Harriet’s hand shook as she spooned the sugar into her tea. If Alison had done it, she would too.
‘No one must tell Anthony, though,’ she added quickly before drinking her scalding tea as fast as she could. Then she told them all about Mr Manning. His caliper, his war wounds and his sad eyes.
‘I’m sorry to burden you all but I don’t know what to do. It is the first time I’ve been stuck. I usually know how to solve a problem and now it is just about me and I have no idea.’
Maura reached out and placed her hand over Harriet’s. ‘Don’t worry, Harriet. If there is a way, we will find it here round this table, as we have done so many times with so many problems. I’m sure Alison won’t mind me saying, but she was heartbroken when she called here to see me and Nana Kathleen. And do you know what?’
There was a sharp intake of breath as everyone leant forward and gasped, ‘What?’ at exactly the same time.
‘Alison met Howard two weeks after she walked out of this back door, having had her reading. You don’t know about Bernadette, Harriet, but she was my best friend, Nellie’s mother and Jerry’s wife. This is her table we are sitting at.’
‘We know it’s our Bernadette, and she works through Nana Kathleen. She will get ye sorted, have no worry about that,’ said Maura.
Harriet felt scared and exhilarated at the same time. It was true, Alison had urged her to visit Maura, but hadn’t said why. If she had, Harriet would probably never have come.
Nana Kathleen picked up Harriet’s cup. ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘I see him here, right in the middle of your cup.’
Harriet gasped and put her hand to her throat.
‘He’s not really in there,’ said Peggy, looking sideways at Harriet, slightly alarmed at how frightened she looked. ‘It’s just the shape Bernadette makes in the tea leaves for Nana Kathleen that makes it look like him.’
‘He works in a tall government building,’ Nana Kathleen continued. ‘He can’t work today, as his mind is distracted and he keeps thinking about a woman he met recently who has turned his head. He hasn’t eaten his lunch either. It is there on his desk in front of him, still wrapped in greaseproof paper, unopened. He feels sick and doesn’t know what to do. He is daydreaming about her, about the things they could do together if he was brave enough to ask if he could court her, but he is too afraid in case she should say no. He thinks his caliper and walking stick would turn a woman off.’
A tear ran down Harriet’s cheek. Maura jumped up to comfort her. ‘Shush, don’t cry,’ she said. ‘I know, it really gets to you, doesn’t it? Alison was just the same.’
Everyone watched as Harriet undid the clasp of her handbag and took out her white linen handkerchief edged in lace. No one had ever seen such a pretty hankie.
‘Well, ’tis as clear as the nose on yer face if ye ask me,’ said Nana Kathleen. ‘Ye organize everyone else, Harriet, and ye boss us all about with yer fêtes and committees and the Rose Queen. There’s a man out there waiting to be organized by ye, I would say, and so ye had better get cracking. Ask him to join ye for a cuppa down by the docks. There’s a nice café where Jerry proposed to Bernadette, not fancy, mind, but if Bernadette is helping us, I reckon she will make sure there’s a bit of magic around on the day.’
‘Well,’ said Peggy, leaning back on her chair and folding her arms across her ample bosom. ‘I’ll say this, Kathleen, that is good advice, an’ all. The only advice anyone ever gave me, before I met my Paddy, was to never trust a man who doesn’t like potatoes, and, surely to God, what a ridiculous piece of advice that was. There was never a man in all of Ireland who didn’t like his tatties now, was there?’
‘Aye, and yer still chose Paddy,’ said Kathleen.
The clock chimes could barely be heard over their laughter. Maura stood to refill the teacups as Deirdre asked Kathleen, ‘Will ye do mine? Will I need to put more money in the club for Christmas or will I have enough?’
‘Oh, my goodness me,’ Harriet squealed. ‘I have a meeting in town about an organizing committee for the cathedral they are planning to build.’
And with that, her chair was scraped back, her hat scooped up from the chair where she had placed it earlier, and she was heading for the back door, but not before running back to give Maura and Kathleen a hug.
They sat and waited silently until they heard the back gate slam.
Deirdre lit up a cigarette and narrowed her eyes against the haze of blue smoke. ‘Reckon she’ll be having her leg over within six months, that one.’ Then she frowned, crossing her eyes to look down her nose. Picking a stray shred of tobacco from the tip of her extended tongue with her fingertip and thumb and flicking it into the ashtray, she added, ‘Not before he takes his caliper off first, mind.’
And with that, the laughter continued, just as it always had, year after year.
Nana Kathleen joined in. She had no intention of telling anyone she’d had a nice little chat with Mr Manning after the meeting about the nursery. As for the rest of it, she had no idea where her words had come from. She didn’t have a clue whether or not he took his sandwiches to work in greaseproof paper and normally she shied away from providing such detail.
But she felt in her heart what had really happened. There was no other explanation. Bernadette was back.
Nana Kathleen had been wondering where she had gone to. She seemed to have left them all for some time now. The catastrophic sequence of events that had hit them with the force of a tank had broken the spell.
First Alice had left, then Kitty had died and finally Brigid had moved away. All within days. It felt as though Bernadette had vanished too. No ghostly sightings, no feeling that she had joined them. Nothing.
Maura began collecting up the dirty cups for a quick rinse.
‘No doubt we shall all have another round now,’ she said as she carried them over to the sink.
And for the second time in twenty-four hours, Maura thought once again, I am healing.
Daisy had sat silent throughout the chatter but had joined in the laughter. She wondered what her life would have been if her parents had never placed her in the convent, believing her to be simple, for no other reason than following a difficult birth, she struggled as a baby. Maggie had told her it was a common practice, but Daisy still asked herself, why?
‘I won’t have any tea, thank you, Maura,’ she said when asked. ‘I have to go and meet the police at the Priory at half past.’
‘The police, why?’ asked Nana Kathleen, more than a little interested.
Maura had returned to the table, carrying the dripping cups by their handles, three in each hand. ‘Harriet didn’t mention that. Does she know?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daisy replied. ‘The police said they would telephone the Priory to let them know. I have to take them down into the cellar and give them the key to the safe.’
‘What key?’ said Nana Kathleen. ‘If ye have the key, doesn’t Father Anthony have one too?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure I have the only one and, besides, I don’t think he would find the safe. Only me and Molly Barrett knew where it was and Molly only knew because I showed her. It’s behind the bricks in the cellar. The police say ’tis very important they have everything that is in it.’
It was a full minute after Daisy had left the kitchen before Peggy said, ‘Fecking hell, she’s a dark horse, that one.’
Maura sipped her tea and, taking out the cigarette packet from her apron pocket, she removed the last one.
Maura held her hand out to Peggy and, without the need for words, Peggy gave Maura the lit cigarette from her lips for Maura to light her own.
‘She’s that, all right,’ Maura said as she exhaled. ‘Daisy and her Maggie.’
Astonished, everyone looked at Maura, awaiting an explanation.
Maura milked the moment. She liked this feeling, being first with the news. Walking to the hearth, she screwed up the empty cigarette packet and threw it onto the fire. Her face took on a warm glow from t
he sudden rush of flame.
Resting her forehead on the mantelshelf, with one hand in her front apron pocket and the other still holding her cigarette, she stared intently at the blaze. A small piece of foil from inside the packet had curled up on itself, refusing to catch alight, and now it dropped down into the ashes, where Maura would brush it away in the morning.
‘Who the hell is Maggie?’ six women asked in unison.
Maura walked back to the table and, as she sat, she smiled. ‘Well, then.’
It was going to be a long pow wow today.
21
FATHER ANTHONY WAS far from happy at having to leave the new cathedral community meeting. Archbishops and bishops were attending from all over Europe and he was excited about meeting his friend from Rome.
As he left the Grand hotel to retrieve his car, he saw Harriet, running up the street for a meeting of the Mothers’ Union. All this activity had one purpose: to ensure that the new cathedral, known by everyone as Paddy’s wigwam, became a vibrant Christian community.
‘I hope ’tis the last time the police want to spend time at the Priory,’ Anthony grumbled at Harriet as he passed her in the street. ‘I’m beginning to feel as though my office is a police cell.’
‘Well, who’s the grumpy one today then?’ said Harriet, rushing past him, through the hotel’s revolving doors.
She had deliberately not dallied. She did not want to lie to Anthony about where she had been and what she had been doing. She was on fire with excitement after having had her tea leaves read by Kathleen.
Harriet felt a thrill as she replayed Nana Kathleen’s words in her mind. She had been told, with the help of a ghost, that she had to be bold and ask Mr Manning to meet her for a cup of tea in the café at the docks.
During the journey to Lime Street, her mind had raced ahead. It didn’t matter what she, or anyone else, thought of Kathleen’s fortune-telling. The fact was that her feelings, which were swamping her, were beyond explanation. How could she account for them?
It was as if someone had wrapped an invisible shawl of love around her shoulders. She knew, she just knew, it had come straight from Bernadette, the woman they all loved and spoke of with such fondness. She was sure that it was she who had sat down next to her, but no one else had appeared to notice. Did it happen all the time? What was Bernadette like? Why on earth would Bernadette possibly want to help Harriet? All Harriet knew was that Bernadette was Nellie’s mammy. As she ran up the wide carpeted staircase to the meeting room, Harriet resolved to visit the churchyard to place some flowers on Bernadette’s grave. She would thank Bernadette and tell her, I love your little girl. I will always do whatever I can for Nellie.
If Bernadette had already talked to her through three sugars and a cup full of tea leaves, she might work a miracle, if Harriet took her some flowers, sat next to her plot of earth and said a prayer.
The police commander was waiting in the hallway of the priory when Daisy stepped through the open front door. Having spent years using a key, she now felt at a loss as to the correct etiquette. Should she knock?
Hearing the sound of tyres on gravel, she saw Father Anthony’s car turn into the drive. Father James had never owned a car.
‘My, how quickly times are changing,’ said Daisy out loud.
‘Hello, Daisy,’ Father Anthony called as he joined them. ‘Go along into my office. You know the way. I will be just one minute. Oh, for goodness’ sake, what are the boys doing now?’
Father Anthony looked over the wall into the churchyard and saw Harry and Little Paddy, charging between the headstones, shouting.
‘Scamp, Scamp, come here!’
But Scamp was faster than they were.
‘Sorry, Father,’ the boys shrieked as they flew past.
‘Harriet wasn’t in, so we were playing truth or dare in the graveyard,’ Harry explained breathlessly, as he struggled to keep up with the errant Scamp.
‘Priests in cars and little boys tearing through the graveyard, chasing a dog. I have never known the like.’ Daisy laughed.
‘Don’t let them see me laughing, Daisy,’ Father Anthony whispered. ‘’Twould be the end of me for sure.’
Daisy realized that, after all the years she had spent in the Priory as housekeeper, this was the first time she had laughed out loud.
The commander had been pacing up and down the Priory hallway, pondering aloud his dilemma to the officer who had accompanied him. It was the tall and tubby PC Shaw, who had successfully nicked Stanley.
‘It is all becoming very complicated and we need to ensure we keep each crime isolated. We have a priest’s murder, Mrs Barrett’s murder, a kidnapping and what appears to be an organized paedophile ring. It is unlikely the kidnapping and the child abuse had anything to do with the poor priest. I am very sure that whoever killed Molly Barrett killed him too, eh, boyo? But it’s unlikely we are ever going to find out who that was. Apart from the butt of a Pall Mall ciggie found on the outhouse floor next to the dead woman, Molly Barrett, we have not a single clue and that’s the truth.’
‘What about the fact that they all happened at around the same time?’ said PC Shaw. ‘Surely that links them all in some way.’
‘I’m not sure it does, boyo. That may just be a coincidence. On the other hand the case is turning out to be something far bigger and deeper than we thought, with new developments unfolding by the day. In the cells we have the two hospital porters and a policeman. None of them is saying a word. You would think they were all bloody nuns who had taken a vow of silence and they all look as guilty as hell. What with a kidnapping, child abuse and a double murder. We should have clues coming out of our ears, and yet hardly a sausage. You wouldn’t believe it, would you?
‘Let’s hope Daisy comes up trumps again, eh? God knows why she thought she needed to keep the safe a secret all this time. The priest must have been worried about robbers stealing the collection money and who could blame him? The O’Prey boys came from around here somewhere, didn’t they? Bad lads, they were. The most notorious thieves on the docks. Let’s hope they throw away the key on the oldest. They say Callum, the youngest, has turned over a new leaf, but I’ll believe it when I see it.’
Annie O’Prey, standing at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, heard every word.
Her elderly eyes pricked with tears. She bent her weary back to rest the tea tray she was carrying for the officers on the stair in front of her and, taking her grey and tattered hankie from the sleeve of her cardigan, she wiped her eyes.
So alone, she missed her boys desperately. She was very proud of her Callum, who had been taken on by Fred Kennedy down at the docks, and she suspected and hoped that he had his eye on lovely young Fionnuala down the street. She was the first to admit that they were naughty lads, but they never nicked anything without sharing it with everyone else. She knew that many a house had gone without, now that her eldest lad was in the nick and Callum was doing his best to behave.
Everyone missed the antics of the O’Prey boys.
Annie took out her rosaries from her cardigan pocket, said her Hail Mary and asked for forgiveness for having wallowed in her own despair. Drying her eyes, she picked up the tray and carried on up the stairs as though she hadn’t heard a thing.
PC Shaw was about to offer up an idea of his own regarding the murders. Anger boiled in his belly when he thought of the men involved and he knew what he would want to do to anyone who went near his own daughter.
He thought the commander was wrong to think the murders had nothing to do with the kidnapping, nor with the way Daisy had been abused, and she had described others being abused too.
When Daisy walked into the hall, his moment for speaking out was gone.
‘Ah, Daisy, I don’t know if you remember my name? I’m Commander Lloyd. I’m from Wales, across the border.’
Daisy nodded. ‘I remember,’ she replied. ‘I’m not simple, you know.’
There, she had said exactly what Maggie told her she must say.
Daisy reached into her blouse and pulled out a chain from around her neck. Her gold crucifix hung from it – the only possession to have accompanied her to the orphanage when she was a baby.
‘It’s down in the cellar,’ said Daisy, ‘and so we need to go through the kitchen first.’
‘Well, that explains why the safe wasn’t in the office,’ said the commander.
Annie O’Prey heard them coming down the stairs. ‘Daisy, are ye after your job back, queen? ’Cause I’m done in, I am. I’m too old for this malarkey now.’
Daisy gave Annie a hug. ‘I have to go down to the cellar, Annie,’ she said. ‘I have the key for the safe.’
‘The cellar?’ said Annie, amazed. ‘Well now, I haven’t put one foot in that place since the new father arrived and, do you know, I don’t think anyone else has. A creepy hole altogether, that is.’
Ten minutes later, the commander was on his way back up the stairs, loaded with round tin cans the size of dinner plates, a projector, a screen and a pile of envelopes. He laid them all out on the hall floor and sent his officer down to collect the rest.
Alison was turning into the drive to the Priory when she saw her page-boys, Little Paddy and Harry, walking through the gate from the graveyard. Paddy was carrying Scamp and Harry, something large and wooden.
‘Paddy, Harry,’ she shouted. ‘Is Scamp misbehaving himself?’
Alison could see that something was up. ‘Is something wrong, boys?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harry replied. ‘Scamp found this on the other side of the wall, on one of the graves. It was covered with ferns but it looks a bit weird.’
Harry struggled to hold what looked like a lump of wood while Scamp wriggled in Little Paddy’s arms.
‘Here, let me take Scamp,’ Alison said, extracting the rather sheepish-looking dog from under Little Paddy’s arm. But she gasped with shock as Harry held up the wooden mallet he was carrying.
The Ballymara Road Page 25