The Ballymara Road

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘We never discussed our baby boy with you because so much was happening when you arrived – the upset with Mammy, the new contract to build the flyover. It was all going on and, anyway, you never asked and why would you?

  ‘Little Dillon, he came from a convent in Ireland, near Galway. We don’t know who it was who gave birth to him and gave him up for adoption. We don’t know who his family is or where we can trace them to find a bone marrow match. We flew straight from here to collect him, it was all so quick, and stopped over in Liverpool on the way back. He flew on a temporary passport. They had it all arranged before we even arrived.’

  ‘Six months.’

  Mary repeated those awful words as though they were a death sentence. The car journey had eaten up almost an hour of those six months since the doctor had first given them the news.

  As they pulled into the drive, Sean saw Mrs McGuire, who been waiting patiently, struggle to open the heavy oak front door. She was more used to a cottage in the village on the outskirts of Galway, where they had all been born, or the Nelson Street two-up, two-down. Little Dillon was in her arms, looking pale and wan, but he still managed a smile for his parents’ return.

  Sean was struggling to take in everything Mary had said.

  Only his thumbs moved, over and over.

  As they stepped inside, Mrs McGuire and Alice stood in the hallway, anxiety binding them together in a flimsy companionship born from a joint concern for Dillon’s health.

  Mary, as ever pragmatic and fighting for the life of her little boy, knew without any discussion what she needed to do.

  ‘Mammy, Alice, I have to travel to Galway with Dillon. Will ye both come with me?’

  The three women hugged briefly and silently. They would do whatever it took, no matter how inconvenient or difficult.

  The scent from Mary’s jacket made Alice feel nauseous. She slowly breathed out a deep sigh of relief. Galway. It was much closer to Joseph, to Liverpool, to Jerry, and to everyone and everything she knew, than Chicago.

  For the first time in her life, Alice uttered a silent prayer of thanks and made a decision to withdraw the full fifty thousand dollars in their joint bank account on the day she left.

  7

  ‘YOU LOOK LIKE a nervous wreck,’ said Simon to Howard, as they stood inside St Mary’s church, waiting for Howard’s bride to arrive. ‘Stop pacing up and down like a demented dog. You are making me on edge and I’m only the best man.’

  Howard took out yet another Embassy cigarette from his packet and handed one to Simon.

  ‘Here, have one, go on. Me hands are shaking, I’ve got to have another to calm my nerves,’ he whispered.

  Standing on the groom’s side at the front of the ornate church, now filling with incense, Howard’s nervousness was as much to do with the formality of the church ceremony, as the fact that he was about to leave behind his carefree bachelor life and marry a woman who knew how to organize a list to within an inch of her life.

  Howard had completed his conversion to the Catholic faith upon the absolute insistence of his bride, Miss Alison Devlin, spinster of the parish, deputy head teacher at the four streets convent school and all-round holder-together of the community during a time of crisis. The latter quality had been tested to the limit recently. The four streets had been through more than their fair share of drama and crisis.

  ‘Howard, we are forty minutes early. Let’s go outside and walk round the church for a fag. Your bride will kill you if she can’t see you from the door for blue smoke.’

  Howard, a local detective inspector, had first met Alison during the investigation into the deaths of the priest, Father James, and Molly Barrett. Howard still felt guilty about Molly. Molly had given him information about who had murdered the priest. But no sooner had she confided in them than she had been murdered herself. The confusing thing was that Molly must have been wrong. She had told them that the priest’s murderer was Tommy Doherty. But that couldn’t have been the case. They knew Tommy Doherty hadn’t murdered Molly. As he was under suspicion, they had watched his every move that night. It wasn’t him and it was impossible to believe that there were two random murderers on the rampage in the four streets.

  It had all been one extended nightmare. The very worst of it had been the tragic drowning of little Kitty Doherty during her visit to Ireland, and the fact that Daisy Quinn, the Priory housekeeper, had gone missing since the day she had left Alison’s care to catch the ferry, down at the Pier Head.

  It had all been too much for everyone to take in.

  ‘Will the day ever come when you can see us getting married?’ Howard had asked Alison a number of times. It seemed to him as though the dark cloud that had settled over the community would never pass.

  ‘I would feel better if I could travel to Dublin and look for Daisy myself,’ Alison had responded. ‘God alone knows where she is. Her poor family, to have been left standing, waiting for her at the port. They must be desperate and I feel so responsible. I put her on the boat. I even asked two old ladies to look after her. She was so excited about being reunited with her family for Christmas. I just need things to become a little more like normal.’

  Howard knew she was right. In order to remove all barriers to his nuptials, as well as its accompanying rights and pleasures, he had arranged for them both to visit Dublin so that Alison herself could speak to the police and Daisy’s family.

  He had hoped as a result that she might be more reasonable regarding his manly needs. It seemed as though everyone, everywhere, spoke about nothing other than women’s liberation and free love. Some women were even burning their bras, what for, Howard wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him like a great and generous gesture.

  But none of it mattered. Alison was a stickler for propriety and was apparently wholly against joining her sisters on any march that would make it easier for Howard to stay the night.

  ‘We will, Howard, when the time is right and things are happy again,’ Alison replied, each and every time he asked. This would be followed by four very disappointing words, which achieved their unambiguous purpose.

  ‘When. We. Are. Married.’

  The door of illicit sex slammed with finality. Words of steel held it shut.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  ‘I would be very happy, if I could go to bed at night and wake up with a wife,’ Howard said over and over, but there was little point in complaining.

  The nuns, the school and the entire community had become mired in grief. Although not touched by events in quite the same way as his fiancée, Howard realized that to pursue his aim, under such a veil of sorrow, was fruitless.

  Daisy’s brother had not blamed Alison in any way for his sister’s disappearance and had been grateful for the care she had given to the sister of whom he had known nothing until the death of his parents.

  The family were still in shock at the news that, after a difficult birth leading to fears that she would be brain damaged, Daisy had been placed in what was in effect a Dublin orphanage, under the care of nuns. As if that were not enough, they had been dismayed to hear that, whilst still a child, she had then been shipped to Liverpool, where she had been pressed into service as a housekeeper to the murdered priest.

  Via his own contacts, Howard had arranged for Alison to speak to the police in Dublin. They had then met with Daisy’s brother, who was the state solicitor and much respected by the Dublin Gardai.

  ‘’Tis is a mystery, so it is,’ said the Dublin detective. ‘She was seen standing by the boat rails one minute but then, when it came time to disembark, she was nowhere to be seen.’

  Alison asked the question that had been preying on everyone’s minds since the moment they heard that Daisy had not met up with her family at the agreed rendezvous.

  ‘Could she have drowned?’

  ‘Not impossible,’ replied the detective. ‘But, if she had, her body would have washed up somewhere by now. The boat had almost docked the last time she was seen on deck. I would s
ay that her drowning was highly unlikely.’

  Reassured that there was a strong likelihood that Daisy was alive and with the knowledge that she would most likely be found at some stage, Alison agree to name the day and to put Howard out of his misery.

  Howard and Simon now stood at the back of the church in the graveyard, out of sight, but with a good view of the road so as not to miss Alison’s approach. Simon held out his silver cigarette lighter to Howard as they lit up.

  The top clicked back into place with a cushioned slickness.

  Not for the first time, Howard wondered where Simon got the money from for all his fancy bits. The lighter, the cigarette case packed with Pall Mall cigarettes (which, Howard noticed, Simon bought only on days when he thought he might have to offer a woman a ciggie from his expensive case), his smart suits and the new Ford Capri in which Howard had been grateful to be driven to the church.

  ‘You should be careful smoking those Pall Mall,’ said Howard. ‘That’s the only link to Molly’s murder. Just because one was found at the murder scene doesn’t make it glamorous to smoke them, you know. What happened to your Woodies? Not good enough now, eh?

  Although Simon had the same rank as Howard, his manner was bumptious. He always assumed authority over his colleague, yet both were on the same pay scale. Howard had commented on it to Alison only the previous week following the wedding rehearsal when Simon, much to their surprise, had presented them both with a solid silver rose bowl.

  ‘Even accounting for the fact that he has no wedding to pay for and obviously no intention to start a family and buy a home, he seems to spend his money lavishly,’ said Howard.

  ‘I’m not complaining at his foolishness.’ Alison had smiled. ‘’Tis a beauty of a rose bowl all right.’

  Howard knew better than to pry or ask Simon for an explanation. No other officer in the force was as close to Simon as he was. Howard never asked personal questions, which Simon obviously appreciated. To Howard’s knowledge, Simon had no girlfriend and had never had one, in all the time they had been in the force together. He lived alone in his Aigburth house and visited his mum every other weekend. At lunchtime he enjoyed a roast beef sandwich and a slice of the home-made fruitcake which he brought back from his visits home. That was about as much as Howard knew, or was ever likely to know.

  Howard, who was less secretive and more down to earth altogether, was more of a sausage-roll-and-a-custard-slice-from-Sayers man. Simon was a member of a rather posh golf club on the Wirrall where, at the weekend, he sometimes teamed up with the chief super and his friends. One of the officers from over the water had told Howard that a politician often played a round with them. Simon never spoke of it and Howard dared not ask.

  Howard knew the closest he would get to the golf club would be if he were ever asked to caddy and the chances of that were very slim indeed. Now he smoked his cigarette down to the tip in less than a minute.

  ‘Let’s have another,’ he said to Simon, ‘and then we will move back inside.’

  As Simon offered his cigarette case to Howard, they both peered over the church wall to watch the bridesmaids arrive.

  Nellie Deane alighted from the car first, followed by the younger Doherty girls and then the page-boys, Little Paddy and Harry. They had been prepared and made ready for the day at Alison’s house by her sister. Everything had to be perfect and Alison had taken no chances.

  ‘Strange that not long ago we had both those girls’ fathers in the cells, questioning them over the priest’s murder, and now their kids are Alison’s bridesmaids,’ said Howard.

  Simon did not reply. He squinted into the sunlight as the girls fussed about their lilac chiffon dresses and white satin shoes. He could hear the voice of the now oldest Doherty girl wafting up to them on the warm breeze.

  ‘Will you get off my shoes, Niamh. You have put a stain on the white satin. Oh God, would you look at that, now.’ Angela bent down and rubbed at the shoe like crazy.

  ‘Stop it,’ hissed Nellie. ‘You are making your white gloves dirty.’

  Neither girl had ever been so dressed up in her life. It was making them nervous to the point of nausea.

  Alison Devlin had chosen Nellie Deane and the Dohertys for a reason. Not only were they her favourite pupils at the school, but both families had suffered more than most in their lifetimes. Alison had the softest heart.

  That could be the only explanation why Little Paddy had been chosen as page-boy.

  ‘Alison, we would have to disinfect the lad before we could put him in a page-boy outfit,’ Howard had remonstrated.

  ‘Aye, we will that and won’t that give us just a huge sense of satisfaction now,’ Alison replied.

  Howard was starting to realize that he had as much influence over what happened at his own wedding as he had over the weather. He would have to accept that this was also the beginning of the rest of his life.

  ‘God, I feel so ashamed,’ said Little Paddy, as he tried to pull the ruff down from his throat.

  ‘Don’t complain, Paddy,’ said Harry. ‘Ye have a new pair of shoes for wearing a fancy outfit for the day. Ye won’t have to borrow anyone else’s for ages now.’

  Harry patted his friend on the back. Little Paddy smiled. Sometimes he felt as if Harry was more like what a da should be than his best friend.

  Wedding nerves had reached the Priory. This was Father Anthony’s first wedding since taking over St Mary’s church and he knew the turnout would be huge for the most popular teacher for miles around.

  ‘Harriet! Harriet!’

  Father Anthony shouted from the top of the stairs down to his sister, who was carefully decorating the two last trifles with silver sugar balls, fanning out from tinned pears which had been placed in a pattern of flower petals, laid on a bed of Fussell’s tinned cream. It was all ready to deliver to the Irish centre for the reception. This would take place straight after the nuptial mass. Harriet had stomped round the kitchen, shaking the cream in the tins to thicken it, and was now running late. The whole process had taken far longer than she had anticipated due to the unexpectedly warm weather.

  ‘Shake them above yer head,’ Annie O’Prey had told her the previous day. ‘It makes them thicken quicker.’

  Harriet couldn’t see how this could be true, but she had done it anyway.

  Harriet and Alison Devlin had become good friends since Harriet had moved into the Priory. Jointly, they had helped to heal broken families and nursed a community back onto its feet. They had become almost inseparable as a result and it seemed only natural that Harriet would play a main role in the organization of the wedding.

  Harriet was a helper and a healer, but, despite the fact that she was the priest’s sister, she wasn’t terribly holy. Something she took care to keep secret.

  The fact that her brother was conducting the nuptial mass of her new best friend made the whole thing very tidy, which was just how Harriet liked things to be.

  ‘You would think no one else had ever been married on this street,’ Annie O’Prey had grumpily complained a number of times when Harriet had asked for the sitting room to be given an extra polish and a run over with the Ewbank, ready for yet another wedding-planning tea.

  ‘Wedding planning? I’ve never heard the like. All she needs to do is make a white frock and turn up at the church. I’ve never known such a palaver.’

  In the Priory there had been talk of nothing but the wedding.

  The reception, the dress, the food and the endless fittings for the bridesmaids’ dresses and the page-boys’ outfits. Decisions over colours and flowers and what food to put on the buffet. It had been a huge and never-ending frenzy of activity.

  Harriet held onto another secret throughout. Never once did anyone see the pain that sometimes squeezed her heart or the odd tear that sprang to her eye at the sad thought that she, so truly now the spinster of the parish, would possibly always remain so.

  Most women were married by the age of twenty-one. Any older was seen as being highly
unusual. Alison, who was now thirty, had thought she had been well and truly left on the shelf. But no one, not even Alison Devlin, entertained the thought that, at the grand old age of thirty-five, Harriet Lamb would ever be married herself.

  ‘Anthony, stop shouting.’ Harriet ran up the wooden stairs from the basement kitchen, closely followed by Scamp, who had quietly inserted himself into the daily running of Priory life and, subsequently, Harriet’s affections.

  One advantage of the wedding planning taking place at the Priory was the legitimate reason it gave Little Paddy and Scamp to be useful. There were always errands Harriet needed to be run. Little Paddy also got to eat up the leftovers from Annie O’Prey’s baking, despite Anthony’s constant complaints about the boy and his dog hanging around the kitchen. Anthony might have been the priest but there was no way he was the boss, not even in his own Priory. Alison and Harriet had a lot in common.

  ‘I cannot find the list of family names I have to read out in the service. Have you put it somewhere when you were tidying? Why do you have to polish my office so often?’

  ‘Because I am your housekeeper, Anthony, that is my job. I look after my holy brother. I have told Annie O’Prey to polish in here on Mondays and Fridays. A twice-weekly damp dust and a polish in a big old priory like this is not too often.’

  Harriet removed an envelope from his desk drawer on which Alison Devlin had written a long list of names to be mentioned during prayers. At the top of it was Sister Evangelista’s, while the bishop’s was nowhere to be found. Father Anthony had discovered the bishop had seriously upset Sister Evangelista before his tenure and no matter how many ways he had tried to extract the reason for this, her lips remained sealed.

  ‘Don’t ever mention the bishop if you want the cream to stay fresh,’ Harriet had told him a few days after their arrival. ‘But don’t ask me why. I will find out in good time, but it is a tricky one all right. I have never known a bishop to be so disliked. All I know is that after Father James Cameron’s death, the bishop was no help whatsoever. In fact, from what I can gather, he was nowhere to be seen. He ignored Sister Evangelista’s phone calls, he was unreasonable with her when she did get through to him, he made poor decisions and he was bad-tempered altogether.’