Shadows in Heaven

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Well, what you both obviously don’t know, and I do’ – she smiled; she couldn’t help herself – ‘is that Michael Malone is on his way home! And yes, we do have to get you away, Sarah. But if that man is true to his word – and after five years, Michael is most definitely a man now – it won’t be for long.’

  *

  Twelve hours later, Sarah stood in front of the fire, clutched the mantel shelf, her head leaning against the back of the hand, staring at the fire bugs flickering in and out of life on the soot-blackened back wall. In her other hand she held a heather basket she had woven herself, into which she’d placed the few belongings she could call her own. Her eyes were red raw from weeping and she was exhausted from all the emotion. She was leaving Tarabeg, with a strange man to a strange place, to save her from the fate of being handed over to Maughan in return for money and a life worse than anything she could imagine. Michael was finally coming home, but when he did, she wouldn’t be there.

  Angela had barely spoken a word other than to fuss and feed her and help her pack her bag. She was locked in her own nightmare, not wanting to worry her daughter further by sharing her own dark thoughts of what life would be like once Sarah had left. When Kevin McGuffey found his daughter missing, she would mightily pay the price. Of that she was sure.

  Seeing the despair in Sarah’s eyes, she walked over and placed her arms around her, easing her away from the fire, turning her around and hugging her into her. She buried her daughter’s head on her shoulder and stroked the back of her hair.

  ‘There, there. Stop crying. This is only a temporary arrangement. We will find you soon, Sarah, me or Michael. But we have to get you away from here, you know that, don’t you? What else in God’s name can we do to save you? I won’t let it happen.’

  Sarah let out a shuddering sob. ‘How can it be this bad?’ she asked, pulling away from her mother and looking into her eyes. ‘Why did you even marry him, Mammy? You need to get away too. He’s gone properly mad and it’s getting worse every day. How can I leave you with him? Come with me, Mammy! Come with me.’

  She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. They stung from having cried through most of the night and day and it almost hurt to open them. All day long, nightmarish images of what might lie ahead had jostled in her mind with the memories that had sustained her all the time Michael had been away. She was terrified of leaving her home – she’d never been further than Tarabeg in her life.

  ‘I cannot, Sarah. Two of us on the run – if they caught us, they would lock us both away in the asylum, you know that. Your father would complain, blame me, and the Garda would track us down and the Church would punish us. This way, there is only you, and one is easier to hide.’

  She stroked away the strands of her daughter’s hair that had stuck to her wet cheeks and looked into her eyes as she spoke. ‘Get yourself north of the border into what is English land – they cannot touch you there. Or if that’s not possible, get to Dublin and then take the boat across to Liverpool. Keep your faith to yourself. If you go north, go to Mass if you can, but don’t go anywhere near a convent for help on the way. Not unless you have a good story, and even then you would need money to give them. The nuns won’t help anyone for nothing. And if the nuns get their hands on you this side of the border, you won’t likely get away. The very least they will do is ask a priest to send for your father, and God help us both if that happens. Bee says that her Captain Bob will have a plan when he gets here and we must do what he says.’

  Sarah was petrified, and she looked it. ‘God, please, God, take down Da’s boat.’ She looked up to the roof as she sobbed the words out loud. If her father drowned at sea, all her prayers would truly be answered. ‘It should have been him that drowned, not Rory.’

  ‘Shush, ’tis a sin to say that.’ Angela pulled her into her arms once more in an attempt to calm her rising panic.

  At the sound of voices, both women looked towards the door. Sarah began to tremble and a frown crossed Angela’s face. ‘They are early, surely not…’

  Captain Bob wasn’t expected at the cottage for a couple of hours yet, when their escape would be witnessed by no one. It was a full moon, which was not ideal, but everyone would be long in their beds when they slipped away. McGuffey wasn’t due back from the North until the first tide. When smuggling, he kept very different hours to the fishermen.

  Sarah’s eyes widened with anticipation. ‘Mammy,’ she whispered. ‘Mammy!’ She grabbed her mother’s hand in her own cold, damp palm, her voice filled with hope and want, and she gasped as the catch on the door lifted. ‘Michael!’ The word left her in a rush.

  Angela turned her head to the door, but it was Bee, and Captain Bob behind her. Sarah’s disappointment almost felled her.

  ‘Inside, quick, before anyone sees us,’ Bee urged Captain Bob. ‘Stop gawping, you two,’ she said to Sarah and Angela. ‘This is Captain Bob, and he is about to save your life, Sarah, so try and look a bit more grateful, please God, would you?’

  Sarah stood motionless, her skin the colour of alabaster. Her voice deserted her, so Angela spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bee. Captain Bob.’ She too was almost lost for words. ‘Where are our manners? It’s just, you see… Things are a little difficult.’ She had prayed for Bee’s soul every single day as a result of the sins she knew her sister was committing with this man, and here he was, in her house. Her eyes scanned heavenwards, as if expecting the roof to fall in.

  ‘I know,’ Captain Bob said. ‘Little Bee has explained.’

  ‘Little Bee?’ Angela looked at Bee with a puzzled expression. This was all new to her. Until yesterday, her life had plodded along just as it had for years, but now things were happening so fast, she could hardly keep up. The last person she’d heard call her sister ‘little Bee’ was their father, and he’d been dead for over twenty years.

  ‘Sit down, Bob,’ said Bee with a tenderness that Angela had only ever seen her display with Rory. ‘Sarah, come here. God in heaven, would ye look at the state of ye.’ Bee moved over to Sarah and, taking her hand, led her to the chair. ‘Come here while we tell ye. Captain Bob has a plan, so he does.’

  Sarah stared at the man she had never laid eyes on before. Bee looked over at Angela and gave her her most reassuring smile.

  Captain Bob took in Sarah’s bloodless complexion and her distress. He thought for a moment, then reached into his inside pocket, took out a flask and extended his arm towards her. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It’s whiskey – the best. Take a sip. It’ll warm your insides and give you courage. You are in shock, and sure, who wouldn’t be.’

  Automatically, Sarah stretched out her hand; it was trembling violently. He took her hand in his and, steadying it, placed the flask in her fingers and closed them around the leather pouch.

  Sarah did exactly as she was told, for no other reason than she felt as though she were about to collapse and she sensed that this might save her from the embarrassment and discomfort of falling off the chair. There was something about his round face, his twinkling blue eyes and the tone of his voice, loaded with pity and care, that made her understand instantly why he was the person Bee had confided in. She could trust him as Bee did. She nervously placed the flask to her lips and took a sip. Immediately she began to cough and splutter.

  ‘There you go, that’s opened the pipes,’ Captain Bob said. ‘Now take another for good measure, that’ll be the one that does the work.’

  He smiled up at her and through her misery she felt her pulse steady and her blood warm. Here was kindness and it had come to help her.

  Bee motioned to Angela to take the chair she was holding out for her. ‘I will make up some food, and you two listen to what he has planned. Sarah will want your blessing. Go on, be doing as I say.’

  Angela studied her sister’s face, but she was giving nothing away. Bee busied herself about the room, as familiar to her as her own, while Captain Bob explained his plan.

  ‘Your Aunt Bee has asked me to sail yo
u around to Ballycroy and get ye away from here, and to make a plan.’

  Angela looked nervous.

  ‘Now, don’t be panicking,’ he said to her. ‘We will be away in half an hour and to catch me, someone would have to have a miracle for a wind and a bigger boat than mine, or he would have to be a fast swimmer. I’m the only boat hereabouts with a motor, and I’ve never met an Irish man yet who can swim, never mind catch me. There is a storm due in, which is why I am a little early.’

  Sarah half smiled through her tears and began to calm in response to his reassuring words and the effect of the whiskey.

  ‘What would your idea be?’ asked Angela, her voice thready as her courage failed her.

  ‘Well, I have the same plan for her that many a colleen from these parts has already taken. I will lend you the money for a passage to America, Sarah. We will sail to Ballycroy first, and then we’ll get you straight down to Cobh for the ship to New York. There’s one leaving the day after tomorrow at noon. I have to go out to Cobh anyway and we’ll sort out your papers there. You’ll be alone for the crossing, but my sister will meet you off the ship in New York and she’ll take you in. She will find you good work, the right sort, respectable, and then you’ll pay her an amount per week to cover the cost of your passage over. You aren’t the first we have done this for and you won’t be the last.’

  Sarah’s sob of anguish filled the room. America! She would not be married to Maughan, but Michael might still come and she would be gone. She was to leave the place she had known all of her life, the place he was also from and where he would know to find her. It was as if the earth shifted beneath her and all that she had known and trusted had slipped away in a heartbeat. Wiped away by her father’s evil deeds.

  ‘But… Michael…’ she said. ‘What if he comes and I’m gone? What will happen then? He will think I didn’t wait for him, and I have stood at this door every day for five long years.’

  She began to cry. Self-pitying, desperate tears that pulled on her mother’s heart and made Bee grieve. Captain Bob caught Bee’s eye and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The thing is, Sarah,’ Bee began, ‘no one knows when Michael is coming. The farmhands were saying in Paddy’s last night that some demobbed soldiers stop in Liverpool on their way home and never leave. The money is so good, for an Irishman who’s used to earning his keep with butter or pullets, ’tis very tempting. And Michael, he might well do the same. Being a man who was off to earn money and seek adventure in the war, I’m thinking that’s likely. Sarah, you would look quite ridiculous if you stayed here and he wasn’t coming home to you at all. If he does love you and is coming back for you, well, he will follow you or send for you. No one can come between two people in love. Now go! Ye have to go and not be seen.’

  Bee almost shouted those last words at her, her patience worn thin in the face of her fear that there might not be enough time to get Sarah away. Her worst nightmare would be the sight of Kevin McGuffey opening the cottage door. She would never admit it, but she was also embarrassed that Sarah was voicing objections to Captain Bob’s generosity. Instead of crying, she should have been thankful for his offer to loan her the money and more grateful at how prepared he was to put himself out for her.

  But Sarah had no words of thanks. Drying her eyes and sniffing, she sobbed pathetically. ‘Michael wouldn’t do that. He would come for me first before he did anything. I know it, Bee…’ Her words trailed off. She knew herself how hollow and desperate she sounded.

  As she and Captain Bob stood up to leave, all four of them huddled together, almost as one.

  Bee pushed oatcakes wrapped in a cloth into Sarah’s basket, along with an earthenware flask of cold tea. ‘Go on now. Go!’ she urged. ‘I’ve packed plenty to keep you going until tomorrow. God be with ye and as soon as you can, write and let us know where ye are, Sarah. Ye never know, the next one I put on a boat might be yer mammy.’

  Sarah could see that stoic, life-hardened Bee was, for all her bluster, deeply upset. Their world was being turned upside down. ‘Mammy!’ she rasped, but she felt so physically sick with the trauma and upset, she could barely speak.

  ‘Don’t ye be worrying about her now,’ said Bee. ‘I’m taking her to my house, for as long as we can beat off your father. I’ll say she’s on her sickbed with grief after you running off. I’ll say she has lost the use of her legs and can’t walk. I’ll send for Bridget McAndrew to make her better – your father won’t take Bridget on, he’s as terrified of her as he is of Shona Maughan.’

  Sarah grabbed both her aunt’s hands. ‘I will work,’ she said, ‘and get money. I’ll be back.’ And with that she turned to her mother. The desolation in Angela’s eyes pierced her heart as she fell into her arms.

  Angela wanted to scream out loud, wanted to shout, ‘I can’t live without you if you go. You are my world, my life, my only reason to wake up each day. There is no point to any of it without you – I can’t go on with him. You are like a beam of bright sunlight in my dark, depressing life.’ Instead, in the calmest voice, belying her inner turmoil, all she said was, ‘Now you take care on that boat. Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know.’

  Everyone laughed nervously.

  ‘She won’t be knowing anyone,’ said Bee.

  Angela ignored her. ‘And remember, I’m here and you are my only child. If I had the means to find a way to save you from this, you know I would, don’t you? But I haven’t a penny or a place to take you to be safe.’

  Tears poured down Sarah’s face. She understood. She knew her mammy was as helpless as she was. Kevin McGuffey was a law unto himself and they were answerable to him in the eyes of everyone, including the Church, and yet he listened to no one. They were women, owned nothing, earned a pittance and were dependent on McGuffey for every morsel they ate, the roof over their heads and, it would appear, their lives.

  ‘I will be waiting for news every single day, you know I will, don’t you? So please God, put me out of my misery and write as soon as you can – address the letter to Bee, it will go to Mrs Doyle. I won’t be here. I might already be looking for you.’

  Angela looked into her daughter’s eyes, and what she saw tore at her heart. The depth of Sarah’s misery was like nothing she had seen before and the knowledge that even though she was her mother there was nothing she could do to alleviate it ripped her soul to shreds.

  ‘Come here,’ she whispered. She pulled Sarah into her arms and together they cried and rocked from side to side for as long as Bee allowed. Angela knew she had to remember how Sarah’s hair smelt, how her soft frame felt in her arms as she cradled her as though she were still but a child, because as sure as the wind that blew past the open door was true, there was a very real chance they might never see each other again. They saw it happen all the time in Tarabeg, as one family after another waved off a child to a brighter new world across the Atlantic, on a cloud of promises to keep in touch. ‘Remember me, won’t you,’ she whispered. ‘Remember me.’

  There was a cough and Captain Bob spoke. ‘The weather looks like it’s already changing,’ he said apologetically. ‘It’s a full moon and she can be temperamental, so I think we’d better be heading off. If there’s a storm at sea and it blows into the shore, we might not get away tonight. I have the motor on the back, we don’t need the sails, but all the same…’

  Sarah stared as though not understanding what he had said. Angela held on to her wits for her daughter’s sake. She would have her entire lifetime to fall apart once Sarah had left. Following a gentle push from Bee, who could barely see through her own tears, Sarah and Captain Bob disappeared out of the door, towards the escarpment and the shore.

  Bee turned to her sister. For a moment neither could speak, but they clung on to each other’s hands. ‘Right, pack what you need, come on. You won’t be seeing this place for a while. You are going to be very sick and on your deathbed with the grief. You had better be a bloody good actress because McGuffey will be knocking on the door, demanding to know w
hat’s going on. You can stay with me for ever, you know – McGuffey never takes me on. No one would judge you. Your daughter fleeing from the tyrant he is, and you being paralysed with the shock. You will still be his wife, a wife who is sick and being looked after by her sister. Only I will know and it could be our secret. You would be free of him.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right, he’s always been scared of you. He won’t touch me in your house.’ Angela took a deep breath, nodded slowly at her sister. ‘We can tell him that Sarah ran away when she was taking a message to your house, that she just never came home. That he scared her with his threat of marrying her off to Maughan. What would we do without you, Bee?’ She moved over to the press by the bed and began pushing her few belongings into a string bag, barely able to see for the tears in her eyes. ‘I will happily lose the use of my legs, for what is the point of doing anything else when there is no Sarah here now.’ She stopped, frozen, barely able to move for the hurt in her heart. The pain was so acute, it near paralysed her; every step was an effort. It might not be so much of a lie that she had lost the use of her legs, after all. ‘God help us,’ she sobbed, her voice little more than a croak. ‘Bridget McAndrew has no potion to heal a broken heart, and that will be the cause of it.’

  She looked about the cottage as though she had never seen it before. Her gaze fell on the one picture she had of Sarah as a little girl, standing on the press. She leant over and picked it up. ‘There’s nothing to live for now that Sarah has gone, Bee. Nothing.’

  ‘Angela, I’m not leaving you – that just isn’t possible. Come on now.’

  Angela tucked the picture into her bag. ‘You win, Bee – don’t you always. I will come, but not until I’ve watched the boat sail around the corner. It’s almost as light as day, I’ll be able to see them from up on the cliff.’ Her voice wobbled, but she was adamant. ‘I will watch until I can watch no more, until my only daughter is just a speck on the horizon. And then I’ll walk up the boreen to your house. But you must go back to your boy, Angela. Thank God for Ciaran. At least you and Rory did something right, when I did everything wrong.’