cassie,’ she shouted down the bar to Cassie. ‘If he’s as good in the sack as he is with horses, Christ – let me know the minute you’re bored!’

  Cassie ate only some white fish, and drank no wine. Even so, she suddenly felt terribly sick and faint at the end of the meal, and excused herself to go to the washroom. Leonora was in there when she came in, sticking her fingers down her throat and being quite openly sick in the basin. She barely took any notice of Cassie when she saw her.

  ‘Leonora!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Making myself sick, darling,’ she replied. ‘What does it bloody well look like?’

  ‘Making yourself sick?’

  ‘How do you think I keep this thin, the way I eat? This way, I can eat as much as I like, when I like, and never put on a goddam pound.’

  Cassie sat on the chair and bent her head down between her own knees, now feeling fainter than ever. Leonora took no notice. She just washed her face and carefully remade up her face. Within minutes she looked as fresh as she had the moment she’d walked into the restaurant.

  Then she turned round and saw Cassie still bent over.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she enquired.

  ‘The matter with me is, I’m pregnant,’ Cassie answered.

  ‘So you keep telling me, sweetheart,’ Leonora replied, turning back to run a final check on her make-up. ‘If I were you I’d go home.’

  Cassie did, but not in response to Leonora’s advice. She told Tyrone how unwell she was feeling, and he immediately agreed to take her home, not quite disguising his disappointment. The party was all now on the move to Bailey’s, where, it was rumoured, Brendan Behan had been barred, and was fighting all and sundry to get back in.

  ‘I don’t think I’m quite up to it, Ty,’ Cassie said. ‘But I don’t want to spoil your fun. I can drive myself home.’

  Tyrone wavered. Cassie’d had a licence for six months now, and was a very good driver. Besides, if she stayed, the way he was going she’d be driving home anyway.

  ‘No,’ he said, weakening. ‘I won’t hear of it. It isn’t fair on you.’

  ‘It isn’t fair on you, Tyrone. This is a big night for you.’

  ‘To hell, Cassie McGann! It’s only a horse race!’

  ‘It’s the biggest one you’ve ever won. I can see you don’t want to go home yet.’

  Tyrone took her in his arms and gazed at her, half stupefied.

  ‘As long as you’ll be all right,’ he said.

  ‘As long as you’ll be all right,’ Cassie countered. ‘If I were you, I’d stay the night at the club.’

  ‘You’re on!’ Tyrone said, pointing a finger. ‘That’s a damn good notion if ever I heard one!’

  Cassie put Tyrone in the charge of the nicest of his friends, Maurice Collins, and made him swear to keep an eye on Tyrone for the rest of the night. Maurice swore that he would, and so Cassie left him in Grafton Street, and made the long drive along the Military Road and across the mountains back to Claremore for the first time ever by herself.

  A chauffeur-driven Bentley returned Tyrone the following day at tea-time. Cassie was out walking Brian when the car came up the drive. And by the time she got back to the house, Tyrone was fast asleep in their bed, still in his clothes.

  Two weeks after Slang’s victory in the Lincoln, there wasn’t a box left empty in the yard. In fact, Tyrone was so inundated with requests from owners to take horses into training for them that he applied for permission to build an extra ten boxes. Leonora’s Never Say Die colt Charmed Life, now a not very tall but an extremely burly three-year-old, won his prep race for the Guineas in good enough style to bring his ante-post price tumbling down from 25/1 to 6/1, while the other stable hot-shot, Willowind, on his initial outing led every inch of the way for six of the seven furlongs, and promised to look unbeatable over shorter distances. The couple of two-year-olds Tyrone had bought for James Christiansen ran well enough first time out to indicate that although well short of classic standard, it shouldn’t be long before they both won their first races; and even the best of Tim Coughlan the butcher’s no-hopers was showing marked signs of improvement on the gallops.

  ‘Ever since he got his nose in front at Galway,’ Tim said, ‘sure he’s developed a taste for it.’

  Tyrone certainly thought the old horse’s surprise win had been a contributory factor to the animal’s renewed interest in racing. But most of all he knew he owed the bonny health of all the horses in his care to Tomas’ inspired stable management. All in all, Claremore looked set for a bumper season.

  Until, that was, Charmed Life started coughing. By the end of that week, three quarters of the horses had a ‘nose’, and by the middle of May most of the best ones were still only walking. Charmed Life had missed his tilt at the Guineas, and although he was at least in work and cantering, it was touch and go whether or not Tyrone could get a decent race into him before the English Derby.

  Cassie was devastated at Tyrone’s misfortune, but Tyrone endured it with his usual good humour.

  ‘That’s racing, Cassie McGann,’ he said. ‘There are far, far more disappointments in this game than there are celebrations.’

  Leonora did not view the setback quite so philosophically as her trainer. She blamed him for not quarantining her horses in time, and she blamed Bill Hutchings, Tyrone’s vet, for not getting the horses back to work quickly enough. She was told by both parties that, with an epidemic such as this one time was the only healer, but Leonora would hear none of it, and insisted on flying over two vets from Newmarket, which cost her a lot of money to hear exactly the same advice. Leonora stormed out of Claremore and got on the next plane for the south of France, from whence she rang daily for updates on the condition of her horses.

  ‘God but she’s an awful woman,’ Tyrone sighed one evening, after half an hour on the telephone with her.

  ‘I thought you two
were getting on much better now,’ Cassie replied, without looking up from the little jacket she was knitting for the new baby. ‘After the Lincoln, I thought I was going to be a divorcee.’

  It was the first time Cassie had mentioned Tyrone’s night out on Dublin with Leonora, but Tyrone paid it slight attention, simply throwing his head back and roaring with uncomplicated laughter.

  ‘Can you imagine Leonora and me?’ he exclaimed. ‘God I don’t know who’d strangle the other first!’

  Cassie still didn’t look up at him, until Tyrone came and sat down beside her on the sofa. He put a hand under her chin and turned her face towards him.

  ‘Cassie McGann,’ he said, as he saw the look in her eye. ‘Cassie McGann, what can you have been thinking?’

  ‘Only what most pregnant women think, I suppose,’ she replied, ‘when they see their husbands with beautiful blondes crawling all over them.’

  ‘Cassie McGann,’ was all Tyrone replied, ‘I’m ashamed for you!’

  Fortunately Cassie’s foal, being well away from the main yard, escaped the virulent infection which had decimated the majority of Tyrone’s string. Cassie visited him every day, and marvelled at how strong the colt was growing. Gracie was the perfect mother, patiently enduring her son’s violent attacks on her teats, and barely even scolding him when he decided to try out his teeth on her neck.

  ‘She’s a nice stamp of mare, Mrs Rosse. Notwithstanding the old foot,’ Tomas said to her one afternoon, as they leant on the old post and rails of the field in which Tomas had turned out the mare and her foal. ‘You thought well having her covered by old Major Parker’s stallion, Bright Spring.’

  ‘I thought a little extra speed mightn’t go amiss,’ Cassie replied. ‘After all, he won the Cork and Orrery pretty quickly.’

  ‘Sure he did. And since there’s abundant stamina in the mare’s pedigree, we could be right. A little bit of speed won’t go amiss.’

  Cassie smiled to herself. Between Tomas and her it was all ‘we’ and ‘us’ now, whereas before it had been very much ‘you’. Tomas had fallen for Graceful Lady in quite the same way as Cassie had. It had just taken a little bit more time.

  As they walked back to Tomas’ cottage, Cassie was aware of Tomas appraising her.

  ‘It’ll not be long now,’ he said, ‘before you’ll be foaling yourself.’

  ‘Do you reckon?’ Cassie had asked. ‘It’s meant to be at least another ten days.’

  ‘Savin’ your presence,’ Tomas replied, ‘but I’d say you’ve dropped. Sure you’ve the softening of the bones, as we say about the mares.’

  Doctor Gilbert confirmed Tomas’ diagnosis.

  ‘It looks as though you might be early,’ he told her, for once brushing the cigarette ash off the front of his suit, ‘which of course is not unusual with the second child. But then I’m not altogether happy with your shape. You look quite the wrong shape to me. It could be a breech.’

  Whereupon he picked up the telephone and asked to be connected to the hospital.

  Cassie was on her feet in a moment.

  ‘I’m not having it in hospital!’ she told him. ‘I’m having it at Claremore, just as I had Josephine!’

  ‘First,’ Doctor Gilbert replied, blowing his nose, ‘we’ll just make quite sure that everything’s as it should be.’

  Tyrone drove her to hospital that afternoon. They took a suitcase with Cassie’s overnight things on Doctor Gilbert’s instructions, just as a precaution. As they drove across the mountains, Tyrone gave her an update on all the horses to try and get the frown off Cassie’s brow. But Cassie was not to be diverted. Dr Gilbert was not a man to send someone to hospital unless he had the strongest suspicions that all was not well.

  The doctor who attended her was young and brusque. He examined her thoroughly, and then regarded Cassie for a moment in silence, sucking the inside of his cheek.

  ‘Your doctor was right,’ he said finally. ‘The baby’s turned itself round, and I’m afraid it’s a breech.’

  Cassie lay on the couch, not knowing what to say. Not understanding the implications fully.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ the young doctor told her. ‘You know what a breech presentation is I’m quite sure. The baby’s going to come out feet first. I’ve tried turning the baby but it seems stuck. Which is why I’m going to operate. By Caesarian section.’

  The doctor opened the door to the examination room and called in Tyrone who’d been pacing the corridor outside.

  He told him what he planned to do to his wife.

  Tyrone came to Cassie’s side and took her hand. For once he was at a loss for words, as was Cassie. Tyrone squeezed her hand hard, and smiled. But Cassie could see in those ever-expressive eyes the terrible deep concern which lay behind the smile.

  ‘I don’t want to be cut open, Ty,’ she whispered. ‘Ask him if there’s not something else he can do.’

  ‘Of course there’s something else I can do,’ the doctor replied, without waiting to be asked by Tyrone. ‘I could let you have the baby by the normal process and risk losing the child, and probably you as well, Mrs Rosse. But as you know, our duty lies to the unborn child.’

  Cassie bit her lip to stop herself from crying and held on tightly to Tyrone’s hand. She didn’t want to die to save her child. She knew that was what she was meant to do, as a good and responsible Catholic. She was meant to be prepared to offer up her life for that of her unborn child. A child who could be born dead.

  But Cassie didn’t want to lose her life. Because she didn’t want to lose her life with Tyrone. It wasn’t her own life she was protecting. It was the joint life they had made together. They could always make another child, Tyrone and she. But they could never ever make another life between them, if Cassie were dead and gone.

  ‘I want to talk to my husband,’ Cassie said.

  ‘By all means. But please be quick. I have to make the necessary arrangements.’

  The doctor left them together. Cassie sat up, releasing Tyrone’s hand, and straightened her clothes.

  ‘Well?’ Cassie asked Tyrone, for once challenging him. ‘Am I to die for this baby?’

  ‘There’s no saying you’ll die, Cassie,’ Tyrone replied, sitting on the chair by the side of the couch. ‘But you both might if you have it the normal way.’

  ‘So I’m to be cut open.’

  ‘You’re to be operated on, Cassie. In order to give you both the best chance.’

  ‘In order to give the baby the best chance.’

  ‘There isn’t an alternative.’

  Cassie got herself slowly down off the examination couch and walked to the window. There was nothing to see. The window looked out on to the black windows of one of the hospital blocks.

  ‘If during the operation, it’s a question of saving your child—’

  ‘Our child,’ Tyrone corrected her.

  ‘If it’s a question of saving your child or me, who do you really think the doctor should save?’

  ‘We’ve talked about this before, Cassie.’

  ‘We’ve never mentioned it once.’

  ‘We have indirectly. It’s not my choice. We’re bound by the rules.’

  ‘The rules?’ Cassie exclaimed, turning round sharply. ‘What rules? This isn’t the goddamn Jockey Club, you know! This is a matter of my life or my death!’

  ‘Yes,’ Tyrone nodded. ‘And of the baby’s life. Or death.’

  ‘Tyrone,’ Cassie said, as calmly as she could. ‘I love you, Tyrone. I don’t want to die for a baby. I want to live for you.’

  Tyrone stood and took her in his arms.

  ‘You won’t die, my love,’ he told her. ‘God will take care of you both. He’ll see you don’t die.’

  They were due to operate on Cassie first thing the following morning. Cassie was woken up from her drug-induced sleep that night by a sharp pain and a sudden discomfort. For a moment she thought she was starting to give birth, and she lay there, waiting for the next contraction. But no subsequent pain foll
owed, so she shut her eyes and drifted off, thinking it must have been a false start.

  They gave her a pre-med at dawn, and she vaguely remembered being wheeled to the theatre. Then someone asked her to count some numbers, and that was that.

  She woke up briefly in a large white room. She was dimly aware of other people being there, and looked for Tyrone. But he wasn’t present.

  When she awoke the next time, she was lying behind green screens, pulled all around her bed. She looked at him and frowned. Tyrone smiled and stood up. He bent low over her and kissed her on the forehead, then he sat again, his hands stretched out to hers, clasping Cassie’s over the carefully folded sheet. Cassie felt the warmth in his hands, and she grasped them, feeling her own move when she asked them. And her head turn when she bade it. And she could smile. She smiled at Tyrone. She was alive.

  ‘How’s the baby?’ she asked. ‘What is it? Where is it?’

  She tried to sit up, but the pain across her stomach made her gasp, and she lay back.

  Tyrone was still smiling at her, but Cassie knew he wasn’t really. She knew at once by his eyes that the baby was dead.

  A nurse pulled back one of the curtains on the screen with a sudden rattle and stared at Cassie.

  ‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘Mrs Rosse. You’d be the one who’s lost the baby.’

  Tyrone was on his feet in a flash, grabbing the nurse by her shoulders so violently that the medicines she was holding spilled all over the bed. He barked something at the girl and then he spun her round and hauled her out of the curtained cubicle with him. Cassie lay there stunned. It was a nightmare, some terrible nightmare. Soon she’d be thankfully awake.

  Then Tyrone was back in the cubicle, and at Cassie’s side. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he gasped. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  Then he collapsed on a chair, buried his head on the bed, and sobbed. Cassie tried to put out a hand to stroke the back of his head, but the tubes in her arms prevented her.

  ‘The baby,’ Cassie said slowly. ‘Our baby. Tyrone—’

  ‘The baby’s dead, Cassie,’ Tyrone whispered. ‘He was stillborn. Strangled by the cord.’